Part 1

MORAL TALES

BY MADAME GUIZOT

TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH BY MRS. L. BURKE

LONDON GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS THE BROADWAY, LUDGATE NEW YORK: 416 BROOME STREET

PREFACE.

The writings of Madame Guizot are highly celebrated in France, and though something of this celebrity may be due to her position as the wife of an illustrious statesman and historian, it must also be remembered, that this very position was calculated to draw forth a severer criticism than would usually be passed on one less favourably circumstanced. But the works themselves have merits of far too decided an order not to command attention in any case, and they especially deserve the notice of English parents, from their entire freedom from the exaggeration of sentiment and love of effect, so often justly complained of in a certain portion of the Literature of France.

In her Tales, it has been the aim of Madame Guizot to secure the attention of her youthful readers by an attractive narrative, in which the chief personages are children like themselves, and the events and situations such as might occur in their own experience, and then to lead their minds to important conclusions by the natural course of the story, and without the repulsive intervention of mere lecturing or argumentation; and we think it will be admitted, that in the present series, she has been eminently successful. These Tales are so simple and natural, that they may be understood by even younger children than they are actually intended for, while at the same time they are so full of good sense, and touch so vividly those springs of action which influence alike both the young and the old, that many of them will be read with as much interest, and sometimes even with as much advantage, by the parent as by the child. Though perfectly unpretending in structure and language, the most fastidious taste will acknowledge them to be the productions of a highly refined and cultivated mind, while they equally display all the charms of an affectionate and parental disposition, conjoined with a lofty, though a gentle and rational morality.

It is only necessary to observe, in conclusion, that the Translator has endeavoured to preserve throughout the simplicity of style which distinguishes the original, and to convey its meaning with all the fidelity which the difference of the two idioms would permit. A few unimportant expressions have been modified or omitted as unsuitable to English taste, or likely to convey, in translation, a different impression from that actually intended, but beyond this no liberty has been taken with the text.

CONTENTS.

THE HISTORY OF A LOUIS D'OR _Page_ 1

FRANÇOU 120

M. LE CHEVALIER 142

EUDOXIA; OR LEGITIMATE PRIDE 158

EDWARD AND EUGENIA; OR THE EMBROIDERED BAG AND THE NEW COAT 185

MARIE; OR THE FEAST OF CORPUS CHRISTI 212

THE LITTLE BRIGANDS 272

OLD GENEVIÈVE 291

JULIA; OR THE STORY OF MADAME CROQUE-MITAINE 309

AGLAÏA AND LEONTINE; OR MANOEUVRING 332

OH! OH! OH! A TALE 359

HELEN; OR THE FAILURE 370

ARMAND; OR THE INDEPENDENT LITTLE BOY 381

THE SECRET OF COURAGE 406

THE DREAM; AN EASTERN TALE 417

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

THE HISTORY OF A LOUIS D'OR--_Frontispiece_.

LITTLE PETER _Page_ 27

THE TEMPTATIONS 92

EUDOXIA 176

MARIA AND THE CURÉ 248

THE LITTLE BRIGANDS 288

LOUIS AND THE OLD SOLDIER 364

ARMAND, THE INDEPENDENT BOY 402

MORAL TALES.

THE HISTORY OF A LOUIS D'OR.

Ernestine was passing with her mother through the arcades of the Palais Royal, stopping at every shop, longing for all she saw, now and then sighing heavily, and at each moment making the happiness of life consist in the possession of some attractive object, the remembrance of which was effaced the moment after by some other, destined in like manner to be as speedily forgotten. She was, however, more especially interested by a toy-shop; not that Ernestine had any wish for dolls, little carts, or bureaus, in which she could not even have put her thimble, the drawers were so small: she was, indeed, too old for that, for she was already eleven; but the sight of a moving picture, in which were to be seen two men fighting, a dog turning a spit, a laundress, a paviour, and a stonecutter, inspired her with a fancy, which appeared to her much more reasonable. She stopped her mamma in order to examine it more leisurely, and her mother was kind enough to indulge her; but the picture was then motionless. Ernestine thought it would be delightful to see all those figures in action, especially the dog turning the spit, and asked if it would not be possible to beg of the shopkeeper to wind it up.

"Certainly not," replied Madame de Cideville, "he did not place it there for the amusement of the passers-by; he would think I wished to purchase it."

"It would surely be very dear?" said Ernestine.

"One louis," replied the shopkeeper, who had overheard her.

"Oh! mamma," whispered Ernestine, "how cheap!" for she had imagined that a thing so beautiful, and so ingenious, must have cost an enormous sum. "How delightful it would be," she continued, "to obtain that for one louis!"

"There are," said her mother, "many better ways of employing it;" and she passed on, to the great vexation of Ernestine, who wondered to herself how it could happen that her parents, who were so rich, did not think it proper to spend a louis on so charming a thing as a moving picture, in which a dog was to be seen turning a spit: for Ernestine, like all children, and upon this point she was more than usually inconsiderate even for her age, thought her parents much richer than they really were; besides, she was not aware that there is no fortune, however large, which justifies unnecessary expense. On reaching home, she spoke to her father about the picture.

"Only fancy, papa, it might have been had for one louis. Oh! how happy I should have been if I had had a louis of my own!"

"You would not surely have spent it upon that?" replied her father.

"Oh! papa, how could I have spent it on anything more delightful?"

"Doubtless," replied M. de Cideville, "it would have been quite impossible to have found anything more delightful; but you might have found something more useful."

"For a louis, papa! What is there so very useful that can be bought for one louis?"

As she said these words, Ernestine tossed in her hands her mamma's purse, which Madame de Cideville, on entering, had laid upon the table. A louis d'or fell out of it. "See," said Ernestine, as she picked it up, "to what very important use can this little yellow thing be put?"

"To what use?" replied her father; "if I were to tell you all the important uses to which it might be applied, all the trouble that is sometimes required to gain it, all the danger there is in spending it badly, all the good it may do to those who are in want of it, all the evil it may make them commit in order to obtain it, you would wonder how any one could be even tempted to throw it away upon useless objects. Shall I relate to you the history of that particular louis, all the adventures it has met with, and to how many uses it has been applied?"

"Oh! yes, papa; but how came you to know all this?"

"That I will tell you afterwards. At present I want you to look at it merely; it is not very ancient, it belongs to the coinage of 1787, so that it is scarcely five-and-twenty years old. Now, listen to all that has happened to it."

Ernestine drew a chair to her father's side, that she might listen more attentively, and M. de Cideville began thus:--

I will not tell you how much labour and time were required to extract from the earth the small quantity of gold of which this louis is composed, to separate it from the other substances which are generally found mixed with it, to melt it, to coin it, &c. It was in the year 1787, that it came for the first time into the Royal treasury, and that it was afterwards given out, in payment of a regiment, to which, I know not by what chance, several months' arrears were due. As the soldiers received five sous a day, this louis served to discharge what was owing for more than three months' pay to a poor fellow who, had there been war, might, during this time, have fought in a dozen battles, have been killed, or at least wounded, have died of hunger in a besieged city, perished at sea, or been eaten by savages, had he been sent to fight in America. But as it was a time of peace, he had only caught an inflammation on the chest, in consequence of having had to mount guard during one of the severest nights of winter, and afterwards a cutaneous disease, from having slept in the hospital in the same bed with a comrade who had it. At length he recovered, and as he was an industrious and well-conducted man, and had managed by his occupation of barber to the regiment, to make some little savings, he was able, notwithstanding what I have mentioned, to send this louis to his father, a poor peasant, at that very moment on the point of being imprisoned for a debt of one louis, which he could not pay. The creditor was on the spot, threatening him, and announcing his determination of sending for the sheriff's officer: the peasant's second son, the brother of the soldier, furious at seeing his father thus menaced, had taken up a hatchet with which he was going to kill the creditor, notwithstanding the interposition of his mother, who, uttering piercing cries, rushed forward to prevent him, and was thrown down by him, without his perceiving it, so violent was his passion. The person who had brought the louis from the soldier, arrived in the midst of this tumult. She had, at first, much difficulty in making herself heard; but when they did begin to understand what she was saying, peace was restored. The father paid his creditor, the son rejoiced that he had not killed him, and thus this louis d'or saved a man's life, probably the lives of two men; for the son would have been punished for his crime: perhaps, indeed, it saved a whole family, for the father and mother, who had only this son to assist them in their labours, would, in all probability, have died of misery and grief.

The creditor who had exacted this louis with so much severity, belonged to the same village, and was really in absolute want of the money, because, his harvest having failed, he had not the necessary provisions for his family during the winter. Had the soldier's louis not arrived, however, it would have been useless for him to have put the father in prison; he would have gained nothing, as the old man possessed nothing; but with this louis he bought twenty or five-and-twenty bushels of potatoes, which were then very cheap, and these served to support himself and his children.

The woman, however, from whom he had purchased the potatoes, and who belonged to another village, having the imprudence to cross in the dark a wood, through which the road to her house lay, three villains of the neighbourhood in which she had sold her potatoes, who had seen her receive the louis, agreed to wait for her in the wood, and rob her of it. When, therefore, she had penetrated into the thicket, they burst upon her, threw her from her horse, took the louis, and were about to tear off her clothes, and perhaps kill her, when, fancying they heard a noise, they ran off in different directions. He who held the louis, endeavoured to escape from his companions, that he might not share it with them; but they met him that same evening at a tavern where he was spending it in drink. They demanded their share, quarrelled, fought, and discovered all their secrets. They were arrested and sent to the galleys. The tavern-keeper interposed in the lawsuit; he wished to have the louis, as it had been spent at his house; the woman who sold the potatoes, and who had recovered and again mounted her horse, also claimed it, as it had been stolen from her. I know not whether they were indemnified, but the louis, after having served as a proof of the theft, because it was the only one in the country, none of this particular coinage having been before introduced there, passed into the hands of an old lawyer, who quarrelled with an elderly lady, after a friendship of thirty years, because she had won it of him at piquet, during the course of six months, and had told him, besides, that he did not know how to play. This old lady sent it as a new-year's gift to one of her little granddaughters in Paris, who was saved by it from a very considerable annoyance. Her brother, who, though treated with a good deal of severity, was, nevertheless, very disobedient and ill-behaved, had taken from her father's library, notwithstanding his having been forbidden to touch it, a book which contained prints; while reading it, he had let an inkstand fall upon it, and in order that he might not be suspected, had carried it into the anteroom. All this he communicated to his sister, as a great secret, making her solemnly promise to say nothing about it, so that the servant might be suspected. As her father was very particular about his books, the young girl knew that the servant would be dismissed; still she could not denounce her brother. The book had been put in the anteroom, during the evening, and she wept all night at the thought of what was to happen next day; for she was extremely kind and just. In the morning, on awaking, the first thing she beheld was the louis, which had been put upon her bed as a present from her grandmamma; her joy was extreme, and she immediately sent for a copy of the book, as her brother, who had also received a louis, finding himself screened, would not spend his in this manner. However, she consoled herself, by thinking of the terrible pain she would have experienced in seeing an innocent person punished, without daring to justify him. The book cost exactly one louis; this louis passed into the hands of a librarian, and had a great influence on the destiny of a little boy, whose history I am about to relate to you.

LITTLE PETER.

Little Peter, when ten years old, had entered the service of M. Dubourg, a worthy man, who passed his life in the study of Greek and Latin, and was so much taken up with what happened three thousand years ago, that he did not even think of troubling himself with what was actually passing around him; for he was consoled for every inconvenience, provided he could apply to it an example or a maxim drawn from antiquity. If he cut his finger, or hurt his foot, his first movement was an exclamation of impatience, but immediately afterwards he checked himself and grew calm, saying, "The philosopher Epictetus suffered his leg to be broken by his master, who was beating him, without making any complaint beyond these words: '_I told you you would break my leg._'" One day, while dining in town, he found himself in company with some very ill-bred military men, who could talk of nothing but the stories of their regiment, and the number of bottles of wine they had drunk at a mess dinner. The mistress of the house, in order to make him some kind of apology for a conversation which wearied him, said, laughing, "You must allow, M. Dubourg, that I have made you dine in very bad company."

"Madame," replied M. Dubourg, "Alcibiades knew how to accommodate himself to every grade of society, to every company, and even to the customs of every nation;" and in order to follow the example of Alcibiades, he commenced talking to them of the battle of Salamis, and the feasts of Bacchus. As to the rest, M. Dubourg only dined out six times a year; this was a rule which he had laid down for himself, however numerous might be the invitations which he received. The only irregularity he allowed himself was in the periods. Thus, for instance, he might one year dine out on the 6th of March, and the following year on the 7th or the 10th; it might even happen that he accepted two invitations in the same month, though as a general rule he placed them as nearly as possible at equal distances; but if by any extraordinary chance, the six dinners were expended by the month of July, no consideration would induce him to dine away from home during the rest of the year. His expenditure was regulated as strictly as his manner of life. With a very small income, M. Dubourg wished to live in such a manner as to be perfectly independent of every one, and especially so as never to be reduced to the necessity of borrowing, which he regarded as the greatest of all faults; "for," said he, "one can never be sufficiently sure of repaying." Thus, his dinners were furnished by a restaurateur, who, for the same sum, brought him every day the same thing. On one occasion the restaurateur wished to increase his charge. "It is all the same to me," said M. Dubourg, "I shall take less; Diogenes was able, by mere philosophy, to bring himself to drink out of his hand, although he had still a wooden cup of which he might have made use." It was probably less out of respect for philosophy, than from the fear of disobliging a customer, that the restaurateur, by the means of certain arrangements, agreed to furnish him, for the old price, a dinner of pretty nearly the same kind.

The other expenses of the day were calculated with the same precision, so that, without ever counting, M. Dubourg, had always a year's income in advance, and was consequently never inconvenienced by having to wait for his returns. He had, besides, a sum in reserve for extraordinary cases; such as an illness, an accident, or even a goblet broken, or a bottle of ink overturned, &c. It might also happen, on a rainy day, that he had to pay for crossing a stream upon a plank, or, in winter, to give a sous to the little sweeper who cleaned the crossing; all these expenses fell upon the extraordinary fund, for as to coaches, M. Dubourg had only hired two during the whole course of thirty years. One was to pay a visit to a rich man from whom he had accepted an invitation to dinner, and to whose house he was told he must not go splashed. This broke off their acquaintance, and he never would go again, however much he was pressed. The other he took when going to declare his sentiments to a young lady whom he had been persuaded to fancy himself desirous of marrying. He took it for fear that the wind should shake the powder out of his hair, and it gave him an opportunity of reflecting, as he proceeded, on the disorders into which the passions lead us. On arriving at the young lady's house, he paid the coachman, returned home on foot, and renounced for ever the idea of marrying. His reserved fund was always maintained in the same state, by means of a portion of his income regularly set apart for this purpose. When it did not happen to be all spent by the end of the year, M. Dubourg gave the remainder to the poor, otherwise, he neither gave nor lent; for he said that "it is not proper to give unless we are certain of not being obliged to ask, and that he who, in order to lend, exposes himself to the chance of being obliged to borrow, places his integrity at the mercy of a bad paymaster." It may be seen then, that with some follies, M. Dubourg was a man highly to be esteemed for his integrity.

Little Peter passed with him the happiest of lives. Provided he was careful not to arrange the books that were scattered or heaped together upon the desk or floor, which M. Dubourg called disarranging them; provided he took care to sweep the room only once a fortnight, when M. Dubourg had taken away certain fine editions, which he did not wish to have exposed to the dust; provided he was careful never to remove the cobwebs, that he might not run the risk of upsetting the busts of Homer, of Plato, of Aristotle, of Cicero, of Virgil, &c., which adorned the top of the library, little Peter might do pretty nearly what he pleased. If he happened to be out at the hour at which the restaurateur brought, every day, M. Dubourg's dinner, so that it had to be left at the door, M. Dubourg having forbidden the man ever to ring, for fear of interrupting his studies, and if M. Dubourg found his dinner quite cold, or partly eaten by the cat, Peter merely excused himself by saying, that he had been detained by some business. Then M. Dubourg would say to him: "It is quite natural, Peter, that you should occupy yourself principally with your own affairs; you are not my slave; I have not purchased you with my money: but were you my slave, the case would be very different." Then, whilst taking his dinner, he would explain to him the duties and condition of slaves; and how it was that their masters possessed over them the power of life and death, which was indeed but just, since they had purchased them; "But as for me, Peter," he would add, "I am not permitted to do you the least harm, for you are not my slave." And, in fact, he would not give him a caning, even when he learned his Latin grammar badly; this was, nevertheless, the greatest annoyance Peter could cause M. Dubourg; who, on this point, sometimes got into violent passions, quite at variance with his general character; for he could not understand how it was possible for any one to dislike so excellent a thing as the Latin grammar. This dislike, however, was very sincere on the part of little Peter, who had no fancy for study, and who, though he had learned to read and to write, had done so much against his will. When M. Dubourg, who did not wish any one to live with him without understanding Latin, first put an _Accidence_ into his hand, his parents were delighted at the idea of his making, as they thought, little Peter a learned man like himself; but Peter had not the slightest wish to resemble M. Dubourg, who passed the whole day in poring over books; who often only half dined, for fear of allowing a Greek passage to escape him, the meaning of which he was beginning to seize; who took water, scarcely coloured, because wine disturbed the judgment, and had, he said, caused Alexander the Great to commit many crimes; and who, finally, as his only pleasure, walked for two hours every day in the gardens of the Tuileries, with three other learned men, who, on their part, met there for the purpose of conversing together, after the manner of the Peripaticians.