M. LE PREFET:— “Keep these stories of yours, monsieur l’abbé, for your seminarists. You don’t believe that Saint Radegonde communicates with Mademoiselle Deniseau. I congratulate you on that. And I could wish that all the priests in the department were as reasonable as you. But it only needs this hysteric patient — for hysteric she is — to attack the government for all the curés to come in herds to listen, open-mouthed and applauding, to all the insults she spits out.”
M. GUITREL:— “Oh! they make reservations, monsieur le préfet, they make reservations. The Church instructs them to be extremely wary in face of every fact that assumes the appearance of a miracle. And I assure you that, for my part, I am very distrustful of modern miracles.”
M. LE PRÉFET:— “Tell me, between ourselves: you don’t believe in miracles, my dear abbé?”
M. GUITREL: “In miracles that are not duly verified I have, indeed, but little belief.”
M. LE PREFET:— “We are alone. Confess, now, that there are no miracles, that there never have been any, and that there never can possibly be any.”
M. GUITREL: “Not at all, monsieur le préfet. A miracle is possible; it can be unmistakably recognised; it is useful for the confirmation of doctrine; and its utility is proved by the conversion of nations.”
M. LE PREFET:— “Anyhow, you grant that it is ridiculous to believe that Saint Radegonde, who lived in the Middle Ages...”
M. GUITREL:— “In the sixth century, in the sixth century.”
M. LE PREFET:— “Exactly, in the sixth century.... should come in 189- to gossip with the daughter of a registry-keeper on the political programme of the ministry and the Chambers.”
M. GUITREL:— “Communications between the Church triumphant and the Church militant are possible; history supplies numberless undeniable instances of it. But, yet again, I do not believe that the young person of whom we are speaking is favoured with a communication of this kind. Her sayings, if I may dare to say so, do not bear the hall-mark of a celestial revelation. Everything she says is somehow...”
M. LE PREFET:— “Humbug.”
M. GUITREL:— “If you like.... Though, in deed, it might be quite possible that she is possessed.”
M. LE PRÉFET:— “What is this that you are say ing? You, an intelligent priest, a future bishop of the Republic, you believe in possession! It is a mediæval superstition! I have read a book by Michelet on it.”
M. GUITREL:— “But, monsieur le préfet, possession is a fact recognised not only by theologians, but also by scientists, atheists for the most part. And Michelet himself, whom you quote, believed in the cases of possession at Loudun.”
M. LE PREFET: “What notions! You are all the same! And if Claudine Deniseau were possessed, as you say?..
M. GUITREL:— “Then it would be necessary to exorcise her.”
M. LE PREFET:— “Exorcise her? Don’t you think, monsieur l’abbé, that that would be absurd?”
M. GUITREL:— “Not at all, monsieur le préfet} not at all.”
M. LE PREFET:— “What does one do?”
M. GUITREL:— “There are rules, monsieur le préfet, a formulary, a ritual for this kind of operation, which has never ceased to be used. Jeanne d’Arc herself had to undergo it, in the town of Vancouleurs, unless I mistake. M. Laprune, the curé of Saint-Exupère, would be the right person to exorcise this Deniseau girl, who is one of his parishioners. He is a very venerable priest. It is true that, as regards the Deniseau family, he is in a position which may react on his character, and, to a certain extent, influence a wise and cautious mind, as yet unenfeebled by age, or which at any rate still seems able to bear the weight of years and the fatigues of a long and onerous ministry. I mean to say that events, regarded by some as miracles, have taken place in the parish of this worthy curé; and M. Laprune’s zeal must needs have been led into error by the thought that the parish of Saint-Exupère may have been privileged to such a degree that a manifestation of divine power has taken place in it, in preference to all the other parishes in our town. Buoyed up by such a hope, he has perhaps formed illusions which he has unconsciously communicated to his clergy. An error and a mistake which one can excuse, if one considers the circumstances. Indeed, what blessings would not a new miracle shed on the parish church of Saint-Exupère! The zeal of the faithful would be revived by it, an outpouring of gifts would bring wealth into the famous, but clean-stripped, walls of the ancient church. And the favour of the Cardinal-Archbishop would solace the last days of M. Laprune, now arrived at the end of his ministry and strength.”
M. LE PREFET:— “But if I understand you rightly, monsieur l’abbé, it is this doddering curé of Saint-Exupère, it is M. Laprune, with his vicaires, who has got up the affair of the Prophetess. Undoubtedly the priests are strong. They won’t believe it in Paris, in the bureaux, but it is the truth. The priests are a fine power! Here your old Laprune has been organising these séances of clerical spiritualism which all the town attends in order to hear the Parliament, the presidency, and myself insulted — for I am perfectly aware that they don’t spare me in these conventicles of the Place Saint-Exupère.”
M. GUITREL:— “Oh! monsieur le préfet, far be it from me to think of suspecting the worthy curé of Saint-Exupère of having concocted a plot! On the contrary, I sincerely believe that, if he has in any way encouraged this unhappy affair, he will soon recognise his error, and will use all his influence to efface the results of it.... But even in his interest and in that of the diocese, one might forestall him and inform His Eminence of the real facts, of which he is perhaps still ignorant. Once warned of these disorders, he will doubtless put an end to them.”
M. LE PRÉFET:— “That’s an idea!... My dear abbé, are you willing to undertake the commission? For my part, as préfet, I am obliged to ignore the fact that there is an Archbishop, save in cases provided for by the law, such as bells and processions. When one thinks of it, it is an absurd situation, for from the moment that Archbishops have an actual existence... But politics have their necessities. Tell me frankly. Are you in favour at the Archbishop’s palace?”
M. GUITREL:— “His Eminence sometimes deigns to listen to me with kindness. The affability of His Eminence is extreme.”
M. LE PREFET:— “Well! tell him that it is in admissible for Saint Radegonde to come to life again in order to plague the senators, the deputies, and the préfet of the department, and that, in the interests of the Church as well as of the Republic, it is time to bridle the tongue of the fierce Clotaire’s spouse. Just tell His Eminence that.”
M. GUITREL:— “Substantially, monsieur le préfet; substantially I will tell him that.”
M. LE PREFET:— “Set about it as you like, monsieur l’abbé, but prove to him that he must forbid his priests to enter the Deniseau house, that he must openly reprimand the curé Laprune, condemn in la Semaine religieuse the speeches made by this mad woman, and officially request the editors of le Libéral to cease the campaign they are waging in support of a miracle both unconstitutional and contrary to the Concordat.”
M. GUITREL:— “I will try it, monsieur le préfet.
Certainly, I will try it. But what am I, a poor professor of sacred rhetoric, before His Eminence the Cardinal-Archbishop?”
M. LE PREFET:— “He is intelligent, is your Arch bishop; he will understand that his own interests, and the honour of Saint Radegonde, by the Lord!...”
M. GUITREL:— “Doubtless, monsieur le préfet, doubtless. But His Eminence, so devoted to the spiritual interests of the diocese, perhaps considers that the prodigious crowd of souls around this poor girl is a token of that yearning after belief which torments the younger generation, a proof that faith is more living than ever among the masses, an example, in fact, which it would be well to present to the consideration of statesmen. And it is possible that, thinking thus, he may be in no hurry to cause the sign to cease, to suppress the proof and the example. It is possible...”
M. LE PRÉFET:—”... that he may
make fun of everybody. He is quite capable of it.”
M. GUITREL:— “Oh! monsieur le préfet, there is no foundation for that assumption! But how much easier and more certain would my mission be, if, like the dove from the ark, I were the bearer of an olive branch, if I were authorised to say — oh! just in a whisper! — to Monseigneur, that the salary of the seven poor curés of the diocese, suspended by the former Minister of Religion, was restored!”
M. LE PREFET:— “Give, give, that’s it, isn’t it?
I will think it over.... I will telegraph to Paris, and I will bring you the answer at Rondonneau junior’s. Good evening, monsieur le diplomate!”
A week after the day of this secret conference Abbé Guitrel had successfully accomplished his mission. The prophetess of the Place Saint-Exupère, disowned by the archbishopric, abandoned by the clergy, abjured by le Libéral, kept on her side none save the two corresponding members of the academy of psychical research, one of whom regarded her as a subject worthy of study and the other as a dangerous charlatan. Freed from this mad woman, and delighted at the municipal elections, which had brought forth neither new measures nor new men, M. le préfet Worms-Clavelin rejoiced from the bottom of his heart.
XII
M. PAILLOT was the bookseller at the corner of the Place Saint-Exupère and the Rue des Tintelleries. For the most part the houses which surrounded this square were ancient; those that leant against the church bore carved and painted signboards. Several had a pointed gable and a wooden frontage. One of these, which had kept its carved beams, was a gem admired by connoisseurs. The main joists were upheld by carved corbels, some in the shape of angels bearing shields, the others in the form of monks crouching low. To the left of the door, against a post, rose the mutilated figure of a woman, her brow encircled by a floreated crown. The townsfolk declared that this was Queen Marguerite. And the building was known by the name of Queen Marguerite’s house.
It was believed, on the authority of Dom Maurice, author of a Trésor d’antiquités, printed in 1703, that Margaret of Scotland lodged in this house for several months of the year 1438. But M. de Terremondre, president of the Society of Agriculture and Archaeology, proves in a substantially constructed memoir that this house was built in 1488 for a prominent citizen named Philippe Tricouillard. The archaeologists of the town, whenever they conduct sightseers to the front of this building, seizing a moment when the ladies are inattentive, take pleasure in showing the canting arms of Philippe Tricouillard, carved on a shield held by two angels. These arms, which M. de Terremondre has judiciously compared with those of the Coleoni of Bergamo, are represented on the corbel which stands over the doorway, under the left lintel. The figures on it are very shadowy, and are only recognisable by those who have them pointed out. As for the figure of a woman wearing a crown, which leans against the perpendicular joist, M. de Terremondre found no difficulty in proving that it must be regarded as a Saint Marguerite. In fact, there may still be made out at the feet of the saint the remains of a hideous shape which is none other than that of the devil; and the right arm of the principal figure, which is lacking to-day, ought to hold the holy-water sprinkler which the blessed saint shook over the enemy of the human race. It is clear what Saint Marguerite typifies in this place, now that M. Mazure, the archivist of the department, has brought to light a document proving that in the year 1488 Philippe Tricouillard, then about seventy years of age, had lately married Marguerite Larrivée, daughter of a magistrate. By a confusion which is not very surprising, Marguerite Larrivée’s celestial patron was taken for the young princess of Scotland whose sojourn in the town of... has left a deep impression. Few ladies have bequeathed a memory more full of pity than that princess who died at twenty with this last sigh on her lips:— “Out upon thee, life!”
The house of M. Paillot, the bookseller, joins on to Queen Marguerite’s house. Originally it was built, like its neighbour, with a wooden front, and the visible timber-work was no less carefully carved. But, in 1860, M. Paillot’s father, bookseller to the Archbishopric, had it pulled down in order to rebuild it simply, in the modern style, without any pretence at wealth or art, merely taking care to make it convenient as a dwelling-house and place of business. A tree of Jesse, in Renaissance style, which covered the entire front of Paillot’s house, at the corner formed by the Place Saint-Exupère and the Rue des Tintelleries, was torn down with the rest, but not destroyed. M. de Terremondre, coming upon it afterwards in a timber-merchant’s yard, purchased it for the museum. This monument is in good style. Unfortunately the prophets and patriarchs, who cluster on each branch like marvellous fruits, and the Virgin, blossoming on the summit of the prophetic tree, were mutilated by the Terrorists in 1793, and the tree suffered fresh damage in 1860, when it was carried to the timber-yard as firewood. M. Quatrebarbe, the diocesan architect, expatiates on these mutilations in his interesting pamphlet on Les Vandales modernes. “One shudders,” says he, “at the thought that this precious relic of an age of faith ran the risk of being sawn up and burnt before our very eyes.”
This sentiment, being expressed by a man whose clerical tendencies were well known, was trenchantly criticised by le Phare in an anonymous paragraph in which was recognised, rightly or wrongly, the hand of the archivist of the department, M. Mazure. “In twenty words,” said this paragraph, “the architect of the diocese supplies us with several occasions for surprise. The first is that any one should be able to shudder at the mere idea of the loss of an indifferently carved beam, and one so much mutilated that the details are not recognisable; the second is that this beam should stand to M. Quatrebarbe, whose creed is well known, as a relic of an age of faith, since it dates from 1530 — that is to say, from the year when the Protestant Diet of Augsburg assembled; the third is that M. Quatrebarbe should omit to say that the precious beam was torn down and sent to the timber-yard by his own father-in-law, M. Nicolet, the diocesan architect, who, in 1860, transformed the Paillot house in the way which one can now see; the fourth is that M. Quatrebarbe ignores the fact that it was none other than M. Mazure, the archivist, who discovered the carved beam in Clouzot’s wood-yard, where it had been rotting for ten years under M. Quatrebarbe’s very nose, and who pointed it out to M. de Terremondre, president of the Society of Agriculture and Archaeology, who purchased it for the museum.”
In its actual condition the house of M. Paillot, the bookseller, showed a uniform white frontage, three storeys in height. The shop, ornamented with woodwork painted green, bore, in letters of gold, the words, “Paillot, libraire.” The shop-window displayed terrestrial and celestial globes of different diameters, boxes of mathematical instruments, school books and little text-books for the officers of the garrison, with a few novels and new memoirs: these were what M. Paillot called works of literature. A window, narrower and not so deep, that gave on the Rue des Tintelleries, contained works on agriculture and law, and thus completed the supply of instruments required by the intellectual life of the county town. On a counter inside the shop were to be found works on literature, novels, essays, and memoirs.
“Classics in sets” were stacked in pigeon-holes, and quite at the bottom, by the side of the door which opened on the staircase, some shelves were reserved for old books. For M. Paillot combined in his shop the business of a new and second-hand bookseller. This dark corner of the old books attracted the bibliophiles of the district, who in days gone by had found treasure-trove there. A certain copy of the first edition of the third book of Pantagruel was recalled, unearthed in excellent condition in 1871 by M. de Terremondre, father of the present president of the Agricultural Society, at Paillot’s, in the old-book corner. There was still more mysterious talk of a Mellin de Saint-Gelais, containing on the back of the title-page some autograph verses by Marie Stuart, that M. Dutilleul, the notary, had found, about the same time, and in the same place, and for which he paid three francs. But, since then, no one had announced any marvellous discovery. The gloomy, monotonous corner of the old books scarcely chang
ed. There was always to be seen there l’Abrégé de l’Histoire des Voyages, in fifty-six volumes, and the odd volumes of Kehl’s Voltaire, in large paper. M. Dutilleul’s discovery, doubted by many, was by some openly denied. They based their opinion on the idea that the old notary was quite capable of having lied through vanity, and on the fact that after M. Dutilleul’s death no copy of the poems of Mellin de Saint-Gelais was found in his library. Yet the bibliophiles of the town, who frequented Paillot’s shop, never failed to explore the old-book corner, at least once a month. M. de Terremondre was one of the most assiduous visitors.
He was a large landed proprietor in the department, well connected, a breeder of cattle and a connoisseur in artistic matters. He it was who designed the historic costumes for processions and who presided over the committee formed for the erection of a statue of Jeanne d’Arc on the ramparts. He spent four months of the year in Paris, and had the reputation of being a man of gallantry. At fifty he preserved a slim and elegant figure. He was very popular with all three classes in the county town, and they had several times offered him the position of deputy. This he had refused, declaring that his leisure, as well as his independence, was dear to him. And people were curious about the reasons for his refusal.
M. de Terremondre had thought of buying Queen Marguerite’s house in order to turn it into a museum of local archæology and offer it to the town. But Madame Houssieu, the widowed owner of this house, had not responded to the overtures which he had made to her. Now more than eighty years of age, she lived in the old house, alone, save for a dozen cats. She was supposed to be rich and miserly. All that could be done was to wait for her death. Every time that he entered Paillot’s shop, M. de Terremondre asked the bookseller:
Complete Works of Anatole France Page 120