The Country Doctor

THE COUNTRY DOCTOR

By Honoré De Balzac

Translated by Ellen Marriage and Clara Bell

“For a wounded heart--shadow and silence.”

To my Mother

INTRODUCTION

In hardly any of his books, with the possible exception of _Eugénie

Grandet_, does Balzac seem to have taken a greater interest than in _Le

Médecin de Campagne_; and the fact of this interest, together with the

merit and intensity of the book in each case, is, let it be repeated, a

valid argument against those who would have it that there was something

essentially sinister both in his genius and his character.

_Le Médecin de Campagne_ was an early book; it was published in 1833, a

date of which there is an interesting mark in the selection of the name

“Evelina,” the name of Madame Hanska, whom Balzac had just met, for the

lost Jansenist love of Benassis; and it had been on the stocks for

a considerable time. It is also noteworthy, as lying almost entirely

outside the general scheme of the _Comedie Humaine_ as far as

personages go. Its chief characters in the remarkable, if not absolutely

impeccable, _répertoire_ of MM. Cerfberr and Christophe (they have,

a rare thing with them, missed Agathe the forsaken mistress) have no

references appended to their articles, except to the book itself; and

I cannot remember that any of the more generally pervading _dramatis

personæ_ of the Comedy makes even an incidental appearance here. The

book is as isolated as its scene and subject--I might have added, as

its own beauty, which is singular and unique, nor wholly easy to give a

critical account of. The transformation of the _cretin_-haunted desert

into a happy valley is in itself a commonplace of the preceding century;

it may be found several times over in Marmontel’s _Contes Moraux_, as

well as in other places. The extreme minuteness of detail, effective

as it is in the picture of the house and elsewhere, becomes a little

tedious even for well-tried and well-affected readers, in reference to

the exact number of cartwrights and harness-makers, and so forth; while

the modern reader pure and simple, though schooled to endure detail,

is schooled to endure it only of the ugly. The minor characters and

episodes, with the exception of the wonderful story or legend of

Napoleon by Private Goguelat, and the private himself, are neither of

the first interest, nor always carefully worked out: La Fosseuse, for

instance, is a very tantalizingly unfinished study, of which it is

nearly certain that Balzac must at some time or other have meant to make

much more than he has made; Genestas, excellent as far as he goes, is

not much more than a type; and there is nobody else in the foreground at

all except the Doctor himself.

It is, however, beyond all doubt in the very subordination of these

other characters to Benassis, and in the skilful grouping of the whole

as background and adjunct to him, that the appeal of the book as art

consists. From that point of view there are grounds for regarding it as

the finest of the author’s work in the simple style, the least indebted

to super-added ornament or to mere variety. The dangerous expedient of

a _recit_, of which the eighteenth-century novelists were so fond, has

never been employed with more successful effect than in the confession

of Benassis, at once the climax and the centre of the story. And

one thing which strikes us immediately about this confession is the

universality of its humanity and its strange freedom from merely

national limitations. To very few French novelists--to few even of those

who are generally credited with a much softer mould and a much purer

morality than Balzac is popularly supposed to have been able to

boast--would inconstancy to a mistress have seemed a fault which could

be reasonably punished, which could be even reasonably represented as

having been punished in fact, by the refusal of an honest girl’s love in

the first place. Nor would many have conceived as possible, or have

been able to represent in lifelike colors, the lifelong penance which

Benassis imposes on himself. The tragic end, indeed, is more in their

general way, but they would seldom have known how to lead up to it.

In almost all ways Balzac has saved himself from the dangers incident

to his plan in this book after a rather miraculous fashion. The Goguelat

myth may seem disconnected, and he did as a matter of fact once publish

it separately; yet it sets off (in the same sort of felicitous manner of

which Shakespeare’s clown-scenes and others are the capital examples

in literature) both the slightly matter-of-fact details of the

beatification of the valley and the various minute sketches of places

and folk, and the almost superhuman goodness of Benassis, and his

intensely and piteously human suffering and remorse. It is like the red

cloak in a group; it lights, warms, inspirits the whole picture.

And perhaps the most remarkable thing of all is the way in which Balzac

in this story, so full of goodness of feeling, of true religion (for if

Benassis is not an ostensible practiser of religious rites, he avows his

orthodoxy in theory, and more than justifies it in practice), has almost

entirely escaped the sentimentality _plus_ unorthodoxy of similar work

in the eighteenth century, and the sentimentality _plus_ orthodoxy of

similar work in the nineteenth. Benassis no doubt plays Providence in

a manner and with a success which it is rarely given to mortal man to

achieve; but we do not feel either the approach to sham, or the more

than approach to gush, with which similar handling on the part of

Dickens too often affects some of us. The sin and the punishment of the

Doctor, the thoroughly human figures of Genestas and the rest, save the

situation from this and other drawbacks. We are not in the Cockaigne of

perfectibility, where Marmontel and Godwin disport themselves; we are in

a very practical place, where time-bargains in barley are made, and

you pay the respectable, if not lavish board of ten francs per day for

entertainment to man and beast.

And yet, explain as we will, there will always remain something

inexplicable in the appeal of such a book as the _Médecin de Campagne_.

This helps, and that, and the other; we can see what change might have

damaged the effect, and what have endangered it altogether. We must, of

course, acknowledge that as it is there are _longueurs_, intrusion of

Saint Simonian jargon, passages of _galimatias_, and of preaching.

But of what in strictness produces the good effect we can only say one

thing, and that is, it was the genius of Balzac working as it listed and

as it knew how to work.

The book was originally published by Mme. Delaunay in September 1833

in two volumes and thirty-six chapters with headings. Next year it was

republished in four volumes by Werdet, and the last fifteen chapters

were thrown together into four. In 1836 it reappeared with dedication

and date, but with the divisions further reduced to seven; being those

which here appear, with the addition of two, “La Fosseuse” and “Propos

de Braves Gens” between “A Travers Champs” and “Le Napoleon du Peuple.”

These two were removed in 1839, when it was published in a single volume

by Charpentier. In all these issues the book was independent. It became

a “Scene de la Vie de Campagne” in 1846, and was then admitted into the

_Comedie_. The separate issues of Goguelat’s story referred to above

made their appearances first in _L’Europe Litteraire_ for June 19,

1833 (_before_ the book form), and then with the imprint of a sort of

syndicate of publishers in 1842.

George Saintsbury

CHAPTER I. THE COUNTRYSIDE AND THE MAN

On a lovely spring morning in the year 1829, a man of fifty or

thereabouts was wending his way on horseback along the mountain road

that leads to a large village near the Grande Chartreuse. This village

is the market town of a populous canton that lies within the limits of a

valley of some considerable length. The melting of the snows had filled

the boulder-strewn bed of the torrent (often dry) that flows through

this valley, which is closely shut in between two parallel mountain

barriers, above which the peaks of Savoy and of Dauphine tower on every

side.

All the scenery of the country that lies between the chain of the two

Mauriennes is very much alike; yet here in the district through which

the stranger was traveling there are soft undulations of the land, and

varying effects of light which might be sought for elsewhere in

vain. Sometimes the valley, suddenly widening, spreads out a soft

irregularly-shaped carpet of grass before the eyes; a meadow constantly

watered by the mountain streams that keep it fresh and green at all

seasons of the year. Sometimes a roughly-built sawmill appears in a

picturesque position, with its stacks of long pine trunks with the bark

peeled off, and its mill stream, brought from the bed of the torrent in

great square wooden pipes, with masses of dripping filament issuing

from every crack. Little cottages, scattered here and there, with their

gardens full of blossoming fruit trees, call up the ideas that are

aroused by the sight of industrious poverty; while the thought of ease,

secured after long years of toil, is suggested by some larger houses

farther on, with their red roofs of flat round tiles, shaped like the

scales of a fish. There is no door, moreover, that does not duly exhibit

a basket in which the cheeses are hung up to dry. Every roadside and

every croft is adorned with vines; which here, as in Italy, they train

to grow about dwarf elm trees, whose leaves are stripped off to feed the

cattle.

Nature, in her caprice, has brought the sloping hills on either side

so near together in some places, that there is no room for fields, or

buildings, or peasants’ huts. Nothing lies between them but the torrent,

roaring over its waterfalls between two lofty walls of granite that rise

above it, their sides covered with the leafage of tall beeches and

dark fir trees to the height of a hundred feet. The trees, with their

different kinds of foliage, rise up straight and tall, fantastically

colored by patches of lichen, forming magnificent colonnades, with a

line of straggling hedgerow of guelder rose, briar rose, box and arbutus

above and below the roadway at their feet. The subtle perfume of this

undergrowth was mingled just then with scents from the wild mountain

region and with the aromatic fragrance of young larch shoots, budding

poplars, and resinous pines.

Here and there a wreath of mist about the heights sometimes hid and

sometimes gave glimpses of the gray crags, that seemed as dim and vague

as the soft flecks of cloud dispersed among them. The whole face of the

country changed every moment with the changing light in the sky; the

hues of the mountains, the soft shades of their lower slopes, the very

shape of the valleys seemed to vary continually. A ray of sunlight

through the tree-stems, a clear space made by nature in the woods, or a

landslip here and there, coming as a surprise to make a contrast in the

foreground, made up an endless series of pictures delightful to see amid

the silence, at the time of year when all things grow young, and when

the sun fills a cloudless heaven with a blaze of light. In short, it was

a fair land--it was the land of France!

The traveler was a tall man, dressed from head to foot in a suit of blue

cloth, which must have been brushed just as carefully every morning

as the glossy coat of his horse. He held himself firm and erect in the

saddle like an old cavalry officer. Even if his black cravat and doeskin

gloves, the pistols that filled his holsters, and the valise securely

fastened to the crupper behind him had not combined to mark him out as a

soldier, the air of unconcern that sat on his face, his regular features

(scarred though they were with the smallpox), his determined manner,

self-reliant expression, and the way he held his head, all revealed

the habits acquired through military discipline, of which a soldier can

never quite divest himself, even after he has retired from service into

private life.

Any other traveler would have been filled with wonder at the loveliness

of this Alpine region, which grows so bright and smiling as it becomes

merged in the great valley systems of southern France; but the officer,

who no doubt had previously traversed a country across which the French

armies had been drafted in the course of Napoleon’s wars, enjoyed the

view before him without appearing to be surprised by the many changes

that swept across it. It would seem that Napoleon has extinguished in

his soldiers the sensation of wonder; for an impassive face is a sure

token by which you may know the men who served erewhile under the

short-lived yet deathless Eagles of the great Emperor. The traveler was,

in fact, one of those soldiers (seldom met with nowadays) whom shot

and shell have respected, although they have borne their part on every

battlefield where Napoleon commanded.

There had been nothing unusual in his life. He had fought valiantly in

the ranks as a simple and loyal soldier, doing his duty as faithfully

by night as by day, and whether in or out of his officer’s sight. He had

never dealt a sabre stroke in vain, and was incapable of giving one

too many. If he wore at his buttonhole the rosette of an officer of the

Legion of Honor, it was because the unanimous voice of his regiment had

singled him out as the man who best deserved to receive it after the

battle of Borodino.

He belonged to that small minority of undemonstrative retiring natures,

who are always at peace with themselves, and who are conscious of a

feeling of humiliation at the mere thought of making a request, no

matter what its nature may be. So promotion had come to him tardily, and

by virtue of the slowly-working laws of seniority. He had been made

a sub-lieutenant in 1802, but it was not until 1829 that he became a

major, in spite of the grayness of his moustaches. His life had been so

blameless that no man in the army, not even the general himself, could

approach him without an involuntary feeling of respect. It is possible

that he was not forgiven for this indisputable superiority by those who

ranked above him; but, on the other hand, there was not one of his men

that did not feel for him something of the affection of children for a

good mother. For them he knew how to be at once indulgent and severe. He

himself had also once served in the ranks, and knew the sorry joys and

gaily-endured hardships of the soldier’s lot. He knew the errors that

may be passed over and the faults that must be punished in his men--“his

children,” as he always called them--and when on campaign he readily

gave them leave to forage for provision for man and horse among the

wealthier classes.

His own personal history lay buried beneath the deepest reserve. Like

almost every military man in Europe, he had only seen the world through

cannon smoke, or in the brief intervals of peace that occurred so seldom

during the Emperor’s continual wars with the rest of Europe. Had he

or had he not thought of marriage? The question remained unsettled.

Although no one doubted that Commandant Genestas had made conquests

during his sojourn in town after town and country after country where

he had taken part in the festivities given and received by the officers,

yet no one knew this for a certainty. There was no prudery about him;

he would not decline to join a pleasure party; he in no way offended

against military standards; but when questioned as to his affairs of

the heart, he either kept silence or answered with a jest. To the words,

“How are you, commandant?” addressed to him by an officer over the wine,

his reply was, “Pass the bottle, gentlemen.”

M. Pierre Joseph Genestas was an unostentatious kind of Bayard. There

was nothing romantic nor picturesque about him--he was too thoroughly

commonplace. His ways of living were those of a well-to-do man. Although

he had nothing beside his pay, and his pension was all that he had to

look to in the future, the major always kept two years’ pay untouched,

and never spent his allowances, like some shrewd old men of business

with whom cautious prudence has almost become a mania. He was so little

of a gambler that if, when in company, some one was wanted to cut in

or to take a bet at ecarte, he usually fixed his eyes on his boots; but

though he did not allow himself any extravagances, he conformed in every

way to custom.

His uniforms lasted longer than those of any other officer in his

regiment, as a consequence of the sedulously careful habits that

somewhat straitened means had so instilled into him, that they had come

to be like a second nature. Perhaps he might have been suspected

of meannesss if it had not been for the fact that with wonderful

disinterestedness and all a comrade’s readiness, his purse would be

opened for some harebrained boy who had ruined himself at cards or by

some other folly. He did a service of this kind with such thoughtful

tact, that it seemed as though he himself had at one time lost heavy

sums at play; he never considered that he had any right to control the

actions of his debtor; he never made mention of the loan. He was the

child of his company; he was alone in the world, so he had adopted the

army for his fatherland, and the regiment for his family. Very rarely,

therefore, did any one seek the motives underlying his praiseworthy turn

for thrift; for it pleased others, for the most part, to set it down to

a not unnatural wish to increase the amount of the savings that were

to render his old age comfortable. Till the eve of his promotion to the

rank of lieutenant-colonel of cavalry it was fair to suppose that it was

his ambition to retire in the course of some campaign with a colonel’s

epaulettes and pension.

If Genestas’ name came up when the officers gossiped after drill,

they were wont to classify him among the men who begin with taking the

good-conduct prize at school, and who, throughout the term of

their natural lives, continue to be punctilious, conscientious, and

passionless--as good as white bread, and just as insipid. Thoughtful

minds, however, regarded him very differently. Not seldom it would

happen that a glance, or an expression as full of significance as the

utterance of a savage, would drop from him and bear witness to past

storms in his soul; and a careful study of his placid brow revealed a

power of stifling down and repressing his passions into inner depths,

that had been dearly bought by a lengthy acquaintance with the perils

and disastrous hazards of war. An officer who had only just joined the

regiment, the son of a peer of France, had said one day of Genestas,

that he would have made one of the most conscientious of priests, or the

most upright of tradesmen.

“Add, the least of a courtier among marquises,” put in Genestas,

scanning the young puppy, who did not know that his commandant could

overhear him.

There was a burst of laughter at the words, for the lieutenant’s father

cringed to all the powers that be; he was a man of supple intellect,

accustomed to jump with every change of government, and his son took

after him.

Men like Genestas are met with now and again in the French army; natures

that show themselves to be wholly great at need, and relapse into their

ordinary simplicity when the action is over; men that are little mindful

of fame and reputation, and utterly forgetful of danger. Perhaps there

are many more of them than the shortcomings of our own characters

will allow us to imagine. Yet, for all that, any one who believed that

Genestas was perfect would be strangely deceiving himself. The major was

suspicious, given to violent outbursts of anger, and apt to be tiresome

in argument; he was full of national prejudices, and above all things,

would insist that he was in the right, when he was, as a matter of fact,

in the wrong. He retained the liking for good wine that he had acquired

in the ranks. If he rose from a banquet with all the gravity befitting

his position, he seemed serious and pensive, and had no mind at such

times to admit any one into his confidence.

Finally, although he was sufficiently acquainted with the customs

of society and with the laws of politeness, to which he conformed as

rigidly as if they had been military regulations; though he had real

mental power, both natural and acquired; and although he had mastered

the art of handling men, the science of tactics, the theory of sabre

play, and the mysteries of the farrier’s craft, his learning had been

prodigiously neglected. He knew in a hazy kind of way that Caesar was a

Roman Consul, or an Emperor, and that Alexander was either a Greek or

a Macedonian; he would have conceded either quality or origin in both

cases without discussion. If the conversation turned on science or

history, he was wont to become thoughtful, and to confine his share in

it to little approving nods, like a man who by dint of profound thought

has arrived at scepticism.

When, at Schonbrunn, on May 13, 1809, Napoleon wrote the bulletin

addressed to the Grand Army, then the masters of Vienna, in which he

said that _like Medea, the Austrian princes had slain their children

with their own hands_; Genestas, who had been recently made a captain,

did not wish to compromise his newly conferred dignity by asking who

Medea was; he relied upon Napoleon’s character, and felt quite sure that

the Emperor was incapable of making any announcement not in proper form

to the Grand Army and the House of Austria. So he thought that Medea

was some archduchess whose conduct was open to criticism. Still, as the

matter might have some bearing on the art of war, he felt uneasy about

the Medea of the bulletin until a day arrived when Mlle. Raucourt

revived the tragedy of Medea. The captain saw the placard, and did

not fail to repair to the Theatre Francais that evening, to see the

celebrated actress in her mythological role, concerning which he gained

some information from his neighbors.

A man, however, who as a private soldier had possessed sufficient

force of character to learn to read, write, and cipher, could clearly

understand that as a captain he ought to continue his education. So from

this time forth he read new books and romances with avidity, in this way

gaining a half-knowledge, of which he made a very fair use. He went

so far in his gratitude to his teachers as to undertake the defence of

Pigault-Lebrun, remarking that in his opinion he was instructive and not

seldom profound.

This officer, whose acquired practical wisdom did not allow him to make

any journey in vain, had just come from Grenoble, and was on his way to

the Grande Chartreuse, after obtaining on the previous evening a week’s

leave of absence from his colonel. He had not expected that the journey

would be a long one; but when, league after league, he had been misled

as to the distance by the lying statements of the peasants, he thought

it would be prudent not to venture any farther without fortifying the

inner man. Small as were his chances of finding any housewife in her

dwelling at a time when every one was hard at work in the fields, he

stopped before a little cluster of cottages that stood about a piece of

land common to all of them, more or less describing a square, which was

open to all comers.

The surface of the soil thus held in conjoint ownership was hard and

carefully swept, but intersected by open drains. Roses, ivy, and tall

grasses grew over the cracked and disjointed walls. Some rags were

drying on a miserable currant bush that stood at the entrance of the

square. A pig wallowing in a heap of straw was the first inhabitant

encountered by Genestas. At the sound of horse hoofs the creature

grunted, raised its head, and put a great black cat to flight. A young

peasant girl, who was carrying a bundle of grass on her head, suddenly

appeared, followed at a distance by four little brats, clad in rags, it

is true, but vigorous, sunburned, picturesque, bold-eyed, and riotous;

thorough little imps, looking like angels. The sun shone down with an

indescribable purifying influence upon the air, the wretched cottages,

the heaps of refuse, and the unkempt little crew.

The soldier asked whether it was possible to obtain a cup of milk. All

the answer the girl made him was a hoarse cry. An old woman suddenly

appeared on the threshold of one of the cabins, and the young peasant

girl passed on into a cowshed, with a gesture that pointed out the

aforesaid old woman, towards whom Genestas went; taking care at the

same time to keep a tight hold on his horse, lest the children who were

already running about under his hoofs should be hurt. He repeated his

request, with which the housewife flatly refused to comply. She would

not, she said, disturb the cream on the pans full of milk from

which butter was to be made. The officer overcame this objection by

undertaking to repay her amply for the wasted cream, and then tied up

his horse at the door, and went inside the cottage.

The four children belonging to the woman all appeared to be of the same

age--an odd circumstance which struck the commandant. A fifth clung

about her skirts; a weak, pale, sickly-looking child, who doubtless

needed more care than the others, and who on that account was the best

beloved, the Benjamin of the family.

Genestas seated himself in a corner by the fireless hearth. A sublime

symbol met his eyes on the high mantel-shelf above him--a colored

plaster cast of the Virgin with the Child Jesus in her arms. Bare earth

made the flooring of the cottage. It had been beaten level in the first

instance, but in course of time it had grown rough and uneven, so that

though it was clean, its ruggedness was not unlike that of the magnified

rind of an orange. A sabot filled with salt, a frying-pan, and a

large kettle hung inside the chimney. The farther end of the room was

completely filled by a four-post bedstead, with a scalloped valance

for decoration. The walls were black; there was an opening to admit the

light above the worm-eaten door; and here and there were a few stools

consisting of rough blocks of beech-wood, each set upon three wooden

legs; a hutch for bread, a large wooden dipper, a bucket and some

earthen milk-pans, a spinning-wheel on the top of the bread-hutch, and

a few wicker mats for draining cheeses. Such were the ornaments and

household furniture of the wretched dwelling.

The officer, who had been absorbed in flicking his riding-whip against

the floor, presently became a witness to a piece of by-play, all

unsuspicious though he was that any drama was about to unfold itself.

No sooner had the old woman, followed by her scald-headed Benjamin,

disappeared through a door that led into her dairy, than the four

children, after having stared at the soldier as long as they wished,

drove away the pig by way of a beginning. This animal, their accustomed

playmate, having come as far as the threshold, the little brats made

such an energetic attack upon him, that he was forced to beat a hasty

retreat. When the enemy had been driven without, the children besieged

the latch of a door that gave way before their united efforts, and

slipped out of the worn staple that held it; and finally they bolted

into a kind of fruit-loft, where they very soon fell to munching the

dried plums, to the amusement of the commandant, who watched this

spectacle. The old woman, with the face like parchment and the dirty

ragged clothing, came back at this moment, with a jug of milk for her

visitor in her hand.

“Oh! you good-for-nothings!” cried she.

She ran to the children, clutched an arm of each child, bundled them

into the room, and carefully closed the door of her storeroom of plenty.

But she did not take their prunes away from them.

“Now, then, be good, my pets! If one did not look after them,” she went

on, looking at Genestas, “they would eat up the whole lot of prunes, the

madcaps!”

Then she seated herself on a three-legged stool, drew the little

weakling between her knees, and began to comb and wash his head with a

woman’s skill and with motherly assiduity. The four small thieves

hung about. Some of them stood, others leant against the bed or the

bread-hutch. They gnawed their prunes without saying a word, but they

kept their sly and mischievous eyes fixed upon the stranger. In spite

of grimy countenances and noses that stood in need of wiping, they all

looked strong and healthy.

“Are they your children?” the soldier asked the old woman.

“Asking your pardon, sir, they are charity children. They give me three

francs a month and a pound’s weight of soap for each of them.”

“But it must cost you twice as much as that to keep them, good woman?”

“That is just what M. Benassis tells me, sir; but if other folk will

board the children for the same money, one has to make it do. Nobody

wants the children, but for all that there is a good deal of performance

to go through before they will let us have them. When the milk we give

them comes to nothing, they cost us scarcely anything. Besides that,

three francs is a great deal, sir; there are fifteen francs coming in,

to say nothing of the five pounds’ weight of soap. In our part of the

world you would simply have to wear your life out before you would make

ten sous a day.”

“Then you have some land of your own?” asked the commandant.

“No, sir. I had some land once when my husband was alive; since he died

I have done so badly that I had to sell it.”

“Why, how do you reach the year’s end without debts?” Genestas went on,

“when you bring up children for a livelihood and wash and feed them on

two sous a day?”

“Well, we never go to St. Sylvester’s Day without debt, sir,” she went

on without ceasing to comb the child’s hair. “But so it is--Providence

helps us out. I have a couple of cows. Then my daughter and I do some

gleaning at harvest-time, and in winter we pick up firewood. Then at

night we spin. Ah! we never want to see another winter like this last

one, that is certain! I owe the miller seventy-five francs for flour.

Luckily he is M. Benassis’ miller. M. Benassis, ah! he is a friend to

poor people. He has never asked for his due from anybody, and he will

not begin with us. Besides, our cow has a calf, and that will set us a

bit straighter.”

The four orphans for whom the old woman’s affection represented

all human guardianship had come to an end of their prunes. As their

foster-mother’s attention was taken up by the officer with whom she was

chatting, they seized the opportunity, and banded themselves together in

a compact file, so as to make yet another assault upon the latch of the

door that stood between them and the tempting heap of dried plums. They

advanced to the attack, not like French soldiers, but as stealthily as

Germans, impelled by frank animal greediness.

“Oh! you little rogues! Do you want to finish them up?”

The old woman rose, caught the strongest of the four, administered a

gentle slap on the back, and flung him out of the house. Not a tear did

he shed, but the others remained breathless with astonishment.

“They give you a lot of trouble----”

“Oh! no, sir, but they can smell the prunes, the little dears. If I were

to leave them alone here for a moment, they would stuff themselves with

them.”

“You are very fond of them?”

The old woman raised her head at this, and looked at him with gentle

malice in her eyes.

“Fond of them!” she said. “I have had to part with three of them

already. I only have the care of them until they are six years old,” she

went on with a sigh.

“But where are your own children?”

“I have lost them.”

“How old are you?” Genestas asked, to efface the impression left by his

last question.

“I am thirty-eight years old, sir. It will be two years come next St.

John’s Day since my husband died.”

She finished dressing the poor sickly mite, who seemed to thank her by a

loving look in his faded eyes.

“What a life of toil and self-denial!” thought the cavalry officer.

Beneath a roof worthy of the stable wherein Jesus Christ was born,

the hardest duties of motherhood were fulfilled cheerfully and without

consciousness of merit. What hearts were these that lay so deeply buried

in neglect and obscurity! What wealth, and what poverty! Soldiers,

better than other men, can appreciate the element of grandeur to be

found in heroism in sabots, in the Evangel clad in rags. The Book may be

found elsewhere, adorned, embellished, tricked out in silk and satin

and brocade, but here, of a surety, dwelt the spirit of the Book. It was

impossible to doubt that Heaven had some holy purpose underlying it all,

at the sight of the woman who had taken a mother’s lot upon herself, as

Jesus Christ had taken the form of a man, who gleaned and suffered and

ran into debt for her little waifs; a woman who defrauded herself in

her reckonings, and would not own that she was ruining herself that she

might be a Mother. One was constrained to admit, at the sight of her,

that the good upon earth have something in common with the angels in

heaven; Commandant Genestas shook his head as he looked at her.

“Is M. Benassis a clever doctor?” he asked at last.

“I do not know, sir, but he cures poor people for nothing.”

“It seems to me that this is a man and no mistake!” he went on, speaking

to himself.

“Oh! yes, sir, and a good man too! There is scarcely any one hereabouts

that does not put his name in their prayers, morning and night!”

“That is for you, mother,” said the soldier, as he gave her several

coins, “and that is for the children,” he went on, as he added another

crown. “Is M. Benassis’ house still a long way off?” he asked, when he

had mounted his horse.

“Oh! no, sir, a bare league at most.”

The commandant set out, fully persuaded that two leagues remained ahead

of him. Yet after all he soon caught a glimpse through the trees of the

little town’s first cluster of houses, and then of all the roofs that

crowded about a conical steeple, whose slates were secured to the angles

of the wooden framework by sheets of tin that glittered in the sun. This

sort of roof, which has a peculiar appearance, denotes the nearness of

the borders of Savoy, where it is very common. The valley is wide at

this particular point, and a fair number of houses pleasantly situated,

either in the little plain or along the side of the mountain stream,

lend human interest to the well-tilled spot, a stronghold with no

apparent outlet among the mountains that surround it.

It was noon when Genestas reined in his horse beneath an avenue of

elm-trees half-way up the hillside, and only a few paces from the town,

to ask the group of children who stood before him for M. Benassis’

house. At first the children looked at each other, then they scrutinized

the stranger with the expression that they usually wear when they set

eyes upon anything for the first time; a different curiosity and

a different thought in every little face. Then the boldest and the

merriest of the band, a little bright-eyed urchin, with bare, muddy

feet, repeated his words over again, in child fashion.

“M. Benassis’ house, sir?” adding, “I will show you the way there.”

He walked along in front of the horse, prompted quite as much by a wish

to gain a kind of importance by being in the stranger’s company, as by

a child’s love of being useful, or the imperative craving to be doing

something, that possesses mind and body at his age. The officer followed

him for the entire length of the principal street of the country town.

The way was paved with cobblestones, and wound in and out among the

houses, which their owners had erected along its course in the most

arbitrary fashion. In one place a bake-house had been built out into

the middle of the roadway; in another a gable protruded, partially

obstructing the passage, and yet farther on a mountain stream flowed

across it in a runnel. Genestas noticed a fair number of roofs of tarred

shingle, but yet more of them were thatched; a few were tiled, and

some seven or eight (belonging no doubt to the cure, the justice of the

peace, and some of the wealthier townsmen) were covered with slates.

There was a total absence of regard for appearances befitting a village

at the end of the world, which had nothing beyond it, and no connection

with any other place. The people who lived in it seemed to belong to one

family that dwelt beyond the limits of the bustling world, with which

the collector of taxes and a few ties of the very slenderest alone

served to connect them.

When Genestas had gone a step or two farther, he saw on the mountain

side a broad road that rose above the village. Clearly there must be an

old town and a new town; and, indeed, when the commandant reached a

spot where he could slacken the pace of his horse, he could easily see

between the houses some well-built dwellings whose new roofs brightened

the old-fashioned village. An avenue of trees rose above these new

houses, and from among them came the confused sounds of several

industries. He heard the songs peculiar to busy toilers, a murmur of

many workshops, the rasping of files, and the sound of falling hammers.

He saw the thin lines of smoke from the chimneys of each household, and

the more copious outpourings from the forges of the van-builder, the

blacksmith, and the farrier. At length, at the very end of the village

towards which his guide was taking him, Genestas beheld scattered farms

and well-tilled fields and plantations of trees in thorough order. It

might have been a little corner of Brie, so hidden away in a great fold

of the land, that at first sight its existence would not be suspected

between the little town and the mountains that closed the country round.

Presently the child stopped.

“There is the door of _his_ house,” he remarked.

The officer dismounted and passed his arm through the bridle. Then,

thinking that the laborer is worthy of his hire, he drew a few sous

from his waistcoat pocket, and held them out to the child, who looked

astonished at this, opened his eyes very wide, and stayed on, without

thanking him, to watch what the stranger would do next.

“Civilization has not made much headway hereabouts,” thought Genestas;

“the religion of work is in full force, and begging has not yet come

thus far.”

His guide, more from curiosity than from any interested motive, propped

himself against the wall that rose to the height of a man’s elbow. Upon

this wall, which enclosed the yard belonging to the house, there ran a

black wooden railing on either side of the square pillars of the gates.

The lower part of the gates themselves was of solid wood that had been

painted gray at some period in the past; the upper part consisted of

a grating of yellowish spear-shaped bars. These decorations, which had

lost all their color, gradually rose on either half of the gates till

they reached the centre where they met; their spikes forming, when

both leaves were shut, an outline similar to that of a pine-cone. The

worm-eaten gates themselves, with their patches of velvet lichen, were

almost destroyed by the alternate action of sun and rain. A few aloe

plants and some chance-sown pellitory grew on the tops of the square

pillars of the gates, which all but concealed the stems of a couple of

thornless acacias that raised their tufted spikes, like a pair of green

powder-puffs, in the yard.

The condition of the gateway revealed a certain carelessness of its

owner which did not seem to suit the officer’s turn of mind. He knitted

his brows like a man who is obliged to relinquish some illusion. We

usually judge others by our own standard; and although we indulgently

forgive our own shortcomings in them, we condemn them harshly for the

lack of our special virtues. If the commandant had expected M. Benassis

to be a methodical or practical man, there were unmistakable indications

of absolute indifference as to his material concerns in the state of

the gates of his house. A soldier possessed by Genestas’ passion for

domestic economy could not help at once drawing inferences as to the

life and character of its owner from the gateway before him; and this,

in spite of his habits of circumspection, he in nowise failed to do. The

gates were left ajar, moreover--another piece of carelessness!

Encouraged by this countrified trust in all comers, the officer entered

the yard without ceremony, and tethered his horse to the bars of the

gate. While he was knotting the bridle, a neighing sound from the stable

caused both horse and rider to turn their eyes involuntarily in that

direction. The door opened, and an old servant put out his head. He wore

a red woolen bonnet, exactly like the Phrygian cap in which Liberty is

tricked out, a piece of head-gear in common use in this country.

As there was room for several horses, this worthy individual, after

inquiring whether Genestas had come to see M. Benassis, offered the

hospitality of the stable to the newly-arrived steed, a very fine

animal, at which he looked with an expression of admiring affection. The

commandant followed his horse to see how things were to go with it. The

stable was clean, there was plenty of litter, and there was the same

peculiar air of sleek content about M. Benassis’ pair of horses that

distinguished the cure’s horse from all the rest of his tribe. A

maid-servant from within the house came out upon the flight of steps and

waited. She appeared to be the proper authority to whom the stranger’s

inquiries were to be addressed, although the stableman had already told

him that M. Benassis was not at home.

“The master has gone to the flour-mill,” said he. “If you like to

overtake him, you have only to go along the path that leads to the

meadow; and the mill is at the end of it.”

Genestas preferred seeing the country to waiting about indefinitely

for Benassis’ return, so he set out along the way that led to the

flour-mill. When he had gone beyond the irregular line traced by the

town upon the hillside, he came in sight of the mill and the valley, and

of one of the loveliest landscapes that he had ever seen.

The mountains bar the course of the river, which forms a little lake at

their feet, and raise their crests above it, tier on tier. Their many

valleys are revealed by the changing hues of the light, or by the more

or less clear outlines of the mountain ridges fledged with their dark

forests of pines. The mill had not long been built. It stood just where

the mountain stream fell into the little lake. There was all the charm

about it peculiar to a lonely house surrounded by water and hidden away

behind the heads of a few trees that love to grow by the water-side. On

the farther bank of the river, at the foot of a mountain, with a faint

red glow of sunset upon its highest crest, Genestas caught a glimpse

of a dozen deserted cottages. All the windows and doors had been taken

away, and sufficiently large holes were conspicuous in the dilapidated

roofs, but the surrounding land was laid out in fields that were highly

cultivated, and the old garden spaces had been turned into meadows,

watered by a system of irrigation as artfully contrived as that in use

in Limousin. Unconsciously the commandant paused to look at the ruins of

the village before him.

How is it that men can never behold any ruins, even of the humblest

kind, without feeling deeply stirred? Doubtless it is because they seem

to be a typical representation of evil fortune whose weight is felt so

differently by different natures. The thought of death is called up by

a churchyard, but a deserted village puts us in mind of the sorrows of

life; death is but one misfortune always foreseen, but the sorrows of

life are infinite. Does not the thought of the infinite underlie all

great melancholy?

The officer reached the stony path by the mill-pond before he could

hit upon an explanation of this deserted village. The miller’s lad was

sitting on some sacks of corn near the door of the house. Genestas asked

for M. Benassis.

“M. Benassis went over there,” said the miller, pointing out one of the

ruined cottages.

“Has the village been burned down?” asked the commandant.

“No, sir.”

“Then how did it come to be in this state?” inquired Genestas.

“Ah! how?” the miller answered, as he shrugged his shoulders and went

indoors; “M. Benassis will tell you that.”

The officer went over a rough sort of bridge built up of boulders taken

from the torrent bed, and soon reached the house that had been pointed

out to him. The thatched roof of the dwelling was still entire; it was

covered with moss indeed, but there were no holes in it, and the door

and its fastenings seemed to be in good repair. Genestas saw a fire on

the hearth as he entered, an old woman kneeling in the chimney-corner

before a sick man seated in a chair, and another man, who was standing

with his face turned toward the fireplace. The house consisted of a

single room, which was lighted by a wretched window covered with

linen cloth. The floor was of beaten earth; the chair, a table, and a

truckle-bed comprised the whole of the furniture. The commandant had

never seen anything so poor and bare, not even in Russia, where the

moujik’s huts are like the dens of wild beasts. Nothing within it

spoke of ordinary life; there were not even the simplest appliances

for cooking food of the commonest description. It might have been

a dog-kennel without a drinking-pan. But for the truckle-bed, a

smock-frock hanging from a nail, and some sabots filled with straw,

which composed the invalid’s entire wardrobe, this cottage would have

looked as empty as the others. The aged peasant woman upon her knees

was devoting all her attention to keeping the sufferer’s feet in a tub

filled with a brown liquid. Hearing a footstep and the clank of spurs,

which sounded strangely in ears accustomed to the plodding pace of

country folk, the man turned to Genestas. A sort of surprise, in which

the old woman shared was visible in his face.

“There is no need to ask if you are M. Benassis,” said the soldier. “You

will pardon me, sir, if, as a stranger impatient to see you, I have come

to seek you on your field of battle, instead of awaiting you at your

house. Pray do not disturb yourself; go on with what you are doing. When

it is over, I will tell you the purpose of my visit.”

Genestas half seated himself upon the edge of the table, and remained

silent. The firelight shone more brightly in the room than the faint

rays of the sun, for the mountain crests intercepted them, so that they

seldom reached this corner of the valley. A few branches of resinous

pinewood made a bright blaze, and it was by the light of this fire

that the soldier saw the face of the man towards whom he was drawn by

a secret motive, by a wish to seek him out, to study and to know him

thoroughly well. M. Benassis, the local doctor, heard Genestas with

indifference, and with folded arms he returned his bow, and went back to

his patient, quite unaware that he was being subjected to a scrutiny as

earnest as that which the soldier turned upon him.

Benassis was a man of ordinary height, broad-shouldered and

deep-chested. A capacious green overcoat, buttoned up to the chin,

prevented the officer from observing any characteristic details of his

personal appearance; but his dark and motionless figure served as a

strong relief to his face, which caught the bright light of the blazing

fire. The face was not unlike that of a satyr; there was the same

slightly protruding forehead, full, in this case, of prominences,

all more or less denoting character; the same turned-up nose, with a

sprightly cleavage at the tip; the same high cheek-bones. The lines of

the mouth were crooked; the lips, thick and red. The chin turned sharply

upwards. There was an alert, animated look in the brown eyes, to which

their pearly whites gave great brightness, and which expressed passions

now subdued. His iron-gray hair, the deep wrinkles in his face,

the bushy eyebrows that had grown white already, the veins on his

protuberant nose, the tanned face covered with red blotches, everything

about him, in short, indicated a man of fifty and the hard work of his

profession. The officer could come to no conclusion as to the capacity

of the head, which was covered by a close cap; but hidden though it was,

it seemed to him to be one of the square-shaped kind that gave rise

to the expression “square-headed.” Genestas was accustomed to read the

indications that mark the features of men destined to do great things,

since he had been brought into close relations with the energetic

natures sought out by Napoleon; so he suspected that there must be some

mystery in this life of obscurity, and said to himself as he looked at

the remarkable face before him:

“How comes it that he is still a country doctor?”

When he had made a careful study of this countenance, that, in spite of

its resemblance to other human faces, revealed an inner life nowise

in harmony with a commonplace exterior, he could not help sharing

the doctor’s interest in his patient; and the sight of that patient

completely changed the current of his thoughts.

Much as the old cavalry officer had seen in the course of his soldier’s

career, he felt a thrill of surprise and horror at the sight of a human

face which could never have been lighted up with thought--a livid face

in which a look of dumb suffering showed so plainly--the same look that

is sometimes worn by a child too young to speak, and too weak to cry any

longer; in short, it was the wholly animal face of an old dying cretin.

The cretin was the one variety of the human species with which the

commandant had not yet come in contact. At the sight of the deep,

circular folds of skin on the forehead, the sodden, fish-like eyes, and

the head, with its short, coarse, scantily-growing hair--a head

utterly divested of all the faculties of the senses--who would not have

experienced, as Genestas did, an instinctive feeling of repulsion for a

being that had neither the physical beauty of an animal nor the mental

endowments of man, who was possessed of neither instinct nor reason, and

who had never heard nor spoken any kind of articulate speech? It seemed

difficult to expend any regrets over the poor wretch now visibly drawing

towards the very end of an existence which had not been life in any

sense of the word; yet the old woman watched him with touching anxiety,

and was rubbing his legs where the hot water did not reach them with as

much tenderness as if he had been her husband. Benassis himself, after

a close scrutiny of the dull eyes and corpse-like face, gently took the

cretin’s hand and felt his pulse.

“The bath is doing no good,” he said, shaking his head; “let us put him

to bed again.”

He lifted the inert mass himself, and carried him across to the

truckle-bed, from whence, no doubt, he had just taken him. Carefully he

laid him at full length, and straightened the limbs that were growing

cold already, putting the head and hand in position, with all the heed

that a mother could bestow upon her child.

“It is all over, death is very near,” added Benassis, who remained

standing by the bedside.

The old woman gazed at the dying form, with her hands on her hips. A few

tears stole down her cheeks. Genestas remained silent. He was unable to

explain to himself how it was that the death of a being that concerned

him so little should affect him so much. Unconsciously he shared the

feeling of boundless pity that these hapless creatures excite among the

dwellers in the sunless valleys wherein Nature has placed them. This

sentiment has degenerated into a kind of religious superstition in

families to which cretins belong; but does it not spring from the most

beautiful of Christian virtues--from charity, and from a belief in a

reward hereafter, that most effectual support of our social system,

and the one thought that enables us to endure our miseries? The hope of

inheriting eternal bliss helps the relations of these unhappy creatures

and all others round about them to exert on a large scale, and with

sublime devotion, a mother’s ceaseless protecting care over an apathetic

creature who does not understand it in the first instance, and who in

a little while forgets it all. Wonderful power of religion! that has

brought a blind beneficence to the aid of an equally blind misery.

Wherever cretins exist, there is a popular belief that the presence

of one of these creatures brings luck to a family--a superstition that

serves to sweeten lives which, in the midst of a town population,

would be condemned by a mistaken philanthropy to submit to the harsh

discipline of an asylum. In the higher end of the valley of Isere, where

cretins are very numerous, they lead an out-of-door life with the cattle

which they are taught to herd. There, at any rate, they are at large,

and receive the reverence due to misfortune.

A moment later the village bell clinked at slow regular intervals, to

acquaint the flock with the death of one of their number. In the sound

that reached the cottage but faintly across the intervening space, there

was a thought of religion which seemed to fill it with a melancholy

peace. The tread of many feet echoed up the road, giving notice of

an approaching crowd of people--a crowd that uttered not a word. Then

suddenly the chanting of the Church broke the stillness, calling up the

confused thoughts that take possession of the most sceptical minds, and

compel them to yield to the influence of the touching harmonies of the

human voice. The Church was coming to the aid of a creature that knew

her not. The cure appeared, preceded by a choir-boy, who bore the

crucifix, and followed by the sacristan carrying the vase of holy water,

and by some fifty women, old men, and children, who had all come to add

their prayers to those of the Church. The doctor and the soldier looked

at each other, and silently withdrew to a corner to make room for the

kneeling crowd within and without the cottage. During the consoling

ceremony of the Viaticum, celebrated for one who had never sinned, but

to whom the Church on earth was bidding a last farewell, there were

signs of real sorrow on most of the rough faces of the gathering, and

tears flowed over the rugged cheeks that sun and wind and labor in the

fields had tanned and wrinkled. The sentiment of voluntary kinship was

easy to explain. There was not one in the place who had not pitied the

unhappy creature, not one who would not have given him his daily bread.

Had he not met with a father’s care from every child, and found a mother

in the merriest little girl?

“He is dead!” said the cure.

The words struck his hearers with the most unfeigned dismay. The tall

candles were lighted, and several people undertook to watch with the

dead that night. Benassis and the soldier went out. A group of peasants

in the doorway stopped the doctor to say:

“Ah! if you have not saved his life, sir, it was doubtless because God

wished to take him to Himself.”

“I did my best, children,” the doctor answered.

When they had come a few paces from the deserted village, whose last

inhabitant had just died, the doctor spoke to Genestas.

“You would not believe, sir, what real solace is contained for me in

what those peasants have just said. Ten years ago I was very nearly

stoned to death in this village. It is empty to-day, but thirty families

lived in it then.”

Genestas’ face and gesture so plainly expressed an inquiry, that,

as they went along, the doctor told him the story promised by this

beginning.

“When I first settled here, sir, I found a dozen cretins in this part

of the canton,” and the doctor turned round to point out the ruined

cottages for the officer’s benefit. “All the favorable conditions for

spreading the hideous disease are there; the air is stagnant, the hamlet

lies in the valley bottom, close beside a torrent supplied with water

by the melted snows, and the sunlight only falls on the mountain-top,

so that the valley itself gets no good of the sun. Marriages among these

unfortunate creatures are not forbidden by law, and in this district

they are protected by superstitious notions, of whose power I had no

conception--superstitions which I blamed at first, and afterwards came

to admire. So cretinism was in a fair way to spread all over the valley

from this spot. Was it not doing the country a great service to put

a stop to this mental and physical contagion? But imperatively as the

salutary changes were required, they might cost the life of any man who

endeavored to bring them about. Here, as in other social spheres, if

any good is to be done, we come into collision not merely with

vested interests, but with something far more dangerous to meddle

with--religious ideas crystallized into superstitions, the most

permanent form taken by human thought. I feared nothing.

“In the first place, I sought for the position of mayor in the canton,

and in this I succeeded. Then, after obtaining a verbal sanction from

the prefect, and by paying down the money, I had several of these

unfortunate creatures transported over to Aiguebelle, in Savoy, by

night. There are a great many of them there, and they were certain to

be very kindly treated. When this act of humanity came to be known, the

whole countryside looked upon me as a monster. The cure preached against

me. In spite of all the pains I took to explain to all the shrewder

heads of the little place the immense importance of being rid of the

idiots, and in spite of the fact that I gave my services gratuitously to

the sick people of the district, a shot was fired at me from the corner

of a wood.

“I went to the Bishop of Grenoble and asked him to change the cure.

Monseigneur was good enough to allow me to choose a priest who would

share in my labors, and it was my happy fortune to meet with one of

those rare natures that seemed to have dropped down from heaven. Then

I went on with my enterprise. After preparing people’s minds, I made

another transportation by night, and six more cretins were taken away.

In this second attempt I had the support of several people to whom I had

rendered some service, and I was backed by the members of the Communal

Council, for I had appealed to their parsimonious instincts, showing

them how much it cost to support the poor wretches, and pointing out how

largely they might gain by converting their plots of ground (to which

the idiots had no proper title) into allotments which were needed in the

township.

“All the rich were on my side; but the poor, the old women, the

children, and a few pig-headed people were violently opposed to me.

Unluckily it so fell out that my last removal had not been completely

carried out. The cretin whom you have just seen, not having returned to

his house, had not been taken away, so that the next morning he was the

sole remaining example of his species in the village. There were several

families still living there; but though they were little better than

idiots, they were, at any rate, free from the taint of cretinism. I

determined to go through with my work, and came officially in open day

to take the luckless creature from his dwelling. I had no sooner left

my house than my intention got abroad. The cretin’s friends were there

before me, and in front of his hovel I found a crowd of women and

children and old people, who hailed my arrival with insults accompanied

by a shower of stones.

“In the midst of the uproar I should perhaps have fallen a victim to the

frenzy that possesses a crowd excited by its own outcries and stirred up

by one common feeling, but the cretin saved my life! The poor creature

came out of his hut, and raised the clucking sound of his voice. He

seemed to be an absolute ruler over the fanatical mob, for the sight

of him put a sudden stop to the clamor. It occurred to me that I might

arrange a compromise, and thanks to the quiet so opportunely restored, I

was able to propose and explain it. Of course, those who approved of my

schemes would not dare to second me in this emergency, their support

was sure to be of a purely passive kind, while these superstitious folk

would exert the most active vigilance to keep their last idol among

them; it was impossible, it seemed to me, to take him away from them.

So I promised to leave the cretin in peace in his dwelling, with

the understanding that he should live quite by himself, and that the

remaining families in the village should cross the stream and come to

live in the town, in some new houses which I myself undertook to build,

adding to each house a piece of ground for which the Commune was to

repay me later on.

“Well, my dear sir, it took me fully six months to overcome their

objection to this bargain, however much it may have been to the

advantage of the village families. The affection which they have

for their wretched hovels in country districts is something quite

unexplainable. No matter how unwholesome his hovel may be, a peasant

clings far more to it than a banker does to his mansion. The reason of

it? That I do not know. Perhaps thoughts and feelings are strongest

in those who have but few of them, simply because they have but few.

Perhaps material things count for much in the lives of those who live

so little in thought; certain it is that the less they have, the dearer

their possessions are to them. Perhaps, too, it is with the peasant

as with the prisoner--he does not squander the powers of his soul, he

centres them all upon a single idea, and this is how his feelings come

to be so exceedingly strong. Pardon these reflections on the part of a

man who seldom exchanges ideas with any one. But, indeed, you must

not suppose, sir, that I am much taken up with these far-fetched

considerations. We all have to be active and practical here.

“Alas! the fewer ideas these poor folk have in their heads, the harder

it is to make them see where their real interests lie. There was nothing

for it but to give my whole attention to every trifling detail of my

enterprise. One and all made me the same answer, one of those sayings,

filled with homely sense, to which there is no possible reply, ‘But your

houses are not yet built, sir!’ they used to say. ‘Very good,’ said I,

‘promise me that as soon as they are finished you will come and live in

them.’

“Luckily, sir, I obtained a decision to the effect that the whole of

the mountain side above the now deserted village was the property of the

township. The sum of money brought in by the woods on the higher slopes

paid for the building of the new houses and for the land on which they

stood. They were built forthwith; and when once one of my refractory

families was fairly settled in, the rest of them were not slow to

follow. The benefits of the change were so evident that even the most

bigoted believer in the village, which you might call soulless as well

as sunless, could not but appreciate them. The final decision in this

matter, which gave some property to the Commune, in the possession of

which we were confirmed by the Council of State, made me a person of

great importance in the canton. But what a lot of worry there was over

it!” the doctor remarked, stopping short, and raising a hand which he

let fall again--a gesture that spoke volumes. “No one knows, as I do,

the distance between the town and the Prefecture--whence nothing comes

out--and from the Prefecture to the Council of State--where nothing can

be got in.

“Well, after all,” he resumed, “peace be to the powers of this world!

They yielded to my importunities, and that is saying a great deal. If

you only knew the good that came of a carelessly scrawled signature!

Why, sir, two years after I had taken these momentous trifles in hand,

and had carried the matter through to the end, every poor family in the

Commune had two cows at least, which they pastured on the mountain side,

where (without waiting this time for an authorization from the Council

of State) I had established a system of irrigation by means of cross

trenches, like those in Switzerland, Auvergne, and Limousin. Much to

their astonishment, the townspeople saw some capital meadows springing

up under their eyes, and thanks to the improvement in the pasturage,

the yield of milk was very much larger. The results of this triumph

were great indeed. Every one followed the example set by my system of

irrigation; cattle were multiplied; the area of meadow land and every

kind of out-turn increased. I had nothing to fear after that. I could

continue my efforts to improve this, as yet, untilled corner of the

earth; and to civilize those who dwelt in it, whose minds had hitherto

lain dormant.

“Well, sir, folk like us, who live out of the world, are very talkative.

If you ask us a question, there is no knowing where the answer will come

to an end; but to cut it short--there were about seven hundred souls in

the valley when I came to it, and now the population numbers some two

thousand. I had gained the good opinion of every one in that matter of

the last cretin; and when I had constantly shown that I could rule both

mildly and firmly, I became a local oracle. I did everything that I

could to win their confidence; I did not ask for it, nor did I appear to

seek it; but I tried to inspire every one with the deepest respect

for my character, by the scrupulous way in which I always fulfilled my

engagements, even when they were of the most trifling kind. When I had

pledged myself to care for the poor creature whose death you have just

witnessed, I looked after him much more effectually than any of his

previous guardians had done. He has been fed and cared for as the

adopted child of the Commune. After a time the dwellers in the valley

ended by understanding the service which I had done them in spite of

themselves, but for all that, they still cherish some traces of that old

superstition of theirs. Far be it from me to blame them for it; has not

their cult of the cretin often furnished me with an argument when I have

tried to induce those who had possession of their faculties to help

the unfortunate? But here we are,” said Benassis, when after a moment’s

pause he saw the roof of his own house.

Far from expecting the slightest expression of praise or of thanks from

his listener, it appeared from his way of telling the story of this

episode in his administrative career, that he had been moved by an

unconscious desire to pour out the thoughts that filled his mind, after

the manner of folk that live very retired lives.

“I have taken the liberty of putting my horse in your stable, sir,” said

the commandant, “for which in your goodness you will perhaps pardon me

when you learn the object of my journey hither.”

“Ah! yes, what is it?” asked Benassis, appearing to shake off his

preoccupied mood, and to recollect that his companion was a stranger

to him. The frankness and unreserve of his nature had led him to accept

Genestas as an acquaintance.

“I have heard of the almost miraculous recovery of M. Gravier of

Grenoble, whom you received into your house,” was the soldier’s answer.

“I have come to you, hoping that you will give a like attention to my

case, although I have not a similar claim to your benevolence; and yet,

I am possibly not undeserving of it. I am an old soldier, and wounds

of long standing give me no peace. It will take you at least a week to

study my condition, for the pain only comes back at intervals, and----”

“Very good, sir,” Benassis broke in; “M. Gravier’s room is in readiness.

Come in.”

They went into the house, the doctor flinging open the door with an

eagerness that Genestas attributed to his pleasure at receiving a

boarder.

“Jacquotte!” Benassis called out. “This gentleman will dine with us.”

“But would it not be as well for us to settle about the payment?”

“Payment for what?” inquired the doctor.

“For my board. You cannot keep me and my horse as well, without----”

“If you are wealthy, you will repay me amply,” Benassis replied; “and if

you are not, I will take nothing whatever.”

“Nothing whatever seems to me to be too dear,” said Genestas. “But,

rich or poor, will ten francs a day (not including your professional

services) be acceptable to you?”

“Nothing could be less acceptable to me than payment for the pleasure of

entertaining a visitor,” the doctor answered, knitting his brows; “and

as to my advice, you shall have it if I like you, and not unless. Rich

people shall not have my time by paying for it; it belongs exclusively

to the folk here in the valley. I do not care about fame or fortune, and

I look for neither praise or gratitude from my patients. Any money which

you may pay me will go to the druggists in Grenoble, to pay for the

medicine required by the poor of the neighborhood.”

Any one who had heard the words flung out, abruptly, it is true, but

without a trace of bitterness in them, would have said to himself with

Genestas, “Here is a man made of good human clay.”

“Well, then, I will pay you ten francs a day, sir,” the soldier

answered, returning to the charge with wonted pertinacity, “and you will

do as you choose after that. We shall understand each other better, now

that the question is settled,” he added, grasping the doctor’s hand with

eager cordiality. “In spite of my ten francs, you shall see that I am by

no means a Tartar.”

After this passage of arms, in which Benassis showed not the slightest

sign of a wish to appear generous or to pose as a philanthropist, the

supposed invalid entered his doctor’s house. Everything within it was

in keeping with the ruinous state of the gateway, and with the clothing

worn by its owner. There was an utter disregard for everything not

essentially useful, which was visible even in the smallest trifles.

Benassis took Genestas through the kitchen, that being the shortest way

to the dining-room.

Had the kitchen belonged to an inn, it could not have been more

smoke-begrimed; and if there was a sufficiency of cooking pots within

its precincts, this lavish supply was Jacquotte’s doing--Jacquotte who

had formerly been the cure’s housekeeper--Jacquotte who always said

“we,” and who ruled supreme over the doctor’s household. If, for

instance, there was a brightly polished warming-pan above the

mantelshelf, it probably hung there because Jacquotte liked to sleep

warm of a winter night, which led her incidentally to warm her master’s

sheets. He never took a thought about anything; so she was wont to say.

It was on account of a defect, which any one else would have found

intolerable, that Benassis had taken her into his service. Jacquotte had

a mind to rule the house, and a woman who would rule his house was the

very person that the doctor wanted. So Jacquotte bought and sold,

made alterations about the place, set up and took down, arranged and

disarranged everything at her own sweet will; her master had never

raised a murmur. Over the yard, the stable, the man-servant and the

kitchen, in fact, over the whole house and garden and its master,

Jacquotte’s sway was absolute. She looked out fresh linen, saw to the

washing, and laid in provisions without consulting anybody. She decided

everything that went on in the house, and the date when the pigs were to

be killed. She scolded the gardener, decreed the menu at breakfast

and dinner, and went from cellar to garret, and from garret to cellar,

setting everything to rights according to her notions, without a word

of opposition of any sort or description. Benassis had made but two

stipulations--he wished to dine at six o’clock, and that the household

expenses should not exceed a certain fixed sum every month.

A woman whom every one obeys in this way is always singing, so Jacquotte

laughed and warbled on the staircase; she was always humming something

when she was not singing, and singing when she was not humming.

Jacquotte had a natural liking for cleanliness, so she kept the house

neat and clean. If her tastes had been different, it would have been a

sad thing for M. Benassis (so she was wont to say), for the poor man was

so little particular that you might feed him on cabbage for partridges,

and he would not find it out; and if it were not for her, he would very

often wear the same shirt for a week on end. Jacquotte, however, was an

indefatigable folder of linen, a born rubber and polisher of furniture,

and a passionate lover of a perfectly religious and ceremonial

cleanliness of the most scrupulous, the most radiant, and most fragrant

kind. A sworn foe to dust, she swept and scoured and washed without

ceasing.

The condition of the gateway caused her acute distress. On the first day

of every month for the past ten years, she had extorted from her master

a promise that he would replace the gate with a new one, that the walls

of the house should be lime-washed, and that everything should be made

quite straight and proper about the place; but so far, the master had

not kept his word. So it happened that whenever she fell to lamenting

over Benassis’ deeply-rooted carelessness about things, she nearly

always ended solemnly in these words with which all her praises of her

master usually terminated:

“You cannot say that he is a fool, because he works such miracles, as

you may say, in the place; but, all the same, he is a fool at times,

such a fool that you have to do everything for him as if he were a

child.”

Jacquotte loved the house as if it had belonged to her; and when she had

lived in it for twenty-two years, had she not some grounds for deluding

herself on that head? After the cure’s death the house had been for

sale; and Benassis, who had only just come into the country, had bought

it as it stood, with the walls about it and the ground belonging to

it, together with the plate, wine, and furniture, the old sundial,

the poultry, the horse, and the woman-servant. Jacquotte was the very

pattern of a working housekeeper, with her clumsy figure, and her

bodice, always of the same dark brown print with large red spots on it,

which fitted her so tightly that it looked as if the material must

give way if she moved at all. Her colorless face, with its double chin,

looked out from under a round plaited cap, which made her look paler

than she really was. She talked incessantly, and always in a loud

voice--this short, active woman, with the plump, busy hands. Indeed, if

Jacquotte was silent for a moment, and took a corner of her apron so as

to turn it up in a triangle, it meant that a lengthy expostulation was

about to be delivered for the benefit of master or man. Jacquotte was

beyond all doubt the happiest cook in the kingdom; for, that nothing

might be lacking in a measure of felicity as great as may be known in

this world below, her vanity was continually gratified--the townspeople

regarded her as an authority of an indefinite kind, and ranked her

somewhere between the mayor and the park-keeper.

The master of the house found nobody in the kitchen when he entered it.

“Where the devil are they all gone?” he asked. “Pardon me for bringing

you in this way,” he went on, turning to Genestas. “The front entrance

opens into the garden, but I am so little accustomed to receive visitors

that--Jacquotte!” he called in rather peremptory tones.

A woman’s voice answered to the name from the interior of the house. A

moment later Jacquotte, assuming the offensive, called in her turn to

Benassis, who forthwith went into the dining-room.

“Just like you, sir!” she exclaimed; “you never do like anybody else.

You always ask people to dinner without telling me beforehand, and

you think that everything is settled as soon as you have called for

Jacquotte! You are not going to have the gentleman sit in the kitchen,

are you? Is not the salon to be unlocked and a fire to be lighted?

Nicolle is there, and will see after everything. Now take the gentleman

into the garden for a minute; that will amuse him; if he likes to look

at pretty things, show him the arbor of hornbeam trees that the poor

dear old gentleman made. I shall have time then to lay the cloth, and to

get everything ready, the dinner and the salon too.”

“Yes. But, Jacquotte,” Benassis went on, “the gentleman is going to stay

with us. Do not forget to give a look round M. Gravier’s room, and see

about the sheets and things, and----”

“Now you are not going to interfere about the sheets, are you?” asked

Jacquotte. “If he is to sleep here, I know what must be done for him

perfectly well. You have not so much as set foot in M. Gravier’s room

these ten months past. There is nothing to see there, the place is as

clean as a new pin. Then will the gentleman make some stay here?” she

continued in a milder tone.

“Yes.”

“How long will he stay?”

“Faith, I do not know: What does it matter to you?”

“What does it matter to me, sir? Oh! very well, what does it matter

to me? Did any one ever hear the like! And the provisions and all that

and----”

At any other time she would have overwhelmed her master with reproaches

for his breach of trust, but now she followed him into the kitchen

before the torrent of words had come to an end. She had guessed that

there was a prospect of a boarder, and was eager to see Genestas, to

whom she made a very deferential courtesy, while she scanned him from

head to foot. A thoughtful and dejected expression gave a harsh look

to the soldier’s face. In the dialogue between master and servant the

latter had appeared to him in the light of a nonentity; and although he

regretted the fact, this revelation had lessened the high opinion that

he had formed of the man whose persistent efforts to save the district

from the horrors of cretinism had won his admiration.

“I do not like the looks of that fellow at all!” said Jacquotte to

herself.

“If you are not tired, sir,” said the doctor to his supposed patient,

“we will take a turn round the garden before dinner.”

“Willingly,” answered the commandant.

They went through the dining-room, and reached the garden by way of a

sort of vestibule at the foot of the staircase between the salon and

the dining-room. Beyond a great glass door at the farther end of the

vestibule lay a flight of stone steps which adorned the garden side

of the house. The garden itself was divided into four large squares of

equal size by two paths that intersected each other in the form of a

cross, a box edging along their sides. At the farther end there was a

thick, green alley of hornbeam trees, which had been the joy and pride

of the late owner. The soldier seated himself on a worm-eaten bench, and

saw neither the trellis-work nor the espaliers, nor the vegetables of

which Jacquotte took such great care. She followed the traditions of the

epicurean churchman to whom this valuable garden owed its origin; but

Benassis himself regarded it with sufficient indifference.

The commandant turned their talk from the trivial matters which had

occupied them by saying to the doctor:

“How comes it, sir, that the population of the valley has been trebled

in ten years? There were seven hundred souls in it when you came, and

to-day you say that they number more than two thousand.”

“You are the first person who has put that question to me,” the doctor

answered. “Though it has been my aim to develop the capabilities of this

little corner of the earth to the utmost, the constant pressure of a

busy life has not left me time to think over the way in which (like the

mendicant brother) I have made ‘broth from a flint’ on a large scale.

M. Gravier himself, who is one of several who have done a great deal for

us, and to whom I was able to render a service by re-establishing his

health, has never given a thought to the theory, though he has been

everywhere over our mountain sides with me, to see its practical

results.”

There was a moment’s silence, during which Benassis followed his own

thoughts, careless of the keen glance by which his guest friend tried to

fathom him.

“You ask how it came about, my dear sir?” the doctor resumed. “It came

about quite naturally through the working of the social law by which the

need and the means of supplying it are correlated. Herein lies the whole

story. Races who have no wants are always poor. When I first came

to live here in this township, there were about a hundred and thirty

peasant families in it, and some two hundred hearths in the valley.

The local authorities were such as might be expected in the prevailing

wretchedness of the population. The mayor himself could not write, and

the deputy-mayor was a small farmer, who lived beyond the limits of the

Commune. The justice of the peace was a poor devil who had nothing but

his salary, and who was forced to relinquish the registration of births,

marriages, and deaths to his clerk, another hapless wretch who was

scarcely able to understand his duties. The old cure had died at the age

of seventy, and his curate, a quite uneducated man, had just succeeded

to his position. These people comprised all the intelligence of the

district over which they ruled.

“Those who dwelt amidst these lovely natural surroundings groveled in

squalor and lived upon potatoes, milk, butter, and cheese. The only

produce that brought in any money was the cheese, which most of them

carried in small baskets to Grenoble or its outskirts. The richer or

the more energetic among them sowed buckwheat for home consumption;

sometimes they raised a crop of barley or oats, but wheat was unknown.

The only trader in the place was the mayor, who owned a sawmill and

bought up timber at a low price to sell again. In the absence of roads,

his tree trunks had to be transported during the summer season; each log

was dragged along one at a time, and with no small difficulty, by means

of a chain attached to a halter about his horse’s neck, and an iron hook

at the farther end of the chain, which was driven into the wood. Any

one who went to Grenoble, whether on horseback or afoot, was obliged to

follow a track high up on the mountain side, for the valley was quite

impassable. The pretty road between this place and the first village

that you reach as you come into the canton (the way along which you must

have come) was nothing but a slough at all seasons of the year.

“Political events and revolutions had never reached this inaccessible

country--it lay completely beyond the limits of social stir and change.

Napoleon’s name, and his alone, had penetrated hither; he is held in

great veneration, thanks to one or two old soldiers who have returned to

their native homes, and who of evenings tell marvelous tales about his

adventures and his armies for the benefit of these simple folk. Their

coming back is, moreover, a puzzle that no one can explain. Before I

came here, the young men who went into the army all stayed in it for

good. This fact in itself is a sufficient revelation of the wretched

condition of the country. I need not give you a detailed description of

it.

“This, then, was the state of things when I first came to the canton,

which has several contented, well-tilled, and fairly prosperous communes

belonging to it upon the other side of the mountains. I will say nothing

about the hovels in the town; they were neither more nor less than

stables, in which men and animals were indiscriminately huddled

together. As there was no inn in the place, I was obliged to ask the

curate for a bed, he being in possession, for the time being, of this

house, then offered for sale. Putting to him question after question,

I came to have some slight knowledge of the lamentable condition of the

country with the pleasant climate, the fertile soil, and the natural

productiveness that had impressed me so much.

“At that time, sir, I was seeking to shape a future for myself that

should be as little as possible like the troubled life that had left me

weary; and one of those thoughts came into my mind that God gives us at

times, to enable us to take up our burdens and bear them. I resolved to

develop all the resources of this country, just as a tutor develops

the capacities of a child. Do not think too much of my benevolence; the

pressing need that I felt for turning my thoughts into fresh channels

entered too much into my motives. I had determined to give up the

remainder of my life to some difficult task. A lifetime would be

required to bring about the needful changes in a canton that Nature had

made so wealthy, and man so poor; and I was tempted by the practical

difficulties that stood in the way. As soon as I found that I could

secure the cure’s house and plenty of waste land at a small cost, I

solemnly devoted myself to the calling of a country surgeon--the very

last position that a man aspires to take. I determined to become the

friend of the poor, and to expect no reward of any kind from them. Oh! I

did not indulge in any illusions as to the nature of the country people,

nor as to the hindrances that lie in the way of every attempt to bring

about a better state of things among men or their surroundings. I have

never made idyllic pictures of my people; I have taken them at their

just worth--as poor peasants, neither wholly good nor wholly bad, whose

constant toil never allows them to indulge in emotion, though they can

feel acutely at times. Above all things, in fact, I clearly understood

that I should do nothing with them except through an appeal to their

selfish interests, and by schemes for their immediate well-being.

The peasants are one and all the sons of St. Thomas, the doubting

apostle--they always like words to be supported by visible facts.

“Perhaps you will laugh at my first start, sir,” the doctor went on

after a pause. “I began my difficult enterprise by introducing the

manufacture of baskets. The poor folks used to buy the wicker mats

on which they drain their cheeses, and all the baskets needed for the

insignificant trade of the district. I suggested to an intelligent young

fellow that he might take a lease on a good-sized piece of land by the

side of the torrent. Every year the floods deposited a rich alluvial

soil on this spot, where there should be no difficulty in growing

osiers. I reckoned out the quantity of wicker-work of various kinds

required from time to time by the canton, and went over to Grenoble,

where I found a young craftsman, a clever worker, but without any

capital. When I had discovered him, I soon made up my mind to set him

up in business here. I undertook to advance the money for the osiers

required for his work until my osier-farmer should be in a position to

supply him. I induced him to sell his baskets at rather lower prices

than they asked for them in Grenoble, while, at the same time, they were

better made. He entered into my views completely. The osier-beds and

the basket-making were two business speculations whose results were only

appreciated after a lapse of four years. Of course, you know that osiers

must be three years old before they are fit to cut.

“At the commencement of operations, the basket-maker was boarded and

lodged gratuitously. Before very long he married a woman from Saint

Laurent du Pont, who had a little money. Then he had a house built, in

a healthy and very airy situation which I chose, and my advice was

followed as to the internal arrangements. Here was a triumph! I had

created a new industry, and had brought a producer and several workers

into the town. I wonder if you will regard my elations as childish?

“For the first few days after my basket-maker had set up his business,

I never went past his shop but my heart beat somewhat faster. And when

I saw the newly-built house, with the green-painted shutters, the vine

beside the doorway, and the bench and bundles of osiers before it; when

I saw a tidy, neatly-dressed woman within it, nursing a plump, pink

and white baby among the workmen, who were singing merrily and busily

plaiting their wicker-work under the superintendence of a man who but

lately had looked so pinched and pale, but now had an atmosphere of

prosperity about him; when I saw all this, I confess that I could not

forego the pleasure of turning basket-maker for a moment, of going into

the shop to hear how things went with them, and of giving myself up to

a feeling of content that I cannot express in words, for I had all

their happiness as well as my own to make me glad. All my hopes became

centered on this house, where the man dwelt who had been the first to

put a steady faith in me. Like the basket-maker’s wife, clasping her

first nursling to her breast, did not I already fondly cherish the hopes

of the future of this poor district?

“I had to do so many things at once,” he went on, “I came into collision

with other people’s notions, and met with violent opposition, fomented

by the ignorant mayor to whose office I had succeeded, and whose

influence had dwindled away as mine increased. I determined to make him

my deputy and a confederate in my schemes of benevolence. Yes, in the

first place, I endeavored to instil enlightened ideas into the densest

of all heads. Through his self-love and cupidity I gained a hold upon my

man. During six months as we dined together, I took him deeply into my

confidence about my projected improvements. Many people would think this

intimacy one of the most painful inflictions in the course of my task;

but was he not a tool of the most valuable kind? Woe to him who despises

his axe, or flings it carelessly aside! Would it not have been very

inconsistent, moreover, if I, who wished to improve a district, had

shrunk back at the thought of improving one man in it?

“A road was our first and most pressing need in bringing about a better

state of things. If we could obtain permission from the Municipal

Council to make a hard road, so as to put us in communication with the

highway to Grenoble, the deputy-mayor would be the first gainer by it;

for instead of dragging his timber over rough tracks at a great expense,

a good road through the canton would enable him to transport it more

easily, and to engage in a traffic on a large scale, in all kinds of

wood, that would bring in money--not a miserable six hundred francs a

year, but handsome sums which would mean a certain fortune for him some

day. Convinced at last, he became my proselytizer.

“Through the whole of one winter the ex-mayor got into the way of

explaining to our citizens that a good road for wheeled traffic would be

a source of wealth to the whole country round, for it would enable

every one to do a trade with Grenoble; he held forth on this head at the

tavern while drinking with his intimates. When the Municipal Council had

authorized the making of the road, I went to the prefect and obtained

some money from the charitable funds at the disposal of the department,

in order to pay for the hire of carts, for the Commune was unable to

undertake the transport of road metal for lack of wheeled conveyances.

The ignorant began to murmur against me, and to say that I wanted to

bring the days of the corvee back again; this made me anxious to finish

this important work, that they might speedily appreciate its benefits.

With this end in view, every Sunday during my first year of office I

drew the whole population of the township, willing or unwilling, up on

to the mountain, where I myself had traced out on a hard bottom the road

between our village and the highway to Grenoble. Materials for making it

were fortunately to be had in plenty along the site.

“The tedious enterprise called for a great deal of patience on my part.

Some who were ignorant of the law would refuse at times to give their

contribution of labor; others again, who had not bread to eat, really

could not afford to lose a day. Corn had to be distributed among these

last, and the others must be soothed with friendly words. Yet by the

time we had finished two-thirds of the road, which in all is about

two leagues in length, the people had so thoroughly recognized its

advantages that the remaining third was accomplished with a spirit that

surprised me. I added to the future wealth of the Commune by planting

a double row of poplars along the ditch on either side of the way. The

trees are already almost worth a fortune, and they make our road

look like a king’s highway. It is almost always dry, by reason of its

position, and it was so well made that the annual cost of maintaining it

is a bare two hundred francs. I must show it to you, for you cannot

have seen it; you must have come by the picturesque way along the valley

bottom, a road which the people decided to make for themselves three

years later, so as to connect the various farms that were made there

at that time. In three years ideas had rooted themselves in the common

sense of this township, hitherto so lacking in intelligence that a

passing traveler would perhaps have thought it hopeless to attempt to

instil them. But to continue.

“The establishment of the basket-maker was an example set before these

poverty-stricken folk that they might profit by it. And if the road was

to be a direct cause of the future wealth of the canton, all the primary

forms of industry must be stimulated, or these two germs of a better

state of things would come to nothing. My own work went forward by slow

degrees, as I helped my osier farmer and wicker-worker and saw to the

making of the road.

“I had two horses, and the timber merchant, the deputy-mayor, had three.

He could only have them shod whenever he went over to Grenoble, so I

induced a farrier to take up his abode here, and undertook to find him

plenty of work. On the same day I met with a discharged soldier, who

had nothing but his pension of a hundred francs, and was sufficiently

perplexed about his future. He could read and write, so I engaged him

as secretary to the mayor; as it happened, I was lucky enough to find a

wife for him, and his dreams of happiness were fulfilled.

“Both of these new families needed houses, as well as the basket-maker

and twenty-two others from the cretin village, soon afterwards twelve

more households were established in the place. The workers in each of

these families were at once producers and consumers. They were masons,

carpenters, joiners, slaters, blacksmiths, and glaziers; and there was

work enough to last them for a long time, for had they not their own

houses to build when they had finished those for other people? Seventy,

in fact, were build in the Commune during my second year of office. One

form of production demands another. The additions to the population

of the township had created fresh wants, hitherto unknown among these

dwellers in poverty. The wants gave rise to industries, and industries

to trade, and the gains of trade raised the standard of comfort, which

in its turn gave them practical ideas.

“The various workmen wished to buy their bread ready baked, so we came

to have a baker. Buckwheat could no longer be the food of a population

which, awakened from its lethargy, had become essentially active. They

lived on buckwheat when I first came among them, and I wished to effect

a change to rye, or a mixture of rye and wheat in the first instance,

and finally to see a loaf of white bread even in the poorest household.

Intellectual progress, to my thinking, was entirely dependent on a

general improvement in the conditions of life. The presence of a butcher

in the district says as much for its intelligence as for its wealth. The

worker feeds himself, and a man who feeds himself thinks. I had made a

very careful study of the soil, for I foresaw a time when it would be

necessary to grow wheat. I was sure of launching the place in a very

prosperous agricultural career, and of doubling the population, when

once it had begun to work. And now the time had come.

“M. Gravier, of Grenoble, owned a great deal of land in the commune,

which brought him in no rent, but which might be turned into

corn-growing land. He is the head of a department in the Prefecture, as

you know. It was a kindness for his own countryside quite as much as my

earnest entreaties that won him over. He had very benevolently yielded

to my importunities on former occasions, and I succeeded in making it

clear to him that in so doing he had wrought unconsciously for his own

benefit. After several days spent in pleadings, consultation, and talk,

the matter was thrashed out. I undertook to guarantee him against

all risks in the undertaking, from which his wife, a woman of no

imagination, sought to frighten him. He agreed to build four farmhouses

with a hundred acres of land attached to each, and promised to advance

the sums required to pay for clearing the ground, for seeds, ploughing

gear, and cattle, and for making occupation roads.

“I myself also started two farms, quite as much for the sake of bringing

my waste land into cultivation as with a view to giving an object-lesson

in the use of modern methods in agriculture. In six weeks’ time the

population of the town increased to three hundred people. Homes for

several families must be built on the six farms; there was a vast

quantity of land to be broken up; the work called for laborers.

Wheelwrights, drainmakers, journeymen, and laborers of all kinds flocked

in. The road to Grenoble was covered with carts that came and went. All

the countryside was astir. The circulation of money had made every one

anxious to earn it, apathy had ceased, the place had awakened.

“The story of M. Gravier, one of those who did so much for this canton,

can be concluded in a few words. In spite of cautious misgivings, not

unnatural in a man occupying an official position in a provincial

town, he advanced more than forty thousand francs, on the faith of my

promises, without knowing whether he should ever see them back again.

To-day every one of his farms is let for a thousand francs. His tenants

have thriven so well that each of them owns at least a hundred acres,

three hundred sheep, twenty cows, ten oxen, and five horses, and employs

more than twenty persons.

“But to resume. Our farms were ready by the end of the fourth year. Our

wheat harvest seemed miraculous to the people in the district, heavy as

the first crop off the land ought to be. How often during that year

I trembled for the success of my work! Rain or drought might spoil

everything by diminishing the belief in me that was already felt. When

we began to grow wheat, it necessitated the mill that you have seen,

which brings me in about five hundred francs a year. So the peasants say

that ‘there is luck about me’ (that is the way they put it), and believe

in me as they believe in their relics. These new undertakings--the

farms, the mill, the plantations, and the roads--have given employment

to all the various kinds of workers whom I had called in. Although the

buildings fully represent the value of the sixty thousand francs

of capital, which we sunk in the district, the outlay was more

than returned to us by the profits on the sales which the consumers

occasioned. I never ceased my efforts to put vigor into this industrial

life which was just beginning. A nurseryman took my advice and came

to settle in the place, and I preached wholesome doctrine to the poor

concerning the planting of fruit trees, in order that some day they

should obtain a monopoly of the sale of fruit in Grenoble.

“‘You take your cheeses there as it is,’ I used to tell them, ‘why not

take poultry, eggs, vegetables, game, hay and straw, and so forth?’ All

my counsels were a source of fortune; it was a question of who should

follow them first. A number of little businesses were started; they went

on at first but slowly, but from day to day their progress became more

rapid; and now sixty carts full of the various products of the district

set out every Monday for Grenoble, and there is more buckwheat grown for

poultry food than they used to sow for human consumption. The trade in

timber grew to be so considerable that it was subdivided, and since

the fourth year of our industrial era, we have had dealers in firewood,

squared timber, planks, bark, and later on, in charcoal. In the end four

new sawmills were set up, to turn out the planks and beams of timber.

“When the ex-mayor had acquired a few business notions, he felt the

necessity of learning to read and write. He compared the prices that

were asked for wood in various neighborhoods, and found such differences

in his favor, that he secured new customers in one place after another,

and now a third of the trade in the department passes through his

hands. There has been such a sudden increase in our traffic that we find

constant work for three wagon-builders and two harness-makers, each of

them employing three hands at least. Lastly, the quantity of ironware

that we use is so large that an agricultural implement and tool-maker

has removed into the town, and is very well satisfied with the result.

“The desire of gain develops a spirit of ambition, which has ever since

impelled our workers to extend their field from the township to the

canton, and from the canton to the department, so as to increase their

profits by increasing their sales. I had only to say a word to point out

new openings to them, and their own sense did the rest. Four years had

been sufficient to change the face of the township. When I had come

through it first, I did not catch the slightest sound; but in less than

five years from that time, there was life and bustle everywhere. The gay

songs, the shrill or murmuring sounds made by the tools in the workshops

rang pleasantly in my ears. I watched the comings and goings of a busy

population congregated in the clean and wholesome new town, where plenty

of trees had been planted. Every one of them seemed conscious of a happy

lot, every face shone with the content that comes through a life of

useful toil.

“I look upon these five years as the first epoch of prosperity in the

history of our town,” the doctor went on after a pause. “During that

time I have prepared the ground and sowed the seed in men’s minds as

well as in the land. Henceforward industrial progress could not be

stayed, the population was bound to go forward. A second epoch was

about to begin. This little world very soon desired to be better clad. A

shoemaker came, and with him a haberdasher, a tailor, and a hatter. This

dawn of luxury brought us a butcher and a grocer, and a midwife, who

became very necessary to me, for I lost a great deal of time over

maternity cases. The stubbed wastes yielded excellent harvests, and the

superior quality of our agricultural produce was maintained through

the increased supply of manure. My enterprise could now develop itself;

everything followed on quite naturally.

“When the houses had been rendered wholesome, and their inmates

gradually persuaded to feed and clothe themselves better, I wanted the

dumb animals to feel the benefit of these beginnings of civilization.

All the excellence of cattle, whether as a race or as individuals, and,

in consequence, the quality of the milk and meat, depends upon the care

that is expended upon them. I took the sanitation of cowsheds for the

text of my sermons. I showed them how an animal that is properly housed

and well cared for is more profitable than a lean neglected beast, and

the comparison wrought a gradual change for the better in the lot of

the cattle in the Commune. Not one of them was ill treated. The cows

and oxen were rubbed down as in Switzerland and Auvergne. Sheep-folds,

stables, byres, dairies, and barns were rebuilt after the pattern of

the roomy, well-ventilated, and consequently healthy steadings that M.

Gravier and I had constructed. Our tenants became my apostles. They

made rapid converts of unbelievers, demonstrating the soundness of my

doctrines by their prompt results. I lent money to those who needed it,

giving the preference to hardworking poor people, because they served as

an example. Any unsound or sickly cattle or beasts of poor quality were

quickly disposed of by my advice, and replaced by fine specimens. In

this way our dairy produce came, in time, to command higher prices in

the market than that sent by other communes. We had splendid herds, and

as a consequence, capital leather.

“This step forward was of great importance, and in this wise. In rural

economy nothing can be regarded as trifling. Our hides used to fetch

scarcely anything, and the leather we made was of little value, but

when once our leather and hides were improved, tanneries were easily

established along the waterside. We became tanners, and business rapidly

increased.

“Wine, properly speaking, had been hitherto unknown; a thin, sour

beverage like verjuice had been their only drink, but now wineshops were

established to supply a natural demand. The oldest tavern was enlarged

and transformed into an inn, which furnished mules to pilgrims to the

Grand Chartreuse who began to come our way, and after two years there

was just enough business for two innkeepers.

“The justice of the peace died just as our second prosperous epoch

began, and luckily for us, his successor had formerly been a notary in

Grenoble who had lost most of his fortune by a bad speculation, though

enough of it yet remained to cause him to be looked upon in the village

as a wealthy man. It was M. Gravier who induced him to settle among

us. He built himself a comfortable house and helped me by uniting his

efforts to mine. He also laid out a farm, and broke up and cleaned some

of the waste land, and at this moment he has three chalets up above on

the mountain side. He has a large family. He dismissed the old registrar

and the clerk, and in their place installed better-educated men, who

worked far harder, moreover, than their predecessors had done. One

of the heads of these two new households started a distillery of

potato-spirit, and the other was a wool-washer; each combined these

occupations with his official work, and in this way two valuable

industries were created among us.

“Now that the Commune had some revenues of its own, no opposition was

raised in any quarter when they were spent on building a town-hall, with

a free school for elementary education in the building and accommodation

for a teacher. For this important post I had selected a poor priest who

had taken the oath, and had therefore been cast out by the department,

and who at last found a refuge among us for his old age. The

schoolmistress is a very worthy woman who had lost all that she had, and

was in great distress. We made up a nice little sum for her, and she

has just opened a boarding-school for girls to which the wealthy farmers

hereabouts are beginning to send their daughters.

“If so far, sir, I have been entitled to tell you the story of my own

doings as the chronicle of this little spot of earth, I have reached

the point where M. Janvier, the new parson, began to divide the work of

regeneration with me. He has been a second Fenelon, unknown beyond the

narrow limits of a country parish, and by some secret of his own has

infused a spirit of brotherliness and of charity among these folk that

has made them almost like one large family. M. Dufau, the justice of

the peace, was a late comer, but he in an equal degree deserves the

gratitude of the people here.

“I will put the whole position before you in figures that will make

it clearer than any words of mine. At this moment the Commune owns two

hundred acres of woodland, and a hundred and sixty acres of meadow.

Without running up the rates, we give a hundred crowns to supplement the

cure’s stipend, we pay two hundred francs to the rural policeman, and

as much again to the schoolmaster and schoolmistress. The maintenance of

the roads costs us five hundred francs, while necessary repairs to the

townhall, the parsonage, and the church, with some few other expenses,

also amount to a similar sum. In fifteen years’ time there will be a

thousand francs worth of wood to fell for every hundred francs’ worth

cut now, and the taxes will not cost the inhabitants a penny. This

Commune is bound to become one of the richest in France. But perhaps I

am taxing your patience, sir?” said Benassis, suddenly discovering that

his companion wore such a pensive expression that it seemed as though

his attention was wandering.

“No! no!” answered the commandant.

“Our trade, handicrafts, and agriculture so far only supplied the needs

of the district,” the doctor went on. “At a certain point our prosperity

came to a standstill. I wanted a post-office, and sellers of tobacco,

stationery, powder and shot. The receiver of taxes had hitherto

preferred to live elsewhere, but now I succeeded in persuading him

to take up his abode in the town, holding out as inducements the

pleasantness of the place and of the new society. As time and place

permitted I had succeeded in producing a supply of everything for which

I had first created a need, in attracting families of hardworking people

into the district, and in implanting a desire to own land in them all.

So by degrees, as they saved a little money, the waste land began to

be broken up; spade husbandry and small holdings increased; so did the

value of property on the mountain.

“Those struggling folk who, when I knew them first, used to walk over

to Grenoble carrying their few cheeses for sale, now made the journey

comfortably in a cart, and took fruit, eggs, chickens and turkeys, and

before they were aware of it, everyone was a little richer. Even those

who came off worst had a garden at any rate, and grew early vegetables

and fruit. It became the children’s work to watch the cattle in the

fields, and at last it was found to be a waste of time to bake bread at

home. Here were signs of prosperity!

“But if this place was to be a permanent forge of industry, fuel must

be constantly added to the fire. The town had not as yet a renascent

industry which could maintain this commercial process, an industry which

should make great transactions, a warehouse, and a market necessary. It

is not enough that a country should lose none of the money that forms

its capital; you will not increase its prosperity by more or less

ingenious devices for causing this amount to circulate, by means of

production and consumption, through the greatest possible number of

hands. That is not where your problem lies. When a country is fully

developed and its production keeps pace with its consumption, if private

wealth is to increase as well as the wealth of the community at large,

there must be exchanges with other communities, which will keep a

balance on the right side of the balance-sheet. This thought has let

states with a limited territorial basis like Tyre, Carthage, Venice,

Holland, and England, for instance, to secure the carrying trade. I cast

about for some such notion as this to apply to our little world, so as

to inaugurate a third commercial epoch. Our town is so much like any

other, that our prosperity was scarcely visible to a passing stranger;

it was only for me that it was astonishing. The folk had come together

by degrees; they themselves were a part of the change, and could not

judge of its effects as a whole.

“Seven years had gone by when I met with two strangers, the real

benefactors of the place, which perhaps some day they will transform

into a large town. One of them is a Tyrolese, an exceedingly clever

fellow, who makes rough shoes for country people’s wear, and boots for

people of fashion in Grenoble as no one can make them, not even in Paris

itself. He was a poor strolling musician, who, singing and working, had

made his way through Italy; one of those busy Germans who fashion the

tools of their own work, and make the instrument that they play upon.

When he came to the town he asked if any one wanted a pair of shoes.

They sent him to me, and I gave him an order for two pairs of boots, for

which he made his own lasts. The foreigner’s skill surprised me. He gave

accurate and consistent answers to the questions I put, and his face and

manner confirmed the good opinion I had formed of him. I suggested that

he should settle in the place, undertaking to assist him in business in

every way that I could; in fact, I put a fairly large sum of money at

his disposal. He accepted my offer. I had my own ideas in this. The

quality of our leather had improved; and why should we not use it

ourselves, and before very long make our own shoes at moderate prices?

“It was the basket-maker’s business over again on a larger scale. Chance

had put an exceedingly clever hard-working man in my way, and he must

be retained so that a steady and profitable trade might be given to

the place. There is a constant demand for foot-gear, and a very slight

difference in price is felt at once by the purchaser.

“This was my reasoning, sir, and fortunately events have justified it.

At this time we have five tanyards, each of which has its bark-mill.

They take all the hides produced in the department itself, and even

draw part of their supply from Provence; and yet the Tyrolese uses more

leather than they can produce, and has forty work-people in his employ!

“I happened on the other man after a fashion no whit less strange, but

you might find the story tedious. He is just an ordinary peasant, who

discovered a cheaper way of making the great broad-brimmed hats that are

worn in this part of the world. He sells them in other cantons, and even

sends them into Switzerland and Savoy. So long as the quality and the

low prices can be maintained, here are two inexhaustible sources

of wealth for the canton, which suggested to my mind the idea of

establishing three fairs in the year. The prefect, amazed at our

industrial progress, lent his aid in obtaining the royal ordinance which

authorized them, and last year we held our three fairs. They are known

as far as Savoy as the Shoe Fair and the Hat Fair.

“The head clerk of a notary in Grenoble heard of these changes. He was

poor, but he was a well-educated, hardworking young fellow, and Mlle.

Gravier was engaged to be married to him. He went to Paris to ask for an

authorization to establish himself here as a notary, and his request was

granted. As he had not to pay for his appointment, he could afford to

build a house in the market square of the new town, opposite the

house of the justice of the peace. We have a market once a week, and a

considerable amount of business is transacted in corn and cattle.

“Next year a druggist surely ought to come among us, and next we want a

clockmaker, a furniture dealer, and a bookseller; and so, by degrees,

we shall have all the desirable luxuries of life. Who knows but that at

last we shall have a number of substantial houses, and give ourselves

all the airs of a small city? Education has made such strides that there

has never been any opposition made at the council-board when I proposed

that we should restore our church and build a parsonage; nor when I

brought forward a plan for laying out a fine open space, planted with

trees, where the fairs could be held, and a further scheme for a

survey of the township, so that its future streets should be wholesome,

spacious, and wisely planned.

“This is how we came to have nineteen hundred hearths in the place of a

hundred and thirty-seven; three thousand head of cattle instead of

eight hundred; and for a population of seven hundred, no less than two

thousand persons are living in the township, or three thousand, if the

people down the valley are included. There are twelve houses belonging

to wealthy people in the Commune, there are a hundred well-to-do

families, and two hundred more which are thriving. The rest have their

own exertions to look to. Every one knows how to read and write, and we

subscribe to seventeen different newspapers.

“We have poor people still among us--there are far too many of them, in

fact; but we have no beggars, and there is work enough for all. I have

so many patients that my daily round taxes the powers of two horses. I

can go anywhere for five miles round at any hour without fear; for if

any one was minded to fire a shot at me, his life would not be worth

ten minutes’ purchase. The undemonstrative affection of the people is

my sole gain from all these changes, except the radiant ‘Good-day, M.

Benassis,’ that every one gives me as I pass. You will understand, of

course, that the wealth incidentally acquired through my model farms has

only been a means and not an end.”

“If every one followed your example in other places, sir, France would

be great indeed, and might laugh at the rest of Europe!” cried Genestas

enthusiastically.

“But I have kept you out here for half an hour,” said Benassis; “it is

growing dark, let us go in to dinner.”

The doctor’s house, on the side facing the garden, consists of a ground

floor and a single story, with a row of five windows in each, dormer

windows also project from the tiled mansard-roof. The green-painted

shutters are in startling contrast with the gray tones of the walls.

A vine wanders along the whole side of the house, a pleasant strip of

green like a frieze, between the two stories. A few struggling Bengal

roses make shift to live as best they may, half drowned at times by the

drippings from the gutterless eaves.

As you enter the large vestibule, the salon lies to your right; it

contains four windows, two of which look into the yard, and two into the

garden. Ceiling and wainscot are paneled, and the walls are hung with

seventeenth century tapestry--pathetic evidence that the room had been

the object of the late owner’s aspiration, and that he had lavished all

that he could spare upon it. The great roomy armchairs, covered with

brocaded damask; the old fashioned, gilded candle-sconces above the

chimney-piece, and the window curtains with their heavy tassels, showed

that the cure had been a wealthy man. Benassis had made some additions

to this furniture, which was not without a character of its own. He

had placed two smaller tables, decorated with carved wooden garlands,

between the windows on opposite sides of the room, and had put a clock,

in a case of tortoise shell, inlaid with copper, upon the mantel-shelf.

The doctor seldom occupied the salon; its atmosphere was damp and close,

like that of a room that is always kept shut. Memories of the dead cure

still lingered about it; the peculiar scent of his tobacco seemed to

pervade the corner by the hearth where he had been wont to sit. The

two great easy-chairs were symmetrically arranged on either side of the

fire, which had not been lighted since the time of M. Gravier’s visit;

the bright flames from the pine logs lighted the room.

“The evenings are chilly even now,” said Benassis; “it is pleasant to

see a fire.”

Genestas was meditating. He was beginning to understand the doctor’s

indifference to his every-day surroundings.

“It is surprising to me, sir, that you, who possess real public

spirit, should have made no effort to enlighten the Government, after

accomplishing so much.”

Benassis began to laugh, but without bitterness; he said, rather sadly:

“You mean that I should draw up some sort of memorial on various ways of

civilizing France? You are not the first to suggest it, sir; M. Gravier

has forestalled you. Unluckily, Governments cannot be enlightened, and a

Government which regards itself as a diffuser of light is the least open

to enlightenment. What we have done for our canton, every mayor ought,

of course, to do for his; the magistrate should work for his town, the

sub-prefect for his district, the prefect for the department, and the

minister for France, each acting in his own sphere of interest. For the

few miles of country road that I persuaded our people to make,

another would succeed in constructing a canal or a highway; and for

my encouragement of the peasants’ trade in hats, a minister would

emancipate France from the industrial yoke of the foreigner by

encouraging the manufacture of clocks in different places, by helping to

bring to perfection our iron and steel, our tools and appliances, or by

bringing silk or dyer’s woad into cultivation.

“In commerce, ‘encouragement,’ does not mean protection. A really wise

policy should aim at making a country independent of foreign supply,

but this should be effected without resorting to the pitiful shifts

of customs duties and prohibitions. Industries must work out their own

salvation, competition is the life of trade. A protected industry goes

to sleep, and monopoly, like the protective tariff, kills it outright.

The country upon which all others depend for their supplies will be the

land which will promulgate free trade, for it will be conscious of its

power to produce its manufactures at prices lower than those of any of

its competitors. France is in a better position to attain this end than

England, for France alone possesses an amount of territory sufficiently

extensive to maintain a supply of agricultural produce at prices that

will enable the worker to live on low wages; the Administration should

keep this end in view, for therein lies the whole modern question. I

have not devoted my life to this study, dear sir; I found my work by

accident, and late in the day. Such simple things as these are too

slight, moreover, to build into a system; there is nothing wonderful

about them, they do not lend themselves to theories; it is their

misfortune to be merely practically useful. And then work cannot be done

quickly. The man who means to succeed in these ways must daily look to

find within himself the stock of courage needed for the day, a courage

in reality of the rarest kind, though it does not seem hard to practise,

and meets with little recognition--the courage of the schoolmaster, who

must say the same things over and over again. We all honor the man who

has shed his blood on the battlefield, as you have done; but we ridicule

this other whose life-fire is slowly consumed in repeating the same

words to children of the same age. There is no attraction for any of us

in obscure well-doing. We know nothing of the civic virtue that led the

great men of ancient times to serve their country in the lowest rank

whenever they did not command. Our age is afflicted with a disease that

makes each of us seek to rise above his fellows, and there are more

saints than shrines among us.

“This is how it has come to pass. The monarchy fell, and we lost Honor,

Christian Virtue faded with the religion of our forefathers, and our own

ineffectual attempts at government have destroyed Patriotism. Ideas can

never utterly perish, so these beliefs linger on in our midst, but

they do not influence the great mass of the people, and Society has no

support but Egoism. Every individual believes in himself. For us the

future means egoism; further than that we cannot see. The great man who

shall save us from the shipwreck which is imminent will no doubt avail

himself of individualism when he makes a nation of us once more; but

until this regeneration comes, we bide our time in a materialistic and

utilitarian age. Utilitarianism--to this conclusion we have come. We

are all rated, not at our just worth, but according to our social

importance. People will scarcely look at an energetic man if he is

in shirt-sleeves. The Government itself is pervaded by this idea. A

minister sends a paltry medal to a sailor who has saved a dozen lives

at the risk of his own, while the deputy who sells his vote to those in

power receives the Cross of the Legion of Honor.

“Woe to a people made up of such men as these! For nations, like men,

owe all the strength and vitality that is in them to noble thoughts

and aspirations, and men’s feelings shape their faith. But when

self-interest has taken the place of faith and each one of us thinks

only of himself, and believes in himself alone, how can you expect to

find among us much of that civil courage whose very essence consists in

self-renunciation? The same principle underlies both military and civil

courage, although you soldiers are called upon to yield your lives up

once and for all, while ours are given slowly drop by drop, and the

battle is the same for both, although it takes different forms.

“The man who would fain civilize the lowliest spot on earth needs

something besides wealth for the task. Knowledge is still more

necessary; and knowledge, and patriotism, and integrity are worthless

unless they are accompanied by a firm determination on his part to set

his own personal interests completely aside, and to devote himself to a

social idea. France, no doubt, possesses more than one well-educated

man and more than one patriot in every commune; but I am fully

persuaded that not every canton can produce a man who to these valuable

qualifications unites the unflagging will and pertinacity with which a

blacksmith hammers out iron.

“The Destroyer and the Builder are two manifestations of Will; the one

prepares the way, and the other accomplishes the work; the first appears

in the guise of a spirit of evil, and the second seems like the spirit

of good. Glory falls to the Destroyer, while the Builder is forgotten;

for evil makes a noise in the world that rouses little souls to

admiration, while good deeds are slow to make themselves heard.

Self-love leads us to prefer the more conspicuous part. If it should

happen that any public work is undertaken without an interested motive,

it will only be by accident, until the day when education has changed

our ways of regarding things in France.

“Yet suppose that this change had come to pass, and that all of us

were public-spirited citizens; in spite of our comfortable lives among

trivialities, should we not be in a fair way to become the most wearied,

wearisome, and unfortunate race of philistines under the sun?

“I am not at the helm of State, the decision of great questions of this

kind is not within my province; but, setting these considerations aside,

there are other difficulties in the way of laying down hard and fast

rules as to government. In the matter of civilization, everything

is relative. Ideas that suit one country admirably are fatal in

another--men’s minds are as various as the soils of the globe. If we

have so often been ill governed, it is because a faculty for government,

like taste, is the outcome of a very rare and lofty attitude of mind.

The qualifications for the work are found in a natural bent of the soul

rather than in the possession of scientific formulae. No one need fear,

however, to call himself a statesman, for his actions and motives cannot

be justly estimated; his real judges are far away, and the results of

his deeds are even more remote. We have a great respect here in France

for men of ideas--a keen intellect exerts a great attraction for us;

but ideas are of little value where a resolute will is the one thing

needful. Administration, as a matter of fact, does not consist in

forcing more or less wise methods and ideas upon the great mass of

the nation, but in giving to the ideas, good or bad, that they already

possess a practical turn which will make them conduce to the general

welfare of the State. If old-established prejudices and customs bring a

country into a bad way, the people will renounce their errors of their

own accord. Are not losses the result of economical errors of every

kind? And is it not, therefore, to every one’s interest to rectify them

in the long run?

“Luckily I found a _tabula rasa_ in this district. They have followed my

advice, and the land is well cultivated; but there had been no previous

errors in agriculture, and the soil was good to begin with, so that it

has been easy to introduce the five-ply shift, artificial grasses,

and potatoes. My methods did not clash with people’s prejudices. The

faultily constructed plowshares in use in some parts of France were

unknown here, the hoe sufficed for the little field work that they did.

Our wheelwright extolled my wheeled plows because he wished to increase

his own business, so I secured an ally in him; but in this matter, as in

all others, I sought to make the good of one conduce to the good of all.

“Then I turned my attention to another kind of production, that should

increase the welfare rather than the wealth of these poor folk. I

have brought nothing from without into this district; I have simply

encouraged the people to seek beyond its limits for a market for their

produce, a measure that could not but increase their prosperity in a

way that they felt immediately. They had no idea of the fact, but they

themselves were my apostles, and their works preached my doctrines.

Something else must also be borne in mind. We are barely five leagues

from Grenoble. There is plenty of demand in a large city for produce of

all kinds, but not every commune is situated at the gates of a city. In

every similar undertaking the nature, situation, and resources of the

country must be taken into consideration, and a careful study must be

made of the soil, of the people themselves, and of many other things;

and no one should expect to have vines grow in Normandy. So no tasks

can be more various than those of government, and its general principles

must be few in number. The law is uniform, but not so the land and the

minds and customs of those who dwell in it; and the administration of

the law is the art of carrying it out in such a manner that no injury is

done to people’s interests. Every place must be considered separately.

“On the other side of the mountain at the foot of which our deserted

village lies, they find it impossible to use wheeled plows, because the

soil is not deep enough. Now if the mayor of the commune were to take

it into his head to follow in our footsteps, he would be the ruin of

his neighborhood. I advised him to plant vineyards; they had a capital

vintage last year in the little district, and their wine is exchanged

for our corn.

“Then, lastly, it must be remembered that my words carried a certain

weight with the people to whom I preached, and that we were continually

brought into close contact. I cured my peasants’ complaints; an easy

task, for a nourishing diet is, as a rule, all that is needed to restore

them to health and strength. Either through thrift, or through sheer

poverty, the country people starve themselves; any illness among them is

caused in this way, and as a rule they enjoy very fair health.

“When I first decided to devote myself to this life of obscure

renunciation, I was in doubt for a long while whether to become a cure,

a country doctor, or a justice of the peace. It is not without reason

that people speak collectively of the priest, the lawyer, and the doctor

as ‘men of the black robe’--so the saying goes. They represent the three

principal elements necessary to the existence of society--conscience,

property, and health. At one time the first, and at a later period the

second, was all-important in the State. Our predecessors on this earth

thought, perhaps not without reason, that the priest, who prescribed

what men should think, ought to be paramount; so the priest was king,

pontiff, and judge in one, for in those days belief and faith were

everything. All this has been changed in our day; and we must even take

our epoch as we find it. But I, for one, believe that the progress of

civilization and the welfare of the people depend on these three men.

They are the three powers who bring home to the people’s minds the ways

in which facts, interests, and principles affect them. They themselves

are three great results produced in the midst of the nation by the

operation of events, by the ownership of property, and by the growth of

ideas. Time goes on and brings changes to pass, property increases or

diminishes in men’s hands, all the various readjustments have to be duly

regulated, and in this way principles of social order are established.

If civilization is to spread itself, and production is to be increased,

the people must be made to understand the way in which the interests

of the individual harmonize with national interests which resolve

themselves into facts, interests, and principles. As these three

professions are bound to deal with these issues of human life, it seemed

to me that they must be the most powerful civilizing agencies of our

time. They alone afford to a man of wealth the opportunity of mitigating

the fate of the poor, with whom they daily bring him in contact.

“The peasant is always more willing to listen to the man who lays down

rules for saving him from bodily ills than to the priest who exhorts him

to save his soul. The first speaker can talk of this earth, the scene

of the peasant’s labors, while the priest is bound to talk to him of

heaven, with which, unfortunately, the peasant nowadays concerns himself

very little indeed; I say unfortunately, because the doctrine of a

future life is not only a consolation, but a means by which men may be

governed. Is not religion the one power that sanctions social laws? We

have but lately vindicated the existence of God. In the absence of a

religion, the Government was driven to invent the Terror, in order to

carry its laws into effect; but the terror was the fear of man, and it

has passed away.

“When a peasant is ill, when he is forced to lie on his pallet, and

while he is recovering, he cannot help himself, he is forced to listen

to logical reasoning, which he can understand quite well if it is put

clearly before him. This thought made a doctor of me. My calculations

for the peasants were made along with them. I never gave advice unless

I was quite sure of the results, and in this way compelled them to admit

the wisdom of my views. The people require infallibility. Infallibility

was the making of Napoleon; he would have been a god if he had not

filled the world with the sound of his fall at Waterloo. If Mahomet

founded a permanent religion after conquering the third part of the

globe, it was by dint of concealing his deathbed from the crowd. The

same rules hold good for the great conqueror and for the provincial

mayor, and a nation or a commune is much the same sort of crowd; indeed,

the great multitude of mankind is the same everywhere.

“I have been exceedingly firm with those whom I have helped with money;

if I had not been inflexible on this point, they all would have laughed

at me. Peasants, no less than worldlings, end by despising the man that

they can deceive. He has been cheated? Clearly, then, he must have been

weak; and it is might alone that governs the world. I have never charged

a penny for my professional advice, except to those who were evidently

rich people; but I have not allowed the value of my services to be

overlooked at all, and I always make them pay for medicine unless the

patient is exceedingly poor. If my peasants do not pay me in money, they

are quite aware that they are in my debt; sometimes they satisfy their

consciences by bringing oats for my horses, or corn, when it is cheap.

But if the miller were to send me some eels as a return for my advice,

I should tell him that he is too generous for such a small matter. My

politeness bears fruit. In the winter I shall have some sacks of flour

for the poor. Ah! sir, they have kind hearts, these people, if one does

not slight them, and to-day I think more good and less evil of them than

I did formerly.”

“What a deal of trouble you have taken!” said Genestas.

“Not at all,” answered Benassis. “It was no more trouble to say

something useful than to chatter about trifles; and whether I chatted

or joked, the talk always turned on them and their concerns wherever

I went. They would not listen to me at first. I had to overcome their

dislikes; I belonged to the middle classes--that is to say, I was

a natural enemy. I found the struggle amusing. An easy or an uneasy

conscience--that is all the difference that lies between doing well or

ill; the trouble is the same in either case. If scoundrels would but

behave themselves properly, they might be millionaires instead of being

hanged. That is all.”

“The dinner is growing cold, sir!” cried Jacquotte, in the doorway.

Genestas caught the doctor’s arm.

“I have only one comment to offer on what I have just heard,” he

remarked. “I am not acquainted with any account of the wars of Mahomet,

so that I can form no opinions as to his military talents; but if you

had only watched the Emperor’s tactics during the campaign in France,

you might well have taken him for a god; and if he was beaten on the

field of Waterloo, it was because he was more than mortal, it was

because the earth found his weight too heavy to bear, and sprang from

under his feet! On every other subject I entirely agree with you, and

_tonnerre de Dieu_! whoever hatched you did a good day’s work.”

“Come,” exclaimed Benassis with a smile, “let us sit down to dinner.”

The walls of the dining-room were paneled from floor to ceiling, and

painted gray. The furniture consisted of a few straw-bottomed chairs,

a sideboard, some cupboards, a stove, and the late owner’s celebrated

clock; there were white curtains in the window, and a white cloth on the

table, about which there was no sign of luxury. The dinner service was

of plain white earthenware; the soup, made after the traditions of the

late cure, was the most concentrated kind of broth that was ever set

to simmer by any mortal cook. The doctor and his guest had scarcely

finished it when a man rushed into the kitchen, and in spite of

Jacquotte, suddenly invaded the dining-room.

“Well, what is it?” asked the doctor.

“It is this, sir. The mistress, our Mme. Vigneau, has turned as white as

white can be, so that we are frightened about her.”

“Oh, well, then,” Benassis said cheerfully, “I must leave the table,”

and he rose to go.

In spite of the doctor’s entreaties, Genestas flung down his

table-napkin, and swore in a soldierly fashion that he would not finish

his dinner without his host. He returned indeed to the salon; and as he

warmed himself by the fire, he thought over the troubles that no man may

escape, the troubles that are found in every lot that it falls to man to

endure here upon earth.

Benassis soon came back, and the two future friends sat down again.

“Taboureau has just come up to speak to you,” said Jacquotte to her

master, as she brought in the dishes that she had kept hot for them.

“Who can be ill at his place?” asked the doctor.

“No one is ill, sir. I think from what he said that it is some matter of

his own that he wants to ask you about; he is coming back again.”

“Very good. This Taboureau,” Benassis went on, addressing Genestas, “is

for me a whole philosophical treatise; take a good look at him when

he comes, he is sure to amuse you. He was a laborer, a thrifty,

hard-working man, eating little and getting through a good deal of

work. As soon as the rogue came to have a few crowns of his own, his

intelligence began to develop; he watched the progress which I had

originated in this little district with an eye to his own profit. He had

made quite a fortune in eight year’s time, that is to say, a fortune

for our part of the world. Very likely he may have a couple of score

thousand francs by now. But if I were to give you a thousand guesses,

you would never find out how he made the money. He is a usurer, and

his scheme of usury is so profoundly and so cleverly based upon the

requirements of the whole canton, that I should merely waste my time if

I were to take it upon myself to undeceive them as to the benefits which

they reap, in their own opinion, from their dealings with Taboureau.

When this devil of a fellow saw every one cultivating his own plot of

ground, he hurried about buying grain so as to supply the poor with the

requisite seed. Here, as everywhere else, the peasants and even some

of the farmers had no ready money with which to pay for seed. To some,

Master Taboureau would lend a sack of barley, for which he was to

receive a sack of rye at harvest time, and to others a measure of wheat

for a sack of four. At the present day the man has extended this curious

business of his all over the department; and unless something happens to

prevent him, he will go on and very likely make a million. Well, my

dear sir, Taboureau the laborer, an obliging, hard-working, good-natured

fellow, used to lend a helping hand to any one who asked him; but as

his gains have increased _Monsieur_ Taboureau has become litigious,

arrogant, and somewhat given to sharp practice. The more money he makes,

the worse he grows. The moment that the peasant forsakes his life

of toil pure and simple for the leisured existence of the landowning

classes, he becomes intolerable. There is a certain kind of character,

partly virtuous, partly vicious, half-educated, half-ignorant, which

will always be the despair of governments. You will see an example of it

in Taboureau. He looks simple, and even doltish; but when his interests

are in question, he is certainly profoundly clever.”

A heavy footstep announced the approach of the grain lender.

“Come in, Taboureau!” cried Benassis.

Thus forewarned by the doctor, the commandant scrutinized the peasant in

the doorway. Taboureau was decidedly thin, and stooped a little. He

had a bulging forehead, covered with wrinkles, and a cavernous face, in

which two small gray eyes with a dark spot in either of them seemed to

be pierced rather than set. The lines of the miser’s mouth were close

and firm, and his narrow chin turned up to meet an exaggeratedly

hooked nose. His hair was turning gray already, and deep furrows which

converged above the prominent cheek-bones spoke of the wily shrewdness

of a horse-dealer and of a life spent in journeying about. He wore a

blue coat in fairly clean condition, the square side-pocket flaps stuck

out above his hips, and the skirts of the coats hung loose in front,

so that a white-flowered waistcoat was visible. There he stood firmly

planted on both feet, leaning upon a thick stick with a knob at the

end of it. A little spaniel had followed the grain-dealer, in spite of

Jacquotte’s efforts, and was crouching beside him.

“Well, what is it?” Benassis asked as he turned to this being.

Taboureau gave a suspicious glance at the stranger seated at the

doctor’s table, and said:

“It is not a case of illness, _M. le Maire_, but you understand how to

doctor the ailments of the purse just as well as those of the body. We

have had a little difficulty with a man over at Saint-Laurent, and I

have come to ask your advice about it.”

“Why not see the justice of the peace or his clerk?”

“Oh, because you are so much cleverer, sir, and I shall feel more sure

about my case if I can have your countenance.”

“My good Taboureau, I am willing to give medical advice to the poor

without charging for it; but I cannot look into the lawsuits of a

man who is as wealthy as you are for nothing. It costs a good deal to

acquire that kind of knowledge.”

Taboureau began to twist his hat about.

“If you want my advice, in order to save the hard coin you would have to

pay to the lawyer folk over in Grenoble, you must send a bag of rye to

the widow Martin, the woman who is bringing up the charity children.”

“_Dame_! I will do it with all my heart, sir, if you think it necessary.

Can I talk about this business of mine without troubling the gentleman

there?” he added, with a look at Genestas.

The doctor nodded, so Taboureau went on.

“Well, then, sir, two months ago a man from Saint-Laurent came over here

to find me. ‘Taboureau,’ said he to me, ‘could you sell me a hundred and

thirty-seven measures of barley?’ ‘Why not?’ say I, ‘that is my trade.

Do you want it immediately?’ ‘No,’ he says, ‘I want it for the beginning

of spring, in March.’ So far, so good. Well, we drive our bargain, and

we drink a glass, and we agree that he is to pay me the price that the

barley fetched at Grenoble last market day, and I am to deliver it

in March. I am to warehouse it at owner’s risk, and no allowance for

shrinkage of course. But barley goes up and up, my dear sir; the barley

rises like boiling milk. Then I am hard up for money, and I sell my

barley. Quite natural, sir, was it not?”

“No,” said Benassis, “the barley had passed out of your possession, you

were only warehousing it. And suppose the barley had gone down in value,

would you not have compelled your buyer to take it at the price you

agreed upon?”

“But very likely he would not have paid me, sir. One must look out for

oneself! The seller ought to make a good profit when the chance comes in

his way; and, after, all the goods are not yours until you have paid for

them. That is so, _Monsieur l’Officier_, is it not? For you can see that

the gentleman has been in the army.”

“Taboureau,” Benassis said sternly, “ill luck will come to you. Sooner

or later God punishes ill deeds. How can you, knowing as much as you do,

a capable man moreover, and a man who conducts his business honorably,

set examples of dishonesty to the canton? If you allow such proceedings

as this to be taken against you, how can you expect that the poor will

remain honest people and will not rob you? Your laborers will cheat

you out of part of their working hours, and every one here will be

demoralized. You are in the wrong. Your barley was as good as delivered.

If the man from Saint-Laurent had fetched it himself, you would not have

gone there to take it away from him; you have sold something that was no

longer yours to sell, for your barley had already been turned into money

which was to be paid down at the stipulated time. But go on.”

Genestas gave the doctor a significant glance, to call his attention

to Taboureau’s impassive countenance. Not a muscle had stirred in the

usurer’s face during this reprimand; there was no flush on his forehead,

and no sign of emotion in his little eyes.

“Well, sir, I am called upon to supply the barley at last winter’s

price. Now _I_ consider that I am not bound to do so.”

“Look here, Taboureau, deliver that barley and be very quick about it,

or make up your mind to be respected by nobody in the future. Even if

you gained the day in a case like this, you would be looked upon as

an unscrupulous man who does not keep to his word, and is not bound by

promises, or by honor, or----”

“Go on, there is nothing to be afraid of; tell me that I am a scamp, a

scoundrel, a thief outright. You can say things like that in business

without insulting anybody, M. le Maire. ‘Tis each for himself in

business, you know.”

“Well, then, why deliberately put yourself in a position in which you

deserve to be called by such names?”

“But if the law is on my side, sir?”

“But the law will certainly _not_ be on your side.”

“Are you quite sure about it, sir? Certain sure? For you see it is an

important matter.”

“Certainly I am. Quite sure. If I were not at dinner, I would have down

the code, and you should see for yourself. If the case comes on, you

will lose it, and you will never set foot in my house again, for I do

not wish to receive people whom I do not respect. Do you understand? You

will lose your case.”

“Oh! no, not at all, I shall not lose it, sir,” said Taboureau. “You

see, sir, it is this way; it is the man from Saint-Laurent who owes _me_

the barley; I bought it of him, and now he refuses to deliver it. I just

wanted to make quite certain that I should gain my case before going to

any expense at court about it.”

Genestas and the doctor exchanged glances; each concealed his amazement

at the ingenious device by which the man had sought to learn the truth

about this point of law.

“Very well, Taboureau, your man is a swindler; you should not make

bargains with such people.”

“Ah! sir, they understand business, those people do.”

“Good-bye, Taboureau.”

“Your servant, gentlemen.”

“Well, now,” remarked Benassis, when the usurer had gone, “if that

fellow were in Paris, do you not think that he would be a millionaire

before very long?”

After dinner, the doctor and his visitor went back to the salon, and

all the rest of the evening until bedtime they talked about war and

politics; Genestas evincing a most violent dislike of the English in the

course of conversation.

“May I know whom I have the honor of entertaining as a guest?” asked the

doctor.

“My name is Pierre Bluteau,” answered Genestas; “I am a captain

stationed at Grenoble.”

“Very well, sir. Do you care to adopt M. Gravier’s plan? In the morning

after breakfast he liked to go on my rounds with me. I am not at all

sure that you would find anything to interest you in the things that

occupy me--they are so very commonplace. For, after all, you own no land

about here, nor are you the mayor of the place, and you will see nothing

in the canton that you cannot see elsewhere; one thatched cottage is

just like another. Still you will be in the open air, and you will have

something to take you out of doors.”

“No proposal could give me more pleasure. I did not venture to make it

myself, lest I should thrust myself upon you.”

Commandant Genestas (who shall keep his own name in spite of the

fictitious appellation which he had thought fit to give himself)

followed his host to a room on the first floor above the salon.

“That is right,” said Benassis, “Jacquotte has lighted a fire for you.

If you want anything, there is a bell-pull close to the head of the

bed.”

“I am not likely to want anything, however small, it seems to me,”

exclaimed Genestas. “There is even a boot-jack. Only an old trooper

knows what a boot-jack is worth! There are times, when one is out on a

campaign, sir, when one is ready to burn down a house to come by a knave

of a boot-jack. After a few marches, one on the top of another, or above

all, after an engagement, there are times when a swollen foot and the

soaked leather will not part company, pull as you will; I have had to

lie down in my boots more than once. One can put up with the annoyance

so long as one is by oneself.”

The commandant’s wink gave a kind of profound slyness to his last

utterance; then he began to make a survey. Not without surprise, he saw

that the room was neatly kept, comfortable, and almost luxurious.

“What splendor!” was his comment. “Your own room must be something

wonderful.”

“Come and see,” said the doctor; “I am your neighbor, there is nothing

but the staircase between us.”

Genestas was again surprised when he entered the doctor’s room,

a bare-looking apartment with no adornment on the walls save an

old-fashioned wall-paper of a yellowish tint with a pattern of brown

roses over it; the color had gone in patches here and there. There was

a roughly painted iron bedstead, two gray cotton curtains were suspended

from a wooden bracket above it, and a threadbare strip of carpet lay

at the foot; it was like a bed in a hospital. By the bed-head stood a

rickety cupboard on four feet with a door that continually rattled with

a sound like castanets. Three chairs and a couple of straw-bottomed

armchairs stood about the room, and on a low chest of drawers in walnut

wood stood a basin, and a ewer of obsolete pattern with a lid, which

was kept in place by a leaden rim round the top of the vessel. This

completed the list of the furniture.

The grate was empty. All the apparatus required for shaving lay about in

front of an old mirror suspended above the painted stone chimney-piece

by a bit of string. The floor was clean and carefully swept, but it was

worn and splintered in various places, and there were hollows in it here

and there. Gray cotton curtains bordered with a green fringe adorned the

two windows. The scrupulous cleanliness maintained by Jacquotte gave a

certain air of distinction to this picture of simplicity, but everything

in it, down to the round table littered with stray papers, and the very

pens on the writing-desk, gave the idea of an almost monastic life--a

life so wholly filled with thought and feeling of a wider kind that

outward surroundings had come to be matters of no moment. An open door

allowed the commandant to see the smaller room, which doubtless the

doctor seldom occupied. It was scarcely kept in the same condition as

the adjoining apartment; a few dusty books lay strewn about over the no

less dusty shelves, and from the rows of labeled bottles it was easy to

guess that the place was devoted rather to the dispensing of drugs than

scientific studies.

“Why this difference between your room and mine, you will ask?” said

Benassis. “Listen a moment. I have always blushed for those who put

their guests in the attics, who furnish them with mirrors that distort

everything to such a degree that any one beholding himself might think

that he was smaller or larger than nature made him, or suffering from

apoplectic stroke or some other bad complaint. Ought we not to do our

utmost to make a room as pleasant as possible during the time that

our friend can be with us? Hospitality, to my thinking, is a virtue,

a pleasure, and a luxury; but in whatever light it is considered, nay,

even if you regard it as a speculation, ought not our guest or our

friend to be made much of? Ought not every refinement of luxury to be

reserved for him?

“So the best furniture is put into your room, where a thick carpet is

laid down; there are hangings on the walls, and a clock and wax candles;

and for you Jacquotte will do her best, she has no doubt brought

a night-light, and a pair of new slippers and some milk, and her

warming-pan too for your benefit. I hope that you will find that

luxurious armchair the most comfortable seat you have ever sat in, it

was a discovery of the late cure’s; I do not know where he found it, but

it is a fact that if you wish to meet with the perfection of comfort,

beauty, or convenience, you must ask counsel of the Church. Well, I hope

that you will find everything in your room to your liking. You will find

some good razors and excellent soap, and all the trifling details that

make one’s own home so pleasant. And if my views on the subject of

hospitality should not at once explain the difference between your room

and mine, to-morrow, M. Bluteau, you will arrive at a wonderfully clear

comprehension of the bareness of my room and the untidy condition of my

study, when you see all the continual comings and goings here. Mine is

not an indoor life, to begin with. I am almost always out of the house,

and if I stay at home, peasants come in at every moment to speak to

me. My body and soul and house are all theirs. Why should I worry about

social conventions in these matters, or trouble myself over the damage

unintentionally done to floors and furniture by these worthy folk? Such

things cannot be helped. Luxury properly belongs to the boudoir and the

guest-chamber, to great houses and chateaux. In short, as I scarcely do

more than sleep here, what do I want with superfluities of wealth? You

do not know, moreover, how little I care for anything in this world.”

They wished each other a friendly good-night with a warm shake of the

hand, and went to bed. But before the commandant slept, he came to more

than one conclusion as to the man who hour by hour grew greater in his

eyes.

CHAPTER II. A DOCTOR’S ROUND

The first thing next morning Genestas went to the stable, drawn thither

by the affection that every man feels for the horse that he rides.

Nicolle’s method of rubbing down the animal was quite satisfactory.

“Up already, Commandant Bluteau?” cried Benassis, as he came upon his

guest. “You hear the drum beat in the morning wherever you go, even in

the country! You are a regular soldier!”

“Are you all right?” replied Genestas, holding out his hand with a

friendly gesture.

“I am never really all right,” answered Benassis, half merrily, half

sadly.

“Did you sleep well, sir?” inquired Jacquotte.

“Faith, yes, my beauty; the bed as you made it was fit for a queen.”

Jacquotte’s face beamed as she followed her master and his guest,

and when she had seen them seat themselves at table, she remarked to

Nicolle:

“He is not a bad sort, after all, that officer gentleman.”

“I am sure he is not, he has given me two francs already.”

“We will begin to-day by calling at two places where there have been

deaths,” Benassis said to his visitor as they left the dining-room.

“Although doctors seldom deign to confront their supposed victims, I

will take you round to the two houses, where you will be able to make

some interesting observations of human nature; and the scenes to which

you will be a witness will show you that in the expression of their

feelings our folk among the hills differ greatly from the dwellers in

the lowlands. Up among the mountain peaks in our canton they cling to

customs that bear the impress of an older time, and that vaguely recall

scenes in the Bible. Nature has traced out a line over our mountain

ranges; the whole appearance of the country is different on either side

of it. You will find strength of character up above, flexibility and

quickness below; they have larger ways of regarding things among the

hills, while the bent of the lowlands is always towards the material

interests of existence. I have never seen a difference so strongly

marked, unless it has been in the Val d’Ajou, where the northern side is

peopled by a tribe of idiots, and the southern by an intelligent race.

There is nothing but a stream in the valley bottom to separate these two

populations, which are utterly dissimilar in every respect, as different

in face and stature as in manners, customs, and occupation. A fact

of this kind should compel those who govern a country to make very

extensive studies of local differences before passing laws that are to

affect the great mass of the people. But the horses are ready, let us

start!”

In a short time the two horsemen reached a house in a part of the

township that was overlooked by the mountains of the Grande Chartreuse.

Before the door of the dwelling, which was fairly clean and tidy, they

saw a coffin set upon two chairs, and covered with a black pall. Four

tall candles stood about it, and on a stool near by there was a shallow

brass dish full of holy water, in which a branch of green box-wood was

steeping. Every passer-by went into the yard, knelt by the side of the

dead, said a _Pater noster_, and sprinkled a few drops of holy water on

the bier. Above the black cloth that covered the coffin rose the green

sprays of a jessamine that grew beside the doorway, and a twisted vine

shoot, already in leaf, overran the lintel. Even the saddest ceremonies

demand that things shall appear to the best advantage, and in obedience

to this vaguely-felt requirement a young girl had been sweeping the

front of the house. The dead man’s eldest son, a young peasant

about twenty-two years of age, stood motionless, leaning against the

door-post. The tears in his eyes came and went without falling, or

perhaps he furtively brushed them away. Benassis and Genestas saw

all the details of this scene as they stood beyond the low wall; they

fastened their horses to one of the row of poplar trees that grew along

it, and entered the yard just as the widow came out of the byre. A woman

carrying a jug of milk was with her, and spoke.

“Try to bear up bravely, my poor Pelletier,” she said.

“Ah! my dear, after twenty-five years of life together, it is very hard

to lose your man,” and her eyes brimmed over with tears. “Will you pay

the two sous?” she added, after a moment, as she held out her hand to

her neighbor.

“There, now! I had forgotten about it,” said the other woman, giving her

the coin. “Come, neighbor, don’t take on so. Ah! there is M. Benassis!”

“Well, poor mother, how are you going on? A little better?” asked the

doctor.

“_Dame_!” she said, as the tears fell fast, “we must go on, all the

same, that is certain. I tell myself that my man is out of pain now. He

suffered so terribly! But come inside, sir. Jacques, set some chairs for

these gentlemen. Come, stir yourself a bit. Lord bless you! if you were

to stop there for a century, it would not bring your poor father back

again. And now, you will have to do the work of two.”

“No, no good woman, leave your son alone, we will not sit down. You have

a boy there who will take care of you, and who is quite fit to take his

father’s place.”

“Go and change your clothes, Jacques,” cried the widow; “you will be

wanted directly.”

“Well, good-bye, mother,” said Benassis.

“Your servant, gentlemen.”

“Here, you see, death is looked upon as an event for which every one is

prepared,” said the doctor; “it brings no interruption to the course of

family life, and they will not even wear mourning of any kind. No one

cares to be at the expense of it; they are all either too poor or too

parsimonious in the villages hereabouts, so that mourning is unknown

in country districts. Yet the custom of wearing mourning is something

better than a law or a usage, it is an institution somewhat akin to all

moral obligations. But in spite of our endeavors neither M. Janvier nor

I have succeeded in making our peasants understand the great importance

of public demonstrations of feeling for the maintenance of social

order. These good folk, who have only just begun to think and act for

themselves, are slow as yet to grasp the changed conditions which should

attach them to these theories. They have only reached those ideas which

conduce to economy and to physical welfare; in the future, if some one

else carries on this work of mine, they will come to understand the

principles that serve to uphold and preserve public order and justice.

As a matter of fact, it is not sufficient to be an honest man, you must

appear to be honest in the eyes of others. Society does not live by

moral ideas alone; its existence depends upon actions in harmony with

those ideas.

“In most country communes, out of a hundred families deprived by death

of their head, there are only a few individuals capable of feeling more

keenly than the others, who will remember the deaths for very long; in

a year’s time the rest will have forgotten all about it. Is not this

forgetfulness a sore evil? A religion is the very heart of a nation; it

expresses their feelings and their thoughts, and exalts them by giving

them an object; but unless outward and visible honor is paid to a God,

religion cannot exist; and, as a consequence, human ordinances lose all

their force. If the conscience belongs to God and to Him only, the body

is amenable to social law. Is it not therefore, a first step towards

atheism to efface every sign of pious sorrow in this way, to neglect to

impress on children who are not yet old enough to reflect, and on all

other people who stand in need of example, the necessity of obedience to

human law, by openly manifested resignation to the will of Providence,

who chastens and consoles, who bestows and takes away worldly wealth? I

confess that, after passing through a period of sneering incredulity,

I have come during my life here to recognize the value of the rites of

religion and of religious observances in the family, and to discern the

importance of household customs and domestic festivals. The family will

always be the basis of human society. Law and authority are first felt

there; there, at any rate, the habit of obedience should be learned.

Viewed in the light of all their consequences, the spirit of the family

and paternal authority are two elements but little developed as yet

in our new legislative system. Yet in the family, the commune, the

department, lies the whole of our country. The laws ought therefore to

be based on these three great divisions.

“In my opinion, marriages, the birth of infants, and the deaths of

heads of households cannot be surrounded with too much circumstance. The

secret of the strength of Catholicism, and of the deep root that it has

taken in the ordinary life of man, lies precisely in this--that it steps

in to invest every important event in his existence with a pomp that

is so naively touching, and so grand, whenever the priest rises to

the height of his mission and brings his office into harmony with the

sublimity of Christian doctrine.

“Once I looked upon the Catholic religion as a cleverly exploited mass

of prejudices and superstitions, which an intelligent civilization

ought to deal with according to its desserts. Here I have discovered its

political necessity and its usefulness as a moral agent; here, moreover,

I have come to understand its power, through a knowledge of the actual

thing which the word expresses. Religion means a bond or tie, and

certainly a cult--or, in other words, the outward and visible form of

religion is the only force that can bind the various elements of society

together and mould them into a permanent form. Lastly, it was also here

that I have felt the soothing influence that religion sheds over the

wounds of humanity, and (without going further into the subject) I have

seen how admirably it is suited to the fervid temperaments of southern

races.

“Let us take the road up the hillside,” said the doctor, interrupting

himself; “we must reach the plateau up there. Thence we shall look down

upon both valleys, and you will see a magnificent view. The plateau lies

three thousand feet above the level of the Mediterranean; we shall see

over Savoy and Dauphine, and the mountain ranges of the Lyonnais and

Rhone. We shall be in another commune, a hill commune, and on a farm

belonging to M. Gravier you will see the kind of scene of which I have

spoken. There the great events of life are invested with a solemnity

which comes up to my ideas. Mourning for the dead is vigorously

prescribed. Poor people will beg in order to purchase black clothing,

and no one refuses to give in such a case. There are few days in which

the widow does not mention her loss; she always speaks of it with tears,

and her grief is as deep after ten days of sorrow as on the morning

after her bereavement. Manners are patriarchal: the father’s authority

is unlimited, his word is law. He takes his meals sitting by himself at

the head of the table; his wife and children wait upon him, and those

about him never address him without using certain respectful forms of

speech, while every one remains standing and uncovered in his presence.

Men brought up in this atmosphere are conscious of their dignity; to my

way of thinking, it is a noble education to be brought up among

these customs. And, for the most part, they are upright, thrifty, and

hardworking people in this commune. The father of every family, when he

is old and past work, divides his property equally among his children,

and they support him; that is the usual way here. An old man of ninety,

in the last century, who had divided everything he had among his four

children, went to live with each in turn for three months in the year.

As he left the oldest to go to the home of a younger brother, one of

his friends asked him, ‘Well, are you satisfied with the arrangement?’

‘Faith! yes,’ the old man answered; ‘they have treated me as if I had

been their own child.’ That answer of his seemed so remarkable to an

officer then stationed at Grenoble, that he repeated it in more than one

Parisian salon. That officer was the celebrated moralist Vauvenargues,

and in this way the beautiful saying came to the knowledge of another

writer named Chamfort. Ah! still more forcible phrases are often struck

out among us, but they lack a historian worthy of them.”

“I have come across Moravians and Lollards in Bohemia and Hungary,” said

Genestas. “They are a kind of people something like your mountaineers,

good folk who endure the sufferings of war with angelic patience.”

“Men living under simple and natural conditions are bound to be almost

alike in all countries. Sincerity of life takes but one form. It is true

that a country life often extinguishes thought of a wider kind; but evil

propensities are weakened and good qualities are developed by it. In

fact, the fewer the numbers of the human beings collected together in a

place, the less crime, evil thinking, and general bad behavior will

be found in it. A pure atmosphere counts for a good deal in purity of

morals.”

The two horsemen, who had been climbing the stony road at a foot pace,

now reached the level space of which Benassis had spoken. It is a strip

of land lying round about the base of a lofty mountain peak, a bare

surface of rock with no growth of any kind upon it; deep clefts are

riven in its sheer inaccessible sides. The gray crest of the summit

towers above the ledge of fertile soil which lies around it, a domain

sometimes narrower, sometimes wider, and altogether about a hundred

acres in extent. Here, through a vast break in the line of the hills to

the south, the eye sees French Maurienne, Dauphine, the crags of Savoy,

and the far-off mountains of the Lyonnais. Genestas was gazing from this

point, over a land that lay far and wide in the spring sunlight, when

there arose the sound of a wailing cry.

“Let us go on,” said Benassis; “the wail for the dead has begun, that is

the name they give to this part of the funeral rites.”

On the western slope of the mountain peak, the commandant saw the

buildings belonging to a farm of some size. The whole place formed a

perfect square. The gateway consisted of a granite arch, impressive in

its solidity, which added to the old-world appearance of the buildings

with the ancient trees that stood about them, and the growth of plant

life on the roofs. The house itself lay at the farther end of the yard.

Barns, sheepfolds, stables, cowsheds, and other buildings lay on either

side, and in the midst was the great pool where the manure had been laid

to rot. On a thriving farm, such a yard as this is usually full of life

and movement, but to-day it was silent and deserted. The poultry was

shut up, the cattle were all in the byres, there was scarcely a sound of

animal life. Both stables and cowsheds had been carefully swept across

the yard. The perfect neatness which reigned in a place where everything

as a rule was in disorder, the absence of stirring life, the stillness

in so noisy a spot, the calm serenity of the hills, the deep shadow cast

by the towering peak--everything combined to make a strong impression on

the mind.

Genestas was accustomed to painful scenes, yet he could not help

shuddering as he saw a dozen men and women standing weeping outside the

door of the great hall. “_The master is dead!_” they wailed; the unison

of voices gave appalling effect to the words which they repeated twice

during the time required to cross the space between the gateway and the

farmhouse door. To this wailing lament succeeded moans from within the

house; the sound of a woman’s voice came through the casements.

“I dare not intrude upon such grief as this,” said Genestas to Benassis.

“I always go to visit a bereaved family,” the doctor answered, “either

to certify the death, or to see that no mischance caused by grief has

befallen the living. You need not hesitate to come with me. The scene is

impressive, and there will be such a great many people that no one will

notice your presence.”

As Genestas followed the doctor, he found, in fact, that the first room

was full of relations of the dead. They passed through the crowd and

stationed themselves at the door of a bedroom that opened out of

the great hall which served the whole family for a kitchen and a

sitting-room; the whole colony, it should rather be called, for the

great length of the table showed that some forty people lived in

the house. Benassis’ arrival interrupted the discourse of a tall,

simply-dressed woman, with thin locks of hair, who held the dead man’s

hand in hers in a way that spoke eloquently.

The dead master of the house had been arrayed in his best clothes, and

now lay stretched out cold and stiff upon the bed. They had drawn the

curtains aside; the thought of heaven seemed to brood over the quiet

face and the white hair--it was like the closing scene of a drama. On

either side of the bed stood the children and the nearest relations of

the husband and wife. These last stood in a line on either side; the

wife’s kin upon the left, and those of her husband on the right. Both

men and women were kneeling in prayer, and almost all of them were in

tears. Tall candles stood about the bed. The cure of the parish and his

assistants had taken their places in the middle of the room, beside the

bier. There was something tragical about the scene, with the head of the

family lying before the coffin, which was waiting to be closed down upon

him forever.

“Ah!” cried the widow, turning as she saw Benassis, “if the skill of

the best of men could not save you, my dear lord, it was because it was

ordained in heaven that you should precede me to the tomb! Yes, this

hand of yours, that used to press mine so kindly, is cold! I have lost

my dear helpmate for ever, and our household has lost its beloved head,

for truly you were the guide of us all! Alas! there is not one of those

who are weeping with me who has not known all the worth of your nature,

and felt the light of your soul, but I alone knew all the patience and

the kindness of your heart. Oh! my husband, my husband! must I bid you

farewell for ever? Farewell to you, our stay and support! Farewell to

you, my dear master! And we, your children,--for to each of us you gave

the same fatherly love,--all we, your children, have lost our father!”

The widow flung herself upon the dead body and clasped it in a tight

embrace, as if her kisses and the tears with which she covered it could

give it warmth again; during the pause, came the wail of the servants:

“_The master is dead!_”

“Yes,” the widow went on, “he is dead! Our beloved who gave us our

bread, who sowed and reaped for us, who watched over our happiness, who

guided us through life, who ruled so kindly among us. _Now_, I may speak

in his praise, and say that he never caused me the slightest sorrow; he

was good and strong and patient. Even while we were torturing him for

the sake of his health, so precious to us, ‘Let it be, children, it is

all no use,’ the dear lamb said, just in the same tone of voice with

which he had said, ‘Everything is all right, friends,’ only a few days

before. Ah! _grand Dieu_! a few days ago! A few days have been enough to

take away the gladness from our house and to darken our lives, to close

the eyes of the best, most upright, most revered of men. No one could

plow as he could. Night or day, he would go about over the mountains, he

feared nothing, and when he came back he had always a smile for his wife

and children. Ah! he was our beloved! It was dull here by the fireside

when _he_ was away, and our food lost all its relish. Oh! how will it be

now, when our guardian angel will be laid away under the earth, and we

shall never see him any more? Never any more, dear kinsfolk and friends;

never any more, my children! Yes, my children have lost their kind

father, our relations and friends have lost their good kinsman and

their trusty friend, the household has lost its master, and I have lost

everything!”

She took the hand of the dead again, and knelt, so that she might press

her face close to his as she kissed it. The servants’ cry, “_The master

is dead!_” was again repeated three times.

Just then the eldest son came to his mother to say, “The people from

Saint-Laurent have just come, mother; we want some wine for them.”

“Take the keys,” she said in a low tone, and in a different voice from

that in which she had just expressed her grief; “you are the master of

the house, my son; see that they receive the welcome that your father

would have given them; do not let them find any change.

“Let me have one more long look,” she went on. “But alas! my good

husband, you do not feel my presence now, I cannot bring back warmth to

you! I only wish that I could comfort you still, could let you know that

so long as I live you will dwell in the heart that you made glad, could

tell you that I shall be happy in the memory of my happiness--that

the dear thought of you will live on in this room. Yes, as long as God

spares me, this room shall be filled with memories of you. Hear my vow,

dear husband! Your couch shall always remain as it is now. I will sleep

in it no more, since you are dead; henceforward, while I live, it shall

be cold and empty. With you, I have lost all that makes a woman: her

master, husband, father, friend, companion, and helpmate: I have lost

all!”

“_The master is dead!_” the servants wailed. Others raised the cry, and

the lament became general. The widow took a pair of scissors that hung

at her waist, cut off her hair, and laid the locks in her husband’s

hand. Deep silence fell on them all.

“That act means that she will not marry again,” said Benassis; “this

determination was expected by many of the relatives.”

“Take it, dear lord!” she said; her emotion brought a tremor to her

voice that went to the hearts of all who heard her. “I have sworn to be

faithful; I give this pledge to you to keep in the grave. We shall thus

be united for ever, and through love of your children I will live on

among the family in whom you used to feel yourself young again. Oh! that

you could hear me, my husband! the pride and joy of my heart! Oh! that

you could know that all my power to live, now you are dead, will yet

come from you; for I shall live to carry out your sacred wishes and to

honor your memory.”

Benassis pressed Genestas’ hand as an invitation to follow him, and they

went out. By this time the first room was full of people who had come

from another mountain commune; all of them waited in meditative silence,

as if the sorrow and grief that brooded over the house had already

taken possession of them. As Benassis and the commandant crossed the

threshold, they overheard a few words that passed between one of the

newcomers and the eldest son of the late owner.

“Then when did he die?”

“Oh!” exclaimed the eldest son, a man of five-and-twenty years of age,

“I did not see him die. He asked for me, and I was not there!” His voice

was broken with sobs, but he went on: “He said to me the night before,

‘You must go over to the town, my boy, and pay our taxes; my funeral

will put that out of your minds, and we shall be behindhand, a thing

that has never happened before.’ It seemed the best thing to do, so

I went; and while I was gone, he died, and I never received his last

embrace. I have always been at his side, but he did not see me near him

at the last in my place where I had always been.”

“_The master is dead!_”

“Alas! he is dead, and I was not there to receive his last words and

his latest sigh. And what did the taxes matter? Would it not have been

better to lose all our money than to leave home just then? Could all

that we have make up to me for the loss of his last farewell. No. _Mon

Dieu!_ If _your_ father falls ill, Jean, do not go away and leave him,

or you will lay up a lifelong regret for yourself.”

“My friend,” said Genestas, “I have seen thousands of men die on the

battlefield; death did not wait to let their children bid them farewell;

take comfort, you are not the only one.”

“But a father who was such a good man!” he replied, bursting into fresh

tears.

Benassis took Genestas in the direction of the farm buildings.

“The funeral oration will only cease when the body has been laid in its

coffin,” said the doctor, “and the weeping woman’s language will grow

more vivid and impassioned all the while. But a woman only acquires

the right to speak in such a strain before so imposing an audience by a

blameless life. If the widow could reproach herself with the smallest

of shortcomings, she would not dare to utter a word; for if she did, she

would pronounce her own condemnation, she would be at the same time her

own accuser and judge. Is there not something sublime in this custom

which thus judges the living and the dead? They only begin to wear

mourning after a week has elapsed, when it is publicly worn at a meeting

of all the family. Their near relations spend the week with the widow

and children, to help them to set their affairs in order and to console

them. A family gathering at such a time produces a great effect on the

minds of the mourners; the consideration for others which possesses men

when they are brought into close contact acts as a restraint on violent

grief. On the last day, when the mourning garb has been assumed, a

solemn banquet is given, and their relations take leave of them. All

this is taken very seriously. Any one who was slack in fulfilling his

duties after the death of the head of a family would have no one at his

own funeral.”

The doctor had reached the cowhouse as he spoke; he opened the door and

made the commandant enter, that he might show it to him.

“All our cowhouses have been rebuilt after this pattern, captain. Look!

Is it not magnificent?”

Genestas could not help admiring the huge place. The cows and oxen stood

in two rows, with their tails towards the side walls, and their heads

in the middle of the shed. Access to the stalls was afforded by a fairly

wide space between them and the wall; you could see their horned heads

and shining eyes through the lattice work, so that it was easy for the

master to run his eyes over the cattle. The fodder was placed on some

staging erected above the stalls, so that it fell into the racks below

without waste of labor or material. There was a wide-paved space down

the centre, which was kept clean, and ventilated by a thorough draught

of air.

“In the winter time,” Benassis said, as he walked with Genestas down the

middle of the cowhouse, “both men and women do their work here together

in the evenings. The tables are set out here, and in this way the people

keep themselves warm without going to any expense. The sheep are housed

in the same way. You would not believe how quickly the beasts fall into

orderly ways. I have often wondered to see them come in; each knows her

proper place, and allows those who take precedence to pass in before

her. Look! there is just room enough in each stall to do the milking

and to rub the cattle down; and the floor slopes a little to facilitate

drainage.”

“One can judge of everything else from the sight of this cowhouse,” said

Genestas; “without flattery, these are great results indeed!”

“We have had some trouble to bring them about,” Benassis answered; “but

then, see what fine cattle they are!”

“They are splendid beasts certainly; you had good reason to praise them

to me,” answered Genestas.

“Now,” said the doctor, when he had mounted his horse and passed under

the gateway, “we are going over some of the newly cleared waste, and

through the corn land. I have christened this little corner of our

Commune, ‘La Beauce.’”

For about an hour they rode at a foot pace across fields in a state of

high cultivation, on which the soldier complimented the doctor; then

they came down the mountain side into the township again, talking

whenever the pace of their horses allowed them to do so. At last they

reached a narrow glen, down which they rode into the main valley.

“I promised yesterday,” Benassis said to Genestas, “to show you one of

the two soldiers who left the army and came back to us after the fall of

Napoleon. We shall find him somewhere hereabouts, if I am not mistaken.

The mountain streams flow into a sort of natural reservoir or tarn up

here; the earth they bring down has silted it up, and he is engaged in

clearing it out. But if you are to take any interest in the man, I must

tell you his history. His name is Gondrin. He was only eighteen years

old when he was drawn in the great conscription of 1792, and drafted

into a corps of gunners. He served as a private soldier in Napoleon’s

campaigns in Italy, followed him to Egypt, and came back from the East

after the Peace of Amiens. In the time of the Empire he was incorporated

in the Pontoon Troop of the Guard, and was constantly on active service

in Germany, lastly the poor fellow made the Russian campaign.”

“We are brothers-in-arms then, to some extent,” said Genestas; “I have

made the same campaigns. Only an iron frame would stand the tricks

played by so many different climates. My word for it, those who are

still standing on their stumps after marching over Italy, Egypt,

Germany, Portugal, and Russia must have applied to Providence and taken

out a patent for living.”

“Just so, you will see a solid fragment of a man,” answered Benassis.

“You know all about the Retreat from Moscow; it is useless to tell you

about it. This man I have told you of is one of the pontooners of the

Beresina; he helped to construct the bridge by which the army made the

passage, and stood waist-deep in water to drive in the first piles.

General Eble, who was in command of the pontooners, could only find

forty-two men who were plucky enough, in Gondrin’s phrase, to tackle

that business. The general himself came down to the stream to hearten

and cheer the men, promising each of them a pension of a thousand francs

and the Cross of the Legion of Honor. The first who went down into the

Beresina had his leg taken off by a block of ice, and the man himself

was washed away; but you will better understand the difficulty of the

task when you hear the end of the story. Of the forty-two volunteers,

Gondrin is the only one alive to-day. Thirty-nine of them lost their

lives in the Beresina, and the two others died miserably in a Polish

hospital.

“The poor fellow himself only returned from Wilna in 1814, to find the

Bourbons restored to power. General Eble (of whom Gondrin cannot speak

without tears in his eyes) was dead. The pontooner was deaf, and his

health was shattered; and as he could neither read nor write, he found

no one left to help him or to plead his cause. He begged his way to

Paris, and while there made application at the War Office, not for the

thousand francs of extra pension which had been promised to him, nor yet

for the Cross of the Legion of Honor, but only for the bare pension due

to him after twenty-two years of service, and I do not know how many

campaigns. He did not obtain his pension or his traveling expenses;

he did not even receive his arrears of pay. He spent a year in making

fruitless solicitations, holding out his hands in vain to those whom he

had saved; and at the end of it he came back here, sorely disheartened

but resigned to his fate. This hero unknown to fame does draining work

on the land, for which he is paid ten sous the fathom. He is accustomed

to working in a marshy soil, and so, as he says, he gets jobs which no

one else cares to take. He can make about three francs a day by clearing

out ponds, or draining meadows that lie under water. His deafness makes

him seem surly, and he is not naturally inclined to say very much, but

there is a good deal in him.

“We are very good friends. He dines with me on the day of Austerlitz,

on the Emperor’s birthday, and on the anniversary of the disaster at

Waterloo, and during the dessert he always receives a napoleon to pay

for his wine very quarter. Every one in the Commune shares in my feeling

of respect for him; if he would allow them to support him, nothing would

please them better. At every house to which he goes the people follow my

example, and show their esteem by asking him to dine with them. It is a

feeling of pride that leads him to work, and it is only as a portrait of

the Emperor that he can be induced to take my twenty-franc piece. He has

been deeply wounded by the injustice that has been done to him; but I

think regret for the Cross is greater than the desire for his pension.

“He has one great consolation. After the bridges had been constructed

across the Beresina, General Eble presented such of the pontooners

as were not disabled to the Emperor, and Napoleon embraced poor

Gondrin--perhaps but for that accolade he would have died ere now. This

memory and the hope that some day Napoleon will return are all that

Gondrin lives by. Nothing will ever persuade him that Napoleon is dead,

and so convinced is he that the Emperor’s captivity is wholly and solely

due to the English, that I believe he would be ready on the slightest

pretext to take the life of the best-natured alderman that ever traveled

for pleasure in foreign parts.”

“Let us go on as fast as possible!” cried Genestas. He had listened

to the doctor’s story with rapt attention, and now seemed to recover

consciousness of his surroundings. “Let us hurry! I long to see that

man!”

Both of them put their horses to a gallop.

“The other soldier that I spoke of,” Benassis went on, “is another of

those men of iron who have knocked about everywhere with our armies.

His life, like that of all French soldiers, has been made up of bullets,

sabre strokes, and victories; he has had a very rough time of it, and

has only worn the woolen epaulettes. He has a fanatical affection for

Napoleon, who conferred the Cross upon him on the field of Valontina. He

is of a jovial turn of mind, and like a genuine Dauphinois, has always

looked after his own interests, has his pension, and the honors of the

Legion. Goguelat is his name. He was an infantry man, who exchanged into

the Guard in 1812. He is Gondrin’s better half, so to speak, for the two

have taken up house together. They both lodge with a peddler’s widow,

and make over their money to her. She is a kind soul, who boards them

and looks after them, and their clothes as if they were her children.

“In his quality of local postman, Goguelat carries all the news of the

countryside, and a good deal of practice acquired in this way has made

him an orator in great request at up-sittings, and the champion teller

of stories in the district. Gondrin looks upon him as a very knowing

fellow, and something of a wit; and whenever Goguelat talks about

Napoleon, his comrade seems to understand what he is saying from the

movement of his lips. There will be an up-sitting (as they call it)

in one of my barns to-night. If these two come over to it, and we can

manage to see without being seen, I shall treat you to a view of the

spectacle. But here we are, close to the ditch, and I do not see my

friend the pontooner.”

The doctor and the commandant looked everywhere about them; Gondrin’s

soldier’s coat lay there beside a heap of black mud, and his

wheelbarrow, spade, and pickaxe were visible, but there was no sign of

the man himself along the various pebbly watercourses, for the wayward

mountain streams had hollowed out channels that were almost overgrown

with low bushes.

“He cannot be so very far away. Gondrin! Where are you?” shouted

Benassis.

Genestas first saw the curling smoke from a tobacco pipe rise among the

brushwood on a bank of rubbish not far away. He pointed it out to the

doctor, who shouted again. The old pontooner raised his head at this,

recognized the mayor, and came towards them down a little pathway.

“Well, old friend,” said Benassis, making a sort of speaking-trumpet

with his hand. “Here is a comrade of yours, who was out in Egypt, come

to see you.”

Gondrin raised is face at once and gave Genestas a swift, keen, and

searching look, one of those glances by which old soldiers are wont at

once to take the measure of any impending danger. He saw the red ribbon

that the commandant wore, and made a silent and respectful military

salute.

“If the Little Corporal were alive,” the officer cried, “you would have

the Cross of the Legion of Honor and a handsome pension besides, for

every man who wore epaulettes on the other side of the river owed his

life to you on the 1st of October 1812. But I am not the Minister of

War, my friend,” the commandant added as he dismounted, and with a

sudden rush of feeling he grasped the laborer’s hand.

The old pontooner drew himself up at the words, he knocked the ashes

from his pipe, and put it in his pocket.

“I only did my duty, sir,” he said, with his head bent down; “but others

have not done their duty by me. They asked for my papers! Why, the

Twenty-ninth Bulletin, I told them, must do instead of my papers!”

“But you must make another application, comrade. You are bound to have

justice done you in these days, if influence is brought to bear in the

right quarter.”

“Justice!” cried the veteran. The doctor and the commandant shuddered at

the tone in which he spoke.

In the brief pause that followed, both the horsemen looked at the man

before them, who seemed like a fragment of the wreck of great armies

which Napoleon had filled with men of bronze sought out from among three

generations. Gondrin was certainly a splendid specimen of that seemingly

indestructible mass of men which might be cut to pieces but never gave

way. The old man was scarcely five feet high, wide across the shoulders,

and broad-chested; his face was sunburned, furrowed with deep wrinkles,

but the outlines were still firm in spite of the hollows in it, and

one could see even now that it was the face of a soldier. It was a

rough-hewn countenance, his forehead seemed like a block of granite;

but there was a weary expression about his face, and the gray hairs

hung scantily about his head, as if life were waning there already.

Everything about him indicated unusual strength; his arms were covered

thickly with hair, and so was the chest, which was visible through the

opening of his coarse shirt. In spite of his almost crooked legs, he

held himself firm and erect, as if nothing could shake him.

“Justice,” he said once more; “there will never be justice for the like

of us. We cannot send bailiffs to the Government to demand our dues for

us; and as the wallet must be filled somehow,” he said, striking his

stomach, “we cannot afford to wait. Moreover, these gentry who lead snug

lives in government offices may talk and talk, but their words are not

good to eat, so I have come back here again to draw my pay out of the

commonalty,” he said, striking the mud with his spade.

“Things must not be left in that way, old comrade,” said Genestas. “I

owe my life to you, and it would be ungrateful of me if I did not lend

you a hand. I have not forgotten the passage over the bridges in the

Beresina, and it is fresh in the memories of some brave fellows of my

acquaintance; they will back me up, and the nation shall give you the

recognition you deserve.”

“You will be called a Bonapartist! Please do not meddle in the matter,

sir. I have gone to the rear now, and I have dropped into my hole here

like a spent bullet. But after riding on camels through the desert,

and drinking my glass by the fireside in Moscow, I never thought that I

should come back to die here beneath the trees that my father planted,”

and he began to work again.

“Poor old man!” said Genestas, as they turned to go. “I should do the

same if I were in his place; we have lost our father. Everything seems

dark to me now that I have seen that man’s hopelessness,” he went on,

addressing Benassis; “he does not know how much I am interested in him,

and he will think that I am one of those gilded rascals who cannot feel

for a soldier’s sufferings.”

He turned quickly and went back, grasped the veteran’s hand, and spoke

loudly in his ear:

“I swear by the Cross I wear--the Cross of Honor it used to be--that I

will do all that man can do to obtain your pension for you; even if I

have to swallow a dozen refusals from the minister, and to petition the

king and the dauphin and the whole shop!”

Old Gondrin quivered as he heard the words. He looked hard at Genestas

and said, “Haven’t you served in the ranks?” The commandant nodded. The

pontooner wiped his hand and took that of Genestas, which he grasped

warmly and said:

“I made the army a present of my life, general, when I waded out into

the river yonder, and if I am still alive, it is all so much to the

good. One moment! Do you care to see to the bottom of it? Well, then,

ever since _somebody_ was pulled down from his place, I have ceased

to care about anything. And, after all,” he went on cheerfully, as he

pointed to the land, “they have made over twenty thousand francs to me

here, and I am taking it out in detail, as _he_ used to say!”

“Well, then, comrade,” said Genestas, touched by the grandeur of this

forgiveness, “at least you shall have the only thing that you cannot

prevent me from giving to you, here below.” The commandant tapped his

heart, looked once more at the old pontooner, mounted his horse again,

and went his way side by side with Benassis.

“Such cruelty as this on the part of the government foments the strife

between rich and poor,” said the doctor. “People who exercise a little

brief authority have never given a serious thought to the consequences

that must follow an act of injustice done to a man of the people. It is

true that a poor man who needs must work for his daily bread cannot long

keep up the struggle; but he can talk, and his words find an echo in

every sufferer’s heart, so that one bad case of this kind is multiplied,

for every one who hears of it feels it as a personal wrong, and the

leaven works. Even this is not so serious, but something far worse comes

of it. Among the people, these causes of injustice bring about a chronic

state of smothered hatred for their social superiors. The middle class

becomes the poor man’s enemy; they lie without the bounds of his moral

code, he tells lies to them and robs them without scruple; indeed, theft

ceases to be a crime or a misdemeanor, and is looked upon as an act of

vengeance.

“When an official, who ought to see that the poor have justice done

them, uses them ill and cheats them of their due, how can we expect the

poor starving wretches to bear their troubles meekly and to respect the

rights of property? It makes me shudder to think that some understrapper

whose business it is to dust papers in a government office, has pocketed

Gondrin’s promised thousand francs of pension. And yet there are folk

who, never having measured the excess of the people’s sufferings, accuse

the people of excess in the day of their vengeance! When a government

has done more harm than good to individuals, its further existence

depends on the merest accident, the masses square the account after

their fashion by upsetting it. A statesman ought always to imagine

Justice with the poor at her feet, for justice was only invented for the

poor.”

When they had come within the compass of the township, Benassis saw

two people walking along the road in front of them, and turned to his

companion, who had been absorbed for some time in thought.

“You have seen a veteran soldier resigned to his life of wretchedness,

and now you are about to see an old agricultural laborer who is

submitting to the same lot. The man there ahead of us has dug and sown

and toiled for others all his life.”

Genestas looked and saw an old laborer making his way along the road, in

company with an aged woman. He seemed to be afflicted with some form

of sciatica, and limped painfully along. His feet were encased in a

wretched pair of sabots, and a sort of wallet hung over his shoulder.

Several tools lay in the bottom of the bag; their handles, blackened

with long use and the sweat of toil, rattled audibly together; while the

other end of the wallet behind his shoulder held bread, some walnuts,

and a few fresh onions. His legs seemed to be warped, as it were, his

back was bent by continual toil; he stooped so much as he walked that

he leaned on a long stick to steady himself. His snow-white hair escaped

from under a battered hat, grown rusty by exposure to all sorts of

weather, and mended here and there with visible stitches of white

thread. His clothes, made of a kind of rough canvas, were a mass of

patches of contrasting colors. This piece of humanity in ruins lacked

none of the characteristics that appeal to our hearts when we see ruins

of other kinds.

His wife held herself somewhat more erect. Her clothing was likewise a

mass of rags, and the cap that she wore was of the coarsest materials.

On her back she carried a rough earthen jar by means of a thong passed

through the handles of the great pitcher, which was round in shape and

flattened at the sides. They both looked up when they heard the horses

approaching, saw that it was Benassis, and stopped.

The man had worked till he was almost past work, and his faithful

helpmate was no less broken with toil. It was painful to see how the

summer sun and the winter’s cold had blackened their faces, and

covered them with such deep wrinkles that their features were hardly

discernible. It was not their life history that had been engraven on

their faces; but it might be gathered from their attitude and bearing.

Incessant toil had been the lot of both; they had worked and suffered

together; they had had many troubles and few joys to share; and now,

like captives grown accustomed to their prison, they seemed to be too

familiar with wretchedness to heed it, and to take everything as it

came. Yet a certain frank light-heartedness was not lacking in their

faces; and on a closer view, their monotonous life, the lot of so many

a poor creature, well-nigh seemed an enviable one. Trouble had set its

unmistakable mark on them, but petty cares had left no traces there.

“Well, my good Father Moreau, I suppose there is no help for it, and you

must always be working?”

“Yes, M. Benassis, there are one or two more bits of waste that I

mean to clear for you before I knock off work,” the old man answered

cheerfully, and light shone in his little black eyes.

“Is that wine that your wife is carrying? If you will not take a rest

now, you ought at any rate to take wine.”

“I take a rest? I should not know what to do with myself. The sun and

the fresh air put life into me when I am out of doors and busy grubbing

up the land. As to the wine, sir, yes, that is wine sure enough, and it

is all through your contriving I know that the Mayor at Courteil lets us

have it for next to nothing. Ah, you managed it very cleverly, but, all

the same, I know you had a hand in it.”

“Oh! come, come! Good-day, mother. You are going to work on that bit of

land of Champferlu’s to-day of course?”

“Yes, sir; I made a beginning there yesterday evening.”

“Capital!” said Benassis. “It must be a satisfaction to you, at times,

to see this hillside. You two have broken up almost the whole of the

land on it yourselves.”

“Lord! yes, sir,” answered the old woman, “it has been our doing! We

have fairly earned our bread.”

“Work, you see, and land to cultivate are the poor man’s consols. That

good man would think himself disgraced if he went into the poorhouse or

begged for his bread; he would choose to die pickaxe in hand, out in

the open, in the sunlight. Faith, he bears a proud heart in him. He has

worked until work has become his very life; and yet death has no terrors

for him! He is a profound philosopher, little as he suspects it. Old

Moreau’s case suggested the idea to me of founding an almshouse for the

country people of the district; a refuge for those who, after working

hard all their lives, have reached an honorable old age of poverty.

“I had by no means expected to make the fortune which I have acquired

here; indeed, I myself have no use for it, for a man who has fallen

from the pinnacle of his hopes needs very little. It costs but little to

live, the idler’s life alone is a costly one, and I am not sure that the

unproductive consumer is not robbing the community at large. There was

some discussion about Napoleon’s pension after his fall; it came to his

ears, and he said that five francs a day and a horse to ride was all

that he needed. I meant to have no more to do with money when I came

here; but after a time I saw that money means power, and that it is in

fact a necessity, if any good is to be done. So I have made arrangements

in my will for turning my house into an almshouse, in which old people

who have not Moreau’s fierce independence can end their days. Part of

the income of nine thousand francs brought in by the mill and the rest

of my property will be devoted to giving outdoor relief in hard winters

to those who really stand in need of it.

“This foundation will be under the control of the Municipal Council,

with the addition of the cure, who is to be president; and in this way

the money made in the district will be returned to it. In my will I have

laid down the lines on which this institution is to be conducted; it

would be tedious to go over them, it is enough to say that I have a fund

which will some day enable the Commune to award several scholarships for

children who show signs of promise in art or science. So, even after

I am gone, my work of civilization will continue. When you have set

yourself to do anything, Captain Bluteau, something within you urges you

on, you see, and you cannot bear to leave it unfinished. This craving

within us for order and for perfection is one of the signs that point

most surely to a future existence. Now, let us quicken our pace, I have

my round to finish, and there are five or six more patients still to be

visited.”

They cantered on for some time in silence, till Benassis said laughingly

to his companion, “Come now, Captain Bluteau, you have drawn me out and

made me chatter like a magpie, and you have not said a syllable about

your own history, which must be an interesting one. When a soldier has

come to your time of life, he has seen so much that he must have more

than one adventure to tell about.”

“Why, my history has been simply the history of the army,” answered

Genestas. “Soldiers are all after one pattern. Never in command, always

giving and taking sabre-cuts in my place, I have lived just like anybody

else. I have been wherever Napoleon led us, and have borne a part

in every battle in which the Imperial Guard has struck a blow; but

everybody knows all about these events. A soldier has to look after his

horse, to endure hunger and thirst at times, to fight whenever there is

fighting to be done, and there you have the whole history of his life.

As simple as saying good-day, is it not? Then there are battles in which

your horse casts a shoe at the outset, and lands you in a quandary; and

as far as you are concerned, that is the whole of it. In short, I have

seen so many countries, that seeing them has come to be a matter of

course; and I have seen so many men die, that I have come to value my

own life at nothing.”

“But you yourself must have been in danger at times, and it would be

interesting to hear you tell of your personal adventures.”

“Perhaps,” answered the commandant.

“Well, then, tell me about the adventure that made the deepest

impression upon you. Come! do not hesitate. I shall not think that

you are wanting in modesty even if you should tell me of some piece of

heroism on your part; and when a man is quite sure that he will not be

misunderstood, ought he not to find a kind of pleasure in saying, ‘I did

thus’?”

“Very well, then, I will tell you about something that gives me a pang

of remorse from time to time. During fifteen years of warfare it never

once happened that I killed a man, save in legitimate defence of self.

We are drawn up in a line, and we charge; and if we do not strike down

those before us, they will begin to draw blood without asking leave, so

you have to kill if you do not mean to be killed, and your conscience is

quite easy. But once I broke a comrade’s back; it happened in a singular

way, and it has been a painful thing to me to think of afterwards--the

man’s dying grimace haunts me at times. But you shall judge for

yourself.

“It was during the retreat from Moscow,” the commandant went on.

“The Grand Army had ceased to be itself; we were more like a herd of

over-driven cattle. Good-bye to discipline! The regiments had lost sight

of their colors, every one was his own master, and the Emperor (one need

not scruple to say it) knew that it was useless to attempt to exert his

authority when things had gone so far. When we reached Studzianka,

a little place on the other side of the Beresina, we came upon human

dwellings for the first time after several days. There were barns and

peasants’ cabins to destroy, and pits full of potatoes and beetroot;

the army had been without victual, and now it fairly ran riot, the first

comers, as you might expect, making a clean sweep of everything.

“I was one of the last to come up. Luckily for me, sleep was the one

thing that I longed for just then. I caught sight of a barn and went

into it. I looked round and saw a score of generals and officers of

high rank, all of them men who, without flattery, might be called great.

Junot was there, and Narbonne, the Emperor’s aide-de-camp, and all the

chiefs of the army. There were common soldiers there as well, not one of

whom would have given up his bed of straw to a marshal of France. Some

who were leaning their backs against the wall had dropped off to sleep

where they stood, because there was no room to lie down; others lay

stretched out on the floor--it was a mass of men packed together so

closely for the sake of warmth, that I looked about in vain for a nook

to lie down in. I walked over this flooring of human bodies; some of the

men growled, the others said nothing, but no one budged. They would

not have moved out of the way of a cannon ball just then; but under the

circumstances, one was not obliged to practise the maxims laid down by

the Child’s Guide to Manners. Groping about, I saw at the end of

the barn a sort of ledge up above in the roof; no one had thought of

scrambling up to it, possibly no one had felt equal to the effort. I

clambered up and ensconced myself upon it; and as I lay there at full

length, I looked down at the men huddled together like sheep below. It

was a pitiful sight, yet it almost made me laugh. A man here and

there was gnawing a frozen carrot, with a kind of animal satisfaction

expressed in his face; and thunderous snores came from generals who lay

muffled up in ragged cloaks. The whole barn was lighted by a blazing

pine log; it might have set the place on fire, and no one would have

troubled to get up and put it out.

“I lay down on my back, and, naturally, just before I dropped off, my

eyes traveled to the roof above me, and then I saw that the main beam

which bore the weight of the joists was being slightly shaken from east

to west. The blessed thing danced about in fine style. ‘Gentlemen,’

said I, ‘one of our friends outside has a mind to warm himself at

our expense.’ A few moments more and the beam was sure to come down.

‘Gentlemen! gentlemen!’ I shouted, ‘we shall all be killed in a minute!

Look at the beam there!’ and I made such a noise that my bed-fellows

awoke at last. Well, sir, they all stared up at the beam, and then those

who had been sleeping turned round and went off to sleep again, while

those who were eating did not even stop to answer me.

“Seeing how things were, there was nothing for it but to get up and

leave my place, and run the risk of finding it taken by somebody else,

for all the lives of this heap of heroes were at stake. So out I go.

I turn the corner of the barn and come upon a great devil of a

Wurtemberger, who was tugging at the beam with a certain enthusiasm.

‘Aho! aho!’ I shouted, trying to make him understand that he must

desist from his toil. ‘_Gehe mir aus dem Gesicht, oder ich schlag dich

todt!_--Get out of my sight, or I will kill you,’ he cried. ‘Ah! yes,

just so, _Que mire aous dem guesit_,’ I answered; ‘but that is not the

point.’ I picked up his gun that he had left on the ground, and broke

his back with it; then I turned in again, and went off to sleep. Now you

know the whole business.”

“But that was a case of self-defence, in which one man suffered for

the good of many, so you have nothing to reproach yourself with,” said

Benassis.

“The rest of them thought that it had only been my fancy; but fancy or

no, a good many of them are living comfortably in fine houses to-day,

without feeling their hearts oppressed by gratitude.”

“Then would you only do people a good turn in order to receive that

exorbitant interest called gratitude?” said Benassis, laughing. “That

would be asking a great deal for your outlay.”

“Oh, I know quite well that all the merit of a good deed evaporates at

once if it benefits the doer in the slightest degree,” said Genestas.

“If he tells the story of it, the toll brought in to his vanity is a

sufficient substitute for gratitude. But if every doer of kindly actions

always held his tongue about them, those who reaped the benefits would

hardly say very much either. Now the people, according to your system,

stand in need of examples, and how are they to hear of them amid this

general reticence? Again, there is this poor pontooner of ours, who

saved the whole French army, and who was never able to tell his tale to

any purpose; suppose that he had lost the use of his limbs, would the

consciousness of what he had done have found him in bread? Answer me

that, philosopher!”

“Perhaps the rules of morality cannot be absolute,” Benassis answered;

“though this is a dangerous idea, for it leaves the egoist free to

settle cases of conscience in his own favor. Listen, captain; is not the

man who never swerves from the principles of morality greater than he

who transgresses them, even through necessity? Would not our veteran,

dying of hunger, and unable to help himself, be worthy of rank with

Homer? Human life is doubtless a final trial of virtue as of genius, for

both of which a better world is waiting. Virtue and genius seem to me

to be the fairest forms of that complete and constant surrender of self

that Jesus Christ came among men to teach. Genius sheds its light in the

world and lives in poverty all its days, and virtue sacrifices itself in

silence for the general good.”

“I quite agree with you, sir,” said Genestas; “but those who dwell on

earth are men after all, and not angels; we are not perfect.”

“That is quite true,” Benassis answered. “And as for errors, I myself

have abused the indulgence. But ought we not to aim, at any rate, at

perfection? Is not virtue a fair ideal which the soul must always keep

before it, a standard set up by Heaven?”

“Amen,” said the soldier. “An upright man is a magnificent thing, I

grant you; but, on the other hand, you must admit that virtue is a

divinity who may indulge in a scrap of gossip now and then in the

strictest propriety.”

The doctor smiled, but there was a melancholy bitterness in his tone as

he said, “Ah! sir, you regard things with the lenience natural to those

who live at peace with themselves; and I with all the severity of one

who sees much that he would fain obliterate in the story of his life.”

The two horsemen reached a cottage beside the bed of the torrent, the

doctor dismounted and went into the house. Genestas, on the threshold,

looked over the bright spring landscape that lay without, and then at

the dark interior of the cottage, where a man was lying in bed. Benassis

examined his patient, and suddenly exclaimed, “My good woman, it is no

use my coming here unless you carry out my instructions! You have been

giving him bread; you want to kill your husband, I suppose? Botheration!

If after this you give him anything besides the tisane of couch-grass,

I will never set foot in here again, and you can look where you like for

another doctor.”

“But, dear M. Benassis, my old man was starving, and when he had eaten

nothing for a whole fortnight----”

“Oh, yes, yes. Now will you listen to me. If you let your husband eat a

single mouthful of bread before I give him leave to take solid food, you

will kill him, do you hear?”

“He shall not have anything, sir. Is he any better?” she asked,

following the doctor to the door.

“Why, no. You have made him worse by feeding him. Shall I never get

it into your stupid heads that you must not stuff people who are being

dieted?”

“The peasants are incorrigible,” Benassis went on, speaking to Genestas.

“If a patient has eaten nothing for two or three days, they think he is

at death’s door, and they cram him with soup or wine or something. Here

is a wretched woman for you that has all but killed her husband.”

“Kill my husband with a little mite of a sop in wine!”

“Certainly, my good woman. It amazes me that he is still alive after the

mess you cooked for him. Mind that you do exactly as I have told you.”

“Yes, dear sir, I would far rather die myself than lose him.”

“Oh! as to that I shall soon see. I shall come again to-morrow evening

to bleed him.”

“Let us walk along the side of the stream,” Benassis said to Genestas;

“there is only a footpath between this cottage and the next house where

I must pay a call. That man’s little boy will hold our horses.”

“You must admire this lovely valley of ours a little,” he went on;

“it is like an English garden, is it not? The laborer who lives in the

cottage which we are going to visit has never got over the death of one

of his children. The eldest boy, he was only a lad, would try to do a

man’s work last harvest-tide; it was beyond his strength, and before the

autumn was out he died of a decline. This is the first case of really

strong fatherly love that has come under my notice. As a rule, when

their children die, the peasant’s regret is for the loss of a useful

chattel, and a part of their stock-in-trade, and the older the child,

the heavier their sense of loss. A grown-up son or daughter is so much

capital to the parents. But this poor fellow really loved that boy of

his. ‘Nothing cam comfort me for my loss,’ he said one day when I came

across him out in the fields. He had forgotten all about his work, and

was standing there motionless, leaning on his scythe; he had picked up

his hone, it lay in his hand, and he had forgotten to use it. He has

never spoken since of his grief to me, but he has grown sad and silent.

Just now it is one of his little girls who is ill.”

Benassis and his guest reached the little house as they talked. It stood

beside a pathway that led to a bark-mill. They saw a man about forty

years of age, standing under a willow tree, eating bread that had been

rubbed with a clove of garlic.

“Well, Gasnier, is the little one doing better?”

“I do not know, sir,” he said dejectedly, “you will see; my wife is

sitting with her. In spite of all your care, I am very much afraid that

death will come to empty my home for me.”

“Do not lose heart, Gasnier. Death is too busy to take up his abode in

any dwelling.”

Benassis went into the house, followed by the father. Half an hour later

he came out again. The mother was with him this time, and he spoke

to her, “You need have no anxiety about her now; follow out my

instructions; she is out of danger.”

“If you are growing tired of this sort of thing,” the doctor said to the

officer, as he mounted his horse, “I can put you on the way to the town,

and you can return.”

“No, I am not tired of it, I give you my word.”

“But you will only see cottages everywhere, and they are all alike;

nothing, to outward seeming, is more monotonous than the country.”

“Let us go on,” said the officer.

They rode on in this way for several hours, and after going from one

side of the canton to the other, they returned towards evening to the

precincts of the town.

“I must just go over there,” the doctor said to Genestas, as he pointed

out a place where a cluster of elm-trees grew. “Those trees may possibly

be two hundred years old,” he went on, “and that is where the woman

lives, on whose account the lad came to fetch me last night at dinner,

with a message that she had turned quite white.”

“Was it anything serious?”

“No,” said Benassis, “an effect of pregnancy. It is the last month

with her, a time at which some women suffer from spasms. But by way of

precaution, I must go in any case to make sure that there are no further

alarming symptoms; I shall see her through her confinement myself. And,

moreover, I should like to show you one of our new industries; there is

a brick-field here. It is a good road; shall we gallop?”

“Will your animal keep up with mine?” asked Genestas. “Heigh! Neptune!”

he called to his horse, and in a moment the officer had been carried

far ahead, and was lost to sight in a cloud of dust, but in spite of the

paces of his horse he still heard the doctor beside him. At a word from

Benassis his own horse left the commandant so far behind that the latter

only came up with him at the gate of the brick-field, where the doctor

was quietly fastening the bridle to the gate-post.

“The devil take it!” cried Genestas, after a look at the horse, that was

neither sweated nor blown. “What kind of animal have you there?”

“Ah!” said the doctor, “you took him for a screw! The history of this

fine fellow would take up too much time just now; let it suffice to

say that Roustan is a thoroughbred barb from the Atlas mountains, and a

Barbary horse is as good as an Arab. This one of mine will gallop up the

mountain roads without turning a hair, and will never miss his footing

in a canter along the brink of a precipice. He was a present to me, and

I think that I deserved it, for in this way a father sought to repay

me for his daughter’s life. She is one of the wealthiest heiresses in

Europe, and she was at the brink of death when I found her on the road

to Savoy. If I were to tell you how I cured that young lady, you would

take me for a quack. Aha! that is the sound of the bells on the horses

and the rumbling of a wagon; it is coming along this way; let us see,

perhaps that is Vigneau himself; and if so, take a good look at him!”

In another moment the officer saw a team of four huge horses, like those

which are owned by prosperous farmers in Brie. The harness, the little

bells, and the knots of braid in their manes, were clean and smart. The

great wagon itself was painted bright blue, and perched aloft in it

sat a stalwart, sunburned youth, who shouldered his whip like a gun and

whistled a tune.

“No,” said Benassis, “that is only the wagoner. But see how the master’s

prosperity in business is reflected by all his belongings, even by the

carter’s wagon! Is it not a sign of a capacity for business not very

often met with in remote country places?”

“Yes, yes, it all looks very smart indeed,” the officer answered.

“Well, Vigneau has two more wagons and teams like that one, and he has a

small pony besides for business purposes, for he does trade over a wide

area. And only four years ago he had nothing in the world! Stay, that is

a mistake--he had some debts. But let us go in.”

“Is Mme. Vigneau in the house?” Benassis asked of the young wagoner.

“She is out in the garden, sir; I saw her just now by the hedge down

yonder; I will go and tell her that you are here.”

Genestas followed Benassis across a wide open space with a hedge about

it. In one corner various heaps of clay had been piled up, destined for

tiles and pantiles, and a stack of brushwood and logs (fuel for the

kiln no doubt) lay in another part of the enclosure. Farther away some

workmen were pounding chalk stones and tempering the clay in a space

enclosed by hurdles. The tiles, both round and square, were made under

the great elms opposite the gateway, in a vast green arbor bounded by

the roofs of the drying-shed, and near this last the yawning mouth of

the kiln was visible. Some long-handled shovels lay about the worn cider

path. A second row of buildings had been erected parallel with these.

There was a sufficiently wretched dwelling which housed the family, and

some outbuildings--sheds and stables and a barn. The cleanliness that

predominated throughout, and the thorough repair in which everything was

kept, spoke well for the vigilance of the master’s eyes. Some poultry

and pigs wandered at large over the field.

“Vigneau’s predecessor,” said Benassis, “was a good-for-nothing, a lazy

rascal who cared about nothing by drink. He had been a workman himself;

he could keep a fire in his kiln and could put a price on his work, and

that was about all he knew; he had no energy, and no idea of business.

If no one came to buy his wares of him, they simply stayed on hand and

were spoiled, and so he lost the value of them. So he died of want at

last. He had ill-treated his wife till she was almost idiotic, and she

lived in a state of abject wretchedness. It was so painful to see this

laziness and incurable stupidity, and I so much disliked the sight of

the tile-works, that I never came this way if I could help it. Luckily,

both the man and his wife were old people. One fine day the tile-maker

had a paralytic stroke, and I had him removed to the hospital at

Grenoble at once. The owner of the tile-works agreed to take it over

without disputing about its condition, and I looked round for new

tenants who would take their part in improving the industries of the

canton.

“Mme. Gravier’s waiting-maid had married a poor workman, who was earning

so little with the potter who employed him that he could not support his

household. He listened to my advice, and actually had sufficient courage

to take a lease of our tile-works, when he had not so much as a penny.

He came and took up his abode here, taught his wife, her aged mother,

and his own mother how to make tiles, and made workmen of them. How they

managed, I do not know, upon my honor! Vigneau probably borrowed fuel to

heat his kiln, he certainly worked by day, and fetched in his materials

in basket-loads by night; in short, no one knew what boundless energy

he brought to bear upon his enterprise; and the two old mothers, clad in

rags, worked like negroes. In this way Vigneau contrived to fire several

batches, and lived for the first year on bread that was hardly won by

the toil of his household.

“Still, he made a living. His courage, patience, and sterling worth

interested many people in him, and he began to be known. He was

indefatigable. He would hurry over to Grenoble in the morning, and sell

his bricks and tiles there; then he would return home about the middle

of the day, and go back again to the town at night. He seemed to be in

several places at once. Towards the end of the first year he took two

little lads to help him. Seeing how things were, I lent him some

money, and since then from year to year the fortunes of the family have

steadily improved. After the second year was over the two old mothers no

longer moulded bricks nor pounded stones; they looked after the little

gardens, made the soup, mended the clothes, they did spinning in the

evenings, and gathered firewood in the daytime; while the young wife,

who can read and write, kept the accounts. Vigneau had a small horse,

and rode on his business errands about the neighborhood; next he

thoroughly studied the art of brick and tile making, discovering how to

make excellent square white paving-tiles, and sold them for less than

the usual prices. In the third year he had a cart and a pair of horses,

and at the same time his wife’s appearance became almost elegant.

Everything about his household improved with the improvement in his

business, and everywhere there was the same neatness, method, and thrift

that had been the making of his little fortune.

“At last he had work enough for six men, to whom he pays good wages; he

employs a wagoner, and everything about him wears an air of prosperity.

Little by little, in short, by dint of taking pains and extending his

business, his income has increased. He bought the tile-works last year,

and next year he will rebuild his house. To-day all the worthy folk

there are well clothed and in good health. His wife, who used to be so

thin and pale when the burden of her husband’s cares and anxieties used

to press so hardly upon her, has recovered her good looks, and has grown

quite young and pretty again. The two old mothers are thoroughly happy,

and take the deepest interest in every detail of the housekeeping or of

the business. Work has brought money, and the money that brought freedom

from care brought health and plenty and happiness. The story of this

household is a living history in miniature of the Commune since I have

known it, and of all young industrial states. The tile factory that

used to look so empty, melancholy, ill-kept, and useless, is now in full

work, astir with life, and well stocked with everything required. There

is a good stock of wood here, and all the raw material for the season’s

work: for, as you know, tiles can only be made during a few months in

the year, between June and September. Is it not a pleasure to see all

this activity? My tile-maker has done his share of the work in every

building going, always busy--‘the devourer,’ they call him in these

parts.”

Benassis had scarcely finished speaking when the wicket gate which

gave entrance to the garden opened, and a nicely-dressed young woman

appeared. She came forward as quickly as her condition allowed, though

the two horsemen hastened towards her. Her attire somewhat recalled her

former quality of ladies’ maid, for she wore a pretty cap, a pink

dress, a silk apron, and white stockings. Mme. Vigneau in short, was

a nice-looking woman, sufficiently plump, and if she was somewhat

sunburned, her natural complexion must have been very fair. There were

a few lines still left on her forehead, traced there by the troubles

of past days, but she had a bright and winsome face. She spoke in a

persuasive voice, as she saw that the doctor came no further, “Will

you not do me the honor of coming inside and resting for a moment, M.

Benassis?”

“Certainly we will. Come this way, captain.”

“The gentleman must be very hot! Will you take a little milk or some

wine? M. Benassis, please try a little of the wine that my husband has

been so kind as to buy for my confinement. You will tell me if it is

good.”

“You have a good man for your husband.”

“Yes, sir,” she turned and spoke in quiet tones, “I am very well off.”

“We will not take anything, Mme. Vigneau; I only came round this way to

see that nothing troublesome had happened.”

“Nothing,” she said. “I was busy out in the garden, as you saw, turning

the soil over for the sake of something to do.”

Then the two old mothers came out to speak to Benassis, and the young

wagoner planted himself in the middle of the yard, in a spot from whence

he could have a good view of the doctor.

“Let us see, let me have your hand,” said Benassis, addressing Mme.

Vigneau; and as he carefully felt her pulse, he stood in silence,

absorbed in thought. The three women, meanwhile, scrutinized the

commandant with the undisguised curiosity that country people do not

scruple to express.

“Nothing could be better!” cried the doctor cheerily.

“Will she be confined soon?” both the mothers asked together.

“This week beyond a doubt. Is Vigneau away from home?” he asked, after a

pause.

“Yes, sir,” the young wife answered; “he is hurrying about settling

his business affairs, so as to be able to stay at home during my

confinement, the dear man!”

“Well, my children, go on and prosper; continue to increase your wealth

and to add to your family.”

The cleanliness of the almost ruinous dwelling filled Genestas with

admiration.

Benassis saw the officer’s astonishment, and said, “There is no one like

Mme. Vigneau for keeping a house clean and tidy like this. I wish that

several people in the town would come here to take a lesson.”

The tile-maker’s wife blushed and turned her head away; but the faces of

the two old mothers beamed with pleasure at the doctor’s words, and the

three women walked with them to the spot where the horses were waiting.

“Well, now,” the doctor said to the two old women, “here is happiness

for you both! Were you not longing to be grandmothers?”

“Oh, do not talk about it,” said the young wife; “they will drive me

crazy among them. My two mothers wish for a boy, and my husband would

like to have a little girl. It will be very difficult to please them

all, I think.”

“But you yourself,” asked Benassis; “what is your wish?”

“Ah, sir, I wish for a child of my own.”

“There! She is a mother already, you see,” said the doctor to the

officer, as he laid his hand on the bridle of his horse.

“Good-bye, M. Benassis; my husband will be sadly disappointed to learn

that you have been here when he was not at home to see you.”

“He has not forgotten to send the thousand tiles to the

Grange-aux-Belles for me?”

“You know quite well, sir, that he would keep all the orders in the

canton waiting to serve you. Why, taking your money is the thing that

troubles him most; but I always tell him that your crowns bring luck

with them, and so they do.”

“Good-bye,” said Benassis.

A little group gathered about the bars across the entrance to the

tile-works. The three women, the young wagoner, and two workmen who had

left off work to greet the doctor, lingered there to have the pleasure

of being with him until the last moment, as we are wont to linger with

those we love. The promptings of men’s hearts must everywhere be the

same, and in every land friendship expresses itself in the same gracious

ways.

Benassis looked at the height of the sun and spoke to his companion:

“There are still two hours of daylight left; and if you are not too

hungry, we will go to see some one with whom I nearly always spend the

interval between the last of my visits and the hour for dinner. She is

a charming girl whom every one here calls my ‘good friend.’ That is

the name that they usually give to an affianced bride; but you must not

imagine that there is the slightest imputation of any kind implied or

intended by the use of the word in this case. Poor child, the care

that I have taken of her has, as may be imagined, made her an object

of jealousy, but the general opinion entertained as to my character

has prevented any spiteful gossip. If no one understands the apparent

caprice that has led me to make an allowance to La Fosseuse, so that she

can live without being compelled to work, nobody has any doubts as to

her character. I have watched over her with friendly care, and every one

knows that I should never hesitate to marry her if my affection for her

exceeded the limits of friendship. But no woman exists for me here in

the canton or anywhere else,” said the doctor, forcing a smile. “Some

natures feel a tyrannous need to attach themselves to some one thing

or being which they single out from among the beings and things around

them; this need is felt most keenly by a man of quick sympathies, and

all the more pressingly if his life has been made desolate. So, trust

me, it is a favorable sign if a man is strongly attached to his dog

or his horse! Among the suffering flock which chance has given into my

care, this poor little sufferer has come to be for me like the pet

lamb that the shepherd lasses deck with ribbons in my own sunny land of

Languedoc; they talk to it and allow it to find pasture by the side

of the cornfields, and its leisurely pace is never hurried by the

shepherd’s dog.”

Benassis stood with his hand on his horse’s mane as he spoke, ready to

spring into the saddle, but making no effort to do so, as though the

thoughts that stirred in him were but little in keeping with rapid

movements.

“Let us go,” he said at last; “come with me and pay her a visit. I am

taking you to see her; does not that tell you that I treat her as a

sister?”

As they rode on their way again, Genestas said to the doctor, “Will

you regard it as inquisitiveness on my part if I ask to hear more of La

Fosseuse? I have come to know the story of many lives through you, and

hers cannot be less interesting than some of these.”

Benassis stopped his horse as he answered. “Perhaps you will not share

in the feelings of interest awakened in me by La Fosseuse. Her fate

is like my own; we have both alike missed our vocation; it is the

similarity of our lots that occasions my sympathy for her and the

feelings that I experience at the sight of her. You either followed

your natural bent when you entered upon a military career, or you took

a liking for your calling after you had adopted it, otherwise you would

not have borne the heavy yoke of military discipline till now; you,

therefore, cannot understand the sorrows of a soul that must always feel

renewed within it the stir of longings that can never be realized; nor

the pining existence of a creature forced to live in an alien sphere.

Such sufferings as these are known only to these natures and to God who

sends their afflictions, for they alone can know how deeply the events

of life affect them. You yourself have seen the miseries produced by

long wars, till they have almost ceased to impress you, but have you

never detected a trace of sadness in your mind at the sight of a tree

bearing sere leaves in the midst of spring, some tree that is pining and

dying because it has been planted in soil in which it could not find the

sustenance required for its full development? Ever since my twentieth

year, there has been something painful and melancholy for me about the

drooping of a stunted plant, and now I cannot bear the sight and turn my

head away. My youthful sorrow was a vague presentiment of the sorrows of

my later life; it was a kind of sympathy between my present and a future

dimly foreshadowed by the life of the tree that before its time was

going the way of all trees and men.”

“I thought that you had suffered when I saw how kind you were.”

“You see, sir,” the doctor went on without any reply to the remark made

by Genestas, “that to speak of La Fosseuse is to speak of myself. La

Fosseuse is a plant in an alien soil; a human plant moreover, consumed

by sad thoughts that have their source in the depths of her nature, and

that never cease to multiply. The poor girl is never well and strong.

The soul within her kills the body. This fragile creature was suffering

from the sorest of all troubles, a trouble which receives the least

possible sympathy from our selfish world, and how could I look on with

indifferent eyes? for I, a man, strong to wrestle with pain, was nightly

tempted to refuse to bear the burden of a sorrow like hers. Perhaps I

might actually have refused to bear it but for a thought of religion

which soothes my impatience and fills my heart with sweet illusions.

Even if we were not children of the same Father in heaven, La Fosseuse

would still be my sister in suffering!”

Benassis pressed his knees against his horse’s sides, and swept ahead of

Commandant Genestas, as if he shrank from continuing this conversation

any further. When their horses were once more cantering abreast of each

other, he spoke again: “Nature has created this poor girl for sorrow,”

he said, “as she has created other women for joy. It is impossible to

do otherwise than believe in a future life at the sight of natures thus

predestined to suffer. La Fosseuse is sensitive and highly strung. If

the weather is dark and cloudy, she is depressed; she ‘weeps when the

sky is weeping,’ a phrase of her own; she sings with the birds; she

grows happy and serene under a cloudless sky; the loveliness of a bright

day passes into her face; a soft sweet perfume is an inexhaustible

pleasure to her; I have seen her take delight the whole day long in the

scent breathed forth by some mignonette; and, after one of those

rainy mornings that bring out all the soul of the flowers and give

indescribable freshness and brightness to the day, she seems to overflow

with gladness like the green world around her. If it is close and hot,

and there is thunder in the air, La Fosseuse feels a vague trouble

that nothing can soothe. She lies on her bed, complains of numberless

different ills, and does not know what ails her. In answer to my

questions, she tells me that her bones are melting, that she is

dissolving into water; her ‘heart has left her,’ to quote another of her

sayings.

“I have sometimes come upon the poor child suddenly and found her in

tears, as she gazed at the sunset effects we sometimes see here among

our mountains, when bright masses of cloud gather and crowd together

and pile themselves above the golden peaks of the hills. ‘Why are you

crying, little one?’ I have asked her. ‘I do not know, sir,’ has been

the answer; ‘I have grown so stupid with looking up there; I have looked

and looked, till I hardly know where I am.’ ‘But what do you see there?’

‘I cannot tell you, sir,’ and you might question her in this way all the

evening, yet you would never draw a word from her; but she would look at

you, and every glance would seem full of thoughts, or she would sit with

tears in her eyes, scarcely saying a word, apparently rapt in musing.

Those musings of hers are so profound that you fall under the spell of

them; on me, at least, she has the effect of a cloud overcharged with

electricity. One day I plied her with questions; I tried with all my

might to make her talk; at last I let fall a few rather hasty words;

and, well--she burst into tears.

“At other times La Fosseuse is bright and winning, active, merry, and

sprightly; she enjoys talking, and the ideas which she expresses

are fresh and original. She is however quite unable to apply herself

steadily to any kind of work. When she was out in the fields she used to

spend whole hours in looking at a flower, in watching the water flow, in

gazing at the wonders in the depths of the clear, still river pools, at

the picturesque mosaic made up of pebbles and earth and sand, of water

plants and green moss, and the brown soil washed down by the stream,

a deposit full of soft shades of color, and of hues that contrast

strangely with each other.

“When I first came to the district the poor girl was starving. It hurt

her pride to accept the bread of others; and it was only when driven to

the last extremity of want and suffering that she could bring herself to

ask for charity. The feeling that this was a disgrace would often give

her energy, and for several days she worked in the fields; but her

strength was soon exhausted, and illness obliged her to leave the work

that she had begun. She had scarcely recovered when she went to a farm

on the outskirts of the town and asked to be taken on to look after the

cattle; she did her work well and intelligently, but after a while she

left without giving any reason for so doing. The constant toil, day

after day, was no doubt too heavy a yoke for one who is all independence

and caprice. Then she set herself to look for mushrooms or for truffles,

going over to Grenoble to sell them. But the gaudy trifles in the town

were very tempting, the few small coins in her hand seemed to be great

riches; she would forget her poverty and buy ribbons and finery, without

a thought for tomorrow’s bread. But if some other girl here in the

town took a fancy to her brass crucifix, her agate heart or her velvet

ribbon, she would make them over to her at once, glad to give happiness,

for she lives by generous impulses. So La Fosseuse was loved and pitied

and despised by turns. Everything in her nature was a cause of suffering

to her--her indolence, her kindness of heart, her coquetry; for she is

coquettish, dainty, and inquisitive, in short, she is a woman; she is as

simple as a child, and, like a child, she is carried away by her

tastes and her impressions. If you tell her about some noble deed, she

trembles, her color rises, her heart throbs fast, and she sheds tears of

joy; if you begin a story about robbers, she turns pale with terror.

You could not find a more sincere, open-hearted, and scrupulously loyal

nature anywhere; if you were to give a hundred gold pieces into her

keeping, she would bury them in some out-of-the-way nook and beg her

bread as before.”

There was a change in Benassis’ tone as he uttered these last words.

“I once determined to put her to the proof,” he said, “and I repented

of it. It is like espionage to bring a test to bear upon another, is it

not? It means that we suspect them at any rate.”

Here the doctor paused, as though some inward reflection engrossed him;

he was quite unconscious of the embarrassment that his last remark had

caused to his companion, who busied himself with disentangling the reins

in order to hide his confusion. Benassis soon resumed his talk.

“I should like to find a husband for my Fosseuse. I should be glad to

make over one of my farms to some good fellow who would make her

happy. And she would be happy. The poor girl would love her children

to distraction; for motherhood, which develops the whole of a woman’s

nature, would give full scope to her overflowing sentiments. She has

never cared for any one, however. Yet her impressionable nature is

a danger to her. She knows this herself, and when she saw that I

recognized it, she admitted the excitability of her temperament to me.

She belongs to the small minority of women whom the slightest contact

with others causes to vibrate perilously; so that she must be made to

value herself on her discretion and her womanly pride. She is as wild

and shy as a swallow! Ah! what a wealth of kindness there is in her!

Nature meant her to be a rich woman; she would be so beneficent: for

a well-loved woman; she would be so faithful and true. She is only

twenty-two years old, and is sinking already beneath the weight of her

soul; a victim to highly-strung nerves, to an organization either too

delicate or too full of power. A passionate love for a faithless lover

would drive her mad, my poor Fosseuse! I have made a study of her

temperament, recognized the reality of her prolonged nervous attacks,

and of the swift mysterious recurrence of her uplifted moods. I found

that they were immediately dependent on atmospheric changes and on the

variations of the moon, a fact which I have carefully verified; and

since then I have cared for her, as a creature unlike all others, for

she is a being whose ailing existence I alone can understand. As I

have told you, she is the pet lamb. But you shall see her; this is her

cottage.”

They had come about one-third of the way up the mountain side. Low

bushes grew on either hand along the steep paths which they were

ascending at a foot pace. At last, at a turn in one of the paths,

Genestas saw La Fosseuse’s dwelling, which stood on one of the largest

knolls on the mountain. Around it was a green sloping space of lawn

about three acres in extent, planted with trees, and surrounded by a

wall high enough to serve as a fence, but not so high as to shut out the

view of the landscape. Several rivulets that had their source in this

garden formed little cascades among the trees. The brick-built cottage

with a low roof that projected several feet was a charming detail in the

landscape. It consisted of a ground floor and a single story, and stood

facing the south. All the windows were in the front of the house, for

its small size and lack of depth from back to front made other openings

unnecessary. The doors and shutters were painted green, and the

underside of the penthouses had been lined with deal boards in the

German fashion, and painted white. The rustic charm of the whole little

dwelling lay in its spotless cleanliness.

Climbing plants and briar roses grew about the house; a great walnut

tree had been allowed to remain among the flowering acacias and trees

that bore sweet-scented blossoms, and a few weeping willows had been

set by the little streams in the garden space. A thick belt of pines and

beeches grew behind the house, so that the picturesque little dwelling

was brought out into strong relief by the sombre width of background.

At that hour of the day, the air was fragrant with the scents from the

hillsides and the perfume from La Fosseuse’s garden. The sky overhead

was clear and serene, but low clouds hung on the horizon, and the

far-off peaks had begun to take the deep rose hues that the sunset often

brings. At the height which they had reached the whole valley lay before

their eyes, from distant Grenoble to the little lake at the foot of the

circle of crags by which Genestas had passed on the previous day. Some

little distance above the house a line of poplars on the hill indicated

the highway that led to Grenoble. Rays of sunlight fell slantwise across

the little town which glittered like a diamond, for the soft red light

which poured over it like a flood was reflected by all its window-panes.

Genestas reined in his horse at the sight, and pointed to the dwellings

in the valley, to the new town, and to La Fosseuse’s house.

“Since the victory of Wagram, and Napoleon’s return to the Tuileries in

1815,” he said, with a sigh, “nothing has so stirred me as the sight of

all this. I owe this pleasure to you, sir, for you have taught me to see

beauty in a landscape.”

“Yes,” said the doctor, smiling as he spoke, “It is better to build

towns than to storm them.”

“Oh! sir, how about the taking of Moscow and the surrender of Mantua!

Why, you do not really know what that means! Is it not a glory for all

of us? You are a good man, but Napoleon also was a good man. If it had

not been for England, you both would have understood each other, and

our Emperor would never have fallen. There are no spies here,” said the

officer, looking around him, “and I can say openly that I love him, now

that he is dead! What a ruler! He knew every man when he saw him!

He would have made you a Councillor of State, for he was a great

administrator himself; even to the point of knowing how many cartridges

were left in the men’s boxes after an action. Poor man! While you were

talking about La Fosseuse, I thought of him, and how he was lying dead

in St. Helena! Was that the kind of climate and country to suit _him_,

whose seat had been a throne, and who had lived with his feet in the

stirrups; hein? They say that he used to work in the garden. The

deuce! He was not made to plant cabbages.... And now we must serve the

Bourbons, and loyally, sir; for, after all, France is France, as you

were saying yesterday.”

Genestas dismounted as he uttered these last words, and mechanically

followed the example set by Benassis, who fastened his horse’s bridle to

a tree.

“Can she be away?” said the doctor, when he did not see La Fosseuse on

the threshold. They went into the house, but there was no one in the

sitting room on the ground floor.

“She must have heard the sound of a second horse,” said Benassis, with

a smile, “and has gone upstairs to put on her cap, or her sash, or some

piece of finery.”

He left Genestas alone, and went upstairs in search of La Fosseuse.

The commandant made a survey of the room. He noticed the pattern of the

paper that covered the walls--roses scattered over a gray background,

and the straw matting that did duty for a carpet on the floor. The

armchair, the table, and the smaller chairs were made of wood from which

the bark had not been removed. The room was not without ornament; some

flower-stands, as they might be called, made of osiers and wooden hoops,

had been filled with moss and flowers, and the windows were draped by

white dimity curtains bordered with a scarlet fringe. There was a mirror

above the chimney-piece, where a plain china jar stood between two

candlesticks. Some calico lay on the table; shirts, apparently, had

been cut out and begun, several pairs of gussets were finished, and

a work-basket, scissors, needles and thread, and all a needle-woman’s

requirements lay beside them. Everything was as fresh and clean as

a shell that the sea had tossed up on the beach. Genestas saw that a

kitchen lay on the other side of the passage, and that the staircase

was at the further end of it. The upper story, like the ground floor,

evidently consisted of two rooms only. “Come, do not be frightened,”

Benassis was saying to La Fosseuse; “come down-stairs!”

Genestas promptly retreated into the sitting-room when he heard these

words, and in another moment a slender girl, well and gracefully made,

appeared in the doorway. She wore a gown of cambric, covered with narrow

pink stripes, and cut low at the throat, so as to display a muslin

chemisette. Shyness and timidity had brought the color to a face which

had nothing very remarkable about it save a certain flatness of feature

which called to mind the Cossack and Russian countenances that since

the disasters of 1814 have unfortunately come to be so widely known in

France. La Fosseuse was, in fact, very like these men of the North. Her

nose turned up at the end, and was sunk in her face, her mouth was wide

and her chin small, her hands and arms were red and, like her feet, were

of the peasant type, large and strong. Although she had been used to an

outdoor life, to exposure to the sun and the scorching summer winds, her

complexion had the bleached look of withered grass; but after the first

glance this made her face more interesting, and there was such a sweet

expression in her blue eyes, so much grace about her movements, and such

music in her voice, that little as her features seemed to harmonize

with the disposition which Benassis had praised to the commandant, the

officer recognized in her the capricious and ailing creature, condemned

to suffering by a nature that had been thwarted in its growth.

La Fosseuse deftly stirred the fire of dry branches and turfs of peat,

then sat down in an armchair and took up one of the shirts that she had

begun. She sat there under the officer’s eyes, half bashful, afraid to

look up, and calm to all appearance; but her bodice rose and fell

with the rapid breathing that betrayed her nervousness, and it struck

Genestas that her figure was very graceful.

“Well, my poor child, is your work going on nicely?” said Benassis,

taking up the material intended for the shirts, and passing it through

his fingers.

La Fosseuse gave the doctor a timid and beseeching glance.

“Do not scold me, sir,” she entreated; “I have not touched them to-day,

although they were ordered by you, and for people who need them very

badly. But the weather has been so fine! I wandered out and picked

a quantity of mushrooms and white truffles, and took them over to

Jacquotte; she was very pleased, for some people are coming to dinner.

I was so glad that I thought of it; something seemed to tell me to go to

look for them.”

She began to ply her needle again.

“You have a very pretty house here, mademoiselle,” said Genestas,

addressing her.

“It is not mine at all, sir,” she said, looking at the stranger, and her

eyes seemed to grow red and tearful; “it belongs to M. Benassis,” and

she turned towards the doctor with a gentle expression on her face.

“You know quite well, my child, that you will never have to leave it,”

he said, as he took her hand in his.

La Fosseuse suddenly rose and left the room.

“Well,” said the doctor, addressing the officer, “what do you think of

her?”

“There is something strangely touching about her,” Genestas answered.

“How very nicely you have fitted up this little nest of hers!”

“Bah! a wall-paper at fifteen or twenty sous; it was carefully chosen,

but that was all. The furniture is nothing very much either, my

basket-maker made it for me; he wanted to show his gratitude; and La

Fosseuse made the curtains herself out of a few yards of calico. This

little house of hers, and her simple furniture, seem pretty to you,

because you come upon them up here on a hillside in a forlorn part of

the world where you did not expect to find things clean and tidy. The

reason of the prettiness is a kind of harmony between the little house

and its surroundings. Nature has set picturesque groups of trees and

running streams about it, and has scattered her fairest flowers among

the grass, her sweet-scented wild strawberry blossoms, and her lovely

violets.... Well, what is the matter?” asked Benassis, as La Fosseuse

came back to them.

“Oh! nothing, nothing,” she answered. “I fancied that one of my chickens

was missing, and had not been shut up.”

Her remark was disingenuous, but this was only noticed by the doctor,

who said in her ear, “You have been crying!”

“Why do you say things like that to me before some one else?” she asked

in reply.

“Mademoiselle,” said Genestas, “it is a great pity that you live here

all by yourself; you ought to have a mate in such a charming cage as

this.”

“That is true,” she said, “but what would you have? I am poor, and I

am hard to please. I feel that it would not suit me at all to carry the

soup out into the fields, nor to push a hand-cart; to feel the misery

of those whom I should love, and have no power to put an end to it; to

carry my children in my arms all day, and patch and re-patch a man’s

rags. The cure tells me that such thoughts as these are not very

Christian; I know that myself, but how can I help it? There are days

when I would rather eat a morsel of dry bread than cook anything for

my dinner. Why would you have me worry some man’s life out with my

failings? He would perhaps work himself to death to satisfy my whims,

and that would not be right. Pshaw! an unlucky lot has fallen to me, and

I ought to bear it by myself.”

“And besides, she is a born do-nothing,” said Benassis. “We must take

my poor Fosseuse as we find her. But all that she has been saying to you

simply means that she has never loved as yet,” he added, smiling. Then

he rose and went out on to the lawn for a moment.

“You must be very fond of M. Benassis?” asked Genestas.

“Oh! yes, sir; and there are plenty of people hereabouts who feel as I

do--that they would be glad to do anything in the world for him. And yet

he who cures other people has some trouble of his own that nothing can

cure. You are his friend, perhaps you know what it is? Who could have

given pain to such a man, who is the very image of God on earth? I know

a great many who think that the corn grows faster if he has passed by

their field in the morning.”

“And what do you think yourself?”

“I, sir? When I have seen him,” she seemed to hesitate, then she went

on, “I am happy all the rest of the day.”

She bent her head over her work, and plied her needle with unwonted

swiftness.

“Well, has the captain been telling you something about Napoleon?” said

the doctor, as he came in again.

“Have you seen the Emperor, sir?” cried La Fosseuse, gazing at the

officer’s face with eager curiosity.

“_Parbleu!_” said Genestas, “hundreds of times!”

“Oh! how I should like to know something about the army!”

“Perhaps we will come to take a cup of coffee with you to-morrow, and

you shall hear ‘something about the army,’ dear child,” said Benassis,

who laid his hand on her shoulder and kissed her brow. “She is my

daughter, you see!” he added, turning to the commandant; “there is

something wanting in the day, somehow, when I have not kissed her

forehead.”

La Fosseuse held Benassis’ hand in a tight clasp as she murmured, “Oh!

you are very kind!”

They left the house; but she came after them to see them mount. She

waited till Genestas was in the saddle, and then whispered in Benassis’

ear, “Tell me who that gentleman is?”

“Aha!” said the doctor, putting a foot in the stirrup, “a husband for

you, perhaps.”

She stood on the spot where they left her, absorbed in watching their

progress down the steep path; and when they came past the end of the

garden, they saw her already perched on a little heap of stones, so that

she might still keep them in view and give them a last nod of farewell.

“There is something very unusual about that girl, sir,” Genestas said to

the doctor when they had left the house far behind.

“There is, is there not?” he answered. “Many a time I have said to

myself that she will make a charming wife, but I can only love her as a

sister or a daughter, and in no other way; my heart is dead.”

“Has she any relations?” asked Genestas. “What did her father and mother

do?”

“Oh, it is quite a long story,” answered Benassis. “Neither her father

nor mother nor any of her relations are living. Everything about her

down to her name interested me. La Fosseuse was born here in the town.

Her father, a laborer from Saint Laurent du Pont, was nicknamed _Le

Fosseur_, which is no doubt a contraction of _fossoyeur_, for the

office of sexton had been in his family time out of mind. All the sad

associations of the graveyard hang about the name. Here as in some other

parts of France, there is an old custom, dating from the times of the

Latin civilization, in virtue of which a woman takes her husband’s name,

with the addition of a feminine termination, and this girl has been

called La Fosseuse, after her father.

“The laborer had married the waiting-woman of some countess or other

who owns an estate at a distance of a few leagues. It was a love-match.

Here, as in all country districts, love is a very small element in

a marriage. The peasant, as a rule, wants a wife who will bear him

children, a housewife who will make good soup and take it out to him in

the fields, who will spin and make his shirts and mend his clothes. Such

a thing had not happened for a long while in a district where a young

man not unfrequently leaves his betrothed for another girl who is richer

by three or four acres of land. The fate of Le Fosseur and his wife

was scarcely happy enough to induce our Dauphinois to forsake their

calculating habits and practical way of regarding things. La Fosseuse,

who was a very pretty woman, died when her daughter was born, and her

husband’s grief for his loss was so great that he followed her within

the year, leaving nothing in the world to this little one except an

existence whose continuance was very doubtful--a mere feeble flicker of

a life. A charitable neighbor took the care of the baby upon herself,

and brought her up till she was nine years old. Then the burden of

supporting La Fosseuse became too heavy for the good woman; so at the

time of year when travelers are passing along the roads, she sent her

charge to beg for her living upon the highways.

“One day the little orphan asked for bread at the countess’ chateau, and

they kept the child for her mother’s sake. She was to be waiting-maid

some day to the daughter of the house, and was brought up to this end.

Her young mistress was married five years later; but meanwhile the poor

little thing was the victim of all the caprices of wealthy people, whose

beneficence for the most part is not to be depended upon even while

it lasts. They are generous by fits and starts--sometimes patrons,

sometimes friends, sometimes masters, in this way they falsify the

already false position of the poor children in whom they interest

themselves, and trifle with the hearts, the lives, and futures of their

protegees, whom they regard very lightly. From the first La Fosseuse

became almost a companion to the young heiress; she was taught to read

and write, and her future mistress sometimes amused herself by giving

her music lessons. She was treated sometimes as a lady’s companion,

sometimes as a waiting-maid, and in this way they made an incomplete

being of her. She acquired a taste for luxury and for dress, together

with manners ill-suited to her real position. She has been roughly

schooled by misfortune since then, but the vague feeling that she is

destined for a higher lot has not been effaced in her.

“A day came at last, however, a fateful day for the poor girl, when the

young countess (who was married by this time) discovered La Fosseuse

arrayed in one of her ball dresses, and dancing before a mirror. La

Fosseuse was no longer anything but a waiting-maid, and the orphan girl,

then sixteen years of age, was dismissed without pity. Her idle ways

plunged her once more into poverty; she wandered about begging by the

roadside, and working at times as I have told you. Sometimes she thought

of drowning herself, sometimes also of giving herself to the first

comer; she spent most of her time thinking dark thoughts, lying by

the side of a wall in the sun, with her face buried in the grass, and

passers-by would sometimes throw a few halfpence to her, simply because

she asked them for nothing. One whole year she spent in a hospital at

Annecy after heavy toil in the harvest field; she had only undertaken

the work in the hope that it would kill her, and that so she might die.

You should hear her herself when she speaks of her feelings and ideas

during this time of her life; her simple confidences are often very

curious.

“She came back to the little town at last, just about the time when I

decided to take up my abode in it. I wanted to understand the minds of

the people beneath my rule; her character struck me, and I made a

study of it; then when I became aware of her physical infirmities, I

determined to watch over her. Perhaps in time she may grow accustomed to

work with her needle, but, whatever happens, I have secured her future.”

“She is quite alone up there!” said Genestas.

“No. One of my herdswomen sleeps in the house,” the doctor answered.

“You did not see my farm buildings which lie behind the house. They are

hidden by the pine-trees. Oh! she is quite safe. Moreover, there are no

mauvais sujets here in the valley; if any come among us by any chance, I

send them into the army, where they make excellent solders.”

“Poor girl!” said Genestas.

“Oh! the folk round about do not pity her at all,” said Benassis; “on

the other hand, they think her very lucky; but there is this difference

between her and the other women: God has given strength to them and

weakness to her, and they do not see that.”

The moment that the two horsemen came out upon the road to Grenoble,

Benassis stopped with an air of satisfaction; a different view had

suddenly opened out before them; he foresaw its effect upon Genestas,

and wished to enjoy his surprise. As far as the eye could see, two green

walls sixty feet high rose above a road which was rounded like a garden

path. The trees had not been cut or trimmed, each one preserved the

magnificent palm-branch shape that makes the Lombard poplar one of the

grandest of trees; there they stood, a natural monument which a man

might well be proud of having reared. The shadow had already reached one

side of the road, transforming it into a vast wall of black leaves,

but the setting sun shone full upon the other side, which stood out in

contrast, for the young leaves at the tips of every branch had been

dyed a bright golden hue, and, as the breeze stirred through the waving

curtain, it gleamed in the light.

“You must be very happy here!” cried Genestas. “The sight of this must

be all pleasure to you.”

“The love of Nature is the only love that does not deceive human hopes.

There is no disappointment here,” said the doctor. “Those poplars are

ten years old; have you ever seen any that are better grown than these

of mine?”

“God is great!” said the soldier, coming to a stand in the middle of the

road, of which he saw neither beginning nor end.

“You do me good,” cried Benassis. “It was a pleasure to hear you say

over again what I have so often said in the midst of this avenue. There

is something holy about this place. Here, we are like two mere specks;

and the feeling of our own littleness always brings us into the presence

of God.”

They rode on slowly and in silence, listening to their horses’

hoof-beats; the sound echoed along the green corridor as it might have

done beneath the vaulted roof of a cathedral.

“How many things have a power to stir us which town-dwellers do not

suspect,” said the doctor. “Do you not notice the sweet scent given

off by the gum of the poplar buds, and the resin of the larches? How

delightful it is!”

“Listen!” exclaimed Genestas. “Let us wait a moment.”

A distant sound of singing came to their ears.

“Is it a woman or a man, or is it a bird?” asked the commandant in a low

voice. “Is it the voice of this wonderful landscape?”

“It is something of all these things,” the doctor answered, as he

dismounted and fastened his horse to a branch of a poplar tree.

He made a sign to the officer to follow his example and to come with

him. They went slowly along a footpath between two hedges of blossoming

hawthorn which filled the damp evening air with its delicate fragrance.

The sun shone full into the pathway; the light and warmth were very

perceptible after the shade thrown by the long wall of poplar trees; the

still powerful rays poured a flood of red light over a cottage at the

end of the stony track. The ridge of the cottage roof was usually a

bright green with its overgrowth of mosses and house-leeks, and the

thatch was brown as a chestnut shell, but just now it seemed to be

powdered with a golden dust. The cottage itself was scarcely visible

through the haze of light; the ruinous wall, the doorway and everything

about it was radiant with a fleeting glory and a beauty due to chance,

such as is sometimes seen for an instant in a human face, beneath the

influence of a strong emotion that brings warmth and color into it. In

a life under the open sky and among the fields, the transient and tender

grace of such moments as these draws from us the wish of the apostle who

said to Jesus Christ upon the mountain, “Let us build a tabernacle and

dwell here.”

The wide landscape seemed at that moment to have found a voice whose

purity, and sweetness equaled its own sweetness and purity, a voice as

mournful as the dying light in the west--for a vague reminder of Death

is divinely set in the heavens, and the sun above gives the same warning

that is given here on earth by the flowers and the bright insects of the

day. There is a tinge of sadness about the radiance of sunset, and the

melody was sad. It was a song widely known in the days of yore, a ballad

of love and sorrow that once had served to stir a national hatred of

France for England. Beaumarchais, in a later day, had given it back its

true poetry by adapting it for the French theatre and putting it into

the mouth of a page, who pours out his heart to his stepmother. Just

now it was simply the air that rose and fell. There were no words; the

plaintive voice of the singer touched and thrilled the soul.

“It is the swan’s song,” said Benassis. “That voice does not sound twice

in a century for human ears. Let us hurry; we must put a stop to the

singing! The child is killing himself; it would be cruel to listen to

him any longer. Be quiet, Jacques! Come, come, be quiet!” cried the

doctor.

The music ceased. Genestas stood motionless and overcome with

astonishment. A cloud had drifted across the sun, the landscape and the

voice were both mute. Shadow, chillness, and silence had taken the place

of the soft glory of the light, the warm breath of the breeze, and the

child’s singing.

“What makes you disobey me?” asked Benassis. “I shall not bring you any

more rice pudding nor snail broth! No more fresh dates and white bread

for you! So you want to die and break your poor mother’s heart, do you?”

Genestas came into a little yard, which was sufficiently clean and

tidily kept, and saw before him a lad of fifteen, who looked as delicate

as a woman. His hair was fair but scanty, and the color in his face

was so bright that it seemed hardly natural. He rose up slowly from the

bench where he was sitting, beneath a thick bush of jessamine and some

blossoming lilacs that were running riot, so that he was almost hidden

among the leaves.

“You know very well,” said the doctor, “that I told you not to talk, not

to expose yourself to the chilly evening air, and to go to bed as soon

as the sun was set. What put it into your head to sing?”

“_Dame!_ M. Benassis, it was so very warm out here, and it is so nice

to feel warm! I am always cold. I felt so happy that without thinking I

began to try over _Malbrouk s’en va-t-en guerre_, just for fun, and

then I began to listen to myself because my voice was something like the

sound of the flute your shepherd plays.”

“Well, my poor Jacques, this must not happen again; do you hear? Let me

have your hand,” and the doctor felt his pulse.

The boy’s eyes had their usual sweet expression, but just now they shone

with a feverish light.

“It is just as I thought, you are covered with perspiration,” said

Benassis. “Your mother has not come in yet?”

“No, sir.”

“Come! go in-doors and get into bed.”

The young invalid went back into the cottage, followed by Benassis and

the officer.

“Just light a candle, Captain Bluteau,” said the doctor, who was helping

Jacques to take off his rough, tattered clothing.

When Genestas had struck a light, and the interior of the room was

visible, he was surprised by the extreme thinness of the child, who

seemed to be little more than skin and bone. When the little peasant had

been put to bed, Benassis tapped the lad’s chest, and listened to

the ominous sounds made in this way by his fingers; then, after some

deliberation, he drew back the coverlet over Jacques, stepped back a

few paces, folded his arms across his chest, and closely scrutinized his

patient.

“How do you feel, my little man?”

“Quite comfortable, sir.”

A table, with four spindle legs, stood in the room; the doctor drew

it up to the bed, found a tumbler and a phial on the mantel-shelf, and

composed a draught, by carefully measuring a few drops of brown liquid

from the phial into some water, Genestas holding the light the while.

“Your mother is very late.”

“She is coming, sir,” said the child; “I can hear her footsteps on the

path.”

The doctor and the officer looked around them while they waited. At the

foot of the bed there was a sort of mattress made of moss, on which,

doubtless, the mother was wont to sleep in her clothes, for there were

neither sheets nor coverlet. Genestas pointed out this bed to Benassis,

who nodded slightly to show that he likewise had already admired this

motherly devotion. There was a clatter of sabots in the yard, and the

doctor went out.

“You will have to sit up with Jacques to-night, Mother Colas. If he

tells you that his breathing is bad, you must let him drink some of the

draught that I have poured into the tumbler on the table. Take care not

to let him have more than two or three sips at a time; there ought to

be enough in the tumbler to last him all through the night. Above all

things, do not touch the phial, and change the child’s clothing at once.

He is perspiring heavily.”

“I could not manage to wash his shirts to-day, sir; I had to take the

hemp over to Grenoble, as we wanted the money.”

“Very well, then, I will send you some shirts.”

“Then is he worse, my poor lad?” asked the woman.

“He has been so imprudent as to sing, Mother Colas; and it is not to be

expected that any good can come of it; but do not be hard upon him, nor

scold him. Do not be down-hearted about it; and if Jacques complains

overmuch, send a neighbor to fetch me. Good-bye.”

The doctor called to his friend, and they went back along the foot-path.

“Is that little peasant consumptive?” asked Genestas.

“_Mon Dieu_! yes,” answered Benassis. “Science cannot save him, unless

Nature works a miracle. Our professors at the Ecole de Médecine in

Paris often used to speak to us of the phenomenon which you have

just witnessed. Some maladies of this kind bring about changes in the

voice-producing organs that give the sufferer a short-lived power

of song that no trained voice can surpass. I have made you spend a

melancholy day, sir,” said the doctor when he was once more in

the saddle. “Suffering and death everywhere, but everywhere also

resignation. All these peasant folk take death philosophically; they

fall ill, say nothing about it, and take to their beds like dumb

animals. But let us say no more about death, and let us quicken our

horses’ paces a little; we ought to reach the town before nightfall, so

that you may see the new quarter.”

“Eh! some place is on fire over there,” said Genestas, pointing to a

spot on the mountain, where a sheaf of flames was rising.

“It is not a dangerous fire. Our lime-burner is heating his kiln,

no doubt. It is a newly-started industry, which turns our heather to

account.”

There was the sudden report of a gun, followed by an involuntary

exclamation from Benassis, who said, with an impatient gesture, “If that

is Butifer, we shall see which of us two is the stronger.”

“The shot came from that quarter,” said Genestas, indicating a

beech-wood up above them on the mountain side. “Yes, up there; you may

trust an old soldier’s ear.”

“Let us go there at once!” cried Benassis, and he made straight for the

little wood, urging his horse at a furious speed across the ditches and

fields, as if he were riding a steeplechase, in his anxiety to catch the

sportsman red-handed.

“The man you are after has made off,” shouted Genestas, who could

scarcely keep up with him.

Benassis wheeled his horse round sharply, and came back again. The man

of whom he was in search soon appeared on the top of a perpendicular

crag, a hundred feet above the level of the two horsemen.

“Butifer!” shouted Benassis when he saw that this figure carried a

fowling-piece; “come down!”

Butifer recognized the doctor, and replied by a respectful and friendly

sign which showed that he had every intention of obeying.

“I can imagine that if a man were driven to it by fear or by some

overmastering impulse that he might possibly contrive to scramble up to

that point among the rocks,” said Genestas; “but how will he manage to

come down again?”

“I have no anxiety on that score,” answered Benassis; “the wild goats

must feel envious of that fellow yonder! You will see.”

The emergencies of warfare had accustomed the commandant to gauge the

real worth of men; he admired the wonderful quickness of Butifer’s

movements, the sure-footed grace with which the hunter swung himself

down the rugged sides of the crag, to the top of which he had so boldly

climbed. The strong, slender form of the mountaineer was gracefully

poised in every attitude which the precipitous nature of the path

compelled him to assume; and so certain did he seem of his power to hold

on at need, that if the pinnacle of rock on which he took his stand had

been a level floor, he could not have set his foot down upon it

more calmly. He carried his fowling-piece as if it had been a light

walking-cane. Butifer was a young man of middle height, thin, muscular,

and in good training; his beauty was of a masculine order, which

impressed Genestas on a closer view.

Evidently he belonged to the class of smugglers who ply their trade

without resorting to violent courses, and who only exert patience and

craft to defraud the government. His face was manly and sunburned. His

eyes, which were bright as an eagle’s, were of a clear yellow color, and

his sharply-cut nose with its slight curve at the tip was very much like

an eagle’s beak. His cheeks were covered with down, his red lips were

half open, giving a glimpse of a set of teeth of dazzling whiteness. His

beard, moustache, and the reddish whiskers, which he allowed to grow,

and which curled naturally, still further heightened the masculine

and forbidding expression of his face. Everything about him spoke of

strength. He was broad-chested; constant activity had made the

muscles of his hands curiously firm and prominent. There was the

quick intelligence of a savage about his glances; he looked resolute,

fearless, and imperturbable, like a man accustomed to put his life in

peril, and whose physical and mental strength had been so often tried by

dangers of every kind, that he no longer felt any doubts about himself.

He wore a blouse that had suffered a good deal from thorns and briars,

and he had a pair of leather soles bound to his feet by eel-skin thongs,

and a pair of torn and tattered blue linen breeches through which his

legs were visible, red, wiry, hard, and muscular as those of a stag.

“There you see the man who once fired a shot at me,” Benassis remarked

to the commandant in a low voice. “If at this moment I were to signify

to him my desire to be rid of any one, he would kill them without

scruple.--Butifer!” he went on, addressing the poacher, “I fully

believed you to be a man of your word; I pledged mine for you because I

had your promise. My promise to the _procureur du roi_ at Grenoble was

based upon your vow never to go poaching again, and to turn over a new

leaf and become a steady, industrious worker. You fired that shot just

now, and here you are, on the Comte de Labranchoir’s estate! Eh! you

miscreant? Suppose his keeper had happened to hear you? It is a lucky

thing for you that I shall take no formal cognizance of this offence; if

I did, you would come up as an old offender, and of course you have no

gun license! I let you keep that gun of yours out of tenderness for your

attachment to the weapon.”

“It is a beauty,” said the commandant, who recognized a duck gun from

Sainte Etienne.

The smuggler raised his head and looked at Genestas by way of

acknowledging the compliment.

“Butifer,” continued Benassis, “if your conscience does not reproach

you, it ought to do so. If you are going to begin your old tricks again,

you will find yourself once more in a park enclosed by four stone walls,

and no power on earth will save you from the hulks; you will be a marked

man, and your character will be ruined. Bring your gun to me to-night, I

will take care of it for you.”

Butifer gripped the barrel of his weapon in a convulsive clutch.

“You are right, sir,” he said; “I have done wrong, I have broken bounds,

I am a cur. My gun ought to go to you, but when you take it away from

me, you take all that I have in the world. The last shot which my

mother’s son will fire shall be through my own head.... What would you

have? I did as you wanted me. I kept quiet all winter; but the spring

came, and the sap rose. I am not used to day labor. It is not in my

nature to spend my life in fattening fowls; I cannot stoop about turning

over the soil for vegetables, nor flourish a whip and drive a cart, nor

scrub down a horse in a stable all my life, so I must die of starvation,

I suppose? I am only happy when I am up there,” he went on after a

pause, pointing to the mountains. “And I have been about among the hills

for the past week; I got a sight of a chamois, and I have the chamois

there,” he said, pointing to the top of the crag; “it is at your

service! Dear M. Benassis, leave me my gun. Listen! I will leave the

Commune, _foi de Butifer_! I will go to the Alps; the chamois-hunters

will not say a word; on the contrary, they will receive me with open

arms. I shall come to grief at the bottom of some glacier; but, if I am

to speak my mind, I would rather live for a couple of years among the

heights, where there are no governments, nor excisemen, nor gamekeepers,

nor procureurs du roi, than grovel in a marsh for a century. You are

the only one that I shall be sorry to leave behind; all the rest of them

bore me! When you are in the right, at any rate you don’t worry one’s

life out----”

“And how about Louise?” asked Benassis. Butifer paused and turned

thoughtful.

“Eh! learn to read and write, my lad,” said Genestas; “come and enlist

in my regiment, have a horse to ride, and turn carabineer. If they

once sound ‘to horse’ for something like a war, you will find out

that Providence made you to live in the midst of cannon, bullets, and

battalions, and they will make a general of you.”

“Ye-es, if Napoleon was back again,” answered Butifer.

“You know our agreement,” said the doctor. “At the second infraction of

it, you undertook to go for a soldier. I give you six months in which to

learn to read and write, and then I will find some young gentleman who

wants a substitute.”

Butifer looked at the mountains.

“Oh! you shall not go to the Alps,” cried Benassis. “A man like you, a

man of his word, with plenty of good stuff in him, ought to serve his

country and command a brigade, and not come to his end trailing after

a chamois. The life that you are leading will take you straight to the

convict’s prison. After over-fatiguing yourself, you are obliged to take

a long rest; and, in the end, you will fall into idle ways that will be

the ruin of any notions of orderly existence that you have; you will get

into the habit of putting your strength to bad uses, and you will take

the law into your own hands. I want to put you, in spite of yourself,

into the right path.”

“So I am to pine and fret myself to death? I feel suffocated whenever I

am in a town. I cannot hold out for more than a day, in Grenoble, when I

take Louise there----”

“We all have our whims, which we must manage to control, or turn them to

account for our neighbor’s benefit. But it is late, and I am in a hurry.

Come to see me to-morrow, and bring your gun along with you. We will

talk this over, my boy. Good-bye. Go and sell your chamois in Grenoble.”

The two horsemen went on their way.

“That is what I call a man,” said Genestas.

“A man in a bad way,” answered Benassis. “But what help is there for it?

You heard what he said. Is it not lamentable to see such fine qualities

running to waste? If France were invaded by a foreign foe, Butifer at

the head of a hundred young fellows would keep a whole division busy in

Maurienne for a month; but in a time of peace the only outlets for his

energy are those which set the law at defiance. He must wrestle with

something; whenever he is not risking his neck he is at odds with

society, he lends a helping hand to smugglers. The rogue will cross the

Rhone, all by himself, in a little boat, to take shoes over into Savoy;

he makes good his retreat, heavy laden as he is, to some inaccessible

place high up among the hills, where he stays for two days at a time,

living on dry crusts. In short, danger is as welcome to him as sleep

would be to anybody else, and by dint of experience he has acquired a

relish for extreme sensations that has totally unfitted him for ordinary

life. It vexes me that a man like that should take a wrong turn and

gradually go to the bad, become a bandit, and die on the gallows. But,

see, captain, how our village looks from here!”

Genestas obtained a distant view of a wide circular space, planted with

trees, a fountain surrounded by poplars stood in the middle of it.

Round the enclosure were high banks on which a triple line of trees of

different kinds were growing; the first row consisted of acacias,

the second of Japanese varnish trees, and some young elms grew on the

highest row of all.

“That is where we hold our fair,” said Benassis. “That is the beginning

of the High Street, by those two handsome houses that I told you about;

one belongs to the notary, and the other to the justice of the peace.”

They came at that moment into a broad road, fairly evenly paved with

large cobble-stones. There were altogether about a hundred new houses on

either side of it, and almost every house stood in a garden.

The view of the church with its doorway made a pretty termination to

this road. Two more roads had been recently planned out half-way down

the course of the first, and many new houses had already been built

along them. The town-hall stood opposite the parsonage, in the square by

the church. As Benassis went down the road, women and children stood in

their doorways to wish him good-evening, the men took off their caps,

and the little children danced and shouted about his horse, as if the

animal’s good-nature were as well known as the kindness of its master.

The gladness was undemonstrative; there was the instinctive delicacy of

all deep feeling about it, and it had the same pervasive power. At the

sight of this welcome it seemed to Genestas that the doctor had been too

modest in his description of the affection with which he was regarded by

the people of the district. His truly was a sovereignty of the sweetest

kind; a right royal sovereignty moreover, for its title was engraven

in the hearts of its subjects. However dazzling the rays of glory that

surround a man, however great the power that he enjoys, in his inmost

soul he soon comes to a just estimate of the sentiments that all

external action causes for him. He very soon sees that no change has

been wrought in him, that there is nothing new and nothing greater

in the exercise of his physical faculties, and discovers his own real

nothingness. Kings, even should they rule over the whole world, are

condemned to live in a narrow circle like other men. They must even

submit to the conditions of their lot, and their happiness depends

upon the personal impressions that they receive. But Benassis met with

nothing but goodwill and loyalty throughout the district.

CHAPTER III. THE NAPOLEON OF THE PEOPLE

“Pray, come in, sir!” cried Jacquotte. “A pretty time the gentlemen have

been waiting for you! It is always the way! You always manage to spoil

the dinner for me whenever it ought to be particularly good. Everything

is cooked to death by this time----”

“Oh! well, here we are,” answered Benassis with a smile.

The two horsemen dismounted, and went off to the salon, where the guests

invited by the doctor were assembled.

“Gentlemen,” he said taking Genestas by the hand, “I have the honor

of introducing you to M. Bluteau, captain of a regiment of cavalry

stationed at Grenoble--an old soldier, who has promised me that he will

stay among us for a little while.”

Then, turning to Genestas, he presented to him a tall, thin, gray-haired

man, dressed in black.

“This gentleman,” said Benassis, “is M. Dufau, the justice of the peace

of whom I have already spoken to you, and who has so largely contributed

to the prosperity of the Commune.” Then he led his guest up to a pale,

slight young man of middle height, who wore spectacles, and was also

dressed in black. “And this is M. Tonnelet,” he went on, “M. Gravier’s

son-in-law, and the first notary who came to the village.”

The doctor next turned to a stout man, who seemed to belong half to

the peasant, half to the middle class, the owner of a rough-pimpled but

good-humored countenance.

“This is my worthy colleague M. Cambon,” he went on, “the

timber-merchant, to whom I owe the confidence and good-will of the

people here. He was one of the promoters of the road which you have

admired. I have no need to tell you the profession of this gentleman,”

Benassis added, turning to the curate. “Here is a man whom no one can

help loving.”

There was an irresistible attraction in the moral beauty expressed

by the cure’s countenance, which engrossed Genestas’ attention. Yet a

certain harshness and austerity of outline might make M. Janvier’s

face seem unpleasing at a first glance. His attitude, and his slight,

emaciated frame, showed that he was far from strong physically, but

the unchanging serenity of his face bore witness to the profound inward

peace of heart. Heaven seemed to be reflected in his eyes, and the

inextinguishable fervor of charity which glowed in his heart appeared

to shine from them. The gestures that he made but rarely were simple and

natural, his appeared to be a quiet and retiring nature, and there was

a modesty and simplicity like that of a young girl about his actions. At

first sight he inspired respect and a vague desire to be admitted to his

friendship.

“Ah! M. le Maire,” he said, bending as though to escape from Benassis’

eulogium.

Something in the cure’s tones brought a thrill to Genestas’ heart, and

the two insignificant words uttered by this stranger priest plunged him

into musings that were almost devout.

“Gentlemen,” said Jacquotte, who came into the middle of the room, and

there took her stand, with her hands on her hips, “the soup is on the

table.”

Invited by Benassis, who summoned each in turn so as to avoid questions

of precedence, the doctor’s five guests went into the dining-room; and

after the cure, in low and quiet tones, had repeated a _Benedicite_,

they took their places at table. The cloth that covered the table was of

that peculiar kind of damask linen invented in the time of Henry IV. by

the brothers Graindorge, the skilful weavers, who gave their name to the

heavy fabric so well known to housekeepers. The linen was of dazzling

whiteness, and fragrant with the scent of the thyme that Jacquotte

always put into her wash-tubs. The dinner service was of white

porcelain, edged with blue, and was in perfect order. The decanters

were of the old-fashioned octagonal kind still in use in the provinces,

though they have disappeared elsewhere. Grotesque figures had been

carved on the horn handles of the knives. These relics of ancient

splendor, which, nevertheless, looked almost new, seemed to those who

scrutinized them to be in keeping with the kindly and open-hearted

nature of the master of the house.

The lid of the soup-tureen drew a momentary glance from Genestas; he

noticed that it was surmounted by a group of vegetables in high relief,

skilfully colored after the manner of Bernard Palissy, the celebrated

sixteenth century craftsman.

There was no lack of character about the group of men thus assembled.

The powerful heads of Genestas and Benassis contrasted admirably with

M. Janvier’s apostolic countenance; and in the same fashion the elderly

faces of the justice of the peace and the deputy-mayor brought out the

youthfulness of the notary. Society seemed to be represented by these

various types. The expression of each one indicated contentment with

himself and with the present, and a faith in the future. M. Tonnelet

and M. Janvier, who were still young, loved to make forecasts of coming

events, for they felt that the future was theirs; while the other guests

were fain rather to turn their talk upon the past. All of them faced the

things of life seriously, and their opinions seemed to reflect a double

tinge of soberness, on the one hand, from the twilight hues of well-nigh

forgotten joys that could never more be revived for them; and, on the

other, from the gray dawn which gave promise of a glorious day.

“You must have had a very tiring day, sir?” said M. Cambon, addressing

the cure.

“Yes, sir,” answered M. Janvier, “the poor cretin and Pere Pelletier

were buried at different hours.”

“Now we can pull down all the hovels of the old village,” Benassis

remarked to his deputy. “When the space on which the houses stand has

been grubbed up, it will mean at least another acre of meadow land for

us; and furthermore, there will be a clear saving to the Commune of the

hundred francs that it used to cost to keep Chautard the cretin.”

“For the next three years we ought to lay out the hundred francs in

making a single-span bridge to carry the lower road over the main

stream,” said M. Cambon. “The townsfolk and the people down the valley

have fallen into the way of taking a short cut across that patch of land

of Jean Francois Pastoureau’s; before they have done they will cut it up

in a way that will do a lot of harm to that poor fellow.”

“I am sure that the money could not be put to a better use,” said the

justice of peace. “In my opinion the abuse of the right of way is one of

the worst nuisances in a country district. One-tenth of the cases that

come before the court are caused by unfair easement. The rights of

property are infringed in this way almost with impunity in many and many

a commune. A respect for the law and a respect for property are ideas

too often disregarded in France, and it is most important that they

should be inculcated. Many people think that there is something

dishonorable in assisting the law to take its course. ‘Go and be

hanged somewhere else,’ is a saying which seems to be dictated by an

unpraiseworthy generosity of feeling; but at the bottom it is nothing

but a hypocritical formula--a sort of veil which we throw over our own

selfishness. Let us own to it, we lack patriotism! The true patriot is

the citizen who is so deeply impressed with a sense of the importance

of the laws that he will see them carried out even at his own cost and

inconvenience. If you let the criminal go in peace, are you not making

yourself answerable for the crimes he will commit?”

“It is all of a piece,” said Benassis. “If the mayors kept their roads

in better order, there would not be so many footpaths. And if the

members of Municipal Councils knew a little better, they would uphold

the small landowner and the mayor when the two combine to oppose the

establishment of unfair easements. The fact that chateau, cottage,

field, and tree are all equally sacred would then be brought home in

every way to the ignorant; they would be made to understand that Right

is just the same in all cases, whether the value of the property in

question be large or small. But such salutary changes cannot be brought

about all at once. They depend almost entirely on the moral condition of

the population, which we can never completely reform without the potent

aid of the cures. This remark does not apply to you in any way, M.

Janvier.”

“Nor do I take it to myself,” laughed the cure. “Is not my heart set on

bringing the teaching of the Catholic religion to co-operate with your

plans of administration? For instance, I have often tried, in my pulpit

discourses on theft, to imbue the folk of this parish with the very

ideas of Right to which you have just given utterance. For truly, God

does not estimate theft by the value of the thing stolen, He looks at

the thief. That has been the gist of the parables which I have tried to

adapt to the comprehension of my parishioners.”

“You have succeeded, sir,” said Cambon. “I know the change you have

brought about in people’s ways of looking at things, for I can compare

the Commune as it is now with the Commune as it used to be. There are

certainly very few places where the laborers are as careful as ours

are about keeping the time in their working hours. The cattle are well

looked after; any damage that they do is done by accident. There is no

pilfering in the woods, and finally you have made our peasants clearly

understand that the leisure of the rich is the reward of a thrifty and

hard-working life.”

“Well, then,” said Genestas, “you ought to be pretty well pleased with

your infantry, M. le Cure.”

“We cannot expect to find angels anywhere here below, captain,” answered

the priest. “Wherever there is poverty, there is suffering too; and

suffering and poverty are strong compelling forces which have their

abuses, just as power has. When the peasants have a couple of leagues to

walk to their work, and have to tramp back wearily in the evening, they

perhaps see sportsmen taking short cuts over ploughed land and pasture

so as to be back to dinner a little sooner, and is it to be supposed

that they will hesitate to follow the example? And of those who in

this way beat out a footpath such as these gentlemen have just been

complaining about, which are the real offenders, the workers or the

people who are simply amusing themselves? Both the rich and the poor

give us a great deal of trouble these days. Faith, like power, ought

always to descend from the heights above us, in heaven or on earth; and

certainly in our times the upper classes have less faith in them than

the mass of the people, who have God’s promise of heaven hereafter as

a reward for evils patiently endured. With due submission to

ecclesiastical discipline, and deference to the views of my superiors,

I think that for some time to come we should be less exacting as to

questions of doctrine, and rather endeavor to revive the sentiment of

religion in the hearts of the intermediary classes, who debate over

the maxims of Christianity instead of putting them in practice. The

philosophism of the rich has set a fatal example to the poor, and has

brought about intervals of too long duration when men have faltered

in their allegiance to God. Such ascendency as we have over our flocks

to-day depends entirely on our personal influence with them; is it not

deplorable that the existence of religious belief in a commune should

be dependent on the esteem in which a single man is held? When the

preservative force of Christianity permeating all classes of society

shall have put life into the new order of things, there will be an end

of sterile disputes about doctrine. The cult of a religion is its form;

societies only exist by forms. You have your standard, we have the

cross----”

“I should very much like to know, sir,” said Genestas, breaking in upon

M. Janvier, “why you forbid these poor folk to dance on Sunday?”

“We do not quarrel with dancing in itself, captain; it is forbidden

because it leads to immorality, which troubles the peace of the

countryside and corrupts its manners. Does not the attempt to purify the

spirit of the family and to maintain the sanctity of family ties strike

at the root of the evil?”

“Some irregularities are always to be found in every district, I know,”

said M. Tonnelet, “but they very seldom occur among us. Perhaps there

are peasants who remove their neighbor’s landmark without much scruple;

or they may cut a few osiers that belong to some one else, if they

happen to want some; but these are mere peccadilloes compared with the

wrongdoing that goes on among a town population. Moreover, the people in

this valley seem to me to be devoutly religious.”

“Devout?” queried the cure with a smile; “there is no fear of fanaticism

here.”

“But,” objected Cambon, “if the people all went to mass every morning,

sir, and to confession every week, how would the fields be cultivated?

And three priests would hardly be enough.”

“Work is prayer,” said the cure. “Doing one’s duty brings a knowledge of

the religious principles which are a vital necessity to society.”

“How about patriotism?” asked Genestas.

“Patriotism can only inspire a short-lived enthusiasm,” the curate

answered gravely; “religion gives it permanence. Patriotism consists

in a brief impulse of forgetfulness of self and self-interest, while

Christianity is a complete system of opposition to the depraved

tendencies of mankind.”

“And yet, during the wars undertaken by the Revolution, patriotism----”

“Yes, we worked wonders at the time of the Revolution,” said Benassis,

interrupting Genestas; “but only twenty years later, in 1814, our

patriotism was extinct; while, in former times, a religious impulse

moved France and Europe to fling themselves upon Asia a dozen times in

the course of a century.”

“Maybe it is easier for two nations to come to terms when the strife has

arisen out of some question of material interests,” said the justice of

the peace; “while wars undertaken with the idea of supporting dogmas

are bound to be interminable, because the object can never be clearly

defined.”

“Well, sir, you are not helping any one to fish!” put in Jacquotte, who

had removed the soup with Nicolle’s assistance. Faithful to her custom,

Jacquotte herself always brought in every dish one after another, a plan

which had its drawbacks, for it compelled gluttonous folk to over-eat

themselves, and the more abstemious, having satisfied their hunger at

an early stage, were obliged to leave the best part of the dinner

untouched.

“Gentlemen,” said the cure, with a glance at the justice of the peace,

“how can you allege that religious wars have had no definite aim?

Religion in olden times was such a powerful binding force, that material

interests and religious questions were inseparable. Every soldier,

therefore, knew quite well what he was fighting for.”

“If there has been so much fighting about religion,” said Genestas, “God

must have built up the system very perfunctorily. Should not a divine

institution impress men at once by the truth that is in it?”

All the guests looked at the cure.

“Gentlemen,” said M. Janvier, “religion is something that is felt and

that cannot be defined. We cannot know the purpose of the Almighty; we

are no judges of the means He employs.”

“Then, according to you, we are to believe in all your rigmaroles,” said

Genestas, with the easy good-humor of a soldier who has never given a

thought to these things.

“The Catholic religion, better than any other, resolves men’s doubts and

fears; but even were it otherwise, I might ask you if you run any risks

by believing in its truths.”

“None worth speaking of,” answered Genestas.

“Good! and what risks do you not run by not believing? But let us talk

of the worldly aspect of the matter, which most appeals to you. The

finger of God is visible in human affairs; see how He directs them by

the hand of His vicar on earth. How much men have lost by leaving the

path traced out for them by Christianity! So few think of reading Church

history, that erroneous notions deliberately sown among the people lead

them to condemn the Church; yet the Church has been a pattern of perfect

government such as men seek to establish to-day. The principle of

election made it for a long while the great political power. Except the

Catholic Church, there was no single religious institution which was

founded upon liberty and equality. Everything was ordered to this end.

The father-superior, the abbot, the bishop, the general of an order,

and the pope were then chosen conscientiously for their fitness for

the requirements of the Church. They were the expression of its

intelligence, of the thinking power of the Church, and blind obedience

was therefore their due. I will say nothing of the ways in which society

has benefited by that power which has created modern nations and has

inspired so many poems, so much music, so many cathedrals, statues, and

pictures. I will simply call your attention to the fact that your modern

systems of popular election, of two chambers, and of juries all

had their origin in provincial and oecumenical councils, and in the

episcopate and college of cardinals; but there is this difference,--the

views of civilization held by our present-day philosophy seem to me

to fade away before the sublime and divine conception of Catholic

communion, the type of a universal social communion brought about by the

word and the fact that are combined in religious dogma. It would be very

difficult for any modern political system, however perfect people may

think it, to work once more such miracles as were wrought in those ages

when the Church as the stay and support of the human intellect.”

“Why?” asked Genestas.

“Because, in the first place, if the principle of election is to be

the basis of a system, absolute equality among the electors is a first

requirement; they ought to be ‘equal quantities,’ things which modern

politics will never bring about. Then, great social changes can only be

effected by means of some common sentiment so powerful that it brings

men into concerted action, while latter-day philosophism has discovered

that law is based upon personal interest, which keeps men apart. Men

full of the generous spirit that watches with tender care over the

trampled rights of the suffering poor, were more often found among the

nations of past ages than in our generation. The priesthood, also,

which sprang from the middle classes, resisted material forces and stood

between the people and their enemies. But the territorial possessions of

the Church and her temporal power, which seemingly made her position yet

stronger, ended by crippling and weakening her action. As a matter of

fact, if the priest has possessions and privileges, he at once appears

in the light of an oppressor. He is paid by the State, therefore he is

an official: if he gives his time, his life, his whole heart, this is

a matter of course, and nothing more than he ought to do; the citizens

expect and demand his devotion; and the spontaneous kindliness of his

nature is dried up. But, let the priest be vowed to poverty, let him

turn to his calling of his own free will, let him stay himself on God

alone, and have no resource on earth but the hearts of the faithful, and

he becomes once more the missionary of America, he takes the rank of an

apostle, he has all things under his feet. Indeed, the burden of wealth

drags him down, and it is only by renouncing everything that he gains

dominion over all men’s hearts.”

M. Janvier had compelled the attention of every one present. No one

spoke; for all the guests were thoughtful. It was something new to hear

such words as these in the mouth of a simple cure.

“There is one serious error, M. Janvier, among the truths to which you

have given expression,” said Benassis. “As you know, I do not like to

raise discussions on points of general interest which modern authorities

and modern writers have called in question. In my opinion, a man who has

thought out a political system, and who is conscious that he has within

him the power of applying it in practical politics, should keep his mind

to himself, seize his opportunity and act; but if he dwells in peaceful

obscurity as a simple citizen, is it not sheer lunacy to think to bring

the great mass over to his opinion by means of individual discussions?

For all that, I am about to argue with you, my dear pastor, for I am

speaking before sensible men, each of whom is accustomed always to bring

his individual light to a common search for the truth. My ideas may seem

strange to you, but they are the outcome of much thought caused by the

calamities of the last forty years. Universal suffrage, which finds such

favor in the sight of those persons who belong to the constitutional

opposition, as it is called, was a capital institution in the Church,

because (as you yourself have just pointed out, dear pastor) the

individuals of whom the Church was composed were all well educated,

disciplined by religious feeling, thoroughly imbued with the spirit of

the same system, well aware of what they wanted and whither they

were going. But modern Liberalism rashly made war upon the prosperous

government of the Bourbons, by means of ideas which, should they

triumph, would be the ruin of France and of the Liberals themselves.

This is well known to the leaders of the Left, who are merely

endeavoring to get the power into their own hands. If (which Heaven

forbid) the middle classes ranged under the banner of the opposition

should succeed in overthrowing those social superiorities which are so

repugnant to their vanity, another struggle would follow hard upon their

victory. It would not be very long before the middle classes in their

turn would be looked upon by the people as a sort of _noblesse_; they

would be a sorry kind of _noblesse_, it is true, but their wealth and

privileges would seem so much the more hateful in the eyes of the people

because they would have a closer vision of these things. I do not say

that the nation would come to grief in the struggle, but society would

perish anew; for the day of triumph of a suffering people is always

brief, and involves disorders of the worst kind. There would be no truce

in a desperate strife arising out of an inherent or acquired difference

of opinion among the electors. The less enlightened and more numerous

portion would sweep away social inequalities, thanks to a system in

which votes are reckoned by count and not by weight. Hence it follows

that a government is never more strongly organized, and as a consequence

is never more perfect than when it has been established for the

protection of Privilege of the most restricted kind. By Privilege I

do not at this moment mean the old abuses by which certain rights were

conceded to a few, to the prejudice of the many; no, I am using it

to express the social circle of the governing class. But throughout

creation Nature has confined the vital principle within a narrow space,

in order to concentrate its power; and so it is with the body politic.

I will illustrate this thought of mine by examples. Let us suppose that

there are a hundred peers in France, there are only one hundred causes

of offence. Abolish the peerage, and all the wealthy people will

constitute the privileged class; instead of a hundred, you will have

ten thousand, instead of removing class distinctions, you have merely

widened the mischief. In fact, from the people’s point of view, the

right to live without working is in itself a privilege. The unproductive

consumer is a robber in their eyes. The only work that they understand

has palpable results; they set no value on intellectual labor--the

kind of labor which is the principal source of wealth to them. So by

multiplying causes of offence in this way, you extend the field of

battle; the social war would be waged on all points instead of being

confined within a limited circle; and when attack and resistance become

general, the ruin of a country is imminent. Because the rich will always

be fewer in number, the victory will be to the poor as soon as it comes

to actual fighting. I will throw the burden of proof on history.

“The institution of Senatorial Privilege enabled the Roman Republic to

conquer the world. The Senate preserved the tradition of authority. But

when the _equites_ and the _novi homines_ had extended the governing

classes by adding to the numbers of the Patricians, the State came to

ruin. In spite of Sylla, and after the time of Julius Caesar, Tiberius

raised it into the Roman Empire; the system was embodied in one man,

and all authority was centered in him, a measure which prolonged the

magnificent sway of the Roman for several centuries. The Emperor had

ceased to dwell in Rome when the Eternal City fell into the hands of

barbarians. When the conqueror invaded our country, the Franks who

divided the land among themselves invented feudal privilege as a

safeguard for property. The hundred or the thousand chiefs who owned

the country, established their institutions with a view to defending

the rights gained by conquest. The duration of the feudal system was

co-existent with the restriction of Privilege. But when the _leudes_

(an exact translation of the word _gentlemen_) from five hundred became

fifty thousand, there came a revolution. The governing power was too

widely diffused; it lacked force and concentration; and they had not

reckoned with the two powers, Money and Thought, that had set those free

who had been beneath their rule. So the victory over the monarchical

system, obtained by the middle classes with a view to extending the

number of the privileged class, will produce its natural effect--the

people will triumph in turn over the middle classes. If this trouble

comes to pass, the indiscriminate right of suffrage bestowed upon the

masses will be a dangerous weapon in their hands. The man who votes,

criticises. An authority that is called in question is no longer an

authority. Can you imagine a society without a governing authority?

No, you cannot. Therefore, authority means force, and a basis of just

judgement should underlie force. Such are the reasons which have led me

to think that the principle of popular election is a most fatal one for

modern governments. I think that my attachment to the poor and suffering

classes has been sufficiently proved, and that no one will accuse me

of bearing any ill-will towards them, but though I admire the sublime

patience and resignation with which they tread the path of toil, I

must pronounce them to be unfit to take part in the government. The

proletariat seem to me to be the minors of a nation, and ought to remain

in a condition of tutelage. Therefore, gentlemen, the word _election_,

to my thinking, is in a fair way to cause as much mischief as the words

_conscience_ and _liberty_, which ill-defined and ill-understood, were

flung broadcast among the people, to serve as watchwords of revolt and

incitements to destruction. It seems to me to be a right and necessary

thing that the masses should be kept in tutelage for the good of

society.”

“This system of yours runs so clean contrary to everybody’s notions

nowadays, that we have some right to ask your reasons for it,” said

Genestas, interrupting the doctor.

“By all means, captain.”

“What is this the master is saying?” cried Jacquotte, as she went back

to her kitchen. “There he is, the poor dear man, and what is he doing

but advising them to crush the people! And they are listening to

him----”

“I would never have believed it of M. Benassis,” answered Nicolle.

“If I require that the ignorant masses should be governed by a strong

hand,” the doctor resumed, after a brief pause, “I should desire at the

same time that the framework of the social system should be sufficiently

yielding and elastic to allow those who have the will and are conscious

of their ability to emerge from the crowd, to rise and take their place

among the privileged classes. The aim of power of every kind is its own

preservation. In order to live, a government, to-day as in the past,

must press the strong men of the nation into its service, taking them

from every quarter, so as to make them its defenders, and to remove

from among the people the men of energy who incite the masses to

insurrection. By opening out in this way to the public ambition paths

that are at once difficult and easy, easy for strong wills, difficult

for weak or imperfect ones, a State averts the perils of the revolutions

caused by the struggles of men of superior powers to rise to their

proper level. Our long agony of forty years should have made it clear to

any man who has brains that social superiorities are a natural

outcome of the order of things. They are of three kinds that cannot

be questioned--the superiority of the thinker, the superiority of the

politician, the superiority of wealth. Is not that as much as to say,

genius, power, and money, or, in yet other words--the cause, the means,

and the effect? But suppose a kind of social _tabula rasa_, every social

unit perfectly equal, an increase of population everywhere in the same

ratio, and give the same amount of land to each family; it would not

be long before you would again have all the existing inequalities of

fortune; it is glaringly evident, therefore, that there are such things

as superiority of fortune, of thinking capacity, and of power, and we

must make up our minds to this fact; but the masses will always regard

rights that have been most honestly acquired as privileges, and as a

wrong done to themselves.

“The _social contract_ founded upon this basis will be a perpetual

pact between those who have and those who have not. And acting on these

principles, those who benefit by the laws will be the lawmakers, for

they necessarily have the instinct of self-preservation, and foresee

their dangers. It is even more to their interest than to the interest of

the masses themselves that the latter should be quiet and contented. The

happiness of the people should be ready made for the people. If you look

at society as a whole from this point of view, you will soon see, as I

do, that the privilege of election ought only to be exercised by men who

possess wealth, power, or intelligence, and you will likewise see that

the action of the deputies they may choose to represent them should be

considerably restricted.

“The maker of laws, gentlemen, should be in advance of his age. It is

his business to ascertain the tendency of erroneous notions popularly

held, to see the exact direction in which the ideas of a nation are

tending; he labors for the future rather than for the present, and for

the rising generation rather than for the one that is passing away. But

if you call in the masses to make the laws, can they rise above their

own level? Nay. The more faithfully an assembly represents the opinions

held by the crowd, the less it will know about government, the less

lofty its ideas will be, and the more vague and vacillating its policy,

for the crowd is and always will be simply a crowd, and this especially

with us in France. Law involves submission to regulations; man is

naturally opposed to rules and regulations of all kinds, especially if

they interfere with his interests; so is it likely that the masses will

enact laws that are contrary to their own inclinations? No.

“Very often legislation ought to run counter to the prevailing

tendencies of the time. If the law is to be shaped by the prevailing

habits of thought and tendencies of a nation, would not that mean that

in Spain a direct encouragement would be given to idleness and religious

intolerance; in England, to the commercial spirit; in Italy, to the love

of the arts that may be the expression of a society, but by which no

society can entirely exist; in Germany, feudal class distinctions would

be fostered; and here, in France, popular legislation would promote the

spirit of frivolity, the sudden craze for an idea, and the readiness to

split into factions which has always been our bane.

“What has happened in the forty years since the electors took it

upon themselves to make laws for France? We have something like forty

thousand laws! A people with forty thousand laws might as well have none

at all. Is it likely that five hundred mediocrities (for there are never

more than a hundred great minds to do the work of any one century), is

it likely that five hundred mediocrities will have the wit to rise to

the level of these considerations? Not they! Here is a constant stream

of men poured forth from five hundred different places; they will

interpret the spirit of the law in divers manners, and there should be a

unity of conception in the law.

“But I will go yet further. Sooner or later an assembly of this kind

comes to be swayed by one man, and instead of a dynasty of kings, you

have a constantly changing and costly succession of prime ministers.

There comes a Mirabeau or a Danton, a Robespierre or a Napoleon, or

proconsuls, or an emperor, and there is an end of deliberations and

debates. In fact, it takes a determinate amount of force to raise a

given weight; the force may be distributed, and you may have a less or

greater number of levers, but it comes to the same thing in the end: the

force must be in proportion to the weight. The weight in this case is

the ignorant and suffering mass of people who form the lowest stratum of

society. The attitude of authority is bound to be repressive, and great

concentration of the governing power is needed to neutralize the force

of a popular movement. This is the application of the principle that I

unfolded when I spoke just now of the way in which the class privileged

to govern should be restricted. If this class is composed of men of

ability, they will obey this natural law, and compel the country to

obey. If you collect a crowd of mediocrities together, sooner or later

they will fall under the dominion of a stronger head. A deputy of talent

understands the reasons for which a government exists; the mediocre

deputy simply comes to terms with force. An assembly either obeys

an idea, like the Convention in the time of the Terror; a powerful

personality, like the Corps Legislatif under the rule of Napoleon; or

falls under the domination of a system or of wealth, as it has done in

our own day. The Republican Assembly, that dream of some innocent souls,

is an impossibility. Those who would fain bring it to pass are either

grossly deluded dupes or would-be tyrants. Do you not think that there

is something ludicrous about an Assembly which gravely sits in debate

upon the perils of a nation which ought to be roused into immediate

action? It is only right of course that the people should elect a

body of representatives who will decide questions of supplies and of

taxation; this institution has always existed, under the sway of the

most tyrannous ruler no less than under the sceptre of the mildest of

princes. Money is not to be taken by force; there are natural limits

to taxation, and if they are overstepped, a nation either rises up

in revolt, or lays itself down to die. Again, if this elective body,

changing from time to time according to the needs and ideas of those

whom it represents, should refuse obedience to a bad law in the name of

the people, well and good. But to imagine that five hundred men, drawn

from every corner of the kingdom, will make a good law! Is it not a

dreary joke, for which the people will sooner or later have to pay? They

have a change of masters, that is all.

“Authority ought to be given to one man, he alone should have the

task of making the laws; and he should be a man who, by force of

circumstances, is continually obliged to submit his actions to general

approbation. But the only restraints that can be brought to bear upon

the exercise of power, be it the power of the one, of the many, or

of the multitude, are to be found in the religious institutions of a

country. Religion forms the only adequate safeguard against the abuse of

supreme power. When a nation ceases to believe in religion, it becomes

ungovernable in consequence, and its prince perforce becomes a tyrant.

The Chambers that occupy an intermediate place between rulers and their

subjects are powerless to prevent these results, and can only mitigate

them to a very slight extent; Assemblies, as I have said before, are

bound to become the accomplices of tyranny on the one hand, or of

insurrection on the other. My own leanings are towards a government by

one man; but though it is good, it cannot be absolutely good, for the

results of every policy will always depend upon the condition and the

belief of the nation. If a nation is in its dotage, if it has been

corrupted to the core by philosophism and the spirit of discussion, it

is on the high-road to despotism, from which no form of free government

will save it. And, at the same time, a righteous people will nearly

always find liberty even under a despotic rule. All this goes to show

the necessity for restricting the right of election within very narrow

limits, the necessity for a strong government, the necessity for a

powerful religion which makes the rich man the friend of the poor, and

enjoins upon the poor an absolute submission to their lot. It is, in

fact, really imperative that the Assemblies should be deprived of

all direct legislative power, and should confine themselves to the

registration of laws and to questions of taxation.

“I know that different ideas from these exist in many minds. To-day, as

in past ages, there ware enthusiasts who seek for perfection, and who

would like to have society better ordered than it is at present. But

innovations which tend to bring about a kind of social topsy-turvydom,

ought only to be undertaken by general consent. Let the innovators

have patience. When I remember how long it has taken Christianity to

establish itself; how many centuries it has taken to bring about a

purely moral revolution which surely ought to have been accomplished

peacefully, the thought of the horrors of a revolution, in which

material interests are concerned, makes me shudder, and I am for

maintaining existing institutions. ‘Each shall have his own thought,’

is the dictum of Christianity; ‘Each man shall have his own field,’ says

modern law; and in this, modern law is in harmony with Christianity.

Each shall have his own thought; that is a consecration of the rights

of intelligence; and each shall have his own field, is a consecration of

the right to property that has been acquired by toil. Hence our society.

Nature has based human life upon the instinct of self-preservation, and

social life is founded upon personal interest. Such ideas as these are,

to my thinking, the very rudiments of politics. Religion keeps these two

selfish sentiments in subordination by the thought of a future life; and

in this way the harshness of the conflict of interests has been somewhat

softened. God has mitigated the sufferings that arise from social

friction by a religious sentiment which raises self-forgetfulness into

a virtue; just as He has moderated the friction of the mechanism of the

universe by laws which we do not know. Christianity bids the poor bear

patiently with the rich, and commands the rich to lighten the burdens of

the poor; these few words, to my mind, contain the essence of all laws,

human and divine!”

“I am no statesman,” said the notary; “I see in a ruler a liquidator of

society which should always remain in liquidation; he should hand over

to his successor the exact value of the assets which he received.”

“I am no statesman either,” said Benassis, hastily interrupting the

notary. “It takes nothing but a little common sense to better the lot of

a commune, of a canton, or of an even wider district; a department calls

for some administrative talent, but all these four spheres of action are

comparatively limited, the outlook is not too wide for ordinary powers

of vision, and there is a visible connection between their interests and

the general progress made by the State.

“But in yet higher regions, everything is on a larger scale, the horizon

widens, and from the standpoint where he is placed, the statesman

ought to grasp the whole situation. It is only necessary to consider

liabilities due ten years hence, in order to bring about a great deal

of good in the case of the department, the district, the canton, or

the commune; but when it is a question of the destinies of a nation, a

statesman must foresee a more distant future and the course that events

are likely to take for the next hundred years. The genius of a Colbert

or of a Sully avails nothing, unless it is supported by the energetic

will that makes a Napoleon or a Cromwell. A great minister, gentlemen,

is a great thought written at large over all the years of a century of

prosperity and splendor for which he has prepared the way. Steadfast

perseverance is the virtue of which he stands most in need; and in all

human affairs does not steadfast perseverance indicate a power of the

very highest order? We have had for some time past too many men who

think only of the ministry instead of the nation, so that we cannot

but admire the real statesman as the vastest human Poetry. Ever to look

beyond the present moment, to foresee the ways of Destiny, to care so

little for power that he only retains it because he is conscious of his

usefulness, while he does not overestimate his strength; ever to lay

aside all personal feeling and low ambitions, so that he may always be

master of his faculties, and foresee, will, and act without ceasing; to

compel himself to be just and impartial, to keep order on a large scale,

to silence his heart that he may be guided by his intellect alone, to

be neither apprehensive nor sanguine, neither suspicious nor confiding,

neither grateful nor ungrateful, never to be unprepared for an event,

nor taken unawares by an idea; to live, in fact, with the requirements

of the masses ever in his mind, to spread the protecting wings of his

thought above them, to sway them by the thunder of his voice and the

keenness of his glance; seeing all the while not the details of affairs,

but the great issues at stake--is not that to be something more than a

mere man? Therefore the names of the great and noble fathers of nations

cannot but be household words for ever.”

There was silence for a moment, during which the guests looked at one

another.

“Gentlemen, you have not said a word about the army!” cried Genestas. “A

military organization seems to me to be the real type on which all good

civil society should be modeled; the Sword is the guardian of a nation.”

The justice of the peace laughed softly.

“Captain,” he said, “an old lawyer once said that empires began with the

sword and ended with the desk; we have reached the desk stage by this

time.”

“And now that we have settled the fate of the world, gentlemen, let

us change the subject. Come, captain, a glass of Hermitage,” cried the

doctor, laughing.

“Two, rather than one,” said Genestas, holding out his glass. “I mean to

drink them both to your health--to a man who does honor to the species.”

“And who is dear to all of us,” said the cure in gentle tones.

“Do you mean to force me into the sin of pride, M. Janvier?”

“M. le Cure has only said in a low voice what all the canton says

aloud,” said Cambon.

“Gentlemen, I propose that we take a walk to the parsonage by moonlight,

and see M. Janvier home.”

“Let us start,” said the guests, and they prepared to accompany the

cure.

“Shall we go to the barn?” said the doctor, laying a hand on Genestas’

arm. They had taken leave of the cure and the other guests. “You

will hear them talking about Napoleon, Captain Bluteau. Goguelat, the

postman, is there, and there are several of his cronies who are sure

to draw him out on the subject of the idol of the people. Nicolle, my

stableman, has set a ladder so that we can climb up on to the hay; there

is a place from which we can look down on the whole scene. Come along,

an up-sitting is something worth seeing, believe me. It will not be the

first time that I have hidden in the hay to overhear a soldier’s tales

or the stories that peasants tell among themselves. We must be careful

to keep out of sight though, as these folk turn shy and put on company

manners as soon as they see a stranger.”

“Eh! my dear sir,” said Genestas, “have I not often pretended to be

asleep so as to hear my troopers talking out on bivouac? My word, I

once heard a droll yarn reeled off by an old quartermaster for some

conscripts who were afraid of war; I never laughed so heartily in any

theatre in Paris. He was telling them about the Retreat from Moscow. He

told them that the army had nothing but the clothes they stood up in;

that their wine was iced; that the dead stood stock-still in the road

just where they were; that they had seen White Russia, and that they

currycombed the horses there with their teeth; that those who were fond

of skating had fine times of it, and people who had a fancy for savory

ices had as much as they could put away; that the women were generally

poor company; but that the only thing they could really complain of was

the want of hot water for shaving. In fact, he told them such a pack of

absurdities, that even an old quartermaster who had lost his nose with

a frost-bite, so that they had dubbed him _Nezrestant_, was fain to

laugh.”

“Hush!” said Benassis, “here we are. I will go first; follow after me.”

Both of them scaled the ladder and hid themselves in the hay, in a place

from whence they could have a good view of the party below, who had

not heard a sound overhead. Little groups of women were clustered about

three or four candles. Some of them sewed, others were spinning, a

good few of them were doing nothing, and sat with their heads strained

forward, and their eyes fixed on an old peasant who was telling a story.

The men were standing about for the most part, or lying at full length

on the trusses of hay. Every group was absolutely silent. Their faces

were barely visible by the flickering gleams of the candles by which the

women were working, although each candle was surrounded by a glass globe

filled with water, in order to concentrate the light. The thick darkness

and shadow that filled the roof and all the upper part of the barn

seemed still further to diminish the light that fell here and there upon

the workers’ heads with such picturesque effects of light and shade.

Here, it shone full upon the bright wondering eyes and brown forehead of

a little peasant maiden; and there the straggling beams brought out the

outlines of the rugged brows of some of the older men, throwing up

their figures in sharp relief against the dark background, and giving

a fantastic appearance to their worn and weather-stained garb. The

attentive attitude of all these people and the expression on all their

faces showed that they had given themselves up entirely to the pleasure

of listening, and that the narrator’s sway was absolute. It was a

curious scene. The immense influence that poetry exerts over every mind

was plainly to be seen. For is not the peasant who demands that the tale

of wonder should be simple, and that the impossible should be well-nigh

credible, a lover of poetry of the purest kind?

“She did not like the look of the house at all,” the peasant was saying

as the two newcomers took their places where they could overhear him;

“but the poor little hunchback was so tired out with carrying her bundle

of hemp to market, that she went in; besides, the night had come, and

she could go no further. She only asked to be allowed to sleep there,

and ate nothing but a crust of bread that she took from her wallet. And

inasmuch as the woman who kept house for the brigands knew nothing about

what they had planned to do that night, she let the old woman into

the house, and sent her upstairs without a light. Our hunchback throws

herself down on a rickety truckle bed, says her prayers, thinks about

her hemp, and is dropping off to sleep. But before she is fairly asleep,

she hears a noise, and in walk two men carrying a lantern, and each man

had a knife in his hand. Then fear came upon her; for in those times,

look you, they used to make pates of human flesh for the seigneurs, who

were very fond of them. But the old woman plucked up heart again, for

she was so thoroughly shriveled and wrinkled that she thought they would

think her a poorish sort of diet. The two men went past the hunchback

and walked up to a bed that there was in the great room, and in which

they had put the gentleman with the big portmanteau, the one that passed

for a _negromancer_. The taller man holds up the lantern and takes

the gentleman by the feet, and the short one, that had pretended to be

drunk, clutches hold of his head and cuts his throat, clean, with one

stroke, swish! Then they leave the head and body lying in its own blood

up there, steal the portmanteau, and go downstairs with it. Here is our

woman in a nice fix! First of all she thinks of slipping out, before any

one can suspect it, not knowing that Providence had brought her there to

glorify God and to bring down punishment on the murderers. She was in a

great fright, and when one is frightened one thinks of nothing else. But

the woman of the house had asked the two brigands about the hunchback,

and that had alarmed them. So back they came, creeping softly up the

wooden staircase. The poor hunchback curls up in a ball with fright, and

she hears them talking about her in whispers.

“‘Kill her, I tell you.’

“‘No need to kill her.’

“‘Kill her!’

“‘No!’

“Then they came in. The woman, who was no fool, shuts her eyes and

pretends to be asleep. She sets to work to sleep like a child, with her

hand on her heart, and takes to breathing like a cherub. The man opens

the lantern and shines the light straight into the eyes of the sleeping

old woman--she does not move an eyelash, she is in such terror for her

neck.

“‘She is sleeping like a log; you can see that quite well,’ so says the

tall one.

“‘Old women are so cunning!’ answers the short man. ‘I will kill her. We

shall feel easier in our minds. Besides, we will salt her down to feed

the pigs.’

“The old woman hears all this talk, but she does not stir.

“‘Oh! it is all right, she is asleep,’ says the short ruffian, when he

saw that the hunchback had not stirred.

“That is how the old woman saved her life. And she may be fairly called

courageous; for it is a fact that there are not many girls here who

could have breathed like cherubs while they heard that talk going on

about the pigs. Well, the two brigands set to work to lift up the dead

man; they wrap him round in the sheets and chuck him out into the little

yard; and the old woman hears the pigs scampering up to eat him, and

grunting, _hon! hon_!

“So when morning comes,” the narrator resumed after a pause, “the woman

gets up and goes down, paying a couple of sous for her bed. She takes up

her wallet, goes on just as if nothing had happened, asks for the news

of the countryside, and gets away in peace. She wants to run. Running

is quite out of the question, her legs fail her for fright; and lucky it

was for her that she could not run, for this reason. She had barely gone

half a quarter of a league before she sees one of the brigands coming

after her, just out of craftiness to make quite sure that she had seen

nothing. She guesses this, and sits herself down on a boulder.

“‘What is the matter, good woman?’ asks the short one, for it was the

shorter one and the wickeder of the two who was dogging her.

“‘Oh! master,’ says she, ‘my wallet is so heavy, and I am so tired, that

I badly want some good man to give me his arm’ (sly thing, only listen

to her!) ‘if I am to get back to my poor home.’

“Thereupon the brigand offers to go along with her, and she accepts his

offer. The fellow takes hold of her arm to see if she is afraid. Not

she! She does not tremble a bit, and walks quietly along. So there they

are, chatting away as nicely as possible, all about farming, and the

way to grow hemp, till they come to the outskirts of the town, where the

hunchback lived, and the brigand made off for fear of meeting some of

the sheriff’s people. The woman reached her house at mid-day, and waited

there till her husband came home; she thought and thought over all that

had happened on her journey and during the night. The hemp-grower came

home in the evening. He was hungry; something must be got ready for

him to eat. So while she greases her frying-pan, and gets ready to fry

something for him, she tells him how she sold her hemp, and gabbles away

as females do, but not a word does she say about the pigs, nor about

the gentleman who was murdered and robbed and eaten. She holds her

frying-pan in the flames so as to clean it, draws it out again to give

it a wipe, and finds it full of blood.

“‘What have you been putting into it?’ says she to her man.

“‘Nothing,’ says he.

“She thinks it must have been a nonsensical piece of woman’s fancy,

and puts her frying-pan into the fire again.... _Pouf!_ A head comes

tumbling down the chimney!

“‘Oh! look! It is nothing more nor less than the dead man’s head,’ says

the old woman. ‘How he stares at me! What does he want!’

“‘_You must avenge me_!’ says a voice.

“‘What an idiot you are!’ said the hemp-grower. ‘Always seeing something

or other that has no sort of sense about it! Just you all over.’

“He takes up the head, which snaps at his finger, and pitches it out

into the yard.

“‘Get on with my omelette,’ he says, ‘and do not bother yourself about

that. ‘Tis a cat.’

“‘A cat! says she; ‘it was as round as a ball.’

“She puts back her frying-pan on the fire.... _Pouf!_ Down comes a leg

this time, and they go through the whole story again. The man was no

more astonished at the foot than he had been at the head; he snatched

up the leg and threw it out at the door. Before they had finished, the

other leg, both arms, the body, the whole murdered traveler, in fact,

came down piecemeal. No omelette all this time! The old hemp-seller grew

very hungry indeed.

“‘By my salvation!’ said he, ‘when once my omelette is made we will see

about satisfying that man yonder.’

“‘So you admit, now, that it was a man?’ said the hunchback wife. ‘What

made you say that it was not a head a minute ago, you great worry?’

“The woman breaks the eggs, fries the omelette, and dishes it up without

any more grumbling; somehow this squabble began to make her feel very

uncomfortable. Her husband sits down and begins to eat. The hunchback

was frightened, and said that she was not hungry.

“‘Tap! tap!’ There was a stranger rapping at the door.

“‘Who is there?’

“‘The man that died yesterday!’

“‘Come in,’ answers the hemp-grower.

“So the traveler comes in, sits himself down on a three-legged stool,

and says: ‘Are you mindful of God, who gives eternal peace to those who

confess His Name? Woman! You saw me done to death, and you have said

nothing! I have been eaten by the pigs! The pigs do not enter Paradise,

and therefore I, a Christian man, shall go down into hell, all because a

woman forsooth will not speak, a thing that has never been known before.

You must deliver me,’ and so on, and so on.

“The woman, who was more and more frightened every minute, cleaned her

frying-pan, put on her Sunday clothes, went to the justice, and told him

about the crime, which was brought to light, and the robbers were

broken on the wheel in proper style on the Market Place. This good work

accomplished, the woman and her husband always had the finest hemp

you ever set eyes on. Then, which pleased them still better, they had

something that they had wished for for a long time, to-wit, a man-child,

who in course of time became a great lord of the king’s.

“That is the true story of _The Courageous Hunchback Woman_.

“I do not like stories of that sort; they make me dream at night,” said

La Fosseuse. “Napoleon’s adventures are much nicer, I think.”

“Quite true,” said the keeper. “Come now, M. Goguelat, tell us about the

Emperor.”

“The evening is too far gone,” said the postman, “and I do not care

about cutting short the story of a victory.”

“Never mind, let us hear about it all the same! We know the stories, for

we have heard you tell them many a time; but it is always a pleasure to

hear them.”

“Tell us about the Emperor!” cried several voices at once.

“You will have it?” answered Goguelat. “Very good, but you will see that

there is no sense in the story when it is gone through at a gallop.

I would rather tell you all about a single battle. Shall it be

Champ-Aubert, where we ran out of cartridges, and furbished them just

the same with the bayonet?”

“No, the Emperor! the Emperor!”

The old infantry man got up from his truss of hay and glanced round

about on those assembled, with the peculiar sombre expression in which

may be read all the miseries, adventures, and hardships of an old

soldier’s career. He took his coat by the two skirts in front, and

raised them, as if it were a question of once more packing up the

knapsack in which his kit, his shoes, and all he had in the world used

to be stowed; for a moment he stood leaning all his weight on his left

foot, then he swung the right foot forward, and yielded with a good

grace to the wishes of his audience. He swept his gray hair to one side,

so as to leave his forehead bare, and flung back his head and gazed

upwards, as if to raise himself to the lofty height of the gigantic

story that he was about to tell.

“Napoleon, you see, my friends, was born in Corsica, which is a French

island warmed by the Italian sun; it is like a furnace there, everything

is scorched up, and they keep on killing each other from father to son

for generations all about nothing at all--‘tis a notion they have. To

begin at the beginning, there was something extraordinary about the

thing from the first; it occurred to his mother, who was the handsomest

woman of her time, and a shrewd soul, to dedicate him to God, so that he

should escape all the dangers of infancy and of his after life; for she

had dreamed that the world was on fire on the day he was born. It was

a prophecy! So she asked God to protect him, on condition that Napoleon

should re-establish His holy religion, which had been thrown to the

ground just then. That was the agreement; we shall see what came of it.

“Now, do you follow me carefully, and tell me whether what you are about

to hear is natural.

“It is certain sure that only a man who had had imagination enough to

make a mysterious compact would be capable of going further than anybody

else, and of passing through volleys of grape-shot and showers of

bullets which carried us off like flies, but which had a respect for his

head. I myself had particular proof of that at Eylau. I see him yet;

he climbs a hillock, takes his field-glass, looks along our lines, and

says, ‘That is going on all right.’ One of the deep fellows, with a

bunch of feathers in his cap, used to plague him a good deal from all

accounts, following him about everywhere, even when he was getting

his meals. This fellow wants to do something clever, so as soon as the

Emperor goes away he takes his place. Oh! swept away in a moment! And

this is the last of the bunch of feathers! You understand quite clearly

that Napoleon had undertaken to keep his secret to himself. That is why

those who accompanied him, and even his especial friends, used to drop

like nuts: Duroc, Bessieres, Lannes--men as strong as bars of steel,

which he cast into shape for his own ends. And here is a final proof

that he was the child of God, created to be the soldier’s father; for

no one ever saw him as a lieutenant or a captain. He is a

commandant straight off! Ah! yes, indeed! He did not look more than

four-and-twenty, but he was an old general ever since the taking of

Toulon, when he made a beginning by showing the rest that they knew

nothing about handling cannon. Next thing he does, he tumbles upon us.

A little slip of a general-in-chief of the army of Italy, which had

neither bread nor ammunition nor shoes nor clothes--a wretched army as

naked as a worm.

“‘Friends,’ he said, ‘here we all are together. Now, get it well into

your pates that in a fortnight’s time from now you will be the victors,

and dressed in new clothes; you shall all have greatcoats, strong

gaiters, and famous pairs of shoes; but, my children, you will have to

march on Milan to take them, where all these things are.’

“So they marched. The French, crushed as flat as a pancake, held up

their heads again. There were thirty thousand of us tatterdemalions

against eighty thousand swaggerers of Germans--fine tall men and well

equipped; I can see them yet. Then Napoleon, who was only Bonaparte

in those days, breathed goodness knows what into us, and on we marched

night and day. We rap their knuckles at Montenotte; we hurry on to

thrash them at Rivoli, Lodi, Arcola, and Millesimo, and we never let

them go. The army came to have a liking for winning battles. Then

Napoleon hems them in on all sides, these German generals did not know

where to hide themselves so as to have a little peace and comfort;

he drubs them soundly, cribs ten thousand of their men at a time by

surrounding them with fifteen hundred Frenchmen, whom he makes to spring

up after his fashion, and at last he takes their cannon, victuals,

money, ammunition, and everything they have that is worth taking; he

pitches them into the water, beats them on the mountains, snaps at them

in the air, gobbles them up on the earth, and thrashes them everywhere.

“There are the troops in full feather again! For, look you, the Emperor

(who, for that matter, was a wit) soon sent for the inhabitant, and told

him that he had come there to deliver him. Whereupon the civilian finds

us free quarters and makes much of us, so do the women, who showed great

discernment. To come to a final end; in Ventose ‘96, which was at that

time what the month of March is now, we had been driven up into a corner

of the Pays des Marmottes; but after the campaign, lo and behold! we

were the masters of Italy, just as Napoleon had prophesied. And in the

month of March following, in one year and in two campaigns, he brings

us within sight of Vienna; we had made a clean sweep of them. We had

gobbled down three armies one after another, and taken the conceit out

of four Austrian generals; one of them, an old man who had white hair,

had been roasted like a rat in the straw before Mantua. The kings were

suing for mercy on their knees. Peace had been won. Could a mere mortal

have done that? No. God helped him, that is certain. He distributed

himself about like the five loaves in the Gospel, commanded on the

battlefield all day, and drew up his plans at night. The sentries always

saw him coming; he neither ate nor slept. Therefore, recognizing these

prodigies, the soldier adopts him for his father. But, forward!

“The other folk there in Paris, seeing all this, say among themselves:

“‘Here is a pilgrim who appears to take his instructions from Heaven

above; he is uncommonly likely to lay a hand on France. We must let him

loose on Asia or America, and that, perhaps, will keep him quiet.

“The same thing was decreed for him as for Jesus Christ; for, as a

matter of fact, they give him orders to go on duty down in Egypt. See

his resemblance to the Son of God! That is not all, though. He calls all

his fire-eaters about him, all those into whom he had more particularly

put the devil, and talks to them in this way:

“‘My friends, for the time being they are giving us Egypt to stop our

mouths. But we will swallow down Egypt in a brace of shakes, just as we

swallowed Italy, and private soldiers shall be princes, and shall have

broad lands of their own. Forward!’

“‘Forward, lads!’ cry the sergeants.

“So we come to Toulon on the way to Egypt. Whereupon the English put to

sea with all their fleet. But when we are on board, Napoleon says to us:

“‘They will not see us: and it is right and proper that you should know

henceforward that your general has a star in the sky that guides us and

watches over us!’

“So said, so done. As we sailed over the sea we took Malta, by way of

an orange to quench his thirst for victory, for he was a man who

must always be doing something. There we are in Egypt. Well and good.

Different orders. The Egyptians, look you, are men who, ever since the

world has been the world, have been in the habit of having giants to

reign over them, and armies like swarms of ants; because it is a country

full of genii and crocodiles, where they have built up pyramids as big

as our mountains, the fancy took them to stow their kings under the

pyramids, so as to keep them fresh, a thing which mightily pleases them

all round out there. Whereupon, as we landed, the Little Corporal said

to us:

“‘My children, the country which you are about to conquer worships a lot

of idols which you must respect, because the Frenchman ought to be

on good terms with all the world, and fight people without giving

annoyance. Get it well into your heads to let everything alone at first;

for we shall have it all by and by! and forward!’

“So far so good. But all those people had heard a prophecy of Napoleon,

under the name of _Kebir Bonaberdis_; a word which in our lingo means,

‘The Sultan fires a shot,’ and they feared him like the devil. So the

Grand Turk, Asia, and Africa have recourse to magic, and they send a

demon against us, named the Mahdi, who it was thought had come down from

heaven on a white charger which, like its master was bullet-proof, and

the pair of them lived on the air of that part of the world. There are

people who have seen them, but for my part I cannot give you any certain

informations about them. They were the divinities of Arabia and of the

Mamelukes who wished their troopers to believe that the Mahdi had the

power of preventing them from dying in battle. They gave out that he was

an angel sent down to wage war on Napoleon, and to get back Solomon’s

seal, part of their paraphernalia which they pretended our general had

stolen. You will readily understand that we made them cry peccavi all

the same.

“Ah, just tell me now how they came to know about that compact of

Napoleon’s? Was that natural?

“They took it into their heads for certain that he commanded the genii,

and that he went from place to place like a bird in the twinkling of an

eye; and it is a fact that he was everywhere. At length it came about

that he carried off a queen of theirs. She was the private property of

a Mameluke, who, although he had several more of them, flatly refused to

strike a bargain, though ‘the other’ offered all his treasures for her

and diamonds as big as pigeon’s eggs. When things had come to that pass,

they could not well be settled without a good deal of fighting; and

there was fighting enough for everybody and no mistake about it.

“Then we are drawn up before Alexandria, and again at Gizeh, and before

the Pyramids. We had to march over the sands and in the sun; people

whose eyes dazzled used to see water that they could not drink and shade

that made them fume. But we made short work of the Mamelukes as usual,

and everything goes down before the voice of Napoleon, who seizes Upper

and Lower Egypt and Arabia, far and wide, till we came to the capitals

of kingdoms which no longer existed, where there were thousands and

thousands of statues of all the devils in creation, all done to

the life, and another curious thing too, any quantity of lizards. A

confounded country where any one could have as many acres of land as he

wished for as little as he pleased.

“While he was busy inland, where he meant to carry out some wonderful

ideas of his, the English burn his fleet for him in Aboukir Bay, for

they never could do enough to annoy us. But Napoleon, who was respected

East and West, and called ‘My Son’ by the Pope, and ‘My dear Father’ by

Mahomet’s cousin, makes up his mind to have his revenge on England,

and to take India in exchange for his fleet. He set out to lead us into

Asia, by way of the Red Sea, through a country where there were palaces

for halting-places, and nothing but gold and diamonds to pay the troops

with, when the Mahdi comes to an understanding with the Plague, and

sends it among us to make a break in our victories. Halt! Then every man

files off to that parade from which no one comes back on his two feet.

The dying soldier cannot take Acre, into which he forces an entrance

three times with a warrior’s impetuous enthusiasm; the Plague was too

strong for us; there was not even time to say ‘Your servant, sir!’ to

the Plague. Every man was down with it. Napoleon alone was as fresh as a

rose; the whole army saw him drinking in the Plague without it doing him

any harm whatever.

“There now, my friends, was that natural, do you think?

“The Mamelukes, knowing that we were all on the sick-list, want to stop

our road; but it was no use trying that nonsense with Napoleon. So he

spoke to his familiars, who had tougher skins than the rest:

“‘Go and clear the road for me.’

“Junot, who was his devoted friend, and a first-class fighter, only

takes a thousand men, and makes a clean sweep of the Pasha’s army, which

had the impudence to bar our way. Thereupon back we came to Cairo, our

headquarters, and now for another story.

“Napoleon being out of the country, France allowed the people in Paris

to worry the life out of her. They kept back the soldiers’ pay and all

their linen and clothing, left them to starve, and expected them to

lay down law to the universe, without taking any further trouble in

the matter. They were idiots of the kind that amuse themselves with

chattering instead of setting themselves to knead the dough. So our

armies were defeated, France could not keep her frontiers; The Man was

not there. I say The Man, look you, because that was how they called

him; but it was stuff and nonsense, for he had a star of his own and all

his other peculiarities, it was the rest of us that were mere men. He

hears this history of France after his famous battle of Aboukir,

where with a single division he routed the grand army of the Turks,

twenty-five thousand strong, and jostled more than half of them into the

sea, rrrah! without losing more than three hundred of his own men. That

was his last thunder-clap in Egypt. He said to himself, seeing that all

was lost down there, ‘I know that I am the saviour of France, and to

France I must go.’

“But you must clearly understand that the army did not know of his

departure; for if they had, they would have kept him there by force to

make him Emperor of the East. So there we all are without him, and in

low spirits, for he was the life of us. He leaves Kleber in command,

a great watchdog who passed in his checks at Cairo, murdered by an

Egyptian whom they put to death by spiking him with a bayonet, which

is their way of guillotining people out there; but he suffered so much,

that a soldier took pity on the scoundrel and handed his flask to him;

and the Egyptian turned up his eyes then and there with all the pleasure

in life. But there is not much fun for us about this little affair.

Napoleon steps aboard of a little cockleshell, a mere nothing of a

skiff, called the _Fortune_, and in the twinkling of an eye, and in the

teeth of the English, who were blockading the place with vessels of the

line and cruisers and everything that carries canvas, he lands in France

for he always had the faculty of taking the sea at a stride. Was that

natural? Bah! as soon as he landed at Frejus, it is as good as saying

that he has set foot in Paris. Everybody there worships him; but he

calls the Government together.

“‘What have you done to my children, the soldiers?’ he says to the

lawyers. ‘You are a set of good-for-nothings who make fools of other

people, and feather your own nests at the expense of France. It will not

do. I speak in the name of every one who is discontented.’

“Thereupon they want to put him off and to get rid of him; but not a bit

of it! He locks them up in the barracks where they used to argufy and

makes them jump out of the windows. Then he makes them follow in his

train, and they all become as mute as fishes and supple as tobacco

pouches. So he becomes Consul at a blow. He was not the man to doubt the

existence of the Supreme Being; he kept his word with Providence, who

had kept His promise in earnest; he sets up religion again, and gives

back the churches, and they ring the bells for God and Napoleon. So

every one is satisfied: _primo_, the priests with whom he allows no

one to meddle; _segondo_, the merchant folk who carry on their trades

without fear of the _rapiamus_ of the law that had pressed too heavily

on them; _tertio_, the nobles; for people had fallen into an unfortunate

habit of putting them to death, and he puts a stop to this.

“But there were enemies to be cleared out of the way, and he was not the

one to go to sleep after mess; and his eyes, look you, traveled all over

the world as if it had been a man’s face. The next thing he did was

to turn up in Italy; it was just as if he had put his head out of the

window and the sight of him was enough; they gulp down the Austrians at

Marengo like a whale swallowing gudgeons! _Haouf!_ The French Victories

blew their trumpets so loud that the whole world could hear the noise,

and there was an end of it.

“‘We will not keep on at this game any longer!’ say the Germans.

“‘That is enough of this sort of thing,’ say the others.

“Here is the upshot. Europe shows the white feather, England knuckles

under, general peace all round, and kings and peoples pretending to

embrace each other. While then and there the Emperor hits on the idea of

the Legion of Honor. There’s a fine thing if you like!

“He spoke to the whole army at Boulogne. ‘In France,’ so he said, ‘every

man is brave. So the civilian who does gloriously shall be the soldier’s

sister, the soldier shall be his brother, and both shall stand together

beneath the flag of honor.’

“By the time that the rest of us who were away down there in Egypt

had come back again, everything was changed. We had seen him last as a

general, and in no time we find that he is Emperor! And when this was

settled (and it may safely be said that every one was satisfied) there

was a holy ceremony such as was never seen under the canopy of heaven.

Faith, France gave herself to him, like a handsome girl to a lancer, and

the Pope and all his cardinals in robes of red and gold come across the

Alps on purpose to anoint him before the army and the people, who clap

their hands.

“There is one thing that it would be very wrong to keep back from you.

While he was in Egypt, in the desert not far away from Syria, the Red

Man had appeared to him on the mountain of Moses, in order to say,

‘Everything is going on well.’ Then again, on the eve of victory at

Marengo, _the Red Man_ springs to his feet in front of the Emperor for

the second time, and says to him:

“‘You shall see the world at your feet; you shall be Emperor of the

French, King of Italy, master of Holland, ruler of Spain, Portugal, and

the Illyrian Provinces, protector of Germany, saviour of Poland, first

eagle of the Legion of Honor and all the rest of it.’

“That Red Man, look you, was a notion of his own, who ran on errands and

carried messages, so many people say, between him and his star. I myself

have never believed that; but the Red Man is, undoubtedly, a fact.

Napoleon himself spoke of the Red Man who lived up in the roof of the

Tuileries, and who used to come to him, he said, in moments of trouble

and difficulty. So on the night after his coronation Napoleon saw him

for the third time, and they talked over a lot of things together.

“Then the Emperor goes straight to Milan to have himself crowned King of

Italy, and then came the real triumph of the soldier. For every one

who could write became an officer forthwith, and pensions and gifts of

duchies poured down in showers. There were fortunes for the staff that

never cost France a penny, and the Legion of Honor was as good as an

annuity for the rank and file; I still draw my pension on the strength

of it. In short, here were armies provided for in a way that had never

been seen before! But the Emperor, who knew that he was to be Emperor

over everybody, and not only over the army, bethinks himself of the

bourgeois, and sets them to build fairy monuments in places that had

been as bare as the back of my hand till then. Suppose, now, that you

are coming out of Spain and on the way to Berlin; well, you would see

triumphal arches, and in the sculpture upon them the common soldiers are

done every bit as beautifully as the generals!

“In two or three years Napoleon fills his cellars with gold, makes

bridges, palaces, roads, scholars, festivals, laws, fleets, and harbors;

he spends millions on millions, ever so much, and ever so much more to

it, so that I have heard it said that he could have paved the whole of

France with five-franc pieces if the fancy had taken him; and all this

without putting any taxes on you people here. So when he was comfortably

seated on his throne, and so thoroughly the master of the situation,

that all Europe was waiting for leave to do anything for him that he

might happen to want; as he had four brothers and three sisters, he said

to us, just as it might be by way of conversation, in the order of the

day:

“‘Children, is it fitting that your Emperor’s relations should beg their

bread? No; I want them all to be luminaries, like me in fact! Therefore,

it is urgently necessary to conquer a kingdom for each one of them, so

that the French nation may be masters everywhere, so that the Guard may

make the whole earth tremble, and France may spit wherever she likes,

and every nation shall say to her, as it is written on my coins, “God

protects you.”’

“‘All right!’ answers the army, ‘we will fish up kingdoms for you with

the bayonet.’

“Ah! there was no backing out of it, look you! If he had taken it into

his head to conquer the moon, we should have had to put everything in

train, pack our knapsacks, and scramble up; luckily, he had no wish for

that excursion. The kings who were used to the comforts of a throne, of

course, objected to be lugged off, so we had marching orders. We march,

we get there, and the earth begins to shake to its centre again. What

times they were for wearing out men and shoe-leather! And the hard

knocks that they gave us! Only Frenchmen could have stood it. But you

are not ignorant that a Frenchman is a born philosopher; he knows that

he must die a little sooner or a litter later. So we used to die without

a word, because we had the pleasure of watching the Emperor do _this_ on

the maps.”

Here the soldier swung quickly round on one foot, so as to trace a

circle on the barn floor with the other.

“‘There, that shall be a kingdom,’ he used to say, and it was a kingdom.

What fine times they were! Colonels became generals whilst you were

looking at them, generals became marshals of France, and marshals became

kings. There is one of them still left on his feet to keep Europe in

mind of those days, Gascon though he may be, and a traitor to France

that he might keep his crown; and he did not blush for his shame, for,

after all, a crown, look you, is made of gold. The very sappers and

miners who knew how to read became great nobles in the same way. And I

who am telling you all this have seen in Paris eleven kings and a crowd

of princes all round about Napoleon, like rays about the sun! Keep this

well in your minds, that as every soldier stood a chance of having a

throne of his own (provided he showed himself worthy of it), a corporal

of the Guard was by way of being a sight to see, and they gaped at him

as he went by; for every one came by his share after a victory, it

was made perfectly clear in the bulletin. And what battles they were!

Austerlitz, where the army was manoeuvred as if it had been a review;

Eylau, where the Russians were drowned in a lake, just as if Napoleon

had breathed on them and blown them in; Wagram, where the fighting was

kept up for three whole days without flinching. In short, there were as

many battles as there are saints in the calendar.

“Then it was made clear beyond a doubt that Napoleon bore the Sword

of God in his scabbard. He had a regard for the soldier. He took the

soldier for his child. He was anxious that you should have shoes,

shirts, greatcoats, bread, and cartridges; but he kept up his majesty,

too, for reigning was his own particular occupation. But, all the same,

a sergeant, or even a common soldier, could go up to him and call him

‘Emperor,’ just as you might say ‘My good friend’ to me at times. And he

would give an answer to anything you put before him. He used to sleep

on the snow just like the rest of us--in short, he looked almost like

an ordinary man; but I who am telling you all these things have seen him

myself with the grape-shot whizzing about his ears, no more put out by

it than you are at this moment; never moving a limb, watching through

his field-glass, always looking after his business; so we stood our

ground likewise, as cool and calm as John the Baptist. I do not know

how he did it; but whenever he spoke, a something in his words made

our hearts burn within us; and just to let him see that we were his

children, and that it was not in us to shirk or flinch, we used to walk

just as usual right up to the sluts of cannon that were belching smoke

and vomiting battalions of balls, and never a man would so much as say,

‘Look out!’ It was a something that made dying men raise their heads to

salute him and cry, ‘Long live the Emperor!’

“Was that natural? Would you have done this for a mere man?

“Thereupon, having fitted up all his family, and things having so

turned out that the Empress Josephine (a good woman for all that) had no

children, he was obliged to part company with her, although he loved her

not a little. But he must have children, for reasons of State. All the

crowned heads of Europe, when they heard of his difficulty, squabbled

among themselves as to who should find him a wife. He married an

Austrian princess, so they say, who was the daughter of the Caesars, a

man of antiquity whom everybody talks about, not only in our country,

where it is said that most things were his doing, but also all over

Europe. And so certain sure is that, that I who am talking to you have

been myself across the Danube, where I saw the ruins of a bridge built

by that man; and it appeared that he was some connection of Napoleon’s

at Rome, for the Emperor claimed succession there for his son.

“So, after his wedding, which was a holiday for the whole world, and

when they let the people off their taxes for ten years to come (though

they had to pay them just the same after all, because the excisemen took

no notice of the proclamation)--after his wedding, I say, his wife had a

child who was King of Rome; a child was born a King while his father was

alive, a thing that had never been seen in the world before! That day a

balloon set out from Paris to carry the news to Rome, and went all the

way in one day. There, now! Is there one of you who will stand me out

that there was nothing supernatural in that? No, it was decreed on high.

And the mischief take those who will not allow that it was wafted over

by God Himself, so as to add to the honor and glory of France!

“But there was the Emperor of Russia, a friend of our Emperor’s, who was

put out because he had not married a Russian lady. So the Russian backs

up our enemies the English; for there had always been something to

prevent Napoleon from putting a spoke in their wheel. Clearly an end

must be made of fowl of that feather. Napoleon is vexed, and he says to

us:

“‘Soldiers! You have been the masters of every capital in Europe, except

Moscow, which is allied to England. So, in order to conquer London and

India, which belongs to them in London, I find it absolutely necessary

that we go to Moscow.’

“Thereupon the greatest army that ever wore gaiters, and left its

footprints all over the globe, is brought together, and drawn up with

such peculiar cleverness, that the Emperor passed a million men in

review, all in a single day.

“‘Hourra!’ cry the Russians, and there is all Russia assembled, a lot

of brutes of Cossacks, that you never can come up with! It was country

against country, a general stramash; we had to look out for ourselves.

‘It was all Asia against Europe,’ as the Red Man had said to Napoleon.

‘All right,’ Napoleon had answered, ‘I shall be ready for them.’

“And there, in fact, were all the kings who came to lick Napoleon’s

hand. Austria, Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony, Poland, and Italy, all speaking

us fair and going along with us; it was a fine thing! The Eagles had

never cooed before as they did on parade in those days, when they were

reared above all the flags of all the nations of Europe. The Poles could

not contain their joy because the Emperor had a notion of setting up

their kingdom again; and ever since Poland and France have always been

like brothers. In short, the army shouts, ‘Russia shall be ours!’

“We cross the frontiers, all the lot of us. We march and better march,

but never a Russian do we see. At last all our watch-dogs are encamped

at Borodino. That was where I received the Cross, and there is no

denying that it was a cursed battle. The Emperor was not easy in his

mind; he had seen the Red Man, who said to him, ‘My child, you are going

a little too fast for your feet; you will run short of men, and your

friends will play you false.’

“Thereupon the Emperor proposes a treaty. But before he signs it, he

says to us:

“‘Let us give these Russians a drubbing!’

“‘All right!’ cried the army.

“‘Forward!’ say the sergeants.

“My clothes were all falling to pieces, my shoes were worn out with

trapezing over those roads out there, which are not good going at

all. But it is all one. ‘Since here is the last of the row,’ said I to

myself, ‘I mean to get all I can out of it.’

“We were posted before the great ravine; we had seats in the front row.

The signal is given, and seven hundred guns begin a conversation fit to

make the blood spirt from your ears. One should give the devil his due,

and the Russians let themselves be cut in pieces just like Frenchmen;

they did not give way, and we made no advance.

“‘Forward!’ is the cry; ‘here is the Emperor!’

“So it was. He rides past us at a gallop, and makes a sign to us that a

great deal depends on our carrying the redoubt. He puts fresh heart into

us; we rush forward, I am the first man to reach the gorge. Ah! _mon

Dieu_! how they fell, colonels, lieutenants, and common soldiers, all

alike! There were shoes to fit up those who had none, and epaulettes for

the knowing fellows that knew how to write.... Victory is the cry all

along the line! And, upon my word, there were twenty-five thousand

Frenchmen lying on the field. No more, I assure you! Such a thing was

never seen before, it was just like a field when the corn is cut, with a

man lying there for every ear of corn. That sobered the rest of us. The

Man comes, and we make a circle round about him, and he coaxes us round

(for he could be very nice when he chose), and persuades us to dine

with Duke Humphrey, when we were hungry as hunters. Then our consoler

distributes the Crosses of the Legion of Honor himself, salutes the

dead, and says to us, ‘On to Moscow!’

“‘To Moscow, so be it,’ says the army.

“We take Moscow. What do the Russians do but set fire to their city!

There was a blaze, two leagues of bonfire that burned for two days! The

buildings fell about our ears like slates, and molten lead and iron

came down in showers; it was really horrible; it was a light to see our

sorrows by, I can tell you! The Emperor said, ‘There, that is enough of

this sort of thing; all my men shall stay here.’

“We amuse ourselves for a bit by recruiting and repairing our frames,

for we really were much fatigued by the campaign. We take away with us

a gold cross from the top of the Kremlin, and every soldier had a little

fortune. But on the way back the winter came down on us a month earlier

than usual, a matter which the learned (like a set of fools) have never

sufficiently explained; and we are nipped with the cold. We were no

longer an army after that, do you understand? There was an end of

generals and even of the sergeants; hunger and misery took the command

instead, and all of us were absolutely equal under their reign. All we

thought of was how to get back to France; no one stooped to pick up

his gun or his money; every one walked straight before him, and armed

himself as he thought fit, and no one cared about glory.

“The Emperor saw nothing of his star all the time, for the weather was

so bad. There was some misunderstanding between him and heaven. Poor

man, how bad he felt when he saw his Eagles flying with their backs

turned on victory! That was really too rough! Well, the next thing is

the Beresina. And here and now, my friends, any one can assure you on

his honor, and by all that is sacred, that _never_, no, never since

there have been men on earth, never in this world has there been such

a fricasse of an army, caissons, transports, artillery and all, in such

snow as that and under such a pitiless sky. It was so cold that you

burned your hand on the barrel of your gun if you happened to touch

it. There it was that the pontooners saved the army, for the pontooners

stood firm at their posts; it was there that Gondrin behaved like a

hero, and he is the sole survivor of all the men who were dogged enough

to stand in the river so as to build the bridges on which the army

crossed over, and so escaped the Russians, who still respected the Grand

Army on account of its past victories. And Gondrin is an accomplished

soldier,” he went on, pointing to his friend, who was gazing at him with

the rapt attention peculiar to deaf people, “a distinguished soldier who

deserves to have your very highest esteem.

“I saw the Emperor standing by the bridge,” he went on, “and never

feeling the cold at all. Was that, again, a natural thing? He was

looking on at the loss of his treasures, of his friends, and those who

had fought with him in Egypt. Bah! there was an end of everything. Women

and wagons and guns were all engulfed and swallowed up, everything went

to wreck and ruin. A few of the bravest among us saved the Eagles, for

the Eagles, look you, meant France, and all the rest of you; it was the

civil and military honor of France that was in our keeping, there must

be no spot on the honor of France, and the cold could never make her bow

her head. There was no getting warm except in the neighborhood of the

Emperor; for whenever he was in danger we hurried up, all frozen as we

were--we who would not stop to hold out a hand to a fallen friend.

“They say, too, that he shed tears of a night over his poor family of

soldiers. Only he and Frenchmen could have pulled themselves out of such

a plight; but we did pull ourselves out, though, as I am telling you,

it was with loss, ay, and heavy loss. The Allies had eaten up all our

provisions; everybody began to betray him, just as the Red Man had

foretold. The rattle-pates in Paris, who had kept quiet ever since the

Imperial Guard had been established, think that HE is dead, and hatch a

conspiracy. They set to work in the Home Office to overturn the Emperor.

These things come to his knowledge and worry him; he says to us at

parting, ‘Good-bye, children; keep to your posts, I will come back

again.’

“Bah! Those generals of his lose their heads at once; for when he

was away, it was not like the same thing. The marshals fall out among

themselves, and make blunders, as was only natural, for Napoleon in his

kindness had fed them on gold till they had grown as fat as butter,

and they had no mind to march. Troubles came of this, for many of them

stayed inactive in garrison towns in the rear, without attempting to

tickle up the backs of the enemy behind us, and we were being driven

back on France. But Napoleon comes back among us with fresh troops;

conscripts they were, and famous conscripts too; he had put some

thorough notions of discipline into them--the whelps were good to set

their teeth in anybody. He had a bourgeois guard of honor too, and fine

troops they were! They melted away like butter on a gridiron. We may

put a bold front on it, but everything is against us, although the army

still performs prodigies of valor. Whole nations fought against nations

in tremendous battles, at Dresden, Lutzen, and Bautzen, and then it was

that France showed extraordinary heroism, for you must all of you bear

in mind that in those times a stout grenadier only lasted six months.

“We always won the day, but the English were always on our track,

putting nonsense into other nations’ heads, and stirring them up to

revolt. In short, we cleared a way through all these mobs of nations;

for wherever the Emperor appeared, we made a passage for him; for on the

land as on the sea, whenever he said, ‘I wish to go forward,’ we made

the way.

“There comes a final end to it at last. We are back in France; and in

spite of the bitter weather, it did one’s heart good to breathe one’s

native air again, it set up many a poor fellow; and as for me, it put

new life into me, I can tell you. But it was a question all at once of

defending France, our fair land of France. All Europe was up in arms

against us; they took it in bad part that we had tried to keep the

Russians in order by driving them back within their own borders, so

that they should not gobble us up, for those Northern folk have a strong

liking for eating up the men of the South, it is a habit they have; I

have heard the same thing of them from several generals.

“So the Emperor finds his own father-in-law, his friends whom he had

made crowned kings, and the rabble of princes to whom he had given back

their thrones, were all against him. Even Frenchmen and allies in

our own ranks turned against us, by orders from high quarters, as at

Leipsic. Common soldiers would hardly be capable of such abominations;

yet these princes, as they called themselves, broke their words three

times a day! The next thing they do is to invade France. Wherever our

Emperor shows his lion’s face, the enemy beats a retreat; he worked

more miracles for the defence of France than he had ever wrought in the

conquest of Italy, the East, Spain, Europe, and Russia; he has a mind to

bury every foreigner in French soil, to give them a respect for France,

so he lets them come close up to Paris, so as to do for them at a single

blow, and to rise to the highest height of genius in the biggest battle

that ever was fought, a mother of battles! But the Parisians wanting

to save their trumpery skins, and afraid for their twopenny shops, open

their gates and there is a beginning of the _ragusades_, and an end

of all joy and happiness; they make a fool of the Empress, and fly the

white flag out at the windows. The Emperor’s closest friends among his

generals forsake him at last and go over to the Bourbons, of whom no one

had ever heard tell. Then he bids us farewell at Fontainbleau:

“‘Soldiers!’... (I can hear him yet, we were all crying just like

children; the Eagles and the flags had been lowered as if for a funeral.

Ah! and it was a funeral, I can tell you; it was the funeral of the

Empire; those smart armies of his were nothing but skeletons now.) So he

stood there on the flight of steps before his chateau, and he said:

“‘Children, we have been overcome by treachery, but we shall meet again

up above in the country of the brave. Protect my child, I leave him in

your care. _Long live Napoleon II.!_’

“He had thought of killing himself, so that no one should behold

Napoleon after his defeat; like Jesus Christ before the Crucifixion,

he thought himself forsaken by God and by his talisman, and so he took

enough poison to kill a regiment, but it had no effect whatever upon

him. Another marvel! he discovered that he was immortal; and feeling

sure of his case, and knowing that he would be Emperor for ever, he

went to an island for a little while, so as to study the dispositions of

those folk who did not fail to make blunder upon blunder. Whilst he was

biding his time, the Chinese and the brutes out in Africa, the Moors and

what-not, awkward customers all of them, were so convinced that he was

something more than mortal, that they respected his flag, saying that

God would be displeased if any one meddled with it. So he reigned over

all the rest of the world, although the doors of his own France had been

closed upon him.

“Then he goes on board the same nutshell of a skiff that he sailed in

from Egypt, passes under the noses of the English vessels, and sets foot

in France. France recognizes her Emperor, the cuckoo flits from steeple

to steeple; France cries with one voice, ‘Long live the Emperor!’ The

enthusiasm for that Wonder of the Ages was thoroughly genuine in these

parts. Dauphine behaved handsomely; and I was uncommonly pleased to

learn that people here shed tears of joy on seeing his gray overcoat

once more.

“It was on March 1st that Napoleon set out with two hundred men to

conquer the kingdom of France and Navarre, which by March 20th had

become the French Empire again. On that day he found himself in Paris,

and a clean sweep had been made of everything; he had won back his

beloved France, and had called all his soldiers about him again, and

three words of his had done it all--‘Here am I!’ ‘Twas the greatest

miracle God ever worked! Was it ever known in the world before that a

man should do nothing but show his hat, and a whole Empire became his?

They fancied that France was crushed, did they? Never a bit of it. A

National Army springs up again at the sight of the Eagle, and we all

march to Waterloo. There the Guard fall all as one man. Napoleon in his

despair heads the rest, and flings himself three times on the enemy’s

guns without finding the death he sought; we all saw him do it, we

soldiers, and the day was lost! That night the Emperor calls all his old

soldiers about him, and there on the battlefield, which was soaked with

our blood, he burns his flags and his Eagles--the poor Eagles that had

never been defeated, that had cried, ‘Forward!’ in battle after

battle, and had flown above us all over Europe. That was the end of

the Eagles--all the wealth of England could not purchase for her one

tail-feather. The rest is sufficiently known.

“The Red Man went over to the Bourbons like the low scoundrel he is.

France is prostrate, the soldier counts for nothing, they rob him of

his due, send him about his business, and fill his place with nobles who

could not walk, they were so old, so that it made you sorry to see them.

They seize Napoleon by treachery, the English shut him up on a desert

island in the ocean, on a rock ten thousand feet above the rest of the

world. That is the final end of it; there he has to stop till the Red

Man gives him back his power again, for the happiness of France. A lot

of them say that he is dead! Dead? Oh! yes, very likely. They do not

know him, that is plain! They go on telling that fib to deceive the

people, and to keep things quiet for their tumble-down government.

Listen; this is the whole truth of the matter. His friends have left him

alone in the desert to fulfil a prophecy that was made about him, for I

forgot to tell you that his name Napoleon really means the _Lion of the

Desert_. And that is gospel truth. You will hear plenty of other things

said about the Emperor, but they are all monstrous nonsense. Because,

look you, to no man of woman born would God have given the power to

write his name in red, as he did, across the earth, where he will be

remembered for ever!... Long live ‘Napoleon, the father of the soldier,

the father of the people!’”

“Long live General Eble!” cried the pontooner.

“How did you manage not to die in the gorge of the redoubts at

Borodino?” asked a peasant woman.

“Do I know? we were a whole regiment when we went down into it, and only

a hundred foot were left standing; only infantry could have carried it;

for the infantry, look you, is everything in an army----”

“But how about the cavalry?” cried Genestas, slipping down out of the

hay in a sudden fashion that drew a startled cry from the boldest.

“He, old boy! you are forgetting Poniatowski’s Red Lancers, the

Cuirassiers, the Dragoons, and the whole boiling. Whenever Napoleon

grew tired of seeing his battalions gain no ground towards the end of a

victory, he would say to Murat, ‘Here, you! cut them in two for me!’ and

we set out first at a trot, and then at a gallop, _one, two_! and cut a

way clean through the ranks of the enemy; it was like slicing an apple

in two with a knife. Why, a charge of cavalry is nothing more nor less

than a column of cannon balls.”

“And how about the pontooners?” cried the deaf veteran.

“There, there! my children,” Genestas went on, repenting in his

confusion of the sally he had made, when he found himself in the middle

of a silent and bewildered group, “there are no agents of police spying

here! Here, drink to the Little Corporal with this!”

“Long live the Emperor!” all cried with one voice.

“Hush! children,” said the officer, concealing his own deep sorrow with

an effort. “Hush! _He is dead_. He died saying, ‘_Glory, France,

and battle_.’ So it had to be, children, he must die; but his

memory--never!”

Goguelat made an incredulous gesture, then he whispered to those about

him, “The officer is still in the service, and orders have been issued

that they are to tell the people that the Emperor is dead. You must not

think any harm of him because, after all, a soldier must obey orders.”

As Genestas went out of the barn, he heard La Fosseuse say, “That

officer, you know, is M. Benassis’ friend, and a friend of the

Emperor’s.”

Every soul in the barn rushed to the door to see the commandant again;

they saw him in the moonlight, as he took the doctor’s arm.

“It was a stupid thing to do,” said Genestas. “Quick! let us go into

the house. Those Eagles, cannon, and campaigns!... I had quite forgotten

where I was.”

“Well, what do you think of our Goguelat?” asked Benassis.

“So long as such stories are told in France, sir, she will always find

the fourteen armies of the Republic within her, at need; and her cannon

will be perfectly able to keep up a conversation with the rest of

Europe. That is what I think.”

A few moments later they reached Benassis’ dwelling, and soon were

sitting on either side of the hearth in the salon; the dying fire in

the grate still sent up a few sparks now and then. Each was absorbed in

thought. Genestas was hesitating to ask one last question. In spite of

the marks of confidence that he had received, he feared lest the doctor

should regard his inquiry as indiscreet. He looked searchingly at

Benassis more than once; and an answering smile, full of a kindly

cordiality, such as lights up the faces of men of real strength of

character, seemed to give him in advance the favorable reply for which

he sought. So he spoke:

“Your life, sir, is so different from the lives of ordinary men, that

you will not be surprised to hear me ask you the reason of your retired

existence. My curiosity may seem to you to be unmannerly, but you will

admit that it is very natural. Listen a moment: I have had comrades with

whom I have never been on intimate terms, even though I have made many

campaigns with them; but there have been others to whom I would say, ‘Go

to the paymaster and draw our money,’ three days after we had got drunk

together, a thing that will happen, for the quietest folk must have a

frolic fit at times. Well, then, you are one of those people whom I

take for a friend without waiting to ask leave, nay, without so much as

knowing wherefore.”

“Captain Bluteau----”

Whenever the doctor had called his guest by his assumed name, the

latter had been unable for some time past to suppress a slight grimace.

Benassis, happening to look up just then, caught this expression of

repugnance; he sought to discover the reason of it, and looked full into

the soldier’s face, but the real enigma was well-nigh insoluble for him,

so he set down these symptoms to physical suffering and went on:

“Captain, I am about to speak of myself. I have had to force myself to

do so already several times since yesterday, while telling you about

the improvements that I have managed to introduce here; but it was a

question of the interests of the people and the commune, with which mine

are necessarily bound up. But, now, if I tell you my story, I should

have to speak wholly of myself, and mine has not been a very interesting

life.”

“If it were as uneventful as La Fosseuse’s life,” answered Genestas,

“I should still be glad to know about it; I should like to know the

untoward events that could bring a man of your calibre into this

canton.”

“Captain, for these twelve years I have lived in silence; and now, as I

wait at the brink of the grave for the stroke that will cast me into

it, I will candidly own to you that this silence is beginning to weigh

heavily upon me. I have borne my sorrows alone for twelve years; I have

had none of the comfort that friendship gives in such full measure to

a heart in pain. My poor sick folk and my peasants certainly set me

an example of unmurmuring resignation; but they know that I at least

understand them and their troubles, while there is not a soul here who

knows of the tears that I have shed, no one to give me the hand-clasp of

a comrade, the noblest reward of all, a reward that falls to the lot of

every other; even Gondrin has not missed that.”

Genestas held out his hand, a sudden impulsive movement by which

Benassis was deeply touched.

“There is La Fosseuse,” he went on in a different voice; “she perhaps

would have understood as the angels might; but then, too, she might

possibly have loved me, and that would have been a misfortune. Listen,

captain, my confession could only be made to an old soldier who looks as

leniently as you do on the failings of others, or to some young man who

has not lost the illusions of youth; for only a man who knows life

well, or a lad to whom it is all unknown, could understand my story. The

captains of past times who fell upon the field of battle used to make

their last confession to the cross on the hilt of their sword; if there

was no priest at hand, it was the sword that received and kept the

last confidences between a human soul and God. And will you hear and

understand me, for you are one of Napoleon’s finest sword-blades, as

thoroughly tempered and as strong as steel? Some parts of my story can

only be understood by a delicate tenderness, and through a sympathy with

the beliefs that dwell in simple hearts; beliefs which would seem absurd

to the sophisticated people who make use in their own lives of the

prudential maxims of worldly wisdom that only apply to the government

of states. To you I shall speak openly and without reserve, as a man who

does not seek to apologize for his life with the good and evil done

in the course of it; as one who will hide nothing from you, because he

lives so far from the world of to-day, careless of the judgements of

man, and full of hope in God.”

Benassis stopped, rose to his feet, and said, “Before I begin my story,

I will order tea. Jacquotte has never missed asking me if I will take it

for these twelve years past, and she will certainly interrupt us. Do you

care about it, captain?”

“No, thank you.”

In another moment Benassis returned.

CHAPTER IV. THE COUNTRY DOCTOR’S CONFESSION

“I was born in a little town in Languedoc,” the doctor resumed. “My

father had been settled there for many years, and there my early

childhood was spent. When I was eight years old I was sent to the school

of the Oratorians at Sorreze, and only left it to finish my studies

in Paris. My father had squandered his patrimony in the course of an

exceedingly wild and extravagant youth. He had retrieved his position

partly by a fortunate marriage, partly by the slow persistent thrift

characteristic of provincial life; for in the provinces people pride

themselves on accumulating rather than on spending, and all the ambition

in a man’s nature is either extinguished or directed to money-getting,

for want of any nobler end. So he had grown rich at last, and thought

to transmit to his only son all the cut-and-dried experience which he

himself had purchased at the price of his lost illusions; a noble last

illusion of age which fondly seeks to bequeath its virtues and its

wary prudence to heedless youth, intent only on the enjoyment of the

enchanted life that lies before it.

“This foresight on my father’s part led him to make plans for my

education for which I had to suffer. He sedulously concealed my

expectations of wealth from me, and during the fairest years of my

youth compelled me, for my own good, to endure the burden of anxiety and

hardship that presses upon a young man who has his own way to make in

the world. His idea in so doing was to instill the virtues of poverty

into me--patience, a thirst for learning, and a love of work for its own

sake. He hoped to teach me to set a proper value on my inheritance,

by letting me learn, in this way, all that it costs to make a fortune;

wherefore, as soon as I was old enough to understand his advice, he

urged me to choose a profession and to work steadily at it. My tastes

inclined me to the study of medicine.

“So I left Sorreze, after ten years of almost monastic discipline of

the Oratorians; and, fresh from the quiet life of a remote provincial

school, I was taken straight to the capital. My father went with me in

order to introduce me to the notice of a friend of his; and (all unknown

to me) my two elders took the most elaborate precautions against any

ebullitions of youth on my part, innocent lad though I was. My allowance

was rigidly computed on a scale based upon the absolute necessaries of

life, and I was obliged to produce my certificate of attendance at the

Ecole de Médecine before I was allowed to draw my quarter’s income. The

excuse for this sufficiently humiliating distrust was the necessity of

my acquiring methodical and business-like habits. My father, however,

was not sparing of money for all the necessary expenses of my education

and for the amusements of Parisian life.

“His old friend was delighted to have a young man to guide through

the labyrinth into which I had entered. He was one of those men whose

natures lead them to docket their thoughts, feelings, and opinions

every whit as carefully as their papers. He would turn up last year’s

memorandum book, and could tell in a moment what he had been doing a

twelvemonth since in this very month, day, and hour of the present year.

Life, for him, was a business enterprise, and he kept the books after

the most approved business methods. There was real worth in him though

he might be punctilious, shrewd, and suspicious, and though he never

lacked specious excuses for the precautionary measures that he took with

regard to me. He used to buy all my books; he paid for my lessons; and

once, when the fancy took me to learn to ride, the good soul himself

found me out a riding-school, went thither with me, and anticipated my

wishes by putting a horse at my disposal whenever I had a holiday. In

spite of all this cautious strategy, which I managed to defeat as soon

as I had any temptation to do so, the kind old man was a second father

to me.

“‘My friend,’ he said, as soon as he surmised that I should break away

altogether from my leading strings, unless he relaxed them, ‘young folk

are apt to commit follies which draw down the wrath of their elders upon

their heads, and you may happen to want money at some time or other;

if so, come to me. Your father helped me nobly once upon a time, and

I shall always have a few crowns to spare for you; but never tell any

lies, and do not be ashamed to own to your faults. I myself was young

once; we shall always get on well together, like two good comrades.’

“My father found lodgings for me with some quiet, middle-class people

in the Latin Quarter, and my room was furnished nicely enough; but this

first taste of independence, my father’s kindness, and the self-denial

which he seemed to be exercising for me, brought me but little

happiness. Perhaps the value of liberty cannot be known until it has

been experienced; and the memories of the freedom of my childhood had

been almost effaced by the irksome and dreary life at school, from which

my spirits had scarcely recovered. In addition to this, my father had

urged new tasks upon me, so that altogether Paris was an enigma. You

must acquire some knowledge of its pleasures before you can amuse

yourself in Paris.

“My real position, therefore, was quite unchanged, save that my

new _lycee_ was a much larger building, and was called the Ecole de

Médecine. Nevertheless, I studied away bravely at first; I attended

lectures diligently; I worked desperately hard and without relaxation,

so strongly was my imagination affected by the abundant treasures of

knowledge to be gained in the capital. But very soon I heedlessly

made acquaintances; danger lurks hidden beneath the rash confiding

friendships that have so strong a charm for youth, and gradually I was

drawn into the dissipated life of the capital. I became an enthusiastic

lover of the theatre; and with my craze for actors and the play, the

work of my demoralization began. The stage, in a great metropolis,

exerts a very deadly influence over the young; they never quit the

theatre save in a state of emotional excitement almost always beyond

their power to control; society and the law seem to me to be accessories

to the irregularities brought about in this way. Our legislation has

shut its eyes, so to speak, to the passions that torment a young man

between twenty and five-and-twenty years of age. In Paris he is assailed

by temptations of every kind. Religion may preach and Law may demand

that he should walk uprightly, but all his surroundings and the tone of

those about him are so many incitements to evil. Do not the best of men

and the most devout women there look upon continence as ridiculous? The

great city, in fact, seems to have set herself to give encouragement to

vice and to this alone; for a young man finds that the entrance to

every honorable career in which he might look for success is barred by

hindrances even more numerous than the snares that are continually set

for him, so that through his weaknesses he may be robbed of his money.

“For a long while I went every evening to some theatre, and little by

little I fell into idle ways. I grew more and more slack over my work;

even my most pressing tasks were apt to be put off till the morrow, and

before very long there was an end of my search after knowledge for its

own sake; I did nothing more than the work which was absolutely required

to enable me to get through the examinations that must be passed before

I could become a doctor. I attended the public lectures, but I no longer

paid any attention to the professors, who, in my opinion, were a set of

dotards. I had already broken my idols--I became a Parisian.

“To be brief, I led the aimless drifting life of a young, provincial

thrown into the heart of a great city; still retaining some good and

true feeling, still clinging more or less to the observance of certain

rules of conduct, still fighting in vain against the debasing

influence of evil examples, though I offered but a feeble, half-hearted

resistance, for the enemy had accomplices within me. Yes, sir, my face

is not misleading; past storms have plainly left their traces there.

Yet, since I had drunk so deeply of the pure fountain of religion in

my early youth, I was haunted in the depths of my soul, through all my

wanderings, by an ideal of moral perfection which could not fail one day

to bring me back to God by the paths of weariness and remorse. Is not he

who feels the pleasures of earth most keenly, sure to be attracted, soon

or late, by the fruits of heaven?

“At first I went through the experience, more or less vivid, that always

comes with youth--the countless moments of exultation, the unnumbered

transports of despair. Sometimes I took my vehement energy of feeling

for a resolute will, and over-estimated my powers; sometimes, at the

mere sight of some trifling obstacle with which I was about to come into

collision, I was far more cast down than I ought to have been. Then

I would devise vast plans, would dream of glory, and betake myself to

work; but a pleasure party would divert me from the noble projects based

on so infirm a purpose. Vague recollections of these great abortive

schemes of mine left a deceptive glow in my soul and fostered my belief

in myself, without giving me the energy to produce. In my indolent

self-sufficiency I was in a very fair way to become a fool, for what is

a fool but a man who fails to justify the excellent opinion which he has

formed of himself? My energy was directed towards no definite aims; I

wished for the flowers of life without the toil of cultivating them. I

had no idea of the obstacles, so I imagined that everything was easy;

luck, I thought, accounted for success in science and in business, and

genius was charlatanism. I took it for granted that I should be a

great man, because there was the power of becoming one within me; so I

discounted all my future glory, without giving a thought to the patience

required for the conception of a great work, nor of the execution, in

the course of which all the difficulties of the task appear.

“The sources of my amusements were soon exhausted. The charm of the

theatre does not last for very long; and, for a poor student, Paris

shortly became an empty wilderness. They were dull and uninteresting

people that I met with in the circle of the family with whom I lived;

but these, and an old man who had now lost touch with the world, were

all the society that I had.

“So, like every young man who takes a dislike to the career marked out

for him, I rambled about the streets for whole days together; I strolled

along the quays, through the museums and public gardens, making no

attempt to arrive at a clear understanding of my position, and without

a single definite idea in my head. The burden of unemployed energies is

more felt at that age than at any other; there is such an abundance of

vitality running to waste, so much activity without result. I had no

idea of the power that a resolute will puts into the hands of a man in

his youth; for when he has ideas and puts his whole heart and soul into

the work of carrying them out, his strength is yet further increased by

the undaunted courage of youthful convictions.

“Childhood in its simplicity knows nothing of the perils of life; youth

sees both its vastness and its difficulties, and at the prospect

the courage of youth sometimes flags. We are still serving our

apprenticeship to life; we are new to the business, a kind of

faint-heartedness overpowers us, and leaves us in an almost dazed

condition of mind. We feel that we are helpless aliens in a strange

country. At all ages we shrink back involuntarily from the unknown.

And a young man is very much like the soldier who will walk up to the

cannon’s mouth, and is put to flight by a ghost. He hesitates among the

maxims of the world. The rules of attack and of self-defence are alike

unknown to him; he can neither give nor take; he is attracted by women,

and stands in awe of them; his very good qualities tell against him,

he is all generosity and modesty, and completely innocent of mercenary

designs. Pleasure and not interest is his object when he tells a lie;

and among many dubious courses, the conscience, with which as yet he has

not juggled, points out to him the right way, which he is slow to take.

“There are men whose lives are destined to be shaped by the impulses of

their hearts, rather than by any reasoning process that takes place in

their heads, and such natures as these will remain for a long while in

the position that I have described. This was my own case. I became the

plaything of two contending impulses; the desires of youth were always

held in check by a faint-hearted sentimentality. Life in Paris is a

cruel ordeal for impressionable natures, the great inequalities of

fortune or of position inflame their souls and stir up bitter feelings.

In that world of magnificence and pettiness envy is more apt to be a

dagger than a spur. You are bound either to fall a victim or to become a

partisan in this incessant strife of ambitions, desires, and hatreds,

in the midst of which you are placed; and by slow degrees the picture

of vice triumphant and virtue made ridiculous produces its effect on

a young man, and he wavers; life in Paris soon rubs the bloom from

conscience, the infernal work of demoralization has begun, and is

soon accomplished. The first of pleasures, that which at the outset

comprehends all the others, is set about with such perils that it is

impossible not to reflect upon the least actions which it provokes,

impossible not to calculate all its consequences. These calculations

lead to selfishness. If some poor student, carried away by an

impassioned enthusiasm, is fain to rise above selfish considerations,

the suspicious attitude of those about him makes him pause and doubt;

it is so hard not to share their mistrust, so difficult not to be on

his guard against his own generous thoughts. His heart is seared and

contracted by this struggle, the current of life sets toward the brain,

and the callousness of the Parisian is the result--the condition of

things in which schemes for power and wealth are concealed by the most

charming frivolity, and lurk beneath the sentimental transports that

take the place of enthusiasm. The simplest-natured woman in Paris always

keeps a clear head even in the intoxication of happiness.

“This atmosphere was bound to affect my opinions and my conduct. The

errors that have poisoned my life would have lain lightly on many a

conscience, but we in the South have a religious faith that leads us to

believe in a future life, and in the truths set forth by the Catholic

Church. These beliefs give depth and gravity to every feeling, and to

remorse a terrible and lasting power.

“The army were masters of society at the time when I was studying

medicine. In order to shine in women’s eyes, one had to be a colonel at

the very least. A poor student counted for absolutely nothing. Goaded by

the strength of my desires, and finding no outlet for them; hampered at

every step and in every wish by the want of money; looking on study and

fame as too slow a means of arriving at the pleasures that tempted

me; drawn one way by my inward scruples, and another by evil examples;

meeting with every facility for low dissipation, and finding nothing

but hindrances barring the way to good society, I passed my days

in wretchedness, overwhelmed by a surging tumult of desires, and by

indolence of the most deadly kind, utterly cast down at times, only to

be as suddenly elated.

“The catastrophe which at length put an end to this crisis was

commonplace enough. The thought of troubling the peace of a household

has always been repugnant to me; and not only so, I could not dissemble

my feelings, the instinct of sincerity was too strong in me; I should

have found it a physical impossibility to lead a life of glaring

falsity. There is for me but little attraction in pleasures that must be

snatched. I wish for full consciousness of my happiness. I led a life

of solitude, for which there seemed to be no remedy; for I shrank

from openly vicious courses, and the many efforts that I made to enter

society were all in vain. There I might have met with some woman who

would have undertaken the task of teaching me the perils of every path,

who would have formed my manners, counseled me without wounding my

vanity, and introduced me everywhere where I was likely to make friends

who would be useful to me in my future career. In my despair, an

intrigue of the most dangerous kind would perhaps have had its

attractions for me; but even peril was out of my reach. My inexperience

sent me back again to my solitude, where I dwelt face to face with my

thwarted desires.

“At last I formed a connection, at first a secret one, with a girl, whom

I persuaded, half against her will, to share my life. Her people were

worthy folk, who had but small means. It was not very long before she

left her simple sheltered life, and fearlessly intrusted me with a

future that virtue would have made happy and fair; thinking, no doubt,

that my narrow income was the surest guarantee of my faithfulness to

her. From that moment the tempest that had raged within me ceased, and

happiness lulled my wild desires and ambitions to sleep. Such happiness

is only possible for a young man who is ignorant of the world, who knows

nothing as yet of its accepted codes nor of the strength of prejudice;

but while it lasts, his happiness is as all-absorbing as a child’s. Is

not first love like a return of childhood across the intervening years

of anxiety and toil?

“There are men who learn life at a glance, who see it for what it is at

once, who learn experience from the mistakes of others, who apply the

current maxims of worldly wisdom to their own case with signal success,

and make unerring forecasts at all times. Wise in their generation are

such cool heads as these! But there is also a luckless race endowed with

the impressionable, keenly-sensitive temperament of the poet; these are

the natures that fall into error, and to this latter class I belonged.

There was no great depth in the feeling that first drew me towards this

poor girl; I followed my instinct rather than my heart when I sacrificed

her to myself, and I found no lack of excellent reasons wherewith to

persuade myself that there was no harm whatever in what I had done. And

as for her--she was devotion itself, a noble soul with a clear, keen

intelligence and a heart of gold. She never counseled me other than

wisely. Her love put fresh heart into me from the first; she foretold a

splendid future of success and fortune for me, and gently constrained me

to take up my studies again by her belief in me. In these days there is

scarcely a branch of science that has no bearing upon medicine; it is a

difficult task to achieve distinction, but the reward is great, for in

Paris fame always means fortune. The unselfish girl devoted herself

to me, shared in every interest, even the slightest, of my life, and

managed so carefully and wisely that we lived in comfort on my narrow

income. I had more money to spare, now that there were two of us, than

I had ever had while I lived by myself. Those were my happiest days. I

worked with enthusiasm, I had a definite aim before me, I had found the

encouragement I needed. Everything I did or thought I carried to her,

who had not only found the way to gain my love, but above and beyond

this had filled me with sincere respect for her by the modest discretion

which she displayed in a position where discretion and modesty seemed

well-nigh impossible. But one day was like another, sir; and it is only

after our hears have passed through all the storms appointed for us that

we know the value of a monotonous happiness, and learn that life holds

nothing more sweet for us than this; a calm happiness in which the

fatigue of existence is felt no longer, and the inmost thoughts of

either find response in the other’s soul.

“My former dreams assailed me again. They were my own vehement longings

for the pleasures of wealth that awoke, though it was in love’s name

that I now asked for them. In the evenings I grew abstracted and moody,

rapt in imaginings of the pleasures I could enjoy if I were rich,

and thoughtlessly gave expression to my desires in answer to a tender

questioning voice. I must have drawn a painful sigh from her who had

devoted herself to my happiness; for she, sweet soul, felt nothing more

cruelly than the thought that I wished for something that she could not

give me immediately. Oh! sir, a woman’s devotion is sublime!”

There was a sharp distress in the doctor’s exclamation which seemed

prompted by some recollection of his own; he paused for a brief while,

and Genestas respected his musings.

“Well, sir,” Benassis resumed, “something happened which should have

concluded the marriage thus begun; but instead of that it put an end to

it, and was the cause of all my misfortunes. My father died and left

me a large fortune. The necessary business arrangements demanded my

presence in Languedoc for several months, and I went thither alone.

At last I had regained my freedom! Even the mildest yoke is galling

to youth; we do not see its necessity any more than we see the need to

work, until we have had some experience of life. I came and went without

giving an account of my actions to any one; there was no need to do so

now unless I wished, and I relished liberty with all the keen capacity

for enjoyment that we have in Languedoc. I did not absolutely forget the

ties that bound me; but I was so absorbed in other matters of interest,

that my mind was distracted from them, and little by little the

recollection of them faded away. Letters full of heartfelt tenderness

reached me; but at two-and-twenty a young man imagines that all women

are alike tender; he does not know love from a passing infatuation; all

things are confused in the sensations of pleasure which seem at first

to comprise everything. It was only later, when I came to a clearer

knowledge of men and of things as they are, that I could estimate those

noble letters at their just worth. No trace of selfishness was mingled

with the feeling expressed in them; there was nothing but gladness on

my account for my change of fortune, and regret on her own; it never

occurred to her that I could change towards her, for she felt that she

herself was incapable of change. But even then I had given myself up to

ambitious dreams; I thought of drinking deeply of all the delights that

wealth could give, of becoming a person of consequence, of making a

brilliant marriage. So I read the letters, and contented myself with

saying, ‘She is very fond of me,’ with the indifference of a coxcomb.

Even then I was perplexed as to how to extricate myself from this

entanglement; I was ashamed of it, and this fact as well as my

perplexity led me to be cruel. We begin by wounding the victim, and then

we kill it, that the sight of our cruelty may no longer put us to the

blush. Late reflections upon those days of error have unveiled for me

many a dark depth in the human heart. Yes, believe me, those who best

have fathomed the good and evil in human nature have honestly examined

themselves in the first instance. Conscience is the starting-point of

our investigations; we proceed from ourselves to others, never from

others to ourselves.

“When I returned to Paris I took up my abode in a large house which,

in pursuance with my orders, had been taken for me, and the one person

interested in my return and change of address was not informed of it. I

wished to cut a figure among young men of fashion. I waited a few

days to taste the first delights of wealth; and when, flushed with the

excitement of my new position, I felt that I could trust myself to do

so, I went to see the poor girl whom I meant to cast off. With a woman’s

quickness she saw what was passing in my mind, and hid her tears from

me. She could not but have despised me; but it was her nature to be

gentle and kindly, and she never showed her scorn. Her forbearance was a

cruel punishment. An unresisting victim is not a pleasant thing; whether

the murder is done decorously in the drawing-room, or brutally on the

highway, there should be a struggle to give some plausible excuse for

taking a life. I renewed my visits very affectionately at first, making

efforts to be gracious, if not tender; by slow degrees I became politely

civil; and one day, by a sort of tacit agreement between us, she allowed

me to treat her as a stranger, and I thought that I had done all that

could be expected of me. Nevertheless I abandoned myself to my new life

with almost frenzied eagerness, and sought to drown in gaiety any vague

lingering remorse that I felt. A man who has lost his self-respect

cannot endure his own society, so I led the dissipated life that wealthy

young men lead in Paris. Owing to a good education and an excellent

memory, I seemed cleverer than I really was, forthwith I looked down

upon other people; and those who, for their own purposes, wished to

prove to me that I was possessed of extraordinary abilities, found

me quite convinced on that head. Praise is the most insidious of all

methods of treachery known to the world; and this is nowhere better

understood than in Paris, where intriguing schemers know how to stifle

every kind of talent at its birth by heaping laurels on its cradle. So

I did nothing worthy of my reputation; I reaped no advantages from the

golden opinions entertained of me, and made no acquaintances likely

to be useful in my future career. I wasted my energies in numberless

frivolous pursuits, and in the short-lived love intrigues that are the

disgrace of salons in Paris, where every one seeks for love, grows blase

in the pursuit, falls into the libertinism sanctioned by polite society,

and ends by feeling as much astonished at real passion as the world is

over a heroic action. I did as others did. Often I dealt to generous and

candid souls the deadly wound from which I myself was slowly perishing.

Yet though deceptive appearances might lead others to misjudge me, I

could never overcome my scrupulous delicacy. Many times I have been

duped, and should have blushed for myself had it been otherwise; I

secretly prided myself on acting in good faith, although this lowered me

in the eyes of others. As a matter of fact the world has a considerable

respect for cleverness, whatever form it takes, and success justifies

everything. So the world was pleased to attribute to me all the good

qualities and evil propensities, all the victories and defeats which had

never been mine; credited me with conquests of which I knew nothing, and

sat in judgment upon actions of which I had never been guilty. I scorned

to contradict the slanders, and self-love led me to regard the more

flattering rumors with a certain complacence. Outwardly my existence was

pleasant enough, but in reality I was miserable. If it had not been for

the tempest of misfortunes that very soon burst over my head, all

good impulses must have perished, and evil would have triumphed in the

struggle that went on within me; enervating self-indulgence would have

destroyed the body, as the detestable habits of egotism exhausted the

springs of the soul. But I was ruined financially. This was how it came

about.

“No matter how large his fortune may be, a man is sure to find some one

else in Paris possessed of yet greater wealth, whom he must needs aim at

surpassing. In this unequal conquest I was vanquished at the end of four

years; and, like many another harebrained youngster, I was obliged to

sell part of my property and to mortgage the remainder to satisfy my

creditors. Then a terrible blow suddenly struck me down.

“Two years had passed since I had last seen the woman whom I had

deserted. The turn that my affairs were taking would no doubt have

brought me back to her once more; but one evening, in the midst of a gay

circle of acquaintances, I received a note written in a trembling hand.

It only contained these few words:

“‘I have only a very little while to live, and I should like to see

you, my friend, so that I may know what will become of my child--whether

henceforward he will be yours; and also to soften the regret that some

day you might perhaps feel for my death.’

“The letter made me shudder. It was a revelation of secret anguish in

the past, while it contained a whole unknown future. I set out on

foot, I would not wait for my carriage, I went across Paris, goaded by

remorse, and gnawed by a dreadful fear that was confirmed by the first

sight of my victim. In the extreme neatness and cleanliness beneath

which she had striven to hid her poverty I read all the terrible

sufferings of her life; she was nobly reticent about them in her effort

to spare my feelings, and only alluded to them after I had solemnly

promised to adopt our child. She died, sir, in spite of all the care

lavished upon her, and all that science could suggest was done for her

in vain. The care and devotion that had come too late only served to

render her last moments less bitter.

“To support her little one she had worked incessantly with her needle.

Love for her child had given her strength to endure her life of

hardship; but it had not enabled her to bear my desertion, the keenest

of all her griefs. Many times she had thought of trying to see me, but

her woman’s pride had always prevented this. While I squandered floods

of gold upon my caprices, no memory of the past had ever bidden a single

drop to fall in her home to help mother and child to live; but she had

been content to weep, and had not cursed me; she had looked upon her

evil fortune as the natural punishment of her error. With the aid of a

good priest of Saint Sulpice, whose kindly voice had restored peace to

her soul, she had sought for hope in the shadow of the altar, whither

she had gone to dry her tears. The bitter flood that I had poured into

her heart gradually abated; and one day, when she heard her child say

‘Father,’ a word that she had not taught him, she forgave my crime. But

sorrow and weeping and days and nights of ceaseless toil injured her

health. Religion had brought its consolations and the courage to bear

the ills of life, but all too late. She fell ill of a heart complaint

brought on by grief and by the strain of expectation, for she always

thought that I should return, and her hopes always sprang up afresh

after every disappointment. Her health grew worse; and at last, as she

was lying on her deathbed, she wrote those few lines, containing no word

of reproach, prompted by religion, and by a belief in the goodness in my

nature. She knew, she said, that I was blinded rather than bent on doing

wrong. She even accused herself of carrying her womanly pride too far.

‘If I had only written sooner,’ she said, ‘perhaps there might have been

time for a marriage which would have legitimated our child.’

“It was only on her child’s account that she wished for the

solemnization of the ties that bound us, nor would she have sought for

this if she had not felt that death was at hand to unloose them. But

it was too late; even then she had only a few hours to live. By her

bedside, where I learned to know the worth of a devoted heart, my nature

underwent a final change. I was still at an age when tears are shed.

During those last days, while the precious life yet lingered, my

tears, my words, and everything I did bore witness to my heartstricken

repentance. The meanness and pettiness of the society in which I had

moved, the emptiness and selfishness of women of fashion, had taught me

to wish for and to seek an elect soul, and now I had found it--too late.

I was weary of lying words and of masked faces; counterfeit passion

had set me dreaming; I had called on love; and now I beheld love lying

before me, slain by my own hands, and had no power to keep it beside me,

no power to keep what was so wholly mine.

“The experience of four years had taught me to know my own real

character. My temperament, the nature of my imagination, my religious

principles, which had not been eradicated, but had rather lain

dormant; my turn of mind, my heart that only now began to make itself

felt--everything within me led me to resolve to fill my life with

the pleasures of affection, to replace a lawless love by family

happiness--the truest happiness on earth. Visions of close and dear

companionship appealed to me but the more strongly for my wanderings

in the wilderness, my grasping at pleasures unennobled by thought or

feeling. So though the revolution within me was rapidly effected, it

was permanent. With my southern temperament, warped by the life I led in

Paris, I should certainly have come to look without pity on an unhappy

girl betrayed by her lover; I should have laughed at the story if it

had been told me by some wag in merry company (for with us in France

a clever bon mot dispels all feelings of horror at a crime), but all

sophistries were silenced in the presence of this angelic creature,

against whom I could bring no least word of reproach. There stood her

coffin, and my child, who did not know that I had murdered his mother,

and smiled at me.

“She died. She died happy when she saw that I loved her, and that this

new love was due neither to pity nor to the ties that bound us together.

Never shall I forget her last hours. Love had been won back, her mind

was at rest about her child, and happiness triumphed over suffering.

The comfort and luxury about her, the merriment of her child, who looked

prettier still in the dainty garb that had replaced his baby-clothes,

were pledges of a happy future for the little one, in whom she saw her

own life renewed.

“The curate of Saint Sulpice witnessed my terrible distress. His words

well-nigh made me despair. He did not attempt to offer conventional

consolation, and put the gravity of my responsibilities unsparingly

before me, but I had no need of a spur. The conscience within me spoke

loudly enough already. A woman had placed a generous confidence in me.

I had lied to her from the first; I had told her that I loved her, and

then I had cast her off; I had brought all this sorrow upon an unhappy

girl who had braved the opinion of the world for me, and who therefore

should have been sacred in my eyes. She had died forgiving me. Her

implicit trust in the word of a man who had once before broken his

promise to her effaced the memory of all her pain and grief, and she

slept in peace. Agatha, who had given me her girlish faith, had found in

her heart another faith to give me--the faith of a mother. Oh! sir, the

child, _her_ child! God alone can know all that he was to me! The dear

little one was like his mother; he had her winning grace in his little

ways, his talk and ideas; but for me, my child was not only a child, but

something more; was he not the token of my forgiveness, my honor?

“He should have more than a father’s affection. He should be loved as

his mother would have loved him. My remorse might change to happiness if

I could only make him feel that his mother’s arms were still about him.

I clung to him with all the force of human love and the hope of heaven,

with all the tenderness in my heart that God has given to mothers. The

sound of the child’s voice made me tremble. I used to watch him while

he slept with a sense of gladness that was always new, albeit a tear

sometimes fell on his forehead; I taught him to come to say his prayer

upon my bed as soon as he awoke. How sweet and touching were the simple

words of the _Pater noster_ in the innocent childish mouth! Ah! and at

times how terrible! ‘_Our Father which art in heaven_,’ he began one

morning; then he paused--‘Why is it not _our mother_?’ he asked, and my

heart sank at his words.

“From the very first I had sown the seeds of future misfortune in

the life of the son whom I idolized. Although the law has almost

countenanced errors of youth by conceding to tardy regret a legal status

to natural children, the insurmountable prejudices of society bring a

strong force to the support of the reluctance of the law. All serious

reflection on my part as to the foundations and mechanism of society, on

the duties of man, and vital questions of morality date from this period

of my life. Genius comprehends at first sight the connection between a

man’s principles and the fate of the society of which he forms a part;

devout souls are inspired by religion with the sentiments necessary for

their happiness; but vehement and impulsive natures can only be schooled

by repentance. With repentance came new light for me; and I, who only

lived for my child, came through that child to think over great social

questions.

“I determined from the first that he should have all possible means of

success within himself, and that he should be thoroughly prepared to

take the high position for which I destined him. He learned English,

German, Italian, and Spanish in succession; and, that he might speak

these languages correctly, tutors belonging to each of these various

nationalities were successively placed about him from his earliest

childhood. His aptitude delighted me. I took advantage of it to give

him lessons in the guise of play. I wished to keep his mind free from

fallacies, and strove before all things to accustom him from childhood

to exert his intellectual powers, to make a rapid and accurate general

survey of a matter, and then, by a careful study of every least

particular, to master his subject in detail. Lastly, I taught him to

submit to discipline without murmuring. I never allowed an impure or

improper word to be spoken in his hearing. I was careful that all his

surroundings, and the men with whom he came in contact, should conduce

to one end--to ennoble his nature, to set lofty ideals before him, to

give him a love of truth and a horror of lies, to make him simple and

natural in manner, as in word and deed. His natural aptitude had made

his other studies easy to him, and his imagination made him quick to

grasp these lessons that lay outside the province of the schoolroom.

What a fair flower to tend! How great are the joys that mothers know!

In those days I began to understand how his own mother had been able to

live and to bear her sorrow. This, sir, was the great event of my life;

and now I am coming to the tragedy which drove me hither.

“It is the most ordinary commonplace story imaginable; but to me it

meant the most terrible pain. For some years I had thought of nothing

but my child, and how to make a man of him; then, when my son was

growing up and about to leave me, I grew afraid of my loneliness. Love

was a necessity of my existence; this need for affection had never been

satisfied, and only grew stronger with years. I was in every way capable

of a real attachment; I had been tried and proved. I knew all that

a steadfast love means, the love that delights to find a pleasure in

self-sacrifice; in everything I did my first thought would always be

for the woman I loved. In imagination I was fain to dwell on the serene

heights far above doubt and uncertainty, where love so fills two beings

that happiness flows quietly and evenly into their life, their looks,

and words. Such love is to a life what religion is to the soul; a vital

force, a power that enlightens and upholds. I understood the love of

husband and wife in nowise as most people do; for me its full beauty and

magnificence began precisely at the point where love perishes in many a

household. I deeply felt the moral grandeur of a life so closely shared

by two souls that the trivialities of everyday existence should be

powerless against such lasting love as theirs. But where will the hearts

be found whose beats are so nearly _isochronous_ (let the scientific

term pass) that they may attain to this beatific union? If they exist,

nature and chance have set them far apart, so that they cannot come

together; they find each other too late, or death comes too soon to

separate them. There must be some good reasons for these dispensations

of fate, but I have never sought to discover them. I cannot make a

study of my wound, because I suffer too much from it. Perhaps perfect

happiness is a monster which our species should not perpetuate. There

were other causes for my fervent desire for such a marriage as this. I

had no friends, the world for me was a desert. There is something in me

that repels friendship. More than one person has sought me out, but, in

spite of efforts on my part, it came to nothing. With many men I have

been careful to show no sign of something that is called ‘superiority;’

I have adapted my mind to theirs; I have placed myself at their point of

view, joined in their laughter, and overlooked their defects; any fame I

might have gained, I would have bartered for a little kindly affection.

They parted from me without regret. If you seek for real feeling in

Paris, snares await you everywhere, and the end is sorrow. Wherever I

set my foot, the ground round about me seemed to burn. My readiness to

acquiesce was considered weakness though if I unsheathed my talons, like

a man conscious that he may some day wield the thunderbolts of power, I

was thought ill-natured; to others, the delightful laughter that

ceases with youth, and in which in later years we are almost ashamed to

indulge, seemed absurd, and they amused themselves at my expense. People

may be bored nowadays, but none the less they expect you to treat every

trivial topic with befitting seriousness.

“A hateful era! You must bow down before mediocrity, frigidly polite

mediocrity which you despise--and obey. On more mature reflection, I

have discovered the reasons of these glaring inconsistencies. Mediocrity

is never out of fashion, it is the daily wear of society; genius and

eccentricity are ornaments that are locked away and only brought out on

certain days. Everything that ventures forth beyond the protection of

the grateful shadow of mediocrity has something startling about it.

“So, in the midst of Paris, I led a solitary life. I had given up

everything to society, but it had given me nothing in return; and my

child was not enough to satisfy my heart, because I was not a woman. My

life seemed to be growing cold within me; I was bending under a load of

secret misery when I met the woman who was to make me know the might of

love, the reverence of an acknowledged love, love with its teeming hopes

of happiness--in one word--love.

“I had renewed my acquaintance with that old friend of my father’s who

had once taken charge of my affairs. It was in his house that I first

met her whom I must love as long as life shall last. The longer we live,

sir, the more clearly we see the enormous influence of ideas upon the

events of life. Prejudices, worthy of all respect, and bred by noble

religious ideas, occasioned my misfortunes. This young girl belonged to

an exceeding devout family, whose views of Catholicism were due to the

spirit of a sect improperly styled Jansenists, which, in former times,

caused troubles in France. You know why?”

“No,” said Genestas.

“Jansenius, Bishop of Ypres, once wrote a book which was believed to

contain propositions at variance with the doctrines of the Holy See.

When examined at a later date, there appeared to be nothing heretical in

the wording of the text, some authors even went so far as to deny that

the heretical propositions had any real existence. However it was,

these insignificant disputes gave rise to two parties in the Gallican

Church--the Jansenists and the Jesuits. Great men were found in either

camp, and a struggle began between two powerful bodies. The Jansenists

affected an excessive purity of morals and of doctrine, and accused the

Jesuits of preaching a relaxed morality. The Jansenists, in fact, were

Catholic Puritans, if two contradictory terms can be combined. During

the Revolution, the Concordat occasioned an unimportant schism, a little

segregation of ultra-catholics who refused to recognize the Bishops

appointed by the authorities with the consent of the Pope. This little

body of the faithful was called the Little Church; and those within its

fold, like the Jansenists, led the strictly ordered lives that appear

to be a first necessity of existence in all proscribed and persecuted

sects. Many Jansenist families had joined the Little Church. The

family to which this young girl belonged had embraced the equally rigid

doctrines of both these Puritanisms, tenets which impart a stern dignity

to the character and mien of those who hold them. It is the nature of

positive doctrine to exaggerate the importance of the most ordinary

actions of life by connecting them with ideas of a future existence.

This is the source of a splendid and delicate purity of heart, a respect

for others and for self, of an indescribably keen sense of right and

wrong, a wide charity, together with a justice so stern that it might

well be called inexorable, and lastly, a perfect hatred of lies and of

all the vices comprised by falsehood.

“I can recall no more delightful moments than those of our first meeting

at my old friend’s house. I beheld for the first time this shy young

girl with her sincere nature, her habits of ready obedience. All the

virtues peculiar to the sect to which she belonged shone in her, but

she seemed to be unconscious of her merit. There was a grace, which no

austerity could diminish, about every movement of her lissome, slender

form; her quiet brow, the delicate grave outlines of her face, and her

clearly cut features indicated noble birth; her expression was gentle

and proud; her thick hair had been simply braided, the coronet of plaits

about her head served, all unknown to her, as an adornment. Captain, she

was for me the ideal type that is always made real for us in the woman

with whom we fall in love; for when we love, is it not because we

recognize beauty that we have dreamed of, the beauty that has existed

in idea for us is realized? When I spoke to her, she answered simply,

without shyness or eagerness; she did not know the pleasure it was to

me to see her, to hear the musical sounds of her voice. All these angels

are revealed to our hearts by the same signs; by the sweetness of their

tongues, the tenderness in their eyes, by their fair, pale faces, and

their gracious ways. All these things are so blended and mingled that

we feel the charm of their presence, yet cannot tell in what that charm

consists, and every movement is an expression of a divine soul within.

I loved passionately. This newly awakened love satisfied all my restless

longings, all my ambitious dreams. She was beautiful, wealthy, and nobly

born; she had been carefully brought up; she had all the qualifications

which the world positively demands of a woman placed in the high

position which I desired to reach; she had been well educated, she

expressed herself with a sprightly facility at once rare and common

in France; where the most prettily worded phrases of many women are

emptiness itself, while her bright talk was full of sense. Above all,

she had a deep consciousness of her own dignity which made others

respect her; I know of no more excellent thing in a wife. I must stop,

captain; no one can describe the woman he loves save very imperfectly,

preexistent mysteries which defy analysis lie between them.

“I very soon took my old friend into my confidence. He introduced me to

her family, and gave me the countenance of his honorable character. I

was received at first with the frigid politeness characteristic of those

exclusive people who never forsake those whom they have once admitted to

their friendship. As time went on they welcomed me almost as one of the

family; this mark of their esteem was won by my behavior in the matter.

In spite of my passionate love, I did nothing that could lower me in my

own eyes; I did not cringe, I paid no court to those upon whom my fate

depended, before all things I showed myself a man, and not other than

I really was. When I was well known to them, my old friend, who was as

desirous as I myself that my life of melancholy loneliness should come

to an end, spoke of my hopes and met with a favorable reception; but

with the diplomatic shrewdness which is almost a second nature with men

of the world, he was silent with regard to an error of my youth, as he

termed it. He was anxious to bring about a ‘satisfactory marriage’ for

me, an expression that makes of so solemn an act a business transaction

in which husband and wife endeavor to cheat each other. In his opinion,

the existence of my child would excite a moral repugnance, in comparison

with which the question of money would be as nought, and the whole

affair would be broken off at once, and he was right.

“‘It is a matter which will be very easily settled between you and your

wife; it will be easy to obtain her full and free forgiveness,’ he said.

“In short, he tried to silence my scruples, and all the insidious

arguments that worldly wisdom could suggest were brought to bear upon me

to this end. I will confess to you, sir, that in spite of my promise, my

first impulse was to act straightforwardly and to make everything

known to the head of the family, but the thought of his uncompromising

sternness made me pause, and the probable consequences of the confession

appalled me; my courage failed, I temporized with my conscience, I

determined to wait until I was sufficiently sure of the affection of

the girl I hoped to win, before hazarding my happiness by the terrible

confession. My resolution to acknowledge everything openly, at a

convenient season, vindicated the sophistries of worldly wisdom and the

sagacity of my old friend. So the young girl’s parents received me as

their future son-in-law without, as yet, taking their friends into their

confidence.

“An infinite discretion is the distinguishing quality of pious families;

they are reticent about everything, even about matters of no importance.

You would not believe, sir, how this sedate gravity and reserve,

pervading every least action, deepens the current of feeling and

thought. Everything in that house was done with some useful end in view;

the women spent their leisure time in making garments for the poor;

their conversation was never frivolous; laughter was not banished, but

there was a kindly simplicity about their merriment. Their talk had

none of the piquancy which scandal and ill-natured gossip give to the

conversation of society; only the father and uncle read the newspapers,

even the most harmless journal contains references to crimes or to

public evils, and she whom I hoped to win had never cast her eyes over

their sheets. How strange it was, at first, to listen to these orthodox

people! But in a little while, the pure atmosphere left the same

impression upon the soul that subdued colors give to the eyes, a sense

of serene repose and of tranquil peace.

“To a superficial observer, their life would have seemed terribly

monotonous. There was something chilling about the appearance of the

interior of the house. Day after day I used to see everything, even the

furniture in constant use, always standing in the same place, and this

uniform tidiness pervaded the smallest details. Yet there was something

very attractive about their household ways. I had been used to the

pleasures of variety, to the luxury and stir of life in Paris; it was

only when I had overcome my first repugnance that I saw the advantages

of this existence; how it lent itself to continuity of thought and to

involuntary meditation; how a life in which the heart has undisturbed

sway seems to widen and grow vast as the sea. It is like the life of the

cloister, where the outward surroundings never vary, and thought is

thus compelled to detach itself from outward things and to turn to the

infinite that lies within the soul!

“For a man as sincerely in love as I was, the silence and simplicity of

the life, the almost conventual regularity with which the same things

are done daily at the same hours, only deepened and strengthened love.

In that profound calm the interest attaching to the least action, word,

or gesture became immense. I learned to know that, in the interchange of

glances and in answering smiles, there lies an eloquence and a variety

of language far beyond the possibilities of the most magnificent of

spoken phrases; that when the expression of the feelings is spontaneous

and unforced, there is no idea, no joy nor sorrow that cannot thus be

communicated by hearts that understand each other. How many times I have

tried to set forth my soul in my eyes or on my lips, compelled at once

to speak and to be silent concerning my passion; for the young girl who,

in my presence, was always serene and unconscious had not been informed

of the reason of my constant visits; her parents were determined that

the most important decision of her life should rest entirely with her.

But does not the presence of our beloved satisfy the utmost desire of

passionate love? In that presence do we not know the happiness of the

Christian who stands before God? If for me more than for any other it

was torture to have no right to give expression to the impulses of

my heart, to force back into its depths the burning words that

treacherously wrong the yet more ardent emotions which strive to find

an utterance in speech; I found, nevertheless, in the merest trifles

a channel through which my passionate love poured itself forth but the

more vehemently for this constraint, till every least occurrence came to

have an excessive importance.

“I beheld her, not for brief moments, but for whole hours. There were

pauses between my question and her answer, and long musings, when, with

the tones of her voice lingering in my ears, I sought to divine from

them the secret of her inmost thoughts; perhaps her fingers would

tremble as I gave her some object of which she had been in search, or

I would devise pretexts to lightly touch her dress or her hair, to take

her hand in mine, to compel her to speak more than she wished; all these

nothings were great events for me. Eyes and voice and gestures were

freighted with mysterious messages of love in hours of ecstasy like

these, and this was the only language permitted me by the quiet maidenly

reserve of the young girl before me. Her manner towards me underwent no

change; with me she was always as a sister with a brother; yet, as my

passion grew, and the contrast between her glances and mine, her words

and my utterance, became more striking, I felt at last that this timid

silence was the only means by which she could express her feelings.

Was she not always in the salon whenever I came? Did she not stay there

until my visit, expected and perhaps foreseen, was over? Did not this

mute tryst betray the secret of her innocent soul? Nay, whilst I spoke,

did she not listen with a pleasure which she could not hide?

“At last, no doubt, her parents grew impatient with this artless

behavior and sober love-making. I was almost as timid as their daughter,

and perhaps on this account found favor in their eyes. They regarded

me as a man worthy of their esteem. My old friend was taken into their

confidence; both father and mother spoke of me in the most flattering

terms; I had become their adopted son, and more especially they singled

out my moral principles for praise. In truth, I had found my youth

again; among these pure and religious surroundings early beliefs and

early faith came back to the man of thirty-two.

“The summer was drawing to a close. Affairs of some importance had

detained the family in Paris longer than their wont; but when September

came, and they were able to leave town at last for an estate in

Auvergne, her father entreated me to spend a couple of months with them

in an old chateau hidden away among the mountains of Cantal. I paused

before accepting this friendly invitation. My hesitation brought me the

sweetest and most delightful unconscious confession, a revelation of the

mysteries of a girlish heart. Evelina... _Dieu!_” exclaimed Benassis;

and he said no more for a time, wrapped in his own thoughts.

“Pardon me, Captain Bluteau,” he resumed, after a long pause. “For

twelve years I have not uttered the name that is always hovering in my

thoughts, that a voice calls in my hearing even when I sleep. Evelina

(since I have named her) raised her head with a strange quickness and

abruptness, for about all her movements there was an instinctive grace

and gentleness, and looked at me. There was no pride in her face, but

rather a wistful anxiety. Then her color rose, and her eyelids fell;

it gave me an indescribable pleasure never felt before that they should

fall so slowly; I could only stammer out my reply in a faltering voice.

The emotion of my own heart made swift answer to hers. She thanked me by

a happy look, and I almost thought that there were tears in her eyes.

In that moment we had told each other everything. So I went into the

country with her family. Since the day when our hearts had understood

each other, nothing seemed to be as it had been before; everything about

us had acquired a fresh significance.

“Love, indeed, is always the same, though our imagination determines

the shape that love must assume; like and unlike, therefore, is love

in every soul in which he dwells, and passion becomes a unique work in

which the soul expresses its sympathies. In the old trite saying that

love is a projection of self--an _egoisme a deux_--lies a profound

meaning known only to philosopher and poet; for it is ourself in truth

that we love in that other. Yet, though love manifests itself in such

different ways that no pair of lovers since the world began is like any

other pair before or since, they all express themselves after the same

fashion, and the same words are on the lips of every girl, even of the

most innocent, convent-bred maiden--the only difference lies in the

degree of imaginative charm in their ideas. But between Evelina and

other girls there was this difference, that where another would have

poured out her feelings quite naturally, Evelina regarded these innocent

confidences as a concession made to the stormy emotions which had

invaded the quiet sanctuary of her girlish soul. The constant struggle

between her heart and her principles gave to the least event of her

life, so peaceful in appearance, in reality so profoundly agitated, a

character of force very superior to the exaggerations of young girls

whose manners are early rendered false by the world about them. All

through the journey Evelina discovered beauty in the scenery through

which we passed, and spoke of it with admiration. When we think that

we may not give expression to the happiness which is given to us by the

presence of one we love, we pour out the secret gladness that overflows

our hearts upon inanimate things, investing them with beauty in our

happiness. The charm of the scenery which passed before our eyes

became in this way an interpreter between us, for in our praises of the

landscape we revealed to each other the secrets of our love. Evelina’s

mother sometimes took a mischievous pleasure in disconcerting her

daughter.

“‘My dear child, you have been through this valley a score of times

without seeming to admire it!’ she remarked after a somewhat too

enthusiastic phrase from Evelina.

“‘No doubt it was because I was not old enough to understand beauty of

this kind, mother.’

“Forgive me for dwelling on this trifle, which can have no charm for

you, captain; but the simple words brought me an indescribable joy,

which had its source in the glance directed towards me as she spoke. So

some village lighted by sunrise, some ivy-covered ruin which we had seen

together, memories of outward and visible things, served to deepen and

strengthen the impressions of our happiness; they seemed to be landmarks

on the way through which we were passing towards a bright future that

lay before us.

“We reached the chateau belonging to her family, where I spent about

six weeks, the only time in my life during which Heaven has

vouchsafed complete happiness to me. I enjoyed pleasures unknown to

town-dwellers--all the happiness which two lovers find in living beneath

the same roof, an anticipation of the life they will spend together. To

stroll through the fields, to be alone together at times if we wished

it, to look over an old water-mill, to sit beneath a tree in some lovely

glen among the hills, the lovers’ talks, the sweet confidences drawn

forth by which each made some progress day by day in the other’s heart.

Ah! sir, the out-of-door life, the beauty of earth and heaven, is a

perfect accompaniment to the perfect happiness of the soul! To mingle

our careless talk with the song of the birds among the dewy leaves, to

smile at each other as we gazed on the sky, to turn our steps slowly

homewards at the sound of the bell that always rings too soon, to

admire together some little detail in the landscape, to watch the

fitful movements of an insect, to look closely at a gleaming demoiselle

fly--the delicate creature that resembles an innocent and loving girl;

in such ways as these are not one’s thoughts drawn daily a little

higher? The memories of my forty days of happiness have in a manner

colored all the rest of my life, memories that are all the fairer and

fill the greater space in my thoughts because since then it has been my

fate never to be understood. To this day there are scenes of no special

interest for a casual observer, but full of bitter significance for a

broken heart, which recall those vanished days, and the love that is not

forgotten yet.

“I do not know whether you noticed the effect of the sunset light on the

cottage where little Jacques lives? Everything shone so brightly in the

fiery rays of the sun, and then all at once the whole landscape grew

dark and dreary. That sudden change was like the change in my own life

at this time. I received from her the first, the sole and sublime token

of love that an innocent girl may give; the more secretly it is given,

the closer is the bond it forms, the sweet promise of love, a fragment

of the language spoken in a fairer world than this. Sure, therefore, of

being beloved, I vowed that I would confess everything at once, that

I would have no secrets from her; I felt ashamed that I had so long

delayed to tell her about the sorrows that I had brought upon myself.

“Unluckily, with the morrow of this happy day a letter came from my

son’s tutor, the life of the child so dear to me was in danger. I went

away without confiding my secret to Evelina, merely telling her family

that I was urgently required in Paris. Her parents took alarm during my

absence. They feared that there I was entangled in some way, and wrote

to Paris to make inquiries about me. It was scarcely consistent with

their religious principles; but they suspected me, and did not even give

me an opportunity of clearing myself.

“One of their friends, without my knowledge, gave them the whole history

of my youth, blackening my errors, laying stress upon the existence of

my child, which (said they) I intended to conceal. I wrote to my future

parents, but I received no answers to my letters; and when they came

back to Paris, and I called at their house, I was not admitted. Much

alarmed, I sent to my old friend to learn the reason of this conduct on

their part, which I did not in the least understand. As soon as the good

soul knew the real cause of it all, he sacrificed himself generously,

took upon himself all the blame of my reserve, and tried to exculpate

me, but all to no purpose. Questions of interest and morality were

regarded so seriously by the family, their prejudices were so firmly and

deeply rooted, that they never swerved from their resolution. My despair

was overwhelming. At first I tried to deprecate their wrath, but my

letters were sent back to me unopened. When every possible means had

been tried in vain; when her father and mother had plainly told my old

friend (the cause of my misfortune) that they would never consent to

their daughter’s marriage with a man who had upon his conscience the

death of a woman and the life of a natural son, even though Evelina

herself should implore them upon her knees; then, sir, there only

remained to me one last hope, a hope as slender and fragile as the

willow-branch at which a drowning wretch catches to save himself.

“I ventured to think that Evelina’s love would be stronger than her

father’s scruples, that her inflexible parents might yield to her

entreaties. Perhaps, who knows, her father had kept from her the reasons

of the refusal, which was so fatal to our love. I determined to acquaint

her with all the circumstances, and to make a final appeal to her; and

in fear and trembling, in grief and tears, my first and last love-letter

was written. To-day I can only dimly remember the words dictated to

me by my despair; but I must have told Evelina that if she had dealt

sincerely with me she could not and ought not to love another, or how

could her whole life be anything but a lie? she must be false either to

her future husband or to me. Could she refuse to the lover, who had been

so misjudged and hardly entreated, the devotion which she would have

shown him as her husband, if the marriage which had already taken place

in our hearts had been outwardly solemnized? Was not this to fall from

the ideal of womanly virtue? What woman would not love to feel that

the promises of the heart were more sacred and binding than the chains

forged by the law? I defended my errors; and in my appeal to the

purity of innocence, I left nothing unsaid that could touch a noble and

generous nature. But as I am telling you everything, I will look for

her answer and my farewell letter,” said Benassis, and he went up to his

room in search of it.

He returned in a few moments with a worn pocketbook; his hands trembled

with emotion as he drew from it some loose sheets.

“Here is the fatal letter,” he said. “The girl who wrote those lines

little knew the value that I should set upon the scrap of paper that

holds her thoughts. This is the last cry that pain wrung from me,” he

added, taking up a second letter; “I will lay it before you directly.

My old friend was the bearer of my letter of entreaty; he gave it to

her without her parents’ knowledge, humbling his white hair to implore

Evelina to read and to reply to my appeal. This was her answer:

“‘Monsieur...’ But lately I had been her ‘beloved,’ the innocent name

she had found by which to express her innocent love, and now she called

me _Monsieur_!... That one word told me everything. But listen to the

rest of the letter:

“‘Treachery on the part of one to whom her life was to be intrusted is a

bitter thing for a girl to discover; and yet I could not but excuse you,

we are so weak! Your letter touched me, but you must not write to me

again, the sight of your handwriting gives me such unbearable pain.

We are parted for ever. I was carried away by your reasoning; it

extinguished all the harsh feelings that had risen up against you in my

soul. I had been so proud of your truth! But both of us have found my

father’s reasoning irresistible. Yes, monsieur, I ventured to plead

for you. I did for you what I have never done before, I overcame the

greatest fears that I have ever known, and acted almost against my

nature. Even now I am yielding to your entreaties, and doing wrong for

your sake, in writing to you without my father’s knowledge. My mother

knows that I am writing to you; her indulgence in leaving me at liberty

to be alone with you for a moment has taught me the depth of her love

for me, and strengthened my determination to bow to the decree of my

family, against which I had almost rebelled. So I am writing to you,

monsieur, for the first and last time. You have my full and entire

forgiveness for the troubles that you have brought into my life. Yes,

you are right; a first love can never be forgotten. I am no longer an

innocent girl; and, as an honest woman, I can never marry another. What