The sanctuary lamp was a night-wick placed in an old holy-water basin of plated copper hanging by silken cords, the spoil of some demolished chateau. The baptismal fonts were of wood; so were the pulpit and a sort of cage provided for the church-wardens, the patricians of the village. An altar to the Virgin presented to public admiration two colored lithographs in small gilt frames. The altar was painted white, adorned with artificial flowers in gilded wooden vases, and covered by a cloth edged with shabby and discolored lace.

At the farther end of the church a long window entirely covered by a red calico curtain produced a magical effect. This crimson mantle cast a rosy tint upon the whitewashed walls; a thought divine seemed to glow upon the altar and clasp the poor nave as if to warm it. The passage which led to the sacristy exhibited on one of its walls the patron saint of the village, a large Saint John the Baptist with his sheep, carved in wood and horribly painted.

But in spite of all this poverty the church was not without some tender harmonies delightful to choice souls, and set in charming relief by their own colors. The rich dark tones of the wood relieved the white of the walls and blended with the triumphal crimson cast on the chancel. This trinity of color was a reminder of the grand Catholic doctrine.

If surprise was the first emotion roused by this pitiful house of the Lord, surprise was followed speedily by admiration mingled with pity. Did it not truly express the poverty of that poor region? Was it not in harmony with the naive simplicity of the parsonage? The building was perfectly clean and well-kept. The fragrance of country virtues exhaled within it; nothing showed neglect or abandonment. Though rustic and poor and simple, prayer dwelt there; those precincts had a soul,—a soul which was felt, though we might not fully explain to our own souls how we felt it.



VIII. THE RECTOR OF MONTEGNAC

The Abbe Gabriel glided softly through the church so as not to disturb the devotions of two groups of persons on the benches near the high altar, which was separated from the nave at the place where the lamp was hung by a rather common balustrade, also of chestnut wood, and covered with a cloth intended for the communion. On either side of the nave a score of peasants, men and women, absorbed in fervent prayer, paid no attention to the stranger when he passed up the narrow passage between the two rows of seats.

When the young abbe stood beneath the lamp, whence he could see the two little transepts which formed a cross, one of which led to the sacristy, the other to the cemetery, he noticed on the cemetery side a family clothed in black kneeling on the pavement, the transepts having no benches. The young priest knelt down on the step of the balustrade which separated the choir from the nave and began to pray, casting oblique glances at a scene which was soon explained to him. The gospel had been read. The rector, having removed his chasuble, came down from the altar and stood before the railing; the young abbe, who foresaw this movement, leaned back against the wall, so that Monsieur Bonnet did not see him. Ten o'clock was striking.

"Brethren," said the rector, in a voice of emotion, "at this very moment a child of this parish is paying his debt to human justice by enduring its last penalty, while we are offering the sacrifice of the mass for the peace of his soul. Let us unite in prayer to God, imploring Him not to turn His face from that child in these his last moments, and to grant to his repentance the pardon in heaven which is denied to him here below. The sin of this unhappy man, one of those on whom we most relied for good examples, can only be explained by his disregard of religious principles."

Here the rector was interrupted by sobs from the kneeling group in mourning garments, whom the Abbe Gabriel recognized, by this show of affection, as the Tascheron family, although he did not know them. First among them was an old couple (septuagenarians) standing by the wall, their faces seamed with deep-cut, rigid wrinkles, and bronzed like a Florentine medal. These persons, stoically erect like statues, in their old darned clothes, were doubtless the grandfather and the grandmother of the criminal. Their glazed and reddened eyes seemed to weep blood, their arms trembled so that the sticks on which they leaned tapped lightly on the pavement. Next, the father and the mother, their faces in their handkerchiefs, sobbed aloud. Around these four heads of the family knelt the two married sisters accompanied by their husbands, and three sons, stupefied with grief. Five little children on their knees, the oldest not seven years old, unable, no doubt, to understand what was happening, gazed and listened with the torpid curiosity that characterizes the peasantry, and is really the observation of physical things pushed to its highest limit. Lastly, the poor unmarried sister, imprisoned in the interests of justice, now released, a martyr to fraternal affection, Denise Tascheron, was listening to the priest's words with a look that was partly bewildered and partly incredulous. For her, her brother could not die. She well represented that one of the Three Marys who did not believe in the death of Christ, though she was present at the last agony. Pale, with dry eyes, like all those who have gone without sleep, her fresh complexion was already faded, less by toil and field labor than by grief; nevertheless, she had many of the beauties of a country maiden,—a plump, full figure, finely shaped arms, rounded cheeks, and clear, pure eyes, lighted at this instant with flashes of despair. Below the throat, a firm, fair skin, not tanned by the sun, betrayed the presence of a white and rosy flesh where the form was hidden.

The married daughters wept; their husbands, patient farmers, were grave and serious. The three brothers, profoundly sad, did not raise their eyes from the ground. In the midst of this dreadful picture of dumb despair and desolation, Denise and her mother alone showed symptoms of revolt.

The other inhabitants of the village united in the affliction of this respectable family with a sincere and Christian pity which gave the same expression to the faces of all,—an expression amounting to horror when the rector's words announced that the knife was then falling on the neck of a young man whom they all knew well from his very birth, and whom they had doubtless thought incapable of crime.

The sobs which interrupted the short and simple allocution which the pastor made to his flock overcame him so much that he stopped and said no more, except to invite all present to fervent prayer.

Though this scene was not of a nature to surprise a priest, Gabriel de Rastignac was too young not to be profoundly touched by it. As yet he had never exercised the priestly virtues; he knew himself called to other functions; he was not forced to enter the social breaches where the heart bleeds at the sight of woes: his mission was that of the higher clergy, who maintain the spirit of devotion, represent the highest intellect of the Church, and on eminent occasions display the priestly virtues on a larger stage,—like the illustrious bishops of Marseille and Meaux, and the archbishops of Arles and Cambrai.

This little assemblage of country people weeping and praying for him who, as they supposed, was then being executed on a public square, among a crowd of persons come from all parts to swell the shame of such a death,—this feeble counterpoise of prayer and pity, opposed to the ferocious curiosity and just maledictions of a multitude, was enough to move any soul, especially when seen in that poor church. The Abbe Gabriel was tempted to go up to the Tascherons and say,—

"Your son and brother is reprieved."

But he did not like to disturb the mass; and, moreover, he knew that a reprieve was only a delay of execution. Instead of following the service, he was irresistibly drawn to a study of the pastor from whom the clergy in Limoges expected the conversion of the criminal.

Judging by the parsonage, Gabriel de Rastignac had made himself a portrait of Monsieur Bonnet as a stout, short man with a strong and red face, framed for toil, half a peasant, and tanned by the sun. So far from that, the young abbe met his equal. Slight and delicate in appearance, Monsieur Bonnet's face struck the eyes at once as the typical face of passion given to the Apostles. It was almost triangular, beginning with a broad brow furrowed by wrinkles, and carried down from the temples to the chin in two sharp lines which defined his hollow cheeks. In this face, sallowed by tones as yellow as those of a church taper, shone two blue eyes that were luminous with faith, burning with eager hope. It was divided into two equal parts by a long nose, thin and straight, with well-cut nostrils, beneath which spoke, even when closed and voiceless, a large mouth, with strongly marked lips, from which issued, whenever he spoke aloud, one of those voices which go straight to the heart. The chestnut hair, which was thin and fine, and lay flat upon the head, showed a poor constitution maintained by a frugal diet. WILL made the power of this man.

Such were his personal distinctions. His short hands might have indicated in another man a tendency to coarse pleasures, and perhaps he had, like Socrates, conquered his temptations. His thinness was ungraceful, his shoulders were too prominent, his knees knocked together. The body, too much developed for the extremities, gave him the look of a hump-backed man without a hump. In short, his appearance was not pleasing. None but those to whom the miracles of thought, faith, art are known could adore that flaming gaze of the martyr, that pallor of constancy, that voice of love,—distinctive characteristics of this village rector.

This man, worthy of the primitive Church, which exists no longer except in the pictures of the sixteenth century and in the pages of Martyrology, was stamped with the die of the human greatness which most nearly approaches the divine greatness through Conviction,—that indefinable something which embellishes the commonest form, gilds with glowing tints the faces of men vowed to any worship, no matter what, and brings into the face of a woman glorified by a noble love a sort of light. CONVICTION is human will attaining to its highest reach. At once both cause and effect, it impresses the coldest natures; it is a species of mute eloquence which holds the masses.

Coming down from the altar the rector caught the eye of the Abbe Gabriel and recognized him; so that when the bishop's secretary reached the sacristy Ursule, to whom her master had already given orders, was waiting for him with a request that he would follow her.

"Monsieur," said Ursule, a woman of canonical age, conducting the Abbe de Rastignac by the gallery through the garden, "Monsieur Bonnet told me to ask if you had breakfasted. You must have left Limoges very early to get here by ten o'clock. I will soon have breakfast ready for you. Monsieur l'abbe will not find a table like that of Monseigneur the bishop in this poor village, but we will do the best we can. Monsieur Bonnet will soon be in; he has gone to comfort those poor people, the Tascherons. Their son has met with a terrible end to-day."

"But," said the Abbe Gabriel, when he could get in a word, "where is the house of those worthy persons? I must take Monsieur Bonnet at once to Limoges by order of the bishop. That unfortunate man will not be executed to-day; Monseigneur has obtained a reprieve for him."

"Ah!" exclaimed Ursule, whose tongue itched to spread the news about the village, "monsieur has plenty of time to carry them that comfort while I get breakfast ready. The Tascherons' house is beyond the village; follow the path below that terrace and it will take you there."

As soon as Ursule lost sight of the abbe she went down into the village to disseminate the news, and also to buy the things needed for the breakfast.

The rector had been informed, while in church, of a desperate resolution taken by the Tascherons as soon as they heard that Jean-Francois's appeal was rejected and that he had to die. These worthy souls intended to leave the country, and their worldly goods were to be sold that very morning. Delays and formalities unexpected by them had hitherto postponed the sale. They had been forced to remain in their home until the execution, and drink each day the cup of shame. This determination had not been made public until the evening before the day appointed for the execution. The Tascherons had expected to leave before that fatal day; but the proposed purchaser of their property was a stranger in those parts, and was prevented from clinching the bargain by a delay in obtaining the money. Thus the hapless family were forced to bear their trouble to its end. The feeling which prompted this expatriation was so violent in these simple souls, little accustomed to compromise with their consciences, that the grandfather and grandmother, the father and the mother, the daughters and their husbands and the sons, in short, all who bore and had borne the name of Tascheron or were closely allied to it made ready to leave the country.

This emigration grieved the whole community. The mayor entreated the rector to do his best to retain these worthy people. According to the new Code the father was not responsible for the son, and the crime of the father was no disgrace to the children. Together with other emancipations which have weakened paternal power, this system has led to the triumph of individualism, which is now permeating the whole of modern society. He who thinks on the things of the future sees the spirit of family destroyed, where the makers of the new Code have introduced freedom of will and equality. The Family must always be the basis of society. Necessarily temporary, incessantly divided, recomposed to dissolve again, without ties between the future and the past, it cannot fulfil that mission; the Family of the olden time no longer exists in France. Those who have proceeded to demolish the ancient edifice have been logical in dividing equally the family property, in diminishing the authority of the father, in suppressing great responsibilities; but is the reconstructed social state as solid, with its young laws still untried, as it was under a monarchy, in spite of the old abuses? In losing the solidarity of families, society has lost that fundamental force which Montesquieu discovered and named HONOR. It has isolated interests in order to subjugate them; it has sundered all to enfeeble all. Society reigns over units, over single figures agglomerated like grains of corn in a heap. Can the general interests of all take the place of Family? Time alone can answer that question.

Nevertheless, the old law still exists; its roots have struck so deep that you will find it still living, as we find perennials in polar regions. Remote places are still to be found in the provinces where what are now called prejudices exist, where the family suffers in the crime of a child or a father.

This sentiment made the place uninhabitable any longer to the Tascherons. Their deep religious feeling took them to church that morning; for how could they let the mass be offered to God asking Him to inspire their son with repentance that alone could restore to him life eternal, and not share in it? Besides, they wished to bid farewell to the village altar. But their minds were made up and their plans already carried out. When the rector who followed them from church reached the principal house he found their bags and bundles ready for the journey. The purchaser of the property was there with the money. The notary had drawn up the papers. In the yard behind the house was a carriole ready harnessed to carry away the older couple with the money, and the mother of Jean-Francois. The remainder of the family were to go on foot by night.

At the moment when the young abbe entered the low room in which the family were assembled the rector of Montegnac had exhausted all the resources of his eloquence. The old pair, now insensible to the violence of grief, were crouching in a corner on their bags and looking round on their old hereditary home, its furniture, and the new purchaser, and then upon each other as if to say:—

"Did we ever think this thing could happen?"

These old people, who had long resigned their authority to their son, the father of the criminal, were, like kings on their abdication, reduced to the passive role of subjects and children. Tascheron, the father, was standing up; he listened to the pastor, and replied to him in a low voice and by monosyllables. This man, who was about forty-eight years of age, had the noble face which Titian has given to so many of his Apostles,—a countenance full of faith, of grave and reflective integrity, a stern profile, a nose cut in a straight and projecting line, blue eyes, a noble brow, regular features, black, crisp, wiry hair, planted on his head with that symmetry which gives a charm to these brown faces, bronzed by toil in the open air. It was easy to see that the rector's appeals were powerless against that inflexible will.

Denise was leaning against the bread-box, looking at the notary, who was using that receptacle as a writing-table, seated before it in the grandmother's armchair. The purchaser was sitting on a stool beside him. The married sisters were laying a cloth upon the table, and serving the last meal the family were to take in its own house before expatriating itself to other lands and other skies. The sons were half-seated on the green serge bed. The mother, busy beside the fire, was beating an omelet. The grandchildren crowded the doorway, before which stood the incoming family of the purchaser.

The old smoky room with its blackened rafters, through the window of which was visible a well-kept garden planted by the two old people, seemed in harmony with the pent-up anguish which could be read on all their faces in diverse expressions. The meal was chiefly prepared for the notary, the purchaser, the menkind, and the children. The father and mother, Denise and her sisters, were too unhappy to eat. There was a lofty, stern resignation in the accomplishment of these last duties of rustic hospitality. The Tascherons, men of the olden time, ended their days in that house as they had begun them, by doing its honors. This scene, without pretension, though full of solemnity, met the eyes of the bishop's secretary when he approached the village rector to fulfil the prelate's errand.

"The son of these good people still lives," said Gabriel.

At these words, heard by all in the deep silence, the two old people rose to their feet as if the last trump had sounded. The mother dropped her pan upon the fire; Denise gave a cry of joy; all the others stood by in petrified astonishment.

"Jean-Francois is pardoned!" cried the whole village, now rushing toward the house, having heard the news from Ursule. "Monseigneur the bishop—"

"I knew he was innocent!" cried the mother.

"Will it hinder the purchase?" said the purchaser to the notary, who answered with a satisfying gesture.

The Abbe Gabriel was now the centre of all eyes; his sadness raised a suspicion of mistake. To avoid correcting it himself, he left the house, followed by the rector, and said to the crowd outside that the execution was only postponed for some days. The uproar subsided instantly into dreadful silence. When the Abbe Gabriel and the rector returned, the expression on the faces of the family was full of anguish; the silence of the crowd was understood.

"My friends, Jean-Francois is not pardoned," said the young abbe, seeing that the blow had fallen; "but the state of his soul has so distressed Monseigneur that he has obtained a delay in order to save your son in eternity."

"But he lives!" cried Denise.

The young abbe took the rector aside to explain to him the injurious situation in which the impenitence of his parishioner placed religion, and the duty the bishop imposed upon him.

"Monseigneur exacts my death," replied the rector. "I have already refused the entreaties of the family to visit their unhappy son. Such a conference and the sight of his death would shatter me like glass. Every man must work as he can. The weakness of my organs, or rather, the too great excitability of my nervous organization, prevents me from exercising these functions of our ministry. I have remained a simple rector expressly to be useful to my kind in a sphere in which I can really accomplish my Christian duty. I have carefully considered how far I could satisfy this virtuous family and do my pastoral duty to this poor son; but the very idea of mounting the scaffold with him, the mere thought of assisting in those fatal preparations, sends a shudder as of death through my veins. It would not be asked of a mother; and remember, monsieur, he was born in the bosom of my poor church."

"So," said the Abbe Gabriel, "you refuse to obey Monseigneur?"

"Monseigneur is ignorant of the state of my health; he does not know that in a constitution like mine nature refuses—" said Monsieur Bonnet, looking at the younger priest.

"There are times when we ought, like Belzunce at Marseille, to risk certain death," replied the Abbe Gabriel, interrupting him.

At this moment the rector felt a hand pulling at his cassock; he heard sobs, and turning round he saw the whole family kneeling before him. Young and old, small and great, all were stretching their supplicating hands to him. One sole cry rose from their lips as he turned his face upon them:—

"Save his soul, at least!"

The old grandmother it was who had pulled his cassock and was wetting it with her tears.

"I shall obey, monsieur."

That said, the rector was forced to sit down, for his legs trembled under him. The young secretary explained the frenzied state of the criminal's mind.

"Do you think," he said, as he ended his account, "that the sight of his young sister would shake his determination?"

"Yes, I do," replied the rector. "Denise, you must go with us."

"And I, too," said the mother.

"No!" cried the father; "that child no longer exists for us, and you know it. None of us shall see him."

"Do not oppose what may be for his salvation," said the young abbe. "You will be responsible for his soul if you refuse us the means of softening it. His death may possibly do more injury than his life has done."

"She may go," said the father; "it shall be her punishment for opposing all the discipline I ever wished to give her son."

The Abbe Gabriel and Monsieur Bonnet returned to the parsonage, where Denise and her mother were requested to come in time to start for Limoges with the two ecclesiastics.

As the younger man walked along the path which followed the outskirts of upper Montegnac he was able to examine the village priest so warmly commended by the vicar-general less superficially than he did in church. He felt at once inclined in his favor, by the simple manners, the voice full of magic power, and the words in harmony with the voice of the village rector. The latter had only visited the bishop's palace once since the prelate had taken Gabriel de Rastignac as secretary. He had hardly seen this favorite, destined for the episcopate, though he knew how great his influence was. Nevertheless, he behaved with a dignified courtesy that plainly showed the sovereign independence which the Church bestows on rectors in their parishes. But the feelings of the young abbe, far from animating his face, gave it a stern expression; it was more than cold, it was icy. A man capable of changing the moral condition of a whole population must surely possess some powers of observation, and be more or less of a physiognomist; and even if the rector had no other science than that of goodness, he had just given proof of rare sensibility. He was therefore struck by the coldness with which the bishop's secretary met his courteous advances. Compelled to attribute this manner to some secret annoyance, the rector sought in his own mind to discover if he had wounded his guest, or in what way his conduct could seem blameworthy in the eyes of his superiors.

An awkward silence ensued, which the Abbe de Rastignac broke by a speech that was full of aristocratic assumption.

"You have a very poor church, monsieur," he said.

"It is too small," replied Monsieur Bonnet. "On the great fete-days the old men bring benches to the porch, and the young men stand outside in a circle; but the silence is so great that all can hear my voice."

Gabriel was silent for some moments.

"If the inhabitants are so religious how can you let the building remain in such a state of nudity?" he said at last.

"Alas, monsieur, I have not the courage to spend the money which is needed for the poor on decorating the church,—the poor are the church. I assure I should not be ashamed of my church if Monseigneur should visit it on the Fete-Dieu. The poor return on that day what they have received. Did you notice the nails which are placed at certain distances on the walls? They are used to hold a sort of trellis of iron wire on which the women fasten bouquets; the church is fairly clothed with flowers, and they keep fresh all day. My poor church, which you think so bare, is decked like a bride; it is filled with fragrance; even the floor is strewn with leaves, in the midst of which they make a path of scattered roses for the passage of the holy sacrament. That's a day on which I do not fear comparison with the pomps of Saint-Peter at Rome; the Holy Father has his gold, and I my flowers,—to each his own miracle. Ah! monsieur, the village of Montegnac is poor, but it is Catholic. In former times the inhabitants robbed travellers; now travellers may leave a sack full of money where they please and they will find it in my house."

"That result is to your glory," said Gabriel.

"It is not a question of myself," replied the rector, coloring at this labored compliment, "but of God's word, of the blessed bread—"

"Brown bread," remarked the abbe, smiling.

"White bread only suits the stomachs of the rich," replied the rector, modestly.

The young abbe took the hands of the older priest and pressed them cordially.

"Forgive me, monsieur," he said, suddenly making amends with a look in his beautiful blue eyes which went to the depths of the rector's soul. "Monseigneur told me to test your patience and your modesty, but I can't go any further; I see already how much injustice the praises of the liberals have done you."

Breakfast was ready; fresh eggs, butter, honey, fruits, cream, and coffee were served by Ursule in the midst of flowers, on a white cloth laid upon the antique table in that old dining-room. The window which looked upon the terrace was open; clematis, with its white stars relieved in the centre by the yellow bunch of their crisped stamens, clasped the railing. A jasmine ran up one side, nasturtiums clambered over the other. Above, the reddening foliage of a vine made a rich border that no sculptor could have rendered, so exquisite was the tracery of its lace-work against the light.

"Life is here reduced, you see, to its simplest expression," said the rector, smiling, though his face did not lose the look which the sadness of his heart conveyed to it. "If we had known of your arrival (but who could have foreseen your errand?) Ursule would have had some mountain trout for you; there's a brook in the forest where they are excellent. I forget, however, that this is August and the Gabou is dry. My head is confused with all these troubles."

"Then you like your life here?" said the young abbe.

"Yes, monsieur; if God wills, I shall die rector of Montegnac. I could have wished that my example were followed by certain distinguished men who have thought they did better things in becoming philanthropists. But modern philanthropy is an evil to society; the principles of the Catholic religion can alone cure the diseases which permeate social bodies. Instead of describing those diseases and extending their ravages by complaining elegies, they should put their hand to the work and enter the Lord's vineyard as simple laborers. My task is far from being accomplished here, monsieur. It is not enough to reform the people, whom I found in a frightful condition of impiety and wickedness; I wish to die in the midst of a generation of true believers."

"You have only done your duty, monsieur," said the young man, still coldly, for his heart was stirred with envy.

"Yes, monsieur," replied the rector, modestly, giving his companion a glance which seemed to say: Is this a further test? "I pray that all may do their duty throughout the kingdom."

This remark, full of deep meaning, was still further emphasized by a tone of utterance, which proved that in 1829 this priest, as grand in thought as he was noble in humility of conduct, and who subordinated his thoughts to those of his superiors, saw clearly into the destinies of both church and monarchy.

When the two afflicted women came the young abbe, very impatient to get back to Limoges, left the parsonage to see if the horses were harnessed. A few moments later he returned to say that all was ready. All four then started under the eyes of the whole population of Montegnac, which was gathered in the roadway before the post-house. The mother and sister kept silence. The two priests, seeing rocks ahead in many subjects, could neither talk indifferently nor allow themselves to be cheerful. While seeking for some neutral subject the carriage crossed the plain, the aspect of which dreary region seemed to influence the duration of their melancholy silence.

"How came you to adopt the ecclesiastical profession?" asked the Abbe Gabriel, suddenly, with an impulsive curiosity which seized him as soon as the carriage turned into the high-road.

"I did not look upon the priesthood as a profession," replied the rector, simply. "I cannot understand how a man can become a priest for any other reason than the undefinable power of vocation. I know that many men have served in the Lord's vineyard who have previously worn out their hearts in the service of passion; some have loved hopelessly, others have had their love betrayed; men have lost the flower of their lives in burying a precious wife or an adored mistress; some have been disgusted with social life at a period when uncertainty hovers over everything, even over feelings, and doubt mocks tender certainties by calling them beliefs; others abandon politics at a period when power seems to be an expiation and when the governed regard obedience as fatality. Many leave a society without banners; where opposing forces only unite to overthrow good. I do not think that any man would give himself to God from a covetous motive. Some men have looked upon the priesthood as a means of regenerating our country; but, according to my poor lights, a priest-patriot is a meaningless thing. The priest can only belong to God. I did not wish to offer our Father—who nevertheless accepts all—the wreck of my heart and the fragments of my will; I gave myself to him whole. In one of those touching theories of pagan religion, the victim sacrificed to the false gods goes to the altar decked with flowers. The significance of that custom has always deeply touched me. A sacrifice is nothing without grace. My life is simple and without the very slightest romance. My father, who has made his own way in the world, is a stern, inflexible man; he treats his wife and his children as he treats himself. I have never seen a smile upon his lips. His iron hand, his stern face, his gloomy, rough activity, oppressed us all—wife, children, clerks and servants—under an almost savage despotism. I could—I speak for myself only—I could have accommodated myself to this life if the power thus exercised had had an equal repression; but, captious and vacillating, he treated us all with intolerable alternations. We were always ignorant whether we were doing right or whether he considered us to blame; and the horrible expectancy which results from that is torture in domestic life. A street life seems better than a home under such circumstances. Had I been alone in the house I would have borne all from my father without murmuring; but my heart was torn by the bitter, unceasing anguish of my dear mother, whom I ardently loved and whose tears put me sometimes into a fury in which I nearly lost my reason. My school days, when boys are usually so full of misery and hard work, were to me a golden period. I dreaded holidays. My mother herself preferred to come and see me. When I had finished my philosophical course and was forced to return home and become my father's clerk, I could not endure it more than a few months; my mind, bewildered by the fever of adolescence, threatened to give way. On a sad autumn evening as I was walking alone with my mother along the Boulevard Bourdon, then one of the most melancholy parts of Paris, I poured my heart into hers, and I told her that I saw no possible life before me except in the Church. My tastes, my ideas, all that I most loved would be continually thwarted so long as my father lived. Under the cassock of a priest he would be forced to respect me, and I might thus on certain occasions become the protector of my family. My mother wept much. Just at this period my eldest brother (since a general and killed at Leipzig) had entered the army as a private soldier, driven from his home for the same reasons that made me wish to be a priest. I showed my mother that her best means of protection would be to marry my sister, as soon as she was old enough, to some man of strong character, and to look for help to this new family. Under pretence of avoiding the conscription without costing my father a penny to buy me off, I entered the seminary of Saint-Sulpice at the age of nineteen. Within those celebrated old buildings I found a peace and happiness that were troubled only by the thought of my mother and my sister's sufferings. Their domestic misery, no doubt, went on increasing; for whenever they saw me they sought to strengthen my resolution. Perhaps I had been initiated into the secrets of charity, such as our great Saint Paul defines it, by my own trials. At any rate, I longed to stanch the wounds of the poor in some forgotten corner of the earth, and to prove by my example, if God would deign to bless my efforts, that the Catholic religion, judged by its actions for humanity, is the only true, the only beneficent and noble civilizing force. During the last days of my diaconate, grace, no doubt, enlightened me. I have fully forgiven my father, regarding him as the instrument of my destiny. My mother, though I wrote her a long and tender letter, explaining all things and proving to her that the finger of God was guiding me, my poor mother wept many tears as she saw my hair cut off by the scissors of the Church. She knew herself how many pleasures I renounced, but she did not know the secret glories to which I aspired. Women are so tender! After I once belonged to God I felt a boundless peace; I felt no needs, no vanities, none of those cares which trouble men so much. I knew that Providence would take care of me as a thing of its own. I entered a world from which all fear is banished; where the future is certain; where all things are divine, even the silence. This quietude is one of the benefactions of grace. My mother could not conceive that a man could espouse a church. Nevertheless, seeing me happy, with a cloudless brow, she grew happier herself. After I was ordained I came to the Limousin to visit one of my paternal relations, who chanced to speak to me of the then condition of Montegnac. A thought darted into my mind with the vividness of lightning, and I said to myself inwardly: 'Here is thy vineyard!' I came here, and you see, monsieur, that my history is very simple and uneventful."

At this instant Limoges came into sight, bathed in the last rays of the setting sun. When the women saw it they could not restrain their tears; they wept aloud.



IX. DENISE

The young man whom these two different loves were now on their way to comfort, who excited so much artless curiosity, so much spurious sympathy and true solicitude, was lying on his prison pallet in one of the condemned cells. A spy watched beside the door to catch, if possible, any words that might escape him, either in sleep or in one of his violent furies; so anxious were the officers of justice to exhaust all human means of discovering Jean-Francois Tascheron's accomplice and recover the sums stolen.

The des Vanneaulx had promised a reward to the police, and the police kept constant watch on the obstinate silence of the prisoner. When the man on duty looked through a loophole made for the purpose he saw the convict always in the same position, bound in the straight-jacket, his head secured by a leather thong ever since he had attempted to tear the stuff of the jacket with his teeth.

Jean-Francois gazed steadily at the ceiling with a fixed and despairing eye, a burning eye, as if reddened by the terrible thoughts behind it. He was a living image of the antique Prometheus; the memory of some lost happiness gnawed at his heart. When the solicitor-general himself went to see him that magistrate could not help testifying his surprise at a character so obstinately persistent. No sooner did any one enter his cell than Jean-Francois flew into a frenzy which exceeded the limits known to physicians for such attacks. The moment he heard the key turn in the lock or the bolts of the barred door slide, a light foam whitened his lips.

Jean-Francois Tascheron, then twenty-five years of age, was small but well-made. His wiry, crinkled hair, growing low on his forehead, indicated energy. His eyes, of a clear and luminous yellow, were too near the root of the nose,—a defect which gave him some resemblance to birds of prey. The face was round, of the warm brown coloring which marks the inhabitants of middle France. One feature of his physiognomy confirmed an assertion of Lavater as to persons who are destined to commit murder; his front teeth lapped each other. Nevertheless his face bore all the characteristics of integrity and a sweet and artless moral nature; there was nothing surprising in the fact that a woman had loved him passionately. His fresh mouth with its dazzling teeth was charming, but the vermilion of the lips was of the red-lead tint which indicates repressed ferocity, and, in many human beings, a free abandonment to pleasure. His demeanor showed none of the low habits of a workman. In the eyes of the women who were present at the trial it seemed evident that one of their sex had softened those muscles used to toil, had ennobled the countenance of the rustic, and given grace to his person. Women can always detect the traces of love in a man, just as men can see in a woman whether, as the saying is, love has passed that way.

Toward evening of the day we are now relating Jean-Francois heard the sliding of bolts and the noise of the key in the lock. He turned his head violently and gave vent to the horrible growl with which his frenzies began; but he trembled all over when the beloved heads of his sister and his mother stood out against the fading light, and behind them the face of the rector of Montegnac.

"The wretches! is this why they keep me alive?" he said, closing his eyes.

Denise, who had lately been confined in a prison, was distrustful of everything; the spy had no doubt hidden himself merely to return in a few moments. The girl flung herself on her brother, bent her tearful face to his and whispered:—

"They may be listening to us."

"Otherwise they would not have let you come here," he replied in a loud voice. "I have long asked the favor that none of my family should be admitted here."

"Oh! how they have bound him!" cried the mother. "My poor child! my poor boy!" and she fell on her knees beside the pallet, hiding her head in the cassock of the priest, who was standing by her.

"If Jean will promise me to be quiet," said the rector, "and not attempt to injure himself, and to behave properly while we are with him, I will ask to have him unbound; but the least violation of his promise will reflect on me."

"I do so want to move as I please, dear Monsieur Bonnet," said the criminal, his eyes moistening with tears, "that I give you my word to do as you wish."

The rector went out, and returned with the jailer, and the jacket was taken off.

"You won't kill me to-night, will you?" said the turnkey.

Jean made no answer.

"Poor brother!" said Denise, opening a basket which had just passed through a rigorous examination. "Here are some of the things you like; I dare say they don't feed you for the love of God."

She showed him some fruit, gathered as soon as the rector had told her she could go to the jail, and a galette his mother had immediately baked for him. This attention, which reminded him of his boyhood, the voice and gestures of his sister, the presence of his mother and the rector, brought on a reaction and he burst into tears.

"Ah! Denise," he said, "I have not had a good meal for six months. I eat only when driven to it by hunger."

The mother and sister went out and then returned; with the natural housekeeping spirit of such women, who want to give their men material comfort, they soon had a supper for their poor child. In this the officials helped them; for an order had been given to do all that could with safety be done for the condemned man. The des Vanneaulx had contributed, with melancholy hope, toward the comfort of the man from whom they still expected to recover their inheritance. Thus poor Jean-Francois had a last glimpse of family joys, if joys they could be called under such circumstances.

"Is my appeal rejected?" he said to Monsieur Bonnet.

"Yes, my child; nothing is left for you to do but to make a Christian end. This life is nothing in comparison to that which awaits you; you must think now of your eternal happiness. You can pay your debt to man with your life, but God is not content with such a little thing as that."

"Give up my life! Ah! you do not know all that I am leaving."

Denise looked at her brother as if to warn him that even in matters of religion he must be cautious.

"Let us say no more about it," he resumed, eating the fruit with an avidity which told of his inward fire. "When am I—"

"No, no! say nothing of that before me!" said the mother.

"But I should be easier in mind if I knew," he said, in a low voice to the rector.

"Always the same nature," exclaimed Monsieur Bonnet. Then he bent down to the prisoner's ear and whispered, "If you will reconcile yourself this night with God so that your repentance will enable me to absolve you, it will be to-morrow. We have already gained much in calming you," he said, aloud.

Hearing these last words, Jean's lips turned pale, his eyes rolled up in a violent spasm, and an angry shudder passed through his frame.

"Am I calm?" he asked himself. Happily his eyes encountered the tearful face of Denise, and he recovered his self-control. "So be it," he said to the rector; "there is no one but you to whom I would listen; they have known how to conquer me."

And he flung himself on his mother's breast.

"My son," said the mother, weeping, "listen to Monsieur Bonnet; he risks his life, the dear rector, in going to you to—" she hesitated, and then said, "to the gate of eternal life."

Then she kissed Jean's head and held it to her breast for some moments.

"Will he, indeed, go with me?" asked Jean, looking at the rector, who bowed his head in assent. "Well, yes, I will listen to him; I will do all he asks of me."

"You promise it?" said Denise. "The saving of your soul is what we seek. Besides, you would not have all Limoges and the village say that a Tascheron knows not how to die a noble death? And then, too, think that all you lose here you will regain in heaven, where pardoned souls will meet again."

This superhuman effort parched the throat of the heroic girl. She was silent after this, like her mother, but she had triumphed. The criminal, furious at seeing his happiness torn from him by the law, now quivered at the sublime Catholic truth so simply expressed by his sister. All women, even young peasant-women like Denise, know how to touch these delicate chords; for does not every woman seek to make love eternal? Denise had touched two chords, each most sensitive. Awakened pride called on the other virtues chilled by misery and hardened by despair. Jean took his sister's hand and kissed it, and laid it on his heart in a deeply significant manner; he applied it both gently and forcibly.

"Yes," he said, "I must renounce all; this is the last beating of my heart, its last thought. Keep them, Denise."

And he gave her one of those glances by which a man in crucial moments tries to put his soul into the soul of another human being.

This thought, this word, was, in truth, a last testament, an unspoken legacy, to be as faithfully transmitted as it was trustfully given. It was so fully understood by mother, sister, and priest, that they all with one accord turned their faces from each other, to hide their tears and keep the secret of their thoughts in their own breasts. Those few words were the dying agony of a passion, the farewell of a soul to the glorious things of earth, in accordance with true Catholic renunciation. The rector, comprehending the majesty of all great human things, even criminal things, judged of this mysterious passion by the enormity of the sin. He raised his eyes to heaven as if to invoke the mercy of God. Thence come the consolations, the infinite tendernesses of the Catholic religion,—so humane, so gentle with the hand that descends to man, showing him the law of higher spheres; so awful, so divine, with that other hand held out to lead him into heaven.

Denise had now significantly shown the rector the spot by which to strike that rock and make the waters of repentance flow. But suddenly, as though the memories evoked were dragging him backwards, Jean-Francois gave the harrowing cry of the hyena when the hunters overtake it.

"No, no!" he cried, falling on his knees, "I will live! Mother, give me your clothes; I can escape! Mercy, mercy! Go see the king; tell him—"

He stopped, gave a horrible roar, and clung convulsively to the rector's cassock.

"Go," said Monsieur Bonnet, in a low voice, to the agitated women.

Jean heard the words; he raised his head, gazed at his mother and sister, then he stopped and kissed their feet.

"Let us say farewell now; do not come back; leave me alone with Monsieur Bonnet. You need not be uneasy about me any longer," he said, pressing his mother and his sister to him with a strength in which he seemed to put all his life.

"How is it we do not die of this?" said Denise to her mother as they passed through the wicket.

It was nearly eight o'clock when this parting took place. At the gate of the prison the two women met the Abbe de Rastignac, who asked them news of the prisoner.

"He will no doubt be reconciled with God," said Denise. "If repentance has not yet begun, he is very near it."

The bishop was soon after informed that the clergy would triumph on this occasion, and that the criminal would go to the scaffold with the most edifying religious sentiments. The prelate, with whom was the attorney-general, expressed a wish to see the rector. Monsieur Bonnet did not reach the palace before midnight. The Abbe Gabriel, who made many trips between the palace and the jail, judged it necessary to fetch the rector in the episcopal coach; for the poor priest was in a state of exhaustion which almost deprived him of the use of his legs. The effect of his day, the prospect of the morrow, the sight of the secret struggle he had witnessed, and the full repentance which had at last overtaken his stubborn lamb when the great reckoning of eternity was brought home to him,—all these things had combined to break down Monsieur Bonnet, whose nervous, electrical nature entered into the sufferings of others as though they were his own. Souls that resemble that noble soul espouse so ardently the impressions, miseries, passions, sufferings of those in whom they are interested, that they actually feel them, and in a horrible manner, too; for they are able to measure their extent,—a knowledge which escapes others who are blinded by selfishness of heart or the paroxysm of grief. It is here that a priest like Monsieur Bonnet becomes an artist who feels, rather than an artist who judges.

When the rector entered the bishop's salon and found there the two grand-vicars, the Abbe de Rastignac, Monsieur de Grandville, and the procureur-general, he felt convinced that something more was expected of him.

"Monsieur," said the bishop, "have you obtained any facts which you can, without violating your duty, confide to the officers of the law for their guidance?"

"Monseigneur, in order to give absolution to that poor, wandering child, I waited not only till his repentance was as sincere and as complete as the Church could wish, but I have also exacted from him the restitution of the money."

"This restitution," said the procureur-general, "brings me here to-night; it will, of course, be made in such a way as to throw light on the mysterious parts of this affair. The criminal certainly had accomplices."

"The interests of human justice," said the rector, "are not those for which I act. I am ignorant of how the restitution will be made, but I know it will take place. In sending for me to minister to my parishioner, Monseigneur placed me under the conditions which give to rectors in their parishes the same powers which Monseigneur exercises in his diocese,—barring, of course, all questions of discipline and ecclesiastical obedience."

"That is true," said the bishop. "But the question here is how to obtain from the condemned man voluntary information which may enlighten justice."

"My mission is to win souls to God," said Monsieur Bonnet.

Monsieur de Grancour shrugged his shoulders slightly, but his colleague, the Abbe Dutheil nodded his head in sign of approval.

"Tascheron is no doubt endeavoring to shield some one, whom the restitution will no doubt bring to light," said the procureur-general.

"Monsieur," replied the rector, "I know absolutely nothing which would either confute or justify your suspicion. Besides, the secrets of confession are inviolable."

"Will the restitution really take place?" asked the man of law.

"Yes, monsieur," replied the man of God.

"That is enough for me," said the procureur-general, who relied on the police to obtain the required information; as if passions and personal interests were not tenfold more astute than the police.

The next day, this being market-day, Jean-Francois Tascheron was led to execution in a manner to satisfy both the pious and the political spirits of the town. Exemplary in behavior, pious and humble, he kissed the crucifix, which Monsieur Bonnet held to his lips with a trembling hand. The unhappy man was watched and examined; his glance was particularly spied upon; would his eyes rove in search of some one in the crowd or in a house? His discretion did, as a matter of fact, hold firm to the last. He died as a Christian should, repentant and absolved.

The poor rector was carried away unconscious from the foot of the scaffold, though he did not even see the fatal knife.

During the following night, on the high-road fifteen miles from Limoges, Denise, though nearly exhausted by fatigue and grief, begged her father to let her go again to Limoges and take with her Louis-Marie Tascheron, one of her brothers.

"What more have you to do in that town?" asked her father, frowning.

"Father," she said, "not only must we pay the lawyer who defended him, but we must also restore the money which he has hidden."

"You are right," said the honest man, pulling out a leathern pouch he carried with him.

"No, no," said Denise, "he is no longer your son. It is not for those who cursed him, but for those who loved him, to reward the lawyer."

"We will wait for you at Havre," said the father.

Denise and her brother returned to Limoges before daylight. When the police heard, later, of this return they were never able to discover where the brother and sister had hidden themselves.

Denise and Louis went to the upper town cautiously, about four o'clock that afternoon, gliding along in the shadow of the houses. The poor girl dared not raise her eyes, fearing to meet the glances of those who had seen her brother's execution. After calling on Monsieur Bonnet, who in spite of his weakness, consented to serve as father and guardian to Denise in the matter, they all went to the lawyer's house in the rue de la Comedie.

"Good-morning, my poor children," said the lawyer, bowing to Monsieur Bonnet; "how can I be of service to you? Perhaps you would like me to claim your brother's body and send it to you?"

"No, monsieur," replied Denise, weeping at an idea which had never yet occurred to her. "I come to pay his debt to you—so far, at least, as money can pay an eternal debt."

"Pray sit down," said the lawyer; noticing that Denise and the rector were still standing.

Denise turned away to take from her corset two notes of five hundred francs each, which were fastened by a pin to her chemise; then she sat down and offered them to her brother's defender. The rector gave the lawyer a flashing look which was instantly moistened by a tear.

"Keep the money for yourself, my poor girl," said the lawyer. "The rich do not pay so generously for a lost cause."

"Monsieur," said Denise, "I cannot obey you."

"Then the money is not yours?" said the lawyer.

"You are mistaken," she replied, looking at Monsieur Bonnet as if to know whether God would be angry at the lie.

The rector kept his eyes lowered.

"Well, then," said the lawyer, taking one note of five hundred francs and offering the other to the rector, "I will share it with the poor. Now, Denise, change this one, which is really mine," he went on, giving her the note, "for your velvet ribbon and your gold cross. I will hang the cross above my mantel to remind me of the best and purest young girl's heart I have ever known in my whole experience as a lawyer."

"I will give it to you without selling it," cried Denise, taking off her jeannette and offering it to him.

"Monsieur," said the rector, "I accept the five hundred francs to pay for the exhumation of the poor lad's body and its transportation to Montegnac. God has no doubt pardoned him, and Jean will rise with my flock on that last day when the righteous and the repentant will be called together to the right hand of the Father."

"So be it," replied the lawyer.

He took Denise by the hand and drew her toward him to kiss her forehead; but the action had another motive.

"My child," he whispered, "no one in Montegnac has five-hundred-franc notes; they are rare even at Limoges, where they are only taken at a discount. This money has been given to you; you will not tell me by whom, and I don't ask you; but listen to me: if you have anything more to do in this town relating to your poor brother, take care! You and Monsieur Bonnet and your brother Louis will be followed by police-spies. Your family is known to have left Montegnac, and as soon as you are seen here you will be watched and surrounded before you are aware of it."

"Alas!" she said. "I have nothing more to do here."

"She is cautious," thought the lawyer, as he parted from her. "However, she is warned; and I hope she will get safely off."

* * * * *

During this last week in September, when the weather was as warm as in summer, the bishop gave a dinner to the authorities of the place. Among the guests were the procureur-du-roi and the attorney-general. Some lively discussions prolonged the party till a late hour. The company played whist and backgammon, a favorite game with the clergy. Toward eleven o'clock the procureur-du-roi walked out upon the upper terrace. From the spot where he stood he saw a light on that island to which, on a certain evening, the attention of the bishop and the Abbe Gabriel had been drawn,—Veronique's "Ile de France,"—and the gleam recalled to the procureur's mind the unexplained mysteries of the Tascheron crime. Then, reflecting that there could be no legitimate reason for a fire on that lonely island in the river at that time of night, an idea, which had already struck the bishop and the secretary, darted into his mind with the suddenness and brilliancy of the flame itself which was shining in the distance.

"We have all been fools!" he cried; "but this will give us the accomplices."

He returned to the salon, sought out Monsieur de Grandville, said a few words in his ear, after which they both took leave. But the Abbe de Rastignac accompanied them politely to the door; he watched them as they departed, saw them go to the terrace, noticed the fire on the island, and thought to himself, "She is lost!"

The emissaries of the law got there too late. Denise and Louis, whom Jean had taught to dive, were actually on the bank of the river at a spot named to them by Jean, but Louis Tascheron had already dived four times, bringing up each time a bundle containing twenty thousand francs' worth of gold. The first sum was wrapped in a foulard handkerchief knotted by the four corners. This handkerchief, from which the water was instantly wrung, was thrown into a great fire of drift wood already lighted. Denise did not leave the fire until she saw every particle of the handkerchief consumed. The second sum was wrapped in a shawl, the third in a cambric handkerchief; these wrappings were instantly burned like the foulard.

Just as Denise was throwing the wrapping of the fourth and last package into the fire the gendarmes, accompanied by the commissary of police, seized that incriminating article, which Denise let them take without manifesting the least emotion. It was a handkerchief, on which, in spite of its soaking in the river, traces of blood could still be seen. When questioned as to what she was doing there, Denise said she was taking the stolen gold from the river according to her brother's instructions. The commissary asked her why she was burning certain articles; she said she was obeying her brother's last directions. When asked what those articles were she boldly answered, without attempting to deceive: "A foulard, a shawl, a cambric handkerchief, and the handkerchief now captured." The latter had belonged to her brother.

This discovery and its attendant circumstances made a great stir in Limoges. The shawl, more especially, confirmed the belief that Tascheron had committed this crime in the interests of some love affair.

"He protects that woman after his death," said one lady, hearing of these last discoveries, rendered harmless by the criminal's precautions.

"There may be some husband in Limoges who will miss his foulard," said the procureur-du-roi, with a laugh, "but he will not dare speak of it."

"These matters of dress are really so compromising," said old Madame Perret, "that I shall make a search through my wardrobe this very evening."

"Whose pretty little footmarks could he have taken such pains to efface while he left his own?" said Monsieur de Grandville.

"Pooh! I dare say she was an ugly woman," said the procureur-du-roi.

"She has paid dearly for her sin," observed the Abbe de Grancour.

"Do you know what this affair shows?" cried Monsieur de Grandville. "It shows what women have lost by the Revolution, which has levelled all social ranks. Passions of this kind are no longer met with except in men who still feel an enormous distance between themselves and their mistresses."

"You saddle love with many vanities," remarked the Abbe Dutheil.

"What does Madame Graslin think?" asked the prefect.

"What do you expect her to think?" said Monsieur de Grandville. "Her child was born, as she predicted to me, on the morning of the execution; she has not seen any one since then, for she is dangerously ill."

A scene took place in another salon in Limoges which was almost comical. The friends of the des Vanneaulx came to congratulate them on the recovery of their property.

"Yes, but they ought to have pardoned that poor man," said Madame des Vanneaulx. "Love, and not greed, made him steal the money; he was neither vicious nor wicked."

"He was full of consideration for us," said Monsieur des Vanneaulx; "and if I knew where his family had gone I would do something for them. They are very worthy people, those Tascherons."



X. THIRD PHASE OF VERONIQUE'S LIFE

When Madame Graslin recovered from the long illness that followed the birth of her child, which was not till the close of 1829, an illness which forced her to keep her bed and remain in absolute retirement, she heard her husband talking of an important piece of business he was anxious to concede. The ducal house of Navarreins had offered for sale the forest of Montegnac and the uncultivated lands around it.

Graslin had never yet executed the clause in his marriage contract with his wife which obliged him to invest his wife's fortune in lands; up to this time he had preferred to employ the money in his bank, where he had fully doubled it. He now began to speak of this investment. Hearing him discuss it Veronique appeared to remember the name of Montegnac, and asked her husband to fulfil his engagement about her property by purchasing these lands. Monsieur Graslin then proposed to see the rector, Monsieur Bonnet, and inquire of him about the estate, which the Duc de Navarreins was desirous of selling because he foresaw the struggle which the Prince de Polignac was forcing on between liberalism and the house of Bourbon, and he augured ill of it; in fact, the duke was one of the boldest opposers of the coup-d'Etat.

The duke had sent his agent to Limoges to negotiate the matter; telling him to accept any good sum of money, for he remembered the Revolution of 1789 too well not to profit by the lessons it had taught the aristocracy. This agent had now been a month laying siege to Graslin, the shrewdest and wariest business head in the Limousin,—the only man, he was told by practical persons, who was able to purchase so large a property and pay for it on the spot. The Abbe Dutheil wrote a line to Monsieur Bonnet, who came to Limoges at once, and was taken to the hotel Graslin.

Veronique determined to ask the rector to dinner; but the banker would not let him go up to his wife's apartment until he had talked to him in his office for over an hour and obtained such information as fully satisfied him, and made him resolve to buy the forest and domains of Montegnac at once for the sum of five hundred thousand francs. He acquiesced readily in his wife's wish that this purchase and all others connected with it should be in fulfilment of the clause of the marriage contract relative to the investment of her dowry. Graslin was all the more ready to do so because this act of justice cost him nothing, he having doubled the original sum.

At this time, when Graslin was negotiating the purchase, the Navarreins domains comprised the forest of Montegnac which contained about thirty thousand acres of unused land, the ruins of the castle, the gardens, park, and about five thousand acres of uncultivated land on the plain beyond Montegnac. Graslin immediately bought other lands in order to make himself master of the first peak in the chain of the Correzan mountains on which the vast forest of Montegnac ended. Since the imposition of taxes the Duc de Navarreins had never received more than fifteen thousand francs per annum from this manor, once among the richest tenures of the kingdom, the lands of which had escaped the sale of "public domain" ordered by the Convention, on account probably of their barrenness and the known difficulty of reclaiming them.

When the rector went at last to Madame Graslin's apartment, and saw the woman noted for her piety and for her intellect of whom he had heard speak, he could not restrain a gesture of amazement. Veronique had now reached the third phase of her life, that in which she was to rise into grandeur by the exercise of the highest virtues,—a phase in which she became another woman. To the Little Virgin of Titian, hidden at eleven years of age beneath a spotted mantle of small-pox, had succeeded a beautiful woman, noble and passionate; and from that woman, now wrung by inward sorrows, came forth a saint.

Her skin bore the yellow tinge which colors the austere faces of abbesses who have been famous for their macerations. The attenuated temples were almost golden. The lips had paled, the red of an opened pomegranate was no longer on them, their color had changed to the pale pink of a Bengal rose. At the corners of the eyes, close to the nose, sorrows had made two shining tracks like mother-of-pearl, where tears had flowed; tears which effaced the marks of small-pox and glazed the skin. Curiosity was invincibly attracted to that pearly spot, where the blue threads of the little veins throbbed precipitately, as though they were swelled by an influx of blood brought there, as it were, to feed the tears. The circle round the eyes was now a dark-brown that was almost black above the eyelids, which were horribly wrinkled. The cheeks were hollow; in their folds lay the sign of solemn thoughts. The chin, which in youth was full and round, the flesh covering the muscles, was now shrunken, to the injury of its expression, which told of an implacable religious severity exercised by this woman upon herself.

At twenty-nine years of age Veronique's hair was scanty and already whitening. Her thinness was alarming. In spite of her doctor's advice she insisted on suckling her son. The doctor triumphed in the result; and as he watched the changes he had foretold in Veronique's appearance, he often said:—

"See the effects of childbirth on a woman! She adores that child; I have often noticed that mothers are fondest of the children who cost them most."

Veronique's faded eyes were all that retained even a memory of her youth. The dark blue of the iris still cast its passionate fires, to which the woman's life seemed to have retreated, deserting the cold, impassible face, and glowing with an expression of devotion when the welfare of a fellow-being was concerned.

Thus the surprise, the dread of the rector ceased by degrees as he went on explaining to Madame Graslin all the good that a large owner of property could do at Montegnac provided he lived there. Veronique's beauty came back to her for a moment as her eyes glowed with the light of an unhoped-for future.

"I will live there," she said. "It shall be my work. I will ask Monsieur Graslin for money, and I will gladly share in your religious enterprise. Montegnac shall be fertilized; we will find some means to water those arid plains. Like Moses, you have struck a rock from which the waters will gush."

The rector of Montegnac, when questioned by his friends in Limoges about Madame Graslin, spoke of her as a saint.

The day after the purchase was concluded Monsieur Graslin sent an architect to Montegnac. The banker intended to restore the chateau, gardens, terrace, and park, and also to connect the castle grounds with the forest by a plantation. He set himself to make these improvements with vainglorious activity.

A few months later Madame Graslin met with a great misfortune. In August, 1830, Graslin, overtaken by the commercial and banking disasters of that period, became involved by no fault of his own. He could not endure the thought of bankruptcy, nor that of losing a fortune of three millions acquired by forty years of incessant toil. The moral malady which resulted from this anguish of mind aggravated the inflammatory disease always ready to break forth in his blood. He took to his bed. Since her confinement Veronique's regard for her husband had developed, and had overthrown all the hopes of her admirer, Monsieur de Grandville. She strove to save her husband's life by unremitting care, with no result but that of prolonging for a few months the poor man's tortures; but the respite was very useful to Grossetete, who, foreseeing the end of his former clerk and partner, obtained from him all the information necessary for the prompt liquidation of the assets.

Graslin died in April, 1831, and the widow's grief yielded only to Christian resignation. Veronique's first words, when the condition of Monsieur Graslin's affairs were made known to her, were that she abandoned her own fortune to pay the creditors; but it was found that Graslin's own property was more than sufficient. Two months later, the liquidation, of which Grossetete took charge, left to Madame Graslin the estate of Montegnac and six hundred thousand francs, her whole personal fortune. The son's name remained untainted, for Graslin had injured no one's property, not even that of his wife. Francis Graslin, the son, received about one hundred thousand francs.

Monsieur de Grandville, to whom Veronique's grandeur of soul and noble qualities were well known, made her an offer of marriage; but, to the surprise of all Limoges, Madame Graslin declined, under pretext that the Church discouraged second marriages. Grossetete, a man of strong common-sense and sure grasp of a situation, advised Veronique to invest her property and what remained of Monsieur Graslin's in the Funds; and he made the investment himself in one of the government securities which offered special advantages at that time, namely, the Three-per-cents, which were then quoted at fifty. The child Francis received, therefore, six thousand francs a year, and his mother forty thousand. Veronique's fortune was still the largest in the department.

When these affairs were all settled, Madame Graslin announced her intention of leaving Limoges and taking up her residence at Montegnac, to be near Monsieur Bonnet. She sent for the rector to consult about the enterprise he was so anxious to carry on at Montegnac, in which she desired to take part. But he endeavored unselfishly to dissuade her, telling her that her place was in the world and in society.

"I was born of the people and I wish to return to the people," she replied. On which the rector, full of love for his village, said no more against Madame Graslin's apparent vocation; and the less because she had actually put it out of her power to continue in Limoges, having sold the hotel Graslin to Grossetete, who, to cover a sum that was due to him, took it at its proper valuation.

The day of her departure, toward the end of August, 1831, Madame Graslin's numerous friends accompanied her some distance out of the town. A few went as far as the first relay. Veronique was in an open carriage with her mother. The Abbe Dutheil (just appointed to a bishopric) occupied the front seat of the carriage with old Grossetete. As they passed through the place d'Aine, Veronique showed signs of a sudden shock; her face contracted so that the play of the muscles could be seen; she clasped her infant to her breast with a convulsive motion, which old Madame Sauviat concealed by instantly taking the child, for she seemed to be on the watch for her daughter's agitation. Chance willed that Madame Graslin should pass through the square in which stood the house she had formerly occupied with her father and mother in her girlish days; she grasped her mother's hand while great tears fell from her eyes and rolled down her cheeks.

After leaving Limoges she turned and looked back, seeming to feel an emotion of happiness which was noticed by all her friends. When Monsieur de Grandville, then a young man of twenty-five, whom she declined to take as a husband, kissed her hand with an earnest expression of regret, the new bishop noticed the strange manner in which the black pupil of Veronique's eyes suddenly spread over the blue of the iris, reducing it to a narrow circle. The eye betrayed unmistakably some violent inward emotion.

"I shall never see him again," she whispered to her mother, who received this confidence without betraying the slightest feeling in her old face.

Madame Graslin was at that instant under the observation of Grossetete, who was directly in front of her; but, in spite of his shrewdness, the old banker did not detect the hatred which Veronique felt for the magistrate, whom she nevertheless received at her house. But churchmen have far more perception than other men, and Monsieur Dutheil suddenly startled Veronique with a priestly glance.

"Do you regret nothing in Limoges?" he asked her.

"Nothing, now that you are leaving it; and monsieur," she added, smiling at Grossetete, who was bidding her adieu, "will seldom be there."

The bishop accompanied Madame Graslin as far as Montegnac.

"I ought to walk this road in sackcloth and ashes," she said in her mother's ear as they went on foot up the steep slope of Saint-Leonard.

The old woman put her finger on her lips and glanced at the bishop, who was looking at the child with terrible attention. This gesture, and the luminous look in the prelate's eyes, sent a shudder through Veronique's body. At the aspect of the vast plains stretching their gray expanse before Montegnac the fire died out of her eyes, and an infinite sadness overcame her. Presently she saw the village rector coming to meet her, and together they returned to the carriage.

"There is your domain, madame," said Monsieur Bonnet, extending his hand toward the barren plain.

A few moments more, and the village of Montegnac, with its hill, on which the newly erected buildings struck the eye, came in sight, gilded by the setting sun, and full of the poesy born of the contrast between the beautiful spot and the surrounding barrenness, in which it lay like an oasis in the desert. Madame Graslin's eyes filled suddenly with tears. The rector called her attention to a broad white line like a gash on the mountain side.

"See what my parishioners have done to testify their gratitude to the lady of the manor," he said, pointing to the line, which was really a road; "we can now drive up to the chateau. This piece of road has been made by them without costing you a penny, and two months hence we shall plant it with trees. Monseigneur will understand what trouble and care and devotion were needed to accomplish such a change."

"Is it possible they have done that?" said the bishop.

"Without accepting any payment for their work, Monseigneur. The poorest put their hands into it, knowing that it would bring a mother among them."

At the foot of the hill the travellers saw the whole population of the neighborhood, who were lighting fire-boxes and discharging a few guns; then two of the prettiest of the village girls, dressed in white, came forward to offer Madame Graslin flowers and fruit.

"To be thus received in this village!" she exclaimed, grasping the rector's hand as if she stood on the brink of a precipice.

The crowd accompanied the carriage to the iron gates of the avenue. From there Madame Graslin could see her chateau, of which as yet she had only caught glimpses, and she was thunderstruck at the magnificence of the building. Stone is rare in those parts, the granite of the mountains being difficult to quarry. The architect employed by Graslin to restore the house had used brick as the chief substance of this vast construction. This was rendered less costly by the fact that the forest of Montegnac furnished all the necessary wood and clay for its fabrication. The framework of wood and the stone for the foundations also came from the forest; otherwise the cost of the restorations would have been ruinous. The chief expenses had been those of transportation, labor, and salaries. Thus the money laid out was kept in the village, and greatly benefited it.

At first sight, and from a distance, the chateau presents an enormous red mass, threaded by black lines produced by the pointing, and edged with gray; for the window and door casings, the entablatures, corner stones, and courses between the stories, are of granite, cut in facets like a diamond. The courtyard, which forms a sloping oval like that of the Chateau de Versailles, is surrounded by brick walls divided into panels by projecting buttresses. At the foot of these walls are groups of rare shrubs, remarkable for the varied color of their greens. Two fine iron gates placed opposite to each other lead on one side to a terrace which overlooks Montegnac, on the other to the offices and a farm-house.

The grand entrance-gate, to which the road just constructed led, is flanked by two pretty lodges in the style of the sixteenth century. The facade on the courtyard looking east has three towers,—one in the centre, separated from the two others by the main building of the house. The facade on the gardens, which is absolutely the same as the others, looks westward. The towers have but one window on the facade; the main building has three on either side of the middle tower. The latter, which is square like a campanile, the corners being vermiculated, is noticeable for the elegance of a few carvings sparsely distributed. Art is timid in the provinces, and though, since 1829, ornamentation has made some progress at the instigation of certain writers, landowners were at that period afraid of expenses which the lack of competition and skilled workmen rendered serious.

The corner towers, which have three stories with a single window in each, looking to the side, are covered with very high-pitched roofs surrounded by granite balustrades, and on each pyramidal slope of these roofs crowned at the top with the sharp ridge of a platform surrounded with a wrought iron railing, is another window carved like the rest. On each floor the corbels of the doors and windows are adorned with carvings copied from those of the Genoese mansions. The corner tower with three windows to the south looks down on Montegnac; the other, to the north, faces the forest. From the garden front the eye takes in that part of Montegnac which is still called Les Tascherons, and follows the high-road leading through the village to the chief town of the department. The facade on the courtyard has a view of the vast plains semicircled by the mountains of the Correze, on the side toward Montegnac, but ending in the far distance on a low horizon. The main building has only one floor above the ground-floor, covered with a mansarde roof in the olden style. The towers at each end are three stories in height. The middle tower has a stunted dome something like that on the Pavillon de l'Horloge of the palace of the Tuileries, and in it is a single room forming a belvedere and containing the clock. As a matter of economy the roofs had all been made of gutter-tiles, the enormous weight of which was easily supported by the stout beams and uprights of the framework cut in the forest.

Before his death Graslin had laid out the road which the peasantry had just built out of gratitude; for these restorations (which Graslin called his folly) had distributed several hundred thousand francs among the people; in consequence of which Montegnac had considerably increased. Graslin had also begun, before his death, behind the offices on the slope of the hill leading down to the plain, a number of farm buildings, proving his intention to draw some profit from the hitherto uncultivated soil of the plains. Six journeyman-gardeners, who were lodged in the offices, were now at work under orders of a head gardener, planting and completing certain works which Monsieur Bonnet had considered indispensable.

The ground-floor apartments of the chateau, intended only for reception-rooms, had been sumptuously furnished; the upper floor was rather bare, Monsieur Graslin having stopped for a time the work of furnishing it.

"Ah, Monseigneur!" said Madame Graslin to the bishop, after going the rounds of the house, "I who expected to live in a cottage! Poor Monsieur Graslin was extravagant indeed!"

"And you," said the bishop, adding after a pause, as he noticed the shudder than ran through her frame at his first words, "you will be extravagant in charity?"

She took the arm of her mother, who was leading Francis by the hand, and went to the long terrace at the foot of which are the church and the parsonage, and from which the houses of the village can be seen in tiers. The rector carried off Monseigneur Dutheil to show him the different sides of the landscape. Before long the two priests came round to the farther end of the terrace, where they found Madame Graslin and her mother motionless as statues. The old woman was wiping her eyes with a handkerchief, and her daughter stood with both hands stretched beyond the balustrade as though she were pointing to the church below.

"What is the matter, madame?" said the rector to Madame Sauviat.

"Nothing," replied Madame Graslin, turning round and advancing a few steps to meet the priests; "I did not know that I should have the cemetery under my eyes."

"You can put it elsewhere; the law gives you that right."

"The law!" she exclaimed with almost a cry.

Again the bishop looked fixedly at Veronique. Disturbed by the dark glance with which the priest had penetrated the veil of flesh that covered her soul, dragging thence a secret hidden in the grave of that cemetery, she said to him suddenly:—

"Well, yes!"

The priest laid his hand over his eyes and was silent for a moment as if stunned.

"Help my daughter," cried the old mother; "she is fainting."

"The air is so keen, it overcomes me," said Madame Graslin, as she fell unconscious into the arms of the two priests, who carried her into one of the lower rooms of the chateau.

When she recovered consciousness she saw the priests on their knees praying for her.

"May the angel you visited you never leave you!" said the bishop, blessing her. "Farewell, my daughter."

Overcome by those words Madame Graslin burst into tears.

"Tears will save her!" cried her mother.

"In this world and in the next," said the bishop, turning round as he left the room.

The room to which they had carried Madame Graslin was on the first floor above the ground-floor of the corner tower, from which the church and cemetery and southern side of Montegnac could be seen. She determined to remain there, and did so, more or less uncomfortably, with Aline her maid and little Francis. Madame Sauviat, naturally, took another room near hers.

It was several days before Madame Graslin recovered from the violent emotion which overcame her on that first evening, and her mother induced her to stay in bed at least during the mornings. At night, Veronique would come out and sit on a bench of the terrace from which her eyes could rest on the church and cemetery. In spite of Madame Sauviat's mute but persistent opposition, Madame Graslin formed an almost monomaniacal habit of sitting in the same place, where she seemed to give way to the blackest melancholy.

"Madame will die," said Aline to the old mother.

Appealed to by Madame Sauviat, the rector, who had wished not to seem intrusive, came henceforth very frequently to visit Madame Graslin; he needed only to be warned that her soul was sick. This true pastor took care to pay his visits at the hour when Veronique came out to sit at the corner of the terrace with her child, both in deep mourning.



XI. THE RECTOR AT WORK

It was now the beginning of October, and Nature was growing dull and sad. Monsieur Bonnet, perceiving in Veronique from the moment of her arrival at Montegnac the existence of an inward wound, thought it wisest to wait for the voluntary and complete confidence of a woman who would sooner or later become his penitent.

One evening Madame Graslin looked at the rector with eyes almost glazed with that fatal indecision often observable in persons who are cherishing the thought of death. From that moment Monsieur Bonnet hesitated no longer; he set before him the duty of arresting the progress of this cruel moral malady.

At first there was a brief struggle of empty words between the priest and Veronique, in which they both sought to veil their real thoughts. In spite of the cold, Veronique was sitting on the granite bench holding Francis on her knee. Madame Sauviat was standing at the corner of the terrace, purposely so placed as to hide the cemetery. Aline was waiting to take the child away.

"I had supposed, madame," said the rector, who was now paying his seventh visit, "that you were only melancholy; but I see," sinking his voice to a whisper, "that your soul is in despair. That feeling is neither Christian nor Catholic."

"But," she replied, looking to heaven with piercing eyes and letting a bitter smile flicker on her lips, "what other feeling does the Church leave to a lost soul unless it be despair?"

As he heard these words the rector realized the vast extent of the ravages in her soul.

"Ah!" he said, "you are making this terrace your hell, when it ought to be your Calvary from which to rise to heaven."

"I have no pride left to place me on such a pedestal," she answered, in a tone which revealed the self-contempt that lay within her.

Here the priest, by one of those inspirations which are both natural and frequent in noble souls, the man of God lifted the child in his arms and kissed its forehead, saying, in a fatherly voice, "Poor little one!" Then he gave it himself to the nurse, who carried it away.

Madame Sauviat looked at her daughter, and saw the efficacy of the rector's words; for Veronique's eyes, long dry, were moist with tears. The old woman made a sign to the priest and disappeared.

"Let us walk," said the rector to Veronique leading her along the terrace to the other end, from which Les Tascherons could be seen. "You belong to me; I must render account to God for your sick soul."

"Give me time to recover from my depression," she said to him.

"Your depression comes from injurious meditation," he replied, quickly.

"Yes," she said, with the simplicity of a grief which has reached the point of making no attempt at concealment.

"I see plainly that you have fallen into the gulf of apathy," he cried. "If there is a degree of physical suffering at which all sense of modesty expires, there is also a degree of moral suffering in which all vigor of soul is lost; I know that."

She was surprised to hear that subtle observation and to find such tender pity from this village rector; but, as we have seen already, the exquisite delicacy which no passion had ever touched gave him the true maternal spirit for his flock. This mens devinior, this apostolic tenderness, places the priest above all other men and makes him, in a sense, divine. Madame Graslin had not as yet had enough experience of Monsieur Bonnet to know this beauty hidden in his soul like a spring, from which flowed grace and purity and true life.

"Ah! monsieur," she cried, giving herself wholly up to him by a gesture, a look, such as the dying give.

"I understand you," he said. "What is to be done? What will you become?"

They walked in silence the whole length of the balustrade, facing toward the plain. The solemn moment seemed propitious to the bearer of good tidings, the gospel messenger, and he took it.

"Suppose yourself now in the presence of God," he said, in a low voice, mysteriously; "what would you say to Him?"

Madame Graslin stopped as though struck by a thunderbolt; she shuddered; then she said simply, in tones that brought tears to the rector's eyes:—

"I should say, as Jesus Christ said: 'Father, why hast thou forsaken me?'"

"Ah! Magdalen, that is the saying I expected of you," cried Monsieur Bonnet, who could not help admiring her. "You see you are forced to appeal to God's justice; you invoke it! Listen to me, madame. Religion is, by anticipation, divine justice. The Church claims for herself the right to judge the actions of the soul. Human justice is a feeble image of divine justice; it is but a pale imitation of it applied to the needs of society."

"What do you mean by that?"

"You are not the judge of your own case, you are dependent upon God," said the priest; "you have neither the right to condemn yourself nor the right to absolve yourself. God, my child, is a great reverser of judgments."

"Ah!" she exclaimed.

"He sees the origin of things, where we see only the things themselves."

Veronique stopped again, struck by these ideas, that were new to her.

"To you," said the brave priest, "to you whose soul is a great one, I owe other words than those I ought to give to my humble parishioners. You, whose mind and spirit are so cultivated, you can rise to the sense divine of the Catholic religion, expressed by images and words to the poor and childlike. Listen to me attentively, for what I am about to say concerns you; no matter how extensive is the point of view at which I place myself for a moment, the case is yours. Law, invented to protect society, is based on equality. Society, which is nothing but an assemblage of acts, is based on inequality. There is therefore lack of harmony between act and law. Ought society to march on favored or repressed by law? In other words, ought law to be in opposition to the interior social movement for the maintenance of society, or should it be based on that movement in order to guide it? All legislators have contented themselves with analyzing acts, indicating those that seemed to them blamable or criminal, and attaching punishments to such or rewards to others. That is human law; it has neither the means to prevent sin, nor the means to prevent the return to sinfulness of those it punishes. Philanthropy is a sublime error; it tortures the body uselessly, it produces no balm to heal the soul. Philanthropy gives birth to projects, emits ideas, confides the execution of them to man, to silence, to labor, to rules, to things mute and powerless. Religion is above these imperfections, for it extends man's life beyond this world. Regarding us all as degraded from our high estate, religion has opened to us an inexhaustible treasure of indulgence. We are all more or less advanced toward our complete regeneration; no one is sinless; the Church expects wrong-doing, even crime. Where society sees a criminal to be expelled from its bosom, the Church sees a soul to save. More, far more than that! Inspired by God, whom she studies and contemplates, the Church admits the inequalities of strength, she allows for the disproportion of burdens. If she finds us unequal in heart, in body, in mind, in aptitude, and value, she makes us all equal by repentance. Hence equality is no longer a vain word, for we can be, we are, all equal through feeling. From the formless fetichism of savages to the graceful inventions of Greece, or the profound and metaphysical doctrines of Egypt and India, whether taught in cheerful or in terrifying worship, there is a conviction in the soul of man—that of his fall, that of his sin—from which comes everywhere the idea of sacrifice and redemption. The death of the Redeemer of the human race is an image of what we have to do for ourselves,—redeem our faults, redeem our errors, redeem our crimes! All is redeemable; Catholicism itself is in that word; hence its adorable sacraments, which help the triumph of grace and sustain the sinner. To weep, to moan like Magdalen in the desert, is but the beginning; the end is Action. Monasteries wept and prayed; they prayed and civilized; they were the active agents of our divine religion. They built, planted, cultivated Europe; all the while saving the treasures of learning, knowledge, human justice, politics, and art. We shall ever recognize in Europe the places where those radiant centres once were. Nearly all our modern towns are the children of monasteries. If you believe that God will judge you, the Church tells you by my voice that sin can be redeemed by works of repentance. The mighty hand of God weighs both the evil done and the value of benefits accomplished. Be yourself like those monasteries; work here the same miracles. Your prayers must be labors. From your labors must come the good of those above whom you are placed by fortune, by superiority of mind; even this natural position of your dwelling is the image of your social situation."