by Voltaire
I argued at length with Monsieur Husson; finally I said: ‘Console yourself, sir; perhaps the Jansenists will one day be as clever as the Jesuits.’ I tried to mollify him; but you can never bend the opinions of a head made of iron.
CHAPTER III
Brioché, seeing that Punchinello was humped front and rear, wanted to teach him to read and write. After two years Punchinello’s spelling was adequate, but he never mastered the use of a pen.12 One of his biographers notes that he tried one day to write his name, but that nobody could read it.13
Brioché was very poor; he and his wife could not feed Punchinello, still less apprentice him to a trade. Punchinello said to them: ‘Father and mother, I am a hunchback, and I have a good memory; together with three or four of my friends I can set up a puppet theatre: I shall make a little money; people have always liked marionettes. There are sometimes losses in setting up from scratch, but also great profits to be made.’
Monsieur and Madame Brioché admired the good sense of the young man; the theatrical company was formed, and went to set up its small stage in a Swiss village on the road from Appenzel to Milan.
This happened to be just the village in which the mountebanks of Orvieto had set up a shop for their orvietan.14 They noticed that little by little the rabble started going to the puppet theatre, and that local sales of their patent toilet soap and ointments against burns were down by half. They accused Punchinello of various bad business practices, and brought their accusations before the magistrate.15 The petition stated that Punch was a dangerous drunk, and that one day in the middle of the market-place he had administered a hundred kicks in the stomach to some peasants who were selling trinkets.
It was also claimed that he had molested a tradesman selling turkey-cocks; finally, they accused him of being a sorcerer.16 Monsieur Parfaict, in his History of the Theatre, claims that he was eventually swallowed by a toad; but Father Daniel thinks or at least says otherwise. We do not know what happened to Brioché.17 Since he was only the putative father of Punchinello, the historians have not seen fit to tell us his fate.
CHAPTER IV
The late Monsieur Dumarsais18 contended that the greatest of abuses was the sale of offices. ‘It is a great misfortune for the state’, he said, ‘that a man of merit, without fortune, cannot succeed at anything. How many buried talents, how many fools in posts! What a detestable policy, to stifle the spirit of competition!’ Monsieur Dumarsais, without realizing, was speaking in his own defence; for he was reduced to teaching Latin, who would have done the state great services had he been employed. I know hack writers who would have enriched an entire province had they been in the place of those who ruined it. But to have such a position you must be the son of a rich man who leaves you the wherewithal to purchase an office, a post, or what is termed a dignity.
Dumarsais contended that, had they wielded power, a Montaigne, a Charron, a Descartes, a Gassendi, a Bayle would neither have sent schoolboys to the galleys for arguing the case against Aristotle’s philosophy, nor ordered to be burned alive the priest Urbain Grandier19 or the priest Gaufredi,20 nor would they have, etc., etc.
CHAPTER V
Not long ago, the knight Roginante, a gentleman of Ferrara, who wished to make a collection of paintings of the Flemish school, went on a shopping expedition to Amsterdam. He bargained with the dealer Vandergru for a rather handsome Christ. ‘Is it possible’, said the Ferraran to the Batavian, ‘that you who are not a Christian (since you are a Dutchman21) can be in possession of a Christ?’ ‘I am both Christian and Catholic,’ replied Vandergru, keeping his temper, and he sold his painting for a good price. ‘Do you believe, then, that Jesus Christ is God?’ asked Roginante. ‘Certainly,’ said Vandergru.
Another collector of curios inhabited the adjoining house: a Socinian,22 who sold him a Holy Family. ‘What is your view of the Christ child?’ asked the Ferraran. ‘I think that he was the most perfect creature that God ever placed on earth.’
From here the Ferraran went to see Moses Mansebo,23 who merely had some fine landscapes for sale, and no Holy Family. Roginante asked why such subjects were not to be found in his gallery. ‘That is because we hold that Family in abomination,’ he replied.
Roginante passed on to the house of a well-known Anabaptist, who had the prettiest children in the world, and he asked them in which church they had been baptized. ‘What a question, Monsieur!’ they replied, ‘we are not yet baptized, thank God.’
Before he was half-way down the street Roginante had already encountered a dozen sects each wholly opposed to the others. His travelling companion, Monsieur Sacrito, said to him: ‘Let us get out of here at once – this is the hour when the Bourse opens, and all these people will doubtless be at each other’s throats, according to ancient custom, since they all think differently; and the mob will beat us up for being the Pope’s subjects.’
They were both astonished to see all these good people leave their houses with their clerks, greet each other civilly, and go together to the Bourse. On this particular day, there were all told fifty-three different religions present, including Armenians and Jansenists. Fifty-three million francs’ worth of trading was done in the most peaceful manner imaginable, and the Ferraran returned to his country where he found more Agnus Dei wax medals than bills of exchange.24
Every day the same spectacle is seen in London, Hamburg, Danzig, even Venice, etc. But the most edifying sight I have encountered was in Constantinople.
I had the honour, fifty years ago, of attending the inauguration of a Greek Patriarch by the Sultan Ahmed III,25 may God receive his soul. He presented this Christian priest with a ring, and a staff in the form of a crutch. There followed a procession of Christians in Cleobula Street, headed by two janissaries.26 I had the pleasure of publicly receiving communion in the patriarchal church, and I could obtain a canonry if I wanted.
I confess that on my return to Marseilles I was greatly astonished to find no mosque there. I expressed my surprise to the Intendant and to the Bishop. I told them that it was highly uncivil, and that if Christians had churches in Muslim countries we might at least pay the resident Turks the courtesy of a few chapels. They both promised that they would write in favour of it, but there the matter rested, thanks to the edict Unigenitus.27
Oh my brother Jesuits! You have not been tolerant, and no one is tolerant of you. Console yourselves: others will in turn become persecutors, and will in turn become as loathsome.
CHAPTER VI
I was relating these matters, a few days ago, to Monsieur de Boucacous, a passionate native of Languedoc and a zealous Huguenot. ‘Cavalisque!’ he exclaimed, ‘so they treat us in France as they treat the Turks: they are refused mosques, and we are refused churches!’ ‘As to mosques,’ said I, ‘the Turks have not yet asked for any; and I dare to cherish the hope that they will obtain them when they wish, because they are our staunch allies; but I doubt very much that your churches will be re-established, in spite of all the courtesy on which we pride ourselves; the reason being that you are, so to speak, our enemies.’ ‘Your enemies!’ cried Monsieur de Boucacous, ‘we who are the most ardent supporters of the King!’ ‘You are indeed very ardent,’ I replied, ‘so ardent that you have set off nine civil wars, not counting the Cévennes Massacres.’28 ‘But if we have started civil wars,’ said he, ‘that is because you were roasting us alive in the public squares; in the long run one gets tired of being burned alive, and not even the patience of a saint can endure it: so long as we are left in peace I swear that we shall be the most faithful of subjects.’
‘That is precisely what we are doing,’ I said; ‘we close our eyes to your existence, we let you go about your business, and you have a pretty reasonable amount of freedom.’ ‘Some freedom!’ replied Monsieur de Boucacous; ‘it only takes four or five thousand of us to assemble in the middle of the countryside to sing four-part psalms, for a regiment of dragoons immediately to show up to make each and every one of us return to our homes. Is that a way to live
? Is that freedom?’
So then I said: ‘There is no country in the world where one can assemble without permission of the sovereign; all assemblies are against the law. Worship God in your own homes after your fashion; stop deafening people with the bellowing which you call music. Do you really think God is well pleased with you when you sing his commandments to the tune of “Wake up, sleeping beauty”?29 Or when you say, like the Jews, about a neighbouring people: “Happy shall he be, who destroys thee forever, who, tearing children from the breast, will crush their infidel heads!”30 Does God categorically want us to dash out the brains of little children? Is that human? Furthermore, does God like bad poetry and bad music?’
Monsieur de Boucacous interrupted me, and asked me if the dog Latin of our own Psalter was preferable. ‘Doubtless not,’ I replied; ‘I even admit that there is some sterility of imagination in praying to God only in a viciously corrupt translation of the ancient canticles of a people whom we abhor; we are all Jews at vespers, as we are all pagans at the Opera.
‘What irritates me most is that Ovid’s Metamorphoses are, by the mischief of the devil, far better written and more pleasing than the Jewish Psalter: for it must be admitted that the Hill of Sion, and those basilisk mouths, and those other hills that skip like rams,31 and all those tedious repetitions, do not stand up well against either Greek or Latin or French poetry. Whatever chilly little Racine junior32 may do, this unnatural child will not prevent his father from remaining – to speak profanely – a better poet than King David.
‘Be that as it may, at the end of the day we are the official religion in this land; you are not allowed public assemblies in England, so why do you expect such a liberty in France? Do what you please in your own homes, and I have the assurance of both the Governor and the Intendant that by behaving yourselves you will be left in peace: only foolhardiness leads to and will lead to persecutions. I find it very bad that your civil marriages, the status of your children, and your rights of inheritance should suffer the slightest interference.33 It is unjust to bleed and purge you because your fathers were fools. But what do you expect? This world is a great Bedlam where lunatics put other lunatics in chains.’
CHAPTER VII
Reduced to beggary, which was their natural state, Punchinello’s companions joined forces with other bohemians, and went from village to village.34 They arrived in a small town, and found a fourth-floor room where they set about making drugs, the sale of which helped them for a while to survive. They even cured of its scabies a spaniel belonging to a lady of quality; the neighbours proclaimed a miracle, but despite all their ingenuity the troupe made no money.
They were lamenting their obscurity and misery, when one day they heard a noise over their heads, like a wheelbarrow being rolled along the floor. They went up to the fifth floor, where they found a little man making puppets on his own account; he was called Sir Good-Deed, and he had just the gifts necessary for the exercise of his art.
Nobody understood a word he said; but he spoke a most agreeable gibberish, and his life-sized puppets were not badly put together. One of the company, who also excelled in gibberish, spoke to him thus:
‘We believe you are destined to set our puppets back on their feet; for we have read in Nostradamus35 these apt and prophetic words: olle ni hcnup kcab gnirb lliw deed-do og, which read backwards clearly says: Good-Deed will bring back Punchinello. Our Punch was swallowed by a toad, but we have recovered his hat, his hump and his squeaker. You will provide the vital brass wire to operate him. I also believe you might be able to give him a moustache just like the one he had; and when we join forces, we are bound to be a great success. Punchinello will be fulfilled by Nostradamus, and Nostradamus by Punchinello.’
Sir Good-Deed accepted the proposition. He was asked what he would like in return for his trouble. ‘I want great honours and a lot of money,’ he replied. ‘We have neither,’ said the spokesman for the troupe, ‘but in time we shall have both.’ So Sir Good-Deed joined forces with the bohemians, and they all went to Milan to set up their theatre under the protection of Madame Carminetta.36 Notices were put up to the effect that Punchinello himself, who had been swallowed by a toad in a village in the canton of Appenzel, would reappear on the boards of Milan, and would dance with Madame Gigogne.37 Every pedlar of orvietan38 might vainly oppose it for all he was worth, Sir Good-Deed also knew the secret recipe of orvietan, and maintained that his was superior: he sold a lot of it to the ladies, who were all crazy about Punchinello, and he became so rich that he elected himself leader of the troupe.39
As soon as he had what he wanted and what everyone wants – honours and riches – he became very ungrateful towards Madame Carminetta. He bought a fine house opposite his benefactress, and found a way of having it paid for by his companions. He was no longer seen paying court to Madame Carminetta; on the contrary, having invited her to dine at his house, when finally she deigned one day to come, he had the door shut firmly in her face.40
CHAPTER VIII
Not having understood a word of Merry Hissing’s preceding chapter, I repaired to my friend Monsieur Husson’s house for an explanation. He told me that it was a dark allegory about Father La Valette,41 a bankrupt American merchant; but that it was a long time since he had ceased to trouble himself with such idiocies, and he no longer went to puppet shows; moreover that Polyeucte42 was playing that day at the theatre, and he wanted to see it. So I accompanied him.
Throughout the first act Monsieur Husson kept shaking his head. In the interval I asked him why his head was shaking so much. ‘I must admit’, said he, ‘that this fool Polyeucte, and the brazen Nearchus, irritate me to death. What would you say of the son-in-law of the Governor of Paris – supposing him to be a Huguenot – who, accompanying his father-in-law on Easter Day to Notre-Dame, went and smashed to pieces the ciborium and chalice, and then kicked the archbishop and his canons in the stomach? Would his actions be perfectly justified on the grounds that we are idolaters, and that he heard as much from Sire Lubolier, an Amsterdam preacher, and also from Sire Morfyré, a Berlin chronicler and compiler of the Germanic Library, who in turn had it from a preacher by the name of Urieju?43 Well, that is an exact description of how Polyeucte behaves. How can one take any interest in this dull fanatic, seduced by the equally fanatical Nearchus?’
Monsieur Husson amicably offered me these opinions during the intervals. He began laughing when Polyeucte had to relinquish his wife to his rival; and he found it rather bourgeois of her when she tells her lover that she is going to her room rather than accompanying him to church:
Adieu, trop vertueux objet, et trop charmant;
Adieu, trop généreux et trop parfait amant;
Je vais seule en ma chambre enfermer mes regrets.
Farewell, too virtuous, too charming object;
Farewell, too generous, too noble lover;
I go alone to my chamber to bury my sadness.
But he admired the scene in which she asks her lover for clemency towards her husband.44 ‘Here’, he said, ‘we have a Governor of Armenia who is clearly the most craven and base of men; this father of Pauline even admits that he has the morals of a rogue:
Polyeucte est ici l’appui de ma famille;
Mais si par son trépas l’autre épousait ma fille,
J’acquerrais bien par là de plus puissants appuis,
Qui me mettraient plus haut cent fois que je ne suis.
Polyeucte is here the support of my family;
But if through his death the other were to marry my daughter,
I should through that obtain more powerful support,
Which would elevate me far higher than I now am.45
A public prosecutor at the Châtelet would hardly think or express the thing any differently. Yet there are honest souls who swallow this stuff. Well, I am not of their number. If such wretched sentiments can figure in a tragedy in the land of the Gauls, then we may as well burn the Oedipus of the Greeks.’
Monsieur Husson is
a tough man. I did what I could to soften his opinions, but I was unable to get very far. He persisted in his views, and I in mine.
CHAPTER IX
We left Sir Good-Deed very rich and very insolent. He got on so well with his intrigues that his reputation grew as an agent for large numbers of puppets. As soon as he acquired this rank he paraded Punchinello in every town, and posted bills to the effect that everyone must address him as Monsieur, or there would be no performances. Which is why, in all puppet shows, Punch never replies to his partner unless the latter calls him Mr Punchinello. Little by little Punchinello became so important that no performances were given without his being paid a percentage, just as provincial opera houses pay a percentage to the Paris Opera.46
One day, a servant who acted as both ticket collector and theatre-box usher rebelled against Good-Deed after being dismissed, and set up a competing puppet troupe who denounced all the dances of Madame Gigogne and all the sleights of hand of Good-Deed.47 Moreover, he omitted more than fifty of the ingredients which go to make up orvietan, and made his own with just five or six drugs; he sold it much cheaper, taking a huge number of customers away from Good-Deed, thereby provoking a furious legal row and protracted battles in the courtyard of the puppet fair.