The Dream and Life - The Daughters of Fire - The Gallant Bohemia
Translated by an AI Model
PART ONE
I
Dream is a second life. I could not pierce without trembling those gates of ivory or horn that separate us from the invisible world. The first moments of sleep are the image of death; a nebulous numbness seizes our thought, and we cannot determine the precise moment when the self, in another form, continues the work of existence. It is a vague underground passage that gradually lights up, and from which the pale, gravely immobile figures inhabiting the abode of limbo emerge from shadow and night. Then the scene forms, a new clarity illuminates and brings these bizarre apparitions to life; the world of Spirits opens to us.
Swedenborg called these visions Memorabilia; he owed them more often to reverie than to sleep; Apuleius's Golden Ass, Dante's Divine Comedy, are the poetic models for these studies of the human soul. I will try, following their example, to transcribe the impressions of a long illness that took place entirely within the mysteries of my mind;—and I don't know why I use the term illness, for never, as far as I myself am concerned, have I felt better. Sometimes, I believed my strength and activity doubled; it seemed to me I knew everything, understood everything; imagination brought me infinite delights. Upon recovering what men call reason, should I regret having lost them?…
This vita nuova had two phases for me. Here are the notes pertaining to the first.—A lady I had loved for a long time and whom I shall call Aurélia, was lost to me. The circumstances of this event, which was to have such a great influence on my life, matter little. Everyone can search their memories for the most heartbreaking emotion, the most terrible blow struck upon the soul by fate; one must then resolve to die or to live:—I will say later why I did not choose death. Condemned by the one I loved, guilty of a fault for which I no longer hoped for forgiveness, I had nothing left but to throw myself into vulgar intoxications; I feigned joy and carelessness, I roamed the world, madly enamored of variety and caprice; I especially loved the bizarre costumes and customs of distant peoples, it seemed to me that I was thus displacing the conditions of good and evil; the terms, so to speak, of what is sentiment for us French. “What folly,” I said to myself, “to love platonically a woman who no longer loves you! This is the fault of my readings; I took the inventions of poets seriously, and made a Laura or a Beatrice out of an ordinary person of our century... Let's move on to other intrigues, and that one will soon be forgotten.” The exhilaration of a joyous carnival in an Italian city chased away all my melancholic thoughts. I was so happy with the relief I felt that I shared my joy with all my friends, and, in my letters, I presented what was only feverish overexcitement as the constant state of my mind.
One day, a woman of great renown arrived in the city who befriended me and who, accustomed to pleasing and dazzling, easily drew me into the circle of her admirers. After an evening where she had been both natural and full of a charm that everyone felt, I found myself so smitten with her that I did not want to delay writing to her for an instant. I was so happy to feel my heart capable of a new love!... In this artificial enthusiasm, I borrowed the very formulas that, so little time before, had served me to describe a true, long-experienced love. Once the letter was sent, I wished I could retract it, and I went to dream in solitude about what seemed to me a desecration of my memories.
The evening brought back all the prestige of the previous day to my new love. The lady seemed touched by what I had written to her, though she expressed some surprise at my sudden fervor. In one day, I had ascended several degrees of the sentiments one can conceive for a woman with an appearance of sincerity. She confessed that my letter both astonished and flattered her. I tried to convince her; but, whatever I wanted to say, I could not later recapture the tone of my style in our conversations, so I was reduced to confessing to her, with tears, that I had deceived myself by misleading her. My tender confidences, however, had a certain charm, and a friendship, stronger in its gentleness, succeeded vain protestations of tenderness.
II
Later, I met her in another city where the lady I still loved hopelessly resided. Chance brought them together, and the first had occasion, no doubt, to soften the heart of the one who had exiled me from her affections. So it was that one day, finding myself in a company of which she was a part, I saw her approach me and extend her hand. How to interpret this gesture and the deep, sad gaze with which she accompanied her greeting? I believed I saw forgiveness for the past; the divine accent of pity gave an inexpressible value to the simple words she addressed to me, as if something of religion mingled with the sweetness of a love hitherto profane, and imprinted upon it the character of eternity.
An imperative duty forced me to return to Paris, but I immediately resolved to stay there only a few days and return to my two friends. Joy and impatience then gave me a kind of giddiness, complicated by the care of affairs I had to conclude. One evening, around midnight, I was walking back up a suburb where my dwelling was, when, looking up by chance, I noticed the number of a house illuminated by a streetlamp. This number was my age. Immediately, looking down, I saw before me a woman with a pale complexion, hollow eyes, who seemed to have Aurélia's features. I said to myself:
“It is her death or mine that is announced to me!”
But I don't know why I settled on the latter supposition, and I was struck by the idea that it must be the next day at the same hour.
That night, I had a dream that confirmed my thought.
I wandered through a vast edifice composed of several rooms, some of which were dedicated to study, others to conversation or philosophical discussions. I stopped with interest in one of the former, where I thought I recognized my old masters and former classmates. Lessons continued on Greek and Latin authors, with that monotonous hum that seems like a prayer to the goddess Mnemosyne. I moved into another room, where philosophical conferences were held. I participated for a while, then left to look for my room in a kind of inn with immense staircases, full of busy travelers.
I got lost several times in the long corridors, and, crossing one of the central galleries, I was struck by a strange sight. A being of immeasurable size—man or woman, I don't know—fluttered painfully above the space and seemed to struggle among thick clouds. Lacking breath and strength, it finally fell into the middle of the dark courtyard, catching and crumpling its wings along the roofs and balustrades. I was able to contemplate it for a moment. It was colored with vermilion hues, and its wings shone with a thousand changing reflections. Dressed in a long gown with antique folds, it resembled Albrecht Dürer's angel of Melancholy. I couldn't help but let out cries of fright, which woke me with a start.
The next day, I hastened to see all my friends. I mentally bade them farewell, and, without telling them anything of what occupied my mind, I spoke passionately on mystical subjects; I astonished them with a particular eloquence, it seemed to me that I knew everything, and that the mysteries of the world were revealed to me in those supreme hours.
In the evening, as the fated hour seemed to draw near, I was discoursing with two friends at a club table, on painting and music, defining from my point of view the generation of colors and the meaning of numbers. One of them, named Paul ***, wanted to walk me home, but I told him I wasn't going back.
"Where are you going?" he asked me.
"Towards the East."
And, as he accompanied me, I began to search the sky for a star I thought I knew, as if it had some influence on my destiny. Having found it, I continued my walk, following the streets in the direction where it was visible, walking, so to speak, towards my destiny, and wanting to see the star until the moment death would strike me. However, upon reaching the confluence of three streets, I refused to go any further. It seemed to me that my friend was exerting superhuman strength to make me change places; he grew in my eyes and took on the features of an apostle. I thought I saw the place where we were rise and lose the forms given to it by its urban configuration;—on a hill, surrounded by vast solitudes, this scene became the combat of two Spirits and like a biblical temptation.
"No!" I said, "I do not belong to your heaven. In that star are those who await me. They predate the revelation you have announced. Let me join them, for the one I love belongs to them, and that is where we must reunite!"
III
Here began for me what I will call the outpouring of dream into real life. From that moment on, everything sometimes took on a double aspect,—and this, without reason ever lacking logic, without memory losing the slightest details of what was happening to me. Only, my actions, seemingly senseless, were subject to what is called illusion, according to human reason...
This idea has often returned to me, that, in certain grave moments of life, some Spirit from the external world would suddenly incarnate in the form of an ordinary person, and act or try to act upon us, without that person being aware of it or remembering it.
My friend had left me, seeing his efforts were futile, and no doubt believing me to be prey to some fixed idea that walking would calm. Finding myself alone, I rose with effort and set off again in the direction of the star on which I kept my eyes fixed. As I walked, I sang a mysterious hymn which I thought I remembered having heard in some other existence, and which filled me with ineffable joy. At the same time, I shed my earthly clothes and scattered them around me. The road seemed to rise endlessly and the star to grow larger. Then I stood with outstretched arms, awaiting the moment when my soul would separate from my body, magnetically drawn into the star's ray. Then, I felt a shiver; regret for the earth and for those I loved there seized my heart, and I implored so ardently within myself the Spirit that drew me to it, that it seemed to me I was descending back among men. A night patrol surrounded me;—I then had the idea that I had become very tall,—and that, completely flooded with electric forces, I was going to overturn everything that approached me. There was something comical in the care I took to spare the strength and lives of the soldiers who had picked me up.
If I did not believe that a writer's mission is to sincerely analyze what he experiences in the serious circumstances of life, and if I did not propose a goal that I believe useful, I would stop here, and I would not try to describe what I then experienced in a series of perhaps senseless, or vulgarly morbid visions... Stretched out on a camp bed, I thought I saw the sky unveil itself and open in a thousand aspects of unheard-of magnificences. The destiny of the liberated soul seemed to reveal itself to me as if to give me regret for having wanted to regain a foothold with all the forces of my spirit on the earth I was about to leave... Immense circles were traced in the infinite, like the orbs formed by water disturbed by the fall of a body; each region, populated by radiant figures, colored, moved, and merged in turn, and a divinity, always the same, smilingly cast off the furtive masks of its various incarnations, and finally took refuge, elusive, in the mystical splendors of the Asian sky.
This celestial vision, by one of those phenomena that everyone may have experienced in certain dreams, did not leave me unaware of what was happening around me. Lying on a camp bed, I heard the soldiers talking about an unknown man arrested like me, whose voice had resonated in the same room. By a singular effect of vibration, it seemed to me that this voice resounded in my chest and that my urn, so to speak, split in twomdashdistinctly divided between vision and reality. For an instant, I had the idea to turn with effort towards the one in question, then I shuddered, remembering a well-known tradition in Germany, which says that every man has a double, and that, when he sees it, death is near.mdashI closed my eyes and entered a confused state of mind where the fantastical or real figures surrounding me broke into a thousand fleeting appearances. For an instant, I saw two of my friends near me, calling for me; the soldiers pointed me out; then the door opened, and someone of my height, whose face I could not see, left with my friends whom I called in vain.
mdash"But they are mistaken!" I cried, "it is I they have come for, and another who is leaving!" I made so much noise that they put me in the dungeon.
I remained there for several hours in a kind of stupor; finally, the two friends I had thought I saw earlier came to fetch me with a carriage. I recounted everything that had happened, but they denied having come during the night. I dined with them quite calmly; but, as night approached, it seemed to me that I had to dread the very hour which, the day before, had threatened to be fatal to me. I asked one of them for an oriental ring he wore on his finger, which I regarded as an ancient talisman, and, taking a scarf, I tied it around my neck, taking care to turn the setting, composed of a turquoise, to a spot on my nape where I felt a pain. According to me, this spot was where the soul might escape at the moment when a certain ray, coming from the star I had seen the day before, would coincide relatively to me with the zenith. Whether by chance or by the effect of my strong preoccupation, I fell as if struck by lightning, at the same hour as the day before. I was put on a bed, and for a long time I lost my senses and the connection of the images that presented themselves to me. This state lasted several days. I was transported to a mental asylum. Many relatives and friends visited me without my being aware of it. The only difference for me between wakefulness and sleep was that, in the former, everything was transfigured before my eyes; every person who approached me seemed changed, material objects had a kind of penumbra that modified their form, and the play of light, the combinations of colors decomposed, so as to keep me in a constant series of impressions that were linked together, and whose dream, more detached from external elements, continued the probability.
IV
One evening, I was certain I was transported to the banks of the Rhine. Opposite me were sinister rocks whose outline was sketched in the shadows. I entered a cheerful house, whose green shutters, festooned with vines, were brightly crossed by a ray of the setting sun. It seemed to me that I was returning to a familiar dwelling, that of a maternal uncle, a Flemish painter, who had been dead for over a century. The unfinished paintings hung here and there; one of them depicted the famous fairy of that shore. An old servant, whom I called Marguerite and whom I felt I had known since childhood, said to me:
mdash"Aren't you going to lie down? For you have come a long way, and your uncle will return late; you will be woken for supper."
I stretched out on a four-poster bed draped with large-flowered chintz. Opposite me was a rustic clock hanging on the wall, and on this clock a bird that began to speak like a person. And I had the idea that the soul of my ancestor was in this bird; but I was no more astonished by its language and form than by seeing myself as if transported a century back. The bird spoke to me of people in my family, living or dead at various times, as if they existed simultaneously, and said to me:
—You see, your uncle had taken care to have his portrait done in advance... Now, she is with us.
My eyes fell upon a canvas depicting a woman in ancient German costume, leaning over the riverbank, her eyes drawn to a cluster of forget-me-nots.—Meanwhile, night gradually thickened, and the sights, sounds, and feeling of the place merged in my drowsy mind; I felt as if I was falling into an abyss that traversed the globe. I felt myself carried painlessly by a current of molten metal, and a thousand similar rivers, their hues indicating chemical differences, furrowed the earth's bosom like the vessels and veins that snake among the brain's lobes. All flowed, circulated, and vibrated thus, and I had the feeling that these currents were composed of living souls, in a molecular state, which only the speed of this journey prevented me from distinguishing. A whitish light gradually infiltrated these conduits, and I finally saw a new horizon widen, like a vast dome, where islands surrounded by luminous waves were outlined. I found myself on a coast lit by this sunless day, and I saw an old man tilling the earth. I recognized him as the same one who had spoken to me through the bird's voice, and, whether he spoke to me or I understood him within myself, it became clear to me that ancestors took the form of certain animals to visit us on earth, and that they thus attended, as silent observers, the phases of our existence.
The old man left his work and accompanied me to a house that stood nearby. The surrounding landscape reminded me of a region in French Flanders where my parents had lived and where their graves are located: the field surrounded by groves at the edge of the wood, the nearby lake, the river and the wash house, the village and its rising street, the dark sandstone hills with their clumps of gorse and heather—a rejuvenated image of the places I had loved. However, the house I entered was unknown to me. I understood that it had existed in some unknown time, and that in this world I was then visiting, the phantom of things accompanied that of the body.
I entered a vast hall where many people were gathered. Everywhere I recognized familiar faces. The features of deceased relatives I had mourned were reproduced in others who, dressed in older costumes, gave me the same paternal welcome. They seemed to have assembled for a family banquet. One of these relatives came to me and embraced me tenderly. He wore an ancient costume whose colors seemed faded, and his smiling face, under his powdered hair, bore some resemblance to mine. He seemed more precisely alive than the others, and, so to speak, in a more voluntary connection with my spirit.—It was my uncle. He made me sit beside him, and a kind of communication was established between us; for I cannot say that I heard his voice; only, as my thought turned to a point, the explanation immediately became clear to me, and the images became precise before my eyes like animated paintings.
—So it's true! I said with rapture, we are immortal and here we preserve the images of the world we inhabited. What joy to think that all we have loved will always exist around us!... I was so tired of life!
—Do not hasten, he said, to rejoice, for you still belong to the world above and you have to endure harsh years of trials. The abode that enchants you has its own sorrows, struggles, and dangers. The earth where we lived is always the stage where our destinies are woven and unwoven; we are the rays of the central fire that animates it and which has already weakened...
—What! I said, could the earth die, and would we be engulfed by nothingness?
—Nothingness, he said, does not exist in the sense it is understood; but the earth itself is a material body whose soul is the sum of spirits. Matter can no more perish than spirit, but it can be modified according to good and evil. Our past and our future are intertwined. We live in our race, and our race lives in us.
This idea immediately became clear to me, and, as if the walls of the room had opened onto infinite perspectives, I seemed to see an unbroken chain of men and women in whom I was and who were myself; the costumes of all peoples, the images of all countries appeared distinctly at once, as if my faculties of attention had multiplied without merging, by a phenomenon of space analogous to that of time which concentrates a century of action in a minute of dream. My astonishment grew as I saw that this immense enumeration was composed only of the people who were in the room and whose images I had seen divide and combine in a thousand fleeting aspects.
—There are seven of us, I said to my uncle.
—Indeed, he said, it is the typical number of each human family, and, by extension, seven times seven, and more[1].
I cannot hope to make this answer understood, which for myself has remained very obscure. Metaphysics does not provide me with terms for the perception that then came to me of the relationship of this number of people with general harmony. The analogy of the electrical forces of nature is well conceived in the father and mother; but how to establish the individual centers emanating from them,—from which they emanate, as a collective animic figure, whose combination would be both multiple and limited? One might as well ask the flower for an account of the number of its petals or the divisions of its corolla ..., the soil for the figures it traces, the sun for the colors it produces.
V
Everything around me was changing shape. The spirit with whom I was conversing no longer had the same appearance. He was a young man who henceforth received ideas from me rather than communicating them to me... Had I gone too far into these dizzying heights? I seemed to understand that these questions were obscure or dangerous, even for the spirits of the world I was then perceiving... Perhaps also a higher power forbade me these researches. I saw myself wandering in the streets of a very populous and unknown city. I noticed that it was humped with hills and dominated by a mountain entirely covered with dwellings. Through the people of this capital, I distinguished certain men who seemed to belong to a particular nation; their lively, resolute air, the energetic accent of their features, made me think of the independent and warlike races of mountainous countries or certain islands rarely frequented by foreigners; however, it was in the midst of a large city and a mixed and commonplace population that they managed to maintain their fierce individuality. Who then were these men? My guide led me up steep and noisy streets where the various sounds of industry echoed. We climbed further up long series of stairs, beyond which the view opened up. Here and there, terraces covered with trellises, small gardens arranged on some flattened spaces, roofs, lightly constructed pavilions, painted and sculpted with capricious patience: perspectives connected by long trails of climbing greenery seduced the eye and pleased the mind like the aspect of a delicious oasis, an unknown solitude above the tumult and those noises from below, which there were now only a murmur. One has often spoken of proscribed nations, living in the shadow of necropolises and catacombs; here it was the opposite no doubt. A happy race had created this retreat beloved of birds, flowers, pure air and light.
"These," my guide told me, "are the ancient inhabitants of this mountain that overlooks the city where we are now. For a long time, they lived here simply, loving and just, preserving the natural virtues of the world's early days. The surrounding people honored them and modeled themselves after them."
From where I stood, I descended with my guide into one of these tall dwellings, whose clustered roofs presented such a strange sight. It seemed as if my feet were sinking into the successive layers of buildings from different ages. These phantom constructions always revealed others, where the particular taste of each century could be distinguished, reminding me of archaeological digs in ancient cities, except that it was airy, alive, and traversed by a thousand plays of light. I finally found myself in a vast chamber where I saw an old man working at a table on some industrial task. As I crossed the threshold, a man dressed in white, whose face I could barely make out, threatened me with a weapon he held in his hand; but my companion signaled him to step away. It seemed they wanted to prevent me from penetrating the mystery of these retreats. Without asking my guide anything, I intuitively understood that these heights, and at the same time these depths, were the refuge of the mountain's original inhabitants. Always braving the encroaching tide of new racial accumulations, they lived there, simple in their ways, loving and just, skillful, firm, and ingenious—and peacefully victorious over the blind masses that had so often invaded their heritage. What! Neither corrupted, nor destroyed, nor enslaved! Pure, though having conquered ignorance! Preserving the virtues of poverty in abundance!—A child was playing on the ground with crystals, shells, and engraved stones, undoubtedly turning study into a game. An elderly, but still beautiful, woman was attending to household chores. At that moment, several young people entered noisily, as if returning from their work. I was surprised to see them all dressed in white; but it seemed to be an illusion of my sight; to make it clear, my guide began to sketch their costume, which he dyed with vivid colors, making me understand that they were actually dressed that way. The whiteness that astonished me perhaps came from a particular brilliance, a play of light where the ordinary hues of the prism merged. I left the room and found myself on a terrace arranged as a flower garden. Young girls and children were strolling and playing there. Their clothes appeared white to me like the others, but they were adorned with pink embroidery. These people were so beautiful, their features so graceful, and the radiance of their souls shone so vividly through their delicate forms, that they all inspired a kind of love without preference or desire, encompassing all the intoxications of youth's vague passions.
I cannot express the feeling I experienced among these charming beings who were dear to me even though I didn't know them. It was like a primitive and celestial family, whose smiling eyes sought mine with gentle compassion. I began to weep profusely, as if remembering a lost paradise. There, I bitterly felt that I was a passerby in this world, both strange and cherished, and I trembled at the thought that I had to return to life. In vain, women and children pressed around me as if to hold me back. Already their enchanting forms were dissolving into confused vapors; those beautiful faces paled, and those accentuated features, those sparkling eyes, were lost in a shadow where the last gleam of a smile still shone...
Such was this vision, or at least such were the main details I remember. The cataleptic state I had been in for several days was scientifically explained to me, and the accounts of those who had seen me thus caused a kind of irritation when I saw that they attributed to mental aberration the movements or words coinciding with the various phases of what constituted for me a series of logical events. I preferred those of my friends who, through patient indulgence or similar ideas to my own, encouraged me to recount at length the things I had seen in spirit. One of them said to me, weeping:
"Isn't it true that there is a God?"
"Yes!" I told him with enthusiasm.
And we embraced like two brothers from that mystical homeland I had glimpsed. What happiness I first found in that conviction! Thus, the eternal doubt of the soul's immortality that affects the best minds was resolved for me. No more death, no more sadness, no more anxiety. Those I loved, relatives, friends, gave me certain signs of their eternal existence, and I was only separated from them by the hours of the day. I awaited those of the night in a sweet melancholy.
VI
Another dream I had confirmed me in this thought. I suddenly found myself in a room that was part of my ancestor's home. It seemed to have only grown larger. The old furniture gleamed with a marvelous polish, the carpets and curtains looked as good as new, a light three times brighter than natural daylight came through the window and the door, and there was a freshness and fragrance in the air like the first warm mornings of spring. Three women worked in this room, representing, without exactly resembling them, relatives and friends from my youth. It seemed that each had the features of several of these people. The contours of their faces varied like the flame of a lamp, and at every moment something of one passed into the other; the smile, the voice, the shade of the eyes, of the hair, the stature, the familiar gestures, exchanged as if they had lived the same life, and each was thus a composite of all, like those types that painters imitate from several models to achieve complete beauty.
The eldest spoke to me with a vibrant and melodious voice that I recognized from having heard it in childhood, and I don't know what she told me that struck me with its profound accuracy. But she drew my thoughts to myself, and I saw myself dressed in a small brown suit of an ancient style, entirely woven with a needle from threads as fine as spiderwebs. It was coquettish, graceful, and imbued with sweet scents. I felt completely rejuvenated and dapper in this garment that came from their fairy fingers, and I thanked them, blushing, as if I were but a small child before grand, beautiful ladies. Then, one of them stood up and headed towards the garden.
Everyone knows that, in dreams, one never sees the sun, although one often has the perception of a much brighter clarity. Objects and bodies are luminous by themselves. I saw myself in a small park where arbors of trellises laden with heavy bunches of white and black grapes extended; as the lady who guided me advanced under these arbors, the shadow of the crossed trellises varied its forms and garments for my eyes. She finally emerged, and we found ourselves in an open space. One could barely discern the trace of old paths that had once cut it in a cross. The cultivation had been neglected for many years, and scattered plants of clematis, hops, honeysuckle, jasmine, ivy, aristolochia, extended their long trails of vines between vigorously growing trees. Branches bent to the ground laden with fruit, and among clumps of parasitic weeds, some garden flowers that had returned to a wild state bloomed.
Here and there rose clumps of poplars, acacias, and pines, within which one could glimpse statues blackened by time. I saw before me a pile of ivy-covered rocks from which gushed a spring of living water, whose harmonious lapping resonated on a basin of still water half-veiled by the broad leaves of the water lily.
The lady I was following, stretching her slender figure in a movement that made the folds of her iridescent taffeta dress shimmer, gracefully encircled a long hollyhock stem with her bare arm, then she began to grow under a clear ray of light, so that little by little the garden took her form, and the flowerbeds and trees became the rosettes and festoons of her garments; while her face and arms imprinted their contours on the purple clouds of the sky. I thus lost sight of her as she transfigured, for she seemed to vanish into her own grandeur.
—Oh! do not flee! I cried; for nature dies with you!
Saying these words, I walked with difficulty through the brambles, as if to grasp the enlarged shadow that escaped me; but I bumped into a degraded section of wall, at the foot of which lay a bust of a woman. As I lifted it, I was convinced that it was hers... I recognized cherished features, and, looking around me, I saw that the garden had taken on the appearance of a cemetery. Voices said:
—The universe is in darkness!
VII
This dream, so happy at its beginning, threw me into great perplexity. What did it mean? I only knew later. Aurélia was dead.
At first, I only received news of her illness. Due to my state of mind, I felt only a vague sorrow mixed with hope. I believed myself to have only a short time to live, and I was now assured of the existence of a world where loving hearts reunite. Besides, she belonged to me far more in her death than in her life.... A selfish thought that my reason would later pay for with bitter regrets.
I would not want to overstate premonitions; chance does strange things; but I was then preoccupied with a memory of our too-rapid union. I had given her an antique ring whose setting was formed by a heart-shaped opal. As this ring was too large for her finger, I had the fatal idea of having it cut to reduce the band. I only understood my mistake when I heard the sound of the saw. It seemed to me I saw blood flow...
The care of art had restored me to health without yet bringing back into my mind the regular course of human reason. The house where I was, located on a height, had a vast garden planted with precious trees. The pure air of the hill where it was situated, the first breaths of spring, the sweetness of a truly sympathetic society, brought me long days of calm.
The first leaves of the sycamores delighted me with the vividness of their colors, like the plumes of Pharaoh's roosters. The view, which extended above the plain, presented charming horizons from morning to evening, whose graduated hues pleased my imagination. I populated the hillsides and clouds with divine figures whose forms I seemed to see distinctly. I wanted to fix my favorite thoughts more, and, with the help of charcoal and pieces of brick that I collected, I soon covered the walls with a series of frescoes where my impressions were realized. One figure always dominated the others: it was that of Aurélia, painted with the features of a divinity, as she had appeared to me in my dream. A wheel turned beneath her feet, and the gods formed her retinue. I managed to color this group by squeezing the juice of herbs and flowers.—How many times I have dreamed before this dear idol! I did more, I tried to sculpt the body of the one I loved with earth; every morning, my work had to be redone, for the madmen, jealous of my happiness, enjoyed destroying its image.
I was given paper, and for a long time I applied myself to representing, through a thousand figures accompanied by narratives, verses, and inscriptions in all known languages, a kind of history of the world mixed with study memories and fragments of dreams that my preoccupation made more vivid or prolonged their duration. I did not dwell on modern traditions of creation. My thought went back further: I glimpsed, as if in a memory, the first pact formed by genies through talismans. I had tried to reunite the stones of the Sacred Table, and to represent around them the first seven Elohim who had divided the world.
This system of history, borrowed from Oriental traditions, began with the happy accord of the Powers of nature, who formulated and organized the universe.—During the night preceding my work, I had believed myself transported to an obscure planet where the first germs of creation struggled. From the still-soft clay rose gigantic palms, poisonous euphorbias, and acanthus twisted around cacti;—the arid figures of the rocks sprang up like skeletons of this rough sketch of creation, and hideous reptiles coiled, widened, or rounded themselves in the midst of the inextricable network of wild vegetation. The pale light of the stars alone illuminated the bluish perspectives of this strange horizon; however, as these creations formed, a more luminous star drew the seeds of clarity from them.
VIII
Then the monsters changed form, shedding their first skin, and rose up more powerful on gigantic paws; the enormous mass of their bodies broke branches and grasses, and, in nature's disorder, they engaged in battles in which I myself took part, for I had a body as strange as theirs. All at once, a singular harmony resonated in our solitudes, and it seemed that the confused cries, roars, and hisses of primitive beings now modulated to this divine air. Variations followed one another infinitely, the planet gradually brightened, divine forms appeared on the greenery and in the depths of the groves, and, now tamed, all the monsters I had seen shed their bizarre forms and became men and women; others, in their transformations, took on the appearance of wild beasts, fish, and birds.
Who then had performed this miracle? A radiant goddess guided the rapid evolution of humans in these new avatars. A distinction of races was then established which, starting with the order of birds, also included beasts, fish, and reptiles: these were the djinns, the peris, the undines, and the salamanders; each time one of these beings died, it was immediately reborn in a more beautiful form and sang the glory of the gods.—However, one of the Elohim conceived the idea of creating a fifth race, composed of the elements of the earth, and called the Afrites.—This was the signal for a complete revolution among the Spirits, who refused to acknowledge the new possessors of the world. I do not know how many thousands of years these battles lasted, which stained the globe with blood. Three of the Elohim, with the Spirits of their races, were finally relegated to the south of the earth, where they founded vast kingdoms. They had carried away the secrets of the divine cabala that binds worlds, and drew their strength from the adoration of certain stars with which they always correspond. These necromancers, banished to the ends of the earth, had agreed to transmit power among themselves. Surrounded by women and slaves, each of their sovereigns had ensured that he could be reborn in the form of one of his children. Their life span was a thousand years. Powerful cabalists, as their death approached, enclosed them in well-guarded sepulchers where they nourished them with elixirs and preservative substances. For a long time they still maintained the appearance of life; then, like the chrysalis spinning its cocoon, they slept for forty days to be reborn in the form of a young child who would later be called to the empire.
Meanwhile, the vivifying forces of the earth were exhausted nourishing these families, whose ever-same blood inundated new offspring. In vast underground chambers, dug beneath hypogea and pyramids, they had accumulated all the treasures of past races and certain talismans that protected them against the wrath of the gods.
It was in the center of Africa, beyond the Mountains of the Moon and ancient Ethiopia, that these strange mysteries took place: for a long time I had groaned there in captivity, as had a part of the human race. The groves I had seen so green now bore only pale flowers and withered foliage; an implacable sun devoured these lands, and the weak children of these eternal dynasties seemed overwhelmed by the weight of life. This imposing and monotonous grandeur, regulated by etiquette and hieratic ceremonies, weighed on everyone, yet no one dared to escape it. The elders languished under the weight of their crowns and imperial ornaments, between doctors and priests whose knowledge guaranteed them immortality. As for the people, forever entangled in caste divisions, they could count neither on life nor on liberty. At the foot of trees struck by death and sterility, at the mouths of dried-up springs, one saw on the burned grass children and young women, enervated and colorless, withering away. The splendor of the royal chambers, the majesty of the porticos, the brilliance of the garments and ornaments, were but a weak consolation for the eternal ennui of these solitudes.
Soon, peoples were decimated by diseases, animals and plants died, and even the immortals themselves withered in their pompous attire. A greater plague suddenly came to rejuvenate and save the world. The constellation of Orion opened the floodgates of heaven; the earth, overburdened by the ice of the opposite pole, made a half-turn on itself, and the seas, overflowing their shores, surged back over the plateaus of Africa and Asia; the flood penetrated the sands, filled tombs and pyramids, and for forty days, a mysterious ark floated on the seas, carrying the hope of a new creation.
Three of the Elohim had taken refuge on the highest peak of the African mountains. A battle ensued between them. Here, my memory blurs, and I do not know the outcome of that supreme struggle. Only, I still see standing, on a peak bathed by the waters, a woman abandoned by them, crying with disheveled hair, struggling against death. Her plaintive cries dominated the sound of the waters... Was she saved? I do not know. The gods, her brothers, had condemned her; but above her head shone the Evening Star, casting fiery rays upon her brow.
The interrupted hymn of earth and heavens harmoniously resounded to consecrate the union of new races. And while Noah's sons toiled laboriously under the rays of a new sun, the necromancers, huddled in their subterranean dwellings, still guarded their treasures and reveled in silence and night. Sometimes they timidly emerged from their shelters and came to frighten the living or spread the fatal lessons of their sciences among the wicked.
Such are the memories I traced back through a kind of vague intuition of the past: I shuddered as I reproduced the hideous features of these cursed races. Everywhere, the suffering image of the eternal Mother died, wept, or languished. Across the vague civilizations of Asia and Africa, a bloody scene of orgy and carnage was constantly renewed, reproduced by the same spirits in new forms.
The last took place in Granada, where the sacred talisman crumbled under the enemy blows of Christians and Moors. How many more years will the world have to suffer, for the vengeance of these eternal enemies must be renewed under other skies! These are the divided segments of the serpent that encircles the earth... Separated by iron, they rejoin in a hideous kiss cemented by the blood of men.
IX
Such were the images that appeared before my eyes, one after another. Gradually, calm returned to my mind, and I left that abode, which was a paradise to me. Fatal circumstances, long afterward, prepared a relapse that renewed the interrupted series of these strange reveries.—I was walking in the countryside, preoccupied with a work related to religious ideas. Passing by a house, I heard a bird speaking a few words it had been taught, but its confused chatter seemed to make sense to me; it reminded me of the vision I recounted earlier, and I felt an ominous shiver. A few steps further, I met a friend I hadn't seen in a long time, who lived in a nearby house. He wanted to show me his property, and during this visit, he led me up to a high terrace from which a vast horizon could be seen. It was at sunset. As I descended the steps of a rustic staircase, I missed my footing, and my chest struck the corner of a piece of furniture. I had enough strength to get up and rushed to the middle of the garden, believing myself fatally wounded, but wanting, before dying, to cast a last look at the setting sun. Amidst the regrets that such a moment brings, I felt happy to die this way, at this hour, and amidst the trees, trellises, and autumn flowers. However, it was only a faint, after which I still had the strength to return home and go to bed. Fever seized me; recalling where I had fallen from, I remembered that the view I had admired overlooked a cemetery, the very one where Aurélia's tomb was located. I only truly thought of it then; otherwise, I might attribute my fall to the impression that sight would have made on me.—This very thought gave me the idea of a more precise fatality. I regretted all the more that death had not reunited me with her. Then, thinking about it, I told myself that I was not worthy of it. I bitterly reflected on the life I had led since her death, reproaching myself, not for having forgotten her, which had not happened, but for having, in easy loves, outraged her memory. The idea came to me to question sleep; but her image, which had often appeared to me, no longer returned in my dreams. At first, I only had confused dreams, mixed with bloody scenes. It seemed as if an entire fatal race had been unleashed in the midst of the ideal world I had once seen and of which she was the queen. The same Spirit who had threatened me—when I entered the dwelling of those pure families who inhabited the heights of the Mysterious City—passed before me, no longer in the white costume he wore formerly, like those of his race, but dressed as an Oriental prince. I rushed towards him, threatening him, but he turned calmly towards me. Oh terror! Oh anger! It was my face, it was my entire idealized and magnified form... Then, I remembered the one who had been arrested the same night as me and who, I thought, had been released under my name from the guardhouse when two friends had come to look for me. He held in his hand a weapon whose shape I could barely distinguish, and one of those accompanying him said:
—"That's what he hit him with."
I don't know how to explain that, in my ideas, earthly events could coincide with those of the supernatural world; it is easier to feel than to articulate clearly[1]. But who was this Spirit who was me and outside of me? Was it the double of legends, or that mystical brother whom Orientals call ferouer?—Had I not been struck by the story of that knight who fought all night in a forest against a stranger who was himself? Be that as it may, I believe that human imagination has invented nothing that is not true, in this world or in others, and I could not doubt what I had-seen so distinctly.
A terrible thought came to me:
“Man is dual,” I told myself.
“I feel two men within me,” wrote a Church Father. The merging of two souls deposited this mixed germ into a body that itself presents to the eye two similar portions reproduced in all the organs of its structure. In every man, there is a spectator and an actor, one who speaks and one who answers. The Orientals saw in this two enemies: the good and the evil genius.
“Am I the good one? Am I the evil one?” I asked myself. In any case, the other is hostile to me... Who knows if there isn’t a circumstance or an age when these two spirits separate? Both attached to the same body by a material affinity, perhaps one is destined for glory and happiness, the other for annihilation or eternal suffering?
A fatal flash suddenly pierced through this darkness... Aurélia was no longer mine!... I thought I heard talk of a ceremony taking place elsewhere, and preparations for a mystical marriage that was mine, and where the other would take advantage of the mistake made by my friends and Aurélia herself. The dearest people who came to see and console me seemed to be in the grip of uncertainty, meaning that the two parts of their souls were also separating with regard to me, one affectionate and trusting, the other as if struck by death concerning me. In what these people told me, there was a double meaning, although they were not aware of it, since they were not in spirit like me. For a moment, this thought even seemed comical when I thought of Amphitryon and Sosia. But, if this grotesque symbol was something else, if, as in other ancient fables, it was the fatal truth beneath a mask of folly?
“Well,” I said to myself, “let us fight against the fatal spirit, let us fight against God himself with the weapons of tradition and science. Whatever he does in the shadows and the night, I exist,—and I have all the time left to live on earth to defeat him.”
X
How can I paint the strange despair into which these ideas gradually reduced me? An evil genius had taken my place in the world of souls; for Aurélia, it was myself, and the desolate spirit that animated my body, weakened, disdained, unrecognized by her, saw itself forever destined for despair or oblivion. I used all the strength of my will to penetrate further into the mystery of which I had lifted some veils. The dream sometimes mocked my efforts and brought forth only grimacing and fleeting figures. I can only give a rather bizarre idea here of what resulted from this mental exertion. I felt myself sliding as if on a taut wire of infinite length. The earth, traversed by colored veins of molten metals, as I had seen it before, gradually brightened with the blossoming of the central fire, whose whiteness merged with the cherry hues that colored the flanks of the inner orb. From time to time, I was surprised to encounter vast pools of water, suspended like clouds in the air, yet offering such density that one could detach flakes from them; but it is clear that this was a liquid different from terrestrial water, and which was undoubtedly the evaporation of that which represented the sea and rivers for the world of spirits.
I came in sight of a vast, hilly beach, entirely covered with a kind of greenish reeds, yellowed at the ends as if the sun's fires had partly dried them out—but I saw no sun any more than on other occasions.—A castle dominated the coast which I began to climb. On the other side, I saw an immense city spread out. While I had crossed the mountain, night had fallen, and I could see the lights of the houses and streets. Descending, I found myself in a market where fruits and vegetables similar to those of the South were being sold.
I descended a dark staircase and found myself in the streets. The opening of a casino was being advertised, and the details of its distribution were set forth in articles. The typographic frame was made of garlands of flowers so well represented and colored that they seemed natural.—A part of the building was still under construction. I entered a workshop where I saw workmen modeling in clay an enormous animal in the shape of a llama, but which seemed destined to be equipped with large wings. This monster was as if traversed by a jet of fire that animated it little by little, so that it twisted, penetrated by a thousand purple threads, forming veins and arteries and, so to speak, fertilizing the inert matter, which was covered with an instantaneous vegetation of fibrous appendages, finlets, and woolly tufts. I stopped to contemplate this masterpiece, where the secrets of divine creation seemed to have been captured.
—"It is because we have here," I was told, "the primitive fire that animated the first beings... Formerly, it sprang up to the surface of the earth, but the springs have dried up."
I also saw goldsmith's work where two metals unknown on earth were used: one red, which seemed to correspond to cinnabar, and the other azure blue. The ornaments were neither hammered nor chiseled, but formed, colored, and blossomed like the metallic plants that are born from certain chemical mixtures.
—"Would one not also create men?" I said to one of the workers.
But he replied:
—"Men come from above and not from below: can we create ourselves? Here, we only formulate, through the successive progress of our industries, a matter more subtle than that which composes the earth's crust. These flowers that seem natural to you, this animal that will seem to live, will only be products of art raised to the highest point of our knowledge, and everyone will judge them as such."
Such were more or less the words, either spoken to me or whose meaning I thought I perceived. I began to wander through the casino rooms and saw a large crowd, in which I distinguished some people I knew, some living, others dead at various times. The former seemed not to see me, while the latter answered me without appearing to know me. I had arrived at the largest room, which was entirely hung with crimson velvet with woven gold stripes, forming rich designs. In the middle was a sofa in the shape of a throne. Some passers-by sat there to test its elasticity; but, as the preparations were not finished, they moved on to other rooms. There was talk of a marriage and of the groom who, it was said, was to arrive to announce the moment of the celebration. Immediately an insane transport seized me. I imagined that the one expected was my double, who was to marry Aurélia, and I caused a scandal that seemed to dismay the assembly. I began to speak violently, explaining my grievances and invoking the help of those who knew me. An old man said to me:
—"But one does not behave like that, you are frightening everyone."
Then, I exclaimed:
—"I know well that he has already struck me with his weapons, but I await him without fear and I know the sign that must vanquish him."
At that moment, one of the workmen from the workshop I had visited on entering appeared, holding a long bar, the end of which consisted of a ball reddened by fire. I wanted to rush at him, but the ball he held at bay always threatened my head. Around me, they seemed to mock my powerlessness... Then, I retreated to the throne, my soul full of an unspeakable pride, and I raised my arm to make a sign that seemed to me to have magical power. The cry of a woman, distinct and vibrant, imprinted with heart-rending pain, woke me with a start! The syllables of an unknown word that I was about to utter died on my lips... I threw myself to the ground and began to pray fervently, weeping profusely.—But what was that voice that had just resonated so painfully in the night?
It didn't belong to the dream; it was the voice of a living person, and yet for me, it was the voice and accent of Aurélia...
I opened my window; everything was quiet, and the cry didn't repeat. I inquired outside; no one had heard anything. And yet, I am still certain that the cry was real and that the air of the living had resonated with it... No doubt I will be told that chance might have caused a suffering woman to cry out in the vicinity of my dwelling at that very moment. But, in my mind, earthly events were linked to those of the invisible world. It is one of those strange connections that I myself don't understand and that is easier to indicate than to define...
What had I done? I had disturbed the harmony of the magical universe where my soul drew the certainty of an immortal existence. I was perhaps cursed for wanting to pierce a formidable mystery by offending divine law; I could now only expect wrath and contempt! The irritated shadows fled, uttering cries and tracing fatal circles in the air, like birds at the approach of a storm.
PART TWO
Eurydice! Eurydice!
I
Lost a second time!
All is over, all is past! It is I who must now die, and die without hope!—What then is death? If it were nothingness?... Would that it were! But God himself cannot make death nothingness.
Why then is this the first time in so long that I think of him? The fatal system that had been created in my mind did not admit this solitary kingship...; or rather it was absorbed into the sum of beings: it was the god of Lucretius, impotent and lost in his immensity.
She, however, believed in God, and one day I overheard the name of Jesus on her lips. It flowed so sweetly that I wept. Oh, my God! that tear,—that tear... It has been dry for so long! That tear, my God! give it back to me!
When the soul floats uncertain between life and dream, between the disorder of the mind and the return of cold reflection, it is in religious thought that one must seek help; I have never been able to find any in that philosophy, which presents us only with maxims of egoism or at most reciprocity, a vain experience, bitter doubts;—it fights against moral pains by annihilating sensibility; like surgery, it only knows how to remove the organ that causes suffering.—But, for us, born in days of revolutions and storms, where all beliefs have been shattered,—raised at most in that vague law which contents itself with a few external practices, and whose indifferent adherence is perhaps more culpable than impiety and heresy,—it is very difficult, as soon as we feel the need, to reconstruct the mystical edifice whose perfectly traced figure the innocent and simple admit into their hearts. "The tree of knowledge is not the tree of life!" However, can we reject from our minds what so many intelligent generations have poured into them, for good or ill? Ignorance cannot be learned.
I have better hope in God's goodness: perhaps we are approaching the predicted era when science, having completed its entire circle of synthesis and analysis, of belief and negation, will be able to purify itself and make the marvelous city of the future spring from disorder and ruins... We must not think so lightly of human reason as to believe that it gains anything by completely humbling itself, for that would be to accuse its celestial origin... God will undoubtedly appreciate the purity of intentions; and what father would be pleased to see his son abdicate all reasoning and pride before him! The apostle who wanted to touch to believe was not cursed for it!
What have I written there? These are blasphemies. Christian humility cannot speak like this. Such thoughts are far from softening the soul. They bear on their brow the flashes of pride from Satan's crown... A pact with God himself?... Oh science! Oh vanity!
I had gathered a few Kabbalistic books. I immersed myself in this study, and came to persuade myself that everything the human mind had accumulated on the subject over centuries was true. The conviction I had formed of the existence of the external world coincided too well with my readings for me to doubt the revelations of the past any longer. The dogmas and rites of various religions seemed to relate to it in such a way that each possessed a certain portion of these arcana, which constituted its means of expansion and defense. These forces could weaken, diminish, and disappear, leading to the invasion of certain races by others, none being able to be victorious or vanquished except by the Spirit.
—However, I told myself, it is certain that these sciences are mixed with human errors. The magical alphabet, the mysterious hieroglyph, reach us only incomplete and distorted, either by time or by those who have an interest in our ignorance; let us find the lost letter or the erased sign, let us recompose the dissonant scale, and we shall gain strength in the world of spirits.
It was in this way that I believed I perceived the connections between the real world and the world of spirits. The earth, its inhabitants, and their history were the stage where physical actions were accomplished, preparing the existence and situation of the immortal beings attached to its destiny. Without stirring the impenetrable mystery of the eternity of worlds, my thought ascended to the era when the sun, like the plant that represents it, which with its inclined head follows the revolution of its celestial course, sowed on the earth the fertile seeds of plants and animals. This was nothing other than the fact itself, which, being a compound of souls, instinctively formulated the common dwelling. The Spirit of the Being-God, reproduced and, so to speak, reflected on earth, became the common type of human souls, each of which, consequently, was at once man and god. Such were the Elohims.
When one feels unhappy, one thinks of the unhappiness of others. I had been somewhat negligent in visiting one of my dearest friends, who I had been told was ill. As I made my way to the house where he was being treated, I strongly reproached myself for this fault. I was even more distressed when my friend told me that he had been at his worst the day before. I entered a whitewashed hospice room. The sun cast joyful angles on the walls and played on a vase of flowers that a nun had just placed on the patient's table. It was almost the cell of an Italian anchorite.—His emaciated face, his complexion like yellowed ivory, highlighted by the black color of his beard and hair, his eyes illuminated by a remnant of fever, perhaps also the arrangement of a hooded cloak, thrown over his shoulders, made him for me a being half different from the one I had known. He was no longer the joyful companion of my work and my pleasures; there was an apostle in him. He told me how, at the height of his suffering, he had been seized by a final transport that seemed to him to be the supreme moment. Immediately the pain had ceased as if by a miracle.—What he told me next is impossible to render: a sublime dream in the vaguest spaces of infinity, a conversation with a being at once different from and participating in himself, and to whom, believing himself dead, he asked where God was. "But God is everywhere," his spirit replied; "He is in yourself and in all. He judges you, He listens to you, He advises you; it is you and I who think and dream together,—and we have never left each other, and we are eternal!"
I cannot quote anything else from this conversation, which I may have misheard or misunderstood. I only know that the impression was very vivid. I dare not attribute to my friend the conclusions I may have falsely drawn from his words. I do not even know if the feeling that results from it is not in conformity with the Christian idea.
"God is with him!" I cried out; "but he is no longer with me! Oh, woe! I drove him away myself, I threatened him, I cursed him! It was indeed he, that mystical brother, who drew further and further away from my soul, and who warned me in vain! This preferred spouse, this king of glory, it is he who judges and condemns me, and who carries away forever into his heaven the one he would have given me and of whom I am now unworthy!"
II
I cannot describe the despondency into which these thoughts plunged me.
"I understand," I said to myself, "I preferred the creature to the Creator; I deified my love and I adored, according to pagan rites, the one whose last breath was consecrated to Christ. But, if this religion speaks truth, God can still forgive me. He can restore her to me if I humble myself before him; perhaps his spirit will return to me!"
I wandered aimlessly through the streets, full of this thought. A funeral procession crossed my path; it was heading towards the cemetery where she had been buried. I had the idea of going there by joining the cortege.
"I don't know," I said to myself, "who this dead person is that they are taking to the grave; but I know now that the dead see and hear us; perhaps this one will be glad to see himself followed by a brother in sorrow, sadder than any of those who accompany him. This idea made me shed tears, and no doubt they thought I was one of the deceased's best friends. Oh blessed tears! for a long time your sweetness had been denied me!..."
My mind was clearing, and a ray of hope still guided me. I felt the strength to pray, and I reveled in it with rapture.
I did not even inquire about the name of the one whose coffin I had followed. The cemetery I had entered was sacred to me for several reasons. Three relatives of my maternal family had been buried there; but I could not go and pray at their graves, for they had been moved several years ago to a distant land, their place of origin.—I searched for a long time for Aurélia's grave, and I could not find it. The layout of the cemetery had been changed,—perhaps my memory was also astray... It seemed to me that this chance, this oversight, added even more to my condemnation. —I dared not tell the guardians the name of a dead woman over whom I had no religious right... But I remembered that I had the precise indication of the grave at home, and I ran there, my heart pounding, my head lost. I have already said it: I had surrounded my love with bizarre superstitions.—In a small casket that had belonged to her, I kept her last letter. Dare I confess again that I had made this casket a kind of reliquary that reminded me of long journeys where her thought had followed me: a rose picked in the gardens of Schoubrah, a piece of bandage brought from Egypt, laurel leaves picked in the river of Beirut, two small gilded crystals, mosaics from Hagia Sophia, a rosary bead, what else?... finally the paper that had been given to me the day the grave was dug, so that I could find it again... I blushed, I trembled as I scattered this foolish collection. I took the two papers with me, and, just as I was about to head back to the cemetery, I changed my mind. "No," I said to myself, "I am not worthy to kneel at the grave of a Christian woman; let us not add a desecration to so many others!..." And, to appease the storm raging in my head, I went a few leagues from Paris, to a small town where I had spent some happy days in my youth, at the home of old relatives, long since deceased. I had often loved to come there to watch the sunset near their house. There was a terrace shaded by lime trees that also reminded me of young girls, relatives, among whom I had grown up. One of them ...
But to oppose this vague childhood love to the one that had devoured my youth, had I even thought of it? I watched the sun decline over the valley that was filling with mists and shadow; it disappeared, bathing the tops of the woods that bordered high hills in reddish fires. The most mournful sadness entered my heart.—I went to sleep in an inn where I was known. The innkeeper told me about an old friend of mine, a resident of the town, who, following unfortunate speculations, had killed himself with a pistol shot... Sleep brought me terrible dreams. I only retained a confused memory of them.—I found myself in an unknown room and I was talking with someone from the outside world,—the friend I just mentioned, perhaps. A very tall mirror was behind us. As I happened to glance at it, I thought I recognized Aurélia. She seemed sad and pensive, and suddenly, whether she emerged from the mirror, or whether, passing through the room, she had been reflected a moment before, this gentle and beloved figure was beside me. She held out her hand to me, cast a sorrowful look upon me and said:
"We'll meet again later... at your friend's house."
In an instant, I pictured her wedding, the curse that separated us... and I thought to myself:
"Is it possible? Would she come back to me? Have you forgiven me?" I asked, tears in my eyes.
But everything had vanished. I found myself in a desolate place, a steep ascent strewn with rocks, in the midst of forests. A house, which I seemed to recognize, overlooked this desolate land. I went back and forth along inextricable detours. Tired of walking between stones and brambles, I sometimes sought a smoother path through the forest trails.
"They're waiting for me there!" I thought. A certain hour struck... I told myself:
"It's too late!"
Voices answered me:
"She is lost!"
Deep night surrounded me, the distant house shone as if lit for a celebration and full of guests who had arrived on time.
"She is lost!" I cried out, "and why?... I understand: she made one last effort to save me; I missed the supreme moment when forgiveness was still possible. From heaven above, she could pray to the divine Spouse for me... And what does my own salvation matter? The abyss has claimed its prey! She is lost to me and to all!"
I seemed to see her as if in a flash of lightning, pale and dying, carried away by dark horsemen...
The cry of pain and rage I uttered at that moment woke me up, gasping for breath.
"My God! My God! For her and for her alone! My God! Forgive!" I cried, falling to my knees.
It was day. With a movement I find difficult to explain, I immediately resolved to destroy the two papers I had taken from the casket the day before: the letter, alas! which I re-read, wetting it with tears, and the mournful paper bearing the cemetery's seal.
"To find her grave now!" I said to myself, "but it was yesterday he was going back there, and my fatal dream is only the reflection of my fatal day!"
III
The flame consumed these relics of love and death, which reconnected with the most painful fibers of my heart. I went to wander with my sorrows and my belated remorse in the countryside, seeking in walking and fatigue the numbing of thought, perhaps the certainty of a less ominous sleep for the following night. With this idea I had formed of dreams as opening a communication for man with the world of spirits, I hoped, I still hoped! Perhaps God would be content with this sacrifice. Here, I stop; it is too proud to claim that the state of mind I was in was caused only by a memory of love. Let's say rather that involuntarily I adorned with it the graver remorse of a foolishly dissipated life where evil had triumphed so often, and whose faults I only recognized by feeling the blows of misfortune. I no longer even felt worthy of thinking of her whom I tormented in her death after having afflicted her in her life, having owed a last look of forgiveness only to her sweet and holy pity.
The following night, I could only sleep for a few moments. A woman who had cared for me in my youth appeared to me in the dream and reproached me for a very serious fault I had committed long ago. I recognized her, although she appeared much older than in the last times I had seen her. This very fact made me bitterly reflect that I had neglected to visit her in her final moments. It seemed to me that she said:
"You did not mourn your old parents as keenly as you mourned this woman. How then can you hope for forgiveness?"
The dream became confused. Figures of people I had known at various times passed rapidly before my eyes. They paraded, lighting up, paling, and falling back into the night like beads of a rosary whose string has broken. I then saw vague plastic images of antiquity form, sketching themselves out, fixing themselves, and seeming to represent symbols whose idea I grasped only with difficulty. Only, I believed that this meant: "All this was meant to teach you the secret of life, and you did not understand. Religions and fables, saints and poets agreed to explain the fatal enigma, and you misinterpreted... Now, it is too late!"
I rose in terror, saying to myself:
"This is my last day!"
After a ten-year interval, the same idea I had outlined in the first part of this narrative returned to me, even more positive and threatening. God had given me this time to repent, and I had not taken advantage of it. After the visit of the stone guest, I had sat back down at the feast!
IV
The feeling that resulted from these visions and the reflections they brought during my hours of solitude was so sad that I felt lost. All the actions of my life appeared to me in their most unfavorable light, and in the kind of self-examination I was undergoing, memory presented the most ancient facts with singular clarity. I don't know what false shame prevented me from going to confession; perhaps the fear of committing myself to the dogmas and practices of a formidable religion, against certain points of which I had retained philosophical prejudices. My early years were too imbued with ideas from the Revolution, my education too free, my life too wandering, for me to easily accept a yoke that, on many points, would still offend my reason. I shuddered at the thought of what a Christian I would be if certain principles borrowed from the free inquiry of the last two centuries, if the study of various religions did not stop me on this slope. I never knew my mother, who had wanted to follow my father to the armies, like the women of the ancient Germans; she died of fever and fatigue in a cold region of Germany, and my father himself could not guide my first ideas on this subject. The country where I was raised was full of strange legends and bizarre superstitions. One of my uncles, who had the greatest influence on my early education, occupied himself, for distraction, with Roman and Celtic antiquities. He sometimes found, in his field or in the surroundings, images of gods and emperors that his scholarly admiration made me revere, and whose history his books taught me. A certain gilded bronze Mars, an armed Pallas or Venus, a Neptune and an Amphitrite sculpted above the village fountain, and especially the good, stout, bearded face of a smiling god Pan at the entrance of a grotto, among the festoons of birthwort and ivy, were the domestic and protective gods of this retreat. I confess that they then inspired more veneration in me than the poor Christian images in the church and the two shapeless saints on the portal, which some scholars claimed to be the Esus and Cernunnos of the Gauls. Confused amidst these various symbols, I once asked my uncle what God was. "God is the sun," he told me.
This was the intimate thought of an honest man who had lived as a Christian all his life, but who had lived through the Revolution, and who was from a region where many held the same idea of Divinity. This did not prevent women and children from going to church, and I owed to one of my aunts some instructions that made me understand the beauties and grandeur of Christianity. After 1815, an Englishman who was in our country taught me the Sermon on the Mount and gave me a New Testament... I only cite these details to indicate the causes of a certain irresolution that has often been united in me with the most pronounced religious spirit.
I want to explain how, having long strayed from the true path, I felt drawn back to it by the cherished memory of a deceased person, and how the need to believe that she still existed brought back into my mind the precise feeling of various truths that I had not firmly enough gathered in my soul. Despair and suicide are the result of certain fatal situations for those who do not have faith in immortality, in its pains and its joys; I believe I will have done something good and useful by naively stating the succession of ideas by which I found peace and new strength to oppose the future misfortunes of life.
The visions that had assailed me in my sleep had plunged me into such despair that I could barely speak; the company of my friends offered only a vague distraction; my mind, entirely consumed by these illusions, resisted any different thought; I could not read and understand ten lines in a row. I told myself the most beautiful things:
—What does it matter? It doesn't exist for me.
One of my friends, named Georges, undertook to overcome this despondency. He took me to various places around Paris, and agreed to do all the talking, while I only responded with a few disjointed phrases. His expressive, almost monastic face, one day gave great effect to some very eloquent things he found against those years of skepticism and political and social discouragement that followed the July Revolution. I had been one of the young people of that era, and had tasted its ardors and its bitterness. A movement stirred within me; I told myself that such lessons could not be given without a divine intention, and that a spirit undoubtedly spoke through him... One day, we were dining under a trellis, in a small village near Paris; a woman came to sing near our table, and I don't know what, in her worn but sympathetic voice, reminded me of Aurélia's. I looked at her: her very features were not without resemblance to those I had loved. She was sent away, and I dared not stop her, but I told myself:
—Who knows if her spirit isn't in this woman! And I felt happy about the alms I had given. I told myself:
—I have made poor use of life; but, if the dead forgive, it is undoubtedly on condition that one abstains forever from evil, and that one repairs all the harm one has done. Is that possible?... From this moment on, let us try to do no more harm, and let us repay the equivalent of all that we may owe.
I had recently wronged someone; it was only a negligence, but I began by going to apologize. The joy I received from this reparation did me extreme good; I had a reason to live and act from then on, I regained interest in the world.
Difficulties arose: inexplicable events for me seemed to conspire to thwart my good resolution. The state of my mind made it impossible for me to carry out agreed-upon tasks. Believing myself well now, people became more demanding, and, as I had renounced lying, I found myself caught out by people who were not afraid to use it. The mass of reparations to be made crushed me due to my powerlessness. Political events acted indirectly, both to afflict me and to deprive me of the means to put my affairs in order. The death of one of my friends completed these reasons for discouragement. I revisited with pain his dwelling, his paintings, which he had shown me with joy a month earlier; I passed by his coffin at the moment it was being nailed shut. As he was of my age and my time, I told myself:
—What would happen if I were to die so suddenly?
The following Sunday, I awoke in the grip of a dull sorrow. I went to visit my father, whose servant was ill, and who seemed to be in a bad mood. He wanted to go alone to fetch wood from his attic, and I could only render him the service of handing him a log he needed. I left dismayed. I met a friend in the streets who wanted to take me to dinner at his place to distract me a little. I refused, and, without having eaten, I headed towards Montmartre. The cemetery was closed, which I regarded as a bad omen. A German poet had given me a few pages to translate and had advanced me a sum for this work. I took the road to his house to return the money.
Turning the Clichy barrier, I witnessed a dispute. I tried to separate the combatants, but I could not succeed. At that moment, a tall worker passed through the very place where the fight had just taken place, carrying on his left shoulder a child dressed in a hyacinth-colored robe. I imagined that it was Saint Christopher carrying Christ, and that I was condemned for having lacked strength in the scene that had just occurred. From that moment on, I wandered in despair in the waste grounds that separate the faubourg from the barrier. It was too late to make the visit I had planned. So I returned through the streets towards the center of Paris. At the corner of the rue de la Victoire, I met a priest, and, in my disarray, I wanted to confess to him. He told me that he was not from the parish and that he was going to an evening party at someone's house; that, if I wanted to consult him the next day at Notre-Dame, I only had to ask for Abbé Dubois.
Desperate, I tearfully made my way to Notre-Dame de Lorette, where I threw myself at the foot of the Virgin's altar, asking for forgiveness for my sins. Something within me said: The Virgin is dead and your prayers are useless. I knelt in the last rows of the choir, and I slipped an silver ring from my finger, its bezel engraved with these three Arabic words: Allah! Mohamed! Ali! Immediately, several candles lit up in the choir, and a service began, which I tried to join in spirit. When they reached the Ave Maria, the priest interrupted himself in the middle of the prayer and started over seven times without me being able to recall the following words. The prayer then concluded, and the priest gave a sermon that seemed to allude only to me. When everything was extinguished, I rose and left, heading towards the Champs-Élysées.
Arriving at the Place de la Concorde, my thought was to end my life. Repeatedly, I headed towards the Seine, but something prevented me from carrying out my intention. The stars shone in the firmament. Suddenly, it seemed to me that they had all gone out at once like the candles I had seen in the church. I believed that the times were fulfilled, and that we were approaching the end of the world announced in the Apocalypse of Saint John. I thought I saw a black sun in the deserted sky and a blood-red globe above the Tuileries. I said to myself:
-The eternal night begins, and it will be terrible. What will happen when men realize there is no more sun?
I returned via Rue Saint-Honoré, and I pitied the late-night peasants I encountered. Arriving near the Louvre, I walked to the square, and there, a strange spectacle awaited me. Through clouds rapidly driven by the wind, I saw several moons passing with great speed. I thought the earth had left its orbit and was wandering in the firmament like a dismasted ship, approaching or moving away from the stars that grew or diminished in turn. For two or three hours, I contemplated this disorder and finally headed towards Les Halles. The peasants were bringing their produce, and I said to myself: "How astonished they will be when they see that the night is prolonged..." However, dogs barked here and there and roosters crowed.
Broken with fatigue, I returned home and threw myself onto my bed. When I awoke, I was surprised to see the light again. A kind of mysterious choir reached my ear; childish voices repeated in unison:
—Christel Christel Christel ...
I thought that a large number of children had been gathered in the neighboring church (Notre-Dame des Victoires) to invoke Christ.
—But Christ is no more! I said to myself; they don't know it yet!
The invocation lasted about an hour. I finally got up and went under the galleries of the Palais-Royal. I told myself that the sun had probably still retained enough light to illuminate the earth for three days, but that it was consuming its own substance, and indeed, I found it cold and discolored. I appeased my hunger with a small cake to give myself the strength to go to the German poet's house. Upon entering, I told him that everything was over and that we had to prepare to die. He called his wife who said to me:
—What's wrong?
—I don't know, I told him, I am lost.
She sent for a cab, and a young girl took me to the Dubois house.
V
There, my illness returned with various ups and downs. After a month, I was recovered. During the following two months, I resumed my wanderings around Paris. The longest journey I made was to visit Reims Cathedral. Little by little, I started writing again and composed one of my best short stories. However, I wrote it painstakingly, almost always in pencil, on loose sheets, following the whim of my reverie or my walk. The corrections agitated me greatly. A few days after publishing it, I found myself afflicted with persistent insomnia. I would walk all night on Montmartre hill and watch the sunrise there. I talked at length with the peasants and workers. At other times, I headed towards Les Halles. One night, I went to supper in a café on the boulevard and amused myself by tossing gold and silver coins in the air. I then went to the market and argued with a stranger, whom I gave a harsh slap; I don't know how that had no consequences. At a certain hour, hearing the clock of Saint-Eustache strike, I began to think of the struggles of the Burgundians and the Armagnacs, and I thought I saw the ghosts of the combatants of that era rising around me. I got into a quarrel with a postman who wore a silver badge on his chest, and whom I claimed to be Duke John of Burgundy. I wanted to prevent him from entering a cabaret. By a peculiarity that I cannot explain, seeing that I threatened him with death, his face covered with tears. I felt softened, and I let him pass.
I headed towards the Tuileries, which were closed, and followed the line of the quays; then I went up to the Luxembourg, and returned to have lunch with a friend. Afterwards, I went to Saint-Eustache, where I piously knelt at the altar of the Virgin, thinking of my mother. The tears I shed eased my soul, and, leaving the church, I bought a silver ring. From there, I went to visit my father, at whose house I left a bouquet of daisies, as he was out. Then I went to the Jardin des Plantes. There were many people, and I stayed for a while watching the hippopotamus bathing in a pond.—Next, I visited the osteology galleries. The sight of the monsters they contained made me think of the deluge, and, when I came out, a terrible downpour was falling in the garden.
I said to myself:
—What a disaster! All these women, all these children, are going to get soaked!...
Then, I said to myself:
—But it's more than that! It's the real deluge beginning.
The water was rising in the nearby streets; I ran down Rue Saint-Victor, and, with the idea of stopping what I believed to be the universal flood, I threw the ring I had bought at Saint-Eustache into the deepest part. Around the same moment, the storm subsided, and a ray of sunshine began to shine.
Hope returned to my soul. I had an appointment at four o'clock at my friend Georges's house; I headed towards his dwelling. Passing by a curiosity dealer, I bought two velvet screens covered with hieroglyphic figures. It seemed to me to be the consecration of heaven's forgiveness. I arrived at Georges's house at the precise hour and confided my hope to him. I was wet and tired. I changed clothes and lay down on his bed. During my sleep, I had a marvelous vision. It seemed to me that the goddess appeared to me, saying: "I am the same as Mary, the same as your mother, the same also as you have always loved in all forms. With each of your trials, I have shed one of the masks with which I veil my features, and soon you will see me as I am..." A delightful orchard emerged from the clouds behind her, a soft and penetrating light illuminated this paradise, and yet I only heard her voice, but I felt plunged into a charming intoxication.—I woke up shortly after and said to Georges:
—Let's go out.
As we crossed the Pont des Arts, I explained the migrations of souls to him, and I said:
—It seems to me that, tonight, I have the soul of Napoleon within me, inspiring me and commanding me to do great things.
In Rue du Coq, I bought a hat, and, while Georges was receiving change for the gold coin I had thrown on the counter, I continued my way and arrived at the galleries of the Palais-Royal.
There, it seemed to me that everyone was looking at me. A persistent idea had lodged in my mind, that there were no more dead people; I walked through the Galerie de Foy saying: "I made a mistake," and I couldn't discover which one by consulting my memory, which I believed to be that of Napoleon... "There's something I haven't paid for around here!" I entered the Café de Foy with this idea, and I thought I recognized in one of the regulars Father Bertin of the Débats. Afterwards, I crossed the garden and took some interest in watching the little girls' rounds. From there, I left the galleries and headed towards Rue Saint-Honoré. I entered a shop to buy a cigar, and, when I came out, the crowd was so dense that I almost suffocated. Three of my friends extricated me by vouching for me and led me into a café while one of them went to fetch a cab. I was taken to the Charité hospice.
During the night, the delirium increased, especially in the morning, when I realized I was tied up. I managed to free myself from the straitjacket, and, towards morning, I walked around the wards. The idea that I had become like a god and had the power to heal made me lay hands on a few patients, and, approaching a statue of the Virgin, I removed the crown of artificial flowers to assert the power I believed I possessed. I strode about, speaking animatedly of the ignorance of men who believed they could heal with science alone, and, seeing a bottle of ether on the table, I swallowed it in one gulp. An intern, whose face I compared to that of angels, tried to stop me, but nervous strength sustained me, and, about to knock him down, I stopped, telling him that he did not understand what my mission was. Doctors then came, and I continued my speeches on the impotence of their art. Then I went down the stairs, although I had no shoes on. Arriving in front of a flowerbed, I entered it and picked flowers as I walked on the grass.
One of my friends had returned to find me. I then stepped out of the flowerbed, and, as I was speaking to him, a straitjacket was thrown over my shoulders. I was then put into a cab and driven to a mental asylum outside of Paris. Seeing myself among the insane, I realized that everything until then had been nothing but illusions. However, the promises I attributed to the goddess Isis seemed to be fulfilled through a series of trials I was destined to endure. I therefore accepted them with resignation.
The part of the house where I was located overlooked a vast promenade shaded by walnut trees. In one corner was a small mound where one of the prisoners walked in circles all day. Others, like me, contented themselves with strolling along the esplanade or the terrace, bordered by a grassy bank. On a wall, situated to the west, were traced figures, one of which represented the shape of the moon with geometrically drawn eyes and mouth; a kind of mask had been painted on this figure; the left wall presented various profile drawings, one of which depicted a kind of Japanese idol. Further on, a skull was carved into the plaster; on the opposite side, two hewn stones had been sculpted by one of the garden's inhabitants and represented small, rather well-rendered mascarons. Two doors opened onto cellars, and I imagined that these were underground passages similar to those I had seen at the entrance to the Pyramids.
VI
I first imagined that the people gathered in this garden all had some influence over the stars, and that the one who constantly turned in the same circle regulated the sun's movement. An old man, who was brought in at certain hours of the day and who tied knots while consulting his watch, appeared to me as being responsible for noting the passage of hours. I attributed to myself an influence over the moon's movement, and I believed that this celestial body had been struck by lightning from the Almighty, who had traced upon its face the imprint of the mask I had noticed.
I attributed a mystical meaning to the conversations of the guards and my companions. It seemed to me that they were representatives of all the races on earth and that it was up to us to re-establish the movement of the stars and to give a greater development to the system. An error, in my opinion, had crept into the general combination of numbers, and from this came all the ills of humanity. I still believed that celestial spirits had taken human forms and were attending this general congress, while appearing occupied with mundane tasks. My role seemed to be to restore universal harmony through cabalistic art and to seek a solution by evoking the occult forces of various religions.
Besides the promenade, we also had a room whose perpendicularly striped windows overlooked a green horizon. Looking through these windows at the line of exterior buildings, I saw the facade and windows outlined as a thousand pavilions adorned with arabesques, and topped with cut-outs and spires, which reminded me of the imperial kiosks bordering the Bosphorus. This naturally led my thoughts to oriental concerns. Around two o'clock, I was put in the bath, and I believed myself served by the Valkyries, daughters of Odin, who wished to elevate me to immortality by gradually stripping my body of its impurities.
I walked in the evening, full of serenity in the moonlight, and, looking up at the trees, it seemed to me that the leaves capriciously rolled up to form images of riders and ladies on caparisoned horses. For me, these were the triumphant figures of my ancestors. This thought led me to the idea that there was a vast conspiracy of all animated beings to restore the world to its original harmony, and that communications took place through the magnetism of the stars, that an uninterrupted chain bound around the earth the intelligences devoted to this general communication, and that songs, dances, and gazes, magnetized from near to far, expressed the same aspiration. The moon was for me the refuge of fraternal souls who, freed from their mortal bodies, worked more freely for the regeneration of the universe.
For me, the time of each day already seemed extended by two hours; so that, rising at the times set by the house clocks, I merely wandered in the empire of shadows. The companions surrounding me seemed asleep and like the specters of Tartarus until the hour when the sun rose for me. Then, I greeted this star with a prayer, and my real life began.
From the moment I was assured of this point, that I was subject to the trials of sacred initiation, an invincible force entered my spirit. I judged myself a hero living under the gaze of the gods; everything in nature took on new aspects, and secret voices emanated from plants, trees, animals, the humblest insects, to warn and encourage me. The language of my companions had mysterious turns of phrase whose meaning I understood; formless and lifeless objects lent themselves to the calculations of my mind;—from combinations of pebbles, figures of angles, cracks or openings, cut-outs of leaves, colors, smells, and sounds, I saw harmonies emerge that were previously unknown.
—"How," I asked myself, "could I have existed so long outside of nature and without identifying with it? Everything lives, everything acts, everything corresponds; magnetic rays emanating from myself or others pass unhindered through the infinite chain of created things; it is a transparent network covering the world, whose delicate threads communicate from near to far with planets and stars. Captive at this moment on Earth, I converse with the chorus of stars, which shares in my joys and sorrows!"
Immediately I trembled at the thought that this very mystery could be discovered.
—"If electricity," I told myself, "which is the magnetism of physical bodies, can be directed and subjected to laws, then hostile and tyrannical spirits can all the more easily enslave intelligences and use their divided forces for domination. This is how the ancient gods were vanquished and enslaved by new gods; this is how," I continued, consulting my memories of the ancient world, "necromancers dominated entire peoples, whose generations succeeded one another as captives under their eternal scepter. Oh, misfortune! Death itself cannot free them! For we live again in our sons as we lived in our fathers,—and the merciless science of our enemies knows us everywhere. The hour of our birth, the spot on earth where we appear, the first gesture, the name, the room,—and all these consecrations, and all these rites imposed upon us, all this establishes a fortunate or fatal series upon which the entire future depends. But if this is already terrible according to human calculations alone, understand what it must be when connected to the mysterious formulas that establish the order of worlds. It has been rightly said: nothing is indifferent, nothing is powerless in the universe; an atom can dissolve everything, an atom can save everything!"
Oh terror! This is the eternal distinction between good and evil. Is my soul the indestructible molecule, the globule that a little air inflates but which finds its place in nature, or that very void, an image of nothingness disappearing into immensity? Would it still be the fatal particle destined to suffer, through all its transformations, the vengeance of powerful beings? I was thus led to question my life, and even my previous existences. By proving to myself that I was good, I proved that I must always have been so. "And if I have been bad," I told myself, "will my current life not be a sufficient expiation?" This thought reassured me, but did not remove the fear of being forever classified among the unfortunate. I felt immersed in cold water, and even colder water streamed over my forehead. I turned my thoughts to the eternal Isis, the sacred mother and wife; all my aspirations, all my prayers merged into this magical name; I felt myself revive in her, and sometimes she appeared to me in the guise of the ancient Venus, sometimes also in the features of the Christian Virgin. The night brought this cherished apparition back to me more distinctly, and yet I said to myself:
—What can she, vanquished, perhaps oppressed, do for her poor children?
Pale and torn, the crescent moon thinned each evening and would soon disappear; perhaps we would never see it in the sky again! Yet, it seemed to me that this orb was the refuge of all souls kindred to mine, and I saw it populated with plaintive shadows destined to be reborn on Earth one day...
My room is at the end of a corridor inhabited on one side by the mad, and on the other by the house servants. It alone has the privilege of a window, opening onto the courtyard, planted with trees, which serves as a promenade during the day. My gaze lingers with pleasure on a bushy walnut tree and two Chinese mulberry trees. Above, one can vaguely perceive a rather busy street, through trellises painted green. To the west, the horizon widens; it's like a hamlet with windows covered in greenery or cluttered with cages, drying rags, and from which one occasionally sees the profile of a young or old housewife, some rosy child's head. People shout, sing, laugh out loud; it's cheerful or sad to hear, depending on the hour and the mood.
I found there all the remnants of my various fortunes, the confused remains of several furnishings dispersed or resold over twenty years. It's a jumble like Doctor Faust's. An antique tripod table with eagle heads, a console supported by a winged sphinx, a 17th-century chest of drawers, an 18th-century bookcase, a bed from the same period, whose oval-domed canopy is covered in red lampas (but the latter could not be set up); a rustic shelf laden with mostly damaged faience and Sèvres porcelain; a hookah brought back from Constantinople, a large alabaster cup, a crystal vase; wood paneling from the demolition of an old house I had lived in on the site of the Louvre, covered with mythological paintings executed by now-famous friends; two large canvases in the style of Prudhon, depicting the Muse of History and the Muse of Comedy. For a few days, I enjoyed arranging all this, creating in the narrow attic a bizarre ensemble that is part palace and part cottage, and which sums up my wandering existence quite well. Above my bed, I hung my Arab clothes, my two industriously mended cashmeres, a pilgrim's gourd, a hunting bag. Above the bookcase, a vast plan of Cairo is displayed; a bamboo console, set up by my bedside, supports a varnished Indian tray where I can arrange my toiletries. I joyfully rediscovered these humble remains of my alternating years of fortune and misery, to which all the memories of my life were attached. Only a small copper painting, in the style of Correggio, depicting Venus and Cupid, overmantels of huntresses and satyrs, and an arrow I had kept in memory of the archery companies of Valais, of which I had been a part in my youth, had been set aside; the weapons had been sold since the new laws. In short, I found there almost everything I had last possessed. My books, a bizarre accumulation of the knowledge of all times, history, travels, religions, cabal, astrology, enough to delight the shades of Pico della Mirandola, the wise Meursius, and Nicholas of Cusa —the Tower of Babel in two hundred volumes —they had left me all that! There was enough to drive a wise man mad; let's try to find enough there to make a madman wise.
With what delight I was able to classify in my drawers the mass of my notes and my intimate or public correspondences, obscure or illustrious, as chance encounters or distant lands I have traveled have made them. In rolls better wrapped than the others, I find Arab letters, relics from Cairo and Stamboul. Oh happiness! Oh mortal sadness! These yellowed characters, these faded drafts, these half-crumpled letters, they are the treasure of my only love... Let's reread... Many letters are missing, many others are torn or crossed out.
(Gérard de Nerval's friends were fortunate enough to find fragments of these letters among his papers. The editors publish them as they were handed over, without claiming to coordinate them, link them together, or give them the sequence and coherence whose secret the poor dreamer took with him.)
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LETTER III
Here I am again writing to you, since I can do nothing else but think of you and occupy myself with you; with you, so busy, so distracted, so preoccupied; not entirely indifferent perhaps, but cruelly reasonable, and reasoning so well! O woman! woman! The artist in you will always be stronger than the lover. But I also love you as an artist. There is in your talent a part of the magic that has charmed me. So, walk with a firm step towards this glory that I forget; and, if a voice is needed to cry out courage to you, if an arm is needed to support you, if a body is needed for your foot to lean on to climb higher, you know...
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LETTER IV
I have read your letter, you cruel woman. It is so sweet and so kind, that I can only pity my fate; but, if I believed you to be as coquettish and perfidious as before, oh! I would say like Figaro: "Your mind is playing with mine." This thought that ridicule can be found in the noblest sentiments, in the most sincere emotions, chills my blood and makes me unjust in spite of myself. Oh! no, you are not like so many other women, you have a heart, and you know well that one must not trifle with a true passion.
Oh! beware, not of your heart which is good, but of your mood which is light and changeable; remember that you have put me in such a position with respect to you, that abandonment would be much more dreadful to me than infidelity would be once I had won you. Indeed, in the latter case, what would I have to say? Resentment would be ridiculous in my own eyes. I would have ceased to please, that's all, and it would be up to me to seek more effective means to regain your good graces. I would always owe you gratitude and could not, in any case, doubt your loyalty. But think of the despair into which your change in our current relations would plunge me, oh my God!
As for jealousy, it is quite dead in me. When I have made a resolution, it is firm; when I have resigned myself, it is for good. I think of other things and arrange my ideas according to circumstances. My mind always knows how to bend before irrevocable facts. So, my beautiful friend, you know me well now. I submit all this to your reflections, I want nothing but their effect. Do not fear to see me then. Your presence calms me, does me good; your conversation is necessary to me and prevents me from giving myself over to...
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(The rest is missing.)
LETTER V
You are mistaken, madam, if you think that I forget you or that I resign myself to being forgotten by you. I would wish it, and it would be a happiness for you and for me no doubt; but my will can do nothing. The death of a relative, family interests have demanded my time and my care, and I have tried to give myself over to this unexpected diversion, hoping to find some calm and finally be able to judge my position with regard to you more coldly. It is inexplicable; it is sad and fatal in every respect; it is ridiculous perhaps; but I reassure myself by thinking that you are the only person in the world who has no right to find it so. You would have very little pride if you were surprised to be loved to this extent and so madly.
Oh! if I have succeeded in mingling something of my existence with yours; if for a whole year I have occupied you with my letters and my presence; if there are, all mine, some days of your life, and, despite yourself, some hours of your thoughts, was it not a pain that carried its reward with it? On that evening when I understood all the chances of pleasing you and winning you, where my mere whim had put your worth at stake and delivered it to hazards, I trembled more than yourself. Well, even then, all the value of my efforts was in your smile. Your fears tore at my heart. But with what transport I kissed your glorious hands! Ah! it was not then the woman, it was the artist to whom I paid homage. Perhaps I should always have contented myself with this role, and not sought to bring down from her pedestal this beautiful idol that until then I had adored from so afar.
Shall I tell you, however, that I lost some illusions by seeing you up close? But, by coming to terms with reality, my love changed its character. My will, until then so clear and precise, experienced a dizzying shift. I didn't fully feel my happiness at being so close to you, nor the full danger I ran in risking not pleasing you. My plans were thwarted. I wanted to show myself at once as a timid man, a useful and entertaining man, and I didn't understand that the two feelings I wished to excite together would clash in your heart. Younger, I would have touched you with a more naive and warmer passion; older, I would have better calculated my approach, studied your character, and eventually found the path to your heart.
If I make such a complete confession to you, it is because I know you are worthy of understanding a spirit...
(The rest is missing.)
LETTER VII
Ah! My poor friend, I don't know what dreams you've had; but no, I'm emerging from a terrible night; I am unhappy, perhaps by my own fault and not yours, but I am. Great God! Excuse my disorder, forgive the struggles of my soul. Yes, it's true, I tried in vain to hide it from you, I desire you as much as I love you, but I would die rather than again excite your displeasure. Oh! Forgive me, I am not fickle; for three months, I have been faithful to you, I swear it before God. If you care for me even a little, will you abandon me again to these vain ardors that are killing me? I confess all this to you so that you may consider it later; for, as I told you, whatever hope you may have kindly given me, it is not on a fixed day that I wish to obtain you, but arrange things for the best. Ah! I know, women like to be forced a little; they don't want to appear to yield without constraint. But, think about it, you are not like other women to me; I am perhaps more to you than other men; let us therefore depart from the customs of ordinary gallantry. What does it matter to me that you have been with others, that you may still be with others. You are the first woman I love, and I am perhaps the first man who loves you to this extent. If that is not a kind of union that heaven blesses, the word love is but an empty word. Let it therefore be a true union where the bride surrenders, saying: "It is time." There are certain ways of forcing a woman that disgust me. You know, my ideas are singular, my passion is surrounded by much poetry and originality, I willingly arrange my life like a novel; the slightest discords shock me, and the modern manners that men adopt with the women they have possessed will never be mine. Let yourself be loved this way; it may hold some charming sweetnesses you are unaware of. Ah! Moreover, fear nothing from the vivacity of my transports. Your fears will always be mine, and just as I would sacrifice all my youth and strength for the happiness of possessing you, so too would my desire stop before your reserve, as it has stopped so long before your rigor. Ah! My dear and true friend, perhaps I am wrong to write you these things that are usually only said in moments of intoxication. But I know you are so good and so sensitive, that you will not be offended by confessions that only aim to let you read more completely into my heart. I have made many concessions to you, make some to me too. The only thing that frightens me would be to obtain from you only a cold compliance that would not stem from affection, but perhaps from pity. You have reproached my love for being materialistic, it is not so in this sense at least; may I never possess you if I am to hold in my arms a woman resigned rather than conquered. I renounce jealousy, I sacrifice my self-esteem, but I cannot abstract from the secret rights of my heart over another. You love me, yes, much less than I love you, no doubt, but you love me, and without that I would not have penetrated so deeply into your intimacy. Well, you will understand all that I seek to express to you. As much as it would be shocking to a cold mind, so much must it touch an indulgent and tender heart.
One movement from you pleased me: for an instant, you seemed to fear that my constancy had wavered these past few days. Ah! Rest assured. I have little merit in maintaining it; for me, there is only one woman in the world.
LETTER VIII
Remember, forgetful one, that you granted me permission to see you for an hour today. I send you my bronze medallion to better fix your memory. It dates back, as you can see, to the year 1831, when it was honored at the Salon. Ah! I was one of the celebrities..., and I would still renounce today that part of my life I neglected for you, if you give me reason to try and make you proud of me. You complain of a few hours I made you lose; my love has made me lose years, and yet I would quickly reclaim them if you wished. What does fame matter to me, as long as it does not take on your features to crown me? Until then, there will be a glory in which mine will always be absorbed: it is yours; and never will my greatest assiduities tend to make you forget it. So study hard, but grant me some of your moments of rest. I confess to you that today I am in a very untragic mood, and therefore I risk much less disturbing you.
LETTER X
(The beginning is missing.)
I stumble at every step. Did you think me unjust, intolerant, capable of disturbing your peace with follies? Alas! You see, I reason too soundly, I judge things too coldly, and you have had many proofs of my self-control. Am I a child, though I love you with all the imprudence of a child? No; I am capable of making you respected in the eyes of all; I am worthy of your trust, and henceforth all my intelligence is to serve you, and all my blood to defend you if needed. Never has a woman met such attachment combined with some real importance, and all would be flattered by it. Now, I have but one more word to say to you. Admit a proof. A man must be truly smitten not to recoil before a question of life and death. If you want to know to what extent you are loved or esteemed, the result of a step I can take will teach you on whose arm you can count. If I have been mistaken in all my suspicions, reassure me, I beg you; spare me some ridiculousness, and especially that of compromising myself with the parody of my dearest emotions.
I swear to you that you risk nothing by hearing me; I fear you as much as I love you; your gaze is for me what is sweetest and most terrible. It is only away from you that I abandon myself to the most extreme, the most fatal ideas. Madam, you told me that one must know how to find the way to your heart: well, I am too agitated to search, to find; have pity on me, guide me! I don't know, there are obstacles I touch without seeing, enemies I would need to know! Something has happened these past few days that has changed you towards me, for you are too indulgent and too sensible to truly be offended by a few inconsistencies, a few follies, so excusable in my situation. Does it come from elsewhere? Tell me; my thought preoccupies you, and I cannot penetrate it; who are you angry with? Who has offended you? Who has betrayed you? Give me something to grasp onto, someone to insult, to fight! I need it! Let me serve you without hope and without reward, and let me deliver you from myself, if it pleases God! But let me at least escape the state of doubt in which I live.
An opportunity would arise in any case to annihilate many false suppositions. There is someone, madam, whose assiduity has harmed your reputation, and who has even enjoyed compromising you, if what is said is true. This is not a rivalry for me. I am not preoccupied in the least by this detail, and would not want to do anything too important for too little. I tell you, you may not even know what it is, a man without value or merit, something insignificant and frivolous, whom it might be enough to frighten or punish, if he has indeed offended you. We will say a few words about it, if you wish, and if necessary, we will leave the matter for what it is worth. But, please, a little confidence, a little clarity in these detours where I stumble at every step.
LETTER XI
My God! My God! I was able to see you for a moment. What! You are not as angry as I thought? What! You still have a smile for me, a sweet ray of sunshine for my sorrows! I take this happiness with me, for fear of being disillusioned by a word I always flee, I who already thought myself powerful. A glance brings me down, a word lifts me up; I only feel strong away from your eyes.
Yes, I deserved to be humiliated by you; yes, I must still pay with much suffering for the moment of pride to which I succumbed. Ah! It was a laughable ambition, that one. To believe myself cherished by a woman of your talent, of your beauty.
I must limit my pretensions to serving you. I accept your disdain as justice. Fear nothing, I wait, fear nothing.
LETTER XII
Two days without seeing you, without seeing you, cruel one! Oh! If you love me, we are still very unhappy. You, your lessons, your theater, your occupations; myself, a theater, a newspaper and a host of other troubles and annoyances. Yesterday, I don't know how I spent my day. I went back and forth.
...He knows everyone, speaks ill of them. I didn't dare judge him so harshly without having seen him. It's not the fault of poor Jean Leroy. I might have judged him with more indulgence... and I've just said why.
One must not laugh at that.
LETTER XIII
You are truly the strangest person in the world, and I would be unworthy of admiring you if I grew tired of your inconsistencies and your whims.
Yes, I love you this way much more than I admire you, and I would be sorry if you were otherwise. For a love like mine, a difficult and complicated struggle was needed. For this tireless passion, an unheard-of resistance was required; for these stratagems, these efforts, this silent and constant activity that neglects no means, that rejects no concession, ardent as a Spanish passion, supple as an Italian love, all the resources, all the subtleties of a woman were needed, all that an intelligent mind can muster as strength against a resolute heart. All this was necessary, no doubt, and I would have thought little of you for believing the resistance easier and the trial less dangerous.
However, fear nothing; I am still not fully recovered from the blow he struck me, and I need time to ...
LETTER XV
We must now guard against one thing, and that is the despondency that follows every violent tension, every superhuman effort. For one who has only a moderate desire, success is a supreme joy that unleashes all human faculties. It is a luminous point in existence, which soon fades and dies out. But, for the deeply enamored heart, the excess of emotion for a moment contracts all the springs of life; the turmoil is great, the convulsion is profound, and the head bows, trembling, as if under the breath of a God. Alas! what are we, poor creatures! and how can we respond worthily to the power of feeling that heaven has placed in our soul? I am but a man and you a woman, and the love between us has something imperishable and divine.
*
One night, I was speaking and singing in a kind of ecstasy. One of the house servants came to fetch me from my cell and took me down to a room on the ground floor, where he locked me in. I continued my dream, and, though standing, I believed myself to be enclosed in a sort of oriental kiosk. I probed all its corners and saw that it was octagonal. A divan ran around the walls, and it seemed to me that these were made of thick glass, beyond which I saw treasures, shawls, and tapestries gleaming. A landscape lit by the street appeared to me through the trellises of the door, and I seemed to recognize the shape of tree trunks and rocks. I had already stayed there in some other existence, and I believed I recognized the deep caves of Ellora. Little by little, a bluish light penetrated the kiosk and made bizarre images appear. I then thought I was in the midst of a vast charnel house where universal history was written in lines of blood. The body of a gigantic woman was painted in front of me; only, her various parts were severed as if by a saber; other women of diverse races, whose bodies increasingly dominated, presented on the other walls a bloody jumble of limbs and heads, from empresses and queens to the humblest peasant women. It was the history of all crimes, and it was enough to fix one's eyes on a particular point to see a tragic representation unfold there.
—"So, I thought, this is what man's delegated power has wrought. They have gradually destroyed and cut into a thousand pieces the eternal type of beauty, so much so that the races are increasingly losing strength and perfection..."
And indeed, I saw, on a line of shadow that snaked through one of the door's openings, the descending generation of future races.
I was finally torn from this dark contemplation. The kind and compassionate face of my excellent doctor brought me back to the world of the living. He had me witness a spectacle that deeply interested me. Among the patients was a young man, a former soldier from Africa, who for six weeks had refused to eat. By means of a long rubber tube introduced into a nostril, a considerable amount of semolina or chocolate was poured into his stomach.
This sight deeply impressed me. Until then abandoned to the monotonous circle of my sensations or moral sufferings, I encountered an indefinable, taciturn, and patient being, sitting like a sphinx at the supreme gates of existence. I began to love him because of his misfortune and abandonment, and I felt uplifted by this sympathy and pity. Placed thus between death and life, he seemed to me like a sublime interpreter, like a confessor predestined to hear those secrets of the soul that words would not dare to transmit or succeed in rendering. It was the ear of God without the admixture of another's thought. I spent entire hours examining myself mentally, my head bowed over his, holding his hands. It seemed to me that a certain magnetism united our two spirits, and I was enraptured when for the first time a word came from his mouth. No one wanted to believe it, and I attributed this beginning of healing to my ardent will. That night, I had a delightful dream, the first in a long time. I was in a tower, so deep on the earth side and so high on the sky side, that my entire existence seemed destined to be consumed in ascending and descending. My strength was already exhausted, and I was about to lose courage, when a side door opened; a spirit appeared and said to me:
—"Come, my brother!..."
I don't know why it occurred to me that his name was Saturnin. He had the features of the poor patient, but transfigured and intelligent. We were in a countryside lit by starlight, we stopped to contemplate this spectacle, and the spirit extended his hand over my forehead as I had done the day before, trying to magnetize my companion; immediately one of the stars I saw in the sky began to grow, and the divinity of my dreams appeared to me smiling, in an almost Indian costume, as I had seen her before. She walked between us, and the meadows turned green, flowers and foliage rose from the earth in the wake of her steps... She said to me:
—"The trial to which you were subjected has come to an end; those countless stairs you wearily descended or climbed were the very bonds of ancient illusions that cluttered your mind, and now remember the day you implored the Holy Virgin and, believing her dead, delirium seized your spirit. Your vow had to be carried to her by a simple soul, freed from the ties of earth. Such a soul was found near you, and that is why I myself am permitted to come and encourage you."
The joy this dream spread in my mind gave me a delightful awakening. Day was beginning to break. I wanted a material sign of the apparition that had consoled me, and I wrote on the wall these words: "You visited me tonight."
I record here, under the title of Memorable, the impressions of several dreams that followed the one I have just recounted.
..............................................................
On a slender peak in Auvergne, the shepherds' song has resounded. Poor Mary! Queen of the heavens! It is to you they piously address themselves. This rustic melody has struck the ear of the corybantes. They emerge, singing in their turn, from the secret caves where love made them shelters.—Hosannah! Peace on earth and glory in the heavens!
On the Himalayan mountains, a small flower was born.—Forget me not.—The shimmering gaze of a star rested upon it for a moment, and a reply was heard in a sweet foreign tongue.—Myosotis!
A silver pearl gleamed in the sand; a golden pearl sparkled in the sky... The world was created. Chaste loves, divine sighs! Inflame the holy mountain... for you have brothers in the valleys and shy sisters who hide within the woods!
Fragrant groves of Paphos, you are not worth these retreats where one breathes deeply the invigorating air of the homeland.—Up there, in the mountains, the world lives content; the wild nightingale sings with contentment!
Oh! how beautiful my great friend is! She is so great that she forgives the world, and so good that she forgave me. The other night, she was lying in some palace, I don't know where, and I couldn't reach her. My burnt chestnut horse shied beneath me. The broken reins floated on his sweating hindquarters, and it took great effort to prevent him from lying down on the ground.
Tonight, good Saturnin came to my aid, and my great friend took her place beside me on his white mare caparisoned in silver. She told me:
—Courage, brother! for this is the last stage.
And her large eyes devoured the space, and she let her long hair, imbued with the perfumes of Yemen, fly in the air.
I recognized the divine features of ***. We flew to triumph, and our enemies were at our feet. The messenger hoopoe guided us to the highest heavens, and the arc of light burst forth in the divine hands of Apollo. Adonis's enchanted horn echoed through the woods.
O Death! where is your victory, since the conquering Messiah rode between us two? His robe was of sulphured hyacinth, and his wrists, as well as his ankles, sparkled with diamonds and rubies. When his light switch touched the mother-of-pearl gate of the new Jerusalem, all three of us were flooded with light. It was then that I descended among men to announce the good news.
I awaken from a sweet dream: I have seen again the one I loved, transfigured and radiant. Heaven opened in all its glory, and there I read the word forgiveness signed with the blood of Jesus Christ.
A star suddenly shone and revealed to me the secret of the world of worlds. Hosanna! peace on earth and glory in the heavens!
From the heart of silent darkness, two notes resonated, one grave, the other acute,—and the eternal orb immediately began to turn. Be blessed, o first octave that began the divine hymn! From Sunday to Sunday, entwine all days in your magical web. The mountains sing to you in the valleys, the springs to the rivers, the rivers to the streams, and the streams to the Ocean; the air vibrates, and the light harmoniously breaks the nascent flowers. A sigh, a shiver of love emerges from the swollen breast of the earth, and the chorus of stars unfolds in the infinite; it moves away and returns upon itself, tightens and blossoms, and sows afar the seeds of new creations.
On the summit of a bluish mountain, a small flower was born.—Forget me not!—The shimmering gaze of a star rested upon it for a moment, and a reply was heard in a sweet foreign tongue.—Myosotis!
Woe to you, god of the North,—who shattered with a hammer blow the holy table composed of seven most precious metals! for you could not break the Pink Pearl that rested in the center. It rebounded under the iron, and behold, we are loved for it... Hosanna!
The macrocosm, or great world, was built by cabalistic art; the microcosm, or small world, is its reflected image in all hearts. The Pink Pearl was dyed with the royal blood of the Valkyries. Woe to you, blacksmith-god, who wanted to break a world!
However, Christ's forgiveness has also been pronounced for you!
So be blessed yourself, O Thor, the giant,—the most powerful of Odin's sons! Be blessed in Hel, your mother, for often death is sweet,—and in your brother Loki, and in your dog Garmr.
The serpent that encircles the world is blessed itself, for it loosens its rings, and its gaping maw inhales the anxoka flower, the sulfurous flower—the brilliant flower of the sun!
May God preserve the divine Balder, son of Odin, and Freya the beautiful!
.............................................. I found myself in spirit at Saardam, which I visited last year. Snow covered the ground. A tiny little girl walked, slipping on the hardened earth, and headed, I believe, towards Peter the Great's house. Her majestic profile had something Bourbonian about it. Her neck, of dazzling whiteness, emerged halfway from a swan-feather pelerine. With her small pink hand, she shielded a lit lamp from the wind and was about to knock on the green door of the house, when a thin cat coming out got tangled in her legs and made her fall.
—Oh! It's just a cat! said the little girl, getting up.
—A cat is something! replied a soft voice.
I was present at this scene, and I carried on my arm a small grey cat that began to meow.
—It's the child of that old fairy! said the little girl.
And she entered the house.
That night, my dream first transported me to Vienna.—It is known that in each of the squares of this city stand large columns called pardons. Marble clouds accumulate, forming a Solomonic order and supporting globes where seated deities preside. Suddenly, oh wonder! I began to think of that august sister of the Emperor of Russia, whose imperial palace I had seen in Weimar.—A sweet melancholy made me see the colored mists of a Norwegian landscape illuminated by a soft, grey light. The clouds became transparent, and I saw a deep abyss open before me, into which the tumultuous waves of the frozen Baltic Sea rushed. It seemed as if the entire Neva River, with its blue waters, was about to be swallowed up in this fissure of the globe. The ships of Kronstadt and Saint Petersburg swayed on their anchors, ready to break loose and disappear into the chasm, when a divine light from above illuminated this scene of desolation.
Under the vivid ray that pierced the mist, I immediately saw the rock supporting the statue of Peter the Great appear. Above this solid pedestal, clouds gathered, rising to the zenith. They were laden with radiant and divine figures, among whom one could distinguish the two Catherines and the empress Saint Helena, accompanied by the most beautiful princesses of Muscovy and Poland. Their gentle gazes, directed towards France, brought space closer by means of long crystal telescopes. I saw by this that our homeland was becoming the arbiter of the Eastern dispute, and that they awaited its solution. My dream ended with the sweet hope that peace would finally be granted to us.
It was thus that I encouraged myself to a daring attempt. I resolved to fix the dream and to know its secret.
—Why, I asked myself, not finally force these mystical doors, armed with all my will, and master my sensations instead of submitting to them? Is it not possible to tame this attractive and formidable chimera, to impose a rule on these spirits of the night who play with our reason? Sleep occupies a third of our life. It is the consolation for the sorrows of our days or the sorrow for their pleasures; but I have never experienced sleep as rest. After a few minutes of numbness, a new life begins, freed from the conditions of time and space, and undoubtedly similar to that which awaits us after death. Who knows if there is not a link between these two existences and if it is not possible for the soul to forge it now?
From that moment, I applied myself to seeking the meaning of my dreams, and this anxiety influenced my waking reflections. I believed I understood that a link existed between the external world and the internal world; that inattention or mental disorder alone distorted their apparent relationships,—and that this explained the strangeness of certain scenes, similar to those grimacing reflections of real objects that stir on troubled water.
Such were the inspirations of my nights; my days passed gently in the company of the poor patients, with whom I had made friends. The consciousness that I was now purified from the faults of my past life gave me infinite moral joys; the certainty of immortality and the co-existence of all the people I had loved had come to me materially, so to speak, and I blessed the fraternal soul who, from the depths of despair, had led me back into the luminous paths of religion.
The poor boy, from whom intelligent life had so singularly withdrawn, received care that gradually triumphed over his torpor. Having learned that he was born in the countryside, I spent whole hours singing old village songs to him, to which I tried to give the most touching expression. I had the good fortune to see that he heard them and that he repeated certain parts of these songs. One day, at last, he opened his eyes for a single instant, and I saw that they were blue like those of the Spirit that had appeared to me in a dream. One morning, a few days later, he held his eyes wide open and did not close them again. He immediately began to speak, but only at intervals, and recognized me, using the familiar 'tu' and calling me brother. However, he still refused to eat. One day, returning from the garden, he said to me:
—I'm thirsty.
I went to get him a drink; the glass touched his lips without him being able to swallow.
—Why, I said to him, won't you eat and drink like others?
—It's because I'm dead, he said; I was buried in such and such a cemetery, in such and such a place....
—And now, where do you think you are?
—In purgatory, I am performing my expiation.
Such are the bizarre ideas these kinds of illnesses give; I recognized within myself that I had not been far from such a strange persuasion. The care I had received had already restored me to the affection of my family and friends, and I could judge more sanely the world of illusions in which I had lived for some time. However, I feel happy about the convictions I have acquired, and I compare this series of trials I have gone through to what, for the ancients, represented the idea of a descent into the underworld.
DAUGHTERS OF FIRE
TO ALEXANDRE DUMAS
I dedicate this book to you, my dear master, just as I dedicated Lorely to Jules Janin. I had to thank him on the same grounds as you. A few years ago, I was believed dead, and he wrote my biography. A few days ago, I was believed mad, and you devoted some of your most charming lines to the epitaph of my spirit. Such glory has fallen to me as an advance on my inheritance. How dare I, in my lifetime, wear these brilliant crowns on my brow? I must display a modest air and beg the public to discount much of such praise bestowed upon my ashes, or upon the vague content of this bottle that I went to fetch from the moon in imitation of Astolfo, and which I hope I have returned to the usual seat of thought.
Now, that I am no longer on the hippogriff and, in the eyes of mortals, have recovered what is commonly called reason—let us reason.
Here is a fragment of what you wrote about me last December 10th:
«He is a charming and distinguished spirit, as you may have judged,—in whom, from time to time, a certain phenomenon occurs, which, fortunately, we hope, is not seriously disturbing either for him or for his friends;—from time to time, when some work has greatly preoccupied him, imagination, that madwoman of the house, momentarily chases away reason, which is only its mistress; then, the former remains alone, all-powerful, in this brain nourished by dreams and hallucinations, no more and no less than an opium smoker from Cairo, or a hashish eater from Algiers, and then, the wanderer that she is throws him into impossible theories, into unfeasible books. Sometimes he is Solomon, king of the East, he has rediscovered the seal that evokes spirits, he awaits the Queen of Sheba; and then, believe it well, there is no fairy tale, or from the Thousand and One Nights, that is worth what he tells his friends, who do not know whether they should pity him or envy him, for the agility and power of these spirits, for the beauty and richness of this queen; sometimes he is Sultan of Crimea, Count of Abyssinia, Duke of Egypt, Baron of Smyrna. Another day,—he believes himself mad, and he recounts how he became so, and with such joyful enthusiasm, passing through such amusing vicissitudes, that everyone wishes to become so to follow this captivating guide into the land of chimeras and hallucinations, full of oases fresher and shadier than those that rise on the burned road from Alexandria to Ammon; sometimes, finally, it is melancholy that becomes his muse, and then hold back your tears if you can, for never have Werther, never René, never Antony, had more poignant laments, more painful sobs, more tender words, more poetic cries!...»
My dear Dumas, I will try to explain the phenomenon you mentioned earlier. As you know, there are certain storytellers who cannot invent without identifying with the characters of their imagination. You know with what conviction our old friend Nodier recounted how he had the misfortune of being guillotined during the Revolution; one became so convinced that one wondered how he had managed to get his head reattached...
Well, do you understand that the momentum of a narrative can produce a similar effect; that one comes, so to speak, to embody the hero of one's imagination, so much so that his life becomes yours and you burn with the artificial flames of his ambitions and loves! Yet, this is what happened to me when I undertook the story of a character who, I believe, appeared around the time of Louis XV, under the pseudonym of Brisacier. Where did I read the fatal biography of this adventurer? I found that of the Abbé de Bucquoy; but I feel quite incapable of linking the slightest historical proof to the existence of this illustrious unknown! What would have been but a game for you, master—who knew so well how to play with our chronicles and our memoirs, that posterity will no longer be able to distinguish truth from falsehood, and will burden all the historical figures you have called upon to appear in your novels with your inventions—had become for me an obsession, a vertigo. To invent, in essence, is to remember, said a moralist; unable to find proof of my hero's material existence, I suddenly believed in the transmigration of souls no less firmly than Pythagoras or Pierre Leroux. The 18th century itself, where I imagined having lived, was full of these illusions. Voisenon, Mancriff, and Crébillon fils wrote a thousand adventures about them. Remember that courtier who remembered having been a sofa; whereupon Schahabaham enthusiastically exclaims: "What! You were a sofa! But that's very gallant... And, tell me, were you embroidered?"
I, myself, was embroidered at every seam. From the moment I believed I had grasped the series of all my previous existences, it cost me no more to have been a prince, king, mage, genius, and even a god; the chain was broken and marked hours for minutes. It would be Scipio's Dream, Tasso's Vision, or Dante's Divine Comedy, if I had managed to concentrate my memories into a masterpiece. Henceforth renouncing the reputation of an inspired, illuminated, or prophet, I have only to offer you what you so rightly call impossible theories, an unfeasible book, of which here is the first chapter, which seems to follow Scarron's Roman comique.... Judge for yourself:
The Tragic Novel.
Here I am again in my prison, madam; always imprudent, always guilty it seems, and always trusting, alas! in that beautiful theatrical star who was kind enough to call me her destiny for a moment. The Star and Destiny: what a lovely couple in the novel by the poet Scarron! but how difficult it is to play these two roles properly today. The heavy cart that once jolted us over the uneven pavement of Le Mans has been replaced by carriages, by post-chaises and other new inventions. Where are the adventures, now? where is the charming poverty that made us your equals and your comrades, you actresses, we poor poets always and often impoverished poets? You have betrayed us, disowned us! and you complained about our pride! You began by following rich lords, bedecked, gallant and bold, and you abandoned us in some miserable inn to pay for your wild orgies. So, I, the brilliant actor of yesteryear, the unrecognized prince, the mysterious lover, the disinherited, the banished from joy, the handsome dark stranger, adored by marchionesses and presidents alike, I, the truly unworthy favorite of Madame Bouvillon, was treated no better than that poor Ragotin, a provincial scribbler, a petty lawyer!... My good looks, disfigured by a vast plaster, only served to lose me more surely. The host, seduced by La Rancune's words, was content to hold as collateral the very son of the great Khan of Crimea sent here to study, and advantageously known throughout Christian Europe under the pseudonym of Brisacier. And yet, if that wretch, if that antiquated schemer had left me a few carolus, or even a poor watch surrounded by fake diamonds, I could no doubt have commanded respect from my accusers and avoided the sad turn of events of such a foolish scheme. Even better, you had left me with no costume but a wretched flea-bitten smock, a black and blue striped doublet, and breeches of questionable preservation. So much so that, upon lifting my suitcase after your departure, the innkeeper, uneasy, suspected part of the sad truth, and came to tell me point blank that I was a contraband prince. At these words, I wanted to draw my sword; but La Rancune had taken it, claiming that he had to prevent me from piercing my heart with it before the eyes of the ungrateful woman who had betrayed me! This last supposition was unnecessary, oh La Rancune! one does not pierce one's heart with a stage sword, one does not imitate the cook Vatel, one does not try to parody the heroes of novels, when one is a hero of tragedy: and I call all our comrades to witness that such a demise is impossible to stage with any nobility. I know one can stick the sword in the ground and throw oneself upon it with open arms; but we are here in a parqueted room, where the rug is missing, despite the cold season. The window is, moreover, open enough and high enough above the street for any tragic despair to end its course there. But... but, I've told you a thousand times, I am an actor who has religion.
Do you remember how I used to play Achilles, when by chance, passing through a third or fourth-rate town, we took a fancy to spread the neglected cult of the ancient French tragedians? I was noble and powerful, wasn't I, under the golden helmet with purple plumes, under the glittering breastplate, and draped in an azure cloak? And what a pity it was then to see a father as cowardly as Agamemnon dispute with the priest Calchas the honor of delivering poor, weeping Iphigenia to the knife sooner! I burst like lightning into the midst of this forced and cruel action; I gave hope back to mothers and courage to poor girls, always sacrificed to a duty, to a god, to the vengeance of a people, to the honor or profit of a family!... For everyone understood well that this was the eternal story of human marriages. The father will always give his daughter away for ambition, and the mother will always sell her with greed; but the lover will not always be that honest Achilles, so handsome, so well-armed, so gallant and so terrible, though a bit of a rhetorician for a man of the sword! I, myself, was sometimes indignant at having to deliver such long tirades in such a clear cause and before an audience easily convinced of my right. I was tempted to slash, to finish it, the entire imbecilic court of the king of kings, with its row of sleeping extras! The public would have been charmed; but they would have ended up finding the play too short, and reflecting that they need time to see a princess, a lover, and a queen suffer; to see them weep, rage, and pour out a torrent of harmonious insults against the old authority of the priest and the sovereign. All that is well worth five acts and two hours of waiting, and the public would not be content with less. They need their revenge for the splendor of this unique family, pompously seated on the throne of Greece, before whom Achilles himself can only rage with words; they need to know all the miseries beneath that purple, and yet the irresistible majesty! These tears falling from the most beautiful eyes in the world onto Iphigenia's radiant breast intoxicate the crowd no less than her beauty, her graces, and the splendor of her royal costume! That gentle voice, asking for life by reminding that she has not yet lived; the sweet smile of that eye, which pauses its tears to caress a father's weaknesses, the first flirtation, alas! which will not be for the lover!... Oh! how attentive everyone is to gather something from it! Kill her! Who would even think of it?
Great gods! No one, perhaps?... On the contrary: everyone has already told themselves that she had to die for all, rather than live for one. Everyone found Achilles too handsome, too great, too superb! Will Iphigenia be carried away again by this Thessalian vulture, as the other, Leda's daughter, was recently by a shepherd prince from the voluptuous coast of Asia? There is the question for all Greeks, and there is also the question for the public who judges us in these heroic roles! And I, I felt as hated by men as I was admired by women when I played one of these roles of a superb and victorious lover. It's because, instead of a cold backstage princess raised to sadly chant these immortal verses, I had to defend, dazzle, and preserve a true daughter of Greece, a pearl of grace, love, and purity, truly worthy of being disputed by men with jealous gods! Was it only Iphigenia? No, it was Monime, it was Junie, it was Bérénice, it was all the heroines inspired by the beautiful azure eyes of Mademoiselle de Champmeslé or by the adorable graces of the noble virgins of Saint-Cyr! Poor Aurélie! Our companion, our sister, will you not yourself regret those times of intoxication and pride? Did you not love me for an instant, cold Star! by dint of seeing me suffer, fight, or weep for you? Will the new splendor with which the world surrounds her today prevail over the radiant image of our common triumphs? Every evening, people would say: "Who is this actress so far above all we have applauded? Are we not mistaken? Is she really as young, as fresh, as honest as she appears? Are those real pearls and fine opals that stream through her blond ash hair, and does this lace veil legitimately belong to this unfortunate child? Is she not ashamed of these brocaded satins, these heavily pleated velvets, these plushes and ermines? All of this is of an antiquated taste that suggests whims beyond her age." Thus spoke the mothers, admiring, however, a constant choice of attire and ornaments from another century that reminded them of beautiful memories. The young women envied, criticized, or sadly admired. But, I, I needed to see her at all hours so as not to feel dazzled near her, and to be able to fix my eyes on hers as much as our roles required. That's why the role of Achilles was my triumph. But how often the choice of others embarrassed me! What a misfortune not to dare to change situations at my will and even sacrifice the thoughts of genius to my respect and my love! The Britannicus and the Bajazet, these captive and timid lovers, were not for me. The purple of the young Caesar seduced me much more! But what a misfortune then to only encounter cold perfidies to speak! What! Was this the Nero so celebrated by Rome, this handsome wrestler, this dancer, this ardent poet, whose only desire was to please everyone? This is what history made of him, and what poets dreamed of him based on history! Oh! Give me his furies to portray, but his power, I would be afraid to accept it. Nero! I understood you, alas! not according to Racine, but according to my torn heart when I dared to borrow your name! Yes, you were a god, you who wanted to burn Rome, and who perhaps had the right to, since Rome had insulted you!...
A whistle, an unworthy whistle, during his plays, near her, because of her! A whistle she attributes to herself—through my fault (understand well!) and you will ask what one does when one holds lightning!... Oh! Listen, my friends! I had for a moment the idea of being true, of being great, of finally making myself immortal, on your stage of planks and canvases, and in your comedy of tinsel! Instead of responding to the insult with an insult, which earned me the punishment from which I still suffer, instead of provoking an entire vulgar audience to rush onto the stage and cowardly bludgeon me..., I had for a moment the idea, the sublime idea worthy of Caesar himself, the idea that, this time, no one would have dared to place below that of the great Racine, the august idea finally of burning the theater and the public, and all of you! and to carry her away alone, through the flames, disheveled, half-naked, according to her role, or at least according to Burrhus's classical account. And be sure then that nothing could have taken her from me, from that moment until the scaffold, and from there into eternity!
Oh, the remorse of my feverish nights and tear-soaked days! What! I could have done it, and I didn't want to? What! You still insult me, you who owe your lives more to my pity than to my fear? To burn them all, I would have done it! Judge for yourselves: The P*** theater has only one exit; ours opened onto a small back street, but the foyer where you all stood is on the other side of the stage. I only had to detach a lantern to set the canvases ablaze, and that without danger of being caught, for the supervisor couldn't see me, and I was alone, listening to the insipid dialogue of Britannicus and Junie, only to reappear afterwards and make a spectacle. I struggled with myself throughout that interval; upon returning, I twirled a glove I had picked up in my fingers; I was waiting to take revenge more nobly than Caesar himself for an insult I had felt with all the heart of a Caesar... Well, those cowards didn't dare start again! My gaze struck them down without fear, and I was about to forgive the audience, if not Junie, when she dared... Immortal gods!... Listen, let me speak as I wish!... Yes, since that evening, my madness is to believe myself a Roman, an emperor; my role has become one with me, and Nero's tunic clings to my limbs, burning them, just as the centaur's devoured the dying Hercules. Let us no longer trifle with sacred things, even those of a people and an age long extinct, for there may still be some flame beneath the ashes of Rome's gods!... My friends, understand above all that for me, it wasn't a cold translation of stilted words, but a scene where everything lived, where three hearts struggled with equal chances, where, as in the games of the circus, it was perhaps real blood that was about to flow! And the audience knew it well, that small-town audience so well-versed in all our affairs; those women, many of whom would have loved me if I had wanted to betray my only love! Those men, all jealous of me because of her; and the other, the well-chosen Britannicus, the poor confused suitor, who trembled before me and before her, but who was to defeat me in this terrible game, where the newcomer has all the advantage and all the glory!... Ah! The novice in love knew his trade... But he had nothing to fear, for I am too just to make a crime of someone loving as I do, and it is in this that I deviate from the ideal monster dreamed by the poet Racine: I would burn Rome without hesitation; but, by saving Junie, I would also save my brother Britannicus.
Yes, my brother, yes, poor child like me of art and fancy, you have won her, you have deserved her by merely contending with me for her. Heaven forbid that I should abuse my age, my strength, and this proud spirit that health has restored to me, to attack her choice or her whim, she, the all-powerful, the just, the deity of my dreams as of my life!... Only, I had long feared that my misfortune would not benefit you at all, and that the handsome gallants of the town would snatch from all of us what is lost only to me.
The letter I just received from La Caverne fully reassures me on this point. It advises me to give up "an art that is not meant for me and that I have no need of..." Alas! this joke is bitter; for never did I have more need, if not of art, at least of its brilliant products. That is what you did not understand. You believe you have done enough by recommending me to the authorities of Soissons as an illustrious personage whom his family could not abandon, but whom the violence of his illness forced you to leave behind. Your La Rancune presented himself at the town hall and at my host's, with the airs of a first-class Spanish grandee forced by a setback to stop two nights in such a sad place; you others, forced to leave P*** precipitously the day after my misfortune, you had, I understand, no reason to pass yourselves off here as infamous histrions: it is quite enough to let this mask be nailed to your face in places where you cannot do otherwise. But, what shall I say, and how shall I extricate myself from the infernal web of intrigues into which La Rancune's stories have just entangled me? The great couplet from Corneille's Le Menteur certainly served him in composing his story, for the conception of a scoundrel like him could not rise so high. Imagine... But what shall I tell you that you do not already know and that you have not conspired together to ruin me? Will the ungrateful woman who is the cause of my misfortunes not have interwoven all the most inextricable satin threads that her Arachnean fingers could stretch around a poor victim?... What a masterpiece! Well, I am caught, I confess; I yield, I beg for mercy. You can take me back with you without fear, and, if the swift post-chaises that carried you away on the road to Flanders, nearly three months ago, have already given way to the humble cart of our first escapades, deign to receive me at least in the capacity of a monster, a phenomenon, a calot fit to gather a crowd, and I promise to acquit myself of these various employments in a manner that will satisfy the most severe connoisseurs of the provinces... Answer me now at the post office, for I fear my host's curiosity: I will send for your epistle by a man of the house, who is devoted to me...
The illustrious BRISACIER.
What to do now with this hero abandoned by his mistress and his companions? Is he, in truth, only a haphazard actor, justly punished for his irreverence towards the public, his foolish jealousy, his mad pretensions? How will he manage to prove that he is the true son of the Khan of Crimea, as La Rancune's cunning narrative proclaimed? How will he, from this unheard-of abasement, soar to the highest destinies?... These are points that would undoubtedly not bother you at all, but which have thrown me into the most strange disorder of mind. Once convinced that I was writing my own story, I began to translate all my dreams, all my emotions, I was moved by this love for a fleeting star that abandoned me alone in the night of my destiny, I cried, I trembled at the vain apparitions of my sleep. Then a divine ray shone in my hell; surrounded by monsters against whom I struggled obscurely, I seized Ariadne's thread, and from then on all my visions became celestial. Someday, I will write the story of this "descent into hell," and you will see that it was not entirely devoid of reasoning if it always lacked reason.
And, since you had the imprudence to quote one of the sonnets composed in this state of super-naturalist reverie, as the Germans would say, you will have to hear them all.—You will find them in my poems. They are hardly more obscure than Hegel's metaphysics or Swedenborg's memorables, and would lose their charm if explained, if such a thing were possible, grant me at least the merit of expression;—the last folly that will probably remain to me will be to believe myself a poet: it is up to criticism to cure me of that.
1854.
SYLVIE
MEMORIES OF VALOIS
I
LOST NIGHT
I was leaving a theater where, every evening, I would appear in the front rows in full suitor's attire. Sometimes, it was packed; other times, completely empty. It mattered little to me whether my gaze fell upon a parterre sparsely populated by a mere thirty reluctant enthusiasts, or upon boxes adorned with bonnets or outdated finery—or if I was part of a lively and vibrant hall, crowned on every tier with floral dresses, sparkling jewels, and radiant faces. Indifferent to the spectacle of the audience, that of the stage hardly held my attention—except when, in the second or third scene of a then-dismal masterpiece, a familiar apparition illuminated the empty space, breathing life with a sigh and a word into those vain figures surrounding me.
I felt myself alive in her, and she lived for me alone. Her smile filled me with infinite bliss; the vibration of her voice, so soft yet richly toned, made me tremble with joy and love. She possessed every perfection for me, she answered every one of my enthusiasms, every whim—beautiful as day in the footlights that illuminated her from below, pale as night; when the lowered footlights left her lit from above by the chandelier's rays and showed her more natural, shining in the shadow of her own beauty, like the divine Hours outlined, with a star on their forehead, against the brown backgrounds of Herculaneum frescoes!
For a year, I hadn't even thought to inquire about what else she might be; I feared disturbing the magic mirror that reflected her image back to me—and at most, I had lent an ear to a few remarks concerning not the actress, but the woman. I inquired about them as little as I did about rumors that might have circulated about the Princess of Elis or the Queen of Trebizond—one of my uncles, who had lived in the penultimate years of the 18th century as one ought to live to truly know it, having warned me early on that actresses were not women, and that nature had forgotten to give them a heart. He spoke of those of that time, no doubt; but he had told me so many stories of his illusions, his deceptions, and shown me so many ivory portraits, charming medallions he later used to adorn snuff boxes, so many yellowed letters, so many faded favors, recounting their history and their definitive sum, that I had grown accustomed to thinking ill of all of them, regardless of the era.
We lived then in a strange era, like those that usually follow revolutions or the decline of great reigns. It was no longer the heroic gallantry of the Fronde, the elegant and adorned vice of the Regency, the skepticism and wild orgies of the Directory; it was a mixture of activity, hesitation, and idleness, of brilliant utopias, of philosophical or religious aspirations, of vague enthusiasms, mingled with certain instincts of renaissance; weariness of past discords, uncertain hopes—something like the time of Peregrinus and Apuleius. The material man yearned for the bouquet of roses that would regenerate him through the hands of the beautiful Isis; the eternally young and pure goddess appeared to us in the nights, shaming us for our lost daylight hours. Ambition, however, was not of our age, and the greedy scramble for positions and honors then taking place distanced us from spheres of possible activity. All that remained as a refuge was that ivory tower of poets, where we climbed ever higher to isolate ourselves from the crowd. At these elevated points where our masters guided us, we finally breathed the pure air of solitude, we drank oblivion from the golden cup of legends, we were drunk with poetry and love. Love, alas! of vague forms, of pink and blue hues, of metaphysical phantoms! Seen up close, the real woman revolted our innocence; she had to appear a queen or a goddess, and above all, not be approached.
Some of us, however, little prized these Platonic paradoxes, and through our renewed dreams of Alexandria, sometimes waved the torch of the underworld gods, which illuminates the shadow for an instant with its trails of sparks.—Thus, leaving the theater with the bitter sadness left by a vanished dream, I willingly joined the company of a circle where many supped, and where all melancholy yielded before the inexhaustible verve of a few brilliant, lively, stormy, sometimes sublime minds—such as have always been found in periods of renovation or decadence, and whose discussions escalated to such a point that the most timid among us sometimes went to the windows to see if the Huns, Turcomans, or Cossacks were not finally arriving to cut short these arguments of rhetoricians and sophists. “Let's drink, let's love, that's wisdom!” Such was the only opinion of the youngest. One of them said to me:
—I've been seeing you at the same theater for a long time, every time I go. For whom do you go there?
For whom?... It didn't seem to me that one could go there for another. However, I confessed a name.
—Well, said my friend indulgently, you see over there the happy man who just escorted her home, and who, faithful to the laws of our circle, will perhaps only find her again after nightfall.
Without much emotion, I turned my eyes toward the indicated person. He was a young man, properly dressed, with a pale and nervous face, having suitable manners and eyes full of melancholy and gentleness. He was throwing gold onto a whist table and losing it with indifference.
—What does it matter to me, I said, him or anyone else? There had to be one, and this one seems worthy of having been chosen.
—And you?
—Me? I'm pursuing an image, nothing more.
As I left, I passed through the reading room and mechanically looked at a newspaper. It was, I believe, to check the stock market. Among the remnants of my opulence was a considerable sum in foreign securities. The rumor had spread that, long neglected, they were about to be recognized;—which had just happened following a change of ministry. The funds were already quoted very high; I was rich again.
Only one thought resulted from this change of situation: that the woman I had loved for so long was mine if I wanted her. I was touching my ideal. Was it not still an illusion, a mocking misprint? But the other papers spoke likewise.—The sum won stood before me like the golden statue of Moloch.
—What would the young man from earlier say now, I thought, if I were to take his place beside the woman he left alone?...
I trembled at this thought, and my pride revolted.
—No! It's not like that, it's not at my age that one kills love with gold: I will not be a corrupter. Besides, this is an idea from another time. Who's to say this woman is venal?
My gaze vaguely scanned the newspaper I still held, and I read these two lines: «Fête du Bouquet provincial. Tomorrow, the archers of Senlis must return the bouquet to those of Loisy.» These very simple words awakened in me a whole new series of impressions: it was a long-forgotten memory of the province, a distant echo of the naive festivities of youth.—The horn and drum resounded in the distance in the hamlets and woods; young girls braided garlands and, singing, arranged bouquets adorned with ribbons. A heavy cart, pulled by oxen, received these presents as it passed, and we, children of these lands, formed the procession with our bows and arrows, decorating ourselves with the title of knights,—without knowing then that we were merely repeating, from age to age, a druidic festival, surviving monarchies and new religions.
II
ADRIENNE
I returned to my bed and could not find rest. Plunged into a semi-slumber, all my youth passed through my memories. This state, where the mind still resists the bizarre combinations of dreams, often allows one to see the most striking scenes of a long period of life rush by in a few minutes.
I pictured a castle from the time of Henry IV, with its pointed slate roofs, and its reddish facade with yellowish stone-toothed corners, a large green square framed by elms and lime trees, whose foliage the setting sun pierced with its fiery rays. Young girls danced in a circle on the lawn, singing old tunes passed down by their mothers, in a French so naturally pure that one felt truly alive in this old country of Valois, where, for over a thousand years, the heart of France had beaten.
I was the only boy in this circle, where I had brought my still very young companion, Sylvie, a little girl from the neighboring hamlet, so lively and fresh, with her black eyes, her regular profile, and her slightly tanned skin!... I loved only her, I saw only her—until then! I had barely noticed, in the circle where we danced, a tall and beautiful blonde, named Adrienne. All of a sudden, following the rules of the dance, Adrienne found herself alone with me in the middle of the circle. Our heights were similar. We were told to kiss, and the dance and chorus turned more quickly than ever. As I gave her this kiss, I couldn't help but squeeze her hand. The long, rolled coils of her golden hair brushed my cheeks. From that moment, an unknown turmoil seized me.—The beauty had to sing to earn the right to re-enter the dance. We sat around her, and immediately, with a fresh and penetrating voice, slightly veiled, like that of the girls of this misty country, she sang one of those old romances full of melancholy and love, which always tell of the misfortunes of a princess locked in her tower by the will of a father who punishes her for having loved. The melody ended each stanza with those tremulous trills that young voices make so effective when they imitate the trembling voice of grandmothers with a modulated shiver.
As she sang, the shadow descended from the tall trees, and the nascent moonlight fell on her alone, isolated from our attentive circle.—She fell silent, and no one dared to break the silence. The lawn was covered with faint condensed vapors, which unrolled their white flakes on the tips of the grass. We thought we were in paradise.—I finally got up, running to the castle's flowerbed, where there were laurels, planted in large earthenware vases painted in camaieu. I brought back two branches, which were braided into a crown and tied with a ribbon. I placed this ornament on Adrienne's head, its lustrous leaves shining on her blonde hair in the pale moonlight. She resembled Dante's Beatrice smiling at the wandering poet on the edge of the holy dwellings.
Adrienne stood up. Unfolding her slender figure, she gave us a graceful bow, and ran back into the castle.—She was, we were told, the granddaughter of one of the descendants of a family allied with the ancient kings of France; the blood of the Valois flowed in her veins. For this festive day, she had been allowed to join our games; we were not to see her again, for, the next day, she left for a convent where she was a boarder.
When I returned to Sylvie, I noticed she was crying. The crown given by my hands to the beautiful singer was the cause of her tears. I offered to go pick another one for her; but she said she didn't want it at all, not deserving it. I tried in vain to defend myself, she didn't say another word to me while I escorted her back to her parents.
Recalled myself to Paris to resume my studies, I carried with me this double image of a tender friendship sadly broken,—then of an impossible and vague love, a source of painful thoughts that college philosophy was powerless to calm.
Adrienne's figure remained triumphant alone,—a mirage of glory and beauty, softening or sharing the hours of severe studies. During the holidays of the following year, I learned that this beauty, barely glimpsed, was consecrated by her family to religious life.
III
RESOLUTION
Everything was explained to me by that half-dreamed memory. This vague and hopeless love, conceived for an actress, which every evening seized me at showtime, only to leave me at bedtime, had its germ in the memory of Adrienne, a night flower blooming in the pale moonlight, a pink and blonde phantom gliding over the green grass half-bathed in white mists.—The resemblance of a figure forgotten for years now emerged with singular clarity; it was a pencil sketch blurred by time that became a painting, like those old master sketches admired in a museum, whose dazzling original one finds elsewhere.
To love a nun in the guise of an actress!... and what if it were the same! Enough to drive one mad! It's a fatal pull where the unknown draws you like a will-o'-the-wisp flitting over the reeds of still water... Let's get back to reality.
And Sylvie, whom I loved so much, why have I forgotten her for three years?... She was a very pretty girl, and the most beautiful in Loisy.
She exists, she, good and pure of heart, no doubt. I see her window again where the vine intertwines with the rosebush, the cage of warblers hanging to the left; I hear the sound of her sonorous bobbins and her favorite song:
The beautiful maiden was seated
Near the flowing stream ...
She's still waiting for me... Who would have married her? She is so poor!
In her village and in those surrounding it, good peasants in smocks, with rough hands, emaciated faces, tanned complexions! She loved me alone, me, the little Parisian, when I went to see my poor uncle, now dead, near Loisy. For three years, I have squandered like a lord the modest fortune he left me and which could have sufficed for my life. With Sylvie, I would have kept it. Chance returns a part of it to me. There is still time.
At this hour, what is she doing? She's sleeping... No, she's not sleeping; today is the archery festival, the only one of the year where people dance all night.—She's at the festival...
What time is it?
I had no watch.
Amidst all the bric-a-brac splendors it was customary to gather at that time to restore an old apartment to its local color, one of those Renaissance tortoiseshell clocks, whose gilded dome, surmounted by the figure of Time, is supported by caryatids in the Medici style, resting in turn on half-reared horses, shone with a refreshed brilliance. The historical Diana, leaning on her stag, is in bas-relief beneath the dial, where the enameled hour numerals are spread out on a nielloed background. The movement, excellent no doubt, had not been wound for two centuries.—It was not to tell the time that I had bought this clock in Touraine.
I went down to the concierge. His cuckoo clock showed one in the morning.
—In four hours, I said to myself, I can reach the Loisy ball.
There were still five or six cabs in the Place du Palais-Royal, waiting for regulars of clubs and gambling houses.
—To Loisy! I said to the most prominent one.
—Where is that?
—Near Senlis, eight leagues away.
—I'll take you to the post office, said the coachman, less preoccupied than I.
What a sad road at night, this road to Flanders, which only becomes beautiful when it reaches the forest zone! Always these two monotonous rows of trees grimacing vague shapes; beyond, squares of greenery and tilled land, bounded on the left by the bluish hills of Montmorency, Écouen, Luzarches. Here is Gonesse, the vulgar town full of memories of the League and the Fronde...
Further than Louvres is a path lined with apple trees whose blossoms I have often seen burst forth in the night like stars of the earth: it was the shortest way to reach the hamlets.—While the carriage ascends the hills, let's reconstruct the memories of the time when I came here so often.
IV
A VOYAGE TO CYTHERA.
Several years had passed; the time when I met Adrienne in front of the castle was already nothing more than a childhood memory. I found myself back in Loisy for the patron saint's festival. I once again joined the archers, taking my place in the company I had been part of before. Young people from old families who still owned several of these castles, lost in the forests, and more ravaged by time than by revolutions, had organized the festival. From Chantilly, Compiègne, and Senlis, joyous cavalcades arrived, taking their place in the rustic procession of the archery companies. After the long walk through the villages and hamlets, after mass at the church, the skill contests, and the prize distribution, the winners were invited to a meal held on an island shaded by poplars and lime trees, in the middle of one of the ponds fed by the Nonette and the Thève. Decorated boats carried us to the island—its choice determined by the existence of an oval temple with columns that was to serve as the hall for the feast. There, as in Ermenonville, the countryside is dotted with these light structures from the late 18th century, where millionaire philosophers drew inspiration from the dominant taste of the time in their plans. I believe this temple must have originally been dedicated to Urania. Three columns had fallen, bringing down a part of the architrave in their collapse; but the interior of the hall had been cleared, garlands hung between the columns, rejuvenating this modern ruin—which belonged more to the paganism of Boufflers or Chaulieu than to that of Horace.
The crossing of the lake was perhaps conceived to evoke Watteau's Embarkation for Cythera. Only our modern costumes disturbed the illusion. The immense bouquet of the festival, removed from the float that carried it, had been placed on a large boat; the procession of young girls dressed in white who accompanied it, as was customary, had taken their seats on the benches, and this graceful tableau, reminiscent of ancient days, was reflected in the calm waters of the pond that separated it from the island's edge, so vibrant in the evening sun with its hawthorn thickets, its colonnade, and its bright foliage. All the boats landed in a short time. The ceremonial basket occupied the center of the table, and everyone took their place, the most favored next to the young girls: it was enough to be known by their parents. This was how I found myself next to Sylvie. Her brother had already joined me at the festival, and he chided me for not having visited his family in a long time. I excused myself, citing my studies, which kept me in Paris, and assured him that I had come with that intention.
"No, it's me he's forgotten," said Sylvie. "We are village folk, and Paris is so far above us!"
I wanted to kiss her to silence her; but she was still pouting, and her brother had to intervene for her to offer me her cheek with an indifferent air. I felt no joy from this kiss, which many others received as a favor, for in this patriarchal country where every passing man is greeted, a kiss is nothing more than a politeness among good people.
A surprise had been arranged by the festival organizers. At the end of the meal, a wild swan, until then captive beneath the flowers, was seen flying out from the bottom of the large basket, its powerful wings lifting tangles of garlands and wreaths, eventually scattering them in all directions. As it joyfully soared towards the last rays of the sun, we haphazardly caught the wreaths, with which everyone immediately adorned their neighbor's forehead. I had the good fortune to seize one of the most beautiful, and Sylvie, smiling, allowed herself to be kissed this time more tenderly than the other. I understood that I was thus erasing the memory of another time. I then admired her unreservedly; she had become so beautiful! She was no longer that little village girl I had disdained for someone older and more accustomed to the graces of the world. Everything about her had improved; the charm of her dark eyes, so seductive since childhood, had become irresistible; beneath the arched curve of her eyebrows, her smile, suddenly illuminating regular and placid features, had something Athenian about it. I admired this countenance worthy of ancient art amidst the crumpled faces of her companions. Her delicately elongated hands, her arms that had whitened as they rounded, her graceful figure, made her entirely different from how I had seen her. I could not help but tell her how different I found her from her former self, hoping to thus cover up my old and fleeting infidelity.
Everything favored me, besides: his brother's friendship, the charming impression of this celebration, the evening hour, and the very place where, with a tasteful fancy, an image of the gallant festivities of yesteryear had been reproduced. As long as we could, we escaped the dancing to talk about our childhood memories and to admire, dreaming together, the reflections of the sky on the foliage and the waters. Sylvie's brother had to tear us away from this contemplation, saying it was time to return to the rather distant village where their parents lived.
V
THE VILLAGE
It was at Loisy, in the old gamekeeper's house. I walked them there, then returned to Montagny, where I was staying with my uncle. Leaving the road to cross a small wood that separates Loisy from Saint-S..., I soon found myself on a deep path that runs alongside the forest of Ermenonville; I then expected to encounter the walls of a convent that I had to walk alongside for a quarter of a league. The moon hid from time to time behind the clouds, barely illuminating the dark sandstone rocks and the heather that multiplied under my feet. To the right and left, forest edges with no marked roads, and always, before me, these druidic rocks of the region that hold the memory of the sons of Armen exterminated by the Romans! From the top of these sublime piles, I saw the distant ponds cut out like mirrors on the misty plain, without being able to distinguish the one where the celebration had taken place.
The air was warm and fragrant; I decided not to go any further and to wait for morning, lying down on clumps of heather.—Upon waking, I gradually recognized the nearby points of the place where I had gotten lost in the night. To my left, I saw the long line of the walls of the Saint-S... convent, then, on the other side of the valley, the Gens-d'Armes hill, with the chipped ruins of the ancient Carolingian residence. Nearby, above the clumps of wood, the tall ruins of Thiers Abbey outlined their wall sections pierced with trefoils and ogives against the horizon. Beyond, the manor of Pontarmé, surrounded by water as in ancient times, soon reflected the first fires of day, while to the south, the high keep of La Tournelle and the four towers of Bertrand-Fosse could be seen rising on the first hills of Montméliant.
That night had been sweet to me, I thought only of Sylvie; however, the sight of the convent gave me for a moment the idea that it might be the one Adrienne inhabited. The chime of the morning bell was still in my ear and had no doubt woken me. For a moment, I considered peeking over the walls by climbing the highest point of the rocks; but, reflecting on it, I refrained as if from a desecration. As day grew, it chased this vain memory from my mind, leaving only Sylvie's rosy features.
—Let's go wake her, I told myself.
And I resumed the path to Loisy.
Here is the village at the end of the path that skirts the forest: twenty cottages whose walls are festooned with vines and climbing roses. Early morning spinners, wearing red headscarves, work together in front of a farm. Sylvie is not with them. She is almost a young lady now that she makes fine lace, while her parents have remained good villagers.—I went up to her room, without surprising anyone; already long awake, she was shaking the bobbins of her lace, which clacked with a soft sound on the green cushion her knees supported.
—There you are, lazybones! she said with her divine smile; I'm sure you've only just gotten out of bed!
I told her about my sleepless night, my wandering through the woods and rocks. She was kind enough to pity me for a moment.
—If you're not tired, I'm going to make you run some more. We'll go see my great-aunt in Olhys.
I had barely answered when she joyfully got up, arranged her hair in front of a mirror, and put on a rustic straw hat. Innocence and joy sparkled in her eyes. We set off, following the banks of the Thève, through meadows strewn with daisies and buttercups, then along the woods of Saint-Laurent, sometimes crossing streams and thickets to shorten the route. Blackbirds whistled in the trees, and titmice joyfully darted from the bushes brushed by our steps.
Sometimes we'd come across periwinkles underfoot, so dear to Rousseau, opening their blue corollas among those long, paired leaf branches, modest vines that snagged my companion's nimble feet. Indifferent to the memories of the Genevan philosopher, she searched here and there for fragrant strawberries, and I spoke to her of La Nouvelle Héloïse, reciting some passages by heart.
"Is it pretty?" she asked.
"It's sublime."
"Is it better than Auguste Lafontaine?"
"It's more tender."
"Oh, well," she said, "I must read that. I'll tell my brother to bring it to me the first time he goes to Senlis."
And I continued to recite fragments of Héloïse while Sylvie picked strawberries.
VI
OTHYS
Leaving the woods, we encountered large clumps of purple foxglove; she made an enormous bouquet, telling me:
"It's for my aunt; she's so happy to have these beautiful flowers in her room!"
We had only a short stretch of plain to cross to reach Othys. The village bell tower rose over the bluish hills stretching from Montméliant to Dammartin. The Thève rustled again among the sandstone and pebbles, thinning out near its source, where it rested in the meadows, forming a small lake amidst gladioli and irises. Soon we reached the first houses. Sylvie's aunt lived in a small cottage built of uneven sandstone, covered with trellises of hops and Virginia creeper; she lived alone on a few plots of land that the villagers cultivated for her since her husband's death. When her niece arrived, it was like a fire in the house.
"Hello, Auntie! Here are your children!" said Sylvie, "we're so hungry!"
She embraced her tenderly, placed the bundle of flowers in her arms, then finally remembered to introduce me, saying:
"This is my sweetheart!" I, in turn, embraced the aunt, who said:
"He's nice... So he's a blonde?"
"He has pretty, fine hair," said Sylvie.
"That doesn't last," said the aunt; "but you have time ahead of you, and, you who are dark-haired, it suits you well."
"You must make him lunch, Auntie," said Sylvie.
And she went searching in the cupboards, in the bread bin, finding milk, brown bread, sugar, spreading plates and earthenware dishes enameled with large flowers and brightly plumed roosters on the table without too much care. A Creil porcelain bowl, full of milk with strawberries floating in it, became the center of the service, and, after stripping the garden of a few handfuls of cherries and currants, she arranged two vases of flowers at either end of the tablecloth. But the aunt had said these beautiful words:
"All that is just dessert. You must let me do it now."
And she had unhooked the frying pan and thrown a faggot into the tall fireplace.
"I don't want you to touch that!" she said to Sylvie, who wanted to help her; "ruin your pretty fingers that make lace more beautiful than in Chantilly! you gave me some, and I know my stuff."
"Oh! yes, Auntie!... Say, if you have any pieces of the old kind, that will give me some patterns."
"Well, go look upstairs," said the aunt; "there might be some in my dresser."
"Give me the keys," Sylvie replied.
"Bah!" said the aunt, "the drawers are open."
"That's not true, there's one that's always locked."
And, while the good woman cleaned the frying pan after passing it over the fire, Sylvie untied a small key of wrought steel from her belt, which she showed me triumphantly.
I followed her, quickly climbing the wooden stairs that led to the bedroom.—O holy youth, O holy old age!—who would have thought of tarnishing the purity of a first love in this sanctuary of faithful memories? The portrait of a young man from the good old days smiled with his dark eyes and rosy mouth, in an oval with a gilded frame, hanging at the head of the rustic bed. He wore the uniform of the gamekeepers of the House of Condé; his half-martial posture, his rosy and benevolent face, his pure brow under his powdered hair, elevated this pastel, perhaps mediocre, with the graces of youth and simplicity. Some modest artist invited to the princely hunts had applied himself to portray him as best he could, as well as his young wife, who was seen in another medallion, attractive, mischievous, slender in her open bodice with a ladder of ribbons, teasing with her upturned face a bird perched on her finger. Yet it was the same good old woman who was cooking at that moment, bent over the hearth fire. This made me think of the fairies of the Funambules who hide, under their wrinkled mask, an attractive face, which they reveal at the denouement, when the temple of Love appears with its rotating sun radiating magical fires.
"Oh, dear aunt," I exclaimed, "how pretty you were!"
"And what about me?" said Sylvie, who had managed to open the famous drawer.
She had found a large dress of shot taffeta, rustling with the sound of its folds.
"I want to try it on to see if it fits," she said. "Oh! I'm going to look like an old fairy!"
"The fairy of eternally young legends!" I said to myself.
And Sylvie had already unfastened her chintz dress and let it fall to her feet. The old aunt's substantial dress fit Sylvie's slender waist perfectly, and she asked me to fasten it.
"Oh! the flat sleeves, how ridiculous!" she said.
And yet, the lace-trimmed cuffs admirably revealed her bare arms, her bosom framed by the pure bodice with yellowed tulle and faded ribbons, which had barely constrained the aunt's vanished charms.
"But hurry up! Don't you know how to fasten a dress?" Sylvie said to me.
She looked like Greuze's village bride.
"We'll need powder," I said.
"We'll find some."
She rummaged through the drawers again. Oh! what riches! how good it smelled, how it sparkled, how it shimmered with vivid colors and modest tinsel! two slightly broken mother-of-pearl fans, boxes of pastilles with Chinese motifs, an amber necklace, and a thousand trinkets, among which stood out two small white drugget shoes with buckles encrusted with Irish diamonds!
"Oh! I want to wear them," said Sylvie, "if I can find the embroidered stockings!"
A moment later, we were unrolling soft pink silk stockings with green gussets; but the aunt's voice, accompanied by the sizzling of the pan, suddenly brought us back to reality.
"Come down quickly!" said Sylvie.
And, no matter what I said, she wouldn't let me help her put on her shoes. Meanwhile, the aunt had just poured the contents of the pan, a slice of fried bacon with eggs, onto a plate. Sylvie's voice soon called me back.
"Dress quickly!" she said.
And, fully dressed herself, she showed me the gamekeeper's wedding clothes laid out on the dresser. In an instant, I transformed into a groom from the last century. Sylvie waited for me on the stairs, and we both descended hand in hand. The aunt cried out as she turned around:
"Oh, my children!" she said.
And she began to cry, then smiled through her tears. It was the image of her youth, a cruel and charming apparition! We sat beside her, moved and almost serious; then gaiety soon returned, for, the first moment passed, the good old woman thought only of recalling the pompous festivities of her wedding. She even remembered the alternating songs, customary then, that echoed from one end of the nuptial table to the other, and the naive epithalamium that accompanied the newlyweds returning after the dance. We repeated these simply rhythmic stanzas, with the hiatuses and assonances of the time; loving and flowery like the Song of Solomon;—we were the bride and groom for a whole beautiful summer morning.
VII
CHAALIS
It is four in the morning; the road dips into a fold in the land; it rises again. The carriage will pass through Orry, then La Chapelle. To the left, there is a road that runs along the Hallate wood. It was by this way that one evening Sylvie's brother drove me in his cart to a local festivity. It was, I believe, the evening of Saint Bartholomew's Day. Through the woods, along little-used roads, his small horse flew as if to a witches' Sabbath. We rejoined the paved road at Mont-l'Évêque, and, a few minutes later, we stopped at the gamekeeper's house, at the old abbey of Châalis.—Châalis, another memory!
This old retreat of emperors now offers to admiration only the ruins of its cloister with Byzantine arcades, the last row of which still stands out against the ponds—a forgotten remnant of the pious foundations included among those domains once called Charlemagne's farmsteads. Religion, in this country isolated from the movement of roads and cities, has preserved particular traces of the long sojourn of the cardinals of the House of Este during the Medici era: its attributes and customs still have something gallant and poetic, and one breathes a scent of the Renaissance under the arches of the finely ribbed chapels, decorated by Italian artists. The figures of saints and angels are outlined in rose on the vaults painted a tender blue, with airs of pagan allegory that evoke the sentimentalities of Petrarch and the fabulous mysticism of Francesco Colonna.
Sylvie's brother and I were intruders at the peculiar party that took place that night. A person of very illustrious birth, who then owned the estate, had the idea of inviting some local families to a kind of allegorical performance featuring some boarders from a nearby convent. This was not a re-enactment of the tragedies of Saint-Cyr; it harked back to the first lyrical experiments imported into France during the time of the Valois. What I saw performed was like a mystery from ancient times. The costumes, consisting of long robes, were varied only by the colors of azure, hyacinth, or dawn. The scene took place among angels, on the debris of a destroyed world. Each voice sang of one of the splendors of this extinguished globe, and the angel of death defined the causes of its destruction. A spirit rose from the abyss, holding a flaming sword, and summoned others to come and admire the glory of Christ, conqueror of the underworld. This spirit was Adrienne, transfigured by her costume, as she already was by her vocation. The gilded cardboard halo encircling her angelic head seemed quite naturally a circle of light; her voice had gained in strength and range, and the infinite flourishes of Italian song embroidered the severe phrases of a pompous recitative with their bird-like warblings.
As I recall these details, I find myself wondering if they are real, or if I only dreamed them. Sylvie's brother was a bit tipsy that evening. We had stopped for a few moments at the gamekeeper's house—where, what struck me greatly, there was a swan with outstretched wings on the door, and inside, tall carved walnut cabinets, a large grandfather clock, and trophies of honor bows and arrows above a red and green target map. A bizarre dwarf, wearing a Chinese hat, holding a bottle in one hand and a ring in the other, seemed to invite the shooters to aim true. This dwarf, I believe, was made of cut sheet metal. But is Adrienne's apparition as real as these details and the undeniable existence of Châalis Abbey? Yet it was indeed the gamekeeper's son who had led us into the hall where the performance was taking place; we were near the door, behind a large and gravely moved company of seated guests. It was St. Bartholomew's Day—singularly linked to the memory of the Medicis, whose arms, coupled with those of the House of Este, decorated these old walls... This memory is perhaps an obsession!—Fortunately, here is the carriage stopping on the road to Plessis; I escape the world of reveries, and I have only a quarter of an hour's walk to reach Loisy by very unfrequented roads.
VIII
THE LOISY BALL
I entered the Loisy ball at that melancholic and still sweet hour when the lights flicker and tremble with the approach of dawn. The lime trees, darkened below, took on a bluish tint at their tops. The country flute no longer struggled so vigorously with the nightingale's trills. Everyone was pale, and in the thinning groups, I struggled to find familiar faces. Finally, I spotted the tall Lise, a friend of Sylvie's. She embraced me.
"It's been a long time since we've seen you, Parisian!" she said.
"Oh! Yes, a long time."
"And you're arriving at this hour?"
"By post."
"And not too quickly!"
"I wanted to see Sylvie; is she still at the ball?"
"She only leaves in the morning; she loves to dance so much."
In an instant, I was by her side. Her face was tired; however, her dark eye still shone with the Athenian smile of old. A young man stood near her. She signaled to him that she was giving up the next contradance. He bowed and withdrew.
Day was beginning to break. We left the ball, holding hands. The flowers in Sylvie's hair drooped in her unbound locks; the bouquet on her bodice also shed its petals onto the crumpled lace, a skillful work of her hand. I offered to walk her home. It was broad daylight, but the weather was gloomy. The Thève murmured to our left, leaving eddies of stagnant water in its bends where yellow and white water lilies bloomed, where the delicate embroidery of water stars burst forth like daisies. The plains were covered with sheaves and haystacks, whose scent went to my head without intoxicating me, as the fresh scent of woods and flowering thorn bushes once did.
We had no thought of crossing them again.
"Sylvie," I said, "you no longer love me!" She sighed.
"My friend," she said to me, "one must be reasonable; things in life don't go as we wish. You once spoke to me of La Nouvelle Héloïse; I read it, and I trembled when I first came across this sentence: 'Any young girl who reads this book is lost.' However, I continued, trusting my reason. Do you remember the day we put on Aunt's wedding clothes?... The book's illustrations also showed the lovers in old costumes of times past, so that for me you were Saint-Preux, and I found myself in Julie. Ah! Why didn't you come back then! But you were, they said, in Italy. You saw much prettier girls there than me!"
"None, Sylvie, who has your gaze and the pure features of your face. You are an ancient nymph unaware of herself... Besides, the woods of this region are as beautiful as those of the Roman countryside. There are masses of granite there no less sublime, and a waterfall that tumbles from the top of the rocks like that of Terni. I saw nothing there that I could regret here."
"And in Paris?" she said.
"In Paris?..."
I shook my head without answering.
Suddenly I thought of the vain image that had misled me for so long.
"Sylvie," I said, "shall we stop here?"
I threw myself at her feet; I confessed, weeping hot tears, my irresolutions, my whims; I evoked the fatal specter that crossed my life.
"Save me!" I added, "I am returning to you forever."
She turned her tender gaze towards me...
At that moment, our conversation was interrupted by violent bursts of laughter. It was Sylvie's brother joining us with that good rustic gaiety, the inevitable consequence of a night of celebration, which numerous refreshments had developed excessively. He called the ball's gallant, lost in the distance among the thorn bushes, who soon joined us. This boy was hardly more steady on his feet than his companion; he seemed even more embarrassed by the presence of a Parisian than by that of Sylvie. His candid face, his deference mixed with embarrassment, prevented me from holding it against him for having been the dancer for whom she had stayed so late at the party. I judged him to be not very dangerous.
"We have to go home," Sylvie told her brother. "See you later!" she said to me, offering her cheek.
The lover took no offense.
IX
ERMENONVILLE
I had no desire to sleep. I went to Montagny to see my uncle's house again. A great sadness overcame me as soon as I glimpsed its yellow facade and green shutters. Everything seemed to be in the same state as before; only, I had to go to the farmer's house to get the key to the door. Once the shutters were open, I saw again with tenderness the old furniture preserved in the same state and polished from time to time, the tall walnut wardrobe, two Flemish paintings said to be the work of an ancient painter, our ancestor; large prints after Boucher, and a whole framed series of engravings from Émile and La Nouvelle Héloïse, by Moreau; on the table, a stuffed dog I had known alive, an old companion of my runs in the woods, perhaps the last pug, for it belonged to that lost breed.
"As for the parrot," the farmer told me, "it's still alive; I've taken it into my home."
The garden presented a magnificent picture of wild vegetation. In one corner, I recognized a children's garden I had laid out long ago. I entered the study, trembling, where the small library full of chosen books was still visible. Old friends of the one who was no more, and on the desk some antique fragments found in his garden, vases, Roman medals, a local collection that made him happy.
"Let's go see the parrot," I said to the farmer.
The parrot demanded breakfast as in its prime, and looked at me with that round eye, bordered by wrinkled skin, reminiscent of the experienced gaze of old men.
Full of the sad thoughts brought by this late return to such beloved places, I felt the need to see Sylvie again, the only living and still young figure connecting me to this country. I took the road to Loisy again. It was midday; everyone was sleeping, tired from the festivities. The idea came to me to distract myself with a walk to Ermenonville, a league away by the forest path. It was a beautiful summer day. I first enjoyed the coolness of this road which seemed like a park alley. The great oaks of uniform green were varied only by the white trunks of birches with trembling foliage. The birds were silent, and I only heard the sound the woodpecker makes striking the trees to dig its nest. For a moment, I risked getting lost, for the signposts whose panels indicate various routes now offer, in places, only faded characters. Finally, leaving the Désert to the left, I arrived at the dance roundabout, where the old men's bench still remains. All the memories of philosophical antiquity, resurrected by the former owner of the estate, came back to me in a flood before this picturesque realization of Anacharsis and Émile.
When I saw the lake's waters gleam through the branches of willows and hazelnut trees, I fully recognized a place where my uncle, during his walks, had led me many times: it is the Temple of Philosophy, which its founder did not have the good fortune to finish. It has the form of the Sibyl's Temple at Tivoli, and, still standing, under the shelter of a cluster of pines, it displays all those great names of thought that begin with Montaigne and Descartes, and stop at Rousseau. This unfinished edifice is already nothing more than a ruin, ivy gracefully festoons it, brambles invade the disjointed steps. There, as a child, I saw festivals where young girls dressed in white came to receive prizes for study and wisdom. Where are the rose bushes that surrounded the hill? Wild roses and raspberry bushes hide the last plants, which are returning to their wild state. As for the laurels, have they been cut, as the song of the young girls who no longer want to go to the woods says? No, these shrubs of sweet Italy have perished under our misty sky. Fortunately, Virgil's privet still blooms, as if to support the master's words inscribed above the door: Rerum cognoscere causas! Yes, this temple falls like so many others, forgetful or weary men will turn away from its approaches, indifferent nature will reclaim the ground that art disputed with it; but the thirst for knowledge will remain eternal, the motive force of all strength and all activity!
Here are the poplars of the Isle, and Rousseau's tomb, empty of his ashes. O wise one! You gave us the milk of the strong, and we were too weak to benefit from it. We have forgotten your lessons that our fathers knew, and we have lost the meaning of your words, the last echo of ancient wisdom. Yet let us not despair, and, as you did in your supreme moment, turn our eyes towards the sun!
I saw again the castle, the peaceful waters bordering it, the waterfall groaning among the rocks, and that causeway uniting the two parts of the village, whose four dovecotes mark the corners, the lawn stretching beyond like a savanna, dominated by shady hills; Gabrielle's tower is reflected from afar on the waters of an artificial lake dotted with ephemeral flowers; the foam bubbles, the insect hums... One must escape the treacherous air exhaling, by reaching the dusty sandstone of the desert and the moors where pink heather enhances the green of the ferns. How solitary and sad it all is! Sylvie's enchanted gaze, her wild runs, her joyful cries, once gave so much charm to the places I have just visited! She was still a wild child, her feet were bare, her skin tanned, despite her straw hat, whose wide ribbon floated pell-mell with her black hair braids. We would go drink milk at the Swiss farm, and they would say to me:
"-How pretty your sweetheart is, little Parisian!"
Oh! It wasn't then that a peasant would have danced with her! She only danced with me, once a year, at the archery festival.
X
THE TALL CURLY-HAIRED ONE
I took the road back to Loisy; everyone was awake. Sylvie was dressed like a young lady, almost in the city style. She invited me up to her room with all her old ingenuousness. Her eyes still sparkled with a charming smile, but the pronounced arch of her eyebrows gave her a serious air at times. The room was simply decorated, yet the furniture was modern; a gilded-edge mirror had replaced the antique trumeau, which used to show an idyllic shepherd offering a nest to a blue and pink shepherdess. The four-poster bed, chastely draped with old patterned chintz, was replaced by a walnut cot fitted with an arrow curtain; at the window, in the cage where warblers once were, there were canaries. I was eager to leave this room where I found nothing of the past.
"-You won't be working on your lace today?" I asked Sylvie.
"-Oh! I don't make lace anymore, there's no demand for it in the region; even in Chantilly, the factory is closed."
"-What do you do then?"
She went to fetch an iron instrument from a corner of the room that resembled a long pair of pliers.
"-What is that?"
"-It's called a 'mécanique'; it's for holding the leather of gloves to sew them."
"-Ah! You're a glove-maker, Sylvie?"
"-Yes, we work here for Dammartin, it's very busy right now; but I'm not doing anything today; let's go wherever you like."
I turned my eyes towards the Othys road: she shook her head; I understood that the old aunt was no longer alive. Sylvie called a little boy and had him saddle a donkey.
"-I'm still tired from yesterday," she said, "but the walk will do me good; let's go to Châalis."
And so we crossed the forest, followed by the little boy armed with a branch. Soon Sylvie wanted to stop, and I kissed her, urging her to sit down. Conversation between us could no longer be very intimate. I had to tell her about my life in Paris, my travels...
"-How can one go so far!" she said.
"-I'm surprised by it, seeing you again."
"-Oh! That's just talk!"
"-And admit that you were less pretty back then."
"-I wouldn't know."
"-Do you remember when we were children and you were the tallest?"
"-And you the wisest!"
"-Oh! Sylvie!"
"-They used to put us on the donkey, each in a basket."
"-And we didn't say 'vous' to each other... Do you remember teaching me to catch crayfish under the bridges of the Thève and the Nonette?"
—And you, do you remember your foster brother who once pulled you out... of the water.
—The big curly-haired one, he was the one who told me we could cross it, the water!
I hastened to change the subject. That memory vividly recalled the time I first came to the region, dressed in a little English-style suit that made the peasants laugh. Only Sylvie thought I was well-dressed; but I dared not remind her of that opinion from such a distant past. I don't know why my thoughts turned to the wedding clothes we had worn at the old aunt's house in Othys. I asked what had become of them.
—Ah! dear aunt, said Sylvie, she had lent me her dress to go dancing at the carnival in Dammartin, two years ago. The year after, she died, poor aunt!
She sighed and wept, so much so that I couldn't ask her under what circumstances she had gone to a masked ball; but, thanks to her skills as a craftswoman, I understood well enough that Sylvie was no longer a peasant. Only her parents had remained in their station, and she lived among them like an industrious fairy, spreading abundance around her.
XI
RETURN
The view opened up as we emerged from the woods. We had reached the edge of the ponds of Châalis. The cloister galleries, the chapel with its soaring ogival arches, the feudal tower, and the small château that sheltered the loves of Henri IV and Gabrielle were tinged with the evening's blush against the dark green of the forest.
—It's a Walter Scott landscape, isn't it? said Sylvie.
—And who told you about Walter Scott? I asked her. You've read a lot in the last three years then!... Me, I try to forget books, and what charms me is to revisit with you this old abbey, where, as tiny children, we used to hide in the ruins. Do you remember, Sylvie, how scared you were when the guardian told us the story of the red monks?
—Oh! don't even mention it.
—Then, sing me the song of the beautiful girl abducted from her father's garden, under the white rosebush.
—No one sings that anymore.
—Have you become a musician?
—A little.
—Sylvie, Sylvie, I'm sure you sing opera arias!
—Why complain?
—Because I loved the old tunes, and you won't be able to sing them anymore.
Sylvie modulated a few notes from a grand modern opera aria... She was phrasing!
We had rounded the nearby ponds. Here is the green lawn surrounded by lime trees and elms, where we often danced! I had the self-importance to define the old Carolingian walls and decipher the coat of arms of the House of Este.
—And you! how much more you've read than me! said Sylvie. So you're a scholar?
I was stung by her reproachful tone. I had until then been looking for the right moment to renew the morning's outpouring; but what could I say with the accompaniment of a donkey and a very alert little boy, who enjoyed always getting closer to hear a Parisian speak? Then, I had the misfortune to recount the apparition of Châalis, which remained in my memories. I led Sylvie into the very hall of the château where I had heard Adrienne sing.
—Oh! let me hear you! I said to her; let your beloved voice resonate under these vaults and drive away the spirit that torments me, be it divine or fatal!
She repeated the words and the song after me:
Angels, descend swiftly
To the depths of purgatory! ...
—It's very sad! she told me.
—It's sublime... I believe it's by Porpora, with verses translated in the 16th century.
—I don't know, replied Sylvie.
We returned through the valley, following the road to Charlepont, which the peasants, not very etymological by nature, stubbornly insist on calling Châllepont. Sylvie, tired of the donkey, leaned on my arm. The road was deserted; I tried to speak of the things I had in my heart; but, I don't know why, I could only find vulgar expressions, or suddenly some pompous novelistic phrase —which Sylvie might have read. I would then stop with a very classical taste, and she was sometimes surprised by these interrupted effusions. Arrived at the walls of Saint-S..., we had to watch our step. We crossed wet meadows where streams meandered.
"What became of the nun?" I asked suddenly.
"Oh! You're terrible with your nun... Well!... well! It didn't end well."
Sylvie wouldn't tell me another word about it.
Do women truly sense when a word passes over the lips without coming from the heart? One wouldn't think so, seeing how easily they are deceived, realizing the choices they most often make: there are men who play the comedy of love so well! I've never been able to bring myself to do it, although I know that some knowingly accept being deceived. Besides, a love that dates back to childhood is something sacred... Sylvie, whom I had watched grow up, was like a sister to me. I couldn't attempt a seduction... A completely different idea crossed my mind.
"At this hour," I said to myself, "I would be at the theater... What is Aurélie (that was the actress's name) playing tonight? Obviously, the role of the princess in the new drama. Oh! the third act, how touching she is in it!... And in the love scene of the second! with that wrinkled young leading man..."
"Are you lost in thought?" Sylvie said. And she began to sing:
At Dammartin, there are three beautiful girls:
One is more beautiful than the day itself...
"Ah! you naughty girl!" I exclaimed, "you clearly still know some old songs."
"If you came here more often, I'd remember them," she said, "but we must think of practical matters. You have your business in Paris, I have my work; let's not get back too late: tomorrow, I need to be up with the sun."
XII
FATHER DODU
I was about to answer, I was about to fall at her feet, I was about to offer my uncle's house, which I could still buy back, for we were several heirs, and this small property had remained undivided; but at that moment we arrived at Loisy. We were expected for supper. The onion soup spread its patriarchal scent far and wide. There were neighbors invited for this day after the holiday. I immediately recognized an old woodcutter, Father Dodu, who used to tell such comical or terrible stories during evening gatherings. In turn a shepherd, messenger, gamekeeper, fisherman, even a poacher, Father Dodu made cuckoos and rotisseries in his spare time. For a long time, he had dedicated himself to guiding Englishmen through Ermenonville, taking them to Rousseau's meditation spots and recounting his last moments. He was the little boy whom the philosopher employed to classify his herbs, and to whom he gave the order to pick the hemlock from which he expressed the juice into his cup of coffee with milk. The innkeeper of the Golden Cross disputed this detail; hence prolonged feuds. Father Dodu had long been reproached for possessing some very innocent secrets, such as curing cows with a verse recited backward and the sign of the cross made with the left foot; but he had early on renounced these superstitions—thanks to the memory, he said, of Jean-Jacques's conversations.
"Here you are, little Parisian!" Father Dodu said to me. "Have you come to corrupt our girls?"
"Me, Father Dodu?"
"You take them into the woods while the wolf isn't there!"
"Father Dodu, you are the wolf."
"I was, as long as I found sheep; now, I only meet goats, and they know how to defend themselves! But you, you are cunning in Paris. Jean-Jacques was right to say: 'Man corrupts himself in the poisoned air of cities.'"
"Father Dodu, you know all too well that man corrupts himself everywhere."
Father Dodu began to sing a drinking song; they tried in vain to stop him at a certain risqué couplet that everyone knew by heart. Sylvie refused to sing, despite our pleas, saying that people no longer sang at the table. I had already noticed that the lover from the previous evening was sitting to her left. There was something in his round face, in his disheveled hair, that was not unknown to me. He stood up and came behind my chair, saying:
"Don't you recognize me, Parisian?"
A good woman, who had just returned for dessert after serving us, whispered in my ear:
"Don't you recognize your foster brother?" Without this warning, I would have made a fool of myself.
"Ah! It's you, curly-head!" I exclaimed, "It's you, the very one who pulled me out of the water!"
Sylvie burst into laughter at this recognition.
"Not to mention," said the young man, embracing me, "that you had a beautiful silver watch, and when we came back, you were much more worried about your watch than yourself, because it had stopped; you kept saying: 'The critter is drowned, it doesn't tick-tock anymore; what will my uncle say?...'"
"A critter in a watch!" said Father Dodu, "That's what they make children believe in Paris!"
Sylvie was sleepy; I judged that I had lost my standing in her mind. She went up to her room, and as I kissed her goodbye, she said:
"See you tomorrow, come visit us!"
Father Dodu had remained at the table with Sylvain and my foster brother; we chatted for a long time over a bottle of Louvres ratafia.
"All men are equal," said Father Dodu between two verses; "I drink with a pastry chef just as I would with a prince."
"Where is the pastry chef?" I asked.
"Look next to you! A young man who has the ambition to set up his own business."
My foster brother seemed embarrassed. I understood everything. It was my fate to have a foster brother in a region made famous by Rousseau—who wanted to abolish wet nurses!—Father Dodu informed me that Sylvie's marriage to the curly-head, who intended to open a pastry shop in Dammartin, was very much on the cards. I didn't ask for more details. The Nanteuil-le-Haudoin coach took me back to Paris the next day.
XIII
AURÉLIE
To Paris!—The journey takes five hours. I was only in a hurry to arrive by evening. Around eight o'clock, I was seated in my usual stall; Aurélie poured her inspiration and charm into weakly inspired verses by Schiller, attributed to a talent of the era. In the garden scene, she became sublime. During the fourth act, when she did not appear, I went to buy a bouquet from Madame Prévost. I inserted a very tender letter signed an Unknown. I told myself:
"Here is something settled for the future."
And, the next day, I was on the road to Germany.
What was I going to do there? Try to bring order back to my feelings.—If I were to write a novel, I could never make the story of a heart smitten by two simultaneous loves acceptable. Sylvie had slipped away through my own fault; but seeing her again for a day had been enough to uplift my soul: I now placed her like a smiling statue in the temple of Wisdom. Her gaze had stopped me at the edge of the abyss. I rejected with even greater force the idea of presenting myself to Aurélie to compete with so many vulgar admirers who shone for a moment near her and then fell back, broken.
"We shall see someday," I told myself, "if this woman has a heart."
One morning, I read in a newspaper that Aurélie was ill. I wrote to her from the mountains of Salzburg. The letter was so imbued with Germanic mysticism that I didn't expect much success from it, but then again, I wasn't asking for a reply. I was counting a little on chance and on—the unknown. Months passed. Amidst my travels and leisure, I had undertaken to capture in a poetic action the loves of the painter Colonna for the beautiful Laura, whom her parents made a nun, and whom he loved until death. Something in this subject related to my constant preoccupations. The last verse of the drama written, I thought only of returning to France.
What can I say now that isn't the story of so many others? I have passed through all the circles of those places of trial called theaters. "I have eaten the drum and drunk the cymbal," as the seemingly nonsensical phrase of the Eleusinian initiates says. It doubtless means that one must, if necessary, go beyond the bounds of nonsense and absurdity: for me, the reason was to conquer and establish my ideal.
Aurélie had accepted the leading role in the drama I was bringing back from Germany. I will never forget the day she allowed me to read the play to her. The love scenes were prepared with her in mind. I believe I delivered them with soul, but above all with enthusiasm. In the conversation that followed, I revealed myself as the stranger from the two letters. She told me:
—You are quite mad; but come back to see me... I have never been able to find someone who knew how to love me.
Oh woman! You seek love... And what about me?
In the following days, I wrote the tenderest, most beautiful letters she had undoubtedly ever received. I received some from her that were full of reason. For a moment, she was touched, called me to her side, and confessed that it was difficult for her to break an older attachment.
—If it is truly for me that you love me, she said, you will understand that I can only belong to one.
Two months later, I received an effusive letter. I rushed to her house.—Someone gave me a precious detail in the interim. The handsome young man I had met one night at the club had just enlisted in the Spahis.
The following summer, there were races at Chantilly. The theatrical troupe where Aurélie performed was giving a representation there. Once in the country, the troupe was at the director's disposal for three days. I had befriended this good man, a former Dorante from Marivaux's comedies, long a leading man in drama, and whose last success had been the role of the lover in the play adapted from Schiller, where my opera glasses had shown him to me so wrinkled. Up close, he appeared younger, and, remaining thin, he still made an impression in the provinces. He had fire. I accompanied the troupe as a poet lord; I persuaded the director to give performances in Senlis and Dammartin. He initially leaned towards Compiègne; but Aurélie agreed with me. The next day, while they were going to negotiate with the venue owners and authorities, I rented horses, and we took the road to the Commelle ponds to have lunch at the Château de la Reine Blanche. Aurélie, riding side-saddle, with her blond hair flowing, rode through the forest like a queen of old, and the peasants stopped, dazzled.—Madame de F... was the only one they had seen so imposing and graceful in her greetings.—After lunch, we descended into villages reminiscent of those in Switzerland, where the Nonette river powers sawmills. These sights dear to my memories interested her without stopping her. I had planned to take Aurélie to the castle, near Orry, on the same green square where I had first seen Adrienne.—No emotion appeared in her. Then, I told her everything; I told her the source of this love glimpsed in the nights, dreamed of later, realized in her. She listened to me seriously and said:
—You don't love me! You expect me to say to you: "The actress is the same as the nun;" you are looking for a drama, that's all, and the denouement escapes you. Go, I no longer believe you!
These words were a flash of lightning. These bizarre enthusiasms I had felt for so long, these dreams, these tears, these despairs and these tendernesses... was it not love then? But where is it?
Aurélie performed that evening in Senlis. I thought I noticed that she had a soft spot for the director, the wrinkled leading man. This man had an excellent character and had rendered her services.
Aurélie once told me:
—He who loves me, there he is!
XIV
LAST PAGE
Such are the chimeras that charm and mislead in the morning of life. I have tried to capture them without much order, but many hearts will understand me. Illusions fall one after another, like the peels of a fruit, and the fruit is experience. Its flavor is bitter; yet it has something acrid that strengthens—forgive me this archaic style. Rousseau says that the spectacle of nature consoles for everything. I sometimes try to find my groves of Clarens lost north of Paris, in the mists. All that has changed so much!
Ermenonville! Land where the ancient idyll still bloomed—translated a second time after Gessner! You have lost your only star, which shimmered for me with a double radiance. Alternately blue and pink like the deceptive star Aldebaran, it was Adrienne or Sylvie—they were the two halves of a single love. One was the sublime ideal, the other sweet reality. What do your shades and your lakes, and even your wilderness, mean to me now? Othys, Montagny, Loisy, poor neighboring hamlets, Châalis—which is being restored—you have kept nothing of that past! Sometimes, I need to revisit these places of solitude and reverie. There, I sadly observe in myself the fleeting traces of an era when naturalness was affected; I sometimes smile reading on the granite sides certain verses by Roucher, which had seemed sublime to me—or maxims of benevolence above a fountain or a grotto consecrated to Pan. The ponds, dug at such great expense, in vain display their still water which the swan disdains. Gone is the time when Condé's hunts passed with their proud amazons, when horns answered each other from afar, multiplied by the echoes!... To get to Ermenonville, there is no longer a direct route today. Sometimes, I go via Creil and Senlis; other times, via Dammartin.
I never arrive in Dammartin until evening. I then go to sleep at the Image Saint Jean. I am usually given a rather clean room hung with old tapestry and a pier-glass above the mirror. This room is a last return to bric-a-brac, which I have long since given up. One sleeps warmly there under the eiderdown, which is customary in this region. In the morning, when I open the window, framed by vines and roses, I discover with delight a green horizon of ten leagues, where poplars line up like armies. A few villages shelter here and there under their sharp bell towers, built, as they say there, like bone points. One first distinguishes Othys—then Ève, then Ver; one would distinguish Ermenonville through the woods, if it had a bell tower; but, in this philosophical place, the church has been much neglected. After filling my lungs with the pure air one breathes on these plateaus, I go down cheerfully and take a stroll to the pastry shop. "Here you are, big curly-head!—Here you are, little Parisian!" We exchange the friendly punches of childhood, then I climb a certain staircase where the joyful cries of two children greet my arrival. Sylvie's Athenian smile illuminates her charming features. I say to myself:
—There was happiness perhaps; however...
I sometimes call her Lolotte, and she finds me a little resemblance to Werther, minus the pistols, which are no longer in fashion. While the big curly-head is busy with breakfast, we take the children for a walk in the lime tree avenues that encircle the remains of the old brick towers of the castle. While these little ones practice, at the archers' shooting range, sticking their fathers' arrows into the straw, we read some poetry or some pages from those short books that are hardly made anymore.
I forgot to mention that, on the day the troupe Aurélie was part of gave a performance in Dammartin, I took Sylvie to the show, and I asked her if she didn't think the actress resembled someone she had already known.
—Who then?
—Do you remember Adrienne?
She burst out laughing, saying:
—What an idea!
Then, as if reproaching herself, she resumed with a sigh:
—Poor Adrienne! She died in the convent of Saint-S..., around 1832.
SONGS AND LEGENDS OF VALOIS
OLD FRENCH BALLADS
Every time my thoughts turn to the memories of the province of Valois, I recall with delight the songs and stories that lulled my childhood. My uncle's house was full of melodious voices, and those of the maids who had followed us to Paris sang all day long the joyful ballads of their youth, whose tunes, unfortunately, I cannot quote. I have given some fragments elsewhere. Today, I cannot complete them, for all that is deeply forgotten; its secret has remained in the tomb of our ancestors. Before writing, every people sang; every sorrow draws inspiration from these naive sources, and Spain, Germany, England, each proudly cite their national romancero. Why doesn't France have its own? Today, patois songs from Brittany and Aquitaine are published, but no song from the old provinces where the true French language has always been spoken will be preserved for us. I also fear that the work being prepared will be done purely from a historical and scientific point of view. We will have Frankish, Norman ballads, war songs, lais and virelais, Breton guerz, Burgundian and Picard carols... But will anyone think of collecting these songs from old France, of which I cite scattered fragments here and which have never been completed or brought together? It is because verses composed without regard for rhyme, prosody, and syntax have never been allowed in books; the language of the shepherd, the sailor, the passing carter, is indeed ours, with a few elisions, dubious turns of phrase, risky words, fanciful endings and liaisons; but it bears a stamp of ignorance that revolts the man of the world, much more than patois does. Yet, this language has its rules, or at least its regular habits, and it is unfortunate that couplets such as those of the famous romance: If I were a swallow, are abandoned, for two or three singularly placed consonants, to the singing repertoire of concierges and cooks. What could be more graceful and poetic, however!
If I were a swallow!—Could I but fly,—To your breast, my fair one,—I would go to rest!
It must continue, it is true, with: I have a rascal of a brother ..., or risk a terrible hiatus; but why also has the language rejected this so convenient, so binding, so seductive z that made all the charm of the old Harlequin's language, and which the gilded youth of the Directory tried in vain to introduce into the language of the salons?
That would be nothing yet, and slight corrections would restore to our light poetry, so poor, so uninspired, these charming and naive productions of modest poets; but rhyme, that severe French rhyme, how would it manage the following couplet:
The olive tree's flower—That you have loved,—Charming beauty!—And your beautiful charming eyes,—That my heart loves so much,—Must I leave them?
Observe that the music lends itself admirably to these ingenuous daring, and finds in the assonances, sufficiently managed moreover, all the resources that poetry must offer it. Here are two charming songs, which have a scent of the Bible, most of whose couplets are lost, because no one has ever dared to write or print them. We will say the same of the one where the following stanza is found:
At last you are here then,—My beautiful bride,—At last you are here then—Bound to your husband,—With a long golden thread—That breaks only at death!
What could be purer, moreover, in language and thought? Yet the author of this epithalamium couldn't write, and the printing press preserves the vulgarities of Collé, Piis, and Panard! Foreigners reproach our people for having no sense of poetry and color; but where to find a composition and imagination more oriental than in this song of our sailors:
It's the girls of La Rochelle—Who armed a ship—To go privateering—In the seas of the Levant.
Its hull is of red wood,—Very neatly crafted—The mast is of ivory,—The pulleys of diamond.
The mainsail is of lace,—The foresail of white satin;—The ship's rigging—Is of gold and silver threads.
The ship's crew,—All girls of fifteen;—The topmen of the mainmast—Are no more than eighteen! etc.
Poetic riches have never been lacking for the French sailor or soldier, who in their songs dream only of king's daughters, sultanas, and even presidents, as in the all too well-known ballad:
It's in the city of Bordeaux—That three ships arrived, etc.
But the drum of the French Guards, where will it stop, that one?
A handsome drummer went off to war, etc.
The king's daughter is at her window, the drummer asks her hand in marriage: "Handsome drummer," says the king, "you are not rich enough!" "Me?" says the drummer, unfazed.
I have three ships on the gentle sea,—One laden with gold, the other with fine pearls,—And the third to take my sweetheart for a ride!
"Shake on it, drummer," says the king, "you won't have my daughter!" "Too bad!" says the drummer, "I'll find prettier ones!..." After that drummer, are you surprised by our soldiers becoming kings! Let's see now what a captain will do:
In Tours in Touraine,—Seeking his loves;—He sought them,—He found them—At the top of a tower.
The father is not a king, he is a simple chaplain who responds to the marriage proposal:
My handsome captain,—Don't trouble yourself,—You won't have her.
The captain's reply is superb:
I'll have her by land,—I'll have her by sea—Or by treachery.
He does so well, in fact, that he carries off the young girl on his horse; and we shall see how well she is treated once in his possession:
In the first town,—Her lover dresses her—All in white satin!—In the second town,—Her lover dresses her—All in gold and silver.
In the third town,—Her lover dresses her—All in diamonds!—She was so beautiful,—That she passed for a queen—In the regiment!
After so many riches bestowed upon the somewhat Gascon verve of the soldier and sailor, shall we envy the fate of the simple shepherd? Here he is singing and dreaming:
In my father's garden,—Fly, my heart, fly!—There is a sweet apple tree,—So sweet!
Three beautiful princesses,—Fly, my heart, fly!—Three beautiful princesses—Are lying underneath, etc.
Is it then true poetry, is it the melancholic thirst for the ideal that this people lacks to understand and produce songs worthy of being compared to those of Germany and England? No, certainly not; but it so happened that in France, literature never descended to the level of the common folk; the academic poets of the 17th and 18th centuries would no more have understood such inspirations than the peasants would have admired their odes, their epistles, and their fleeting, colorless, and stilted poems. Yet, let us compare the song I am about to quote with all those bouquets to Chloris that, around that time, were the admiration of polite society:
When Jean Renaud returned from the war,—He returned sad and sorrowful.—“Good day, mother!—Good day, my son!—Your wife has given birth to a little one.”
“Go, my mother, go ahead,—Have a beautiful white bed made for me;—But have it made so low,—That my wife may not hear it!”
And, when it was around midnight,—Jean Renaud gave up the ghost.
Here, the scene of the ballad changes and moves to the lying-in room:
“Ah! Tell me, my dear mother,—What do I hear crying here?—My daughter, it is the children—Who are complaining of a toothache.”
“Ah! Tell me, my dear mother,—What do I hear nailing here?—My daughter, it is the carpenter,—Who is mending the floor!”
“Ah! Tell me, my dear mother,—What do I hear singing here?—My daughter, it is the procession—That is going around the house!”
“But tell me, my dear mother,—Why are you crying so?—Alas! I cannot hide it:—It is Jean Renaud who has passed away.”
“My mother! Tell the gravedigger—To make the grave for two,—And that the space be so large,—That the child may also be placed there!”
This yields in no way to the most touching German ballads; it only lacks a certain execution of detail that was also missing from the primitive legend of Lenore and that of the Erlking, before Goethe and Bürger. But what use a poet could have made of the lament of Saint Nicholas, which we will quote in part.
There were three little children—Who went gleaning in the fields.
In the evening they went to a butcher’s.—“Butcher, would you lodge us?—Come in, come in, little children,—There is certainly room.”
No sooner had they entered,—Than the butcher killed them,—Cut them into small pieces,—Put them in the salting-tub like pigs.
Saint Nicholas, after seven years,—Saint Nicholas came to that field.—He went to the butcher’s:—“Butcher, would you lodge me?”
“Come in, come in, Saint Nicholas,—There is room, there is no lack.” —No sooner had he entered,—Than he asked for supper.
“Do you want a piece of ham?—I don’t want any, it’s not good.—Do you want a piece of veal?—I don’t want any, it’s not nice!”
“I want the little salted meat—That has been in the salting-tub for seven years!”—When the butcher heard that,—He fled out of his door.
“Butcher, butcher, do not flee,—Repent, God will forgive you.”—Saint Nicholas placed three fingers—Upon the edge of that salting-tub.
The first said: “I slept well!”—The second said:
“And I too!”—And the third replied:—“I thought I was in paradise!”
Isn't that a ballad by Uhland, minus the beautiful verses? But one must not think that the execution always falls short of these naive popular inspirations.
Apart from the incorrect rhymes, the song we quoted in Les Faux-Saulniers: Le roi Loys est sur son pont, set to one of the most beautiful tunes that exist, is already true romantic and chivalrous poetry; it's like a church hymn crossed with a war song; the second part of the ballad has not been preserved, though we vaguely know its subject. The handsome Lautrec, the lover of this noble girl, returns from Palestine just as she is being carried to her grave. He meets the escort on the road to Saint-Denis. His anger puts priests and archers to flight, and the coffin remains in his power. "Give me," he says to his retinue, "give me my fine golden knife, that I may unpick this linen shroud!" Instantly freed from her shroud, the beauty returns to life. Her lover carries her away and takes her to his castle deep in the forests. You think they lived happily ever after and that everything ended there; but, once immersed in the comforts of married life, the handsome Lautrec is nothing more than a common husband; he spends all his time fishing by his lake, so much so that one day his proud wife quietly comes up behind him and resolutely pushes him into the dark water, crying out to him:
Go away, vile fish-catcher!—When they are good,—We will eat them.
Mysterious words, worthy of Arcabonne or Mélusine.—As he expires, the poor lord has the strength to detach his keys from his belt and throw them to the king's daughter, telling her that she is henceforth mistress and sovereign, and that he is happy to die by her will!... There is something in this bizarre conclusion that involuntarily strikes the mind, and that makes one wonder if the poet intended to end with a touch of satire, or if this beautiful dead woman whom Lautrec pulled from the shroud was not a kind of vampire woman, as legends often present us.
Moreover, variations and interpolations are frequent in these songs; each province had a different version. La Jeune Fille de la Garde, collected as a Bourbonnais legend, begins thus:
At the castle of La Garde,—There are three beautiful girls;—One of them is more beautiful than the day.—Hurry, captain,—The duke is going to marry her.
This is the one we also quoted in Les Faux-Saulniers, which begins thus in the Beauvoisis, where we heard it sung, stripped of all chivalrous and local color:
Beneath the white rosebush—The beauty strolls.
Here is the beginning, simple and charming; where does it take place? It doesn't matter! It could be the daughter of a sultan dreaming under the groves of Shiraz. Three horsemen pass in the moonlight: "Mount, says the youngest, on my beautiful grey horse." Isn't this Lenore's ride, and isn't there a fatal attraction in these unknown riders!
They arrive at the town, stop at a brightly lit and noisy inn. The poor girl trembles all over:
As soon as she arrived,—The hostess looks at her.—"Are you here by force—Or for your pleasure?—In my father's garden—Three horsemen took me."
At this, supper is prepared: "Dine, my beauty, and be happy;
With three captains,—You will spend the night." But supper finished,—The beauty fell dead.—She fell dead—Never to return!
"Alas! my love is dead!" cries the youngest horseman; "what shall we do with her?"... And they agree to carry her back to her father's castle, under the white rose bush.
And, after three days,—The beauty revives.
—"Open, open, my father,—Open without delay!—Three days I played dead,—To preserve my honor."
The virtue of common girls attacked by treacherous lords has provided many more subjects for romances. There is, for example, the daughter of a pastry chef, whom her father sends to deliver cakes to a gallant lord. He detains her until nightfall, and will not let her leave. Pressured by her dishonor, she pretends to yield, and asks the count for his dagger to cut a clasp of her corset. She stabs herself in the heart, and the pastry chefs institute a feast for this shopkeeper martyr.
There are songs of causes célèbres which offer a less romantic interest, but often full of terror and energy. Imagine a man returning from the hunt who answers another who questions him:
"I've killed so many little white rabbits,—That my shoes are full of blood.—You lied, false traitor!—I'll make you know.—I see, I see by your pale colors—That you've just killed my sister!"
What dark poetry in these lines that are barely verses! In another, a deserter encounters the constabulary, that terrible Nemesis with a silver-bordered hat.
He was asked:—"Where is your leave?—The leave I took, it's under my shoes."
There is always a tearful lover involved in these sad tales.
The beauty goes to find her captain,—Her colonel and also her sergeant...
The refrain is a bad Latin phrase, in a plainchant tone, which sufficiently predicts the fate of the unfortunate soldier.
What could be more charming than the song of Biron, so regretted in these lands:
When Biron wanted to dance,—When Biron wanted to dance,—He had his shoes brought,—He had his shoes brought;—His shirt—From Venice,—His doublet—Finely made,—His hat all round.—You will dance, Biron!
We have quoted two lines from the following:
The fair maiden sat—Beside the flowing stream,—And in the rippling water,—Bathed her beautiful white feet.
—Come, my love, lightly!—Lightly!
A country girl is surprised bathing by a lord, just as Percival surprised Griselidis. A child will be the result of their encounter. The lord says:
"Shall we make him a priest,—Or perhaps a president?
—No, replies the fair maiden, he will only be a peasant:
—They'll put a boot on him—With three onions inside ... —He'll go off crying:—"Who wants my white onions? —Come, my love, lightly, etc.
We stop at these incomplete quotations, so difficult to convey without the music and without the poetry of places and circumstances, which make this or that folk song indelibly etched in one's mind. Here, companions pass by with their long staffs adorned with ribbons; there, boatmen descending a river; drinkers of yesteryear (those of today hardly sing anymore), washerwomen, haymakers, who cast to the wind a few fragments of their ancestors' songs. Unfortunately, today they are more often heard repeating fashionable romances, blandly witty, or even frankly colorless, variations on three to four eternal themes. It would be desirable for good modern poets to take advantage of the naive inspiration of our fathers, and to give us back, as poets from other countries have done, a host of small masterpieces that are lost day by day with the memory and lives of the good people of times past.
JEMMY
I
HOW JACQUES TOFFEL AND JEMMY O'DOUGHERTY PULLED TWO RED EARS OF CORN AT ONCE
Less than a hundred miles from the confluence of the Allegheny and the Monongahela, lies a delightful valley, or what is called in the local language a bottom, a true paradise bounded on all sides by mountains and by the course of the Ohio, which the French have nicknamed Belle Rivière. The slopes and summits of the gently rising heights towards the horizon are covered with rich vegetation of century-old sycamores, alders, and acacias, all united by the fabric of wild vines, and beneath which one breathes a sweet freshness. In the foreground, the two rivers united in the Ohio peacefully roll their twin waters, offering here and there a boat gliding on the tranquil waters, or sometimes a steamboat, flying like an arrow, which startles flocks of ducks and wild geese established in the shade of the sycamores and weeping willows. A single path leads to the upper part of the township, to what is called the uplands, where, for sixty years, English, Irish, Germans, and other European races have settled, allied and completely fused together. This is not to say, however, that this great republican family no longer manifests its diversity of origin by any sign. The German descendant, for example, still holds firmly to his sauerkraut;[1] he still prefers his blockhouse, simple and rustic like himself, to the elegant franchouse of his neighbors; the favorite color of his broad-tailed coat is still blue; his stockings are of that color; his large round shoes wear thick silver buckles on Sundays, and, like his ancestors, he still favors leather inexpressibles tied below the knee with straps.
Tyrannical fashion, or, as it is called there, fashion, has yet found few opportunities to extend its empire, and a very simple straw and silk hat, an even simpler dress of locally made fabric, form the entire adornment with which families allow young ladies to enhance the power of their charms.
Despite this stubborn resistance from the German minds, the different parties live in the most perfect union; perhaps these nuances even contribute to the pleasantness of their fairly frequent gatherings and festivities, generally known as frœhlichs. This is indeed the name given to assemblies held at one person's house or another's to collectively husk corn cobs. You should see the joyful couples rushing in on a beautiful autumn evening from all four cardinal points, jumping fences, making their way through bushes, finally emerging from the woods with cheeks red as scarlet, and shaking hands upon arrival with a bone-cracking grip. Then they sit in a semicircle in front of the meeting house, facing a mountain of corn stalks, and behind them old Bambo, destined to crown the celebration with his musical talent, but who, lying on the stove bench in the meantime, temporarily indulges in a somewhat noisy slumber.
About forty years ago, one of these gatherings took place in the colony, at Jacques Blocksberger's. Among the young people who flocked there from more than five miles around, two in particular were greeted with special eagerness. First, there was a fresh Irish miss, bearing the sonorous name of Jemmy O'Dougherty, a plump and fresh young girl with a graceful impish face, very rosy cheeks, a swan-like neck, grayish-blue eyes whose certain glances could sting, and finally a slightly aquiline little nose, which suggested a certain dose of sagacity, as well as Irish assurance and inflexibility, from which her future husband could expect some significance, for better or for worse. But if she didn't seem as patient as Job, she was at least as poor, which didn't stop her from knowing how to arrange things so as to appear everywhere to advantage, and in a country-appropriate, impeccable outfit.
The second character we need to talk about was Mister Christophorus, or, as he was usually called, rich Toffel (German abbreviation for Christopher), a six-foot-six American lad, seemingly a bit sluggish, but muscular and solidly built. Besides these advantages, and they were not to be disdained, Christophorus also owned a three-hundred-acre farm, the entire Ohio valley we described, a stone-built barn, a house adorned with green-painted shutters and a shingled roof also painted red, and, it was also said, two pairs of blue woolen stockings left to him by his father, entirely filled with good Spanish dollars. Thus, when Toffel rode past a farm on his gray horse, whistling a German tune, the heart of more than one blonde maiden would beat faster.
It so happened that Jemmy found herself seated next to Toffel. How this came about, the chronicle does not say very clearly; but what seems certain is that his will had nothing to do with this chance. Toffel, as we said, was a tall, broad-shouldered fellow, and, as the local benches were anything but comfortable, he sat on the trunk of a hickory; Jemmy chose her place right next to him, as if to separate herself from a certain group of young people who were noisier and more enterprising than our hero. Indeed, he sat there without ill intent, peaceful as a sensible citizen of the United States, husking corn cobs, and thinking of his enormous horse, his cattle, and his blue stockings, as well as a thousand other things, except his pretty neighbor. We do not mean to say that his neighbor thought of him; only, with all the complaisance of a Christian soul, she deftly piled a large number of stalks in front of her neighbor, who, long and awkward as he was, only had to extend his arm to husk them comfortably. But Toffel paid no attention to this friendly hand, and continued to husk until, as the pile diminished, he had to bend and stretch to his great discomfort; but then it was she again who gracefully bent down and gathered a few dozen cobs in her apron to place them in a small pile in front of him, all with such enchanting grace that it was almost impossible to resist her. But rest assured that all this attention would still have escaped the gaze of our square-headed German, if, precisely at the moment she turned so attractively before him, his eye had not accidentally met Toffel's, and that eye, some gossips said, then had such an irresistible expression that Toffel, for the first time, opened his eyes wide.
Upon this, he resumed shelling his corn and occasionally taking a swig of whiskey, without a word of thanks to his kind and obliging neighbor. Is it any wonder she grew tired of aiding the idleness of such an insensitive lout? So, when the third pile was shelled, Jemmy paid no further attention to Toffel. Be that as it may, he was beginning to feel quite well and taking his sips of whiskey more often when jealous fate threatened to deprive him of this comfort.
Several hours had already flown by since the company had set to work when chance had it that the two neighbors each pulled two ears of red grain at once. But it should be known that, according to a respectable custom established in the United States, two red ears pulled and shelled at the same time by two qualified individuals, like Jemmy O'Dougherty and Jacques Toffel, confer upon the stronger of the two the right to give and even, if necessary, to take a kiss from the other.
Toffel was therefore in possession of a title as valid as any other in the world; but he very nearly lost it by neglecting to use it. Indeed, he had already dropped his stalk when Jemmy, brave girl! thought to have eyes for him.
"Two red ears!" she cried out in naive ignorance of what she was doing.
"Two red ears!" fifty throats immediately cried out. And the whole company stood up as if lightning had struck in their midst. Here, it was impossible for our Toffel not to understand the cause of this general excitement. So he finally seemed jealous of the right that chance had conferred upon him; but he still had to overcome the resistance of the entire female contingent, who formed a square around Jemmy that would have defied a whole battalion of city fops. However, Toffel was not one to be stopped by vain demonstrations; he advanced towards the conspirators, conveniently seized each of his adversaries one after another, threw half a dozen onto a pile of ears to his right, half a dozen onto another pile to his left, and thus cleared his way to Jemmy, who, it must be said, bravely resisted him; but the strongest citadel eventually surrenders, and so our Irishwoman finally yielded, allowing Toffel to calmly imprint his inch-wide lips on hers, though she could have, as some jealous companions claimed, partly avoided this terrible contact.
Here our information about that pleasant evening ends, and we can only believe that Toffel's peace of mind received a strong jolt, and that after the frœhlich, which also included dancing, he was long in falling asleep and had a dream for the first time in his life.
It happened that, shortly after, on a beautiful December evening, Toffel saddled his dapple-gray stallion and trotted up the winding paths that still lead today from Toffelsville to the highlands, through the Ohio mountains.
It was a joyful sight to see the beautiful farms he passed in his journey. More than one fresh and pretty girl, and, what's more, many a young woman with a good dowry, lived in these outwardly crude dwellings; more than one pretty mouth called out to Toffel:
"Hey! Toffel! Still on the road so late? Won't you come in?"
But Toffel had neither eyes nor ears, and continued on his way; and the farms grew ever more meager, until at last he arrived at a piece of land, covered with chestnut trees, where his patience seemed about to abandon him. He could never see this kind of tree without ill humor, which he rightly regarded as the most certain sign of the soil's infertility.—And yet, Toffel, you still keep trotting; are you so indifferent to your rest that you let yourself be enchanted by the eyes of that gentle, golden-haired sprite, whom even the evil spirit himself could not control, who, like a cat, knows how to both scratch and caress, laugh and cry, all in one and the same instant? Reflect, dear Toffel, suspend your pilgrimage! Water and fire, whiskey and tea, corn cakes, would all that go together?... But here he is at the end of the chestnut grove, and even in front of a... what shall we call it? in front of a kind of edifice that seems to date from the Indian wars. Toffel shook his head thoughtfully; it is old Davy O'Dougherty's house, and it is a miserable-looking house. And his barn? he has none; his hedges? one is ashamed to look at them. Yes, his farm offers a sad picture of Irish industry; no horse, no plow; all of Davy's agricultural fortune is reduced to a few narrow plots of land, sown with corn and potatoes.
Toffel paused for a long moment, undecided, pensive; but old Davy was sitting by the door, with his venerable red-haired better half, and half a dozen little monsters of the same hue. Only Jemmy... it would be ungallant not to call her frankly blonde, was the grace and ornament of the sad cabin. She was preparing tea and setting corn cakes on the table. Toffel sat down in front of the fireplace, barely uttering a word, and would not have moved from that spot if, as a German, the smell of coal smoke had not unpleasantly affected him; he abruptly rose to seek purer air, while Jemmy, seeing him half-blinded, fled into the kitchen with a mocking laugh. Toffel hesitated for a moment between the two doors, but involuntarily found himself drawn to the kitchen fire, which, being wood, pleased him much more than the other, and at which Jemmy soon deigned to take a seat beside him.
A quarter of an hour had passed, and not a single immodest or any other thought had crossed our rider's mind. The only liberty he allowed himself was to shift his hat from one knee to the other.
Finally, however, he mustered courage, and, staring intently at his neighbor, he asked her in English if she would not take him for a husband.
What do you want me to do with a German?
Such was the somewhat harsh reply of the mischievous Irishwoman, who, by devaluing the merchandise she coveted, had no other aim than to secure it more cheaply.
But consider what such a response meant, delivered by a small creature like Jemmy to a man like Toffel, a six-foot lad, owner of three hundred acres of land and two well-stocked blue stockings.
Toffel was anything but proud; however, he rose, quite disconcerted, took off his hat, and was preparing to leave the kitchen with a sigh, when the cunning young girl, slipping between him and the door, took his hand and said:
"-And, if I take you, do you promise to be a good fellow?"
From then on, the dialogue took on more precise forms, and Toffel soon rejoined his dapple-gray, after a firm handshake with his future bride.
A few days later, the Protestant minister Gaspard Ledermaul, a former tailor, blessed the marriage of Jacques Toffel and Jemmy O'Dougherty; which would seem to bring our story to an end, if we were to lightly abandon our heroes, and if it were not known, moreover, that marriages offer no fewer twists and turns than the most tumultuous love affairs.
II
HOW JEMMY O'DOUGHERTY HAD TO GO TO A MEETING ON TOO LARGE A HORSE
Jacques Toffel had not yet completed his twenty-first year when he entered his honeymoon, and here we must say in his praise that he knew how to enjoy happiness with his accustomed moderation. We have not shown him to be extravagant; and, assuredly, no temptation came to him to introduce his wife into the high society of Saratoga, and thus empty the two blue stockings. As for Mistress Toffel, she was certainly not a wicked girl; there was always in her that sort of Irish devilry that would not allow her to rest until her husband had done her will. To put it simply, she wore the trousers or the inexpressibles, according to the chaste English idiom. Besides, our couple lived happily; a young Toffel soon made his appearance in the world, and then especially the happy farmer did not regret having pulled his red ear of corn.
Now, it happened that a missionary appeared around this time in the colony, claiming to teach our good people a shorter path than in the past to reach the gates of Heaven. In order to give his project the necessary impetus, he had announced a meeting, after having previously secured the ladies' assent. Mistress Toffel, whose patronage the respectable pastor had particularly sought, had decided, in response to this flattering regard, that her young son would be baptized on this occasion, and that the father would carry him in his arms to the meeting.
Up to this point, all was well, and Toffel had little to complain about; however, in saddling his two horses, he felt a certain unease, and a foreboding presentiment when he attended to his large gray horse. Mistress Toffel had such a fondness for this animal that she declared she would ride no other. In truth, compared to Toffel's large stallion, the others were mere ponies; but Jemmy was no giantess, and the smaller horses would always have suited her better than her husband. He had recently become ambitious and aspired to public office; and it would be a disgrace for him to arrive on one of these nags, exposing himself to the ridicule and assumptions of the crowd! As he led the horses from the stable, he saw his wife precisely on the threshold of the house; but on her brow was written that inflexible resolution which the poor man was hardly accustomed to resisting. So he let her mount from a tree trunk, from which she sprang onto the dappled gray, seizing its bridle with grace and authority.
There she was on that immense animal, like a mischievous baboon preparing to test the meekness of a patient dromedary. Toffel watched her with an open mouth and fixed eyes.
“My dear!” he said after a long inner struggle, “I beg you, take the small horse, and leave me the larger one.”
“Toffel,” cried his better half, “surely you are not mad enough to think of that precisely at this moment.”
“Yes, I am mad enough for that; and if I take this Irish calf, I will be both on foot and on horseback.”
His words, his gaze astonished the lady; they indicated a kind of revolt against her power, and she felt that her entire reign depended on the resolution she would make at this decisive moment, and it was with this thought that she gave her horse a sharp crack of the whip, which, in two bounds, carried her out of the courtyard.
Toffel therefore had nothing better to do than to mount the nag, sighing and muttering a few phrases in his incomprehensible language, such as sapperment! verflucht! and other Germanic pleasantries whose meaning he could, if necessary, conceal. Suddenly he was interrupted in his monologue by a cry from the top of the mountain. Toffel looked around him, then he looked up the height, but he saw nothing; nothing more was heard, and yet the voice that had pierced his ears was the sharp, clear voice of his wife, he was certain. She had galloped ahead of him by a few hundred paces, and soon the winding mountain road had hidden her from his sight.
“The gray horse has certainly thrown her off,” said the loyal fellow to himself.
And no sooner had this thought occurred to him than he saw, indeed, his favorite steed descending the mountain in great leaps. Toffel was seized with fright; he threw himself, both legs at once, off his nag, and ran to meet the fiery horse, which, recognizing its master, stopped calmly until he had relieved it of Jemmy's saddle, and had mounted it with his offspring. Then, Toffel rode at a great trot towards the top of the mountain, and ran to the aid of his better half, for whom many others would hardly have worried after the way she had behaved; but Toffel was of a good German mold, and he hastened with all his might to reach the fatal spot where she must have made her bed. A second time he heard a cry, but it was not her usual voice, it was rather a cry of distress. This cry was repeated, and, drenched in a cold sweat, Toffel then launched his horse belly to the ground in the direction from which his wife's voice seemed to come; but no traces. He looked right, left, then at the ground, and finally he noticed with a horrible pang in his heart the footprints of men, and beside them the imprints of his wife's feet. Men had been there, it was obvious; but to say what had become of his wife was a very difficult thing, the tracks were lost in the forest. He examined these traces again, and he recognized with consternation the broad imprint of Indian moccasins. A glance towards the forest made him perceive something blackish gray, it was an eagle feather: no more doubt, his unfortunate Jemmy had just been surprised and carried off by Indians.
Toffel truly loved his wife; yet, he didn't faint, and all the strength of his love couldn't wring a tear from him. Instead of wasting time in vain lamentations, he galloped back to the meeting, informed his neighbors that the Indians had surprised and abducted his wife while she was on her way to the assembly, adding that he had to recover her at all costs, and that, if they were good neighbors and wanted to be free men, they must rush with him to follow the trail of these Redskins to reclaim his Jemmy. As those he addressed were, indeed, men of heart, Toffel, in a few hours, found himself at the head of fifty young men, who, holding their carbines in one hand and their horses' bridles in the other, swore to fittingly avenge the abduction of the new Helen.
It wasn't uncommon, in those days, for American colonists to pursue Indians for such a reason; but, while Toffel and his valiant companions are busy tracking the Redskins who had carried off Jemmy O'Dougherty, we shall, conforming even more directly to chivalrous customs, rejoin our lady, to lend her aid and assistance if needed.
So, Jemmy, stubborn Jemmy, had been alone a few hundred paces ahead, as we've already said. This was, first of all, something a reasonable woman would never have done: she would have stayed by her husband's side, especially a husband as good as Toffel undoubtedly was, particularly in such critical times, when savages still roamed throughout Ohio as partisans, and even advanced as far as Fort Pitt, given that, precisely at that time, the United States was engaged in a bloody war with them. No doubt, she cried out valiantly, but it was too late; the Indians had probably already seen too much to give up such a beautiful prize for her cries. One mounted the gray horse and took her up behind him, while a second forced the beauty to wrap her arms around her rider; a third, seeing her inclination to resist, established a dangerous proximity between her swan-like neck and a dagger he drew from his belt, so much so that the poor creature resigned herself to her fate, and thought only of not falling off the horse during the long ride that followed.
However, she couldn't help but exclaim at intervals:
"The big horse! The big horse!"
But her modest yet resolute demeanor inspired some respect in her captors, especially in Tomahawk, their chief, who, upon arriving at Miamy, the Redskins' headquarters, placed her under the protection of his mother, with the title of lady-in-waiting. No doubt, this position would not have been disdained, if the son of the princess mother had had something worthwhile to govern; but the king of the Shawnees, Tomahawk's elder brother, barely extended his empire beyond a territory of a few hundred square miles. His subjects were uncivilized savages who, in their limited intelligence, had no idea of their sovereign's divine right, meaning they didn't want to work for him, saying that he, like them, had received two working arms from the Great Spirit.
Our benevolent readers will understand that amidst such an unreasonable gathering of men, Mistress Toffel could not count on great advantages, despite the honorable position she occupied. Moreover, she clearly saw that tears and lamentations could only worsen her situation, and that it was better to accept it bravely and try to make herself useful. Thus, with a look that unmistakably held a hint of irony, the next morning she seized the pot filled with game and began to prepare the Indians' meal herself. They soon sat around, cross-legged:
"Whoo!" cried the sovereign, "what have we here?"
Never in his life had he enjoyed such a delicious breakfast à la fourchette, we would say, if savages had forks. The princess mother, with a gracious smile, indicated her lady-in-waiting, who, as a reward, received a cutlet. Jemmy carried herself proudly, as if she were seated on the grand horse. Shortly after, the savages embarked on a new excursion, from which they returned fifteen days later, laden with all sorts of spoils: women's dresses, spencers, hats, corsets, etc. A complete wardrobe had fallen to Tomahawk. The next day, he appeared dressed in a red linsey-woolsey gown, his head adorned with a green silk hat, over which he had, in what he considered good taste, placed a woman's lying-in cap. The chief himself appeared in a small baby dress, with a poppy-red spencer over it, and a hood from the time of Louis XV. No sooner had Jemmy cast her eyes on her transformed masters than she signaled the squaws to follow her into the forest, where many wild flax plants grew. She had a certain quantity gathered, which her companions brought back to camp. She then compelled them to prepare the flax for spinning, which she taught them, and in a few weeks, hunting clothes, adorned with silk ribbons and calico, replaced the women's dresses on the bodies of her captors. About fifteen days later, the men went on another expedition, during which the sovereign was killed and his brother Tomahawk wounded. Jemmy, like other loyal subjects, went into mourning, dressed the survivor's wounds, and when the young chief recovered, she presented him with a new costume she had made for him during his illness. She did so with such grace, in the Indian's opinion, that from that moment, he became her admirer and faithful paladin. When, the next day, he had dressed in his new costume, he found himself so pleasantly surprised and transformed that, for the first time, he set aside the habits of respect he had contracted towards Mistress Toffel, and which had until then prevented him from more openly declaring the affection he felt for her. He went to pay her a visit. The entire residence was in an uproar; the red ladies were in despair. They understood that it was not in their honor that the new sovereign had donned such a brilliant outfit, and that his attentions were directed at the proud American, who, in their opinion, could naturally not resist such a sumptuous accoutrement. And truly, neither London, nor Paris, nor New York could have boasted of having seen, on a single person, such a prodigality of luxury items as Tomahawk chose to display that day before the eyes of his faithful subject. But then, he himself had remained for three hours, legs crossed and mirror in hand, admiring with eyes shining with joy his irresistible charms. Three large silver sequins artistically surrounded his nose, from which an Spanish dollar still hung; two other dollars dangled from his ears, and, by a clever inspiration, the Indian had adorned his lower lip with a sixth coin. His hair was richly intertwined with porcupine quills, and from the top of his head three buffalo tails majestically descended. A necklace of no less than fifty alligator teeth adorned his neck, around which also snaked a small necklace of large crystal pearls, a trophy he had won in a fight with the Chikasaws. He had taken no less care with the clothing of the lower parts of his body: his legs were encircled up to the ankle with small copper and tin circles that resonated prodigiously with each step; the rest of his attire consisted of a three-cornered English hat.When, conscious of his perfections, he approached the residence of the mother, he lifted his legs high and danced twice around it, to revel in the music he had created; arriving at the door, he cast a final glance at his pocket mirror, looking at himself from head to toe; then he entered.
Unfortunately, we have no information whatsoever on the success of so many efforts and tasteful combinations; all that became known was that the high claimant was far less pleased with himself when he left his mother's residence than he had been upon entering it. The chronicle adds that, from that moment on, Jemmy had an empire over the Indian sovereign at least as unlimited as the one she had already exercised over Toffel; and it appears that she did not delay in using it, no doubt for good reasons, given that she had to repel rather strong temptations. But, our document further states, she resisted heroically. How, indeed, could she have acted otherwise, she whose thoughts were directed towards another goal? Yes, her gaze was constantly fixed on the setting sun, on that part of the world where her dear Toffel lived. For five whole years, she had endured her captivity with heroic and truly Irish courage and steadfastness; but now she felt the bitterness of her situation more and more each day. During the first year, she had been kept in motion by the novelty of her destiny; she had, moreover, been stimulated by the instinct of self-preservation. During the following years, she had perhaps felt flattered by the attentions of her Indian admirer; but flirting with a savage was, after all, only a poor pastime, and it could not last in the long run. Thus, the strong desire to see again the places on which her memories were concentrated grew stronger within her each day. To think of fleeing would have been madness on her part during the first year; she had been watched, during the summer, with Argus eyes, for her skill in everything made her indispensable to the savages, and an escape during the winter was no more feasible. Where would she have found food, a place to rest? Her journey to the savages' camp had lasted twenty days; she must therefore have been an enormous distance from home, and if, by misfortune, her plan had been known, her fate would have been horrible.
III
HOW JEMMY RETURNS HOME TO JAQUES TOFFEL
Finally, the opportune moment Jemmy so ardently desired arrived at the end of the fifth summer after her abduction. The men had left for the autumn hunt; their wives had accompanied them; only the weakest and oldest remained at the camp. By the apparent contentment she had shown for five years, Jemmy had managed to calm the suspicions of the Indians, whose vigilance had weakened. She had learned that, due to population growth, the colony had extended its borders, and was therefore closer to the savages' territory; she hoped to encounter her compatriots, if not by the end of the first week, then at least by the end of the second. She resolved to escape, and immediately put her plan into action. A small bag filled with provisions was all she took with her; she had four hundred long miles to travel from the Great Miami to the Upper Ohio; but her courage was equal to her great undertaking. She loved her Toffel; she loved him now more than ever, this kind, patient, yet sensible boy. Her courage was severely tested in the Franklin marshes, she ran a great risk of drowning in the Sciota, and, wandering for several days in the solitudes separating Columbus, the capital of Ohio, from New-Lancaster, of being devoured by bears and panthers; but she happily escaped the marshes, rivers, and deserted places. For the first five days, she lived on her supply of smoked game; then she feasted on papaws, chestnuts, and wild grapes, and, after ten days of inexpressible toil and fatigue, she found, for the first time, safe shelter in a blockhouse. Even here, her indomitable Irish spirit did not abandon her, and she approached the Hinterwaeldler[1] with an air as assured and open as if she had presented herself at the head of the Shawnees, and asked them for provisions. They opened their eyes wide, as one might presume, but they gave what they had. From then on, our good Jemmy only had to follow the banks of the Ohio, and soon saw the charming heights that concealed her happy home emerge from the hazy blue that enveloped them. She quickened her pace; there she was on the first hills. For the first time, her heart beat faster; momentarily stopped by the memory of the great horse, she resumed her run and darted into the wooded winding paths of the hill. There before her was the magnificent Ohio, pursuing its course in two wide arms; then the waters of the Allegheny, clear as the spring gushing from a rock; then finally, right beside them, those of the Monongahela, troubled and muddy, offering quite the image of a grumpy husband to whom a lively and sweet companion is chained. There she was, at the last prominence, from which one could contemplate all her possessions: here was the magnificent valley, the most fertile of the bottoms, enclosed among the mountain promontories; there was the stone barn, the roof and shutters gleaming with the luster of fresh paint. There, to the left, the old orchard; then, to the right, the new one, which she had helped plant, and whose trees were already bending under the weight of fruit. She looked, she dared not trust her eyes, and she saw even more... No, it was not an illusion, it was her dear Toffel who was just coming out of the house, and, behind him, a small blond-haired child, holding firmly onto the coattails of his jacket. Yes, it was indeed Toffel in his leather breeches, with his blue stockings with red corners and his shoes adorned with enormous buckles. She could not bear it any longer, descended with a firm step from the hill, and, having quickly crossed the vegetable garden, she suddenly found herself before Toffel.
"May all good spirits praise the Lord!" he exclaimed, using, in his anxiety, the legal formula by which, from time immemorial, honest Germans have been accustomed to conjure specters, witches, and evil spirits.
And, in fact, we wouldn't have much right to blame Toffel if the Blocksberg[2] came to his mind at that moment. Five years of absence and living among the savage inhabitants of the Great Miami's banks, coupled with the abominable journey Jemmy had just made, had not precisely contributed much to enhancing her charms, nor to making her attire elegant enough to lend her any additional allure. Even Toffel, the least fashionable of all men, could barely comprehend that this could be his Jemmy, the oracle of good taste in all things. The unexpectedness of her appearance cast something supernatural over her somewhat emaciated person; so much so that, we repeat, we are not at all surprised that Toffel's mind was suddenly disturbed and that he remembered the Blocksberg, about which his late father had told him so many things. Jemmy, it seemed, was not very flattered by his surprise, his exclamations, and his fright, and she said to him, in the gentlest tone she could manage:
"Well, what is it, Toffel, have you lost your mind? Don't you know me anymore, me, your Jemmy?"
Toffel opened his eyes as wide as he could, and gradually, recognizing the crooked nose, the bright eye that, as usual, cast bold and sparkling glances, he could not, by these signs, doubt the reality:
"Mein Gott! mein Schatz!" he exclaimed in his sweetest German.
Then two tears streamed down his cheeks, and he embraced Jemmy with effusion.
Jemmy was genuinely delighted to see her Toffel in such good spirits. However, as the proverb says, too much of a good thing is bad, and by all appearances, it seemed to Jemmy that Toffel was inexhaustible in his manifestations of tenderness, and indeed, she was already beginning to lose patience and to wish to see her son, as well as to know the state of the household affairs; so, expressing this dual desire, she disengaged herself from her husband's arms to head for the door.
Toffel grabbed her by her dress, and, placing himself in front of her, prevented her from leaving.
"My beloved," he said to her, "stop for a few more moments, until I tell you..."
"Tell me what?" she retorted impatiently; "what can you have to tell me? I want to see my boy and how you've managed the house's affairs; I hope everything is in order..."
Her eye cast a scrutinizing glance at poor Toffel, who seemed far from at ease.
"My heart, my wife," he continued, "just have a little patience!"
"I don't want to have patience," she retorted; "why won't you go into the house?"
And, saying these words, she approached the door. Toffel, utterly embarrassed, again blocked her way, taking both her hands.
"Eh! by Jasus[3], and by all authorities!" she exclaimed, astonished by such singular conduct, "I'd be tempted to believe that not everything is in order here and that you're not happy to see me!"
"Me, not happy to see you! My heart, my beloved! Yes, yes, you will be my wife again!" replied the good fellow.
"I will be again, again your wife!" she repeated. And her eyes were sparkling, and her little nose twitched.
"To be his wife again," she said to herself again in a low voice, forcibly pulling herself away from his hands.
Then, climbing the stairs with lightning speed, she rushed to the door, pressed the latch, opened it, and saw, gently rocking in an armchair, Marie Lindthal, the prettiest blonde in the entire colony, once her rival, and now the happy usurper of her marital rights.
IV
WHAT HAPPENED TO JACQUES TOFFEL AND HIS TWO WIVES
It would take a pen very familiar with psychological descriptions to portray the symptoms of the various passions that were energetically etched on our heroine's face. Contempt, fury, vengeance were still the weakest; sparks so vivid shot from her eyes that, to use a phrase common among Yankees, the room began to be ablaze; her fists clenched convulsively, her teeth gnashed, and, like a cat seeing its territory occupied by the mortal enemy of its race, she prepared to pounce on hers, which could have been all the more fatal for Marie Lindhal's pretty features, as, for a whole month, Mistress Toffel had not trimmed her nails.
Toffel, who had followed Jemmy, saw these terrible preparations with just dread and threw himself headlong between the two warring powers. But he was not yet sure that his mediation would be very effective, when suddenly the door opened to let in young Toffel, followed by a whole band of heirs from another bed. Five years had passed since Jemmy had held her young son in her arms; forgetting her enemy, she leaped at him to embrace him. The young boy was frightened, cried out loudly, and ran to his stepmother. Poor Jemmy remained motionless in her place, fury and the desire for revenge had abandoned her; an unspeakable pain pierced her heart; she walked trembling towards the door, grasped the latch and was about to fall to the ground. The poor woman suffered horribly at that moment; she had become a stranger to her son, a stranger in the whole world! She recovered, however. Souls like hers are not easily cast down.
"How is my father?" she asked briefly.
"Dead," replied Toffel.
"And my mother?"
"Dead," was still the answer.
"And my brothers, my sisters?"
"Scattered throughout the world."
"So, I have lost them all!" she said, barely audibly.
"I," Toffel resumed in a softer tone of voice, "I waited a whole year for your return, asking for news of you in all the German and English newspapers, and, as you did not come," he added hesitantly, "believing you dead, I took Marie."
"Then keep her," Jemmy retorted firmly, accompanying these words with a look of the deepest contempt.
Then she once again sprang at her child, seized him and embraced him with exaltation, then she opened the door...
"Stop! Stop! For God's sake!" cried Toffel in a voice that betrayed what he had suffered.
It is true that he loved her sincerely, and had spared no effort to find her. The country had been scoured for twenty leagues around, newspaper advertisements had also cost him many dollars; unfortunately, they circulated more particularly in the eastern part of the country, while Jemmy was serving as a lady-in-waiting in the western part. And, unfortunately again, after a year, the Reverend Pastor Gaspard preached a sermon on this beautiful text: Melius est nubere quam uri, which he rendered very eloquently in German to Toffel. The latter believed he was acting as a good Protestant, and took a good and pretty wife, but one who lacked that spirit of contradiction, of teasing, those outbursts, those biting remarks that used to so aptly awaken his nonchalant character.
Such was the position of our Toffel, the husband of two wives, between whom he seemed to be strongly wavering. To keep them both, like the patriarch Lamech, what an appearance? Finally, he cried out:
"Let's go to the squire and to Doctor Gaspard; let's go hear what human law and God's law say."
In saying this, Toffel acted like a good and loyal German who thought it better not to take a side on his own initiative, and to place all the responsibility for his position on divine and human authority.
Jemmy started; the word law, or, what is its consequence, a lawsuit, sounded unpleasantly in her ears, and she hesitated, when her rival, who had retired to the next room, reappeared holding in her arms the two heavy stockings filled with the community's dollars.
"Take them," she said softly to Jemmy, "take them, and Jeremias Hawthorn is still a bachelor; be happy, good Jemmy!"
There was something touching in her voice and in her sincere proposal. Any heart other than that of the Irish woman would have been moved; but the sight of the happy woman seemed to revive Jemmy's transports. Casting a look of the deepest contempt at Marie, she approached Toffel, shook his hand, saying goodbye, and rushed out of the room.
"Run, run, dear Toffel, with all your might," cried Marie; "run, for God's sake! She might harm herself."
Toffel had remained motionless, deprived, so to speak, of feeling; one might have thought everything seemed a dream to him: his wife's voice recalled him to reality. He started running with all his might after the poor fugitive; but she had already gained a lot of ground on him. Doubling his long strides, he was about to catch up with her when she turned around and ordered him to return home. She uttered this command in such a firm tone that Toffel, still accustomed to obeying her wishes, complied by slowly taking the path back home. After a few steps, he nevertheless stopped, followed Jemmy's rapid progress with a fixed eye until she disappeared into the depths of the hillside; then, he shook his head, and thought... what? That we cannot say.
Jemmy now pursued, like a startled deer, her course towards the top of the mountain; there she arrived again at that fatal projection where her earthly happiness had, it must be said, by her own fault, received such a terrible blow. There was the house that sheltered the two Toffels; there grazed her cows and heifers and half a dozen of the largest horses she had ever seen. Now, she would have had her pick! And she had to give up all that! This thought brought bitter tears to her eyes. And, at this hour, no more family, perhaps no more friends; what would be said of this long-lost Jemmy, Jemmy the Indian Squaw?... Insensibly, her senses calmed; a new thought seemed to germinate within her, and, with each second, this resolution seemed to strengthen. Finally, as if to escape the possibility of a change of mind, she suddenly straightened up forcefully, ran at full speed towards the forest, and penetrated ever deeper into its depths.
V
WHERE IT IS SHOWN HOW THE TWO RED EARS WERE NEVERTHELESS AN OMEN
It was around the year 1826 that Jemmy began her long journey back to those she had recently fled. She found the same inflexible courage to approach the advanced settlers, established in the northwestern part of the United States (present-day Ohio). She asked them for hospitality without soliciting superfluous compassion; once she had passed the last habitations, she again resorted to papaws, grapes, and wild chestnuts, and thus completed her four-hundred-mile journey to the sources of the Great Miami, where, two months after her flight, she presented herself with as little disturbance and fear as if she were returning from a morning visit.
Never had the Squaw headquarters resounded with such cries of joy as when Jemmy entered Tomahawk's mother's hut. The entire population of the Wigwams was in motion; Tomahawk was beside himself with joy. He had been her faithful admirer for five whole years, and, which is no small thing on the part of a savage, during all that time, he had not dared to take the slightest liberty with her. She had gained no small influence over this little people; she was the women's teacher, the men's tailor and cook, the factotum of all, and, if the latter (the men) no longer resembled orangutans, it was her doing. Tomahawk jumped and danced with happiness.
"White men, not good!" he said; "Red men, good!" he cried.
And his mother and all the men joined in these transports of joy.
However, despite Jemmy's firm resolve, her prudence did not allow her to give the smitten savage too much leeway. No, she pondered for a long time before even allowing him the slightest glimmer of hope. For twenty days now, she had kept him confined with Tomahawk's mother, and during that time, he had only been able to see her twice. Finally, on the morning of the twenty-first day, he was summoned before the sovereign of his heart. He arrived perhaps even more bizarrely attired than during his first proposal, and, stammering, he again expressed his desires. Jemmy listened to him with the seriousness of an appeals judge; when he had finished, she silently showed him the table on which a complete American outfit was laid out. Tomahawk returned to his hut with cries of joy, and half an hour later, he appeared a changed man before his mistress. He really didn't look so bad; he was a well-built young man, of slender stature—Toffel was nothing in comparison—moreover, he was the chief of several hundred families, and he could not be considered such a contemptible husband. She then deigned to offer her hand; another test awaited. Two horses, brought by order of Madam Mother, were at the door: Jemmy ordered Tomahawk to saddle them. He immediately obeyed in silence. She mounted one, signaling him to do the same and follow her. The savage chief was surprised; he stared at her, but nevertheless followed his mistress, who, leaving the Wigwam canton, directed their course southward; several times, he ventured to ask her where they were going, but she answered him with a gesture, pointing significantly into the distance, and he fell silent and followed. Peace had been re-established between the Indians and the settlers during Jemmy's captivity, and her last journey had been useful to her. She had learned that an American colony had formed, in the direction of the south, about forty miles distant from the sources of the Miami, and it was towards this new colony that she was now heading.
As soon as she arrived, she inquired about the justice of the peace. The squire was not a little surprised when he suddenly saw a young and pretty woman (Jemmy had regained her good looks during her twenty-day retreat) and a young and handsome savage, dressed like a gentleman, enter his home. However, Jemmy barely gave him time to indulge his astonishment; instead, turning without lengthy preambles to her companion, she said to him:
“Tomahawk! During the five years of our acquaintance, I have seen you give so many proofs of good sense that I have every reason to hope to make a husband of you, and I have therefore resolved to take you as such.”
Tomahawk didn't know if he was awake or not, and neither did the squire; but Jemmy's formal request to marry her, Jemmy O'Dougherty, to Tomahawk, the chief of the Squaw tribe, and ten shining dollars that she added to this request, dispelled all doubts for the justice of the peace, and, pronouncing the matrimonial formula over them, he joined their hands. The deed was done; the poor savage still didn't understand what this ceremony meant; but when Jemmy took his hand and informed him that she was now his wife and he her husband, he was utterly dumbfounded.
The next day, Tomahawk and his wife returned home, and with their return, the honeymoon of the new husband also began. Now, no sooner was Mistress Tomahawk settled in her new abode than she recognized that this miserable cabin was far too small for the two of them, and moreover, too unclean; in fact, this cabin was more comparable to a bear's den than a human dwelling. Tomahawk and his men therefore now had trees to fell, a task to which Tomahawk's people only submitted in exchange for certain fees in bottles of whiskey, which Jemmy had provisioned at the colony's headquarters. She had also attracted some of her compatriots, who helped in the construction of the new house. Tomahawk, in truth, still jumped when he had to wield the axe for two weeks; only, it was no longer with joy; he even made a face; but neither jumps nor grimaces could help: he had to comply. After four weeks, he found himself lying in a comfortable dwelling, as comfortable as Toffel's. Tomahawk then had a rest for four whole weeks; but spring was approaching: the field dedicated to wheat cultivation was obviously too small; it was even without a hedge, and the horses, as well as the pigs, came to devour the young shoots long before they had even formed their ears. Things could not remain in this state, and so Mistress Tomahawk's savage half had to fell a few more thousand trees and make hedges around half a dozen fields. — This done, Tomahawk had a few more weeks of rest. However, from time immemorial, things had been badly managed concerning fox, deer, beaver, and bear skins. Tomahawk had a great reputation as a hunter: but the fruit of several weeks of hunting, it was not uncommon for him to give it away for a few gallons of whiskey. Like many of his red brethren, his weak side was the pleasure he found in taking one and even many sips of whiskey, when the opportunity arose. However, he felt such fear of his companion in this regard that he cleverly hid the bottles of brandy in tree hollows. But Mistress Tomahawk soon discovered the fraud, and, in order to protect Tomahawk from all temptation from now on, she decided that in the future all skins would be brought to the camp and placed at her disposal. She then took charge of the fur trade. Very soon after, several cows grazed on the banks of the Miami, and Tomahawk tasted coffee and cornmeal cakes for the first time; but things went from bad to worse. A young Tomahawk saw the light of day, and the old Squaws soon came to his mother, their hands full of manure and bear grease, to solemnly admit the new chief of the tribe into the religious and political community. But Jemmy showed them a scowling face, and, when she saw that this was not enough, she so resolutely seized her scepter, that is, a large broom, that young and old ran away at full speed, believing themselves pursued by the evil spirit. When she had recovered from childbirth, she again ordered Tomahawk to prepare two horses.
This time again, their journey was directed towards the colony; only, they approached not the justice of the peace's house, but the priest's. Tomahawk calmly agreed to everything; but, when he saw the priest sprinkle water on his son, his patience snapped, he entered a kind of fury, and called Mistress Tomahawk a witch, an evil spirit, a medicine man (a very strong term among the Red Indians). Jemmy, without losing a word, frowned, raised her nose, and young Tomahawk was baptized like other Christian children.
The traveler whose path leads him north, across the heath between Columbus and Dayton, will notice, below and very near the sources of the Miami, a large dwelling, built of logs, flanked by barns and stables, surrounded by superb fields of corn and meadows, where magnificent cows, horses, and foals graze, not to mention orchards full of fruit trees. Around the house, half a dozen fair-skinned boys and girls frolic, dressed as if they had just stepped out of Stubls' store in Philadelphia. On Sundays, they read the Bible or saddle their horses to accompany Mistress Tomahawk to church; they read and explain the newspapers to the tribal chief, who is perfectly content with his new existence and proudly wonders whether he will make his eldest sons doctors or lawyers. Twice a year, Mistress Tomahawk travels to Cincinnati in a six-horse carriage, which, laden with butter, maple sugar, flour, and fruit, forms a procession as grand as that of a governor. Two of her sons on horseback always serve as outriders, and she has become as much the terror of all market inspectors as she has made herself the oracle and favorite of all women... and all men.
OCTAVIA,
OR
THE ILLUSION
It was in the spring of 1835 that a strong desire to see Italy seized me. Every day, upon waking, I would breathe in advance the sharp scent of the alpine chestnut trees; in the evening, the Terni waterfall, the frothing spring of the Teverone would gush forth for me alone between the worn-out wings of a small theater... A delightful voice, like that of the sirens, rustled in my ears, as if the reeds of Trasimene had suddenly found a voice... I had to leave, abandoning a thwarted love in Paris, from which I sought to escape through distraction.
It was in Marseille that I first stopped. Every morning, I would go for sea baths at Château Vert, and from afar, while swimming, I would glimpse the cheerful islands of the gulf. Every day, too, I would meet a young English girl in the azure bay, whose slender body cut through the green water beside me. This water nymph, named Octavia, one day came to me, beaming with pride over a strange catch she had made. She held a fish in her white hands, which she gave to me.
I couldn't help but smile at such a gift. However, cholera was then prevalent in the city, and, to avoid quarantines, I resolved to take the land route. I saw Nice, Genoa, and Florence; I admired the Duomo and the Baptistery, Michelangelo's masterpieces, the Leaning Tower and the Campo-Santo of Pisa. Then, taking the road to Spoleto, I stopped for ten days in Rome. St. Peter's dome, the Vatican, the Colosseum appeared to me like a dream. I hastened to take the post for Civitavecchia, where I was to embark. —For three days, the furious sea delayed the arrival of the steamboat. On that desolate beach where I walked thoughtfully, I was almost devoured by dogs one day.—The day before I left, a French vaudeville was being performed at the theater. A blonde and lively head caught my eye. It was the young Englishwoman, who had taken a seat in a stage box. She was accompanying her father, who appeared infirm, and to whom doctors had recommended the climate of Naples.
The next morning, I joyfully took my passage ticket. The young Englishwoman was on deck, pacing back and forth, and, impatient with the ship's slowness, she was pressing her ivory teeth into the rind of a lemon.
—Poor girl, I said to her, you're suffering from your chest, I'm sure, and that's not what you need.
She looked at me intently and said:
—Who told you that?
—The Sibyl of Tibur, I said to her without flinching.
—Go on! she said to me, I don't believe a word you say.
As she spoke, she looked at me tenderly, and I couldn't help but kiss her hand.
"If I were stronger," she said, "I'd teach you how to lie!"
And she playfully threatened me with a gold-headed riding crop she held in her hand.
Our ship was nearing the port of Naples, and we were crossing the gulf, between Ischia and Nisida, bathed in the glow of the Eastern sun.
"If you love me," she continued, "meet me tomorrow in Portici. I don't give such appointments to just anyone." She disembarked at Molo Square and accompanied her father to the Rome Hotel, newly built on the jetty. As for me, I found lodging behind the Florentine theater. My day was spent strolling along Toledo Street, Molo Square, visiting the Museum of Studies; then in the evening, I went to see the ballet at San-Carlo. There, I met Marquis Gargallo, whom I had known in Paris, and who took me, after the show, for tea at his sisters' house.
I will never forget the delightful evening that followed. The Marquise presided over a vast drawing-room filled with strangers. The conversation was somewhat reminiscent of the Précieuses; I felt as if I were in the blue room of the Hôtel de Rambouillet. The Marquise's sisters, as beautiful as the Graces, revived for me the enchantments of ancient Greece. They debated at length the shape of the Eleusinian stone, wondering if it was triangular or square. The Marquise could have pronounced with complete assurance, for she was beautiful and proud like Vesta. I left the palace with my head spinning from this philosophical discussion, and I couldn't find my way back home. By wandering aimlessly through the city, I was bound to become the hero of some adventure. The encounter I had that night is the subject of the following letter, which I later addressed to the one whose fatal love I had thought to escape by leaving Paris:
"I am in extreme anxiety. For four days, I haven't seen you, or I've only seen you in company; I have a fatal premonition. That you were sincere with me, I believe; that you have changed in the past few days, I don't know, but I fear it. My God! Have pity on my uncertainties, or you will bring some misfortune upon us. See, it would be myself I would accuse, however. I have been timid and devoted more than a man should show. I have surrounded my love with so much reserve, I have feared so much to offend you, you who had already punished me so much once, that I may have gone too far in my delicacy, and that you may have thought me cold. Well, I respected a day important to you, I contained emotions that would break the soul, and I put on a smiling mask, I whose heart was pounding and burning. Others may not have been so considerate, but then again, perhaps no one has shown you so much true affection, and has so well understood all your worth.
"Let's speak frankly: I know there are ties that a woman can only break with difficulty, inconvenient relationships that can only be severed slowly. Have I asked you for too painful sacrifices? Tell me your sorrows, I will understand them. Your fears, your whims, the necessities of your position, none of that can shake the immense affection I have for you, nor even disturb the purity of my love. But we will see together what can be admitted or fought, and, if there were knots that needed to be cut and not untied, rely on me for that care. To lack frankness at this moment would perhaps be inhumanity; for, as I told you, my life depends on nothing but your will, and you know well that my greatest desire can only be to die for you!"
"To die, great God! Why does this idea come back to me at every turn, as if only my death could be the equivalent of the happiness you promise? Death! This word, however, casts nothing dark in my thoughts. She appears to me crowned with pale roses, as at the end of a feast; I have sometimes dreamed that she was waiting for me, smiling, at the bedside of an adored woman, after happiness, after intoxication, and that she was saying to me:"
“Come, young man! you’ve had your fill of joy in this world. Now, come sleep, come rest in my arms. I may not be beautiful, but I am kind and helpful, and I don’t offer pleasure, but eternal peace.”
“But where have I seen this image before? Ah, I told you, it was in Naples, three years ago. I met a young woman at night, near the Villa Reale, who resembled you, a very kind soul whose trade was embroidering gold for church ornaments; she seemed a bit lost in thought; I escorted her home, even though she spoke of a lover she had in the Swiss Guards, and she trembled at the thought of him arriving. Yet, she had no trouble admitting that she found me more appealing… What can I say? I took a fancy to lose myself for a whole evening, and to imagine that this woman, whose language I barely understood, was you yourself, descended to me by enchantment. Why should I hide this whole adventure and the bizarre illusion my soul readily accepted, especially after a few glasses of sparkling lacrima-cristi poured for me at supper? The room I entered had something mystical about it, either by chance or by the singular choice of objects it contained. A black Madonna covered in tinsel, whose ancient adornments my hostess was tasked with rejuvenating, stood on a dresser near a bed with green serge curtains; a figure of Saint Rosalie, crowned with violet roses, seemed to protect a sleeping child’s cradle further off: the whitewashed walls were decorated with old paintings of the four elements depicting mythological deities. Add to that a beautiful disarray of shimmering fabrics, artificial flowers, Etruscan vases; mirrors surrounded by tinsel that brightly reflected the glow of the single copper lamp, and, on a table, a Treatise on Divination and Dreams that made me think my companion was at least a bit of a sorceress or a gypsy.”
“A kind old woman with solemn features came and went, serving us; I think she must have been her mother! And I, lost in thought, kept looking without a word at the one who so perfectly reminded me of you.”
“This woman kept repeating to me:”
“Are you sad?”
“And I told her:”
“Don’t speak, I can barely understand you; Italian tires me to listen to and to pronounce.”
“Oh!” she said, “I know how to speak in other ways too.”
“And she suddenly spoke in a language I had not yet heard. They were resonant, guttural syllables, charming warblings, a primitive language no doubt; Hebrew, Syriac, I don’t know. She smiled at my astonishment, and went to her dresser, from which she pulled out ornaments of fake stones, necklaces, bracelets, a crown; having adorned herself thus, she returned to the table, then remained serious for a long time. The old woman, upon re-entering, burst into loud laughter and told me, I believe, that this was how she was seen at festivals. At that moment, the child woke up and began to cry. The two women ran to his cradle, and soon the young one returned to me, proudly holding in her arms the suddenly appeased bambino.”
“She spoke to him in that language I had admired, she entertained him with graceful endearments; and I, unaccustomed to the effect of the burning wines of Vesuvius, felt objects spinning before my eyes; this woman, with her strange manners, royally adorned, proud and capricious, appeared to me like one of those Thessalian sorceresses to whom one gave one's soul for a dream. Oh! why did I not fear telling you this story? It is because you know well that it was also just a dream, where only you reigned!”
“I tore myself away from this phantom that both seduced and frightened me; I wandered through the deserted city until the sound of the first bells; then, feeling the morning, I took the small streets behind Chiaia, and began to climb Posillipo above the grotto. Having reached the top, I walked, looking at the already blue sea, the city where only the sounds of morning could yet be heard, and the shores of the bay, where the sun was beginning to gild the tops of the villas. I was not saddened in the least; I walked with long strides, I rolled in the damp grass; but in my heart there was the idea of death.”
"Oh gods! I don't know what deep sadness dwelled in my soul, but it was nothing other than the cruel thought that I was not loved. I had seen the ghost of happiness, I had used all of God's gifts, I was under the most beautiful sky in the world, in the presence of the most perfect nature, the most immense spectacle given to men to see, but four hundred leagues from the only woman who existed for me, and who was unaware of my very existence. To not be loved and to have no hope of ever being loved! It was then that I was tempted to ask God to account for my singular existence. There was only one step to take: where I was, the mountain was cut like a cliff, the sea roared below, blue and pure; it was only a moment more to suffer. Oh! the giddiness of that thought was terrible. Twice I lunged, and I don't know what power threw me back alive onto the earth, which I embraced. No, my God! You did not create me for eternal suffering. I do not want to outrage you with my death; but give me above all the resolution that leads some to the throne, others to glory, others to love!"
*
During this strange night, a rather rare phenomenon had occurred. Towards the end of the night, all the openings of the house where I was had lit up, a warm and sulfurous dust prevented me from breathing; and, leaving my easy conquest asleep on the terrace, I entered the narrow streets leading to Saint-Elmo Castle; as I climbed the mountain, the pure morning air came to fill my lungs; I rested deliciously under the arbors of the villas, and I contemplated Vesuvius, still covered with a dome of smoke, without terror.
It was at this moment that I was seized with the dizziness of which I spoke; the thought of the rendezvous given to me by the young Englishwoman tore me away from the fatal ideas I had conceived. After refreshing my mouth with one of those enormous bunches of grapes sold by the market women, I headed towards Portici and went to visit the ruins of Herculaneum. The streets were all sprinkled with metallic ash. Arriving near the ruins, I descended into the underground city and walked for a long time from building to building, asking these monuments for the secret of their past. The temple of Venus, that of Mercury, spoke in vain to my imagination. It needed to be populated with living figures.—I went back up to Portici and stopped thoughtfully under an arbor, waiting for my unknown.
She soon appeared, guiding her father's difficult walk, and squeezed my hand firmly, saying:—That's good.
We chose a coachman and went to visit Pompeii. With what joy I guided her through the silent streets of the ancient Roman colony. I had already studied its most secret passages. When we arrived at the small temple of Isis, I had the pleasure of faithfully explaining to her the details of the cult and ceremonies I had read in Apuleius. She wanted to play the role of the Goddess herself, and I found myself in charge of the role of Osiris, whose divine mysteries I explained.
Returning, struck by the grandeur of the ideas we had just raised, I dared not speak to her of love... She found me so cold that she reproached me for it. Then, I confessed to her that I no longer felt worthy of her. I told her the mystery of that apparition which had awakened an old love in my heart, and all the sadness that had followed that fatal night when the ghost of happiness had been nothing but the reproach of a perjury.
Alas! how far all that is from us! Ten years ago, I was passing through Naples again, coming from the East. I went to stay at the hotel de Rome, and there I found the young Englishwoman again. She had married a famous painter who, shortly after their marriage, had been struck by complete paralysis; lying on a daybed, he had nothing mobile in his face but two large black eyes, and, still young, he could not even hope for recovery in other climates. The poor girl had devoted her existence to living sadly between her husband and her father, and her gentleness, her virginal candor could not succeed in calming the atrocious jealousy that smoldered in the soul of the former. Nothing could ever induce him to let his wife be free in her walks, and he reminded me of that black giant who eternally watches in the cavern of genies, and whom his wife is forced to beat to prevent him from falling asleep. O mystery of the human soul! Must we see in such a picture the cruel marks of the vengeance of the gods!
I could only spare one day for this sorrowful sight. The boat that took me back to Marseille carried away, like a dream, the memory of that cherished apparition, and I told myself that perhaps I had left happiness behind there. Octavie kept its secret close to her.
ISIS
MEMORIES OF POMPEII
I
Before the railway line from Naples to Resina was established, a trip to Pompeii was quite an undertaking. It took a whole day to visit Herculaneum, Vesuvius, and Pompeii, located two miles further on; often, people even stayed overnight to explore Pompeii by moonlight, creating a complete illusion. Everyone could imagine, indeed, that, going back through the centuries, they were suddenly admitted to wander the streets and squares of the sleeping city; the peaceful moon perhaps suited these ruins better than the glare of the sun, ruins that at first excite neither admiration nor surprise, and where antiquity shows itself, so to speak, in a modest dishabille.
One of the ambassadors residing in Naples gave a rather ingenious party a few years ago. Equipped with all necessary authorizations, he had a large number of people dressed in antique costumes; the guests conformed to this arrangement, and, for a day and a night, various representations of the customs of the ancient Roman colony were attempted. It is understood that scholarship had guided most of the party's details; chariots roamed the streets, merchants populated the shops; refreshments gathered, at certain hours, in the main houses, the various companies of guests. There, it was the aedile Pansa; there, Sallust; there, Julia-Felix, the opulent daughter of Scaurus, who received the guests and welcomed them into their homes.—The house of the Vestals had its veiled inhabitants; that of the Dancers did not belie the promises of its graceful attributes. The two theaters offered comic and tragic performances, and, under the colonnades of the Forum, idle citizens exchanged the day's news, while, in the basilica open onto the square, one could hear the shrill voices of lawyers or the imprecations of litigants.—Canvases and hangings completed, in all places where such spectacles were offered, the decorative effect, which the general lack of roofs might have hindered; but it is known that, apart from this detail, the preservation of most of the buildings is complete enough for one to have taken great pleasure in this palingenetic attempt.—One of the most curious spectacles was the ceremony performed at sunset in that admirable small temple of Isis, which, by its perfect preservation, is perhaps the most interesting of all these ruins.
It was not difficult to find the necessary costumes for the worship of the good and mysterious goddess, thanks to the two ancient paintings in the Naples museum, which depict the sacred morning and evening services; but the research and explanation of the main scenes that had to be rendered gave rise to a very curious work, entrusted to a German scholar.—The Marquis G..., director of the library, kindly allowed me to extract the following details from the manuscript volume that recounted the establishment and ceremonies of the cult of Isis in Pompeii. One also finds curious research concerning the forms that the Egyptian cult took when it came to directly contend with the nascent religion of Christ.
II
After the death of Alexander the Great, the two main religions from which all others sprung—the cult of the stars and the cult of fire, whose highest expression was Zoroaster's doctrine and whose crudest was idolatry—formed a strange fusion. The religious systems of the East and West met in Ephesus, Antioch, Alexandria, and Rome. The new Egyptian superstition spread everywhere with extraordinary rapidity. For a long time, the ideas and myths of the old theogony no longer suited the Greek and Roman world. Jupiter and Juno, Apollo and Diana, and all the other inhabitants of Olympus could still be invoked and had not lost their public credit. Their altars smoked on certain solemn days of the year; their images were carried in great pomp along the roads, and the temple and theater filled with numerous spectators on feast days. But these spectators had become strangers to any kind of adoration. Even art, which reveled in ideal representations of the gods, was merely a refined lure for the senses. Thus, the small number of faithful who still existed were convinced that divinity dwelled only in the old, stiff, and dry images—belonging to the primitive theogony. This popular superstition vainly opposed the efforts of philosophers and mocking skeptics. Divine and human laws, and what the simple ancestors had considered the epitome of holiness, were scorned and trampled underfoot. But, in this state of general decomposition, the human soul felt all the more the immense void it had created for itself and a secret desire to reestablish something divine, inexpressible. A similar need was felt simultaneously by thousands of jaded spirits, and this old adage received new confirmation: where unbelief reigns, superstition has already opened a door. Judaism seemed to many to be capable of filling this painful void. It is known with what rapidity the Mosaic cult then gained followers not only throughout the Roman Empire but even beyond its borders.
However, the dogma of Jehovah did not allow for images, and the materialistic worship of that era required palpable and expressive forms. Then, Egypt, the mother and preserver of all religious imaginations and extravagances, offered satisfaction for the needs of the soul and senses. Serapis and Isis came to the aid, one for suffering bodies, the other for languishing souls. Jupiter Serapis, with the basket of fruit on his majestic and radiant head, soon dispossessed, in Rome and Greece, the Olympian and Capitoline Jupiter armed with his thunderbolt. The old Jupiter was only good for thundering, and his blasts often struck his temples and the tree consecrated to him. The Egyptian god, heir to the mysteries and primitive traditions of the ancient cult of Apis and Osiris, and to all the magnificence of the Greek Olympus, did not hold the key to the Nile and the kingdom of shadows in vain. He could cure mortals of all the ills that afflicted them. To a greater extent, this new Alexandrian savior performed those marvelous cures that Asclepius, the tamer of pain, had once performed in Epidaurus. Almost all the great seaports of Italy had Serapaeums—as the temples and hospitals of the healing God were called—with vestibules and colonnades, where a large number of rooms and bathhouses were prepared for the sick. These Serapaeums were the lazarets and health resorts of the ancient world. Undoubtedly, there were natural remedies there, and, above all, those of baths and massage, combined with magnetism, somnambulism, and other practices whose secret the priests possessed and transmitted; but this was based on a profound knowledge of the men of that time; and from this empiricism soon emerged a remarkable and powerful physical medicine. The marvelous power of the god is attested to by the ruins of his temple in Pozzuoli. It is three leagues from Naples, on the coast of Campania;—now, still three gigantic columns, ravaged as they are by climbing plants, from the midst of a pile of ruins, proclaim the ancient renown of the god, who, in this populous seaport, under the name of Serapis Dusar, gave refuge and healing. A magnificent colonnade which, in modern times, has been appropriated for the palace of Caserta, surrounded the halls and galleries. There were a large number of sickrooms and steam rooms between the lodgings of the priests and guardians. Along the shore from the voluptuous Gulf of Neptuno to the underground passages of Trivergola, there was a series of places of asylum and healing under the protection of the universal father Serapis.
III
However, powerful and alluring as the regenerated cult of Isis was for the enervated men of that era, it primarily appealed to women. — All that the strange ceremonies and mysteries of the Cabiri and the gods of Eleusis in Greece, all that the bacchanals of Liber Pater and Hebron in Campania and Magna Graecia, all that even the festival of the Bona Dea in Rome had separately offered to the passion for the marvelous and even to superstition, was, by a religious artifice, gathered into the secret cult of the Egyptian goddess, like a subterranean channel receiving the waters of a multitude of tributaries.
In addition to the specific monthly festivals and grand solemnities, there were public assemblies and services twice a day for believers of both sexes. From the first hour of the day, the goddess was up, and whoever wished to merit her special graces had to present themselves at her rising for morning prayer. — The temple was opened with great pomp. The high priest emerged from the sanctuary accompanied by his ministers. Fragrant incense smoked on the altar; sweet flute sounds were heard. — Meanwhile, the community had divided into two ranks, in the vestibule, up to the first step of the temple. — The priest's voice invited prayer, a kind of litany was chanted; then the resounding sounds of Isis's sistrum were heard in the hands of some worshippers. Often, part of the goddess's history was represented through pantomimes and symbolic dances. The elements of her cult were presented with invocations to the kneeling people, who sang or murmured all sorts of prayers.
But if the matins of the goddess had been celebrated at sunrise, one was not to neglect offering her evening greetings and wishing her a happy night, a particular formula that constituted one of the important parts of the liturgy. One began by announcing to the goddess herself the evening hour.
The ancients did not possess, it is true, the convenience of the striking clock, nor even the silent clock; but they supplemented, as much as they could, our machines of steel and copper with living machines, with slaves charged with crying out the hour according to the clepsydra and the sundial; — there were even men who, merely by the length of their shadow, which they could estimate by sight, could tell the exact hour of the day or evening. — This custom of crying out the determinations of time was also admitted in the temples. There were pious people in Rome who performed this singular office for Jupiter Capitoline, telling him the hours. — But this custom was mainly observed at the matins and vespers of the great Isis, and upon this depended the order of the daily liturgy.
IV
This took place in the afternoon, at the solemn closing of the temple, around four o'clock, according to the modern division of time, or, according to the ancient division, after the eighth hour of the day. — This could properly be called the goddess's
The other parts of the liturgy were mostly those performed at matins, with the difference, however, that the litanies and hymns were intoned and sung, to the sound of sistrums, flutes, and trumpets, by a psalmist or precentor who, in the order of priests, fulfilled the functions of a hymn-singer. At the most solemn moment, the high priest, standing on the last step before the tabernacle, flanked on the right and left by two deacons or pastophori, raised the principal element of worship, the symbol of the fertilizing Nile, the holy water, and presented it to the fervent adoration of the faithful. The ceremony concluded with the usual dismissal formula.
The superstitious ideas attached to certain days, the ablutions, fasts, expiations, macerations, and mortifications of the flesh were the prelude to consecration to the holiest of goddesses of a thousand qualities and virtues, to which men and women, after many trials and a thousand sacrifices, ascended by three degrees. However, the introduction of these mysteries opened the door to some misconduct. Under the guise of preparations and trials, which often lasted many days and which no husband dared refuse his wife, no lover his mistress, for fear of Osiris's whip or Isis's vipers, equivocal rendezvous occurred in the sanctuaries, covered by the impenetrable veils of initiation. But these are excesses common to all cults in their periods of decadence. The same accusations were leveled against the mysterious practices and agapes of the early Christians. The idea of a holy land to which the memory of primary traditions and a kind of filial adoration should be attached for all peoples—of a holy water suitable for the consecrations and purifications of the faithful—presents nobler connections to study between these two cults, one of which has, so to speak, served as a transition to the other.
All water was sweet to the Egyptian, but especially that drawn from the river, an emanation of Osiris. At the annual festival of Osiris rediscovered, where, after long lamentations, the cry was raised: "We have found him, and we all rejoice!" everyone prostrated themselves before the pitcher filled with freshly drawn Nile water carried by the high priest; hands were raised to the sky, exalting the miracle of divine mercy.
The holy water of the Nile, preserved in the sacred pitcher, was also at the festival of Isis the most vivid symbol of the father of the living and the dead. Isis could not be honored without Osiris. The faithful even believed in the real presence of Osiris in the Nile water, and, at each evening and morning blessing, the high priest showed the people the hydria, the holy pitcher, and offered it for their adoration. No effort was spared to deeply impress upon the spectators the character of this divine transubstantiation. The prophet himself, however great the holiness of this personage, could not grasp with his bare hands the vessel in which the divine mystery was performed. He wore over his stole, of the finest linen, a kind of cape (piviale) also of linen or muslin, which covered his shoulders and arms, and in which he wrapped his arm and hand. Thus attired, he took the holy vessel, which he then carried, according to Saint Clement of Alexandria, pressed against his chest. Moreover, what virtue did the Nile not possess in the eyes of the pious Egyptian? It was spoken of everywhere as a source of healing and miracles. There were vessels where its water was preserved for several years. "I have four-year-old Nile water in my cellar," the Egyptian merchant would proudly say to the inhabitant of Byzantium or Naples who boasted of his old Falernian or Chian wine. Even after death, under his bandages and in his mummy condition, the Egyptian hoped that Osiris would still allow him to quench his thirst with its revered waters. "Osiris gives you fresh water!" said the epitaphs of the dead. It is for this reason that mummies bore a cup painted on their chest.
V
To the right of the prophet carrying the hydria (hydriophoros), stood a woman representing, by her attributes and costume, the goddess Isis herself.—Isis, indeed, was always to share in the homage paid to Osiris.—She did not wear her hair short like the rest of the clergy, but, on the contrary, had it long and curly.
Another very characteristic detail in the representation of Isis was what the priestess held in her hands.—With her right hand, she raised that famous instrument which the Greeks called sistron and the Egyptians kemkem.—Sadness, on the occasion of Osiris's death, and joy when he was found, were the main points of Egyptian religion in the period following the Persian conquest. For all the litanies of sadness and joy sung during these great festivals, it was the sistrum of Isis that marked the beat.—A well-made sistrum, in memory of the four elements, was to have four small rods.—One can believe that the sistrum was never shaken without recalling the memory of Osiris's death and resurrection. In her left hand, the priestess held a watering can, by which was meant the fertility that the Nile provided to the earth.—Isis drew water from it for the needs of the cult and also for the fertilization of the soil.—For, if Osiris is the strength of the waters, Isis is the strength of the earth and is considered the principle of fertility.
The priest who sang hymns and prayers, or precentor, enjoyed particular esteem. He stood on the lowest step of the temple, in the middle of the double row of people, and directed the whole with a staff in the shape of a scepter. The Greeks called this liturgist, the choirmaster of the cult of Isis, the singer or hymn-singer (odos, hymnodos). He recalls the rhabdodes and rhapsodes, who sang with a laurel staff in hand.
Apuleius speaks, in several places, of the flutes and horns which, in the ceremonies of Isis and Osiris, by lamentable or joyful modulations, put the attendees in suitable states of mind; this music came from a kind of flute whose invention was attributed to Osiris.—Another figure who ended the row of faithful on the other side, and whose costume perfectly matched that of the priests of Isis of a lower order, had a shaven head, and wore the apron around his loins.—But he held in his hand one of the most enigmatic Egyptian symbols, the ankh (crux ansata), of which the scholar Daunou found an entire covered substructure in a temple at Philae.
It goes without saying that here no bloody victim was sacrificed, and that the flame of the altar never consumed palpitating flesh.—Isis, the principle of life and the mother of all living beings, disdained bloody sacrifices.—Only water from the sacred river or milk was poured for her; for her also burned incense and other perfumes.
In the temple, everything was significant and characteristic: the odd number of steps on which the chapel was raised also had a mystical meaning.—In general, the Egyptian priest sought to surround himself with memories of the sacred land of the Nile, and, by means of the plants and animals of Egypt, to transport the followers of this new religion to the country where it originated.—It was not by chance that two palm trees had been planted to the right and left of the fragrant grove that surrounded the chapel; for the palm tree, which grows new branches every month, was a symbol of the power of the great gods. Hence the palm-bearers who appeared in processions, and who are mentioned in the famous Rosetta inscription.
At the end of the ceremony, according to a passage from Apuleius, one of the priests pronounced the usual formula: “Dismissal to the people!” which has become the Christian formula: Ite, missa est; and to which the people responded with their customary farewell to the goddess: “Farewell,” or: “Keep well!”
VI
Perhaps, when traveling, one should fear spoiling the initial impression of famous places by reading about them beforehand. I had visited the Orient with only the already vague memories of my classical education. Upon returning from Egypt, Naples was for me a place of rest and study, and the precious deposits of its libraries and museums served to justify or challenge the hypotheses my mind had formed at the sight of so many unexplained or silent ruins. Perhaps I owe to the vivid memory of Alexandria, Thebes, and the Pyramids the almost religious impression I felt a second time at the sight of the Temple of Isis in Pompeii. I had left my travel companions to admire the House of Diomedes in all its details, and, escaping the attention of the guards, I had thrown myself at random into the streets of the ancient city, here and there avoiding some invalid who asked me from afar where I was going, and caring little to know the name that science had rediscovered for such and such a building, for a temple, for a house, for a shop. Was it not enough that the dragomans and Arabs had spoiled the Pyramids for me, without also enduring the tyranny of the Neapolitan ciceroni? I had entered by the Street of Tombs; it was clear that by following this lava-paved road, where the deep rut of ancient wheels is still visible, I would find the temple of the Egyptian goddess, located at the end of the city, near the tragic theater. However, temples consecrated to Greek and Roman gods struck my eyes with their imposing mass and numerous columns, and the Iseum seemed lost among private houses. Finally, penetrating here and there into the buildings, I entered an enclosure through a low gate, and there, there was no longer any doubt, the memory of the two ancient paintings I had seen in the Museum of Studies, which depict the ceremonies of the cult of Isis described above, accorded with the architecture of the monument before my eyes. It was indeed the narrow courtyard formerly enclosed by a railing, the columns still standing, the two altars to the right and left, the latter being perfectly preserved, and, at the back, the ancient cella rising on seven steps formerly covered with Parian marble.
Eight Doric columns, without bases, support the sides, and ten others the pediment; the enclosure is open, according to the architectural style called hypaetron, but a covered portico extended all around. The sanctuary is in the form of a small square, vaulted, tiled temple, and features three niches intended for images of the Egyptian Trinity; two altars placed at the back of the sanctuary bore the Isiac tables, one of which has been preserved, and on the base of the main statue of the goddess, placed in the center of the inner nave, it was possible to read that L. C. Phoebus had erected it in this place by decree of the decurions.
Near the left altar, in the courtyard, was a small lodge intended for purifications; some bas-reliefs decorated its walls. Two vases containing lustral water were also placed at the entrance of the inner door, like our holy water fonts. Stucco paintings decorated the interior of the temple and depicted scenes of the countryside, plants, and animals of Egypt—the sacred land.
I had admired in the Museum the riches that had been recovered from this temple: the lamps, cups, censers, cruets, aspergillums, the priests' shining miters and croziers, the sistrums, clarions, and cymbals, a gilded Venus, a Bacchus, Hermeses, silver and ivory seats, basalt idols, and mosaic pavements adorned with inscriptions and emblems. Most of these objects, whose precious material and workmanship indicate the temple's wealth, were discovered in the most secluded holy place, located behind the sanctuary, which is reached by passing under five arches. There, a small oblong courtyard leads to a chamber that contained sacred ornaments. The dwelling of the Isiac ministers, located to the left of the temple, consisted of three rooms, and several bodies of these priests were found within the enclosure, who are presumed to have been bound by their religion not to abandon the sanctuary.
This temple is the best-preserved ruin in Pompeii because, at the time the city was buried, it was its newest monument. The old temple had been overthrown a few years earlier by an earthquake, and here we see the one that had been rebuilt in its place.—I don't know if any of the three statues of Isis in the Naples Museum were found in this very spot, but I had admired them the day before, and nothing prevented me, by adding the memory of the two paintings, from reconstructing in my mind the entire scene of the evening ceremony.
Just then, the sun began to sink towards Capri, and the moon slowly rose from the direction of Vesuvius, covered in its light canopy of smoke. I sat on a stone, contemplating these two celestial bodies that had long been worshipped in this temple under the names of Osiris and Isis, and with mystical attributes alluding to their various phases, and I felt a profound emotion. A child of a skeptical rather than incredulous century, wavering between two opposing educations—that of the Revolution, which denied everything, and that of the social reaction, which claims to restore the entirety of Christian beliefs—would I find myself drawn to believe everything, as our philosopher fathers had been to deny everything?—I thought of that magnificent preamble to Volney's Ruins, which makes the Genius of the past appear on the ruins of Palmyra and which borrows from such lofty inspirations only the power to dismantle piece by piece the entire body of religious traditions of humankind! Thus perished, under the assault of modern reason, Christ himself, the last of the revelators, who, in the name of a higher reason, had once depopulated the heavens. O nature, O eternal mother! Was this truly the fate reserved for the last of your celestial sons? Have mortals come to reject all hope and all prestige, and, lifting your sacred veil, goddess of Sais! has the boldest of your adepts thus found himself face to face with the image of Death?
If the successive fall of beliefs led to this result, wouldn't it be more comforting to fall into the opposite extreme and try to reclaim the illusions of the past?
VII
It is evident that, in later times, paganism had re-immersed itself in its Egyptian origins, and tended more and more to bring the various mythological conceptions back to the principle of unity. This eternal Nature, whom Lucretius, the materialist, himself invoked under the name of Celestial Venus, was preferably named Cybele by Julian, Urania or Ceres by Plotinus, Proclus, and Porphyry;—Apuleius, giving her all these names, more readily calls her Isis; it is the name that, for him, summarizes all the others; it is the primitive identity of this queen of heaven, with diverse attributes, with a changing mask! Thus she appears to him dressed in the Egyptian style, but freed from the stiff postures, the bandages, and the naive forms of earlier times.
Her thick, long hair, ending in curls, flows over her divine shoulders; a multi-shaped and multi-flowered crown adorns her head, and the silvery moon shines on her brow; on both sides, serpents twist among golden ears of corn, and her robe with its shifting reflections passes, according to the movement of its folds, from the purest white to saffron yellow, or seems to borrow its redness from fire; her dark black cloak is sown with stars and bordered with a luminous fringe; her right hand holds the sistrum, which produces a clear sound, her left hand a golden vase in the shape of a gondola.
Thus, exhaling the most delicious perfumes of Happy Arabia, she appears to Lucius and says:
"Your prayers have touched me; I, the mother of nature, the mistress of the elements, the prime source of the ages, the greatest of deities, the queen of shades; I who confound in myself both gods and goddesses; I whose unique and all-powerful divinity the universe has adored in a thousand forms. Thus, in Phrygia, I am called Cybele; in Athens, Minerva; in Cyprus, Paphian Venus; in Crete, Dictynna Diana; in Sicily, Stygian Proserpine; in Eleusis, ancient Ceres; elsewhere, Juno, Bellona, Hecate, or Nemesis, while the Egyptian, who in the sciences preceded all other peoples, pays homage to me under my true name of the goddess Isis."
"Remember," she told Lucius after showing him how to escape the enchantment he was under, "that you must dedicate the rest of your life to me, and as soon as you cross the dark shore, you will not cease to adore me, whether in the darkness of Acheron or in the Elysian Fields; and if, by observing my cult and by inviolable chastity, you prove worthy of me, you will know that I alone can prolong your spiritual life beyond its appointed limits."
Having uttered these adorable words, the invincible goddess disappears and withdraws into her own immensity.
Indeed, if paganism had always manifested such a pure conception of Divinity, the religious principles stemming from the ancient land of Egypt would still reign in that form over modern civilization.—But isn't it noteworthy that the earliest foundations of Christian faith also come to us from Egypt? Orpheus and Moses, both initiated into the Isiac mysteries, simply announced sublime truths to diverse races—truths that differences in customs, languages, and the passage of time then gradually altered or completely transformed.—Today, it seems that Catholicism itself has undergone, depending on the country, a reaction analogous to that which occurred in the last years of polytheism. In Italy, Poland, Greece, Spain, among all peoples most sincerely attached to the Roman Church, has not devotion to the Virgin become a kind of exclusive cult? Is it not always the Holy Mother, holding in her arms the savior and mediator child, who dominates minds—and whose appearance still produces conversions comparable to that of Apuleius's hero? Isis not only held the child in her arms, or the cross in her hand like the Virgin: the same zodiacal sign is dedicated to them, the moon is under their feet; the same nimbus shines around their heads; we have reported above a thousand analogous details in the ceremonies—the same sentiment of chastity in the Isiac cult, as long as the doctrine remained pure; similar institutions of associations and confraternities. I will certainly refrain from drawing the same conclusions as Volney and Dupuis from all these parallels. On the contrary, in the eyes of the philosopher, if not the theologian,—can it not seem that there has been, in all intelligent cults, a certain share of divine revelation? Primitive Christianity invoked the words of the Sibyls and did not reject the testimony of the last oracles of Delphi. A new evolution of dogmas could reconcile, on certain points, the religious testimonies of different times. It would be so beautiful to absolve and snatch from eternal curses the heroes and sages of antiquity!
Far be it from me, indeed, to have gathered the preceding details merely to prove that the Christian religion borrowed heavily from the last forms of paganism: this point is denied by no one. Every religion that succeeds another long respects certain practices and forms of worship, which it merely harmonizes with its own dogmas. Thus, the ancient theogony of the Egyptians and Pelasgians was merely modified and translated among the Greeks, adorned with new names and attributes;—still later, in the religious phase we have just described, Serapis, who was already a transformation of Osiris, became one of Jupiter; Isis, who, to enter the Greek myth, only had to resume her name of Io, daughter of Inachus—the founder of the Eleusinian mysteries, now rejected the bestial mask, symbol of an era of struggle and servitude. But see how many easy assimilations Christianity would find in these rapid transformations of the most diverse dogmas!—Let us set aside the cross of Serapis and the abode in the underworld of this god who judges souls;—is the Redeemer promised to the earth, and long foreseen by poets and oracles, the child Horus suckled by the divine mother, who will be the Word (logos) of future ages?—Is it the Iacchus-Jesus of the Eleusinian mysteries, already greater, and springing from the arms of Demeter, the pantheistic goddess? Or rather, is it not true that all these diverse modes of the same idea must be united, and that it was always an admirable theogonic thought to present to the adoration of men a celestial Mother whose child is the hope of the world?
And now, why these shouts of ecstasy and joy, these heavenly songs, these waving palms, these sacred cakes shared on certain days of the year? It is because the savior child was born at this very time.—Why these other days of tears and mournful songs, when the bruised and bloody body of a God is sought—when groans echo from the banks of the Nile to the shores of Phoenicia, from the heights of Lebanon to the plains where Troy once stood? Why is the one sought and mourned called Osiris here, Adonis further on, Attis even further? And why does another clamor from the depths of Asia also search in mysterious grottoes for the remains of a sacrificed god?—A deified woman, mother, wife, or lover, bathes this bleeding and disfigured body with her tears, a victim of a hostile principle that triumphs in his death, but which will one day be vanquished! The celestial victim is represented in marble or wax, with his bloody flesh, with his fresh wounds, which the faithful come to touch and kiss piously. But, on the third day, everything changes: the body has disappeared, the immortal has revealed himself; joy succeeds tears, hope is reborn on earth; it is the renewed festival of youth and spring.
This is the oriental cult, both primitive and later than the fables of Greece, which had gradually invaded and absorbed the domain of Homer's gods. The mythological heaven radiated too pure a brilliance; it was of too precise and clear a beauty; it breathed too much happiness, abundance, and serenity; it was, in a word, too well conceived from the perspective of happy people, of rich and victorious nations, to long impose itself on a troubled and suffering world.—The Greeks had made it triumph through victory in that almost cosmogonic struggle sung by Homer, and, since then, the strength and glory of the gods had been incarnated in the destinies of Rome;—but sorrow and the spirit of vengeance acted upon the rest of the world, which would only surrender to the religions of despair.—Philosophy, on the other hand, was accomplishing a work of assimilation and moral unity; what was awaited in minds was realized in the order of facts. This divine Mother, this Savior, whom a kind of prophetic mirage had announced here and there from one end of the world to the other, finally appeared like the great day that succeeded the vague glimmers of dawn.
EMILIE
MEMORIES OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.
No one truly knew the story of Lieutenant Desroches, who got himself killed last year in the battle of Hambergen, two months after his wedding. If that was a true suicide, may God forgive him! But, certainly, he who dies defending his homeland does not deserve to have his action called such, whatever his intentions may have been.
—"Here we are again," said the doctor, "back to the chapter of capitulations of conscience. Desroches was a philosopher determined to leave life: he did not want his death to be useless; he bravely threw himself into the fray; he killed as many Germans as he could, saying: 'I can do no better now; I die content.' And he cried: Long live the Emperor! as he received the saber blow that struck him down. Ten soldiers of his company will tell you that."
—"And it was nonetheless a suicide," Arthur retorted. "However, I think it would have been wrong to deny him a church burial..."
—"By that reasoning, you would condemn Curtius's devotion. This young Roman knight was perhaps ruined by gambling, unlucky in love, weary of life, who knows? But, assuredly, it is noble, when contemplating leaving the world, to make one's death useful to others; and that is why it cannot be called a suicide, for suicide is nothing other than the supreme act of egoism, and it is for that reason alone that it is condemned among men... What are you thinking of, Arthur?"
—"I'm thinking of what you said earlier, that Desroches, before dying, killed as many Germans as possible..."
—Well?
—Well, those good people went before God to bear a sad witness to the lieutenant's beautiful death; you'll allow me to say that it was a truly homicidal suicide.
—Oh! Who's going to think about that? Germans are enemies.
—But are there any for a man resolved to die? At that moment, all instinct of nationality fades, and I doubt one thinks of any country other than the other world, or any emperor other than God. But the abbot listens to us without saying anything, and yet I hope I speak here according to his ideas.—Come, abbot, tell us your opinion, and try to bring us to an agreement; this is a rather abundant source of controversy, and the story of Desroches, or rather what we, the doctor and I, believe we know of it, seems no less obscure than the profound reasonings it has stirred among us.
—Yes, said the doctor, Desroches, it is claimed, was greatly distressed by his last wound, the one that had so disfigured him; and perhaps he caught some grimace or jest from his new wife; philosophers are susceptible. In any case, he died, and voluntarily.
—Voluntarily, since you insist; but do not call a death found in battle a suicide; you would add a contradiction in words to the one you perhaps make in thought; one dies in a melee because one encounters something that kills; not everyone who wants to dies.
—Well then, do you want it to be fate?
—My turn, interrupted the abbot, who had collected himself during this discussion: it will perhaps seem singular to you that I should dispute your paradoxes or your suppositions...
—Well, speak, speak; you know more than we do, certainly. You've lived in Bitche for a long time; they say Desroches knew you, and perhaps he even confessed to you...
—In that case, I should remain silent; but unfortunately, that was not the case, and yet, Desroches' death was Christian, believe me; and I will tell you its causes and circumstances, so that you may carry away the idea that he was still an honest man, as well as a good soldier, who died in good time for humanity, for himself, and according to God's designs.
»Desroches joined a regiment at fourteen, at a time when, most men having been killed on the frontier, our republican army was recruiting among children. Frail of body, slender as a young girl, and pale, his comrades suffered to see him carry a rifle under which his shoulder bowed. You must have heard that permission was obtained from the captain to trim it by six inches. Thus adapted to his strength, the child's weapon worked wonders in the wars of Flanders; later, Desroches was sent to Haguenau, in that country where we, that is, where you, had been waging war for so long.
»At the time I'm about to tell you about, Desroches was in the prime of life and served as the regiment's ensign much more than the order number and the flag, for he had almost alone survived two renewals, and he had finally just been appointed lieutenant when, at Bergheim, twenty-seven months ago, while commanding a bayonet charge, he received a Prussian saber blow straight across his face. The wound was dreadful; the ambulance surgeons, who had often joked with him, still a virgin of a scratch after thirty battles, frowned when he was brought before them. If he recovers, they said, the unfortunate man will become imbecile or mad.
»It was to Metz that the lieutenant was sent to recover. The stretcher had traveled several leagues without him noticing; installed in a good bed and surrounded by care, it took him five or six months to sit up, and another hundred days to open an eye and distinguish objects. He was soon prescribed tonics, sunshine, then movement, finally walks, and, one morning, supported by two comrades, he made his way, all wavering, all dizzy, towards the Saint-Vincent quay, which is almost next to the military hospital, and there, he was made to sit on the esplanade, in the midday sun, under the linden trees of the public garden: the poor wounded man thought he was seeing daylight for the first time.
"By going on like this, he was soon able to walk alone, and each morning he would sit on a bench in the same spot on the esplanade, his head buried in a mass of black taffeta, under which one could barely discern a corner of a human face. As he passed, when he encountered strollers, he was assured of a grand salute from men and a gesture of profound commiseration from women, which did little to console him."
"But once seated in his spot, he forgot his misfortune to think only of the joy of living after such a shock, and the pleasure of seeing what a place he lived in. Before him, the old citadel, ruined under Louis XVI, displayed its degraded ramparts; above his head, the flowering lime trees cast their thick shade; at his feet, in the valley that unfolds below the esplanade, the Saint-Symphorien meadows, brought to life by the overflowing Moselle, which submerges and nourishes them, greening between its two arms; then the small Ilot, the oasis of the powder magazine, that island of Saulcy, dotted with shadows and cottages; finally, the cascade of the Moselle and its white foam, its meanders sparkling in the sun, then at the very end, bounding the gaze, the chain of the Vosges, bluish and as if vaporous in the daylight – this was the spectacle he admired ever more, thinking that there lay his country, not the conquered land, but the truly French province, while those rich new departments, where he had waged war, were but fleeting, uncertain beauties, like those of a woman won yesterday, who will no longer belong to us tomorrow."
"Around the beginning of June, the heat was intense, and Desroches' favorite bench being well in the shade, two women came and sat near the wounded man. He greeted them calmly and continued to gaze at the horizon; but his condition inspired so much interest that the two women could not help but question and pity him."
"One of the two, quite elderly, was the aunt of the other, named Émilie, whose occupation was embroidering gold ornaments on silk or velvet. Desroches questioned them as they had set the example, and the aunt informed him that the young girl had left Haguenau to keep her company, that she embroidered for churches, and that she had long been deprived of all her other relatives."
"The next day, the bench was occupied as it had been the day before; at the end of a week, an alliance had been struck between the three occupants of this favorite bench, and Desroches, weak as he was, and humbled by the attentions the young girl lavished upon him as if he were the most harmless old man, Desroches felt lighthearted, full of jokes, and more inclined to rejoice than to grieve over this unexpected good fortune."
"Then, back at the hospital, he remembered his hideous wound, that frightful thing he had often inwardly groaned about, and which habit and convalescence had long since made less deplorable."
"It is certain that Desroches had not yet been able to lift the useless dressing of his wound, nor look at himself in a mirror. From that day on, this idea made him shiver more than ever. However, he ventured to pull back a corner of the protective taffeta, and beneath it he found a scar, still a little pink, but nothing too repulsive. Continuing this observation, he realized that the different parts of his face had been properly sewn together, and that his eye remained very clear and healthy. A few eyebrow hairs were missing, but that was so minor! That oblique line descending from his forehead to his ear, crossing his cheek, well, it was a saber cut received during the attack on the Bergheim lines, and nothing is more beautiful, as songs have often told."
"So, Desroches was astonished to find himself so presentable after his long absence from himself. He very skillfully brushed his graying hair from the wounded side under the abundant black hair of the left side, extended his mustache as far as possible over the scar line, and, having donned his new uniform, he went to the esplanade the next day with a rather triumphant air."
"In fact, he had straightened up so well, turned so gracefully, his sword beat against his thigh with such elegance, and he wore his shako tilted so martially forward, that no one recognized him on the way from the hospital to the garden; he was the first to arrive at the linden tree bench, and sat down as usual, seemingly, but deep down much more troubled and much paler, despite the mirror's approval."
"The two ladies soon arrived; but they suddenly drew back upon seeing a handsome officer occupying their usual spot. Desroches was quite moved."
"What!" he cried out to them, "Don't you recognize me?..."
"Do not think that these preliminaries lead us to one of those stories where pity turns into love, as in the operas of the time. The lieutenant now had more serious ideas. Content to still be judged a passable cavalier, he hastened to reassure the two ladies, who seemed inclined, given his transformation, to resume the intimacy that had begun between the three of them. Their reserve could not withstand these frank declarations. The union was suitable in all respects, moreover: Desroches had a small family estate near Épinal; Émilie possessed, as an inheritance from her parents, a small house in Haguenau, rented to the town's café, which still brought in five to six hundred francs in annual income. It is true that half of it went to her brother Wilhelm, chief clerk to notary Schennberg."
"When the arrangements were finalized, it was decided to go to this small town for the wedding, for that was the young girl's real home; she had only been living in Metz for some time so as not to leave her aunt. However, it was agreed to return to Metz after the marriage. Émilie was greatly looking forward to seeing her brother again. Desroches repeatedly expressed surprise that this young man was not in the army like all those of their time; he was told that he had been discharged for health reasons. Desroches felt deep sympathy for him."
"So here are the two fiancés and the aunt on their way to Haguenau; they have taken seats in the public coach that relays in Bitche, which was then a simple stagecoach made of leather and wicker. The road is beautiful, as you know. Desroches, who had only ever traveled it in uniform, saber in hand, accompanied by three or four thousand men, admired the solitudes, the bizarre rocks, the horizons bounded by that jagged line of mountains covered in dark greenery, which long valleys only interrupt from time to time. The rich plateaus of Saint-Avold, the factories of Sarreguemines, the small compact thickets of Limblingue, where ash, poplar, and fir trees display their triple layer of greenery nuanced from gray to dark green; you know how magnificent and charming all of that looks."
"Hardly had they arrived in Bitche when the travelers descended at the small inn of the Dragon, and Desroches sent for me at the fort. I arrived eagerly; I saw his new family, and I complimented the young lady, who was of rare beauty, with a gentle demeanor, and who seemed very much in love with her future husband. The three of them had breakfast with me, in the very spot where we are now sitting. Several officers, comrades of Desroches, drawn by the news of his arrival, came to fetch him at the inn and kept him for dinner at the innkeeper of the redoubt, where the staff paid for board. It was agreed that the two ladies would retire early, and that the lieutenant would give his comrades his last evening as a bachelor."
"The meal was cheerful; everyone savored their share of the happiness and gaiety that Desroches brought with him. They spoke of Egypt and Italy with enthusiasm, making bitter complaints about the ill fortune that confined so many good soldiers to border fortresses."
"'Yes,' murmured some officers, 'we are stifling here, life is tiring and monotonous; we might as well be on a ship as live like this without battles, without distractions, without any possible advancement. "The fort is impregnable," said Bonaparte when he passed through here on his way to join the German army; so all we have is the chance to die of boredom.'
—Alas! my friends, replied Desroches, it was hardly more amusing in my time; for I was here like you, and I complained like you, too. I, a soldier who had risen to the epaulette by wearing out the government's shoes on every road in the world, knew little then but three things: drill, the wind's direction, and grammar, as one learns it from the schoolmaster. So, when I was appointed sub-lieutenant and sent to Bitche with the 2nd battalion of Cher, I regarded this stay as an excellent opportunity for serious and sustained study. With this in mind, I had acquired a collection of books, maps, and plans. I studied theory and learned German without formal study, because in this French and thoroughly French country, only that language is spoken. So, this time, which is so long for you who no longer have so much to learn, I found short and insufficient, and when night came, I would retreat to a small stone cabinet under the spiral of the grand staircase; I would light my lamp, hermetically sealing the loopholes, and I would work. One of those nights...
»Here, Desroches paused for a moment, passed his hand over his eyes, emptied his glass, and resumed his story without finishing his sentence.
—You all know, he said, that small path that climbs from the plain here, and which has been rendered completely impassable by blowing up a large rock, in whose place now opens an abyss. Well, this passage has always been deadly for enemies whenever they have tried to assault the fort; barely engaged on this path, the unfortunate souls would face the fire of four twenty-four-pounders, which were undoubtedly undisturbed, and which swept the ground along the entire length of that slope...
—You must have distinguished yourself, said a colonel to Desroches; is that where you earned your lieutenancy?
—Yes, colonel, and that's where I killed the first, the only man I've struck face-to-face and with my own hand. That's why the sight of this fort will always be painful to me.
—What are you telling us? they exclaimed: what! You fought for twenty years, you participated in fifteen pitched battles, in perhaps fifty engagements, and you claim to have killed only one enemy?
—I didn't say that, gentlemen: of the ten thousand cartridges I loaded into my rifle, who knows if half didn't send a bullet to the target the soldier seeks? But I affirm that at Bitche, for the first time, my hand was reddened with an enemy's blood, and I made the cruel test of a saber point that the arm pushes until it pierces a human chest and tremblingly hides itself there.
—That's true, interrupted one of the officers, a soldier kills a lot and hardly ever feels it. A fusillade is not, strictly speaking, an execution, but a deadly intention. As for the bayonet, it rarely functions in the most disastrous charges; it's a conflict in which one of the two enemies holds or yields without striking blows, rifles clash, then rise again when resistance ceases; the cavalryman, for example, truly strikes...
—And so, Desroches continued, just as one doesn't forget the last look of an adversary killed in a duel, his last gasp, the sound of his heavy fall, similarly, I carry within me almost like a remorse, laugh if you can, the pale and funereal image of the Prussian sergeant I killed in the small powder magazine of the fort.
»Everyone fell silent, and Desroches began his story.
"It was night, I was working, as I explained earlier. At two o'clock, everyone must be asleep, except for the sentinels. The patrols are very quiet, and any noise causes a stir. Yet, I thought I heard a prolonged movement in the gallery beneath my room; someone was knocking at a door, and that door was creaking. I ran, I listened at the end of the corridor, and I called out to the sentinel in a low voice; no answer. I soon woke the cannoneers, put on my uniform, and, taking my saber without its scabbard, I ran towards the noise. About thirty of us arrived in the rotunda that the gallery forms towards its center, and, by the light of a few lanterns, we recognized the Prussians, whom a traitor had let in through the closed postern. They were pressing forward in disorder, and, seeing us, they fired a few shots, the flash of which was dreadful in that gloom and under those crushing vaults. Then, we found ourselves face to face; the assailants continued to arrive; the defenders rushed down into the gallery; we could barely move; but there was a space of six to eight feet between the two parties, a closed field that no one thought of occupying, so great was the stupor among the surprised French, and the distrust among the disappointed Prussians. However, the hesitation lasted only a short time. The scene was lit by torches and lanterns; some cannoneers had hung theirs on the walls; a kind of ancient combat ensued; I was in the front row, I found myself facing a tall Prussian sergeant, covered in chevrons and decorations. He was armed with a rifle, but he could barely move it, so compact was the press; all these details are still present to me, alas! I don't know if he even thought of resisting me; I lunged at him, I plunged my saber into that noble heart; the victim opened his eyes horribly, clenched his hands with effort, and fell into the arms of the other soldiers... I don't remember what followed; I found myself in the first courtyard, soaked in blood; the Prussians, pushed back through the postern, had been driven back with cannon fire to their encampments."
"After this story, there was a long silence, and then they talked about something else. It was a sad and curious spectacle for the thinker, all those soldier's faces darkened by the recounting of such a seemingly vulgar misfortune... and one could truly know the value of a man's life, even a German's, doctor, by observing the intimidated gazes of these professional killers."
"It is certain," replied the doctor, a little dazed, "that the blood of man cries out loudly, however it is shed; however, Desroches did no harm; he was defending himself."
"Who knows?" murmured Arthur.
"You who spoke of a capitulation of conscience, doctor, tell us if the death of the sergeant doesn't resemble an assassination a little. Is it certain that the Prussian would have killed Desroches?"
"But it's war, what do you expect!"
"Indeed, yes, it's war. You kill a man at three hundred paces in the darkness who doesn't know you and doesn't see you; you slaughter people face to face, with fury in your eyes, people against whom you have no hatred, and it's with this reflection that you console yourself and glorify yourself! And this is done honorably between Christian peoples!..."
"Desroches' adventure thus sowed various impressions in the minds of those present. And then they went to bed. Our officer was the first to forget his gloomy story, because, from the small room given to him, a certain window of the Dragon hotel could be seen among the clumps of trees, lit from within by a night light. There lay all his future. When in the middle of the night, the rounds and the challenge came to wake him, he told himself that in case of alarm his courage could no longer galvanize the whole man as before, and that a little regret and fear would be mixed in. Before reveille the next day, the captain of the guard opened a door for him there, and he found his two friends walking along the outer ditches, waiting for him. I accompanied them to Neunhoffen, for they were to be married at the civil registry in Haguenau, and return to Metz for the nuptial blessing."}]}```
"Wilhelm, Emilie's brother, gave Desroches a rather cordial welcome. The two brothers-in-law sometimes looked at each other with persistent attention. Wilhelm was of medium height, but well-built. His blond hair was already thinning, as if he had been worn down by study or sorrow; he wore blue glasses because of his eyesight, so weak, he said, that the slightest light made him suffer. Desroches brought a bundle of papers that the young practitioner curiously examined, then he himself produced all the titles of his family, forcing Desroches to take note of them; but he was dealing with a trusting, loving, and disinterested man, so the inquiries were not long. This way of proceeding seemed to flatter Wilhelm somewhat; thus, he began to take Desroches' arm, offer him one of his best pipes, and lead him to all his friends in Haguenau."
"Everywhere, people were smoking and drinking plenty of beer. After ten introductions, Desroches begged for mercy, and he was allowed to spend his evenings only with his fiancée."
"A few days later, the two lovers from the esplanade bench were a married couple united by the mayor of Haguenau, a venerable official who must have been a burgomaster before the French Revolution, and who had often held little Emilie in his arms, perhaps even having registered her birth himself; so he whispered to her, the day before her wedding:"
"—Why don't you marry a good German?"
"Emilie seemed to care little for these distinctions. Wilhelm himself had reconciled with the lieutenant's mustache, for, it must be said, at first, there had been reservation on the part of these two men; but, with Desroches putting in a lot of effort, Wilhelm doing a little for his sister, and the good aunt pacifying and smoothing over all the meetings, they succeeded in establishing a perfect understanding. Wilhelm very gracefully embraced his brother-in-law after the signing of the contract. The same day, for everything had concluded around nine o'clock, the four travelers left for Metz. It was six in the evening when the carriage stopped at Bitche, at the grand hotel du Dragon."
"Traveling is difficult in this country, interspersed with streams and clumps of woods; there are ten hills per league, and the messenger's carriage roughly shakes its passengers. This was perhaps the best reason for the discomfort the young wife felt upon arriving at the inn. Her aunt and Desroches settled beside her, and Wilhelm, who was suffering from ravenous hunger, went down to the small room where officers' supper was served at eight o'clock."
"This time, no one knew of Desroches' return. The day had been spent by the garrison on excursions into the thickets of Huspoletden. Desroches, so as not to be taken from his post near his wife, forbade the hostess to utter his name. All three gathered by the small window of the room, they watched the troops return to the fort, and, as night approached, the glacis were lined with soldiers in casual attire who savored their ration bread and goat cheese provided by the canteen."
"Meanwhile, Wilhelm, like a man wanting to deceive time and hunger, had lit his pipe, and on the doorstep he rested between the smoke of tobacco and that of the meal, a double pleasure for the idle and the hungry. The officers, at the sight of this bourgeois traveler whose cap was pulled down to his ears and blue glasses aimed towards the kitchen, understood that they would not be alone at the table and wanted to make acquaintance with the stranger; for he could have come from far away, be witty, tell news, and, in that case, it was good fortune; or arrive from the vicinity, keep a stupid silence, and then he was a fool to be laughed at."
"A sub-lieutenant from the schools approached Wilhelm with a politeness that bordered on exaggeration."
"—Good evening, sir; do you have any news from Paris?"
"—No, sir; and you? said Wilhelm calmly."
"Good heavens, sir, we never leave Bitche, how would we know anything?"
"And I, sir, never leave my study."
"Are you in the engineering corps?"
This jest, aimed at Wilhelm's glasses, greatly amused the company.
"I am a notary's clerk, sir."
"Really? At your age, that's surprising."
"Sir," said Wilhelm, "would you like to see my passport?"
"No, certainly not."
"Well, tell me you're not making fun of me, and I'll satisfy you on all counts."
The assembly regained its seriousness.
"I asked you, without ill intent, if you were part of the engineering corps, because you wear glasses. Don't you know that only officers of that branch have the right to put glasses on their eyes?"
"And does that prove I'm a soldier or an officer, as you wish?"
"But everyone is a soldier today. You're not twenty-five, you must belong to the army; or else you're rich, you have fifteen or twenty thousand francs in income, your parents made sacrifices... and, in that case, one doesn't dine at an inn's table d'hôte."
"Sir," said Wilhelm, shaking his pipe, "perhaps you have the right to subject me to this inquisition; then, I must answer you categorically. I have no income, since I am a mere notary's clerk, as I told you. I was discharged due to poor eyesight. I am nearsighted, in a word."
A general and intemperate burst of laughter greeted this declaration.
"Ah! Young man! Young man!" cried Captain Vallier, slapping him on the shoulder, "you are quite right, you benefit from the proverb: 'It's better to be a coward and live longer!'"
Wilhelm blushed to his eyes.
"I am not a coward, Captain! And I will prove it to you whenever you please. Besides, my papers are in order, and, if you are a recruiting officer, I can show them to you."
"Enough, enough," cried some officers; "leave this civilian alone, Vallier. Sir is a peaceful private citizen, he has the right to sup here."
"Yes," said the captain; "so let's sit down, and no hard feelings, young man. Rest assured, I am not an examining surgeon, and this dining room is not a review board. To prove my goodwill, I offer to carve you a wing of this tough old bird they're giving us for a chicken."
"Thank you," said Wilhelm, whose hunger had passed, "I will only eat some of these trout at the end of the table."
And he motioned to the maid to bring him the dish.
"Are those really trout?" said the captain to Wilhelm, who had removed his glasses as he sat down. "My word, sir, you have better eyesight than I do; honestly, you'd aim your rifle just as well as anyone else... But you had connections, you're taking advantage of them, very good. You like peace, that's a taste like any other. Me, in your place, I couldn't read a bulletin from the Grand Army, and think that young men my age are getting killed in Germany, without feeling my blood boil in my veins. So you're not French?"
"No," said Wilhelm, with effort and satisfaction at once, "I was born in Haguenau; I am not French, I am German."
"German? Haguenau is located on this side of the Rhine border, it's a good and beautiful village of the French Empire, department of Bas-Rhin. See the map."
"I am from Haguenau, I tell you, a village of Germany ten years ago, today a village of France; and I, I am still German, just as you would be French until death, if your country ever belonged to the Germans."
"You're saying dangerous things there, young man, consider that."
"Perhaps I am wrong," said Wilhelm impetuously; "my feeling is one of those that it is undoubtedly important to keep in one's heart, if one cannot change them. But it is you yourself who have pushed things so far that, at all costs, I must justify myself or be taken for a coward. Yes, such is the motive which, in my conscience, legitimizes the care I have taken to profit from a real infirmity, no doubt, but which perhaps should not have stopped a man of courage. Yes, I will admit it, I feel no hatred against the peoples you are fighting today. I think that, if misfortune had wanted me to be obliged to march against them, I too would have had to ravage German countryside, burn cities, slaughter compatriots or former compatriots, if you prefer, and strike, in the midst of a group of supposed enemies, yes, strike, who knows? relatives, old friends of my father... Come on, come on, you see very well that it is better for me to write roles at the notary of Haguenau... Besides, there is enough blood shed in my family; my father shed his to the last drop, you see, and I..."
“Your father was a soldier?” Captain Vallier interrupted.
“My father was a sergeant in the Prussian army, and he defended this territory you now occupy for a long time. Finally, he was killed in the last assault on Fort Bitche.”
Everyone listened intently to Wilhelm’s last words, which quelled the urge they had, a few minutes earlier, to retort his paradoxes regarding the particular case of his nationality.
“So, that was in ’93?”
“In ’93, on November 17th, my father had left Sirmasen the day before to rejoin his company. I know he told my mother that with a daring plan, this citadel would be taken without a fight. We were told he was dying twenty-four hours later; he expired on the doorstep, after making me swear to stay with my mother, who outlived him by fifteen days. I learned that, in the attack that took place that night, he received a saber blow to the chest from a young soldier, who thus brought down one of the finest grenadiers in Prince Hohenlohe’s army.”
“But we’ve been told this story,” said the major.
“Well,” said Captain Vallier, “that’s the whole adventure of the Prussian sergeant killed by Desroches.”
“Desroches!” exclaimed Wilhelm; “are you speaking of Lieutenant Desroches?”
“Oh! No, no,” an officer hastened to say, realizing that some terrible revelation was about to occur; “this Desroches we’re talking about was a chasseur in the garrison, who died four years ago, for his first exploit didn’t bring him luck.”
“Ah! He’s dead,” said Wilhelm, wiping his forehead, from which large drops of sweat were falling.
A few minutes later, the officers saluted him and left him alone. Desroches, having seen through the window that they had all left, went down to the dining room, where he found his brother-in-law leaning on the long table, his head in his hands.
“Well, well, are we already sleeping?... But I want to have supper; my wife has finally fallen asleep, and I’m terribly hungry... Come on, a glass of wine, that will wake us up and you’ll keep me company.”
“No, I have a headache,” said Wilhelm, “I’m going up to my room. By the way, these gentlemen told me a lot about the curiosities of the fort. Couldn’t you take me there tomorrow?”
“But of course, my friend.”
“Then, tomorrow morning, I’ll wake you.”
Desroches sighed, then went to take possession of the second bed that had been prepared in the room where his brother-in-law had just gone up (for Desroches slept alone, being married only civilly). Wilhelm couldn’t sleep all night, and sometimes he cried in silence, sometimes he devoured the sleeper with furious glances, who smiled in his dreams.
What is called presentiment strongly resembles the pilot fish that warns immense and almost blind cetaceans that a sharp rock juts out there, or that here is a sandy bottom. We walk through life so mechanically that certain characters, whose habit is carefree, would bump into or break themselves without having been able to remember God, if a little silt did not appear on the surface of their happiness. Some are saddened by the flight of the raven, others without reason; others, upon waking, remain anxious on their seat, because they have had a sinister dream. All this is presentiment. “You are going to run into danger,” says the dream.—“Beware,” cries the raven.—“Be sad,” murmurs the brain that grows heavy.
Towards the end of the night, Desroches had a strange dream. He was at the bottom of an underground passage; behind him walked a white shadow whose clothes brushed his heels; when he turned around, the shadow receded; it finally moved away to such a distance that Desroches could only distinguish a white dot; this dot grew, became luminous, filled the entire cave, and then went out. A slight sound was heard; it was Wilhelm returning to the room, hat on his head and wrapped in a long blue coat.
Desroches woke up with a start.
“Devil!” he exclaimed, “you were already out this morning?”
"You must get up," Wilhelm replied.
"But will they open the fort for us?"
"Of course, everyone is at practice; there's only the guard post left."
"Already? Well, I'm with you... Just time to say hello to my wife."
"She's fine, I saw her; don't worry about her."
Desroches was surprised by this answer; but he attributed it to impatience, and once again bowed before this fraternal authority that he would soon be able to shake off.
As they crossed the square to go to the fort, Desroches glanced at the inn's windows.
"Émilie is probably sleeping," he thought.
However, the curtain trembled, then closed; and the lieutenant thought he noticed that someone had moved away from the windowpane so as not to be seen by him.
The wickets opened without difficulty. An invalid captain, who had not attended the previous night's supper, commanded the outpost. Desroches took a lantern and began to guide his silent companion from room to room.
After a few minutes' visit to various points where Wilhelm's attention found little to fix on:
"Show me the underground passages then," he said to his brother-in-law.
"With pleasure, but it will be, I swear, an unpleasant walk; there's a lot of humidity down there. We have the gunpowder under the left wing, and there, one cannot enter without superior order. To the right are the reserved water pipes and raw saltpeter; in the middle, the counter-mines and galleries... You know what a vault is?"
"No matter, I'm curious to visit places where so many sinister events have happened... where even you ran into dangers, I'm told."
"He won't spare me a single cellar," thought Desroches.
"Follow me, brother, into this gallery that leads to the iron postern."
The lantern cast a sad glow on the moldy walls, and trembled as it reflected on some saber blades and rifle barrels eaten away by rust.
"What are these weapons?" Wilhelm asked.
"The spoils of the Prussians killed in the last attack on the fort, whose weapons my comrades have gathered as a trophy."
"So several Prussians died here?"
"Many died in this roundabout."
—Didn't you kill a sergeant there, a tall old man with reddish-brown mustaches?
—Of course; haven't I told you the story?
—No, not you; but yesterday, at dinner, I heard about that exploit... which your modesty had hidden from us.
—What's wrong, brother? You're paling!
»Wilhelm replied in a strong voice:
—Don't call me brother, but enemy!... Look, I am a Prussian! I am the son of that sergeant you murdered.
—Murdered!
—Or killed, what does it matter! See; that's where your saber struck.
»Wilhelm had thrown off his cloak and pointed to a tear in the green uniform he was wearing, which was his father's very own, piously preserved.
—You are the son of that sergeant! Oh! My God, are you mocking me?
—Mock you? Do you play with such horrors?... Here my father was killed, his noble blood stained these tiles; this saber is perhaps his... Come on, take another and give me a rematch!... Come on, this isn't a duel, it's a fight between a German and a Frenchman; en garde!
—But you're mad, dear Wilhelm! Leave that rusty saber. You want to kill me, am I guilty?
—Also, you have the chance to strike me in return, and it's at least double on your side. Come on, defend yourself.
—Wilhelm! Kill me undefended; I'm losing my mind myself, my head is spinning... Wilhelm! I did what every soldier must do; but think about it... Besides, I am your sister's husband; she loves me! Oh! This fight is impossible.
—My sister!... And that's precisely what makes it impossible for us both to live under the same sky! My sister! She knows everything; she will never see again the one who made her an orphan. Yesterday, you said your last goodbye to her.
»Desroches let out a terrible cry and threw himself on Wilhelm to disarm him; it was a rather long struggle, for the young man opposed his adversary's assaults with the resistance of rage and despair.
—Give me that saber, you wretch, cried Desroches, give it back! No, you won't strike me, you miserable fool!... cruel dreamer!...
—That's it, cried Wilhelm in a choked voice, kill the son in the gallery too!... The son is a German... a German!
»At that moment, footsteps echoed and Desroches let go. Wilhelm, beaten, did not get up...
»These steps were mine, gentlemen, added the abbot. Emilie had come to the presbytery to tell me everything, to place herself under the safeguard of religion, the poor child. I stifled the pity that spoke in the depths of my heart, and, when she asked me if she could still love her father's murderer, I did not answer. She understood, squeezed my hand, and left in tears. A premonition came to me; I followed her, and, when I heard that she was told at the hotel that her brother and her husband had gone to visit the fort, I suspected the dreadful truth. Fortunately, I arrived in time to prevent a new turn of events between these two men, driven astray by anger and sorrow.
»Wilhelm, though disarmed, still resisted Desroches' pleas; he was overwhelmed, but his eye still held all its fury.
—Inflexible man! I said to him, it is you who awaken the dead and stir up terrifying fates! Are you not a Christian, and do you wish to encroach upon God's justice? Do you wish to become here the sole criminal and the sole murderer? Expiation will be made, do not doubt it; but it is not for us to foresee or to force it.
»Desroches squeezed my hand and said to me:
—Emilie knows everything. I will not see her again; but I know what I must do to restore her freedom.
—What are you saying! I cried, a suicide?
»At that word, Wilhelm had risen and seized Desroches' hand.
—No! he said, I was wrong. It is I alone who am guilty, and who should have kept my secret and my despair!
»I will not describe the anguish we suffered in that fatal hour; I used all the reasonings of my religion and my philosophy, without finding a satisfactory solution to this cruel situation; a separation was indispensable in all cases; but how to deduce the motives before justice? There was not only a painful debate to endure, but also a political danger in revealing these fatal circumstances.
"I especially focused on combating Desroches' sinister plans and instilling in his heart the religious sentiments that make suicide a crime. You know that this unfortunate man had been raised in the school of 18th-century materialists. However, since his injury, his ideas had changed considerably. He had become one of those semi-skeptical Christians, of whom we have so many, who find that, after all, a little religion can't hurt, and who even resign themselves to consulting a priest in case there is a God! It was by virtue of this vague religion that he accepted my consolations. A few days had passed. Wilhelm and his sister had not left the inn, as Émilie was very ill after so many shocks. Desroches was staying at the rectory and spent all day reading pious books I lent him. One day, he went to the fort alone, stayed there for a few hours, and, upon returning, showed me a piece of paper on which his name was inscribed; it was a captain's commission in a regiment departing to join the Partouneaux division."
"A month later, we received news of his glorious, yet singular, death. Whatever one may say about the kind of frenzy that threw him into the fray, one feels that his example was a great encouragement for the entire battalion, which had lost many men in the first charge... strange indeed, the excitement such a life and such a death could provoke." The abbot resumed, rising:
"If you wish, gentlemen, that we change the usual direction of our walks this evening, we will follow this valley of poplars, yellowed by the setting sun, and I will lead you to the Ivy Knoll, from where we can glimpse the cross of the convent where Madame Desroches has retired."
ANGÉLIQUE
[From the edition of Les Filles du feu; Giraud, 1854.]
1st LETTER.
To Mr. L. D.
Journey in search of a unique book.—Frankfurt and Paris.—Abbot de Bucquoy.—Pilat in Vienna.—The Richelieu Library.—Personalities.—The Library of Alexandria.
In 1851, I was passing through Frankfurt.—Forced to stay two days in this city, which I already knew,—I had no other recourse than to wander through the main streets, then crowded with street vendors. The Rœmer square, especially, gleamed with an unprecedented luxury of displays; and nearby, the fur market showcased countless animal pelts, coming either from High Siberia or the shores of the Caspian Sea.—The polar bear, the blue fox, the ermine, were the least of the curiosities in this incomparable exhibition; further on, Bohemian glass in a thousand brilliant colors, mounted, festooned, engraved, inlaid with gold, lay displayed on cedar plank shelves,—like cut flowers from an unknown paradise.
A more modest series of stalls lined sombre shops, surrounding the less luxurious parts of the bazaar,—dedicated to haberdashery, shoemaking, and various clothing items. These were booksellers, who had come from various parts of Germany, and whose most productive sales seemed to be almanacs, painted images, and lithographs: the Wolks-Kalender (People's Almanac), with its woodcuts,—political songs, lithographs of Robert Blum and the heroes of the Hungarian War, these were what caught the eyes and the breutsers of the crowd. A large number of old books, displayed beneath these novelties, were only remarkable for their modest prices,—and I was astonished to find many French books among them.
This is because Frankfurt, a free city, long served as a refuge for Protestants;—and, like the principal cities of the Low Countries, it was for a long time the seat of printing presses that began by spreading the bold works of French philosophers and malcontents throughout Europe,—and which have remained, in certain respects, workshops of pure and simple counterfeiting, which will be very difficult to eradicate.
It is impossible for a Parisian to resist the urge to leaf through old books displayed by a bookseller. This part of the Frankfurt fair reminded me of the quays—a memory full of emotion and charm. I bought a few old books, which gave me the right to browse the others at length. Among them, I found one, printed half in French and half in German, and whose title, which I have since verified in Brunet's Manuel du Libraire, is as follows:
"A Most Rare Event, or History of Sieur Abbé Comte de Bucquoy, particularly his escape from Fort-l'Évêque and the Bastille, with several works in verse and prose, and particularly the game of women, sold by Jean de la France, rue de la Réforme, at l'Espérance, à Bonnefoy.—1749."
The bookseller asked me for one florin and six kreutzers (pronounced kroo-chers). This seemed expensive for the location, and I limited myself to leafing through the book—which, thanks to the expense I had already incurred, I was allowed to do for free. The account of Abbé de Bucquoy's escapes was full of interest; but I finally told myself: I will find this book in Paris, in libraries, or in those thousand collections where all possible memoirs relating to the history of France are gathered. I only took the exact title, and I went for a walk at Meinlust, on the banks of the Main, leafing through the pages of the Wolks-Kalender.
Upon my return to Paris, I found literature in a state of inexpressible terror. Following the Riancey amendment to the press law, newspapers were forbidden to insert what the assembly was pleased to call the feuilleton-roman (serialized novel). I saw many writers, strangers to all political colors, despairing of this resolution which cruelly struck them in their means of existence.
Even I, who am not a novelist, trembled at the thought of the vague interpretation that could be given to these two bizarrely coupled words: feuilleton-roman, and pressed to give you a title, I indicated this one: L'Abbé de Bucquoy, thinking that I would very quickly find the necessary documents in Paris to speak of this character in a historical and not a romantic way—for we must be clear about words.
I had confirmed the existence of the book in France, and I had seen it classified not only in Brunet's manual, but also in Quérard's France littéraire.—It seemed certain that this work, noted, it is true, as rare, would be easily found either in some public library, or with an amateur, or with specialized booksellers.
Moreover, having read the book—having even found a second account of the adventures of Abbé de Bucquoy in the very witty and curious letters of Madame Dunoyer—I did not feel at a loss to provide a portrait of the man and to write his biography based on irreproachable data.
But today I am beginning to be alarmed by the condemnations hanging over newspapers for the slightest infraction of the new law's text. A fifty-franc fine per seized copy is enough to make the most intrepid recoil: for, for newspapers that print only twenty-five thousand—and there are several—that would represent over a million. One then understands how a broad interpretation of the law would give the authorities the means to extinguish all opposition. The censorship regime would be much preferable. Under the old regime, with the approval of a censor—whom one was allowed to choose—one was sure to be able to safely express one's ideas, and the freedom one enjoyed was sometimes extraordinary. I have read books countersigned Louis and Phélippeaux that would undoubtedly be seized today.
Chance led me to live in Vienna under the censorship regime. Finding myself somewhat inconvenienced by unforeseen travel expenses, and due to the difficulty of getting money from France, I had resorted to the very simple means of writing for local newspapers. They paid one hundred and fifty francs per sheet of sixteen very short columns. I submitted two series of articles, which had to be approved by the censors.
First, I waited several days. Nothing was returned to me. I was forced to go and see Mr. Pilat, the director of this institution, explaining to him that I had been kept waiting too long for the visa. He was exceptionally accommodating to me, and unlike his near-namesake, he didn't wash his hands of the injustice I pointed out. I was also deprived of reading French newspapers, as only the Journal des Débats and la Quotidienne were available in the cafes. Mr. Pilat told me: "You are in the freest place in the empire (the censorship offices), and you can come here to read, every day, even the National and the Charivari."
These are the kind of witty and generous gestures one only encounters with German officials, and their only drawback is that they make arbitrary rule more bearable for longer.
I've never had such good fortune with French censorship—I'm referring to theatrical censorship—and I doubt that if book and newspaper censorship were reinstated, we would have more to praise. In our nation's character, there's always a tendency to exert force when one possesses it, or the pretensions of power when one holds it in hand.
I was recently discussing my predicament with a scholar, whom it is unnecessary to identify other than by calling him a bibliophile. He told me: "Don't use Madame Dunoyer's Lettres galantes to write the history of the Abbé de Bucquoy. The title of the book alone will prevent it from being considered serious; wait for the reopening of the Library (it was then on holiday), and you are sure to find there the work you read in Frankfurt."
I paid no attention to the knowing smile that probably then played on the bibliophile's lips, and on October 1st, I was one of the first to present myself at the National Library.
Mr. Pilon is a man of great knowledge and helpfulness. He had searches conducted which, after half an hour, yielded no results. He flipped through Brunet and Quérard, found the book perfectly described, and asked me to return in three days: it couldn't be found. "Perhaps, however," Mr. Pilon told me, with his characteristic obliging patience, "perhaps it is classified among the novels."
I shuddered: "Among the novels?... but it's a historical book!... it should be in the collection of Memoirs relating to the century of Louis XIV. This book concerns the special history of the Bastille: it gives details on the Camisard revolt, on the exile of Protestants, on that famous league of Lorraine's false salt-smugglers, which Mandrin later used to raise regular troops capable of fighting against army corps and storming cities such as Beaune and Dijon!..." "I know," Mr. Pilon told me; "but the classification of books, done at various times, is often faulty. Its errors can only be corrected as the public requests the works. Only Mr. Ravenel here can help you out of this difficulty... Unfortunately, he is not on duty this week."
I waited for Mr. Ravenel's week. Fortunately, the following Monday, in the reading room, I met someone who knew him and offered to introduce me. Mr. Ravenel greeted me very politely, and then said: "Sir, I am charmed by the chance that brings me your acquaintance, and I only ask you to grant me a few days. This week, I belong to the public. Next week, I will be entirely at your service."
Since I had been introduced to Mr. Ravenel, I was no longer part of the public! I became a private acquaintance, for whom one could not be diverted from ordinary service.
This was perfectly fair, by the way; but admire my bad luck!... And I had only it to blame.
The abuses of the Library have often been discussed. They stem partly from insufficient staff, and partly from old traditions that persist. The most accurate observation made is that a large portion of the time and effort of the distinguished scholars who fill the not-so-lucrative positions of librarians there is spent providing the six hundred daily readers with common books, which could be found in any reading room; this harms the latter no less than it does publishers and authors, whose books then become unnecessary to buy or rent.
As has been rightly said, a unique establishment like this should not be a public warming room, a refuge for the homeless, whose occupants are, for the most part, dangerous to the existence and preservation of books. This multitude of idle commoners, retired bourgeois, widowed men, jobless petitioners, students copying their homework, and eccentric old men—like that poor Carnaval who came every day in a red, light blue, or apple green suit, and a hat adorned with flowers—undoubtedly deserve consideration, but aren't there other libraries, even specialized ones, that could be opened to them?
There were nineteen editions of Don Quixote in print. None remained complete. Travel books, comedies, amusing histories, like those by M. Thiers and M. Capefigue, and the Address Almanach, are what this public invariably demands, ever since libraries stopped lending novels.
Then, from time to time, an edition becomes incomplete, a curious book disappears, thanks to the overly lenient system of not even asking for readers' names.
The republic of letters is the only one that should be somewhat imbued with aristocracy—for the aristocracy of science and talent will never be contested.
The famous library of Alexandria was only open to scholars or poets known for works of some merit. But then, hospitality was complete there, and those who came to consult authors were housed and fed for free for as long as they wished to stay.
And speaking of that—allow a traveler who has trodden its ruins and interrogated its memories to vindicate the memory of the illustrious Caliph Omar from the eternal burning of the Library of Alexandria, which is commonly attributed to him. Omar never set foot in Alexandria—whatever many academicians may have said. He didn't even send orders on this matter to his lieutenant Amrou. The Library of Alexandria and the Serapeum, or relief house, which was part of it, had been burned and destroyed in the fourth century by Christians—who, moreover, massacred the celebrated Hypatia, a Pythagorean philosopher, in the streets. These are, no doubt, excesses that cannot be blamed on religion—but it is good to clear these unfortunate Arabs of the reproach of ignorance, whose translations preserved for us the marvels of Greek philosophy, medicine, and sciences, adding their own works—which constantly pierced the stubborn mists of feudal times with bright rays.
Forgive me these digressions—and I will keep you informed of the journey I am undertaking in search of Abbé de Bucquoy. This eccentric and eternally fugitive character cannot always escape a rigorous investigation.
2nd LETTER.
A Paleographer.—Police reports in 1709.—The Le Pileur affair.—A domestic drama.
It is certain that the greatest complaisance reigns at the National Library. No serious scholar will complain about the current organization; but when a feuilletonist or a novelist appears, "the entire interior of the shelves trembles." A bibliographer, a man belonging to regular science, knows exactly what to ask for. But the fanciful writer, prone to perpetrating a roman-feuilleton, disrupts everything, and disturbs everyone for a quirky idea that pops into his head.
It is here that one must admire the patience of a conservator—the junior employee is often still too young to have accustomed himself to this paternal self-abnegation. Sometimes rude people come who have an exaggerated idea of the rights their advantage of being part of the public confers upon them—and who speak to a librarian with the tone one uses to be served in a café. Well, an illustrious scholar, an academician, will respond to this man with the benevolent resignation of a monk. He will endure everything from him from ten o'clock to half past two, inclusively.
Taking pity on my predicament, they had leafed through catalogs, rummaged through the reserve, even the indigestible mass of novels—among which Abbot Bucquoy might have been mistakenly classified; all of a sudden an employee exclaimed: "We have it in Dutch!" He read me this title: "Jacques de Bucquoy:—Remarkable Events..."
—"Pardon me," I observed, "the book I'm looking for begins with 'Most Rare Event...'"
—"Let's see again, there might be a translation error: '.....of a sixteen-year voyage to the Indies.—Haarlem, 1744.'"
—"That's not it... and yet the book relates to a time when Abbot de Bucquoy lived; the first name Jacques is indeed his. But what could this fantastical abbot have been doing in the Indies?"
Another employee arrives: there's a mistake in the spelling of the name; it's not de Bucquoy; it's du Bucquoy, and as it might have been written Dubucquoy, all searches must be restarted under the letter D.
There was truly reason to curse the particles in family names! Dubucquoy, I said, would be a commoner... and the book's title calls him Count de Bucquoy!
*
A paleographer working at the next table looked up and told me: "The particle has never been proof of nobility; on the contrary, most often, it indicates the propertied bourgeoisie, which began with those called free allod people. They were designated by the name of their land, and even the various branches were distinguished by the varied endings of a family's names. Great historical families are called Bouchard (Montmorency), Bozon (Périgord), Beaupoil (Saint-Aulaire), Capel (Bourbon), etc. The de and du are full of irregularities and usurpations. What's more: throughout Flanders and Belgium, de is the same article as the German der, and means the. Thus, de Muller means: the miller, etc.—There's a quarter of France full of fake noblemen. Béranger himself made fun of the de preceding his name, which indicates Flemish origin."
You don't argue with a paleographer; you let him speak.
*
However, examining the letter D in the various catalog series had yielded no results.
—"On what basis do you suppose it's du Bucquoy?" I asked the obliging librarian who had arrived last.
—"Because I just looked for that name in the manuscripts in the police archives catalog: 1709, is that the period?"
—"Without a doubt; it's the time of Count de Bucquoy's third escape."
—"Du Bucquoy!... that's how it's listed in the manuscript catalog. Come up with me, you can consult the book itself."
I soon found myself able to leaf through a large red morocco-bound folio, containing several police reports from the year 1709. The second in the volume bore these names: "Le Pileur, François Bouchard, Dame de Boulanvilliers, Jeanne Massé,—Comte du Buquoy."
We have the wolf by the ears,—for this is indeed an escape from the Bastille, and here is what M. d'Argenson writes in a report to M. de Pontchartrain:
"I continue to search for the so-called Count du Buquoy in all the places you have pleased to indicate to me, but nothing has been learned, and I do not think he is in Paris."
There is in these few lines something reassuring and something disheartening for me.
—The Count de Buquoy or de Bucquoy, about whom I had only vague or questionable data, takes on a definite historical existence thanks to this document. No court now has the right to classify him among the heroes of the serial novel.
On the other hand, why does M. d'Argenson write: the so-called Count de Bucquoy?
Could it be a false Bucquoy,—who passed himself off as the other... for a purpose that is very difficult to assess today?
Could it be the real one, who hid his name under a pseudonym?
Reduced to this sole proof, the truth eludes me—and there isn't a single jurist who wouldn't be justified in contesting even the material existence of the individual!
What could I say to a prosecutor who would exclaim before the court: "The Count of Bucquoy is a fictitious character, created by the romantic imagination of the author!..." and who would demand the application of the law, meaning perhaps a million in fines! Which would multiply even further with the daily series of seized issues, if they were allowed to accumulate?
Without having the right to the noble title of scholar, every writer is sometimes forced to employ the scientific method. So I began to curiously examine the yellowed writing on Dutch paper of the report signed by d'Argenson. At the level of this line: "I continue to search for the so-called count..." There were these three words written in pencil on the margin, traced with a rapid and firm hand: "One cannot too much." What can one not too much?—search for the Abbé de Bucquoy, no doubt...
That was my opinion too.
*
However, to achieve certainty in matters of handwriting, one must compare. This note reappeared on another page concerning the following lines of the same report:
"The lanterns have been placed under the Louvre wickets according to your intention, and I will ensure they are lit every evening."
The sentence ended thus in the secretary's hand, who had copied the report. Another, less practiced hand had added to these words: "lit every evening," these: "very exactly."
In the margin, these words, evidently in Minister Pontchartrain's handwriting, reappeared: "One cannot too much."
The same note as for the Abbé de Bucquoy.
However, it is probable that M. de Pontchartrain varied his formulas. Here is something else:
"I have informed the merchants of the Saint-Germain fair that they must comply with the king's orders, which forbid serving food during the hours suitable for observing the fast, according to the rules of the Church."
There is only this word in pencil in the margin: "Good."
Further on, there is mention of a private individual arrested for having murdered a nun from Évreux. A cup, a silver seal, blood-stained linens, and a gand were found on him.—It turns out that this man is an abbé (another abbé!); but the charges have dissipated, according to M. d'Argenson, who says that this abbé came to Versailles to solicit affairs that did not succeed for him, since he is always in need. "Thus," he adds, "I believe he can be regarded as a visionary more suitable for being sent back to his province than for being tolerated in Paris, where he can only be a burden to the public."
The minister wrote in pencil: "Let him speak to him beforehand." Terrible words, which perhaps changed the face of the poor abbé's case.
And what if it were the Abbé de Bucquoy himself!—No name; just a word: A private individual. Further on, there is mention of a woman named Lebeau, wife of a man named Cardinal, known as a prostitute... Monsieur Pasquier is interested in her...
In pencil, in the margin: "To the House of Force. Good for six months."
*
I don't know if everyone would take the same interest as I do in unfolding these terrible pages titled: Various Police Records. This small number of facts depicts the historical point where the life of the fugitive abbé will unfold. And I, who know him, this poor abbé—perhaps better than my readers ever will—I trembled as I turned the pages of these merciless reports that had passed through the hands of these two men—d'Argenson and Pontchartrain[1].
There is a place where the former writes, after some protests of devotion:
"I would even know how I should receive the reproaches and reprimands that it pleases you to give me..."
The minister replies, in the third person, and this time, using a pen... "He will not deserve them when he wishes; and I would be very sorry to doubt his devotion, being unable to doubt his capacity."
There was one more document in this file. "The Le Pileur Affair." A whole terrifying drama unfolded before my eyes.
This is not a novel.
A DOMESTIC DRAMA.—THE LE PILEUR AFFAIR.
The scene depicts one of those terrible family dramas that unfold at the deathbed,—at that moment, so well portrayed once on a boulevard stage,—where the heir, shedding his mask of compunction and sorrow, rises proudly and asks the household staff: "The keys?"
Here we have two heirs after the death of Binet de Villiers: his brother Binet de Basse-Maison, universal legatee, and his brother-in-law Le Pileur.
Two prosecutors, one for the deceased and one for Le Pileur, were working on the inventory, assisted by a notary and a clerk. Le Pileur complained that a certain number of papers, which Binet de Basse-Maison declared to be of little importance, had not been inventoried. The latter told Le Pileur that he should not stir up trouble and could rely on what Châtelain, his prosecutor, would say.
But Le Pileur replied that he had no need to consult his prosecutor; that he knew what needed to be done, and that if he were to create trouble, he was lord enough to back it up.
Basse-Maison, irritated by this speech, approached Le Pileur and, taking him by the two upper buttonholes of his coat, told him he would certainly prevent him;—Le Pileur drew his sword, Basse-Maison did the same... They first exchanged a few sword strokes without getting too close. Madame Le Pileur threw herself between her husband and her father; the bystanders intervened and managed to push each man into a different room, which they then locked.
A moment later, a window was heard opening; it was Le Pileur shouting to his servants in the courtyard to "go fetch his two nephews."
The men of law were beginning to draw up a report on the disturbance when the two nephews entered, sabers in hand.—They were two officers of the king's household; they pushed back the valets and pointed their sabers at the prosecutors and the notary, demanding to know Basse-Maison's whereabouts.
They refused to tell them, when Le Pileur shouted from his room: "To me, my nephews!"
The nephews had already broken down the door of the left room, and were raining blows with the flat of their sabers upon the unfortunate Binet de Basse-Maison, who was, according to the report, "asthmatic."
The notary, named Dionis, then believed that Le Pileur's anger would be satisfied and that he would stop his nephews;—so he opened the door and remonstrated with him. No sooner was he out than Le Pileur exclaimed: "Now we'll see some action!" And coming up behind his nephews, who were still beating Basse-Maison, he thrust a sword into his belly.
The document relating these facts is followed by another, more detailed one, with the depositions of thirteen witnesses,—among whom the most notable were the two prosecutors and the notary.
It is fair to say that these thirteen witnesses had lost their nerve at the critical moment. Consequently, none reported with absolute certainty that Le Pileur had delivered the sword thrust.
The first prosecutor stated that he was only sure of having heard the blows from the flat of the saber from a distance.
The second testified like his colleague.
A lackey named Barry went further:—He saw the murder from a distance through a window; but he did not know if it was Le Pileur or a man dressed in grayish-white who had stabbed Basse-Maison in the stomach. Louis Calot, another lackey, testified much the same.
The last of these thirteen brave souls, and the least significant, the notary's clerk, saw Madame Le Pileur lay her hands on several of the deceased's papers. He added that after the scene, Le Pileur calmly came to fetch his wife in the room where she was, and "that he left in his carriage with her and the two men who had committed the violence."
*
The moral of this instructive tale, shedding light on the customs of the time,—would be missing if one did not read at the end of the report this remarkable conclusion: "There are few examples of such odious and criminal violence... However, as the heirs of the two deceased brothers are also brothers-in-law to the murderer, there is much reason to fear that this assassination will go unpunished and will produce no other effect than to make Monsieur Le Pileur much more amenable to proposals for settlement that will be made to him by his co-heirs, regarding their common interests."}]}```
It was said that in the Grand Siècle, the humblest clerk wrote as pompously as Bossuet. One cannot but admire this beautiful detachment in the report, which makes one hope that the murderer will become more tractable regarding the settlement of his affairs... As for the murder, the theft of papers, and even the blows probably dealt to the lawyers, they cannot be punished, because neither the parents nor anyone else will file a complaint—M. Le Pileur being too much of a grand seigneur not to support even his unfortunate incidents...
The story then fades, making me momentarily forget the poor abbé; but, for lack of romantic embellishments, one can at least sketch historical silhouettes for the background. Everything already, for me, lives and recomposes itself. I see d'Argenson in his office, Pontchartrain in his study, the Pontchartrain of Saint-Simon, who made himself so amusing by calling himself de Pontchartrain, and who, like many others, avenged ridicule with terror.
But what's the point of all these preparations? Will I even be allowed to stage the facts, in the manner of Froissard or Monstrelet?—I'd be told it's the method of Walter Scott, a novelist, and I fear I'll have to limit myself to a simple analysis of the history of the Abbé de Bucquoy... once I've found it.
3rd LETTER.
A curator at the Mazarine Library.—The mouse of Athens.—The Enchanted Bell.
I had high hopes: M. Ravenel was supposed to take care of it;—it was only eight more days to wait. And, besides, in the meantime, I might still find the book in some other public library.
Unfortunately, all of them were closed—except the Mazarine. So I went to disturb the silence of those magnificent and cold galleries. There's a very complete catalog there, which one can consult oneself, and which, in ten minutes, clearly indicates the yes or no to any question. The attendants themselves are so knowledgeable that it's almost always unnecessary to bother the employees and leaf through the catalog. I addressed one of them, who was surprised, thought for a moment, and said: "We don't have the book...; yet, I have a vague idea of it.
The curator is a witty man, known to everyone, and of serious scholarship. He recognized me. "What do you need with the Abbé de Bucquoy? Is it for an opera libretto? I saw a charming one by you ten years ago[1]; the music was enchanting. You had an admirable actress there... But censorship, today, won't let you put an abbé on stage.
—It's for a historical work that I need the book."
*
He looked at me intently, as one looks at those who ask for alchemy books. "I understand," he finally said; "it's for a historical novel, Dumas-style.
—I've never written one; I don't want to: I don't want to burden the newspapers I write for with four or five hundred francs a day in stamp duty... If I can't write history, I'll print the book as it is!
He shook his head and said to me:—We have it.
—Ah!
—I know where it is. It's part of the collection of books that came to us from Saint-Germain-des-Prés. That's why it's not yet cataloged... It's in the cellars.
—Ah! if you would be so kind...
—I'll look for it for you: give me a few days.
—I'm starting the work the day after tomorrow.
—Ah! that's because everything is piled on top of each other: it's a whole house to move. But the book is there: I've seen it.
—Ah! pay close attention, I said, to those books from the Saint-Germain-des-Prés collection—because of the rats... So many new species have been reported, not counting the gray Russian rat that came with the Cossacks. It's true it helped destroy the English rat; but now they're talking about a new rodent that arrived recently. It's the mouse of Athens. It seems to multiply enormously, and the breed was brought in boxes sent here by the University that France maintains in Athens.
The curator smiled at my fear and dismissed me, promising me his full attention.
THE ENCHANTED DOORBELL.
Another idea has come to me: the Arsenal Library is on holiday; but I know a curator there. He is in Paris: he has the keys. He was once very kind to me, and will surely let me consult this book, which is one of the many his library possesses, as an exception.
I had set off. A terrible thought stopped me. It was the memory of a fantastic story I had been told a long time ago.
The curator I know had succeeded a famous old man[2], who had a passion for books, and who only left his beloved 17th-century editions very late and with great regret; he died, however, and the new curator took possession of his apartment.
He had just gotten married, and was resting peacefully beside his young wife, when suddenly he felt himself woken, at one in the morning, by violent rings of the doorbell. The maid slept on another floor. The curator got up and went to open it.
No one.
He inquired in the house: everyone was asleep; the concierge had seen nothing.
The next day, at the same hour, the doorbell rang in the same manner with a long series of chimes.
No more visitor than the day before. The curator, who had been a professor some time before, supposed it was some resentful schoolboy, afflicted with too many pensums, who had hidden in the house, or who had even tied a cat by the tail to a slipknot that would have loosened by the effect of traction...
Finally, on the third day, he instructed the concierge to stand on the landing, with a light, until past the fateful hour, and promised him a reward if the ringing did not occur.
At one in the morning, the concierge saw with consternation the doorbell cord begin to move by itself, the red tassel dancing frantically along the wall. The curator opened, on his side, and saw before him only the concierge making signs of the cross. "It's the soul of your predecessor returning:"
“Have you seen him?”
“No! but ghosts, you don't see them by candlelight.”
“Well, we'll try tomorrow without light.”
“Sir, you can try all by yourself...” After careful consideration, the curator decided not to try to see the ghost, and probably a mass was said for the old bibliophile, for the event never recurred.
And I would go, I, to pull that very doorbell!... Who knows if it isn't the ghost who will open for me?
This library is, moreover, full of sad memories for me: I knew three curators there, the first of whom was the original of the supposed ghost; the second, so witty and kind... who was one of my literary tutors[3]; the last[4], who so obligingly revealed to me his beautiful collections of engravings, and to whom I presented a Faust, illustrated with German plates!
No, I will not easily decide to return to the Arsenal.
Besides, we still have to visit the old booksellers. There's France; there's Merlin; there's Techener...
M. France told me: «I know the book well; I've had it in my hands ten times... You might find it by chance on the quays: I found it there for ten sous.
To scour the quays for several days looking for a book noted as rare... I preferred to go to Merlin's. «Le Bucquoy?» his successor asked me; «we only know that; I even have one on this shelf...»
It is needless to express my joy. The bookseller brought me a duodecimo book, of the indicated format; only, it was a little thick (649 pages). I found, upon opening it, this title, opposite a portrait: «Eulogy of the Count of Bucquoy.» Around the portrait, one found in Latin: COMES. A. BVCQVOY.
My illusion did not last long; it was a history of the Bohemian rebellion, with the portrait of a Bucquoy in armor, with a beard cut in the style of Louis XIII. This is probably the poor abbot's ancestor.—But it was not without interest to possess this book; for often tastes and family traits reproduce themselves. Here is a Bucquoy born in Artois who wages the Bohemian war;—his face reveals imagination and energy, with a touch of tendency towards the whimsical. The Abbé de Bucquoy must have succeeded him as dreamers succeed men of action.
THE CANARY.
On my way to Techener's, to try one last chance, I stopped at a bird-seller's door.
An elderly woman, wearing a hat and dressed with that half-luxurious care that reveals one has seen better days, was offering to sell a canary with its cage to the merchant.
The merchant replied that he was already struggling to feed his own. The old lady insisted in an oppressed voice. The bird-seller told her that her bird was worthless.—The lady walked away with a sigh.
I had given all my money for Count Bucquoy's exploits in Bohemia: otherwise, I would have told the merchant: Call that lady back, and tell her that you've decided to buy the bird.....
The fate that pursues me concerning the Bucquoys has left me with the remorse of not having been able to do it.
M. Techener told me: I no longer have copies of the book you are looking for; but I know that one will soon be sold from the library of an amateur.
—Which amateur?...
—X., if you wish, the name will not be on the catalogue.
—But, if I want to buy the copy now?...
—Catalogued and lot-classified books are never sold in advance. The sale will take place on November 11th.
November 11th!
Yesterday, I received a note from M. Ravenel, curator of the Library, to whom I had been introduced. He had not forgotten me, and informed me of the same detail. Only it seems that the sale has been postponed to November 20th.
What to do until then.—And yet, now, the book might fetch a fabulous price...
4th LETTER.
A manuscript from the archives.—Angélique de Longueval.—Journey to Compiègne.—History of the Abbé de Bucquoy's great-aunt.
I had the idea of going to the French archives where I was given the authentic genealogy of the Bucquoys. Their family name is Longueval. By consulting the numerous files related to this family, I made a most fortunate discovery.
It is a manuscript of about a hundred pages, with yellowed paper, faded ink, whose leaves are held together with faded pink ribbons, and which contains the history of Angélique de Longueval; I took some excerpts from it that I will try to connect with a faithful analysis. A host of documents and information on the Longuevals and the Bucquoys referred me to other documents, which must exist in the Compiègne Library.—The next day was All Saints' Day; I did not miss this opportunity for distraction and study.
Old provincial France is barely known,—especially these parts,—which nevertheless are part of the surroundings of Paris. At the point where Île-de-France, Valois, and Picardy meet,—divided by the Oise and the Aisne, with their slow and peaceful course,—one can dream of the most beautiful pastorals in the world.
The language of the peasants themselves is the purest French, barely modified by a pronunciation where the endings of words rise to the sky like the song of the lark... In children, it forms a kind of warbling. There is also something Italian in the turns of phrase,—which is undoubtedly due to the long stay of the Medicis and their Florentine retinue in these regions, formerly divided into royal and princely appanages.
I arrived last night in Compiègne, pursuing the Bucquoys in all forms, with that slow obstinacy that is natural to me. Besides, the Paris archives, where I had only been able to take a few notes, would have been closed today, All Saints' Day.
At the Hôtel de la Cloche, celebrated by Alexandre Dumas, there was a great commotion this morning. Dogs were barking, hunters were preparing their weapons; I heard a huntsman saying to his master: "Here is Monsieur le Marquis's rifle."
So there are still marquises!
I was engrossed in a completely different pursuit... I inquired about the opening hours of the Library.
"On All Saints' Day," I was told, "it is naturally closed."
"And on other days?"
"It opens from seven in the evening until eleven. I fear I'm making myself more miserable here than I was. I had a recommendation for one of the librarians, who is also one of our most eminent bibliophiles. Not only did he kindly show me the city's books, but also his own—among which are precious autographs, such as those of an unpublished correspondence by Voltaire, and a collection of songs set to music by Rousseau and written in his own hand, whose beautiful and clear execution I could not see without emotion—with this title: Ancient Songs to New Tunes. Here is the first in the Marotic style:
I am no longer who I once was,
And can never be again:
My sweet spring and my summer
Have flown out the window, etc.
This gave me the idea of returning to Paris via Ermenonville—which is the shortest route by distance and the longest by time, although the railway makes a huge detour to reach Compiègne.
One cannot reach Ermenonville, nor leave it, without walking at least three leagues.—Not a single direct carriage. But tomorrow, All Souls' Day, is a pilgrimage I will respectfully undertake—while thinking of the beautiful Angélique de Longueval.
I am sending you everything I gathered about her from the archives and in Compiègne, written without much preparation from the manuscript documents and especially from that yellowed notebook, entirely written in her hand, which is perhaps bolder, coming from a girl of high birth, than Rousseau's Confessions themselves.
Angélique de Longueval was the daughter of one of the greatest lords of Picardy. Jacques de Longueval, Count of Haraucourt, her father, King's Counselor in his councils, Marshal of his camps and armies, governed the Châtelet and Clermont-en-Beauvoisis. It was in the vicinity of the latter town, at the Château de Saint-Rimbaut, that he left his wife and daughter when his duties called him to court or to the army.
From the age of thirteen, Angélique de Longueval, of a melancholic and dreamy nature—having no taste, as she said, for beautiful stones, nor beautiful tapestries, nor beautiful clothes, breathed only death to heal her spirit. A gentleman from her father's household fell in love with her. He constantly cast his eyes upon her, showered her with his attentions, and although Angélique did not yet know what Love was, she found a certain charm in the pursuit of which she was the object.
The declaration of love made to her by this gentleman remained so deeply etched in her memory that six years later, after having gone through the storms of another love, misfortunes of all kinds, she still remembered this first letter and recounted it word for word. Allow me to quote here this curious sample of the style of a provincial lover in the time of Louis XIII.
Here is the letter from Mademoiselle Angélique de Longueval's first admirer:
"I no longer wonder why simple things, without the strength of the sun's rays, have no virtue, since today I was so unfortunate as to leave without having seen that beautiful dawn, which has always brought me into full light, and in whose absence I am perpetually accompanied by a circle of shadows, from which the desire to escape, and that of seeing you again, my beautiful one, has obliged me, as I cannot live without seeing you, to return with such promptness, in order to place myself in the shadow of your beautiful perfections, the magnet of which has entirely stolen my heart and soul; a theft, however, which I revere, in that it has elevated me to such a holy and formidable place, and which I wish to adore all my life with as much zeal and fidelity as you are perfect."
This letter brought no good fortune to the poor young man who had written it. While trying to slip it to Angélique, he was caught by her father,—and died four days later, killed in a manner untold.
The anguish this death caused Angélique revealed Love to her. For two whole years she wept. At the end of that time, seeing, she said, no other remedy for her sorrow than death or another affection, she begged her father to introduce her to society. Among so many lords she would meet there, she would surely find, she thought, someone to put in her mind in place of that eternal deceased.
Count d'Haraucourt apparently did not yield to his daughter's pleas, for among those who fell in love with her, we see only domestic officers from her father's household. Two, among others, M. de Saint-Georges, the Count's gentleman, and Fargue, his valet de chambre, found in this shared passion for their master's daughter an occasion for rivalry that ended tragically. Fargue, jealous of his rival's superiority, had made some remarks about him. M. de Saint-Georges learns of this, summons Fargue, reprimands him for his fault, and ultimately gives him so many blows with the flat of his sword that his weapon is left twisted. Full of fury, Fargue scours the mansion, searching for a sword. He encounters Baron d'Haraucourt, Angélique's brother: snatching his sword, he rushes to plunge it into his rival's throat, who is found expiring. The surgeon arrives only to tell Saint-Georges: «Cry out thanks to God, for you are dead.» Meanwhile, Fargue had fled.
Such were the tragic preludes to the great passion that was to plunge poor Angélique into a series of misfortunes.
HISTORY
OF THE ABBÉ DE BUCQUOY'S GREAT-AUNT.
Here now are the first lines of the manuscript:
«When my ill fortune swore to continue leaving me no peace, it was one evening at Saint-Rimault, through a man I had known for more than seven years, and associated with for two whole years without loving him. This young man, having entered my room under the pretext of his goodwill towards my mother's lady-in-waiting named Beauregard, approached my bed saying to me: «Do you please, madam?» and approaching closer, he spoke these words: «Ah! how I love you, it's been a long time!» to which words I replied: I do not love you at all, nor do I hate you; only, go away, for fear that my father might learn you are here at this hour. When day came, I immediately sought an opportunity to see the one who had made his declaration of love to me during the night; and, considering him, I found him hateful only for his condition, which gave him great reserve that whole day, and he looked at me continually. All the following days passed with great care he took to dress well to please me. It is also true that he was very amiable, and that his actions did not stem from his origins, for he had a very noble and courageous heart.»
This young man, as we learn from the account of a Célestin father, Angélique's cousin, was named La Corbinière and was none other than the son of a pork butcher from Clermont-sur-Oise, engaged in the service of Count d'Haraucourt. It is true that the Count, Marshal of the King's camps and armies, had organized his household on a military footing, and his servants, wearing moustaches and spurs, had no livery other than a uniform. This explains to a certain extent Angélique's illusion.
She watched with sorrow as La Corbinière departed, following his master to Charleville to rejoin Monseigneur de Longueville, who was suffering from dysentery.—A sad illness, the young girl naively thought, a sad illness that prevented her from seeing the one «whose affection was not displeasing to her.» She saw him again later in Verneuil. This encounter took place in the church. The young man had acquired fine manners at the court of the Duke de Longueville. He was dressed in pearl-grey Spanish cloth, with a cutwork collar and a grey hat adorned with pearl-grey and yellow feathers. He approached her for a moment unnoticed by anyone and said to her: «Take, Madam, these scented bracelets that I brought from Charleville, where it greatly bored me.»
La Corbinière resumed his duties at the castle. He still pretended to love the chambermaid Beauregard, and made her believe that he only came to his mistress for her. "This simple girl," said Angélique, "firmly believed him... Thus, we spent two or three hours laughing all three together every evening, in the keep of Verneuil, in the white-draped room."
The surveillance and suspicions of a valet named Dourdillie interrupted these meetings. The lovers could only communicate by letters. However, Angélique's father, having gone to Rouen to find the Duke of Longueville, whose lieutenant he was, La Corbinière escaped in the night, climbed a wall through a breach, and, reaching Angélique's window, threw a stone at the pane.
The young lady recognized him and, still dissembling, said to her chambermaid Beauregard: "I think your lover is mad. Go quickly and open the door to the lower hall that leads to the parterre, for he has entered there. Meanwhile, I will get dressed and light a candle."
It was decided to give the young man supper, "which consisted only of liquid preserves. All that night," adds the young lady, "we three spent laughing."
But, what was unfortunate for poor Beauregard was that the young lady and La Corbinière secretly laughed at her confidence in being loved by him.
When day came, the young man was hidden in the room called the King's, where no one ever entered; then at night he was sent for. "His food," said Angélique, "for these three days, was fresh chicken that I carried to him between my chemise and my petticoat."
La Corbinière was finally forced to rejoin the count, who was then staying in Paris. A year passed for Angélique in a melancholy — distracted only by the letters she wrote to her lover. "I had no other amusement," she said, "for beautiful stones, nor beautiful tapestries and fine clothes, without the conversation of honest people, could not please me..... Our reunion was at Saint-Rimaut, with such great contentment, that no one can know it but those who have loved. I found him even more amiable in that scarlet suit he wore....."
The evening rendezvous began again. The valet Dourdillie was no longer at the castle, and his room was occupied by a falconer named Lavigne who pretended to notice nothing.
The relations continued thus, always chastely, moreover, — and leaving only regret for the months of La Corbinière's absence, often forced to follow the count to the places where his military service called him. "To tell," writes Angélique, "all the joys we had in three years in France[1], would be impossible."
One day, La Corbinière became bolder. Perhaps the companies of Paris had spoiled him a little. He entered Angélique's room very late. Her maid was lying on the floor, she in her bed. He began by embracing the maid according to the usual assumption, then he said to her: "I must scare my lady."
"Then," adds Angélique, "as I was sleeping, he slipped all at once into my bed, with only underpants. I, more frightened than pleased, begged him, by the passion he had for me, to leave quickly, because it was impossible to walk or speak in my room without my father hearing him. I had a lot of trouble getting him out."
The somewhat confused lover returned to Paris. But, upon his return, their mutual affection had only grown; and her parents had some vague suspicion. La Corbinière hid under a large Turkish rug covering a table, one day when the young lady was lying in the room known as the King's, "and came to sit near her." Fifty times she begged him, always fearing her father would enter. Moreover, even asleep next to each other, their caresses were pure...
5th LETTER.
Continuation of the story of the Abbé de Bucquoy's great-aunt.
Such was the spirit of the age—when the reading of Italian poets still fostered, especially in the provinces, a Platonism worthy of Petrarch. Traces of this kind of spirit can be seen in the style of the beautiful penitent to whom we owe these confessions.
However, when day broke, La Corbinière emerged a little late through the great hall. The Count, who had risen early, saw him, without being absolutely certain he was leaving his daughter's room, but he strongly suspected it.
"Wherefore," adds the young lady, "my dearest papa remained very melancholy that day and did nothing but speak with mama; yet nothing at all was said to me."
On the third day, the Count was obliged to attend the funeral of his brother-in-law Manicamp. He brought La Corbinière with him—as well as a son, a groom, and two lackeys, and finding himself in the middle of the Compiègne forest, he suddenly approached the lover, surprisingly pulled the sword from his belt, and, putting a pistol to his throat, said to the lackey: "Take the spurs off this traitor, and go on ahead a bit..."
INTERRUPTION.
I would not wish to imitate the method of narrators in Constantinople or storytellers in Cairo, who, by an artifice as old as the world, suspend a narration at its most interesting point, so that the crowd returns to the same café the next day.—The story of Abbé Bucquoy exists; I will eventually find it.
I am merely surprised that in a city like Paris, a center of enlightenment, whose public libraries contain two million books, one cannot find a French book that I was able to read in Frankfurt—and which I neglected to buy.
Everything gradually disappears, thanks to the book lending system—and also because the race of literary and artistic collectors has not been renewed since the revolution. All curious books, stolen, bought, or lost, are found again in Holland, Germany, and Russia.—I fear a long journey in this season, and I content myself with continuing my research within a forty-kilometer radius of Paris.
*
I learned that the Senlis post office took seventeen hours to deliver a letter to you that could have reached Paris in three hours. I don't think this is because I am disliked in this country, where I was raised; but here is a curious detail.
A few weeks ago, I was already beginning to plan the work you are kind enough to publish, and I was doing some preparatory research on the Bucquoys—whose name has always resonated in my mind like a childhood memory. I was in Senlis with a friend, a Breton friend, very tall and with a black beard. Having arrived early by train, which stops at Saint-Maixent, and then by omnibus, which crosses the woods, following the old road to Flanders—we had the imprudence to enter the most prominent café in town, to refresh ourselves.
This café was full of gendarmes, in the gracious state that, after duty, allows them to enjoy some recreation. Some were playing dominoes, others billiards.
These soldiers were undoubtedly surprised by our Parisian ways and beards. But they showed nothing of it that evening.
The next day, we were having breakfast at the excellent hotel of the 'Truite qui file' (I assure you I am not making this up), when a brigadier came to very politely ask for our passports.
Pardon these minor details—but they might interest everyone...
We answered him in the manner a certain soldier answered the constabulary—according to a song from that very country... (I was lulled to sleep with that song.)
He was asked:
Where is your leave?
—The leave I took;
It's under my shoes!
The answer is charming. But the chorus is terrible:
Spiritus sanctus,
Quoniam bonus!
Which sufficiently indicates that the soldier did not unite well... Our affair had a less serious outcome. Also, we had very honestly replied that one does not ordinarily take a passport to visit the greater suburbs of Paris. The brigadier had saluted without making any observation.
We had spoken at the hotel of a vague plan to go to Ermenonville. Then, the weather having turned bad, the idea changed, and we went to reserve our seats on the Chantilly coach, which brought us closer to Paris.
Just as we were about to leave, we saw a commissioner arrive, accompanied by two gendarmes, who said to us: "Your papers?"
We repeated what we had already said.
—Well then! gentlemen, said this official, you are under arrest.
My Breton friend frowned, which worsened our situation.
I told him: Calm down. I am almost a diplomat... I have seen up close—abroad—kings, pashas, and even padishahs, and I know how to speak to authorities.
—Mr. Commissioner, I said then (because one must always give people their titles), I have made three trips to England, and I have never been asked for a passport except to confer upon me the right to leave France... I am returning from Germany, where I crossed ten sovereign countries—including Hesse:—I was not even asked for my passport in Prussia.
—Well! I am asking you for it in France.
—You know that criminals always have their papers in order...
—Not always...
I bowed.
—I have lived seven years in this country; I even have some remaining properties here...
—But you don't have any papers?
—That's right... Do you now believe that suspicious people would go and have a bowl of punch in a cafe where the gendarmes play their game in the evening?
—That could be a way to disguise oneself better.
I saw that I was dealing with a witty man.
—Well! Mr. Commissioner, I added, I am simply a writer; I am researching the Bucquoy de Longueval family, and I want to pinpoint the location, or find the ruins, of the castles they owned in the province.
The commissioner's brow suddenly cleared:
—Ah! you are interested in literature? And so am I, sir! I wrote verses in my youth... a tragedy.
One danger succeeded another;—the commissioner seemed inclined to invite us to dinner to read us his tragedy. We had to feign business in Paris to be authorized to get into the Chantilly coach, whose departure was suspended by our arrest.
I don't need to tell you that I continue to give you only accurate details about what happens to me in my assiduous research.
Those who are not hunters do not sufficiently understand the beauty of autumn landscapes.—At this moment, despite the morning mist, we perceive scenes worthy of the great Flemish masters. In castles and museums, one still finds the spirit of the Northern painters. Always viewpoints with pink or bluish hues in the sky, with trees half-denuded,—with fields in the distance or in the foreground, pastoral scenes.
Watteau's Voyage to Cythera was conceived in the transparent and colored mists of this country. It is a Cythera modeled on an islet of these ponds created by the overflows of the Oise and the Aisne,—these rivers so calm and peaceful in summer.
The lyricism of these observations should not surprise you;—tired of the vain quarrels and sterile agitations of Paris, I rest by revisiting these green and fertile countrysides;—I regain strength on this maternal land.
Whatever one may say philosophically, we are tied to the soil by many bonds. One does not carry the ashes of one's fathers on the soles of one's shoes,—and the poorest keeps somewhere a sacred memory that reminds him of those who loved him. Religion or philosophy, everything indicates to man this eternal cult of memories.
6th LETTER.
All Saints' Day.—Senlis.—The Roman towers.—The young girls.—Delphine.
It's All Saints' Day as I write to you;—forgive these melancholic thoughts. Having arrived in Senlis the day before, I passed through the most beautiful and saddest landscapes one could see this season. The reddish hue of oaks and aspens against the dark green of the lawns, the white trunks of birches standing out from the heather and brushwood,—and above all, the majestic length of this Flanders road, which sometimes rises to offer a vast horizon of misty forests, all of it led me to reverie. Upon arriving in Senlis, I saw the town in celebration. The bells,—whose distant sound Rousseau loved so much,—rang out from all sides; young girls walked in groups through the town, or stood smiling and chattering in front of house doors. I don't know if I'm a victim of an illusion: I haven't yet met an ugly girl in Senlis; perhaps those ones don't show themselves!
No:—the blood is generally good, which is undoubtedly due to the pure air, abundant food, and quality of the water. Senlis is a town isolated from the great movement of the Northern railway that carries populations towards Germany.—I never knew why the Northern railway didn't pass through our regions,—and made an enormous bend that partly encompasses Montmorency, Luzarches, Gonesse, and other localities, deprived of the privilege that would have ensured them a direct route. It is probable that the people who instituted this railway insisted on having it pass through their properties.—One only needs to consult the map to appreciate the accuracy of this observation.
It's natural, on a feast day in Senlis, to go see the cathedral. It's very beautiful, and newly restored, with the escutcheon strewn with fleurs-de-lis representing the city's arms, which has been carefully replaced on the side door. The bishop officiated in person,—and the nave was filled with the castellans and bourgeois notables still found in this locality.
THE YOUNG GIRLS.
Upon leaving, I was able to admire, under a ray of the setting sun, the old towers of the Roman fortifications, half-demolished and covered with ivy.
—Passing near the priory, I noticed a group of little girls who had sat down on the steps of the door.
They were singing under the direction of the tallest, who, standing before them, clapped her hands to set the rhythm.
—Come on, young ladies, let's start again; the little ones aren't getting it!... I want to hear that little one on the left, the first on the second step:—Go on, sing by yourself.
And the little one began to sing with a weak, but well-pitched voice:
The ducks in the river... etc.
Another tune I was lulled to sleep with. Childhood memories revive when one has reached the halfway point of life.—It's like a palimpsest manuscript whose lines are made to reappear through chemical processes.
The little girls together resumed another song, another memory:
Three girls in a meadow...
My heart flies (twice)!
My heart flies at your will!
"Scoundrel children!" said a good peasant who had stopped near me to listen to them... "But you're too sweet!... Now you must dance."
The little girls got up from the stairs and danced a peculiar dance that reminded me of the Greek girls in the islands.
They all line up,—as we say here,—à la queue leleu; then a young boy takes the hands of the first and leads her backward, while the others hold each other's arms, each grasping behind her companion. This forms a snake that first moves in a spiral and then in a circle, tightening more and more around the listener, who is obliged to listen to the song, and when the circle tightens, to embrace the poor children, who offer this grace to the passing stranger.
I was not a stranger, but I was moved to tears recognizing in those small voices the intonations, the trills, the subtle accents I had once heard—and which, from mothers to daughters, remain unchanged...
Music in this region has not been corrupted by the imitation of Parisian operas, drawing-room romances, or melodies played by organs. In Senlis, they still adhere to sixteenth-century music, traditionally preserved since the Medicis. The era of Louis XIV also left its mark. There are, in the memories of country girls, laments—of a charmingly bad taste.
One finds there remnants of sixteenth-century opera pieces, perhaps—or seventeenth-century oratorios.
DELPHINE.
I once attended a performance given in Senlis at a young ladies' boarding school.
A mystery play was being performed—as in times past.—The life of Christ had been depicted in all its details, and the scene I remember was the one where they awaited Christ's descent into hell.
A very beautiful blonde girl appeared in a white dress, a pearl headdress, a halo, and a golden sword, standing on a half-globe, which represented an extinct star.
She sang:
Angels! descend swiftly,
To the depths of purgatory!...
And she spoke of the glory of the Messiah, who was about to visit those dark places.—She added:
You will see him distinctly
With a crown...
Seated upon a throne!..
This took place in a monarchical era. The blonde young lady was from one of the country's most prominent families and was named Delphine.—I will never forget that name!
The Sire de Longueval said to his men: "Search this traitor, for he has letters from my daughter,"—and he added, speaking to him: "Tell me, perfidious one, where were you coming from when you left the great hall so early?"
"I was coming," he said, "from the chamber of Monsieur de La Porte, and I don't know what you mean by letters."
Fortunately, La Corbinière had previously burned the letters he had received, so nothing was found. However, the Count de Longueval said to his son—still holding the pistol in his hand:—"Cut off his mustache and his hair!"
The Count imagined that after this operation, La Corbinière would no longer please his daughter.
Here is what she wrote on the subject:
"This boy, seeing himself in this state, wished to die, for he truly believed that I would no longer love him; but, on the contrary, when I saw him in this condition for my sake, my affection redoubled so much that I swore, if my father treated him worse, to kill myself before him;—he, being a man of spirit, acted prudently, for, without further outburst, he sent him with a good horse to Beauvoisis, to warn these Gentlemen of the gendarmerie to be ready to come as a garrison to Orbaix."
The young lady adds:
"The ill-treatment my father inflicted upon him, and the command he had enjoined upon him to keep within the bounds of his duty, could not prevent him from spending that entire night with me by this invention: my father having commanded him to go to Beauvoisis, he mounted his horse, and instead of leaving promptly, he stopped in the wood of Guny until nightfall, and then he came to Tancar's, at Coucy-la-Ville, and when he had supped, he took his two pistols and came to Verneuil, climbing through the small garden, where I awaited him with confidence and without fear, knowing that they believed him to be far away. I led him to my room; then he said to me: 'We must not miss this good opportunity without embracing: that is why we must undress... There is no danger.'"
La Corbinière fell ill, which made the Count less severe towards him—but to distance him from his daughter, he told him: "You must go to the garrison at Orbaix, for the other gendarmes are already there."
Which he did with great displeasure.
At Orbaix, the Count's falconer having sent his valet, named Toquette, to Verneuil, La Corbinière gave him a letter for Angélique de Longueval. But, fearing it might be seen, he instructed him to place it under a stone before entering the castle, so that if he were searched, nothing would be found.
Once admitted, it was quite simple to retrieve the letter from under the stone and deliver it to the young lady. The little boy carried out his message well, and, approaching Angélique de Longueval, said to her: "I have something for you."
She was greatly pleased with this letter. He testified that he had given up great advantages in Germany to come see her, and that it was impossible for him to live without her granting him the opportunity to see her.
Having been led by her brother to the castle of La Neuville, Angélique said to a footman who belonged to her mother and was called Court-Toujours: "Do me the favor of finding La Corbinière, who has returned from Germany, and secretly deliver this letter from me to him."
7th LETTER.
Observations.—King Loys.—Beneath the white rose bushes.
Before discussing Angélique de Longueval's great resolutions, I ask permission to add one more word. Afterwards, I will rarely interrupt the narrative. Since we are forbidden to write historical novels, we are forced to serve the sauce on a different plate than the fish;—that is, local descriptions, the sentiment of the era, the analysis of characters,—apart from the factually true narrative.
I find it difficult to understand the journey La Corbinière made to Germany. Mademoiselle de Longueval only mentions it briefly. At that time, Germany referred to the lands located in upper Burgundy,—where we saw that M. de Longueville had been ill with dysentery. La Corbinière had probably been with him for some time.
As for the character of the provincial fathers I am examining, it has been eternally the same, if I believe the legends I heard sung in my youth. It is a mixture of patriarchal gruffness and good-nature. Here is one of the songs I was able to collect in this old country of the Île de France, which, from Parisis, extends to the borders of Picardy:
King Loyt is on his bridge
Holding his daughter on his lap.
She asks him for a knight...
Who is not worth six deniers!
—Oh! Yes, my father, I will have him
Despite my mother who bore me.
And despite all my relatives
And you, my father ... whom I love so much!
—My daughter, you must change your love,
Or you will enter the tower...
—I prefer to stay in the tower,
My father! Than to change my love!
—Quick ... where are my guards.
As well as my footmen?
Take my daughter to the tower,
She will never see the light of day there!
She stayed there for seven years and more
Without anyone being able to find her:
At the end of the seventh year
Her father came to visit her.
—Hello, my daughter! How are you?
—Indeed, my father ... I am very ill;
My feet are rotting in the earth.
And my sides are eaten by worms.
—My daughter, you must change your love...
Or you will stay in the tower.
—I prefer to stay in the tower,
My father, than to change my love!
We have just seen the fierce father;—now here is the indulgent father.
It is unfortunate not to be able to let you hear the tunes,—which are as poetic as these verses, mixed with assonances, in the Spanish style, are musically rhythmic:
Beneath the white rose bush
The beautiful one walks...
White as snow,
Beautiful as day:
In her father's garden
Three knights took her.
This legend has since been spoiled by redoing the verses and claiming it was from Bourbonnais. It has even been dedicated, with pretty illustrations, to the ex-queen of the French... I cannot give you the whole thing; here are the details I still remember:
Three captains ride past the white rose bush:
The youngest of the three
Took her by her white hand:
—Mount, mount, my fair one,
On my gray horse.
One can still see, from these four lines, that it is possible not to rhyme in poetry;—this is what the Germans know, who, in certain pieces, only use long and short syllables, in the ancient manner.
The three horsemen and the young girl, riding pillion behind the youngest, arrive in Senlis. "As soon as they arrived, the hostess looked at her:"
Come in, come in, my beauty;
Come in without further ado,
With three captains
You will spend the night!
When the beauty realizes she has made a somewhat imprudent move—after presiding over supper, she feigns death, and the three horsemen are naive enough to fall for this trick.—They say to each other: "What! Our sweetheart is dead!" and wonder where to take her back:
To her father's garden!—
said the youngest; and it is under the white rose bush that they go to lay the body.
The narrator continues:
And at the end of three days
The beauty resurrects!
—Open, open, my father,
Open, without further delay;
For three days I feigned death
To preserve my honor.
The father is having supper with the whole family. They joyfully welcome the young girl whose absence had greatly worried her parents for three days,—and it is probable that she later married very honorably.
Let's return to Angélique de Longueval.
"But to speak of the resolution I made to leave my homeland, it was in this manner: when he[1] who had gone to Maine returned to Verneuil, my father asked him before supper: "Do you have enough money?" to which he replied: "I have so much." My father, not content, took a knife from the table, because the table was set, and throwing himself on him to wound him, my mother and I rushed to them; but already the one who was to cause so much pain, had wounded himself in the finger trying to take the knife from my father ... and even though he received this ill-treatment, the love he had for me prevented him from leaving, as was his duty.
"Eight days passed during which my father said neither good nor bad to him, during which time he solicited me by letters to resolve to go away together, to which I was not yet resolved, but the eight days having passed, my father said to him in the garden: "I am astonished at your impudence, that you still remain in my house after what has happened; go away quickly, and never come to any of my houses, for you will never be welcome."
So he quickly went to have a horse he owned saddled, and went up to his room to get his clothes; he had signaled me to go up to Haraucourt's room, where in the antechamber there was a closed door, through which one could nevertheless speak. I quickly went there and he said these words to me: "This is the time to make a decision, or else you will never see me again."
"I asked him for three days to think about it; so he went to Paris and returned after three days to Verneuil, during which time I did everything I could to resolve myself to leave this affection, but it was impossible for me, even though all the miseries I have suffered presented themselves before my eyes before leaving. Love and despair overcame all these considerations; so here I am resolved."
After three days, La Corbinière came to the castle and entered through the small garden. Angélique de Longueval was waiting for him in the small garden and entered through the lower room, where he was delighted with joy upon learning of the young lady's resolution.
*
The departure was set for the first Sunday of Lent, and she told him, upon his observation, "that they needed money and a horse," that she would do what she could.
Angélique racked her brain for a way to get silver plate, for money was out of the question, her father having all his money with him in Paris.
When the day came, she said to a groom named Breteau:
"I would like you to lend me a horse to send to Soissons tonight, to fetch some taffeta to make myself a bodice, promising you that the horse will be here before Mama wakes up; and don't be alarmed if I ask you for it at night, for it is so that she won't scold you."
The groom agreed to his young mistress's wishes. The next step was to get the key to the castle's first gate. She told the doorman she wanted to let someone out at night to fetch something from town, and that her lady must not know... so he should remove the key to the first gate from the bunch, and she wouldn't notice.
The main thing was to get the silver. The countess, who, as her daughter said, seemed at that moment "inspired by God," told the one who had it in her keeping at supper: "Huberde, now that M. d'Haraucourt is not here, put almost all the silver plate in this chest and bring me the key."
The young lady's color changed, and the departure day had to be postponed. However, her mother having gone for a walk in the countryside the following Sunday, she had the idea of sending for a village blacksmith to force the chest's lock, under the pretext that the key was lost.
"But," she said, "that wasn't all, for my brother the knight, who had stayed with me alone, and who was small, said to me, when he saw that I had given errands to everyone, and that I myself had closed the first gate of the castle: 'My sister, if you want to steal from papa and mama, I do not want to do it; I am going to find mama quickly.' 'Go,' I said to him, 'little impudent one, for she will know it from my mouth anyway; and if she does not do me justice, I will do it myself.'—But it was far from my mind that I said these words. This child ran off to tell what I wanted to keep hidden; but always turning back to see if I was not looking at him, he imagined that I cared little, which made him return. I did it on purpose, knowing that the more fear one shows to children, the more eager they are to tell what one asks them to keep silent."
Night came, and bedtime approached. Angélique bid her mother goodnight with a deep sense of sorrow within herself, and, returning home, said to her chambermaid:
"Jeanne, go to bed; something is troubling my mind; I cannot undress yet..."
She threw herself fully clothed onto her bed, waiting for midnight; La Corbinière was punctual.
"Oh God! What an hour!" Angélique wrote, "I trembled all over when I heard him throw a small stone at my window... for he had entered the small garden."
When La Corbinière was in the hall, Angélique said to him:
"Our plan is going very badly, for my lady has taken the key to the silver plate, which she had never done; but I do have the key to the pantry where the chest is."
At these words, he said to me:
"You must begin to dress, and then we will see how we will proceed."
So I began to put on my breeches, and the boots and spurs, which he helped me with. Upon this, the groom came to the hall door with the horse; I, utterly bewildered, quickly put on my ratteen petticoat to cover my man's clothes that I had on up to my waist, and came to take the horse from Breteau's hands, and led it out of the castle's first gate, to an elm tree under which the village girls danced on feast days, and returned to the hall, where I found my cousin waiting for me with great impatience (that was the name I was to call him for the journey), who said to me: "Let's go see if we can get anything, or, if not, we will still leave with nothing."—At these words, I went into the kitchen, which was near the pantry, and, having uncovered the fire to see clearly, I saw a large iron fire shovel, which I took, and then said to him:
"Let's go to the pantry," and being near the chest, we put our hand on the lid, which did not close tightly. Then I said to him: "Put the shovel a little between the lid and this chest." Then, both raising our arms, we did nothing; but the second time, the two lock springs broke, and suddenly I put my hand inside."
*
She found a stack of silver dishes, which she gave to La Corbinière, and as she went to take more, he told her: "Don't take any more out, for the carpet bag is full."
She wanted to take more, such as basins, candlesticks, and ewers; but he said: "That would be too cumbersome."
And he urged her to dress as a man in a doublet and a jerkin—so that they would not be recognized.
They went straight to Compiègne, where Angélique de Longueval's horse was sold for 40 écus. Then, they took the post, and arrived in Charenton that evening.
The river had flooded, so they had to wait until daybreak. There, Angélique, in her man's attire, managed to fool the hostess, who said, "as the postilion pulled off her boots:"
—Gentlemen, what would you like for supper?
—Whatever good you have, madam, was the reply.
However, Angélique went to bed, so weary that she couldn't eat. She especially feared the Count de Longueval, her father, "who was then in Paris."
At daybreak, they got into the boat to Essonne, where the young lady was so exhausted that she said to La Corbinière:
*
—"Go on ahead and wait for me in Lyon with the dishes."
They stayed three days in Essonne, first to wait for the coach, then to heal the chafing the young lady had gotten on her thighs from riding at a full gallop.
Past Moulins, a man in the coach, who called himself a gentleman, began to speak these words:
—Isn't there a young lady dressed as a man?
—To which La Corbinière replied:
—Indeed, sir... Why, do you have something to say about that? Am I not free to dress my wife as I please?
*
That evening, they arrived in Lyon, at the Chapeaurouge, where they sold the dishes for 300 écus; whereupon La Corbinière had made for himself, "though he had no need of it at all—a very fine scarlet suit, with gold and silver aiguillettes."
They descended the Rhône, and having stopped for the evening at an inn, La Corbinière wanted to test his pistols. He did so clumsily, firing a bullet into Angélique de Longueval's right foot—and he merely said to those who blamed him for his imprudence: "It's a misfortune that has happened to me... I can say to myself, since it's my wife."
Angélique remained in bed for three days, then they got back into the Rhône boat, and were able to reach Avignon, where Angélique had her wound treated, and having taken a new boat when she felt better, they finally arrived in Toulon on Easter Day.
*
A storm greeted them as they left the port for Genoa; they stopped in a harbor, at the castle called Saint-Soupir, whose lady, seeing them saved, had the Salve Regina sung. Then she had them served a collation in the local style, with olives and capers—and ordered that their valet be given artichokes.
"See," said Angélique, "what love is;—even though we were in a place inhabited by no one, we had to fast there for the three days we waited for a good wind. Nevertheless, the hours seemed like minutes to me, even though I was very hungry. For at Villefranche, for fear of the plague, they would not let us take provisions. So, all very hungry, we set sail; but beforehand, for fear of shipwreck, I wanted to confess to a good Cordelier father who was in our company, and who was also coming to Genoa."
*
For my husband (she always calls him that from this moment on), seeing a Genoese gentleman enter our room, who spoke French a little poorly, asked him: "Sir, do you wish for anything?—Sir," said this Genoese, "I would very much like to speak to Madame." My husband, all at once, drawing his sword, told him: "Do you know her? Get out of here, or else I will kill you."
Immediately, M. Audiffret came to see us, and advised him to leave as quickly as possible, because this Genoese would most certainly cause him trouble.
*
We arrived at Civita-Vecchia, then at Rome, where we put up at the best inn, awaiting the convenience of finding furnished lodgings, which we were shown to in the Rue des Bourguignons, at the home of a Piedmontese man whose wife was Roman. And one day, as I was at her window, His Holiness's nephew passed by with nineteen lackeys, and sent one who spoke these words to me in Italian: “Mademoiselle, His Eminence has commanded me to come and ask if it would please you for him to visit you.” Trembling all over, I replied: “If my husband were here, I would accept this honor; but as he is not, I most humbly beg your master to excuse me.”
He had stopped his carriage three houses from ours, awaiting the reply, which as soon as he heard it, he had his carriage move on, and I heard no more from him after that.
*
La Corbinière told her shortly after that he had met a falconer of her father's named La Hoirie. She had a great desire to see him; and, upon seeing her, “he remained speechless;” then, having regained his composure, he told her that the ambassadress had heard of her and wished to see her.
Angélique de Longueval was well received by the ambassadress.—However, she feared, based on certain details, that the falconer might have said something and that La Corbinière and she might be arrested.
They were vexed to have stayed twenty-nine days in Rome, and to have made every effort to get married without being able to succeed. “Thus,” said Angélique, “I left without seeing the Pope...”
It was in Ancona that they embarked for Venice. A storm greeted them in the Adriatic; then they arrived and went to lodge on the Grand Canal.
“This city, though admirable,” said Angélique de Longueval, “could not please me because of the sea—and it was impossible for me to eat and drink there except to keep myself from dying.”
Meanwhile, money was running out, and Angélique said to La Corbinière: “But what shall we do? We're almost out of money!”
He replied: “When we are on dry land, God will provide... Get dressed, and we will go to mass at Saint Mark's.”
*
Arriving at Saint Mark's, the couple sat down on the senators' bench; and there, though foreigners, no one thought of disputing their place;—for La Corbinière wore breeches of small black velvet, with a doublet of white silver cloth, a similar cloak..., and a small silver goose.
Angélique was well-dressed, and she was delighted,—for her French-style attire made the senators constantly fix their eyes upon her.
The French ambassador, who was walking in the procession with the Doge, saluted her.
At dinner time, Angélique no longer wished to leave her hotel,—preferring to rest than to go out on the sea in a gondola.
As for La Corbinière, he went for a stroll in Saint Mark's Square, and there met Monsieur de La Morte, who offered him his services, and who, upon hearing of the difficulty he and Angélique had in getting married, told him that it would be good to go to his garrison in Palma-Nova, where they could discuss it, and where La Corbinière could enlist.
*
There, Monsieur de La Morte presented the future spouses to His Excellency the General, who refused to believe that a man so well-dressed would offer to take up a pike in a company. The one he had chosen was commanded by Monsieur Ripert de Montélimart.
His Excellency the General, however, agreed to serve as a witness to the marriage... after which a small feast was held where the last twenty pistoles that the couple still possessed were spent.
After eight days, the senate ordered the general to send the company to Verona, which plunged Angélique de Longueval into despair, for she enjoyed Palma-Nova, where provisions were cheap.
Passing through Venice again, they bought some household items, “two pairs of sheets for two pistoles, not counting a blanket, a mattress, six earthenware plates and six dishes.”
Upon arriving in Verona, they found several French officers.—Monsieur de Breunel, an ensign, recommended them to Monsieur de Beaupuis, who lodged them without inconvenience,—houses being very cheap. Opposite the house, there was a convent of nuns who invited Angélique de Longueval to visit them,—“and showered her with so many endearments that she was embarrassed.”
At that time, she gave birth to her first child, who was held at baptism by His Excellency Georges Alluisi and by Countess Bevilacqua. His Excellency, after Angélique de Longueval had recovered from childbirth, would send her carriage quite often.
At a ball given later, she astonished all the ladies of Verona by dancing with General Alluisi—in French costume. She adds:
"All the French officers of the Republic were delighted to see that this great general, feared and dreaded everywhere, showed me so much honor."
The general, while dancing, did not fail to speak to Angélique de Longueval "apart from her husband." He said to her: "What are you waiting for in Italy?... Misery with him for the rest of your days. If you say he loves you, you cannot believe that I would not do even more... I, who will buy you the most beautiful pearls that are here, and first of all, brocade petticoats as you please. Take, Mademoiselle, to leave your love for a person who speaks for your good and to restore you to the good graces of your relatives."
However, this general advised La Corbinière to enlist in the German wars, telling him that he would find much advantage in Innsbruck, which was only seven days' journey from Verona, and that there he would catch a company.
8th LETTER.
Reflections.—Memories of the League.—The Sylvanectes and the Franks. The League.
As I walked, I read on a blue poster an announcement for a performance of Charles VII—by Beauvallet and Mademoiselle Rimblot. The show was well chosen. In this country, people cherish the memory of the princes of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance—who created the marvelous cathedrals we see here, and magnificent castles—less spared, however, by time and civil wars.
This is because there were serious struggles here during the time of the League... An old core of Protestants that could not be dissolved—and, later, another core of Catholics no less fervent in repelling the parpayot known as Henri IV.
The animation reached extremes—as in all great political struggles. In these regions—which were part of the ancient appanages of Marguerite de Valois and the Medicis—who had done good there—a constitutional hatred had been contracted against the race that had replaced them. How many times have I heard my grandmother, speaking from what had been passed down to her—tell me of Henri II's wife: "That great Madame Catherine de Médicis... whose poor children were killed!"
However, customs have been preserved in this separate province, which indicate and characterize the old struggles of the past. The main festival, in certain localities, is Saint Bartholomew's Day. It is for this day that particularly high-value prizes for archery are founded.—The bow, today, is a rather light weapon. Well, it symbolizes and first recalls the era when these hardy tribes of the Sylvanectes formed a formidable branch of the Celtic races.
The druidic stones of Ermenonville, the stone axes, and the tombs, where the skeletons always have their faces turned towards the East, no less testify to the origins of the people who inhabit these regions interspersed with forests and covered with swamps—now lakes.
The Valois and the ancient small country called la France seem to establish by their division the existence of very distinct races. France, a special division of the Île de France, is said to have been populated by the primitive Franks, who came from Germania, and of whom it was, as the chronicles say, the first stop. It is recognized today that the Franks did not subjugate Gaul at all, and could only have been involved in the struggles between certain provinces. The Romans had brought them in to populate certain areas, and especially to clear the large forests or to drain the swampy lands. Such were then the regions located north of Paris. Generally originating from the Caucasian race, these men lived on an equal footing, according to patriarchal customs. Later, fiefs were created, when it became necessary to defend the country against invasions from the North. However, the cultivators kept free the lands that had been granted to them and which were called allodial lands.
The struggle between two different races is especially evident in the League Wars. One might think that the descendants of the Gallo-Romans favored the Béarnais, while the other race, more independent by nature, turned to Mayenne, Épernon, Cardinal de Lorraine, and the Parisians. In some corners, especially at Montépilloy, heaps of corpses can still be found, the result of massacres or battles from that era, the most significant of which was the Battle of Senlis.
And even that great Count Longueval de Bucquoy—who fought in the Bohemian Wars—would he have gained the renown that caused so much trouble for his descendant—Abbot de Bucquoy—if he had not, at the head of the Leaguers, long protected Soissons, Arras, and Calais against the armies of Henry IV? Repelled as far as Friesland after holding out for three years in the Flanders region, he nonetheless obtained a ten-year armistice treaty in favor of these provinces, which Louis XIV later devastated.
Now be surprised by the persecutions Abbot de Bucquoy had to endure—under the ministry of Pontchartrain.
As for Angélique de Longueval, she is the very embodiment of opposition in her boldness. Yet she loves her father—and had only left him with regret. But from the moment she chose the man who seemed right for her—like the Duke Loys's daughter choosing Lautrec as her cavalier—she did not shrink from flight and misfortune, and even, having helped to abscond with her father's silverware, she exclaimed: "That's what love is!"
People in the Middle Ages believed in charms. It seems a charm did indeed attach her to this butcher's son—who was handsome if we are to believe her;—but who does not seem to have made her very happy. However, while noting some unfortunate dispositions of the one she never names, she never speaks ill of him for a moment. She merely states the facts—and still loves him, as a platonic wife, resigned to her fate through reasoning.
*
The lieutenant-colonel's speeches, which aimed to distance La Corbinière from Venice, had caught the eye of the latter. He suddenly sold his ensign to go to Innsbruck and seek his fortune, leaving his wife in Venice.
"So," said Angélique, "the ensign sold to this man who loved me, content (the lieutenant-colonel) believing I could no longer go back on my word; but love, which is the queen[1] of all passions, certainly mocked the position, for when I saw my husband preparing to leave, it was impossible for me to even think of living without him."
At the last moment, while the lieutenant-colonel was already rejoicing at the success of his ruse, which delivered a woman isolated from her husband into his hands—Angélique decided to follow La Corbinière to Innsbruck. "Thus," she said, "love ruined us in Italy as well as in France, although in that of Italy I had no culpability (fault)."
They left Verona with a certain Boyer, whom La Corbinière had promised to cover expenses for until Germany, because he had no money. (Here, La Corbinière recovers a little.) Twenty-five miles from Verona, at a place where, by the lake, one goes to the shore of Trent, Angélique faltered for a moment, and begged her husband to return to some town in the good Venetian country—like Brescia.—This admirer of Petrarch reluctantly left this sweet country of Italy for the misty mountains that encircle Germany. "I thought," she said, "that the 50 pistoles we had left would not last us long; but my love was greater than all these considerations."
They spent eight days in Innsbruck, where the Duke of Feria passed through and told La Corbinière that he had to go further to find employment—in a town called Fisch. There Angélique had a great flow of blood, and a woman was called, who made her understand "that she had spoiled a child."—This is a very Christian expression—which must be forgiven for the language of the time and place.
It has always been considered a defilement—in the view of churchmen, the fact, legitimate nevertheless—since Angélique was married—of bringing a new sinner into the world. This is not, however, the spirit of the Gospel.—But let's move on.
Poor Angélique, somewhat recovered, was forced to remount the only hackney the household owned: "Weak as I was," she said, "or, to tell the truth, half-dead, I got on horseback to go with my husband to join the army—where I was so astonished to see as many women as men, among many of the colonels' and captains' wives."
Her husband went to pay his respects to the great colonel named Gildase, who, being Walloon, had heard of Count Longueval de Bucquoy, who had defended Friesland against Henri IV. He showed great kindness to Angélique's husband, and told him that while waiting for a company, he would give him a lieutenancy—and that he would place Mademoiselle de Longueval in the carriage of his sister, who was married to the first captain of his regiment.
*
Misfortune tirelessly struck the newlyweds. La Corbinière caught a fever, and he had to be nursed.—There are good people everywhere: Angélique only complains of having been moved about, "now to one place, now to another," by the misfortunes of war—like the Egyptians—which could not please her, even though she had more reason to be content than any other woman, since she was the only one who ate at the colonel's table with only his sister.—And the colonel also showed too much kindness to La Corbinière—in that he gave him the best pieces from the table... because he saw he was ill."
One night, as the troops were on the march, the best lodging that could be offered to the ladies was a stable, where they had to sleep fully clothed for fear of the enemy. "Waking up in the middle of the night," said Angélique, "I felt such a great chill that I couldn't help but exclaim aloud: My God! I'm freezing to death!" The German colonel then threw her his jacket, uncovering himself, for he had nothing else over his uniform.
Here is a very profound observation:
"All these honors," she said, "might well stop a German woman, but not Frenchwomen, for whom war can hold no appeal..."
*
Nothing is truer than this observation. German women are still those of the Roman era. Trusnelda fought with Hermann. At the Battle of the Cimbri, where Marius was victorious, there were as many women as men.
Women are courageous in family events, in the face of suffering, and death. In our civil unrest, they plant flags on barricades;—they bravely carry their heads to the scaffold. In provinces closer to the north or Germany, one might find Jeanne d'Arcs and Jeanne Hachettes. But the majority of French women dread war, because of the love they have for their children.
Warrior women are of the Frankish race. Among this population, originally from Asia, there is a tradition of exposing women in battles to encourage the combatants' courage with the offered reward. Among the Arabs, the same custom is found. The devoted virgin is called the kadra and advances in the front rank, surrounded by those resolved to die for her.—But among the Franks, several were exposed.
The courage and often even the cruelty of these women were such that they led to the adoption of the Salic law. And yet, women, warrior or not, never lost their power in France, whether as queens or as favorites.
*
La Corbinière's illness caused him to decide to return to Italy. However, he forgot to take a passport. "We were very confused," said Angélique, "when we arrived at a fortress named Reistre, where they would not let us pass, and where my husband was detained despite his illness." As she had retained her freedom, she was able to go to Innsbruck to throw herself at the feet of Archduchess Leopold to obtain La Corbinière's pardon—who can be assumed to have somewhat deserted, although his wife does not admit it.
Armed with the pardon signed by the Archduchess, Angélique returned to the place where her husband was detained. She asked the people of this town of Reitz if they had heard anything about a French gentleman prisoner. They showed her where he was, where she found him against a stove, half-dead—and brought him back to Verona.
There she found M. de la Tour (de Périgord) again and reproached him for having sold her husband his ensign, which was the cause of his misfortune. "I don't know," she adds, "if he still loved me, or if it was pity, but he sent me twenty pistoles and a whole house full of furniture where my husband behaved so badly that in a short time he completely squandered everything."
He had regained a little health and lived continually in debauchery with two of his comrades, M. de la Perle and M. Escutte. However, his wife's affection did not weaken. She resolved, "to avoid living in complete discomfort, to take in boarders,"—which was successful;—only La Corbinière spent all the earnings outside the home, "which," she says, "grieved me to death; he ended up selling the furniture,—so that the household could no longer function."
"However," said the poor woman, "I still felt my affection as strong as when we left France. It is true that after receiving my mother's first letter, this affection was divided in two.... But, I admit that the love I had for this man surpassed the affection I had for my parents."
9th LETTER.
New unpublished details.—Manuscript of the Celestin Goussencourt.—Angelique's last adventures.—Death of La Corbinière.—Letters.
The manuscript preserved in the national archives, written in Angelique's hand, ends there.
But we find annexed to the same file the following observations written by her cousin, the Celestin monk Goussencourt. They do not have the same grace as Angelique de Longueval's account, but they also bear the mark of honest naivety.
Here is a passage from the observations of the Celestin monk Goussencourt:
"Necessity forced them to be tavern keepers—where French soldiers would go to drink and eat with such respect that they did not want to be served by her. She sewed linen collars for which she earned only eight sous a day, and with that, she went down to the cellar at all hours, and he drank with his guests, so much so that he became completely flushed.
"One day, as she was at the door, a captain passed by and made a deep bow to her, and she to him,—which was noticed by her jealous husband. He calls her and grabs her by the throat. She manages to let out a scream. The drinkers arrive and find her half-dead lying on the ground,—to whom he had given kicks to the ribs that had taken away her speech, and said, to excuse himself, that he had forbidden her to speak to that man, and that, if she had spoken to him, he would have run her through with his sword."
He became emaciated from his debaucheries. At that time, she wrote to her mother to ask for forgiveness. Her mother replied that she forgave her and advised her to return and that she would not forget her in her will.
This will was kept at the church of Neuville-en-Hez, and contains a legacy of eight thousand livres.
During Angelique de Longueval's absence, there was a young lady in Picardy who wanted to usurp her place, and pretended to be her.—She even had the audacity to present herself to Madame de Haraucourt, Angelique's mother, who said that she was not her daughter. She told so many things that several of the relatives ended up taking her for what she claimed to be....
*
The Celestin, her cousin, wrote to her to come back. But La Corbinière did not want to hear of it, fearing to be caught and executed if he returned to France. It was not good for him there either;—for Angelique's fault caused M. d'Haraucourt to drive her mother and brothers from the suburbs of Clermont-sur-Oise, "who lived from their shop, being pork butchers."
Madame d'Haraucourt, finally, having died in December 1636, in Neuville-en-Hez, where she rests (M. d'Haraucourt had died in 1632); their daughter pleaded so much with her husband that he consented to return to France.
Arriving in Ferrara, they both fell ill—where they stayed for twelve days—then embarked at Livorno, and arrived in Avignon, where they remained ill. La Corbinière died there on August 5, 1642; he rests in Sainte-Madeleine. He died with great remorse for having treated her so badly, and told her: "For your consolation and to ease your sadness, remember how I treated you."
There, the Celestine monk continued, she was in such great need that she told me in writing and by word of mouth that she would have died of hunger had it not been for the Celestines who helped her.
"She arrived in Paris on Sunday, October 19, by coach, and sent word to Madame Boulogne, her great friend, to come and fetch her. As she was not there, her innkeeper went instead. The next day after dinner, she came to find me with the said Boulogne and her mother-in-law, La Corbinière's mother, who worked as a kitchen maid for M. Ferrant, a position she was forced to take after being banished from Clermont because of her son.
"The first thing she did was to throw herself at my feet, hands clasped, asking for forgiveness, which made the women weep. I told her I would not forgive her (which made her sigh and then breathe, having heard the rest), for she had not offended me. And taking her by the hand, I said to her: Rise; and I made her sit beside me, where she repeated to me what she had often written: that after God and her mother, she owed her life to me."
Four years later, she had retired to Nivillers, and was very unfortunate, without a shirt on her back, as shown by the letter opposite.
LETTER SHE WROTE TO HER COUSIN THE CELESTINE MONK,
FOUR YEARS AFTER HER RETURN FROM NIVILLIERS.January 7, 1646.
My dear father (she called the Celestine thus),
I most humbly beg you not to attribute my silence to a lack of the gratitude I will feel all my life for your kindness, but rather to shame at having only words to express it. I assure you that misfortune persecutes me to the point of not having a shirt on my back. These miseries have prevented me until now from writing to you and to Madame Boulogne, for it seems to me that you should both receive as much satisfaction from me as you have been troubled. Therefore, blame my misfortune and not my will, and do me the honor, my dear father, of sending me your news.
Your most humble servant.
A. DE LONGUEVAL. (To M. de Goussencourt, at the Celestines, in Paris.)
Nothing more is known.—Here is a general reflection from the Celestine Goussencourt on the story of this love, in which the monk's simple imagination, unable to otherwise accept his cousin's love for a minor pork butcher, attributed everything to magic;—here is his meditation:
"The night of the first Sunday of Lent 1632 was their departure;—return in 1642, during Lent.—Their affections began three years before their flight.—To make her love him, he gave her preserves he had made in Clermont, which contained cantharides flies, which only inflamed the girl, but did not make her love; then, he gave her a cooked quince, and after that she became greatly affectionate."
There is no evidence that Brother Goussencourt gave a shirt to his cousin.—Angélique was not in good standing with her family,—and this is evident from the fact that she was not even named in her family's genealogy, which lists the names of Jacques-Annibal de Longueval, governor of Clermont-en-Beauvoisis, and Suzanne d'Arquenvilliers, lady of Saint-Rimault. They had two Annibals, the last of whom, named Alexandre, is the same child who did not want his sister to steal from daddy and mommy,—and then two other boys.—The daughter is not mentioned.
10th LETTER.
My friend Sylvain.—The Château de Longueval in Soissonnais. —Correspondence.—Postscript.
I never travel in these regions without being accompanied by a friend, whom I will call, by his given name, Sylvain.
It is a very common name in this province,—the feminine form is the graceful name of Sylvie,—made famous by a grove of trees in Chantilly, where the poet Théophile de Viau so often went to dream.
I said to Sylvain:—Shall we go to Chantilly?
He replied:—No... you said yourself yesterday that we had to go to Ermenonville to then reach Soissons, and then visit the ruins of the Château de Longueval in Soissonnais, on the border of Champagne.
—Yes, I replied; last night I got carried away about that beautiful Angélique de Longueval, and I wanted to see the castle from which she was abducted by La Corbinière,—dressed in men's clothes, on horseback.
—Are you sure, at least, that this is the real Longueval, because there are Longuevals and Longuevilles everywhere... just like Bucquoys...
—I'm not convinced about the latter; but just read this passage from Angélique's manuscript:
«The day having arrived when he was to come for me at night, I said to a groom named Breteau: I would very much like you to lend me a horse to send to Soissons tonight to get a bodice made for me, promising you that the horse will be here before mother wakes up...»
—It would therefore seem proven—Sylvain told me—that the Château de Longueval was located near Soissons, so it would not be the time to return towards Chantilly. This change of direction has already risked getting you arrested once,—because people who suddenly change their minds always appear suspicious...
CORRESPONDENCE.
You send me two letters concerning my first articles on the Abbé de Bucquoy. The first, according to an abridged biography, establishes that Bucquoy and Bucquoi do not represent the same name.—To which I will reply that ancient names do not have a fixed spelling. The identity of families is only established by their coats of arms, and we have already given those of this family (the escutcheon banded with vair and gules of six pieces). This is found in all branches, whether from Picardy, the Île de France, or Champagne, from where the Abbé de Bucquoi originated. Longueval borders Champagne, as is already known.—It is useless to prolong this heraldic discussion.
I receive a second letter from you, from Belgium:
«A sympathetic reader of M. Gérard de Nerval and wishing to please him, I am sending him the attached document, which may be of some use to him for the continuation of his humorous peregrinations in search of the Abbé de Bucquoy, that elusive gnat born from the Riancey amendment.
156 Olivier de Wree, de vermoerde oorlogh-stucken van den woonderdadighen velt-heer Carel de Longueval, grave van BUSQUOY; Baron de Vaux. Brugge, 1625.—Ej. mengheldichten: fyghes noeper; Bacchus-Cortryck. Ibid, 1625.—Ej. Venus-Ban, Ibid, 1625, in-12, oblong, vél.[1]
Rare and curious book. The copy is water-stained.
I won't try to translate this article from a Flemish bibliography;—I'll just note that it's part of the prospectus for a library to be sold on December 5th and subsequent days, under the direction of M. Héberlé,—5, rue des Paroissiens, in Brussels.
I'd rather wait for the Techener sale,—which, I hope, will still take place on the 20th.
THE RUINS. THE WALKS.—CHAALIS.—ERMENONVILLE.—ROUSSEAU'S TOMB.
In one of my letters, I misused the word reaction when speaking of abuses of authority that lead to reactions in the opposite direction.
The mistake seems simple at first glance;—but there are several kinds of reactions: some take detours, others are reactions that consist of stopping. I meant that one excess leads to other excesses. Thus, it's impossible not to condemn the fires and private devastations,—rare though they are nowadays. There is always a hostile or foreign element mixed in with the rumbling crowd, which pushes things beyond the limits that general common sense would have imposed, and which it always ends up tracing.
I need only offer as proof an anecdote told to me by a well-known bibliophile,—and of which another bibliophile was the hero.
*
On the day of the February revolution, a few carriages were burned,—said to be from the civil list;—this was, certainly, a great wrong, which is harshly reproached today to that mixed crowd which, behind the combatants, also harbored traitors...
The bibliophile I'm talking about went to the National Palace that evening. His concern was not for the carriages; he was worried about a four-volume folio work titled Perceforest.
It was one of those romances from the Arthurian cycle,—or the Charlemagne cycle,—which contain the epics of our oldest chivalric wars.
He entered the palace courtyard, making his way through the tumult.—He was a slender man, with a dry face, but sometimes creased by a benevolent smile, properly dressed in a black coat, and to whom people made way with curiosity.
—My friends, he said, has the Perceforest been burned?
—Only the carriages are burning.
—Very good! Carry on. But the library?
—It hasn't been touched... What are you asking for, then?
—I ask that the four-volume edition of Perceforest be respected,—a hero of old...; a unique edition, with two transposed pages and an enormous ink stain in the third volume.
They answered him:
—Go up to the first floor.
On the first floor, he found people who told him:
—We deplore what happened in the first moments... In the tumult, some paintings were damaged...
—Yes, I know, a Horace Verilet, a Gudin... All that is nothing:—the Perceforest?...
They took him for a madman. He withdrew and managed to find the palace concierge, who had retired to her home.
—Madam, if no one has entered the library, make sure of one thing: the existence of the Perceforest,—sixteenth-century edition, parchment binding, by Gaume. The rest of the library is nothing... poorly chosen!—people who don't read!—But the Perceforest is worth 40,000 francs at auction.
The concierge's eyes widened.
—I, today, would give twenty thousand... despite the depreciation of funds that a revolution must necessarily bring about.
—Twenty thousand francs!
—I have them at home. Only it would be to return the book to the nation. It is a monument.
The astonished, dazzled concierge courageously agreed to go to the library and enter it by a small staircase. The scholar's enthusiasm had won her over.
She returned, after having seen the book on the shelf where the bibliophile knew it was placed.
—Sir, the book is in place. But there are only three volumes... You made a mistake.
—Three volumes!... What a loss!... I'm going to find the provisional government,—there's always one... The Perceforest incomplete! Revolutions are dreadful!
The bibliophile rushed to the Hôtel-de-Ville.—They had other things to do than to concern themselves with bibliography. Yet he managed to take M. Arago aside,—who understood the importance of his claim, and orders were given immediately.
The Perceforest was incomplete only because a volume had previously been lent from it.
We are happy to think that this work was able to remain in France.
That of the History of Abbé de Bucquoy, which is to be sold on the 20th, may not share the same fate!
And now, please take into account the mistakes that may have been made,—during a rapid tour, often interrupted by rain or fog...
*
I leave Senlis with regret;—but my friend wishes me to obey a thought I had imprudently expressed...
I was so pleased in this city, where the Renaissance, the Middle Ages, and the Roman era are found here and there,—around a street corner, in a stable, in a cellar.—I told you "of those Roman towers covered with ivy!"—The eternal greenery with which they are clad shames the inconstant nature of our cold countries.—In the Orient, the woods are always green;—each tree has its shedding season; but this season varies according to the nature of the tree. Thus, I saw sycamores in Cairo lose their leaves in summer. Conversely, they were green in January.
The avenues surrounding Senlis, which replaced the ancient Roman fortifications,—later restored due to the long stay of the Carolingian kings,—now offer only the rusted leaves of elms and lindens to the eye. Nevertheless, the view is still beautiful, in the surroundings, at a beautiful sunset.—The forests of Chantilly, Compiègne, and Ermenonville;—the woods of Châalis and Pont-Armé, stand out with their reddish masses against the light green of the meadows that separate them. Distant castles still raise their towers,—solidly built of Senlis stone, and which, generally, now serve only as dovecotes.
The sharp steeples, bristling with regular projections, which are called bones in the region (I don't know why), still echo with the sound of bells that brought a sweet melancholy to Rousseau's soul....
*
Let us complete the pilgrimage we promised ourselves to make, not near his ashes, which rest in the Pantheon,—but near his tomb, located in Ermenonville, on the island known as the Isle of Poplars.
Senlis Cathedral; Saint-Pierre church, which now serves as a barracks for cuirassiers; Henry IV's castle, leaning against the old city fortifications; the Byzantine cloisters of Charles the Fat and his successors, have nothing to detain us... It is still time to walk through the woods, despite the persistent morning mist.
*
We left Senlis, on foot, through the woods, happily breathing in the autumn mist.
We had taken a road that leads to the woods and the castle of Mont-l'Évêque.—Ponds gleamed here and there through the red leaves highlighted by the dark green of the pines. Sylvain sang me this old local tune:
Courage! my friend, courage!
Here we are near the village!
At the first house,
We will refresh ourselves!
In the village, they drank a small wine that was not unpleasant for travelers. The hostess said to us, seeing our beards:—You are artists... so you've come to see Châalis?
Châalis,—at that name, I remembered a very distant time... when I was taken to the abbey, once a year, to hear mass and to see the fair that took place nearby.
—Châalis, I said... Does that still exist?
La Chapelle en Serval, this November 10th.
Just as it is good in even a pastoral symphony to bring back the main motif from time to time, graceful, tender, or terrible, to finally make it thunder in the finale with the graduated storm of all the instruments,—I believe it useful to speak to you again of Abbé Bucquoy, without interrupting my current journey towards the castle of his ancestors, with this intention of exact and descriptive staging without which his adventures would have only a weak interest.
The finale is delayed again, and you'll see it's once more against my will...
And first, let's right a wrong concerning good Mr. Ravenel of the National Library, who, far from lightly attending to the book's search, has stirred all the fonds of the eight hundred thousand volumes we possess there. I learned this later; but, being unable to find the absent item, he unofficially informed me of Techener's sale, which is the act of a true scholar.
*
Knowing full well that any major library sale continues for several days, I had asked for notice of the day designated for the book's sale, wanting, if it was indeed the 20th, to be present at the evening session.
But it will only be on the 30th!
The book is well classified under the heading: History and under n° 3584. A Most Rare Event, etc., the title you know.
The following note is attached to it.
"Rare.—Such is the title of this bizarre book, at the head of which is an engraving representing the Hell of the Living, or the Bastille. The rest of the volume is composed of the most singular things.
"Catalogue of the library of Mr. M***, etc."
*
I can still give you a foretaste of the interest of this story, which some people seemed to doubt, by reproducing notes I took from Michaud's bibliography.
After the biography of Charles Bonaventure, Count of Bucquoy, generalissimo and member of the Order of the Golden Fleece, famous for his wars in France, Bohemia, and Hungary, and whose grandson, Charles, was created Prince of the Empire—we find the article on L'abbé de Bucquoy—indicated as being of the same family as the preceding. His political life began with five years of military service. Having escaped as if by miracle from great danger, he vowed to leave the world and retired to La Trappe. Abbé de Rancé, about whom Chateaubriand wrote his last book, sent him away as lacking faith. He resumed his braided uniform, which he soon traded for a beggar's rags.
Following the example of fakirs and dervishes, he traveled the world, thinking to set examples of humility and austerity. He called himself the Dead Man, and even held a free school in Rouen under this name.
I stop for fear of spoiling the subject. I only want to point out again, to prove that this story is serious, that he later proposed to the United Provinces of Holland, at war with Louis XIV, "a project to make France a republic, and to destroy there, he said, arbitrary power." He died in Hanover, at ninety years old, leaving his furniture and books to the Catholic Church, which he had never left.—As for his sixteen years of travels in India, I only have data on that from the Dutch book in the National Library.
We went to Châalis to see the estate in detail, before it is restored. First, there is a vast enclosure surrounded by elms; then, to the left, you see a building in the sixteenth-century style, no doubt later restored according to the heavy architecture of the small château of Chantilly.
Once you've seen the offices and kitchens, the suspended staircase from the time of Henri IV leads you to the vast apartments of the first galleries—large and small apartments overlooking the woods. A few embedded paintings, the great Condé on horseback, and views of the forest, that's all I noticed. In a low room, you see a portrait of Henri IV at thirty-five years old.
This is the time of Gabriello—and this château probably witnessed their love affairs.—This prince, whom I ultimately find rather unsympathetic, stayed for a long time in Senlis, especially during the early period of the siege, and above the town hall door and the three words: Liberty, equality, fraternity, one sees his bronze portrait with an engraved motto, in which it is stated that his first happiness was in Senlis—in 1590.—Yet, it is not there that Voltaire placed the main scene, imitated from Ariosto, of his love affairs with Gabrielle d'Estrées.
Don't you find it strange that the d'Estrées happen to still be relatives of the Abbé de Bucquoy? Yet, this is what his family's genealogy reveals... I'm not making it up.
*
It was the guard's son who showed us the castle—long abandoned. He is a man who, though unlettered, understands the respect due to antiquities. He showed us, in one of the rooms, a monk he had discovered in the ruins. Seeing this skeleton lying in a stone trough, I imagined it wasn't a monk, but a warrior or Frank, laid out as was customary—with his face turned towards the East, in this locality where the names Erman or Armen[2] are common in the vicinity, not to mention Ermenonville itself, located nearby—and which in the region is called Arme-Nonville or Nonval, which is the ancient term.
The main ruined section forms the remains of the old abbey, probably built around the time of Charles VII, in the flamboyant Gothic style, on Carolingian vaults with heavy pillars, which cover the tombs. The cloister has left only a long gallery of ogives connecting the abbey to an earlier monument, where one can still distinguish Byzantine columns carved in the time of Charles the Fat, embedded in heavy sixteenth-century walls.
—"They want," the guard's son told us, "to knock down the cloister wall so that one can have a view of the ponds from the castle." It was advice given to Madame.
—"You should advise," I said, "your lady to simply have the archways of the ogives, which have been filled with masonry, opened up, and then the gallery will frame the ponds, which will be much more graceful."
He promised to remember.
*
Further along the ruins led to a tower and a chapel. We climbed the tower. From there, one could see the entire valley, crisscrossed with ponds and rivers, with the long bare spaces called the desert of Ermenonville, which offer nothing but grey sandstone, interspersed with sparse pines and heather.
Reddish quarries still stood out here and there through the defoliated woods, enlivening the greenish hue of the plains and forests—where white birches, ivy-clad trunks, and the last autumn leaves still stood out against the reddish masses of the woods framed by the blue tints of the horizon.
We descended to see the chapel; it is an architectural marvel. The soaring pillars and ribs, the sober and refined ornamentation of the details, revealed the intermediate period between flamboyant Gothic and the Renaissance. But, once inside, we admired the paintings, which seemed to me to be from this latter period.
—"You're going to see some rather low-cut saints," the guard's son told us. Indeed, one could distinguish a sort of Glory painted in fresco by the door, perfectly preserved despite its faded colors, except for the lower part covered with distemper paintings, but which will not be difficult to restore.
The good monks of Châalis would have wanted to suppress some overly revealing nudes of the Medici style. Indeed, all these angels and saints looked like cupids and nymphs with bare breasts and thighs. The apse of the chapel offers, in the intervals of its ribs, other figures even better preserved and in the allegorical style used after Louis XII.—Turning to leave, we noticed above the door coats of arms which must have indicated the period of the last ornamentations.
It was difficult for us to distinguish the details of the quartered escutcheon, which had been repainted later in blue and white. In the 1st and 4th quarters, there were initially birds that the guard's son called swans—arranged 2 and 1; but they were not swans.
Are they eagles displayed, martlets or alerions or winglets attached to thunderbolts?
In the 2nd and 3rd quarters, they are spearheads, or fleurs-de-lis, which is the same thing. A cardinal's hat covered the escutcheon and let its triangular reticulated tassels fall on both sides; but being unable to count the rows, because the stone was rough, we did not know if it was not an abbot's hat.
I have no books here. But it seems to me that these are the arms of Lorraine, quartered with those of France. Could they be the arms of the Cardinal of Lorraine, who was proclaimed king in this country under the name of Charles X, or those of the other cardinal who was also supported by the League?... I'm lost, as I'm still, I admit, a very weak historian.
11th LETTER.
The Château d'Ermenonville.—The Illuminati.—The King of Prussia.—Gabrielle and Rousseau.—The Tombs.—The Abbots of Châalis.
Leaving Châalis, there are still a few clumps of trees to cross, then we enter the desert. There is enough desert so that, from the center, no other horizon is visible,—not enough so that in half an hour's walk one does not reach the calmest, most charming landscape in the world... A Swiss nature carved out in the middle of the wood, as a result of René de Girardin's idea to transplant there the image of the country from which his family originated.
A few years before the revolution, the Château d'Ermenonville was the meeting place for the Illuminati who were silently preparing the future. At the famous suppers of Ermenonville, one successively saw the Count of Saint-Germain, Mesmer, and Cagliostro, developing, in inspired conversations, ideas and paradoxes that the so-called Geneva school later inherited.—I believe that Mr. de Robespierre, the son of the founder of the Scottish lodge of Arras,—still very young,—perhaps even later Sénancour, Saint-Martin, Dupont de Nemours, and Cazotte, came to present, either in this château or in that of Le Pelletier de Mortfontaine, the bizarre ideas that proposed reforms for an aging society, which, even in its fashions, with that powder that gave the youngest foreheads a false air of old age, indicated the necessity of a complete transformation.
Saint-Germain belongs to an earlier era, but he came there. It was he who had shown Louis XV in a steel mirror his headless grandson, just as Nostradamus had shown Mario de Médicis the kings of his lineage, the fourth of whom was also decapitated.
This is childishness. What reveals the mystics is the detail reported by Beaumarchais, that the Prussians,—having reached Verdun,—suddenly retreated in an unexpected manner due to the effect of an apparition that surprised their king, and which made him say: “Let us go no further!” as knights would say in certain cases.
The French and German Illuminati communicated through affiliation reports. The doctrines of Weisshaupt and Jacob Bœhm had penetrated, in our country, into the ancient Frankish and Burgundian lands, through the ancient sympathy and secular relations of races of the same origin. The first minister of Frederick II's nephew was himself an Illuminatus. Beaumarchais supposes that at Verdun, under the guise of a magnetism session, Frederick-William's uncle was made to appear before him, who would have told him: “Go back!” as a ghost did to Charles VI.
These bizarre facts confuse the imagination; however, Beaumarchais, who was a skeptic, claimed that, for this phantasmagoria scene, the actor Fleury was brought from Paris, who had previously played the role of Frederick II at the Comédie-Française, and who would thus have deceived the King of Prussia, who, as is known, subsequently withdrew from the confederation of kings allied against France.
The memories of the places where I am overwhelm me, so I send you all this at random, but based on reliable information. A more important detail to note is that the Prussian general who, during our disasters of the Restoration, took possession of the country, having learned that Jean-Jacques Rousseau's tomb was in Ermenonville, exempted the entire region, from Compiègne, from the burdens of military occupation. It was, I believe, the Prince of Anhalt: let us remember this fact if necessary.
—
Rousseau only stayed a short time in Ermenonville. If he accepted asylum there, it was because for a long time, during the walks he took from the Hermitage of Montmorency, he had recognized that this region presented a botanist with remarkable plant families, due to the variety of the terrain.
We went to stay at the White Cross inn, where he himself resided for some time upon his arrival. Afterwards, he lodged on the other side of the château, in a house now occupied by a grocer. Mr. René de Girardin offered him an unoccupied pavilion, facing another pavilion occupied by the château's caretaker. It was there that he died.
*
Upon rising, we went to explore the woods still shrouded in autumn mists, which we gradually watched dissolve, revealing the azure mirror of the lakes. I've seen similar perspective effects on snuff boxes from that era... I revisited the Isle of Poplars, beyond the basins that surmount an artificial grotto, over which water falls, when it falls... Its description could be found in Gessner's idylls.
The rocks encountered while walking through the woods are covered with poetic inscriptions. Here:
Its indestructible mass has wearied time,
elsewhere:
This place serves as a stage for valiant chases
That signal the deer's amorous furies.
or again, with a bas-relief depicting Druids cutting the mistletoe:
Such were our ancestors in their solitary woods!
These booming verses seem to be by Roucher... Delille would have made them less robust.
Mr. René de Girardin also wrote verses.—He was also a good man. I think we owe him the following verses, sculpted on a fountain in a nearby spot, surmounted by a Neptune and an Amphitrite, slightly décolletée like the angels and saints of Châalis:
From the flowery banks where I loved to spread
The purest crystal of my waters,
Passerby, I come here to yield
To the desires, to the needs of man and flocks.
Drawing the treasures from my fertile urn,
Remember that you owe them to benevolent care,
May I only quench with the tribute of my waves
Peaceful and content mortals!
I don't dwell on the form of the verses;—it's the thought of an honest man that I admire. The influence of his stay is deeply felt in the region.—Here, there are dance halls,—where one still notices the elders' bench; there, archery ranges, with the tribune from which prizes were distributed... By the waters, round temples with marble columns, consecrated either to Venus Genetrix or to Hermes the Comforter.—All this mythology then had a philosophical and profound meaning.
*
Rousseau's tomb has remained as it was, with its ancient and simple form, and the leafless poplars still picturesquely accompany the monument, which is reflected in the still waters of the pond. Only the boat that used to take visitors there is now submerged... The swans, I don't know why, instead of gracefully swimming around the island, prefer to bathe in a muddy stream, which flows, in a ledge, between willows with reddish branches, and which leads to a wash-house, located along the road.
We returned to the château.—It is still a building from the time of Henri IV, redone around Louis XV, and probably built on earlier ruins,—for a crenellated tower has been preserved which clashes with the rest, and the massive foundations are surrounded by water, with posterns and remains of drawbridges.
The concierge did not allow us to visit the apartments, because the masters resided there.—Artists have more luck in princely châteaux, whose hosts feel that, after all, they owe something to the nation.
We were only allowed to walk along the shores of the large lake, whose view, to the left, is dominated by the tower known as Gabrielle's, a remnant of an ancient château. A peasant who accompanied us said: "Here is the tower where the beautiful Gabrielle was imprisoned... every evening Rousseau would come to play the guitar under her window, and the king, who was jealous, often watched him, and eventually had him killed."
Yet, this is how legends are formed. In a few hundred years, people will believe this. Henry IV, Gabrielle, and Rousseau are the great memories of this land. The two memories have already been confused—two hundred years apart—and Rousseau is gradually becoming a contemporary of Henry IV. As the populace loves him, they suppose the king was jealous of him, and betrayed by his mistress—in favor of the man sympathetic to suffering races. The sentiment that dictated this thought is perhaps truer than one might believe. Rousseau, who refused a hundred louis from Madame de Pompadour, profoundly ruined the royal edifice founded by Henry. Everything crumbled. His immortal image remains standing on the ruins.
As for his songs, the last of which we saw in Compiègne, they celebrated others than Gabrielle. But isn't the type of beauty eternal, like genius?
*
Leaving the park, we headed towards the church, situated on the hill. It is very old, but less remarkable than most in the region. The cemetery was open; we mainly saw the tomb of De Vic there—an old comrade-in-arms of Henry IV—who had gifted him the domain of Ermenonville. It is a family tomb, whose legend stops at an abbot. Then, there are daughters who marry bourgeois. Such was the fate of most old houses. Two very old, flat tombs of abbots, whose inscriptions are difficult to decipher, can still be seen near the terrace. Then, near an alley, a simple stone on which is inscribed: Here lies Almazor. Is it a madman?—is it a lackey?—is it a dog? The stone says no more.
From the cemetery terrace, the view extends over the most beautiful part of the countryside; the waters shimmer through the tall reddish trees, pines, and evergreen oaks. The sandstone of the desert takes on a druidic appearance to the left. Rousseau's tomb stands out to the right, and further on, at the edge, the marble temple of an absent goddess—who must be Truth.
It must have been a beautiful day when a deputation, sent by the National Assembly, came to retrieve the philosopher's ashes to transfer them to the Pantheon. When one walks through the village, one is struck by the freshness and grace of the little girls—with their large straw hats, they look like Swiss girls... The ideas on education of the author of Émile seem to have been followed; exercises in strength and skill, dance, precision work encouraged by various foundations, have undoubtedly given this youth health, vigor, and an understanding of useful things.
*
I really like this causeway—which I had a childhood memory of—and which, passing in front of the castle, connects the two parts of the village, having four low towers at both ends.
Sylvain told me:—We've seen Rousseau's tomb: now we should head for Dammartin, where we'll find carriages to take us to Soissons, and from there, to Longueval. We'll ask the washerwomen working in front of the castle for directions.
—Go straight along the road to the left, they told us, or, equally, to the right... You'll arrive either at Ver or at Ève—you'll pass through Othis, and in two hours' walk, you'll reach Dammartin.
These deceptive young girls led us on a very strange route;—it must be added that it was raining.
*
The road was very degraded, with ruts full of water that had to be avoided by walking on the grass. Enormous thistles, reaching our chests—half-frozen but still vibrant thistles—sometimes stopped us.
Having walked a league, we realized that seeing neither Ver, nor Ève, nor Othis, nor even the plain, we might have gone astray.
A clearing suddenly appeared to our right—one of those dark cuts that singularly thin out forests...
We spotted a strongly built hut made of branches stripped of bark and plastered with earth, with a very primitive thatched roof. A woodcutter was smoking his pipe in front of the door.
“To get to Ver?”
“You're quite far from it... If you follow this road, you'll reach Montaby.”
“We're asking for Ver—or Eve...”
“Well! You'll turn back... go about half a league (you can translate that into meters if you like, because of the law), then, when you reach the archery range, turn right. You'll leave the woods, find the plain, and then everyone will show you the way to Ver.”
We found the archery range again, with its stand and its semi-circle meant for the seven elders. Then we took a path that must be very beautiful when the trees are green. We were still singing, to help us walk and to fill the solitude, some local songs.
The road stretched on like the devil; I'm not sure how far the devil stretches—this is a Parisian's thought. Sylvain, before leaving the woods, sang this round from the time of Louis XIV:
It was a cavalier
Who was returning from Flanders...
The rest is hard to tell.—The chorus is addressed to the drummer, and says to him:
Beat the general call
Until daybreak!
When Sylvain—a taciturn man—starts to sing, you don't get off easily.—He sang me some song or other about the Red Monks who originally lived in Châalis.—What monks! They were Templars!—The King and the Pope conspired to burn them.
Let's not talk about those Red Monks anymore.
Upon leaving the forest, we found ourselves in the plowed fields. We carried a lot of our homeland on the soles of our shoes;—but we ended up leaving it further on in the meadows... Finally, we arrived at Ver.—It's a large market town.
The hostess was kind and her daughter very charming,—with beautiful chestnut hair, a regular and gentle face, and that delightful way of speaking from the misty regions, which gives even the youngest girls contralto inflections at times!
“Here you are, my children,” said the hostess... “Well, we'll put a faggot on the fire!”
“We'd like supper, if it's not too much trouble.”
“Would you like,” said the hostess, “for us to make you an onion soup first?”
“That can't hurt, and then?”
“Then, there's also game.”
We saw then that we had fallen on our feet.
Sylvain has a talent, he's a thoughtful fellow,—who, not having had much education, is nevertheless concerned with perfecting what he only received imperfectly from the few lessons he was given.
He has ideas about everything.—He's capable of putting together a watch... or a compass.—What bothers him about the watch is the chain, which can't be extended enough... What bothers him about the compass is that it only shows that the Earth's polar magnet necessarily attracts the needles—but as for the rest,—the cause and the means of using it, the documents are imperfect!
The inn, a bit isolated but solidly built, where we found refuge, offers an interior courtyard with galleries of an entirely Wallachian system... Sylvain embraced the girl, who is quite well-built, and we enjoy warming our feet while caressing two hunting dogs, attentive to the spit—which is the hope of a forthcoming supper...
12th LETTER.
Mr. Toulouse.—The two bibliophiles.—Saint-Médard de Soissons.—The castle of the Longueval de Bucquoy.—Inflection.
I have no reason to reproach myself for having suspended for ten days the course of the historical narrative you requested of me. The work that was to be its basis, that is, the official history of the Abbé de Bucquoy, was supposed to be sold on November 20th, and was only sold on the 30th, either because it was initially withdrawn (as I was told), or because the very order of sale, stated in the catalog, did not allow it to be presented at auction sooner.
The work could, like so many others, have gone abroad, and the information I had received from northern countries only indicated Dutch translations of the book, without giving any indication of the original edition, printed in Frankfurt, with the German text facing it.
As you know, I had searched in vain for the book in Paris. Public libraries did not possess it. Special booksellers had not seen it for a long time. Only one, Mr. Toulouse, had been suggested to me as possibly having it.
Mr. Toulouse specializes in books of religious controversy. He questioned me about the nature of the work; then he said: "Sir, I do not have it... But, if I did, perhaps I would not sell it to you?"
I understood that, usually selling books to ecclesiastics, he did not care to deal with a son of Voltaire.
I replied that I would do without it just fine, already having general notions about the person in question.
"And yet, that's how history is written!" he replied[1].
You might say that I could have had the history of the Abbé de Bucquoy communicated to me by some of those bibliophiles who still exist, such as Mr. de Montmerqué and others. To which I will reply that a serious bibliophile does not lend his books. He himself does not read them, for fear of wearing them out.
A well-known bibliophile had a friend;—this friend had fallen in love with an Anacreon in-sixteen, a 16th-century Lyonese edition, augmented with the poems of Bion, Moschus, and Sappho. The owner of the book would not have defended his wife as strongly as his in-16. Almost always, his friend, coming to lunch at his place, would indifferently pass through the library; but he would cast a furtive glance at the Anacreon.
One day, he said to his friend: What do you do with that badly bound... and cut in-16? I would gladly give you the Voyage of Polyphile in Italian, princeps edition of the Aldines, with Belin's engravings, for that in-16... Frankly, it's to complete my collection of Greek poets.
The owner merely smiled.
—What else do you need?
—Nothing. I don't like to exchange my books.
—What if I offered you my Roman de la Rose, large margins, with annotations by Marguerite de Valois.
—No... let's not talk about that anymore.
—As for money, I am poor, you know; but I would gladly offer 1,000 francs.
—Let's not talk about it anymore...
—Come on! 1,500 livres.
—I don't like money matters between friends.
The resistance only increased the desires of the bibliophile's friend. After several offers, still rejected, he said to him, having reached the last paroxysm of passion:
—Well! I'll have the book at your sale.
—At my sale?... but, I am younger than you....
—Yes, but you have a bad cough.
—And you... your sciatica?
—One lives eighty years with that!...
I'll stop here, sir. This discussion would be a scene from Molière or one of those sad analyses of human folly, which have only been treated cheerfully by Erasmus... In the end, the bibliophile died a few months later, and his friend got the book for 600 francs.
—And he refused to let me have it for 1,500 francs! he would say later whenever he showed it. However, when the volume, which had cast a single cloud over a fifty-year friendship, was no longer in question, his eyes would well up at the memory of the excellent man he had loved.
This anecdote is worth recalling in an era when the taste for collections of books, autographs, and works of art is no longer generally understood in France. It may, nevertheless, explain the difficulties I experienced in obtaining the Abbé de Bucquoy.
Last Saturday, at seven o'clock, I was returning from Soissons—where I had thought I could find information about the Bucquoys—in order to attend the sale, conducted by Techener, of Mr. Motteley's library, which is still ongoing, and about which an article was published the day before yesterday in l'Indépendance de Bruxelles.
For enthusiasts, a book or curio auction holds the allure of a green baize table. The auctioneer's rake, pushing books and pulling in money, makes this comparison quite apt.
Bidding was brisk. A single volume fetched up to 600 francs. At a quarter to ten, the Histoire de l'abbé de Bucquoy was placed on the table at 25 fr.... At 55 francs, the regulars and M. Techener himself gave up on the book; only one person was bidding against me.
At 65 francs, the amateur ran out of steam.
The auctioneer's hammer awarded me the book for 66 francs.
I was then asked for 3 fr. 20 centimes for the auction fees.
I later learned that it was a delegate from the National Library who had competed against me until the last moment.
So, I possess the book and am now able to continue my work.
Yours, etc.
*
From Ver to Dammartin, it's barely an hour and a half's walk.—On a beautiful morning, I had the pleasure of admiring the ten-league horizon stretching around the old castle, once so formidable, dominating the entire region. The high towers are demolished, but the site is still discernible on this elevated point, where avenues of lime trees have been planted for promenading, precisely where the entrances and courtyards once stood. Hedges of barberry and belladonna prevent any fall into the abyss still formed by the moats.—A shooting range for archers has been established in one of the moats closer to the town. Sylvain has returned to his country:—I continued my journey towards Soissons through the forest of Villers-Cotteret, entirely stripped of leaves, but here and there re-greened by pine plantations that now occupy the vast areas of the coupes sombres recently practiced.—In the evening, I arrived in Soissons, the old Augusta Suessonium, where the fate of the French nation was decided in the sixth century.
It is known that after the Battle of Soissons, won by Clovis, this leader of the Franks suffered the humiliation of not being able to keep a golden vase, a product of the pillaging of Reims. Perhaps he was already contemplating making peace with the Church by returning a sacred and precious object to it. It was then that one of his warriors insisted that this vase be included in the division, for equality was the fundamental principle of these Frankish tribes, originating from Asia.—The golden vase was broken, and later the head of the egalitarian Frank met the same fate, under his chief's francisque. Such was the origin of our monarchies.
Soissons, a second-class fortified city, contains curious antiquities. The cathedral has its high tower, from which one can see seven leagues of countryside;—a beautiful Rubens painting behind its high altar. The old cathedral is much more curious, with its scalloped bell towers and cut-out lacework. Unfortunately, only the facade and towers remain. There is yet another church being restored with that beautiful stone and Roman concrete, which are the pride of the region. I spoke there with the stonemasons, who were lunching around a heather fire and seemed very knowledgeable about art history. They regretted, like me, that the old cathedral, Saint-Jean-des-Vignes, was not being restored instead of the heavy church where they were employed.—But the latter is, they say, more habitable. In our times of limited faith, one only attracts the faithful with elegance and comfort.
The companions pointed out Saint-Médard as a must-see, located a stone's throw from the city, beyond the bridge and the Aisne train station. The most modern buildings form the deaf and mute institution. A surprise awaited me there. It was, first, the partly demolished tower where Abélard was imprisoned for some time. Latin inscriptions by his hand are still shown on the walls;—then vast cellars recently cleared, where the tomb of Louis the Pious was found,—formed by a large stone vat that reminded me of Egyptian tombs.
Near these crypts, composed of underground cells with niches here and there like in Roman tombs, one can see the very prison where this emperor was held by his children, the hollow where he slept on a mat, and other perfectly preserved details, because the calcareous earth and the fossilized stone debris that filled these underground passages protected them from all humidity. They only had to clear them, and this work is still ongoing, bringing new discoveries every day.—It's a Carolingian Pompeii.
Leaving Saint-Médard, I got a little lost along the banks of the Aisne, which flows between reddish osier beds and leafless poplars. The weather was fine, the lawns were green, and, after two kilometers, I found myself in a village named Cuffy, from where one could perfectly see the city's crenellated towers and its Flemish roofs bordered by stone staircases.
In this village, one refreshes oneself with a sparkling white wine that closely resembles Champagne herbal tea.
Indeed, the terrain is almost the same as in Épernay. It's a vein of the neighboring Champagne region which, on this south-facing hillside, produces red and white wines that still have enough spirit. All the houses are built of millstone, riddled like sponges by tendrils and marine snails. The church is old, but rustic. A glass factory is established on the height.
*
It was no longer possible not to find Soissons. I returned there to continue my research, visiting the library and archives.—At the library, I found nothing that could not be had in Paris. The archives are at the sub-prefecture and must be curious, due to the antiquity of the city. The secretary told me: «Sir, our archives are up there,—in the attics; but they are not classified.
—Why?
—Because there are no funds allocated to this work by the city. Most of the documents are in Gothic and Latin... They would have to send us someone from Paris.
It is obvious that I could not hope to easily find information on the Bucquoys there. As for the current state of the Soissons archives, I limit myself to denouncing it to paleographers,—if France is rich enough to pay for the examination of the memories of its history, I will be happy to have provided this indication.
I could also tell you about the big fair that was taking place at that time in the city,—about the theater, where Lucrezia Borgia was being performed, about the local customs, quite well preserved in this region located outside the railway movement,—and even about the annoyance the inhabitants experience due to this situation. They had hoped for some time to be connected to the Northern line, which would have produced significant savings... A powerful person would have managed to have the Strasbourg line pass through these woods, to which it offers outlets,—but these are local demands and self-interested assumptions that may not be entirely just.
The purpose of my tour has now been achieved. The diligence from Soissons to Reims took me to Braine. An hour later, I was able to reach Longueval, the cradle of the Bucquoys. So here is the abode of the beautiful Angélique and the château-chef of her father, who seems to have had as much as his ancestor, the great county of Bucquoy, was able to conquer in the Bohemian Wars.—The towers are razed, as in Dammartin. However, the underground passages still exist. The site, which overlooks the village, located in an elongated gorge, has been covered with constructions for seven or eight years, the time when the ruins were sold. Sufficiently imbued with these local memories that can give attraction to a romantic composition,—and which are not useless from the positive point of view of history, I reached Château-Thierry, where one likes to greet the dreamy statue of the good La Fontaine, placed on the banks of the Marne and in sight of the Strasbourg railway.
REFLECTIONS.
"And then..." (That's how Diderot began a story, I'll be told.)
—Go on!
—You've imitated Diderot himself.
—Who had imitated Sterne...
—Who, in turn, had imitated Swift.
—Who had imitated Rabelais.
—Who, in turn, had imitated Merlin Coccaïe...
—Who had imitated Petronius...
—Who, in turn, had imitated Lucian. And Lucian had imitated many others... If only the author of the Odyssey, who has his hero wander for ten years around the Mediterranean, only to finally bring him to that fabulous Ithaca, whose queen, surrounded by fifty suitors, undid each night what she had woven by day.
—But Ulysses eventually found Ithaca.
—And I found Abbé de Bucquoy.
—Tell me about him.
—I've been doing nothing else for a month. Readers must already be tired—of Count de Bucquoi the Leaguer, later generalissimo of the Austrian armies;—of M. de Longueval de Bucquoy and his daughter Angélique,—abducted by La Corbinière,—of this family's castle, whose ruins I have just trod...
And finally, of Abbé Count de Bucquoy himself, of whom I brought back a short biography,—and whom M. d'Argenson, in his correspondence, calls: the alleged Abbé de Bucquoy.
The book I just bought at the Motteley sale would be worth much more than 66 francs 20 centimes, if it weren't cruelly trimmed. The brand-new binding bears in gold letters this attractive title: History of Sieur Abbé Count de Bucquoy, etc. The value of the in-12 perhaps comes from three meager brochures in verse and prose, composed by the author, and which, being of a larger format, have their margins cut down to the text, which nevertheless remains legible.
The book has all the titles already cited that are listed in Brunet, in Quérard, and in Michaud's Biography. Opposite the title is an engraving representing the Bastille, with this title above: the Hell of the Living, and this quote: Facilis descendus Averni.
You can read the story of Abbé de Bucquoi in my book entitled: Les Illuminés (Paris, Victor Lecoû). You can also consult the in-12 work which I presented to the Imperial Library.
I may have made a mistake in examining the coat of arms of the founder of the Châalis chapel.
I was given notes on the abbots of Châalis. "Robert de la Tourette, notably, who was abbot there from 1501 to 1522, carried out major restorations..." His tomb can be seen in front of the high altar.
"Here arrive the Medicis: Hippolyte d'Est, Cardinal of Ferrara, 1554;—Aloys d'Est, 1586."
"Then: Louis, Cardinal de Guise, 1601; Charles-Louis de Lorraine, 1630.
It should be noted that the d'Est family only has one alerion in the 2nd and 3rd quarters, and I saw three in the 1st and 4th quarters in the quartered coat of arms.
"Charles II, Cardinal de Bourbon (later Charles X,—the former), Lieutenant General of Île de France since 1551, had a son named Poullain."
I am willing to believe that this cardinal-king had a natural son; but I don't understand the three alerions placed 2 and 1. Those of Lorraine are on a bend. Forgive these details, but knowledge of heraldry is the key to the history of France... Poor authors can't help it!
THE GALANT BOHEMIA
THE ENCHANTED HAND
I
PLACE DAUPHINE
Nothing is as beautiful as these 17th-century houses, of which the Place Royale offers such a majestic collection. When their brick facades, interspersed and framed by stone string courses and quoins, and when their tall windows are ablaze with the splendid rays of the setting sun, you feel, upon seeing them, the same veneration as before a court of parliaments assembled in red robes with ermine lapels; and, were it not a childish comparison, one could say that the long green table where these formidable magistrates are arranged in a square somewhat resembles the band of lime trees that borders the four sides of the Place Royale and completes its grave harmony.
There is another square in the city of Paris that causes no less satisfaction by its regularity and order, and which is in triangle much like the other is in square. It was built during the reign of Henry the Great, who named it Place Dauphine, and people then admired how little time it took for its buildings to cover the entire vacant lot of the Île de la Gourdaine. The invasion of this land was a cruel displeasure for the clerks who came there to frolic noisily, and for the lawyers who came to ponder their pleadings: such a green and flowery promenade, upon leaving the foul court of the Palais.
No sooner were these three rows of houses erected on their heavy porticos, laden and furrowed with bossages and rustication; no sooner were they clad in their bricks, pierced with their balustraded windows, and capped with their massive roofs, than the nation of legal professionals invaded the entire square, each according to their rank and means, that is, in inverse proportion to the height of the floors. It became a kind of grand Court of Miracles, a den of privileged rogues, a haunt of the chicaner sort, like the others of the argotic sort; this one of brick and stone, the others of mud and wood.
In one of these houses making up the Place Dauphine lived, towards the last years of the reign of Henry the Great, a rather remarkable personage, named Godinot-Chevassut, and holding the title of civil lieutenant to the Provost of Paris; a charge both lucrative and arduous in that century when rogues were far more numerous than they are today, so much has probity diminished since in our country of France! and where the number of women of loose morals was much greater, so much have our customs depraved!—Humanity hardly changing, one can say, like an old author, that the fewer scoundrels there are in the galleys, the more there are outside.
It must also be said that the rogues of that time were less ignoble than those of ours, and that this miserable profession was then a kind of art that young men of good family did not disdain to practice. Many capacities repressed outside and at the foot of a society of barriers and privileges developed strongly in this direction; enemies more dangerous to individuals than to the State, whose machine might perhaps have exploded without this escape valve. Thus, without a doubt, the justice of the time showed leniency towards distinguished rogues; and no one exercised this tolerance more readily than our civil lieutenant of the Place Dauphine, for reasons you will learn. In contrast, no one was more severe with the clumsy: they paid for the others, and furnished the gibbets with which Paris was then shaded, according to d'Aubigné's expression, to the great satisfaction of the bourgeois, who were only better robbed, and to the great perfection of the art of truche.
Godinot-Chevassut was a plump little man who was beginning to grey and took great pleasure in it, contrary to the usual old men, because as they whitened, his hair necessarily had to lose the somewhat warm tone it had from birth, which had earned him the disagreeable name of Rousseau, which his acquaintances substituted for his own, as it was easier to pronounce and remember. He then had very alert, albeit always half-closed, squinting eyes under his thick eyebrows, with a rather wide mouth, like people who like to laugh. And yet, although his features had an almost continuous air of mischief, he was never heard to laugh loudly, and, as our fathers say, to laugh with a square foot; only, whenever something amusing escaped him, he punctuated it at the end with an ah! or an oh! pushed from the bottom of his lungs, but unique and with a singular effect; and this happened quite frequently, for our magistrate liked to pepper his conversation with barbs, ambiguities, and bawdy remarks, which he did not even restrain in court. Moreover, this was a general custom among legal professionals of that time, which has now almost entirely passed to those in the provinces.
To finish painting him, one would have to give him, in the usual place, a long, square-tipped nose, and then rather small, unrimmed ears, with such a fineness of organ as to hear a quarter-crown ring from a quarter-league away, and a pistole from much farther. It was on this subject that, a certain litigant having asked if Monsieur the Civil Lieutenant did not have some friends who could be solicited and employed with him, he was answered that indeed there were friends whom Rousseau held in high esteem; that these were, among others, Monseigneur the Doubloon, Messire the Ducat, and even Monsieur the Crown; that it was necessary to make several of them act together, and that one could be assured of being warmly served.
II
OF A FIXED IDEA
There are people who have more sympathy for this or that great quality, this or that singular virtue. One person values magnanimity and warrior courage more, and only enjoys accounts of great feats of arms; another places above all else the genius and inventions of the arts, letters, or science; others are more touched by generosity and virtuous actions by which one helps one's fellows and dedicates oneself to their salvation, each according to their natural inclination. But Godinot-Chevassut's particular sentiment was the same as that of the learned Charles IX, namely, that no quality can be established above wit and cunning, and that people endowed with them are the only ones worthy in this world of being admired and honored; and nowhere did he find these qualities more brilliant and better developed than among the great nation of pickpockets, rogues, cutpurses, and bohemians, whose generous life and singular tricks unfolded before him every day with inexhaustible variety.
His favorite hero was Master François Villon, Parisian, as famous in poetic art as in the art of the picklock and the hook; thus, he would have given the Iliad with the Aeneid, and the no less admirable romance of Huon de Bordeaux, for the poem of the Repues franches, and even for the legend of Master Faifeu, which are the versified epics of the vagrant nation! The Illustrations de Dubellay, the Aristoteles peripoliticon and the Cymbalum mundi seemed very weak to him next to the Jargon, followed by the Estates General of the Kingdom of Argot, and the Dialogues of the Rascal and the Malicious, by a Courtaud de Boutanche, who maquille en mollanche en la vergne de Tours, and printed with the authorization of the King of Thunes, Fiacre the packer; Tours, 1603. And, as naturally those who value a certain virtue have the greatest contempt for the opposite fault, there were no people more odious to him than simple persons, of thick understanding and uncomplicated mind. This went so far that he would have wanted to entirely change the administration of justice, and that, when some serious larceny was discovered, not the thief but the stolen person should be hanged. It was an idea; it was his. He thought he saw in it the only way to hasten the intellectual emancipation of the people, and to bring the men of the century to a supreme progress of wit, cunning, and invention, which he said was the true crown of humanity and the perfection most pleasing to God.
So much for morality. And, as for politics, it was demonstrated to him that organized theft on a large scale favored more than anything else the division of large fortunes and the circulation of smaller ones, from which alone welfare and emancipation can result for the lower classes.
You understand that it was only good, double-dealing trickery that delighted him, the subtleties and wheedling of true clerks of Saint-Nicholas, the old tricks of Master Gonin, preserved for two hundred years in salt and in spirit; and that Villon, the rogue, was his crony, and not highwaymen like the Guilleris or Captain Carrefour. Certainly, the scoundrel who, planted on a highway, brutally robs an unarmed traveler, was as abhorrent to him as to all good spirits, as were those who, without further effort of imagination, break into some isolated house, plunder it, and often cut the throats of its masters. But, if he had known of that trait of a distinguished thief who, piercing a wall to enter a dwelling, took care to shape his opening into a Gothic trefoil, so that, the next day, upon noticing the theft, one would clearly see that a man of taste and art had executed it, certainly, Master Godinot-Chevassut would have esteemed that one much higher than Bertrand de Clasquin or Emperor Caesar; and that is saying little.
III
THE MAGISTRATE'S BREECHES
All this being said, I believe it's time to draw the curtain and, following the custom of our old comedies, give a kick in the backside to Monsieur Prologue, who is becoming outrageously long-winded, to the point that the candles have already been snuffed out three times since his exordium. Let him hasten to finish, like Bruscambille, by imploring the spectators "to clean the imperfections of his speech with the dusters of their humanity, and to receive an enema of excuses into the intestines of their impatience;" and so it is said, and the action is about to begin.
It is in a rather large, dark, wood-paneled room. The old magistrate, seated in a large, carved armchair with twisted legs, its back dressed in his damask undershirt with fringes, is trying on a brand-new pair of puffy breeches that Eustache Bouteroue, apprentice to Master Goubard, draper-hosier, has just brought him. Master Chevassut, tying his aiguillettes, rises and sits down successively, addressing the young man at intervals, who, stiff as a stone saint, has taken a seat, at his invitation, on the corner of a stool, and who looks at him with hesitation and timidity.
—Hum! those have seen better days! he said, pushing aside the old breeches he had just taken off; they were showing their threads like a prohibitive ordinance from the provost's office; and then all the pieces were bidding each other farewell... a heartbreaking farewell!
The facetious magistrate nevertheless lifted the old necessary garment again to take out his purse, from which he poured a few coins into his hand.
—It is certain, he continued, that we lawyers make very durable use of our clothes, because of the robe we wear over them for as long as the fabric resists and the seams hold their seriousness; that is why, and since everyone must live, even thieves, and therefore drapers-hosiers, I will not reduce anything from the six écus that Master Goubard asks of me; to which I even generously add a clipped écu for the shop boy, on the condition that he does not exchange it at a discount, but passes it off as good to some bourgeois nitwit, deploying, to that effect, all the resources of his mind; otherwise, I will keep the said écu for the collection tomorrow Sunday at Notre-Dame.
Eustache Bouteroue took the six écus and the clipped écu, bowing very low.
—Well, my lad, are you starting to bite into drapery? Do you know how to make a good profit on the yardage, on the cut, and to slip old for new, flea-colored for black, to the customer?... in short, to uphold the old reputation of the merchants at the pillars of Les Halles?
Eustache looked up at the magistrate with some terror; then, supposing he was joking, began to laugh; but the magistrate was not joking.
—I do not like, he added, the thievery of merchants; the thief steals and does not deceive; the merchant steals and deceives. A good fellow, sharp-tongued and knowing his Latin, buys a pair of breeches; he haggles over the price for a long time and ends up paying six écus. Then comes some honest Christian, one of those whom some call a fellow, others a good customer; if it happens that he takes a pair of breeches exactly like the other, and that, trusting the hosier, who swears his honesty by the Virgin and the saints, he pays eight écus for it, I will not pity him, for he is a fool. But, while the merchant, counting the two sums he has received, takes in his hand and rattles with satisfaction the two écus that are the difference between the second and the first, a poor man passes in front of his shop who is being led to the galleys for having taken some dirty, torn handkerchief from a pocket: "Here is a great scoundrel," exclaims the merchant; "if justice were just, the rogue would be broken on the wheel alive, and I would go to see him," he continues, still holding the two écus in his hand..." Eustache, what do you think would happen if, according to the merchant's wish, justice were just?
Eustache Bouteroue no longer laughed; the paradox was too unheard of for him to even consider answering it, and the mouth from which it came made it almost unsettling. Master Chevassut, seeing the young man bewildered like a trapped wolf, began to laugh his peculiar laugh, gave him a light tap on the cheek, and dismissed him. Eustache descended the stone balustrade staircase lost in thought, though he could hear from afar, in the Palace courtyard, the trumpet of Galinette la Galine, jester to the famous operator Geronimo, calling idlers to his antics and to buy his master's drugs; he was deaf to it this time, and set about crossing the Pont Neuf to reach the Les Halles district.
IV
THE PONT NEUF
The Pont Neuf, completed under Henri IV, is the main monument of his reign. Nothing compares to the enthusiasm its sight aroused when, after extensive work, it had fully spanned the Seine with its twelve arches and more closely joined the three cities of the capital.
Thus, it soon became the rendezvous for all Parisian idlers, whose numbers are great, and, consequently, for all the jugglers, ointment sellers, and pickpockets, whose trades are set in motion by the crowd, like a mill by a current of water.
When Eustache emerged from the triangle of Place Dauphine, the sun cast its dusty rays directly onto the bridge, and the crowd was large; the most frequented promenades in all of Paris are usually those adorned only with stalls, paved only with cobblestones, and shaded only by walls and houses.
Eustache struggled to cleave through this river of people that crossed the other river and flowed slowly from one end of the bridge to the other, halted by the slightest obstacle, like ice floes carried by the water, forming a thousand turns and eddies in places around a few conjurers, singers, or merchants extolling their wares. Many stopped along the parapets to watch the timber rafts pass under the arches, the boats circulate, or to contemplate the magnificent view offered by the Seine downstream from the bridge, the Seine bordering on the right the long line of Louvre buildings, on the left the great Pré-aux-Clercs, striped with its beautiful lime tree avenues, framed by its shaggy grey willows and its green willows weeping into the water; then, on each bank, the tower of Nesle and the tower of Bois, which seemed to stand sentinel at the gates of Paris like the giants of ancient novels.
Suddenly, a loud noise of firecrackers made the eyes of strollers and observers turn to a single point, announcing a spectacle worthy of attention. It was at the center of one of those small semi-circular platforms, formerly topped with stone shops, and which then formed empty spaces above each pier of the bridge, and outside the roadway. A conjurer had set up there; he had erected a table, and on this table walked a very beautiful monkey, in a complete devil's costume, black and red, with its natural tail, and who, without the slightest shyness, set off many firecrackers and artificial suns, to the great detriment of all the beards and ruffs that had not widened the circle quickly enough.
As for his master, he was one of those figures of the Bohemian type, common a hundred years earlier, already rare then, and today drowned and lost in the ugliness and insignificance of our bourgeois heads: an axe-blade profile, a high but narrow forehead, a very long and very hooked nose, yet not overhanging like Roman noses, but rather very upturned, and barely extending its tip beyond the thin, very prominent lips, and the receding chin; then long eyes, obliquely slanted under their eyebrows, shaped like a V, and long black hair completing the ensemble; finally, something supple and free in his gestures and in his whole body posture testified to a fellow skillful with his limbs and early broken to several trades and many others.
His attire was an old jester's costume, which he wore with dignity; his headwear, a large, broad-brimmed felt hat, extremely crumpled and curled; Master Gonin was the name everyone called him, either because of his skill and sleight of hand, or because he was indeed descended from that famous juggler who founded, under Charles VII, the Children-without-Care theater and was the first to bear the title of Prince of Fools, which, at the time of this story, had passed to the Lord of Engoulevent, who upheld its sovereign prerogatives even before the parliaments.
V
GOOD FORTUNE
The conjurer, seeing a good number of people gathered, began some cup tricks that aroused noisy admiration. It is true that the fellow had chosen his spot in the semicircle with some intent, and not merely to avoid obstructing traffic, as it seemed; for in this way he only had spectators in front of him and not behind.
Truly, art was not then what it has become today, where the conjurer works surrounded by his audience. The cup tricks finished, the monkey made a round through the crowd, collecting plenty of coins, for which he thanked very gallantly, accompanying his bow with a small cry quite similar to that of a cricket. But the cup tricks were only the prelude to something else, and, with a very well-turned prologue, the new Master Gonin announced that he also had the talent of predicting the future by cartomancy, chiromancy, and Pythagorean numbers; which could not be paid for, but which he would do for a single coin, solely to oblige. Saying this, he shuffled a large deck of cards, and his monkey, whom he called Pacolet, then distributed them with great intelligence to all who held out their hands.
When he had satisfied all requests, his master successively called the curious into the semicircle by the name of their cards, and predicted to each their good or bad fortune, while Pacolet, to whom he had given an onion as payment for his service, amused the company with the contortions this treat caused him, at once enchanted and miserable, laughing with his mouth and crying with his eye, making a grunt of joy and a pitiful grimace with each bite.
Eustache Bouteroue, who had also taken a card, was the last to be called. Master Gonin looked intently at his long and naive face, and addressed him in an emphatic tone.
—Here is the past: you have lost your father and mother; for six years you have been a draper's apprentice under the pillars of Les Halles. Here is the present: your patron has promised you his only daughter; he intends to retire and leave you his business. For the future, give me your hand.
Eustache, very astonished, held out his hand; the conjurer curiously examined its lines, frowned with an air of hesitation, and called his monkey as if to consult him. The latter took the hand, looked at it; then, going to perch on his master's shoulder, seemed to speak to him in his ear; but he only moved his lips very quickly, as these animals do when they are displeased.
—How bizarre! finally exclaimed Master Gonin, that an existence so simple from the outset, so bourgeois, should tend towards such an uncommon transformation, towards such a lofty goal!... Ah! my young coxcomb, you will break out of your shell; you will go high, very high... You will die greater than you are.
—Good! Eustache said to himself, that's what those people always promise you. But how does he know the things he told me first? That's marvelous!... unless, however, he knows me from somewhere.
Meanwhile, he took the magistrate's clipped crown from his purse, asking the conjurer to give him his change. Perhaps he had spoken too softly; but the latter did not hear, for he continued thus, rolling the crown in his fingers:
—I see well enough that you know how to live; so I will add a few details to the very true, but somewhat ambiguous, prediction I made for you. Yes, my companion, it was good of you not to pay me a single coin like the others, even if your crown is a good quarter short; but no matter, this white piece will be a brilliant mirror where pure truth will reflect.
"But," Eustache observed, "what you told me about my elevation, wasn't that the truth?"
"You asked me for your fortune, and I told it to you, but the gloss was missing... Come now, how do you understand the elevated purpose I gave to your existence in my prediction?"
"I understand that I can become a syndic of the drapers and hosiers, a churchwarden, an alderman..."
"That's drawing the wrong conclusions, well-found without a candle!... And why not the Grand Sultan of the Turks, the Amorabaquin? Ah! No, no, my dear sir, it must be understood differently; and, since you desire an explanation of this sibylline oracle, I will tell you that, in our style, to go high is for those sent to guard the sheep on the moon, just as to go far is for those sent to write their history in the Ocean, with fifteen-foot quills..."
"Ah! Good! But if you would explain your explanation to me, I would surely understand."
"These are two polite phrases to replace two words: gallows and galleys. You will go high, and I far. This is perfectly indicated in my hand by this median line, crossed at right angles by other less pronounced lines; in yours, by a line that cuts the middle one without extending beyond it, and another crossing both obliquely..."
"The gallows!" cried Eustache.
"Are you absolutely set on a horizontal death?" observed Master Gonin. "That would be childish; especially since you are now assured of escaping all sorts of other ends, to which every mortal man is exposed. Moreover, it is possible that when Sir Gallows lifts you by the neck with an outstretched arm, you will be nothing more than an old man disgusted with the world and everything... But now noon strikes, and it is the hour when the Provost of Paris's order drives us from the Pont Neuf until evening. However, if you ever need any advice, any spell, charm, or philter for your use, in case of danger, love, or revenge, I live down there; at the end of the bridge, in the Château-Gaillard. Do you see that gabled turret from here?..."
"One more word, please," said Eustache, trembling, "will I be happy in marriage?"
"Bring me your wife, and I will tell you... Pacolet, a bow to the gentleman, and a kiss on the hand."
The conjurer folded his table, put it under his arm, took the monkey on his shoulder, and headed towards the Château-Gaillard, humming a very old tune between his teeth.
VI
CROSSES AND MISERIES
It was indeed true that Eustache Bouteroue was soon to marry the draper-hosier's daughter. He was a sensible young man, well-versed in commerce, and who did not spend his leisure playing bowls or tennis, like many others, but rather doing accounts, reading the Bocage des six corporations, and learning a little Spanish, which it was good for a merchant to know how to speak, like English today, because of the number of people of that nation who lived in Paris. Master Goubard, having thus, in six years, become convinced of the perfect honesty and excellent character of his clerk, and having moreover observed a very virtuous and very severely suppressed inclination between his daughter and him on both sides, had resolved to unite them on Midsummer's Day, and then to retire to Laon, in Picardy, where he had family property.
Eustache, however, possessed no fortune; but it was not then a general custom to marry a bag of crowns with a bag of crowns; parents sometimes consulted the taste and sympathy of the future spouses, and took the trouble to study for a long time the character, conduct, and capacity of the people they destined for their alliance; quite different from the fathers of today, who demand more moral guarantees from a servant they hire than from a future son-in-law.
Now, the juggler's prediction had so condensed the rather unfluid ideas of the draper's apprentice that he remained quite bewildered in the center of the half-moon, and did not hear the silvery voices babbling in the campaniles of the Samaritaine, repeating: Noon, noon!... But, in Paris, noon strikes for an hour, and the Louvre clock soon spoke with more solemnity, then that of the Grands-Augustins, then that of the Châtelet; so much so that Eustache, frightened to find himself so late, began to run with all his might, and, in a few minutes, had left behind him the streets of la Monnaie, du Borel and Tirechappe; then, he slowed his pace, and, when he had turned the rue de la Boucherie-de-Beauvais, his brow cleared as he discovered the red umbrellas of the Halles market, the trestles of the Enfants-sans-Souci, the ladder and the cross, and the pretty lantern of the pillory topped with its lead roof. It was in this square, under one of these umbrellas, that his future wife, Javotte Goubard, awaited his return. Most of the merchants at the pillars thus had a stall on the Halles market, guarded by a member of their household, and serving as a branch to their obscure shop. Javotte took her place every morning at her father's stall, and, sometimes sitting amidst the merchandise, she worked on aiglet knots, sometimes she stood up to call out to passers-by, seized them tightly by the arm, and hardly let them go until they had made some purchase; which did not prevent her from being, in fact, the most timid young girl who had ever reached the age of an old ox without yet being married; full of grace, pretty, blonde, tall, and slightly bent forward, like most salesgirls whose figure is slender and frail; finally, blushing like a strawberry at the slightest words she spoke outside of her stall duties, whereas on this point she yielded to no market vendor in terms of chatter and patina (commercial style of the time).
At noon, Eustache usually came to replace her under the red umbrella, while she went to dine at the shop with her father. It was to this duty that he was now hurrying, greatly fearing that his delay might have annoyed Javotte; but as soon as he saw her from afar, she seemed very calm, her elbow resting on a roll of merchandise, and very attentive to the lively and noisy conversation of a handsome soldier, leaning on the same roll, who looked no more like a customer than anything else one could imagine.
"That's my future husband!" said Javotte, smiling at the stranger, who made a slight nod without changing his position.
Only, he eyed the clerk from head to toe, with that disdain soldiers show for bourgeois folk of unimposing appearance.
"He has a false air of one of our trumpeters," he observed gravely; "only, the other has more substance in his legs; but you know, Javotte, the trumpeter in a squadron is a little less than a horse, and a little more than a dog..."
"This is my nephew," Javotte said to Eustache, opening her large blue eyes to him with a smile of perfect satisfaction; "he's been granted leave to come to our wedding. How perfectly it works out, doesn't it? He's a mounted arquebusier... Oh! what a handsome corps! If you were dressed like that, Eustache!... but you're not tall enough, you see, nor strong enough..."
"And for how long," the young man timidly asked, "will monsieur do us the favor of staying in Paris?"
"That depends," said the soldier, straightening up after a slight pause. "We've been sent to Berry to exterminate the croquants; and if they want to stay quiet for a while longer, I'll give you a good month; but, in any case, at Saint Martin's Day, we'll come to Paris to replace Monsieur d'Humières' regiment, and then I'll be able to see you every day and indefinitely."}]}```
Eustache scrutinized the mounted arquebusier, as much as he could without meeting his gaze, and, decidedly, he found him to be outside all the physical proportions suitable for a nephew.
—When I say every day, the latter resumed, I am mistaken; for there is, on Thursday, the grand parade... But we have the evening, and, in fact, I can always sup with you on those days.
—Does he intend to dine there on the others? thought Eustache. But you hadn't told me, Mademoiselle Goubard, that your nephew was so...
—So handsome? Oh! yes, how he's filled out! Heavens, it's been seven years since we last saw him, poor Joseph; and, since then, a lot of water has passed under the bridge...
—And, for him, a lot of wine under his nose, thought the clerk, dazzled by the resplendent face of his future nephew; one doesn't get a colored face with watered-down wine, and Master Goubard's bottles will dance the branle des morts before the wedding, and perhaps after...
—Let's go to dinner, papa must be getting impatient, said Javotte, leaving her seat. Ah! I'm going to give you my arm, Joseph!... To think that I used to be the tallest, when I was twelve and you ten; they called me mama... But how proud I'll be on the arm of an arquebusier! You'll take me for walks, won't you? I go out so little; I can't go alone; and, on Sunday evening, I have to attend vespers, because I'm part of the Confraternity of the Virgin, at Saints-Innocents; I hold a ribbon of the guidon...
This girlish chatter, punctuated at regular intervals by the resounding step of the horseman, this graceful and light form skipping intertwined with that other massive and stiff one, soon disappeared into the dull shadow of the pillars bordering the Rue de la Tonnellerie, leaving Eustache's eyes with only a blur, and his ears with only a hum.
VII
MISERIES AND CROSSES
We have thus far kept pace with this bourgeois action, taking hardly more time to recount it than it took to unfold; and now, despite our respect, or rather our profound esteem, for the observation of unities even in the novel, we find ourselves compelled to make one of the three take a leap of several days. Eustache's tribulations concerning his future nephew might perhaps be curious enough to report; but they were nevertheless less bitter than one might judge from the exposition. Eustache was soon reassured regarding his fiancée: Javotte had truly only kept a slightly too fresh impression of her childhood memories which, in a life as uneventful as hers, took on an exaggerated importance. She had at first seen in the mounted arquebusier only the joyful and noisy child, formerly her playmate; but she soon realized that this child had grown, that he had adopted other manners, and she became more reserved towards him.
As for the soldier, apart from a few customary familiarities, he did not show any blameworthy intentions towards his young aunt; he was even one of those rather numerous men for whom respectable women inspire little desire; and, for the present, he said, like Tabarin, that the bottle was his sweetheart. For the first three days of his arrival, he had not left Javotte, and he even took her in the evening to the Cours la Reine, accompanied only by the stout housemaid, much to Eustache's displeasure. But this did not last; he soon grew bored of her company, and made a habit of going out alone all day, taking care, it is true, to return at meal times.
The only thing, therefore, that worried the future husband was to see this relative so well established in the house that was to become his after the wedding, that it did not seem easy to gently evict him, so solidly did he seem to embed himself there each day. Yet he was Javotte's nephew only by marriage, being born only of a daughter that Master Goubard's late wife had had from a first marriage.
But how could he make him understand that he tended to exaggerate the importance of family ties, and that his ideas regarding the rights and privileges of kinship were too broad, too fixed, and, in a way, too patriarchal?
However, it was probable that he would soon realize his indiscretion himself, and Eustache found himself obliged to be patient, "like the ladies of Fontainebleau when the court is in Paris," as the proverb goes.
But the wedding, once done and dusted, changed nothing in the habits of the mounted arquebusier, who even gave hope that he might obtain, thanks to the tranquility of the "croquants" (peasants), permission to remain in Paris until the arrival of his regiment. Eustache attempted a few epigrammatic allusions, about certain people mistaking shops for inns, and many others that went unnoticed or seemed weak; moreover, he still didn't dare speak openly to his wife and father-in-law, not wanting to appear, in the early days of his marriage, as a self-interested man, he who owed them everything.
Besides, the soldier's company was not very entertaining: his mouth was merely the perpetual bell of his glory, which was founded half on his triumphs in single combats that made him the terror of the army, and half on his prowess against the "croquants," unfortunate French peasants with whom King Henri's soldiers waged war for not being able to pay their taxes, and who did not seem close to enjoying the celebrated "poule au pot" (chicken in the pot)...
This character of excessive boasting was quite common then, as seen in the types of Taillebras and Capitans Matamores, constantly reproduced in the comic plays of the era, and must, I think, be attributed to the victorious irruption of Gascony into Paris, following the Navarrese. This flaw soon weakened as it broadened, and, a few years later, the Baron de Foeneste was its already much softened portrait, but with a more perfect comedic effect, and finally the comedy of "Le Menteur" (The Liar) showed it, in 1662, reduced to almost common proportions.
But what, in the soldier's manners, most shocked good Eustache, was a perpetual tendency to treat him like a little boy, to highlight the less favorable aspects of his physiognomy, and finally, to make him appear ridiculous to Javotte on every occasion, which was very disadvantageous in those early days when a newlywed needs to establish himself on a respectable footing and take a position for the future; add to this that it took very little to offend the brand-new and still stiff self-esteem of a man established in a shop, licensed and sworn.
A final tribulation soon filled the measure. As Eustache was about to join the guild watch, and he did not want, like the honest Master Goubard, to perform his service in civilian clothes and with a halberd borrowed from the district, he had bought a basket-hilted sword that no longer had a basket, a sallet helmet and a red copper hauberk that was already threatened by a coppersmith's hammer, and, having spent three days cleaning and polishing them, he managed to give them a certain luster they did not have before; but, when he put them on and proudly walked around his shop asking if he looked good in the harness, the arquebusier began to laugh "like a swarm of flies in the sun," and assured him that he looked like he was wearing his kitchenware.
VIII
THE FLICK
Everything being thus arranged, it happened one evening, it was the 12th or 13th, always a Thursday, Eustache closed his shop early; something he would not have allowed himself without the absence of Master Goubard, who had left the day before yesterday to see his property in Picardy, because he intended to go and live there three months later, when his successor would be firmly established in his place, and would fully possess the confidence of customers and other merchants.
Now, the arquebusier, returning that evening, as was his custom, found the door closed and the lights out. This surprised him greatly, as the watch had not yet been called at the Châtelet; and, as he usually didn't come home without being a little animated by wine, his annoyance manifested itself in a loud curse that made Eustache jump in his entresol, where he was not yet in bed, already frightened by the boldness of his resolution.
—Holà! Hey! cried the other, kicking the door, is it a holiday tonight? Is it Michaelmas, the feast of the drapers, the pickpockets, and the cutpurses?...
And he pounded on the storefront with his fist; but it had no more effect than if he had pounded water in a mortar.
—Ohé! My uncle and aunt!... Do you want me to sleep out in the open, on the cobblestones, at risk of being savaged by dogs and other beasts?... Holà! Hey! Confound these relatives! They are, by Jove, capable of it! And nature, you peasants! Ho! Ho! Come down quickly, bourgeois, it's money we're bringing you!... May the plague take you, you vile scoundrel!
All this harangue from the poor nephew did not in the least affect the wooden face of the door; his words were as useless as the venerable Bede preaching to a pile of stones.
But, if doors are deaf, windows are not blind, and there is a very simple way to clear their sight; the soldier suddenly reasoned thus; he emerged from the dark gallery of pillars, stepped back into the middle of the Rue de la Tonnellerie, and, picking up a shard at his feet, aimed it so well that he put out the eye of one of the small windows of the entresol. This was an incident Eustache had not at all considered, a formidable question mark to that query which summarized the soldier's entire monologue: “Why then is the door not opened?...”
Eustache suddenly made a decision; for a coward who has worked himself up resembles a villain who goes on a spending spree, and always pushes things to the extreme; but, moreover, he was keen to show himself well once before his new wife, who might have had little respect for him, having seen him for several days serving as a quintain for the soldier, with this difference that the quintain sometimes returns good blows for those it continually receives. He therefore cocked his hat askew, and tumbled down the narrow staircase of his entresol before Javotte thought of stopping him. He unhooked his rapier as he passed through the back shop, and only when he felt the cold of the brass hilt in his burning hand did he stop for a moment and only walked with leaden feet towards his door, the key of which he held in his other hand. But a second pane of glass that shattered with a loud noise, and the footsteps of his wife that he heard behind his own, restored all his energy; he hurriedly opened the massive door, and stood on the threshold with his naked sword, like the archangel at the gate of earthly paradise.
—What does this night-prowler want? This wicked drunkard who drinks for a penny a pot? This breaker of cracked dishes?... he cried in a tone that would have been trembling had he taken it two notes lower. Is this how one behaves with honest people?... Come, turn your heels without delay, and go sleep under the charnel houses with your kind, or I will call my neighbors and the watchmen to apprehend you!
—Oh! Oh! Is that how you sing now, you silly bird? Did they whistle you a tune with a trumpet tonight?... Oh well, that's different!... I like to see you speak tragically like Tranchemontagne, and men of courage are my darlings... Come here, let me embrace you, you picrochole!...
—Go away, you rogue! Do you hear the neighbors waking up to the noise and who will take you to the nearest guardhouse, like a brawler and a thief? Go away then without further ado, and don't come back!
But, on the contrary, the soldier advanced between the pillars, which somewhat blunted the end of Eustache's retort.
"Well spoken!" he said to the latter, "that's sound advice and worth paying for."
In a flash, he was close by, flicking the young draper's nose so hard it turned crimson.
"Keep it all if you have no change!" he cried, "and farewell, uncle!"
Eustache could not patiently endure this affront, more humiliating than a slap, in front of his new wife. Despite her efforts to restrain him, he lunged at his departing adversary and struck a blow that would have done credit to the arm of the valiant Roger, had the sword been a balisarde. But it hadn't cut since the Wars of Religion, and it didn't even scratch the soldier's buff coat. The soldier immediately seized Eustache's hands in his own, so that the sword first fell, and then the victim began to scream as loudly as he could, kicking furiously at the soft boots of his tormentor.
Fortunately, Javotte intervened, for the neighbors were indeed watching the struggle from their windows, but hardly thought of coming down to stop it. Eustache, pulling his bluish fingers from the natural vise that had gripped them, had to rub them for a long time to make them lose their square shape.
"I'm not afraid of you," he cried, "and we'll meet again! If you have the heart of a dog, meet me tomorrow morning at the Pré-aux-Clercs!... At six o'clock, you scoundrel, and we'll fight to the death, you cutthroat!"
"The place is well chosen, my little champion, and we shall act like gentlemen! Until tomorrow then; by Saint George, the night will seem short to you!"
The soldier uttered these words with a tone of consideration he had not shown until then. Eustache turned proudly towards his wife; his challenge had made him six spans taller. He picked up his sword and slammed his door shut.
IX
CHATEAU GAILLARD
The young draper, upon waking, found himself completely sobered from the previous day's courage. He readily admitted to himself that he had been quite ridiculous in proposing a duel to the arquebusier, he who knew no other weapon than the half-ell, which he had often wielded during his apprenticeship with his companions in the Chartreux enclosure. Therefore, he quickly resolved to stay home and let his adversary parade his greenhorn self in the Pré-aux-Clercs, swaying on his feet like a bridled gosling.
When the hour passed, he got up, opened his shop, and didn't mention the previous day's scene to his wife, just as she, for her part, avoided making the slightest allusion to it. They had breakfast in silence; after which, Javotte went, as usual, to settle under the red umbrella, leaving her husband occupied with his maid, examining a piece of cloth and marking its flaws. It must be said that he often cast his eyes towards the door, trembling at every moment that his formidable relative might come to reproach him for his cowardice and his broken word. Now, around half-past eight, he spotted the arquebusier's uniform in the distance, emerging from under the gallery of pillars, still bathed in shadow, like a Rembrandt reitre, gleaming with three spangles: that of the morion, that of the hauberk, and that of the nose; a sinister apparition that grew larger and clearer rapidly, and whose metallic step seemed to beat each minute of the draper's last hour.
But the same uniform did not cover the same mold, and, to speak more simply, it was another soldier, a companion of the first, who stopped in front of Eustache's shop, who had barely recovered from his fright, and addressed him in a very calm and civil tone.
He first informed him that his adversary, having waited for him for two hours at the rendezvous point without seeing him arrive, and judging that an unforeseen accident had prevented him from going there, would return the next day, at the same hour, to the same place, would remain there for the same amount of time, and that, if it was without further success, he would then go to his shop, cut off both his ears, and put them in his pocket, as the famous Brusquet had done in 1605 to a squire of the Duke of Chevreuse for the same reason, an action that received the applause of the court and was generally found to be in good taste.
Eustache replied that his opponent was doing an injustice to his courage with such a threat, and that he would have to answer for it doubly; he added that the obstacle did not come from any other cause than that he had not yet been able to find someone to serve as his second.
The other seemed satisfied with this explanation, and was kind enough to inform the merchant that he would find excellent seconds on the Pont Neuf, in front of the Samaritaine, where they usually strolled; people who had no other profession, and who, for one crown, undertook to embrace anyone's quarrel, and even to bring swords. After these observations, he made a deep bow and withdrew.
Eustache, left alone, began to ponder, and remained for a long time in this state of perplexity: his mind forked into three main resolutions. Sometimes he wanted to inform the civil lieutenant of the soldier's importunity and threats, and ask for permission to carry weapons for his defense; but this always led to a fight. Or else he decided to go to the field, warning the sergeants, so that they would arrive at the very moment the duel would begin; but they might arrive when it was over. Finally, he also thought of going to consult the gypsy of the Pont Neuf, and it was to this that he finally resolved.
At noon, the servant replaced Javotte under the red umbrella, who came to dine with her husband; he did not speak to her during the meal about the visit he had received; but he then asked her to mind the shop while he went to make an article with a newly arrived gentleman who wanted to be dressed. He indeed took his sample bag and headed towards the Pont Neuf.
The Château-Gaillard, located at the water's edge, at the southern end of the bridge, was a small building topped with a round tower, which had served as a prison in its time, but which was now beginning to crumble and crack, and was hardly habitable except for those who had no other asylum. Eustache, after walking for some time with an unsteady step among the stones that covered the ground, encountered a small door in the center of which a bald mouse was nailed. He knocked gently, and Master Gonin's monkey immediately opened it by lifting a latch, a service to which it was trained, as domestic cats sometimes are.
The conjurer was at a table, reading. He turned gravely and motioned for the young man to sit on a stool. When the latter had told him his adventure, he assured him that it was the least troublesome thing in the world, but that he had done well to come to him.
—It is a charm you are asking for, he added, a magical charm to surely defeat your opponent; isn't that what you need?
—Yes, if that's possible.
—Although everyone dabbles in composing them, you will find none as reliable as mine anywhere; moreover, they are not, like some, formed by diabolical art; but they result from a profound science of white magic, and can in no way compromise the salvation of the soul.
—Good, that! said Eustache; otherwise, I would refrain from using it. But how much does your magical work cost? for I still need to know if I can afford it.
—Consider that you are buying life there, and glory besides. This point agreed, do you think that, for these two excellent things, one can demand less than a hundred crowns?
—A hundred devils take you! grumbled Eustache, his face darkening; that's more than I own!... And what will life be to me without bread and glory without clothes? Perhaps this is just a charlatan's false promise to delude credulous people.
—You will only pay afterward.
—That's something... Finally, what pledge do you want for it?
—Only your hand.
—Well then... But I'm a big fool to listen to your nonsense! Didn't you predict that I would end up on the gallows?
"—No doubt, and I stand by it."
"—Well then, if that is the case, what do I have to fear from this duel?"
"—Nothing, save a few thrusts and slashes, to open wider the gates to your soul... After that, you'll be picked up and hoisted onto the half-cross, high and short, dead or alive, as the ordinance dictates; and thus your destiny will be fulfilled. Do you understand that?"
The draper understood so well that he hastened to offer his hand to the conjurer as a sign of consent, asking for ten days to find the sum, to which the other agreed after noting the due date on the wall. Then he took the book of the great Albert, commented by Corneille Agrippa and Abbot Trithemius, opened it to the article on single combats, and, to further assure Eustache that his operation would be nothing diabolical, told him that he could still recite his prayers without fear of any impediment. He then lifted the lid of a chest, pulled out an unglazed earthenware pot, and mixed various ingredients that seemed to be indicated by his book, muttering a kind of incantation. When he finished, he took Eustache's right hand, who, with the other, made the sign of the cross, and anointed it up to the wrist with the mixture he had just prepared.
Then he drew from the chest a very old and greasy flask, and, slowly inverting it, poured a few drops onto the back of the hand, uttering Latin words that resembled the formula priests use for baptism.
Only then did Eustache feel a kind of electric shock throughout his arm that greatly frightened him; his hand seemed numb, and yet, strangely enough, it twisted and stretched several times, making his joints crack like a waking animal; then he felt nothing more, circulation seemed to return, and Master Gonin exclaimed that everything was finished, and that he could now challenge the stiffest plumes of the court and army with his sword, and pierce buttonholes for all the useless buttons with which fashion then overloaded their clothes.
X
THE PRÉ-AUX-CLERCS
The next morning, four men crossed the green paths of the Pré-aux-Clercs looking for a suitable and sufficiently secluded spot. Arriving at the foot of the small hill that bordered the southern part, they stopped at the site of a bowling green, which seemed to them a very suitable ground for comfortable fencing. Then, Eustache and his adversary took off their doublets, and the witnesses examined them, as was customary, under their shirts and breeches. The draper was not without emotion, but he still had faith in the gypsy's charm; for it is known that never did magical operations, charms, philtres, and enchantments have more credit than at that time, when they gave rise to so many lawsuits with which the parliamentary registers are filled, and in which the judges themselves shared the general credulity.
Eustache's witness, whom he had picked up on the Pont Neuf and paid an écu, saluted the arquebusier's friend and asked if he also intended to fight; the other having replied no, he crossed his arms with indifference and stepped back to watch the champions.
The draper could not help but feel a certain nausea when his adversary gave him the salute of arms, which he did not return. He remained motionless, holding his sword before him like a candle, and so poorly planted on his legs that the soldier, who at heart was not a bad man, promised himself to only give him a scratch. But hardly had the rapiers touched when Eustache realized that his hand was pulling his arm forward and thrashing about roughly. To be more precise, he only felt it by the powerful tugging it exerted on the muscles of his arm; its movements had a prodigious strength and elasticity, comparable to that of a steel spring; thus the soldier almost had his wrist dislocated parrying the tierce thrust; but the quarte thrust sent his sword ten paces away, while Eustache's, without recoiling and with the same motion with which it was launched, ran him through so violently that the shell was imprinted on his chest. Eustache, who had not lunged, and whom the hand had pulled by an unforeseen jerk, would have broken his head falling full length if it had not landed on his adversary's belly.
—Heavens, what a wrist!... cried the soldier's second; that fellow could give lessons to Sir Twist-Oak! He hasn't grace or physique on his side; but for the strength of his arm, it's worse than a Welsh longbow!
Meanwhile, Eustache had risen with the help of his second, and remained for a moment absorbed in what had just happened; but when he could clearly make out the arquebusier lying at his feet, pinned to the ground by the sword, like a toad nailed within a magic circle, he took to flight in such a way that he left his Sunday doublet, slashed and trimmed with silk braid, on the grass.
Now, as the soldier was quite dead, the two seconds had nothing to gain by remaining on the field, and they quickly departed. They had gone about a hundred paces when Eustache's second cried out, striking his forehead:
—And my sword that I lent, and that I'm forgetting!
He let the other continue on his way, and, returning to the scene of the duel, began to curiously rummage through the dead man's pockets, where he found nothing but dice, a piece of string, and a dirty, dog-eared deck of tarot cards.
—Floutière and then floutière! he muttered; another rogue who has neither michon nor tocante! The glier t'entrolle, match-blower!
The encyclopedic education of the century spares us from explaining, in this sentence, anything other than the last term, which alluded to the deceased's profession as an arquebusier.
Our man, not daring to take any part of the uniform, the sale of which could have compromised him, merely pulled off the soldier's boots, rolled them under his cape with Eustache's doublet, and walked away grumbling.
XI
OBSESSION
The draper did not leave his house for several days, his heart heavy with this tragic death, which he had caused for rather slight offenses and by a reprehensible and damnable means, in this world as in the next. There were moments when he considered it all a dream, and, had it not been for his doublet forgotten on the grass, an irrefutable witness that shone by its absence, he would have denied the accuracy of his memory.
One evening, at last, he wanted to burn his eyes with the evidence, and went to the Pré-aux-Clercs as if for a walk. His vision blurred as he recognized the bowling green where the duel had taken place, and he was forced to sit down. Attorneys were playing there, as was their custom before supper; and Eustache, as soon as the fog that covered his eyes had dissipated, thought he could distinguish on the smooth ground, between the spread feet of one of them, a large patch of blood.
He rose convulsively, and quickened his pace to leave the promenade, always having before his eyes the patch of blood which, retaining its shape, settled on all objects where his gaze rested in passing, like those livid spots that one sees long fluttering around oneself after having fixed one's eyes on the sun.
Returning home, he thought he noticed that he had been followed; only then did he consider that people from Queen Marguerite's hotel, past which he had walked that morning and that very evening, might have recognized him; and, although the laws on dueling were not strictly enforced at that time, he reflected that it might well be deemed appropriate to hang a poor merchant as a lesson to courtiers, whom they dared not attack then as they did later.
These thoughts and several others gave him a very restless night: he could not close his eyes for an instant without seeing a thousand gibbets shaking their fists at him, from each of which hung at the end of a rope a dead man twisting with horrible laughter, or a skeleton whose ribs stood out sharply against the wide face of the moon.
But a happy idea came to sweep away all these forked visions: Eustache remembered the civil lieutenant, an old acquaintance of his father-in-law, who had already given him a rather benevolent welcome; he promised himself to go see him the next day, and to confide in him entirely, convinced that he would protect him at least out of consideration for Javotte, whom he had seen and caressed when she was very young, and for Master Goubard, whom he held in high esteem. The poor merchant finally fell asleep and rested until morning on the pillow of this good resolution.
The next day, around nine o'clock, he knocked on the magistrate's door. The valet, assuming he had come to take measurements for clothes or to propose some purchase, immediately ushered him in to his master, who, half-reclined in a large wing-back armchair, was engrossed in a delightful read. He held in his hand the ancient poem of Merlin Coccaie, and was singularly enjoying the account of the exploits of Balde, the valiant prototype of Pantagruel, and even more so the unparalleled subtleties and thieveries of Cingar, that grotesque patron upon whom our Panurge so happily modeled himself.
Master Chevassut was at the story of the sheep, which Cingar rids from the ship by throwing the one he paid for into the sea, and which all the others immediately follow, when he became aware of his visitor, and, placing the book on a table, turned to his draper with a cheerful air.
He inquired about the health of his wife and father-in-law, and made all sorts of trivial jokes concerning his new married status. The young man took the opportunity of this conversation to bring up his adventure, and, having recounted the entire sequence of his quarrel with the arquebusier, encouraged by the magistrate's paternal demeanor, he also confessed the sad outcome it had had.
The other looked at him with the same astonishment as if he had been the good giant Fracasse from his book, or the faithful Falquet who had the hindquarters of a greyhound, instead of Master Eustache Bouteroue, a merchant under the pillars; for, although he had already learned that the said Eustache was suspected, he had not been able to give the slightest credence to this report, to this feat of arms of a sword nailing a king's soldier to the ground, attributed to a shop shorty, as tall as Gribouille or Triboulet.
But, when he could no longer doubt the fact, he assured the poor draper that he would do everything in his power to hush up the matter and to throw the law enforcement off his trail, promising him, provided that the witnesses did not accuse him, that he would soon be able to live in peace and free from the collar.
Master Chevassut even accompanied him to the door, reiterating his assurances, when, at the moment of humbly taking his leave, Eustache thought to give him a slap that would wipe his face clean, a slap that left the magistrate's face half red and half blue like the Parisian escutcheon, at which he remained more astonished than a bell founder, opening his mouth a foot or two, and as incapable of speaking as a fish deprived of its tongue.
Poor Eustache was so terrified by this action that he threw himself at Master Chevassut's feet, begging his pardon for his irreverence with the most suppliant terms and piteous protestations, swearing that it was some unforeseen convulsive movement, in which his will played no part, and for which he hoped for mercy from him as from good God. The old man raised him, more astonished than angry; but no sooner was Eustache on his feet than he delivered, with the back of his hand, on the other cheek, a counterpart to the other slap, such that the five fingers imprinted a good hollow where one could have molded them.
This time, it became unbearable, and Master Chevassut ran to his bell to call his servants; but the draper pursued him, continuing the dance, which formed a singular scene, because with each master slap he bestowed upon his protector, the unfortunate man was lost in tearful excuses and stifled supplications, the contrast of which with his action was most amusing; but in vain did he try to stop himself in the impulses that his hand led him, he seemed like a child holding a large bird by a string tied to its leg. The bird pulls the frightened child around all corners of his room, who dares not let it fly away, and who does not have the strength to stop it. Thus, the unlucky Eustache was pulled by his hand in pursuit of the civil lieutenant, who turned around tables and chairs, and rang and shouted, overcome with rage and suffering. Finally the valets entered, seized Eustache Bouteroue, and threw him down, suffocating and fainting. Master Chevassut, who hardly believed in white magic, could only think that he had been tricked and mistreated by the young man for some reason he could not explain; so he sent for the sergeants, to whom he abandoned his man under the double accusation of murder in a duel and manual assault on a magistrate in his own home. Eustache only emerged from his faint at the grinding of the bolts opening the dungeon destined for him.
"I'm innocent!" he cried to the jailer who was pushing him in.
"Oh! By Jove!" the man gravely replied, "Where do you think you are? We only have those kinds here!"
XII
OF ALBERTUS MAGNUS AND DEATH
Eustache had been cast into one of those cells in the Châtelet that Cyrano described as making one look like a candle under a cupping glass.
"If this rock garment is meant for clothes," he added after pirouetting to examine every nook and cranny, "it's too wide; if it's for a tomb, it's too narrow. The lice here have teeth longer than their bodies, and one constantly suffers from the stone, which is no less painful for being external."
There, our hero could leisurely reflect on his ill fortune and curse the fatal help he had received from the conjurer, who had thus detached one of his limbs from the natural authority of his head, from which all sorts of disorders were bound to result. So great was his surprise one day to see Master Gonin descend into his dungeon and calmly ask him how he was faring.
"May the devil hang you with your guts!" he retorted, "You wicked braggart and spellcaster, for your damned enchantments!"
"What's wrong?" the other replied. "Am I to blame because you didn't come on the tenth day to lift the charm by bringing me the agreed-upon sum?"
"Well! Did I know you needed that money so quickly," Eustache said a little less loudly, "you who can make gold at will, like the writer Flamel?"
"Not at all!" the other said, "It's quite the opposite! I will no doubt get to that great hermetic work, being entirely on the right track; but I have only succeeded so far in transmuting fine gold into very good and pure iron: a secret that the great Raymond Lull also discovered towards the end of his days..."
"What a fine science!" said the draper. "Come now! So you've come to get me out of here at last; by Jove! That's right! And I had almost given up hope..."
"That's precisely the sticking point, my friend! It is indeed what I soon expect to succeed in: opening doors without keys, to enter and exit; and you will see by what operation one achieves it."
Saying that, the gypsy pulled out his book of Albertus Magnus from his pocket, and by the light of the lantern he had brought, he read the following paragraph:
HEROIC MEANS USED BY VILLAINS
TO GAIN ENTRY INTO HOUSES
"One takes the severed hand of a hanged man, which must have been purchased before death; one plunges it, taking care to keep it almost closed, into a copper vessel containing zimac and saltpeter, with spondillis fat. The vessel is exposed to a bright fire of fern and verbena, so that the hand, after a quarter of an hour, is perfectly dried and suitable for long preservation. Then, having made a candle with seal fat and Lapland sesame, one uses the hand as a candlestick to hold this lit candle; and, wherever one goes, carrying it before oneself, bars fall, locks open, and all persons encountered remain motionless. This hand, thus prepared, is called the hand of glory."
"What a brilliant invention!" exclaimed Eustache Bouteroue.
"Wait a moment; although you haven't sold me your hand, it belongs to me because you didn't redeem it on the agreed-upon day, and the proof of that is that, once the deadline passed, it acted, by the spirit it possesses, in such a way that I can enjoy it as soon as possible. Tomorrow, Parliament will sentence you to the gallows; the day after tomorrow, the sentence will be carried out, and that very evening, I will pluck this much-coveted fruit and prepare it as needed."
"No, indeed!" cried Eustache, "And I intend, starting tomorrow, to tell gentlemen the whole mystery."
"Ah! Very well, do that... and you will merely be burned alive for practicing magic, which will accustom you in advance to Mr. Devil's spit... But even this will not be, for your horoscope predicts the gallows, and nothing can divert you from it!"
Then, the wretched Eustache began to cry so loudly and weep so bitterly, that it was a great pity.
"Oh dear! my dear friend," Master Gonin gently said to him, "why rail against fate like this?"
"Holy Lady! it's easy to talk," sobbed Eustache; "but when death is so close..."
"Well, what is death, that one should be so astonished by it?... I consider death a trifle! 'No one dies before their time!' says Seneca the Tragedian. Are you then her only vassal, this grim reaper? So am I, and so is he, a third, a fourth, Martin, Philip!... Death respects no one. She is so bold that she condemns, kills, and takes popes, emperors, kings, as indifferently as provosts, sergeants, and other such riff-raff."
"Therefore, do not grieve over doing what everyone else will do later; their condition is more deplorable than yours; for, if death is an evil, it is only evil to those who have yet to die. Thus, you have only one more day of this evil, and most others have twenty or thirty years, and more."
"An ancient said: 'The hour that gave you life has already diminished it...' You are in death while you are in life; for, when you are no longer in life, you are after death; or, to put it better and conclude, death concerns you neither dead nor alive: alive, because you are; dead, because you are no more!"
"Let these reasonings suffice you, my friend, to encourage you to drink this absinthe without grimacing, and meditate further on a beautiful verse by Lucretius, the meaning of which is: 'Live as long as you can, you will take nothing from the eternity of your death!'"
After these beautiful maxims, quintessenced from the ancients and moderns, refined and sophisticated in the taste of the century, Master Gonin raised his lantern, knocked on the dungeon door, which the jailer came to reopen for him, and darkness fell back upon the prisoner like a leaden cloak.
XIII
OR THE AUTHOR SPEAKS
Persons who wish to know all the details of Eustache Bouteroue's trial will find the documents in the Arrêts mémorables du Parlement de Paris (Memorable Decrees of the Parliament of Paris), which are in the manuscript library, and for which M. Paris will facilitate their search with his customary obligingness. This trial holds its alphabetical place immediately before that of Baron de Boutteville, also very curious, due to the singularity of his duel with the Marquis de Bussi, where, to better defy the edicts, he came expressly from Lorraine to Paris, and fought in the Place Royale itself, at three in the afternoon, on Easter Day itself (1627). But that is not what is at issue here. In Eustache Bouteroue's trial, only the duel and the insults to the civil lieutenant are mentioned, and not the magical charm that caused all this disorder. But a note appended to the other documents refers to the Recueil des histoires tragicques de Belleforest (Collection of Tragic Stories by Belleforest) (The Hague edition, the Rouen one being incomplete); and it is there that the remaining details of this adventure, which Belleforest rather aptly titles Main possédée (Possessed Hand), are to be found.
XIV
CONCLUSION
On the morning of his execution, Eustache, who had been lodged in a cell better lit than the other, received a visit from a confessor, who mumbled some spiritual consolations to him, of as great a taste as those of the gypsy, which produced little more effect. He was a tonsured cleric from those good families where one of the children is always an abbot by name; he had an embroidered rabat, a waxed beard twisted into a spindle point, and a pair of moustaches, of the kind called crocs (hooks), very gallantly styled; his hair was very curly, and he affected a slightly thick speech to give himself a delicate language. Eustache, seeing him so light and so pimpant (spry), did not have the heart to confess his entire coulpe (guilt) to him, and entrusted himself to his own prayers to obtain forgiveness.
The priest gave him absolution, and, to pass the time, as he had to remain with the condemned man until two o'clock, presented him with a book entitled Les Pleurs de l'âme pénitente, ou le Retour du pécheur vers son Dieu (The Tears of the Penitent Soul, or the Sinner's Return to His God). Eustache opened the volume at the royal privilege section, and began to read it with great compunction, starting with: Henry, king of France and Navarre, to our beloved and faithful, etc., up to the phrase: For these reasons, wishing to treat the said petitioner favorably... There, he could not help but burst into tears, and returned the book saying that it was very touching and that he feared becoming too emotional by reading more. Then, the confessor took a very well-painted deck of cards from his pocket, and proposed a few games to his penitent, in which he won a little money that Javotte had given him so he could procure some relief. The poor man was hardly thinking about his game, but it is also true that the loss was not very noticeable to him.
At two o'clock, he emerged from the Châtelet, shaking his bells while reciting the monkey's paternosters, and was led to the Place des Augustins, between the two arcades forming the entrance to Rue Dauphine and the head of the Pont Neuf, where he had the honor of a stone gallows. He showed considerable firmness on the ladder, as many people were watching him, this execution site being one of the most frequented. However, as one takes as much room as possible to make this great leap into nothingness, just as the executioner was preparing to put the rope around his neck, with as much ceremony as if it were the Golden Fleece —for these kinds of people, performing their profession in public, usually display great skill and even grace in what they do—Eustache begged him to stop for a moment, so he could offer two more prayers to Saint Ignatius and Saint Louis Gonzaga, whom he had, among all other saints, reserved for last, as they had only been beatified that same year 1609. But the man replied that the public there had their own business, and it was improper to make them wait so long for such a small spectacle as a simple hanging; the rope he tightened, pushing him off the ladder, cut Eustache's retort in two.
It is said that when all seemed finished and the executioner was about to retire home, Master Gonin appeared at one of the embrasures of the Château-Gaillard, which overlooked the square.
Immediately, although the draper's body was perfectly limp and inanimate, his arm rose, and his hand waved joyfully like a dog's tail seeing its master again. This caused a long cry of surprise in the crowd, and those who were already leaving rushed back, like people who thought the play was over, while there was still an act remaining.
The executioner replanted his ladder, felt the hanged man's feet behind the ankles; the pulse no longer beat; he cut an artery, no blood gushed out, and yet the arm continued its disordered movements.
The red man was not easily surprised; he proceeded to climb back onto his subject's shoulders, to the great jeers of the onlookers; but the hand treated his pimply face with the same irreverence it had shown towards Master Chevassut, so much so that the man, cursing God, drew a large knife he always carried under his clothes, and with two strokes cut off the possessed hand.
It made a prodigious leap and fell bleeding into the midst of the crowd, which parted in fear; then, making several more leaps due to the elasticity of its fingers, and as everyone opened a wide path for it, it soon found itself at the foot of the Château-Gaillard turret; then, clinging with its fingers like a crab to the rough spots and cracks in the wall, it climbed up to the embrasure where the Bohemian awaited it.
Belleforest stops at this singular conclusion and ends with these words: "This adventure, annotated, commented, and illustrated, was for a long time the talk of polite society, as well as of the common people, always eager for bizarre and supernatural tales; but it is perhaps still one of those fables good for amusing children around the fire and which should not be lightly adopted by serious and sober-minded persons."
THE GREEN MONSTER
I
THE DEVIL'S CASTLE
I am going to speak of one of the oldest inhabitants of Paris; he was formerly called the Vauvert devil.
From which resulted the proverb: "It's at the Vauvert devil's! Go to the Vauvert devil!" That is to say: "Go take a walk... in the Champs-Élysées."
Porters generally say: "It's at the devil of worms!" to express a place that is very far away. This means that one has to pay very dearly for the commission they are charged.—But this is, moreover, a vicious and corrupt expression, like several others familiar to the Parisian people.
The Devil of Vauvert is essentially a Parisian resident, where he has dwelled for many centuries, if historians are to be believed. Sauval, Félibien, Sainte-Foix, and Dulaure have extensively recounted his escapades.
He first appears to have inhabited the Château de Vauvert, which was located where the lively Chartreuse ball now stands, at the edge of the Luxembourg Gardens and opposite the Observatoire avenues, on Rue d'Enfer.
This castle, of ill repute, was partly demolished, and its ruins became an annex of a Carthusian monastery, where Jean de la Lune, nephew of antipope Benedict XIII, died in 1414. Jean de la Lune had been suspected of having relations with a certain devil, who perhaps was the familiar spirit of the old Château de Vauvert, each of these feudal edifices having its own, as is well known.
Historians have left us nothing precise about this interesting phase.
The Devil of Vauvert made headlines again during the time of Louis XIII.
For a very long time, every evening, a great noise had been heard in a house made from the remains of the old convent, whose owners had been absent for several years; this greatly alarmed the neighbors.
They went to warn the lieutenant of police, who sent a few archers.
What was the astonishment of these soldiers upon hearing a clinking of glasses mixed with shrill laughter!
They first thought they were counterfeiters indulging in an orgy, and, judging their number by the intensity of the noise, they went to seek reinforcements.
But it was still judged that the squad was not sufficient; no sergeant cared to lead his men into this lair, where it seemed one could hear the din of an entire army.
Finally, towards morning, a sufficient body of troops arrived: they entered the house. They found nothing.
The sun dispelled the shadows.
All day, searches were conducted, then it was conjectured that the noise came from the catacombs, located, as is known, beneath this district.
They were preparing to enter; but, while the police were making their arrangements, evening had come again, and the noise started anew, louder than ever.
This time, no one dared to go back down, because it was evident that there was nothing in the cellar but bottles, and that therefore it had to be the devil putting them in a dance. They contented themselves with occupying the approaches of the street and asking the clergy for prayers.
The clergy offered a multitude of prayers, and holy water was even sent with syringes through the cellar vent.
The noise still persisted.
II
THE SERGEANT
For a whole week, crowds of Parisians continuously obstructed the approaches to the faubourg, frightened and asking for news.
Finally, a sergeant of the provost's office, bolder than the others, offered to enter the cursed cellar, in exchange for a reversible pension, in case of death, for a seamstress named Margot.
He was a brave man, more in love than credulous. He adored this seamstress, who was a well-dressed and very thrifty person, one might even say a little avaricious, and who had not wanted to marry a simple sergeant devoid of any fortune.
But, by earning the pension, the sergeant would become a different man.
Encouraged by this prospect, he exclaimed "that he believed neither in God nor in the devil, and that he would get to the bottom of this noise."
—What do you believe in, then? one of his companions asked him.
—I believe, he replied, in Monsieur the criminal lieutenant and in Monsieur the provost of Paris.
That was saying too much in too few words.
He took his saber in his teeth, a pistol in each hand, and ventured down the stairs.
The most extraordinary spectacle awaited him upon reaching the cellar floor.
All the bottles were engaged in a frantic sarabande and formed the most graceful figures.
The green seals represented the men, and the red seals represented the women.
There was even an orchestra set up on the bottle racks.
Empty bottles resonated like wind instruments, broken bottles like cymbals and triangles, and cracked bottles emitted something of the piercing harmony of violins.
The sergeant, who had drunk a few pints before embarking on the expedition, seeing only bottles, felt greatly reassured, and began to dance himself by imitation.
Then, more and more encouraged by the gaiety and charm of the spectacle, he picked up a lovely long-necked bottle of pale Bordeaux, as it appeared, carefully sealed with red, and pressed it lovingly to his heart.
Frantic laughter erupted from all sides; the sergeant, intrigued, dropped the bottle, which shattered into a thousand pieces.
The dancing stopped, cries of fright were heard from all corners of the cellar, and the sergeant felt his hair stand on end as he saw the spilled wine seemed to form a pool of blood.
The body of a naked woman, whose blonde hair spread across the ground and soaked in the dampness, lay at his feet.
The sergeant would not have been afraid of the devil himself, but this sight filled him with horror; remembering after all that he had to account for his mission, he seized a green seal that seemed to sneer before him, and exclaimed:
—At least I'll have one!
An immense cackle answered him.
However, he had regained the staircase and, showing the bottle to his comrades, he exclaimed:
—There's the imp!... You're quite the cowards (he uttered another, even stronger word) for not daring to go down there!
His irony was bitter. The archers rushed into the cellar, where only a broken bottle of Bordeaux was found. The rest was in place.
The archers lamented the fate of the broken bottle; but, brave now, they all insisted on coming up, each with a bottle in hand.
They were allowed to drink them.
The provost sergeant said:
—As for me, I'll keep mine for my wedding day.
They could not refuse him the promised pension, he married the seamstress, and....
You'll think they had many children?
They had only one.
III
WHAT FOLLOWED
On the day of the sergeant's wedding, which took place at La Râpée, he placed the famous bottle with the green seal between himself and his wife, and made a point of pouring that wine only for her and for him.
The bottle was green as ash, the wine was red as blood.
Nine months later, the seamstress gave birth to a small monster, entirely green, with red horns on its forehead.
And now, go, oh young girls! go dance at the Chartreuse... on the site of the Château de Vauvert!
However, the child grew, if not in virtue, at least in size. Two things bothered his parents: his green color, and a caudal appendage that at first seemed to be merely an extension of the coccyx, but which gradually began to resemble a real tail.
They went to consult scholars who declared that it was impossible to extirpate it without compromising the child's life. They added that it was a rather rare case, but examples of which could be found cited in Herodotus and Pliny the Younger. Fourier's system was not then foreseen.
As for the color, it was attributed to a predominance of the bilious system. However, several caustics were tried to lessen the overly pronounced shade of the epidermis, and after a host of lotions and frictions, it was brought sometimes to bottle-green, then to sea-green, and finally to apple-green. For a moment, the skin seemed to whiten completely; but, in the evening, it regained its hue.
The sergeant and the seamstress could not be consoled for the sorrows caused by this little monster, who became increasingly stubborn, angry, and mischievous.
The melancholy they experienced led them to a vice too common among people of their kind. They took to drink.
Only, the sergeant would only drink wine sealed with red, and his wife only wine sealed with green.
Each time the sergeant was dead drunk, he saw in his sleep the bloody woman whose apparition had terrified him in the cellar after he had broken the bottle.
This woman said to him:
"Why did you press me to your heart, only to sacrifice me... me who loved you so?"
Each time the sergeant's wife had celebrated the green seal too heartily, she would see in her sleep a great, terrifying devil appear, who would say to her:
"Why are you surprised to see me... since you drank from the bottle? Am I not the father of your child?..."
O mystery!
When he reached the age of thirteen, the child disappeared.
His inconsolable parents continued to drink, but they no longer saw the terrible apparitions that had tormented their sleep.
IV
MORALITY
Thus was the sergeant punished for his impiety, and the seamstress for her avarice.
V
WHAT BECAME OF THE GREEN MONSTER
It was never known.
LITTLE CASTLES OF BOHEMIA
TO ARSÈNE HOUSSAYE
My friend, you ask me if I could find some of my old verses, and you are even curious to know how I was a poet, long before becoming a humble prose writer.—Don't you know, you who wrote these lines:
Let's adorn the old chest with old porcelains
And make roses and marjoram bloom again.
Let a lampas curtain still embrace these beds
Where our young loves were buried.
Let's hang the Venetian mirror in the bright day:
Don't you seem to see Cydalise there
Breathing a flower she held in her hand
And already sensing the sad tomorrow?
I send you the three ages of the poet; there is only an obstinate prose writer left in me. I wrote the first verses out of youthful enthusiasm, the second out of love, the last out of despair. The Muse entered my heart like a goddess with golden words; she escaped from it like a pythoness, crying out in pain. Only, her last accents softened as she moved away. She turned away for a moment, and I saw again, as in a mirage, the adored features of yesteryear!
The life of a poet is like everyone's. It is useless to define all its phases. And, now,
Let us rebuild, friend, this perishable castle
That the breath of the world has cast upon the sand.
Let us replace the sofa under the Flemish paintings
And for one more day let us reread our novels.
I
FIRST CASTLE
It was in our shared lodging in the Rue du Doyenné that we recognized each other as brothers,—Arcades ambo,—very close to where the old Hôtel de Rambouillet once stood.
The old salon of the Doyenné, restored by the care of so many painters, our friends, who have since become famous, resounded with our gallant rhymes, often interrupted by the joyful laughter or the wild songs of the Cydalises. Good Rogier smiled in his beard, from the top of a ladder, where he was painting a Neptune on one of the four overmantels,—who resembled him! Then the two leaves of a door opened with a crash: it was Théophile. He broke an old Louis XIII armchair as he sat down. They hastened to offer him a gothic stool, and he, in turn, read his first verses,—while Cydalise the First, or Lorry, or Victorine, swung nonchalantly in Sarah the blonde's hammock, stretched across the immense salon.
One of us would sometimes get up, and dream of new verses while contemplating, from the windows, the sculpted facades of the Museum gallery, enlivened on that side by the trees of the riding school.
You said it well:
Théo, do you remember those green seasons
That shed their leaves so quickly in those old houses,
Whose front was sheltered under a wing of the Louvre?
Or else, through the opposite windows, which overlooked the alley, vague provocations were addressed to the Spanish eyes of the commissioner's wife, which often appeared above the municipal lantern.
What happy times! We gave balls, suppers, costume parties; we performed old comedies, where Mademoiselle Plessy, still a beginner, did not disdain to accept a role: it was that of Béatrice in Jodelet.—And how comical our poor Édouard Ourliac was in the roles of Harlequin.[1]
We were young, always cheerful, sometimes rich... But I've just struck a somber chord: our palace is razed. I trod on its debris last autumn. Even the ruins of the chapel, which stood so gracefully against the green of the trees, and whose dome had collapsed one day in the 17th century, upon eleven unfortunate canons gathered for a service, were not spared. The day they cut down the trees of the riding school, I will go and reread Ronsard's La Forêt coupée in the square:
Listen, woodcutter, hold your arm a while!
These are not just woods you're felling;
Don't you see the blood, which profusely drips,
From the nymphs, who lived beneath the golden bark.
It ends like this, as you know:
The matter remains and the form is lost!
Around that time, I found myself, one day, still rich enough to rescue from the demolishing crew and buy back in two lots the salon's woodwork, painted by our friends. I have Nanteuil's two over-doors; Vattier's Watteau, signed; Corot's two long panels, depicting two Provence Landscapes; Châtillon's Red Monk, reading the Bible on the arched hip of a sleeping naked woman[2]; Chassériau's Bacchantes, holding tigers on leashes like dogs; Rogier's two pier glasses, where Cydalise, in Regency costume—in a faded taffeta dress, a sad omen—smiles, with her Chinese eyes, smelling a rose, facing the full-length portrait of Théophile, dressed in Spanish fashion. The dreadful landlord, who lived on the ground floor, but on whose head we too often danced, after two years of suffering that led him to give us notice, has since had all these paintings covered with a distemper layer, because he claimed the nudes prevented him from renting to bourgeois families.—I bless the sense of economy that led him not to use oil paint.
So, all of that is pretty much saved. I didn't find Lorentz's Siege of Lérida, where the French army storms, preceded by violins; nor Rousseau's two small Landscapes, which were probably cut out beforehand; but I do have, by Lorentz, a powdered Maréchale in Louis XV uniform.—As for my Renaissance bed, my Medici console, my sideboards[3], my Ribera[4], my Four Elements tapestries, all that had long since scattered.
—"Where did you lose so many beautiful things?" Balzac asked me one day.
—"In misfortunes!" I replied, quoting one of his favorite sayings.
Let's talk about Cydalise again, or rather, just a word about her: she is embalmed and preserved forever in the pure crystal of a sonnet by Théophile,—by Théo, as we called him.
Théophile was always considered stout; however, he never developed a paunch, and has remained as we knew him. Our tight-fitting clothes are so absurd that Antinous, dressed in a suit, would seem enormous, like Venus, dressed in a modern gown: one would look like a Sunday-best market porter, the other like a fishmonger. The solid frame of our friend's body (we can say it, since he is traveling in Greece today) often does him a disservice with ladies subscribed to fashion magazines; a more perfect acquaintance has maintained his favor with the weaker and more intelligent sex; he enjoyed a great reputation in our circle, and didn't always die at Cydalise's Chinese feet.
Going further back in my memories, I find a thin Théophile... You didn't know him. I saw him, one day, stretched out on a bed—long and green—his chest covered with cupping glasses. He was gradually rejoining his pseudonym, Théophile de Viau, whose pantheistic loves you described, along the shaded path of the Allée de Sylvie. These two poets, separated by two centuries, would have shaken hands in Virgil's Elysian Fields, far too soon.
Here is what happened concerning this matter:
There were several of us friends, from an earlier bohemian life, who merrily lived the existence we still lead, albeit more settled now. The dying Théophile pained us, and we had new ideas of hygiene, which we communicated to his parents. The parents understood, a rare thing; but they loved their son. The doctor was dismissed, and we said to Théo:
—Get up... and come drink.
The weakness of his stomach initially worried us. (He had fallen asleep and felt ill at the first performance of Robert le Diable.) The doctor was called back. The latter began to reflect, and, seeing him full of health upon waking, said to the parents: —Perhaps his friends are right.
From that time on, Théophile flourished again. —There was no more talk of cupping, and they gave him over to us. Nature had made him a poet; our care made him almost immortal. What succeeded most with his temperament was a certain preparation of blackcurrant without sugar, which his sisters served him in enormous stoneware amphorae from the Beauvais factory; Ziégler later gave whimsical forms to what were then merely simple, heavy-bellied pitchers. When we shared our poetic inspirations, as a precaution, the room was furnished with mattresses, so that the paroxysm, sometimes due to the Bacchus of blackcurrant, would not compromise our heads with the angles of the furniture.
Théophile, saved, thereafter drank only watered-down wine and a finger of Champagne at small suppers.
However, we had despaired of softening the commissioner's wife. Her husband, less fierce than she, had responded with a very polite letter to the collective invitation we had sent them. As it was impossible to sleep in these old houses, due to the choreographic aftermath of our suppers — furnished with the complacent silence of the neighboring authorities — we invited all the distinguished tenants of the cul-de-sac, and we had a collection of embassy attachés, in blue suits with gold buttons, young Conseillers d'État[5], budding référendaires, whose brood of already serious, but still amiable men, developed in this block of houses, overlooking the Tuileries and the nearby ministries. They were received only on condition of bringing women of the world, protected, if they wished, by domino masks and half-masks.
Only the landlords and concierges were condemned to disturbed sleep—by the chords of a deliberately chosen guinguette orchestra, and by the frantic leaps of a monstrous gallop, which, from the hall to the stairs and from the stairs to the cul-de-sac, would necessarily lead to a small square surrounded by trees, where a cabaret had taken shelter under the imposing ruins of the Doyenné chapel. In the moonlight, one could still admire the remains of the vast Italian dome that had collapsed, in the 17th century, upon the eleven unfortunate canons—an accident for which Cardinal Mazarin was for a moment suspected.
But you will ask me to explain further, in pale prose, these six lines from your play entitled Twenty Years.
Whence comes, O Gérard! this academic air?
Would the beautiful eyes of the Opéra-Comique
Be lit elsewhere? The queen of the Sabbath,
Who, for two winters, struggles in your arms,
Would she escape you like a chimera?
And Gérard replied: "How bitter is woman!"
Why of the Sabbath..., my dear friend? And why now cast absinthe into this golden cup, molded on a beautiful breast?
Do you no longer remember the verses of your Song of Songs, where the new Ecclesiastes addresses this same queen of the morning:
The pomegranate that opens to the Italian sun
Is not yet so joyful, to my enchanted eyes,
As your half-opened lip, O my beautiful folly!
Where I drink in long draughts the wine of delights.
We will resume this literary and philosophical discourse later.
The Queen of Sheba, it was indeed she who preoccupied me then—and doubly so. The dazzling phantom of the daughter of the Himyarites tormented my nights under the tall columns of that great carved bed, bought in Touraine, and not yet furnished with its red brocatelle with arabesques. Francis I's salamanders poured their flame down on me from the cornices, where imprudent Cupids played. She appeared to me radiant, as on the day when Solomon admired her advancing towards him in the crimson splendors of the morning[6]. She came to offer me the eternal enigma that the Sage could not solve, and her eyes, animated more by mischief than by love, alone tempered the majesty of her oriental face. How beautiful she was! yet no more beautiful than another queen of the morning whose image tormented my days.
This latter woman brought my ideal and divine dream to life. Like the immortal Balkis, she possessed the gift communicated by the miraculous hoopoe. The birds fell silent upon hearing her songs, and would certainly have followed her through the air.
The question was how to get her to debut at the Opéra. Meyerbeer's triumph became the guarantee of a new success. I dared to undertake the poem. I would thus have united in a flash of flame the two halves of my double love. That is why, my friend, you saw me so preoccupied on one of those splendid nights when our Louvre was celebrating.—A word from Dumas had informed me that Meyerbeer was expecting us at seven in the morning.
I thought only of that in the midst of the ball. A woman, whom you no doubt remember, was weeping profusely in a corner of the salon, and, no more than I, wanted to bring herself to dance. This beautiful, tearful woman could not manage to hide her sorrows. Suddenly she took my arm and said:
—Take me home, I cannot stay here.
I left, offering her my arm. There was no carriage in the square. I advised her to calm down and dry her eyes, then to return to the ball; she only agreed to walk around the small square. I knew how to open a certain plank door that led to the riding arena, and we talked for a long time in the moonlight, under the lime trees. She recounted all her despair at length.
The man who had brought her had fallen for another; hence an intimate quarrel; then she had threatened to return alone or accompanied; he had replied that she was free to do as she pleased. Hence the sighs, hence the tears.
Daybreak was not far off. The grand saraband was beginning. Three or four history painters, not much given to dancing, had opened the small tavern and were singing at the top of their lungs: Il était un raboureur, or else: C'était un calonnier qui revenait de Flandre, a memory of Mother Saguet's joyful gatherings. Our refuge was soon disturbed by some masqueraders who had found the small door open. There was talk of going to have breakfast in Madrid—at the Madrid in the Bois de Boulogne—which sometimes happened. Soon the signal was given, we were swept along, and we set off on foot, some mistaking their women and their way—you remember—others escorted by three French Guards, two of whom were simply Messrs. d'Egmont and de Beauvoir;—the third was Giraud, the ordinary painter of the French Guards.
The sentinels of the Tuileries could not comprehend this unexpected apparition, which seemed like the ghost of a scene from a hundred years ago, where French guards would have led a noisy troupe of masqueraders to the guardhouse. Furthermore, one of the two charming little tobacco sellers who adorned our balls dared not be taken to Madrid without notifying her husband, who was guarding the house. We accompanied her through the streets. She knocked on her door. The husband appeared at the window of the mezzanine. She shouted to him:
—I'm going to have breakfast with these gentlemen.
He replied:
—Go to hell! It was hardly worth waking me up for that!
The beautiful, desolate woman put up a rather weak resistance, allowing herself to be led to Madrid, and I, for my part, bid farewell to Rugier, explaining that I wanted to go work on my screenplay.
"What! You're not coming with us? This lady has no other escort but you... and she chose you to see her home."
"But I have an appointment at seven o'clock at Meyerbeer's, do you understand!"
Rogier burst into laughter. One of his arms was occupied by Cydalise; he offered the other to the beautiful lady, who gave me a little mocking nod. At least I had helped replace her tears with a smile.
I had abandoned the substance for the shadow... as always!
II
SECOND CASTLE
That one was a castle in the air, built with frames, trusses and platforms... Shall I tell you its radiant story, both poetic and lyrical? Let's first return to the rendezvous given by Dumas, which made me miss another.
With all the fire of youth, I had written a very complicated scenario, which seemed to please Meyerbeer. I enthusiastically embraced the hope he gave me; however, another opera, les Frères corses, was already destined for him by Dumas, and mine had only a rather distant future. I had written one act when I suddenly learned that the agreement between the great poet and the great composer was broken, I don't know why.—Dumas was leaving for his Mediterranean trip, Meyerbeer had already returned to Germany. The poor Queen of Sheba, abandoned by all, has since become a simple oriental tale that is part of the Nights of Ramadan.
Thus poetry fell into prose and my theatrical castle into the third basement.—However, scenic and lyrical ideas had awakened in me; I wrote an act of comic opera in prose, reserving the right to insert pieces later. I have just found the original manuscript, which never tempted the musicians to whom I submitted it. It is therefore merely a simple proverb, and I only mention it here as an episode in these little literary memoirs[1].
III
THIRD CASTLE
Castle of cards, bohemian castle, castle in Spain,—these are the first stages to be traversed by any poet. Like that famous king whose story Charles Nodier told, we possess at least seven of those during the course of our wandering life, and few of us reach that famous castle of brick and stone, dreamed of in youth,—from where some long-haired beauty smiles lovingly at us from the only open window, while the trellised panes reflect the splendors of the evening.
Meanwhile, I do believe I once passed through the devil's castle. My Cydalise, lost, forever lost!... A long story, which unfolded in a Northern country,—and which resembles so many others! Here I only want to give the reason for the golden verses, conceived in fever and insomnia. It begins with despair and ends with resignation.
Then a purified breath of early youth returned, and a few poetic flowers still opened, in the form of the beloved odelette,—to the skipping rhythm of an opera orchestra.
But you remind me, my dear friend, that it was about discussing poetry, and I'm getting to it incidentally.—Let's resume that academic air you reproached me for.
I do believe you are referring to the memoir I once sent to the Institute, at the time of a competition on the history of poetry in the XVIth century. I have found it, and it may interest readers, like the sermon that good Sterne mixed with the macaronic adventures of Tristram Shandy.
IV
THE POETS OF THE XVIth CENTURY
There is currently a very important question being debated in literature: it is asked whether modern poetry can gain any benefit from the study of French writers prior to the XVIIth century.
The Academy of Floral Games had even set this as the topic for its eloquence prize this year; and it's clear that if a provincial academy ventures such a question, it's because the status quo of Malherbe and Boileau is in serious danger of collapse.
I don't know if the annual report of the Floral Games has been published yet: in Paris, we rarely see it; but a provincial newspaper, which recently gave some details about this competition, informs us that the crowned piece answered the question affirmatively.
It was viewed from a high perspective and broadly treated, as they say today: "The Middle Ages," exclaimed the laureate, "overflows into us through literature... Imagination alone can reopen the sources of genius; it has plunged into barbarous times; it has sought there the living powers of the Middle Ages, Christianity, chivalry, religious quarrels, political revolutions, etc..." But the runner-up held a very different opinion; all possible poetry, in his view, was contained within the grand century: beyond that, nothing but barbarism and confusion..., with the exception of a few epigrams by Marot; nothing that could be understood before Ronsard, and at most four legible lines from him (according to La Harpe). Then the runner-up sharply chastised these retrograde innovators who want to lead us back to the infancy of poetry, proposing as models barbarous poets who had not the slightest tincture of ancient literatures, as if the inimitable writers of Louis XIV's century were not the only ones worthy of imitation!
Work, young laureates, work; it may be that each of you is right: let one offer us compositions where all that Middle Ages he so well depicts revives, let the other surpass, if he can, the illustrious models he sets for himself... But let him surpass them, do you hear? For it is impossible to accept a literature that is not progressive. Look closely: it is a terrible pretension to perfect Racine, and yet the question lies there.
Frankly, I see in the young innovator more artistic conscience, coupled with more modesty: he respects our great authors too much to venture into the genre they so gloriously occupied; he proposes less superior models in a literature little explored, and which has achieved no kind of perfection: these models, he can without too much pride hope to surpass, happy if he endowed our century with a fertile source of inspiration and communicated to others the desire to surpass him in this endeavor.
For it must be admitted, with all possible respect for the authors of the grand century, they have too narrowly circumscribed the circle of poetic compositions; sure for themselves never to lack space and materials, they did not think of those who would succeed them, they "robbed their nephews," as the Métromane put it: to the point that we are left with only two courses of action, either to surpass them, as I have just said, or to pursue a literature of servile imitation that will go as far as it can; that is to say, which will resemble that well-known series of drawings where, through successive and degraded copies, one manages to turn Apollo's profile into a hideous frog's head.
Such observations are very old, no doubt; but one must not tire of bringing them before the public's eyes, since there are people who do not tire of repeating the sophisms they have long since refuted. In general, there seems to be too much fear, in literature, of constantly repeating good reasons; one writes too much for those who know; and it follows that the new listeners who arrive daily at this great quarrel either do not understand an already advanced discussion, or are indignant to suddenly see, and without knowing why, principles adopted for centuries called into question.
It is not a question, therefore (far be such a thought from us!), of depreciating the merit of so many great writers to whom France owes its glory; but, not hoping to do better than them, to seek to do otherwise, and to approach all genres of literature that they have not seized upon.
And this is not to say that we should imitate foreigners, but only follow the example they have given us, by deeply studying our primitive poets, as they have done with theirs.
For all primitive literature is national, being created only to meet a need, and in accordance with the character and customs of the people who adopt it; whence it follows that, just as a seed contains an entire tree, the first attempts of a literature contain all the germs of its future development, of its complete and definitive development.
To make this clear, it is enough to recall what happened with our neighbors: after literatures of foreign imitation, like our so-called classical literature, after the century of Pope and Addison, after that of Wieland and Lessing, some short-sighted people may have believed that everything had been said for England and for Germany...
Everything! except the masterpieces of Walter Scott and Byron, except those of Schiller and Goethe; some, spontaneous products of their era and their soil; others, new and strong offshoots of the ancient stock; all nourished at the source of the traditions, of the primitive inspirations of their homeland, rather than at that of Hippocrene.
Thus, let no one say to art: "You shall go no further!" to the century: "You cannot surpass the centuries that preceded you!..." This is what antiquity claimed by setting the Pillars of Hercules: the Middle Ages scorned them, and discovered a world.
Perhaps there are no more worlds to discover; perhaps the domain of intelligence is complete today and one can go around it, like that of the globe; but it is not enough that everything has been discovered; even in that case, one must cultivate, one must perfect what has remained fallow or imperfect. How many plains exist that cultivation would have made fertile! how many rich materials, which only needed to be worked by skillful hands! how many ruins of unfinished monuments!... This is what is offered to us, and in our very homeland, to us who had confined ourselves for so long to magnificently designing a few royal gardens, to cluttering them with foreign plants and trees preserved at great expense, to overloading them with stone gods, to decorating them with water jets and trees cut into porticos.
But let us stop here, lest in too eagerly fighting the prejudice which forbids French literature, as a retrograde movement, a return of study and investigation towards its origin, we appear to be tilting at windmills, or striking in the air like En telle. The principle was more contested at a time when a celebrated German writer thus envisioned the future of French poetry:
"If poetry (we translate Mr. Schlegel) could later re-flourish in France, I believe that this would not be by imitating the English or any other people, but by a return to the poetic spirit in general, and in particular to the French literature of ancient times. Imitation will never lead the poetry of a nation to its definitive goal, and especially the imitation of a foreign literature that has reached the greatest intellectual and moral development of which it is capable; but it is enough for each people to go back to the source of its poetry and its popular traditions to distinguish what belongs to it specifically and what belongs to it in common with other peoples. Thus religious inspiration is open to all, and always new poetry emerges from it, suitable for all minds and all times: this is what Lamartine understood, whose works announce to France a new poetic era," etc.
But did we, in fact, have a literature before Malherbe? observe some irresolute ones, who have only followed La Harpe's literature course.—For the common reader, no! For those who would like to see Rabelais and Montaigne put into modern French, for those to whom the style of La Fontaine and Molière seems somewhat neglected, no! But for those intrepid lovers of French poetry and language who are not frightened by an archaic word, who are not amused by a trivial or naive expression, who are not put off by the oncques, the ainçois, and the ores, yes! for foreigners who have so often drawn from this source, yes!... Moreover, they are not afraid to acknowledge it[1], and laugh heartily to often see our writers humbly accuse themselves of having taken ideas from them that they themselves had stolen from our ancestors.
But, before going further, let us pose the question in a way that makes it better understood, and for that, let us take advantage of the division indicated by M. Sainte-Beuve, in his excellent Tableau de la poésie au XVIe siècle, which attributes the establishment of the classical system in France to Ronsard's school, and not to Malherbe; this circumstance had not been sufficiently emphasized until then, due to the unwarranted disregard for the poets of the XVIe century.
So we will now ask: Did a national literature exist before Ronsard—a complete literature, capable by itself, and on its own, of inspiring men of genius and fueling vast conceptions? A simple enumeration will prove that it did exist: that it existed, divided into two distinct parts, like the nation itself, one of which, called chivalric literature by German critics, seemed to owe its origin to the Normans, Bretons, Provençals, and Franks; while the other, born from the very heart of France, and essentially popular, is quite well characterized by the epithet Gallic.
The first includes: historical poems, such as the romances of Rou (Rollo) and Brut (Brutus), the Philippide, the Combat des trente Bretons, etc.; chivalric poems, such as le Saint Graal, Tristan, Partenopex, Lancelot, etc.; allegorical poems, such as the romances of the Rose, of Renard, etc., and finally all light poetry, songs, ballads, lais, chants royaux, plus all Provençal or Romance poetry.
The second includes mysteries, moralities, and farces (including Patelin); fabliaux, tales, facetiae, satirical books, carols, etc.: all works where humor predominated, but which often offer profound or sublime passages, and teachings of high morality amidst floods of frivolous and licentious gaiety.
Well, who wouldn't have promised a future to such a strong literature, so varied in its elements, and who wouldn't be astonished to see it suddenly overthrown, almost without a fight, by a handful of innovators who claimed to resurrect Rome, dead for sixteen hundred years—Roman Rome—and bring it back victorious, with its customs, its forms, and its gods, to a Northern people, half composed of Germanic nations, and into an entirely Christian society? These innovators were Ronsard and the poets of his school; the movement they imparted to literature has continued to this day.
It would be too long to recount the history of high poetry in France, for it was truly in decline in Ronsard's century; withered in its seeds, dead without having achieved the development to which it seemed destined; all this, because it had only found court poets to employ it, who drew from it only songs of celebration, adulation, and insipid gallantry; all this for lack of men of genius who knew how to understand it and put its rich materials to use.
These men of genius were, however, found abroad, and Italy, especially, owes us its greatest poets of the Middle Ages; but, in our own country, what had become of the high promises of the 12th and 13th centuries? To some ridiculous poetry, where metrical constraint or feats of rhyme took the place of color and poetry; to insipid and obscure allegorical poems, to heavy and diffuse legends, to arid rhymed historical accounts; all this covered by a poetic language a hundred years older than prose and common speech, for the rhymers of that time so slavishly imitated the poets who had preceded them that they even preserved their antiquated language. Consequently, everyone had grown disgusted with poetry in serious genres, and people were only concerned with translating the poems and romances of the 12th century into that prose which grew daily in grace and vigor. Finally, it was decided that the French language was not suitable for high poetry, and scholars hastened to take advantage of this ruling to claim that it should only be treated in Latin and Greek verse.
As for popular poetry, thanks to Villon and Marot, it had kept pace with prose, illustrated by Joinville, Froissart, and Rabelais; but, once Marot was gone, his school was not up to continuing his legacy. It was this school, however, that offered the most serious resistance to Ronsard, and indeed, although it no longer counted superior men, it was quite strong in epigrams: the Mellin's pincers,[2] which pinched Ronsard so hard in the midst of his glory, became proverbial.
I do not know if the few phrases I have just ventured are enough to show the literature of that time in a state of interregnum that follows the death of a great genius, or the end of a brilliant literary era, as has been seen several times since; if one clearly imagines the flock of second-rate writers turning restlessly right and left and looking for a guide: some faithful to the memory of the great men who are no more, and leaving a place in the ranks for their shadow; others tormented by a vague desire for innovation that results in ridiculous attempts; the wisest making theories and translations... Suddenly a man appears, with a strong voice, towering over the crowd: the latter divides into two parties, the struggle begins, and the giant ends up triumphing, until a more skillful one jumps on his shoulders and is alone proclaimed very great.
But let's not anticipate: we are in 1549, and within a few months, the Defense and Illustration of the French Language[3] and the first Pindaric Odes by Pierre de Ronsard appeared.
The Defense of the French Language, by J. du Bellay, one of Ronsard's companions and students, is a manifesto against those who claimed that the French language was too poor for poetry, that it should be left to the common people, and that one should only write in Greek and Latin verses; du Bellay replies to them "that languages are not born of themselves like herbs, roots, and trees; some infirm and weak in their hopes, others healthy and robust and more apt to bear the burden of human conceptions, but that all their virtue was born into the world, from the will and arbitration of mortals. That is why one should not thus praise one language and blame the other, seeing that they all come from the same source and origin: it is the fancy of men; and have been formed by the same judgment to the same end: it is to signify among us the conceptions and understandings of the mind. It is true that, through the succession of time, some, having been carefully regulated, have become richer than others; but this should not be attributed to the felicity of said languages, but solely to the artifice and industry of men. In this regard, I cannot sufficiently blame the foolish arrogance and temerity of some of our nation, who, being nothing less than Greeks or Latins, despise or reject with a more than stoic frown all things written in French."
He continues by proving that the French language should not be called barbaric, and yet investigates why it is not as rich as the Greek and Latin languages: "This must be attributed to the ignorance of our ancestors, who, having a greater regard for good deeds than for good words, deprived themselves of the glory of their good deeds, and us of the fruit of imitating them, and, by the same means, left our language so poor and bare that it needs ornaments, and, if I may say so, the feathers of others. But who would say that Greek and Roman had always been in the excellence in which they were seen in the time of Horace and Demosthenes, of Virgil and Cicero? And, if these authors had judged that never, despite any diligence and cultivation that could have been made, they would have been able to produce greater fruit, would they have striven so hard to bring them to the point where we see them now? So I can say of our language, which is still beginning to flower, without bearing fruit; this, certainly, not through a defect in its nature, as apt to engender as others, but through the fault of those who had it in their keeping and did not cultivate it sufficiently. If the ancient Romans had been as negligent in the cultivation of their language when it first began to proliferate, it certainly would not have become so great in so short a time; but they, like good farmers, first transplanted it from a wild place to a domesticated one, then, so that it could bear fruit sooner and better, cutting off the useless branches around it, they restored it, in exchange for these, with frank and domestic branches, masterfully drawn from the Greek language, which immediately grafted so well and became so similar to their trunks that they no longer appear adopted, but natural."
This is followed by a diatribe against translators, who were abundant then, as always happens in such literary epochs; du Bellay claims that "this labor of translating is not a sufficient means to elevate our vernacular to the equal of other more famous languages. What is needed then? To imitate! To imitate the Romans, as they did the Greeks; as Cicero imitated Demosthenes, and Virgil, Homer."
We have just seen what he thinks of Latin verse-makers and translators; now for the imitators of old literature: "And certainly, as it is not a vicious thing, but greatly laudable, to borrow sentences and words from a foreign language, and to appropriate them to one's own: so it is a thing greatly to be reproached, even odious to any reader of liberal nature, to see in the same language such an imitation, as that of some scholars themselves, who deem themselves the best the more they resemble Héroet or Marot. I therefore admonish you, O you who desire the growth of your language and wish to excel in it, not to imitate offhand, as someone recently said, the most famous authors of it; a thing certainly as vicious as it is unprofitable to our vernacular, seeing that it is nothing else but giving it what was already its own."
He casts a glance at the future, and does not believe that one should despair of equaling the Greeks and Romans: "And as Homer complained that, in his time, bodies were too small, it should not be said that modern minds are not to be compared to ancient ones; architecture, the art of the navigator, and other ancient inventions, are certainly admirable, and yet not so great that one should believe the heavens and nature to have expended all their virtue, vigor, and industry there. I will produce as witnesses to what I say the art of printing, sister of the Muses and tenth of them, and that no less admirable than pernicious artillery; along with so many other non-ancient inventions which truly show that, through the long course of centuries, the minds of men are not so debased as one would like to say. But I still hear some stubborn person exclaiming: 'Your language is too slow to achieve its perfection,' and I say that this delay does not prove that it cannot achieve it; I also say that it can be certain of keeping it for a long time, having acquired it with such long effort; following the law of nature which willed that every tree that is born, flowers and bears fruit quickly, also quickly ages and dies, and on the contrary, that one which has long labored to cast its roots will endure for many years."
Here ends the first book, which has only dealt with language and poetic style; in the second, the question is approached more frankly, and the intention of overthrowing old literature and substituting ancient forms is expressed with more audacity:
"I shall think I have deserved much from my countrymen if I only point out to them the path they must follow to attain the excellence of the ancients: let us therefore set forth, to begin with, what we have, it seems to me, sufficiently proven in the first book. That is, that without the imitation of the Greeks and Romans, we cannot give our language the excellence and light of other more famous ones. I know that many will criticize me for having dared, the first of the French, to introduce almost a new poetry, or will not be fully satisfied, both because of the brevity I wished to use and because of the diversity of minds, some of whom find good what others find bad. Marot pleases me, says someone, because he is easy and does not stray from the common way of speaking; Héroët, says someone else, because all his verses are learned, grave, and elaborate; others delight in another. As for me, such superstition has not deterred me from my undertaking, because I have always considered our French poetry to be capable of some higher and more marvelous style than that with which we have so long contented ourselves. Let us therefore briefly state what we think of our French poets."
"Of all the ancient French poets, almost only Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun[4] are worthy of being read, not so much for the many things in them that moderns should imitate, but rather to see in them a primary image of the French language, venerable for its antiquity. I have no doubt that all fathers would cry shame if I dared to criticize or amend anything in those they learned as youths, which I also do not wish to do; but I do maintain that he is too great an admirer of antiquity who wishes to defraud the young of their deserved glory: valuing nothing but what death has consecrated, as if time, like wines, made poetry better. The more recent ones, even those named by Clément Marot in a certain epigram to Salel, are well enough known by their works; I refer readers to them for judgment."
He continues with some praise and many criticisms of contemporary authors, and returns to his initial point, that one must imitate the ancients, "and not French authors, because from the latter one can only take very little, like the skin and color, whereas from the former one can take the flesh, bones, nerves, and blood."
"Therefore, read and reread first, O future poet! the Greek and Latin exemplars; then leave all these old French poems to the Floral Games of Toulouse and the Puy de Rouan, such as rondeaus, ballades, virelais, chants royaux, chansons, and such other trifles that corrupt the taste of our language and serve only to bear witness to our ignorance. Throw yourself into these pleasant epigrams, not as a bunch of modern storytellers do today, who are content to have said nothing worthwhile in the first nine lines, provided that in the tenth there is a little word for a laugh, but in imitation of a Martial, or some other well-approved author; if lewdness does not please you, mix the profitable with the sweet; distill with a flowing and not rough style tender elegies, following the example of an Ovid, a Tibullus, and a Propertius; interspersing sometimes those ancient fables, no small ornament of poetry. Sing to me those odes still unknown to the French language, with a well-tuned lute to the sound of the Greek and Roman lyre, and let there be nothing where some vestiges of rare and ancient erudition appear. As for epistles, it is not a poem that can greatly enrich our vernacular, because they are readily familiar and domestic things, unless you wish to make them in imitation of elegies like Ovid, or sententious and grave like Horace: I tell you the same about satires which the French, I don't know how, have named 'coq-à-l'âne' (cock-and-bull stories), in which I also advise you to exercise yourself little, unless it is after the example of the ancients in heroic verses, and, under this name of satire, to modestly tax the vices of one's time and pardon the names of vicious persons. For this you have Horace, who, according to Quintilian, holds the first place among satirists. Sing to me these beautiful sonnets[5]; a no less learned than pleasant Italian invention, for which you have Petrarch and some modern Italians. Sing to me with a well-resonant musette the pleasant rustic eclogues, after the example of Theocritus and Virgil. As for comedies and tragedies, if kings and republics wished to restore them to their ancient dignity, which farces and moralities have usurped, I would be of the opinion that you should engage in them, and, if you wish to do so for the ornament of the language, you know where you should find their archetypes."
I do not believe I will be reproached for having quoted this entire chapter where the literary revolution is so audaciously proclaimed; it is curious to witness this complete demolition of medieval literature for the benefit of all genres of ancient composition, and the analogous reaction taking place today should give it new interest.
Du Bellay further advises the introduction of compound words from Latin and Greek into the French language, primarily recommending their use in the liberal arts and sciences. He more reasonably recommends the study of figurative language, of which French poetry had until then little knowledge; he also proposes some new word combinations that have since been partially adopted: "to boldly use the infinitive for the noun, such as Veiller (to watch), le chanter (the singing), le vivre (the living), le mourir (the dying); the substantivized adjective, such as le vide de l'air (the emptiness of the air), le frais de l'ombre (the coolness of the shade), l'épais des forêts (the thickness of the forests); verbs and participles, which by their nature do not have infinitives after them, with infinitives, such as tremblant de mourir (trembling to die) for fearing de mourir (to die), etc. Also, beware of falling into a common vice, even among the most excellent writers of our language: the omission of articles."
"I do not want to forget emendation, certainly the most important part of our studies; its office is to add, remove, or change at leisure what the first impetuosity and ardor of writing had not allowed to be done; it is necessary to set aside our newborn writings, review them often, and, in the manner of bears, give them form by licking. However, one should not be too superstitious about it, or, like elephants with their young, take ten years to give birth to one's verses. Above all, we should have some learned and faithful companions who can recognize our faults and are not afraid to wound our paper with their nails. I also want to advise you to sometimes frequent not only scholars, but also all kinds of artisans and mechanical people, to learn their inventions, the names of materials, and terms used in their arts and trades, so as to draw from them beautiful comparisons and descriptions of all things."
"Does it not seem to you, sirs, who are such enemies of your language, that our poet, thus armed, could go out into the field and show himself in the ranks with the brave Greek and Roman squadrons? And you others, so ill-equipped, whose ignorance has given the ridiculous name of 'rhymester' to our language, will you dare to endure the sun, the dust, and the dangerous labor of this combat? I am of the opinion that you should retreat to the baggage with the pages and lackeys, or else (for I pity you) under the cool shades, among the ladies and damsels where your beautiful and charming writings, no longer lasting than your life, will be received, admired, and adored. Would that the Muses, for the good I wish our language, banish your inept works not only, as they are, from the libraries of scholars, but from all of France."
It is clear that the literary disputes of that time were no less animated than they are today. Du Bellay exclaims that all kings who love their language should forbid the printing of the works of the outdated poets of the era.
"Oh! how I long to see these springs dry up, these little youths chastised, these trial efforts put down, these fountains run dry, in short, to abolish these fine titles sufficient to disgust any learned reader from reading further! I no less wish that these destitute ones, these humble hopefuls, these baths of Joy, these slaves, these crossers[6], be sent back to the Round Table, and these beautiful little devices to the gentlemen and damsels from whom they were borrowed. What more shall I say? I implore Phoebus Apollo that France, after having been so long barren, pregnant with him, may soon give birth to a poet whose well-sounding lute will silence these hoarse bagpipes, just as frogs do when a stone is thrown into their marsh."[7]
After a new exhortation to the French to write in their language, du Bellay concludes: "Now, here we are, thank God, after many perils and foreign waves, safely returned to port. We have escaped from among the Greeks and through the Roman squadrons, penetrated to the heart of France, France so desired. There then, Frenchmen, march courageously towards that superb Roman city, and, with its spoils, adorn your temples and altars. Fear no longer those squawking geese, that proud Manlius and that treacherous Camillus, who, under the guise of good faith, surprise you naked while counting the ransom of the Capitol. Go into that lying Greece and sow once again the famous nation of the Gallo-Greeks. Plunder without conscience the sacred treasures of that Delphic temple, as you did before, and fear no longer that mute Apollo nor his false oracles. Remember your ancient Marseille, second Athens; and your Gallic Hercules drawing peoples after him by their ears with a chain attached to his tongue."
Du Bellay's book is truly remarkable; it's one of those that shed the most light on the history of French literature, and perhaps also the least known of all treatises written on the subject. I'm not aware of any author having used it for two centuries, except for M. Sainte-Beuve, who provided me with an analysis. I wouldn't have risked this citation, which is even longer, if I didn't consider it the most accurate history one could write about the Ronsard school.
Indeed, everything is there: seeing how faithfully the reforms preached and theories developed in the Défense et Illustration de la langue française have been adopted and put into practice in all their aspects since, it's even difficult to doubt that it isn't the work of this entire school. I mean Ronsard, Ponthus de Thiard, Remi Belleau, Étienne Jodelle, J. Antoine de Baïf, who, joined with Du Bellay, formed what was later called the Pléiade[8]. Moreover, most of these authors had written many works following the system preached by Du Bellay, although they hadn't yet had them printed. Furthermore, odes are discussed in the Illustration, and Ronsard later states in a preface that he was the first to introduce the word ode into the French language, a claim that has never been disputed.
But whether this book was written by multiple hands, or a single pen expressed the wishes and doctrines of an entire association of poets, it bears the mark of either the most complete ignorance of ancient French literature or the most blatant injustice. All the contempt that Du Bellay rightly professes towards the poets of his time who imitated older poets is, quite wrongly, also directed at those who couldn't help it. It's as if, today, one were to blame the authors of the grand siècle for the mediocrity of modern rhymers who invoke their names.
Could it be that Du Bellay, who so strongly recommends grafting foreign branches onto the nearly dying national trunk, never even considers that better cultivation could restore its life, and doesn't believe it capable of bearing fruit on its own? He advises creating words based on Greek and Latin, as if there weren't enough sources to compose new ones solely from old French; he insists on introducing odes, elegies, satires, etc., as if all these poetic forms hadn't already existed under different names; he advocates for the ancient poem, as if Norman chronicles and chivalric romances didn't fulfill all its conditions, moreover, adapted to the character and history of the Middle Ages; and for tragedy, as if the mysteries lacked anything other than being handled by men of genius to become the tragedy of the Middle Ages, freer and truer than the ancient one. Let's suppose, for a moment, that the greatest foreign poets, those most opposed to the classical system of antiquity, were born in France in the 16th century, and found themselves in the same situation as Du Bellay and his friends. Do you believe they wouldn't have been, there and then, with only the resources and elements existing in French literature, what they became in different eras and countries? Do you believe Ariosto wouldn't have composed his Orlando Furioso just as well with our fabliaux and chivalric poems; Shakespeare, his dramas with our novels, chronicles, farces, and even our mysteries; Tasso, his Jerusalem Delivered with our books of chivalry and the dazzling poetic colors of our Romance literature, etc.? But the poets of the classical reform were not of this stature, and perhaps it is unfair to expect them to have seen in ancient French literature what these great men saw with the eye of genius, and what we, today, undoubtedly see only through them. At the very least, nothing can justify the superb disdain that led the poets of the Pléiade to declare that absolutely nothing existed before them, not only in serious genres but in all; taking no more account of Rutebœuf than of Charles d'Anjou, of Villon than of Charles d'Orléans, of Clément Marot than of Saint-Gelais, and of Rabelais than of Joinville and Froissart in prose. Without this eagerness to exclude, to rebuild only on ruins, one cannot deny that the study and even momentary imitation of ancient literature could have been, in the circumstances of the time, very favorable to the progress of our own literature and language; but excess spoiled everything: from form, they moved to content; they were not content with introducing the ancient poem, they wanted it to tell the history of the ancients and not our own; for tragedy, they wanted it to celebrate only the misfortunes of the illustrious families of Oedipus and Agamemnon; they led poetry to recognize and invoke no other gods than those of mythology; in short, this expedition, so cleverly presented by Du Bellay as a conquest over foreigners, did, on the contrary, only bring them as conquerors within our walls; it tended to gradually erase our national character, to make us ashamed of our customs and even our language for the benefit of antiquity; to bring us, in a word, to the height of ridicule that even in the 19th century, we still depicted our kings and heroes in Roman costumes, and that we used Latin for the inscriptions on our monuments, seduced as we were by false ideas of taste and propriety. Good heavens! What will our great-grandchildren say one day upon discovering Christian gravestones bearing the inscription: diis manibus[9]! monuments on which it is written: MDCCCXXX° ANNO REGNANTE CAROLO DECIMO, PRÆFECTUS ET ÆDILES POSUERUNT, etc.[10]!Will they not be justified in believing that in the year 1830, Roman domination still existed in France; just as by reading some fragments of our poetry that have survived time, they might persuade themselves that paganism was also our dominant religion? It is certainly to this lack of harmony and sympathy between classical literature and our customs and national character that we must attribute, in addition to the ridiculous anomalies I have partly cited, the lack of popularity it has achieved.
This is a digression that takes me far afield: I've haphazardly thrown in some well-worn arguments; there are volumes of much better ones, and yet how many people still refuse to accept them! A more reasonable trend has, it is true, been noticeable for some years now[11]: people are starting to read a little French history; and, when in colleges one manages to know it almost as well as ancient history, and when also one dedicates a few hours to the study of the French language, snatched from Greek and Latin, great progress will undoubtedly be made for the national spirit, and perhaps less disdain for old French literature will follow, for all these things are interconnected.
I accused Ronsard's school of imposing a classical literature on us, when we could have done very well without it, and especially of imposing it so exclusively, so disdainful of all our past; but, considering its works and innovations from another point of view, that of the progress of style and poetic color, we must admit that we owe it much gratitude; we must admit that, in all genres that do not require great creative force, in all genres of graceful and light poetry, it surpassed both the poets who preceded it and many of those who followed it. In these kinds of compositions too, classical imitation is less noticeable: Ronsard's short odes, for example, seem mostly inspired, rather by the songs of the 12th century, which they often surpass in naivety and freshness; his sonnets too, and some of his elegies are imbued with true poetic sentiment, so rare, whatever one may say, that the entire 18th century, however rich in various poems, seems to be utterly devoid of it.
But, to make clear the immense progress Ronsard brought to poetic language, so pale until his time in serious genres, it is good to give an idea of what it was like when he took it up. For that, I randomly transcribe the beginning of a poem published the same year as his Pindaric odes, and by one of the most esteemed authors of the time. (Pandore, by Guillaume de Tours.)
O god Phoebus, father of holy poets,
Of the great thunderer, the lineage so bright,
Who upon your head with golden wig
Bears the flowers of Daphne transformed
Into a laurel ever green, emblazoned,
For you gird yourself with it, and make it your crown,
Come, come to us, come here in the manner
That on Helicon, high mountain situated
Very high, you teach the learned sisters
There, with bare feet dancing to the signs
Of their gaiety, all around the altars
Of your kinsman Jupiter and the third
You, gladdened by sweet melody
Soothe them and with your poetry;
Be present here, and to the labor and pain
Of singing you give a joyous gift
Of fine verse and grant it favor,
For we are pleased to interweave and join the fable, which is no less
Than other narratives, as well composed as Astreus, holy poet, etc.
Truly, nothing surpassed these verses in all the high poetry of that era; if anyone doubts it, let them read Marot's hymns, Marot, so poetic in amusing genres, and they will see what an abyss existed between elevated style and graceful, naive style. Now, judge what admiration the public of 1550 must have felt upon hearing stanzas like those I am about to quote, which were part of a Pindaric ode where the poet recounted the war of the gods against the Titans[12].
Bellona's head was covered
With steel, upon which scowled
Medusa's open maw,
Which, full of flames, growled;
In her right hand she grasped the axe
By which kings are angered,
When, in spite, she tears down
The ancient towers of their cities!
The mighty Father, too,
Who with stiffened sinews strives!
Did not forget the force
Of his reddening thunderbolt:
Half-bending his head down,
And raising his arm high,
He aimed his tempest at them,
Which, as it struck them,
Whistled, sharply swirling,
Like a spindle over their heads.
With fire, the two pillars of the world,
Burned to their depths, swayed:
The sky blazed, the earth and the waves
All crackling, sparkled, etc.
The language is still the same as in the piece quoted above; but what a difference in the vigor of the style and the brilliance of the thought! Well, if one wants to know at once where they stand on the progress Ronsard made in poetic language, let them compare this fragment, composed in his early years, with the following verses, composed ten years later, for the accession of Charles IX to the throne. These are some of the counsels he addresses to him:
Never appear pompously dressed
The apparel of kings is virtue alone;
May your body shine with glorious virtues
Not by garments laden with precious stones
Show yourself more desirous of friends than of money,
Princes without friends are always unhappy;
Love good people, always wishing
To resemble those of good life;
Punish the wicked and the seditious:
Be not sorrowful, spiteful, nor furious,
But honest and cheerful, bearing on your face
A gentle testimony of your noble soul.
Now, Sire, inasmuch as no one has the power
To chastise kings who fail in their duty,
Correct yourself, so that the justice
Of God, who is greater, may not punish your faults.
I speak of this mighty God, whose strength is everywhere,
Who guides the universe from one end to the other,
And deals out His equal justice to all humans,
As much to laborers as to royal persons.
Whom we implore to keep you in His law,
And to love you as He did David His king,
And render your scepter tranquil as He did his,
For, without the help of God, strength is useless.
One can judge from these verses, whose style is, in general, that of all Ronsard's discourses, how ridiculous is the accusation of obscurity and harshness that has blighted his poetry for two centuries; and it will furthermore be permissible for us to assert that La Harpe had never read them when he exclaims that one cannot read and understand four consecutive verses in Ronsard. Allow me to quote yet another of his elegies, which, without being everywhere as pure as the preceding piece, is, it seems to me, superior in terms of poetry:
TO MARIE
Six years had passed, and the seventh year
Had almost entirely returned in its steps,
When, far from affection, desire, and love,
In pure liberty I spent the whole day,
And, free from all care that devours souls,
I slept from evening until the dawn;
For, master of myself alone, I went full of leisure
Wherever my foot carried me, guided by my desire,
Always holding in my hands, to serve as my guide,
Aristotle or Plato, or the learned Euripides,
My good silent hosts, who never annoy;
Thus I take them up, thus I put them down.
O sweet company, both useful and honorable!
Another, chattering, would deafen my head.
Then, weary of the book, I looked at the flowers,
Leaves, stems, branches, species, and colors;
And the intertwining of their diverse forms,
Painted in a hundred ways, yellow, red, and Persian (*).
Unable to sate myself, as if in a painting,
With admiring nature and its beauty,
And saying in passing to the blooming flowerets:
“He is almost God who knows all things,
Set apart from the vulgar and far from courtiers,
Impudent artisans of fraud and malice.”
Sometimes I wandered alone through the wild forests
On the enameled banks of the painted shores;
Sometimes through remote and deserted rocks,
Sometimes through the thickets, green home of deer.
I loved the continuous course of a long river,
To see wave upon wave lengthen its career,
And one ripple attach to another as it rolls;
And, leaning on the banks, I enjoyed fishing there,
Being more delighted by a silent hunt,
To disturb the secret dwelling of the scaled ones,
To pull with the line, trembling with excitement,
The credulous fish caught on the baited hook,
Than a great prince is pleased having caught in the hunt
A stag that he has pursued all day, panting.
Happy if you had, with a mutual emotion,
Taken the amorous bait as well as I…
Alas! Lying on the grass, in my thoughts I ponder
That, for loving so much, I have little reward,
And that to give one's heart so deeply to ladies,
Is to wish to paint on water and stop the wind.
Assuring myself, however, that when old age
Will have, like a sorcerer, changed your face,
And when your hair turns silver,
And when your eyes are no longer haunted by love,
You will always have, whatever care touches you,
My writings in your mind, my name on your lips.
(*) Blue.
The reader must be quite surprised not to encounter here that muse speaking French, Greek, and Latin, against which Boileau so harshly contends, to understand this dialect that Ronsard jabbered at the court of the Valois, and not to find it as far removed as he believed from today's beautiful French. This is because, in literature, there is no more strange destiny than that of Ronsard: an idol of an enlightened century; celebrated by the admiration of men such as de Thou, l'Hospital, Pasquier, Scaliger; later proclaimed by Montaigne as the equal of the greatest ancient poets, translated into all languages, surrounded by such consideration that Tasso, on a trip to Paris, coveted the advantage of being introduced to him; honored at his death with almost royal funerals and the regrets of all France, he seemed destined, according to the expression of M. Sainte-Beuve, to enter posterity as if into a temple. No! Posterity came, and it convicted the 16th century of falsehood and bad taste; it delivered to laughter and insult the pieces of the broken idol, and new gods replaced the too-famous Pléiade, adorning themselves with its spoils.
The Pléiade, so be it: what do all these subsequent poets matter, who are Baïf, Belleau, Ponthus, under Ronsard; who are Racan, Segrais, Sarrazin, under Malherbe; who are Desmahis, Bernis, Villette, under Voltaire, etc.?... But, for Ronsard, there is still a posterity: and especially today, when everything is being questioned again, and when high reputations are weighed, like souls in the underworld, naked, stripped of all prejudices, favorable or not, with which they presented themselves to us, who knows if Malherbe will still be found weighty enough to represent the father of classical poetry? That would not be the only judgment of Boileau that the future would have overturned.
We express here only a wish for justice and order, as we see it, and we have not judged Ronsard's school favorably enough to be suspected of partiality. If our conviction is erroneous, it will not be for lack of having examined the case files, for lack of having leafed through books forgotten for three hundred years. If all authors of literary histories had had this conscientiousness, we would not have seen gross errors perpetuated in a thousand different volumes, composed one upon the other; we would not have seen definitive judgments based on bitter and partial criticisms that escaped the momentary fury of a literary struggle, nor high reputations built upon works admired on hearsay.
No, undoubtedly, we are not lenient towards Ronsard's school: and, indeed, one can only be indignant, at first glance, by the kind of despotism it exercised in literature, by that pride with which it Odi profanum vulgus, from Horace, rejecting all popularity as an insult, and esteeming nothing but the noble, and always sacrificing the natural and the true to art. Thus, no poet has celebrated nature and spring more than those of the 16th century, and do you believe they ever thought of seeking inspiration from nature and spring? Never: they contented themselves with gathering what antiquity had said most gracefully on the subject, and composing a whole, worthy of being appreciated by connoisseurs; from this, they took great care to avoid having a thought of their own; and this is so true that the scholarly commentaries honoring their works were only concerned with discovering as many imitations of antiquity as possible. These poets greatly resembled certain painters who compose their paintings only after those of the masters, imitating an arm from one, a head from another, a drapery from a third, all for the greater glory of art, and who treat as ignorant those who venture to ask them if it would not be better to simply imitate nature.
Then, after these reflections, which are unpleasantly affecting at first reading of the works of the Pléiade, a more particular reading reconciles you with it: the principles are worthless; the whole is defective, agreed, and false and ridiculous; but one lets oneself admire certain parts of the details; this primitive and verdant style so well seasons old thoughts, already commonplace among the Greeks and Romans, that they have for us all the charm of novelty; what could be more hackneyed, for example, than this kind of syllogism on which Ronsard's odelette is founded:
Darling, let's go see if the rose...
Well, the execution makes it one of the freshest and most graceful pieces of our light poetry. Belleau's, entitled Avril, entirely composed, moreover, of known ideas, no less enraptures anyone who has poetry in their heart. Who could say in how many ways the eternal comparison of flowers and loves that last but a spring is turned in many other pieces; and so many other commonplaces that all fugitive poems still offer us today? Well, we French, who always attach less value to things than to the way they are said, let ourselves be charmed by them, as by a chord heard a thousand times, if the instrument that repeats it is melodious.
So much for the greater part of Ronsard's school; the master's share must be vaster: not all his thoughts come from antiquity; not everything in his writings is limited to the grace and naivety of expression: one could easily carve out several very remarkable and distinct poets from him, and perhaps it would suffice for that to attribute to each of them a few successive years of his life. The Pindaric poet appears first: it is to his style that the reproaches of obscurity, Hellenism, Latinism, and bombast, which have been perpetuated without examination down to us from notice to notice, could most justly be addressed; the study of other poets of the time would nevertheless have proved that this style existed before him: this frenzy of coining words after the ancients was attacked by Rabelais, long before the appearance of Ronsard and his friends; on the whole, few of them are found in their works that were not already in use. Their main concern was the introduction of classical forms, and, although they also recommended that of words, it does not appear that they concerned themselves much with it, or that they even first employed those double words that have been represented as so frequent in their style.
Now comes the amorous and Anacreontic poet: to him apply the observations made above, and it is he who most influenced a school. Towards the later times, he turns to elegy, and there only few of his imitators could reach him, because of the superiority with which he handles the alexandrine, very little used before him, and which he immensely perfected.
This leads us to the last period of Ronsard's talent, and, it seems to me, to the most brilliant, though the least celebrated. His Discours contain in germ the epistle and regular satire, and, better than all that, a perfection of style that astonishes more than one can say. But also how few poets immediately followed him in this superior region! Only Régnier appears there long after, and one hardly suspects all that he owes to the one he openly acknowledged as his master.
Especially in the discourses is deployed that strong and well-filled alexandrine of which Corneille later held the secret, and which makes his style contrast with that of Racine in such a remarkable way: it is singular that a foreigner, Mr. Schlegel, was the first to make this observation: "I consider it incontestable," he says, "that the great Corneille still belongs in certain respects, especially for the language, to that old school of Ronsard, or at least often recalls it." One will easily be convinced of this truth by reading Ronsard's discourses, and especially that of the Misères du temps.
In recent years, a few poets, Victor Hugo above all, seem to have studied Ronsard's energetic and brilliant versification, disgusted as they were with the other: I mean the Racinian versification, so beautiful at its beginning, and which has since been so worn out and flattened by dint of filing and polishing. It was not worn out, on the contrary, that of Ronsard and Corneille, but merely rusted, for lack of use.
After Ronsard's death, following a lifetime of undisputed triumphs, his disciples, like Alexander's generals, divided his entire empire among themselves, and peacefully completed the subjugation of this literary world, which certainly without him they would not have conquered. But, to long maintain possession of it, it would have been necessary, either for them not to be as secondary as they were, or for a new master to extend a revered and protective hand over all these petty sovereigns. This did not happen; and from then on, one could foresee, from the divisions that erupted, the pretensions that arose, and the public's coolness and hesitation towards new works, the imminence of a revolution analogous to that of 1549, whose great memory of Ronsard, still surviving, feared by some and revered by the majority, could alone delay the explosion for a few years.
Finally Malherbe came! And the struggle began. Certainly, it was then much easier than in the time of Ronsard and du Bellay to found an original literature in France: the poetic language was fully formed thanks to them, and, although we have spoken out against the ancient poetry they substituted for medieval poetry, we do not think that this would have harmed a man of genius, a true reformer who came immediately after them; this man of genius did not appear: hence all the trouble; the movement imprinted in the classical sense, which could even have been of some secondary utility, was pernicious, because it dominated everything: Malherbe's supposed reform consisted absolutely only in regularizing it, and it is from this operation that he drew all his glory[13].
Even then, people sensed how petty and narrowly conceived this pompously announced reform was. Régnier above all, Régnier, a poet of an entirely different brilliance than Malherbe, and whose only fault was being too modest, and contenting himself with excelling in his own genre, without leading any school, chides Malherbe's with a kind of contempt:
Yet, their knowledge extends only
To scratching out a word doubtful to judgment;
Taking care that a qui doesn't clash with a diphthong,
Spying if the rhyme of verses is short or long,
Or if the vowel, uniting with the other,
Doesn't make the ear a verse too languid,
And leaving aside the noble part of the work.
(The Outraged Critic.)
All of this is very true. Malherbe reformed as a grammarian, a quibbler of words, and not as a poet, and, despite all his invectives against Ronsard, he did not even consider that there was a need to depart from the path paved by the poets of the Pléiade, neither by a return to old national literature, nor by the creation of a new literature, founded on the customs and needs of the time, which, in both cases, would probably have led to the same result. His whole pretension was to purify the river that flowed from the silt its waves carried, and which he could not do without also partly removing the gold and precious germs mixed in it: so see what poetry was like after him: I mean poetry.
Art, always art, cold, calculated, never sweet reverie, never true religious feeling, nothing that nature has immediately inspired: the correct, the beautiful exclusively; a uniform nobility of thoughts and expression; it is Midas who has the gift of changing everything he touches into gold. Decidedly, the classical poetry movement is set: only La Fontaine will resist it; hence Boileau will forget him in his Art poétique.
V
EXPLANATIONS
You see, my friend—at that time, I was Ronsardizing—to use a word from Malherbe. Consider, however, the ingenious paradox that forms the core of this work: it was then for us, young people, a matter of enhancing old French versification, weakened by the languor of the XVIIIth century, disturbed by the brutalities of overly ardent innovators; but it was also necessary to maintain the prior right of national literature in what relates to invention and general forms. This distinction, which I owed to the study of Schlegel, seemed obscure even then to many of our friends, who saw in Ronsard the precursor of romanticism.—What trouble one has in France to grapple with words!
I'm not sure who won the prize then offered by the Academy; but I truly believe it wasn't Sainte-Beuve, who has since had his History of Poetry in the XVIth Century crowned by the public. As for myself, it's clear that then I could only aspire to college prizes, from which this ambitious piece distracted me without profit.
He who lacks the spirit of his age
Suffers all its misfortunes!
However, I was so furious about my disappointment that I wrote a satirical dialogue against the Academy, which was published by Touquet. It wasn't good, and yet Touquet had told me, with his keen eyes under his spectacles shaded by his wide-brimmed cap: "Young man, you will go far." Fate proved him right by giving me a passion for long journeys.
But, you will ask me, one must finally speak of these first verses, these juvenilia. "Sound me these sonnets," as du Bellay used to say.
Well, having been admitted to the assiduous study of these old poets, rest assured that I in no way sought to pastiche them, but that their forms of style impressed me despite myself, as has happened to many poets of our time.
Ronsard's odelettes, or small odes, had served as my model. This was still a classical form, imitated by him from Anacreon, Bion, and, to a certain extent, Horace. The concentrated form of the odelette seemed no less precious to preserve than that of the sonnet, where Ronsard so happily drew inspiration from Petrarch, just as, in his elegies, he followed in Ovid's footsteps; however, Ronsard was generally more Greek than Latin, which is what distinguishes his school from that of Malherbe.
VI
MUSIC
Have these already old poems still retained some fragrance?—I wrote them in all rhythms, imitating more or less, as one does when one begins. There are some I can no longer find: one in particular about butterflies, of which I only recall this stanza:[1]
The butterfly, a stemless flower
Fluttering,
Gathered in a net;
In infinite nature,
Harmony
Between the flower and the bird.
This is still a Ronsardian cut, and it can be sung to the tune of Joseph's canticle. Note one thing, that odelettes were sung and even became popular, as evidenced by this phrase from the Roman comique: "We heard the servant, who, with a mouth imbued with garlic, sang the ode of old Ronsard:
Let's with our voices
And our ivory lutes
Ravish the spirits!"
This was, moreover, only a renewal of ancient odes, which were also sung. I had written the first ones without thinking about this, so they are not at all lyrical. The one titled Les Cydalises came to me as a song despite myself; I had found both the verses and the melody at the same time, which I had to have notated, and which was found to be very concordant with the words.—Ni bonjour ni bonsoir (Neither good morning nor good evening) is based on a Greek air.
I am convinced that any poet could easily compose the music for his verses if he had some knowledge of notation.
Rousseau, however, is almost the only one who, before Pierre Dupont, succeeded.
I was recently discussing this with S***, regarding Richard Wagner's attempts. Without approving of the current musical system, which turns the poet into a lyricist, S*** seemed to fear that the innovation of the author of Lohengrin, which entirely subordinates music to poetic rhythm, might revert it to the infancy of art. But doesn't it happen every day that an art rejuvenates itself by drawing from its sources? If there is decadence, why fear it? If there is progress, where is the danger?
It is very true that the Greeks had fourteen lyrical modes based on the poetic rhythms of fourteen chants or songs. The Arabs have the same number, in imitation of them. From these primitive timbres result infinite combinations, whether for the orchestra or for opera. Ancient tragedies were operas, undoubtedly less advanced than ours; medieval mysteries were also complete operas with recitatives, arias, and choruses; even the duet, trio, etc., began to emerge. One might say that the choruses were sung only in unison—so be it. But have we only achieved one of those material advancements that perfect form at the expense of grandeur and sentiment? If an Italian composer steals a popular tune circulating in the streets of Naples or Venice, and makes it the main motif of a duet, a trio, or a chorus, if he outlines it in the orchestra, completes it, and follows it with another equally plundered motif, will he therefore be an inventor? No more than a poet. He will only have the merit of composition, that is, of arrangement according to rules and according to his style or particular taste.
But this aesthetic would lead us too far, and I am incapable of sustaining it with accepted terms, never having been able to grasp solfège. Only my stanzas entitled Subterranean Chorus have an ancient color that would have delighted old Gluck.
It is difficult to become a good prose writer if one has not been a poet; which does not mean that every poet can become a prose writer. But how to explain the separation that almost always establishes itself between these two talents? It is rare for both to be attributed to the same writer: at least one predominates the other. Why also is our poetry not popular like that of the Germans? It is, I believe, because we must always distinguish these two styles and these two genres—chivalric and Gallic, in origin—which, in losing their names, have retained their general division. There is talk at the moment of a collection of national songs gathered and published at great expense. There, no doubt, we will be able to study the ancient rhythms conforming to the primitive genius of the language, and perhaps some means will emerge to soften and vary these beautiful but monotonous forms that we owe to the classical reform. Rich rhyme is a grace, without doubt, but it too often brings back the same formulas. It makes poetic narrative boring and heavy most of the time, and is a great obstacle to the popularity of poems.
I refer the reader here to The Daughters of Fire, in which I have cited some songs from a province where I was raised and which is specially called “France.” It was, in effect, the ancient domain of emperors and kings, today divided into a thousand diverse possessions.
MY IMPRISONMENTS
SAINTE-PÉLAGIE IN 1831
These memories will never succeed in making me a Silvio Pellico, not even a Magallon... Perhaps I rotted less in dungeons than many of my literary National Guard friends; however, I had the privilege of more varied emotions; I shook off more chains, I saw daylight filter through more bars; I was a more serious, more significant prisoner; in a word, if because of my imprisonments I did not place myself on a heroic pedestal, I can say that it was pure modesty on my part.
The adventure dates back a few years; M. Gisquet's Memoirs have just clarified the period in my memory; it is, moreover, linked to very well-known circumstances; it was during a certain winter when some artists and poets began to parody the suppers and nights of the Regency. They had the pretension of getting drunk in the tavern; they were refined, ruffianly, and red-heeled all at once. And what was most real in this reaction towards the old customs of French youth was, not the red heel, but the tavern and the orgy; it was the wine from the barrier drunk from skulls and singing the round of Lucrezia Borgia; all in all, few girls abducted, even fewer bourgeois beaten; and, as for the watch, formed by municipal guards and sergeants de ville, far from letting themselves be charged with blows from sticks and swords, they understood the color of an illustrious era poorly enough to sometimes put the diners in jail, as simple nocturnal brawlers.
This is what happened to some friends and me, one evening when the city was in an uproar for political reasons of which we were profoundly ignorant; we crossed the riot singing and scoffing, like the Epicureans of Alexandria (at least, we flattered ourselves that we were). A moment later, the neighboring streets were surrounded, and, from the midst of an immense crowd, composed, as always, mostly of simple onlookers, the most bearded and long-haired were extracted, based on a fallacious piece of information that, at that time, often led to such errors.
I will not describe the pains of a night spent in the lock-up; at the age I was then, one sleeps perfectly on the inclined plank in such places; waking up is more painful. We had been separated; there were three of us under the same key in the guardhouse of the Place du Palais-Royal. The lock-up at this post is a real dungeon, and I advise no one to get arrested there. After probably sleeping several hours, we woke up to the noise in the guardhouse; moreover, we didn't know if it was day or night.
We started by calling out; we were ordered to keep quiet. We first asked to leave, then to have breakfast, then to smoke some cigars: refused on all these points; then no one thought of us anymore; so, we shook the door, we banged on the planks, we made the lock-up produce all the harmony proper to it; that tired us out for an hour; daylight still hadn't come; finally, a few hours later, - probably around noon, the barely perceptible shadow of a certain light was projected onto the ceiling and then moved across it like a clock hand. We regretted the fate of famous prisoners, who had at least been able to grow a flower or tame a spider; Fouquet's dungeon, Casanova's Leads, came back to us at length; then, as we were deprived of all food, we had to stop at Ugolino's torment... Around four o'clock, we heard an active noise of glasses and forks: it was the municipal guards dining.
I would regret prolonging this journal of very vulgar impressions shared by so many drunkards, brawlers, or coachmen in violation; after eighteen hours in the lock-up, we were led before a commissioner, who sent us to the Prefecture, still under the weight of the same prejudices. From then on, our situation at least became interesting. We could write to the newspapers, appeal to public opinion, complain bitterly about being treated like criminals; but we preferred to take things in stride and cheerfully take advantage of this opportunity to study new details for us. Unfortunately, we had the weakness of having ourselves put in the pistole, instead of sharing the common room, which greatly diminishes the value of our observations.
The pistole consists of small, very clean rooms with one or two beds, where the concierge provides everything one asks for, as in the national guard prison; the floor is tiled, the walls are covered with drawings and inscriptions; one drinks, reads, and smokes; the situation is therefore very bearable.
Around noon, the concierge asked if we wanted to join the company while they were doing the service. This offer was only to distract us, as we could have simply waited in another room. The company was the thieves.
We entered a large room furnished with benches and tables; it simply resembled a low-class tavern. Near the stove, they showed us a man in a green frock coat, who they said was the famous Fossard, arrested for the theft of medals from the Library.
He had a rather fierce and scowling face, grayish hair, and a hypocritical eye. One of my companions started talking to him. He thought he could pity him for being a high intelligence perhaps misguided; he put forth a host of social ideas and paradoxes of the time, found genius on his forehead, and asked permission to feel his head, to examine the phrenological bumps.
Upon this, Mr. Fossard became very angry, exclaiming that he was by no means a man of intelligence, but a very honorable jeweler well-known in his neighborhood, arrested by mistake; that only informers would question him as they were doing.
—Learn, sir, said a neighbor to our comrade, that there are only honest people here.
We hastened to excuse and explain our friend's artistic solicitude, who, to dissipate the nascent ill-will, began to draw a superb Napoleon on the wall; he was immediately recognized as a very distinguished painter.
Upon returning to our cells, we learned from the concierge that the Fossard we had spoken to was not the convict celebrated by Vidocq, but his brother, arrested at the same time as him.
A few hours later, we appeared before an examining magistrate, who sent two of us to Sainte-Pélagie on suspicion of conspiracy against the State. It was then, as far as I can remember, about the famous conspiracy of the Rue des Prouvaires, to which our poor supper had been linked by I don't know what very tangled threads.
At that time, Sainte-Pélagie offered three large, completely separate divisions. Political detainees occupied the most pleasant part of the prison. A very large courtyard, surrounded by grilles and covered galleries, was used all day for walks and circulation. There was the Legitimist quarter and the Republican quarter. Many prominent figures from both parties were then under lock and key. Newspaper managers, destined to remain prisoners for a long time, had all obtained very nice rooms. Those from Le National, La Tribune, and La Révolution were the best housed in the right wing. La Gazette and La Quotidienne occupied the left wing, above the public warming room.
I have just mentioned the aristocracy of the prison; non-journalist detainees, but paying for their board, were divided into several dormitories of seven to eight people; in these divisions, not only pronounced opinions but even nuances were taken into account. There were several dormitories of republicans, among whom unitarians, federalists, and even socialists, still few in number, were rigorously distinguished. Bonapartists, whose newspaper was La Révolution de 1830, since defunct, were also represented; the Legitimist combatants from Vendée and the conspirators of the Rue des Prouvaires were hardly fewer in number than the republicans; moreover, there was a whole vast dormitory filled with the unfortunate Swiss arrested in Vendée, constituting the plebs of the legitimist party. That of the various popular parties, the residue of so many riots and conspiracies of the time, still made up the most numerous and turbulent part of the prison; however, it was marvelous to see the perfect order and even the unity that reigned among all these prisoners of various origins; never a dispute, never a hostile or mocking word; the legitimists sang O Richard or Vive Henri IV on one side, the republicans responded with La Marseillaise or Le Chant du départ; but this was without disturbance, without affectation, without enmity, and like the apostles of two oppressed religions each protesting before their altar.
I arrived quite late at Sainte-Pélagie, and a private room couldn't be arranged for me until the next day. So, I had to spend the night in one of the common dormitories. It was a vast gallery with about forty beds. I was tired, annoyed by the noise in the common room, where I had initially been taken and was allowed to stay until curfew. I preferred to head to the cot I'd been assigned and fell into a deep sleep.
The arrival of my roommates soon woke me. These gentlemen came up the stairs, belting out la Marseillaise at the top of their lungs; they called this their evening prayer. After la Marseillaise naturally came le Chant du départ, then the Ça ira, after which I hoped to fall back asleep in peace; but I was sorely mistaken. These good fellows decided to cap off the ceremony with a re-enactment of the July Revolution. It was a kind of play of their own making, a grand charade that they performed quite often, as I was told. They started by pushing two or three tables together; some volunteered to play Charles X and his ministers holding council on this improvised stage; you can imagine the costumes and dialogue. Then came the taking of the Hôtel de Ville; then an evening at court in Saint-Cloud, the provisional government, La Fayette, Laffitte, etc.: everyone had their role and spoke accordingly. The grand finale of the performance was a massive battle of the barricades, for which beds and mattresses had to be overturned; horsehair bolsters, hard as logs, served as projectiles. As for me, who had stubbornly stayed in my bed, I can't deny that I got a few splashes from the battle. Finally, when the triumph was deemed sufficiently decided, victors and vanquished reunited to sing la Marseillaise again, which lasted until one in the morning.
Waking up the next day from such an interrupted sleep, I heard a voice coming from the cot to my left. This voice was addressing the occupant of the cot to my right; no one else was up yet.
—Pierre!
—What is it?
—Is it your turn for chores this morning?
—No, not me; I did the room yesterday.
—Well, who then?
—It's the new guy; he's over there, sleeping.
It became clear that the new guy was me; I pretended to keep sleeping; but it was no longer possible; everyone was getting up at the sound of a bell, and I was forced to do the same.
I sadly thought about the chore and the annoyance of working for the representatives of the free people; the drawbacks of equality appeared to me quite clearly this time; but I soon learned that, there too, money was an aristocracy. My neighbor on the right came and whispered to me:
—Sir, if you wish, I will do your chore; it costs five sous.
You can imagine with what pleasure I bought my way out of the burden imposed by republican equality, and I told myself, thinking about it, that it might have been less arduous, in terms of chores, to clean a king's room than a people's. The people who started the Jacquerie probably hadn't foreseen my situation.
Half an hour later, a second bell rang, signaling that the entire prison was free to move about internally; it was also the signal for food distribution. Everyone took an earthenware bowl and a jug, which made us look a bit like Gideon's army. In a lower gallery, the distribution had already begun; it was given to all prisoners without exception and consisted of a military bread and a jug of water; after which, the bowls were filled with a kind of broth on which floated a very small piece of beef; at the bottom of this clear broth, one could still find large peas or beans that the prisoners called vestiges, no doubt due to their scarcity.
Furthermore, the canteen at the back of the courtyard served all three divisions of Sainte-Pélagie. However, only political prisoners had the privilege of entering and dining there. Two small hatches sufficed for the debt prisoners (who were not yet in Clichy) and the thieves, located in a different wing. Communication wasn't entirely forbidden between these diverse prisoners. A few openings in the wall were used to pass brandy, wine, or books from one prison to another. Thus, while the thieves lacked brandy, one of them ran a sort of lending library; bottles and novels were exchanged with the help of strings; the debtors sent newspapers; and their courtesies were returned with provisions, which the political section was better supplied with than any other.
Indeed, the Legitimist party generously supported its defenders. Every morning, mountains of pâtés, poultry, and bottles piled up in the prison's visiting room. The Swiss-Vendéans were especially the object of this attention and kept open house. I was invited to partake in one of these meals, or rather, this meal, which lasted my entire stay; for most of the guests remained at the table all day, and under the table all night, and one could apply Victor Hugo's line here:
The feast always begins again, from some end or another.
Moreover, connections were quickly made, and all opinions participated in this hospitality, with everyone also bringing what they could in terms of food and wine; only a very small number of fierce republicans kept themselves apart from these gatherings; and even they tried not to make a show of it. Towards the middle of the day, the large courtyard, the promenoir, presented a very lively spectacle; a few Phrygian caps alone indicated the most pronounced nuance; otherwise, there was perfect freedom of costumes, speech, and songs. This prison was the ideal of absolute independence dreamed of by many of these gentlemen, and, apart from the ability to pass through the outer gate, they applauded themselves for enjoying all the liberties and all the rights of man and citizen within it.
However, if liberty clearly reigned in this small corner of the world, the same was not true for equality. As I have already noted, the question of money created a great difference in positions, just as costume and education did in relationships and friendships. My former dormitory comrades were so accustomed to this that from the moment I was housed in the pistole, none of them dared to speak to me anymore; similarly, one almost never saw a republican in a frock coat walking or conversing familiarly with a republican in a jacket. I often had occasion to notice that the latter were well aware of this, and one will be convinced by a rather amusing incident that occurred during my stay. One of the establishment's boys was carrying a chicken to one of the party's bigwigs, lodged in the right pavilion. At the same time, he had to deliver a bottle of wine to some workers playing cards in the warming room. He entered there, holding the bottle in one hand and the dish in a napkin in the other:
“Who are you taking that to?” a familiar July urchin asked him.
“It's a chicken for M. M***.”
“Well, well! But that must be good...”
“It's better than your boiled meat and your scraps,” another observed.
“Isn't there a leg for me?” said the child of Paris...
And he tugged a little at a leg sticking out of the napkin. Unfortunately, the leg came off. One can imagine what happened next. The chicken disappeared in the blink of an eye. The canteen boy was distraught, not knowing whom to blame.
“Take him that,” said a joker in the room.
He gathered all the bones on the plate and wrote on a piece of paper: “Republicans should not eat chicken.” From time to time, a large carriage, called a salad basket, would come to pick up some of the prisoners who were only suspects, and transport them to the Palace of Justice, before the investigating judge. I myself had to appear there twice. It was then a whole day lost; for, upon arriving at the Prefecture, one had to wait one's turn in a large, crowded room, which, I believe, was called the mousetrap. I cannot help but protest here against the confusion that was then made between the various types of detainees. I believe that this was, moreover, only due to a momentary overcrowding.
After my last interview with the judge, my freedom depended solely on a decision from the council chamber. It was declared that there were no grounds for further action, and from then on, I didn't even have to defend my innocence. I was dining quite merrily with several of my new friends when I heard my name called from the bottom of the stairs, with these words: Arms and baggage! which means: "Free." Prison had become so pleasant to me that I asked to stay until the next day. But I had to leave. I wanted at least to finish dinner; that wasn't possible. I almost provided the spectacle of a prisoner being forcibly put out of prison. It was five o'clock. One of the guests escorted me to the door and embraced me, promising to visit me upon his release from prison. He still had two or three months to serve. It was the unfortunate Gallois, whom I never saw again, for he was killed in a duel the day after his release.
OCTOBER NIGHTS
PARIS—PANTIN—MEAUX
I
REALISM
With time, the passion for grand voyages fades, unless one has traveled long enough to become a stranger to one's homeland. The circle narrows more and more, gradually approaching home.—Unable to go far this autumn, I had planned a simple trip to Meaux.
I should mention that I have already seen Pontoise.
I quite like these small towns that are about ten leagues from the radiating center of Paris, modest planets. Ten leagues is far enough that one isn't tempted to return in the evening,—so one can be sure that the same doorbell won't wake you up the next day, so one can find a calm morning between two busy days.
I pity those who, seeking silence and solitude, candidly wake up in Asnières.
When this idea came to me, it was already past noon.
I was unaware that on the 1st of the month, the departure times for the Strasbourg railway had changed. I had to wait until half-past three.
I walk back down rue d'Hauteville. I meet a loiterer whom I wouldn't have recognized had I not been idle, and who, after the first words about the weather, begins to open a discussion concerning a point of philosophy. In the midst of my counter-arguments, I miss the three o'clock omnibus. This was happening on boulevard Montmartre. The simplest thing was to go have a glass of absinthe at Café Vachette and then have a quiet dinner at Désiré and Baurain's.
The newspaper politics were soon read, and I began to idly leaf through the Revue Britannique. The interest of a few pages, translated from Charles Dickens, led me to read the entire article titled The Key to the Street.
How fortunate the English are to be able to write and read chapters of observation devoid of any admixture of romantic invention! In Paris, we would be asked for it to be strewn with anecdotes and sentimental stories,—ending either in death or marriage. The realistic intelligence of our neighbors is content with absolute truth.
Indeed, will a novel ever capture the effect of life's bizarre combinations! You invent man, not knowing how to observe him. Which novels are preferable to the comic or tragic stories of a court newspaper?
Cicero criticized a verbose orator who, having to say that his client had embarked, expressed himself thus: "He rises,—he dresses,—he opens his door,—he steps out of the threshold,—he follows the Flaminian Way to the right,—to reach the Place des Thermes," etc., etc.
One wonders if this traveler will ever reach port; but he already interests you, and, far from finding the lawyer verbose, I would have demanded a portrait of the client, a description of his house, and the physiognomy of the streets; I would have even wanted to know the time of day and the weather. But Cicero was the orator of convention, and the other was not enough of the true orator.
II
MY FRIEND
"And what does that prove?" as Denis Diderot used to say.
This proves that the friend I met is one of those rooted gawkers whom Dickens would call cockneys, a rather common product of our civilization and capital. You will have seen him twenty times, you are his friend, and he does not recognize you. He walks in a dream as the gods of the Iliad sometimes walked in a cloud; only, it's the opposite: you see him, and he does not see you.
He will stop for an hour at a bird seller's door, trying to understand their language from the phonetic dictionary left by Dupont (de Nemours)—who identified fifteen hundred words in the nightingale's language alone!
Not a circle surrounding a singer or a bootblack, not a brawl, not a dogfight, where he doesn't pause his distracted contemplation. The conjurer always borrows his handkerchief, which he sometimes has, or the five-franc piece, which he doesn't always have.
Approach him, and he's charmed to find an audience for his chatter, his systems, his endless dissertations, his tales from the other world. He will talk to you de omni re scibili et quibusdam aliis, for four hours, with lungs that gain strength as they warm up; and will only stop when he notices that passers-by are forming a circle, or that the cafe waiters are making their beds. He even waits for them to turn off the gas. Then, he must leave; let him revel in the triumph he has just achieved, for he has all the resources of dialectic, and with him, you will never have the last word on anything. At midnight, everyone thinks with dread of their doorman.—As for himself, he has already mourned his own, and will go for a walk a few leagues away, or, simply, to Montmartre.
What a good walk, indeed, that of the Montmartre hills, at midnight, when the stars twinkle and one can observe them regularly at the meridian of Louis XIII, near the Butter Mill! Such a man does not fear thieves. They know him; not that he is always poor, sometimes he is rich; but they know that if need be, he would know how to use a knife, or perform the four-sided windmill, using the first stick he finds. For the slipper, he is a student of Lozès. He only ignores fencing, because he doesn't like points, and has never seriously learned the pistol, because he believes that bullets have their numbers.
III
THE NIGHT OF MONTMARTRE
It's not that he plans to sleep in the Montmartre quarries, but he will have long conversations with the lime burners. He will ask the quarrymen for information about antediluvian animals, inquiring about the old quarrymen who were Cuvier's companions in his geological research. Some are still found. These abrupt but intelligent men will listen for hours, by the light of flaming faggots, to the history of the monsters whose remains they still find, and the tableau of the globe's primitive revolutions.—Sometimes a vagabond wakes up and demands silence, but he is immediately silenced.
Unfortunately, the large quarries are closed today. There was one on the side of Château Rouge, which looked like a druidic temple, with its tall pillars supporting square vaults. The eye plunged into depths from which one trembled to see Ésus, or Thoth, or Cernunnos, the formidable gods of our fathers, emerge.
Today, there are only two habitable quarries left on the Clignancourt side. But all of them are filled with workers, half of whom are sleeping to relieve the others later. This is how color is lost! A thief always knows where to sleep: generally, in the quarries, only honest vagabonds who dared not ask for asylum at the police station, or drunks who had come down from the hills and could not drag themselves further, were arrested.
Sometimes, on the Clichy side, there are enormous gas pipes prepared for later use, and left outside because they defy any attempt at removal. This was the last refuge for vagrants after the closure of the large quarries. They were eventually dislodged; they came out of the pipes in series of five or six. It was enough to attack one end with the butt of a rifle.
A commissioner paternally asked one of them how long he had been living in that lodging.
—For a term.
—And it didn't seem too hard for you?
—Not too much... And even, you wouldn't believe it, Commissioner, in the morning, I was lazy in bed.
I borrow these details about Montmartre nights from my friend. But it's good to remember that, unable to leave, I find it useless to go home in travel attire. I would have to explain why I missed the omnibuses twice.—The first Strasbourg train doesn't leave until seven in the morning; what to do until then?
IV
CHIT-CHAT
—Since we're stuck for the night, said my friend, if you're not sleepy, we'll go have supper somewhere. The Maison d'or is poorly put together: lorettes, stockbrokers' assistants, and the remnants of the gilded youth. Today, everyone is forty, they are sixty. Let's look for the non-gilded youth. Nothing offends me like the manners of a young man in an old man, unless he is Brancas or Saint-Cricq. You never knew Saint-Cricq?
—On the contrary.
—He was the one who made such beautiful salads at the Café Anglais, interspersed with cups of chocolate. Sometimes, by distraction, he mixed the chocolate with the salad, it offended no one. Well, the serious revelers, the ruined people who wanted to make a comeback with positions, the budding diplomats, the aspiring sub-prefects, the theater directors or whatever—future—had put poor Saint-Cricq on probation. Banished, as we used to say, Saint-Cricq avenged himself in a very witty way. He had been refused entry to the Café Anglais; a wooden face everywhere. He deliberated with himself whether he should attack the door with skeleton keys or with heavy blows of a paving stone. A thought stopped him:
—No forced entry, no damage; it's better to go see my friend the prefect of police.
»He takes a cab, two cabs; he would have taken forty cabs if he had found them in the square.
»At one in the morning, there was a great commotion on Rue de Jérusalem.
—I am Saint-Cricq, I come to demand justice from a bunch of... rascals; charming men, but who don't understand..., well, who don't understand! Where is Gisquet?
—Mr. Prefect is asleep.
—Wake him up. I have important revelations to make to him.
»The prefect is woken up, believing it was a political plot. Saint-Cricq had had time to calm down. He becomes composed again, precise, a perfect gentleman, treats the high official with amiability, talks to him about his parents, his entourage, tells him scenes from high society, and is a little surprised that he, Saint-Cricq, cannot go peacefully to supper in a cafe where he has his habits.
»The prefect, tired, gives him someone to accompany him. He returns to the Café Anglais, whose agent opens the door; Saint-Cricq triumphantly orders his usual salads and chocolates, and addresses his enemies with this objurgation:
—I am here by the will of my father and Mr. Prefect, etc., and I will not leave, etc.
—Your story is pretty, I said to my friend, but I knew it, and I only listened to it to hear you tell it. We know all the antics of this fellow, his greatness and his decadence, his forty cabs, his friendship for Harel and his lawsuits with the Comédie-Française, because he admired Molière too highly. He called the ministers of the time polichinelles. He dared to address higher... The world could not tolerate such eccentricities.—Let's be cheerful, but proper. This is the word of the wise.
V
LONDON NIGHTS
—Well, if we don't dine in high society, said my friend, I hardly know where we would go at this hour. For Les Halles, it's still too early. I like it to be crowded around me. We recently had, on Boulevard du Temple, in a cafe near the Épi-Scié, a one-franc supper combination, where mainly models, men and women, sometimes employed in tableaux vivants or in dramas and vaudevilles with poses, gathered. Trimalchio's feasts like those of old Tiberius in Capri. That has been closed again.
—Why?
—I'm asking. Have you been to London?
—Three times.
—Well, you know the splendor of its nights, which too often lack the sun of Italy? When you leave Her Majesty's Theatre, or Drury Lane, or Covent Garden, or simply the charming little bonbonnière on the Strand run by Madame Celeste, your soul, excited by noisy or deliciously enervating music (oh! those Italians!), by the antics of some clown or other, by boxing scenes you see in the boxes[1]... your soul, I say, feels the need, in that happy city where the doorman is absent, where they neglected to invent him, to recover from such tension. The crowd then rushes into the beef-houses, into the oyster-houses, into the circles, into the clubs, and into the saloons!
—What news you bring me! London nights are delightful; they are a series of heavens or a series of hells, depending on one's means. The gin-palaces, resplendent with gaslight, mirrors, and gilding, where one gets drunk between an English peer and a ragpicker... The scrawny little girls offering you flowers. The ladies from the Vauxhalls and amphitheatres, who, walking home, elbow you in the English fashion, leaving you dazzled by their peeress-like nonchalance! Velvets, ermines, diamonds, just like at the Queen's theatre!... So much so that one doesn't know if the grand ladies are...
—Silence!
VI
TWO WISE MEN
My friend and I understand each other so well that, truly, were it not for the desire to exercise our tongues and enliven ourselves a bit, it would be pointless for us to have even the slightest conversation. We would, if need be, resemble those two Marseilles philosophers who had long worn out their organs discussing the great perhaps. Through endless dissertations, they eventually realized they held the same opinion, that their thoughts were adequate, and that the outward angles of one's reasoning fit exactly into the inward angles of the other's reasoning.
Then, to spare their lungs, they would limit themselves, on any philosophical, political, or religious question, to a certain Hum or Heuh, variously accented, which sufficed to bring about the solution to the problem.
One, for example, would show the other, as they had coffee together, an article on fusion:
—Hum! said one.
—Heuh! said the other.
The question of classics and scholastics, raised by a well-known newspaper, was for them like that of the realists and nominalists in Abelard's time:
—Heuh! said one.
—Hum! said the other.
It was the same for what concerned woman or man, cat or dog. Nothing in nature, or far from it, had the power to surprise them otherwise.
It always ended with a game of dominoes; a particularly silent and meditative game.
—But why, I asked my friend, isn't it like London here? A great capital should never sleep!
—Because there are doormen here, and in London everyone, having a master key to the outer door, comes home at whatever hour they please.
—However, for fifty centimes, one can get in anywhere here after midnight.
—And one is regarded as a person of ill-repute.
—If I were chief of police, instead of having shops, theatres, cafés, and restaurants close at midnight, I would pay a bonus to those who remained open until morning. For after all, I don't believe the police have ever favored thieves; but it seems, from these regulations, that they hand over the city defenceless to them, especially a city where a great number of inhabitants: printers, actors, critics, stagehands, lamplighters, etc., have occupations that keep them out until after midnight. And foreigners, how many times have I heard them laugh... seeing Parisians put to bed so early.
"The usual!" my friend exclaimed.
VII
THE CAFÉ DES AVEUGLES
"But," he continued, "if we're not afraid of pickpockets, we can still enjoy the evening's delights; then we'll come back to supper, either at the pâtisserie on Boulevard Montmartre or at the boulangerie, which others call the boulange, on Rue de Richelieu. These establishments are open until two o'clock. But one hardly dines heartily there. It's pastries, sandwiches, perhaps some poultry, or a few assorted plates of cakes, invariably washed down with Madeira. A supper for an actress, or a... lyric boarder. Let's go instead to the rotisserie on Rue Saint-Honoré."
It wasn't late yet, in fact. Our idleness made the hours seem long... As we passed the steps to cross the Palais-Royal, a loud drumbeat warned us that the Savage was continuing his exercises at the Café des Aveugles.
The Homeric[1] orchestra zealously performed the accompaniments. The crowd was made up of an incredible audience, filling the tables, and who, like at the Funambules, faithfully come every evening to enjoy the same show and the same actor. The dilettantes found that M. Blondelet (the Savage) seemed tired and didn't have all the nuances of the previous day in his performance. I couldn't appreciate this criticism; but I found him very handsome. I only fear that he, too, is blind and has enamel eyes.
"Why blind people," you'll ask, "in this single café, which is a cellar?" It's because, around its founding, which dates back to the revolutionary era, things happened there that would have offended the modesty of an orchestra. Today, everything is calm and decent. And even the dark gallery of the cellar is placed under the vigilant eye of a police officer.
The eternal spectacle of the Man with the Doll made us flee, because we already knew it. Besides, this man perfectly imitates French-Belgian.
And now, let's plunge even deeper into the inextricable circles of Parisian hell. My friend promised to take me to spend the night in Pantin.
VIII
PANTIN
Pantin is obscure Paris, some would say the vulgar Paris; but the latter is called, in slang, Pantruche. Let's not go that far.
Turning onto Rue de Valois, we encountered a luminous facade with a dozen windows: it's the old Athénée, inaugurated by La Harpe's learned lessons. Today, it's the splendid Nations pub, containing twelve billiard tables. No more aesthetics, no more poetry; you meet people strong enough to make balls circulate around three hats spaced on the green baize, where the spots are. The blocks no longer exist; progress has surpassed these vain promises of our fathers. Only the carom shot is still allowed; but it's not proper to miss a single one (of carom shots).
I'm afraid I'm no longer speaking French, which is why I've just allowed myself this last parenthesis. The French of M. Scribe, that of Montansier, that of the pubs, that of the lorettes, concierges, bourgeois gatherings, salons, is beginning to stray from the traditions of the great century. The language of Corneille and Bossuet is gradually becoming Sanskrit (a learned language). The reign of Prakrit (a vulgar language) is beginning for us, I was convinced of this when I bought my ticket and my friend's ticket to the ball located on Rue Honoré, which the envious refer to as the Bal des Chiens. A regular told us:
"You roll (you enter) into the ball (pronounced b-a-l), it's quite funny tonight. Funny means amusing. Indeed, it was funny."
The interior house, reached by a long alley, can be compared to ancient gymnasiums. Youth finds there all the exercises that can develop its strength and intelligence. On the ground floor, the café-billiard; on the first floor, the dance hall; on the second, the fencing and boxing room; on the third, the daguerreotype, an instrument of patience for tired minds, which, destroying illusions, opposes to each face the mirror of truth.
But at night, there's no talk of boxing or portraits; a dazzling brass orchestra, led by Mr. Hesse, known as Décati, irresistibly draws you to the dance hall, where you begin to fend off biscuit and cake vendors. You arrive in the first room, where the tables are, and where you have the right to exchange your 23-cent ticket for the same amount in refreshments. You see columns between which joyful quadrilles are bustling. A police sergeant paternally warns you that smoking is only allowed in the entrance hall—the antechamber.
We toss our cigar butts, immediately picked up by young men less fortunate than us. But, truly, the ball is very good; you'd think you were in high society if you didn't notice a few costume imperfections. It's, essentially, what they call a bal négligé in Vienna.
Don't be haughty. The women there are as good as any, and of the men, one might say, parodying certain verses by Alfred de Musset about Turkish dervishes:
Don't disturb them, they'd call you a dog...
Don't insult them, for they are your equals!
Try to find such animation in high society. The hall is quite large and painted yellow. Respectable people lean against the columns, with no smoking allowed, exposing only their chests to elbow jabs and their feet to the frantic stomping of the gallop and waltz. When the dance stops, the tables fill up. Around eleven o'clock, the factory workers leave and make way for people coming from theaters, music halls, and various public establishments. The orchestra revives for this new crowd and doesn't stop until around midnight.
IX
THE SOIRÉE
We didn't wait until that hour. A bizarre poster caught our attention. The rules of a goguette (singing club) were displayed in the hall:
LYRIC SOCIETY OF THE TROUBADOURS
«Bury, president. Beauvais, choirmaster, etc.
»Art. 1st. All political songs or those offending religion or morals are strictly forbidden.
»2° Echoes will only be granted when the president deems it appropriate.
»3° Any person presenting themselves in a state to disturb the order of the evening will be refused entry.
»4° Any person who has disturbed the order, and who, after two warnings during the evening, disregards them, will be asked to leave immediately.
»Approved, etc.»
We found these provisions very wise; but the Lyric Society of the Troubadours, so well situated opposite the old Athénée, did not meet that evening. Another goguette existed in another courtyard of the district. Four Moorish lanterns announced the door, topped with a gilded square.
A controller asks you to deposit the cost of a pint (six sous), and you arrive on the first floor, where behind the door you find the chief of order.
—Are you 'of the building'? he asked us.
—Yes, we are 'of the building,' replied my friend.
They performed the obligatory greetings, and we were able to enter the room.
I immediately recalled the old song expressing the astonishment of a newborn cub[1] who encounters a very pleasant society and feels compelled to celebrate it:
—My eyes are dazzled, he said. What do I see in this enclosure?
Carpenters! Cabinetmakers!
Building contractors!...
Like a bouquet of flowers,
Adorned with its thousand colors!
Finally, we were of the building, and the phrase also applies morally, given that the building does not exclude poets; Amphion, who raised walls to the sounds of his lyre, was 'of the building.' The same goes for painters and sculptors, who are its spoiled children.
Like the cub, I was dazzled by the splendor of the sight. The chief of order seated us at a table, from which we could admire the trophies arranged between each panel. I was surprised not to find the old obligatory legends there: «Respect to the ladies! Honor to the Poles!» How traditions fade!
The desk, draped in red, was, however, occupied by three very majestic commissioners. Each of them had his bell in front of him, and the president struck three blows with the consecrated hammer. The mother of the companions was seated at the foot of the desk. She was only seen in profile, but the profile was full of grace and dignity.
—My dear friends, said the president, our friend *** will sing a new composition, entitled The Willow Leaf.
The song was no worse than many others. It faintly imitated the style of Pierre Dupont. The singer was a handsome young man with long black hair, so abundant that he had to tie a cord around his head to keep it in place; he had a soft, perfectly pitched voice, and the applause was twofold—for the author and for the singer.
The president asked for indulgence for a young lady whose first attempt was about to be presented before the friends. Having struck the three blows, he collected himself, and, in the midst of complete silence, a young voice was heard, still imbued with the roughness of early youth, but which, gradually shedding it (according to the expression of one of our neighbors), reached the boldest flights and flourishes. Classical education had not spoiled this freshness of intonation, this purity of organ, this moved and vibrant speech, which belong only to talents still untouched by Conservatoire lessons.
X
THE ROASTER
O young girl with the pearly voice! You do not know how to phrase like at the Conservatoire; you do not know how to sing, as a music critic would say... And yet this young timbre, these tremulous endings like the naive songs of our grandmothers, fill me with a certain charm! You have composed words that do not rhyme and a melody that is not square; and it is only in this small circle that you are understood and loudly applauded. They will advise your mother to send you to a singing master, and, from then on, you will be lost... lost to us! You sing on the edge of the abyss, like the swans of the Edda. May I preserve the memory of your voice, so pure and so ignorant, and never hear you again, whether in an opera house, or in a concert, or even in a Café-chantant!
Farewell, farewell, and forever farewell!... You resemble Dante's golden seraph, who casts a last flash of poetry on the dark circles whose immense spiral ever narrows, to end in that dark well where Lucifer is chained until the day of the last judgment.
And now, pass around us, smiling or plaintive couples..., «specters where the place of love still bleeds!» The whirlwinds you form gradually fade into the mist... The Pia, the Francesca, perhaps pass by our sides... Adultery, crime, and weakness jostle each other, without recognizing each other, through these deceptive shadows.
Behind the old Saint-Honoré cloister, whose last remains still exist, hidden by the facades of modern houses, is a rotisserie shop open until two in the morning. Before entering the establishment, my friend murmured this colorful song:
At the Grand' Pinte, when the wind
Makes the tin sign creak
When it freezes,
In the kitchen, one always sees
A tree trunk glowing in the hearth,
An eternal flame,
Where in chains roast,
Goslings, ducks, turkeys, chickens,
On the spit!
And then the golden yellow sun
Still on the pots,
Darts and clings!
But let's not talk about the sun, it's past midnight. The roaster's tables are few; they were all occupied.
—Let's go elsewhere, I said.
—But, beforehand, replied my friend, let's have a small chicken broth. That can't be enough to take away our appetite, and, at Véry's, it would cost a franc; here, it's ten centimes. You can imagine that a roaster who sells five hundred chickens a day must keep the giblets, hearts, and livers, which he only needs to pile into a pot to make excellent consommé.
The two bowls were served to us at the counter and the broth was perfect. Then we sucked on some Strasbourg crayfish, as big as small lobsters. Mussels, fried fish, and poultry, even at the most modest prices, made up the ordinary supper of the regulars.
No table was emptying. A woman of majestic appearance, dressed like Rubens' Nereids or Jordaens' Bacchantes, was giving advice to a young man near us.
The latter, elegantly dressed, slender, and whose pallor was enhanced by long black hair and small mustaches carefully twisted and waxed at the tips, listened deferentially to the advice of the imposing matron. One could hardly fault him for anything but a pretentious shirt with a lace jabot and pleated cuffs, a blue tie, and a fiery red waistcoat crossed with green lines. His watch chain might have been chrysocale, his pin Rhinestone; but the effect was quite rich in the lights.
—"You see, muffeton," said the lady, "you're not made for this kind of life, living at night. You persist, but you won't be able to! Chicken broth sustains you, it's true; but liquor ruins you. You have palpitations, and red cheekbones in the morning. You look strong because you're nervous... You'd do better to sleep at this hour."
—"What!" observed the young man with that Parisian hooligan accent that sounds like a death rattle, created by the early use of brandy and pipe: "Don't I have to do my job? It's sorrows that make me drink: why did Gustine betray me!"
—"She betrayed you without betraying you... She's a wanderer, that's all."
—"I'm talking to you like my mother: if she comes back, it's over, I'll settle down. I'll buy a haberdashery business. I'll marry her."
—"Another foolishness!"
—"Because she told me I didn't have a steady job!"
—"Ah! Young man, that woman will be your death."
—"She doesn't know the beating she's going to get yet!"
—"Be quiet!" said the Rubens-like woman, smiling, "you're not the one who can correct a woman!"
I didn't want to hear any more. Jean-Jacques was right to blame the morals of cities for a principle of corruption that later extends to the countryside. Through all this, however, isn't it sad to hear the accent of love, the voice filled with emotion, the dying voice of vice, through the phraseology of scoundrels?
If I were not sure of accomplishing one of the painful missions of the writer, I would stop here; but my friend said to me like Virgil to Dante:
—"Or sie forte ed ardito; omai si scende per i fatte scale ..."[1]
To which I replied to a Mozart tune:—"Andiam! andiam! andiamo bene!"
—"You are mistaken!" he replied, "this is not hell: it is at most purgatory. Let's go further."
XI
LES HALLES
"What a beautiful night!" I exclaimed, seeing the stars twinkle above the vast area where, to the left, the dome of the grain market with the cabalistic column that was part of the Hôtel de Soissons, and which is called Catherine de' Medici's observatory, and then the poultry market, are outlined; to the right, the butter market, and, further on, the unfinished construction of the meat market. The grayish silhouette of Saint-Eustache closes the picture. This admirable edifice, where the florid style of the Middle Ages blends so well with the correct designs of the Renaissance, is still magnificently lit by the moon's rays, with its Gothic framework, its buttresses multiplied like the ribs of a prodigious cetacean, and the Roman arches of its doors and windows, whose ornaments seem to belong to the ogival cut. What a pity that such a rare vessel is dishonored, on the right by a sacristy door with Ionic columns, and on the left by a portal in the style of Vignola!
The small square of the market began to liven up. The carts of market gardeners, fishmongers, butter merchants, and greengrocers crossed paths without interruption. The carters, having arrived at the port, refreshed themselves in the cafés and taverns, open on this square for the whole night. In Rue Mauconseil, these establishments extend to the oyster market; in Rue Montmartre, from Pointe Saint-Eustache to Rue du Jour.
There, on the right, you find leech merchants; the other side is occupied by Raspail pharmacists and cider vendors, where you can feast on oysters and tripes à la mode de Caen. Pharmacists are not useless, because of accidents; but, for healthy people who are out for a stroll, it is good to drink a glass of cider or perry. It's refreshing.
We asked for new cider, for only Normans or Bretons can enjoy 'hard' cider. We were told that the new ciders would not arrive for another eight days, and that the harvest was bad besides.
"As for perry," they added, "it arrived yesterday; it had been scarce last year."
The town of Domfront (a town of misfortune) is this time very fortunate. This white, foamy liquor, like Champagne, is very reminiscent of Blanquette de Limoux. Stored in a bottle, it intoxicates a man very well. There is also a certain cider brandy from the same locality, the price of which varies according to the size of the small glasses. Here is what we read on a sign attached to the flask:
Le monsieur 4 sous.La demoiselle 3 sous.
Le misérable 1 sous.
This brandy, whose various measures are thus qualified, is not bad and can serve as absinthe. It is unknown on grand tables.
XII
THE INNOCENTS' MARKET
Passing to the left of the fish market, where the activity only begins from five to six o'clock, the time of the auction, we noticed a crowd of men in blouses, round hats, and white coats striped with black, lying on sacks of beans... Some were warming themselves around fires like those made by soldiers camping, others were lighting internal 'hearths' in nearby taverns. Still others, standing near the sacks, were engaged in bean auctions... There, they spoke of premium, difference, cover, carry-overs, rise and fall, in short, just like on the stock exchange.
"These men in blouses are richer than us," said my companion. "They are fake peasants. Under their smock or their work jacket, they are perfectly dressed and will leave their blouse at the wine merchant's tomorrow to return home in a tilbury. The clever speculator puts on a blouse just as the lawyer puts on a robe. Those among these people who are sleeping are the 'sheep,' or the simple carters."
"46-66 for Soissons beans!" said a deep voice near us.
"48, current end," added another.
"White Swiss are priceless."
—The Dwarfs 28.
—Vetch at 13-34... The flageolets are soft, etc.
We leave these good people to their schemes. How much money is made and lost like this!... And they've abolished gambling!
XIII
THE CHARNEL HOUSES
Under the columns of the potato market, early-rising or late-working women peeled their produce by the light of lanterns. There were pretty ones who worked under their mothers' watchful eyes, singing old songs. These ladies are often richer than they appear, and even fortune doesn't interrupt their hard labor. My companion took pleasure in chatting for a long time with a pretty blonde, speaking to her about the last ball at Les Halles, of which she must have been one of the most beautiful ornaments... She replied very elegantly, like a lady of society, when, I don't know by what whim, he addressed her mother, saying:
—But your daughter is charming... Does she have the bag? This means in market slang: 'Does she have money?'
—No, my boy, said the mother, I'm the one who has the bag!
—Well, madam, if you were a widow, one might... We'll talk about this again!
—Get out of here, you old boor! cried the young girl with an entirely local accent that contrasted with her previous phrases.
She struck me as the blonde sorceress from Faust, who, chatting tenderly with her dancing partner, lets a red mouse escape from her mouth.
We turned on our heels, pursued by mocking imprecations, which rather classically recalled Vadé's colloquies.
—It's definitely time for supper, said my companion. Here's Bordier, but the room is narrow. It's the meeting place for fruit and orange sellers. There's another Bordier on the corner of Rue aux Ours, which is passable; then the Les Halles restaurant, freshly sculpted and gilded, near Rue de la Reynie... But you might as well go to the Maison d'Or.
—Here are some others, I said, looking towards that long line of regular houses bordering the part of the market dedicated to cabbages.
—Are you thinking? These are the charnel houses. It was there that poets in silk coats, with swords and cuffs, came to supper in the last century, on days when they lacked invitations from high society. Then, after consuming the six-sou ordinary, they habitually read their verses to carters, market gardeners, and porters: 'I've never had so much success,' said Robbé, 'as with this audience, formed in the arts by the hands of nature!'
The poetic guests of these vaulted cellars would stretch out, after supper, on the benches or tables, and the next morning they had to be powdered for two sous by some outdoor hairdresser and mended by the darners, to then go and shine at the small morning receptions of Madame de Luxembourg, Mademoiselle Hus, or the Countess de Beauharnais.
XIV
BARATTE
Those times are gone. The cellars of the charnel houses are now restored, lit by gas; the consumption there is clean, and it's forbidden to sleep there, either on or under the tables; but what a lot of cabbages in this street!... The parallel Rue de la Ferronnerie is also full of them, and the nearby cloister of Sainte-Opportune presents veritable mountains of them. Carrots and turnips belong to the same department.
—Do you want curly, Milan, or cabbage varieties, my little loves? a vendor calls out to us.
Crossing the square, we admire monstrous pumpkins. We are offered sausages and blood puddings, coffee for a sou a cup, and, at the very foot of the fountain of Pierre Lescot and Jean Goujon, other diners, even more modest than those of the charnel houses, are set up in the open air.
We ignore the provocations and head towards Baratte, pushing through the crowd of fruit and flower vendors.—One cries out:
—My little cabbages! Adorn your ladies with flowers!
And since at that hour only wholesale is sold, one would need many ladies to adorn with flowers to buy such bundles of bouquets.—Another sings the song of her trade.
"Pippin apples and lady apples!—Calville, calville, red calville!—Red calville and gray calville!"
"Being in a cove,—in my shop,—I saw strangers who told me: 'My little heart! come see me, you'll have great sales!'"
"No, gentlemen!—I can't, besides,—because I only have one artichoke and three small cauliflowers left!"
Insensible to the voices of these sirens, we finally enter Baratte's. An individual in a smock, who seemed to have had a bit much to drink (to be tipsy), was at that very moment rolling over the flower bales, forcefully expelled for making noise. He prepares to sleep on a pile of red roses, no doubt imagining himself to be the old Silenus, and that the Bacchantes have prepared this fragrant bed for him. The florists pounce on him, and he is soon exposed to Orpheus's fate... A city sergeant intervenes and takes him to the leather market police station, signaled from afar by a campanile and an illuminated clock.
The main hall is a bit boisterous at Baratte's; but there are private rooms and cabinets. It must be admitted that this is the aristocrats' restaurant. The custom is to order Ostend oysters with a small ragout of chopped shallots in vinegar and pepper, which is lightly drizzled over the oysters. Then, it's the onion soup, which is admirably prepared at Les Halles, and into which the refined sprinkle grated Parmesan.—Add to that a partridge or some fish obtained directly, Bordeaux wine, a first-choice fruit dessert, and you'll agree that one dines very well at Les Halles.—It's about a seven-franc affair per person.
It's hard to understand how all these men in smocks, mixed with the fairest sex from the suburbs in bonnets and marmots, feed themselves so properly; but, as I said, they are fake peasants and unrecognizable millionaires. The porters of Les Halles, the big merchants of vegetables, meat, butter, and seafood are people who know how to treat themselves well, and the strong ones themselves resemble a bit those brave porters of Marseille who support with their capital the houses that employ them.
XV
PAUL NIQUET
After supper, we went for coffee and a digestif at Paul Niquet's famous establishment.—There are obviously fewer millionaires there than at Baratte's... The walls, very high and topped with glazing, are entirely bare. Feet rest on damp flagstones. An immense counter divides the room in two, and seven or eight rag-pickers, regulars of the place, adorn a bench opposite the counter. The back is occupied by a rather mixed crowd, where disputes are not uncommon. As one cannot constantly go for the guard, old Niquet, so famous under the Empire for his brandied cherries, had useful water pipes installed in case of a violent brawl.
They are released from several points in the room onto the combatants, and, if that doesn't calm them down, a certain device is raised that hermetically seals the exit. Then, the water rises, and the most furious beg for mercy;—at least, that's what used to happen.
My companion warned me that it was necessary to buy a round for the rag-pickers to gain allies in the establishment in case of a dispute. This is, moreover, the custom for people dressed in civilian clothes. Then you can fearlessly indulge in the charms of society. You have won the favor of the ladies.
One of the rag-pickers asked for brandy.
—You know that's forbidden to you! replied the lemonade waiter.
—Well, then, a little verjuice! my love, Polyte! You are so kind with your beautiful black eyes... Ah! if I were still... what I used to be!
Her trembling hand let slip the small glass full of verjuice grains in brandy, which was immediately picked up; the small glasses at Paul Niquet's are as thick as decanter stoppers: they bounce, and only the liquor is lost.
—Another verjuice! said my friend.
—You too are very kind, my little boy, the rag-picker said to him; you remind me of little Ba'as (Barras) who was so kind, so kind, with his pigtails and his English jabot... Ah! he was a man of the birds, my little boy, of the birds!... truly! a handsome man like you!
After the second verjuice, she told us:
—You don't know, my children, that I was one of the marvelous women of that time... I had rings on my toes... There were dandies and generals who fought over me!
—All that is God's punishment! said a neighbor. Where is your phaeton now?
—God! said the exasperated rag-picker, God is the devil!
A thin man, in a threadbare black suit, who was dozing on a bench, got up, stumbling:
—If God is the devil, then the devil is God; it always comes back to the same thing. This good woman is making a terrible paralogism, he said, turning to us... How ignorant these people are! Ah! education, I devoted myself to it for a very long time. My philosophy consoles me for everything I have lost.
—And a small glass! said my companion.
—I accept! if you allow me to define divine law and human law...
My head was starting to spin amidst this strange crowd; my friend, however, enjoyed the philosopher's conversation, and kept ordering small glasses to hear him reason and unreason longer.
If all these details were not accurate, and if I were not trying to daguerreotype the truth here, what romantic resources these two types of misfortune and brutishness would provide me! Rich men too often lack the courage to penetrate such places, this vestibule of purgatory, from which it might be easy to save some souls... A simple writer can only point out these wounds, without claiming to close them.
Would not the priests themselves, who think of saving Chinese, Indian, or Tibetan souls, accomplish dangerous and sublime missions in such places?—Why did the Lord live with pagans and publicans?
The sun begins to pierce the upper window of the room, the door lights up. I rush out of this hell at the moment of an arrest, and I happily breathe the scent of flowers piled on the sidewalk of the Rue aux Fers.
The large market enclosure presents two long rows of women whose pale faces are lit by the dawn. These are the resellers from the various markets, who have been assigned numbers, and who await their turn to receive their goods according to the fixed market price.
I think it's time for me to head towards the Strasbourg embarkation point, carrying in my mind the vain phantom of that night.
XVI
MEAUX
Here, here, he who comes from hell!
I applied this verse to myself as I rolled along the Strasbourg railway tracks that morning, and I flattered myself... and I had not yet penetrated to the deepest rat-holes; I had hardly, in fact, met anything but honest workers, poor drunken devils, homeless unfortunates... The last abyss is not yet there.
The fresh morning air, the sight of the green countryside, the smiling banks of the Marne, Pantin on the right, at first,—the real Pantin,—Chelles on the left, and later Lagny, the long curtains of poplars, the first sheltered hillsides leading towards Champagne, all this charmed me and brought calm back to my thoughts.
Unfortunately, a large black cloud was forming on the horizon, and when I got off at Meaux, it was pouring rain. I took refuge in a café, where I was struck by the sight of an enormous red poster conceived in these terms:
BY PERMISSION OF THE MAYOR. (of Meaux)
SURPRISING MARVEL
All that nature offers most bizarre:
A VERY PRETTY WOMAN
Having for hair a beautiful
MERINO FLEECE
Chestnut color.
"Mr. Montaldo, passing through this town, has the honor of exhibiting to the public a rarity, a phenomenon so extraordinary, that the gentlemen of the Faculty of Medicine in Paris and Montpellier have not yet been able to define it."
THIS PHENOMENON
consists of an eighteen-year-old young woman, a native of Venice, who, instead of hair, has a magnificent fleece of Barbary merino wool, chestnut-colored, about fifty-two centimeters long. It grows like plants, and on her head, one can see stems supporting fourteen or fifteen branches.
"Two of these stems rise on her forehead and form horns."
"During the year, fragments of wool fall from her fleece, just like from sheep that are not shorn in time."
"This person is very amiable, her eyes are expressive, her skin is very white; she has aroused the admiration of those who have seen her in large cities, and, during her stay in London in 1843, Her Majesty the Queen, to whom she was presented, expressed her surprise by saying that nature had never shown itself so bizarre."
"Spectators will be able to verify the truth by touching the wool, as well as its elasticity, smell, etc., etc."
"Visible daily until Sunday, the 5th instant."
"Several opera pieces will be performed by a distinguished artist."
"Character dances, Spanish and Italian, by salaried artists."
"Admission price: 25 centimes.—Children and soldiers: 10 centimes."
For lack of other entertainment, I wanted to verify the wonders of this advertisement myself, and I did not leave the performance until after midnight.
I hardly dare to analyze now the strange sensations of sleep that followed that evening. My mind, undoubtedly overexcited by the memories of the previous night, and a little by the sight of the Pont des Arches, which I had to cross to get to the hotel, imagined the following dream, the memory of which has faithfully remained with me.
XVII
CAPERNAUM
Corridors, endless corridors! Stairs, stairs where one goes up, where one goes down, where one goes up again, and whose bottom always dips into black water agitated by wheels, under immense bridge arches... through inextricable frameworks! Going up, going down, or traversing the corridors, and that, for several eternities... Could this be the punishment to which I would be condemned for my faults?
I'd rather live!
On the contrary, now my head is being broken with heavy hammer blows: what does that mean?
I was dreaming of billiard cues... of small glasses of verjuice...
"Is Mr. and Mrs. Mayor content?"
Good! I'm confusing Bilboquet with Macaire now. But that's no reason to smash my head with fullers.
"Burning is not answering!"
Could it be for having embraced the horned woman, or for having run my fingers through her merino hair?
"What is this cynicism!" Macaire would say.
But Desbarreaux the Cartesian would reply to Providence:
"That's a lot of fuss for... very little."
XVIII
CHORUS OF GNOMES[1]
The little gnomes sing thus:
"Let's take advantage of his sleep!—He was very wrong to treat the acrobat, and to drink so much March beer in October,—at that same café—of Mars, with an accompaniment of cigars, cigarettes, clarinet, and bassoon."
"Let's work, brothers,—until daybreak, until the rooster crows,—until the hour when the Dammartin carriage departs,—and he can hear the ringing of the old cathedral where the EAGLE OF MEAUX rests."
"Definitely, the merino woman is working his mind,—no less than the March beer and the fullers of the Pont des Arches;—however, this woman's horns are not as the acrobat had said:—our Parisian is still young... He didn't distrust the spiel enough."
"Let's work, brothers, let's work while he sleeps.—Let's start by unscrewing his head, then, with small hammer blows,—yes, hammer blows,—we will unseal the walls of this philosophical—and quirky—skull!"
"Let's hope he doesn't get the idea of marrying the woman with the merino hair lodged in one of the chambers of his brain! First, let's cleanse the sinciput and the occiput;—let the blood flow clearer through the nerve centers that blossom above the vertebrae."
"Fichte's ego and non-ego are locked in a terrible battle within this objective mind.—If only he hadn't washed down the Mars beer—with a few rounds of punch offered to those ladies!... The Spanish woman was almost as alluring as the Venetian; but she had false calves,—and her cachucha seemed learned at Mabille."
"Let's work, brothers, let's work;—the bony box is being cleansed.—The memory compartment already embraces a certain series of facts.—Causality,—yes, causality,—will bring him back to the feeling of his subjectivity.—Let's just be careful he doesn't wake up before our task is finished."
"The unfortunate man would wake up only to die of a stroke, which the Faculty would call a cerebral hemorrhage,—and we would be accused up there.—Immortal gods! He's moving; he's breathing with difficulty.—Let's firm up the bony box with one last fulling blow,—yes, a fulling blow.—The rooster crows,—the hour strikes... He'll get off with a headache... It had to be!"
XIX
I AWAKE
Definitely, this dream is too extravagant... even for me! It's better to wake up completely.—Those little rascals! taking my head apart, and then daring to put the pieces of my skull back together with big thumps of their little hammers!—Look, a rooster crowing!... So I'm in the countryside? It's perhaps Lucien's rooster: ἀλεκτρυών.—Oh! classical memories, how far you are from me!
Five o'clock strikes,—where am I?—This isn't my room... Ah! I remember,—I fell asleep yesterday at the Sirène, run by Vallois,—in the good town of Meaux (Meaux-en-Brie, Seine-et-Marne).
My respects to Monsieur and Madame Mayor!—It's Bilboquet's fault (Grooming himself):
Air from Les Prétendus.
Let's go present—hum!—present our homage
To the daughter of the house!... (Bis.)
Yes, I admit, she is right,
Yes, yes, the rogue is right!
Let's go present, etc.
Look, the headache is going away... Yes, but the carriage has left. Let's stay, and extricate ourselves from this dreadful mixture of comedy,—of dream—and of reality.
Pascal said:
"Men are so necessarily mad, that not to be mad would be to be mad in another way." La Rochefoucauld added:
"It is a great folly to wish to be wise all alone." These maxims are comforting.
XX
REFLECTIONS
Let's recompose our memories.
I am of age and vaccinated; my physical qualities matter little for the moment. My social position is superior to that of last night's mountebank; and decidedly, his Venetian won't have my hand.
A feeling of thirst is troubling me.
To return to the café de Mars at this hour would be like walking on the rockets of an extinguished fireworks display.
Besides, no one can be up yet. Let's wander along the banks of the Marne and along those terrible watermills whose memory troubled my sleep.
These mills, scaled with slate, so dark and noisy in the moonlight, must be full of charm in the rays of the rising sun.
I've just woken up the waiters at the café du Commerce. A legion of cats escapes from the large billiard room and goes to play on the terrace among the thuyas, orange trees, and pink and white balsams.—There they are, climbing like monkeys along the trellised arbors covered with ivy.
O nature, I salute you!
And, though a cat lover, I also caress this long-haired grey dog, painfully stretching. He's not muzzled.—No matter; the hunt is on.
How sweet it is for a sensitive heart to see the dawn break over the Marne, forty kilometers from Paris!
Over there, on the same bank, beyond the mills, is another equally picturesque cafe, called the Hôtel-de-ville cafe (sub-prefecture). The mayor of Meaux, who lives nearby, must, upon waking, rest his eyes on the elm tree avenues and the glaucous green arbors that adorn the terrace. One can admire a life-size terracotta statue of La Camargo there, whose broken arms are to be regretted. Her legs are slender like those of yesterday's Spanish dancer—and the Spanish dancers of the Opera.
She presides over a game of boules.
I asked the waiter for ink. As for the coffee, it's not made yet. The tables are covered with stools; I move two; and I collect myself by taking possession of a small white cat with green eyes.
People are starting to cross the bridge; I count eight arches. The Marne is naturally marly; but it now takes on leaden hues, sometimes rippled by the currents from the mills, or further out by the playful antics of swallows.
Will it rain tonight?
Sometimes, a fish makes a leap that resembles, indeed, the frantic cachucha of that tanned young lady whom I wouldn't dare call a lady without more information.
Opposite me, on the other bank, are rowan trees with coral berries, of the most beautiful effect: bird rowan,—aviaria.—I learned that when I was destined for the position of bachelor at the University of Paris.
XXI
THE MERINO WOMAN
I stop. The job of a realist is too hard. Reading an article by Charles Dickens is, however, the source of these ramblings!... A grave voice calls me back to myself.
I have just pulled out from under several Parisian and Marnais newspapers a certain serial from which anathema rightly emanates against the bizarre imaginations that today constitute the school of truth.
The same movement existed after 1830, after 1794, after 1716, and after many other earlier dates. Minds, tired of political or romantic conventions, wanted truth at all costs.
Now, truth is falsehood, at least in art and poetry. What could be more false than the Iliad, than the Aeneid, than Jerusalem Delivered, than the Henriade? than tragedies, than novels?...
—Well, I, said the critic, I like this falsehood. Does it amuse me that you tell me your life step by step, that you analyze your dreams, your impressions, your sensations?... What do I care if you slept at the Sirène, at Vallois's? I presume that is not true, or that it is arranged. You will tell me to go and see... I don't need to go to Meaux! Besides, the same things would happen to me, and I wouldn't have the nerve to tell the public about them. And first of all, does one believe in this woman with merino hair?
I am forced to believe it; and even more surely than by the promises of the poster. The poster exists, but the woman might not exist... Well, the acrobat had written nothing but the truth.
The performance began at the appointed time. A rather corpulent man, but still spry, entered in a Figaro costume. The tables were partly filled by the people of Meaux, partly by the cuirassiers of the 6th.
Mr. Montaldo—for it was he—said modestly:
—Signori, I will let you hear the great aria of Figaro. It begins.
—Tra de ra la, de ra la, de ra la, ah!...
His voice, a little worn but still pleasant, was accompanied by a bassoon.
When he reached the line: Largo al fattotum delia cita! I felt I had to make an observation. He pronounced cita. I said aloud: Tchita! which surprised the cuirassiers and the people of Meaux a little. The singer gave me a sign of assent, and, when he reached that other line: «Figaro-ci, Figaro-là ...» he took care to pronounce tchi.—I was flattered by this attention.
But, while collecting, he came to me and said (I won't use the local dialect here):
"We are happy to meet educated enthusiasts... I am from Turin, and, in Turin, we pronounce ci. You must have heard tchi in Rome or Naples?
"Indeed!... And your Venetian woman?
"She will appear at nine o'clock. In the meantime, I will dance a cachucha with this young lady whom I have the honor to introduce to you."
The cachucha wasn't bad, but performed in a somewhat classical style... Finally, the woman with the merino wool hair appeared in all her splendor. It was indeed merino wool hair. Two tufts, placed on her forehead, stood up like horns.—She could have had a shawl made from that abundant hair. How many husbands would be happy to find in their wives' hair this raw material that would reduce the price of their clothes to mere labor costs!
Her face was pale and regular. She recalled the type of virgins by Carlo Dolci. I said to the young woman:
"Sete voi Veneziana?"
She replied to me:
"Signor, si."
If she had said: Si, signor, I would have suspected her of being Piedmontese or Savoyard; but, obviously, she is a Venetian from the mountains bordering Tyrol. Her fingers are slender, her feet small, her joints delicate; she has almost red eyes and the gentleness of a lamb; her very voice sounds like an accented bleat. Her hair, if one can call it hair, would resist all efforts of a comb. It's a mass of little cords like those the Nubian women make by impregnating them with butter. However, her skin being an undeniable matte white and her hair a rather light brown (see the poster), I think there has been crossbreeding; a black man, Othello perhaps, allied with the Venetian type, and, after several generations, this local product revealed itself.
As for the Spanish woman, she is obviously from Savoy or Auvergne, as is Mr. Montaldo.
My story is finished. "Truth is what it can be," as Mr. Dufougeray used to say. I could have told the story of the Venetian woman, of Mr. Montaldo, of the Spanish woman, and even of the bassoon. I could suppose that I fell in love with one or the other of these two women, and that the rivalry of the acrobat or the bassoon led me to the most extraordinary adventures.—But the truth is, nothing of the sort happened. The Spanish woman had, as I said, thin legs; the merino woman only interested me through an atmosphere of tobacco smoke and a consumption of beer that reminded me of Germany.—Let's leave this phenomenon to her habits and probable attachments.
I suspect the bassoon, a rather slender young man with black hair, is not indifferent to her.
XXII
ITINERARY
I haven't yet explained to the reader the true reason for my trip to Meaux... It must be admitted that I have nothing to do in this country; but, as the French public always wants to know the reasons for everything, it's time to indicate this point.
One of my friends,—a lemonade seller from Creil,—a former retired strongman who hunts in his spare time, had invited me, these past few days, to an otter hunt on the banks of the Oise:
It was very simple to go to Creil by the North; but the northern route is a winding, bumpy road, which makes a considerable bend before reaching Creil, where the railway lines from Lille and Saint-Quentin converge. So I had told myself:
"By going through Meaux, I will meet the Dammartin omnibus; I will walk through the woods of Ermenonville, and, following the banks of the Nonette, I will reach, after three hours of walking, Senlis, where I will meet the Creil omnibus. From there, I will have the pleasure of returning to Paris by the longest route, that is, by the Northern railway."
Consequently, having missed the Dammartin carriage, it was a matter of finding another connection.—The railway system has disrupted all the carriages in the intermediate regions. The immense block of lands north of Paris is deprived of direct communications; one has to travel ten leagues to the right or eighteen leagues to the left, by train, to reach it, by means of connections, which still take two or three hours to transport you to places where one used to arrive in four hours.
The famous spiral that Corporal Trûn's stick traced in the air was no more capricious than the path one must take, whether on one side or the other.
I was told in Meaux:
—The Nanteuil-le-Haudouin carriage will take you within a league of Ermenonville, and from there, you only have to walk.
As I moved further from Meaux, the memory of the merino woman and the Spanish woman faded into the mists of the horizon. To take one from the bassoonist, or the other from the choreographer tenor, would have been a petty act, if successful, considering they had been polite and charming;—a vain attempt would have covered me in shame. Let's not think about it anymore.
We arrived in Nanteuil in abominable weather; it became impossible to cross the woods. As for taking carriages at will, I know the local country roads too well to risk it.
Nanteuil is a hilly market town whose only remarkable feature was its now-vanished castle. I inquired at the hotel about how to leave such a place; and I was told:
—Take the carriage to Crespy en Valois, which passes at two o'clock; that will take you on a detour, but you will find another carriage this evening that will take you to the banks of the Oise.
Ten more leagues to see an otter hunt. It would have been so simple to stay in Meaux, in the pleasant company of the acrobat, the Venetian, and the Spanish woman!...
XXIII
CRESPY EN VALOIS
Three hours later, we arrived in Crespy. The city gates are monumental and surmounted by trophies in the 17th century style. The cathedral bell tower is slender, hexagonal, and openwork like that of the old church of Soissons.
I had to wait until eight o'clock for the connecting carriage. In the afternoon, the weather cleared up. I admired the rather picturesque surroundings of the old Valois city, and the vast market square currently being created there. The constructions are in the style of those in Meaux. It is no longer Parisian, and not yet Flemish. A church was being built in a district marked by a fair number of bourgeois houses.—A last ray of sunshine, which tinted the face of the old cathedral pink, made me return to the opposite district. Unfortunately, only the apse remains. The tower and the portal ornaments seemed to me to date from the 14th century.—I asked some neighbors why they were building a modern church instead of restoring such a beautiful monument.
—It's, I was told, because the bourgeois mainly have their houses in the other district, and it would be too inconvenient for them to come to the old church... On the contrary, the other will be right at hand.
—It is, indeed, I said, much more convenient to have a church at your doorstep; but the old Christians would not have hesitated to walk two hundred steps further to go to an old and splendid basilica. Today, everything has changed, it is the good Lord who is obliged to get closer to the parishioners!...
XXIV
IN PRISON
Certainly, I had said nothing inappropriate or monstrous. So, as night fell, I thought it best to head towards the carriage office. I still had to wait half an hour.—I asked for supper to pass the time.
I was finishing an excellent soup, and I turned to ask for something else, when I saw a gendarme who said to me:
—Your papers?
I searched my pocket with dignity... My passport had remained in Meaux, where it had been requested at the hotel for registration; and I had forgotten to pick it up the next morning. The pretty maid to whom I had paid my bill had not thought of it any more than I had.
—Well, said the gendarme, you will follow me to the mayor's office.
The mayor! If only it were the mayor of Meaux! But it's the mayor of Crespy! The other would certainly have been more lenient.
—Where do you come from?
—From Meaux.
—Where are you going?
—To Creil.
—For what purpose?
—For the purpose of an otter hunt.
—And no papers, according to the gendarme?
—I left them in Meaux.
I myself felt that these answers were unsatisfactory; so the mayor paternally told me:
—Well, you are under arrest!
—And where will I sleep?
—In prison.
—Damn! but I'm afraid I won't sleep well.
—That's your problem.
—What if I paid one or two gendarmes to guard me at the hotel?…
—That's not customary.
—It was done in the 18th century.
—Not anymore.
I followed the gendarme rather melancholically.
Crespy prison is old. I even think the vault where I was taken dates back to the time of the Crusades; it has been carefully re-plastered with Roman concrete.
I was annoyed by this luxury; I would have liked to raise rats or tame spiders.
—Is it damp? I asked the jailer.
—Very dry, on the contrary. None of these gentlemen have complained since the renovations. My wife will make you a bed.
—Excuse me, I'm Parisian: I'd like it very soft.
—We'll give you two feather beds.
—Can't I finish supper? The gendarme interrupted me after the soup.
—We have nothing. But tomorrow, I'll get you whatever you want; now, everyone in Crespy is asleep.
—At half past eight!
—It's nine o'clock.
The jailer's wife had set up a cot in the vault, no doubt understanding that I would pay well for the room. Besides the feather beds, there was a duvet. I was surrounded by feathers on all sides.
XXV
ANOTHER DREAM
I barely had two hours of tormented sleep; I didn't see the benevolent little gnomes again; these pantheistic beings, born on German soil, had completely abandoned me. Instead, I appeared before a tribunal, which emerged from a thick shadow, permeated at the bottom by scholastic dust.
The president had a faint resemblance to M. Nisard; the two assessors looked like M. Cousin and M. Guizot, my former masters. I was no longer taking my Sorbonne exam before them as in the past. I was about to face a capital sentence.
On a table were spread several issues of English and American Magazines, and a host of illustrated installments at day and six pence, where the names of Edgar Poe, Dickens, Ainsworth, etc., vaguely appeared, and three pale and thin figures stood to the right of the tribunal, draped in Latin theses printed on satin, where I thought I could distinguish these names: Sapientia, Ethica, Grammatica.—The three accusing specters hurled these contemptuous words at me:
—Fantasist! realist!! essayist!!!
I caught a few phrases of the accusation formulated with an organ that seemed to be M. Patin's:
—From realism to crime, there is but one step; for crime is essentially realistic. Fantasism leads straight to the adoration of monsters. Essayism leads this false spirit to rot on the damp straw of dungeons. One begins by visiting Paul Niquet,—one comes to adore a horned woman with merino hair,—one ends up being arrested in Crespy for vagrancy and exaggerated troubadourism!...
I tried to answer: I invoked Lucian, Rabelais, Erasmus, and other classical fantasists.—I then felt that I was becoming pretentious.
Then, I cried out, weeping:
—Confiteor! plangior! juro!...—I swear to renounce these works cursed by the Sorbonne and by the Institute: I will only write history, philosophy, philology, and statistics... Do they seem to doubt it?... Well, I will write virtuous and pastoral novels, I will aim for poetry and moral prizes; I will write books against slavery and for children, didactic poems, tragedies!—tragedies!... I will even recite one I wrote in second grade, and whose memory comes back to me...
The ghosts disappeared, uttering plaintive cries.
XXVI
MORALITY
Deep night! where am I? In the dungeon!
Imprudent! this is where reading the English article titled the Key to the Street... has led you. Now try to find the key to the fields!
The lock creaked, the bars rattled. The jailer asked me if I had slept well:
—Very well! Very well!
One must be polite.
—How does one get out of here?
—We will write to Paris, and, if the information is favorable, in three or four days...
—Could I speak with a gendarme?
—Yours will be here shortly.
The gendarme, when he entered, seemed like a god to me. He said:
—You are lucky.
—In what way?
—Today is a day for correspondence with Senlis; you can appear before the public prosecutor. Come, get up.
—And how does one get to Senlis?
—On foot; five leagues, that's nothing.
—Yes, but if it rains..., between two gendarmes, on soaked roads.
—You can take a carriage.
I had to take a carriage. A small matter of eleven francs; two francs for the pistol;—in total, thirteen.—Oh, fate!
Besides, the two gendarmes were very amiable, and I got along very well with them on the road, telling them about the battles that had taken place in this country during the time of the League. Upon arriving in sight of the tower of Montépilloy, my story became pathetic; I depicted the battle, I enumerated the squadrons of men-at-arms who rested beneath the furrows;—they stopped for five minutes to contemplate the tower, and I explained to them what a fortified castle of that time was like.
History! Archaeology! Philosophy! So you are good for something after all.
We had to walk up to the village of Montépilloy, located in a cluster of woods. There, my two brave gendarmes from Crespy handed me over to those from Senlis, and told them:
—He has two days' worth of bread in the carriage trunk.
—Would you like to have lunch? they said to me kindly.
—Pardon me, I'm like the English, I eat very little bread.
—Oh! One gets used to it.
The new gendarmes seemed less amiable than the others. One of them said to me:
—We still have a small formality to complete.
He put chains on me like a hero from the Ambigu, and fastened the irons with two padlocks.
—Hold on, I said, why have they only put irons on me here?
—Because the gendarmes were with you in the carriage, and we are on horseback.
Arrived in Senlis, we went to the public prosecutor's office, and, being known in the town, I was released immediately. One of the gendarmes said to me:
—That will teach you to forget your passport another time when you leave your department.
Note to the reader.—I was in the wrong... The public prosecutor was very polite, as was everyone. I only find the dungeon and the irons excessive. This is not a criticism of what happens today. It has always been done this way. I am only recounting this adventure to ask that, as with other things, an attempt at progress be made on this point.—If I had not traveled half the world, and lived with Arabs, Greeks, Persians, in the khans of caravanserais and under tents, I might have had an even more troubled sleep, and a sadder awakening, during this simple episode of a journey from Meaux to Œil.
It is needless to say that I arrived too late for the otter hunt. My friend the lemonade maker, after his hunt, had left for Clermont to attend a funeral. His wife showed me the stuffed otter, completing a collection of animals and birds from the Valois, which he hopes to sell to some Englishman.
This is the faithful story of three October nights, which cured me of the excesses of an overly absolute realism;—at least I have every reason to hope so.
WALKS AND MEMORIES
I
THE BUTTE MONTMARTRE
It's truly difficult to find housing in Paris. I've never been so convinced of this as I have been for the past two months. Arriving from Germany, after a short stay in a suburban town, I sought a more secure home than my previous ones, one of which was on Place du Louvre and the other in Rue du Mail. I'm only going back six years. Evicted from the first with twenty francs in compensation, which I neglected, I don't know why, to collect from the City, I had found in the second what is now rarely found in the center of Paris: a view of two or three trees occupying a certain space, which allows one to both breathe and relax the mind by looking at something other than a chessboard of black windows, where pretty faces only appear by exception. I respect the private lives of my neighbors, and am not one of those who examine with spyglasses the curve of a woman going to bed, or catch with the naked eye the particular silhouettes of the incidents and accidents of married life. I prefer a horizon "as wished for the pleasure of the eyes," as Fénelon would say, where one can enjoy either a sunrise or a sunset, but more particularly the sunrise. The sunset hardly bothers me: I'm sure to encounter it everywhere else but at home. For the sunrise, it's different: I like to see the sun cut angles on the walls, to hear birds chirping outside, even if they're just common sparrows... Grétry offered a louis to hear a songbird; I would give twenty francs for a blackbird; the twenty francs that the city of Paris still owes me!
I lived in Montmartre for a long time; there, one enjoys very pure air, varied perspectives, and magnificent horizons, whether "having been virtuous, one loves to see the dawn rise," which is very beautiful on the Paris side, or with less simple tastes, one prefers those purple hues of the sunset, where the jagged and floating clouds paint battle and transfiguration scenes below the large cemetery, between the Arc de l'Étoile and the bluish hills that stretch from Argenteuil to Pontoise. New houses are always advancing, like the diluvian sea that bathed the flanks of the ancient mountain, gradually gaining on the retreats where the shapeless monsters, later reconstructed by Cuvier, had taken refuge. Attacked on one side by the Rue de l'Empereur, on the other by the town hall, which undermines the steep ascents and lowers the heights of the Paris slope, the old Mount of Mars will soon suffer the fate of the Butte des Moulins, which, in the last century, presented hardly a less superb front. However, we still have a certain number of hills encircled by thick green hedges, which the barberry decorates in turn with its violet flowers and purple berries.
There are windmills, taverns and arbors, rustic Elysian fields and silent alleys, lined with cottages, barns, and bushy gardens, green plains cut by precipices, where springs filter into the clay, gradually detaching certain swathes of greenery where goats frolic, grazing on the acanthus hanging from the rocks; little girls with proud eyes and mountain feet watch over them while playing among themselves. One even encounters a vineyard, the last of Montmartre's famous cru, which, in Roman times, competed with Argenteuil and Suresnes. Each year, this humble hillside loses a row of its stunted vines, which fall into a quarry. Ten years ago, I could have acquired it for three thousand francs... Today, they are asking thirty thousand. It is the most beautiful viewpoint in the vicinity of Paris.
What charmed me about this small space, sheltered by the grand trees of the Château des Brouillards, was primarily the remnant of a vineyard linked to the memory of Saint Denis, who, from a philosophical perspective, might have been the second Bacchus, Διονύσιος, and who had three bodies, one buried in Montmartre, the second in Regensburg, and the third in Corinth. Secondly, it was the proximity of the watering trough, which, in the evening, comes alive with the spectacle of horses and dogs being bathed, and a fountain built in the antique style, where washerwomen chat and sing as in one of the early chapters of Werther. With a bas-relief dedicated to Diana and perhaps two figures of naiads sculpted in demi-relief, one could create, in the shade of the old lime trees leaning over the monument, an admirable retreat, silent at times, reminiscent of certain study spots in the Roman countryside. Above, the Rue des Brouillards winds and snakes, descending towards the Chemin des Bœufs, then the garden of the Gaucher restaurant, with its kiosks, lanterns, and painted statues... The Saint-Denis plain has admirable lines, bounded by the hills of Saint-Ouen and Montmorency, with reflections of sun or clouds that change every hour of the day. To the right is a row of houses, most closed due to cracks in the walls. This ensures the relative solitude of this site; for the passing horses and oxen, the washerwomen, do not disturb a sage's meditations, and even join them. Bourgeois life, its interests and vulgar connections, alone give him the idea of moving as far as possible from the great centers of activity.
To the left are vast lands, covering the site of a collapsed quarry, which the commune has granted to industrious men who have transformed its appearance. They have planted trees, created fields where potatoes and beets green, where the bolted asparagus recently displayed its green plumes adorned with red pearls.
One goes down the path and turns left. There are still two or three green hills, cut by a road that further on fills deep ravines, and which aims one day to join the Rue de l'Empereur between the mounds and the cemetery. One encounters a hamlet there that strongly smells of the countryside, and which three years ago gave up the unhealthy work of a poudrette workshop.—Today, they process the residues of stearic candle factories there.—How many artists rejected from the Prix de Rome have come here to study the Roman countryside and the appearance of the Pontine Marshes! A marsh remains there, animated by ducks, goslings, and chickens.
It is also not uncommon to find picturesque rags on the shoulders of the workers. The hills, split here and there, reveal the settling of the land over old quarries; but nothing is more beautiful than the sight of the great mound, when the sun illuminates its red ocher lands veined with plaster and clay, its bare rocks, and a few still bushy clumps of trees, where ravines and paths wind.
Most of the land and scattered houses in this small valley belong to old owners, who have counted on the Parisians' difficulty in creating new homes and on the tendency of houses in the Montmartre district to invade the Saint-Denis plain within a given time. It is a lock that holds back the torrent; when it opens, the land will be worth a lot.—I regret all the more having hesitated, ten years ago, to pay three thousand francs for the last vineyard of Montmartre.
One must no longer think about it. I will never be a proprietor: and yet how many times, on the 8th or 15th of each quarter (near Paris, at least), have I sung Mr. Vautour's refrain:
When one cannot pay one's rent...
I would have had such a light construction built in that vineyard!... A small villa in the style of Pompeii with an impluvium and a cella, something like the house of the tragic poet. Poor Laviron, who later died under the walls of Rome, had drawn up the plan for me.—To tell the truth, however, there are no proprietors on the Montmartre mounds. One cannot legally settle on lands undermined by cavities populated in their walls by mammoths and mastodons. The commune grants a right of possession that expires after a hundred years... One is encamped like the Turks; and the most advanced doctrines would have difficulty contesting such a fleeting right where heredity cannot be long established.[1]
II
THE CHATEAU DE SAINT-GERMAIN
I've scoured the districts of Paris that align with my connections, and found nothing but impossible prices, inflated by the conditions set by the concierges. Having found only one lodging below three hundred francs, I was asked if I had a profession that required daylight.—I believe I replied that I needed it for the state of my health.
—"It's," the concierge told me, "because the room's window opens onto a corridor that isn't very bright."
I didn't want to know any more, and I even neglected to visit a cellar for rent, remembering having seen that same inscription in London, followed by these words: "For a single gentleman."
I said to myself:
—Why not go live in Versailles or Saint-Germain? The suburbs are even more expensive than Paris; but, by taking a railway subscription, one can undoubtedly find accommodation in the most deserted or most abandoned of these two towns. Really, what is half an hour by train, morning and evening? You have the resources of a city there, and you are almost in the countryside. You find yourself lodged, in fact, at 130, Rue Saint-Lazare. The journey offers only pleasure, and never equates, in terms of boredom or fatigue, to an omnibus ride.
I was very happy with this idea, and I chose Saint-Germain, which is a town of memories for me. What a charming journey! Asnières, Chatou, Nanterre and Le Pecq; the Seine winding three times, views of green islands, plains, woods, chalets and villas; to the right, the hills of Colombes, Argenteuil and Carrières; to the left, Mont Valérien, Bougival, Luciennes and Marly; then the most beautiful panorama in the world: the terrace and the old galleries of Henry IV's château, crowned by the severe profile of Francis I's château. I have always loved this bizarre château, which, on the plan, has the shape of a Gothic D, in honor, it is said, of the beautiful Diane's name.—I only regret not seeing those large slate-scaled roofs, those openwork bell towers where spiral staircases unfolded, those tall sculpted windows springing from a tangle of angular roofs that characterize Valois architecture. Masons disfigured, under Louis XVIII, the face overlooking the parterre. Since then, this monument has been transformed into a penitentiary, and the appearance of the moats and ancient bridges has been dishonored by an enclosure of walls covered with posters. The high windows and gilded balconies, the terraces where the blonde beauties of the Valois court and the Stuart court appeared in turn, the gallant knights of the Medicis and the faithful Scots of Mary Stuart and King James, have never been restored; all that remains is the noble design of the bays, towers and facades, that strange contrast of brick and slate, illuminated by the evening fires or the silvery reflections of the night, and that half-gallant, half-warlike aspect of a fortified castle which, inside, contained a splendid palace erected on a mountain, between a wooded valley where a river winds and a parterre that outlines the edge of a vast forest.
I returned there, like Ravenswood to his fathers' castle; I had had relatives among the guests of this castle,—twenty years ago already;—others, inhabitants of the town; in all, four tombs... Memories of love and festivities dating back to the Bourbon era still mingled with these impressions—so that I was alternately happy and sad for a whole evening!
A mundane incident tore me away from the poetry of these youthful dreams. Night having fallen, after having walked through the streets and squares, and greeted long-loved dwellings, given a last look at the shores of the Mareil and Chambourcy pond, I had finally rested in a café overlooking the Place du Marché. I was served a pint of beer. There were three woodlice at the bottom;—a man who has lived in the Orient is incapable of being affected by such a detail.
"Waiter!" I said, "It's possible I like woodlice; but, next time, if I ask for them, I'd prefer them served separately."
The phrase wasn't new, having already been applied to hair served on an omelet; but it could still be appreciated in Saint Germain. The regulars, butchers and cattle drivers, found it amusing.
The waiter replied imperturbably:
"Sir, that shouldn't surprise you; repairs are currently being made to the château, and these insects are taking refuge in town houses. They are very fond of beer and find their graves there."
"Waiter," I said, "you are larger than life; and your conversation captivates me... But is it true that repairs are being made to the château?"
"Sir has just been convinced of it."
"Convinced, thanks to your reasoning; but are you sure of the fact itself?"
"The newspapers have spoken of it."
Having been absent from France for a long time, I couldn't dispute this testimony. The next day, I went to the château to see the progress of the restoration. The sergeant-concierge told me, with a smile that belongs only to a military man of that rank:
"Sir, just to strengthen the foundations, nine million would be needed; do you bring them?"
I am accustomed to being surprised by nothing.
"I don't have them on me," I observed; "but that could still be found!"
"Well," he said, "when you bring them, we will show you the château."
I was piqued; which made me return to Saint-Germain two days later. I had found the idea.
"Why," I said to myself, "not start a subscription? France is poor; but many English will come next year for the Champs-Élysées exhibition. It's impossible that they won't help us save from destruction a château that has housed several generations of their queens and kings. All the Jacobite families have passed through it.—The town is still half full of English; as a child, I sang the songs of King James and wept for Mary Stuart, reciting the verses of Ronsard and du Bellay... The breed of King Charles dogs fills the streets as a living proof of the affections of so many vanished races... No! I said to myself, the English will not refuse to join a doubly national subscription. If we contribute with monacos, they will surely find crowns and guineas!"
Emboldened by this plan, I went to submit it to the regulars of the Café du Marché. They welcomed it with enthusiasm, and, when I asked for a pint of beer without woodlice, the waiter told me:
"Oh! no, sir, not anymore today!"
At the château, I presented myself with my head held high. The sergeant introduced me to the guardroom, where I successfully developed my idea, and the commandant, having been informed, kindly allowed me to see the chapel and the Stuart apartments, which are closed to mere curious visitors. These are in a sad state, and, as for the galleries, ancient halls, and Medici chambers, it has been impossible to recognize them for centuries, thanks to the enclosures, masonry, and false ceilings that have adapted this château for military governance.
How beautiful the courtyard is, though! These sculpted profiles, these arches, these chivalrous galleries, the very irregularity of the plan, the red hue of the facades, all make one dream of the castles of Scotland and Ireland, of Walter Scott and Byron. So much has been done for Versailles and so much for Fontainebleau. Why not restore this precious relic of our history? The curse of Catherine de' Medici, jealous of the monument built in honor of Diana, continued under the Bourbons. Louis XIV feared seeing the spire of Saint-Denis; his successors did everything for Saint-Cloud and Versailles. Today, Saint-Germain still awaits the result of a promise that the war may have prevented from being fulfilled.
III
A SINGING SOCIETY
What the concierge showed me with the most love was a series of small lodges called the cells, where some military prisoners sleep. These are true boudoirs adorned with frescoes depicting landscapes. The bed consists of a horsehair mattress supported by elastic bands; all very clean and charming, like a ship officer's cabin.
However, it lacks daylight, like the room I was offered in Paris, and one couldn't stay there having a profession that requires daylight.
"I'd prefer," I told the sergeant, "a less well-decorated room, and closer to the windows."
"When you get up before daybreak, it makes no difference!" he replied.
I found this observation to be perfectly accurate.
Passing back through the guardhouse, I merely had to thank the commander for his politeness, and the sergeant refused to accept any buona mano.
My idea of an English subscription was still running through my head, and I was eager to test its effect on the town's inhabitants; so, going to dine at the Henri IV pavilion, which boasts the most admirable view in France, in a kiosk open to a ten-league panorama, I shared it with three Englishmen and one Englishwoman, who were amazed and found the plan very much in line with their national ideas.—Saint-Germain has this peculiarity, that everyone knows everyone, people speak loudly in public establishments, and one can even converse with English ladies without being introduced. One would be so bored without it! Besides, it's a distinct population, classified, it's true, by social standing, but entirely local.
It is very rare for a resident of Saint-Germain to come to Paris; some of them don't make the trip once in ten years. Foreign families also live among themselves there with the familiarity that exists in spa towns. And it's not the water, it's the pure air one comes to Saint-Germain for. There are charming sanatoriums, inhabited by very healthy people, but tired of the insane hum and bustle of the capital. The garrison, which was formerly composed of bodyguards, and is now of cuirassiers of the guard, is perhaps not unrelated to the residence of some young beauties, daughters or widows, whom one meets on horseback or donkey on the road to Les Loges or the Château du Val.—In the evening, the shops light up on Rue de Paris and Rue au Pain; people chat at the door first, they laugh, they even sing.—The accent of the voices is quite distinct from that of Paris; the young girls have pure and well-pitched voices, as in mountain regions. Passing through Rue de l'Église, I heard singing from the back of a small café. I saw many people entering, especially women. Crossing the shop, I found myself in a large room entirely decorated with flags and garlands with Masonic insignia and customary inscriptions.—I was once part of the Joyeux and the Bergers de Syracuse; so I was not at all embarrassed to introduce myself.
The desk was majestically set up under a canopy adorned with tricolor draperies, and the president gave me the cordial salute due to a visitor.—I recalled that at the Bergers de Syracuse, the session generally opened with this toast: “To the Poles!... and to the ladies!” Today, the Poles are a little forgotten.—Furthermore, I heard some very pretty songs at this gathering, but especially ravishing women's voices. The Conservatory has not tarnished the brilliance of these pure and natural intonations, these trills borrowed from the song of the nightingale or the blackbird; these fresh throats, so rich in melody, have not been corrupted by solfège lessons. How is it that these women sing so perfectly in tune? And yet any professional musician could say to each of them: “You don't know how to sing.” Nothing is as amusing as the songs young girls compose themselves, which generally allude to lovers' betrayals or the whims of the opposite sex. Sometimes there are touches of local mockery that escape the foreign visitor. Often a young man and a young woman respond to each other like Daphnis and Chloe, like Myrtil and Sylvie. Dwelling on this thought, I found myself quite moved, quite tender, as if by a memory of youth... It's because there is an Age—a critical age, as they say for women—when memories revive so vividly that certain forgotten designs reappear beneath the wrinkled fabric of life! One is not old enough to no longer think of love, one is no longer young enough to always think of pleasing.—This sentence, I confess, is a little Directoire in style. What brings it to my pen is that I heard an old young man who, having taken a guitar from the wall, admirably performed Carat's old romance:
The pleasure of love lasts but a moment...
The pain of love lasts a lifetime!
He had incredibly curly hair, a white cravat, a diamond pin on his jabot, and rings with lover's knots. His hands were white and delicate like those of a pretty woman. And, if I had been a woman, I would have loved him, despite his age; for his voice went straight to the heart.
This good man reminded me of my father, who, still young, sang Italian tunes with taste upon his return from Poland. He had lost his wife there and couldn't help but weep, accompanying himself on the guitar, to the words of a romance she had loved, and of which I always remembered this passage:
Mamma mia, medicate
Questa piaga, per pietà!
Melicerto fu l'arciero
Perché pace in cor non ho!...[43]
Unfortunately, the guitar is now overshadowed by the piano, as is the harp; these are the gallantries and graces of another era. One must go to Saint-Germain to find, in its still peaceful small world, the faded charms of society from yesteryear.
I went out under a beautiful moonlight, imagining myself living in 1827, a time when I had lived in Saint-Germain for a while. Among the young girls present at this small gathering, I recognized expressive eyes, regular, and, so to speak, classical features, intonations peculiar to the region, which made me dream of cousins, of friends from that era, as if in another world I had rediscovered my first loves. I strolled through these sleeping streets and promenades in the moonlight. I admired the majestic profiles of the castle, I went to breathe the scent of the defoliated trees at the edge of the forest, I better appreciated at this hour the architecture of the church, where James II's wife rests, and which resembles a Roman temple[2].
Around midnight, I knocked on the door of a hotel where I often stayed a few years ago. Impossible to wake anyone. Oxen paraded silently, and their drivers could not tell me how to spend the night. Returning to the Market Square, I asked the sentry if he knew of a hotel where a relatively late Parisian could be accommodated.
“Come into the guardhouse, they'll tell you,” he replied.
In the guardhouse, I met some young soldiers who told me:
“It's very difficult! People go to bed here at ten o'clock; but warm yourself up for a moment.”
Wood was thrown into the stove; I began to talk about Africa and Asia. This interested them so much that those who had fallen asleep were woken up to listen to me. I found myself singing Arabic and Greek songs; for the singing company had put me in this mood. Around two o'clock, one of the soldiers said to me:
“You've slept well in a tent... If you like, take a place on the camp bed.”
They made me a bolster with a munitions bag, I wrapped myself in my coat, and I was about to sleep when the sergeant returned and said:
“Where did they pick up this man again?”
“He's a man who speaks quite well,” said one of the riflemen; “he's been to Africa.”
“If he's been to Africa, that's different,” said the sergeant; “but sometimes we let individuals in here whom we don't know; it's imprudent... They could take something!”
“It wouldn't be a mattress,” I exclaimed.
“Don't pay attention,” one of the soldiers told me: “that's just his way; and besides, he just received a politeness... that makes him grumpy.”
I slept very well until daybreak; and, thanking these brave soldiers as well as the sergeant, who had completely softened, I went for a walk towards the hills of Mareil to admire the splendors of the rising sun.
As I was saying earlier, “my younger years come back to me,” and the sight of beloved places brings back the feeling of past things. Saint-Germain, Senlis, and Dammartin are the three towns which, not far from Paris, correspond to my dearest memories. The memory of old, deceased relatives is melancholically linked to the thought of several young girls whose love made me a poet, or whose disdain sometimes made me ironic and pensive.
I learned to write by composing letters of affection or friendship, and when I reread those that have been preserved, I find in them a strong imprint of my readings from that time, especially Diderot, Rousseau, and Senancour. What I have just said will explain the sentiment in which the following pages were written. I had fallen in love with Saint-Germain again during those last beautiful autumn days. I settled at the Ange Gardien (Guardian Angel), and in the intervals between my walks, I jotted down some memories that I dare not call Memoirs, and which would be more in line with Jean-Jacques' solitary walks. I will finish them in the very country where I was raised and where he died.
IV
JUVENILIA
Chance has played such a large role in my life that I am not surprised when I think of the singular way it presided over my birth. This, one might say, is everyone's story. But not everyone has the opportunity to tell their story.
And if everyone did, there would be no great harm: everyone's experience is everyone's treasure.
One day, a horse escaped from a green pasture bordering the Aisne, and soon disappeared among the thickets; it reached the dark region of the trees and got lost in the forest of Compiègne. This happened around 1770.
It is not a rare accident for a horse to escape through a forest, and yet, I have little other claim to existence. This is at least probable if one believes in what Hoffmann called the chain of things.
My grandfather was young then. He had taken the horse from his father's stable, then he had sat on the riverbank, dreaming of I don't know what, while the sun set in the crimson clouds of Valois and Beauvoisis.
The water turned green and shimmered with dark reflections, violet bands streaked the redness of the sunset. My grandfather, turning to leave, no longer found the horse that had brought him. In vain he searched for it, called it until nightfall. He had to return to the farm.
He was of a silent nature; he avoided encounters, went up to his room, and fell asleep, counting on Providence and the animal's instinct, which might well lead it back home.
That is not what happened. The next morning, my grandfather came down from his room and met his father in the courtyard, who was pacing back and forth. He had already noticed that a horse was missing from the stable. Silent like his son, he had not asked who the culprit was: he recognized him upon seeing him.
I don't know what happened. A too-sharp reproach was undoubtedly the cause of my grandfather's decision. He went up to his room, packed a few clothes, and, through the forest of Compiègne, he reached a small village situated between Ermenonville and Senlis, near the ponds of Châalis, an ancient Carolingian residence. There, lived one of his uncles, who was said to be descended from a 17th-century Flemish painter. He lived in an old hunting lodge, now ruined, which had been part of the appanages of Marguerite de Valois. The neighboring field, surrounded by thickets called the bosquets (groves), was located on the site of an ancient Roman camp and has retained the name of the tenth of the Caesars. Rye is harvested there in the parts not covered by granite and heather. Sometimes, while plowing, Etruscan pots, medals, rusted swords, or formless images of Celtic gods have been found there.
My grandfather helped the old man cultivate this field and was patriarchally rewarded by marrying his cousin. I don't know the exact date of their marriage; but, as he married with a sword, and my grandmother received the name Marie-Antoinette along with Laurence, it is probable that they were married a little before the Revolution. Today, my grandfather rests, with his wife and youngest daughter, in the middle of this field he once cultivated. His eldest daughter is buried far from there, in cold Silesia, in the Polish Catholic cemetery of Gross-Glogaw. She died at twenty-five from the fatigues of war, from a fever she contracted while crossing a bridge laden with corpses, where her carriage almost overturned. My father, tasked with joining the army in Moscow, later lost his letters and jewelry in the waters of the Berezina.
I never saw my mother; her portraits were lost or stolen. I only know that she resembled an engraving of the time, after Prudhon or Fragonard, called Modesty. The fever that took her life seized me three times, at periods that form singular, periodic divisions in my life. Always, at these times, I felt my spirit struck by the images of mourning and desolation that surrounded my cradle. The letters my mother wrote from the shores of the Baltic, or the banks of the Spree or the Danube, had been read to me so many times! The sense of wonder, the taste for distant travels, were undoubtedly the result of these early impressions for me, as well as the long stay I had in an isolated countryside in the midst of the woods. Often left to the care of servants and peasants, I had fed my mind with bizarre beliefs, legends, and old songs. There was enough there to make a poet, and yet I am only a prose dreamer.
I was seven years old, playing carelessly by my uncle's door, when three officers appeared before the house; the blackened gold of their uniforms barely gleamed beneath their soldier's greatcoats. The first embraced me with such effusion that I cried out:
—Father!... you're hurting me!
From that day, my destiny changed.
All three were returning from the siege of Strasbourg. The eldest, saved from the icy waters of the Berezina, took me with him to teach me what were called my duties. I was still weak, and the cheerfulness of his younger brother charmed me during my work. A soldier who served them had the idea of dedicating a part of his nights to me. He would wake me before dawn and take me for walks on the hills near Paris, having me breakfast on bread and cream in the farms and dairies.
V
EARLY YEARS
A fateful hour struck for France; its hero, himself a captive within a vast empire, wished to gather the elite of his loyal heroes in the Champ de Mai. I witnessed this sublime spectacle from the generals' box. Standards adorned with golden eagles were distributed to the regiments, henceforth entrusted to the fidelity of all.
One evening, I saw an immense decoration unfold in the town's main square, representing a ship at sea. The vessel moved on troubled waters, seeming to sail towards a tower that marked the shore. A violent gust destroyed the effect of this representation. A sinister omen, presiding over the return of strangers to the homeland.
We saw the sons of the North again, and the steeds of Ukraine once more gnawed at the bark of the trees in our gardens. My sisters from the hamlet flew back, like plaintive doves, and brought me in their arms a pink-footed turtledove, which I loved like another sister.
One day, one of the beautiful ladies visiting my father asked me for a small favor; I had the misfortune to reply impatiently. When I returned to the terrace, the turtledove had flown away.
I conceived such grief that I nearly died of a scarlet fever that brought all the blood of my heart to the surface of my skin. They thought to console me by giving me a young capuchin monkey as a companion, brought from America by a captain, a friend of my father. This pretty creature became the companion of my games and my studies.
I studied Italian, Greek, Latin, German, Arabic, and Persian simultaneously. Pastor fido, Faust, Ovid, and Anacreon were my favorite poems and poets. My handwriting, carefully cultivated, sometimes rivaled the most celebrated manuscripts of Iram in grace and correctness. It was still necessary for the dart of love to pierce my heart with one of its most burning arrows! That one flew from the slender bow of the dark brow of a maiden with ebony eyes, named Heloise.—I will return to her later.
I was always surrounded by young girls; one of them was my aunt; two women of the house, Jeannette and Fanchette, also lavished their care upon me. My childish smile recalled my mother's, and my blond hair, softly wavy, capriciously covered the precocious grandeur of my forehead. I became enamored with Fanchette, and conceived the singular idea of taking her as my wife according to the rites of our ancestors. I myself celebrated the marriage, enacting the ceremony with an old dress of my grandmother's that I had thrown over my shoulders. A silver-spangled ribbon encircled my forehead, and I had enhanced the usual pallor of my cheeks with a light layer of rouge. I called upon the God of our fathers and the Holy Virgin, whose image I possessed, as witnesses, and everyone complacently indulged this naive child's game.
However, I had grown up; a healthy flush colored my cheeks; I loved to breathe the air of deep forests. The shaded groves of Ermenonville, the solitudes of Morfontaine, held no more secrets for me. Two of my cousins lived nearby. I was proud to accompany them into these ancient forests, which seemed to be their domain.
In the evening, to entertain our elderly relatives, we would perform the masterpieces of poets, and a benevolent audience would shower us with praise and accolades. A lively and witty young girl named Louise shared in our triumphs; she was beloved in this family, where she represented the glory of the arts.
I had become very proficient in dance. A mulatto, named Major, taught me the first elements of both this art and music, while a portrait painter, named Mignard, gave me drawing lessons. Mademoiselle Nouvelle was the star of our dance hall. I encountered a rival in a handsome boy named Provost. It was he who taught me dramatic art: we performed together little comedies that he improvised with wit. Mademoiselle Nouvelle was naturally our leading actress and maintained such an exact balance between us that we sighed without hope... Poor Provost later became an actor under the name of Raymond; he remembered his first attempts and began to compose féeries, in which he collaborated with the Cogniard brothers. He met a very sad end when he got into a quarrel with a stage manager at the Gaieté, whom he slapped. Upon returning home, he bitterly reflected on the consequences of his imprudence, and the following night, he pierced his heart with a dagger.
VI
HÉLOÏSE
The boarding house where I lived was next to some young embroiderers. One of them, called the Creole, was the object of my first love poems; her severe eye, the serene placidity of her Greek profile, reconciled me with the cold dignity of my studies; it was for her that I composed versified translations of Horace's ode To Tyndaris, and of a Byron melody, whose refrain I translated thus:
Tell me, young girl of Athens,
Why have you stolen my heart?
Sometimes, I would get up at daybreak and take the road to ***, running and reciting my verses in the pouring rain. The cruel girl laughed at my wandering loves and my sighs! It was for her that I composed a poem, imitated from a melody by Thomas Moore.
I escape from these fleeting loves to recount my first sorrows. Never had a hurtful word, an impure sigh, sullied the homage I paid to my cousins. Héloïse, for the first time, introduced me to pain. She had a kind old Italian governess who was informed of my love. This governess conspired with my father's servant to arrange a meeting for us. I was secretly led down into a room where Héloïse's figure was represented by a vast painting. A silver pin pierced the thick knot of her ebony hair, and her bust sparkled like that of a queen, spangled with golden braids on a background of silk and velvet. Lost, mad with intoxication, I had thrown myself on my knees before the image; a door opened, Héloïse came to meet me and looked at me with a smiling eye.
—Forgive me, queen, I cried, I thought I was Tasso at the feet of Eleonora, or tender Ovid at the feet of Julia!...
She could not answer me, and we both remained silent in the semi-darkness. I dared not kiss her hand, for my heart would have broken.—Oh, sorrows and regrets of my lost young loves! How cruel are your memories! «Extinguished fevers of the human soul, why do you return to rekindle a heart that no longer beats?» Héloïse is married today; Fanchette, Sylvie, and Adrienne are forever lost to me:—the world is desolate. Populated by phantoms with plaintive voices, it murmurs love songs over the debris of my nothingness! Yet return, sweet images; I have loved so much! I have suffered so much! «A bird flying in the air told its secret to the grove, which told it to the passing wind,—and the plaintive waters repeated the supreme word:—Love! love!»
VII
VOYAGE TO THE NORTH
Let the wind carry away these pages written in moments of fever or melancholy, it matters not: it has already scattered some, and I lack the courage to rewrite them. As for memoirs, one never knows if the public cares, and yet I am among those writers whose lives are intimately tied to the works that made them known. Are we not also, unintentionally, the subject of direct or disguised biographies? Is it more modest to portray oneself in a novel under the name of Lélio, Octave, or Arthur, or to betray one's most intimate emotions in a volume of poetry? Forgive us these bursts of personality, we who live under the gaze of all, and who, glorious or lost, can no longer enjoy the benefit of obscurity!
If I could do some good in passing, I would try to draw some attention to these poor, neglected towns whose railways have diverted traffic and life. They sit sadly amidst the debris of their past fortune, turning inward, casting a disenchanted gaze upon the marvels of a civilization that condemns or forgets them. Saint-Germain reminded me of Senlis, and, as it was a Tuesday, I took the omnibus to Pontoise, which now only runs on market days. I enjoy thwarting the railways, and Alexandre Dumas, whom I accuse of having recently embellished a bit on my youthful follies, truthfully said that I spent two hundred francs and eight days to visit him in Brussels, by the old Flanders road, and despite the Northern Railway.
No, I will never accept, whatever the terrain difficulties, that one should travel eight leagues, or, if you prefer, thirty-two kilometers, to go to Poissy while avoiding Saint-Germain, and thirty leagues to go to Compiègne while avoiding Senlis. It is only in France that one can encounter such convoluted roads. When the Belgian railway pierced twelve mountains to reach Spa, we marvelled at the easy contours of our main artery, which alternately follow the capricious beds of the Seine and the Oise, to avoid one or two slopes of the old Northern road.
Pontoise is another one of those towns, perched on hills, that delight me with their patriarchal appearance, their promenades, their viewpoints, and the preservation of certain customs that are no longer found elsewhere. People still play in the streets, chat, and sing in the evenings on their doorsteps; restaurateurs are also pastry chefs; one finds something of family life in their establishments; the terraced streets are fun to explore; the promenade laid out on the old towers overlooks the magnificent valley where the Oise flows. Pretty women and beautiful children stroll there. One catches a glimpse, and envies, all this peaceful little world living apart in its old houses, under its beautiful trees, amidst these beautiful sights and pure air. The church is beautiful and perfectly preserved. A Parisian novelty shop lights up nearby, and its salesgirls are lively and cheerful as in la Fiancée de M. Scribe... What makes the charm, for me, of these slightly abandoned small towns, is that I find something of the Paris of my youth there. The appearance of the houses, the shape of the shops, certain customs, some costumes... From this perspective, if Saint-Germain recalls 1830, Pontoise recalls 1820;—I go even further to rediscover my childhood and the memory of my parents.
This time, I bless the railway,—an hour at most separates me from Saint-Leu:—the course of the Oise, so calm and green, its poplar islets silhouetted in the moonlight, the horizon fringed with hills and forests, the villages with familiar names called out at each station, the already noticeable accent of the peasants boarding from one stop to the next, the young girls wearing madras headscarves, as is customary in this province, all this softens and charms me: it feels as if I am breathing a different air; and, setting foot on the ground, I experience an even keener feeling than that which animated me recently when crossing the Rhine: the paternal land is homeland twice over.
I am very fond of Paris, where chance would have it that I was born, but I could just as easily have been born on a ship, and Paris, which bears in its arms the bari or mystical ship of the Egyptians, does not have a hundred thousand true Parisians within its walls. A man from the South, by chance uniting there with a woman from the North, cannot produce a child of Lutecian nature. One might say to this: "What does it matter!" But ask the people of the provinces if it matters to be from this or that country.
I don't know if these observations seem strange; seeking to study others within myself, I tell myself that there is much of family love in the attachment to the land. This piety that clings to places is also a part of the noble sentiment that unites us to our homeland. In return, cities and villages proudly adorn themselves with the illustrious figures that come from their soil. There is no longer division or local jealousy; everything refers to the national center, and Paris is the hearth of all these glories. Will you tell me why I love everyone in this country, where I find familiar intonations from the past, where the old women have the features of those who cradled me, where the young men and women remind me of the companions of my early youth? An old man passes by: I seemed to see my grandfather; he speaks, it's almost his voice;—this young woman has the features of my aunt, who died at twenty-five; a younger one reminds me of a little peasant girl who loved me, who called me her little husband,—who always danced and sang, and who, on Sundays in spring, made herself crowns of daisies. What became of poor Célénie, with whom I ran in the forest of Chantilly, and who was so afraid of gamekeepers and wolves!
VIII
CHANTILLY
Here are the two towers of Saint-Leu, the village on the height, separated by the railway from the part that borders the Oise. One ascends towards Chantilly, skirting high sandstone hills of a solemn aspect, then it's a stretch of the forest; the Nonette sparkles in the meadows bordering the last houses of the town. The Nonette! one of the dear little rivers where I fished for crayfish; on the other side of the forest flows its sister the Thève, where I almost drowned because I didn't want to seem a coward in front of little Célénie!
Célénie often appears to me in my dreams as a water nymph, a naive temptress, madly intoxicated by the scent of the meadows, crowned with wild celery and water lilies, revealing, in her childish laughter, between her dimpled cheeks, the pearly teeth of the Germanic nixie. And indeed, the hem of her dress was very often wet, as befits her kind... I had to pick flowers for her on the marly banks of the Commelle ponds, or among the reeds and osier beds that border the farms of Coye. She loved the lost grottoes in the woods, the ruins of old castles, the collapsed temples with ivy-festooned columns, the woodcutters' hearth, where she sang and told the old legends of the country;—Madame de Montfort, imprisoned in her tower, who sometimes flew away as a swan, and sometimes wriggled as a beautiful golden fish in the moats of her castle;—the baker's daughter, who brought cakes to Count Ory, and who, forced to spend the night with her lord, asked him for his dagger to untie a lace and pierced her heart with it;—the red monks, who abducted women and plunged them into underground passages;—the daughter of the Sire de Pontarmé, enamored of the handsome Lautrec, and imprisoned for seven years by her father, after which she dies; and the knight, returning from the crusade, has her shroud of fine linen unstitched with a fine gold knife; she revives, but she is nothing more than a bloodthirsty ghoul... Henry IV and Gabrielle, Biron and Marie de Loches, and what else do I know of so many stories with which her memory was populated! Saint Rieul speaking to the frogs, Saint Nicholas resurrecting the three little children chopped up like mincemeat by a butcher from Clermont-sur-Oise. Saint Leonard, Saint Loup, and Saint Guy have left in these cantons a thousand testimonies of their sanctity and their miracles. Célénie climbed onto the rocks or the druidic dolmens, and recounted them to the young shepherds. This little Velleda of the old Sylvanectes country has left me memories that time revives. What has become of her? I will inquire on the side of La Chapelle-en-Serval or Charlepont, or Montméliant... She had aunts everywhere, countless cousins: how many deaths in all that! how many unfortunates no doubt in a country so happy once!
At least, Chantilly bears its misfortune nobly; like those old gentlemen with white linen and impeccable attire, it has that proud demeanor that conceals a faded hat or threadbare clothes... Everything is clean, tidy, circumspect; voices resonate harmoniously in the echoing halls. One senses everywhere the habit of respect, and the ceremony that once reigned in the château still somewhat governs the interactions of its placid inhabitants. It's full of retired old servants, walking invalid dogs;—some have become masters themselves, and have taken on the venerable aspect of the old lords they served.
Chantilly is like a long street in Versailles. You must see it in summer, under a splendid sun, as you pass noisily over its beautiful, resonant paving stones. Everything there is prepared for princely splendors and for the privileged crowds of hunts and races. Nothing is as strange as this grand gate that opens onto the château's lawn, resembling a triumphal arch, or the nearby monument, which looks like a basilica but is merely a stable. There is still something there of the Condé family's struggle against the elder branch of the Bourbons. It is the hunt that triumphs in the absence of war, where this family found glory even after Clio had torn the pages of the great Condé's warrior youth, as expressed in the melancholic painting he himself commissioned.
What's the point now of revisiting this unfurnished château, which retains only Watteau's satirical cabinet and the tragic shadow of the chef Vatel, piercing his heart in a fruit storeroom! I preferred to hear my hostess's sincere regrets concerning that good Prince of Condé, who is still the subject of local conversations. In these kinds of towns, there is something akin to Dante's circles of purgatory, immobilized in a single memory, where the acts of past life are re-enacted in a narrower center.
—"And what became of your daughter, who was so blonde and cheerful?" I asked her; "she must have married?"
—"My goodness, yes, and since then, she died of consumption..."
I hardly dare say that this struck me more vividly than the memories of the Prince of Condé. I had seen you so young, and certainly I would have loved her, if at that time my heart hadn't been occupied with another... And now I think of the German ballad The Innkeeper's Daughter, and the three companions, one of whom said: "Oh! if I had known you, how I would have loved her!"—and the second: "I knew you, and I loved you tenderly!"—and the third: "I did not know you... but I love you and will love you for eternity!"
Another blonde figure that pales, detaches, and falls frozen on the horizon of these woods bathed in grey mists... I took the carriage to Senlis, which follows the course of the Nonette, passing through Saint-Firmin and Courteuil; we leave Saint-Léonard and its old chapel to the left, and already we glimpse the high bell tower of the cathedral. To the left is the field of the Raines, where Saint Rieul, interrupted by frogs during one of his sermons, imposed silence on them, and, when he had finished, allowed only one to be heard in the future. There is something oriental in this naive legend and in the saint's kindness, which at least allows one frog to express the complaints of the others.
I found an unspeakable joy in wandering through the streets and alleyways of the old Roman city, still so famous since for its sieges and battles. "O poor city! how envied you are!" said Henri IV.—Today, no one thinks of it, and its inhabitants seem little concerned with the rest of the universe. They live even more apart than those of Saint-Germain. This hill with its ancient constructions proudly dominates its horizon of green meadows bordered by four forests; Halatte, Apremont, Pontarmé, Ermenonville, outline their shadowy masses in the distance, where here and there the ruins of abbeys and castles emerge.
Passing by the Reims gate, I came across one of those enormous showman's wagons that transport an entire artistic family, their equipment, and their household from fair to fair. It had started to rain, and I was cordially offered shelter. The space was vast, heated by a stove, lit by eight windows, and six people seemed to live there quite comfortably. Two pretty girls were busy mending their sequined costumes, a still beautiful woman was cooking, and the head of the family was giving deportment lessons to a handsome young man whom he was training to play the lovers. These people were not limited to agility exercises; they also performed plays. They were often invited to provincial chateaux, and they showed me several testimonials to their talents, signed by illustrious names. One of the young girls began to recite verses from an old comedy from at least Montfleury's time, as the new repertoire is forbidden to them. They also perform impromptu plays on Italian-style canvases, with great ease of invention and repartee. Looking at the two young girls, one lively and dark-haired, the other blonde and laughing, I began to think of Mignon and Philine in Wilhelm Meister, and a Germanic dream returned to me between the prospect of the woods and the ancient profile of Senlis. Why not stay in this wandering house for lack of a Parisian home? But it is no longer time to obey these whims of verdant bohemia; and I took leave of my hosts, for the rain had ceased.
CHIMERAS.
EL DESDICHADO.
I am the shadowy one,—the widower,—the unconsoled,
The Prince of Aquitaine of the ruined tower:
My sole star is dead,—and my constellated lute
Bears the Black Sun of Melancholy.
In the night of the tomb, you who consoled me,
Give me back Posillipo and the Italian sea,
The flower that so pleased my desolate heart,
And the arbor where the vine marries the rose.
Am I Love or Phoebus?... Lusignan or Biron?
My brow is still red from the queen's kiss;
I have dreamed in the grotto where the siren swims ...
And I, twice victorious, have crossed the Acheron:
Modulating in turn on Orpheus' lyre
The sighs of the saint and the cries of the fairy.
MYRTHO.
I think of you, Myrtho, divine enchantress,
Of proud Posillipo, shining with a thousand fires,
Of your brow bathed in the lights of the Orient,
Of black grapes mingled with the gold of your tress.
It was in your cup too that I had drunk intoxication.
And in the fleeting flash of your smiling eye,
When at the feet of Iacchus I was seen praying,
For the Muse has made me one of Greece's sons.
I know why the volcano there reopened ...
It's because yesterday you touched it with a nimble foot,
And suddenly the horizon was covered with ashes.
Since a Norman duke broke your clay gods,
Always, beneath the branches of Virgil's laurel,
The pale Hortensia unites with the green Myrtle!
HORUS.
The god Kneph, trembling, shook the universe:
Isis, the mother, then rose from her couch,
Made a gesture of hatred at her fierce spouse,
And the ardor of old shone in her green eyes.
"Do you see him," she said, "he dies, this old pervert,
All the world's frosts have passed through his mouth,
Bind his twisted foot, extinguish his squinting eye,
He is the god of volcanoes and the king of winters!"
The eagle has already passed, the new spirit calls me,
I have donned Cybele's robe for him ...
He is the beloved child of Hermes and Osiris!"
The Goddess had fled on her golden conch,
The sea sent back her adored image,
And the skies radiated beneath Iris's scarf.
ANTEROS.
You ask why I have so much rage in my heart
And on a flexible neck an untamed head;
It is because I am sprung from the race of Antaeus,
I turn the darts against the conquering god.
Yes, I am one of those inspired by the Avenger,
He marked my brow with his irritated lip,
Beneath Abel's pallor, alas! bloodied,
I sometimes have Cain's implacable flush!
Jehovah! the last, vanquished by your genius,
Who, from the depths of hell, cried: "O tyranny!"
It is my ancestor Belus or my father Dagon ...
They plunged me three times into the waters of Cocytus,
And protecting my Amalekite mother all alone,
I re-sow at her feet the teeth of the old dragon.
DELFICA.
Do you know it, Daphne, that ancient romance,
At the foot of the sycamore, or beneath the white laurels,
Beneath the olive, the myrtle, or the trembling willows,
That love song ...that always begins again!
Do you recognize the TEMPLE, with its immense peristyle,
And the bitter lemons where your teeth left their mark?
And the grotto, fatal to imprudent guests,
Where the ancient seed of the vanquished dragon sleeps.
They will return, these gods you always mourn!
Time will bring back the order of ancient days;
The earth has trembled with a prophetic breath...
Yet the sibyl with the Latin face
Is still asleep beneath Constantine's arch:
—And nothing has disturbed the severe portico.
ARTEMIS.
The Thirteenth returns... It is still the first;
And it is always the only one—or it is the only moment
For are you queen, O you! the first or last?
Are you king, you the only or the last lover?...
Love whoever loved you from cradle to grave;
She whom I alone loved still loves me tenderly:
It is death—or the dead woman... O delight! O torment!
The rose she holds is the Hollyhock.
Neapolitan saint with hands full of fire,
Rose with a violet heart, flower of Saint Gudula:
Have you found your cross in the desert of the heavens?
White roses, fall! you insult our gods:
Fall, white phantoms of your burning sky:
—The saint of the abyss is holier in my eyes!
CHRIST IN THE OLIVE GROVE.
God is dead and heaven is empty...
Weep! children, you no longer have a father!
Jean Paul.
I.
When the Lord, raising his thin arms to heaven,
Beneath the sacred trees, as poets do,
Had long been lost in his silent sorrows,
And felt betrayed by ungrateful friends;
He turned towards those who awaited him below
Dreaming of being kings, sages, prophets...
But numb, lost in the sleep of beasts,
And began to cry: “No, God does not exist!”
They slept. “My friends, do you know the news?
I have touched the eternal vault with my forehead;
I am bloody, broken, suffering for many days!
Brothers, I deceived you: Abyss! abyss! abyss!
God is missing from the altar, where I am the victim...
God is not! God is no more!” But they still slept!
II.
He resumed: “All is dead! I have traversed the worlds;
And I have lost my flight in their milky ways,
As far as life, in its fertile veins,
Spreads golden sands and silver waves:
Everywhere the deserted ground bordered by waves,
Confused whirlwinds of agitated oceans...
A vague breath stirs the wandering spheres,
But no spirit exists in these immensities.
Searching for the eye of God, I saw only an orbit
Vast, black and bottomless; from which the night that inhabits it
Radiates over the world and ever thickens;
A strange rainbow surrounds this dark well,
Threshold of ancient chaos whose shadow is nothingness,
Spiral, engulfing Worlds and Days!
III.
“Immobile Destiny, silent sentinel,
Cold Necessity!... Chance that, advancing it,
Among dead worlds beneath eternal snow,
Cools, by degrees, the paling universe,
Do you know what you are doing, primal power,
With your extinguished suns, clashing against each other...
Are you sure to transmit an immortal breath,
Between a dying world and another reborn?...
O my father! is it you I feel within myself?
Do you have the power to live and conquer death?
Would you have succumbed under a last effort
Of that angel of nights struck by anathema...
For I feel all alone to weep and suffer,
Alas!and if I die, it means everything will die!"
IV.
No one heard the eternal victim groan,
Vainly pouring out her heart to the world;
But, about to faint and weakly bowed,
He called out the only one—awake in Solyma:
"Judas!" he cried to him, "you know how much I am valued,
Hurry and sell me, and finish this deal:
I am suffering, friend! lying on the ground...
Come! O you who, at least, have the strength for crime!"
But Judas walked away, displeased and pensive,
Feeling poorly paid, filled with such vivid remorse
That he read his wicked deeds written on every wall...
Finally, only Pilate, who watched for Caesar,
Feeling some pity, turned by chance:
"Go fetch that madman!" he told his guards.
V
It was indeed him, that madman, that sublime lunatic...
That forgotten Icarus who ascended to the heavens,
That Phaeton lost under the gods' thunderbolt,
That beautiful, bruised Atys whom Cybele revives!
The augur questioned the victim's flank,
The earth was intoxicated with that precious blood...
The stunned universe tilted on its axles,
And Olympus for a moment wavered towards the abyss.
"Answer!" cried Caesar to Jupiter Ammon,
"Who is this new god imposed upon the earth?
And if not a god, he is at least a demon..."
But the invoked oracle was forever silenced;
Only one could explain this mystery to the world:
—He who gave a soul to the children of clay.
GOLDEN VERSES.
What! Everything is sentient!
PYTHAGORAS.
Man, free thinker! Do you believe yourself alone in thinking
In this world where life bursts forth in everything?
Your freedom disposes of the forces you possess,
But the universe is absent from all your counsels.
Respect an active spirit in the beast:
Every flower is a soul blossoming in Nature;
A mystery of love rests in metal;
"Everything is sentient!" And everything is powerful over your being.
Fear, in the blind wall, a gaze that spies on you:
To matter itself a word is attached...
Do not make it serve some impious use!
Often in the obscure being dwells a hidden God;
And like a nascent eye covered by its eyelids,
A pure spirit grows beneath the bark of stones!
CORILLA
[From the edition of Les filles du feu; Giraud, 1854.]
FABIO.—MARCELLI.—MAZETTO, theater boy. CORILLA, prima donna.
The Boulevard de Sainte-Lucie, in Naples, near the Opera.
FABIO, MAZETTO.
FABIO. If you're deceiving me, Mazetto, that's a sad business you're in...
MAZETTO. The business isn't getting any better; but I serve you faithfully. She will come tonight, I tell you; she has received your letters and your bouquets.
FABIO. And the gold chain, and the clasp of fine stones?
MAZETTO. You shouldn't doubt that they reached her as well, and you might recognize them on her neck and at her waist; it's just that the style of these jewels is so modern that she hasn't yet found a role where she could wear them as part of her costume.
FABIO. But, has she even seen me? Has she noticed me in the seat where I sit every evening to admire and applaud her, and can I believe that my gifts won't be the sole reason for her coming?
MAZETTO. Tut-tut, sir! What you've given is nothing for a person of her standing; and, as soon as you get to know each other better, she'll reply with some portrait surrounded by pearls that will be worth double. It's the same with the ten ducats you've already given me, and the twenty others you've promised me as soon as you're sure of your first rendezvous; it's just loaned money, I told you, and they'll come back to you one day with hefty interest.
FABIO. Go on, I expect nothing from it.
MAZETTO. No, sir, you must know what kind of people you're dealing with, and that far from ruining you, you're on the true path to your fortune here; so please count out the agreed-upon sum, for I must go to the theater to perform my nightly duties.
FABIO. But why didn't she reply, and why didn't she set a meeting?
MAZETTO. Because, having only seen you from afar so far, that is, from the stage to the boxes, just as you've only seen her from the boxes to the stage, she wants to know your demeanor and manners first, do you understand? Your tone of voice, what have you! Would you expect the prima donna of San-Carlo to accept the homage of just anyone without more information?
FABIO. But dare I even approach her? And should I, on your word, risk the affront of being rejected, or of appearing to her like some common street gallant?
MAZETTO. I repeat, you have nothing to do but walk along this quay, almost deserted at this hour; she will pass by, her face hidden under the fringe of her mantilla; she will speak to you herself, and will arrange a meeting for this evening, for this spot is not suitable for a prolonged conversation. Will you be satisfied?
FABIO. O Mazetto! If you speak the truth, you save my life!
MAZETTO. And, in gratitude, you'll lend me the twenty louis we agreed upon.
FABIO. You'll get them when I've spoken to her.
MAZETTO. You are distrustful; but your love interests me, and I would have served it out of pure friendship, if I didn't have a family to feed. Stand there as if lost in thought, composing some sonnet; I will lurk nearby to prevent any surprises. (He exits.)
FABIO, alone.
I am going to see her! See her for the first time in the light of day, hear, for the first time, words that she has thought! A word from her will fulfill my dream or make it vanish forever! Ah! I fear risking more here than I can gain; my passion was grand and pure, skimming the world without touching it, dwelling only in radiant palaces and enchanted shores; now it is brought back to earth and forced to walk like all the others. Like Pygmalion, I adored the outward form of a woman; only the statue moved every evening before my eyes with divine grace, and from her lips fell only pearls of melodies. And now she descends to me. But the love that performed this miracle is a shameful comedy valet, and the ray that brings this adored idol to life for me is one of those that Jupiter poured into Danaë's bosom!... She comes, it is truly her; oh! my heart fails me, and I would be tempted to flee if she hadn't already seen me!
FABIO, A LADY in a mantilla.
THE LADY, passing near him. Noble cavalier, give me your arm, I beg you, lest we be observed, and let us walk naturally. You wrote to me...
FABIO. And I received no reply from you...
THE LADY. Would you value my writing more than my words?
FABIO. Your mouth or your hand would resent me if I dared to choose.
THE LADY. Let one be the guarantee of the other: your letters have touched me, and I consent to the meeting you requested. You know why I cannot receive you at my home?
FABIO. I was told.
THE LADY. I am very much surrounded, very much hindered in all my steps. Tonight, at five o'clock, wait for me at the roundabout of Villa-Realo, I will come there in disguise, and we can have a few moments of conversation.
FABIO. I'll be there.
THE LADY. Now, release my arm and do not follow me, I am going to the theater. Do not appear in the hall tonight... Be discreet and confident.
(She exits.)
FABIO, alone. It was indeed she!... As she left me, she revealed herself in a movement, like Virgil's Venus. I had barely recognized her face, and yet the flash of her eyes pierced my heart, just as in the theater, when her gaze meets mine in the crowd. Her voice loses none of its charm when speaking simple words; and yet, until now I believed she should only have song, like birds! But what she told me is worth all of Metastasio's verses, and that pure timbre, and that sweet accent, borrow nothing from the melodies of Paisiello or Cimarosa to seduce. Ah! all those heroines I adored in her, Sophonisba, Alcime, Herminie, and even that blonde Molinara, whom she plays enchantingly in less splendid clothes, I saw them all enclosed at once under that coquettish mantilla, under that satin coif... Mazetto again!
FABIO, MAZETTO.
MAZETTO. Well! my lord, am I a deceiver, a man without his word, a man without honor?
FABIO. You are the most virtuous of mortals! But, here, take this purse and leave me alone.
MAZETTO. You look upset.
FABIO. It's because happiness makes me sad; it forces me to think of the misfortune that always follows it closely.
MAZETTO. Perhaps you need your money to play lansquenet tonight? I can give it back to you, and even lend you more.
FABIO. That is not necessary. Farewell.
MAZETTO. Beware of the jettatura, Lord Fabio! (He exits.)
FABIO, alone.
I am tired of seeing that rascal's head cast a shadow over my love; but, thank God, this messenger will become useless to me. What has he done, anyway, but skillfully deliver my notes and flowers, which had long been rejected? Come, come, the affair has been cleverly conducted and is nearing its denouement... But why am I so morose tonight, I who should be swimming in joy and striking these flagstones with a triumphant foot? Did she not yield a little too quickly, and especially since the sending of my presents?... Good, I see things too darkly, and I should rather think about preparing my amorous rhetoric. It is clear that we will not content ourselves with talking lovingly under the trees, and that I will manage to take her to supper in some inn in Chiaia; but I will have to be brilliant, passionate, mad with love, raise my conversation to the tone of my style, realize the ideal that my letters and my verses have presented to her... and for that I feel no warmth and no energy... I feel like going to boost my imagination with a few glasses of Spanish wine.
FABIO, MARCELLI.
MARCELLI. That is a sad means, Lord Fabio; wine is the most treacherous of companions; it takes you to a palace and leaves you in a gutter.
FABIO. Ah! it's you, Lord Marcelli; were you listening to me? MARCELLI. No, but I heard you.
FABIO. Have I said anything to displease you?
MARCELLI. On the contrary; you said you were sad and wanted to drink, that's all I gathered from your monologue. As for me, I'm happier than words can say. I'm walking along this quay like a bird; I'm thinking crazy things, I can't stay still, and I'm afraid of getting tired. Let's keep each other company for a moment; I'm worth a bottle for intoxication, and yet I'm only filled with joy; I need to effervesce like a bottle of sillery, and I want to whisper a dazzling secret into your ear.
FABIO. Please, choose a confidant less preoccupied with his own affairs. My head is full, my dear; I'm good for nothing tonight, and, even if you had to confide in me that King Midas has donkey's ears, I swear I'd be unable to remember it tomorrow to repeat it.
MARCELLI. And that's exactly what I need, by Jove! A confidant as silent as a tomb.
FABIO. Oh! Don't I know your ways? You want to publicize some good fortune, and you've chosen me as the herald of your glory.
MARCELLI. On the contrary, I want to prevent an indiscretion by benevolently confiding certain things to you that you couldn't have failed to suspect.
FABIO. I don't know what you mean.
MARCELLI. One doesn't keep a secret overheard, whereas a confidence obliges.
FABIO. But I suspect nothing that could concern you.
MARCELLI. Then it's fitting that I tell you everything.
FABIO. So you're not going to the theater?
MARCELLI. No, not tonight; and you?
FABIO. I have something on my mind; I need to walk alone.
MARCELLI. I'll bet you're composing an opera?
FABIO. You've guessed it.
MARCELLI. And who wouldn't? You don't miss a single performance at San-Carlo; you arrive at the opening, which no one of good breeding does; you don't leave in the middle of the last act, and you remain alone in the hall with the pit audience. It's clear that you study your art with care and perseverance. But only one thing worries me: are you a poet or a musician?—
FABIO. Both.
MARCELLI. As for me, I'm only an amateur and have only written ditties. You know very well, then, that my assiduity in this hall, where we've been meeting constantly for several weeks, can have no other motive than a love affair...
FABIO. Of which I have no desire to be informed.
MARCELLI. Oh! You won't escape me with these evasions, and it's only when you know everything that I'll believe myself certain of the mystery my love needs.
FABIO. So it's about some actress... the Borsella?
MARCELLI. No, the new Spanish singer, the divine Corilla!... By Bacchus! You've surely noticed the furious winks we exchange?
FABIO, with ill humor. Never!
MARCELLI. The signs agreed upon between us at certain moments when the public's attention is elsewhere?—
FABIO. I've seen nothing of the sort.
MARCELLI. What! Are you that distracted? I was wrong, then, to believe you informed of part of my secret; but since the confidence has begun...
FABIO, eagerly. Yes, indeed! You see me now curious to know the end of it.
MARCELLI. Perhaps you've never paid much attention to Signora Corilla? You're more concerned, aren't you, with her voice than her face? Well then! Look at her, she's charming!
FABIO. I agree.
MARCELLI. A blonde from Italy or Spain is always a most singular kind of beauty, prized for its rarity.
FABIO. That's my opinion too.
MARCELLI. Don't you think she resembles Caravaggio's Judith, which is in the Royal Museum?
FABIO. Oh, sir, get to the point. In two words, you are her lover, aren't you?
MARCELLI. Pardon me; I am only her admirer as yet.
FABIO. You surprise me.
MARCELLI. I must tell you she is very strict. FABIO. So they say.
MARCELLI. That she's a tigress, a Bradamante...
FABIO. An Alcimadure.
MARCELLI. Her door remaining closed to my bouquets, her window to my serenades, I concluded that she had reasons to be insensible... at home, but that her virtue must stand less solidly on the boards of an opera stage... I sounded out the ground, I learned that a certain rogue, named Mazetto, had access to her, by virtue of his service at the theatre...
FABIO. You entrusted your flowers and your notes to that rascal.
MARCELLI. So you knew?
FABIO. And also some gifts he advised you to make.
MARCELLI. Didn't I say you were informed of everything?
FABIO. You haven't received any letters from her?
MARCELLI. None.
FABIO. It would be too singular if the lady herself, passing by you in the street, had, in a low voice, indicated a rendezvous...
MARCELLI. You are the devil, or myself!
FABIO. For tomorrow?
MARCELLI. No, for today.
FABIO. At five o'clock in the evening?
MARCELLI. At five o'clock.
FABIO. Then, it's at the roundabout of the Villa-Reale?
MARCELLI. No! In front of Neptune's baths.
FABIO. I don't understand anything anymore.
MARCELLI. By Jove! You want to guess everything, know everything better than me. It's peculiar. Now that I've said everything, it's your honor to be discreet.
FABIO. Good. Listen to me, my friend... one of us, or both, are being played.
MARCELLI. What are you saying?
FABIO. Or both, if you will. We have a rendezvous with the same person, at the same hour: you, in front of Neptune's baths; I, at the Villa-Reale!
MARCELLI. I don't have time to be astonished; but I demand an explanation for this heavy jest.
FABIO. If it's reason you lack, I won't undertake to give it to you; if it's a sword thrust you need, draw yours.
MARCELLI. I'm making a reflection: you have every advantage over me at this moment.
FABIO. You agree to that?
MARCELLI. By Jove! You're a luckless lover, that's clear; you were about to hurl yourself from this railing, or hang yourself from these linden branches, if I hadn't met you. I, on the contrary, am welcomed, favored, almost victorious; I'm supping tonight with the object of my desires. I'd be doing you a favor by killing you; but, if it's I who am killed, you'll agree it would be a pity if it were before, and not after. Things aren't equal; let's put off the matter until tomorrow.
FABIO. I'm making exactly the same reflection as you, and could repeat your own words. Thus, I consent to punish you for your foolish boasting only tomorrow. I thought you merely indiscreet.
MARCELLI. Good! Let's part without another word. I don't want to force you into humiliating confessions, nor further compromise a lady who has only shown me kindness. I count on your discretion and will give you news of my evening tomorrow morning.
FABIO. I promise you the same; but then we'll cross swords with gusto. Until tomorrow then.
MARCELLI. Until tomorrow, Lord Fabio.
FABIO, alone.
I don't know what unease prompted me to follow him from afar, instead of going my own way. Let's go back! (He takes a few steps.) It's impossible to carry assurance further, but then he could hardly go back on his claim and confess his lie to me. These are our fashionable young fools; nothing stands in their way, they are the conquerors and favorites of all women, and Don Juan's list would only cost them the trouble of writing it. Certainly, moreover, if this beauty were deceiving us for each other, it wouldn't be at the same hour. Come, I think the moment is approaching, and I would do well to head towards the Villa-Reale, which must already be cleared of its strollers and restored to solitude. But truly, do I not see Marcelli over there, arm in arm with a woman?... I am truly mad; if it is him, it cannot be her... What to do? If I go their way, I miss the hour of my rendezvous... and, if I don't clear up the suspicion that comes to me, I risk, by going there, playing the fool. This is cruel uncertainty. Time passes, I go back and forth, and my situation is the most bizarre in the world. Why did I have to meet this scatterbrain, who may have made a fool of me? He must have learned of my love through Mazetto, and everything he came to tell me stems from some obscure trickery that I will surely unravel.—Decidedly, I'm making up my mind, I'm running to the Villa-Reale. (He returns.) Upon my soul, they are approaching; it's the same mantilla trimmed with long lace; it's the same grey silk dress... in two steps they will be here. Oh! If it's her, if I am deceived... I won't wait until tomorrow to avenge myself on both of them!... What am I going to do? A ridiculous scene... let's withdraw behind this trellis to make sure it's really them.
FABIO, hidden, MARCELLI; Signora CORILLA, arm in arm with him.
MARCELLI. Yes, fair lady, you see the extent of some people's arrogance. There's a cavalier in town who boasts of having also obtained an interview with you for this evening. And, if I weren't sure of having you now on my arm, faithful to a sweet promise too long delayed...
CORILLA. Come now, you're jesting, Lord Marcelli. And this so advantageous cavalier... do you know him?
MARCELLI. It's precisely to me that he confided...
FABIO, showing himself. You are mistaken, my lord, it was you who were making yours to me... Madam, there's no need to go further; I'm determined not to tolerate such coquettish maneuvering. Lord Marcelli can escort you home, since you've taken his arm; but afterward, let him remember well that I'm waiting for him.
MARCELLI. Listen, my dear, try, in this affair, to be nothing but ridiculous.
FABIO. Ridiculous, you say?
MARCELLI. I say it. If you wish to make a fuss, wait until daybreak; I don't fight under lanterns, and I don't care to be arrested by the night watch.
CORILLA. This man is mad; don't you see him? Let's get away.
FABIO. Ah! Madam! Enough... don't utterly shatter this beautiful image that I carried pure and sacred in my heart. Alas! Content to love you from afar, to write to you... I had little hope, and I asked for less than you promised me!
CORILLA. You wrote to me? To me!...
MARCELLI. Well! What does it matter? This is not the place for such an explanation...
CORILLA. And what did I promise you, sir?... I don't know you and have never spoken to you.
MARCELLI. Bah! Even if you did say a few idle words to him, what's the great harm? Do you think my love would be troubled by that?
CORILLA. But what idea do you have, my lord? Since things have gone this far, I want everything explained at once. This gentleman believes he has cause to complain about me: let him speak and name himself first; for I don't know who he is or what he wants.
FABIO. Rest assured, madam! I am ashamed to have caused this outburst and to have yielded to a first movement of surprise. You accuse me of imposture, and your beautiful mouth cannot lie. You said it, I am mad, I dreamed. Right here, an hour ago, something like your phantom passed by, addressed sweet words to me, and promised to return... There was magic, no doubt, and yet all the details remain present in my mind. I was there, I had just seen the sun set behind Posillipo, casting the edge of its reddish cloak over Ischia; the sea was darkening in the gulf, and the white sails hastened towards the land like belated doves... You see, I am a sad dreamer, my letters must have taught you that, but you will hear no more from me, I swear, and I bid you farewell.
CORILLA. Your letters... Look, all this sounds like a comedic imbroglio, allow me not to dwell on it further; Lord Marcelli, please take my arm again and escort me home with all haste. (Fabio bows and moves away.)
MARCELLI. To your home, madam?
CORILLA. Yes, this scene has upset me!.......
Did you ever see anything more bizarre? If the Palace square isn't deserted yet, we'll surely find a chair, or at least a lantern. Here are the theater valets coming out; call one of them...
MARCELLI. Hello! Someone! Over here... But, truly, do you feel ill?
CORILLA. So much so I can't walk any further...
FABIO, MAZETTO, THE PREVIOUS CHARACTERS.
FABIO, dragging Mazetto. Look, it's heaven that brings him to us; here's the traitor who made a fool of me.
MARCELLI. It's Mazetto! The biggest rascal in the Two Sicilies. What! Was he your messenger too?
MAZETTO. Confound it! You're choking me.
FABIO. You're going to explain...
MAZETTO. And what are you doing here, my lord? I thought you were in good fortune?
FABIO. It's your fortune that's worthless. You're going to die if you don't confess all your treachery.
MARCELLI. Wait, Lord Fabio, I also have rights to assert over his shoulders. Now, it's just us.
MAZETTO. Gentlemen, if you want me to understand, don't both strike at once. What's this about?
FABIO. And what could it be about, wretch? My letters, what have you done with them?
MARCELLI. And how have you compromised the honor of Signora Corilla?
MAZETTO. Gentlemen, someone might hear us.
MARCELLI. There is only the Signora herself and us two here, that is, two men who will kill each other tomorrow because of her or because of you.
MAZETTO. Allow me: this is serious, and my humanity forbids me to dissimulate any longer...
FABIO. Speak.
MAZETTO. At least, put away your swords.
FABIO. Then we'll take sticks.
MARCELLI. No; we must spare him if he tells the whole truth, but only at that price.
CORILLA. His insolence utterly incenses me.
MARCELLI. Should we knock him out before he speaks?
CORILLA. No; I want to know everything, and that, in such a dark affair, there remains at least no doubt about my loyalty.
MAZETTO. My confession is your eulogy, madam; all Naples knows the austerity of your life. Now, Lord Marcelli, right here, was passionately in love with you; he even promised to offer you his name if you would leave the theater; but he had to at least lay the homage of his heart at your feet, I don't say his fortune; but you had enough for two, as everyone knows, and so did he.
MARCELLI. Scoundrel!...
FABIO. Let him finish.
MAZETTO. The delicacy of the motive engaged me on his side. As a theater valet, it was easy for me to place his notes on your dressing table. The first ones were burned; others, left open, received a better welcome. The last one convinced you to grant an appointment to Lord Marcelli, for which he rewarded me handsomely!...
MARCELLI. But who asked you for all this story?
FABIO. And I, traitor! Two-faced soul! How have you served me? My letters, did you deliver them? Who is this veiled woman you sent me earlier, and who you told me was Signora Corilla herself?
MAZETTO. Ah! My lords, what would you have said of me and what idea would madam have conceived, if I had given her letters in two different handwritings and bouquets from two lovers? There must be order in everything, and I respect madam too much to have supposed her fancy for carrying on two loves at once. However, Lord Fabio's despair, at my first refusal to serve him, had touched me singularly. I first let him pour out his verve in letters and sonnets that I pretended to deliver to the Signora, supposing that his love might well be one of those that so frequently burn their wings in the flames of the footlights; passions of schoolboys and poets, as we see so many... But it was more serious, for Lord Fabio's purse was being depleted to bend my virtuous resolution...
MARCELLI. That's enough! Signora, we have no need, do we, of these digressions...
CORILLA. Let him speak, there's no rush, sir.
MAZETTO. Finally, I imagined that since Lord Fabio was only smitten by sight, as he had never managed to approach the lady and had only ever heard her voice in music, it would suffice to provide him with the satisfaction of a conversation with some creature of the same height and bearing as Signora Corilla... I should mention that I had already noticed a little flower girl who sells her flowers along Toledo Street or in front of the cafés in Molo Square. Sometimes she pauses for a moment and sings Spanish ditties with a very clear voice...
MARCELLI. A flower girl who resembles the Signora; come now! Wouldn't I have noticed her too?
MAZETTO. My lord, she just arrived on the Sicilian galleon and still wears her country's costume.
CORILLA. That's certainly not likely.
MAZETTO. Ask Lord Fabio if, with the help of the costume, he didn't believe he saw the lady herself pass by just now?
FABIO. Well! That woman...
MAZETTO. That woman, my lord, is the one who is waiting for you at the Villa-Reale, or rather, who is no longer waiting, as the hour is long past.
FABIO. Can one imagine a darker web of intrigues?
MARCELLI. But no; the adventure is amusing. And, look, the Signora herself can't help but laugh... Come, handsome cavalier, let's part without ill will, and correct this important fellow... Or rather, listen, take advantage of his idea: the cloud Ixion embraced was as good to him as the divinity it resembled, and I believe you are poet enough to care little for realities.—Good evening, Lord Fabio!
FABIO, MAZETTO.
FABIO, to himself. She was there! And not a word of pity, not a sign of attention! She watched, cold and gloomy, this debate that covered me with ridicule, and she left disdainfully without saying a word, only laughing, no doubt, at my clumsiness and my simplicity!... Oh! You may go, poor inventive devil, I no longer curse my ill-fortune, and I will dream along the sea of my misfortune, for I no longer even have the energy to be furious.
MAZETTO. My lord, you would do well to go dream towards the Villa-Reale. The flower girl may still be waiting for you...
FABIO, alone.
In truth, I would have been curious to meet this creature and treat her as she deserves. What kind of woman is it who lends herself to such a maneuver? Is she a naive child who has been tutored, or some brazen woman who only needed to be paid and put into action? But it takes the soul of a base valet to have judged me worthy of falling into this trap for a moment. And yet she resembles the one I love, and I myself, when I met her veiled, thought I recognized both her gait and the pure sound of her voice... Come, it's almost six o'clock at night, the last strollers are heading towards Santa Lucia and Chiaia, and the terraces of the houses are filling with people... At this hour, Marcelli is gaily dining with his easy conquest. Women only love these heartless debauchees.
FABIO, A FLOWER GIRL.
FABIO. What do you want from me, little one?
THE FLOWER GIRL. My lord, I sell roses, I sell spring flowers. Would you like to buy all I have left to adorn your beloved's chamber? The garden will close soon, and I cannot take these home to my father; I would be beaten. Take them all for three carlins.
FABIO. Do you really think I'm expected tonight, and do I look like a favored lover to you?
THE FLOWER GIRL. Come here into the light. You look like a handsome gentleman, and if you are not expected, it's because you are waiting... Oh! My God!
FABIO. What's wrong, my child? But truly, that face... Ah! I understand everything now: you are the false Corilla!... At your age, my child, you're starting a nasty trade!
THE FLOWER GIRL. In truth, my lord, I am an honest girl, and you will judge me better. I was disguised as a great lady, I was made to learn words by heart; but when I saw it was a comedy to deceive an honest gentleman, I escaped and put on my poor girl's clothes again, and I went, as every evening, to sell my flowers in the Piazza del Molo and in the alleys of the Royal Garden.
FABIO. Is that really true?
THE FLOWER GIRL. So true that I bid you farewell, my lord; and since you don't want my flowers, I will throw them into the sea as I pass: tomorrow they would be withered.
FABIO. Poor girl, these clothes suit you better than the other, and I advise you never to take them off again. You are the wild flower of the fields; but who could mistake the two of you? You undoubtedly remind me of some of her features, and your heart is better than hers, perhaps. But who can replace in a lover's soul the beautiful image he has delighted in adorning with new prestige every day? That one no longer exists in reality on earth; she is engraved only in the depths of a faithful heart, and no portrait can ever render her imperishable beauty.
THE FLOWER GIRL. Yet I was told I was her equal, and, without coquetry, I think that, dressed like Signora Corilla, by candlelight, with the help of the spectacle and music, I could please you as much as she, and that without pearl white and without carmine.
FABIO. If your vanity is piqued, little girl, you will even take away the pleasure I find in looking at you for a moment. But, truly, you forget that she is the pearl of Spain and Italy, that her foot is the most delicate and her hand the most regal in the world. Poor child! poverty is not the cultivation required for such accomplished beauties, which luxury and art take care of in turn.
THE FLOWER GIRL. Look at my foot on this marble bench; it still looks quite good in its brown shoe. And my hand, have you even touched it?
FABIO. It's true your foot is charming, and your hand... God! how soft it is!... But listen, I don't want to deceive you, my child, it is she alone I love, and the charm that captivated me was not born in one evening. For three months that I have been in Naples, I have not missed seeing her a single Opera day. Too poor to shine near her, like all the handsome gentlemen who surround her on walks, having neither the genius of musicians nor the renown of poets who inspire and serve her in her talent, I went without hope to intoxicate myself with her sight and her songs, and to take my part in that pleasure of all, which for me alone was happiness and life. Oh! you may indeed be her equal... but do you have that divine grace that reveals itself in so many aspects? Do you have those tears and that smile? Do you have that divine song, without which a divinity is but a beautiful idol? But then you would be in her place, and you would not be selling flowers to the strollers of the Villa-Reale...
THE FLOWER GIRL. Why then would nature, in giving me her appearance, have forgotten my voice? I sing very well, I assure you; but the directors of San-Carlo would never think of picking up a prima donna in the public square... Listen to these opera verses that I memorized from hearing them only at the little Fenice theater. (She sings.)
ITALIAN AIR.
How sweet it is—to keep the peace of heart,—the calm
of thought.
It is wise to love—in the beautiful season of youth;—wiser
not to love...
FABIO, falling at her feet. Oh! Madam, who would not recognize you now? But it cannot be... You are a true goddess, and you are about to fly away! My God! what can I say to so much kindness? I am unworthy of loving you, for not having recognized you at first!
CORILLA. So I am no longer the flower girl?... Well then! I thank you—I studied a new role tonight, and you gave me the cue admirably.
FABIO. And Marcelli?
CORILLA. Look, isn't that him I see wandering sadly along these arbors, just as you were doing a moment ago?
FABIO. Let's avoid him, let's take another path.
CORILLA. He saw us, he's coming towards us.
FABIO, CORILLA, MARCELLI.
MARCELLI. Hey! Lord Fabio, so you found the flower girl? My word, you did well, and you are luckier than me tonight.
FABIO. Well then! What have you done with Signora Corilla? You were going to have a merry supper together.
MARCELLI. My word, one understands nothing of women's whims. She said she was ill, and I could only escort her home; but tomorrow...
FABIO. Tomorrow is not worth tonight, Lord Marcelli.
MARCELLI. Let's see this much-vaunted resemblance then... She's not bad, my word!... but it's nothing; no distinction, no grace. Come on, delude yourself at your leisure... As for me, I'm going to think about the prima donna of San-Carlo, whom I will marry in a week.
CORILLA, resuming her natural tone. We'll have to think about that, Lord Marcelli. Look, I, I hesitate a lot to commit. I have a fortune, I want to choose. Forgive me for having been an actress in love as on stage, and for having put both of you to the test. Now, I confess, I'm not sure if either of you loves me, and I need to get to know you better. Lord Fabio perhaps only adores the actress in me, and his love needs distance and the lit footlights; and you, Lord Marcelli, you seem to love yourself above all else, and you are difficult to move when the occasion arises. You are too worldly, and he too poetic. And now, please both accompany me. Each of you had bet to sup with me: I had made the promise to each of you; we will sup all together, Mazetto will serve us.
MAZETTO, appearing and addressing the audience. Whereupon, gentlemen, you see that this delicate adventure will end in the most moral way in the world.—Excuse the author's faults.