There was formerly no distinction between the verbal adjective and the present participle; but the Academy lays down one not very easy to grasp.
They were much pleased to learn that the pronoun leur is used for persons, but also for things, while où and en are used for things and sometimes for persons.
Ought we to say Cette femme a l'air bon or l'air bonne? — une bûche de bois sec, or de bois sèche? — ne pas laisser de, or que de? — une troupe de voleurs survint, or survinrent?
Other difficulties: Autour and à l'entour of which Racine and Boileau did not see the difference; imposer, or en imposer, synonyms with Massillon and Voltaire; croasser and coasser, confounded by La Fontaine, who knew, however, how to distinguish a crow from a frog.
The grammarians, it is true, are at variance. Some see a beauty where others discover a fault. They admit principles of which they reject the consequences, announce consequences of which they repudiate the principles, lean on tradition, throw over the masters, and adopt whimsical refinements.
Ménage, instead of lentilles and cassonade, approves of nentilles and castonade; Bonhours, jérarchie and not hiérarchie and M. Chapsal speaks of les œils de la soupe.
Pécuchet was amazed above all at Jénin. What! z'annetons would be better than hannetons, z'aricots than haricots! and, under Louis XIV., the pronunciation was Roume and Monsieur de Lioune, instead of Rome and Monsieur de Lionne!
Littré gave them the finishing stroke by declaring that there never had been, and never could be positive orthography. They concluded that syntax is a whim and grammar an illusion.
At this period, moreover, a new school of rhetoric declared that we should write as we speak, and that all would be well so long as we felt and observed.
As they had felt and believed that they had observed, they considered themselves qualified to write. A play is troublesome on account of the narrowness of its framework, but the novel has more freedom. In order to write one they searched among their personal recollections.
Pécuchet recalled to mind one of the head-clerks in his own office, a very nasty customer, and he felt a longing to take revenge on him by means of a book.
Bouvard had, at the smoking saloon, made the acquaintance of an old writing-master, who was a miserable drunkard. Nothing could be so ludicrous as this character.
At the end of the week, they imagined that they could fuse these two subjects into one. They left off there, and passed on to the following: a woman who causes the unhappiness of a family; a wife, her husband, and her lover; a woman who would be virtuous through a defect in her conformation; an ambitious man; a bad priest. They tried to bind together with these vague conceptions things supplied by their memory, and then made abridgments or additions.
Pécuchet was for sentiment and ideality, Bouvard for imagery and colouring; and they began to understand each other no longer, each wondering that the other should be so shallow.
The science which is known as æsthetics would perhaps settle their differences. A friend of Dumouchel, a professor of philosophy, sent them a list of works on the subject. They worked separately and communicated their ideas to one another.
In the first place, what is the Beautiful?
For Schelling, it is the infinite expressing itself through the finite; for Reid, an occult quality; for Jouffroy, an indecomposable fact; for De Maistre, that which is pleasing to virtue; for P. André, that which agrees with reason.
And there are many kinds of beauty: a beauty in the sciences — geometry is beautiful; a beauty in morals — it cannot be denied that the death of Socrates was beautiful; a beauty in the animal kingdom — the beauty of the dog consists in his sense of smell. A pig could not be beautiful, having regard to his dirty habits; no more could a serpent, for it awakens in us ideas of vileness. The flowers, the butterflies, the birds may be beautiful. Finally, the first condition of beauty is unity in variety: there is the principle.
"Yet," said Bouvard, "two squint eyes are more varied than two straight eyes, and produce an effect which is not so good — as a rule."
They entered upon the question of the Sublime.
Certain objects are sublime in themselves: the noise of a torrent, profound darkness, a tree flung down by the storm. A character is beautiful when it triumphs, and sublime when it struggles.
"I understand," said Bouvard; "the Beautiful is the beautiful, and the Sublime the very beautiful."
But how were they to be distinguished?
"By means of tact," answered Pécuchet.
"And tact — where does that come from?"
"From taste."
"What is taste?"
It is defined as a special discernment, a rapid judgment, the power of distinguishing certain relationships.
"In short, taste is taste; but all that does not tell the way to have it."
It is necessary to observe the proprieties. But the proprieties vary; and, let a work be ever so beautiful, it will not be always irreproachable. There is, however, a beauty which is indestructible, and of whose laws we are ignorant, for its genesis is mysterious.
Since an idea cannot be interpreted in every form, we ought to recognise limits amongst the arts, and in each of the arts many forms; but combinations arise in which the style of one will enter into another without the ill result of deviating from the end — of not being true.
The too rigid application of truth is hurtful to beauty, and preoccupation with beauty impedes truth. However, without an ideal there is no truth; this is why types are of a more continuous reality than portraits. Art, besides, only aims at verisimilitude; but verisimilitude depends on the observer, and is a relative and transitory thing.
So they got lost in discussions. Bouvard believed less and less in æsthetics.
"If it is not a humbug, its correctness will be demonstrated by examples. Now listen."
And he read a note which had called for much research on his part:
"'Bouhours accuses Tacitus of not having the simplicity which history demands. M. Droz, a professor, blames Shakespeare for his mixture of the serious and the comic. Nisard, another professor, thinks that André Chénier is, as a poet, beneath the seventeenth century. Blair, an Englishman, finds fault with the picture of the harpies in Virgil. Marmontel groans over the liberties taken by Homer. Lamotte does not admit the immortality of his heroes. Vida is indignant at his similes. In short, all the makers of rhetorics, poetics, and æsthetics, appear to me idiots."
"You are exaggerating," said Pécuchet.
He was disturbed by doubts; for, if (as Longinus observes) ordinary minds are incapable of faults, the faults must be associated with the masters, and we are bound to admire them. This is going too far. However, the masters are the masters. He would have liked to make the doctrines harmonise with the works, the critics with the poets, to grasp the essence of the Beautiful; and these questions exercised him so much that his bile was stirred up. He got a jaundice from it.
It was at its crisis when Marianne, Madame Bordin's cook, came with a request from her mistress for an interview with Bouvard.
The widow had not made her appearance since the dramatic performance. Was this an advance? But why should she employ Marianne as an intermediary? And all night Bouvard's imagination wandered.
Next day, about two o'clock, he was walking in the corridor, and glancing out through the window from time to time. The door-bell rang. It was the notary.
He crossed the threshold, ascended the staircase, and seated himself in the armchair, and, after a preliminary exchange of courtesies, said that, tired of waiting for Madame Bordin, he had started before her. She wished to buy the Ecalles from him.
Bouvard experienced a kind of chilling sensation, and he hurried towards Pécuchet's room.
Pécuchet did not know what reply to make. He was in an anxious frame of mind, as M. Vaucorbeil was to be there presently.
At length Madame Bordin arrived. The delay was explained by the manifest attention she had given to her toilette, wh
ich consisted of a cashmere frock, a hat, and fine kid gloves — a costume befitting a serious occasion.
After much frivolous preliminary talk she asked whether a thousand crown-pieces would not be sufficient.
"One acre! A thousand crown-pieces! Never!"
She half closed her eyes. "Oh! for me!"
And all three remained silent.
M. de Faverges entered. He had a morocco case under his arm, like a solicitor; and, depositing it on the table, said:
"These are pamphlets! They deal with reform — a burning question; but here is a thing which no doubt belongs to you."
And he handed Bouvard the second volume of the Mémoires du Diable.
Mélie, just now, had been reading it in the kitchen; and, as one ought to watch over the morals of persons of that class, he thought he was doing the right thing in confiscating the book.
Bouvard had lent it to his servant-maid. They chatted about novels. Madame Bordin liked them when they were not dismal.
"Writers," said M. de Faverges, "paint life in colours that are too flattering."
"It is necessary to paint," urged Bouvard.
"Then nothing can be done save to follow the example."
"It is not a question of example."
"At least, you will admit that they might fall into the hands of a young daughter. I have one."
"And a charming one!" said the notary, with the expression of countenance he wore on the days of marriage contracts.
"Well, for her sake, or rather for that of the persons that surround her, I prohibit them in my house, for the people, my dear sir — — "
"What have the people done?" said Vaucorbeil, appearing suddenly at the door.
Pécuchet, who had recognised his voice, came to mingle with the company.
"I maintain," returned the count, "that it is necessary to prevent them from reading certain books."
Vaucorbeil observed: "Then you are not in favour of education?"
"Yes, certainly. Allow me — — "
"When every day," said Marescot, "an attack is made on the government."
"Where's the harm?"
And the nobleman and the physician proceeded to disparage Louis Philippe, recalling the Pritchard case, and the September laws against the liberty of the press:
"And that of the stage," added Pécuchet.
Marescot could stand this no longer.
"It goes too far, this stage of yours!"
"That I grant you," said the count — "plays that glorify suicide."
"Suicide is a fine thing! Witness Cato," protested Pécuchet.
Without replying to the argument, M. de Faverges stigmatised those works in which the holiest things are scoffed at: the family, property, marriage.
"Well, and Molière?" said Bouvard.
Marescot, a man of literary taste, retorted that Molière would not pass muster any longer, and was, furthermore, a little overrated.
"Finally," said the count, "Victor Hugo has been pitiless — yes, pitiless — towards Marie Antoinette, by dragging over the hurdle the type of the Queen in the character of Mary Tudor."
"What!" exclaimed Bouvard, "I, an author, I have no right — — "
"No, sir, you have no right to show us crime without putting beside it a corrective — without presenting to us a lesson."
Vaucorbeil thought also that art ought to have an object — to aim at the improvement of the masses. "Let us chant science, our discoveries, patriotism," and he broke into admiration of Casimir Delavigne.
Madame Bordin praised the Marquis de Foudras.
The notary replied: "But the language — are you thinking of that?"
"The language? How?"
"He refers to the style," said Pécuchet. "Do you consider his works well written?"
"No doubt, exceedingly interesting."
He shrugged his shoulders, and she blushed at the impertinence.
Madame Bordin had several times attempted to come back to her own business transaction. It was too late to conclude it. She went off on Marescot's arm.
The count distributed his pamphlets, requesting them to hand them round to other people.
Vaucorbeil was leaving, when Pécuchet stopped him.
"You are forgetting me, doctor."
His yellow physiognomy was pitiable, with his moustaches and his black hair, which was hanging down under a silk handkerchief badly fastened.
"Purge yourself," said the doctor. And, giving him two little slaps as if to a child: "Too much nerves, too much artist!"
"No, surely!"
They summed up what they had just heard. The morality of art is contained for every person in that which flatters that person's interests. No one has any love for literature.
After this they turned over the count's pamphlets.
They found in all of a demand for universal suffrage.
"It seems to me," said Pécuchet, "that we shall soon have some squabbling."
For he saw everything in dark colours, perhaps on account of his jaundice.
CHAPTER VI.
Revolt of the People.
In the morning of the 25th of February, 1848, the news was brought to Chavignolles, by a person who had come from Falaise, that Paris was covered with barricades, and the next day the proclamation of the Republic was posted up outside the mayor's office.
This great event astonished the inhabitants.
But when they learned that the Court of Cassation, the Court of Appeal, the Court of Exchequer, the Chamber of Notaries, the order of advocates, the Council of State, the University, the generals, and M. de la Roche-Jacquelein himself had given promise of their adherence to the provisional government, their breasts began to expand; and, as trees of liberty were planted at Paris, the municipal council decided that they ought to have them at Chavignolles.
Bouvard made an offer of one, his patriotism exulting in the triumph of the people; as for Pécuchet, the fall of royalty confirmed his anticipations so exactly that he must needs be satisfied.
Gorju, obeying them with zeal, removed one of the poplar trees that skirted the meadow above La Butte, and transported it to "the Cows' Pass," at the entrance of the village, the place appointed for the purpose.
Before the hour for the ceremony, all three awaited the procession. They heard a drum beating, and then beheld a silver cross. After this appeared two torches borne by the chanters, then the curé, with stole, surplice, cope, and biretta. Four altar-boys escorted him, a fifth carried the holy-water basin, and in the rear came the sacristan. He got up on the raised edge of the hole in which stood the poplar tree, adorned with tri-coloured ribbons. On the opposite side could be seen the mayor and his two deputies, Beljambe and Marescot; then the principal personages of the district, M. de Faverges, Vaucorbeil, Coulon, the justice of the peace, an old fogy with a sleepy face. Heurtaux wore a foraging-cap, and Alexandre Petit, the new schoolmaster, had put on his frock-coat, a threadbare green garment — his Sunday coat. The firemen, whom Girbal commanded, sword in hand, stood in single file. On the other side shone the white plates of some old shakos of the time of Lafayette — five or six, no more — the National Guard having fallen into desuetude at Chavignolles. Peasants and their wives, workmen from neighbouring factories, and village brats, crowded together in the background; and Placquevent, the keeper, five feet eight inches in height, kept them in check with a look as he walked to and fro with folded arms.
The curé's speech was like that of other priests in similar circumstances. After thundering against kings, he glorified the Republic. "Do we not say 'the republic of letters,' 'the Christian republic'? What more innocent than the one, more beautiful than the other? Jesus Christ formulated our sublime device: the tree of the people was the tree of the Cross. In order that religion may give her fruits, she has need of charity." And, in the name of charity, the ecclesiastic implored his brethren not to commit any disorder; to return home peaceably.
Then he sprinkled the tree while he invoked the blessing of God. "May
it grow, and may it recall to us our enfranchisement from all servitude, and that fraternity more bountiful than the shade of its branches. Amen."
Some voices repeated "Amen"; and, after an interval of drum-beating, the clergy, chanting a Te Deum, returned along the road to the church.
Their intervention had produced an excellent effect. The simple saw in it a promise of happiness, the patriotic a mark of deference, a sort of homage rendered to their principles.
Bouvard and Pécuchet thought they should have been thanked for their present, or at least that an allusion should have been made to it; and they unbosomed themselves on the subject to Faverges and the doctor.
What mattered wretched considerations of that sort? Vaucorbeil was delighted with the Revolution; so was the count. He execrated the Orléans family. They would never see them any more! Good-bye to them! All for the people henceforth! And followed by Hurel, his factotum, he went to meet the curé.
Foureau was walking with his head down, between the notary and the innkeeper, irritated by the ceremony, as he was apprehensive of a riot; and instinctively he turned round towards Placquevent, who, together with the captain, gave vent to loud regrets at Girbal's unsatisfactoriness and the sorry appearance of his men.
Some workmen passed along the road singing the "Marseillaise," with Gorju among them brandishing a stick; Petit was escorting them, with fire in his eyes.
"I don't like that!" said Marescot. "They are making a great outcry, and getting too excited."
"Oh, bless my soul!" replied Coulon; "young people must amuse themselves."
Foureau heaved a sigh. "Queer amusement! and then the guillotine at the end of it!" He had visions of the scaffold, and was anticipating horrors.
Chavignolles felt the rebound of the agitation in Paris. The villagers subscribed to the newspapers. Every morning people crowded to the post-office, and the postmistress would not have been able to get herself free from them had it not been for the captain, who sometimes assisted her. Then would follow a chat on the green.
The first violent discussion was on the subject of Poland.
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