Complete Works of Anatole France

by Anatole France

  “The misfortune is,” added he, “that the people are suited by them like a Harlequin or a Jack-in-the-green. Their coat is ever too loose or too tight, ill-fitting, ridiculous, grubby, covered with stains, and crawling with vermin. We may mend things by shaking it out, cautiously, putting in a stitch here, and when necessary, applying the scissors there, with discretion, so as to avoid being at the expense of another equally bad, but not clinging too obstinately to the old garment when the body has changed its shape by growth.”

  One sees from this that Monsier l’Abbé Coignard, was a friend to order and progress, and altogether was not a bad citizen. He incited no man to revolt, and had rather that instituted things were worn and ground-down by incessant friction, than overturned and broken by any great strokes. He was for ever pointing out to his disciples that the harshest laws grew wonderfully smoother in practice, and that the clemency of time is surer than that of man. As for seeing the sprawling Corpus of the law one day re-shaped, he neither hoped it nor wished for it; laying no store by the benefits of hasty legislation. Jacques Tournebroche asked him at times whether he were not afraid that his critical philosophy, as exercised on institutions he himself judged necessary, might not have the inopportune effect of toppling down what he would wish preserved.

  “Why, oh best of masters,” said his faithful disciple, “why reduce to dust the foundations of all right, of justice, and law, and generally of all civil and — military rule, since you acknowledge the necessity of right, justice, armies, magistrates and drill-sergeants?”

  “My son,” replied Monsieur l’Abbé Coignard, “I have ever remarked that men’s prejudices are the source of their ills, just as spiders and scorpions issue from the gloom of cellars and the damp of back-gardens. It is just as well to pass the Turk’s head or the broom at random now and then in these — dark — corners. It — is not a bad thing even to — give — a touch of the — pick here and there on — the walls of the cellar and garden. It scares the vermin and prepares the way for the ruin that must come.”

  “I agree willingly,” replied the mild Tournebroche; “but when you have destroyed every principle, my master, what will be left?”

  And his master replied: “After the destruction of every false principle society will still cohere, because it is founded on necessity, whose laws, older than Saturn, will still prevail when Prometheus shall have dethroned Jupiter.”

  Prometheus has dethroned Jupiter more than once since the time when Abbé Coignard spoke these words, and the prophecies of the sage have been so literally verified that at the present day one feels doubts, so much does the new resemble the old order, whether the power does not still rest in ancient Jove. There are those who deny the coming of the Titan. There is no sign on his breast, they say, of the wound whence the eagle, the creature of injustice, tore out his heart, the wound that should bleed for ever. He knows nothing of the griefs and insurgence of the exile. This is not the workaday divinity, promised, and expected by us. This is the full-fed Jove from the hoary and laughable Olympus. When shall he appear again, the strong friend of men, the fire-kindler, the Titan still nailed to his crag? A terrible noise from out the mountains makes known that he is lifting his lacerated shoulders from off the iniquitous rock, and we can feel, flaming on us, his distant breath.

  A stranger to business, Monsieur Coignard inclined to pure speculation and dealt readily in general ideas. This disposition of his, which may have damaged him in the eyes of his contemporaries, gives his reflections some worth and usefulness after a century and a half. We can there learn to know the manners of our own day and disentangle what there is of evil in them.

  Injustice, stupidity, and cruelty, do not strike us when they are the common lot. We see them in our ancestors but not in ourselves. Still, since there is no past epoch whatever, when mankind does not seem absurd to us, savage and unjust, it would be a miracle if our age had, by some privilege, cast away every shred of folly, malice, and savagery. The opinions of Monsieur l’Abbé Coignard would help us to make our examination of conscience, if we were not like those idols which have eyes and see not, and ears and hear not. With a little good faith and impartiality we should soon see that our legal codes are still but a hotbed of injustice, that we preserve in our manners the inherited hardness of avarice and pride; that we value wealth alone, and have no respect for labour. Our system of affairs would appear to us what it really is, a wretched and precarious system, condemned by abstract justice if not by that of man, and the ruin of which is beginning. Our rich men would seem to us as foolish as cockchafers continuing to eat the leaves of a tree, while the little beetle on their body devours their entrails. No more would we be lulled to sleep by the false speeches of our statesmen; we should conceive a positive pity for our economists arguing with one another about the cost of the furniture in a burning house. Abbé Coignard’s disquisitions reveal to us a prophetic disdain of the great principles of the Revolution and of the rights of the people, on which we have established these hundred years, with every kind of violence and usurpation, an incoherent succession of insurrectionary governments, themselves, innocent of irony, condemning insurrection. If we could begin to smile a little at follies, which once appeared majestic and at times were stained with blood; if we could perceive that our modern prejudices are, like the old, the outcome of something, either ridiculous or hateful; if we could judge one another with a charitable scepticism, quarrels would be less sharp, in the fairest country in the world, and Monsieur l’Abbé Coignard, for one, would have laboured for the universal good.

  ANATOLE FRANCE

  This has been very favourably received, Monsieur Hugues Rebell having admitted that there is such a thing as a charitable scepticism. Referring, not, it is true, to the opinions of Monsieur Coignard, but to some writings drawn from the same source, he has made some remarks of which I may avail myself here:

  “An interesting vein of thought might be followed up after reading this work, furnishing, as it does, some valuable teaching: I may be permitted some reflections on it:

  “1. The organisation of a particular society does not depend on individual wills, but on the compulsion of nature, or to put it more simply, on the unanimity of the more intelligent beings of which that society is composed who inevitably choose the most agreeable rule of life:

  “2. Mankind at any one period, having the same organic constitution and passions as mankind at any other period, can never have entirely differing institutions. It results from this that a political revolution is no more than a rotatory movement, round the ancient ways, which ends where it began; it is just a disease, an interruption in human development. And the result of this law is that all societies live and die in the same way.”

  HUGUES REBELL in I’Ermitage, April 1893.

  Monsieur l’Abbé Coignard simply says that a people is not susceptible to more than one form of government at the same period.

  THE OPINIONS OF

  JÉRÔME COIGNARD

  COLLECTED BY

  JACQUES TOURNEBROCHE

  AND PUBLISHED BY

  ANATOLE FRANCE

  THE OPINIONS OF

  JÉRÔME COIGNARD

  I. MINISTERS OF STATE

  THIS afternoon, Abbé Jérôme Coignard visited, as he was in the habit of doing, Monsieur Blaizot, the bookseller in the Rue Saint-Jacques, at the sign of the Image de Sainte Catherine.

  Perceiving the works of Jean Racine on the shelves he set about carelessly turning over the leaves of one of the volumes.

  “This poet,” he informed us, “was not lacking in genius, and had he but risen to the writing of his tragedies in Latin verse he would be worthy of praise, more especially in the case of his Athalie, where he shows that he understood politics well enough. In comparison with him Corneille is but an empty ranter. This tragedy of the accession of Joas shows us some of the forces whose play raises empires or casts them down. And one must perforce believe that Monsieur Racine possessed that spirit of finesse which we should hold
of more account than all the sublimities of poetry and eloquence, which in reality are but rhetorical tricks serving for the amusement of the vulgar. To raise mankind to the sublime belongs to an inferior order of mind self-deceived on the true nature of Adam’s race, which is altogether wretched and deserving of pity. I refrain from calling man a ridiculous animal for the sole consideration that Jesus Christ ransomed him with His precious blood. The nobility of mankind is based only upon this inconceivable mystery, and of themselves human beings, be they mean or great, are but savage and disgusting beasts.”

  Just as my good master pronounced these final words Monsieur Roman came into the shop.

  “Stop! Monsieur l’Abbé,” exclaimed this able man. “You forget that those disgusting and ferocious beasts are, in Europe at any rate, subjected to an admirable government, and that states, such as the kingdom of France, and the Dutch Republic, are far removed from the barbarous and rude conditions which offend you.”

  My good master replaced the volume of Racine on the shelf, and replied to Monsieur Roman with his customary grace:

  “I grant you, Monsieur, that in the writings of the philosophers, who treat of these subjects, the doings of public men take on a certain symmetry and perspicuousness, and in your treatise on Monarchy I admire the sequence and connection of ideas. But it is to you alone that I do honour for the fine sentiments that you attribute to the great politicians of times past and present. They had not the wit you endow them with, and these illustrious beings, who appear to have led the world, were themselves but the plaything of nature and chance. They did not rise above human imbecility, and were in fact but brilliant nobodies.”

  While listening impatiently to this speech Monsieur Roman had seized hold of an old atlas. He began to turn it about with a noise which mingled with the sound of his voice.

  “What blindness!” said he. “What! to fail to understand the actions of great statesmen, of great citizens! Are you so ignorant of history that it does not appear obvious to you that a Caesar, a Richelieu, a Cromwell, moulded his people as a potter his clay? Do you not see that a state goes like a watch in the hands of a watchmaker?”

  “I do not see it,” replied my good master, “and during the fifty years of my life I have noticed that this country has changed its form of government several times without changing the condition of the people, excepting for an insensible progress that does not depend on the human will. From which I conclude that it is well-nigh immaterial whether we be governed one way or another, and that statesmen are only noteworthy by reason of their coats and their coaches.”

  “Can you talk like this,” replied Monsieur Roman, “on the day following the death of a statesman who took such a prominent part in affairs, and who, after long disgrace, dies at the moment he has regained power and honour? By the tumult round his bier you may judge the result of his work. This result lasts after him.”

  “Monsieur,” answered my good master, “this statesman was an honest man, laborious and painstaking, and it might be said of him as of Monsieur Vauban, that he was too well-bred to affect the appearance of it, for he never took pains to please any one.

  I would praise him before all, for having improved where others in the same business do but deteriorate.

  He possessed his soul and had a glowing sense of the greatness of his country. He was praiseworthy also, in that he carried easily on those broad shoulders the spites of hucksters and rufflers. Even his enemies accord him a concealed approval. But what big things did he ever do, my good sir, and why does he seem to you anything but the sport of the winds which blew round him? The Jesuits whom he drove away, have come back; the little religious war he kindled to amuse the people has gone out, leaving next day but the stinking shell of a bad firework. I grant you he was clever in diverting opinion, or rather, in deflecting it. His party, which was but a party of opportunism and expediency, did not wait for his death to change its name and its chief without changing its doctrine. His cabal remained faithful to its chief and to itself in continuing to submit to circumstances. Is there anything astonishingly great about that?”

  “There is certainly something admirable,” replied Monsieur Roman. “Had he only withdrawn the art of government from the clouds of metaphysics to lead it back to reality, he should have all my praise. His party, you say, was one of opportunism and expediency. But to excel in human affairs what needs one but to seize the happy moment and have recourse to utilitarian methods? This is what he did, or, at least, this is what he would have done, if the chicken-hearted instability of his friends and the false effrontery of his foes had left him any peace. But he wore himself out in the vain endeavour to placate the latter and steady the former. Time and men, those necessary tools, both were wanting to establish his beneficent rule. At least he framed admirable plans for home politics. And you ought not to forget that he endowed his country with vast and fertile possessions abroad. We owe him all the more gratitude in that he made these successful conquests alone and in spite of the parliament from which he drew his powers.”

  “Monsieur,” answered my good master, “he showed energy and skill in colonial affairs, but not perhaps much more than a plain man displays in buying a piece of land. And what is not to my taste in all these over-sea affairs is the way the Europeans deal with the peoples of Africa and America. White men, when they come to grips with black and yellow races find themselves forced to exterminate them. One can only conquer the savage by a higher form of barbarity. Here is the extreme to which all foreign enterprises tend. I am not denying that the Spaniards, the Dutch, and the English have drawn profit from them. But, ordinarily speaking, they launch themselves haphazard, and quite recklessly on these big and cruel undertakings.

  “What is the wisdom and the will of one man in enterprises affecting commerce, agriculture, and navigation, which necessarily depend on an immense number of units? The part played by a statesman in such affairs is a very small one, and if it seems marked to us it is because our minds, turning to mythology, too willingly give a name and a personality to all the secret workings of nature.

  “What did he discover in the matter of colonisation that was not already known to the Phoenicians in the time of Cadmus?”

  At these words Monsieur Roman let fall his atlas, which the bookseller quietly picked up.

  “I discover to my sorrow, Monsieur l’Abbé,” said he, “that you are a sophist. For that he must be who can thus smother the colonial enterprises of the dead and gone minister with Cadmus and the Phoenicians. You are unable to deny that these undertakings were his work and you have made this pitiable introduction of Cadmus to set us at loggerheads.”

  “Monsieur,” said the Abbé, “let us leave Cadmus alone if he annoys you. I merely wish to say that a statesman plays but a small part in his own works, and he deserves neither the glory nor the shame of them. I mean to say that, if, in this wretched comedy of life, princes appear to rule and people to obey, it is but a game, an empty show; and that really they are, both one and the other, directed by an unseen force.”

  II. SAINT ABRAHAM

  ONE summer night, while the gnats danced round the lamp of the Petit Bacchus, Abbé Coignard was taking the air in the porch of St. Benoît-le-Bétourné. There he was meditating, as his habit was, when Catherine came up and seated herself by him on the stone bench. My good master was ever inclined to praise God in his works. He took pleasure in the contemplation of this handsome girl, and as he had an agreeable and graceful wit he held her in pleasant talk. He paid tribute not only to the charm of her tongue, but to that of her neck and the rest of her person, and to the fact that she smiled no less with all the dimplement and lines of her pretty body than with lips and cheeks; in such sort that one submitted with impatience to drapery disguising the rest of the smile.

  “Since we must needs all sin in this world and no one, without pride, may believe himself infallible, it is when with you, Mademoiselle, by preference, if such were your pleasure, that I would the Divine Grace failed me
. I should gain thereby two valuable advantages, to wit: firstly, to sin with rare delight and unusual pleasure; secondly, to find thereafter an excuse in the strength of your fascination; for it is doubtless written in the Judgment Books that your charms are irresistible. That should be taken into consideration. There are imprudent people who sin with women ugly and ill-made. These unhappy mortals, setting about it in this way, run great risk of the loss of their souls, for they sin for sinning’s sake, and their onerous ill-doing is full of evil intent. Whereas, so fair a skin as yours, Catherine, is an excuse in the eyes of the Almighty. Your charms wonderfully alleviate the fault, which becomes pardonable, being involuntary. In fact, to tell you the plain truth, Mademoiselle, when I am near you Divine Grace abandons me at one stroke of the wing. At this moment that I am talking to you, it is but as a little white spot above those roofs where, on the tiles, the cats make love with mad cries and childish lamentation, the while the moon is perched unblushingly on a chimneypot. What I see of your person, Catherine, appeals to me; but what I do not see appeals to me still more.”

  At these words she lowered her gaze on her lap; — then turned its liquid appeal on the Abbé. And in a very sweet voice she said:

  “As you wish me well, Monsieur Jérôme, do promise to grant me the favour I am going to ask you, and for which I shall be so grateful.”

  My good master promised. Who would not have done as much in his place?

  Catherine then said vivaciously:

  “You know, Monsieur l’Abbé, that Abbé La Perruque, the vicaire of St. Benoît, accuses brother Ange of having stolen his donkey, and he has carried his complaint to the ecclesiastical court. Now, nothing could be more untrue. The good brother had borrowed the donkey to take some relics to various villages. The donkey was lost on the way. The relics were found. That is the essential point, says brother Ange. But Abbé La Perruque reclaims his donkey, and won’t listen to anything else. He is going to put the little brother in the Archbishop’s prison. You alone can soften his anger and induce him to withdraw his complaint.”