All my life, I’ve been a botanical Peeping Tom, so I hoped my first garden would be a combination of influences, a satiation of my Lust for Leaves.
I join V. at the edge of the lawn and cast a glance down the steps leading to my vegetable beds. Planted with such enthusiasm after our arrival last autumn, the winter spinach and early lettuce are sprouting alongside a frightening crop of mountain thistle and poison ivy.
‘Where did that stuff come from? I pulled those things out last September.’ ‘Have you never gardened before?’ V. chomps his gums at me.
‘C’mon! Did I have a chance in London, Hong Kong, or New York?’
‘Weeds need regular removal,’ he scolds me. ‘And you should shelter the lettuce from the sun before it bolts, and tie those beans to the fence.’
‘I know, I know. I don't need a city boy like you to lecture me about agriculture.’
He certainly doesn't look like a gardener this morning, all muffled up in a flower-patterned dressing gown.
‘Hmmph! I was no mere gardener, Madame, I was a patriarch.’ He takes my arm and leans on me as we descend to the leafy beds. He pokes his stick under the weeds to make sure the spinach is still there.
‘In Ferney, I had four hundred beehives, pasture land, forest and flower gardens, three miles in circuit. We raised fifty cows, dozens of oxen and horses, poultry, and sheep. I had fruit trees, grapevines, wine presses, and hothouses for my seedlings. We got permission to install pipes through the Widow Dutil's fields and had pure water running straight into the kitchen—when Parisians still had to pay for the polluted waters of the Seine carried upstairs by porters!’
‘You did all that?’
‘Madame, I was prouder of my ability as a builder, a farmer and a gardener than I was of my philosophy!’
‘You don't dress like the Martha-Stewart-in-Mudboots type. You had help.’
‘I reserved one field which only I could touch.’
‘Sure, how many workers did you have for the rest of your estate?’
‘Up to eight hundred, but I supervised every one in person.’
‘You obviously formed a bad habit. I never asked you to supervise me!’
‘Stop arguing and start weeding here. These dandelions blew over from the lawn above. They're choking your red cabbage.’
And to my astonishment, V. arranges a thick pillow of newly cut grass from Peter's compost heap and kneels down on those serviceable stockings to start yanking weeds.
‘My people never complained. I fought off the vicious tax farming that kept them poor. I petitioned to end the serfdom that bound their neighbors to the land. The feudal laws cost those poor souls their houses and property if a son so much as dared to move his family away from his father’s home.’
‘The state could confiscate their property?’
‘It was the Church’s idea, of course! L’infâme strikes again! Lying behind your very house, Madame, are two valleys that were tyrannized by the Benedictine monks that ran this whole area on a fistful of forged documents dated from the twelfth century! Their rights were transferred to the prebendaries of Saint-Claude in 1742, but things got no better, I tell you.’
I wrest out root after root, and feel a guilty pleasure wash over me, as the destructive pessimisms of the winter’s hibernation find an outlet in virtuous cultivation. V. rattles on without taking a breath—about local bondage, church abuse, slavery and sin—but the speedy progress he is making down the line of épinards d’hiver is astonishing for a man his age.
‘I will give you just one example,’ he says, waving a bouquet of dirty white roots in my face. ‘A surgeon in Morez applied to the local monks to pay his fee for treating their sick slaves. “Instead of paying you, we should punish you,” whined the monks. “Last year you cured two serfs by whose deaths we would have profited by a thousand francs!” You see, when the poor serfs died, their property reverted to the monks’ greedy pockets.’
‘That’s detestable. Ow! I need gloves. These thistles leave welts.’
‘But not unusual, by any means. These prebendaries robbed a woman named Jeanne Marie Mermet of her entire inheritance from her father on the simple grounds that she left her childhood home to spend her wedding night under her husband’s roof.’
‘How medieval.’
V. brushes crumbling dirt off his fingers with relish. ‘I exposed it all—the fraud, the theft and the abuse. The last petition was just a year before I died. You wonder why some people here are shy and deferential to you? Why they don’t raise their hands at teacher’s meetings? Why they obediently fill out application forms merely to take their children to the dentist? Why only foreign mothers joined your Lunch Club?’
I sit back on my haunches, and rest an arm on the concrete rim of the vegetable bed and reflect for a moment.
‘Because they’re descendants of serfs?’
He nods. ‘That’s your neighborhood, Madame. Les Rousses, Morez, Belle-Fontaine . . . all those little French border towns behind this village.’
Les Rousses was full of serfs?’ I ponder this astonishing picture and reflect on the vague air of depression and lack of initiative that hangs over nearby French villages like a melancholic miasma.
‘Oui, there were twelve thousand serfs in these parts during my lifetime. Not so in Ferney. I built my peasants houses, gave them employment and lent them money—’
‘—At eight percent, no doubt.’
‘—only four, only four. You have missed some weeds over there. My aristocratic friends paid six percent, and even that rascal Richelieu paid back only a third. My village of forty peasants grew to a town of twelve hundred under my care. I converted my theater into a silkworm house. Pretty soon, Catherine the Great was wearing silk stockings made by the son of Jean Calas at my estate. Our watches and jewelry were shipped to Holland, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Morocco, Russia, China and America—’
‘Hold on. We’re sitting at eleven hundred meters’ altitude. You’re not suggesting I raise silkworms!’
‘You’ve never heard of hothouses, Madame? We can always try. The severity of Ferney’s climate was very discouraging.’
‘Look at this poor plant—all shriveled up—and you talk about discouraging.’ I smooth some dirt over the roots of my struggling eggplant shivering in the spring breeze. This is not eggplant country.
‘Oh, I had my failures,’ he laughs, ‘even though I consulted no less than the head gardener of the tree nurseries of France, Moreau de la Rochette. But I had asparagus and artichokes from my greenhouse in winter. And all summer, peaches, apricots, apples—what the devil are these blue pebbles?’
‘Snail poison pellets.’
‘Interesting. . . the exact color Pompadour chose for her porcelains from Sevres. . . what was I saying?’
‘Tree nurseries.’
He hikes his coat tails to straddle rows of early Reine de Mai lettuce, ‘Oh, yes. I planted twenty thousand chestnut trees specially ordered from Savoy. All died. Four times I set out nut trees along the main road and three-quarters perished or were torn up by the peasants. I wrote to Moreau and asked him to ship me two hundred elms and one hundred mountain ash and six weeks later, I tried again with fifty maples and another fifty plane trees, I never gave up.’
‘How old were you when you did all this?’ He shrugs. ‘Seventy-three.’
We finish the weeding. I cook lunch for the family. Monsieur Voltaire now takes a nap at midday, although he won’t admit to it. He finds me later folding duvets that have been airing in the sun.
‘Am I expecting visitors to my wing?’ he inquires.
‘I thought we might have some of Peter’s family this weekend, but they cancelled.’
‘Just as well,’ he nods, relieved, ‘I would have been able to do more at Ferney, had it not been for all the infernal house guests, Fourteen bedrooms, always filled! Madame Denis longed for Paris society and was an excellent hostess, but whew! Sometimes it was too much for me.’
‘I hope we have mor
e house guests soon, Not that you aren’t company enough.’
‘Well, don’t invite that chatty Boswell! That eager Scot will invite himself and never leave! And even after he goes, he writes you a letter saying he hasn’t finished, comes right back and tries to convert you to Christianity! Don’t have anybody as long as I’m revising La Princesse de Babylone, please.’
I give him my most indulgent smile. ‘Anyone else we should snub?’
‘Well, Casanova can come back. I always found him amusing.’
‘The famous lover?’
‘No doubt, given his habits, there are now a lot of little Casanovas running around. Yes, the Italian who came to see me after he had visited the scientist Albrecht von Haller in Bern, the most important Swiss of his time and the biggest religious bore that ever lived. Haller was so devout! When I set up shop in Switzerland, he told everyone Satan had arrived!’ V. chuckles to himself at his old wickednesses.
‘What did Casanova say?’
‘That meeting me made it the proudest day of his life.’
I nod, ‘Yes, yes, of course, and—?’
‘He told me he had just been to see that religious stick, Haller.’
‘Yes, and what else?’
‘I asked Casanova politely whether he was pleased with Haller? He said he had spent three of the happiest days of his life with that man. I congratulated him. Casanova said he was sorry that Haller was not so fair towards me. You know what I answered?’ V. asks me, eyes twinkling. ‘Aha! Perhaps both Haller and I are mistaken!’
‘Why did Haller malign you?’
‘My attacks on the Church, of course. He told Casanova that “contrary to the laws of perspective, many people have found Voltaire greater when viewed from a distance”!’
I have to laugh, and after a moment of feigning irritation, so does V.
‘Yes, Haller was a clever devil. But you want to know more about Casanova, eh? He told me that superstition was necessary to govern, for the people would never give a mere man the right to rule them, while I argued for a sovereign ruling over a free people, bound to them by reciprocal conditions.’
‘I had no idea intercourse with Casanova could be so intellectual,’ I respond.
V. shields his eyes from the sun’s glare with one spidery hand. ‘You know, I found Casanova a little sad and his arguments a little cynical. He seemed to have a bad opinion of his fellow creatures. He told me, “Your master passion is love of humanity, Monsieur Voltaire. This love blinds you. Love humanity, but love it as it is”.’
‘He said that? A bit like the old “cultivate your garden,” and let the rest go, isn’t it?’
V. looks at me out of those old, foxy brown eyes, and waits for my reflections. Casanova’s comment goes deep with me, for some reason, and V. knows it.
‘Love humanity as it is,’ he repeats.
I break a long silence at last. ‘You think I’m impatient with everything and everyone, don’t you?’
He repeats to me, intently, ‘All of my clever words haven’t sunk in as much as poor old Casanova’s, have they? The simple advice given to me by a backstage brat, abandoned by his parents, living a life of chicanery, tricks and stolen affection. He saw a great deal, Madame. If we take his advice, we will both be much happier. Love humanity, but love it as it—Who in God’s name is that?’
‘Who? What?’
‘Mon Dieu! Has a midget priest come to call?’
Chapter Twenty-six I BELIEVE IN GOD
I see only my first-born son talking to his father in the distance and I laugh.
‘That’s Alexander. He’s trying on his First Communion robe. Have you forgotten? Mass tomorrow at eleven?’
V. struggles to his feet and screeching like a banshee, waves his stick across the lawn at Alexander.
‘Take that thing off at once! You’re not going to let our clever boy undergo that superstitious ritual? Don’t you remember what La Barre died for? To avoid worshiping a God of Dough?’
‘Let’s not start arguing again,’ I plead.
Voltaire can be witty, courteous, and charming, but on the subject of the Church, he is so embittered, I don’t want him spoiling this for Alexander. Amidst the rough and tumble of his classes, the petty torments of classmates, and misunderstandings with teachers, nothing has been such a balm for Alexander’s homesick soul as the uncomplicated welcome offered by the catechism teachers.
‘Leave him alone. You can see the excitement all over his face—’
‘—I will not be a—’
‘Just be nice and come with us to Mass. You don’t have to pray if don’t want to.’
‘Well, what would be the point of that? You treat your God like a pasha, or like a sultan whom one may provoke and appease! If your prayers match up to his wishes, it’s useless to ask Him to do what he’s already resolved to do. If you pray that He does the contrary, you’re praying for him to be weak, inconstant, you’re practically mocking Him.’
‘I don’t pray to a HIM. Even Eva-Marie calls God a HER.’
Rebuffed, V. pulls his dressing gown tighter around his rake of a body, ‘Well, I’m glad to hear it. All I’m saying is that everybody prays to God, but wise men resign themselves and simply obey Him.’
‘Point taken. And as far as superstition goes, you’re lucky I’m not like half the modern world, worshiping crystals or proselytizing about the health benefits of green tea.’
He winces, ‘Oh, it’s all so discouraging. Bien. When is this superstition-addled ceremony?’
‘Eleven. Be there,’
‘Well, if it must be, let us pray with the people and resign ourselves with the wise men.’
‘Let us,’ I press my lips together, resolved not to let this argument go any further.
The next morning, Peter drives Alexander into the village ahead of us to prepare for the First Communion Procession with the rest of his class.
My husband shakes his head as he returns to the house. ‘First Communion must be a really big deal around here, The village is teeming with cars,’ he says, settling down in the kitchen for a last coffee before we return to the village to witness Alexander’s procession up the hillock to the chapel.
Half an hour later, Peter, Eva-Marie, Theo and I find ourselves facing a very Manhattan-like experience in our own little village—hunting for a parking place. The small church parking lot is filled,. All the spaces around the tourist kiosk are taken. We try the side street leading past the Ancienne École and the train station parking lot. Full up. Complet.
I shrug my shoulders. ‘Well, St-Cergue has the chapel and the saint, and even the fountain that cured leprosy back in the Middle Ages, so the catechism classes of Arzier and Les Muids haven’t any choice but to come up here.’
‘Leprosy cure? That can’t be it,’ Peter argues. ‘How many kids are receiving First Communion this morning. Five hundred?’
More curiously, the owners of these vehicles are nowhere to be seen in front of the Reymond’s grocery, the prime spot from which to view the Communion Procession. At five to eleven, a handful of other families from the lower villages straggle up to join us from distant parking places, their cameras in hand. We exchange a few handshakes.
‘Do you think the people who parked around here are already warming pews in church?’ I worry that even if he had a corporal presence, V. would be too thin to do us much good reserving four seats.
The door of the Commune office swings open and out comes our African missionary beaming widely in the sun. He is followed by a parade of shy, embarrassed kids, loping along in white robes of various hemlines and droopiness. This is not New York or Paris. Under their robes, all but Alexander are wearing their everyday high-soled sneakers. They’re holding their palms self-consciously pressed together, some under their chins, others at waist level.
The column halts while a few speeding French drivers shooting through town from across the border whiz across the junction. More than a dozen Sunday motorcyclists crowd the outdoor cafe tables of t
he Restaurant du Jura on the opposite corner. Like great beetles in their black leather, with helmets in hand, they stop chatting and smoking to gape at the black cleric and his cavalcade of homegrown cherubs.
The priest finally signals his charges to cross the hazardous street. Cameras and camcorders start whizzing and clicking away.
‘What’s that?’ Peter asks.
I stop filming. ‘Thanks a lot. Now I’ve got you asking ‘Wazzat?’ on video.’
‘I hear it too,’ Theo pipes up.
Hundreds of voices are singing a French hymn. A long procession of solemn people, led by six pallbearers carrying a simple coffin, appears around the corner of the butcher’s shop. Their path is heading straight for our First Communicants.
‘So that’s what all the cars are here for. It’s a funeral! Who died?’ Peter dodges into the tabac for a word with the ever-informed Mrs. Weber and returns with some startling news. ‘It’s old Berner, remember him?’
‘The guy who drove his truck into our rain gutter?’
Peter nods. ‘He collided with a motorcyclist on the Route d’Arzier.’ I hardly have time to express some kind of polite regret when I hear V. mutter, ‘Here comes another collision now.’
He can’t fool me. His expression may be all innocence as he holds his large, festive hat, with its gorgeous lavender plume politely across his breast out of respect for the passing dead. But the old goat’s eyes twinkling out from under that outdated cloud of a wig can’t disguise his growing delight as the two columns of pious—one joyful, one mournful—now only a blocks apart, proceed head-on towards each other.
The short, bearded Protestant pastor leading the funeral column sings louder to fortify his mourners for the coming test of wills as his right hand furtively signals his troops to tighten their formation to let the children pass. Their chant grows louder, more resolute.
The Catholic communicants’ sunny little First Communion ditty falters as they look up from their clasped hands to see a herd of grown-ups heading straight at them. Their straight line starts to fray. The priest, following an enormous crucifix brandished by the mail lady’s chubby child, resumes the cheerful rhymes about ‘Spring lambs and Baby Jesus’ in a breath-taking baritone, but he can scarcely be heard above the much more numerous Calvinists laboring away at their gloomy dirge.
A Visit From Voltaire Page 31