{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_74713/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_74713","id":"gutenberg_74713","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/74713","summary":null,"tags":["Category: French Literature","Category: Novels","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","French fiction -- Translations into English","Nobel Prizes in Literature"],"text":"THE WORKS OF ANATOLE FRANCE\n  IN AN ENGLISH TRANSLATION\n  EDITED BY FREDERIC CHAPMAN\n\n  THE OPINIONS OF\n  J\u00c9R\u00d4ME COIGNARD\n\n  [Illustration]\n\n\n\n\n  THE OPINIONS OF\n  J\u00c9R\u00d4ME COIGNARD\n  BY ANATOLE FRANCE\n\n  A TRANSLATION BY\n  MRS. WILFRID JACKSON\n\n  [Illustration]\n\n  LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD\n  NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY\n  TORONTO: BELL AND COCKBURN: MCMXIII\n\n\n\n\n  THE BALLANTYNE PRESS TAVISTOCK STREET COVENT GARDEN LONDON\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n                                           PAGE\n\n        THE ABB\u00c9 J\u00c9R\u00d4ME COIGNARD             1\n\n        THE OPINIONS OF J\u00c9R\u00d4ME COIGNARD     29\n\n     I. MINISTERS OF STATE                  31\n\n    II. SAINT ABRAHAM                       39\n\n   III. MINISTERS OF STATE (_concluded_)    53\n\n    IV. THE AFFAIR OF THE MISSISSIPPI       61\n\n     V. EASTER-EGGS                         69\n\n    VI. THE NEW MINISTRY                    81\n\n   VII. THE NEW MINISTRY (_concluded_)      88\n\n  VIII. THE CITY MAGISTRATES                98\n\n    IX. SCIENCE                            107\n\n     X. THE ARMY                           115\n\n    XI. THE ARMY (_continued_)             124\n\n   XII. THE ARMY (_concluded_)             130\n\n  XIII. ACADEMIES                          137\n\n   XIV. SEDITION-MONGERS                   148\n\n    XV. REVOLUTIONARY MEASURES             156\n\n   XVI. HISTORY                            166\n\n  XVII. MONSIEUR NICOD\u00c8ME                  174\n\n XVIII. JUSTICE                            183\n\n   XIX. THE BEADLE\u2019S STORY                 187\n\n    XX. JUSTICE (_continued_)              195\n\n   XXI. JUSTICE (_continued_)              208\n\n  XXII. JUSTICE (_concluded_)              213\n\n\n\n\n                            THE ABB\u00c9 J\u00c9R\u00d4ME\n                                COIGNARD\n\n\n\n\nTO OCTAVE MIRBEAU\n\n\nThere is no need for me to tell over again here the life of Monsieur\nl\u2019Abb\u00e9 J\u00e9r\u00f4me Coignard, professor of oratory at the college of\nBeauvais, librarian to Monseigneur de S\u00e9ez, _Sagiensis episcopi\nbibliothecarius solertissimus_, as his epitaph has it, later on\nsecretary at the Cemetery of the Holy Innocents, and finally curator\nof that queen of libraries (the Astaracian), whose loss is for ever to\nbe deplored. He perished, assassinated, on the Lyons road, by a Jew\ncabalist of the name of Mosa\u00efde (_Jud\u00e6a manu nefandissima_), leaving\nseveral incomplete works, and the memory of his admirable familiar\nconversation. All the circumstances of his odd existence and tragic\nend have been reported by his disciple Jacques Men\u00e9trier, called\nTournebroche, or Turnspit, because he was the son of a cook in the Rue\nSt. Jacques. This Tournebroche professed for him whom it was his habit\nto speak of as his good master, a lively and tender admiration. \u201cHis\nwas the kindliest soul,\u201d said he, \u201cthat ever blossomed on this earth.\u201d\nModestly and faithfully he edited the memoirs of the Abb\u00e9, who lives\nagain in the work as Socrates does in the Memorabilia of Xenophon.\n\nObservant, exact, and charitable, he drew a portrait full of life and\ninstinct with a loving faithfulness. It is a work that makes one think\nof those portraits of Erasmus by Holbein that one sees in the Louvre,\nat Bale, or at Hampton Court, the delicacy of which never wearies the\nsense of appreciation. In short, he left us a masterpiece. It will\ncause surprise no doubt, that he was not careful to have it printed.\nMoreover, he could have published it himself, for he set up as a\nbookseller in the Rue St. Jacques at the sign of the _Image de Sainte\nCatherine_, where he succeeded Blaizot.\n\nPerhaps, living as he did among books, he feared to add, if it were but\na few leaves, to the horrible hoard of blackened paper that mildews\nunseen on the book-stalls. We may share his disgust when we pass the\ntwopenny box on the quays, where the sun and the rain slowly consume\npages written for immortality. Like those pathetic death\u2019s-heads that\nBossuet sent to the Abbot of la Trappe to divert his solitude, here\nare subjects for reflection fitted to make the man of letters conceive\nthe vanity of writing. I may say, for my part, that between the Pont\nRoyal and the Pont Neuf, I have felt that vanity to the full. I should\nincline to believe that Abb\u00e9 Coignard\u2019s pupil never printed his work\nbecause, formed by so good a master, he judged sanely of literary\nglory, and esteemed it at its worth, and that is exactly nothing. He\nknew it for uncertain, capricious, subject to every vicissitude, and\ndependent on circumstances themselves petty and wretched. Seeing his\ncontemporaries, ignorant, abusive, and mediocre, he saw no reason to\nhope that their posterity would suddenly become learned, balanced,\nand reliable. He merely divined that the Future, a stranger to our\nquarrels, would accord indifference in default of justice. We are\nwell-nigh assured that, great and small, the Future will unite us in\noblivion and cover us in a peaceful uniformity of silence. But if, by\nsome extraordinary chance, that hope deceives us, if future generations\nkeep some memory of our name and writings, we can foresee that they\nwill only make acquaintance with our thoughts by the ingenious labour\nof gloss and super-gloss which alone perpetuates works of genius\nthrough the ages. The long life of a masterpiece is assured only at\nthe price of quite pitiable intellectual hazards, in which the gabble\nof pedants reinforces the ingenious word-twisting of \u00e6sthetic souls.\nI am not afraid to say that, at the present day, we do not understand\na single line of the Iliad, of the Divine Comedy, in the sense\nprimitively attaching to it. To live is to change, and the posthumous\nlife of our written-down thoughts is not free from the rule: they only\ncontinue to exist on condition that they become more and more different\nfrom what they were when they issued from our minds. Whatsoever in\nfuture may be admired in us, will have become altogether alien from us.\n\nPossibly Jacques Tournebroche, whose simplicity we know, did not put\nhimself all these questions in reference to the little book under his\nhand. It would be an insult to think that he had an exaggerated opinion\nof himself.\n\nI think I know him. I have meditated over his book. Everything he\nsays, and everything he doesn\u2019t say, betrays an exquisite modesty of\nsoul. If, however, he was not without knowledge of his talent, he knew\nalso that it is precisely talent that is least pardonable. In people\nof note we tolerate easily bareness of soul and falseheartedness.\nWe are quite content that they should be bad or cowardly, and their\ngood-luck even does not raise over much envy so long as it is not\nmerited. Mediocrities are at once raised up, and carried along, by\nthe surrounding nobodies who are honoured in them. The success of a\ncommonplace person disturbs nobody. Rather, it secretly flatters the\nmob. But there is an insolence of talent which is expiated by dumb\nhatred, and calumnies not loud but deep. If Jacques Tournebroche\nconsciously renounced the painful honour of irritating the foolish and\nthe wicked by eloquent writing, one can only admire his good sense, and\nhold him the worthy scholar of a master who knew mankind. However it\nmay be, the manuscript of Jacques Tournebroche, being left unpublished,\nwas lost for more than a century.\n\nI had the extraordinary good luck to find it again at a general\nbroker\u2019s on the Boulevard Montparnasse, who spreads behind the dirtied\npanes of his shop, _croix du Lis_, _m\u00e9dailles de Sainte-H\u00e9l\u00e8ne_, and\n_decorations de Juillet_, without a suspicion that he is furnishing the\ngenerations a melancholy lesson on peacemaking. This manuscript was\npublished under my care in 1893, under the title: _La R\u00f4tisserie de la\nReine P\u00e9dauque_. I refer the reader to it. He will find there more\nnovelties than he looks for ordinarily in an old book. But it is not\nwith that book that we have to do here.\n\nJacques Tournebroche was not content to make known the doings and\nsayings of his master in a connected recital. He was careful to collect\nmuch discourse and conversation of Monsieur l\u2019Abb\u00e9 Coignard that had\nnot found place in the memoirs (for that is the name we must give to\n_La R\u00f4tisserie de la Reine P\u00e9dauque_) and he made a little note-book of\nit, which has fallen into my hands along with his other papers.\n\nIt is the note-book that I print now under the title: _The Opinions of\nThe Abb\u00e9 J\u00e9r\u00f4me Coignard_. The kind and gracious welcome the public\ngave the preceding work by Jacques Tournebroche, encourages me to\ncommence forthwith these dialogues, in which we meet once more the\nformer librarian of Monseigneur de S\u00e9ez with his indulgent wisdom, and\nthat kind of generous scepticism to which his considerations tend,\nso mingled with contempt and kindliness for man. I have no notion of\ntaking responsibility for the ideas expressed by this philosopher on\ndivers questions of politics and morality. My duties, as editor, merely\nbind me to present my author\u2019s thought in the most favourable light.\nHis unfettered understanding trampled vulgar beliefs underfoot, and did\nnot side uncritically with popular opinion, except in matters touching\nthe Catholic faith, wherein he was immovable. In anything else he\ndid not fear to oppose his age. Were it only for that he would merit\nesteem. We owe him the gratitude due to minds that have fought against\nprejudices. But it is easier to praise than to imitate them. Prejudices\nmelt away and grow unceasingly with the eternal mobility of the clouds.\nThey are by nature most imposing, until they become hateful, and men\nare rare who are free from the superstition of their period, and look\nsquarely at what the crowd dares not face. Monsieur l\u2019Abb\u00e9 Coignard was\nindependent in a humble walk of life; enough, I think to put him far\nabove a Bossuet, and above all the great people that glitter, according\nto their degree, in the traditional pomp of custom and belief.\n\nBut while we hold that Monsieur l\u2019Abb\u00e9 Coignard lived as a free man,\nenfranchised from common errors, and that the spectre of common\npassions and fears had no empire over him, we must further observe\nthat his surpassing intelligence had originality of outlook on nature\nand society, and only wanted, in order to astonish and delight mankind\nby some vast and beautiful mental engineering feat, the skill or the\nwill to scatter sophisms, like cement, in the interstices between truth\nand truth. It is only in that way that great systems of philosophy are\nbuilt up and held together by the mortar of sophistry.\n\nThe synthetic faculty was wanting in him, or, (if you like), the art\nand law of symmetry. Without it, he was bound to appear, as in fact he\ndid, a kind of wonderful compound of Epicurus and St. Francis of Assisi.\n\nThose two, it seems to me, were the best friends that suffering\nhumanity has yet met on its confused progress through life.\n\nEpicurus freed the soul from empty fears and taught it to proportion\nits idea of happiness to its miserable nature and feeble powers. Good\nSt. Francis, tenderer and more material, led the way to happiness by\ninterior vision, and would have had souls expand like his, in joy, in\nthe depths of an enchanted solitude. Both were helpful, one, to destroy\nillusions that deceive, the other, to create illusions from which one\ndoes not wake.\n\nBut it does not do to exaggerate. Monsieur l\u2019Abb\u00e9 Coignard was\ncertainly not the equal, in action or in thought, of the boldest of\nthe sages, nor of the most ardent of the saints. The truths that he\ndiscovered he could not fling himself upon headlong. In his hardiest\nexploration he maintained the pose of a peaceful pedestrian. He did\nnot sufficiently except himself from the contempt other men inspired\nin him. He lacked that valuable illusion that sustained Descartes and\nBacon, who believed in themselves when they believed in no one else.\nHe had doubts of the witness he bore, and scattered heedlessly the\ntreasures of his mind. That confidence, however common in thinkers, was\nwithheld from him, the confidence in himself as the superior of the\ngreatest wits. It is an unpardonable fault, for glory is only given to\nthose who importune it. In Monsieur l\u2019Abb\u00e9 Coignard it was, moreover, a\nweakness, and an illogicality. Since he pushed philosophical audacity\nto its farthest limits, he should not have scrupled to proclaim himself\nthe first of men. But his heart remained simple and his soul pure,\nand his poorness of spirit that knew not how to rear itself above\nthe world, did him an irreparable wrong. But need I say that I love\nhim better as he was? I am not afraid to affirm that Monsieur l\u2019Abb\u00e9\nCoignard, philosopher and Christian, mingled in an incomparable union\nthe epicurism that wards off grief, and the holy simplicity that\nconducts to joy.\n\nIt is to be remarked that not only did he accept the idea of God\nas furnished him by the Catholic faith, but further, that he tried\nto uphold it against argument of the rationalistic kind. He never\nimitated that practical address of professed Deists, who make a moral,\nphilanthropical and prudish God for their own use, with whom they enjoy\nthe satisfaction of a perfect understanding. The strict relations\nthey establish with Him give much authority to their writings, and\nmuch consideration to their persons, before the public. And this God,\nakin to the government, temperate, weighty, exempt from fanaticism,\nand who has His following, is a recommendation to them in salons,\nacademies, and public meetings. Monsieur l\u2019Abb\u00e9 Coignard did not figure\nthe Eternal to himself in so profitable a light. But considering the\nimpossibility of conceiving of the world otherwise than under the\ncategory of intelligent beings, and that the cosmos must be held to be\nintelligible, even if but to demonstrate its absurdity, he referred\nthe cause to an intelligence he called God, leaving the term in its\ninfinite vagueness, relying for the rest on theology, which as we know,\ntreats of the unknowable with minutest accuracy.\n\nThis reserve, which marks the limits of his understanding, was\nfortunate if, as I believe, it deprived him of the temptation to\nnibble at some appetising system of philosophy, and kept him from\nputting his nose into one of those mousetraps wherein independent minds\nare in such hurry to get caught. At his ease in the big old rat-run,\nhe found more than one opening to look out on the world and observe\nnature. I do not share his religious beliefs, and am of opinion that\nthey deceived him, as they have deceived, for their good or ill, so\nmany generations of men. But it looks as if the old errors were less\nvexatious than the new, and that, since we are bound to go wrong, it\nwere best to hold by illusions that have lost their sparkle.\n\nIt is certain, though, that Abb\u00e9 Coignard, in accepting Christian\nand Catholic principles, did not deny himself the deduction of some\noriginal conclusions therefrom. Rooted in orthodoxy, his luxuriant\nspirit flourished singularly in epicurism and in humility. As I have\nsaid before he always tried to chase away those phantoms of the night,\nthose empty fears, or as he called them, those gothic diabolisms, which\nmake the pious existence of the simple bourgeois a kind of sordid and\nday-long witches\u2019 sabbath. Theologians have, in our own day, accused\nhim of carrying hope to excess, and even beyond bounds. I meet the\nreproach once more under the hand of an eminent philosopher.[1]\n\nI do not know if Monsieur Coignard really reposed an exaggerated trust\nin divine goodness. But certainly he conceived the meaning of grace in\na large and natural sense, and the world, in his eyes, less resembled\nthe deserts of the Thebaid than the garden of Epicurus. He took his\nway through it with that daring ingenuousness which is the most marked\ntrait in his character, and the foundation of his teaching.\n\nNever did a mind show itself at once so bold and so pacificatory, nor\nsoften its disdain with greater gentleness. His rule conjoined the\nfreedom of the cynics and the innocence of the primitive community\nof the Portiuncula. Tenderly, he despised men. He tried to show them\nthat having no measure of greatness about them save their capacity for\nsorrow, they could lay up for themselves nothing useful or beautiful\nsave pity; that fit only for desire or suffering, they should practise\nthemselves in the indulgent and the pleasure-giving virtues. He came to\nconsider pride as the source of greatest evil, and the one vice against\nnature.\n\nIt seems likely indeed, that men make themselves miserable by the\nexaggerated opinion they have of themselves and their kind, and that if\nthey could form a humbler and truer notion of human nature they might\nbe kinder to others and kinder to themselves.\n\nHis sympathetic regard, then, urged him to humiliate his fellows, in\ntheir opinions, their knowledge, their philosophy, and institutions.\nHe put his heart into showing them that their weak and silly nature has\nnever constructed nor imagined anything worth the trouble of attacking\nand defending very briskly, and that if they knew the crudity and\nweakness of their greatest works, such as their laws and their empires,\nthey would only fight in fun or in play, like children building\nsandcastles by the sea.\n\nWe must not be astonished or scandalised then, that he depreciated\nevery conception which makes for the honour and glory of mankind, at\nthe expense of their peace. The majesty of the law did not impose on\nhis clear-sighted intellect, and he deplored the fact that the wretched\nwere subjected to so many restraints, of which in most cases, they\ncould not discover the origin or the meaning. All principles appeared\nequally contestable to him. He had at last come to believe that members\nof a state would never condemn so many of their kind to infamy, if\nit were not to taste, by contrast, the pleasure of respectability.\nSuch a view made him prefer bad company to good, after the example of\nHim who lived among publicans and sinners. But he kept his purity of\nheart, his gift of sympathy, and the treasure of his pity. I shall not\nspeak here of his actions, which are recounted in _La R\u00f4tisserie de\nla Reine P\u00e9dauque_. I have no means of knowing whether, as was said of\nMadame de Mouchy, he was more worthy than his life. Our actions are\nnot altogether our own; they depend less on us than on fortune. They\ncome to us from all sides. We do not always merit them. Our inviolable\nmind is all we have of our very own. Thence the vanity of the world\u2019s\njudgments. Nevertheless, I can say with pleasure that our leading\nlights have found Monsieur Coignard an amiable and pleasing person.\nIndeed one must be a Pharisee not to see in him a beautiful creation\nof God. So much said I hasten to return to his teachings, which alone\nmatter here.\n\nWhat he had least of was the bump of veneration. Nature had denied it\nhim, and he took no steps to acquire it. He feared lest, in exalting\nsome, he should cast down others, and his universal charity was\nextended equally to the humble and the proud. It bore itself to the\nvictims with a greater solicitude, but the executioners themselves\nseemed to him too wretched to be worthy of hate. He wished them no\nharm, and merely pitied them that they were wicked.\n\nHe had no belief that reprisals, whether spontaneous, or according\nto law, did anything but add ill to ill. He viewed with complacence\nneither the vengeance that is private and much to the point, nor the\nmajestic cruelty of the law, and if he happened to smile when the\npolice were being drubbed, it was simply the result of his being but\nflesh and blood, and naturally a good fellow.\n\nHe had, in fact, formed a very simple and sensible notion of evil.\nHe ascribed it altogether to man\u2019s functions and natural feelings,\nwithout mixing up with it all the prejudices that take on an artificial\nconsistency in the codes. I have said that he formed no system, being\nlittle inclined to resolve his difficulties by sophistry. It is evident\nthat, at the outset, a difficulty stopped him short in his meditations\non the means of establishing happiness or even peace on earth. He was\nconvinced that man is by nature a vicious animal, and that communities\nare not abominable simply because he uses all his wits to shape them.\nConsequently he looked for no benefit from a return to nature. I doubt\nif he would have changed his opinion if he had lived to read _Emile_.\nWhen he died, Jean-Jacques had not yet stirred the world by eloquence\nof the sincerest feeling joined to logic or the falsest. He was still\nbut a little vagabond, and unhappily for him, found other Abb\u00e9s than\nMonsieur J\u00e9r\u00f4me Coignard on the benches of Lyons\u2019 deserted walks. We\nmay regret that Monsieur Coignard, who knew all sorts of people, never\nmet by chance Madame de Warens\u2019 young friend. But it could only have\nbeen an amusing incident, a romantic scene. Jean-Jacques would not have\nfound the wisdom of our disillusioned philosopher much to his taste.\nNothing could be less like the philosophy of Rousseau than that of\nMonsieur l\u2019Abb\u00e9 Coignard. The latter is marked with a kindly irony.\nIt is easy and indulgent. Founded on human infirmity it is solid at\nbottom. The other is lacking in its gay scepticism and fleeting smile.\n\nTaking its seat on an imaginary base, that of the original virtue of\nour kind, it finds itself in an awkward position, the comicality of\nwhich is not quite evident to itself. It is the doctrine for men who\nhave never laughed. Its embarrassment is seen in its bad humour. It is\nungracious. There would be nothing in that but it reinstals man among\nthe monkeys, and then gets unreasonably angry when the monkey is not\nvirtuous. In which it is absurd and cruel. This was well exemplified\nwhen statesmen wished to apply the teachings of the _Contrat Social_ to\nthe best of Republics.\n\nRobespierre venerated the memory of Rousseau. He would have held\nMonsieur l\u2019Abb\u00e9 Coignard for a bad man. I would not make the remark\nif Robespierre had been a monster. But, for the learned, there are no\nmonsters. Robespierre was an optimist, who believed in good. Statesmen\nof this turn do all the evil possible. If one meddles in the government\nof mankind one must never lose sight of the fact that they are monkeys,\nand mischievous. Only thus can you have a humane and kindly polity.\nThe folly of the Revolution was to wish to establish virtue on earth.\nWhen one would make men good and wise, free, moderate, and liberal, one\nis led to the fatal desire of killing them all. Robespierre believed\nin virtue and he brought about the Terror. Marat believed in justice;\nhe demanded two hundred thousand heads. Monsieur l\u2019Abb\u00e9 Coignard is\nperhaps, of all the minds of the eighteenth century, the one whose\nprinciples were most opposed to the principles of the Revolution. He\nwould not have signed a line of the Declaration of the Rights of Man,\nbecause of the excessive and unfair separation it establishes between\nman and the gorilla.\n\nLast week I had a visit from an anarchist-comrade who honours me with\nhis friendship, and whom I like, because having taken no part as yet\nin the government of his country, he has kept much of his innocence.\nHe wants to blow up everything merely because he believes men to be\nnaturally good and virtuous. He thinks that, deprived of their goods,\nand delivered from laws, they would shed their egoism and wickedness.\nThe tenderest optimism has led him to the most savage ferocity. His\nonly misfortune and his only crime, is that he has brought an elysian\nsoul, made for the golden age, into the business of a cook, to which he\nis condemned. He is a Jean-Jacques, very simple, and very honest, who\nhas never let himself be worried by the sight of a Madame d\u2019Houdetot,\nnor softened by the refined generosity of a Mar\u00e9chal de Luxembourg. His\ncandour leaves him at the mercy of his logic, and renders him terrible.\nHe reasons better than a minister, but he starts from an absurd\nprinciple. He does not believe in original sin, and yet, for all that,\nit is a dogma of such solid and stable truth that we have been able to\nbuild on it everything we have chosen to.\n\nWhy were you not with him in my study, Monsieur l\u2019Abb\u00e9 Coignard, to\nmake him feel the falsity of his doctrine? You would not have talked\nto this generous Utopian of the benefits of civilization and of state\ninterests. You knew these to be pleasantries, indecent to vent on the\nunfortunate. You knew that public order is but public violence, and\nthat each man can judge of the interest he has in it. But you would\nhave drawn a true and terrible picture of that state of nature he\nwishes to re-establish; you would have shown him in the idyll of his\ndreams, an infinity of bloody and domestic tragedies, and in his too\nhappy anarchy the beginning of a dreadful tyranny.\n\nAnd that leads me to define the attitude that Monsieur l\u2019Abb\u00e9 Coignard\nat the _Petit Bacchus_, took in regard to governments and peoples. He\nrespected neither the supports of society nor the vault of Empire. He\nheld as subject to doubt and as matter for dispute the very virtue\nof the Holy Ampulla, then a principle in the constitution such as\nuniversal suffrage is to-day. Such a liberty which would then have\nscandalised every Frenchman shocks us no longer.\n\nBut it would be to misunderstand our philosopher to make excuses for\nthe liveliness of his criticisms on the old order of things.\n\nMonsieur l\u2019Abb\u00e9 Coignard made no great difference between governments\ncalled absolute, and those we call free, and we may well suppose that\nhad he lived in our day he would still have kept a strong dose of that\ngenerous discontent of which his heart was full.\n\nSince he dealt in principles, no doubt he would have discovered the\nvanity of ours. I judge by a remark of his which has come down to us.\n\u201cIn a democracy,\u201d said Monsieur l\u2019Abb\u00e9 Coignard, \u201ca people is subjected\nto its own will\u2014a very hard slavery. In fact, it has as little\nknowledge of its own will, and is as opposed to it, as it could be to\nthat of a prince. For the universal will is to be seen scarcely or not\nat all in the individual, who nevertheless suffers the constraint of\nall. And universal suffrage is a hoax, like the dove that brought the\nSacred Chrism in its beak. Popular government, like monarchy, rests\non fiction and lives by expedient. It suffices that the fiction be\naccepted, and the expedient happy.\u201d\n\nThis maxim is enough to make us believe that he would have preserved\nin our day the proud and smiling freedom which was the ornament of his\nmind in the age of kings. Still, he was never a revolutionary. He had\ntoo few illusions for that, and thought that governments should not be\ndestroyed otherwise than by the blind and inexorable forces, slow and\nirresistible, that carry away all things.\n\nHe held that the one people could not be governed two ways at the\nsame time, for this reason, that, nations being indeed bodies, their\nfunctions depend on the structure of their parts, and the condition of\ntheir organs; that is to say, of the land and the people, and not of\nthe ruling powers, who must be adjusted to a nation as a man\u2019s clothes\nare to his body.\n\n\u201cThe misfortune is,\u201d added he, \u201cthat the people are suited by them like\na Harlequin or a Jack-in-the-green. Their coat is ever too loose or\ntoo tight, ill-fitting, ridiculous, grubby, covered with stains, and\ncrawling with vermin. We may mend things by shaking it out, cautiously,\nputting in a stitch here, and when necessary, applying the scissors\nthere, with discretion, so as to avoid being at the expense of another\nequally bad, but not clinging too obstinately to the old garment when\nthe body has changed its shape by growth.\u201d\n\nOne sees from this that Monsieur l\u2019Abb\u00e9 Coignard, was a friend to\norder and progress, and altogether was not a bad citizen. He incited\nno man to revolt, and had rather that instituted things were worn and\nground-down by incessant friction, than overturned and broken by any\ngreat strokes. He was for ever pointing out to his disciples that\nthe harshest laws grew wonderfully smoother in practice, and that the\nclemency of time is surer than that of man. As for seeing the sprawling\nCorpus of the law one day re-shaped, he neither hoped it nor wished\nfor it; laying no store by the benefits of hasty legislation. Jacques\nTournebroche asked him at times whether he were not afraid that his\ncritical philosophy, as exercised on institutions he himself judged\nnecessary, might not have the inopportune effect of toppling down what\nhe would wish preserved.\n\n\u201cWhy, oh best of masters,\u201d said his faithful disciple, \u201cwhy reduce to\ndust the foundations of all right, of justice, and law, and generally\nof all civil and military rule, since you acknowledge the necessity of\nright, justice, armies, magistrates and drill-sergeants?\u201d\n\n\u201cMy son,\u201d replied Monsieur l\u2019Abb\u00e9 Coignard, \u201cI have ever remarked that\nmen\u2019s prejudices are the source of their ills, just as spiders and\nscorpions issue from the gloom of cellars and the damp of back-gardens.\nIt is just as well to pass the Turk\u2019s head or the broom at random now\nand then in these dark corners. It is not a bad thing even to give\na touch of the pick here and there on the walls of the cellar and\ngarden. It scares the vermin and prepares the way for the ruin that\nmust come.\u201d\n\n\u201cI agree willingly,\u201d replied the mild Tournebroche; \u201cbut when you have\ndestroyed every principle, my master, what will be left?\u201d\n\nAnd his master replied: \u201cAfter the destruction of every false principle\nsociety will still cohere, because it is founded on necessity, whose\nlaws, older than Saturn, will still prevail when Prometheus shall have\ndethroned Jupiter.\u201d\n\nPrometheus has dethroned Jupiter more than once since the time when\nAbb\u00e9 Coignard spoke these words, and the prophecies of the sage have\nbeen so literally verified that at the present day one feels doubts,\nso much does the new resemble the old order, whether the power does\nnot still rest in ancient Jove. There are those who deny the coming\nof the Titan. There is no sign on his breast, they say, of the wound\nwhence the eagle, the creature of injustice, tore out his heart, the\nwound that should bleed for ever. He knows nothing of the griefs and\ninsurgence of the exile. This is not the workaday divinity promised,\nand expected by us. This is the full-fed Jove from the hoary and\nlaughable Olympus. When shall he appear again, the strong friend of\nmen, the fire-kindler, the Titan still nailed to his crag? A terrible\nnoise from out the mountains makes known that he is lifting his\nlacerated shoulders from off the iniquitous rock, and we can feel,\nflaming on us, his distant breath.\n\nA stranger to business, Monsieur Coignard inclined to pure speculation\nand dealt readily in general ideas. This disposition of his, which\nmay have damaged him in the eyes of his contemporaries, gives his\nreflections some worth and usefulness after a century and a half. We\ncan there learn to know the manners of our own day and disentangle what\nthere is of evil in them.\n\nInjustice, stupidity, and cruelty, do not strike us when they are\nthe common lot. We see them in our ancestors but not in ourselves.\nStill, since there is no past epoch whatever, when mankind does not\nseem absurd to us, savage and unjust, it would be a miracle if our age\nhad, by some privilege, cast away every shred of folly, malice, and\nsavagery. The opinions of Monsieur l\u2019Abb\u00e9 Coignard would help us to\nmake our examination of conscience, if we were not like those idols\nwhich have eyes and see not, and ears and hear not. With a little good\nfaith and impartiality we should soon see that our legal codes are\nstill but a hotbed of injustice, that we preserve in our manners the\ninherited hardness of avarice and pride; that we value wealth alone,\nand have no respect for labour. Our system of affairs would appear\nto us what it really is, a wretched and precarious system, condemned\nby abstract justice if not by that of man, and the ruin of which is\nbeginning. Our rich men would seem to us as foolish as cockchafers\ncontinuing to eat the leaves of a tree, while the little beetle on\ntheir body devours their entrails. No more would we be lulled to sleep\nby the false speeches of our statesmen; we should conceive a positive\npity for our economists arguing with one another about the cost of the\nfurniture in a burning house. Abb\u00e9 Coignard\u2019s disquisitions reveal to\nus a prophetic disdain of the great principles of the Revolution and of\nthe rights of the people, on which we have established these hundred\nyears, with every kind of violence and usurpation, an incoherent\nsuccession of insurrectionary governments, themselves, innocent of\nirony, condemning insurrection. If we could begin to smile a little\nat follies, which once appeared majestic and at times were stained\nwith blood; if we could perceive that our modern prejudices are, like\nthe old, the outcome of something, either ridiculous or hateful; if\nwe could judge one another with a charitable scepticism,[2] quarrels\nwould be less sharp, in the fairest country in the world, and Monsieur\nl\u2019Abb\u00e9 Coignard, for one, would have laboured for the universal good.\n\n                             ANATOLE FRANCE\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[1] (Monsieur Jean Lacoste wrote in the _Gazette de France_ of May 20,\n1893): Monsieur l\u2019Abb\u00e9 J\u00e9r\u00f4me Coignard is a priest full of knowledge,\nhumility and faith. I do not say that his conduct was always an honour\nto his bands or that his robe was unstained. But if he succumbs to\ntemptation, if the devil has in him an easy prey, he never loses\nconfidence; he hopes by God\u2019s grace to fall no more, and to reach\nthe glories of Paradise. And, in fact, he affords us the spectacle\nof a very edifying death. Thus a grain of faith beautifies life, and\nChristian humility well becomes our human weakness.\n\nMonsieur l\u2019Abb\u00e9 Coignard, if he be not a saint, perhaps deserves\npurgatory. But he deserves the fire a very long time, and has run\nrisk of hell. For in his acts of humility, though sincere, there was\nscarcely any repentance. He reckoned too much on the grace of God,\nand made no effort to help the workings of grace. That is why he fell\nback into his sin. Thus faith availed him little, and he was nearly a\nheretic, for the holy council of Trent, by its canons VI. and IX. in\nits sixth session, declared all those anathema who pretend \u201cthat it is\nnot in the power of man to give up his evil ways\u201d and who have such\nreliance on faith that they think faith alone can save them \u201cwithout\nany motion of the will.\u201d Thus the divine mercy extended to Abb\u00e9\nCoignard is truly miraculous and beyond ordinary channels.\n\n[2] This has been very favourably received, Monsieur Hugues Rebell\nhaving admitted that there is such a thing as a charitable scepticism.\nReferring, not, it is true, to the opinions of Monsieur Coignard, but\nto some writings drawn from the same source, he has made some remarks\nof which I may avail myself here:\n\n\u201cAn interesting vein of thought might be followed up after reading\nthis work, furnishing, as it does, some valuable teaching: I may be\npermitted some reflections on it:\n\n\u201c1. The organisation of a particular society does not depend on\nindividual wills, but on the compulsion of nature, or to put it more\nsimply, on the unanimity of the more intelligent beings of which that\nsociety is composed who inevitably choose the most agreeable rule of\nlife:\n\n\u201c2. Mankind at any one period, having the same organic constitution\nand passions as mankind at any other period, can never have entirely\ndiffering institutions. It results from this that a political\nrevolution is no more than a rotatory movement, round the ancient ways,\nwhich ends where it began; it is just a disease, an interruption in\nhuman development. And the result of this law is that all societies\nlive and die in the same way.\u201d\n\n                            HUGUES REBELL in _l\u2019Ermitage_, _April 1893_.\n\nMonsieur l\u2019Abb\u00e9 Coignard simply says that a people is not susceptible\nto more than one form of government at the same period.\n\n\n\n\n  THE OPINIONS OF\n  J\u00c9R\u00d4ME COIGNARD\n  COLLECTED BY\n  JACQUES TOURNEBROCHE\n  AND PUBLISHED BY\n  ANATOLE FRANCE\n\n\n\n\n  THE OPINIONS OF\n  J\u00c9R\u00d4ME COIGNARD\n\n\n\n\nI\n\nMINISTERS OF STATE\n\n\nThis afternoon, Abb\u00e9 J\u00e9r\u00f4me Coignard visited, as he was in the habit of\ndoing, Monsieur Blaizot, the bookseller in the Rue Saint-Jacques, at\nthe sign of the _Image de Sainte Catherine_.\n\nPerceiving the works of Jean Racine on the shelves he set about\ncarelessly turning over the leaves of one of the volumes.\n\n\u201cThis poet,\u201d he informed us, \u201cwas not lacking in genius, and had he\nbut risen to the writing of his tragedies in Latin verse he would be\nworthy of praise, more especially in the case of his _Athalie_, where\nhe shows that he understood politics well enough. In comparison with\nhim Corneille is but an empty ranter. This tragedy of the accession\nof Joas shows us some of the forces whose play raises empires or\ncasts them down. And one must perforce believe that Monsieur Racine\npossessed that spirit of finesse which we should hold of more account\nthan all the sublimities of poetry and eloquence, which in reality\nare but rhetorical tricks serving for the amusement of the vulgar.\nTo raise mankind to the sublime belongs to an inferior order of mind\nself-deceived on the true nature of Adam\u2019s race, which is altogether\nwretched and deserving of pity. I refrain from calling man a ridiculous\nanimal for the sole consideration that Jesus Christ ransomed him with\nHis precious blood. The nobility of mankind is based only upon this\ninconceivable mystery, and of themselves human beings, be they mean or\ngreat, are but savage and disgusting beasts.\u201d\n\nJust as my good master pronounced these final words Monsieur Roman came\ninto the shop.\n\n\u201cStop! Monsieur l\u2019Abb\u00e9,\u201d exclaimed this able man. \u201cYou forget that\nthose disgusting and ferocious beasts are, in Europe at any rate,\nsubjected to an admirable government, and that states, such as the\nkingdom of France, and the Dutch Republic, are far removed from the\nbarbarous and rude conditions which offend you.\u201d\n\nMy good master replaced the volume of Racine on the shelf, and replied\nto Monsieur Roman with his customary grace:\n\n\u201cI grant you, Monsieur, that in the writings of the philosophers, who\ntreat of these subjects, the doings of public men take on a certain\nsymmetry and perspicuousness, and in your treatise on _Monarchy_ I\nadmire the sequence and connection of ideas. But it is to you alone\nthat I do honour for the fine sentiments that you attribute to the\ngreat politicians of times past and present. They had not the wit you\nendow them with, and these illustrious beings, who appear to have led\nthe world, were themselves but the plaything of nature and chance. They\ndid not rise above human imbecility, and were in fact but brilliant\nnobodies.\u201d\n\nWhile listening impatiently to this speech Monsieur Roman had seized\nhold of an old atlas. He began to turn it about with a noise which\nmingled with the sound of his voice.\n\n\u201cWhat blindness!\u201d said he. \u201cWhat! to fail to understand the actions\nof great statesmen, of great citizens! Are you so ignorant of history\nthat it does not appear obvious to you that a C\u00e6sar, a Richelieu, a\nCromwell, moulded his people as a potter his clay? Do you not see that\na state goes like a watch in the hands of a watchmaker?\u201d\n\n\u201cI do not see it,\u201d replied my good master, \u201cand during the fifty years\nof my life I have noticed that this country has changed its form of\ngovernment several times without changing the condition of the people,\nexcepting for an insensible progress that does not depend on the human\nwill. From which I conclude that it is well-nigh immaterial whether we\nbe governed one way or another, and that statesmen are only noteworthy\nby reason of their coats and their coaches.\u201d\n\n\u201cCan you talk like this,\u201d replied Monsieur Roman, \u201con the day following\nthe death of a statesman who took such a prominent part in affairs, and\nwho, after long disgrace, dies at the moment he has regained power and\nhonour? By the tumult round his bier you may judge the result of his\nwork. This result lasts after him.\u201d\n\n\u201cMonsieur,\u201d answered my good master, \u201cthis statesman was an honest\nman, laborious and painstaking, and it might be said of him as of\nMonsieur Vauban, that he was too well-bred to affect the appearance\nof it, for he never took pains to please any one. I would praise him\nbefore all, for having improved where others in the same business do\nbut deteriorate. He possessed his soul and had a glowing sense of the\ngreatness of his country. He was praiseworthy also, in that he carried\neasily on those broad shoulders the spites of hucksters and rufflers.\nEven his enemies accord him a concealed approval. But what big things\ndid he ever do, my good sir, and why does he seem to you anything but\nthe sport of the winds which blew round him? The Jesuits whom he drove\naway, have come back; the little religious war he kindled to amuse the\npeople has gone out, leaving next day but the stinking shell of a bad\nfirework. I grant you he was clever in diverting opinion, or rather,\nin deflecting it. His party, which was but a party of opportunism and\nexpediency, did not wait for his death to change its name and its chief\nwithout changing its doctrine. His cabal remained faithful to its\nchief and to itself in continuing to submit to circumstances. Is there\nanything astonishingly great about that?\u201d\n\n\u201cThere is certainly something admirable,\u201d replied Monsieur Roman. \u201cHad\nhe only withdrawn the art of government from the clouds of metaphysics\nto lead it back to reality, he should have all my praise. His party,\nyou say, was one of opportunism and expediency. But to excel in human\naffairs what needs one but to seize the happy moment and have recourse\nto utilitarian methods? This is what he did, or, at least, this is what\nhe would have done, if the chicken-hearted instability of his friends\nand the false effrontery of his foes had left him any peace. But he\nwore himself out in the vain endeavour to placate the latter and steady\nthe former. Time and men, those necessary tools, both were wanting to\nestablish his beneficent rule. At least he framed admirable plans for\nhome politics. And you ought not to forget that he endowed his country\nwith vast and fertile possessions abroad. We owe him all the more\ngratitude in that he made these successful conquests alone and in spite\nof the parliament from which he drew his powers.\u201d\n\n\u201cMonsieur,\u201d answered my good master, \u201che showed energy and skill in\ncolonial affairs, but not perhaps much more than a plain man displays\nin buying a piece of land. And what is not to my taste in all these\nover-sea affairs is the way the Europeans deal with the peoples of\nAfrica and America. White men, when they come to grips with black and\nyellow races find themselves forced to exterminate them. One can only\nconquer the savage by a higher form of barbarity. Here is the extreme\nto which all foreign enterprises tend. I am not denying that the\nSpaniards, the Dutch, and the English have drawn profit from them.\nBut, ordinarily speaking, they launch themselves haphazard, and quite\nrecklessly on these big and cruel undertakings.\n\n\u201cWhat is the wisdom and the will of one man in enterprises affecting\ncommerce, agriculture, and navigation, which necessarily depend on\nan immense number of units? The part played by a statesman in such\naffairs is a very small one, and if it seems marked to us it is because\nour minds, turning to mythology, too willingly give a name and a\npersonality to all the secret workings of nature.\n\n\u201cWhat did he discover in the matter of colonisation that was not\nalready known to the Ph\u0153nicians in the time of Cadmus?\u201d\n\nAt these words Monsieur Roman let fall his atlas, which the bookseller\nquietly picked up.\n\n\u201cI discover to my sorrow, Monsieur l\u2019Abb\u00e9,\u201d said he, \u201cthat you are\na sophist. For that he must be who can thus smother the colonial\nenterprises of the dead and gone minister with Cadmus and the\nPh\u0153nicians. You are unable to deny that these undertakings were his\nwork and you have made this pitiable introduction of Cadmus to set us\nat loggerheads.\u201d\n\n\u201cMonsieur,\u201d said the Abb\u00e9, \u201clet us leave Cadmus alone if he annoys you.\nI merely wish to say that a statesman plays but a small part in his\nown works, and he deserves neither the glory nor the shame of them. I\nmean to say that, if, in this wretched comedy of life, princes appear\nto rule and people to obey, it is but a game, an empty show; and that\nreally they are, both one and the other, directed by an unseen force.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nII\n\nSAINT ABRAHAM\n\n\nOne summer night, while the gnats danced round the lamp of the _Petit\nBacchus_, Abb\u00e9 Coignard was taking the air in the porch of St.\nBeno\u00eet-le-B\u00e9tourn\u00e9. There he was meditating, as his habit was, when\nCatherine came up and seated herself by him on the stone bench. My good\nmaster was ever inclined to praise God in his works. He took pleasure\nin the contemplation of this handsome girl, and as he had an agreeable\nand graceful wit he held her in pleasant talk. He paid tribute not only\nto the charm of her tongue, but to that of her neck and the rest of her\nperson, and to the fact that she smiled no less with all the dimplement\nand lines of her pretty body than with lips and cheeks; in such sort\nthat one submitted with impatience to drapery disguising the rest of\nthe smile.\n\n\u201cSince we must needs all sin in this world and no one, without pride,\nmay believe himself infallible, it is when with you, Mademoiselle,\nby preference, if such were your pleasure, that I would the Divine\nGrace failed me. I should gain thereby two valuable advantages, to\nwit: firstly, to sin with rare delight and unusual pleasure; secondly,\nto find thereafter an excuse in the strength of your fascination;\nfor it is doubtless written in the Judgment Books that your charms\nare irresistible. That should be taken into consideration. There are\nimprudent people who sin with women ugly and ill-made. These unhappy\nmortals, setting about it in this way, run great risk of the loss\nof their souls, for they sin for sinning\u2019s sake, and their onerous\nill-doing is full of evil intent. Whereas, so fair a skin as yours,\nCatherine, is an excuse in the eyes of the Almighty. Your charms\nwonderfully alleviate the fault, which becomes pardonable, being\ninvoluntary. In fact, to tell you the plain truth, Mademoiselle, when I\nam near you Divine Grace abandons me at one stroke of the wing. At this\nmoment that I am talking to you, it is but as a little white spot above\nthose roofs where, on the tiles, the cats make love with mad cries and\nchildish lamentation, the while the moon is perched unblushingly on a\nchimneypot. What I see of your person, Catherine, appeals to me; but\nwhat I do not see appeals to me still more.\u201d\n\nAt these words she lowered her gaze on her lap; then turned its liquid\nappeal on the Abb\u00e9. And in a very sweet voice she said:\n\n\u201cAs you wish me well, Monsieur J\u00e9r\u00f4me, do promise to grant me the\nfavour I am going to ask you, and for which I shall be so grateful.\u201d\n\nMy good master promised. Who would not have done as much in his place?\n\nCatherine then said vivaciously:\n\n\u201cYou know, Monsieur l\u2019Abb\u00e9, that Abb\u00e9 La Perruque, the _vicaire_ of St.\nBeno\u00eet, accuses brother Ange of having stolen his donkey, and he has\ncarried his complaint to the ecclesiastical court. Now, nothing could\nbe more untrue. The good brother had borrowed the donkey to take some\nrelics to various villages. The donkey was lost on the way. The relics\nwere found. That is the essential point, says brother Ange. But Abb\u00e9 La\nPerruque reclaims his donkey, and won\u2019t listen to anything else. He is\ngoing to put the little brother in the Archbishop\u2019s prison. You alone\ncan soften his anger and induce him to withdraw his complaint.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut, Mademoiselle,\u201d said Abb\u00e9 Coignard, \u201cI have neither the power nor\nthe inclination to do so.\u201d\n\n\u201cOh!\u201d resumed Catherine, sliding near to him and looking at him with\na great pretence of tenderness, \u201cI shall be very unhappy if I cannot\nsucceed in giving you the inclination. Whilst as to the power, you\nhave it, Monsieur J\u00e9r\u00f4me; you have it! And nothing would be easier for\nyou than to save the little brother. You have only to give Monsieur La\nPerruque eight sermons for Lent and four for Advent. You write sermons\nso well that it must be a real pleasure to you to write them. Compose\nthese twelve sermons, Monsieur J\u00e9r\u00f4me; compose them at once. I will\ncome and fetch them myself from your stall at the Innocents. Monsieur\nLa Perruque, who thinks a great deal of your worth and your knowledge,\nreckons that twelve of your sermons are as good as a donkey. As soon as\nhe has the dozen he will withdraw his complaint. He has said so. What\nare twelve sermons, Monsieur J\u00e9r\u00f4me? I promise to write Amen at the\nfoot of the last one. I have your promise?\u201d she added, putting her arms\nround his neck.\n\n\u201cAs for that,\u201d Monsieur Coignard said roughly, disengaging the pretty\nhands clasped on his shoulder, \u201cI refuse flatly. Promises made to\npretty girls are but skin deep, and it is no sin to retract them.\nDon\u2019t count on me, my beauty, to drag your bearded gallant from the\nhands of the ecclesiastical court! Should I write a sermon, or two,\nor twelve, they would be directed against the bad monks who are the\nshame of the Church, and are as vermin clinging to the robe of St.\nPeter. This brother Ange is a rascal. He gives good women to touch, as\nrelics, some old mutton or pork bone which he has gnawed himself with\ndisgusting greediness. I wager he bore on Monsieur La Perruque\u2019s donkey\na feather of the Angel Gabriel, a ray from the wise men\u2019s star, and\nin a little phial a trifle of the sound of the bells that rang in the\nbelfry of Solomon\u2019s temple. He is a dunce, he is a liar, and you love\nhim. There are three reasons why I should dislike him. I leave you to\njudge, Mademoiselle, which of the three is the strongest. Perchance it\nmay well be the least honest; for in truth I was, a moment ago, drawn\nto you with a violence neither befitting my age nor my condition. But\nmake no mistake; I resent extremely the insults offered by your cowled\nrascal to the Church of our Saviour Jesus Christ, of which I am a very\nunworthy member. And this capuchin\u2019s example fills me with such disgust\nthat I am possessed by a sudden longing to meditate on some beautiful\npassage of St. John Chrysostom, instead of sitting knee to knee with\nyou, Mademoiselle, as I have been doing for the last quarter of an\nhour. For the desire of the sinner is short-lived and the glory of God\nis everlasting. I have never held an exaggerated notion of sins of the\nflesh. I think in justice to me that must be allowed.\n\n\u201cI am not scared like Monsieur Nicod\u00e8me, for example, at such a little\nthing as taking one\u2019s pleasure with a pretty girl. But what I cannot\nendure is the baseness of soul, the hypocrisy, the lies, and the crass\nignorance, which make your brother Ange an accomplished monk. From your\nintercourse with him, Mademoiselle, you get a habit of crapulence which\ndrags you much below your position, which is that of a courtesan. I\nknow the shame and the misery of it; but it is a far superior state to\nthat of a monk. This rascal dishonours you even as he dishonours the\ngutters of the Rue St. Jacques by dipping his feet into them. Think\nof all the virtues with which you might adorn yourself, Mademoiselle,\nin your precarious walk of life, and one alone of which might one day\nopen Paradise to you, if you were not subjugated and enslaved to this\nunclean beast.\n\n\u201cEven while permitting yourself to pick up here and there what\nmust, after all, be bestowed on you as tokens of gratitude, you,\nCatherine, could blossom forth in faith, hope, and charity, love the\npoverty-stricken, and visit the sick. You could be charitable and\ncompassionate; and find pure delight in the sight of the skies, the\nwaters, the woods, and the fields. Of a morning, on opening your\nwindow, you could praise God while listening to the song of the birds.\nOn days of pilgrimage you might climb the hill of St. Val\u00e9rien, and\nthere, beneath the Calvary, softly bewail your lost innocence. You\ncould act in such a way that He who alone reads our hearts would say:\n\u2018Catherine is my creature, and I know her by the glimmerings of a clear\nlight not altogether extinguished in her.\u2019\u201d\n\nCatherine interrupted him:\n\n\u201cBut Abb\u00e9,\u201d she said drily, \u201cyou are spinning me a sermon.\u201d\n\n\u201cDid you not ask me for a dozen?\u201d he replied.\n\nShe began to be angry:\n\n\u201cTake care Abb\u00e9. It rests with you if we are to be friends or enemies.\nWill you compose the twelve sermons? Think well before you answer.\u201d\n\n\u201cMademoiselle,\u201d said Monsieur l\u2019Abb\u00e9 Coignard, \u201cI have done blameworthy\nthings in my life, but not after reflection.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou will not? Quite certain? One\u2014two\u2014You refuse? Abb\u00e9, I shall take my\nrevenge.\u201d\n\nFor some time she sulked, mute and bad-tempered, on the bench. Then all\nat once she started crying:\n\n\u201cHave done, Monsieur l\u2019Abb\u00e9! Have done! At your age, and a man of\nyour cloth to plague me thus! Fie Monsieur l\u2019Abb\u00e9! Fie! How shameful,\nMonsieur l\u2019Abb\u00e9!\u201d\n\nAs she was squealing at her shrillest, the Abb\u00e9 saw Mademoiselle\nLecoeur, of the draper\u2019s shop at the sign of the _Trois Pucelles_, pass\nthrough the porch. She was going thus late to confess to the third\n_vicaire_ of St. Beno\u00eet, and turned away her head in sign of her huge\ndisgust.\n\nHe owned to himself that Catherine\u2019s revenge was prompt and sure, for\nMademoiselle Lecoeur\u2019s sense of virtue, fortified by age, had become\nso vigorous, that she was down upon every impropriety of the parish,\nand seven times a day stabbed with the point of her tongue the carnal\nsinners of the Rue St. Jacques.\n\nBut Catherine herself did not know how complete was her revenge. She\nhad seen Mademoiselle Lecoeur come into the market-place, but she had\nnot seen my father who was following closely.\n\nHe was coming with me to look for the Abb\u00e9 in the porch, and take him\nto the _Petit Bacchus_. My father had a liking for Catherine. Nothing\nvexed him more than to see her close beset by gallants. He had no\nillusions about her conduct. But as he said, knowing and seeing are\ntwo different things. Now Catherine\u2019s cries had reached his ears quite\nclearly. He was hasty and incapable of self-restraint. I was much\nafraid that his wrath would burst forth in coarse suggestion or savage\nthreats. I already saw him drawing his larding-pin, which he wore on\nhis apron-string like an honourable weapon, for he gloried in his art\nand in his spit.\n\nMy fears were but half-justified. The occasion surprised him, but not\nunpleasantly, when Catherine showed virtue, and satisfaction overcame\nanger in his mind.\n\nHe accosted my good master fairly civilly and said with mock severity:\n\n\u201cMonsieur Coignard, all priests who cultivate the society of courtesans\nlose thereby their virtue and their good name. And rightly so, even if\nno pleasure has rewarded their dishonour.\u201d\n\nCatherine left the spot with a fine air of offended modesty, and my\nexcellent master answered my father with a sweet and smiling eloquence:\n\n\u201cThat maxim is excellent, Monsieur L\u00e9onard; still one should not apply\nit without discretion, nor stick it on to everything as the lame cutler\nlabels all his knives \u2018sixpence.\u2019 I will not inquire why I merited its\napplication a moment ago. Will it not do if I own that I merited it?\n\n\u201cIt is not seemly to talk of oneself and it would be too great a shock\nto my modesty to be obliged to discourse on what is personal to me. I\nwould rather set up the case of the venerable Robert d\u2019Arbrissel who\nacquired merit from frequenting courtesans. One might also quote St.\nAbraham, the anchorite of Syria, who did not fear to enter a house of\nill-fame.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat St. Abraham was that?\u201d asked my father, whose thoughts were all\nput to rout.\n\n\u201cLet us sit down outside your door,\u201d said my good master, \u201cbring a jug\nof wine, and I will tell you the story of this great saint as it was\nrecorded for us by St. Ephraim himself.\u201d\n\nMy father made a gesture of ready assent. We all three sat down under\nthe eaves, and my good master spoke as follows:\n\n\u201cSt. Abraham, being already old, lived alone in the desert in a little\nhut, when his brother died leaving a daughter of great beauty, named\nMary. Assured that the life he led would be excellent for his niece,\nAbraham had built for her a little cell near his own, whence he taught\nher by means of a small window that he had had pierced.\n\n\u201cHe took care that she fasted, watched, and sang psalms. But a monk,\nwhom we may suppose to have been a false monk, drew nigh Mary while the\nholy man Abraham was meditating on the Scriptures, and led the young\ngirl into sin; who thus said to herself:\n\n\u201c\u2018It were far better, since I am dead to God, to go into a country\nwhere I am known to none.\u2019\n\n\u201cLeaving her cell she betook herself to a neighbouring town called\nEdessa, where there were delightful gardens and cool fountains; it is\nstill to this day the pleasantest of the towns of Syria. Meanwhile, the\nholy man Abraham remained plunged in profound meditation. His niece had\nalready been gone some days when, opening her little window, he asked:\n\n\u201c\u2018Mary, why do you no longer sing the psalms you sang so well?\u2019 And\nreceiving no reply he suspected the truth and cried: \u2018A cruel wolf has\ncarried off my ewe lamb from me!\u2019\n\n\u201cHe lived in sorrow for two years, after which he learnt that his niece\nwas leading a bad life. Acting with discretion, he begged one of his\nfriends to go to the town and find out what had become of her. The\nfriend\u2019s report was, that, in very deed, Mary was leading a bad life.\nAt this news the holy man begged his friend to lend him a riding-dress\nand bring him a horse, and putting on his head a big hat which hid his\nface, so as not to be recognised, he presented himself at the hostelry\nwhere they had told him his niece was lodged. He looked on all sides to\nsee if he could not see her, but, as she did not appear, he said to the\ninnkeeper, feigning to smile:\n\n\u201c\u2018Mine host, they tell me you have a pretty girl here. Can I not see\nher?\u2019\n\n\u201cThe innkeeper, an obliging man, had her called and Mary appeared in a\ncostume, which, according to the words of St. Ephraim himself, sufficed\nto reveal her mode of life. The holy man was pierced with sorrow.\n\n\u201cHe affected gaiety nevertheless, and ordered a good meal. Mary was in\na sober mood that day. In giving pleasure one does not always taste\nit, and the sight of this old man whom she did not recognise, for he\nhad not removed his hat, in no way inclined her to joyousness. The\ninnkeeper cried shame upon her for such naughty behaviour so opposed to\nthe duties of her profession, but she said with a sigh: \u2018Would to God\nthat I had died three years ago!\u2019\n\n\u201cThe holy man Abraham was careful to adopt the language, as he had\ntaken the coat, of a gallant cavalier:\n\n\u201c\u2018My child,\u2019 said he, \u2018I have come here not to bewail your sins but to\npartake of your affection.\u2019\n\n\u201cBut when the innkeeper left him alone with Mary he feigned no more,\nbut raising his hat, he said weeping:\n\n\u201c\u2018Mary, my child, do you not know me? Am I not that Abraham who has\nbeen a father to you?\u2019\n\n\u201cHe took her by the hand and all the night long he exhorted her to\nrepentance and penance. Above all he was careful not to drive her to\ndespair. He repeated incessantly \u2018My child, it is only God who is\nwithout sin.\u2019\n\n\u201cMary was naturally a sweet soul. She consented to go back to him. At\ndaybreak they set out. She would have taken her robes and jewels. But\nthe holy man made her understand that it would be more fitting to leave\nthem. He mounted her on his horse and led her back to their cells,\nwhere they both took up their past life. Only this time the good man\ntook care that Mary\u2019s room did not communicate with the outside world,\nand that there was no going out without passing through the room that\nhe himself occupied. By which means and by the grace of God, he kept\nhis ewe lamb. Such is the history of St. Abraham,\u201d said my good master,\ndrinking his cup of wine.\n\n\u201cIt is quite beautiful,\u201d said my father, \u201cand the misfortunes of poor\nMary have brought tears to my eyes.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\nMINISTERS OF STATE (_concluded_)\n\n\nThat same day my good master and I were exceedingly surprised to meet\nat Monsieur Blaizot\u2019s at the sign of the _Image de Sainte Catherine_,\na little thin, yellow man, who was no other than the celebrated\npamphleteer, Jean Hibou.... We had every reason to believe that he was\nin the Bastille, where he usually was. And if we had no hesitation\nin recognising him it was because his face still showed traces of\nthe darkness and mildew of the dungeon. He was turning over with a\ntrembling hand, under the bookseller\u2019s anxious eye, some political\nwritings newly come from Holland. Abb\u00e9 J\u00e9r\u00f4me Coignard doffed his hat\nwith a natural grace which would have been more effective if the hat\nhad not been staved in the night before in a scuffle, that need not\nconcern us, in the arbour at the _Petit Bacchus_.\n\nAbb\u00e9 Coignard having shown his pleasure at meeting so able a man again;\nMonsieur Jean Hibou replied, \u201cIt will not be for long. I am leaving\nthis country where I am unable to live. I cannot breathe the corrupted\nair of this town any longer. In a month\u2019s time I shall be settled in\nHolland. It is cruel to have to put up with Fleury after Dubois, and I\nam too virtuous to be a Frenchman. We are governed on bad principles,\nby fools and rogues. I cannot endure it.\u201d\n\n\u201cTruly,\u201d said my excellent master, \u201cpublic affairs are badly managed\nand there are many thieves in office. Power is divided between fools\nand knaves, and should I ever write on the affairs of the day I should\nmake a small book on the lines of the _Apokolokyntosis_ of Seneca the\nPhilosopher, or of our own _Satire M\u00e9nipp\u00e9e_, which is fairly pungent.\nThis light and pleasant style suits the subject better than the morose\nstiltedness of a Tacitus or the patient seriousness of a de Thou. I\nwould make copies of this lampoon which would be passed about under\nthe rose, and it should display a philosophical disdain for mankind.\nThe majority of the people in office would be extremely annoyed,\nbut I think some would taste a secret pleasure in seeing themselves\ncovered with shame. I judge so from what I heard said by a lady of\ngood birth whose acquaintance I made at S\u00e9ez during the time when I\nwas the Bishop\u2019s librarian. She was growing old, but still thrilled to\nlascivious memories. For I must tell you that for twenty years she had\nbeen the most notorious trollop in Normandy. And when I asked her what\nhad given her the most lively pleasure in life, she answered me: \u2018To\nknow myself dishonoured.\u2019\n\n\u201cFrom this reply I gathered that she had some nicety of feeling. I\nwould give as much credit to certain of our ministers, and if ever I\nwrite against them it would be to incite them to hug their infamy and\nviciousness.\n\n\u201cBut why postpone the execution of so fine a project? I will ask\nMonsieur Blaizot at once for half a dozen sheets of paper and set about\nwriting the first chapter of the new _M\u00e9nipp\u00e9e_.\u201d\n\nHe was already reaching out his hand to the astonished Monsieur\nBlaizot, when Monsieur Jean Hibou stopped him quickly:\n\n\u201cKeep this splendid scheme for Holland, Monsieur l\u2019Abb\u00e9,\u201d he said, \u201cand\ncome with me to Amsterdam, where I will provide you with the means of\nlivelihood at some coffee-house or bagnio. There you will be free, and\nof nights you shall write your _M\u00e9nipp\u00e9e_ at one end of the table,\nwhilst I, at the other, am busy with my lampoons. They shall be full\ncharged with virus, and who knows but what we may bring about a change\nin the affairs of the kingdom? Pamphleteers play more part than is\nthought in the downfall of empires. They prepare the catastrophe which\nis consummated by a popular revolt.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat a triumph,\u201d he added, in a voice which whistled through his\nblackened teeth, carious with the bitter humours of his mouth, \u201cwhat\njoy if I effected the destruction of one of those ministers, who, like\ncowards, shut me in the Bastille! Will you not take a share in such\ngood work, Monsieur l\u2019Abb\u00e9?\u201d\n\n\u201cBy no means,\u201d replied my good master, \u201cI should be very sorry to\nchange anything in the system of the State, and if I thought that my\n_Apokolokyntosis_ or _M\u00e9nipp\u00e9e_ could have such a result, I would never\nwrite it.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat!\u201d exclaimed the disappointed pamphleteer, \u201cdidn\u2019t you tell me but\na moment ago, that the present government was wicked?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo doubt,\u201d said Monsieur l\u2019Abb\u00e9, \u201cbut I merely imitate the wisdom of\nthat old crone of Syracuse who, at the time when Dionysius treated his\npeople most execrably, went to the temple every day to pray to the gods\nfor the life of the tyrant. Told of this singular piety, Dionysius\nwished to know the reason for it. He sent for the good woman, and\nquestioned her:\n\n\u201cShe replied, \u2018I am no longer young and have lived under many tyrants,\nand I have always observed that a bad one was succeeded by a worse. You\nare the most detestable that I have yet seen. From which I conclude\nthat your successor will be, if possible, more wicked than yourself,\nand I pray the gods to give him to us as late as may be.\u2019\n\n\u201cThat old woman was very sensible, and I think as she did, Monsieur\nJean Hibou, that sheep do well to allow themselves to be sheared by\ntheir old shepherd, for fear a younger one should come along, who would\nbut shear them closer.\u201d\n\nMonsieur Jean Hibou\u2019s gall, stirred by this discourse, spent itself in\nbitter words:\n\n\u201cWhat cowardly talk! What shameful sentiments! Oh! Monsieur l\u2019Abb\u00e9,\nwhat little love you bear to the public good, and how ill you deserve\nthe oak-leaf crown promised by the poets to civic heroes. You should\nhave been born amongst the Turks, amongst the Tartars, slave to a\nGenghis Khan or a Bajazet, rather than in Europe where principles of\npublic right are taught, and divine philosophy. What! you endure bad\ngovernment nor even wish to alter it! Such sentiments would be punished\nin a republic of my making by exile or banishment at least. Yes,\nMonsieur l\u2019Abb\u00e9, in the constitution that I meditate, which is to be\nformulated on the maxims of antiquity, I shall add a clause for the\npunishment of such bad citizens as you, and I shall proclaim penalties\nagainst whomsoever can improve his State but does not do so.\u201d\n\n\u201cEh! eh!\u201d laughed the Abb\u00e9, \u201cthat is not the way to make me wish to\nlive in your Salentum. What you have let me know of it leads me to\nthink that there would be much constraint there.\u201d\n\nMonsieur Jean Hibou replied sententiously: \u201cYou would only be\nconstrained to be virtuous.\u201d\n\n\u201cAh, how right that old woman was, and what reason we have to fear a\nJean Hibou after a Dubois and a Fleury! What you offer me, my good sir,\nis a government of violence and hypocrisy, and to hasten this promised\ngood you undertake to make me a keeper of a coffee-house or a bagnio\non a canal in Amsterdam! Thank you for nothing! I stick to the Rue St.\nJacques, where we drink cool claret and grumble at the ministers. Do\nyou think you can seduce me by the vision of a government of honest men\nthat so hedges in all liberties that no one can enjoy them?\u201d\n\n\u201cMonsieur l\u2019Abb\u00e9,\u201d said Jean Hibou, getting heated, \u201cis it fair\nto attack a system of State conceived by me in the Bastille, and\nundisclosed to you?\u201d\n\n\u201cSir,\u201d retorted my excellent master, \u201cI am suspicious of governments\nborn of cabals and rebellions. To be in opposition is a very bad school\nof government, and wary politicians, who push themselves into office\nby this means, take great care to govern by rules entirely opposed to\nthose they formerly taught. You need not go to China to see that! They\nare guided by the same necessities which lay on their predecessors. And\nthey bring nothing new to the task but their inexperience. Which is one\nreason, sir, which makes me foretell that a new government would be\nmore vexatious than the one it replaces, without being very different.\nHave we not already put it to the proof?\u201d\n\n\u201cSo,\u201d said Monsieur Jean Hibou, \u201cyou hold by abuses?\u201d\n\n\u201cSuch is the case,\u201d answered my good master. \u201cGovernments are like\nwines that grow crusted and mellow with age. The roughest lose at\nlength something of their crudity. I fear an empire in the greenness\nof its youth. I fear the rawness of a republic, and since we must be\nill-governed I prefer princes and statesmen in whom the first ardour\nhas cooled off.\u201d\n\nMonsieur Jean Hibou, crushing his hat on his nose, bade us good-bye\nwith irritation in his voice.\n\nAs soon as he was gone Monsieur Blaizot looked up over his ledgers, and\nsettling his spectacles, said to my excellent master:\n\n\u201cI have been a bookseller for forty years at the sign of the _Image de\nSainte Catherine_, and it is always a fresh pleasure to me to listen\nto the converse of the learned men who meet in my shop. But I do not\ngreatly care for discussions on public affairs. People get heated, and\nquarrel to no purpose.\u201d\n\n\u201cMoreover,\u201d said my good master, \u201cin this subject there is little solid\nprinciple.\u201d\n\n\u201cThere is, at least, one that no man will do well to contest,\u201d replied\nMonsieur Blaizot the bookseller, \u201cand that is that he must be a bad\nChristian and a bad Frenchman who would deny the virtue of the holy\nAmpulla of Rheims, by whose unction our kings are made vicars of Jesus\nChrist for the kingdom of France. Here is the basis of monarchy, which\nshall never be shaken.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\nTHE AFFAIR OF THE MISSISSIPPI\n\n\nIt is well known that during the year 1722 the Parliament of Paris sat\nin judgment on the Mississippi affair, in which were implicated, along\nwith the directors of the Company, a minister of State, secretary to\nthe King, and many subinspectors of provinces. The Company was accused\nof having corrupted the officers of the King and his dominions, who had\nin reality stripped it with the greed usual to people in office under\nweak governments. And it is certain that at this period all the springs\nof government were slackened and warped.\n\nAt one of the sittings of this memorable action, Madame de la\nMorang\u00e8re, wife of one of the directors of the Mississippi Company,\nwas called before the members of Parliament in the upper chamber.\nShe gave evidence that a Monsieur Lescot, secretary to the\n_Lieutenant-Criminel_,[3] having sent for her to come in secret to the\nCh\u00e2telet, made her understand that it lay with her entirely to save\nher husband, who was a fine man and of comely aspect. He said to her,\nnearly in these terms: \u201cMadame, what vexes the true friends of the\nKing in this business is that the Jansenists are not implicated in it.\nJansenists are enemies to the Crown as well as to religion. Help us,\nMadame, to convict one of them and we will acknowledge the service to\nthe State by giving you back your husband with all his possessions.\u201d\n\nWhen Madame de la Morang\u00e8re had reported this conversation, which\nwas not intended for the public, the President of the Parliament\nwas obliged to call Monsieur Lescot to the upper chamber, who at\nfirst tried to deny it. But Madame de la Morang\u00e8re had beautiful\ningenuous eyes, whose gaze he could not meet. He grew troubled and was\nconfounded. He was a big, villainous-looking, red-haired man like Judas\nIscariot. This affair, noticed by the Press, became the talk of Paris.\nIt was spoken of in the salons, on the public walks, at the barbers\u2019,\nand in the coffee-houses. Everywhere Madame de la Morang\u00e8re gained as\nmuch sympathy as Lescot caused disgust.\n\nPublic curiosity was still rife when I accompanied my good master\nMonsieur J\u00e9r\u00f4me Coignard to Monsieur Blaizot\u2019s, who, as you know, is a\nbookseller in the Rue St. Jacques, at the sign of the _Image de Sainte\nCatherine_. In the shop we found Monsieur Gentil, private secretary to\none of the ministers of State, whose face was hidden in a book newly\ncome from Holland, and the celebrated Monsieur Roman, who has treated\nof systems of State in various estimable works. Old Monsieur Blaizot\nwas reading his paper behind the counter.\n\nMonsieur J\u00e9r\u00f4me Coignard, always avid of news, slid up to him to glean\nwhat he could across his shoulder. This man, learned and of so rare a\ngenius, owned nothing of the goods of this world, and when he had drunk\nhis pint at the _Petit Bacchus_ he had not a halfpenny left in his\npockets to buy a news-sheet. Having read the depositions of Madame de\nla Morang\u00e8re over Monsieur Blaizot\u2019s shoulder, he cried out that it was\nwell, and that it pleased him to see wickedness topple from its high\nseat under the weak hand of woman, as in wonderful examples witnessed\nto in Holy Writ.\n\n\u201cThis lady,\u201d he added, \u201calthough allied with public men of whom I do\nnot approve, may be likened unto those strong women lauded in the Book\nof Kings. She pleases by an uncommon mixture of straightforwardness\nand finesse, and I applaud her telling victory.\u201d\n\nMonsieur Roman interrupted him:\n\n\u201cTake care, Monsieur l\u2019Abb\u00e9,\u201d said he, stretching out his arm, \u201ctake\ncare how you look at this affair from an individual and personal point\nof view, without troubling yourself as you should do with the public\ninterests that are bound up in it. There are reasons of State in all\nthis, and it is clear that this supreme reason demanded that Madame\nde la Morang\u00e8re should not speak, or that her words should not find\ncredence.\u201d\n\nMonsieur Gentil lifted his nose from his book. \u201cThe importance of this\nincident,\u201d said he, \u201chas been much exaggerated.\u201d\n\n\u201cAh, Mr. Secretary,\u201d retorted Monsieur Roman, \u201cwe cannot believe that\nan incident that will lose you your place can be without importance.\nFor you will fall by it, sir, you and your master. For my part, I am\nfull of regrets. But what consoles me for the fall of the Ministry now\nreeling under the shock is that they were powerless to prevent it.\u201d\n\nMonsieur Gentil made us understand by a slight wink that on this point\nhe saw eye to eye with Monsieur Roman.\n\nThe latter continued:\n\n\u201cThe State is like the human body\u2014all the functions it accomplishes are\nnot noble. Some there are indeed that one must needs hide, I may say\nthe most necessary.\u201d\n\n\u201cAh, Monsieur,\u201d said the Abb\u00e9, \u201cwas it then necessary that Monsieur\nLescot should so behave to the unfortunate wife of a prisoner? It was\ninfamous!\u201d\n\n\u201cOh,\u201d said Monsieur Roman, \u201cit was infamous when it was known. Before,\nit was of no importance. If you wish to enjoy the benefit of being\ngoverned, which alone raises mankind above the animals, you must leave,\nto those who govern, the means of exercising power, and the first of\nthese means is secrecy. That is why popular government, which is the\nleast secret of all, is also the weakest. Do you then think, Monsieur\nl\u2019Abb\u00e9, that you can govern men by virtue? That is a wild dream!\u201d\n\n\u201cI do not think so,\u201d replied my good master, \u201cI have noticed in the\nvaried chances of my life that men are evil beasts; one can only\ncontrol them by force and cunning. But one must be measured and not\noffend the small amount of good tendencies which mingles with the evil\ninstincts in their minds. For after all, Monsieur, man, all cowardly,\nstupid, cruel, as he is was made in God\u2019s image, and there remain to\nhim still certain features of his primal shape. A government drawn\nfrom the common stock of average honesty, and that yet scandalises the\npeople, should be deposed.\u201d\n\n\u201cSpeak lower, Monsieur l\u2019Abb\u00e9,\u201d said the Secretary.\n\n\u201cThe King can do no wrong,\u201d said Monsieur Roman, \u201cand your maxims are\nseditious, Monsieur l\u2019Abb\u00e9. You deserve, you and your like, not to be\ngoverned at all.\u201d\n\n\u201cOh!\u201d said my good master, \u201cif, as you give us to understand,\ngovernment consists in swindling, violence, and exactions of all\nkinds, there is not much fear that this threat will take effect, and\nwe shall find, for long enough yet, ministers of State and governors\nof provinces to carry on our affairs. Only I should much like to see\nothers in place of these. The new-comers could not be worse than the\nold, and who knows but that they may be even slightly better?\u201d\n\n\u201cTake care!\u201d said Monsieur Roman, \u201ctake care! What is admirable in a\nstate, is succession and continuity, and if there is no perfect state\nin this world, it is because, according to my idea, the flood in the\ntime of Noah disordered the transmission of crowns. It is a confusion\nwe have not quite set straight to this day.\u201d\n\n\u201cMonsieur,\u201d retorted my good master, \u201cyou are amusing with your\ntheories. The history of the world is full of revolutions. One sees\nbut civil wars, tumults, and seditions, caused by the wickedness\nof princes, and I know not which to admire the most nowadays, the\nimpudence of the rulers, or the patience of the people.\u201d\n\nThe secretary complained then that Monsieur l\u2019Abb\u00e9 Coignard overlooked\nthe benefits of royalty, and Monsieur Blaizot represented to us that it\nwas not fitting to contend about public matters in a bookseller\u2019s shop.\n\nWhen we were outside, I pulled my good master by the sleeve.\n\n\u201cMonsieur l\u2019Abb\u00e9,\u201d I said, \u201chave you then forgotten the old woman of\nSyracuse, that you now want to change the tyrant?\u201d\n\n\u201cTournebroche, my son,\u201d answered he, \u201cI acknowledge with a good grace\nthat I have fallen into a contradiction. But this ambiguity, that you\njustly point out in my words, is not as evil as that called antinomy\nby the philosophers. Charron, in his book on \u2018Wisdom,\u2019 affirms that\nantinomies exist which cannot be resolved. For my part, I am no sooner\nplunged in meditations of the kind than I see in my mind\u2019s eye half a\ndozen of these she-devils take each other by the nose and make pretence\nto tear each other\u2019s eyes out, and one sees at once that one would\nnever come to the end of reconciling these obstinate shrews. I lose all\nhope of making them agree, and it is their fault if I have not much\nadvanced metaphysics. But in the present case the contradiction, my\nson, is merely apparent. My reason always sides with the old woman of\nSyracuse. I think to-day what I thought yesterday. Only I have let my\nfeelings run away with me and have yielded to passion as do the vulgar.\u201d\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[3] A stipendiary magistrate.\n\n\n\n\nV\n\nEASTER EGGS\n\n\nMy father kept a cook-shop in the Rue St. Jacques opposite to St.\nBeno\u00eet-le-B\u00e9tourn\u00e9. I do not pretend that he had any affection for\nLent; the sentiment would not have been natural in a cook. But he\nobserved the fasts and days of abstinence like the good Christian that\nhe was. For lack of money to buy a dispensation from the Archbishop\nhe supped off haddock on fast-days, with his wife, his son, his dog,\nand his usual guests, of whom the most assiduous was my good master,\nMonsieur l\u2019Abb\u00e9 J\u00e9r\u00f4me Coignard. My pious mother would not have allowed\nMiraut, our watchdog, to gnaw a bone on Good Friday. That day she put\nneither meat nor fat in the poor animal\u2019s mess. In vain did Monsieur\nl\u2019Abb\u00e9 Coignard represent to her that this was doing the wrong thing,\nand that in all justice, Miraut, who had no share in the sacred\nmysteries of redemption, ought not to suffer in his allowance.\n\n\u201cMy good woman,\u201d said this great man, \u201cit is fitting, that we, as\nmembers of the Church, should sup off haddock; but there is a certain\nsuperstition, impiety, temerity\u2014nay even sacrilege\u2014to associate a dog,\nas you do, with these mortifications of the flesh, made infinitely\nprecious by the interest God Himself takes in them, and which that\ninterest apart would be contemptible and ridiculous. It is an abuse,\nwhich your simplicity renders innocent, but which would be criminal in\na Divine, or even in a judiciously minded Christian. Such a practice,\nmy good lady, leads straight to the most shocking heresy. It tends to\nno less than the upholding of the theory that Jesus Christ died for\ndogs even as for the sons of Adam. And nothing is more contrary to the\nScriptures.\u201d\n\n\u201cThat may be,\u201d replied my mother. \u201cBut if Miraut ate meat on Good\nFriday I should fancy to myself that he was a Jew, and have a horror of\nhim. Is that committing a sin, Monsieur l\u2019Abb\u00e9?\u201d\n\nMy excellent master answered gently, taking a drink of wine:\n\n\u201cAh dear creature, without deciding at this moment if you sin or if\nyou do not, I can tell you for a certainty that there is no malice\nin you, and I believe more surely in your eternal salvation than in\nthat of five or six bishops and cardinals of my acquaintance, who have\nnevertheless written fine treatises on the canon law.\u201d\n\nMiraut swallowed his mess sniffing at it, as if he did not like it, and\nmy father went off with Monsieur l\u2019Abb\u00e9 Coignard to take a stroll to\nthe _Petit Bacchus_.\n\nThus passed the holy time of Lent at the _Sign of the Reine P\u00e9dauque_.\nBut from early Easter morn, when the bells of St. Beno\u00eet-le-B\u00e9tourn\u00e9\nannounced the joyful Resurrection, my father spitted chickens, ducks,\nand pigeons by the dozen, and Miraut, in the corner by the glowing\nfire-place, sniffed the good smell of fat, wagging his tail with grave\nand pensive joy. Old, tired, and nearly blind, he still relished the\njoys of this life, whose ills he accepted with a resignation which made\nthem less unkind for him. He was a sage, and I am not surprised that my\nmother associated such a reasonable creature in her good works.\n\nHaving heard High Mass we dined in the savoury-smelling shop. My father\nbrought to this repast a pious joy. He had commonly, as companions, a\nfew attorneys\u2019 clerks, and my good master Monsieur l\u2019Abb\u00e9 Coignard.\nThis year of grace 1725, at Easter-tide, I remember, my good master\nbrought Monsieur Nicolas Cerise, whom he had dragged from a loft in the\nRue des Ma\u00e7ons, where this learned man wrote, day and night, news of\nthe republic of letters for Dutch publishers. On the table a mound of\nred eggs rose from a wire basket. And when Monsieur l\u2019Abb\u00e9 Coignard had\nsaid the Benedicite, these eggs formed the topic of conversation.\n\n\u201cOne reads in \u00c6lius Lampridus,\u201d said Monsieur Nicolas Cerise, \u201cthat\na hen owned by the father of Alexander Severus laid a red egg on the\nbirthday of that child destined to Empire.\u201d\n\n\u201cThis Lampridus, who had not much intelligence,\u201d said my good master,\n\u201chad better have left such a tale to the old wives who have spread\nit abroad. You have too much good sense, sir, to deduce from this\nridiculous fable the Christian custom of serving red eggs on Easter\nDay?\u201d\n\n\u201cI do not indeed believe,\u201d replied Monsieur Nicolas Cerise, \u201cthat this\nusage is derived from the egg of Alexander Severus. The only conclusion\nthat I wish to draw from the fact, as reported by Lampridus, is that a\nred egg, among the heathen, presaged supreme power. For the rest,\u201d he\nadded, \u201cthat egg must have been reddened in some manner, for hens do\nnot lay red eggs.\u201d\n\n\u201cExcuse me,\u201d said my mother, who was standing by the fire-place\ndecorating the dishes, \u201cin my childhood I saw a black hen who laid\neggs shading into brown; that is why I am ready to believe that there\nare hens whose eggs are red, or of a colour approaching red, as for\ninstance brick-colour.\u201d\n\n\u201cThat is quite possible,\u201d said my good master, \u201cand Nature is more\ndiverse and varied in her productions than we commonly believe. There\nare oddities of every sort in the generating of animals, and one sees\nin natural-history collections far stranger monsters than a red egg.\u201d\n\n\u201cFor instance, they keep a calf with five feet, and a child with two\nheads, in the King\u2019s collection,\u201d said Monsieur Nicolas Cerise.\n\n\u201cThey can better that at Auneau, near Chartres,\u201d said my mother,\nputting on the table, as she spoke, a dozen strings of sausages and\ncabbage, whence a pleasing odour rose up to the joists of the ceiling.\n\u201cI saw there, gentlemen, a new-born infant with goosefeet and a\nserpent\u2019s head. The midwife who received it got such a shock that she\nthrew it in the fire.\u201d\n\n\u201cBe careful,\u201d said Monsieur l\u2019Abb\u00e9 Coignard, \u201cbe careful, for man is\nborn of woman to serve God, and it is unimaginable that he could serve\nHim with a serpent\u2019s head, and it follows therefore that there are no\nchildren of the kind, and that your midwife was dreaming or making fun\nof you.\u201d\n\n\u201cMonsieur l\u2019Abb\u00e9,\u201d said Monsieur Nicolas Cerise, with a slight smile.\n\u201cYou have seen as I have, in the King\u2019s collection, a bi-sexual f\u0153tus\nwith four legs, preserved in a jar filled with spirits of wine, and in\nanother jar, a child without a head and with an eye over the navel.\nCould these monsters serve God any better than the child with the\nserpent\u2019s head our hostess speaks of? And what is one to say of those\nwho have two heads, so that one does not know whether they have two\nsouls? Acknowledge, Monsieur l\u2019Abb\u00e9, that nature, while amusing herself\nwith such cruel sport, puzzles the theologian no little?\u201d\n\nMy good master had already opened his mouth to speak, and doubtless\nhe would have entirely demolished the objection of Monsieur Nicolas\nCerise, had not my mother, whom nothing could stop when she wanted to\nspeak anticipated him by saying very loudly that the child at Auneau\nwas no human creature, and it was the devil himself who had fathered it\non a baker\u2019s wife. \u201cAnd the proof is,\u201d she added, \u201cthat no one thought\nof having it baptized, and that it was buried in a napkin at the bottom\nof the enclosed garden. If it had been a human being it would have been\nburied in consecrated ground. When the devil fathers a child it takes\nthe shape of an animal.\u201d\n\n\u201cMy good woman,\u201d replied Monsieur l\u2019Abb\u00e9 Coignard, \u201cit is marvellous\nthat a villager should know more of the devil than a Doctor of\nDivinity. I admire the way you interest yourself in the matron of\nAuneau, to the extent of knowing if such fruit of a woman is one with\nmankind, redeemed by the blood of God. Believe me, these devilries are\nbut unclean fancies which you should purge from your mind. It is not\nwritten in the Fathers that the devil fathers children on poor girls.\nAll these tales of satanic fornication are disgusting imaginings, and\nit is a disgrace that the Jesuits and Dominicans have written treatises\non them.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou speak well, Abb\u00e9,\u201d said Monsieur Nicolas Cerise, impaling a\nsausage from the dish. \u201cBut you give no answer to what I said, that the\nchildren born without heads are far from being adapted to the destiny\nof mankind, which, the Church tells us, is to know God and to serve\nHim and to love Him, and in that, as in the amount of germs which\nare wasted, nature is not, speaking plainly, sufficiently theological\nand Christian. I may add that she exhibits no religious spirit in any\nof her acts, and seems to ignore her God. That is what frightens me,\nMonsieur l\u2019Abb\u00e9.\u201d\n\n\u201cOh!\u201d cried my father, waving on the end of his fork a drum-stick of\nthe chicken he was carving, \u201cOh! this is indeed gloomy and dreary talk,\nill-suited to the feast we celebrate to-day. And it is my wife who is\nto blame, who offers us a child with a serpent\u2019s head as if it were an\nagreeable dish for honest company. That out of my beautiful red eggs\nshould come so many diabolical tales!\u201d\n\n\u201cAh, mine host,\u201d said Monsieur l\u2019Abb\u00e9 Coignard. \u201cIt is true that\neverything comes out of the egg. From this idea the heathens have drawn\nmany philosophical fables. But that from eggs, so Christian under their\nantique purple as those we have just eaten, should escape such a flight\nof wild impieties, that is what amazes me.\u201d\n\nMonsieur Nicolas Cerise looked at my good master, winking his eye, and\nsaid, with a thin laugh:\n\n\u201cMonsieur l\u2019Abb\u00e9 Coignard, these eggs, whose beetroot-tinted shells lie\nscattered on the floor under our feet, are not in their essence as\nChristian and Catholic as it pleases you to think them. Easter Eggs, on\nthe contrary, are of heathen origin, and recall, at the time of spring\nequinox, the mysterious burgeoning of life. It is an ancient symbol\nwhich has been preserved in the Christian religion.\u201d\n\n\u201cOne might equably reasonably uphold,\u201d said my good master, \u201cthat it\nis a symbol of the Resurrection of Christ. I, for one, have no wish\nto load religion with symbolical subtleties. I would most willingly\nbelieve that the pleasure of eating eggs, denied to us during Lent,\nis the sole reason why on this day they appear on the tables with\nhonour and clothed in royal purple. But no matter, these are mere\ntrifles, serving to amuse the learned and the bookmen. What is worth\nconsidering in your talk, Monsieur Nicolas Cerise, is that you bring\ninto opposition nature and religion, and you want to make them inimical\nto each other. Impiety! Monsieur Nicolas Cerise. And so horrible that\nthis good fellow of a cook trembles at it without understanding it.\nBut I am not a whit disturbed; and such arguments cannot, even for one\nminute, seduce a mind which knows how to govern itself.\n\n\u201cIn truth, Monsieur Nicolas Cerise, you have proceeded by that\nrational and scientific route which is but a narrow, short, and\ndirty blind-alley, on coming to the end of which we break our noses\ningloriously. You argue in the manner of a thoughtful apothecary,\nwho thinks he understands nature because he can smell some of her\nmanifestations. And you have concluded that natural generation\nproducing monsters is no part of the secret of God, Who creates men to\ncelebrate His glory, \u2018_Pulcher hymnus Dei homo immortalis_\u2019: It was\nvery generous of you to omit mention of the new-born who die as soon as\nthey see the light, of the mad, and the imbecile, and all creatures who\nare not, from your point of view, what Lactantius calls a worthy hymn\nto God, _Pulcher hymnus Dei._ But what do you know of it all, and what\ndo we know of it all, Monsieur Nicolas Cerise? You take me for one of\nyour readers at Amsterdam or at the Hague, to wish to make me believe\nthat the unintelligibility of nature is an objection to our holy\nChristian faith. Nature, sir, shows to our eyes but a succession of\nincoherent images in which it is impossible for us to find a meaning,\nand I grant you, that according to her, and in tracking her footsteps,\nI fail to discern in the child that is born either the Christian,\nthe man, or even the individual; and the flesh is an absolutely\nindecipherable hieroglyphic. But that matters nothing, and we are\nlooking at the wrong side of the tapestry. Do not let us fix our gaze\non that, but understand that from that side we can know nothing. Let us\nturn entirely to the understandable, which is the human soul united to\nGod.\n\n\u201cYou are amusing, Monsieur Nicolas Cerise, with your nature and your\ngeneration. You are, to my mind, like some good fellow who thinks he\nhas surprised the King\u2019s secrets because he has seen the paintings\nwhich decorate the council chamber. In the same way that the secrets\nare to be found in the conversation of the King and his ministers, so\nis the fate of man in the thought which proceeds alike from the created\nand the Creator. All the rest is but folly and amusement, fit to divert\nthe loungers, of whom one sees many in the Academies. Do not talk to me\nof nature, except of what one sees at the _Petit Bacchus_ in the person\nof Catherine the lace-maker, who is plump and well-made.\n\n\u201cAnd you, mine host,\u201d added Monsieur l\u2019Abb\u00e9 Coignard, \u201cgive me to\ndrink, for I have a thirst on me, all the fault of Monsieur Nicolas\nCerise, who thinks nature an atheist. And, by a thousand devils, so\nshe is, and perforce must be, to some extent; and if at all times she\ndeclares the glory of God, it is without knowing it, for there is no\nknowledge, save in the mind of man, which alone proceeds from both the\nfinite and the infinite. Give me to drink!\u201d\n\nMy father poured out a brimming glass for my good master, Monsieur\nl\u2019Abb\u00e9 Coignard, and for Monsieur Nicolas Cerise, and forced them to\nclink their glasses, which they did right heartily, for they were good\nfellows.\n\n\n\n\nVI\n\nTHE NEW MINISTRY\n\n\nMr. Shippen, who practised the trade of a locksmith at Greenwich,\ndined every day, during his short stays in Paris, at the _Sign of the\nReine P\u00e9dauque_, in the company of his landlord and of my good master,\nMonsieur l\u2019Abb\u00e9 Coignard.\n\nThat day, at dessert, having called for a bottle of wine as was his\ncustom, lighted his pipe, and drawn from his pocket the London Gazette,\nhe set himself peaceably to smoke, drink, and read; then folding his\npaper, and placing his pipe on the edge of the table, he said:\n\n\u201cGentlemen, the Government is defeated.\u201d\n\n\u201cOh!\u201d said my good master, \u201cit is of no consequence.\u201d\n\n\u201cPardon me,\u201d said Mr. Shippen, \u201cit _is_ a matter of consequence,\nfor the former ministry being Tory, the new one will be Whig, and\nmoreover, everything that happens in England is of importance.\u201d\n\n\u201cSir,\u201d replied my good master, \u201cWe have seen greater changes than\nthat in France. We have seen the four officials known as Secretaries\nof State replaced by six or seven Councils of ten members apiece, and\nthe Secretaries of State hewn in ten pieces and then re-established\nin their original shape. At each of these changes there were some who\nswore that all was lost, and others that all was saved. And rhymes were\nmade about it all. For my part, I take little interest in what is done\nin the King\u2019s cabinet, for I notice that the course of life is in no\nway changed, and after reforms men are as before, selfish, avaricious,\ncowardly, cruel, stupid and furious by turns, and there is always a\nnearly even number of births, marriages, cuckolds, and gallowsbirds,\nin which is made manifest the beautiful ordering of our society. This\ncondition is stable, sir, and nothing could shake it, for it is founded\non human misery and imbecility, and those are foundations which will\nnever be wanting. The whole edifice gains from them a strength which\ndefies the efforts of the worst of princes, and of the ignorant crowd\nof officials who assist them.\u201d\n\nMy father, who, larding-pin in hand, was listening to this\nconversation, made this amendment with deferential firmness: that good\nministers are to be found, and that he could remember one, who had\nrecently died, as the author of a very wise regulation protecting cooks\nagainst the devouring ambitions of butchers and confectioners.\n\n\u201cThat may be, Monsieur Tournebroche,\u201d retorted my good master, \u201cand\nit is a matter to discuss with confectioners. But what is necessary\nto consider is that empires subsist, not by the wisdom of certain\nSecretaries of State, but by the needs of millions of men, who, to\nlive, work at all sorts of lowly and ignoble arts such as industry,\ncommerce, agriculture, war, and navigation. These individual hardships\nmake up what is called the greatness of a people, and neither prince\nnor ministers have a part in them.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou are mistaken, sir,\u201d said the Englishman, \u201cministers do their part\nby making laws, of which a single one may enrich or ruin the nation.\u201d\n\n\u201cOh, as for that,\u201d replied the Abb\u00e9, \u201cit is a risk that must be run.\nSince the affairs of the State are so widespread that the intelligence\nof a single man cannot embrace them, we must forgive ministers for\nworking blindly thereat, and harbour no resentment against the good or\nevil they do, but suppose that they moved as in a game of blind-man\u2019s\nbuff. Moreover, this evil and this good would seem less to us if\nestimated without superstition, and I doubt, sir, if a general order\ncould have the effect that you mention. I judge by the women of\nthe town, who are themselves alone, in a year, the object of more\nregulations than are put forth in a century for all other classes in\nthe kingdom, and who, none the less, carry on their business with an\nexactitude based on the forces of nature. They laugh at the simple\nblackening which a magistrate named Nicod\u00e8me[4] meditates in regard\nto them, and make fun of Monsieur Baiselance, the mayor[5] who has\nformed, along with several attorneys and treasury officials, an\nimpotent association for their ruin. I can tell you that Catherine, the\nlace-maker, is ignorant of the very name of Baiselance, and that she\nwill remain ignorant of it until her end, which will be a Christian\none\u2014at least I hope so. And I infer that all the laws with which a\nminister swells his portfolio, are but useless papers which neither\nenable us to live nor prevent us from living.\u201d\n\n\u201cMonsieur Coignard,\u201d said the locksmith from Greenwich, \u201cit is easy to\nsee by the baseness of your talk that you are accustomed to servitude.\nYou would speak differently of statesmen and laws if you had, as I\nhave, the happiness to enjoy a free Government.\u201d\n\n\u201cMr. Shippen,\u201d said the Abb\u00e9, \u201ctrue liberty is that of a soul\nenfranchised from the vanities of this world. As for public liberty, I\ndo not care a cherrystone for it! It is an illusion which flatters the\nvanity of the ignorant.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou confirm me in the idea,\u201d said Mr. Shippen, \u201cthat the French are\nmere monkeys.\u201d\n\n\u201cAllow me,\u201d said my father, brandishing his larding-pin, \u201cthere are\nlions also to be found amongst them.\u201d\n\n\u201cOnly citizens fail you then,\u201d retorted Mr. Shippen. \u201cAll the world\ndiscusses public matters in the Tuileries Gardens, without one\nreasonable notion resulting from their squabbles. Your population is\nbut a turbulent wild-beast show.\u201d\n\n\u201cSir,\u201d said my good master, \u201cit is true that when human societies\nattain to a certain degree of refinement, they turn aside from the\nmanners of a menagerie, and that it is evidence of progress to live in\na cage, instead of wandering miserably in the woods. And this tendency\nis common to all the countries of Europe.\u201d\n\n\u201cSir,\u201d said the Greenwich locksmith, \u201cEngland is no menagerie, for she\nhas a Parliament on which her Ministers depend.\u201d\n\n\u201cSir,\u201d said the Abb\u00e9, \u201cit may be that one day France will also have\nMinisters obedient to a Parliament. Better still. Time brings many\nchanges in the constitution of empires, and one can fancy that, in\na century or two, France may adopt popular government. But, sir,\nsecretaries of State, who count for little in our day, will then no\nlonger count for anything. For instead of depending on the King, from\nwhom they derive their period and power, they will be subject to\npublic opinion, and will share its instability. It is to be remarked\nthat statesmen only exercise their power, with any force, in absolute\nmonarchies, as is seen in the example of Joseph the son of Jacob,\nPharaoh\u2019s Minister, and in that of Haman, Minister to Ahasuerus, who\nplayed a great _r\u00f4le_ in the government; the first in Egypt, the second\namong the Persians. It needed the coincidence of a strongly established\ncrown and a weak king, in France, to strengthen the arm of a Richelieu.\nUnder popular government, ministers will become so impotent that even\ntheir wickedness and stupidity will do harm no more.\n\n\u201cThey will receive from the general assemblies only an uncertain\nand precarious authority; unable to indulge in far-flung hopes and\nvast schemes, they will spend their ephemeral existence in wretched\nexpedients. They will grow jaundiced in the unhappy effort to read\ntheir orders on the five hundred faces of a crowd, ignorant and at\ncross-purposes; they will languish in restless impotence. They will\nbecome unused to foresee anything or prepare anything, and they will\nonly study intrigue and falsehood. They will fall from so low that\ntheir fall will do them no harm, and their names, chalked on the walls\nby little scribbling school-boys, will make the bourgeois laugh.\u201d\n\nMr. Shippen shrugged his shoulders at this speech.\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s possible,\u201d he said, \u201cI can well enough imagine the French in such\na state.\u201d\n\n\u201cOh,\u201d said my good master, \u201cin that state the world will go on its way.\nWe shall still have to eat, it is the great need which gives rise to\nall others.\u201d\n\nMr. Shippen said, shaking out his pipe:\n\n\u201cIn the meanwhile they promise us a minister who will favour the\nfarmers, but who will ruin trade if he has his way. I must look to it,\nfor I am a locksmith at Greenwich, and I shall call all the locksmiths\ntogether and address them.\u201d\n\nHe put his pipe in his pocket and went out without saying good-night to\nus.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[4] _Vide post_, p. 174.\n\n[5] Monsieur Baiselance or Baisselance, succeeded Montaigne,\nconsiderably later, as Mayor of Bordeaux. [A. F.]\n\n\n\n\nVII\n\nTHE NEW MINISTRY (_concluded_)\n\n\nAfter supper, as it was a fine night, Abb\u00e9 J\u00e9r\u00f4me Coignard took a\nturn in the Rue St. Jacques where the lamps were being lighted, and\nI had the honour to accompany him. He stopped under the porch of St.\nBeno\u00eet-le-B\u00e9tourn\u00e9, and pointing with a plump hand, shaped equally\nwell for scholastic demonstration and for delicate caress, at one of\nthe stone benches ranged on either side beneath the antique statues\nfouled with obscene scrawls. \u201cTournebroche, my son,\u201d said he, \u201cif you\nare of the same turn of mind we will take the air for a moment or two\non one of these well-polished old stones where so many beggars before\nus have rested from their troubles. Perchance some of those countless\npoor creatures have here held quite excellent talk among themselves....\nWe shall run the risk of catching fleas. But you, my son, being at\nthe amorous age, may believe they are Jeannette, the viol player\u2019s,\nor Catherine, the lace-maker\u2019s, who are in the habit of bringing their\ngallants here at dusk; and their bite will seem sweet to you. That is\nan illusion permitted to your youth. For me, who am past the age of\nthese charming follies, I shall tell myself that one must not give way\ntoo much to the weakness of the flesh, and that a philosopher must not\ntrouble about fleas which, like all else in the world, are among God\u2019s\nmysteries.\u201d\n\nSo saying, he sat down, taking care not to disturb a small Savoyard and\nhis marmoset who were sleeping their innocent sleep on the old stone\nbench. I sat down by his side. The conversation which had occupied the\ndinner-hour came back to my mind:\n\n\u201cMonsieur l\u2019Abb\u00e9,\u201d I asked this good master, \u201cyou were speaking a\nwhile ago of ministers. Those of the King did not impress you by their\nclothes, nor by their coaches, nor by their genius, and you judged them\nwith the freedom of a mind which nothing astonishes. Then, considering\nthe lot of these officials in a popular state (should it ever be\nestablished), you showed them to us as wretched to excess and less\nworthy of praise than of pity. Are you then, perhaps, opposed to free\ngovernments as revived from the republics of antiquity?\u201d\n\n\u201cI am personally inclined to love popular government, my son,\u201d answered\nmy good master. \u201cMy humbleness of condition draws me towards it,\nand Holy Writ, of which I have made some study, confirms me in this\npreference, for the Lord said in Ramah: \u2018The people of Israel desired\na king that I should not reign over them.\u2019 And He said, \u2018Now this\nwill be the manner of king that shall reign over you: he will take\nyour sons and appoint them for himself and for his chariots, and to\nbe his horsemen, and some shall run before his chariot. And he will\ntake your daughters to be confectioners and to be cooks and to be\nbakers.\u2019 _Filias quoque vestras faciet sibi unguentarias et focarias et\npanificas._ That is said expressly in the Book of Kings, and one still\nsees that the monarch brings his subjects two grievous gifts: war and\ntithes. And if it be true that monarchies are of Divine institution\nit is equally true that they present all the characteristics of human\nimbecility and wickedness. It is credible that Heaven has given them to\nthe people for their chastisement: _Et tribuit eis petitionem eorum._\n\n     \u2018Often in His anger He accepts our sacrifice,\n     His gifts are often the penalty of our crimes.\u2019\n\n\u201cI could quote, my son, many fine passages from old authors where the\nhatred of tyranny is described with admirable vigour. Finally, I think\nI have always shown some strength of soul in disdaining the pride of\nthe flesh, and have, quite as much as the Jansenist Blaise Pascal, the\ndisgust for swashbucklers. All these reasons speak to my heart and to\nmy intelligence in favour of popular government. I have made it the\nsubject of meditations, which one day I shall put down in writing, in\na work of that kind of which they say that one must break the bone\nto find the marrow. I want you to understand from that, that I shall\ncompose a new _Praise of Folly_ which will appear frivolity to the\nfrivolous, but the wise will recognise wisdom under the cap and bells.\nIn short, I shall be a second Erasmus; following his example I shall\nteach the people by a learned and judicious playfulness. And you will\nfind, my son, in one chapter of this treatise, every enlightenment\non the subject that interests you; you will acquire a knowledge of\nthe condition of statesmen placed in dependence on popular states or\nassemblies.\u201d\n\n\u201cOh, Monsieur l\u2019Abb\u00e9!\u201d I cried, \u201chow impatient I am to read this book!\nWhen do you think it will be written?\u201d\n\n\u201cI do not know,\u201d replied my good master, \u201cand truth to tell I think\nI shall never write it. Plans made by man are often thwarted. We\nhave no power over the smallest particle of the future, and this\nuncertainty common to Adam\u2019s race, is carried to extremes in my case\nby a long series of misfortunes. That is why, my son, I despair of\never being able to compose this respectable jest. Without giving you\na political treatise, seated on this bench, I will tell you at least\nhow I came to have the idea of introducing into my imaginary book a\nchapter wherein would appear the weakness and spite of servants taken\non by good man Demos when master, if he ever become so, of which I\nam not quite decided, for I do not meddle in prophecy, leaving this\npreoccupation to maidens who vaticinate after the manner of the sibyls\nsuch as the Cumean, the Persian, or the Tiburtine, \u2018_quarum insigne\nvirginitas est et virginitatis pr\u00e6mium divinatio_.\u2019 Let us then turn to\nour subject. It is nearly twenty years since I lived in the pleasant\ntown of S\u00e9ez, where I was librarian to the Bishop. Some travelling\nactors, who chanced to pass, gave a fairly good tragedy in a barn;\nI went to it and saw a Roman emperor appear whose wig was decorated\nwith more laurels than a ham at the fair of Saint Laurence. He seated\nhimself in a curule chair; his two ministers, in court dress with their\nimpressive insignia, took their place on either side on stools, and the\nthree formed a Council of State before the footlights, which stank\nexceedingly. Eventually, during the course of their deliberations, one\nof the councillors drew a satirical portrait of the consuls during the\nlatter period of the Republic. He showed them as impatient to use and\nabuse their temporary power\u2014enemies of the public good, and jealous of\ntheir successors, in whom they were only assured of seeing accomplices\nto their robbery and peculation. This is how he spoke:\n\n     \u2018These little monarchs, reigning for a year,\n     Seeing the limit of their rule so near,\n     Spoil the green fruit, of fairest seed and growth,\n     Rather than leave what they to leave are loath.\n     Since they have little part in what they wield,\n     Take a full harvest from the public field,\n     Assured of pardon, for their easy heirs\n     Hope for like treatment when the turn is theirs.\u2019[6]\n\n\u201cWell, my son, these lines which, by their sententious precision\nrecall the quatrains of Pibrac, are more excellent as regards meaning\nthan the rest of the tragedy, which smells a little too much of the\npompous frivolities of the princes\u2019 Fronde, and is altogether spoilt\nby the heroic love-affairs of a kind of Duchesse de Longueville, who\nappears under the name of \u00c9milie. I took care to remember them so as\nto meditate upon them. For one finds beautiful maxims even in works\nwritten for the theatre. What the poet says in these eight lines, on\nconsuls of the Roman Republic, applies equally well to ministers of\ndemocracies whose power is precarious.\n\n\u201cThey are weak, my son, because they depend on a popular assembly,\nincapable equally of the large and profound views of a politician,\nand of the innocent stupidity of an idle king. Ministers are only\ngreat if they second, as did Sully, an intelligent prince, or if, like\nRichelieu, they take the place of the monarch. And who does not feel\nthat Demos will have neither the obstinate prudence of a Henry IV,\nnor the favourable inertia of a Louis XIII? Even supposing he knows\nwhat he wants he will not know how to carry out his wishes, nor even\nif they be feasible. Ordering ill, he will be badly obeyed, and will\nalways believe himself betrayed. The deputies he will send to his\nStates-General will keep up his illusions by ingenious lies up to the\nmoment of falling under his unjust or legitimate suspicions. These\nstates will perpetuate the same confused mediocrity as the mob from\nwhich they spring. They will revolve multiple and obscure thoughts.\nThey will give the heads of government the task of carrying out vague\nwishes of which they themselves are not conscious, and their ministers,\nmore unhappy than \u0152dipus in the fable, will be devoured, each in turn,\nby the Sphinx with a hundred heads for not having guessed the riddle\nof which the Sphinx herself was ignorant. The source of their greatest\nunhappiness will be their enforced resignation to impotence, and to\ntalk instead of action. They will become rhetoricians and very bad\nrhetoricians, for talent, bringing some clarity with it, will be their\nundoing. They will have to train themselves to speak without saying\nanything, and the least foolish amongst them will be condemned to lie\nmore than all the others. So, the most intelligent will become the\nmost despicable. And if any are to be found clever enough to conclude\ntreaties, regulate finance, and see to business, their knowledge will\nserve them nothing, for time will fail them, and time is the stuff of\ngreat undertakings.\n\n\u201cThese humiliating conditions will discourage the good and lend\nambition to the bad. From all sides, ambitious incompetence will rise\nfrom the depth of struggling villages to the first posts in the State,\nand as probity is not natural to mankind, but must be cultivated\nwith great care and long-continued artifice, we shall see clouds of\npeculators fall on the public treasury. The evil will be much increased\nby the outburst of scandal, for, as it is difficult to hide anything\nunder popular government, by the fault of some all will become suspect.\n\n\u201cI do not conclude from this, my son, that people will be more unhappy\nthen than they are now, I have told you often enough in our former\nconversations that I do not think the fate of a nation depends on\nits prince and its ministers, and it is ascribing too much virtue to\nlaws to make them the source of general prosperity or unhappiness.\nNevertheless, the multitude of laws is grievous, and I also fear that\nthe States-General will abuse their legislative powers.\n\n\u201cIt is the harmless foible of Colin and Jeannot to frame laws while\nthey keep their sheep, and to say: \u2018If I were king!\u2019 When Jeannot\nis king he will promulgate more edicts in a year than the Emperor\nJustinian codified during all his reign. It is in that direction,\nit seems to me, that Jeannot\u2019s reign will prove formidable. But\nthat of kings and emperors was usually so bad one could not fear a\nworse, and Jeannot, no doubt, will not commit many more follies,\nnor wickednesses, than all those princes girt with the double or\ntriple crown, who, since the deluge, have covered the world with\nblood and destruction. His very incapacity and turbulence will have\nthis much good in them that they will render impossible those learned\ncorrespondences between country and country we call diplomacy,\nwhich end in nothing but in the artistic lighting-up of useless and\ndisastrous wars. The ministers of good man Demos unceasingly kicked,\nhustled, humiliated, thrown down and assailed with more rotten apples\nand eggs than the worst harlequin in a booth at a fair, will have no\nleisure to prepare carnage politely, in the secrecy and peace of the\ncabinet, on the board of green cloth, by conferences in regard to what\nis called the balance of Europe, which is but the happy hunting-ground\nof the diplomat. There will be no more foreign policy, and that will be\na great thing for unhappy humanity.\u201d\n\nAt these words my good master rose up, and continued as follows: \u201cIt is\ntime to go in, my son, for I feel the dew penetrate by reason that my\nclothes are in holes in various places. Also, by remaining any longer\nunder this porch, we risk frightening away the lovers of Catherine and\nJeannette, who here await the hour of tryst.\u201d\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[6]\n\n     Ces petits souverains qu\u2019on fait pour une ann\u00e9e,\n     Voyant d\u2019un temps si court leur puissance born\u00e9e,\n     Des plus heureux desseins font avorter le fruit,\n     De peur de le laisser \u00e0 celui que les suit.\n     Comme ils ont peu de part aux biens dont ils ordonnent,\n     Dans le champ du public largement ils moissonnent,\n     Assur\u00e9s que chacun leur pardonne ais\u00e9ment,\n     Esp\u00e9rant \u00e0 son tour un pareil traitement.\n\n\n\n\nVIII\n\nTHE CITY MAGISTRATES\n\n\nThat evening we betook ourselves, my master and I, to the arbour of\nthe _Petit Bacchus_, where we found Catherine the lace-maker, the\nlame cutler, and the father who begot me. They were all seated at the\nsame table before a jug of wine, of which they had taken enough to be\npleasant and sociable.\n\nTwo magistrates had just been elected according to form, out of four,\nand my father was talking of it, according to the measure of his lights\nand his talents.\n\n\u201cThe pity is,\u201d said he, \u201cthat these city magistrates are gentlemen of\nthe long robe, and not cooks, and that they hold their magistracy from\nthe king, and not from the tradesmen, notably not from the corporation\nof Parisian cooks of which I am the banner-bearer. If they were of my\nchoosing they would abolish tithes and the salt tax, and we should\nall be happy.... At any rate, if the world does not walk backwards\nlike a crab, a day will come when magistrates will be elected by the\ntradesmen.\u201d\n\n\u201cNo doubt,\u201d said Monsieur l\u2019Abb\u00e9, \u201cmagistrates will one day be elected\nby the masters and their apprentices.\u201d\n\n\u201cMind what you are saying, Monsieur l\u2019Abb\u00e9,\u201d said my father anxiously,\nand drawing his brows together. \u201cWhen apprentices mix themselves up\nwith the election of magistrates all will be lost. In the days when\nI was apprenticed I thought of nothing but of misappropriating my\nmaster\u2019s wife and goods. But since I own a shop and a wife I attend to\nthe public interest, in which my own is bound up.\u201d\n\nLesturgeon, our landlord, brought a jug of wine. He was a small,\nred-haired man, quick, and rough.\n\n\u201cYou speak of the new magistrates,\u201d he said, his hands on his hips, \u201cI\nonly wish them as much wisdom as the old ones, who were nevertheless\nnot very knowing about the public welfare. But they were beginning\nto learn their business. You know, Monsieur L\u00e9onard (he spoke to my\nfather), the school where the children of the Rue St. Jacques go to\nlearn their alphabet, is built of wood, and a slow match and a few\nshavings would suffice to make it blaze like a veritable midsummer\nnight\u2019s bonfire. I warned the gentlemen of the H\u00f4tel de Ville about it.\nMy letter did not err in style for I had it written for sixpence by a\nscrivener who has a stall under the Val-de-Grace. I represented to the\nmagistrate that all the small boys of the neighbourhood were in daily\ndanger of being grilled, like chitterlings, which was a matter for\nthought, having regard to the sensibility of mothers. The magistrate\nwho has to do with the schools answered politely, after a year had\nelapsed, that the danger run by the small boys of the Rue St. Jacques\nroused all his solicitude, and that he was eager to remove it, and, in\nconsequence he was sending a fire-engine to the afore-mentioned pupils.\n\u2018The king,\u2019 he added, \u2018having in his goodness built a fountain in\ncommemoration of his victories, at two hundred paces from the school,\nwater would not be lacking, and the children will learn in a few days\nto manage the engine which the town consents to grant them free.\u2019\n\n\u201cOn reading this letter I jumped to the ceiling. And returning to\nVal-de-Grace I dictated a reply to the scrivener as follows:\n\n\u201c\u2018Honoured City-magistrate\u2014Sir, in the schoolhouse of the Rue St.\nJacques are two hundred youngsters, of whom the oldest is but seven\nyears of age. These are fine firemen, sir, to work your fire-engine.\nTake it back again, and have a schoolhouse built of stone and rubble.\u2019\n\n\u201cThis letter, like the former one, cost me sixpence, including the\nseal. But I did not lose my money, for, after twenty months had\npassed, I received a reply in which the magistrate assured me that\nthe youngsters of the Rue St. Jacques were worthy of the care of the\nParisian magistrates, who would prudently watch over their safety. We\nremain there. If my magistrate leaves his post I shall have to begin\nall over again, and pay a shilling once more to the scrivener in the\nVal-de-Grace. That is why, Monsieur L\u00e9onard, although I am firmly\nconvinced there are faces at the town-hall which would be better\nfitted to play the buffoon at a fair, I have not the slightest desire\nto see new faces there, and I particularly wish to keep him of the\nfire-engine.\u201d\n\n\u201cFor my part,\u201d said Catherine, \u201cit is the _Lieutenant-Criminel_ I have\na grudge against. He allows Jeannette, the viol player, to prowl about\nevery day, at twilight, under the porch of St. Beno\u00eet-le-B\u00e9tourn\u00e9.\nIt is a disgrace. She walks through the streets with a kerchief tied\nround her head, and trails her dirty skirts through every gutter in the\nplace. The public places should be reserved for girls well turned-out\nenough to show themselves with credit.\u201d\n\n\u201cOh! I reckon the pavement belongs to all the world,\u201d said the lame\ncutler. \u201cAnd one of these days I shall follow the example of our\nlandlord, Lesturgeon, and go to the scrivener in the Val-de-Grace\nto get him to draw up, in my name, a fine petition in favour of\npoor hawkers. I cannot push my cart into a good position but I am\nat once bothered by the police, and as soon as a lackey or a couple\nof servant-girls stop at my stall, a big, black rascal turns up and\norders me, in the name of the law, to go and undo my bundle elsewhere.\nSometimes I am on ground rented by the market people, at others, I find\nmyself a near neighbour of Monsieur Leborgne, sworn cutler. Another\ntime I must yield the pavement to the carriage of a bishop or a prince.\nAnd there I am, getting into my harness and pulling at the straps,\nhappy if the lackeys and the chambermaids have not carried off without\npayment, profiting by my awkwardness, a needle-case, some scissors, or\na fine blade from Chatellerault. I am sick of suffering tyranny. I am\nsick of experiencing the injustice of the justiciaries. I feel a great\ndesire to revolt.\u201d\n\n\u201cI know from that sign,\u201d said my good master, \u201cthat you are a\nmagnanimous cutler.\u201d\n\n\u201cI am not at all magnanimous, Monsieur l\u2019Abb\u00e9,\u201d modestly replied the\ncripple, \u201cI am vindictive, and resentment has pushed me to sell,\nin secret, songs written against the king, his mistresses, and his\nministers. I keep a fairly good assortment in the tilt of my cart. Do\nnot betray me. That of the twelve reed-pipes is admirable.\u201d\n\n\u201cI will not betray you,\u201d answered my father, \u201ca good song is worth\na glass of wine to me, and even more, I do not say anything either\nabout the knives, and I am glad, my good fellow, that you sell yours,\nfor all the world must live. But acknowledge that one cannot allow\nwandering hawkers to enter into competition with tradesmen who rent\na shop and pay taxes. Nothing is more contrary to law and order. The\nimpudence of these draggle-tails is unspeakable. How far would it not\ngo were it not checked. Last year did not a peasant from Montrouge\ncome to a stop in front of the _Reine P\u00e9dauque_ with his little cart\nfull of pigeons that he was selling, ready cooked, for two liards and\na sou cheaper than I sell mine! And the bumpkin cried, in a voice fit\nto crack the windows of my shop, \u2018Beautiful pigeons for five sous.\u2019 I\nthreatened him twenty times with my larding-pin. But he answered me,\nstupidly, that the street belonged to all the world. I made a complaint\nto the _Lieutenant-Criminel_ who saw justice done, and rid me of the\nvillain. I do not know what has become of him, but I owe him a grudge\nfor the harm he did me, for the sight of my usual customers, buying\nhis pigeons, by couples, nay even by half-dozens, gave me an attack of\njaundice, from the effect of which I became melancholy for a long time.\nI wish they\u2019d stick as many feathers on his body, with glue, as he had\nplucked from the winged creatures he sold ready-cooked in my very face,\nand that thus be-feathered from head to foot he was led through the\nstreets at the tail of his cart.\u201d\n\n\u201cMonsieur L\u00e9onard,\u201d said the lame cutler, \u201cyou are hard on poor people.\nIt is thus the unfortunate are driven to desperation.\u201d\n\n\u201cMaster Cutler, I counsel you,\u201d said my good master, laughing, \u201cto\norder at the Innocents by some paid writer, a satire on Ma\u00eetre L\u00e9onard\nand to sell it along with your songs on the twelve pipes of King Louis.\nOur friend here should be celebrated a little, who, in a semi-servile\nstate, aspires, not to freedom but to tyranny. I conclude from all your\ntalking, gentlemen, that the policing of towns is a difficult art,\nthat one must try and reconcile diverse and often contrary interests,\nthat the public welfare is made up of a large number of private and\nindividual woes, and that in fact, it is already rather wonderful that\npeople shut up within walls do not devour one another. It is a blessing\none must attribute to their poltroonery. Public peace is founded simply\non the feeble courage of citizens who hold each other in respect by\nreason of their reciprocal fear. And the prince, in inspiring all with\nawe, assures to them the inestimable benefit of peace. As to your\nmagistrates, whose power is weak, and who are incapable of serving or\nof injuring you much, and whose merits consist chiefly in their tall\ncanes and wigs, do not complain overmuch that they are chosen by the\nking and ranked, or little short of it, since the last reign, with\nofficers of the Crown. Friends of the prince, they are vaguely inimical\nto all citizens, and this enmity is rendered bearable to each by the\nperfect equality with which it bears upon all. It is like rain, of\nwhich one with another we receive but a few drops. One day, when they\nare elected by the people (as they tell us they were in the early days\nof the monarchy) magistrates will have friends and foes in the town.\nElected by the shop-people, paying rent and tithes, they will ill-use\nthe hawkers. Elected by the hawkers, they will ill-use the tradesmen.\nElected by the artisans, they will be in opposition to the masters,\nwho make the artisans work. It will be an incessant cause of dispute\nand quarrels. They will form a turbulent council where each will\nagitate for the interests and passions of his electors. Nevertheless,\nI fancy they will not make the present magistrates regretted who only\ndepend on the prince. Their clamorous vanity will amuse the citizens\nwho will see themselves as in an enlarging mirror. They will employ\nmediocre powers after a mediocre fashion. Risen from the mass of the\npeople they will be as incapable of fostering it as of restraining\nit. The rich will be frightened at their audacity, and the poor will\nblame their fearfulness, whereas they will really display only noise\nand impotence. For the rest, they may be equal to common tasks, and\nto administering the public wealth with that insufficient sufficiency\nwhich they always attain to and never get beyond.\u201d\n\n\u201cOuf!\u201d said my father, \u201cyou have spoken well, Monsieur l\u2019Abb\u00e9\u2014now\ndrink!\u201d\n\n\n\n\nIX\n\nSCIENCE\n\n\nThat day we tramped as far as the Pont Neuf, my good master and I,\nwhere the recesses were covered with those trestles on which the\nsecond-hand booksellers expose a conglomeration of romances and books\nof devotion. There one may find at twopence apiece the complete\n_Astr\u00e9e_ and the _Grand Cyrus_, worn and thumbed by provincial readers,\nwith the \u201cOintment for Burns,\u201d and divers works of the Jesuits. My\ngood master was accustomed, in passing, to read some pages of these\nworks, of which he made no purchase, being out of funds, and wisely\nkeeping for the _Petit Bacchus_ the sixpence he happened by a rare\nchance to have in his breeches\u2019 pocket. For the rest, he did not thirst\nto possess the good things of this world, and the best works did not\nmake him envious so long as he could get acquainted with the noble\npassages in them, on which he expatiated afterwards with admirable\nwisdom. The trestles of the Pont Neuf pleased him in that the books\nwere impregnated with the smell of frying from the near neighbourhood\nof the hot-potato sellers, and this great man inhaled at the same time\nthe welcome fragrance of cooking and of science.\n\nAdjusting his spectacles, he examined the display of a second-hand\ndealer with the contentment of a happy soul, to which all things are\ngracious, for all things gain a grace from their reflection in it.\n\n\u201cTournebroche, my son,\u201d he said to me, \u201cthere are books to be found on\nthe stall of this good man, fashioned in the days when printing was,\nso to speak, in its swaddling-clothes, and these books still suffer\nfrom the effects of the roughness of our forbears. I find a barbarous\nchronicle of Monstrelet, an author said to have been more frothy than\na pot of mustard, and two or three lives of Ste. Marguerite, which the\ngossips of old put as a compress on their stomachs during the pains\nof childbirth. It would be inconceivable that men could be so idiotic\nas to write and to read similar absurdities, if our holy religion\ndid not teach us that they are born with a germ of imbecility. And\nas the light of faith has never failed me, not even, happily, in the\nsins of the couch or of the table, I can more easily understand\ntheir past stupidity than their present intelligence, which, to speak\nfrankly, appears to me illusory and deceptive, as it will seem to\nfuture generations, for man is in his essence a stupid animal, and the\nprogress of his mind is but the empty consequence of his restlessness.\nThat is the reason, my son, that I mistrust what they call science\nand philosophy, which are, to my mind, but an abuse of visions, and\nfallacious figures, and, in a certain sense, the advantage gained by\nthe evil spirit over the soul. You will understand that I am far from\nbelieving all the devilries with which popular credulity frightens\nitself. I think with the Fathers that temptation is within us, and\nthat we are to ourselves our own demons and bedevilments. But I bear\na grudge against Monsieur Descartes and against all the philosophers\nwho, following his example, have searched for a rule of life and the\nprinciples of conduct in the knowledge of nature. For, after all,\nTournebroche, my son, what is knowledge of nature if it be not a\nfantasy of the senses? And what does science add to it, I ask you,\nwith its savants, from the time of Gassendi, who was no donkey, and\nDescartes and his disciples, down to that precious fool, Monsieur de\nFontenelle? Large spectacles, my son, spectacles like those which sit\non my nose. All the microscopes and telescopes which we make a show\nof, what are they but glasses a little clearer than these of mine, that\nI bought last year at the fair of St. Laurence, of which the glass\nfor the left eye, the one I see the best with, was unhappily cracked\nthis winter by a footstool flung at my head by the lame cutler, who\nfancied I was kissing Catherine the lace-maker, for he is a coarse\nman, and utterly obfuscated by his visions of carnal desires. Yes,\nTournebroche, my son, what are these instruments with which the savants\nand the curious fill their galleries and their cabinets? What are\nspectacles, astrolabes, compasses, if not the means of helping the\nsenses to keep their illusions, and to multiply our fatal ignorance\nof nature while we multiply our relations with her? The most learned\namong us differ merely from the ignorant by the faculty they acquire\nof amusing themselves with manifold and complicated errors. They see\nthe world in a faceted topaz, instead of seeing it as does Madame, your\nmother, for instance, with the naked eye the good God has given her.\nBut they do not alter their eyes in donning spectacles; they do not\nalter dimensions in using apparatus proper to the measurement of space;\nthey do not alter the weight of things in using very sensitive scales.\nThey discover new appearances merely, and are but the plaything\nof new illusions. That is all! If I were not convinced, my son, of\nthe holy truths of our religion, there would be left to me in this\nconviction, which I hold, that all human knowledge is but a progress\nin phantasmagoria, nothing but to throw myself from this parapet into\nthe Seine, which has seen many others drown since she began to flow, or\nto go and ask of Catherine that form of oblivion from the ills of this\nworld which one finds in her arms, and for which it would be indecent\nfor me to look, in my position, and above all, at my age. I should not\nknow what to believe in the midst of all this apparatus, whose powerful\ndeceptions would increase immeasurably the falsehood of my outlook and\nI should be an entirely miserable academician.\u201d\n\nMy good master was talking in this fashion before the first recess\nto the left, counting from the Rue Dauphine, and he was beginning to\nfrighten the dealer who took him for an exorcist, when he suddenly\npicked up an old geometry, illustrated with sufficiently bad cuts by\nSebastien Leclerc.[7]\n\n\u201cPerhaps,\u201d he said, \u201cinstead of drowning myself in love or in water,\nif I were not a Christian and a Catholic, I should decide to throw\nmyself into the study of mathematics where the mind finds the aliment\nof which it is most in need, to wit: sequence and continuity. And I vow\nthat this little book, quite ordinary as it is, gives me a certain good\nopinion of man\u2019s genius.\u201d\n\nAt these words he opened the treatise by Sebastien Leclerc so widely,\nat the section concerning triangles, that he nearly broke it clean in\ntwo. But soon he flung it down in disgust.\n\n\u201cAlas,\u201d he murmured, \u201cnumbers depend on time, lines on space, and these\nagain are but human illusions. Without man there is neither mathematics\nnor geometry, and it is, after all, but a form of knowledge which does\nnot draw us out of ourselves, although it affects an air of quite\nmagnificent independence.\u201d\n\nHaving spoken, he turned his back on the relieved bookstall-keeper, and\ndrew a long breath.\n\n\u201cAh! Tournebroche, my son,\u201d he continued, \u201cyou see me suffering from an\nill that I have brought on myself, and burnt with the fiery tunic with\nwhich I have been at such pains to clothe and deck myself.\u201d\n\nHe spoke thus in a fanciful fashion, being in reality clad in a\nshocking old overcoat generally held together by two or three buttons\nwhich, moreover, were not even fastened in their own button-holes, and,\nas he was accustomed to say laughingly, when one spoke to him of it, it\nwas an adulterous connection, a presentation of city manners!\n\nHe spoke with warmth:\n\n\u201cI hate science,\u201d said he, \u201cfor having loved it too much, after the\nmanner of voluptuaries who reproach women with not having come up to\nthe dream they formed of them. I wanted to know everything, and I\nsuffer to-day for my culpable folly. Happy,\u201d added he, \u201coh! very happy\nare those good people assembled round that vendor of quack medicines.\u201d\n\nAnd he pointed with his hand to the lackeys, the chambermaids, and the\nporters of St. Nicolas, forming a circle round a practitioner who was\ngiving a demonstration with his attendant.\n\n\u201cLook, Tournebroche,\u201d said he, \u201cthey laugh heartily when that funny\nfellow kicks the other man\u2019s behind. And in truth it is a pleasant\nsight, quite spoilt for me by thinking about it, for when one looks\nfor the essence of this foot and the rest of it, one laughs no more.\nI ought, being a Christian, to have recognised earlier the malignity\nof that heathen saying, \u2018Happy is he who knows the cause of things.\u2019 I\nought to have shut myself in holy ignorance as in an enclosed garden,\nand remained as the little children. I should not truly have been\namused with the coarse play of this Mondor (this Moli\u00e8re of the Pont\nNeuf would have had little attraction for me when his prototype already\nappears to me too scurrilous[8]), but I should have found pleasure in\nthe plants of my garden, I should have praised God in the flowers and\nfruit of my apple-trees.\n\n\u201cAn immoderate curiosity has led me astray my son; I have lost, in\nthe intercourse with books and learned men, the peace of heart,\nholy simplicity, and that purity of the simple-minded, all the more\nadmirable in that it falters neither in the tavern nor in the hovel;\nas may be seen in the example of the lame cutler, and, if I dare say\nso, in that of your father, the cook, who retains much innocence\nthough drunken and debauched. But it is not thus with him who has\nstudied books. They leave, eternally, a bitter superiority, and a proud\nsadness.\u201d\n\nTalking thus, his speech was cut off by the roll of drums.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[7] The geometry of which Jacques Tournebroche speaks is decorated\nwith designs by Sebastien Leclerc which I, on the contrary, admire for\ntheir precise elegance and delicate exactitude, but one must endure\ncontradiction (ANATOLE FRANCE).\n\n[8] It is a priest speaking thus (ANATOLE FRANCE).\n\n\n\n\nX\n\nTHE ARMY\n\n\nSo, being on the Pont Neuf, we heard the roll of drums. It was the call\nto attention of a recruiting-sergeant, who, hand on hip, was strutting\nin an open space in front of a dozen soldiers, who were carrying bread\nand sausages spiked on the bayonets of their guns. A circle of beggars\nand youngsters looked on open-mouthed.\n\nHe twirled his moustache and made his proclamation.\n\n\u201cDo not let us listen to him,\u201d said my good master to me. \u201cIt would\nbe waste of time. This sergeant speaks in the king\u2019s name. He has no\ntalent for speaking. If it would please you to hear a clever discourse\non the same subject you should go into one of those bakehouses on the\nQuai de la Ferraille, where the crimps cajole the lackeys and bumpkins.\nThese crimps, being rascals, are bound to be eloquent. I remember, in\nmy youth, in the time of the late king, having heard the most wonderful\nharangue from the mouth of one of these dealers in men, who kept shop\nin the Unhappy Valley, which you can see from here, my son. Recruiting\nmen for the Colonies: \u2018Young men who surround me,\u2019 said he, \u2018you have\nno doubt heard tell of the Land of Cockayne; it is to India you must\ngo to find this land of fortune, where one is in clover. Do you wish\nfor gold, pearls, diamonds? The roads are paved with them, one has but\nto stoop to pick them up. And you need not even stoop. The savages\nwill pick them up for you. I do not even mention the coffee, the\nlemons, pomegranates, oranges, pineapples, and the thousand delicious\nfruits which grow without cultivation as in an earthly paradise. Did\nI speak to women and children I might extol all these dainties, but\nI am talking to men.\u2019 I omit, my son, all that he said about glory,\nbut you may believe he equalled Demosthenes in vigour and Cicero in\nfluency. The result of his discourse was the sending of five or six\nunhappy beings to die of yellow fever in the swamps, so true is it\nthat eloquence is a dangerous weapon, and that talent for the arts\nexercises its irresistible force for evil as well as for good. Thank\nGod, Tournebroche, in that, not having given you talents of any kind,\nHe does not expose you to become one day the scourge of nations. One\nrecognises the favourites of God by their lack of wit, and I have\nexperienced that the fairly quick intelligence heaven has given me has\nbeen but an unceasing cause of danger to my peace in this world and in\nthe next. What would it be if the heart and thought of a C\u00e6sar dwelt in\nmy head and my breast? My desires would recognise no sex and I should\nbe untouched by pity. I should light the fire of inextinguishable war\nat home and abroad. And yet the great C\u00e6sar had a delicate soul and a\ncertain gentleness. He died decently under the dagger of his virtuous\nassassins. Day of the Ides of March! Ever fatal day, when sententious\nbrutes destroyed this charming monster! I am fain to weep over the\ndivine Julius along with Venus, his mother, and if I call him a monster\nit is from affection, for in his equable soul nothing was excessive\nsave power. He had a natural feeling for rhythm and proportion. He\nfound equal pleasure in his youth in the beauties of debauchery or\nthose of grammar. He was an orator, and his beauty doubtless ornamented\nthe purposed dryness of his speeches. He loved Cleopatra with that\ngeometric exactitude that he brought to all his doings. He put in his\nwritings and in his actions his talent for clarity. He was the friend\nof order and peace, even in war, sensitive to harmony, and so able\na maker of laws that we still live, barbarians as we are, under the\nmajesty of his rule, which has made the world what it is to-day. You\nsee, my son, I am not sparing in praise or love for him. Commander,\ndictator, sovereign-pontiff he moulded the world with his beautiful\nhands. And I\u2014I, have been professor of eloquence at the college of\nBeauvais, secretary to an opera-singer, librarian to my Lord Bishop of\nS\u00e9ez, public-writer at the cemetery of the Holy Innocents, and tutor\nto the son of your father at the sign of the _Reine P\u00e9dauque_. I have\nmade a beautiful catalogue of precious manuscripts, I have written some\npamphlets, of which it is best not to speak, and set down on wastepaper\ncertain maxims scornfully declined by the booksellers. Nevertheless,\nI would not change my existence for that of the great C\u00e6sar. It would\ncost my innocence too much. And I would rather be an obscure man,\npoor and despised, as indeed I am, than rise to the height whence new\ndestinies are opened to the world through paths of blood.\n\n\u201cThis recruiting-sergeant, whom you can hear from here promising\nthese vagabonds a halfpenny a day, with bread and meat, fills me, my\nson, with profound reflections on war and armies. I have worked at\nall trades save that of a soldier, which has always filled me with\ndisgust and terror, by the characteristics of servitude, false glory,\nand cruelty, attached to it, which are in direct opposition to my\npeaceful temper, to my wild love of freedom, and to my turn of mind,\nwhich, judging sanely of glory, estimates at its rightful worth that\nattainable by a musketeer. I am not speaking at all of my incorrigible\nleaning to meditation which would have been exceedingly thwarted by\nsword and gun exercise. Not desirous of being C\u00e6sar you will easily\nunderstand that neither do I wish to be a La Tulipe or Brin-d\u2019Amour.\nAnd I own to you, my son, that military service seems to me to be the\nmost terrible pest of civilised nations.\n\n\u201cThis is the opinion of a philosopher. There is nothing to show that it\nwill ever be shared by a large number of people. And in actual fact,\nkings and republics will always find as many soldiers as they want for\ntheir parades and their wars. I have read Machiavelli\u2019s treatises at\nMonsieur Blaizot\u2019s, at the sign of the _Image de Sainte Catherine_,\nwhere they are all very nicely bound in parchment. They deserve it\nmy son, and, for my part, I hold an infinitely high opinion of the\nFlorentine secretary, who was the first to remove from political action\nthe legendary foundation of justice, on which they set up nothing but\nhighly respectable villainies. This Florentine, seeing his country at\nthe mercy of its hireling defenders, conceived the idea of a national\nand patriotic army. He says somewhere in his books that it is right\nthat all citizens should unite for the safety of their country and all\nbe soldiers. I have likewise heard this theory sustained at Monsieur\nBlaizot\u2019s by Monsieur Roman, who is very zealous, as you know, for\nstate rights. He has no care save for the general, and the universal,\nand will never be content until the day when every private interest is\nsacrificed to the public interest. Thus Machiavelli and Monsieur Roman\nwish us all to be soldiers, since we are all citizens. I do not say,\nas do they, that it is just, nor do I say that it is unjust, because\njustice and injustice are matter for debate, and it is a subject which\nonly sophists can decide.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat! my good master,\u201d I cried in sorrow and surprise, \u201cyou hold that\njustice depends on the reasoning of a sophist, and that our actions are\njust or unjust according to the arguments of a clever man! Such a maxim\nshocks me more than I can say.\u201d\n\n\u201cTournebroche, my son,\u201d replied Monsieur l\u2019Abb\u00e9 Coignard, \u201cyou must\nconsider that I speak of human justice, which is different from God\u2019s\njustice, and generally opposed to it. Men have never upheld the idea\nof justice and injustice save by eloquence which is prone to embrace\nthe for and against. Perhaps, my son, you would seat justice on\nsentiment, but beware lest on this petty site you merely raise some\nhumble domestic hovel, some cabin of old Evander, or hut for a Philemon\nand Baucis. But the palace of law, the tower of State institutions,\nneeds other foundations. Ingenuous nature alone could not support such\nweight of inequity, and these redoubtable walls rise from a foundation\nof most ancient falsehood, by the subtle and fierce art of law-givers,\nmagistrates, and princes. It is folly, Tournebroche my son, to enquire\nif a law be just or unjust, and it is the same of military service as\nof other institutions of which one cannot say if they be good or bad on\nprinciple, since there is no principle saving God, from Whom all things\ncome. You must protect yourself, my son, against this kind of slavery\nto words, to which men submit themselves with such docility. Know\nthen, that the word justice has no meaning, if it be not in theology,\nwhere it is terribly expressive. Recognise that Monsieur Roman is\nbut a sophist when he demonstrates to you that one owes service to a\nprince. Nevertheless, I think if the prince ever orders all citizens\nto become soldiers, he will be obeyed, I don\u2019t say with docility, but\nlight-heartedly. I have noticed that the profession most natural to\nman is that of a soldier; it is the one to which he is drawn the most\neasily by his instincts, and by his tastes, which are not always good.\nAnd beyond some rare exceptions, of which I am one, man may be defined\nas an animal with a musket. Give him a fine uniform with the hope of\nfighting, and he will be happy. Also, we make the military calling the\nnoblest, which is true, in a sense, for it is the oldest calling, and\nthe earliest of mankind made war. The military calling, moreover, has\nthis appropriateness to human nature, that it never thinks, and clearly\nwe are not made for thought.\n\n\u201cThought is a malady peculiar to certain individuals which cannot\npropagate itself without promptly ending the race. Soldiers live in\ncompany, and man is a sociable animal. They wear blue-and-white,\nblue-and-red, or grey-and-blue coats, ribbons, plumes, and cockades,\nwhich give them the same advantage over women as the cock over the\nhen. They march to war and pillage and man is naturally thievish,\nlibidinous, destructive, and easily touched by glory. The love of glory\ndecides us Frenchmen, above all, to take up arms. And it is certain,\nthat in public opinion, military glory eclipses all. To be assured of\nthis, read history. La Tulipe may be held excused if he was no more a\nphilosopher than Titus Livius.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nXI\n\nTHE ARMY (_continued_)\n\n\nMy good master continued in these terms:\n\n\u201cOne must consider, my son, that men joined one to another in the\nsuccession of the ages by a chain of which they see but a few links,\nattach the notion of nobility to customs whose origin was lowly and\nbarbarous. Their ignorance feeds their vanity. They found their glories\non old, unhappy, far-off things, and the nobility of the profession of\narms is due entirely to that savagery of early times of which the Bible\nand the poets have preserved the remembrance. And what, in fact, is\nthis military nobility flaunted with so much pride over us, if not the\ndebased legacy of those unfortunate hunters of the woods whom the poet\nLucretius has depicted in such a way that one does not know if they be\nmen or beasts? It is wonderful, Tournebroche, my son, that war and\nthe chase, of which the thought alone should overwhelm us with shame\nand remorse when we recall the wretched needs of our nature and our\ninveterate wickedness, serve on the contrary, as matter for vain-glory\nto men, that Christian peoples should continue to honour the profession\nof butcher and executioner, when it is of old standing in families,\nand that finally one estimates among refined people the celebrity of\ncitizens by the quantity of murders and carnage that they bear so to\nspeak, in their veins.\u201d\n\n\u201cMonsieur l\u2019Abb\u00e9,\u201d I said to my good master, \u201cdo you not think that the\nprofession of arms is looked upon as noble because of the danger one\nruns therein and the courage that it is necessary to display?\u201d\n\n\u201cTruly, my son,\u201d answered my good master, \u201cif the state of man is noble\nin proportion to the danger that he runs I do not fear to state that\npeasants and labourers are the noblest men in the kingdom for they risk\ndeath every day by fatigue or hunger. The perils to which soldiers and\ncommanders expose themselves are less in number and in duration, they\nlast but a few hours in a lifetime, and consist in facing cannon-balls\nand bullets which kill less surely than poverty. Men must needs be\nlight and frivolous, my son, to give more honour to a soldier\u2019s doings\nthan to the work of a labourer and to place the destruction of war at a\nhigher price than the arts of peace.\u201d\n\n\u201cMonsieur l\u2019Abb\u00e9,\u201d I asked again, \u201cdo you not consider that soldiers\nare necessary to the safety of the state and that we should honour them\nin recognition of their usefulness?\u201d\n\n\u201cIt is true, my son, that war is a necessity of human nature and\none cannot imagine nations who will not fight, that is to say, who\nare neither homicides, pillagers, nor incendiaries. Neither can you\nconceive a prince who is not in some measure a usurper. They would\nreproach him too much on that score, and they would despise him for\nit as one who was no lover of glory. For war is necessary to men; and\nis more natural to them than peace which is but war\u2019s interval. Thus\none sees princes hurling their armies on one another on the worst\nof pretexts, and for the most futile of reasons. They invoke their\nhonour, which is excessively touchy. A mere breath suffices to make a\nstain on it which cannot be washed save in the blood of ten, twenty,\nthirty, or a hundred thousand men, in proportion to the population\nof the contending principalities. If only one thinks of it, it is\ninconceivable that the honour of a prince can be cleansed by the blood\nof these unhappy beings, or rather one realises that it is a mere\nform of speech, void of meaning; but for words men go willingly to\ntheir death. What is yet more wonderful, is that a prince gains much\nhonour from the theft of a province and the outrage that would be\npunished by death in the case of some daring private individual becomes\npraiseworthy if it is carried out with the most outrageous cruelty by a\nsovereign with the help of his hirelings.\u201d\n\nMy good master, having thus spoken, drew his box from his pocket and\nsniffed up a few remaining grains of rappee.\n\n\u201cMonsieur l\u2019Abb\u00e9,\u201d I said, \u201care there no wars that are just, and fought\nfor a good cause?\u201d\n\n\u201cTournebroche, my son,\u201d he answered me, \u201ccivilized nations have much\noverstrained the injustice of war and they have rendered it very\niniquitous as well as very cruel. The first wars were undertaken for\nthe establishment of tribes on fertile lands. Thus the Israelites\nconquered the land of Canaan. Hunger forced them to it. The advancement\nof civilization extended war to the conquest of colonies and foreign\nmarkets, as is seen in the example of Spain, Holland, England and\nFrance. Lastly, one has seen kings and emperors steal provinces of\nwhich they had no need, which they ruined, which they made waste,\nwithout profit to themselves and without other advantage than to raise\npyramids and triumphal arches. And this abuse of war is the more odious\nas one must believe that nations are becoming more and more wicked by\nthe advancement of the arts, or rather that war, being a necessity to\nhuman nature, is waged for its own sake when there is absolutely no\nreason for waging it.\n\n\u201cThis reflection grieves me deeply, for I am disposed by my condition\nand inclination to the love of my fellow creatures. And what puts the\nfinishing touch to my sadness, Tournebroche, my son, is that I find my\nsnuff-box is empty, and want of snuff is where I feel my poverty the\nmost.\u201d\n\nAs much to distract his thoughts from this personal trouble as to\ninstruct myself in his teaching, I asked him if civil war did not seem\nto him the most detestable kind of war there was?\n\n\u201cIt is odious enough,\u201d he replied, \u201cbut not so very inept, for members\nof a state when they come to blows between themselves have more chance\nof knowing why they fight than in the case where they go to war against\na foreign people. Seditious and intestinal quarrels are usually born\nof the extreme wretchedness of the people. They are the result of\ndespair, and the only issue left to the unhappy beings who may obtain\nthereby better conditions and sometimes even a hand in the game of\nruling. But it is to be remarked, my son, that the more unhappy, and\ntherefore excusable, are the insurgents, the less chance they have of\nwinning the game. Starved and stupefied, armed but with their rage,\nthey are incapable of great plans or of prudent considerations so\nthat they are easily reduced by the prince. He has more difficulty in\nputting down rebellion among the great, which is to be detested, for\nit has not the excuse of necessity. In fine, my son, whether civil or\nforeign, war is execrable, and has a malignity that I detest.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nXII\n\nTHE ARMY (_concluded_)\n\n\n\u201cI will show you, my son,\u201d said my good master, \u201cin the condition of\nthese poor soldiers who are going to serve their king, both man\u2019s\nshame and his glory. In fact, war sets us back and drives us to our\nnatural savagery. It is the result of the ferocity that we have in\ncommon with the beasts; not only with lions and cocks, who bring a\ngallant bearing to it, but with little birds, such as jays and tits,\nwhose ways are very quarrelsome, and even with insects, such as wasps\nand ants, who fight with a bloodthirstiness of the like of which the\nRomans themselves have left no example. The principal causes of war\nare the same in man and animal, who struggle with one another to\ngain or keep their prey, to defend their nest or their lair, or to\ngain a mate. There is no distinction in all this, and the rape of\nthe Sabines perfectly recalls those duels between stags which make\nthe woods bloody of a night. We have merely succeeded in lending a\ncertain colouring to base and natural motives by the notions of honour\nwith which we cover them, and without great exactitude at that. If\nwe believe that we fight for very noble motives in these days, the\nnobility of them dwells entirely in the vagueness of our sentiments.\nThe less the object of war is simple, clear, and precise, the more\nwar itself is odious and detestable. And if it be true, my son, that\nwe have come to killing one another for honour\u2019s sake, it is beyond\nall bounds. We have surpassed the cruelty of wild beasts, who do each\nother no injury without good reason. And it is only right to say\nthat man is wickeder and more unnatural in his wars than are bulls\nor ants in theirs. But that is not all, for I detest armies less for\nthe death they sow, than for the ignorance and stupidity that follow\nin their train. There is no worse enemy of the arts than a captain of\nmercenaries or marauders, and as a rule commanders are as unfitted\nfor letters as are their soldiers. The habit of imposing his will by\nforce makes your old soldier very awkward in speech, for eloquence has\nits source in the necessity of persuasion. Also, military men affect\na disdain of speech and fine attainments. I remember having known at\nS\u00e9ez in the days when I was librarian to the Bishop, an old captain,\nwho had grown grey in harness and passed for a gallant man, wearing\nproudly a large scar across his face. He was an old ruffian, and had\nkilled many a man and violated more than one nun quite good-humouredly.\nHe understood his business fairly well and was very particular\nregarding the appearance of his regiment, which marched past better\nthan any other. In short, a brave man and a good comrade, when it was\nquestion of draining a pot as well I saw at the inn of the _Cheval\nBlanc_, where many a time I held my own against him. Now it happened\none night that I accompanied him (for we were good friends) while he\nwas instructing his men how to find their way by the stars. He first\nlet me have Monsieur de Louvois\u2019 ordinance on the subject, and as he\nhad repeated it by heart for the last thirty years, he made no more\nmistakes than in his _Pater_ or _Ave_. He started off by saying that\nthe soldiers must begin by searching the heavens for the pole-star,\nwhich is fixed in relation to the other stars, which turn round it\nin the contrary direction to the hands of a watch. But he did not\nunderstand all he said. For after having repeated his sentence two or\nthree times in a sufficiently imperious voice, he stooped and said in\nmy ear:\n\n\u2018Show me this beggar of a pole-star, Abb\u00e9. The devil take me if I\ncan distinguish it in this mess of candle-ends with which the sky is\nlittered!\u2019\n\n\u201cI told him at once the way to find it, and pointed it out with my\nfinger. \u2018Oh! Oh!\u2019 cried he, \u2018the silly thing is perched very high! From\nwhere we are we cannot see it without straining our necks.\u2019 And he\nimmediately gave orders to his officers to withdraw the men fifty paces\nso they should more easily see the pole-star. What I am telling you, my\nson, I heard with my own ears, and you will agree that this wearer of\na sword had a sufficiently na\u00efve notion of the system of the universe,\nparticularly of the stellar parallaxes. Yet he wore the king\u2019s orders\non a fine embroidered coat, and was more honoured in the state than\na learned divine. It is this uncouthness that I cannot endure in the\narmy.\u201d\n\nMy good master having stopped to take breath at these words, I asked\nhim if he did not think, despite this captain\u2019s ignorance, that one\nmust have much intelligence to win battles? He answered me in these\nwords:\n\n\u201cTaking into consideration, Tournebroche, my son, the difficulty\nthat there is in getting together and leading armies, the knowledge\nnecessary in the attack or the defence of a place, and the ability\ndemanded for a good order of battle, one easily admits that only a\ngenius nearly super-human, such as that of a C\u00e6sar, is capable of such\nan undertaking, and one would be astonished that minds were to be found\ncapable of holding all the qualities proper to a true fighting-man. A\ngreat commander does not only know the configuration of a country, but\nits manners and customs, and also the industries of its inhabitants.\nHe keeps in his mind an infinity of little circumstances from which\nhe forms in the end large and simple views. The plans which he has\nslowly meditated and traced out beforehand, he may change in the midst\nof action by a sudden inspiration, and he is at the same time, very\nprudent and very bold; his thoughts move, now with the dull slowness of\nthe mole, now soar up with an eagle\u2019s flight.\n\n\u201cNothing is truer than this. But bethink you, my son, that when two\narmies are in sight of one another, one of them must be conquered; from\nwhich it follows that the other will necessarily be victorious, without\nits chief in command having all the qualities of a great commander,\nor without his even having one of them. There are, I take it, clever\ncommanders; there are also lucky ones, whose glory is no less. How,\nin these astounding collisions, are we to disentangle the effect of\nart from the result of luck? But you are leading me from my subject,\nTournebroche, my son, I want to show you that war is man\u2019s disgrace\nnowadays, but that in other days it was his pride. Of necessity the\narbitrament of empires, war has been the great school-mistress of the\nhuman race. It is by her that men have learnt patience, firmness,\ndisdain of danger, the glory of sacrifice. The day that the herdsmen\nfirst rolled pieces of rock to form an enclosure behind which they\ndefended their women and cattle, the first human society was founded,\nand the progress of the arts assured. This great good that we enjoy,\nour native land, that august thing the Romans adored above all their\ngods, the town, \u2018Urbs,\u2019 is the daughter of war.\n\n\u201cThe first city was a fortified enclosure, and it was in that rough and\nbloody cradle that were nursed august laws, flourishing industries,\nscience and learning. And that is why the true God wishes to be called\nthe God of battles.\n\n\u201cWhat I tell you on this subject, Tournebroche, my son, does not mean\nthat you should sign your engagement to this recruiting-sergeant and\nbe seized with the desire to become a hero as the recipient of sixty\nstrokes of the rod on your back every day, on an average.\n\n\u201cWar is, moreover, in our time but an inherited evil, a prurient return\nto savage life, a criminal puerility. The princes of our day, and\nespecially the late king, will for ever bear the notoriety of having\nmade war the sport and amusement of courts. It saddens me to think that\nwe have not yet seen the end of this preconcerted slaughter.\n\n\u201cAs to the future, the unfathomable future, let me, my son, dream of it\nas more in accord with the spirit of sweetness and equity which dwells\nin me. The future is a place where there is room for dreams. It is\nthere, as in Utopia, that it pleases the wise men to build. I should\nlike to believe that nations will one day cultivate the virtues in\npeace. It is in the increasing size of armaments that I flatter myself\nI see a far-distant presage of universal peace. Armies will augment\nunceasingly in strength and number. Whole nations will be swallowed up\nby them. Then the monster will perish from his surfeit. He will burst\nfrom too much fatness.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nXIII\n\nACADEMIES\n\n\nWe learnt that day that the Bishop of S\u00e9ez had just been elected a\nmember of the _Acad\u00e9mie Fran\u00e7aise_. Twenty years ago he had delivered\na panegyric on St. Maclou, which was considered rather a good thing,\nand I am willing to believe that there were some excellent passages in\nit; for my good master, Monsieur l\u2019Abb\u00e9 Coignard, had put a hand to\nit before quitting the Bishop\u2019s palace with Madame de la Baillive\u2019s\nchambermaid. Monseigneur de S\u00e9ez was descended from the best Norman\naristocracy. His piety, his cellar, and his stable, were justly vaunted\nthroughout the kingdom, and his own nephew dispensed the ecclesiastical\npatronage all over the country. His election surprised nobody. It was\napproved by all the world, save by the \u201cgrey-stockings\u201d of the _Caf\u00e9\nProcope_, who are never content. They are grumblers.\n\nMy good master blamed them gently for their contradictory temper.\n\n\u201cOf what does Monsieur Duclos complain?\u201d said he. \u201cSince yesterday, he\nis the equal of Monseigneur de S\u00e9ez, who has the handsomest clergy and\nthe finest pack of hounds in the kingdom. For academicians are equal by\nvirtue of the statutes.[9]\n\n\u201cIt is true that it is the insolent equality of revellers, which\nceases, when, the meeting over, my lord bishop steps into his chariot,\nleaving Monsieur Duclos to splash his woollen stockings in the gutter.\nBut if he does not want thus to be put on a par with my lord Bishop\nof S\u00e9ez, why does he rub shoulders with the badge bedecked. Why does\nhe not hie him to a tub, like Diogenes, or like me, to a stall at\nthe Innocents? It is only in a tub, or in a stall, that one can lord\nit over this earthly grandeur. It is only there that one is a real\nprince, and a real lord. Happy is he who has not fixed his hopes on\nthe Academy! Happy is he who lives exempt from fears and desires, and\nwho knows the emptiness of all things! Happy is he who knows that it\nis equally a vanity to be an Academician, or not to be one. Such a one\nleads, untroubled, a life obscure and unseen. Fair liberty follows him\neverywhere he goes. He celebrates in the shade the stilly offices of\nwisdom, and all the Muses smile on him as on one initiated into their\nservice.\u201d\n\nThus spoke my good master, and I admired the pure enthusiasm which\nswelled his voice and shone in his eyes. But the restlessness of youth\nfermented in me. I wanted to take sides, to throw myself into the\nfight, to declare myself for or against the Academy.\n\n\u201cMonsieur l\u2019Abb\u00e9,\u201d I asked. \u201cShould not the Academy call to itself the\nbest minds in the kingdom, rather than the uncle of the man who has the\necclesiastical patronage in his gift?\u201d[10] I asked my good master.\n\n\u201cMy son,\u201d he answered gently, \u201cif Monseigneur de S\u00e9ez appears austere\nin his ordinances, great and gallant in his life, and if he is in\nfact, a paragon among prelates, and pronounced that panegyric on St.\nMaclou, the exordium of which, relative to the healing of the King\u2019s\nevil by the King of France, seemed to be noble, do you want the Society\nto turn him out for the sole reason that he has a nephew as powerful\nas he is amiable? That would be showing a truly ferocious virtue, and\npunishing Monseigneur de S\u00e9ez inhumanly for the grandeur of his family.\nThe Academy wished to forget that. That alone, my son, is sufficiently\nmagnanimous.\u201d\n\nI was daring enough to make reply to this speech, so carried away was I\nby the fire of youth.\n\n\u201cMonsieur l\u2019Abb\u00e9,\u201d said I, \u201callow my feelings to oppose your arguments.\nAll the world knows that Monseigneur de S\u00e9ez has only become\nconsiderable by the suppleness of his character and his manners, and\nwhat one admires in him is his skill in detaching himself from both\nparties.... We have seen him glide gently between the Jesuits and the\nJansenists, tincting his pale prudence with the roses of Christian\ncharity.... He thinks he has done enough when he has displeased no one,\nand all his care is to sustain his position. Thus it is not his great\nheart which has gained for him the suffrages of the King\u2019s illustrious\n_prot\u00e9g\u00e9s_.[11] Neither is it his great mind. For, with the exception\nof this panegyric on St. Maclou, which he had (as all the world knows)\nbut the trouble of reading, this peace-loving bishop has only let us\nhear the depressing instructions issued to his clergy.\n\n\u201cHe recommends himself by the amenity of his language and the\npoliteness of his conversation. Are these sufficient titles to\nimmortality?\u201d\n\n\u201cTournebroche,\u201d answered Monsieur l\u2019Abb\u00e9, civilly, \u201cyou reason with\nthe simplicity given to you by Madame, your mother, at your birth,\nand I see that you will keep your natural candour for long enough. I\ncongratulate you upon it. But innocence must not make you unjust; it\nis enough that it leaves you ignorant. The immortality that they have\nbestowed on Monseigneur de S\u00e9ez does not call for the attainments of a\nBossuet or a Belzunce; it is not graven in the heart of an astounded\npeople\u2014it is inscribed in a big book; and you can well understand that\nthese paper laurels only suit the heads of such heroes.\n\n\u201cIf, among the Forty, there are persons of more gentility than genius,\nwhat harm do you see in it? Mediocrity triumphs in the Academy. But\nwhere does it not? Do you see it less powerful in Parliament or in\nthe royal Council, where doubtless it is less fitted to find place?\nMust one be an exceptional man to work at a dictionary which wishes to\nregulate custom, and can only follow it?\n\n\u201cAcademicians, or academists, were instituted, as you know, to fix the\nbest usage in matters of speech, to purge the language of all archaisms\nand vulgar impurities, and to see that a second Rabelais, or a second\nMontaigne, does not arise, smelling of the rabble, of pedantry, or of\nthe provinces. They assembled, to this end, gentlemen, who knew good\nusage and writers who were interested in knowing it. That gave rise\nto alarm lest the assembly should, tyrannically, reform the French\nlanguage. But it was soon recognised that these fears were vain, and\nthe academists, far from imposing custom, obeyed it. In spite of their\nveto we continue to say as before, \u2018I shut my door.\u2019[12]\n\n\u201cThe Assembly soon resigned itself to entombing the progress of usage\nin a big dictionary. It is the sole care of the Immortals.[13] When\nthey are not sitting they find leisure for recreation with one another.\nFor that they need pleasant companions, easy and affable, amiable\ncolleagues, well-informed men, and men who know the world. This is\nnot always the case with men of great talent. Genius is sometimes\nunsociable. An exceptional man is rarely a man of resource. The Academy\ncould do without Descartes and Pascal. Who says that it could do well\nwithout Monsieur Godeau or Monsieur Conrart, or any other person of a\nsupple, complacent, and circumspect turn of mind?\u201d\n\n\u201cAlas!\u201d I sighed, \u201cthen it is no senate of divine beings, or council of\nimmortals, no august Areopagus of poetry and eloquence?\u201d\n\n\u201cBy no means, my son. It is a society which teaches manners, and which\nhas gained a great reputation for that among foreign nations, and\nparticularly among the Muscovites. You have no idea what admiration\nthe _Acad\u00e9mie Fran\u00e7aise_ inspires among German barons, colonels of\nthe Russian Army and English milords. Europeans rate nothing higher\nthan our Academicians and our dancers. I knew a Sarmatian princess\nof great beauty who, passing through Paris, impatiently sought for an\nacademician, whoever he might be, to make him a present of her virtue.\u201d\n\n\u201cIf it be thus,\u201d I cried, \u201cwhy do the academicians risk compromising\ntheir good reputation by these unfortunate selections which are so\nuniversally blamed?\u201d\n\n\u201cStop, Tournebroche, my son, do not say anything evil of unfortunate\nselections,\u201d replied my master. \u201cTo begin with, in all human\nundertakings one must take into consideration the part played by\nchance, which is, upon the whole, the part played by God on earth, and\nthe only occasion where Divine Providence manifests itself clearly in\nthis world. For you well understand, my son, that what we call the\nabsurdity of chance and the caprice of fortune, are, in reality, but\nthe revenge taken in sport by Divine justice on the counsels of the\nwould-be wise. In the second place, it is suitable in assemblies to\ngive some play to caprice and fancy. A perfectly reasonable society\nwould be a perfectly unbearable one. It would languish under the cold\nrule of justice. It would not have any belief in its own power or\nfreedom if it did not taste, from time to time, the delicious pleasure\nof braving public opinion and good sense. It is the darling sin of the\npowers of this world to be taken with bizarre caprices. Why should not\nthe Academy indulge in whims just as much as the Grand Turk or a pretty\nwoman?\n\n\u201cMany opposite passions unite to inspire these unfortunate selections\nwhich vex simple souls. It is a pleasure for good people to take an\nunfortunate mortal and make an academician of him. Thus the God of the\npsalmist takes the poor man from his dunghill. _Erigens de stercore\npauperem, ut collocet eum cum principibus, cum principibus populi\nsui._ These are strokes which astonish the nations and those who deal\nthem must think themselves armed with a mysterious force and terrible\npower. And what pleasure to drag the poor soul from his dunghill, while\nleaving, meanwhile, some intellectual despot in the shade! It is to\nquaff, at a draught, a rare and delicious mixture of charity fulfilled\nand jealousy satisfied. It is enjoyment in every sense and content for\nthe whole man. And you want the academicians to resist the sweetness of\nsuch a philtre!\n\n\u201cWe must take into consideration again, that in procuring for\nthemselves this very sophisticated pleasure, the academicians act for\nthe best in their own interests. A society formed exclusively of great\nmen would not be numerous, and would appear rather depressing.\n\n\u201cGreat men cannot endure one another, and they have little wit. It is\ngood to let them mix with smaller fry. It amuses them. The small fry\nbenefit by their neighbourhood, the great by the comparison with the\nsmall, and there is profit for both one and the other. Let us admire by\nwhat skilful play, what ingenious contrivance, the _Acad\u00e9mie Fran\u00e7aise_\npasses on to some of its members the importance it gains from others.\nIt is a collection of suns and planets, where all shine with their own\nor with a borrowed effulgence.\n\n\u201cI go even further. Unfortunate selections are necessary to the\nexistence of this society. If, in the elections, the Academy did\nnot take the side of weakness and error, if it did not have the air\nof choosing haphazardly at times, it would make itself so hated by\nall that it could no longer continue to exist. In the republic of\nletters it would be as a tribunal set in the midst of condemned men.\nInfallible, it would appear odious. What an affront for those who\nwere not chosen, were the elected one always the best! The daughter\nof Richelieu must seem a little volatile, so as not to appear too\ninsolent. What saves her is that she takes fancies. Her injustice\nproves her innocence. It is because we know her capricious that she\ncan reject us without wounding us. It is sometimes so advantageous to\nher to deceive herself that I am tempted to believe, notwithstanding\nappearances, that she does it on purpose. She has admirable ruses for\ndealing tactfully with the self-love of the candidates she sets aside.\nAn election of such a kind disarms envy. It is in her apparent faults\nthat you must admire her true wisdom.\u201d\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[9]\n\n     _Cf._ SAINT-EVREMONT (_Les Acad\u00e9miciens_):\n\n     GODEAU. Good-day, dear Colletet.\n\n     COLLETET (_throwing himself on his knees_). Say, my lord of Grasse,\n     What I must do when I before you pass.\n     Should I not kiss, perhaps, your hallowed shoon?\n\n     GODEAU. We are all equal, all Apollo\u2019s own.\n     \u201cRise up, my Colletet\u2014\u201d\n\n     COLLETET. \u201cDoes your worship\u2019s grace\n     Permit the liberty, to your very face!\u201d\n\n     GODEAU. \u201cOur intercourse is nothing changed, elsewhere\n     You see me bishop; _Godeau_, simply, here.\u201d\n\nMonsieur l\u2019Abb\u00e9 Coignard, lived under the old r\u00e9gime. In those days\nit was said that the French Academy had the merit of establishing\nperfect equality between its members, an equality not recognised in\nlaw. Nevertheless, it was destroyed in 1793 as \u201cthe last refuge of\naristocracy.\u201d\n\n[10] He means the bishop whom the king had appointed distributor of\necclesiastical patronage.\n\n[11] The king was protector of the Academy.\n\n[12] It is true that the Academy condemned this expression:\n\n     \u201cCustom, too strong, as oftentime before,\n     Makes us, improperly, say _Shut the Door_,\n     Usage will, daily, authorise a word,\n     Natheless employed in manner quite absurd.\n     Would you escape December\u2019s cold and gloom,\n     You must _Push to the Door_ and _Shut the Room_.\u201d\n\n     SAINT-EVREMONT (_Les Acad\u00e9miciens_).\n\n\n[13] In those days the Academy awarded no prizes.\n\n\n\n\nXIV\n\nSEDITION-MONGERS\n\n\nMy good master and I having paid our accustomed visit at the sign of\nthe _Image de Sainte Catherine_, we found in the shop the famous Mr.\nRockstrong, mounted on the highest rung of the ladder ferreting out the\nold books, of which he is a connoisseur. For it pleases him, as is well\nknown, in his troubled existence to collect precious books and fine\nprints.\n\nCondemned by the English Parliament to imprisonment for life for\ntaking part in Monmouth\u2019s Rebellion, he lives in France, whence he is\ncontinually sending articles to the gazettes of his country.[14]\n\nMy good master, as his habit was, let himself down on to a stool, then\nraised his eyes to the ladder where Mr. Rockstrong was turning about\nwith the squirrel-like agility he has preserved in his declining years.\n\n\u201cGod be thanked!\u201d said he, \u201cI see, _Monsieur le Rebelle_, you are as\nwell and as young as ever.\u201d\n\nMr. Rockstrong turned on my good master the glowing eyes that light up\nhis sallow countenance.\n\n\u201cWhy do you call me a rebel?\u201d he asked, \u201cyou fat Abb\u00e9!\u201d\n\n\u201cI call you a rebel, Mr. Rockstrong, because you have failed. One is a\nrebel when one is vanquished. Victors are never rebels.\u201d\n\n\u201cAbb\u00e9, you speak with a disgusting cynicism.\u201d\n\n\u201cBeware, Mr. Rockstrong; that maxim does not come from me. It comes\nfrom a very great man. I found it among the papers of Julius C\u00e6sar\nScaliger.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, Abb\u00e9, those are villainous papers. And it is an infamous saying.\nOur loss, due to the irresolution of our chief, and to an indolence\nwhich he paid for with his life, does not alter the goodness of our\ncause. And honest people conquered by rogues, remain honest people.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt pains me to hear you talk of honest people and rogues, in public\nmatters, Mr. Rockstrong. These simple expressions might suffice to\nindicate the good and the bad side in those combats of angels which\nwere fought in Heaven before the creation of the world; and which your\nfellow countryman, John Milton, has sung with very great barbarity.\nBut, on this terraqueous globe, camps are not, however desirable\nit might be, so equally divided that one can discriminate, without\nprejudice or compliance, between the army of the pure and the impure;\nnor even distinguish the side of the just from the unjust. So that,\nsuccess must necessarily remain the only witness to the goodness of a\ncause. I annoy you, Mr. Rockstrong, by telling you that one is rebel\nwhen one is vanquished. Yet when it happens to you to climb to power,\nyou will not suffer rebellion.\u201d\n\n\u201cAbb\u00e9, you do not know what you are saying. I have always hastened to\nthe side of the vanquished.\u201d\n\n\u201cTruly, Mr. Rockstrong, you are a natural and constant enemy of the\nState. You are hardened in your enmity by the force of your genius,\nwhich finds pleasure in destruction and ruin.\u201d\n\n\u201cAbb\u00e9, do you call me a criminal?\u201d\n\n\u201cMr. Rockstrong, if I were a statesman, or a friend of the prince, like\nMonsieur Roman, I should take you for a remarkable criminal. But I am\nnot a sufficiently fervent believer in the religion of politics to be\nvery terrified at the murmur of your crimes, or of outrages which make\nmore noise than they do harm.\u201d\n\n\u201cAbb\u00e9, you are immoral!\u201d\n\n\u201cIf it be only at such a price one can afford to be indulgent, Mr.\nRockstrong, do not blame me too severely.\u201d\n\n\u201cI have no use, my fat Abb\u00e9, for an indulgence that you share between\nme, the victim, and the scoundrels in Parliament, who condemned me with\nsuch revolting injustice.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt is amusing to hear you talk of the injustice of the lords, Mr.\nRockstrong.\u201d\n\n\u201cIs it not a crying injustice?\u201d\n\n\u201cIt is quite true, Mr. Rockstrong, that you were convicted, on a\nridiculous charge, by the Lord-Chancellor for a collection of libels,\nnone of which came in particular under the ban of the English law; it\nis true that in a country where one is allowed to write anything and\neverything, you were punished for some pungent writings; it is true\nthat they used, as weapons, obsolete and out-of-the-way forms whose\nimposing hypocrisy poorly dissimulated the impossibility of getting\nat you by legal methods; it is true that the milords who judged you\nwere interested in your ruin, since Monmouth\u2019s, and your success\nwould infallibly have dragged them from their seats. It is true your\nruin was decided on beforehand in the royal Councils. It is true you\nescaped by flight, from a mediocre kind of martyrdom in truth, but\na painful one. For imprisonment for life is a penalty even if one\nmay reasonably hope to escape from it soon. But there is no justice\nnor injustice there. You were condemned for State reasons\u2014which is\nextremely honourable. And more than one of the lords who condemned you\nhad conspired with you twenty years before. Your crime was to have\nfrightened those in office\u2014and it is an unpardonable one. Ministers\nand their friends invoke the safety of the State when danger threatens\ntheir fortunes or their posts. And they are willing to believe\nthemselves necessary for the preservation of the empire, for they\nare for the most part interested parties and no philosophers. But\nthat does not make bad men of them. They are human beings and that is\nquite enough to explain their pitiable mediocrity, their stupidity and\ntheir avarice. But whom do you set up against them, Mr. Rockstrong?\nOther men of equal mediocrity, and yet more greedy, because they are\nhungrier. The people of London would have borne with them as they bear\nwith the others. They awaited your victory or your defeat to declare\nthemselves, wherein they gave proof of remarkable sagacity. The people\nare well advised when they judge that they have nothing to gain or lose\nby change of masters.\u201d\n\nThus spoke Abb\u00e9 Coignard, and Mr. Rockstrong with inflamed countenance,\neyes on fire, and wig starting from his head, shouted at him with\ngestures from the top of his ladder: \u201cAbb\u00e9, I understand thieves and\nall types of rogues in Chancery and Parliament. But I do not understand\nyou, who, without any personal interest in the matter, out of pure\nmalice, propound maxims that they themselves profess but for their own\nprofit. You must be wickeder than they, for you have nothing to gain in\nthe matter. It is beyond me, Abb\u00e9!\u201d\n\n\u201cIt is a sign of my being a philosopher,\u201d gently replied my good\nmaster. \u201cIt is in the nature of wise men to irritate the rest of\nmankind. Anaxagoras was a celebrated example of it. I do not speak of\nSocrates who was but a sophist. But we see that in all times and in all\ncountries the opinions of meditative minds were subjects of scandal.\nYou think yourself very different from your enemies, Mr. Rockstrong,\nand that you are as lovable as they are odious. Allow me to tell you\nthat this is but the effect of your pride and of your high courage.\nIn actual fact, you share in common with those who condemned you, all\nhuman weaknesses and passions. If you are more honest than many of\nthem, and even if you are a man of incomparable vivacity of mind, you\nare filled with a talent for hatred and discord which renders you very\ninconvenient in a well-regulated country. The calling of a journalist,\nin which you excel, has raised to the highest degree of perfection the\nwonderful partiality of your mind, and though a victim of injustice,\nyou are yourself not just. What I have just said embroils me both with\nyou and with your enemies, and I am very certain I shall never obtain\na fat living from the minister who has them in his gift. But I prize\nfreedom of mind more highly than a fat abbey or a cosy priory. I shall\nhave succeeded in vexing all the world, but I shall die in peace, and\nin contentment of heart.\u201d\n\n\u201cAbb\u00e9,\u201d half-laughingly, replied Mr. Rockstrong, \u201cI forgive you,\nbecause I think you a little mad. You make no difference between\nrogues and honest men, and you would not rather have a free country\nthan a despotic and shuffling government. You are a lunatic, and of no\nordinary kind.\u201d\n\n\u201cLet us go and drink a pot of wine at the _Petit Bacchus_, Mr.\nRockstrong,\u201d said my good master, \u201cand I will explain to you, while\nemptying my glass, why I am totally indifferent to forms of government,\nand why I do not trouble myself about any change of masters.\u201d\n\n\u201cVery willingly,\u201d said Mr. Rockstrong, \u201cI shall be interested to drink\nin company with such a bad arguer as you.\u201d\n\nHe sprang lightly down from his ladder, and we all three repaired to\nthe inn.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[14] I have not found this Mr. Rockstrong mentioned in the memoirs\nrelating to Monmouth\u2019s Rebellion. (ANATOLE FRANCE.)\n\n\n\n\nXV\n\nREVOLUTIONARY MEASURES\n\n\nMr. Rockstrong, who was a sensible man, bore my good master no malice\nfor his sincerity of speech. When the landlord of the _Petit Bacchus_\nhad brought a pot of wine, the pamphleteer lifted his glass and drank\nto Abb\u00e9 Coignard\u2019s health, calling him a rogue, a friend of robbers, a\ntool of tyrants and an old scamp! all with quite a jovial air.\n\nMy master returned his compliments with a good grace, congratulating\nhim on the fact that he drank to a man whose natural humour had\nremained unaffected by philosophy.\n\n\u201cAs for myself,\u201d he added, \u201cI feel that my intelligence is quite spoilt\nby reflection. And as it is not in the nature of mankind to think with\nany profundity, I own that my leaning to thought is an odd mania and\nhighly inconvenient. In the first place it makes me unfit for any\nundertaking, for our actions result from a limited outlook and narrow\nway of thinking. You will be astonished, Mr. Rockstrong, if you picture\nto yourself the simple-mindedness of the men of genius who have stirred\nthe world. Conquerors and statesmen, who have changed the face of the\nearth, have never reflected on the essence of the beings they handled\nso roughly. They shut themselves up altogether in the pettiness of\ntheir grand projects and the wisest see but very few things at a time.\nSuch as you see me, Mr. Rockstrong, it would be impossible for me to\nwork like Alexander at the conquest of India, or to found and govern an\nempire, or, generally speaking, to throw myself into any one of those\nvast undertakings which tempt the pride of the impetuous. Reflection\nwould hamper me, from the outset, and I should find reasons for coming\nto a stop at every move I made.\u201d\n\nThen turning to me my good master said sighing:\n\n\u201cThought is a great infirmity, God keep you from it Tournebroche, my\nson, as He has kept His greatest saints, and the souls for whom He\ncherishes a singular predilection, and for whom He reserves eternal\nglory. Men who think little, or who think not at all, go about their\nbusiness happily in this world and the next, whilst the meditative\nsoul is incessantly menaced with its temporal and spiritual loss. Such\nmalice lies in thought! Reflect and tremble, my son, at the thought\nthat the serpent of Genesis is the oldest of philosophers and their\neverlasting prince.\u201d\n\nMonsieur l\u2019Abb\u00e9 Coignard drank a great draught of wine and went on in a\nlow voice:\n\n\u201cAs regards my salvation, that is a subject to which I have never\napplied my intelligence. I have never exercised my reason on the truths\nof the Faith. Unhappily, I have meditated the deeds of men and the ways\nof cities; therefore I am no longer fit to govern an Island, as was\nSancho Panza.\u201d\n\n\u201cThat is a very good thing,\u201d retorted Mr. Rockstrong, laughingly,\n\u201cfor your isle would be a retreat for bandits and vagabonds where the\ncriminal would judge the innocent, if perchance there were any.\n\n\u201cI well believe it! Mr. Rockstrong, I well believe it!\u201d answered my\ngood master! \u201cIt is quite possible that, if I were to govern another\nisland of Barataria, manners would be as you say. With one stroke you\nhave depicted all the empires of the world. I feel that mine would\nbe no better than the rest. I have no illusions about mankind, and,\nso as not to hate them, I despise them. I despise and pity them,\nMr. Rockstrong. But they bear me no good-will for it. They want to\nbe hated. One vexes them when one shows them the gentlest, the most\nindulgent, the most charitable, most human and gracious of all feelings\nthat they could inspire: contempt. Nevertheless, mutual contempt means\npeace on earth, and if men would only thoroughly despise one another\nthey would do themselves no further harm and live together in an\namiable tranquillity.\n\n\u201cAll the ills of civilised societies originate in people thinking too\nhighly of each other, and raising honour, like a monster, above the\nwretchedness of the flesh and the spirit. This feeling makes them both\nproud and cruel, and I detest the pride that wants honour to be shown\nto it and to others, as if anyone descended from Adam could be worthy\nof honour! An animal which eats, drinks (give me something to drink),\nand makes love, is worthy of pity, interesting perhaps, even sometimes\npleasant and agreeable.\n\n\u201cHe can only be honourable by the effect of a most absurd and\nheadstrong prejudice in his favour. This prejudice is the source of all\nthe ills from which we suffer. It is a detestable kind of idolatry.\nAnd to assure to humanity a sweetening of their existence you must\nbegin by recalling them to their natural humility.\n\n\u201cThey will be happy, when, brought back again to a true appreciation of\ntheir condition, they despise one another without there being a single\nexception to this most excellent contempt.\u201d\n\nMr. Rockstrong shrugged his shoulders.\n\n\u201cMy fat Abb\u00e9,\u201d said he, \u201cyou are a pig.\u201d\n\n\u201cI am but a man,\u201d replied my master, \u201cyou flatter me, and I feel in\nme the germs of that bitter pride that I detest, and that vain-glory\nwhich leads the human race into duels and into war. There are times,\nMr. Rockstrong, when I would have my throat cut for my opinions; which\nwould be an act of madness. For who can prove that I reason better than\nyou, you, who reason excessively badly! Give me something to drink!\u201d\n\nMr. Rockstrong courteously filled my good master\u2019s glass.\n\n\u201cAbb\u00e9, you talk nonsense,\u201d he said, \u201cbut I love you, and I should much\nlike to know what you find blameworthy in my public behaviour, and\nwhy you side against me with tyrants, forgers, thieves, and dishonest\njudges?\u201d\n\n\u201cMr. Rockstrong, allow me first of all to diffuse over you and your\nfriends, with a sweet impartiality, that single sentiment which gently\nputs an end to quarrels, and brings pacification. Bear with me if I\nrespect neither the one nor the other enough to consign them to the\nvengeance of the law and to call down punishment on their heads.\nMen, whatsoever they do, are always silly sheep, and I leave to\nmilord-chancellor, who condemned you, the Ciceronian declamations on\nstate crimes. I have little taste for Catiline orations from whichever\nside they come. I am merely sad to see a man like you occupied in\nchanging forms of government. It is the most frivolous and empty\nmethod of using one\u2019s intelligence, and to fight people in office is\nfolly, unless it is a way of earning one\u2019s bread and getting on in the\nworld. Give me something to drink! Bethink you, Mr. Rockstrong, that\nthese startling changes in the State, meditated by you, are merely\ndisplacements of particular men, and that men taken in the mass are one\nlike another, average in evil as well as in good; so that to replace\ntwo or three hundred ministers, governors of provinces, colonial\nagents, and bonneted presidents of courts, by two or three hundred\nothers, is as good as doing nothing, and is simply putting Philip and\nBarnabas in place of Paul and Xavier. As to changing the condition of\npeople at the same time, as you hope to do, that is quite impossible,\nfor that condition does not depend on the ministers, who count for\nnothing, but on the earth and its fruits, industry, commerce, money\namassed in the kingdom, the cleverness of the townfolk in trade and\nexchange\u2014all things, which be they good or bad, are not kept going by\neither the prince or the officers of the crown.\u201d\n\nMr. Rockstrong quickly interrupted my good master:\n\n\u201cWho does not know,\u201d he exclaimed, \u201cthat the condition of industry\nand commerce depends on the government, and that only under a free\ngovernment can you have good finance?\u201d\n\n\u201cLiberty,\u201d continued Monsieur l\u2019Abb\u00e9 Coignard, \u201cis but the result\nof the wealth of citizens, who free themselves as soon as they are\npowerful enough to be independent. People take all the liberty they\ncan enjoy, or, to put it more plainly, they imperiously clamour for\ninstitutions in recognition and guarantee of the rights which they have\nacquired by their industry.\n\n\u201cAll liberty emanates from them and their several actions. Their most\ninvoluntary movements enlarge the mould of the state which shapes\nitself on them.[15]\n\n\u201cSo that one may say that detestable as tyranny is, every tyranny is\nnecessary, and despotic governments are but the strait-waistcoat on\na feeble and dwindled body. And who does not see that the outward\nappearance of government is like the skin which reveals the structure\nof an animal without being the cause of it?\n\n\u201cYou seize hold upon the skin without troubling yourself about the\nviscera, in which you show little natural philosophy, Mr. Rockstrong.\u201d\n\n\u201cSo you make no difference between a free state and a tyrannical\ngovernment, and all that you regard as nothing but the hide of the\nbeast, my fat Abb\u00e9. And you fail to see that the expenditure of the\nprince and the depredations of ministers can ruin agriculture and wear\nout trade by raising the taxes.\u201d\n\n\u201cMr. Rockstrong, there cannot be at the same period and for the same\ncountry more than one possible form of government, any more than an\nanimal can have more than one pelt at a time. From which it results,\nthat we must leave to the care of Time, who is a courtly person, the\nchanging of empires and the remaking of laws. He works at it slowly,\nuntiringly, and kindly.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd you don\u2019t think, my fat Abb\u00e9, that we ought to help the old man\nwho figures on the clocks with a scythe in his hand? You do not believe\nthat a revolution, such as that of the English or that in the Low\nCountries, can have any effect on the condition of the people. No? You\nold idiot! you deserve to be crowned with a fool\u2019s cap!\u201d\n\n\u201cRevolutions come about in conservation of good things already\nacquired, and not to gain new. It is the folly of nations, it is your\nown, Mr. Rockstrong, to found great hopes on the downfall of princes.\nPeople assure unto themselves, by revolting from time to time, the\npreservation of their threatened liberties. They have never gained new\nliberties thereby. But they are fooled with words. It is remarkable,\nMr. Rockstrong, that men will easily let themselves be killed for words\nof no meaning. Ajax made the remark long ago: \u2018I thought in my youth\u2019\nthe poet makes him say, \u2018that deeds were more powerful than words, but\nI see to-day that the word is the stronger of the two.\u2019 Thus said Ajax,\nson of Oileus. Mr. Rockstrong, I am very thirsty!\u201d\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[15] In the time of Abb\u00e9 Coignard the French already thought themselves\nfree. The sieur d\u2019Alqui\u00e9 wrote in 1670:\n\n\u201cThree things make a man happy in this world, to know the charm of\nintercourse, dainty meats, and liberty, perfect and entire. We have\nseen in what way our illustrious kingdom has fulfilled the two first,\nso it remains for us merely to show that the third is not lacking\nto it, and that liberty is no less a fact than the two preceding\nadvantages. The thing will appear true to you if, to start with, you\nwill consider attentively the name of our state, the matter of its\nfoundation, and its usual customs: for one sees at the start that\nthe name of _France_ means nothing else than _Franchise_ or liberty,\nconformably to the designs of the founders of this monarchy, who,\nhaving noble and generous souls, and being unable to bear either\nslavery or the least servitude, resolved among themselves to throw off\nthe yoke of all kinds of captivity and to be as free as men may be;\nthis is why they came to the land of the Gauls, which was a country\nwhose people were neither less warlike nor less jealous of their\n_Franchise_ or liberty than they themselves were. As to the second\npoint, we know that beyond the inclinations and plans they had in\nfounding this state, they were always their own masters; they made\nlaws for their sovereign which, limiting their powers, still preserved\ntheir privileges to them, in such wise that if anyone wishes to deprive\nthem of them, they become enraged and rush to arms with such speed\nthat nothing can hold them back when this point is involved. As to the\nthird point, I declare that France is so enamoured of liberty that she\ncannot endure a slave, so that Turks and Moors and still less Christian\npeople, may never wear irons nor be loaded with chains once in her\ncountry, and thus it comes about, that when slaves come to be in France\nthey are no sooner on her territory than, full of joy, they cry: Long\nlive France and her beloved liberty!\u201d\n\n_Les d\u00e9lices de la France_ ... by Fran\u00e7ois Savinien d\u2019Alqui\u00e9, Amsterdam\n1670.\n\nChapter XVI. entitled \u201cFrance is a land of freedom for all sorts of\npeople.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nXVI\n\nHISTORY\n\n\nMonsieur Roman placed half a dozen volumes on the counter.\n\n\u201cI beg of you, Monsieur Blaizot,\u201d said he, \u201cto send me these books.\n\n\u201cThere are \u2018Mother and Son,\u2019 the \u2018Memoirs of the Court of France,\u2019 and\nthe \u2018Testament of Richelieu.\u2019 I should be grateful if you will add to\nthem anything new you have received lately in the way of history, and\nmore particularly, anything treating of France since the death of Henry\nIV.... All these are works in which I am extremely interested.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou are right, Monsieur,\u201d said my master. \u201cBooks on history are full\nof light stuff very suitable to amuse an honest fellow, and one is sure\nof finding a great number of pleasant stories.\u201d\n\n\u201cMonsieur l\u2019Abb\u00e9,\u201d answered Monsieur Roman, \u201cwhat I look for from the\nhistorians is not frivolous amusement. It is a serious study, and I am\nfilled with despair if I find fiction mingled with fact. I study human\nactions in relation to the conduct of nations, and I seek for maxims of\ngovernment in history.\u201d\n\n\u201cI am not ignorant of that, Monsieur,\u201d said my good master. \u201cYour\ntreatise on \u2018Monarchy\u2019 is renowned enough for us to know that you have\nconceived a political system drawn from history.\u201d\n\n\u201cIn such sort,\u201d said Monsieur Roman, \u201cI have been the first to draw\nrules for princes and ministers which they cannot avoid without danger.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd we behold you, Monsieur, on the frontispiece of your book, in the\nlikeness of Minerva, presenting to a youthful king the mirror handed\nyou by the muse, Clio, hovering above your head, in a study decked with\nbusts and pictures. But allow me to tell you, Monsieur, that this muse\nis a story-teller, and that she holds out to you a mirror of falsehood.\nThere are few truths in history, and the only facts on which all agree\nare those we get from a single source. Historians contradict one\nanother every time they meet. Even more! We see that Flavius Josephus,\nwho has pourtrayed the same incidents in his \u2018Antiquities\u2019 and in his\n\u2018Wars of the Jews,\u2019 records them differently in each of these works.\nTitus Livius is but a collector of fables; and Tacitus, your oracle,\ngives me the impression of an unsmiling deceiver who flouts all the\nworld under a pretence of gravity. I have a sufficient esteem for\nThucydides, Polybius, and Guicciardini. As for our own M\u00e9zeray, he does\nnot know what he is saying, any more than do Villaret and Abb\u00e9 V\u00e9ly.\nBut I am accusing historians; it is history itself I should attack.\n\n\u201cWhat is history? A miscellany of moral tales, or an eloquent medley of\nnarratives and speeches, according as the historian is a philosopher\nor a spouter. You may find eloquent passages, but one must not look\nfor the truth there, because truth consists in showing the necessary\nrelation of things, and the historian does not know how to establish\nthis relation, because he is unable to follow the chain of effects\nand causes. Consider that every time that the cause of an historical\nfact lies in a fact that is not historical, history fails to see it.\nAnd as historical facts are intimately allied to non-historical facts,\nit comes about that events are not linked after their natural order\nin history, but are connected one with another by mere artifices of\nrhetoric. And I ask you also to notice that the distinction between\nfacts which appear in history and facts which do not is entirely\narbitrary. It results from this that, far from being a science, history\nis condemned by a vice in its essence to the chaos of untruth.\nSequence and continuity will always be lacking to it, and without\nthese there can be no true knowledge. You see also that one can draw\nno prognostic as to the future of a nation from its past history. Now,\nthe peculiarity of science is to be prophetic, as may be seen by those\ntables where the moon\u2019s periods, tides, and eclipses are to be found\ncalculated beforehand, whilst revolutions and wars escape calculation.\u201d\n\nMonsieur Roman explained to Monsieur l\u2019Abb\u00e9 Coignard that he merely\nasked of history facts, somewhat confused it is true, uncertain,\nmingled with errors, but infinitely precious, through their subject,\nwhich is man.\n\n\u201cI know,\u201d he added, \u201chow human annals are curtailed and mixed with\nfable. But, though a strict sequence of cause and effect fails us, I\nsee in it a kind of plan that one loses and then finds again, like the\nruins of temples half-buried in the sand. That alone is of immense\nvalue to me. And I flatter myself that, in the future, history,\nformed from abundant material and treated with method, will rival in\nexactitude the natural sciences.\u201d\n\n\u201cDo not reckon on that,\u201d said my good master, \u201cI should rather believe\nthat the growing abundance of memoirs, correspondence, and filed\nrecords, will render the task more difficult to future historians.\nMr. Elward, who gives up his life to the study of the revolution in\nEngland, assures me that one man\u2019s lifetime would not suffice in\nwhich to read the half of what was written during the disturbances.\nIt reminds me of a story told to me by Monsieur l\u2019Abb\u00e9 Blanchet on\nthis subject, which I will tell you as I remember it, regretting that\nMonsieur l\u2019Abb\u00e9 Blanchet is not here to tell it you himself, for he is\na man of wit.\n\n\u201cHere is the apologue:\n\n\u201cWhen the young prince Z\u00e9mire succeeded his father on the throne of\nPersia, he called all the academicians of his kingdom together, and\nsaid:\n\n\u201c\u2018The learned Zeb, my instructor, has taught me that monarchs would be\nliable to fewer errors if they were enlightened by past experience.\nTherefore I wish to study the history of nations. I order you to\ncompose a universal history and to neglect nothing to make it complete.\u2019\n\n\u201cThe wise men promised to carry out the prince\u2019s desire, and having\nwithdrawn they set to work immediately. At the end of twenty years they\nappeared before the king, followed by a caravan composed of twelve\ncamels each bearing 500 volumes. The secretary of the academy, having\nprostrated himself on the steps of the throne, spoke in these terms:\n\n\u201c\u2018Sire, the academicians of your kingdom have the honour to place\nat your feet the universal history that they have compiled at your\nmajesty\u2019s behests. It comprises 6000 volumes and contains all that\nwe could possibly collect regarding the customs of nations and the\nvicissitudes of empires. We have inserted the ancient chronicles which\nhave been luckily preserved, and we have illustrated them with abundant\nnotes on geography, chronology, and diplomacy. The prolegomena are\nalone one camel\u2019s load, and the paralipomena are borne with great\ndifficulty by another camel.\u2019\n\n\u201cThe king answered:\n\n\u201c\u2018Gentlemen, I thank you for the trouble that you have taken. But I\nam very busy with the cares of state. Moreover, I have aged while you\nworked. I am arrived, as says the Persian poet, half-way along the road\nof life, and even supposing I die full of years, I cannot reasonably\nhope to have the time to read such a lengthy history. It shall be\nplaced in the archives of the kingdom. Be good enough to make me a\nsummary better fitted to the brevity of human life.\u2019\n\n\u201cThe Persian academicians worked twenty years; then they brought to\nthe king 1500 volumes on three camels.\n\n\u201c\u2018Sire,\u2019 said the permanent secretary, in a weakened voice, \u2018here is\nour new work. We believe we have omitted nothing essential.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018That may be,\u2019 answered the king, \u2018but I shall not read it. I am old;\nlengthy undertakings do not suit my years; abridge it further and do\nnot be long about it.\u2019\n\n\u201cThey lingered so little that at the end of ten years they returned\nfollowed by a young elephant bearing 500 volumes.\n\n\u201c\u2018I flatter myself I have been succinct,\u2019 said the permanent secretary.\n\n\u201c\u2018You have not yet been sufficiently so,\u2019 answered the king.\n\n\u201c\u2018I am at the end of my life. Abridge, abridge, if you want me to know\nthe history of mankind ere I die.\u2019\n\n\u201cThe permanent secretary reappeared before the palace at the end of\nfive years. Walking with crutches, he held by the bridle a small donkey\nwhich bore a big book on its back.\n\n\u201c\u2018Hasten,\u2019 said the officer to him, \u2018the king is dying.\u2019\n\n\u201cThe king in fact was on his death-bed. He turned on the academician\nand his big book his nearly expiring gaze, and said with a sigh:\n\n\u201c\u2018I shall die, then, without knowing the history of mankind!\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018Sire,\u2019 replied the learned man, who was almost as near death as\nhimself, \u2018I will sum it up for you in three words: _They were born,\nthey suffered, they died!_\u2019\n\n\u201cThus did the king of Persia learn the history of the world in the\nevening of his life.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nXVII\n\nMONSIEUR NICOD\u00c8ME\n\n\nWhile, at the sign of the _Image de Sainte Catherine_, my good master,\nseated on the highest rung of the ladder, was reading Cassiodorus with\ngreat pleasure, an elderly man came into the shop, of an arrogant air,\nand severe aspect. He went straight to Monsieur Blaizot, who smilingly\nstretched his head over the counter.\n\n\u201cMonsieur,\u201d he said, \u201cyou are sworn bookseller, and I must take you for\na well-conducted man. Nevertheless, in your display of goods a volume\nof the works of Ronsard is open at the frontispiece, which represents a\nnaked woman. And it is a thing not fit to be looked at.\u201d\n\n\u201cPardon me, Monsieur,\u201d replied Monsieur Blaizot, gently, \u201cit is a\nfrontispiece of L\u00e9onard Gautier\u2019s who, in his day, was considered a\nvery able draughtsman.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt matters little to me,\u201d replied the elder, \u201cthat the draughtsman\nwas clever. All that I take into consideration is that he represented\nnudities. This figure has nothing on but its hair, and I am grievously\nsurprised, Monsieur, that a man of age and prudence, such as you\nappear, should expose it to the gaze of the young men who frequent the\nRue St. Jacques. You would do well to burn it, following the example of\nFather Garasse, who expended his means in acquiring, in order to burn\nthem, a number of books opposed to public decency and to the Society\nof Jesus. At least, it would be more decent in you to hide it in the\nmost secret recess of your shop, which conceals, I fear, many a book\ncalculated to excite minds to vice, not only by their text, but by\ntheir plates.\u201d\n\nMonsieur Blaizot replied, reddening, that such a suspicion was unjust,\nand it grieved him coming from a worthy man.\n\n\u201cI must tell you who I am,\u201d said the elder. \u201cYou see before you\nMonsieur Nicod\u00e8me, the President of the Purity League. The end that I\npursue is to outdo in niceness in the matter of modesty the regulations\nof the _Lieutenant de Police_. I busy myself, with the help of a\ndozen Parliamentary councillors, and two hundred churchwardens from\nthe principal parishes, in clearing away nudities exposed in public\nplaces, such as squares, boulevards, streets, alleys, quays, courts,\nand gardens. And, not content with establishing modesty in the public\nway, I exert myself to spread its dominion even into the salon, the\nstudy, and the bedroom, whence it is but too often banished. Know,\nMonsieur, that the Society that I have founded has trousseaux made for\nyoung married people, containing long and ample night-garments which\npermit these young spouses chastely to go about the execution of God\u2019s\ncommandment relative to increase and multiplication. And, to mingle\ncharm, if I may say so, with austerity, these garments are trimmed with\npleasing embroidery. I plume myself on having thus invented garments of\nan intimate nature so well designed to make another Sarah and Tobias of\nall our young couples, and to cleanse the sacrament of marriage from\nthe impurities which unfortunately have clung to it.\u201d\n\nMy good master, who, his nose in Cassiodorus, had been listening to\ntheir discourse, replied with the utmost gravity from the top of his\nladder, that he thought the invention admirable, and praiseworthy, but\nthat he had a still more excellent one of the kind.\n\n\u201cI would that our young spouses,\u201d said he, \u201cwere rubbed from head\nto foot with blacking before they met, making their skin like\nboot-leather, which would greatly damp the criminal ardours of the\nflesh, and be a grievous obstacle to the caresses, kisses, and\nendearments that lovers practise too generally between the sheets.\u201d\n\nMonsieur Nicod\u00e8me, lifting his head at these words, saw my good master\non the ladder, and saw also from his demeanour that he was laughing at\nhim.\n\n\u201cMonsieur l\u2019Abb\u00e9,\u201d said he, with sadness and indignation, \u201cI would\nforgive you did you merely laugh at me. But you ridicule at the same\ntime, decency and public morals, and there you are much to blame. In\nspite of wicked jokes, the Society that I have founded has already done\ngood and useful work. Crack your jokes, sir! We have fixed six hundred\nvine or fig-leaves on the statues in the king\u2019s gardens.\u201d\n\n\u201cAdmirable indeed, sir,\u201d responded my good master, adjusting his\nspectacles, \u201cand at that rate every statue will soon have its leaf.\nBut (seeing that objects have no meaning for us save by association of\nideas) in placing vine-leaves and fig-leaves on statues, you transfer\nthe quality of indecency to the leaves; so that one can no longer\nsee vine or fig-tree on the countryside without conceiving them as\nsheltering some indecency; and it is no small sin, my good sir, to fix\nimmodesty on these innocent plants. Allow me to tell you further that\nit is a dangerous thing to make a study, as you do, of everything that\nmay cause disquietude and uneasiness to the flesh, without reflecting\nthat if a given shape be such as to scandalise souls, each of us who\nbears the original of that shape will scandalise himself, except he be\nless than a man\u2014a thing one does not like to contemplate.\u201d\n\n\u201cMonsieur,\u201d responded the aged Nicod\u00e8me, rather heatedly, \u201cI gather\nfrom the language you hold that you are a libertine and a debauchee.\u201d\n\n\u201cMonsieur,\u201d said my good master, \u201cI am a Christian, and as for living\nin debauchery, I could not think of such a thing, having enough to\ndo to gain my daily bread, wine, and tobacco. Such as you see me,\nMonsieur, I know no orgy but the silent orgies of meditation, and the\nonly feast I sit down to is the feast of the Muses. But I, as a wise\nman, consider that it is a bad thing to outbid in shamefacedness the\nteachings of the Catholic religion, which on this subject allows a good\ndeal of liberty, and adjusts itself easily to people\u2019s customs and\nprejudices. I take you to be tainted with Calvinism and to be leaning\nto the heresy of iconoclasm. For, in truth, one does not know whether\nyour zeal will not go so far as to burn images of God and the saints,\nfrom hatred of the humanity evident in them. Such words as modesty,\ndecency, and shame, which come so readily from your mouth, have as a\nmatter of fact no precise and constant meaning. Custom and nice feeling\ncan alone define them with truth and moderation. I only acknowledge\npoets, artists, and pretty women, as judges in these delicate matters.\nWhat an extraordinary notion, to set up a row of attorneys in judgment\non Grace and Pleasure!\u201d\n\n\u201cBut, Monsieur,\u201d replied the aged Nicod\u00e8me, \u201cwe have nothing to do with\nSmiles or Graces, still less with images of God and the saints, and you\nare maliciously fastening a quarrel on us. We are decent people, who\nwish to turn aside the eyes of our sons from improper sights, and one\nknows well enough what is decent and what is not. Do you wish, Monsieur\nl\u2019Abb\u00e9, that our young people should be open to every temptation of the\nstreets?\u201d\n\n\u201cAh! Monsieur,\u201d replied my good master. \u201cWe must all be tempted. It is\nthe lot of men and Christians on this earth. And the most formidable\ntemptation comes from within\u2014not from without. You would not take so\nmuch trouble to remove from the shop windows any sketch of nude women\nif, as I have done, you had studied the lives of the Fathers of the\ndesert. There you would have seen how, in a frightful wilderness, far\nfrom any carved or painted shape, torn with hair-shirts, macerated with\npenance, faint from fasting, tossing on a bed of thorns, the anchorites\nwere penetrated to the very marrow with the prickings of carnal\ndesire. In their wretched cells they saw visions a thousand times more\nvoluptuous than this allegory which offends you in Monsieur Blaizot\u2019s\nwindow.\n\n\u201cThe devil, or, as free-thinkers would say, nature, is a better painter\nof lascivious scenes than Giulio Romano himself. He surpasses all the\nItalian and Flemish masters in grouping, movement, and colour. Alas!\none is powerless against his glowing pictures. Those that shock you\nare of small account in comparison, and you would do wisely to leave\nto the care of the _Lieutenant de Police_, as your fellow citizens are\nwilling it should be left, the guardianship of public decency. Truly\nyour ingenuousness astonishes me; you have little notion what a man is,\nand what society is, and of the fever and insurgence of a great city.\nOh! the silly greybeards, who in the midst of all the uncleanness\nof a Babylon where every lifted curtain shows the eye or the arm of\na courtesan, where busy humanity touch and quicken one another in\nthe public squares, fall a-groaning and complaining of a few naughty\npictures hung up on book-sellers\u2019 stalls; and carry their lamentations\neven to the very Parliament of the kingdom when a woman has shown her\nlegs to some fellows in a dancing-saloon\u2014just the most ordinary sight\nin the world for them.\u201d\n\nThus spoke my good master from the top of his ladder. But Monsieur\nNicod\u00e8me stopped his ears in order not to hear him, and cried out on\nhis cynicism.\n\n\u201cHeavens!\u201d he sighed, \u201cwhat can be more disgusting than a naked woman,\nand how shameful to compromise, as does this Abb\u00e9, with an immorality\nwhich is the ruin of a country, for people can only exist by purity of\nmorals.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt is true, Monsieur,\u201d said my good master, \u201cthat peoples are strong\nonly so long as they preserve their morals; but by that is understood\na community of rules, opinions, and interests, and a generous-minded\nobedience to law; not trifles such as occupy you. Beware, moreover,\nlest shamefacedness, failing as a charm, become but a piece of\nstupidity, and less the artless dullness of your fears present a\nridiculous spectacle and one not a little indecent.\u201d\n\nBut Monsieur Nicod\u00e8me had already left the place.\n\n\n\n\nXVIII\n\nJUSTICE\n\n\nMonsieur l\u2019Abb\u00e9 Coignard, who should rather have been nourished at the\nPrytaneum by a grateful republic, gained his bread by writing letters\nfor servant-girls in a stall near the cemetery of the Innocents. There\nhe happened to serve in the office of secretary to a Portuguese lady\nwho was crossing France, with her nigger-boy. She gave him a _liard_\nfor a letter written to her husband, and an _\u00e9cu_ of six _livres_ for\nanother to her lover. It was the first _\u00e9cu_ my good master had handled\nsince the feast of St. John; and since he was open-handed, even to\nmagnificence, he straightway took me to the _Pomme d\u2019Or_, on the Quai\nde Gr\u00e8ve, close to the Town-hall, where the wine is not doctored, and\nthe sausages are of the best. And the big dealers, who buy apples\non the Mall, go there ordinarily towards midday to try to best one\nanother. It was spring-time, and sweet to be alive on such a day. My\ngood master had our table spread on the embankment, and we hearkened,\nas we dined, to the lapping of the water under the oars of the boatmen.\nA light caressing breeze laved us with gentle breath, and we were\nglad to be alive and in the sunlight. While we were eating our fried\ngudgeons a noise of men and horses at our elbow made us turn round.\n\nGuessing what made us curious a dingy little old man, at the next\ntable, said, with an obliging smile:\n\n\u201cIt is nothing, gentlemen\u2014a servant-girl whom they are taking to be\nhanged for stealing some bits of lace from her mistress.\u201d\n\nAnd indeed, as he spoke, we saw, seated at the tail of a cart between\ntwo mounted police-sergeants, a girl, quite pretty, her appearance\nbewildered, her bosom forced into relief by the drag of her arms, which\nwere bound behind her back. She passed in a moment, and yet I shall\nalways see before my eyes that vision of a white face, and that look\nthat already stared out upon nothing.\n\n\u201cYes, gentlemen,\u201d said the dingy little old man, \u201cshe is the servant\nof Madame Josse, the councillor\u2019s wife, and to make herself smart when\ngoing with her lover to Ramponneau\u2019s stole from her mistress a lace\nhead-dress in _point a\u2019 Alen\u00e7on_, and then, having committed the\ntheft, ran away. She was taken in a house by the Pont-au-Change, and at\nonce confessed her crime. Accordingly she was not put to the torture\nfor more than an hour or two. What I tell you, gentlemen, I know to be\ntrue, as I am beadle at the court where she was tried.\u201d\n\nThe dingy little old man attacked his sausage, for it was getting cold,\nand continued:\n\n\u201cShe should be at the scaffold by now, and in five minutes, perhaps a\nlittle more, perhaps a little less, the pretty rogue will have given up\nthe ghost. Some of the hanged give no trouble to the executioner. No\nsooner is the cord round their neck than they quietly expire. But there\nare others who positively live at the rope\u2019s end, and make a furious\nto-do about it. The most demoniacal of all was a priest, who was\nsentenced last year for forging the Royal signature on lottery tickets.\nFor more than twenty minutes he fought like a carp on the end of a line.\n\n\u201cHe! He!\u201d chuckled the little old man, \u201cthe Abb\u00e9 was modest and did\nnot want the honour of a step up in the world. I saw him when they\ntook him out of the cart. He cried and struggled so that the hangman\nsaid to him: \u2018Do not be a child, Monsieur l\u2019Abb\u00e9!\u2019 But the oddest\nthing was, that, there being another thief along with him, he was, at\nfirst, taken for the chaplain, and that by the executioner, whom the\npolice-officer had the greatest difficulty in undeceiving. Wasn\u2019t that\namusing?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo, Monsieur,\u201d replied my good master, letting the fish, he had\nheld to his lips for some moments, fall on his plate. \u201cNo, it is not\namusing, and the thought that that nice-looking girl is at this moment\nyielding up her soul spoils the taste of my gudgeons for me, and the\njoy of seeing the sky above, which smiled on me but a moment back.\u201d\n\n\u201cAh, Monsieur l\u2019Abb\u00e9,\u201d said the little official, \u201cif you are so\nsensitive as all that, you could never have witnessed without fainting\nwhat my father saw with his own eyes, when yet a child, at Dijon, his\nnative town. Have you ever heard speak of H\u00e9l\u00e8ne Gillet?\u201d\n\n\u201cNever,\u201d said my master.\n\n\u201cIn that case I will tell you her story, as my father, many a time,\ntold it to me.\u201d\n\nHe drank off his wine, wiped his lips with a corner of the cloth, and\nrecounted the history I here repeat.\n\n\n\n\nXIX\n\nTHE BEADLE\u2019S STORY\n\n\nIn the year 1624, in the month of October, H\u00e9l\u00e8ne Gillet, aged\ntwenty-two, daughter of the governor-royal of Bourg-en-Bresse, who was\nstill under the paternal roof, along with her brothers yet of tender\nyears, showed such visible signs of being with child that it was the\ntalk of the town, and the young girls of Bourg ceased to associate with\nher. It was noticed next that her figure went down, and such comments\nwere made that the _Lieutenant-Criminel_ ordered her to be examined by\na jury of matrons. These latter reported that she had been with child\nand that her confinement had taken place at least fifteen days before.\nOn their report, H\u00e9l\u00e8ne Gillet was put in prison and was questioned by\nthe Court of First Instance. She there made a confession:\n\n\u201c\u2018Some months ago,\u2019 she told them, \u2018a young man from the\nneighbourhood, who was staying at my uncle\u2019s house, came to my father\u2019s\nto teach the boys to read and write. He possessed me but once. It\nwas through a servant who locked me up in a room with him. There he\nravished me.\u2019 And when they asked her why she had not cried for help,\nshe replied that surprise had taken away her voice. Pressed by the\njudges, she added, that in consequence of this violation she became\nwith child and was delivered prematurely. Far from having helped on the\nbirth, she would not have known what it was, had not a servant revealed\nto her the true nature of the occurrence.\n\n\u201cThe magistrates, dissatified with her replies, did not know, all the\nsame, how to contradict them, when an unexpected witness came forward\nto furnish certain proofs of the accusation. A soldier, who happened\nto pass when out walking by the garden of Monsieur Pierre Gillet, the\ngovernor-royal, father of the accused, saw in a ditch, at the foot of\nthe wall, a raven trying to pull away a cloth with its beak. He went\nup to it to see what it was and found the body of a little child.\nHe immediately informed the authorities. The child was wrapped in\na chemise marked with the letters H. G. on the neck. It was proved\nto have been a full-term child, and H\u00e9l\u00e8ne Gillet, convicted of\ninfanticide, was condemned to death according to custom. On account of\nthe honourable post held by her father she was permitted to enjoy the\nprivilege accorded those of noble birth, and the sentence ran that her\nhead should be cut off.\n\n\u201cAn appeal having been made to the Parliament of Dijon, she was\nconducted under the guard of two archers to the capital of Burgundy,\nand shut in the conciergerie of the Palace. Her mother, who had gone\nwith her, withdrew to the house of the Bernardine nuns. The case was\nheard by the members of Parliament on Monday the 12th of May, the last\nsitting before Whitsuntide. On the report of Counsellor Jacob the\njudges confirmed the sentence of the Bourg Court of First Instance,\nordering that the condemned should be led to execution with the cord\nround her neck. It was generally remarked that this circumstance of\ninfamy was added in a strange and unusual fashion to the punishment of\na noble, and such severity, which was against all rules, was greatly\nblamed. But the decree admitted of no appeal, and had to be carried out\nimmediately.\n\n\u201cAnd indeed, on the same day, at half-past three in the afternoon,\nH\u00e9l\u00e8ne Gillet was led to the scaffold, the bells tolling the while, in\na procession, heralded by trumpets, which sounded such a peal that all\nthe good folk of the town heard it in their houses, and falling on\ntheir knees prayed for the soul of her who was about to die. The deputy\nKing\u2019s-attorney advanced on horseback followed by his attendants. Then\ncame the condemned woman in a cart, the cord round her neck according\nto the decree of Parliament.\n\n\u201cShe was attended by two Jesuit fathers and two Capuchin brothers, who\nheld up before her Jesus dying on the Cross. Near by stood the headsman\nwith his sword and the headswoman with a pair of shears. A company of\narchers surrounded the cart. Behind pressed a crowd of curious people\nwhere might have been discerned many small tradesmen, bakers, butchers,\nmasons, from whom a great tumult arose.\n\n\u201cThe procession stopped on the place called Place Morimont not, as\nmight be thought, because it was the place of public execution, but\nin remembrance of the mitred and croziered abbots of Morimont, who\nformerly had their house there. The wooden scaffold was set up on some\nstone steps adjoining a humble chapel where the monks were wont to pray\nfor the souls of the victims.\n\n\u201cH\u00e9l\u00e8ne Gillet ascended the steps with the four religious, the\nheadsman, and his wife the headswoman. The latter, having withdrawn\nthe cord which encircled the victim\u2019s neck, cut her hair with shears\nhalf a foot long and bandaged her eyes; the religious prayed aloud.\nThe headsman, however, began to tremble and turn pale. He was one,\nSimon Grandjean, a feeble-looking man, and as gentle and timorous\nof appearance as his wife, the headswoman, was savage. He had taken\ncommunion that morning in prison, and yet he felt upset and without\ncourage to put this child to death. He leant over towards the crowd:\n\n\u201c\u2018Your pardon, all of you,\u2019 he said, \u2018if I do what I have to do badly.\nI have a fever on me I have been unable to shake off for three months.\u2019\n\n\u201cThen tottering, wringing his hands, lifting his eyes to heaven, he\nfell on his knees before H\u00e9l\u00e8ne Gillet, and twice asked her pardon. He\nasked a blessing from the priests, and when the headswoman had arranged\nthe victim on the block he lifted his sword.\n\n\u201cThe Jesuits and the Capuchins cried out \u2018Jesus! Mary!\u2019 and a groan\nwent up from the crowd. The blow, which should have severed the neck,\nmade a large gash on the left shoulder, and the poor creature fell over\non her right side.\n\n\u201cSimon Grandjean, turning to the crowd, exclaimed:\n\n\u201c\u2018Let me die!\u2019\n\n\u201cHooting arose, and some stones were thrown on the scaffold where the\nheadswoman was replacing the victim on the block.\n\n\u201cHer husband again took his sword. Striking a second time, he deeply\ngashed the neck of the poor girl, who fell on the sword, which slipped\nfrom the hands of the executioner.\n\n\u201cThis time the uproar from the crowd was terrible, and such a hail of\nstones showered on the scaffold that Simon Grandjean and the Jesuits\nand the Capuchins jumped down. They managed to gain the low-roofed\nchapel and shut themselves in. The headswoman, left alone with the\nvictim, looked for the sword. Not seeing it, she took the cord with\nwhich H\u00e9l\u00e8ne Gillet had been led there, knotted it round the neck, and\nsetting her foot on her chest tried to strangle her.\n\n\u201cH\u00e9l\u00e8ne, seizing the cord with both hands, defended herself, all\nbleeding as she was; whereupon the woman Grandjean dragged her by the\ncord, head downwards, to the edge of the platform, and, having got her\nto the stone steps, she cut her throat with the shears.\n\n\u201cShe was at it when the butchers and the masons, upsetting the archers\nand the police, rushed the approaches of the scaffold and chapel: a\ndozen strong arms lifted H\u00e9l\u00e8ne Gillet and carried her, insensible, to\nthe shop of Ma\u00eetre Jacquin, the barber-surgeon.\n\n\u201cThe crowd of people which flung itself on the chapel-door would soon\nhave forced it. But the two Capuchin brothers and the two Jesuit\nfathers opened it, being terrified. And holding up their crosses with\noutstretched arm, they made a way with great difficulty through the\nriot.\n\n\u201cThe headsman and his wife were stoned, and struck down with hammers,\nand their bodies dragged through the streets. H\u00e9l\u00e8ne Gillet, however,\nrecovering consciousness at the surgeon\u2019s, asked to drink. Then, while\nMa\u00eetre Jacquin was dressing her wound, she said:\n\n\u201c\u2018Shall I not have anything more to suffer?\u2019\n\n\u201cIt was found that she had suffered two blows with the sword, six\ncuts from the shears, which had slashed her lips and throat, and that\nher loins had been deeply cut by the sword, over which the headswoman\ndragged her while trying to strangle her; and finally that her whole\nbody was bruised by the stones the crowd had thrown on the scaffold.\n\n\u201cNevertheless she was healed of all her wounds. Left in the hands of\nJacquin the surgeon, under guard of a sheriff\u2019s officer, she asked\ncontinually:\n\n\u201c\u2018Is it not over? Will they kill me?\u2019\n\n\u201cThe surgeon, and some charitable people who stood by her, were urgent\nin reassuring her. But only the king could grant her her life. F\u00e9vret,\nthe advocate, drew up a petition which was signed by many notables of\nDijon, and carried to his Majesty. Festivities were being held at the\ncourt at that moment on account of the marriage of Henrietta-Maria of\nFrance with the King of England. On the score of this marriage, Louis\nthe Just granted the favour asked.\n\n\u201cHe gave a full pardon to the poor girl, deeming, as the letters of\nremission said, that she had suffered tortures which equalled, nay even\nsurpassed, the penalty of her sentence.\n\n\u201cH\u00e9l\u00e8ne Gillet, restored to life, withdrew into a convent at Brest\nwhere she practised up to the time of her death, the strictest piety.\nSuch,\u201d said the little official, \u201cis the true history of H\u00e9l\u00e8ne Gillet,\nas every one in Dijon knows. Do you not find it entertaining, Monsieur\nl\u2019Abb\u00e9?\u201d\n\n\n\n\nXX\n\nJUSTICE (_continued_)\n\n\n\u201cAlas!\u201d said my good master, \u201cI cannot stomach my food. My heart\nis as sick at this horrible scene, which you have described so\ncold-bloodedly, sir, as at the sight of this servant of Madame Josse\u2019s\nwhom they are taking to be hanged, when something better might be made\nof her.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut, Monsieur,\u201d retorted the beadle, \u201chave I not told you that this\ngirl has stolen from her mistress; and do you not wish thieves to be\nhanged?\u201d\n\n\u201cCertainly,\u201d said my good master, \u201cit is customary; and as the force of\ncustom is irresistible, I pay no attention to it in my ordinary course\nof life. In the same way Seneca, the philosopher, who nevertheless\ninclined to mildness, put together treatises of consummate elegance,\neven while near to him, at Rome, slaves were crucified for the\nsmallest fault, as we see in the case of the slave Mithridates, who\ndied, his hands nailed to the cross; merely guilty of having blasphemed\nthe divinity of his master, the infamous Trimalchio. We are so made\nthat nothing usual or customary either troubles or wounds us. And\nhabit wears away, if I may say so, our indignation as well as our\nastonishment. I wake up every morning without thinking, I own, of the\nunhappy beings who are to be hanged or broken upon the wheel during the\nday. But when the thought of torture becomes more perceptible to me my\nheart is troubled, and the sight of this handsome girl led to her death\ncontracts my throat to the point of refusing passage to this little\nfish.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat is a handsome girl?\u201d said the beadle. \u201cThere is not a street in\nParis where they don\u2019t make them by the dozen every night. Why did this\none steal from her mistress, Madame Josse?\u201d\n\n\u201cI know nothing of that, Monsieur,\u201d gravely answered my good master,\n\u201cyou know nothing, and the judges who condemned her knew no more, for\nthe reasons of our actions are obscure, and their springs remain deeply\nhidden. I hold man free as regards his deeds, as my religion teaches\nme to believe, but beyond the doctrine of the Church, which is sure,\nthere is so little ground for believing in the freedom of mankind, that\nI tremble when I think of decrees of justice punishing actions whose\nmainspring, sequence, and causes, all equally escape us, where the will\nplays often but a small part, and which are sometimes accomplished\nwithout consciousness. If, finally, we are responsible for our acts,\nsince the system of our holy religion is founded on the mysterious\naccord between human free-will and divine grace, it is an error to\ndeduce from this obscure and delicate liberty all the troubles, all the\ntortures, and all the suffering of which our laws are prodigal.\u201d\n\n\u201cI perceive with sorrow, Monsieur,\u201d said the dingy little man, \u201cthat\nyou are on the side of the rogues.\u201d\n\n\u201cAlas! Monsieur,\u201d said my good master, \u201cthey are part of suffering\nhumanity, and members like ourselves of Jesus Christ who died between\ntwo thieves. I seem to perceive cruelties in our laws which will appear\nmore distinctly in the future, and over which our posterity will wax\nindignant.\u201d\n\n\u201cI do not agree with you, Monsieur,\u201d said the other, drinking a little\ngulp of wine. \u201cAll the gothic barbarity has been pared away from\nour laws and customs, and justice is to-day restrained and humane\nto excess. Punishment is exactly proportioned to crime, and you see\nthieves hanged, murderers broken on the wheel, traitors torn by four\nhorses, atheists, sorcerers, and sodomites burnt, coiners boiled alive;\nin all which criminal law exhibits extreme moderation and all possible\nmildness.\u201d\n\n\u201cMonsieur, in all times judges have believed themselves to be\nbenevolent, equitable, and gentle. In the gothic ages of St. Louis, and\neven of Charlemagne, they admired their own benignity, which appears to\nus to-day as savage. I divine that, in their turn, our sons will judge\nus as savage, and that they will find still something more to pare away\nfrom the tortures and punishments which we inflict.\u201d\n\n\u201cMonsieur, you are not speaking as a magistrate. Torture is necessary\nto extract confessions unobtainable by gentle means. As to punishments,\nthey are reduced to what is necessary to assure safety of their life\nand goods to citizens.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou acknowledge then, Monsieur, that justice has for its object not\nwhat is just, but what is useful, and that it is inspired only by the\ninterests and prejudices of peoples. Nothing is more true, and faults\nare punished not in proportion to the malice attached to them, but\nin view of the harm they cause, or which it is believed they cause,\nto society in general. Thus, coiners are put into a copper of boiling\nwater, although, in reality, there is little malice in striking false\ncoins. But the public, and financiers in particular, suffer a marked\ndamage therefrom. It is this loss for which they avenge themselves with\npitiless cruelty. Thieves are hanged, less for the perversity that\nlies in taking bread, and clothes, which is, by the way, excessively\nsmall, than for the reason of the natural attachment men have for their\npossessions. It is expedient to restore human justice to its true\nreason\u2014which is the material interest of men, and to disengage it from\nall high philosophy\u2014with which it pompously and hypocritically veils\nitself.\u201d\n\n\u201cMonsieur,\u201d replied the little official, \u201cI do not understand you. It\nappears to me that justice is the more equitable the more useful it is,\nand this usefulness itself, which makes you disdain it, ought to render\nit august and sacred to you.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou do not understand me,\u201d said my good master.\n\n\u201cMonsieur,\u201d said the little official, \u201cI notice that you are drinking\nnothing. Your wine is good if I may judge by the colour of it. May I\nnot taste it?\u201d\n\nIt is true that for the first time in his life my good master had left\nsome wine at the bottom of the bottle. He poured it into the little\nofficial\u2019s glass.\n\n\u201cYour health, Monsieur l\u2019Abb\u00e9,\u201d said the beadle. \u201cYour wine is good,\nbut your arguments are worthless. Justice, I repeat, is the more\nequitable the more useful it is, and this usefulness itself, which, you\nsay, is in its origin and foundation, should make it appear to you as\naugust and sacred. But you must acknowledge that the essence of justice\nis to be _just_, as the word implies?\u201d\n\n\u201cMonsieur,\u201d said my good master, \u201cwhen we have called beauty beautiful,\ntruth true, and justice just, we shall have said nothing at all. Your\nUlpian, who spoke with precision, asserted that justice is the firm\nand perpetual desire to attribute to each what belongs to him, and\nthat laws are just when they sanction this desire. The misfortune\nis, that men have nothing of their own, and thus the equity of law\ndoes but guarantee to them the fruit of their inherited, or recent,\nrapine. They resemble those childish agreements wherein after having\nwon some marbles, the winners say to those who wish to win them back\nagain, \u2018That is not fair play.\u2019 The sagacity of judges limits itself to\ndifferentiating between usurpations which are not fair play and those\nwhich were agreed upon in starting, and this distinction is equally\nchildish and thin. Above all, it is arbitrary. The strapping young\nwoman who at this very moment is hanging at the end of a hempen rope,\nhad stolen, you say, a lace head-dress from Councillor Josse\u2019s wife.\nBut on what do you found your belief that this head-dress belonged\nto Councillor Josse\u2019s wife? You will tell me that she bought it with\nher own money, or found it in her wedding-chest, or received it from\nsome lover\u2014all good ways of acquiring lace. But however she may have\nacquired it I merely see that she had the enjoyment of it, as one of\nthose gifts of fortune one finds, or loses perchance, and over which\none has no natural right. Nevertheless, I own that the lappets belonged\nto her conformably to the rules of this game of possession, which\nhuman society can play as children play at hop-scotch. She valued her\nlappets, and in fact she had no less right to them than any other. Well\nand good. It was justice to return them to her, but without putting\nsuch a high price on them that for two wretched lappets of _point\nd\u2019Alen\u00e7on_ a human creature should be destroyed.\u201d\n\n\u201cMonsieur,\u201d said the little official, \u201cyou keep in view but one side of\nthe justice of the matter. It was not enough to do right by Councillor\nJosse\u2019s wife by giving her back her lappets. It was necessary also to\ndo right by the servant in hanging her by the neck. For justice is to\nrender to each what is due to him. In which lies its majesty.\u201d\n\n\u201cIn that case,\u201d said my good master, \u201cjustice is wickeder even than\nI thought. This belief that she owes punishment to the guilty is\nferocious in the extreme. It is gothic barbarity.\u201d\n\n\u201cMonsieur,\u201d said the little official, \u201cyou misunderstand justice.\nJustice strikes without anger, and it has no hatred for this girl it\nsends to the gallows.\u201d\n\n\u201cA good thing, too,\u201d said my good master. \u201cBut I should prefer that\njudges confess that they punish the guilty from pure necessity, and\nonly to make impressive examples. In that case they would merely hold\nby what was actually necessary. But if they think, in punishing, to\ngive the guilty his due, one sees to what this delicate discrimination\nwill lead them, and their probity itself will make them inexorable;\nfor one knows not how to refuse people what is due to them. This maxim\nhorrifies me, Monsieur. It was laid down with the greatest severity\nby an able philosopher of the name of Menardus, who pretends that to\nfail to punish an ill-doer is to do him wrong, and wickedly to deprive\nhim of the right to expiate his fault. He held that the Athenian\nmagistrates had done excellently well by Socrates the sage, and that\nthey worked for the purification of his soul when they made him drink\nthe hemlock. But those are odious thoughts. I ask that criminal justice\nshould tend less to the sublime. The notion of pure revenge attached\nmore commonly to the punishment of malefactors, although base and bad\nin itself, is less terrible in its consequences than the overweening\nvirtue of ingenuous philosophers. I knew in former days, in S\u00e9ez, a\njovial and good sort of fellow, who took his children on his knee every\nevening and told them tales. He led an exemplary life, went to the\nsacraments, and prided himself on his scrupulous honesty in the corn\nbusiness he had carried on for more than sixty years. Now he happened\nto be robbed by his servant of some doubloons, ducats, rose-nobles, and\nsome fine gold coins, which he, curious of such things, kept in a case\nat the back of a drawer. As soon as he discovered this loss he carried\ncomplaint to the police, whereupon the maidservant was questioned,\ntried, condemned, and executed. The good man, who knew his rights,\nexacted that the skin of the thief should be given to him, of which he\nmade a pair of pantaloons; and he would often smack his thigh and cry,\n\u2018The hussy! the hussy!\u2019 The girl had taken his gold pieces, he had\ntaken her skin; anyway he had his unphilosophical revenge in all the\nsimplicity of his rustic savagery. He had no notion of fulfilling a\nlofty duty when he slapped his hand light-heartedly on his garment of\nhuman skin. Better is it to acknowledge that if one hangs a thief it\nis for prudence\u2019 sake, and with the object of frightening the others\nby his example, and not at all on the philosophical plea for the sake\nof giving each man his due. For in true philosophy nothing belongs to\nanyone if we except life itself. To pretend that we owe expiation to\ncriminals is to fall into mysticism of a ferocious description, worse\nthan naked violence and open anger. As to the punishment of thieves,\nit is a right which has its origin in force, not in philosophy.\nPhilosophy teaches us, on the contrary, that all we possess is acquired\nby violence or by cunning. And you see also that judges approve of our\nbeing deprived of our possessions if the ravisher be powerful enough.\nThus it is permitted to the king to take our silver-plate to make war,\nas was seen under Louis the Great, when the requisition was so exacting\nthat they even took away the fringe of the bed-hangings, to use the\ngold woven with the silk. This prince put his hand on the goods of\nindividuals and on the treasures of the Church, and twenty years ago,\nperforming my devotions in Notre-Dame-de-Liesse in Picardy, I heard the\ncomplaints of an old verger, who deplored that the late king had taken\naway and melted down all the treasures of the church, and ravished even\nthe jewelled breast of gold, placed there some time before in great\npomp by the Princess Palatine, after she had been miraculously cured of\ncancer. Justice seconded the prince in his requisition, and punished\nseverely those who hid away any article from the king\u2019s commissaries.\nEvidently she did not think that these things belonged so peculiarly to\ntheir possessors that nothing could separate them.\u201d\n\n\u201cMonsieur,\u201d said the little official, \u201cthe commissaries acted in the\nname of the king, who, possessing everything in the kingdom, can\ndispose of it to his liking, either for war, or for naval armaments, or\nin any other way.\u201d\n\n\u201cThat is true,\u201d said my good master, \u201cand that is one of the rules\nof the game. The judges go about it as in the game of \u2018goose,\u2019\nfollowing one another and looking at what is written in the rules. The\nsovereign\u2019s rights, upheld by the Swiss Guard, and by all sorts of\nsoldiers, are written there. And this poor girl, who has been hanged,\nhad no Swiss Guard to inscribe in the rules of the game that she had\nthe right to wear Madame Josse\u2019s lace. That is just how it is.\u201d\n\n\u201cMonsieur,\u201d said the little official, \u201cI hope you do not liken Louis\nthe Great, who took his subjects\u2019 plate to pay his soldiers, to this\ncreature who stole a head-dress to deck herself.\u201d\n\n\u201cMonsieur,\u201d said my good master, \u201cit is less innocent to make war than\nto go to Ramponneau\u2019s in a lace head-dress. But justice gives to every\none what is his, according to the rules of this game played by man,\nwhich is the wickedest, the most absurd, and the least amusing of all\ngames. And \u2019tis our misfortune that every man is obliged to take a hand\nin it.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt is necessary,\u201d said the little official.\n\n\u201cLaws are also of use,\u201d said my good master. \u201cBut they are not just and\ncan never be so, for the judge assures to his fellow men the enjoyment\nof the goods that belong to them, without distinction between the\nbeneficial and the hurtful: this distinction is not found in the rules\nof the game, but in the book of Divine justice only, wherein no one may\nread. Do you know the story of the angel and the anchorite? An angel\ncame down to earth with the face of a man and the dress of a pilgrim;\nmaking his way through Egypt. He knocked, at eventide, at the door of\na good anchorite, who, taking him for a traveller, gave him supper, and\nwine from a golden cup. Then he made him lie down on his bed whilst he\nlaid himself on the ground on some handfuls of maize-straw. While he\nslept his celestial guest rose up, took the cup out of which he had\ndrunk, and, hiding it under his cloak, fled away. He acted thus, not\nmeaning any ill-will towards the good hermit, but, on the contrary, in\nthe interest of the host who had given him such a charitable welcome.\nFor he knew that this cup would have been the undoing of the holy man,\nwho had put his heart into its keeping, whereas God desires us to love\nnone but Him and does not brook that a man, devoted to religion, should\nattach himself to the things of this world. The angel who had his share\nof Divine wisdom, distinguished between goods that are good and goods\nthat are not. Judges do not make this distinction. Who knows but what\nMadame Josse may not lose her soul along with the lappets of lace her\nservant took, and which the judges have given back?\u201d\n\n\u201cIn the meanwhile,\u201d said the little official, rubbing his hands, \u201cthere\nis now a hussy the less in this world.\u201d\n\nHe shook the crumbs from his coat, bowed to those present, and went off\njauntily.\n\n\n\n\nXXI\n\nJUSTICE (_continued_)\n\n\nMy good master, turning to me, continued in this manner:\n\n\u201cI only related the story of the angel and the hermit to show the abyss\nwhich separates the temporal from the spiritual. Now it is only in\nthings temporal that human justice is exercised, and it is on a low\nplane where high principles are not in favour. The cruellest offence\nthat could be possibly be done our Lord Jesus Christ is to place His\nimage in the courts of law, where judges pardon Pharisees who crucified\nHim, and condemn the Magdalene whom He raised up with His Divine hands.\nWhat does He\u2014the Just One\u2014among these men, who are unable to show\nthemselves just, even should they wish to, because their melancholy\nduty is to consider the actions of their fellows, not for what they\nare in their essence, but merely from the point of view of the social\ninterest; that is to say, on account of this mass of egoism, avarice,\nerror, and abuse which go to the making of cities, and of which they\nare the purblind guardians. In weighing a fault they add to it the\nweight of fear or anger it inspired in the cowardly public. And all\nthis is written in their book in such wise that the ancient reading and\ndead letter stand in the stead of intelligence, heart, and a living\nsoul. And all these regulations, some of which go back to the infamous\ntime of Byzantium and Theodora, agree on this one point only, that all\nmust be perpetuated\u2014virtues and vices alike, in a society which has no\ndesire for change. A fault, in itself, is of so little account in the\neyes of the law, and the surrounding circumstances are so considerable,\nthat the selfsame act allowable in one case becomes unpardonable in\nanother, as is shown in the instance of a slap in the face, which,\ngiven by one man to another appears simply, in the case of a bourgeois,\nthe effect of an irascible temper, but, for a soldier, becomes a crime\npunishable by death. This barbarity, which still exists, will be our\nshame in centuries to come. We reck little of it, but one day they will\nask each other what sort of savages we can have been to send a man\nto his death for a generous warmth of blood springing from his heart\nwhen he is bound by law to suffer the perils of war and the miseries\nof barrack-life. And it is clear that, if there were such a thing as\njustice, we should not have two codes, one military, the other civil.\nThis military justice, whose results one sees daily, is atrociously\ncruel; and men, if they ever establish law and order, will never\nbelieve that formerly, in times of peace, courts-martial avenged the\nmajesty of corporals and sergeants by the death of a man. They will not\nbelieve that unfortunate beings were ordered to be shot for the crime\nof desertion before the enemy, in an expedition where the government of\nFrance itself did not recognise a state of war. What is to be wondered\nat is that such atrocities are committed by Christian people who do\nhonour to St. Sebastian, a mutinous soldier; and to those martyrs\nof the Theban legion, whose sole glory is having, in a former age,\nincurred the severity of courts-martial in refusing to fight against\nthe Bagaudes. But enough of this, let us talk no more of the justice of\nthese gentlemen of the sword, who will perish one day according to the\nprophecy of the Son of God; let us return to our civil magistrates.\n\n\u201cJudges search not the reins, neither do they read the heart of man,\nand their justest justice is rude and superficial. All the more then\nmust they cling to this coarse skin of the law on which the codes\nare inscribed. They are men\u2014that is to say weak and corruptible,\ngentle to the strong, and pitiless to the weak. They sanction,\nby their judgments, the cruellest social iniquities, and it is\ndifficult to distinguish, in this partiality, what comes from their\npersonal baseness from what is imposed on them by their duty to their\nprofession; which duty is, in reality, to uphold the State in what is\nevil as well as in what is good; to see that public morality remains\nunaltered, whether excellent or detestable; and to assure the rights\nof citizens along with the tyrannical desires of the prince, to say\nnothing of the ridiculous and cruel superstitions which find an\ninviolable shelter under the lilies of France.\n\n\u201cThe most austere magistrate may be brought, by his integrity itself,\nto decrees as revolting, and perhaps even more inhuman, than those of\none who fails in his duty, and I do not know myself, which of the two\nI should dread the most, the judge who has made a soul for himself out\nof the text of the law, or he who makes use of a remnant of sentiment\nto twist the text. The one would sacrifice me to his interests or his\npassions, the other would immolate me coldly for the written word.\n\n\u201cAgain, we must notice that the magistrate is the defender, through\nhis office, not of new prejudices to which we are all more or less\nsubmissive, but of old prejudices which are preserved in our laws while\nthey are fading from our minds and our manners. And there is no one of\na thinking and liberal turn of mind who does not feel how much of the\nbarbarous there is in law, whereas the judge has not the right to feel\nthis.\n\n\u201cBut I am speaking as if laws, clumsy and barbarous as they are, were\nat least clear and precise. But much is necessary for them to become\nso. The \u2018gramarye\u2019 of a wizard would be easy to understand compared\nwith many of the articles in our codes and case-law. This difficulty of\ninterpretation has greatly contributed to the establishing of divers\ndegrees of jurisdiction, and we admit that what the manorial court\nhas not understood the Parliamentary gentlemen will make clear. It is\nexpecting a great deal from five men in red robes and square caps,\nwho even after having recited the _Veni Creator_ are still subject to\nerror; and it is better to acknowledge that the highest court judges\nwithout further appeal, for the sole reason, that the others were\nexhausted before recourse was had to this. The prince is himself of\nthis opinion, for he has a judgment-seat[16] above the Parliament.\u201d\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[16] The institution styled _lit de justice_, bed of justice.\n\n\n\n\nXXII\n\nJUSTICE (_concluded_)\n\n\nMy good master looked sorrowfully at the flowing water, an image of\nthis life, where all things pass and nothing changes. He pondered for\nsome time and then continued in a low voice:\n\n\u201cThat point is of itself, my son, an insurmountable perplexity to\nme, that it is needful that justice should come from judges. It is\nclear that they are interested in finding guilty the man whom they at\nfirst suspected. _Esprit de corps_, so strong among them, pushes them\nto it, and so you may see throughout their procedure how they brush\naside the defence as importunate, and only allow it a hearing when\nthe prosecution has donned its arms and composed its countenance, and\nhas, in fact, contrived to assume the air of the Goddess of Wisdom. By\nprofessional feeling they are inclined to see guilt in every accused\nperson, and their zeal appears so alarming to certain European nations\nthat, in important cases, they give them the help of twelve men, drawn\nby lot. Whereby, it appears, blind chance is a better guarantee of the\nlife and liberty of the accused than can be the enlightened conscience\nof a judge. It is true, however, that these bourgeois magistrates,\ndrawn by lot, are kept out of the affair, of which they see but the\noutside pomp and show. And it is also true that, ignorant of the\nlaw, they are not called upon to apply it, but to decide merely, in\none word, whether it is a case for applying it. It is said that this\nkind of assize results sometimes in absurdities, but that the nations\nwho have instituted it are attached to it as a kind of very precious\nsafeguard. I willingly believe that. And I understand their accepting\ndecrees given in such fashion, which may be inept or cruel, but at\nleast whose absurdity and barbarity cannot be imputed to one person,\nso to speak. Iniquity seems bearable when it is incoherent enough to\nappear involuntary.\n\n\u201cThe little official of a moment ago, who had such a feeling for\njustice, suspected me of taking the side of thieves and assassins. On\nthe contrary, I disapprove so strongly of theft and murder that I\ncannot endure even the authorised copy of them by the law, and it is\npainful to me to observe that judges have found no better way to punish\nrogues and homicides than by imitating them; for in truth, Tournebroche\nmy son, what is fine or execution, save theft and murder, perpetrated\nwith majestic punctiliousness? And do you not see that, notwithstanding\nall its splendour, our justice only attains to the shameful revenge\nof evil for evil, misery for misery; and to the doubling of crimes\nand sins for the sake of equilibrium and symmetry? It is possible,\nin the carrying out of this duty, to exercise a certain probity and\ndisinterestedness. One may show oneself a l\u2019Hospital as well as a\nJeffreys, and for my part I know a magistrate who is an honest fellow\nenough. But to return to the principle of the thing, I have wanted to\nshow the true character of an institution which the pride of the judges\nand the terror of the people, vying with each other, have clothed in\nborrowed majesty. I have wanted to show the humble origin of these\ncodes they wish to make august, and which are in reality but an odd\nheap of expedients.\n\n\u201cAlas! laws emanate from man; a poor and miserable origin. They are\nmostly born of occasion. Ignorance, superstition, the pride of princes,\nthe interests of the legislator, caprice, fantasy\u2014these are the sources\nof the great body of the law, which becomes worthy of veneration\nwhen it is no longer intelligible. This obscurity that envelops it,\nthickened by the commentators, gives it the majesty of the oracles of\nold. I hear on all sides, and I read in every paper, that nowadays we\nmake laws fitting for the circumstance and the occasion. That is the\nview of the short-sighted, who fail to see that it is but following an\nimmemorial custom, and that in all times laws have resulted from some\nchance thing. We complain also of the obscurity and contradiction into\nwhich legislators continually fall. And we fail to note that their\npredecessors were equally dense and confused.\n\n\u201cIn actual fact, Tournebroche my son, laws are good or bad less\nby their nature than in the way we use them, and such and such a\nprovision, extremely wicked though it be, does no harm if the judge\ndoes not put it into force. Custom is stronger than law. Refinement of\nmanners, gentleness of mind, are the only remedies one can reasonably\nbring for legal barbarity. For to correct laws by laws is to take\na lengthy and uncertain road. Centuries alone undo the work of\ncenturies. There is little hope that a French Numa will meet one day\nin the forest of Compi\u00e8gne, or among the rocks of Fontainebleau, with\nanother nymph Egeria, who shall dictate wise laws to him.\u201d\n\nHe gazed for long on the hills which showed blue on the horizon. His\nair was grave and sad. Then, laying his hand gently on my shoulder, he\nspoke to me in accents so profound that I was touched to the depths of\nmy soul. He said:\n\n\u201cTournebroche, my son, you see me, all at once, wavering and\nembarrassed, stammering and stupid, at the mere notion of correcting\nwhat I find detestable. Do not think this timidity of mind. Nothing may\ngive pause to the audacity of my thought. But note well, my son, what\nI now say to you. Truths, detected by the intelligence, will for ever\nremain sterile. The heart alone can fertilise its dreams. It pours the\nwater of life on all it loves. Seeds of good are sown in the world by\nthe feelings. Reason has no such virtue. And I confess that up to now\nI have been too reasonable in my criticism of laws and manners. And so\nthis judgment will fall without fruit, and wither as a tree bitten by\nApril frosts. To help mankind one must throw aside all reason as an\nencumbrance, and rise on the wings of enthusiasm. So long as we reason\nwe shall never soar.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nTranscriber\u2019s Note:\n\n  Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have\n  been preserved. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.\n\n  Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.","title":"The opinions of J\u00e9r\u00f4me Coignard","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":44424}