Complete Works of Anatole France

by Anatole France

  The King could ill contain his wrath at a display of luxury which seemed stolen from him, and which he was later on to imitate at Versailles, with all the diligence of a good pupil. He was angered, so it is said, by an allegorical picture into which Le Brun had obviously introduced the portrait of Mademoiselle de la Vallière. The fact may be doubted, but it is certain that the courtiers, with eyes sharpened by envy, remarked on all the panelling Foucquet’s device: “Quo non ascendantor Quo non ascendet? accompanying a squirrel (or foucquet) climbing up a tree. Louis XIV, according to Choisy, conceived the idea of arresting his insolent subject on the spot, and it was the Queen-Mother, who had long been Foucquet’s friend, who prevented him from doing so. But such impatience is not consistent with that patient duplicity which the King displayed in this connection. Almost at that very moment, did he not ask his hospitable subject for another festival to celebrate the churching of the young Queen?

  After the château and grounds had been visited, there was a lottery in which every guest won something: the ladies jewels, the men weapons. Then a supper was served, provided by Watel, the cost of which was valued at one hundred and twenty thousand livres. “Great were the delicacy and the rarity of the dishes,” says La Fontaine, “but greater still the grace with which Monsieur le Surintendant and Madame la Surintendante did the honours of their house.” The pantry of the château then contained at least thirty-six dozen plates of solid gold and a service of the same metal. After supper the guests went to the Allée des Sâpins, where a stage had been erected.

  Mechanical stage effects were then much in vogue. Those of Vaux were wonderful. The mechanism was the work of Torelli, and the scenery was painted by Le Brun.

  Deux enchanteurs pleins de savoir

  Firent tant, par leur imposture,

  Qu’on crut qu’ils avaient le pouvoir

  De commander à la nature.

  L’un de ces enchanteurs est le sieur Torelli,

  Magicien expert et faiseur de miracles;

  Et l’ature, c’est Lebrun, par qui Vaux embelli

  Présente aux regardants mille rares spectacles.

  Rocks were seen to open, and statues moved.

  The scene represented a grim rock in a lonely desert. Suddenly the rock changed to a shell, and, the shell having opened, there came forth a nymph. This was Béjart, who recited a prologue by Pellisson. “In this prologue, Béjart, who represents the nymph of the fountain where the action is taking place, commands the divinities, who are subject to her, to leave the statues in which they are enshrined, and to contribute with all their power to His Majesty’s amusement. Straightway the pedestals and the statues which adorn the stage move, and there emerge from them, I know not how, fauns and bacchantes, who form a ballet. It is very amusing to see a god of boundaries delivered of a child which comes into the world dancing.”

  The ballet was followed by the play which had been conceived, written and rehearsed in a fortnight. It was Moliére’s Les Fâcheux. The play, as we know, has interludes of dancing, and concludes with a ballet. “It is Terence,” was the verdict. No doubt, but it is a devilish bad Terence.

  The night was one of those fiery nights of which Racine writes in the most worldly of his tragedies. Fireworks shot into the air. There was a rain of stars; then, when the King departed, the lantern on the dome which surmounted the château burst into flames, vomiting sheaves of rockets and fiery serpents. We know what a sad morrow succeeded that splendid night.

  My task is completed.

  Madame Foucquet, of whose biography we have already given an outline, obtained a legal separation of her property from her husband’s before the sentence of the 19th December, 1664. She was able to retain a considerable part of her fortune. “On the 19th March, 1673, she bought back from the creditors, for one million two hundred and fifty thousand livres, the Viscounty of Melun, with the estate of Vaux, and made a donation thereof to her son, Louis-Nicolas Fouquet, by various deeds, dated 1683, 1689, 1703. Her son having died with out posterity in 1705, she sold the estate on the 29th August, 1705, to Louis-Hector, Duc de Villars, Marshal of France, who parted with it on the 27th August, 1764, to C.-Gabriel de Choiseuî, Duc de Praslin and peer of France, for one million six hundred thousand livres.” The château remained in the family of Choiseul-Parslin until the 6th July, 1875.

  By a piece of good fortune it then passed into the hands of M. A. Sommier. From that day one may say that art and letters have been vigilant in its preservation, for M. Sommier combines the most perfect taste with a love of art, and Madame Sommier is the daughter of M. de Barante, the famous historian.

  But for M. Sommier it was not enough to preserve this historical monument. His artistic munificence was prepared for any sacrifice in order to restore those cascades and grottos at which La Fontaine had marvelled, and which had fallen into ruins, been overgrown with brushwood, in which vipers lurked and rabbits burrowed. In this noble task M. Sommier was fortunately aided by a learned architect, M. Destailleurs. M. Rodolphe Pfnor, my collaborator and friend, holds it an honour to associate himself with the praises which I here bestow upon the understanding liberality of M. Sommier. M. Pfnor, by reason of his skill in architecture and the arts of design, is competent to give these praises a real and absolute value. Be it understood that I speak for him as well as for myself.

  It is just that art and letters should unite in congratulating M. Sommier. The restorer of the Château de Vaux has deserved well of both. It was reserved for him to realize in all its splendour Le Songe Vaux. He has uttered the command in a voice which has been obeyed:

  Fontaines, jaillissez,

  Herbe tendre, croissez

  Le long de ces rivages.

  Venez, petits oiseaux,

  Accorder vos ramages

  Au doux bruit de leurs eaux.

  THE END

  CRAINQUEBILLE, PUTOIS, RIQUET AND OTHER PROFITABLE TALES

  Translated by Winifred Stephens Whale

  CONTENTS

  CRAINQUEBILLE

  PUTOIS

  RIQUET

  THE MEDITATIONS OF RIQUET

  THE NECKTIE

  THE MONTIL MANŒUVRES

  ÉMILE

  ADRIENNE BUQUET

  THE INTAGLIO

  LA SIGNORA CHIARA

  UPRIGHT JUDGES

  THE OCEAN CHRIST

  JEAN MARTEAU

  MONSIEUR THOMAS

  A SERVANT’S THEFT

  EDMÉE, OR CHARITY WELL BESTOWED

  TO

  ALEXANDRE STEINLEN

  AND TO

  LUCIEN GUITRY

  WHO, THE FORMER IN A SERIES OF ADMIRABLE DRAWINGS THE LATTER IN A FINE DRAMATIC CREATION, HAVE INVESTED WITH A TRAGIC GREATNESS THE HUMBLE FIGURE OF MY POOR COSTERMONGER.

  NOTE

  The section entiled “Riquet” forms Chapter 11 of “Monsieur Bergeret à Paris” and is here included as an introduction to Riquet’s “Meditations.”

  A story entitled “Onésime Dupont” appears both in the volume here presented and in the one entitled “Pierre Nozière.” In the English edition it will be reproduced in the latter volume only.

  CRAINQUEBILLE

  I

  IN every sentence pronounced by a judge in the name of the sovereign people, dwells the whole majesty of justice. The august character of that justice was brought home to Jérôme Crainquebille, costermonger, when, accused of having insulted a policeman, he appeared in the police court. Having taken his place in the dock, he beheld in the imposing sombre hall magistrates, clerks, lawyers in their robes, the usher wearing his chains, gendarmes, and, behind a rail, the bare heads of the silent spectators. He, himself, occupied a raised seat, as if some sinister honour were conferred on the accused by his appearance before the magistrate. At the end of the hall, between two assessors, sat the Président Bourriche. The palm-leaves of an officer of the Academy decorated his breast. Over the tribune were a bust representing the Republic and a crucifix, as if to indicate that all laws divine and human were susp
ended over Crainquebille’s head. Such symbols naturally inspired him with terror. Not being gifted with a philosophic mind, he did not inquire the meaning of the bust and the crucifix; he did not ask how far Jesus and the symbolical bust harmonized in the Law Courts. Nevertheless, here was matter for reflection; for,after all, pontifical teaching and canon law are in many points opposed to the constitution of the Republic and to the civil code. So far as we know the Decretals have not been abolished. To-day, as formerly, the Church of Christ teaches that only those powers are lawful to which it has given its sanction. Now the French Republic claims to be independent of pontifical power. Crainquebille might reasonably say:

  “Gentlemen and magistrates, in so much as President Loubet has not been anointed, the Christ, whose image is suspended over your heads, repudiates you through the voice of councils and of Popes. Either he is here to remind you of the rights of the Church, which invalidate yours, or His presence has no rational signification.”

  Whereupon President Bourriche might reply:

  “Prisoner Crainquebille, the kings of France have always quarrelled with the Pope. Guillaume de Nogaret was excommunicated, but for so trifling a reason he did not resign his office. The Christ of the tribune is not the Christ of Gregory VII or of Boniface VIII. He is, if you will, the Christ of the Gospels, who knew not one word of canon law, and had never heard of the holy Decretals.”

  Then Crainquebille might not without reason have answered:

  “The Christ of the Gospels was an agitator. Moreover, he was the victim of a sentence, which for nineteen hundred years all Christian peoples have regarded as a grave judicial error. I defy you Monsieur le Président, to condemn me in His name to so much as forty-eight hours’ imprisonment.”

  But Crainquebille did not indulge in any considerations either historical, political or social. He was wrapped in amazement. All the ceremonial, with which he was surrounded, impressed him with a very lofty idea of justice. Filled with reverence, overcome with terror, he was ready to submit to his judges in the matter of his guilt. In his own conscience he was convinced of his innocence; but he felt how insignificant is the conscience of a costermonger in the face of the panoply of the law, and the ministers of public prosecution. Already his lawyer had half persuaded him that he was not innocent.

  A summary and hasty examination had brought out the charges under which he laboured.

  II

  CRAINQUEBILLE’S MISADVENTURE

  UP and down the town went Jérôme Crainquebille, costermonger, pushing his barrow before him and crying: “Cabbages! Turnips! Carrots!” When he had leeks he cried: “Asparagus!” For leeks are the asparagus of the poor. Now it happened that on October 20, at noon, as he was going down the Rue Montmartre, there came out of her shop the shoemaker’s wife, Madame Bayard. She went up to Crainquebille’s barrow and scornfully taking up a bundle of leeks, she said:

  “I don’t think much of your leeks. What do you want a bundle?”

  “Sevenpence halfpenny, mum, and the best in the market!”

  “Sevenpence halfpenny for three wretched leeks?”

  And disdainfully she cast the leeks back into the barrow.

  Then it was that Constable 64 came and said to Crainquebille:

  “Move on.”

  Moving on was what Crainquebille had been doing from morning till evening for fifty years. Such an order seemed right to him, and perfectly in accordance with the nature of things. Quite prepared to obey, he urged his customer to take what she wanted.

  “You must give me time to choose,” she retorted sharply.

  Then she felt all the bundles of leeks over again. Finally, she selected the one she thought the best, and held it clasped to her bosom as saints in church pictures hold the palm of victory.

  “I will give you seven pence. That’s quite enough; and I’ll have to fetch it from the shop, for I haven’t anything on me.”

  Still embracing the leeks, she went back into the shop, whither she had been preceded by a customer, carrying a child.

  Just at this moment Constable 64 said to Crainquebille for the second time:

  “Move on.”

  “I’m waiting for my money,” replied Crainquebille.

  “And I’m not telling you to wait for your money; I’m telling you to move on,” retorted the constable grimly.

  Meanwhile, the shoemaker’s wife in her shop was fitting blue slippers on to a child of eighteen months, whose mother was in a hurry. And the green heads of the leeks were lying on the counter.

  For the half century that he had been pushing his barrow through the streets, Crainquebille had been learning respect for authority. But now his position was a peculiar one: he was torn asunder between what was his due and what was his duty. His was not a judicial mind. He failed to understand that the possession of an individual’s right in no way exonerated him from the performance of a social duty. He attached too great importance to his claim to receive seven pence, and too little to the duty of pushing his barrow and moving on, for ever moving on. He stood still.

  For the third time Constable 64 quietly and calmly ordered him to move on. Unlike Inspector Montauciel, whose habit it is to threaten constantly but never to take proceedings, Constable 64 is slow to threaten and quick to act. Such is his character. Though somewhat sly he is an excellent servant and a loyal soldier. He is as brave as a lion and as gentle as a child. He knows naught save his official instructions.

  “Don’t you understand when I tell you to move on?”

  To Crainquebille’s mind his reason for standing still was too weighty for him not to consider it sufficient. Therefore, artlessly and simply he explained it:

  “Good Lord! Don’t I tell you that I am waiting for my money.”

  Constable 64 merely replied:

  “Do you want me to summons you? If you do you have only to say so.”

  At these words Crainquebille slowly shrugged his shoulders, looked sadly at the constable, and then raised his eyes to heaven, as if he would say:

  “I call God to witness! Am I a law-breaker? Am I one to make light of the by-laws and ordinances which regulate my ambulatory calling? At five o’clock in the morning I was at the market. Since seven, pushing my barrow and wearing my hands to the bone, I have been crying: ‘Cabbages! Turnips! Carrots!’ I am turned sixty. I am worn out. And you ask me whether I have raised the black flag of rebellion. You are mocking me and your joking is cruel.”

  Either because he failed to notice the expression on Crainquebille’s face, or because he considered it no excuse for disobedience, the constable inquired curtly and roughly whether he had been understood.

  Now, just at that moment the block of traffic in the Rue Montmartre was at its worst. Carriages, drays, carts, omnibuses, trucks, jammed one against the other, seemed indissolubly welded together. From their quivering immobility proceeded shouts and oaths. Cabmen and butchers’ boys grandiloquent and drawling insulted one another from a distance, and omnibus conductors, regarding Crainquebille as the cause of the block, called him “a dirty leek.”

  Meanwhile, on the pavement the curious were crowding round to listen to the dispute. Then the constable, finding himself the centre of attention, began to think it time to display his authority:

  “Very well,” he said, taking a stumpy pencil and a greasy notebook from his pocket.

  Crainquebille persisted in his idea, obedient to a force within. Besides, it was now impossible for him either to move on or to draw back. The wheel of his barrow was unfortunately caught in that of a milkman’s cart.

  Tearing his hair beneath his cap he cried:

  “But don’t I tell you I’m waiting for my money! Here’s a fix! Misère de misère! Bon sang de bon sang!”

  By these words, expressive rather of despair than of rebellion, Constable 64 considered he had been insulted. And, because to his mind all insults must necessarily take the consecrated, regular, traditional, liturgical, ritual form so to speak of Mort aux vaches, thus the offender’s
words were heard and understood by the constable.

  “Ah! You said: Mort aux vaches. Very good. Come along.”

  Stupefied with amazement and distress, Crainquebille opened his great rheumy eyes and gazed at Constable 64. With a broken voice proceeding now from the top of his head and now from the heels of his boots, he cried, with his arms folded over his blue blouse:

  “I said ‘Mort aux vaches’? I? … Oh!”

  The tradesmen and errand boys hailed the arrest with laughter. It gratified the taste of all crowds for violent and ignoble spectacles. But there was one serious person who was pushing his way through the throng; he was a sad-looking old man, dressed in black, wearing a high hat; he went up to the constable and said to him in a low voice very gently and firmly:

  “You are mistaken. This man did not insult you.”

  “Mind your own business,” replied the policeman, but without threatening, for he was speaking to a man who was well dressed.

  The old man insisted calmly and tenaciously. And the policeman ordered him to make his declaration to the Police Commissioner.

  Meanwhile Crainquebille was explaining:

  “Then I did say ‘Mort aux vaches!’ Oh!…”

  As he was thus giving vent to his astonishment, Madame Bayard, the shoemaker’s wife, came to him with sevenpence in her hand. But Constable 64 already had him by the collar; so Madame Bayard, thinking that no debt could be due to a man who was being taken to the police-station, put her sevenpence into her apron pocket.

  Then, suddenly beholding his barrow confiscated, his liberty lost, a gulf opening beneath him and the sky overcast, Crainquebille murmured:

  “It can’t be helped!”

  Before the Commissioner, the old gentleman declared that he had been hindered on his way by the block in the traffic, and so had witnessed the incident. He maintained that the policeman had not been insulted, and that he was labouring under a delusion. He gave his name and profession: Dr. David Matthieu, chief physician at the Ambroise-Paré Hospital, officer of the Legion of Honour. At another time such evidence would have been sufficient for the Commissioner. But just then men of science were regarded with suspicion in France.