Part 10

At the last stage before Clermont, the town of Riom, Fléchier abruptly commences his narrative. It was the place of rendezvous for the members of the tribunal, who halted there to shake their feathers and prepare their pompous entry into Clermont. "At Riom," says the Abbé, "we began to take repose and congratulate ourselves on our journey. We were so well received by the lieutenant-general, and were lodged in his house with so great cleanliness and even magnificence, that we forgot we were out of Paris." The hospitable seneschal, moreover, took pleasure in showing his honourable guests all that was remarkable in the town and its environs, especially a young lady of great attractions, whose numerous charms of person and mind made her to be considered in that country as one of the wonders of the world. She was about twenty-two years of age, daughter of a certain President Gabriel de Combes, and without being a perfect beauty, she was deemed irresistible when desirous to please. The great praises Fléchier heard of her, raised his expectations to a high pitch, and when he saw her, he was disappointed. He admitted many merits, but also discovered defects. A person of quality belonging to that country, and whose name is not given, combated this depreciatory opinion, which the gentle Abbé willingly waived, merely expressing surprise that a lady of such merit should have passed her twentieth year without making some great marriage. The worthy country gentleman, his interlocutor, was astonished at his astonishment, being unable to conceive that the adventures of this pearl of Auvergne had not been trumpeted in the remotest corners of the kingdom. When at last convinced of Fléchier's ignorance, he volunteered to dispel it; and the Abbé, evidently delighted to be initiated into the _chronique scandaleuse_ of Riom, gave him all encouragement. But because they were not at their ease for such discourse, but importuned by many compliments, in the drawing-room where this occurred, they got into the honest gentleman's carriage, and were driven to a certain garden, which passed for the Luxembourg of the district, and was much frequented in the fine season by the Riom fashionables. "There are fountains," says Fléchier, "and grottos, and alleys separated by palisades of a very agreeable verdure, which divert the eyes, and thick enough to keep the secrets exchanged by lovers, when they walk and talk confidentially. Although it was one of the finest of autumnal days, the arrival of Messieurs des Grands-Jours kept every body in the town, and we found more tranquillity and solitude than we had hoped for." Amidst the discreet shades of this suburban Eden, Fléchier learned the gallant adventures of Mademoiselle de Combes, which he professes to set down verbatim, although it is easy to judge, how greatly the narrative is indebted to his consummate art as a narrator, far superior to what could reasonably be attributed to the Auvergnat squire or noble from whom he derived the facts; to say nothing of the impossibility of retaining word for word, and upon once hearing it, a narrative extending over thirty pages. But, throughout the volume, the same thing occurs. Give Fléchier a story to tell, and he imparts to it a character entirely his own, arranging it with infinite grace, attributing motives to the personages, and placing imaginary conversations in their mouths. This story of Mademoiselle de Combes, for instance, in itself a very simple case of jilting, acquires, in his hands, an interest peculiarly its own, and we follow it to the end with unabated amusement. A young gentleman of Clermont, of the name of Fayet, rich and amiable, of agreeable person and noble and generous disposition, and well allied, returned to his native town, after completing his studies at Paris, to marry Mademoiselle Ribeyre, daughter of the first president of the Court of Aids at Clermont. The marriage had been arranged between the respective parents, but some difference supervening, the lady's father broke off the match, and to prevent any possible renewal of negotiations, gave his daughter to M. Charles de Combes, so that Fayet arrived to find his mistress snatched from him, and to witness a rival's wedding instead of celebrating his own. Many persons would have been sensibly affected by such a misadventure, but he consoled himself with a good grace for the loss of a bride whom he had known little and loved less, paid the usual civilities to the new-married couple, and soon found himself on a friendly footing in their house. There he met the sister-in-law of his former intended, Mademoiselle de Combes, then a young girl of fifteen, endowed with every grace of mind and person that can be expected at that age, and her favour he seriously applied himself to gain. "He found a virgin heart," says Fléchier, "upon which he made a tolerably favourable impression; he made more expense than ever, gave magnificent entertainments, acquired the good will of most of the persons who habitually saw his mistress, and did all in his power to place himself favourably in her opinion, knowing well that esteem leads to tenderness by a very rapid road. On occasion he would address a few words to her in a low voice; and in his conversation would opportunely introduce generous and tender sentiments. These, the young lady, who had infinite wit and sense, well knew how to apply; but although she was already a little touched, she had the art to dissimulate so naturally that it was impossible to penetrate her thoughts, and even those she most trusted knew nothing of her new-born inclinations." Such power of dissimulation, at so early an age, might have alarmed the lover, and given the aspirant to her hand matter for reflexion. Instead of that, it served to stimulate his passion, and he pressed the siege of her heart with renewed vigour. In a long conversation, detailed by Fléchier in the graceful but insipid language of the period, where the voice of passion seems cramped and chilled by the necessity of polished periods and elegant diction, Fayet paved the way to a declaration, which he had already commenced, when interrupted by the entrance of the sister-in-law. But his discourse, and the constancy of his attentions, had touched the heart, or at least wrought upon the imagination of the obdurate fair one; and the gallant, perceiving his advantage, impatiently awaited an opportunity to renew the attack. It soon occurred, whilst walking with some ladies and cavaliers in the same garden where Fléchier heard the tale. Accident divided the party, and the lovers found themselves alone. With trembling and hesitation, for his sincere and ardent passion made him dread the possibility of a refusal which his reason forbade him to think probable, Fayet avowed his love. The lady affected dismay, and uttered a cry, says the Abbé, that nearly pierced the paling; but she ended by permitting him to love her, and after two or three more interviews, confessed a reciprocal flame. Their amorous joy, however, was converted into bitterness and despair by the positive refusal of the President de Combes to sanction their union. The magistrate's motives for this refusal were in the highest degree absurd. One was, that M. Ribeyre having declined the alliance of Fayet, it was to be inferred the latter had less fortune than he received credit for; the second, still more ridiculous, was an idea that it would be disgraceful to his daughter to marry a man whom his daughter-in-law had refused. Fayet, we are told, was near dying of grief on receiving this rude and unforeseen blow. Retiring to his apartment, he wrote a despairing billet to his mistress, who, although also very desponding, returned an encouraging and consolatory reply, and there ensued an animated correspondence and long series of secret interviews, known of course to everybody but to the parents who forbade them. At last, the vigilance of the latter became excessive: Mademoiselle Combes, never suffered out of sight of her mother, who even slept in her room, was compelled to scribble her love-letters in haste, by favour of a half-drawn curtain and a ray of lamplight, whilst the good lady was absorbed in her evening devotions; until at last, by reason of this painful constraint, or from some other cause, she fell into a state of languor, and was taken to the baths of Vichy. "She there recovered her health," says Fléchier, who manifestly sympathises with the sufferings of these constant lovers; "but the miracle was less owing to the waters than to secret interviews with her lover. He followed her in disguise, and remained hidden in a house adjacent to the baths, whither, under some pretext, a good lady conducted her, and thence, after a space of conversation, led her back to her mother. Never were the waters of Vichy more eagerly desired, or taken with more pleasure." After this, Mademoiselle de Combes, hoping to alarm her parents into acquiescence, took refuge in a convent, where she was received on condition that she should break off all intercourse with the world. But the superior, a lady of quality and friend of both parties, favoured the reception of letters, and even visits from Fayet to his mistress. The lover was smuggled by female friends as far as the convent grating. At last, Madame de Combes persuaded her daughter to return home, and treated her more kindly than before, but continued stanch in her opposition to the marriage. To be brief, this state of affairs lasted eight or nine years. "The thing went so far," says the Abbé, "that they swore fidelity before the altar, making profane vows in holy places, and even writing promises signed with their blood, and committing other follies peculiar to persons whom a violent passion blinds. By this time the lady was in her twenty-fourth year, and seeing herself near the age when the law exempts children from the control of their parents, she exhorted Fayet to perseverance, writing him to that effect."

Just at this time, M. Bernard de Fortia, a friend and college-comrade of Fayet, was appointed to the high office of Intendant of Auvergne. He was a widower, and, on arriving at Clermont, _il se pourvut d'abord d'une galanterie_. The object of his attentions was a young girl of eighteen, whose _embonpoint_ added several years to her apparent age, and who was generally known as _la_ Beauverger. "For we are accustomed thus to abridge the manner of naming, and find the word _Mademoiselle_ useless, the name of the family sufficiently indicating the quality." With the unaffected ease and lively conversation of this lady, the Intendant was much pleased and amused, and saw a good deal of her, being also greatly diverted by her letters. "Sometimes she began them by some extravagance, as when she wrote to him: '_The devil take you, sir!_' at others by tender pleasantries and by naivetés of her invention. Writing easily, she wrote much; and as she was one day told that if she continued she would produce more volumes than Saint Augustin, 'Ay, truly,' she replied, 'though, like him, I were to write only my confessions.'"

To the admirer of this brisk and buxom damsel, Fayet addressed himself as to an old friend, and in all confidence, to intercede for him with the parents of Mademoiselle de Combes. Fortia promised his best services, went several times to the house, and assured his friend that he took all care of his interests, but that it would be unwise to precipitate matters. These assurances he renewed in his letters to Fayet, who, being compelled about this time to make a journey to Paris, was received on his return with every mark of joy by the mistress of his affections. Still, although she had reached her twenty-fifth year, she seemed in no hurry to take the steps necessary to their marriage; she was less eager to hear from her lover, and less assiduous in writing to him. Some time afterwards, Fayet discovered that she was in correspondence with M. Fortia, and chancing to see one of her letters, he nearly fainted with surprise and grief at its contents. "Do not press me, Sir, I entreat you," wrote the perfidious beauty, "to reply very exactly to the last passage in your letter. You well know that word is difficult to utter, and still more so to write; be satisfied with the assurance that as a good Christian I strictly obey the commandment that bids me love my neighbour. Another time you shall know more." Poor Fayet sought his mistress, who denied having written to Fortia, and protested that her sentiments were unchanged. Persuaded of her dissimulation, and overwhelmed with sorrow, he addressed her in a strain of feeling wholly thrown away upon the calculating and deceitful damsel. "If my suspicions are just, Madam," he said amongst other things, "and you are more moved by the fortune of an Intendant than by the sincere passion of a lover lacking such brilliant recommendations, I feel that you will render me the most miserable of men; but I consent to be miserable so that you be the happier." The lady consoled him, taxed him with injustice in thus suspecting her after ten years' fidelity, dismissed him only half persuaded, and wrote to him that same evening to beg him to return her letters. Fayet saw that he was sacrificed. He sent back the letters, retaining only a few of the best, especially the one written in blood. To add to his annoyance, his false friend the Intendant had the hypocritical assurance to protest that he had done all in his power for him, but that, finding all in vain, he at last, subjugated by the lady's charms, had pleaded his own cause. He then told him in confidence that he was to be married in a few days, and, with more anxiety than delicacy, entreated him to say how far his familiarity with Mademoiselle de Combes had been carried during the ten years' courtship. Gentle creature as the jilted suitor evidently was, he could not resist the temptation thus indiscreetly held out, and, without compromising to the last point the lady's reputation, he contrived, by his ambiguous replies, greatly to perplex and torment his rival. The latter, in his uneasiness, consulted other persons; the report of his indiscretion got wind, and was made the subject of songs and pasquinades, rather witty than decent. The marriage, which was to have taken place in a few days, had been several months pending when Fléchier heard the story, and the general opinion was, that the Intendant was only amusing himself, and that it would never occur. Meanwhile poor feeble Fayet could not get cured of his love; he thought continually of his lost mistress, took pleasure in praising and talking of her, sought excuses for her conduct, and only spoke of her as his "adorable deceiver." "The incidents of your narrative," says Fléchier, when thanking the obliging gentleman for the pleasure he had procured him, "are very pleasant, and you have told them so agreeably, that I find them marvellously so. If you ask my opinion, I take part with Fayet against his false mistress, and I wish that, for her punishment, the Intendant may amuse her for a while and then leave her; that she may then seek to return to Fayet, and that Fayet may have nothing to say to her. Heaven often punishes one infidelity by another." The _adorable trompeuse_, as we are informed by a note, ultimately married neither Fortia nor Fayet, but became the wife of a M. de la Barge.

If we have thus lingered over the love story with which Fléchier commences his _Mémoires_, it is because these milder episodes are, to our thinking, more agreeable to dwell upon, and, in their style of telling, more characteristic of the writer, than the details of barbarous crimes and sanguinary scenes with which, at a later period of the volume, we are abundantly indulged. We will get on to the staple of the book, the proceedings of the Grands-Jours. This tribunal, although, as already mentioned, it took cognisance of all manner of causes, civil as well as criminal, and judged offenders of every degree, from the meanest peasant to the highest noble, was intended chiefly for the benefit of the turbulent and tyrannical nobility, who in those latter days of expiring feudality, still oppressed their weaker neighbours, murdered their dependents, and kept up bloody feuds amongst themselves. Such excesses and injustice were common in Bretagne, Dauphiné, and other provinces of France; but we cannot trace them as having taken place any where quite so late as in Auvergne, whose remote position and mountainous configuration, as well as the rude and obstinate character of its inhabitants, gave greater liberty and pretext for a state of things recalling in some degree the lawless periods of the middle ages. "The license that a long war has introduced into our provinces," says the King's letter to the _Echevins_, or chief magistrates of Clermont, "and the oppression that the poor suffer from it, having made us resolve to establish in our town of Clermont in Auvergne, a court vulgarly called the Grands-Jours, composed of persons of high probity and consummate experience, who, to the extent of the authority we have intrusted to them, shall take cognisance of all crimes, and pass judgment on the same, punishing the guilty, and powerfully enforcing justice; we will, and command you, &c." "This letter," (of which the remainder refers to the quarters to be provided for the judges, and to the consideration to be shown to their persons and quality,) "read, with sound of trumpet, upon the principal squares and cross-streets of the town, produced an effect difficult to describe. One can form an idea of it, only when the picture of the Grands-Jours, unrolled before our eyes by Fléchier, shall have permitted us to imagine the system of oppression under which the people groaned. The letter was like a signal of general deliverance." (Introduction, p. xix.) Of deliverance, that is to say, for the lower orders, the vast majority, who foresaw, in the severity and omnipotence of the dreaded tribunal, revenge for their long sufferings at the hands of arrogant and lawless masters. The aristocracy of the province, on the other hand, few of whom could boast clear consciences, beheld the arrival of the royal commissioners with feelings far less pleasing; and although a body of them, including many notorious delinquents, went out to meet and welcome the Messieurs des Grands-Jours, the ceremony was scarcely at an end when most of them took to flight, to await in distant hiding-places the subsidence of the storm of retribution. These were the gentlemen referred to in the popular song of the day, composed for the occasion, and which resounded in the streets of Clermont on the morrow of the receipt of the King's letter. It is given, at its full length of twenty-two couplets, in the appendix to the _Mémoires_, and breathes a bitter hatred of the unfeeling nobles and insolent retainers who ill-treated the people--a savage joy at their impending castigation. One of the verses may be quoted, as comprising the principal hardships and extortions suffered by the peasantry.

A parler Français, Chaque gentilhomme Du matin au soir Fait croitre ses cens, Et d'un liard en a six. Il vit sans foi, Prend le pré, le foin, Le champ et les choux du bonhomme; Puis fait l'économe De ses pois, de son salé, Bat celui qui lui déplaît; Et, comme un roi dans son royaume, Dit que cela lui plaît.[28]

"_Tel est notre plaisir_," such is our pleasure, the customary termination of all royal edicts and ordinances, was the closing phrase of the letter already cited, conveying the King's will to the authorities of Clermont. And the insolent assumption of the Auvergnat nobles had to yield to the strong will and energetic measures of the fourteenth Louis. Without dreaming of disputing the royal mandate, the guilty fled in confusion and dismay.