Jumping from the carriage, Madame Worms-Clavelin rang at the door, which was carefully and circumspectly half opened for her. Then she went into the parlour, while the sister who attended to the turnstile gave notice through the wicket that Mademoiselle de Clavelin was wanted to come and see her mother. The parlour was only furnished with horsehair chairs. In a niche on the whitewashed wall there stood a figure of the Holy Virgin, painted in pale colours. There was a certain air of archness about the figure, which stood erect, with the feet hidden and the hands extended. This large, cold, white room carried with it a suggestion of peace, order and rectitude. One could feel in it a secret power, a social force that remained unseen.
Madame Worms-Clavelin sniffed the air of this parlour with a solemn sense of satisfaction, though it was damp, and suffused with the stale smell of cooking. Her own girlhood had been spent in the noisy little schools of Montmartre, amidst daubs of ink and lumps of sweetmeats, and in the perpetual interchange of offensive words and vulgar gestures. She therefore appreciated very highly the austerity of an aristocratic and religious education. In order that her daughter might be admitted into a famous convent, she had had her baptized, for she thought to herself, “Jeanne will then be better bred and she will have a chance of making a better marriage.”
Jeanne had accordingly been baptized at the age of eleven and with the utmost secrecy, because they were then under a radical administration. Since then the Church and the Republic had become more reconciled to each other, but in order to avoid displeasing the bigots of the department, Madame Worms-Clavelin still concealed the fact that her daughter was being educated in a nunnery. Somehow, however, the secret leaked out, and now and then the clerical organ of the department published a paragraph which M. Lacarelle, counsel to the prefecture, blue-pencilled and sent to M. Worms-Clavelin. For instance, M. Worms-Clavelin read:
“Is it a fact that the Jewish persecutor whom the freemasons have placed at the head of our departmental administration, in order that he may oppose the cause of God among the faithful, has actually sent his daughter to be educated in a convent?”
M. Worms-Clavelin shrugged his shoulders and threw the paper into the waste-paper basket. Two days later the Catholic editor inserted another paragraph, as, after reading the first, one would have prophesied his doing.
“I asked whether our Jewish préfet, Worms-Clavelin, was really having his daughter educated in a convent. And now that this freemason has, for good reasons of his own, avoided giving me any answer, I will myself reply to my own question. After having had his daughter baptized, this dishonourable Jew sent his daughter to a Catholic place of education.
“Mademoiselle Worms-Clavelin is at Neuilly-sur-Seine, being educated by the Sisters of the Precious Blood.
“What a pleasure it is to witness the sincerity of jesters like these!
“A lay, atheistic, homicidal education is good enough for the people who maintain them! Would that our people’s eyes were opened to discern on which side are the Tartuffes!”
M. Lacarelle, the counsel to the prefecture, first blue-pencilled the paragraph and then placed the open sheet on the préfet’s desk. M. Worms-Clavelin threw it into his waste-paper basket and warned the meddlesome papers not to engage in discussions of that sort. Hence this little episode was soon forgotten and fell into the bottomless pit of oblivion, into that black darkness of night which, after one outburst of excitement, swallows up the shame and the honour, the scandals and the glories of an administration. In view of the wealth and power of the Church, Madame Worms-Clavelin had stuck energetically to her point that Jeanne should be left to these nuns who would train the young girl in good principles and good manners.
She modestly sat down, hiding her feet under her dress, like the red, white and blue Virgin of the niche, and holding in her finger-tips by the string the box of chocolates she had brought for Jeanne.
A tall girl, looking very lanky in her black dress with the red girdle of the Middle School, burst into the room.
“Good morning, mamma!”
Madame Worms-Clavelin looked her up and down with a curious mixture of motherly solicitude and horse-dealer’s curiosity. Drawing her close, she glanced at her teeth, made her stand upright; looked at her figure, her shoulders and her back, and seemed pleased.
“Heavens! how tall you are!” she exclaimed. “You have such long arms!..
“Don’t worry me about them, mamma! As it is, I never know what to do with them.”
She sat down and clasped her red hands across her knees. She replied with a graceful air of boredom to the questions which her mother asked about her health, and listened wearily to her instructions about healthy habits and to her advice in the matter of cod-liver oil. Then she asked:
“And how is papa?”
Madame Worms-Clavelin was almost astonished whenever anyone asked her about her husband, not because she was herself indifferent to him, but because she felt it was impossible to say anything new about this firm, unchangeable, stolid man, who was never ill and who never said or did anything original.
“Your father? What could happen to him? We have a very good position and no wish to change it.”
All the same, she thought it would soon be advisable to look out for a suitable sinecure, either in the treasury, or, perhaps rather, in the Council of State. At the thought her beautiful eyes grew dim with reverie.
Her daughter asked what she was thinking about.
“I was thinking that one day we might return to Paris. I like Paris for my part, but there we should hardly count.”
“Yet papa has great abilities. Sister Sainte-
Marie-des-Anges said so once in class. She said: ‘Mademoiselle de Clavelin, your father has shown great administrative talents.’”
Madame Worms-Clavelin shook her head. “One wants so much money to live in style in Paris.”
“You like Paris, mamma, but for my part I like the country best.”
“You know nothing about it, pet.”
“But, mamma, one doesn’t care only for what one knows.”
“There is, perhaps, some truth in what you say.”
“You haven’t heard, mamma?... I have won the prize for history composition. Madame de Saint-Joseph said I was the only one who had treated the subject thoroughly.”
Madame Worms-Clavelin asked gently:
“What subject?”
“The Pragmatic Sanction.”
Madame Worms-Clavelin asked, this time with an accent of real surprise:
“What is that?”
“It was one of Charles VII’s mistakes. It was, indeed, the greatest mistake he ever made.”
Madame Worms-Clavelin found this answer by no means enlightening. But since she took no interest in the history of the Middle Ages, she was willing to let the matter drop. But Jeanne, who was full of her subject, went on in all seriousness:
“Yes, mamma. It was the greatest crime of that reign, a flagrant violation of the rights of the Holy See, a criminal robbery of the inheritance of St. Peter. But happily the error was set right by Francis I. And whilst we are on this subject, mamma, do you know we have found out that Alice’s governess was an old wanton?..
Madame Worms-Clavelin begged her daughter anxiously and earnestly not to join her young friends in research work of this kind. Then she flew into a rage:
“You are perfectly absurd, Jeanne, for you use words without paying any heed..
Jeanne looked at her in mysterious silence. Then she said suddenly:
“Mamma, I must tell you that my drawers are in such a state that they are a positive sight. You know you have never been overwhelmingly interested in the question of linen. I don’t say this as a reproach, for one person goes in for linen, another for dresses, another for jewels. You, mamma, have always gone in for jewels. For my part it’s linen that I’m mad about.... And besides, we’ve just had a nine days’ prayer. I prayed hard both for you and for papa, I can tell you! And, then, I’ve earned four thousand nine hundre
d and thirty-seven days of indulgence.”
XV
“I AM rather religiously inclined,” said M. de Terremondre, “but I still think that the words spoken in Notre Dame by Père Ollivier were ill advised. And that is the general opinion.”
“Of course,” replied M. Lantaigne, “you blame him for having explained this disaster as a lesson given by God against pride and infidelity. You think him wrong in describing the favoured people as being suddenly punished for their faithlessness and rebellion. Ought one, then, to give up attempting to trace a cause for such terrible events?”
“There are,” answered M. de Terremondre, “certain conventions which ought to be observed. The mere fact that the head of the State was present made a certain reserve incumbent on him.”
“It is true,” said M. Lantaigne, “that this monk actually dared to declare before the President and the ministers of the Republic, and before the rich and powerful, who are either the authors or accomplices of our shame, that France had failed in her age-long vocation, when she turned her back on the Christians of the East who were being massacred by thousands, and, like a coward, supported the Crescent against the Cross. He dared to declare that this once Christian nation had driven the true God from both its schools and its councils. This is the speech that you consider a crime, you, Monsieur de Terremondre, one of the leaders of the Catholic party in our department.”
M. de Terremondre protested that he was deeply devoted to the interests of religion, but he still persisted in the opinion he had first held. In the first place, he was not for the Greeks, but for the Turks, or, if he could not go so far as that, he was at least for peace and order. And he knew many Catholics who regarded the Eastern Church with absolute indifference. Ought one, then, to give offence to them by attacking perfectly lawful convictions? It is not incumbent on everyone to be friendly towards Greece. The Pope, for one, is not.
“I have listened, M. Lantaigne,” said he, “with all the deference in the world to your opinions. But I still think one ought to use a more conciliatory style when one has to preach on a day which was one of mourning and yet, at the same time, one full of a hope that bade fair to bring about the reconciliation of opposing classes....”
“Especially while stocks are going up, thus proving the wisdom of the course pursued by France and Europe on the Eastern question,” added M. Bergeret, with a malicious laugh.
“Exactly so,” answered M. de Terremondre. “A Government which fights the Socialists and in which religious and conservative ideas have made an undeniable advance ought to be treated with respect. Our préfet, M. Worms-Clavelin, although he is both a Jew and a freemason, shows keen anxiety to protect the rights of the Church. Madame Worms-Clavelin has not only had her daughter baptized, but has sent her to a Parisian convent, where she is receiving an excellent education. I know this to be the case, for Mademoiselle Jeanne Clavelin is in the same class as my nieces, the d’Ansey girls. Madame Worms-Clavelin is patroness of several of our institutions, and in spite of her origin and her official position, she scarcely attempts the slightest concealment of her aristocratic and religious sympathies.”
“I don’t doubt what you say in the least,” said M. Bergeret, “and you might even go so far as to say that at the present time French Catholicism has no stronger support than among the rich Jews.”
“You are not far wrong,” answered M. de Terremondre. “The Jews give generously in support of Catholic charities.... But the shocking part of Père Ollivier’s sermon is that he was ready, as it were, to imply that God Himself was the original author and inspirer of this disaster. According to his words, it would seem that the God of mercy Himself actually set fire to the bazaar. My aunt d’Ansey, who was present at the service, came away in a great state of indignation. I feel sure, Monsieur l’abbé, that you cannot approve of such errors as these.”
Usually M. Lantaigne refused to rush into random theological discussions with worldly-minded people who knew nothing about the subject, and although he was an ardent controversialist, his priestly habit of mind deterred him from engaging in disputes on frivolous occasions, such as the present one. He therefore remained silent, and it was M. Bergeret who replied to M. de Terremondre:
“You would have preferred then,” said he, “that this monk should make excuses for a merciful God who had carelessly allowed a disaster to happen in a badly-inspected point in His creation. You think that he should have ascribed to the Almighty the sad, regretful, and chastened attitude of a police inspector who has made a mistake.”
“You are making fun of me now,” said M. de Terremondre. “But was it really necessary to talk about expiatory victims and the destroying angel? Surely these are ideas that belong to a past age?”
“They are Christian ideas,” said M. Bergeret. “M. Lantaigne won’t deny that.”
But as the priest was still silent, M. Bergeret continued:
“I advise you to read, in a book of whose teaching M. Lantaigne approves, in the famous Essai sur l’indifférence, a certain theory of expiation. I remember one sentence in it which I can quote almost verbatim: “We are ruled,” said Lamennais, “by one law of destiny, an inexorable law whose tyranny we can never avoid: this law is expiation, the unbending axis of the moral world on which turns the whole destiny of humanity.”
“That may be so,” said M. de Terremondre. “But is it possible that God can have actually willed to aim a blow at honourable and charitable women like my cousin Courtrai and my nieces Laneux and Felissay, who were terribly burnt in this fire? God is neither cruel nor unjust.”
M. Lantaigne gripped his breviary under his left arm and made a movement as if to go away. Then, changing his mind, he turned towards M. de Terremondre and lifting his right hand said solemnly:
“God was neither cruel nor unjust towards these women when, in His mercy, He made them sacrificial offerings and types of the Victim without stain or spot. But since even Christians have lost, not only the sentiment of sacrifice, but also the practice of contrition, since they have become utterly ignorant of the most holy mysteries of religion, before we utterly despair of their salvation, we must expect warnings still more terrible, admonitions still more urgent, portents of still greater significance. Good-bye, Monsieur de Terremondre. I leave you with M. Bergeret, who, having no religion at all, at any rate avoids the misery and shame of an easy-going faith, and who will play at the game of refuting your arguments with the feeble resources of the intellect unsupported by the instincts of the heart.”
When he had finished his speech, he walked away with a firm, stiff gait.
“What is the matter with him?” said M. de Terremondre, as he looked after him. « I believe he has a grudge against me. He is very difficult to get on with, although he is a man worthy of all respect. The incessant disputes he engages in have soured his temper and he is at loggerheads with his Archbishop, with the professors at the college, and with half the clergy in the diocese. It is more than doubtful if he will get the bishopric, and I really begin to think that, for the Church’s sake, as well as for his own, it is better to leave him where he is. His intolerance would make him a dangerous bishop. What a strange notion to approve of Père Ollivier’s sermon!”
“I also approve of his sermon,” said M. Bergeret.
“It’s quite a different matter in your case,” said M. de Terremondre. “You are merely amusing yourself. You are not a religious man.”
“I am not religious,” said M. Bergeret, “but I am a theologian.”
“On my side,” said M. de Terremondre, “it may be said that I am religious, but not a theologian; and I am revolted when I hear it said in the pulpit that God destroyed some poor women by fire, in order that He might punish our country for her crimes, inasmuch as she no longer takes the lead in Europe. Does Père Ollivier really believe that, as things now are, it is so very easy to take the lead in Europe?”
“He would make a great mistake if he did believe it,” said M. Bergeret. “But you are, as you hav
e just been told, one of the leading members of the Catholic party in the department, and therefore you ought to know that your God used in Biblical times to show a lively taste for human sacrifices and that He rejoiced in the smell of blood. Massacre was one of His chief joys, and He particularly revelled in extermination. Such was His character, Monsieur de Terremondre. He was as bloodthirsty as M. de Gromance, who, from the beginning of the year to the end, spends his time in shooting deer, partridges, rabbits, quails, wild ducks, pheasants, grouse and cuckoos — all according to the season. So God sacrificed the innocent and the guilty, warriors and virgins, fur and feather. It even appears that He savoured the blood of Jephthah’s daughter with delight.”
“There you are wrong,” said M. de Terremondre. “It is true that she was dedicated to Him, but that was not a sacrifice of blood.”
“They argue so, I know,” said M. Bergeret; “but that is just out of regard for your sensitiveness. But, as a matter of actual fact, she was butchered, and Jehovah showed Himself a regular epicure for fresh meat. Little Joas, who had been brought up in the temple, knew perfectly well the way in which this God showed His love for children, and when good Jehosheba began to try on him the kingly fillet, he was much disturbed, and asked this pointed question:
‘Must then a holocaust to-day be offered,
And must I now, as once did Jephthah’s daughter,
Complete Works of Anatole France Page 141