Twenty-two years previously, under the presidency of M. Thiers, it had been decided that subscriptions should be invited for the erection of a statue to the Gaulish chief Eporedorix, who, in the year 52 B.C., led the river tribes against Caesar, and imperilled the small Roman garrison by cutting down the wooden bridge built by them to ensure communication with the rest of the Army. The archaeologists of the little county town firmly believed that this feat of arms had been accomplished in the Commentaries which all the learned societies of the district quoted as a proof of the fact that the wooden bridge cut down by Eporedorix was situated in their particular town. There is a great deal of uncertainty with regard to Caesar’s geography, and local patriotism is both fierce and jealous. The chief town of the department, three sous-préfectures, and four smaller towns quarrelled for the glory of having slaughtered the Romans by the hand of Eporedorix.
Competent authority decided the question in favour of the capital town of the department. It was an unfortified town, which much to its sorrow and anger had been forced in 1870 after one hour’s bombardment to allow the enemy to enter its walls, walls which in the time of Louis XI had been crumbling to pieces, and now lay concealed beneath the ivy that had overgrown them.
The town had undergone the hardships and privations of military occupation. It had suffered and atoned. The project of erecting a monument to the memory of the Gaulish chief was received with enthusiasm by the townspeople, who were experiencing the humiliation of defeat, and were all the more grateful to their long-dead compatriot for providing them with something of which they could be proud. Resuscitated after fifteen hundred years of oblivion, Eporedorix united all the citizens in a bond of filial devotion. The name of the hero roused no distrust in any of the different political parties which were then dividing France. Opportunists, Radicals, Constitutionalists, Royalists, Orleanists, Bonapartists, they all gave to the scheme; half the cost was subscribed within the year, and deputies of the department obtained from the Government what was wanting to make up the required sum.
The order for the statue of Eporedorix was given to Mathieu Michel, David d’Angers’ youngest pupil, he whom the Master had called his Benjamin. Mathieu Michel, who was then in his fiftieth year, at once set to work, and attacked the clay with a generous, if somewhat cramped, hand, for the republican sculptor had done but little work during the Empire. In less than two years, however, he finished the figure, a plaster model of which was exhibited in the Salon of 1873, among many other Gaulish chiefs gathered together among the palms and begonias under the huge glass dome. Owing to the endless formalities insisted upon by the authorities, the statue was not finally completed in marble for another five years. After this, so many administrative difficulties, so many disputes arose, between the town and the Government, that it looked as though the statue of Eporedorix would never be erected upon the Pont National.
In 1895, however, the work was accomplished, and the statue, arriving from Paris, was received by the préfet, who solemnly handed it over to the mayor of the town. Mathieu Michel accompanied his work. He was then over seventy, and the whole town turned out to look at the old man with his lionlike head and long, flowing, white hair.
The inauguration took place on the 7th of June, when M. Dupont was Minister of Public Instruction, M. Worms-Clavelin préfet of the department, and M. Trumelle mayor of the town. Doubtless the enthusiasm was not what it would have been on the morrow of the invasion, when indignation was at its height, but at any rate everybody was satisfied. The speeches and also the uniforms of the officers met with applause, and when the green veil which hid Eporedorix from view was withdrawn the whole town cried as with one voice, “Lacarelle! it is Lacarelle! it is the image of Lacarelle!”
This, to tell the truth, was by no means correct. Mathieu Michel, the pupil and emulator of David d’Angers, he whom the venerable master called the child of his old age, the republican sculptor and patriot, insurgent in’48, volunteer in’70, had not portrayed M. Gustave Lacarelle in this marble hero. No, indeed! This chief, with his shy and gentle look, clasping his lance, and seeming, under his wide-winged helmet, to be meditating upon the poetry of Chateaubriand and the historic philosophy of Henri Martin, this warrior, steeped in romantic melancholy, was not, in spite of what the people cried, the true portrait of M. Lacarelle.
The préfets secretary had big, prominent eyes, a short, snub nose, flabby cheeks, and a double chin. Mathieu Michel’s Eporedorix gazed with deep-set orbs into the distance. His nose was Grecian, and the contour of his face pure and classical. But, like M. Lacarelle, he had a tremendous moustache, the long, curving branches of which were visible from every point of view.
Struck by this resemblance, the crowd unanimously bestowed upon M. Lacarelle the glorious name of Eporedorix, and from that time the secretary of the préfet found himself compelled to personate in public the popular idea of the Gaul, and to conform to it by word and deed under all circumstances. Lacarelle was fairly successful, for he had had plenty of practice since his student days, and all that was required of him was to be hail-fellow-well-met with everybody, keen on the Army, and a teller of broad stories when necessary. He was considered to be an adept at kissing women, and so he became a great embracer. He kissed them all and he kissed them always. It did not matter who they were: women, young girls, and little girls, pretty ones and plain, old and young, he embraced them out of pure Gaulishness, and with no evil intentions, for he was a moral man.
And that is why, coming unexpectedly upon Madame Bergeret waiting in the drawing-room for his wife, he immediately embraced her. Madame Bergeret was not ignorant of M. Lacarelle’s little habit, but her vanity, which was great, confounded her judgment, which was scanty. She thought he kissed her because he loved her, and straightway fell into so great an emotion that her bosom heaved stormily, her legs gave way beneath her, and she sank panting into the arms of M. Lacarelle. The latter was both surprised and embarrassed, but his amour-propre was flattered. He placed Madame Bergeret as comfortably as he could upon the couch, and, bending over her, said in a voice filled with sympathy:
“Poor lady! So charming and so unhappy! And so you are leaving us? You are going to-morrow?”
And he imprinted upon her brow a chaste kiss. But Madame Bergeret, whose nerves were all unstrung, burst into a fit of sobs and tears; then slowly, solemnly, and sorrowfully she returned his kiss at the very moment that Madame Lacarelle entered the room.
The next day the whole town sat in judgment upon Madame Bergeret, who had remained among them just one day too long.
CHAPTER II
THAT day the Duc de Brécé was entertaining General Cartier de Chalmot, Abbé Guitrel, and Lerond, the ex-deputy, at Brécé. They had visited the stables, the kennels, the pheasantry, and had been talking, all the time, about the Affair.
As the twilight fell, they commenced to stroll slowly along the great avenue of the park. Before them the chateau rose up, in the dapple grey sky, with its heavy façade laden with pediments and crowned with the high-pitched roofs of the Empire period.
“I am convinced,” said M. de Brécé, “as I said before, that the fuss made over this affair is, and can only be, some abominable plot instigated by the enemies of France.”
“And of religion,” gently added Abbé Guitrel. “It is impossible to be a good Frenchman without being a good Christian. And it is clear that the scandal was started in the first place by freethinkers and freemasons, by Protestants.”
“And Jews,” went on M. de Brécé, “Jews and Germans. What unheard-of audacity to question the decision of a court-martial! For when all is said and done, it is quite impossible for seven French officers to have made a mistake.”
“No, of course, that is not to be thought of,” said the Abbé Guitrel.
“Generally speaking,” put in M. Lerond, “a miscarriage of justice is a most improbable thing. I would even go so far as to say an impossible thing, inasmuch as the law protects the accused in so many ways. I am speaking of
civil law, and I say the same of martial law. As far as courts-martial are concerned, even supposing the prisoner’s interest to be less thoroughly safeguarded owing to the comparatively summary form of procedure, he finds all necessary security in the character of his judges. To my mind it is an insult to the Army, to doubt the legality of a verdict delivered by a court-martial.”
“You are quite correct,” replied the Duke. “Besides, can any one really believe seven French officers to be mistaken? Is such a thing conceivable, General?”
“Hardly,” replied General Cartier de Chalmot. “It would take a great deal to make me believe it.”
“A syndicate of treachery!” cried M. de Brécé. “The thing is unheard of!”
Conversation flagged and fell. The Duke and the General had just caught sight of some pheasants in a clearing, and, smitten simultaneously with the burning and instinctive desire to kill, mentally recorded a regret at having no guns with them.
“You have the finest coverts in the district,” said the General to the Duc de Brécé.
The Duke was deep in thought.
“I don’t care what any one says,” he remarked, “the Jews will never be any good to France.”
The Duc de Brécé, eldest son of the late Duke — who had cut a dash among the light-horse at the Assemblée de Versailles — had entered public life after the death of the Comte de Chambord. He had never known the days of hope, the hours of ardent struggle, of monarchical enterprises as exciting as a conspiracy and as impassioned as an act of faith. He had never seen the tapestried bed offered to the Prince by noble ladies, nor the banners, the flags and the white horses which were to bring the King to his own again. By right of birth as a Brécé he took his place as deputy at the Palais-Bourbon, nourishing a secret enmity against the Comte de Paris, and a hidden wish never to see the restoration, if it were to be in favour of the younger branch of the Royal Family. With this one exception he was a loyal and faithful Royalist. He was drawn into intrigues which he did not understand, made a hopeless muddle of his votes, spent his money freely in Paris, and when the elections took place found himself defeated at Brécé by Dr. Cotard.
From that day onward he devoted his time to farming, to his family and to religion. All that remained of his hereditary domain, which in 1789 was composed of one hundred and twelve parishes, comprising one hundred and seventy “Hommages,” four “Terres titrés,” and eighteen manors, was about two thousand acres of land and forest around the historic castle of Brécé. In his department the Brécé coverts invested him with a lustre that he had never enjoyed at the Palais-Bourbon. The forests of Brécé and La Guerche, in which Francis I had hunted, were also celebrated in the ecclesiastical history of the district, for in these woods was situated the time-honoured chapel of Notre-Dame-des-Belles-Feuilles.
“Now mark what I tell you,” repeated the Due de Brécé, “the Jews will bring misfortune upon France. Why don’t we get rid of them? Nothing would be easier!”
“It would be a great thing,” replied the magistrate, “but not so easy as you imagine, M. le Duc.
In the first place, if you wish in any way to affect the position of the Jews in this country, you must make new laws on naturalisation. Now it is always difficult to make a law which will satisfactorily fulfil the intentions of the legislator, and laws such as these would affect the whole of our legal system, and would, moreover, be extremely difficult to draft. Then, unfortunately, we could never be certain of finding a Government ready to propose or support them, nor a Parliament to carry them. The Senate is no good. As history unrolls itself before our eyes we make the discovery that the eighteenth century is one huge error of the human understanding, and that social as well as religious truths are to be found in their full completeness only in the traditions of the Middle Ages. By and by France will find it necessary — as Russia has done with regard to the Jews — to revert to the procedure adopted in those feudal times which offer the best example of the typical Christian state.”
“Naturally,” said the Duke, “Christian France should belong to Frenchmen and Christians, not to Jews and Protestants.”
“Bravo!” cried the General.
“There was a younger son in our family,” went on the Duke, “called Nez-d’Argent — I don’t know why — who fought in the provinces during the reign of Charles IX. On that tree whose leafless top you see over there, he hanged six hundred and thirty-six Huguenots. Well, I must confess I am proud of being a descendant of Nez-d’Argent. I have inherited his hatred of heretics, and I hate Jews in the same way that he hated Protestants.”
“Such sentiments are most praiseworthy, M. le Duc,” remarked the Abbé, “most laudable, and worthy of the great name you bear. But, if you will allow me, I will make a comment on just one point. In the Middle Ages the Jews were not considered heretics, and, properly speaking, they are not heretics. The heretic is a man who, having been baptised, and instructed in the doctrines of the faith, misrepresents or denies them. Such are, or rather were, the Arians, the Albigenses, the Novatians, the Montanists, the Priscillianists, the Waldenses, the Anabaptists, and the Calvinists, so cleverly disposed of by your illustrious ancestor, Nez-d’Argent; not to mention many other sects who upheld doctrines contrary to the beliefs of the Church. The number of them is very great, for variety is a characteristic of error. There is no stopping on the downward path of heresy; and schism reproduces and multiplies itself ad infinitum. All that one finds opposing the true Church is the dust and ashes of churches. The other day, when reading Bossuet, I came across an admirable definition of a heretic. ‘A heretic,’ says Bossuet, ‘is one who holds an opinion of his own; one who acts according to his own ideas and his own feelings.’ Now the Jew, who has never received baptism nor been instructed in the truth, cannot rightly be called a heretic.
“And again we see that the Inquisition never chastised a Jew as such, and if a Jew was handed over to earthly justice it was because he was a blasphemer, a profane person, or a corrupter of the faithful. A better name for the Jew would be infidel, because that is the name we give to those who, being unbaptised, do not believe in the truths of the Christian religion. Again, we must not, strictly speaking, look upon the Jew as an infidel, in the same way as we should a Mohammedan or an idolater. The Jews occupy a unique and singular position in the economy of the eternal verities. Theology bestows upon them a designation conformable to their rôle in history. They were called ‘witnesses’ in the Middle Ages, and we must admire the force and precision of such a term. The reason why God allows them to live is that they may serve as witnesses and sureties for the words and deeds upon which our religion is founded. We must not go so far as to say that God purposely makes the Jews obstinate and blind to serve as living proofs of Christianity; but He utilizes their free and voluntary stubbornness to confirm us in our belief. It is for that reason that He allows them a place among the nations.”
“But in the meanwhile,” put in the Duke, “they rob us of our money and destroy our national energy.”
“And they insult the Army,” said General Cartier de Chalmot. “Or rather it is insulted by the wretches in their pay.”
“And that is a crime,” remarked the Abbé gently. “The salvation of France depends upon the alliance of the Church and the Army.”
“Well, then, M. l’Abbé, why do you defend the Jews?” demanded the Duc de Brécé.
“Far from defending them,” replied the Abbé Guitrel, “I condemn their unpardonable sin, which is to deny the divinity of Jesus Christ. On this point their obstinacy is invincible. Their own belief is rational enough, but they do not believe all that they should, and that is why they have drawn so heavy a blame upon themselves. This blame rests upon the Jews as a nation, and not as individuals, and cannot touch any who have been converted to Christianity.”
“For my part,” said the Duke, “converted Jews are just as odious to me, more odious even, than other Jews. It is the race I dislike.”
“Allow me to say I do not b
elieve you, M. le Duc,” said the Abbé. “For that would be to sin against charity and the teaching of the Church. I am sure that, like myself, you are grateful to a certain extent to some unconverted Jews for their liberal donations towards our charities. It is impossible to deny, for instance, that families like the R — and the F — have, in this respect, shown an example which might well be followed by all Christian families. I will go so far as to say that Madame Worms-Clavelin, although not openly converted to Catholicism, has on several occasions given proof of truly divine inspiration. It is to the préfets wife that we owe the tolerance with which in the midst of general persecution our Church schools are regarded in this department. As for Madame de Bonmont, who is a Jewess by birth, she is a true Christian indeed, and takes pattern to a certain extent by those holy widows who in centuries past gave a part of their riches to the churches and the poor.”
“The Bonmonts’ real name is Gutenberg,” put in M. Lerond. “They are of German extraction. The grandfather amassed his riches by the manufacture of the two poisons, absinth and vermuth, and was imprisoned no less than three times for infringement and adulteration. The father, who was a manufacturer and a financier, made a scandalous fortune through speculation and monopoly. Subsequently his widow presented a golden ciborium to Monseigneur Chariot. That sort of people always makes me think of the two attorneys who, after listening to a sermon by good Father Maillard, said to each other at the church door, ‘Well, neighbour, have we got to disgorge?’”
“It is an extraordinary thing,” said M. Lerond, “that the Semitic question has never arisen in England.”
“That is because the English are not made the same as we are,” said the Duke. “Their blood is not so hot as ours.”
“True,” said M. Lerond. “I fully appreciate that remark; but it may arise from the fact that the English engage all their capital in trade, while our hard-working population save theirs for speculation; in other words, for the Jews. The whole trouble arises from having to submit to the laws and customs of the Revolution. Salvation lies in a speedy return to the old régime.”
Complete Works of Anatole France Page 146