Short-story Masterpieces - Vol. II - French (2024)

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Copyright 1911 and 1912—J. B. Lippincott Company
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Honoré Balzac, or de Balzac, as he lovedto call himself—though really there was no“noble” blood in his veins—was baptized underthe name of Balssa. He was born on May 20,1799, at Tours. His mother, Laure Sallambier,was a Parisian; his father, a provincial fromLanguedoc. After completing his studies inParis, Honoré began the study of law at the ageof seventeen, but after eighteen months’ apprenticeshipto an attorney and a second year and ahalf’s service to a notary, his literary ambitionbegan to turn him away from the law. Alreadyat the age of twenty he had conceived the ideaof a drama on Cromwell, but after fifteen months’labor, he read it to a company of friends whor*ceived it coldly. In 1822, he made his firstessay at the novel, under the title, The Inheritressde Birague. From this time on he labored incessantlyin producing the gigantic works whichhave immortalized his name.

Debt was always threatening to overwhelmBalzac, for in the days of his largest income hisfree life and passion for luxuries kept him constantlyin danger of going down in the flood.Once, in 1825, when his first novels produced but[Pg 4]little return, he felt compelled to leave his vocationof letters to become bookseller, printer, andtype-founder. But after three years of disaster,resulting in one hundred thousand francs of debt,he once more took up his pen, this time to succeedmost splendidly—though it required ten years ofstrenuous, almost frenzied, production to clearhim of his obligations.

The story of his loves is closely knit with hisliterary career, as are also the records of hisminglings with the men of his day, but no suchbrief monograph as this can even refer adequatelyto the details of his personal life. Inspiration,observation, and labor were its dominant notesthroughout. Two thousand distinct charactersmove as in life through his forty-seven volumesof more than sixteen thousand aggregate pages,all produced in twenty-five years of actual pen-craft.What a monument for the titan who in1850 passed away in his prime!

There are two marked tendencies of extremedisplayed by the short-story: The first, and themore modern, is a fondness for over-compression;that is, the practice of skeletonizing the story, ofgiving little more than a bare, swift outline of theaction, and only so much accessory material asmay be needed to round out a body decently[Pg 5]clothed upon with flesh. The story is everything,the setting almost nothing. It scarcely need besaid that this tendency comes perilously near torobbing the short-story of the literary qualitieswhich it should rightly display. A few of Maupassant’scompact and abrupt shorter fictionsmay serve to illustrate this characteristic—notto mention unhappy examples all too prevalentto-day.

The second tendency is quite in the other extreme.I speak of it now because most of Balzac’sshorter stories are of this type,—which givesmuch space to detail, the development of setting,and the building up of a well-rounded and fully-garbedbody to carry the soul of the story. Ifthe scenario-story is likely to swing to an extremeof compression, the leisurely type is prone toover-leisureliness, as is often seen in the shorterwork of Mr. James, and the later little fictionsby Mr. Howells, wherein, and so far properly too,the story is not made to be everything, butwherein—not so wisely—circ*mstances and airare accorded even more than due value. Theeffect is to draw the narrative away from theunity and compression characteristic of the short-storytype, and range it with those other fictionalforms which, while cognate to, are really somethingdifferent from the short-story.

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Balzac’s short-stories—so to call them—werewritten from three to five years before Poe wrote“Berenice” (1835), which was his first short-storyto anticipate and meet fully the requirementsof the type as formulated by the authorhimself, in his criticism of Hawthorne’s “Tales,”in 1842. But Balzac drew more and more awayfrom the impressionistic, unified, condensedshort-story, for it was evidently not his idealform, and took up the detailed psychologicalnovel of manners. Even in the story given herewithin translation, we find a wealth of detail andan extent of time covered in the action which arenot part and parcel of the true short-story,technically considered. But, lest these commentsseem to cite these qualities in derogation ofBalzac’s art be it noted that Balzac’s little fictions,with all their fullness, are greater than manytechnically perfect short-stories in their miraculouscompression. Certainly it is only this dualelement of fullness and consequent diffused finaleffect which prevented him from anticipatingPoe as the first conscious artist of the short-story—yetwith this one reservation I reserve much,for compression and unity of final impression arethe very twin arteries of this fictional form. Balzac’sshort-stories approached technical perfectionjust as closely as did the short-stories of[Pg 7]those two American forerunners of Poe—Irvingand Hawthorne.

It is illuminating to observe that Balzac’s full-methodof short-story art was not the reflex ofthe successful novelist who was sure of his publicand for that reason dared the expansive treatment.The truth is that of his successful novelsonly The Chouans had been written in 1829 beforehe began, in 1830, that brilliant series ofshorter stories which place him among themasters.

The fictive art of Balzac is more clearly displayedin his short-stories than in his novels. Byfar the greater number of his novels are filledwith a vast amount of contributory detail notalways germane to the plot. As stories, theyoften mark time. The author’s great motive wasto make faithful transcripts from life, to presentrealities, to penetrate into the deeps of the humansoul and disclose its inner life, to delineate thehigh and the low places of the whole social systemof his era. On this giant-journey he was oftenallured from the highway of his story by side-pathsrich in interest, and the great realisticnovelist did not any more hesitate to follow outthese beckoning byways than did Victor Hugoin his equally great romances. The inevitablein each case was a far from unified type of fiction.

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In Balzac’s short-stories, however, we discernbut very little of this tendency, fully expandedthough they are, and that is why I have venturedto assert their artistic superiority to his novels.True, the genius of this greatest of French novelistscan be fully appreciated only by those whomake a study of his longer works with theirtremendous sweep of character presentment,minuteness of setting, and depth of psychologicalinquiry. But for approximate singleness ofeffect—a great factor in the consideration offictional merit—we must turn to his short-stories.

This contrast in method is due not merely toBalzac’s fondness for making excursions in hisnovels, but it is largely attributable to the natureof the nouvelle, or expanded short-story form.Any short-story, being complete in itself and notone of a series, necessarily bears a much less closerelation to any other of its kind than does anyone of Balzac’s novels to his other novels. Eachof these is an integrated part of a great life-recordwhich he was engaged in completing—but which,unhappily, was never consummated.

The themes of all Balzac’s short-stories areconsistent with the artistic requirements of thenouvelle; that is to say, they are transcriptionsof exceptional marginalia from common life,always dealing with the unusual, and occasionally[Pg 9]with the unique. Because of this quality, it seemsevident that, as Brunetière has pointed out,Balzac elected to develop these incidents in short-storyform rather than expand them into novels.Treated in the short-story, they stand for whatthey are—extraordinary happenings in commonlife (as distinguished from impossible “incidents”which are told in fantastic and ultra-romanticshort-stories); in the novel, they would have beenenlarged out of their true focus, and so haveseemed to bear a more important, a more typical,relation to life as a whole than any such exceptionalincidents ever do. Hence, again, Balzachas used in his short-stories less the realisticmethod of narration than the romantic. Purerealism as a method is suited to the novel, wherelife shows whole; but the short-story, whichpresents a section, a phase, an incident of life,and by which we do not hope to gain a picture ofan age, of a whole social system, or even of anentire individual life, is almost compelled toadopt the methods of romanticism even whenlaying its fictional foundations, as Balzac did,deep in the ground of reality.

In attempting to get a view of his broad geniuswe must remember our author’s versatility, notalone of gift but of temper; and since a considerationof his novels is not pertinent to this paper, let[Pg 10]us see if the many-sided Balzac is not clearlyrevealed in a varied half-dozen of his greatestshort-stories.

Picture this powerful worker spending endlessdays and nights, months on end, roaming thestreets of Paris, haunting purlieu and boulevard,absorbing with the thirsty passion of a universalanalyst the knowledge of what man is. But he ismore than a terrifically industrious observer, heis sincere, and he codifies his observations as TheConnoisseur of Life.

This first phase of our social psychologist—andas such he blazed new trails in French literature—iswell illustrated in one of his greatest stories(it seems trite to aver that it must be read to beappreciated!) which is a romantic nouvelle ofabout ten thousand words, “The UnknownMasterpiece.” It is well to note in this connectionthat the typical psychological-study differsfrom the character-study in that the former concernsitself with workings of the inner life, whilethe latter notes the effect of life on character, disposition,bearing, and conduct.

Nicolas Poussin, a poor and ambitious youngartist, timidly visits François Porbus, anotherartist of ability, in his studio. There MasterFrenhofer, an eccentric, wealthy old artist, isdiscoursing on his theories of art (set forth brilliantly[Pg 11]and at length in the story, and illustratingthe marvellous sweep of Balzac’s knowledge).Frenhofer is obsessed by the conviction that theartists of the day do not make their subjects live,and illustrates by criticising the painting, “St.Mary the Egyptian,” which Porbus has aboutcompleted. “Your saint is not badly put together,but she is not alive. Because you havecopied nature, you imagine that you are painters,and that you have discovered God’s secret! Bah!To be a great poet, it is not enough to knowsyntax, and to avoid errors in grammar.” “Themission of art is not to copy nature, but to expressit” (an illuminating passage when applied toBalzac’s own work). At length the old manseizes the brushes, and with a few strokes impartsvivacity to the figure, and makes the “Saint”stand out from the canvas.

Old Master Frenhofer himself has been laboringfor ten years to perfect his painting of awoman, but despairs of adding the final touches,and determines to travel in search of a perfectmodel. In his enthusiasm for art, and hoping togain Frenhofer’s secret, as well as instructionfrom the old painter, Nicolas asks his beautifulmistress and model, Gillette, to pose forthe old man. A protracted struggle ensuesbetween her abhorrence of the idea and her[Pg 12]wish to serve her lover. At last, however, sheyields.

When Nicolas and Porbus are permitted toview Frenhofer’s completed canvas, they discoverthat in his long effort to perfect his work the oldpainter has entirely covered the original picture,and that not more than a shadowy human foot isto be seen; only the imaginative eye of the artisthimself is able to see the figure!

The dénouement is a double one: As she fearedwould be the case, Gillette loses her love forNicolas, who could sacrifice the sacredness of herbeauty in order to advance his own career bycapturing the secrets of a great master; and theold artist, after burning all his paintings, dies indespair upon discovering the truth, for he haslived all these years with his painting as the well-lovedcompanion of his labors and his dreams.

A great story, illustrating Balzac as a connoisseur—aknower of life.

A second phase of Balzac’s genius is that ofThe Impressionistic Literary Artist. In his innerlife some pictures were born, others were caughton the retina from his attentive journeyingsafield. To produce in the reader precisely theimpression which the originator feels, is impressionism,and this transfusion of spirit, tone, and[Pg 13]feeling, Balzac now and then accomplished,though not often.

One of the most striking of these impressionisticsketches, more atmospheric, more simplypictorial, than any of his others, is “A Passion inthe Desert.”

A Provençal soldier of Napoleon tells the storyover a bottle to a friend, and he retells it in aletter to a lady who had just seen a wonderfulexample of animal-training in a menagerie.

When General Desaix was in upper Egypt “aprovincial soldier, having fallen into the hands ofthe Maugrabins, was taken by these Arabs intothe deserts that lie beyond the cataracts of theNile.” Freeing himself, he secures a carbine, adagger, a horse, and some provisions, and makesaway. But, eager to see camp once more, he rideshis horse to death and finds himself alone in thedesert.

At length he seeks shelter and sleep in a grotto,but awakens to find his asylum shared by a hugelioness. He considers well the possibilities whilehe waits for her to wake. When she opens hereyes her pretty, coquettish movements remindhim of “a dainty woman.” The soldier expectsimmediate conflict and draws his dagger; butthe lioness stares steadily at him for a moment,then walks slowly but confidently toward him.[Pg 14]Forcing himself to smile into her face, he reachesout his hand caressingly, and she accepts theseovertures with seeming pleasure, even purrs likea cat, but the sound is so loud that it is not unlikethe dying notes of a church organ. Believinghimself safe for the present, the man rises andleaves the grotto; she follows, rubbing againsthis legs and uttering a wild, peculiar cry, whereuponhe again goes through the petting motionsusual with domestic animals, at the same timeweighing the chance of killing her with one blowof his weapon. On her side, the lioness scrutinizeshim kindly, yet prudently—then she licks hisshoes.

Visions of what may happen when his unwelcomecompanion is hungry bring a shudder to thesoldier. He tries to come and go, as an experiment,but her eyes never leave him for the fractionof a minute. Near the spring he sees theremains of his horse partly consumed—and understandsher forbearance thus far. He determinesto try to tame her ladyship and to winher affection. In these endeavors the day wearson until she becomes responsive enough to hisvoice to turn to him when he calls “Mignonne.”

The Provençal is now relying on his nimblefeet to take him out of danger so soon as thelioness is asleep, and when the right moment[Pg 15]comes he walks quickly in the direction of theNile. But he has gone only a short distance whenhe hears her in pursuit, uttering the same wildcry. Even in this extremity the Frenchmanreflects humorously, “It may be that this younglioness has never met a man before; it is flatteringto possess her first love!”

He accompanies his hostess back to the grotto,and from this moment feels that the desert hasbecome friendly, human; and he sleeps. Whenhe awakes he sees nothing of Mignonne until,upon ascending the hill, he discovers her boundingalong in his direction. Her chops are bloody;but she manifests her pleasure in his society bybeginning to play like a large puppy.

Several days go by filled with warring sensationsfor the Frenchman. Solitude reveals hermysteries, and he feels their charm. He studiesthe effects of the moon on the limitless sand; thewonderful light of the Orient; the terrifyingspectacle of a storm on the plain where sand risesin death-dealing clouds. In the cool nights heimagines music in the heavens above. He ponderson his past life.

The magnetic will of the Provençal seems tocontrol brute nature, or else she has not felt thepangs of hunger, for her amiability is unbroken,and he trusts her completely. Whatever she may[Pg 16]be doing, she stops short at the word “Mignonne.”One day when he shows acute interest in a flyingeagle, the lioness is evidently jealous, and theProvençal now declares that “she has a soul.”

Here the lady who received the Provençal’sletter about his adventure wants to know howit ended. He replies that “it ended as all greatpassions do, by a misunderstanding,” and goeson to explain that he must have unintentionallyhurt the lioness’s feelings, as one day she turnedand caught his thigh in her teeth. Fearing shemeant to kill him, the soldier plunged his daggerinto her throat, but his remorse was immediate;he felt that he had murdered a friend.

The brief outlines of two stories must suffice toillustrate a third and more characteristic phaseof Balzac’s genius—his sternness as The Recorderof Tragedy. Both are romantic themes treatedwith relentless realism of detail.

The first story bears the Spanish title, ElVerdugo (“The Executioner”).

During the Napoleonic era, a certain Spanishtown, Menda, is under French government. Asuspicion that the Spanish Marquis de Légañèshas made an attempt to raise the country in favorof Ferdinand VII has caused a battalion ofFrench soldiers to be placed here, the garrison[Pg 17]of occupation being in command of one VictorMarchand. On the night of the feast-day ofSt. James, the English capture the town, butClara, the daughter of the old Spanish nobleman,had warned the young French Commandant,Marchand, with whom she was in love, and hehad escaped. The English suspect her father ofhaving made Marchand’s escape possible, so theentire family of the Marquis is condemned to behanged. The old noble offers to the Englishgeneral all that he has if he will spare the life ofhis youngest son, and allow the rest to be beheadedinstead of ignominiously hanged. Bothrequests are granted. The Marquis then goes tohis youngest son, Juanito, and commands himthat for this day he shall be the executioner.After heart-breaking protests, the lad is compelledto yield. As his sister Clara places herhead on the block, the young French officer,Victor, now friendly with the English, runs toher and tells her that if she will marry him herlife will be saved. Her only reply is to her brother,“Now, Juanito,” and her head falls at the feet ofher lover. When the day is done, the youngestson, Juanito, is alone. To save the family honor,he has been the executioner of the day.

Only a little less tragic is “The Conscript,”which is part sketch, part short-story.

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Madame de Dey, aged thirty-eight, is thewidow of a lieutenant-general. She is possessedof a great soul and an attractive personality.During the Reign of Terror she takes refuge inthe village of Carentan. Motives of policy influenceher to open her house every evening tothe principal citizens, Revolutionary authorities,and the like. Her only relative in the world isher son, aged twenty, whom she adores. TheMayor, and others in authority in the town,aspire to marry her, but her heart is bound up inher boy. Suddenly her salon is closed withoutexplanation. Two nights pass, and gossip findsall sorts of reasons—she is hiding a lover; or herson; or a priest. The third day in the morningan old merchant insists upon seeing her. Sheshows him a letter written by her son in prison,saying he hopes to escape within three days andwill come to her house. This is the third day, andshe is greatly agitated. The merchant tells herthat people are suspicious, and that she mustsurely receive as usual that night. Then he goesout and spreads plausible tales of her recentextreme illness and marvelous cure. That nightmany come to see for themselves, and, notwithstandingher terrible anxiety, she keeps up untilthey all go—except the Public Prosecutor, whois one of her suitors. He tells her he knows she is[Pg 19]expecting her son Auguste, and that if he comesshe must get him away early in the morning, ashe, the Prosecutor, must come then with a“denunciation,” to search her house. While theytalk, a young man arrives and is taken to theroom prepared for Auguste. When she discovershim to be only a conscript sent there by theMayor, her grief is great. After spending thenight awake in her room, still listening for herboy’s arrival, she is found at daybreak dead—atthe hour when, unknown to his mother, her sonwas shot at Morbihan.

No view of Balzac, the short-story writer,would be complete without considering him asThe Social Philosopher—by far his preponderatingcharacter also as a novelist.

There are not lacking undiscerning folk whojudge Balzac’s short-stories by the tone of hisContes Drolatiques. It is far from true, however,that Balzac preferred to deal with the corruptside of life. In reality, he was a great moralist,with robust convictions of right and wrong, anda nicely balanced moral judgment. Yet thiscontradictory spirit did wallow in filthy imaginationsall too often, committed personal follies,pictured the courtesan and the pander, maritalinfidelity and sordidness in countless manifestations.[Pg 20]But let it be remembered that he choseto depict a society which was not only the productof his age, but the outcome of a national life. Noone could be more fearless in exposing vice, andwhile it may be questioned whether the worldgreatly profits morally by such vivid picturings,it cannot be doubted that Balzac’s social philosophywas not that of the literary pander. Hissoul had altitude, as one has said, as well aslatitude.

Balzac was keenly sensitive to criticism of hismoral influence, and himself answered the chargeof being a creator of vicious feminine types:

“The author cannot end these remarks withoutpublishing here the result of a conscientiousexamination which his critics have forced him tomake in relation to the number of virtuous womenand criminal women whom he has placed on theliterary stage. As soon as his first terror left himtime to reflect, his first care was to collect hiscorps d’armée, in order to see if the balance whichought to be found between those two elements ofhis written world was exact, relatively to themeasure of vice and virtue which enters into thecomposition of our present morals. He foundhimself rich by thirty-odd virtuous women againsttwenty-two criminal women, whom he here takesthe liberty of ranging in order of battle, in order[Pg 21]that the immense results already obtained maynot be disputed. To this he adds that he has notcounted-in a number of virtuous women whom hehas left in the shade—where so many of them arein real life.” (Here followed tabulated lists ofhis prominent women characters, as arranged byhimself).

In considering the big plot of the social study,La Grande Brétêche—not perfectly translated“The Great House”—we are interestingly remindedof the similar motifs in Poe’s “The Caskof Amontillado,” and Mrs. Wharton’s “Theduch*ess at Prayer”—just as our author’s “ASeashore Drama” recalls the more artistic storyof fatherly execution, “Mateo Falcone,” byMèrimèe.

In La Grande Brétêche a company of friends arespending an evening together and one is askedto tell a story—a conventional opening enough.

He describes a house which has been deserted,the large and once beautiful gardens overgrownwith weeds. Neglect and decay are everywhere.The story of the house is this—told with muchBalzacian preliminary circ*mstance:

Monsieur de Merret one night came home quitelate, and as he was about to enter his wife’sapartments he heard a closet door, opening intoher room, close very quietly. He thought it was[Pg 22]his wife’s maid, but just then the maid enteredthe room from another door. The husband sentthe maid away and asked his wife who had goneinto the closet. She answered him that no onewas there.

He said, “I believe you. I will not open it.But see, here is your crucifix—swear before Godthat there is no one in there. I will believe you—Iwill never open that door.”

Madame de Merret took up the crucifix andsaid, “I swear it.”

Monsieur de Merret sent away the servants—allbut one trusted one. He then sent for a mason,and had the closet securely walled in. At dawnthe work was completed, the mason had gone, andMonsieur, on some pretext, left the house. Assoon as he was gone, Madame de Merret called hermaid, and together they began to tear down thewall—hoping to replace the bricks before Monsieurreturned. They had just begun the workwhen Monsieur entered the room. For twentydays he remained in his wife’s apartment, andwhen a noise was heard in the closet and shewished to intercede for the dying man, her husbandwould answer:

“You swore on the cross that there was no onethere.”

No need even for a Balzac to read a moral!

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A fifth side of Balzac’s genius is sweeter to contemplate—thatof The Idealistic Philosopher.Take time to read The Personal Opinions ofHonoré de Balzac, edited by Katharine PrescottWormeley, you who would know how the maninterpreted himself, and you will find idealismlifting its lily crest from the field of ooze.

Doubtless “A Legend of Jesus Christ inFlanders” is Balzac’s most ethically idealisticstory—a true symbolical tale of Hawthorne’slegendary type.

Night was falling. The ferry-boat that carriedpassengers from the island of Cadzand to Ostendwas ready to depart. Just then a man appearedwho wished to enter the boat. It was already full.There was no place in the stern for the stranger,for the “aristocrats” of Flanders were seatedthere—a baroness, a cavalier, a young lady, abishop, a rich merchant, and a doctor. So hemade his way to the bow, where the more humblefolk were seated. They at once made room forhim.

As soon as the boat had moved out on the water,the skipper called to his rowers to pull with alltheir might, for they were in the face of a storm.All the while the tempest was growing moreterrifying, and all the while the men and womenin the boat questioned in their hearts who might[Pg 24]the stranger be. On his face shone a light anda quiet peace they could not understand.

Finally, the boat was capsized. Then thestranger said to them, “Those who have faithshall be saved; let them follow me.” With afirm step he walked upon the waves, and thosewho followed him came safe to shore.

When they were all seated near the fire in afisherman’s hut, they looked round for the manwho had brought them safely out of the sea. Buthe was not there, having gone down to the waterto rescue the skipper, who had been washedashore. He carried him to the door of the hut,and when the door of the humble refuge wasopened, the Saviour disappeared—for it was He.

And so on this spot the convent of Mercy wasbuilt, as a shelter for storm-beleaguered sailors,and it was said by humble folk that for manyyears the foot-prints of Jesus Christ could be seenthere in the sands of Flanders.

There is little charm in Balzac’s work, muchcoarseness, much detail of vileness, much to causethe sensitive to shudder; but there is much, too,that causes the soul to judge itself honestly, andmany a beauty-crowned peak rising nobly fromthe valley darkness.

In the story which here follows in full, in translation,[Pg 25]appear all of Balzac’s characteristic traits.Happily, its theme leads us above the sordidand the filthy, up to the heights which he knewand sometimes extolled.

“An Episode Under the Terror,” which FerdinandBrunetière has pronounced to be “in itsartistic brevity one of Balzac’s most tragic andfinished narratives,” was written in 1830 as anintroduction to the fictitious Memoirs of Sanson,who is the Stranger referred to in the story.

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(UN ÉPISODE SOUS LA TERREUR)

By Honoré de Balzac

Done into English by the Editor

On the twenty-second of January, 1793, abouteight o’clock in the evening, an old lady waswalking down the steep hill that ends in front ofthe church of Saint Laurent, in the FaubourgSaint Martin in Paris. It had snowed so muchthroughout the day that foot-falls could scarcelybe heard. The streets were deserted. The verynatural dread inspired by the silence was augmentedby all the terror which at that time causedFrance to groan; then, too, the old lady had notas yet met any one; her sight had long beenfeeble, so for this and for other reasons she couldnot discern by the lights of the lanterns the fewdistant passers-by, who were scattered likephantoms on the broad highway of the quarter.She went on courageously alone through thatsolitude, as though her age were a talisman whichwould preserve her from all evil.

When she had passed the rue des Morts, shethought she could distinguish the heavy andresolute steps of a man walking behind her. She[Pg 28]fancied that she had heard that sound before;she was frightened at having been followed, andtried to walk more rapidly in order to reach abrightly lighted shop, hoping to be able in thelight to settle the suspicions that had seized her.As soon as she found herself within the direct raysof light which came from the shop, she quicklyturned her head and glimpsed a human form inthe haze; that indistinct vision sufficed. Shefaltered a moment under the weight of the terrorwhich oppressed her, for she doubted no longerthat she had been followed by the stranger fromthe first step that she had taken outside of herhome, but the desire to escape from a spy lenther strength. Incapable of reasoning, she doubledher pace, as though she could escape from a manwho was, necessarily, more agile than she. Afterrunning for several minutes she reached the shopof a pastry-cook, rushed in, and tumbled ratherthan sat down upon a chair in front of the counter.

The moment she rattled the door-latch, a youngwoman who was occupied in embroidering raisedher eyes, recognized through the glass partitionthe old-fashioned mantle of violet silk in whichthe old lady was enveloped, and hastened to opena drawer, as though to take out something whichshe intended to give her. Not only did theyoung woman’s movement and expression indicate[Pg 29]a wish to be rid promptly of the unknown,as if she were one of those persons whom one isnot glad to see, but she even allowed an expressionof impatience to escape her upon finding that thedrawer was empty; then, without looking at thelady, she rushed from the counter, turned towardthe back shop, and called her husband, who appearedimmediately.

“Now, where did you put—,” she demandedof him, with a mysterious air, and designated theold lady by a turn of the eye, without finishingher sentence.

Although the pastry-cook could see only theimmense black silk bonnet, surrounded by knotsof violet ribbons, which formed the head-dress ofthe unknown, he turned away, after having givenhis wife a look which seemed to say, “Did yousuppose that I would leave that on your counter?”and quickly disappeared. Astounded by the oldlady’s silence and immobility, the tradeswomanwalked toward her, and as she examined her shewas conscious of a feeling of compassion, andperhaps also of curiosity. Although the stranger’scomplexion was naturally pallid, like that of aperson vowed to secret austerities, it was easy torecognize that some recent emotion had given heran extraordinary pallor. Her head-dress was sodisposed as to hide her hair—doubtless whitened[Pg 30]by age, since the neatness of the collar of herdress proclaimed that she did not use hair-powder.That article of adornment lent to her figure a sortof religious severity. Her features were graveand dignified. Formerly the manners and thehabitudes of people of quality were so differentfrom those of people belonging to the otherclasses that one easily divined a person of thenobility. So the young woman was herself persuadedthat the unknown was a member of theoutlawed nobility, and that she had belonged tothe court.

“Madame—” she said to her, involuntarily,and with respect, forgetting that this title wasproscribed.

The old lady did not respond. She held hereyes fixed upon the window of the shop, as if someterrifying object had there been descried.

“What is the matter, Citizeness?” asked theproprietor of the shop who reappeared at thatmoment.

The citizen pastry-cook aroused the lady fromher revery by handing to her a little pasteboardbox, covered with blue paper.

“Nothing, nothing, my friends,” she replied ina mild voice.

She raised her eyes to the pastry-cook as thoughto cast upon him a glance of gratitude; but upon[Pg 31]seeing him with a red bonnet upon his head, sheallowed a cry to escape her:

“Ah! you have betrayed me!”

The young woman and her husband replied bya gesture of horror which caused the Unknown toblush—perhaps for having suspicion, perhapsfrom pleasure.

“Excuse me,” she said, with a childlike gentleness.

Then, taking a louis d’or from her pocket, shepresented it to the pastry-cook.

“Here is the price agreed upon,” sheadded.

There is an indigence which the poor know howto divine. The pastry-cook and his wife lookedat each other and watched the old lady, while theyexchanged the same thought. That louis d’orseemed to be the last. The hands of the ladytrembled in offering that piece, which she lookedupon with sadness and without avarice, for sheseemed to realize the full extent of the sacrifice.Fasting and misery were graven upon that facein lines quite as legible as those of fear and herhabits of asceticism. There were in her garmentssome vestiges of magnificence: the silk wasthreadbare, the cloak neat though old-fashioned,the lace carefully mended—in short, the tattersof opulence! The tradespeople, placed between[Pg 32]pity and self-interest, commenced to solace theirconsciences by words:

“But Citizeness, you seem very feeble—”

“Perhaps Madame would like to take somerefreshment?” asked the woman, cutting thewords of her husband short.

“We are not so black as we are painted!” criedthe pastry-cook.

“It’s so cold! Madame was perhaps chilledby her walk? But you may rest here and warmyourself a little.”

Won by the tone of benevolence whichanimated the words of the charitable shopkeepers,the lady avowed that she had beenfollowed by a stranger, and that she was afraidto return home alone.

“It is no more than that?” replied the manwith the red hat. “Wait for me, Citizeness.”

He gave the louis to his wife; then, moved bythat species of restitution which glides into theconscience of a merchant when he has received anexorbitant price for merchandise of mediocrevalue, he went to put on his uniform of theNational Guard, took his chapeau, thrust hissabre into his belt, and reappeared under arms;but his wife had had time to reflect. As in manyother hearts, reflection closed the hand opened bybeneficence. Disturbed, and fearing to see her[Pg 33]husband in a bad affair, the pastry-cook’s wifeessayed to stop him by tugging at the skirt of hiscoat. But, obedient to a sentiment of charity, thebrave man offered to escort the old lady at once.

“It seems that the man who frightened theCitizeness is still prowling about the shop,” saidthe young woman nervously.

“I am afraid so,” artlessly replied the lady.

“If he should be a spy! If it should be a conspiracy!Don’t go; and take back from her thebox.”

These words, breathed into the ear of thepastry-cook by his wife, froze the impromptucourage which had possessed him.

“Eh’ I’ll just go out and say two words tohim, and rid you of him quickly,” cried thepastry-cook, opening the door and rushing out.

The old lady, passive as an infant, and almostdazed, reseated herself upon the chair. Thehonest merchant was not slow in reappearing;his face, naturally red, and still more flushed bythe heat of his oven, had suddenly become livid;such a great fright agitated him that his legstrembled and his eyes looked like those of adrunken man.

“Do you wish to have our heads cut off, miserablearistocrat?” he shrieked at her with fury.“Just show us your heels, never come back here[Pg 34]again, and don’t count any more on me to furnishyou the stuff for conspiracy.”

As he ejacul*ted these words, the pastry-cooktried to take from the old lady the little box whichshe had put in one of her pockets. But scarcelyhad the bold hands of the pastry-cook touchedher vestments than the Unknown, preferring toface the dangers of her way home without otherdefense than God, rather than to lose that whichshe had come to purchase, recovered the agilityof her youth; she darted toward the door, openedit abruptly, and disappeared before the eyes of thestupefied and trembling woman and her husband.

As soon as the Unknown found herself outside,she began walking rapidly; but her strength soonfailed her, for she heard the spy by whom she waspitilessly followed make the snow craunch underthe pressure of his heavy steps. She was obligedto stop—he stopped. She dared neither to speakto him nor to look at him, whether on account ofthe fear with which she was seized or from lack ofintelligence. She continued her way, walkingslowly; thereupon the man slackened his stepsso as to remain standing at a distance whichpermitted him to keep his eye upon her. Heseemed to be the very shadow of that old woman.Nine o’clock was striking when the silent couplerepassed in front of the church of Saint Laurent.[Pg 35]It is in the nature of all souls, even the mostinfirm, that a feeling of calm should succeed oneof violent agitation, for if our feelings are infinite,our organs are limited. And so the Unknown,not experiencing any harm from her supposedpersecutor, chose to see in him a secret friend,eager to protect her. She reconstructed all thecirc*mstances which had accompanied theStranger’s appearances, as if to find plausiblearguments for that consoling opinion, and shethen took pleasure in recognizing in him goodrather than evil intentions.

Forgetting the fright which that man had inspiredin the pastry-cook, she advanced with afirm step into the higher regions of the FaubourgSaint-Martin. After a half-hour of walking, shereached a house situated near the junction formedby the main street of the Faubourg and thatwhich leads to the Barrière de Pantin. Evento-day that spot is one of the most deserted of allParis. The north wind, passing over the ButtesChaumont and from Bellville, whistles athwartthe houses, or rather the hovels, scattered aboutin that almost uninhabited valley where thedividing lines are walls made of earth and bones.That desolate place seemed to be the naturalasylum of misery and despair. The man who hadpersisted in the pursuit of the poor creature who[Pg 36]had the hardihood to traverse those silent streetsat night seemed impressed by the spectacle presentedto his eyes. He rested pensively, standingand in an attitude of hesitation, in the feeble lightof a lantern whose uncertain rays with difficultypierced the mist.

Fear gave eyes to the old woman, who fanciedthat she could perceive something sinister in thefeatures of the Stranger. She felt her terrorsreawake, and profited by the sort of uncertaintywhich had retarded the man’s advance to glide inthe darkness toward the door of the lonely house.She pressed a spring, and disappeared like a ghost.

The Stranger, immobile, contemplated thathouse, which stood in some sort as the type of themiserable habitations of the quarter. Thatrickety hovel, built of rubble, was covered by acoat of yellow plaster, so deeply cracked that onethought to see it tumble before the least effort ofthe wind. The roof, of brown tiles and coveredwith moss, had so sunk in several places as tomake it seem likely to give way under the weightof the snow. Each floor there had three windows,whose sashes, rotted by dampness and disjointedby the action of the sun, announced that the coldmust penetrate into the room. That isolatedhouse resembled an old tower which time hadforgotten to destroy. A feeble light shone through[Pg 37]the windows which irregularly cleft the mansardroof by which the poor edifice was crowned, whileall the rest of the house was in complete obscurity.The old woman climbed, not without difficulty,the steep and rough staircase, whose length wassupplied with a rope in the guise of a baluster.She knocked mysteriously at the door of theapartment which she found in the attic, anddropped hastily upon a chair which an old manoffered her.

“Hide! hide yourself!” she said to him. “Althoughwe go out very rarely, our movements areknown, our footsteps are spied upon.”

“What is there new in that?” demandedanother old lady, seated beside the fire.

“The man who has been prowling aroundthe house since yesterday followed me to-night.”

At these words the three occupants of the atticregarded one another, allowing signs of profoundterror to appear on their faces. The old man wasthe least agitated of the three, perhaps becausehe was in the greatest danger. Under the weightof a great calamity, or under the yoke of persecution,a courageous man begins, so to say, bymaking the sacrifice of himself; he looks upon hisdays as just so many victories won back fromdestiny. The looks of the two women, fastened[Pg 38]upon this old man, made it easy to divine that hewas the sole object of their intense solicitude.

“Why despair of God, my sisters?” said he ina voice low but impressive. “We sang His praisesamid the cries which the assassins raised, and thegroans of the dying at the Carmelite convent.If He decreed that I should be saved from thatbutchery, it was doubtless in order to reserve mefor a destiny which I must accept without murmuring.God protects his own, He may disposeof them at His pleasure. It is of you, and not ofme, that we must think.”

“No,” said one of the old ladies; “what areour lives in comparison with that of a priest?”

“When once I found myself outside of theAbbey of Chelles, I considered myself as dead,”said that one of the two nuns who had not gone out.

“Here,” replied the one who had come in,handing the priest the little box, “here are thewafers.... But,” she cried, “I hear someone mounting the stairs!”

All three thereupon listened intently. Thesounds ceased.

“Do not be affrighted,” said the priest, “ifsome one should essay to enter. A person uponwhose fidelity we can count has undoubtedlytaken all needful measures to pass the frontier,and will come to seek the letters which I have[Pg 39]written to the Duc de Langeais and to the Marquisde Beauséant, asking them to consider themeans of rescuing you from this terrible country,from the death or the misery which awaits youhere.”

“You do not mean to go with us, then?” criedthe two nuns gently, manifesting a sort of despair.

“My place is where there are victims,” saidthe priest with simplicity.

They remained silent, and gazed at their companionwith devout admiration.

“Sister Martha,” he said, addressing the nunwho had gone to get the wafers, “that messengerI speak of will reply ‘Fiat voluntas’ to the word‘Hosanna.’”

“There is some one on the stairs!” cried theother nun, opening the door of a hiding-placeunder the roof.

This time they could easily hear, amid the mostprofound silence, the footsteps of a man resoundingupon the stairs, whose treads were coveredwith ridges made by the hardened mud. Thepriest crept with difficulty into a species of cupboard,and the nun threw over him somegarments.

“You may close the door, Sister Agatha,” saidhe in a muffled voice.

The priest was scarcely hidden before three taps[Pg 40]on the door gave a shock to the two saintlywomen, who consulted each other with theireyes, without daring to pronounce a single word.They each seemed to be about sixty years old.Separated from the world for forty years, theywere like plants habituated to the air of a hothouse,which wilt if they are taken from it. Accustomedto the life of a convent, they were nolonger able to conceive of any other. One morning,their grating having been shattered, theyshuddered to find themselves free. One can easilyimagine the species of artificial imbecility whichthe events of the Revolution had produced intheir innocent hearts. Incapable of reconcilingtheir conventual ideas with the difficulties of life,and not even comprehending their situation, theyresembled those children who have been zealouslycared for hitherto, and who, abandoned by theirmotherly protector, pray instead of weeping.And so, in face of the danger which they apprehendedat that moment, they remained mute andpassive, having no conception of any other defensethan Christian resignation.

The man who desired to enter interpreted thatsilence in his own manner. He opened the doorand appeared suddenly before them. The twonuns shuddered as they recognized the man whofor some time had been prowling about their house[Pg 41]and making inquiries about them. They remainedstock-still, but gazed at him with anxiouscuriosity, after the manner of savage children,who examine strangers in silence.

The man was tall and large; but nothing in hisdemeanor, in his air, nor in his physiognomyindicated an evil man. He imitated the immobilityof the nuns, and moved his eyes slowlyabout the room in which he found himself.

Two straw mats, laid upon boards, served thetwo nuns as beds. A single table was in themiddle of the room and upon it they had placeda copper candlestick, a few plates, three knives,and a round loaf of bread. The fire on the hearthwas meagre. A few sticks of wood piled in acorner attested the poverty of the two recluses.The walls, coated with an ancient layer of paint,proved the bad state of the roof, for stains likebrown threads marked the infiltrations of the rainwater.A relic, rescued doubtless from the pillageof the Abbey of Chelles, adorned the chimneymantel. Three chairs, two coffers, and a wretchedchest of drawers completed the furniture of theroom. A door beside the chimney allowed one toconjecture the existence of a second chamber.

The inventory of the cell was speedily made bythe person who had thrust himself under suchalarming auspices into the midst of that group.[Pg 42]A sentiment of commiseration painted itself uponhis face, and he cast a benevolent glance upon thetwo women, at least as embarrassed as they. Thesingular silence preserved by all three lasted buta short time, for the Stranger at last divined themoral simplicity and the inexperience of the twopoor creatures, and he said to them in a voicewhich he tried to soften: “I do not come here asan enemy, Citizenesses.”

He paused, and then resumed: “My sisters, ifthere should come to you any misfortune, believethat I have not contributed to it.... I have afavor to ask of you.”

They still maintained their silence.

“If I seem importunate, if ... I embarrassyou, tell me so freely.... I will go; but understandthat I am entirely devoted to you; that ifthere is any good office that I am able to renderyou, you may employ me without fear; and thatI alone, perhaps, am above the law, since there isno longer a king.”

There was such an accent of truth in thesewords that Sister Agatha, the one of the two nunswho belonged to the family of Langeais, andwhose manners seemed to say that she had formerlyknown the magnificence of fêtes and hadbreathed the air of the court, instantly pointedto one of the chairs, as if to ask their guest to be[Pg 43]seated. The Stranger manifested a sort of joymingled with sadness as he recognized thatgesture; and he waited until the two venerablewomen were seated, before seating himself.

“You have given shelter,” he continued, “to avenerable unsworn priest, who has miraculouslyescaped the massacre at the Carmelites.”

“Hosanna!” said Sister Agatha, interruptingthe Stranger, and gazing at him with anxiousinquiry.

“I don’t think that is his name,” he replied.

“But, monsieur,” said Sister Martha hastily,“we haven’t any priest here, and——”

“In that case, you must be more careful andmore prudent,” retorted the Stranger gently,reaching to the table and taking up a breviary.“I do not believe that you understand Latin,and——”

He did not continue, for the extraordinaryemotion depicted on the faces of the two poor nunsmade him feel that he had gone too far; they weretrembling, and their eyes were filled with tears.

“Reassure yourselves,” he said to them in acheery voice; “I know the name of your guest,and yours; and three days ago I was informed ofyour destination and of your devotion to thevenerable Abbé of——”

[Pg 44]

“Chut!” said Sister Agatha naïvely, puttingher finger to her lips.

“You see, my sisters, that if I had formed thehorrible design of betraying you, I might alreadyhave accomplished it more than once.”

When he heard these words, the priest emergedfrom his prison and reappeared in the middle ofthe room.

“I cannot believe, monsieur,” he said to theStranger, “that you can be one of our persecutors,and I have faith in you. What do you want ofme?”

The saintlike confidence of the priest, thenobility that shone in all his features, would havedisarmed assassins. The mysterious personagewho had enlivened that scene of misery and resignationgazed for a moment at the group formed bythese three; then he assumed a confidential tone,and addressed the priest in these words:

“Father, I have come to implore you tocelebrate a mortuary mass for the repose of thesoul of a—a consecrated person, whose body,however, will never repose in holy ground.”

The priest involuntarily shuddered. The twonuns, not understanding as yet of whom theStranger was speaking, stood with necks outstretched,and faces turned towards the twospeakers in an attitude of curiosity. The ecclesiastic[Pg 45]scrutinized the Stranger; unfeignedanxiety was depicted upon his face, and his eyesexpressed the most ardent supplication.

“Very well,” replied the priest; “to-night, atmidnight, return, and I shall be ready to celebratethe only funeral service which we can offer inexpiation of the crime of which you speak.”

The Stranger started; but a satisfaction, atonce gentle and solemn, seemed to triumph oversome secret grief. After having respectfullysaluted the priest and the two holy women, hedisappeared, manifesting a sort of mute gratitudewhich was comprehended by those three noblehearts.

About two hours after this scene the Strangerreturned, knocked discreetly at the attic door, andwas admitted by Mademoiselle de Beauséant,who conducted him into the second room of thatmodest retreat, where everything had been preparedfor the ceremony.

Between the flues of the chimney the two nunshad carried the old chest of drawers, whose decrepitoutlines were concealed beneath a magnificentaltar-cloth of green moiré silk. A largecrucifix of ebony and ivory was fastened upon theyellow wall, which served to emphasize its nakedness,and irresistibly drew the eye. Four littlefluttering wax-tapers, which the sisters had succeeded[Pg 46]in fixing upon that improvised altar bymeans of sealing wax, threw a light pale andsickly, which was reflected by the wall. Thatfeeble glow scarcely illuminated the rest of theroom, but by shedding its glory only over thoseholy things upon that unadorned altar, it seemeda ray from the torch of heaven. The floor wasdamp. The roof, which on two sides declinedabruptly, as in a loft, had several cracks, throughwhich passed an icy wind.

Nothing displayed less pomp, and yet perhapsnothing could have been more solemn than thatsad ceremony.

A profound silence that would have permittedthem to hear the faintest sound on distantthoroughfares diffused a sort of sombre majestyover that nocturnal scene. In short, the grandeurof the occasion contrasted so strongly with thepoverty of the surroundings that the result was asentiment of religious awe. On either side of thealtar, the two old nuns, kneeling on the dampfloor, heedless of the deadly moisture, prayed inconcert with the priest, who, clad in his pontificalvestments, prepared a golden chalice ornamentedwith precious stones, a consecrated vessel rescueddoubtless from the pillage of the Abbey of Chelles.Beside that pyx, a monument of royal magnificence,were the water and wine destined for the[Pg 47]sacrament, contained in two glasses scarcelyworthy of the lowest tavern. In default of amissal, the priest had placed his breviary on acorner of the altar. A common plate was providedfor the washing of those innocent hands, pure ofbloodshed. All was majestic, and yet paltry;poor, but noble; profane and holy at the sametime. The Stranger knelt piously between thetwo nuns. But suddenly, when he noticed a bandof crape on the chalice and on the crucifix—for,having nothing to indicate the purpose of thatmortuary mass, the priest had draped God Himselfin mourning—he was assailed by such anoverpowering memory that drops of sweatgathered upon his broad forehead. The foursilent actors in that scene gazed at one anothermysteriously; then their hearts, acting upon oneanother, communicated their sentiments to oneanother and flowed together into a single religiouscommiseration; it was as if their thoughts hadevoked the martyr whose remains had beendevoured by quicklime, and whose shade stoodbefore them in all its royal majesty. They celebratedan obit without the body of the deceased.Beneath those disjointed tiles and laths, fourChristians had come to intercede before God fora king of France, and perform his obsequies withouta bier. It was the purest of all possible devotions,[Pg 48]an astounding act of fidelity, accomplishedwithout a selfish thought. Doubtless, in the eyesof God, it was like the cup of cold water whichbalances the greatest virtues. The whole ofmonarchy was there, in the prayers of a priest andof two poor women; but perhaps also the Revolutionwas represented, by that man whose facebetrayed too much remorse not to cause a beliefthat he was fulfilling the vows of an immenserepentance.

In lieu of pronouncing the Latin words,“Introibo ad altare Dei,” etc., the priest, by adivine inspiration, looked at the three assistantswho represented Christian France, and said tothem, in order to efface the poverty of thatwretched place:

“We are about to enter into the sanctuary ofGod!”

At these words, uttered with an impressiveunction, a holy awe seized the assistant and thetwo nuns. Beneath the arches of St. Peter’s atRome God could not have appeared with moremajesty than He then appeared in that asylum ofpoverty, before the eyes of those Christians; sotrue is it that between man and Him every intermediaryseems useless, and that He derives Hisgrandeur from Himself alone. The fervor of theStranger was genuine, and so the sentiment which[Pg 49]united the prayers of those four servitors of Godand the king was unanimous. The sacred wordsrang out like celestial music amid the silence.There was a moment when tears choked theStranger; it was during the paternoster. Thepriest added to it this Latin prayer, which wasevidently understood by the Stranger: “Et remittescelus regicidis sicut Ludovicus eis remisit semetipse!(And pardon the guilt of the regicides evenas Louis himself forgave them!)”

The two nuns saw two great tears leave a humidtrace adown the manly cheeks of the Stranger,and fall upon the floor. The Office for the Deadwas recited. The Domine salvum fac regem,chanted in a deep voice, touched the hearts ofthose faithful royalists, who reflected that theinfant king, for whom at that moment they weresupplicating the Most High, was a prisoner in thehands of his enemies. The Stranger shuddered atthe thought that there might yet be committeda new crime, in which he would doubtless beforced to participate. When the funeral servicewas terminated, the priest made a sign to the twonuns, who retired. As soon as he found himselfalone with the Stranger, he walked towards himwith a mild and melancholy expression, and saidto him in a paternal voice:

“My son, if you have dipped your hands in the[Pg 50]blood of the martyr king, confess yourself to me.There is no sin which, in the eyes of God, may notbe effaced by repentance as touching and sincereas yours seems to be.”

At the first words pronounced by the ecclesiastic,the Stranger allowed an involuntary movementof terror to escape him; but he resumed acalm countenance, and regarded the astonishedpriest with assurance.

“Father,” he said to him in a perceptiblyaltered voice, “no one is more innocent than I ofbloodshed.”

“I am bound to believe you,” said the priest.

There was a pause, during which he examinedhis penitent more closely; then, persisting in takinghim for one of those timid members of theConvention who sacrificed an inviolable and consecratedhead in order to preserve their own, hecontinued in a solemn voice:

“Remember, my son, that it is not enough, inorder to be absolved from that great crime, notto have actually taken part in it. Those who,when they might have defended the king, lefttheir swords in the scabbard, will have a veryheavy account to render before the King of theHeavens.... Ah, yes!” added the old priest,shaking his head with an expressive movement,“yes, very heavy; for, by remaining idle, they[Pg 51]became the involuntary accomplices of thathideous crime.”

“Do you think,” demanded the stupefiedStranger, “that an indirect participation will bepunished?... The soldier who is ordered tojoin the shooting-squad, is he also culpable?”

The priest hesitated. Pleased with the dilemmain which he had placed that puritan of royalty byplanting him between the dogma of passive obedience,which, according to the partisans ofmonarchy, dominates the military codes, and theno less important dogma which consecrates therespect due to the persons of kings, the Strangerwas ready to see in the hesitation of the priest afavorable solution of the doubts by which heseemed to be tormented. Then, in order not toallow the venerable Jansenist any more time toreflect, he said to him:

“I should blush to offer you any sort of compensationfor the funeral service which you havecelebrated for the repose of the king’s soul andfor the relief of my conscience. One cannot payfor an inestimable thing except by an offeringwhich is also priceless. Deign, then, monsieur, toaccept the gift of a blessed relic which I offer you.A day will come, perhaps, when you will understandits value.”

As he said these words, the Stranger handed the[Pg 52]ecclesiastic a small box of light weight; the priesttook it involuntarily, so to speak, for thesolemnity of the man’s words, the tone in whichhe said them, and the respect with which hehandled the box, had plunged him into a profoundsurprise. They then returned to the room wherethe two nuns were awaiting them.

“You are,” said the Stranger, “in a housewhose owner, Mucius Scaevola, the plasterer whooccupies the first floor, is celebrated throughoutthe section for his patriotism; but he is secretlyattached to the Bourbons. He used to be a huntsmanof Monseigneur the Prince of Conti, and tohim he owes his fortune. If you do not go out ofhis house, you are in greater safety here than inany place else in France. Stay here. Devouthearts will attend to your necessities, and you mayawait without danger less evil times. A yearhence, on the twenty-first of January”—(inuttering these words he could not conceal aninvoluntary movement)—“if you continue toadopt this dismal place of asylum, I will return tocelebrate with you the expiatory mass.”

He said no more. He bowed to the silentoccupants of the attic, cast a last glance upon theevidences which testified of their indigence, andwent away.

To the two innocent nuns, such an adventure[Pg 53]had all the interest of a romance; and so, as soonas the venerable abbé informed them of themysterious gift so solemnly bestowed upon himby that man, the box was placed upon the tableand the three faces, unquiet, dimly lighted by thecandle, betrayed an indescribable curiosity.Mademoiselle de Langeais opened the box, andfound therein a handkerchief of very fine linen,drenched with perspiration; and, on unfolding it,they recognized stains.

“It is blood!” said the priest.

“It is marked with the royal crown!” cried theother nun.

The two sisters dropped the precious relic withhorror. To those two naïve souls the mystery inwhich the Stranger was enveloped became altogetherinexplicable; and as for the priest, fromthat day he did not even seek an explanation.

The three prisoners were not slow in perceivingthat in spite of the Terror a powerful arm wasstretched over them.

In the first place, they received some wood andsome provisions; then the two nuns realized thata woman must be associated with their protector,when some one sent them linen and clothing whichenabled them to go out without being remarked onaccount of the aristocratic fashion of the garmentswhich they had been forced to retain; and lastly,[Pg 54]Mucius Scaevola gave them two cards of citizenship.Often, advice necessary to the priest’ssafety reached him by devious ways; and hefound this advice so opportune that it could havebeen given only by one initiated in secrets of state.

Despite the famine which prevailed in Paris,the outcasts found at the door of their lodgingrations of white bread which were regularlybrought there by invisible hands; nevertheless,they believed that they could recognize in MuciusScaevola the mysterious agent of that benefaction,which was always as ingenious as it was discerning.The noble occupants of the attic could notdoubt that their protector was the person whohad come to ask the priest to celebrate the expiatorymass on the night of the twenty-second ofJanuary, 1793; so that he became the object ofa peculiar cult of worship to those three beings,who had no hope except in him, and lived onlythrough him. They had added special prayersfor him to their devotions; night and morningthose pious hearts lifted their voices for his happiness,for his prosperity, for his health, and supplicatedGod to deliver him from all snares, todeliver him from his enemies, and to accord him along and peaceable life. Their gratitude, renewedevery day, so to speak, was necessarily accompaniedby a sentiment of curiosity which became[Pg 55]more lively from day to day. The circ*mstanceswhich had accompanied the appearance of theStranger were the subject of their conversations;they formed a thousand conjectures regardinghim, and the diversion afforded them by theirthoughts of him was a benefaction of a new kind.They promised themselves not to allow theStranger to evade their friendship on the eveningwhen he should return, according to his promise,to commemorate the sad anniversary of the deathof Louis XVI.

That night, so impatiently awaited, came atlast. At midnight the sound of the Stranger’sheavy steps was heard on the old wooden staircase;the room had been arrayed to receive him,the altar was dressed. This time the sistersopened the door beforehand and both pressed forwardto light the stairway. Mademoiselle deLangeais even went down a few steps in order tosee her benefactor the sooner.

“Come,” she said to him in a tremulous andaffectionate voice, “come, we are waiting for you.”

The man raised his head, cast a sombre glanceupon the nun, and made no reply. She felt as if agarment of ice had fallen upon her, and she saidno more; at his aspect the gratitude and curiosityexpired in all their hearts. He was perhaps lesscold, less taciturn, less terrible, than he appeared[Pg 56]to those hearts, the exaltation of whose feelingsdisposed to outpourings of friendliness. Thethree poor prisoners, understanding that the mandesired to remain a Stranger to them, resignedthemselves. The priest fancied that he detectedupon the Stranger’s lips a smile that was promptlyrepressed the moment he saw the preparationsthat had been made to receive him. He heardthe mass, and prayed; but he disappeared afterhaving responded negatively to a few words ofpolite invitation upon the part of Mademoisellede Langeais to partake of the little collation theyhad prepared.

After the ninth of Thermidor, the nuns and theAbbé de Marolles were able to go about Pariswithout incurring the least danger. The firsterrand of the old priest was to a perfumer’s shop,at the sign of La Reine des Fleurs, kept by Citizenand Citizeness Ragon, formerly perfumers to theCourt, who had remained faithful to the royalfamily, and of whose services the Vendeansavailed themselves to correspond with the princesand the royalist committee in Paris. The abbé,dressed according to the style of that epoch, wasstanding on the doorstep of that shop, betweenSaint-Roch and Rue des Frondeurs, when a crowdwhich filled the Rue Saint-Honoré prevented himfrom going out.

[Pg 57]

“What is it?” he asked Madame Ragon.

“It is nothing,” she replied; “just the tumbriland the executioner, going to the Place Louis XV.Ah, we saw him very often last year; but to-day,four days after the anniversary of the twenty-firstof January, we can look at that horrible processionwithout distress.”

“Why so?” said the abbé. “It is not Christian,that which you say.”

“Eh, it’s the execution of the accomplices ofRobespierre. They defended themselves as longas they could, but they’re going now themselveswhere they have sent so many innocents.”

The crowd passed like a flood. Over the sea ofheads, the Abbé de Marolles, yielding to an impulseof curiosity, saw standing on the tumbrilthe man who, three days before, had listened tohis mass.

“Who is that?” he said, “that man who——”

“That is the headsman,” replied MonsieurRagon, calling the executioner of the great by hismonarchical name.

“My friend, my friend,” cried Madame Ragon,“monsieur l’abbé is fainting!”

And the old woman seized a phial of salts, inorder to bring the old priest to himself.

“Without doubt he gave me,” said he, “thehandkerchief with which the King wiped his brow[Pg 58]when he went to his martyrdom.... Poorman! ... That steel knife had a heart, whenall France had none!”

The perfumers thought that the unhappy priestwas delirious.

That there is a real distinction between ashort-story in French and a French short-story,Ludovic Halévy’s fictional work illustratesperfectly, for in theme, tone, and treatment it isFrench. More specifically still, it is Parisian. AsProfessor Brander Matthews observes in hisdiscerning introduction to Parisian Points ofView, a collection of our author’s stories, “CardinalNewman once said that while Livy andTacitus and Terence and Seneca wrote Latin,Cicero wrote Roman; so while M. Zola on the oneside, and M. Georges Ohnet on the other, maywrite French, M. Halévy writes Parisian.” Hiswas indeed the Parisian point of view, his thesympathetic understanding of the pursuits, thetemperament, the ideals, of the dwellers in theCapital of Europe.

One service above others Halévy rendered tohis Paris: while so many writers have given anunfortunate though piquant character to theFrench short-story by depicting chiefly the rouéand the woman of easy manners, the vulgarmoney-king and the broken-down noble, thecomplacent pander and the sordid tradesman ofParis, this writer mostly chose to depict other[Pg 60]types. He knew the gay city as few other writersof his day knew it, yet nearly all of his littlefictions may be read aloud in a mixed company.The explanation of this wholesome spirit is simple—unlikethe others, Halévy had not come upfrom the provinces with eyes ready to pop out atthe city sights. From boyhood he knew all sidesof Parisian life, and saw things in correct perspective,so he did not interpret light-heartednessto be lightness, nor gayety to be abandon.All sorts and conditions of men move in his stories,but the vicious, the sensual, the mean, are no moreprominent in the Paris he paints than they are inthe real Paris—and that means that they existin much the same numerical proportion as in anyother metropolis.

Halévy’s life does not lend itself to anecdote,for it lacked stirring events, yet his every largestep marked a specific advance in his work.

On the first day of January, 1834, he was bornin Paris, of Hebrew parents. His father, LéonHalévy, had attained to some distinction as apoet, and his uncle, Fromental Halévy, was notonly director of singing at the Opera, but a celebratedcomposer as well. Upon completing hisformal education at the lycée Louis-le-Grand, theyouth entered the civil service in the Ministry ofState, in six years rose to be chef de bureau at the[Pg 61]Colonial Office, and finally became editor of thepublications of the Legislative Corps. In thesepublic offices he gained that inside view of officiallife which is apparent in his works.

Very early Halévy began to know the theatre,for through his uncle’s influence he was as ayoungster of fourteen on the free-list of the principaltheatres of Paris. Scarcely was he a manbefore he began the writing of numberless booksfor operas, burlesques, and dramas, the materialsfor which he had been gathering while meetingtheatrical people of all grades. By and by someof these were published, some were acted, and atlength he enjoyed a vogue. In collaboration withHenri Meilhac he wrote a number of opera books,notably La Belle Hélène, Blue-Beard, The Grand-duch*essof Gerolstein, The Brigands (all withmusic by Offenbach), Carmen (founded onMérimée’s story), with music by Bizet, and TheLittle Duke, with music by Lecocq. These brightoperettas and operas are typical of that mockingand practical spirit of the Second Empire whichlaughed away the old ideals with a zest worthyof a nobler occupation. His heavier play, Frou-Frou,though well known about a generation ago,is not so meritorious as his dramatic skits andsketches.

But Halévy’s work for the stage bore heavily[Pg 62]upon his later success, for when he left thedramatic field to give almost exclusive service tothe novel and shorter fiction, he by no meansforgot the training of the earlier period. Alwayshis understanding of the people of the stage isapparent. In many a tale these folk appear, andnever is the hand that leads them forward ungentle,even when the words of the introducer aretinged with irony.

As for form, it is not especially in his plot-structurethat we see traces of Halévy’s trainingin the drama, for he seldom emphasizes plot atall. But when he does depart from his favoritesketch form to attempt the short-story, he stillwrites simply; and so inevitably do the incidentssucceed one another that there scarcely seems tobe even a plot. Halévy’s early apprenticeshipto the drama is most clearly seen, however, in hisprecision of outline, clear characterization, senseof dramatic values, unerring climax, and suppressionof needless details.

Halévy took an active part in the Franco-PrussianWar, vivid impressions of which he hasgiven us in Notes and Memories and The Invasion—volumeswhich are half chronicle, half story-telling,and wholly delightful. After the catastropheof Sedan, his fictional work dealing withtheatrical folk began to appear. Madame Cardinal[Pg 63](1870), Monsieur Cardinal (1871), The LittleCardinals (1880), and Criquette (1883), are notreally novels, but connected stories and sketches,giving a panorama of people and affairs theatrical—naturally,not of the loftiest tone. Halévy hasdrawn no more vivid characters than the Cardinals,father and mother, with their comedyanxiety as to the immoralities of their youngballet-dancing daughters, Pauline and Virginie,whose love affairs are portrayed with gayety andcomical reality. The little Criquette is an actresswho makes her début at the Theatre Porte-Saint-Martin.About this interesting centralfigure flit a score of perfect types of player-folk—clown,provincial manager, ardent young actor,the demi-mondaine actress, authors, chorus girls,and all the rest. Criquette is Halévy’s longesttale, and shows the sketch-artist and raconteurat his best.

But American readers doubtless know LudovicHalévy most affectionately by his “Abbé Constantin,”which has gone through more than onehundred and fifty editions in France, besidesnumberless printings in other lands. In its firstyear of issue, 1882, at least thirty-five editionswere required to meet the demand. It is a novelettein length, and a simple story in plot. Charming,ingenuous, idyllic, popular with all classes,[Pg 64]it is a refreshing breath from rural France. Thelarge estate of Longueval, comprising the castleand its dependencies, two fine farms and a forest,is announced for sale at auction. The AbbéConstantin, a warm-hearted, genial, self-sacrificingpriest, quite the typical Abbé of romance—“aCuré, neither young, nor gloomy, nor stern; aCuré with white hair, and looking kind andgentle”—has been for three decades the villagepriest. He is disconsolate at the thought that allhis associations must be broken up, and is all themore distressed when he hears that an Americanmillionaire has bought the property. LieutenantJean Renaud, his godson, the orphaned son of theAbbé’s old friend, the village doctor, is about tosit down at meat with the old priest when twoladies arrive—the wife of the millionaire purchaserof Longueval, Mrs. Scott, and her sister,Miss Bettina Percival. How these bright andfascinating women win the heart of the benevolentpriest, and adapt themselves to their newsurroundings, and how Lieutenant Jean and MissBettina find their happiness, furnish the incidentsfor this crystal little romance.

“A Marriage for Love” (1881) is the mostpopular of Halévy’s longer short-stories. Ayoung French officer marries a well-bred andingenuous girl. Soon each discovers that the[Pg 65]other has kept a diary from childhood. Thinkingthat the declarations of love which she seeswritten in her husband’s journal refer to someother woman, the young wife cries out, but isconsoled by his protests, and it is agreed thatthey shall read aloud passages from their owndiaries, turn about. With all the naïveté whichit seems the special province of English eighteenth-centuryand French nineteenth-centurywriters to depict, these young people disclose inthis fashion the birth and growth of their mutuallove. A simple story enough, yet refreshing inthe midst of so many Gallic records of maritalinfidelity.

Of Halévy’s shorter stories several stand out inparticular. “Princess” tells with admirabledirectness how “the bourgeois heroine ...contrives to escape the lawyers ... andmarry a real prince.” “A Grand Marriage” isthe equally uncomplicated narrative of how thebetrothal of an alert young Parisienne is arrangedby her parents, with the clever and worldly-wiseassistance of the prospective bride.

“The Most Beautiful Woman in Paris” is morea study than a story, yet the firmly wrought,breezy narrative style of the author is here at itsbest. The story runs that a social connoisseur,Prince Agénor, upon seeing at the Opera the wife[Pg 66]of a lawyer, pronounces her to be the most beautifulwoman in Paris. Then ensue flattering newspapernotices, the inflamed ambition of the advertisedbeauty, costly gowns, a new coupé—allthat madame may appear fittingly at a socialfunction at which it is announced that she is toappear, as well as the Prince. Madame doesappear, but she is neglected because the Princeforgets to come to make her acquaintance—hehas already found another “most beautifulwoman in Paris.” The author’s narration islively, as always, and his social observation confidentand minute, while his characteristic, playfulirony is second only to that of another uniquestory, “The Chinese Ambassador.”

In this we have as a motif the unsettled politicalconditions existing at the close of the Franco-PrussianWar. The story is told with delightfulhumor, in diary form, by a Chinese AmbassadorExtraordinary who has been sent to France andEngland with rich presents to placate the Frenchand English governments, and also to arrangeofficial reparation, for the massacre of some foreignresidents in China. Then follow a series of confusions.There is no longer an Emperor in France,there are three rival French Republics, and anothercoup d’état seems imminent. So the Ambassador,not knowing whom to approach, keeps the[Pg 67]presents, and waits. Soon he goes to England,where he meets the Queen. She accepts theapologies as well as the presents, but in conversationwith some French women at a social functionin London he finds that there are three claimantsto the French throne, Napoleon III, the Dukeof Orleans, and the Count of Paris—all in exile—tosay nothing of the three rival presidents, Gambetta,Thiers, and Favre. He is again much indoubt as to which to approach with his mission,as he receives such contrary advice from allquarters. Upon his return to Paris, however, hefinds the government has again changed itscapitol, and that a seventh government is in theascendancy—the Commune. When he learnsthat Paris is burning, he concludes that it is “adead, destroyed, and annihilated city.” In twoweeks, however, order is restored, and the Ambassadordecides that it is still the most beautifulcity in Europe, and the most brilliant, for theRepublic of M. Thiers is now undisputed. Tohim he delivers his mission.

“The Story of a Ball Dress” is couched in anold form—the ball dress tells its own story; butwe have a kaleidoscopic picture of the change ofaffairs before, during, and after the war—thatwar which plays so large a part in the writings ofboth Daudet and Halévy.

[Pg 68]

“The Insurgent,” first published in 1872,follows, in translation. It is without doubtLudovic Halévy’s most intense and dramaticshort narrative, yet none is more simply told.In this expanded anecdote the writer actuallybecomes the Insurgent, and so vigorous, so sympathetic,is the portraiture that every word comessincerely and naturally from the soul of thespeaker. Halévy does not speak as such a onewould—he is the Insurgent—life, breath, andword. It is a miracle of compression—not thecompression of conscious literary art, but thetense, naïve, open brevity of one who has no embroideriesfor his words, no masks for his sentiment,no apologies for his acts, but goes, as withthe cleavage of an axe, straight to the heart ofwhat he means. Yet with all of this brusk,speedy simplicity, abrupt, halting and rudelyfrank in style, there is a note of poignant pathosat the close that leaves the eye misty and theheart warm.

In no one of Halévy’s stories do we see so clearlythe application of his robust, sincere literarycreed as confessed in his own words:

“We must not write simply for the refined, theblasé, and the squeamish. We must write for thatman who goes there on the street with his nose inhis newspaper and his umbrella under his arm.[Pg 69]We must write for that fat, breathless womanwhom I see from my window, as she climbs painfullyinto the Odéon omnibus. We must writecourageously for the bourgeois, if it were only totry to refine them, to make them less bourgeois.And if I dared, I should say that we must writeeven for fools.”

[Pg 70]

(L’INSURGÉ)

By Ludovic Halévy

Done into English by the Editor

“Prisoner,” said the president of the court-martial,“have you anything to add in yourdefense?”

“Yes, my colonel,” responded the accused;“you have given me a little advocate who hasdefended me according to his idea. I want todefend myself according to my own.

“My name is Martin—Louis Joseph; I amfifty-five years old. My father was a locksmith.He had a little shop in the upper part of the FaubourgSaint-Martin and did a small business. Wejust about lived. I learned to read in Le National,which was, I believe, the paper of MonsieurThiers.

“The 27th of July, 1830, my father went outearly in the morning. That evening at ten o’clockthey brought him back to us dying on a litter.He had received a bullet in the chest. By his sideupon the litter was his musket.

“‘Take it,’ he said to me; ‘I give it to you,and every time there is to be an insurrection, be[Pg 72]against the government—always! always!always!’

“An hour afterward he was dead. I went outin the night. At the first barricade I stopped andoffered myself. A man examined me by thelight of a lantern. ‘A child!’ he cried. I wasnot yet fifteen. I was very small, quite undersized.I answered: ‘A child, that’s possible;but my father was killed about two hours ago.He gave me his musket. Teach me how to use it.’

“Starting with that moment, I became what Ihave been always, for forty years: an insurgent!If I fought during the Commune, it was neitherfrom compulsion nor for the thirty sous, it wasfrom taste, from pleasure, from habit, fromroutine.

“In 1830, I bore myself rather bravely at theattack on the Louvre. That gamin who—thefirst—climbed the iron fence under the bullets ofthe Swiss—that was I. I received the medal ofJuly; but the bourgeoisie gave us a king. Everythinghad to be done over again. I joined a secretsociety, I learned to mould bullets, to makepowder. In short, I completed my education—andI waited.

“I had to wait nearly two years. The 5th ofJune, 1832, at midday, before the Madeleine, Ibegan by unhitching one of the horses from the[Pg 73]hearse of General Lamarque. I passed the dayshouting, ‘Vive Lafayette!’ and the night in makingbarricades. The next morning we wereattacked by the soldiers. That afternoon towardsfour o’clock we were pocketed, cannonaded, firedupon with grape-shot, crushed, in the Church ofSt. Méry. I had a bullet and three bayonetthrusts in my body when I was picked up by thesoldiers on the flag-stones of a little chapel on theright—the chapel of St. John. I used often toreturn to that little chapel—not to pray, I wasnot brought up in those ideas—but to see thetrace of my blood which is still marked upon thestones.

“Because of my youth, I got only ten years inprison. I was sent to Mont-Saint-Michel. Thatwas why I didn’t take any part in the uprisings of1834. If I had been free, I should have beenfighting in the Rue Transnonian as I had foughtin the Rue St. Méry. Against the government—always!—always!—always!That was the last word of my father, that was my gospel, myreligion! I called that my catechism in six words.I got out of prison in 1842 and again I began towait.

“The revolution of ’48 made itself—withouthelp. The bourgeoisie were stupid and cowardly.They were neither for us nor against us. The[Pg 74]City Guards alone defended themselves. Wehad a little trouble in capturing the post of theChâteau-d’Eau. The evening of the 24th ofFebruary I stayed three or four hours on the Placede l’Hôtel-de-Ville. The members of the ProvisionalGovernment one after another madespeeches to us, said to us that we were ‘heroes,’‘noble citizens,’ ‘the first people of the world;’that we had shaken off the yoke of tyranny.After having regaled us with these fine words,they gave us a republic which wasn’t any betterthan the monarchy which we had tumbled to theground.

“In June I took up my musket again—but thattime things were not successful. I was arrested,condemned, sent to Cayenne. It seems that outthere I behaved myself well. One day I saved acaptain of marines who was drowning. Theythought that very fine. Notice that I would verycheerfully have shot at that captain—if he hadbeen on one side of a barricade and I on the other;but a man who is drowning, who is dying——. Inshort, I received my pardon. I got back to Francein 1852, after the Coup d’État. I had missed theinsurrection of 1851.

“At Cayenne I had made a friend, a tailornamed Bernard. Six months after my departurefor France, Bernard died. I went to see his[Pg 75]widow. She was in destitution. I married her.We had a son in 1854. You will understand allin good time why I speak of my wife and of myson. Only, you ought already to suspect that aninsurgent who marries the widow of an insurgentdoes not have royalist children.

“Under the Empire, nothing was going on.The police held a firm grip. We were dispersed,disarmed. I worked, I brought up my son in theideas that my father had given me. The waitwas long—Rochefort, Gambetta, public reunions;all those things put us in motion again.

“On the first serious occasion I showed myself.I was of that little band that assaulted the barracksof the firemen of Villette. Only, there astupid thing was done. They killed a firemanunnecessarily. I was taken, thrown into prison;but the government of the Fourth of Septemberset us free—from which I concluded that we haddone quite right in attacking that barracks andin killing that fireman, even unnecessarily.

“The siege commenced. At once I was againstthe government, and for the Commune. Imarched against the Hôtel-de-Ville on the 31stof October and the 22d of January. I loved revoltfor the sake of revolt. An insurgent, I told youat the start, I am an insurgent. I cannot see aclub without joining it, an insurrection without[Pg 76]running after it, a barricade without bringing mypaving-stone to it. That goes with my blood.

“And then, besides, I wasn’t altogetherignorant, and I said to myself: ‘We only need tosucceed some day, clear to the foundations, andthen in our turn we shall be the government andthings will go a little better than with all theselawyers who get behind us during the battle, andwho pass ahead of us after the victory.’

“The 18th of March came, and naturally I wasin it. I cried ‘Hurrah for the military!’ I fraternizedwith the soldiers. I went to the Hôtel-de-Ville.I found there a government at work—absolutelyas on the 24th of February.

“Now you tell me that that insurrection wasnot legitimate. That’s possible, but I don’t quitesee why. I begin to be muddled, I do, betweenthese insurrections which are a duty and thoseinsurrections which are a crime! I do not clearlysee the difference.

“I fired on the Versailles troops in 1871, as Ifired on the Royal Guards in 1830, and on theCity Guards in 1848. After 1830 I received themedal of July. After 1848, the compliments ofMonsieur Lamartine. This time, I’m going tohave transportation or death.

“There are some insurrections that please you.You raise columns to them, you give their names[Pg 77]to streets, you distribute among yourselves theoffices, the promotions, the big salaries; and weothers, who made the revolution, you call us—noblecitizens, heroes, a nation of brave men, etc.,etc. It is with such money that we are paid.

“And then, there are some other insurrectionsthat displease you. As a result of those, youdistribute to us exile, transportation, death.Well, see here: if you hadn’t paid us so manycompliments after the first, perhaps we would nothave done the last. If you had not raised theColumn of July at the entrance to our quarter,perhaps we should not have gone to demolish theVendôme Column in your quarter. Those twopenny-trumpets were not in harmony. The onehad to discord with the other, and that is whatcame about.

“Now, I am going to tell you why I threw awaymy captain’s uniform at the street corner on the26th of May, why I was in a blouse when I wasarrested. When I learned that these gentlemenof the Commune, instead of coming to fire with usupon the barricades, were distributing thousand-francnotes to themselves at the Hôtel-de-Ville,shaving their beards, dyeing their hair, and goingto hide themselves in caves, I didn’t wish to keepthe shoulder-straps they had given me.

“Besides, they embarrassed me, those shoulder[Pg 78]straps. ‘Captain Martin,’ that was silly. ‘InsurgentMartin,’ quite as it should be. I wantedto end as I had begun, to die as my father haddied, an insurrectionist in an insurrection, a barricaderin a barricade.

“I couldn’t get myself killed. I got taken. Ibelong to you. Only, I wish you would do me onefavor. I have a son, a child of seventeen, he is atCherbourg, on the hulks. He has fought, it istrue, and he will not deny it; but it was I whoput the musket in his hand, it was I who told himthat his duty was there. He listened to me. Heobeyed me. That alone is his crime. Do notcondemn him too harshly.

“As for me, you have hold of me—do not letme go; that’s the advice I give you. I’m too oldto mend, and, besides, what would you have?Nothing can change what is: I was born on thewrong side of the barricade.”

André Theuriet was evidently in sympathywith the doctrine that those landsand their dwellers are most happy which have theleast history. Singular as the statement mayseem when made of a contemporary French manof letters who had defeated Zola in a contest forelection to the Academy, it is nevertheless truethat the tone of Theuriet’s work is repose. “Theshort and simple annals of the poor” he pennedwith simplicity and charm, and rarely did thehurly-burly tempt him to fare among scenes eitherboisterous or sordid. Yet, he was never squeamish,but wrote of a real life in a real world. WhatAlphonse Daudet became when he occasionallyleft fevered Paris to lie on the turf at Montaubanand feel in fancy the gentle fanning of the oldwindmill, that André Theuriet was by temperament.The bucolic, the gentle, the peaceful—allmet response in his nature and were mirrored inthe placid pool of his fiction.

Theuriet was born at Marly-le-Roi, September,1833, and spent his childhood in that lovelyprovince. He got his education at Bar-le-duc,and at Paris, where he took up the study of law,receiving the degree of Licencée en Droit at the age[Pg 80]of twenty-four. Instead of practising, however,he entered the Ministry of Finance the same year,and began the routine of public life—as the intenselyprivate career of the bureaucrat is called.

At once he began to publish verse, winning aplace, the very year of his appointment to theMinistry of Finance, in the pages of that distinguishedexponent of letters, the Revue des DeuxMondes. In Memoriam was the title of his firstsuccess—a romance in verse, quickly appraisedby critics at a value which it still maintains, anddisplaying the qualities for which the author’swritings are appreciated to-day.

We never tire of debating as to whether distinguishedmen are more the product of theirtimes, than their era is moulded by its men.Doubtless something of both views is the ultimatetruth. Theuriet, however, left no profoundinfluence upon his age. During the ten yearswhich succeeded the publication of In Memoriam—1857to 1867—his work continued, unaffectedby the French revolt, if that is not too strong aterm, against romanticism. This is shown in hisfirst volume of poems, The Forest Path (Le Chemindu Bois), published in 1867, and awarded theVitel prize by the Academy. Another ten years,and he received the coveted place among theImmortals, but the tone of his writings never[Pg 81]changed—his was always a quiet romanticismclothed upon with the beauty of idealism.

Theuriet’s selection of themes is a happy indexto his nature. The one and the other are clean,uncomplicated by intrigue, and in the main agreeable.Are there many to-day who will beattracted to this man when his fiction is calledrestful and gentle? I do not know, since we areall so busy and turbulent and—disillusioned.But we ought to be, if we are not, drawn bythoughts of a melodious rhythm of words portrayinghonest emotions, of country life thatexhales the “perfume of new hay and of ripewheat,” of woodsy ways and forest folk—in aword, thoughts of a world where, as in LaBretonne, the lowliest respond to human need,and even crime cannot stamp out the image of thebeautiful, a world full of goodness rising out ofthe ooze of evil.

And so it was country-life—country-life inLorraine, enriched and made beautiful by theLoire—that inspired not only his early poems,but also the numerous novels, plays, sketches,and short-stories which stand to his credit—andI use the word designedly.

After a notable if not brilliant career as authorand journalist, Theuriet died in Paris, 1897.

Relatively little of Theuriet’s work is known to[Pg 82]readers who know not French, but of this littleprobably the long short-story, “The AbbéDaniel,” is the most familiar. It is in the styleof Ludovic Halévy’s “Abbé Constantin,” and ofabout the same length—a little classic of “politerusticity,” of pastoral love, sorrow, loss, andhappiness, limpid in style and artisticallybalanced in structure.

The plot is simple: Young Daniel loves hisbeautiful cousin Denise, but she marries Beauvais,the rough, hearty, typical bourgeois landed proprietor.A daughter is born—a second Denise—butthe mother does not long survive. YoungDaniel has entered the church and become “TheAbbé Daniel.” His simple goodness leads him toadopt an orphaned lad, whom he cherishes as hewould his own. One day the Abbé finds littleDaniel, as he is called, feeding a threshingmachine. In terror for the child’s danger, theAbbé shows his friends what the lad was doing,and the loss of his own arm is the penalty. Henow resigns his parish and goes to live with thewidowed father of the little Denise and assumescharge of her education, lavishing upon the childthe affection he was forbidden to give to hermother. The children learn to love each other,but young Daniel goes away to the Crimean Warand seems to forget. Meanwhile, Beauvais plans[Pg 83]to marry his daughter Denise to a worthy youngnobody of means, but the loving Abbé sends forhis protégé, who promptly returns on leave, andthe end is not difficult to surmise.

All this brief narration is but sketching theframe and omitting the picture, for who can feelthe charm of the simple but never insipid storywhen it is bereft of the witchery of Theuriet’sstyle! It is worth while knowing at first hand areal French home, with the farmer-father, thedaughter, the young soldier, and the Abbé Daniel.

That there are not many “intense thrills forjaded readers” in Theuriet’s straightforward workwill be further illustrated by a reading of hisnovels—Mademoiselle Guignon, Aunt Aurelia,Claudette, The Maugars, Angela’s Fortune, andothers—with which we have not here to deal;but it will also be quite evident in the simplicity ofhis shorter fiction, which must now be considered.

“An Easter Story” tells of Juanito, an orphanboy of fifteen. Like a weed on the pavement ofTriana, he had grown up. Gipsy blood flowedin his veins and, like the gipsies, he loved hisindependence, vagrancy, and bull-fights. Heearned a poor enough living by selling programmesat the doors of the theatres, but duringHoly Week the theatres were closed, and nowGood Friday finds him unhappy—for he has no[Pg 84]money to go to the bull-fight on Easter Sunday!However, he follows the crowd until, tired andhungry, he lies down in a corner and sleeps. Twolovers pass. They put into the hand of the prettyyouth a piece of silver, and so when he awakeshis problem is solved. But as he starts down thestreet he sees a girl crying. He goes to her. It isChata, whom he has known since childhood. Hermother is sick, she says, and the apothecary willnot give her medicine because she has no money.Juanito looks into the girl’s eyes, hesitates amoment, then quickly puts into her hand thepiece of silver. So Juanito did not see the bull-fight.

On Sunday Chata goes out to find her friend,and they go for a walk. Coming to a secludedcorner, the girl looks into the young man’s eyesto thank him. But suddenly, moved by thesweetness of his deed, she throws her arms abouthis neck and cries, “I love you!”

Human interest—tenderness rather thanstrength—marks all Theuriet’s short fictions.“Little Gab” is quite without plot, which meansthat its delicacy defies condensed narration. Itis a sympathetic sketch of a small hunchbackwhose parents are too hard-pressed in theirstruggle with poverty to look after the boy. Thephysician tells Little Gab’s sister that only the[Pg 85]sea air and the baths at Berck can save herbrother’s life. Through the unceasing labors andsavings of the sister, this is at last accomplished,and both are on the heights of joy. The changeis magical, and the lad returns with some prospectof recovery; but the dense air of the city is toomuch for Little Gab, and he dies still thinking ofthe beautiful sea.

Less tragic, but quite as simple in scheme, is“The Peaches,” which narrates how Herbelot isteased out of the service of the Ministry of Financeby being detected carrying home for his wife twopeaches concealed in his hat.

Though its tone is not entirely typical ofTheuriet, La Bretonne—which follows, in translation—isprobably his most dramatic story,revealing, as it does, the good that lives in theworst of us.

[Pg 86]

By André Theuriet

Done into English by the Editor

One evening in November, the Eve of SaintCatherine, the iron gate of the CentralPrison of Auberive turned on its hinges andallowed a woman of about thirty years to pass out.She was clad in a faded woollen gown, and herhead was surmounted by a bonnet of linen that inan odd fashion framed her face—pallid and puffedby that grayish fat which is born of prison fare.

She was a prisoner whom they had justliberated. Her fellow-convicts called her LaBretonne. Condemned for infanticide, it was justsix years since the prison van had brought her tola Centrale. At length, after having donned againher street clothes, and drawing from the registrythe stock of money which had been saved for her,she found herself once more free, with her road-passviséed for Langres.

The post-cart for Langres had left; so, cowedand awkward, she directed her way stumblinglytoward the principal inn of the place, and inscarcely a confident voice asked a lodging for thenight. The inn was full, and the landlady, who[Pg 88]did not care to harbor “one of those jail-birds,”advised her to push on as far as the little public-housesituated at the other end of the village.

La Bretonne, more awkward and frightenedthan ever, went on her way, and knocked at thedoor of the public-house, which, to speak precisely,was only a drinking place for laborers.This proprietress also cast over her a distrustfuleye, doubtless scenting a woman from la Centrale,and finally turned her away on the pretense thatshe did not keep lodgers. La Bretonne dared notinsist, she merely moved away with her headdown, while from the depths of her soul arose asullen hate against this world which so repulsedher.

She had no other recourse than to travel toLangres on foot.

In late November night comes quickly. Soonshe found herself enveloped in darkness, on thegray road which stretched between the edges ofthe woods, and where the north wind whistledrudely as it drove the heaps of dead leaves hitherand yon.

After six years of sedentary life as a recluse,she no longer knew how to walk; and the jointsof her knees were rickety; her feet, accustomedto sabots, were tortured in her new shoes. Afterabout a league they were blistered, and she herself[Pg 89]was exhausted. She sat down on a milestone,shivering and asking herself if she must die of coldand hunger in this black night, under that icywind which so chilled her.

Suddenly, in the solitude of the road, over thesqualls of wind she seemed to hear the trailingsounds of a voice in song. She strained her earsand distinguished the cadence of one of thosecaressing and monotonous chants with which onelulls children to sleep. Thereupon, rising againto her feet, she pressed on in the direction of thevoice, and at the turn of a cross-road she saw alight which reddened through the branches.

Five minutes later she reached a mud hovel,whose roof, covered with clods of earth, leanedagainst the rock, and whose single window hadsent forth that luminous ray. With anxious heartshe decided to knock. The song ceased and apeasant opened the door—a woman of the sameage as la Bretonne, but already faded and aged bywork. Her bodice, torn in places, showed a roughand swarthy skin; her red hair escaped dishevelledfrom under a little cloth cap; her grayeyes regarded with amazement this strangerwhose figure revealed something of loneliness.

“Well, good evening,” said she, raising higherthe lamp which she held in her hand. “What doyou want?”

[Pg 90]

“I can go no further,” murmured la Bretonnein a voice broken by a sob. “The town is far, andif you will lodge me for this night, you’ll renderme a service. I have some money, and will payyou for your trouble.”

“Come in!” replied the other, after a momentof hesitation; then she continued in a tone moreof curiosity than of suspicion, “Why didn’t yousleep at Auberive?”

“They were not willing to lodge me”—and,lowering her blue eyes, la Bretonne, seized with ascruple, added—“because, you see, I come fromthe Central Prison, and that does not give folksconfidence.”

“Ah! Come in all the same. I, who never knewanything but poverty—I fear nothing! I have aconscience against turning a Christian from thedoor on a night like this. I’ll go make you a bedby strewing some heather.”

She proceeded to take from under a shed severalbundles of dry sweet-heather and spread them ina corner before the chimney.

“You live here alone?” timidly asked la Bretonne.

“Yes, with my youngster, who is nearly sevenyears old. I earn our living by working in thewoods.”

“Your man is dead?”

[Pg 91]

“I never had one,” said la Fleuriotte bruskly.“The poor child hasn’t any father. As the sayingis, ‘to each his sorrow.’ There, your bed is made,and here are two or three potatoes which are leftover from supper—it’s all I have to offer you.”

She was interrupted by a childish voice comingfrom a dark closet, separated from the main roomby a board partition.

“Good night!” she repeated. “I must go lookup the little one—she’s crying. Have a goodnight’s sleep!”

She took the lamp and went to the adjacentcloset, leaving la Bretonne in darkness.

Soon she was stretched upon her bed of heather.After having eaten, she tried to close her eyes, butsleep would not come. Through the partitionshe heard la Fleuriotte talking softly with herbaby, whom the arrival of the stranger hadawakened, and who did not wish to go to sleepagain. La Fleuriotte petted her, she embraced herwith caressing words—naïve expressions whichstrangely stirred la Bretonne.

The outburst of tenderness awakened a confusedinstinct of motherhood buried deep in thesoul of that girl who had once been condemned forhaving stifled her new-born babe. La Bretonnereflected that “if things had not gone badly”with her, her own child would have been just as[Pg 92]old as this little girl. At that thought, and at thesound of the childish voice, she shuddered in herinmost soul; something tender and loving wasborn in that embittered heart, and she felt anoverwhelming need for tears.

“Come, my pet,” said la Fleuriotte, “hurry offto sleep. If you are good, I’ll take you to-morrowto the fête of Saint Catherine.”

“Saint Catherine’s—that’s the fête for littlegirls, isn’t it, Mamma?”

“Yes, my own.”

“Is it true, then, that on this day Saint Catherinegives playthings to the children?”

“Yes—sometimes.”

“Why doesn’t she ever bring anything to ourhouse?”

“We live too far away; and, besides, we are toopoor.”

“Then, she brings them only to rich children!Why? I—I’d love to have some playthings.”

“Ah, well! Some day—if you are quite good—ifyou go to sleep nicely—perhaps she will bringyou some.”

“All right—I’m going to sleep—so that she’llbring me some to-morrow.”

Silence. Then regular and gentle breathing.The child had fallen asleep, and the mother too.Only la Bretonne did not sleep. An emotion both[Pg 93]poignant and tender wrung her heart, and shethought more fixedly than ever of that little onewhom long ago she had stifled. This lasted untilthe first gleams of dawn.

At early daylight la Fleuriotte and her childstill slept. La Bretonne furtively glided out of thehouse, and, walking hastily in the direction ofAuberive, did not pause until she reached the firsthouses. Once there, she again passed slowly upthe single street, scanning the signs of the shops.At last one of these seemed to fix her attention.She rapped upon the window-shutter, and by andby it was opened. It was a dry-goods shop, butthey also had some children’s playthings—poorshopworn toys—paper dolls, a Noah’s ark, asheep-fold. To the great amazement of the shopkeeper,la Bretonne bought them all, paid, andwent out.

She was again on the road to la Fleuriotte’shovel when a hand was laid heavily on hershoulder. Tremblingly she turned and foundherself facing a corporal of gensdarmes. The unhappywoman had forgotten that convicts werenot permitted after their release to remain in theneighborhood of the prison!

“Instead of loafing here, you should be alreadyat Langres,” said the corporal severely. “Goalong—on your way!”

[Pg 94]

She sought to explain—her pains were lost!In the twinkling of an eye a cart was requisitioned,she was put in under the escort of a gendarme, andthe driver whipped up his horse.

The cart rumbled joltingly over the frozen road.Poor la Bretonne heart-brokenly clutched thepackage of playthings in her chilled fingers.

At a turn of the highway she recognized thecross-path through the woods. Her heart leaped,and she pleaded with the gendarme to stop—shehad an errand for la Fleuriotte, a woman who livedthere, only a couple of steps away. She pleadedwith so much earnestness that the gendarme, agood fellow at heart, allowed himself to be persuaded.They tied the horse to the tree and wentup the path.

In front of her door la Fleuriotte was choppingup wood into fa*ggots. Upon seeing her visitorback again, accompanied by a gendarme, shestood open-mouthed, her arms hanging.

“Chut!” said la Bretonne, “is the little onestill asleep?”

“Yes, but——”

“Lay these playthings gently on her bed, andtell her that Saint Catherine sent them. I wentback to Auberive to hunt for them, but it seemsthat I hadn’t the right to do so, and they aresending me to Langres.”

[Pg 95]

“Holy Mother of God!” cried la Fleuriotte.

“Pshaw!”

She drew near the bed. Followed always byher guard, la Bretonne spread over the coverletthe dolls, the ark, and the flock of sheep. Thenshe kissed the bare arm of the sleeping child, and,turning toward the gendarme, who stood staring:

“Now,” said she, “we can go on.”

[Pg 96]

While one is reading the tales of Gautier,he feels himself to be in a playhouse,confronted by a bewildering array of stage-settings,incredibly correct in detail and grouping,oppressively rich in appointment, and colorful—alwayscolorful. At times characters are felt to besubordinated to background, yet these surroundingsare so picturesque—or better, perhaps, sopictorial—that they furnish contrasts and harmonieswhich bring out rather than overpowerthe people who move amidst this very forest ofaccessory riches.

An examination of Gautier the man, bothtemperamentally and as his life was lived—if,indeed, there can be such a distinction—at onceprovides an explanation of this pervading lovefor setting: he was a passionate lover of the beautiful,and he was a persistent traveller in quest ofthings beautiful to look upon.

To speak of an artist, whether in pigments,marbles, or words, as a lover of the beautiful willat once suggest to the “practical” reader a deep-eyeddreamer with soulful, upturned look, devoidof humour, and affecting a Bunthorne stride.[Pg 98]Not so Gautier. Robust of body, almost coarseof physiognomy, and bubbling with life, he couldmix his colors with humor, tone his admirationswith censure, charge his prodigious memory withendless detail, and train his observation to theminutest accuracy. There was something sensualas well as sensuous in his mind, and he was savedfrom grovelling only by the dominance of thatsubtle perception and admiration for the beautifulin all its phases, which challenges continual commentin any consideration of the man and hiswork. Gautier was esthetic without being anesthete, witty yet not a wit, sentient but notsentimental, sensual though not gross.

A journey to the heart of Gautier leads by wayof his outward life.

Tarbes, in the south of France, Departmentof the Hautes-Pyrénées, was the place of his birth,August 31, 1811. Jean-Pierre Gautier, his father,was in the revenue service, and an ardent royalist.He hailed from the Avignon of the Popes thatAlphonse Daudet has chronicled so delightfully.Our author’s mother, Adélaïde-Antoinette Cocard,was a tailor’s daughter, and a noted beauty,whose sister had married into the nobility.

When Théophile was only three years old, his[Pg 99]parents removed to Paris, but even at that elasticage the lad retained his love for the South, and,like his father, often repined for its warmth andcolor. He was a precocious youngster, beginningat five to devour books—Paul and Virginiaand Robinson Crusoe among others.

The inevitable Lycée Louis-le-Grand was hisacademy, and by no means a happy prison itproved for the impressionable child, so poetic intemperament. Fortunately, his father soon tookhim home and entered him as a day-pupil elsewhere.

In his boyhood Théophile became a worshiperof that master romanticist, Victor Hugo, whomhe was permitted to meet while yet a youth ofnineteen, and who graciously encouraged the boyto publish his verses. Though Gautier afterwardlaughed delightedly and delightfully at the extremesof the earlier romantic school, and thoughboth in his historical work on romanticism and inhis papers on contemporaneous writers, his bitingsatire searched out its weaknesses, he never ceasedto feel its influence and cherish a reverence for itsanointed apostle, the creator of Les Misérables.

In those formative days the young man wasphysically slight and almost frail—remote as yetfrom the massive giant of flashing black eye anddark leonine mane, whose physique enabled him[Pg 100]to sustain many a bout with the wine cup andrejoice in pleasures of table, until, his naturalpowers otherwise unabated, and but sixty-oneyears of age, he succumbed to an enlarged heartand died at Paris, October 23, 1872.

Gautier, like many another man of letters, presentssome contradictions of temperament andproduction, but for the most part his work isinfused with his own strong individuality.

Like Loti, he knew the life of many lands andwrote sympathetically of Spain, Italy, Russia,the Netherlands, and the alluring East. A painterturned art critic and journalist—and so indefatigablea journalist that he himself has estimatedthat it would require three hundred volumes tocompass his collected writings—he pursued apainter’s methods in his literary work. A poet ofcharm and attainment, and a dramatic critic ofsecure place, he informed both verse and criticismwith the melodious spirit which issued from hislove for music. In faithful description the precursorof the realists, he still adhered to hisromanticist ideals. Word-connoisseur, andstylist of the first order, he loved perfection ofliterary form because such harmonies were theoutward limbs of beauty.

Here was an aggressive, positive, individualman, strong in love as in loathing, tender to all[Pg 101]animals, living, like Balzac, joyously a life ofstruggle against debt, and at last winninga place greater than the forbidden seat in theAcademy—a place among the most distinguishedromanticists that France ever gave tothe world.

Gautier’s worship of beauty is not easy toformulate. M. de Sumichrast has termed it “notimmoral, but unmoral.” The presence or theabsence of virtue or of vice made no difference tohim if only the person were beautiful. He nomore demanded moral qualities in his charactersthan he did in the lovely lines of a hill crest.Beauty was the final flame for the adoration ofthis sensuous acolyte. In all life, at home andwidely journeying abroad, he sought it, and whenhe found it, whether in human form, in relics ofancient art, in modern picture and marble, or inthe unrivalled symmetry of nature, his wholebeing throbbed with delight.

As a youth he fell in love with the robust,fleshy women that Rubens had painted for theLouvre, and straightway pilgrimaged to Belgiumto find the originals. His experiences were laughable—perhapsa trifle pathetic. The one slatternwhose generous bulk met his Rubenic ideals wasscrubbing. But out of this boyish episode grewthat exquisite tale, “The Fleece of Gold”—a[Pg 102]modern covering which, unlike Jason’s, was awoman’s wealth of blonde hair.

As the story runs, Tiburce, a young dilettantepainter, had always found more beautyin the feminine creations of the great paintersthan in the most lovely flesh-and-bloodwomen he ever met, so he spent much timein contemplating these exquisite creations ofart. At length, from having studied certainFlemish pictures, he decided to go into Belgium“in search of the blonde”—he would love aFleming.

In Brussels and in Laeken the quest of this newJason was unsuccessful, so he went to Antwerp,where he was as diligent as before—and equallywithout reward. At length he saw in the CathedralRubens’ masterpiece, “The Descent fromthe Cross,” and was stricken dumb by the beautyof the Magdalen in this remarkable picture.“The sight of that face was to Tiburce a revelationfrom on high; scales fell from his eyes, hefound himself face to face with his secret dream,with his unavowed hope; the intangible imagewhich he had pursued with all the ardor of anamorous imagination, and of which he had beenable to espy only the profile or the ravishing foldof a dress; the capricious and untamed chimera,always ready to unfold its restless wings, was[Pg 103]there before him, fleeing no more, motionless inthe splendor of its beauty.”

Then followed daily visits to the Cathedral,rapt, dazed, worshiping.

One day on the street Tiburce catches sight of awoman who bears—a striking resemblance tothe Magdalen! Her—Gretchen—he eventuallymeets, and to her he reluctantly gives his love.Yet, though Gretchen comes to love Tiburce, shecannot evoke in him quite the same feelings heknows in the presence of Rubens’ beautiful woman—theMagdalen is still his ideal. Even when hechristens the girl with the name of the Penitent,the transformation is not complete. At lengthGretchen, hidden behind a pillar, overhearsTiburce sighing out his worship toward thewoman of the painting: “How I would love theeto-morrow if thou wert living!”—and realizesthat she is loved only vicariously.

By and by they go to Paris, where the artistfeels his love for the absent Magdalen grow insteadof wane, and Gretchen can bear her jealousunhappiness no longer. She breaks out into atender eloquence of reproach: “You are ambitiousto love; you are deceived concerning yourself,you will never love. You must have perfection,the ideal and poesy—all those thingswhich do not exist. Instead of loving in a woman[Pg 104]the love that she has for you, of being gratefulto her for her devotion and for the gift of herheart, you look to see if she resembles thatplaster Venus in your study.... You arenot a lover, poor Tiburce, you are simply apainter.”

And so she goes on, uncovering to him hisfoolish delusion, ending in a passion of abandonment,of “sublime immodesty,” by appearingbefore him like Aphrodite rising from the sea.

Swept by all this nobility of her discerningspirit, and all the ravishing charm of her beauty,Tiburce seizes his brushes and does master work—andthen begs his new-found love to name the dayfor the crying of their banns.

Perhaps it needs no word here to emphasize onephase of Gautier’s nature—he knew himself to bea beauty-lover, and he knew all the limitations ofcharacter that this cult rendered inevitable.

A second force in Gautier’s life was his orientalism.In this he was not only conscious of thestrain of eastern blood that pulsed through bothbody and temperament, but he was, by reason oflong application, constant travel, and the variedopportunities of a critic’s life, a savant on mattersoriental, particularly Pompeian and Egyptian.

[Pg 105]

Here, again, “The Romance of a Mummy,” along tale, “One of Cleopatra’s Nights,” a shorttale, and “The Mummy’s Foot,” which followsin translation, display the savant in his work.The movement of life in ancient Egypt in thetime of the Hebrew bondage, and all that highlycolored, picturesque civilization, afford him thealways coveted background which he valued asmuch for itself as for its use as a setting.

In another of his shorter stories, “Arria Marcella,”the savant is also evident. The familiarbut terrible theme of the vampire woman is setin an idealized reconstruction of Pompeian life;just as that one perfect short-story from the penof Gautier, “The Dead Leman” (La MorteAmoureuse), marvellously made to live again themediæval spirit in the poignantly pitiful mistresswhose end is the heart-break of selfish passion;and “The Thousand-and-Second Night” evokesanew the indistinct, subtle, alluring odors of theArabian Nights.

The three best-known longer tales of Gautier—technicallythey are not precisely novels—areMademoiselle de Maupin, a prose-song to beauty—immoral,daring, and beautiful; CaptainFracasse, whose smash-’em-up, picaroon heroleads us through abundant adventures; andSpirite, a notable contrast to the materialism[Pg 106]displayed—almost flaunted—in his other work.Spirite is a story of fantasy; but it is more: witha tender delicacy and spiritual subtlety whichwell may surprise his public, Gautier presents thecontrasting love-lure of Lavinia d’Audefini, adisembodied woman, and the very real but—hereis the remarkable part—less attractive charms ofMme. d’Ymbercourt, a red-ripe woman indeed.We are indebted to Gautier for this one story as ademonstration that, while his tales are mostly asunmoral as the pigments of his literary palette,he can at will delineate the ethereal, and in sodoing disclose a fine understanding of spiritualvalues.

(LE PIED DE MOMIE)

By Théophile Gautier

Done into English by the Editor

I had idly entered the shop of one of thosecuriosity-venders who, in that Parisian lingowhich is so perfectly unintelligible to the rest ofFrance, are called marchands de bric-à-brac.

You have doubtless glanced through the windowsinto one of those shops which have becomeso numerous since it is the mode to buy antiquefurniture, and since the pettiest stockbrokerthinks he must have his “mediæval room.”

There is one thing that clings alike to the shopof the old-iron dealer, the wareroom of thetapestry-maker, the laboratory of the alchemist,and the studio of the artist: in these mysteriousdens through whose window-shutters filters afurtive twilight, the thing that is the most manifestlyancient is the dust; there the spider-websare more authentic than the gimps, and the oldpear-wood furniture is younger than the mahoganywhich arrived yesterday from America.

The wareroom of my bric-à-brac dealer was averitable Capernaum; all centuries and all[Pg 108]countries seemed to have rendezvoused there: anEtruscan lamp of red clay stood upon a Boulecabinet whose ebony panels were brilliantly inlaidwith filaments of brass; a Louis XV half-loungecarelessly stretched its fawn-like feet under amassive table of the reign of Louis XIII, withheavy oaken spirals, and carvings of intermingledfoliage and chimeras.

In one corner glittered the striped cuirass of adamascened suit of Milanese armor; bisquecupids and nymphs, grotesques from China,céladon and craquelé vases, Saxon and old Sèvrescups, encumbered what-nots and corners.

Upon the fluted shelves of several dressersglittered immense plates from Japan, with designsin red and blue relieved by gilt hatching, side byside with several Bernard Palissy enamels, showingfrogs and lizards in relief work.

From disembowelled cabinets escaped cascadesof Chinese silk lustrous with silver, billows ofbrocade, sown with luminous specks by a slantingsunbeam, while portraits of every epoch, inframes more or less tarnished, smiled out throughtheir yellow varnish.

The dealer followed me with precaution throughthe tortuous passage contrived between the pilesof furniture, fending off with his hand the hazardousswing of my coat-tails, watching my elbows[Pg 109]with the uneasy attention of the antiquary andthe usurer.

It was a singular figure, that of the dealer: animmense cranium, polished like a knee, and surroundedby a meagre aureole of white hair thatbrought out all the more vividly the clear salmontint of the skin, gave him a false air of patriarchalsimplicity—contradicted, on the other hand, bythe sparkling of two little yellow eyes, whichtrembled in their orbits like two louis d’ors on asurface of quicksilver. The curve of the nosepresented an aquiline silhouette which recalledthe Oriental or Jewish type. His hands—thin,bony, veined, full of sinews stretched like thestrings on the neck of a violin, and armed withtalons resembling those which terminate themembranous wings of a bat—shook with a senilemovement disquieting to see. But those feverishlynail-bitten hands became firmer than lobster-clawsor steel pincers when they lifted some preciouspiece—an onyx carving, a Venetian cup, or aplate of Bohemian crystal. This old rascal had anaspect so profoundly rabbinical and cabalisticthat three centuries ago they would have burnedhim merely from the evidence of his face.

“Will you not buy something from me to-day,Monsieur? Here is a Malay kris with a bladeundulating like a flame: see those grooves to[Pg 110]serve as gutters for the blood, those teeth fashionedand set inversely so as to rip out the entrailswhen the dagger is withdrawn. It is a fine type offerocious weapon, and would look very wellamong your trophies. This two-handed sword isvery beautiful—it is a José de la Hera; and thiscolichemarde with perforated guard, what a superbpiece of work!”

“No, I have plenty of arms and instruments ofcarnage. I want a figurine, something that woulddo for a paper-weight, for I cannot endure thosestock bronzes which the stationers sell, and whichmay be found on any desk.”

The old gnome, foraging among his antiquities,finally arranged before me several antique bronzes—socalled, at least; fragments of malachite;little Hindu or Chinese idols, a kind of poussahtoys made of jade, showing the incarnation ofBrahma or of Vishnu, marvellously well-suited forthe sufficiently ungodlike purpose of holdingpapers and letters in place.

I was hesitating between a porcelain dragon allstarred with warts, its jaws adorned with tusksand bristling whiskers, and a highly abominablelittle Mexican fetich, representing the god Vitziliputziliau naturel, when I noticed a charming footwhich I at first took for a fragment of an antiqueVenus.

[Pg 111]

It had those beautiful tawny and ruddy tintswhich give to Florentine bronze that warm andvivacious look so preferable to the grayish greentone of ordinary bronze, which might be taken forstatues in putrefaction. Satiny lights frisked overits form, rounded and polished by the loving kissesof twenty centuries; for it seemed to be a Corinthianbronze, a work of the best era, perhapsa casting by Lysippus!

“This foot will be the thing for me,” said I tothe merchant, who regarded me with an ironicaland saturnine air as he held out the desired objectfor me to examine at will.

I was surprised at its lightness; it was not afoot of metal, but indeed a foot of flesh, an embalmedfoot, a foot of a mummy; on examiningit still more closely one could see the grain of theskin, and the lines almost imperceptibly impressedupon it by the texture of the bandages. The toeswere slender, delicate, terminated by perfect nails,pure and transparent as agates; the great toe,slightly separate, and contrasting happily withthe modelling of the other toes, in the antiquestyle, gave it an air of lightness, the grace of abird’s foot; the sole, scarcely streaked by severalalmost invisible grooves, showed that it had nevertouched the earth, and had come in contact withonly the finest matting of Nile rushes and thesoftest carpets of panther skin.

[Pg 112]

“Ha, ha! You wish the foot of the PrincessHermonthis!” exclaimed the merchant, with astrange chuckle, fixing upon me his owlish eyes.“Ha, ha, ha!—for a paper-weight! Original idea!Artistic idea! If any one would have said to oldPharaoh that the foot of his adored daughterwould serve for a paper-weight, he would havebeen greatly surprised, considering that he hadhad a mountain of granite hollowed out to holdthe triple coffin, painted and gilded and all coveredwith hieroglyphics and beautiful paintingsof the Judgment of Souls,” continued the singularlittle merchant, half aloud, and as though talkingto himself.

“How much will you charge me for thismummy fragment?”

“Ah, the highest price I am able, for it is asuperb piece: if I had its counterpart, you couldnot have it for less than five hundred francs; thedaughter of a Pharaoh, nothing is more rare!”

“Assuredly it is not common; but still, howmuch do you want? In the first place, let me tellyou something, and that is, my entire treasureconsists of only five louis: I can buy anythingthat costs five louis, but nothing dearer. Youmight search my innermost waistcoat pockets,and my most secret desk-drawers, without findingeven one miserable five-franc piece more.”

[Pg 113]

“Five louis for the foot of the Princess Hermonthis!That is very little, very little, in truth,for an authentic foot,” muttered the merchant,shaking his head and rolling his eyes.

“All right, take it, and I will give you thebandages into the bargain,” he added, wrappingit in an ancient damask rag. “Very fine: realdamask, Indian damask, which has never beenredyed; it is strong, it is soft,” he mumbled,passing his fingers over the frayed tissue, fromthe commercial habit which moved him to praisean object of so little value that he himself judgedit worth only being given away.

He poured the gold pieces into a sort of mediævalalms-purse hanging at his belt, as he kept onsaying:

“The foot of the Princess Hermonthis to serveas a paper-weight!”

Then, turning upon me his phosphorescenteyes, he exclaimed in a voice strident as themiauling of a cat that has swallowed a fish-bone:

“Old Pharaoh will not be pleased—he loved hisdaughter, that dear man!”

“You speak as if you were his contemporary;old as you are, you do not date back to the Pyramidsof Egypt,” I answered laughingly from theshop door.

I went home, well content with my acquisition.

[Pg 114]

In order to put it to use as soon as possible, Iplaced the foot of the divine Princess Hermonthisupon a heap of papers, scribbled over with verses,an undecipherable mosaic work of erasures;articles just begun; letters forgotten and mailedin the table-drawer—an error which often occurswith absent-minded people. The whole effectwas charming, bizarre, and romantic.

Well satisfied with this embellishment, I wentdown into the street with the becoming gravityand pride of one who feels that he has the ineffableadvantage over all the passers-by whom heelbows, of possessing a fragment of the PrincessHermonthis, daughter of Pharaoh.

I looked upon as sovereignly ridiculous all thosewho did not possess, like myself, a paper-weightso notoriously Egyptian; and it seemed to methat the true occupation of every man of sensewas to have a mummy’s foot upon his desk.

Happily, my meeting some friends distractedme from my infatuation with the recent acquisition;I went to dinner with them, for it wouldhave been difficult for me to dine by myself.

When I came back in the evening, my brainslightly confused by a few glasses of wine, a vaguewhiff of Oriental perfume delicately tickled myolfactory nerves: the heat of the room hadwarmed the sodium carbonate, bitumen, and[Pg 115]myrrh in which the paraschites, who cut open thebodies of the dead, had bathed the corpse of theprincess; it was a perfume both sweet and penetrating,a perfume that four thousand years hadnot been able to dissipate.

The dream of Egypt was Eternity: her odorshave the solidity of granite, and endure as long.

I soon drank to fulness from the black cup ofsleep: for an hour or two all remained opaque.Oblivion and nothingness inundated me with theirsombre emptiness.

Presently my mental obscurity cleared; dreamscommenced to graze me softly in their silentflight.

The eyes of my soul were opened, and I beheldmy chamber precisely as it was. I might havebelieved myself to be awake, but a vague perceptiontold me that I slept and that somethingfantastic was about to take place.

The odor of the myrrh had intensely increased,and I felt a slight headache, which—with greatreasonableness—I attributed to several glasses ofchampagne that we had drunk to the unknowngods, and our future success.

I peered through my room with a feeling ofexpectation which nothing actually justified; thefurniture was precisely in place; the lamp burnedupon its bracket, softly shaded by the milky[Pg 116]whiteness of its dull crystal; the water-colorsketches shone under their Bohemian glass; thecurtains hung languidly: everything had an airslumbrous and tranquil.

Presently, however, this calm interior appearedto become troubled: the woodwork cracked furtively,the log enveloped in cinders suddenlyemitted a jet of blue flame, and the circular ornamentson the frieze seemed like metallic eyes,watching, like myself, for the things which wereabout to happen.

My gaze by chance fell upon the desk where Ihad placed the foot of the Princess Hermonthis.

Instead of being immobile, as became a footwhich had been embalmed for four thousandyears, it moved uneasily, contracted itself andleaped over the papers like a frightened frog: onewould have imagined it to be in contact with agalvanic battery. I could quite distinctly hearthe dry sound made by its little heel, hard as thehoof of a gazelle.

I became somewhat discontented with myacquisition, preferring my paper-weights to besedentary, and thought it a little unnatural thatfeet should walk about without legs; indeed, Icommenced to feel something which stronglyresembled fear.

Suddenly I saw the folds of one of my bed-curtains[Pg 117]stir, and I heard a bumping sound, likethat of a person hopping on one foot. I mustconfess I became alternately hot and cold, that Ifelt a strange wind blow across my back, and thatmy suddenly rising hair caused my nightcap toexecute a leap of several yards.

The bed-curtains parted, and I beheld comingtowards me the strangest figure it is possible toimagine.

It was a young girl, of a deep café-au-lait complexion,like the bayadere[1] Amani, of a perfectbeauty, and recalling the purest Egyptian type.She had almond eyes with the corners raised, andbrows so black that they seemed blue; her nosewas delicately chiselled, almost Grecian in itsfineness of outline, and indeed she might havebeen taken for a statue of Corinthian bronze hadnot the prominence of the cheekbones and theslightly African lips made it impossible not torecognize her as belonging beyond doubt to thehieroglyphic race of the banks of the Nile.

Her arms, slender and turned with the symmetryof a spindle—like those of very young girls—wereencircled by a kind of metal bands andbracelets of glass beads; her hair was plaited incords; and upon her bosom was suspended alittle idol of green paste, which, from its bearing[Pg 118]a whip with seven lashes, enabled one to recognizeit as an image of Isis, conductress of spirits.A disk of gold scintillated upon her brow, and afew traces of rouge relieved the coppery tint ofher cheeks.

As for her costume, it was very strange.Imagine an under-wrapping of linen strips, bedizenedwith black and red hieroglyphics, stiffenedwith bitumen, and apparently belonging to afreshly unbandaged mummy.

In one of those flights of thought so frequent indreams, I heard the rough falsetto of the bric-à-bracdealer, which repeated like a monotonousrefrain the phrase he had uttered in his shop withan intonation so enigmatical:

“Old Pharaoh will not be pleased—he lovedhis daughter, that dear man!”

Strange circ*mstance—and one which scarcelyreassured me—the apparition had but one foot;the other was broken off at the ankle!

She approached the desk where the foot wasmoving and wriggling with redoubled liveliness.Once there, she supported herself upon the edge,and I saw tears form and grow pearly in her eyes.

Although she had not as yet spoken, I clearlydiscerned her thoughts: she looked at her foot—forit was indeed her own—with an infinitelygraceful expression of coquettish sadness; but[Pg 119]the foot leaped and coursed hither and yon, asthough driven by steel springs.

Two or three times she extended her hand toseize it, but she did not succeed.

Then commenced between the Princess Hermonthisand her foot—which appeared to beendowed with a life of its own—a very fantasticdialogue in a most ancient Coptic dialect, such asmight have been spoken some thirty centuriesago by voices of the land of Ser: luckily, thatnight I understood Coptic to perfection.

The Princess Hermonthis cried, in a voice sweetand vibrant as a crystal bell:

“Well, my dear little foot, you flee from mealways, though I have taken good care of you. Ibathed you with perfumed water in a basin ofalabaster; I smoothed your heel with pumice-stonemixed with oil of palms; your nails werecut with golden scissors and polished with ahippopotamus tooth; I was careful to selectsandals for you, broidered and painted and turnedup at the toes, which made all the young girls inEgypt envious; you wore on your great toe ringsrepresenting the sacred Scarabæus, and youcarried about the lightest body it was possiblefor a lazy foot to sustain.”

The foot replied, in a tone pouting and chagrined:

[Pg 120]

“You well know that I do not belong to myselfany longer. I have been bought and paid for.The old merchant knew perfectly what he wasdoing; he always bore you a grudge for havingrefused to espouse him: this is an ill turn whichhe has done you. The Arab who robbed yourroyal sarcophagus in the subterranean pits of thenecropolis of Thebes was sent by him: he desiredto prevent you from going to the reunion of theshadowy peoples in the cities below. Have youfive pieces of gold for my ransom?”

“Alas, no! My jewels, my rings, my purses ofgold and silver, were all stolen from me,”answered the Princess Hermonthis, with a sigh.

“Princess,” I then exclaimed, “I never retainedanybody’s foot unjustly; even though you havenot got the five louis which it cost me, I give it toyou gladly: I should be in despair to make soamiable a person as the Princess Hermonthislame.”

I delivered this discourse in a tone so royal andgallant that it must have astonished the beautifulEgyptian.

She turned toward me a look charged withgratitude, and her eyes shone with bluish gleams.

She took her foot—which, this time, let itselfbe taken—like a woman about to put on her littleshoe, and adjusted it to her leg with much address.

[Pg 121]

This operation ended, she took two or threesteps about the room, as if to assure herself thatshe really was no longer lame.

“Ah, how happy my father will be—he whowas so desolated because of my mutilation, andwho had, from the day of my birth, put a wholepeople at work to hollow out for me a tomb sodeep that he would be able to preserve me intactuntil that supreme day when souls must beweighed in the balances of Amenthi! Come withme to my father—he will receive you well, for youhave given me back my foot.”

I found this proposition natural enough. Ienveloped myself in a dressing-gown of largeflowered pattern, which gave me a very Pharaohesqueappearance, hurriedly put on a pair ofTurkish slippers, and told the Princess Hermonthisthat I was ready to follow her.

Hermonthis, before starting, took from herneck the tiny figurine of green paste and laid iton the scattered sheets of paper which covered thetable.

“It is only fair,” she said smilingly, “that Ishould replace your paper-weight.”

She gave me her hand, which was soft and cold,like the skin of a serpent, and we departed.

For some time we spun with the rapidity of anarrow through a fluid and grayish medium, in[Pg 122]which faintly outlined silhouettes were passing toright and left.

For an instant, we saw only sea and sky.

Some moments afterward, obelisks commencedto rise, porches and flights of steps guarded bysphinxes were outlined against the horizon.

We had arrived.

The princess conducted me toward themountain of rosy granite, where we found anopening so narrow and low that it would havebeen difficult to distinguish it from the fissuresin the rock, if two sculptured columns had notenabled us to recognize it.

Hermonthis lighted a torch and walked beforeme.

There were corridors hewn through the livingrock; the walls, covered with hieroglyphic paintingsand allegorical processions, might well haveoccupied thousands of arms for thousands ofyears; these corridors, of an interminable length,ended in square chambers, in the midst of whichpits had been contrived, through which we descendedby means of cramp-hooks or spiralstairways; these pits conducted us into otherchambers, from which other corridors opened,equally decorated with painted sparrow-hawks,serpents coiled in circles, and those mystic symbols,the tau, the pedum, and the bari—prodigious[Pg 123]works which no living eye would ever examine,endless legends in granite which only the deadhave time to read throughout eternity.

At last we issued into a hall so vast, so enormous,so immeasurable, that the eye could notperceive its confines. Flooding the sight werefiles of monstrous columns between whichtwinkled livid stars of yellow flame, and thesepoints of light revealed further incalculabledepths.

The Princess Hermonthis always held me bythe hand, and graciously saluted the mummies ofher acquaintance.

My eyes accustomed themselves to the crepuscularlight, and objects became discernible.

I beheld, seated upon their thrones, the kingsof the subterranean races: they were magnificent,dry old men, withered, wrinkled, parchmented,blackened with naphtha and bitumen—all wearinggolden headdresses, breast-plates, and gorgetsstarry with precious stones, eyes of a sphinx-likefixity, and long beards whitened by the snows ofthe centuries. Behind them, their embalmedpeople stood, in the rigid and constrained poseof Egyptian art, preserving eternally the attitudeprescribed by the hieratic code. Behind thesepeoples, contemporary cats mewed, ibises flappedtheir wings, and crocodiles grinned, all rendered[Pg 124]still more monstrous by their swathing bands.

All the Pharaohs were there—Cheops, Chephrenes,Psammetichus, Sesostris, Amenotaph—allthe dark rulers of the pyramids and thenymphs. On the yet higher thrones sat KingChronos, Xixouthros, who was contemporarywith the deluge, and Tubal Cain, who precededit.

The beard of King Xixouthros had grown sofull that it already wound seven times around thegranite table upon which he leaned, lost in asomnolent revery.

Further back, through a dusty cloud across thedim centuries, I beheld vaguely the seventy-twopreadamite Kings, with their seventy-two peoples,forever passed away.

After allowing me to gaze upon this astoundingspectacle a few moments, the Princess Hermonthispresented me to Pharaoh, her father, who vouchsafedme a majestic nod.

“I have recovered my foot again! I haverecovered my foot!” cried the Princess, as sheclapped her little hands one against the other withall the signs of playful joy. “Here is the gentlemanwho restored it to me.”

The races of Kemi, the races of Nahasi, all theblack, bronze, and copper-colored nations, repeatedin chorus:

[Pg 125]

“The Princess Hermonthis has recovered herfoot!”

Even Xixouthros was visibly affected: heraised his dull eyelids, passed his fingers over hismustache, and bent upon me his look weightywith centuries.

“By Oms, the dog of Hell, and by Tmei, daughterof the Sun and of Truth, there is a brave andworthy fellow!” exclaimed Pharaoh, extendingtoward me his sceptre, terminated with a lotus-flower.“What do you desire for recompense?”

Strong in that audacity which is inspired bydreams, where nothing seems impossible, I askedthe hand of Hermonthis: the hand seemed to mea very proper antithetic recompense for such agood foot.

Pharaoh opened wide his eyes of glass, astonishedby my pleasantry and my request.

“From what country do you come, and whatis your age?”

“I am a Frenchman, and I am twenty-sevenyears old, venerable Pharaoh.”

“Twenty-seven years old—and he wishes toespouse the Princess Hermonthis, who is thirtycenturies old!” exclaimed at once all the thronesand all the circles of nations.

Hermonthis alone did not seem to find myrequest unreasonable.

[Pg 126]

“If only you were even two thousand yearsold,” replied the ancient King, “I would quitewillingly give you the Princess; but the disproportionis too great; and, besides, we must giveour daughters husbands who are durable—youno longer know how to preserve yourselves: theoldest people that you can produce are scarcelyfifteen hundred years old, and they are no morethan a pinch of dust. See here—my flesh is hardas basalt, my bones are bars of steel!

“I shall be present on the last day of the worldwith the body and the features which were minein life; my daughter Hermonthis will endurelonger than a statue of bronze.

“Then the winds will have dispersed the lastparticles of your dust, and Isis herself, who wasable to recover the atoms of Osiris, would beembarrassed to recompose your being.

“See how vigorous I still am, and how well myhands can grip,” he said to me as he shook myhand à l’Anglaise, in a manner that cut myfingers with my rings.

He squeezed me so hard that I awoke, andfound it was my friend Alfred who was shakingme by the arm to make me get up.

“Ah, you maddening sleepyhead! Must I haveyou carried out into the middle of the street, andfireworks exploded in your ears? It’s afternoon;[Pg 127]don’t you remember that you promised to takeme with you to see M. Aguado’s Spanish pictures?”

“Mon Dieu! I didn’t remember it any more!”I answered as I dressed myself. “We will gothere at once; I have the permit here on mydesk.”

I went forward to take it; but judge of myastonishment when instead of the mummy’s footI had purchased the evening before, I saw the tinyfigurine of green paste left in its place by thePrincess Hermonthis!

[Pg 128]

The biographies of some great men of lettersare little different from their bibliographies.For many years this would seem tohave been true in the case of Anatole France, forthe man of public import—apart from his literaryproductions—came not into being until fifty-threeyears after his physical birth.

Every book-lover who goes to Paris must visitthe banks of the Seine and revel among the richesof that vast exhibition of old books, art objects,rare prints, and fascinating what-not, which forgenerations have been the despair and theadmiration of collectors. Over an old-bookmart on the Quai Malaquis, Jacques AnatoleThibault—now everywhere known as AnatoleFrance—was born April 16, 1844. From thatday to this he has never left as a residence thatParis whose every paving-block he knows, ashe himself says, and whose every stone he loves.Year by year he has increasingly stood as atype of Parisian literary life and thought.

His father was one of the prosperous booksellersof the Seine banks—meditative, thoughtful,and even a maker of verses. He brought with[Pg 130]him from Anjou in western France all of the Vendéean’spassion for monarchism and clericalism.Just how this harmonizes with the assertion ofone of our author’s biographers that the elderThibault was of Jewish blood, I do not pretend tosay, but the statement may pass on its face value.Certain it is that the father was concerned thatAnatole should be educated under the auspicesof clerical teachers, the priests of the old CollègeStanislas, and his son’s early mastery of theclassics and attainments in literary style amplyjustified the choice. Indeed, the clerical schoolsof the period did more to establish French lettersthan has since proven to be the case under thepublic schools of present-day France.

Growing up in this bookish atmosphere, richtokens of the past all about him, inheriting hisfather’s scholarly tastes, trained under the rigidsystem of classicists, and in the school thatdeveloped Paul Bourget and François Coppée,Anatole France needed only one more element tobring out in him the varied temperament his lifeand works exhibit—the inspiration of the refinedand tender mother whose love for romantic fairy-talescharmed into being the first fancy-creationsof her gifted boy.

In 1868 M. France produced his first book—astudy of Alfred de Vigny. This made no great[Pg 131]sensation, but his first volume of poems—manyFrench literary men, like Daudet, Maupassant,and Bourget, have opened their literary careerswith essays at verse—was published in 1873, LesPoèmes dorés.

About this time M. France became reader forthe publisher Lemerre, and under his auspicesbrought out various of the thirty-some volumeswhich stand to his credit. In 1876 he became anattaché of the Senate library. Later, he wasknown as a regular contributor to Le Temps andother Parisian journals, much of this reviewmaterial being now accessible in book-form.

That part of M. France’s work which coversthe first twenty years of his writing, ending with1896, has largely fixed his place in the averageopinion, for two reasons: those years witnessedhis largest and most popular production, includingnearly all of his novels and stories; and, in consequence,the preponderance of published criticalestimates cover only those two decades.

The “first” Anatole France, then, must beconsidered almost as a separate being, so far aswe regard his spirit; his literary style, however,changed scarcely at all with time. Classicaltraining was reflected in a passion for the Greekmagic of words, Latin harmony of phrasing, andthe hedonistic philosophy; there was not even the[Pg 132]suggestion of his later direct appeal to reason and“the rights of man.” His personal tone—formuch of his writing is personal and even autobiographical—waspessimistic, though untingedwith bitterness; and here again there was little toforecast his vigorous appeal for a social better day.No thought of social uplift, no ray of hope,appeared in his treatment of Thaïs, a study ofthe Egypt of the Ptolemies; The Red Lily, a pictureof present-day Florence; The Opinions of M.Jérome Coignard, the modernization of sentimentsexploited in Rabelais, “Wilhelm Meister,” “GilBlas,” and Montaigne; The Garden of Epicurus,wherein the shades of great thinkers, from Platoto Schopenhauer, hold converse, “while an Esquimauxrefutes Bossuet, a Polynesian develops histheory of the soul, and Cicero and Cousin agreein their estimate of a future life.” In a word, theM. France of those days viewed life as a spectacle,with dispassionate yet pitying irony. Convinced,with the Preacher, that all is vanity, this dilettanteproposed no remedies for its ills, and waseven frankly skeptical that any such savingmedicine existed. This is Anatole France as mostreaders know him—the Anatole France who“died” fifteen years ago, leaving only the stylistand the keen observer to identify him with thedecidedly living man of to-day.

[Pg 133]

Two important events in the life of our authortook place respectively in 1896 and 1897. In theformer year he was elected on the first ballot to aseat in the French Academy—the seat occupiedby Ferdinand de Lesseps, and on the occasion ofhis séance de réception M. France delivered a tactfuland altogether admirable eulogy upon theunfortunate genius whom he succeeded.

This distinction coming after more than fiftyyears of life would have been enough to mark anepoch in his career, but one year later he issuedL’Orme du Mail, a series of notable commentsupon contemporary literary and social life. Thismay be regarded as the outgrowth of the social,political, and literary notes which he had beencontributing to the newspapers, and which havebeen gathered in several volumes, forming probablythe most brilliant commentary upon thingsFrench which is available to-day.

Doubtless this daily observation of the currenttrend gave birth to a new man, for now AnatoleFrance is no longer the satirical and lightlyironical dilettante making excursions into the fieldof speculation, but a robust devotee of the rightsof the people. His powerful arraignments of thesocial and political condition of the Frenchcommon-people are not the only proofs of a newbirth in M. France. Trenchant, witty, and[Pg 134]apostolic as are his social sermons—for now andthen a sermon may ring true to its word-originand be a thrust—they were not so amazing and,happily, not so significant, as his brave championshipof the cause of Captain Dreyfus when therewere few who dared to lift voice against rampantmilitarism and a prejudiced, Jew-baiting militarytribunal.

From this courageous stand it was only a singlestep to a propagandum to abolish the manyabuses which he feels weigh heavily upon themasses—war, plutocracy, clericalism, militarism.I have said that it was only a single step, yet itrepresents a long journey for the son of a monarchist,a boy educated by priests, the smilingliterary experimenter, the speculative pupil ofRénan, to have mounted the Socialistic rostrumand produced anti-military and anti-clerical papersof no doubtful sound. Such is M. France to-day;and though he still fails not in his literary appealto the intellectuals, the cry that deeply stirs hisbeing is that of the proletariat in need of intelligent,vigorous leadership. Whether or not oneagrees with his propagandum, one cannot ignoreits significance.

Anatole France has attained distinction inseveral literary forms. His early poems are notof sufficient merit to make him famous, but they[Pg 135]consist of a piquant combination—humor,history, and philosophy. His critical introductionsto delightful editions of famous books arecharmingly done and sufficiently discriminating.His tractates on questions of the times are earnest,direct, and vigorous. But it is to his novels andstories that we must look to find his most characteristicwritings.

To the English reader, his best-known novel isThe Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard (1881), which wascrowned by the Academy. Like all of M. France’snovels, it is practically plotless—a fictional frameworkfor the skeptical observations and good-naturedironies of the old philosopher, whosename gives the book its title. A second novel ofdistinction, if novel it may be called, is The Bookof Friendship (le Livre de Mon Ami). It is madeup of two parts—The Book of Peter and The Bookof Suzanne. The former owes its interest notalone to charm of style, childlikeness of recital,and subtle beauty, but also to its autobiographicalcharacter—which M. France has frankly admitted.Three other works immediately rise upfor comparison when one reads this keen, sympathetic,and understanding story—Dickens’sDavid Copperfield, Daudet’s Little What’s-His-Name(le Petit Chose), and Loti’s The Story of aChild; and the very fact of such inevitable comparisons[Pg 136]may sufficiently suggest its ingenuouscharm, its pseudo-naïvete, and its mingled humorand pathos. No Frenchman, except Victor Hugo,quite entered into child-life as did M. France inthis notable compound of fiction and fact, and Iam not forgetting either Alphonse Daudet orGustav Droz in making this assertion.

The inheritance of his mother’s love for fantasyis beautifully illustrated in M. France’s Abeille,a fairy story of perhaps twenty-thousand words.The author’s name will vouch for its style; thesimple outline will show the pretty frameworkfor the fictional conception.

La duch*esse des Clarides brings up her daughterAbeille, together with Georges, the only son ofla Comtesse Blanchelande, who at her death hadconfided him to the care of her friend.

The two children one day set out secretly tofind the distant lake which they have seen fromthe high tower of the castle of Clarides. Thelake is the home of the Ondines, and the woodssurrounding it the realm of the Gnomes. Georges,seeking water and food for Abeille, is seized bythe Ondines. Abeille, waiting for Georges’ return,falls asleep, to be wakened by the Gnomes, whocarry her to their King Loc. They keep Abeillein order to teach her the wisdom and secrets oftheir race and they make her their Princess. Loc[Pg 137]loves Abeille and offers her all the treasures of hiskingdom if she will become his wife. She refuses,asking only to be sent back to her mother, whomshe is allowed to see each night in a dream, as hermother also sees her. Loc finally learns thatAbeille loves Georges, but that he has disappeared.The Gnome king discovers that theyouth is with the Ondines, held prisoner becausehe wishes to leave the Ondine queen—who alsoloves him—in order to seek Abeille. Loc magnanimouslyrescues Georges and sends him toClarides, but still cannot bring himself to freeAbeille. The youth learns of the fate of Abeillefrom his mother and his serving man, and goes tothe Gnome kingdom to rescue her.

Loc cannot keep Abeille longer because of a lawallowing mortals, prisoners of the Gnomes, toreturn to the world after seven years, so he betrothsGeorges and Abeille and gives them richgifts, among which is a magic ring having powerto bring Abeille and Georges at any time to visitthe Gnome realm, where they will be alwayswelcome.

In the volumes, Mother-of-Pearl (L’Etui deNacre) and St. Clara’s Well (Le Puits de Sainte-Claire),we find our author’s best short-story work.

As has been noted in previous introductorypapers of this series, there is a marked tendency[Pg 138]among French writers of little fictions to affectthe sketch form, and in this field they havewrought with great delicacy and spirit. It ishardly to be expected of a writer whose novelsgive so much play to epigram, philosophy, dialogue,and witty comment, that he should seekto tell his shorter stories with the compressionof a Maupassant and the plot-structure of aMérimée. But other qualities of the first-ratestory-teller he does display—his narration islively and witty, and his climaxes are satisfying.

Only two of his short-stories can be givenattention in this limited space, both found in thefirst-named volume, and one of them reproducedhere in translation.

“The Procurator of Judea” tells in the author’sleisurely, pellucid style how L. Ælius Lamia, aftereighteen years of exile by Tiberius Cæsar, returnsto Rome. During his years of sojourn in Asia,here and there, he has met Pontius Pilate. Nowthey meet again, and the physical bulk of thestory is taken up by their reminiscences. Justwhen that seems to be all, they fall to discussingthe charms of Judæan women, when Lamiarecalls with especial warmth a dancing girl.

“‘Some months after,’” he goes on, “‘I lostsight of her. I learned by chance that she hadattached herself to a small company of men and[Pg 139]women who were followers of a young Galileanthaumaturgist. His name was Jesus; he camefrom Nazareth, and he was crucified for somecrime, I don’t know what. Pontius, do youremember anything about the man?’

“Pontius Pilate contracted his brows, and hishand rose to his forehead in the attitude of onewho probes the deeps of memory. Then after asilence of some seconds—

“‘Jesus?’ he murmured. ‘Jesus of Nazareth?I cannot call him to mind.’”

This dramatic episode, which exists only for itsclimax, is no more poignant than the pathos ofthat simple-hearted juggler-monk who imitatedthe Widow, in that he gave all that he had.

[Pg 140]

(LE JONGLEUR DE NOTRE-DAME)

By Anatole France

Done into English by the Editor

I.

In the time of King Louis, there lived in Francea poor juggler, native of Compiègne, namedBarnabas, who went among the villages doingfeats of strength and skill. On market days hewould spread out on the public square an oldcarpet very much worn, and, after havingattracted the children and the gazing bumpkinsby some suitable pleasantries which he hadadopted from an old juggler and which he neverchanged at all, he would assume grotesque attitudesand balance a plate on his nose.

The crowd at first looked at him with indifference.But when, standing on his hands with hishead downward, he tossed in the air six copperballs which glittered in the sun, and caught themagain with his feet; or when, by bending backwarduntil his neck touched his heels, he gave hisbody the form of a perfect wheel, and in thatposture juggled with twelve knives, a murmur of[Pg 142]admiration rose from the onlookers, and piecesof money rained upon the carpet.

However, like the majority of those who liveby their talents, Barnabas of Compiègne hadmuch difficulty in living. Earning his bread bythe sweat of his brow, he bore more than his partof the miseries connected with the fall of Adam,our father. Moreover, he was unable to work asmuch as he would have wished. In order to showoff his fine accomplishment, he needed the warmthof the sun and the light of day, just as do the treesin order to produce their blossoms and fruits.

In winter he was nothing more than a treedespoiled of its foliage and to appearance dead.The frozen earth was hard for the juggler. And,like the grasshopper of which Marie of Francetells, he suffered from cold and from hunger in thebad season. But, since he possessed a simpleheart, he bore his ills in patience.

He had never reflected upon the origin ofriches, nor upon the inequality of human conditions.He believed firmly that, if this world isevil, the other cannot fail to be good, and thishope sustained him. He did not imitate thethieving mountebanks and miscreants who havesold their souls to the devil. He never blasphemedthe name of God; he lived honestly, and,although he had no wife, he did not covet his[Pg 143]neighbor’s, for woman is the enemy of strong men,as appears from the history of Samson, which isreported in the Scriptures.

In truth, he had not a spirit which turned tocarnal desires, and it would have cost him moreto renounce the jugs than the women. For,although without failing in sobriety, he loved todrink when it was warm. He was a good man,fearing God and very devout toward the HolyVirgin. He never failed, when he entered achurch, to kneel before the image of the Motherof God and address to her this prayer:

“Madame, take care of my life until it mayplease God that I die, and when I am dead, causeme to have the joys of paradise.”

II.

Well, then, on a certain evening after a day ofrain, while he was walking, sad and bent, carryingunder his arm his balls and knives wrapped up inhis old carpet, and seeking for some barn in whichhe might lie down supperless, he saw on the roada monk who was travelling the same way, andsaluted him decorously. As they were walking atan equal pace, they began to exchange remarks.

“Comrade,” said the monk, “how comes itthat you are habited all in green? Is it not for the[Pg 144]purpose of taking the character of a fool in somemystery-play?”

“Not for that purpose, father,” respondedBarnabas. “Such as you see me, I am named Barnabas,and I am by calling a juggler. It would bethe most beautiful occupation in the world if onecould eat every day.”

“Friend Barnabas,” replied the monk, “takecare what you say. There is no more beautifulcalling than the monastic state. Therein onecelebrates the praises of God, the Virgin, and thesaints, and the life of a monk is a perpetual canticleto the Lord.”

Barnabas answered:

“Father, I confess that I have spoken like anignoramus. Your calling may not be comparedwith mine, and, although there is some merit indancing while holding on the tip of the nose a coinbalanced on a stick, this merit does not approachyours. I should like very well to sing every day,as you do, Father, the office of the most HolyVirgin, to whom I have vowed a particular devotion.I would right willingly renounce my calling,in which I am known from Soissons to Beauvais,in more than six hundred towns and villages, inorder to embrace the monastic life.”

The monk was touched by the simplicity of thejuggler, and, as he did not lack discernment, he[Pg 145]recognized in Barnabas one of those men of goodpurpose whereof our Lord said: “Let peace abidewith them on earth!” This is why he replied tohim:

“Friend Barnabas, come with me, and I willenable you to enter the monastery of which I amthe prior. He who conducted Mary the Egyptianthrough the desert has placed me on your pathto lead you in the way of salvation.”

This is how Barnabas became a monk.

In the monastery where he was received, thebrethren emulously solemnized the cult of theHoly Virgin, and each one employed in her serviceall the knowledge and all the ability which Godhad given him.

The prior, for his part, composed books which,according to the rules of scholasticism, treated ofthe virtues of the Mother of God.

Friar Maurice with a learned hand copiedthese dissertations on leaves of vellum.

Friar Alexander painted fine miniatures,wherein one could see the Queen of Heaven seatedupon the throne of Solomon, at the foot of whichfour lions kept vigil. Around her haloed headfluttered seven doves, which are the seven giftsof the Holy Spirit: gifts of fear, piety, science,might, counsel, intelligence, and wisdom. Shehad for companions six golden-haired Virgins:[Pg 146]Humility, Prudence, Retirement, Respect, Virginity,and Obedience. At her feet two smallfigures, nude and quite white, were standing in asuppliant attitude. They were souls who imploredher all-powerful intercession for their salvation—andcertainly not in vain.

On another page Friar Alexander representedEve gazing upon Mary, so that thus one might seeat the same time the sin and the redemption, thewoman humiliated and the Virgin exalted. Furthermore,in this book one might admire the Wellof Living Waters, the Fountain, the Lily, theMoon, the Sun, and the closed Garden which isspoken of in the Canticle, the Gate of Heaven andthe Seat of God, and there were also severalimages of the Virgin.

Friar Marbode was, similarly, one of the mostaffectionate children of Mary. He carved imagesin stone without ceasing, so that his beard, hiseyebrows, and his hair were white with dust, andhis eyes were perpetually swollen and tearful;but he was full of strength and joy in his advancedage, and, visibly, the Queen of Paradiseprotected the old age of her child. Marboderepresented her seated on a bishop’s throne,her brow encircled by a nimbus whose orbwas of pearls, and he took pains that the foldsof her robe should cover the feet of one of[Pg 147]whom the prophet said: “My beloved is like aclosed garden.”

At times, also, he gave her the features of achild full of grace, and she seemed to say: “Lord,thou art my Lord!”—“Dixi de ventre matris meæ:Deus meus es tu.” (Psalm 21, 11.)

They had also in the monastery several poets,who composed, in Latin, both prose and hymnsin honor of the most happy Virgin Mary, andthere was even found one Picardian who set forththe miracles of Our-Lady in ordinary languageand in rhymed verses.

III.

Seeing such a concourse of praises and such abeautiful in-gathering of works, Barnabaslamented to himself his ignorance and his simplicity.

“Alas!” he sighed as he walked along in thelittle garden of the convent, “I am very unfortunatenot to be able, like my brothers, to praiseworthily the Holy Mother of God to whom I havepledged the tenderness of my heart. Alas! Alas!I am a rude and artless man, and I have for yourservice, Madam the Virgin, neither edifying sermons,nor tracts properly divided according tothe rules, nor fine paintings, nor statues exactly[Pg 148]sculptured, nor verses counted by feet and marchingin measure. I have nothing, alas!”

He moaned in this manner and abandonedhimself to sadness.

One night that the monks were recreating byconversing, he heard one of them relate the historyof a religious who did not know how to recite anythingbut the Ave Maria. This monk was disdainedfor his ignorance; but, having died, therecame forth from his lips five roses in honor of thefive letters in the name of Maria, and his sanctitywas thus manifested.

While listening to this recital Barnabas admiredonce again the bounty of the Virgin; buthe was not consoled by the example of that happydeath, for his heart was full of zeal, and he desiredto serve the glory of his Lady who was in Heaven.He sought the means without being able to findthem, and every day he grieved the more.

One morning, however, having awakened fullof joy, he ran to the chapel and stayed there alonefor more than an hour. He returned there afterdinner. And beginning from that moment hewent every day into the chapel at the hour whenit was deserted, and there he passed a large partof the time which the other monks consecrated tothe liberal and the mechanical arts. No more washe sad and no longer did he complain.

[Pg 149]

A conduct so singular aroused the curiosity ofthe monks. They asked themselves in the communitywhy Friar Barnabas made his retreats sofrequent.

The Prior, whose duty it is to ignore nothingin the conduct of his monks, resolved to observeBarnabas during his solitudes. One day that hewas closeted in the chapel as his custom was, DomPrior went, accompanied by two elders of themonastery, to observe through the windows ofthe door what was going on in the interior.

They saw Barnabas, who—before the altar ofthe Holy Virgin, head downward, feet in air—wasjuggling with six brass balls and twelveknives. He was doing in honor of the HolyMother of God the feats which had brought tohim the most applause. Not comprehending thatthis simple man was thus placing his talent andhis knowledge at the service of the Holy Virgin,the two elders cried out at the sacrilege.

The Prior understood that Barnabas had aninnocent heart; but he thought that he had falleninto dementia. All three were preparing to draghim vigorously from the chapel when they sawthe Holy Virgin descend the steps of the altar inorder to wipe with a fold of her blue mantle thesweat which burst from the brow of herjuggler.

[Pg 150]

Then the Prior, prostrating his face against themarble slabs, recited these words:

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shallsee God!”

“Amen,” responded the elders as they kissedthe earth.

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 73859 ***