“The Maréchale promised to follow this advice, and asked the Sylph for news of the defunct Maréchal, but he disappeared without replying.
“When she awoke she called her women to her and sent them to see if there were any clothes of the Maréchal’s remaining in his cupboard. They replied that there were none, and that the lackeys had sold them all to the old-clothes man. Madame de Grancey insisted that they should search and see if they could not find at least one pair of knee-breeches. Having ransacked every corner they discovered at last an old pair of black taffeta breeches which laced up in the fashion of a former time; these they brought to the Maréchale. The latter put her hand in one of the pockets and drew out a letter, which she opened and found therein more than was necessary to ensure Monsieur des Roches being sent to a state prison. She made all speed to throw this letter in the fire. Thus the gentleman was saved by his good friends the Sylph and the Maréchale.
“I ask you, Monsieur l’Abbé, were those the ways of a demon? But I will give you an instance which will appeal to you more, and which I feel certain will touch the heart of a learned man like yourself. You are well aware that the Academy of Dijon is rich in men of able minds. One of them, whose name is not unknown to you, who lived in the last century, was spending learned vigils on an edition of Pindar. One night when he had worked desperately on five lines whose meaning he could not unravel, the text being very corrupt, he fell asleep despairing at cock-crow. During his slumber a Sylph, who loved him, transported him in spirit to Stockholm, introduced him into the palace of Queen Christina, led him to the library, and drawing a manuscript of Pindar from one of the shelves opened it for him at the difficult passage. The five lines were there with two or three good comments which made them quite intelligible.
“In his vehement joy the learned man awoke, struck a light, and immediately set down the lines in pencil as he remembered them. Whereupon he slept profoundly. The next day, reflecting upon his nocturnal adventure, he resolved to get light on it. Monsieur Descartes was in Sweden at the time, with the Queen, to whom he was teaching his philosophy. Our Pindarist was acquainted with him; but he was on more familiar footing with the King of Sweden’s ambassador in France — one Monsieur Chanut. He addressed himself to the latter to forward a letter to Monsieur Descartes, in which he begged him to tell him if there was really a manuscript of Pindar in the Queen’s library at Stockholm containing the different reading he now indicated. Monsieur Descartes, who was extremely civil, replied to the academician of Dijon that Her Majesty did in truth possess such a manuscript, and that he himself had read therein the lines with the different reading contained in the letter.”
Monsieur d’Astarac, having related this story while peeling an apple, looked at Abbé Coignard to see the success of his speech.
My good master smiled.
“Ah! Monsieur,” said he, “I see that I flattered myself a moment ago with a vain hope, and we shall never make you renounce your chimeras. I grant you with a good grace that you have shown us an ingenious Sylph, and I should like to have so pleasing a secretary. His help would be particularly useful to me in one or two passages of Zozimus the Panopolitan which are extremely obscure. Could you not give me the means of invoking at need some library Sylph as handy as the one at Dijon?”
Monsieur d’Astarac replied gravely. “’Tis a secret, Monsieur l’Abbé, which I will confide to you willingly. But I warn you that if you impart it to the profane your ruin is certain.”
“Have no fear,” said the Abbé. “I am very anxious to know such a valuable secret, although, to speak plainly, I expect no result, not believing in your Sylphs. So instruct me if you please.”
“You demand it?” said the cabalist. “Know, then, that when you wish for help from a Sylph you have but to pronounce the one word Agla. Immediately the sons of the air will fly towards you, but you will understand, Monsieur l’Abbé, this word must be spoken from the heart as well as with the lips, and that in faith lies all its virtue. Without faith it is but an empty murmur. And as I have just said it, without either expression or desire, it has, even in my mouth, but feeble power, and at most some Sons of the Morning, hearing it, may train their light shadows through the room. I rather guessed at than perceived them; I saw them on that curtain, and they vanished before they took shape. Neither you nor your pupil suspected their presence. But had I pronounced the magic word with true expression you would have seen them appear in all their glory. They are of entrancing beauty. Here, Monsieur l’Abbé, you have from me a great and useful secret. Once more let me beg you not to divulge it imprudently. And do not overlook the case of the Abbé de Villars, who, for having revealed their secrets, was assassinated by the Sylphs on the Lyons road.”
“On the Lyons road,” said my good master. “That is strange!”
Monsieur d’Astarac left us in his sudden fashion.
“I mean to ascend once more,” said the Abbé “to that august library where I tasted such austere delights and which I shall never see again. Do not fail, Tournebroche, to be at the cross roads of Bergères at night-fall.”
I promised not to fail him; I had planned to shut myself in my room to write to Monsieur d’Astarac and my good parents that they must forgive my not taking leave of them, fleeing as I did after an adventure in which I had been more unfortunate than culpable.
But on the landing I heard snores issuing from my room and on opening the door I saw Monsieur d’Anquetil asleep on my bed — his sword against the bed-post and playing-cards spread all over the coverlet. I had the desire for a moment to stab him with his own sword, but this notion was dissipated as soon as born and I let him sleep, smiling to myself in my sorrow at the thought that Jael — shut behind triple bolts — could not come and join him.
I went into my good master’s room to write my letters, where I disturbed five or six rats who were nibbling the volume of Boethius on the bed-side table. I wrote to Monsieur d’Astarac and to my mother, and I composed a most affecting letter for Jael. I re-read it and wet it with my tears— “Perchance,” said I to myself, “the faithless one will mingle hers with them.”
Then, overcome with fatigue and melancholy, I threw myself on my good master’s mattress and was not long in falling into a half-slumber troubled by dreams at once amorous and gloomy. I was drawn from my slumbers by the speechless Criton who entered the room and held out to me on a silver tray an iris-scented curl-paper where I read a few words written in pencil in an awkward hand — I was wanted outside on urgent business. The note was signed:— “Brother Ange, unworthy monk.”
I ran to the green door and I found the little brother in the road sitting beside the ditch in a pitiable state of prostration. Not having strength to rise at my approach, he turned on me the doglike gaze of two big eyes, almost human, and drowned in tears. His bearded chest heaved beneath his sighs. He said to me in a tone that carried grief:
“Alas! Monsieur Jacques, the hour of trial has come to Babylon, as was spoken by the prophets.
On information given by Monsieur de la Guéritaude to the head of the police, Catherine was taken to the reformatory by the officers and will be sent to America in the next convoy. I had the news from Jeannette the viol-player, who, at the moment when Catherine arrived in the cart at the reformatory, was just leaving it herself, after having been kept there through illness of which she is now cured by the surgeon’s art — at least if God wills. As regards Catherine she will be sent to the islands without mercy.”
And at this point of his story brother Ange cried copiously. After trying to stop his tears with kind words, I asked him if he had nothing else to tell me.
“Alas! Monsieur Jacques,” he replied, “I have told you what was the most essential, and the rest floats in my head like the Spirit of God on the waters — though I mean no comparison. It is all obscure chaos. Catherine’s misfortune has destroyed all feeling in me. Nevertheless I must have had news of some importance to communicate to you, thus to risk coming to the door of this cursed
house, where you live in company with all kinds of devils, and it was with terror, after reciting the prayer to St. Francis that I dared raise the knocker to give a servant the note I had written to you. I do not know if you have been able to read it, I am so little accustomed to forming letters, and the paper was not good to write upon, but it is the pride of our sacred order not to yield to the vanities of the age. Oh! Catherine in the reformatory! Catherine in America! Is it not enough to melt the hardest heart? Jeannette herself was crying her eyes out over it, although she is jealous of Catherine, who outshines her in beauty and youth as St. Francis surpasses all other saints in holiness. Ah, Monsieur Jacques! Catherine in America! such are the extraordinary ways of Providence! Alas! our holy religion says truth, and King David was right when he said that all flesh was grass, for Catherine is in the reformatory. These stones on which I sit are happier than I, although I am clad as a Christian and even as a monk. Catherine in the reformatory!”
He sobbed afresh. I waited till the torrent of his woes had abated and I asked him if he had news of my dear parents.
“Monsieur Jacques,” he answered, “it is they who sent me to you charged with an urgent message. I must tell you they are not at all happy, it is the fault of Maître Léonard your father, who passes all the days God gives him in drinking and in play. And the savoury steam of chickens and geese no longer rises as once towards the Reine Pédauque whose picture swings dismally in the wet and rusting winds. Where are the days gone when your father’s cook-shop would scent the rue St. Jacques from the Petit Bacchus to the Trois Pucelles? Since that sorcerer entered there everything wastes away, man and beast, as a result of the spell he cast on it. And divine vengeance has begun to manifest in the place ever since that fat Abbé Coignard was received whilst I, on the contrary, was turned out. It was the primary cause of the evil, which came from l’Abbé Coignard being so proud of the depth of his knowledge and of the elegance of his manners. For pride is the source of all sin. Your sainted mother did very wrong, Monsieur Jacques, not to be satisfied with the lessons I charitably gave you, which would without doubt have made you capable of ruling the kitchen, handling the larding-pin and bearing the banner of the fraternity after the Christian death of your father, whose last service and funeral cannot be long delayed — for all life is transitory and he drinks exceedingly hard.”
The news caused me a grief easy to understand. I mingled my tears with the little brother’s. At the same time I asked him for news of my good mother.
“God,” he made reply, “who was pleased to afflict Rachel in Ramah, has sent your mother, Monsieur Jacques, divers tribulations for the good of her soul, and for the purpose of chastising Maître Léonard for his sin, when in my person he wickedly drove Jesus Christ from the cook-shop. For He has transferred the greater part of the purchasers of poultry and pasties to Madame Quonian’s daughter, who turns the spit at the other end of the rue St. Jacques. Your respected mother sees with sorrow that He has blessed that house at the expense of her own, which is so deserted now that moss all but covers the doorstep. She is upheld in her trials firstly by her devotion to St. Francis, and secondly, by thought of your success in the world where you bear a sword like a man of quality.
“But this second consolation was greatly diminished this morning, when the police came to seek you at the shop to take you to Bicêtre to pound lime for a year or two. It was Catherine who denounced you to Monsieur de la Guéritaude, but one must not blame her, she merely confessed the truth which it was her duty to do, seeing she is a Christian. She designated you and Monsieur l’Abbé Coignard as Monsieur d’Anquetil’s accomplices, and gave a faithful account of the murders and carnage of that awful night. Alas! her candour availed her nothing and she was taken to the reformatory! It is horrible to think about.”
At this point in his story the little brother put his head in his hands and cried afresh.
Night had fallen. I feared to miss the rendezvous. Dragging the little brother out of the ditch where he was half buried, I put him on his feet and begged him to continue his narrative accompanying me meanwhile on the St. Germain’s road as far as the cross roads of Bergères. He acceded willingly, and walking sadly beside me asked me to try and unravel the tangled thread of his thoughts. I led him back to the point when the police came to take me at the cook-shop.
“Not finding you,” he continued, “they wanted to take your father in your place. Maître Léonard pretended he did not know where you were hidden, your respected mother said the same thing, with many vows, may God forgive her, Monsieur, for she was evidently perjuring herself. The police began to be angry. Your father made them listen to reason by giving them drink. And they parted quite good friends. During this time your mother went and fetched me from the Trois Pucelles, where I was begging in accordance with the holy rules of my order. She sent me with all haste to you to warn you to fly without delay, for fear that the lieutenant of police should discover the house where you are living.”
While listening to these gloomy words I hastened my steps and we had already crossed the bridge of Neuilly.
On the somewhat steep hill which mounts up to the cross roads whose elms we could already distinguish, the little brother continued talking in an exhausted voice.
“Your worthy mother,” said he “especially commanded me to warn you of the peril which threatens you and she gave me a little bag for you, which I hid under my robe. I cannot find it though,” he added, after feeling himself all over. “And how can you expect me to find anything after losing Catherine? She had a great devotion for St. Francis and was very charitable. Yet they have treated her as a harlot, and will shave her head, and it is terrible to think that she will come to look like a dress-maker’s dummy — and in that state she will be shipped to America, where she will risk dying of fever or being eaten by savage cannibals.”
He finished his recital with a sigh as we reached the cross roads. On our left the inn, the Cheval Rouge, lifted above a double row of elms its slate-covered roof and dormer windows provided with pulleys, and through the trees one saw the carriage entrance wide open. I slackened my steps, and the little brother sank down under a tree.
“Brother Ange,” said I, “you spoke of a packet my good mother begged you to give me.”
“She did, indeed, ask me to do so,” replied the little brother, “and I have put the packet away so carefully somewhere that I do not know where it can be, but please believe, Monsieur Jacques, that I can only have lost it through over-much precaution.”
I answered him impetuously that he could not have lost it, and if he did not immediately find it I would help him myself to look for it.
He was not insensible to the tone of my words, for with a heavy sigh he drew from under his robe a small calico bag which he regretfully held out to me. I found therein an ecu of six livres and a medal of the Black Virgin of Chartres, which I kissed while shedding tears of emotion and repentance. Meanwhile the little brother was drawing packets of coloured pictures out of all of his pockets, and prayers decorated with coarse drawings. He picked out one or two which he offered to me in preference to the others as being more useful in his opinion, for pilgrims, and travellers, and all wandering people.
“They are blessed,” he told me, “and efficacious when in danger of death or sickness, either by reciting them aloud or by touching and placing them on the skin. I give them to you, Monsieur Jacques, for the love of God. Remember to give me some alms. Do not forget that I beg in the name of St. Francis. He will take you under his protection without fail, if you assist his most unworthy son — which I certainly am.” —
While he spoke in this fashion, I saw in the fading light of day a berline with four horses drive out of the carriage entrance of the Cheval Rouge and take its place with noisy clackings of the whip and neighing of horses at the road-side, quite near to the tree under which brother Ange was seated. I noticed then that it was not exactly a berline, but a big carriage with places for four people, with a rather small coupé i
n front. I had been looking at it for a minute or two, when I saw Monsieur d’Anquetil climbing up the hill accompanied by Jael in a mob cap carrying some bundles under her cloak and followed by Monsieur Coignard laden with five or six ancient books wrapped in an old manuscript.
At their approach the postilions let down the steps, and my pretty mistress, drawing up her skirts like a balloon, hoisted herself into the coupé, pushed from behind by Monsieur d’Anquetil.
At this sight I ran forward crying:
“Stop, Jael! Stop, Monsieur!” But the seducer merely pushed the faithless one the harder, and her charming curves were soon lost to sight. Then, preparing to join her, one foot on the step, he looked at me in surprise:
“Ah, Monsieur Tournebroche! You would take all my mistresses from me! First Catherine and then Jael. I vow it must be a wager.”
But I took no notice of him and I still called on Jael, while brother Ange, having risen from the shade of his elm-tree, went and stood by the door offering Monsieur d’Anquetil pictures of Saint Roche, a prayer to recite while horses are being shod, and the prayer against erysipelas, and asked for alms in a mournful voice.
I should have remained there all night calling on Jael if my good master had not drawn me towards him and pushed me into the body of the carriage whither he followed me.
“Leave them the coupé,” he said, “and let us travel together in this roomy body. I sought you for a long time, Tournebroche, and I will not disguise the fact that we were going without you, when I perceived you and the monk under the tree. We can tarry no longer, for Monsieur de la Guéritaude is searching busily for us, and he has a long arm — he lends money to the king.”
Complete Works of Anatole France Page 70