CHAPTER IV

How I obtain a recommendation to General Foy--M. Danré of Vouty advises my mother to let me go to Paris--My good-byes--Laffitte and Perregaux--The three things which Maître Mennesson asks me not to forget--The Abbé Grégoire's advice and the discussion with him--I leave Villers-Cotterets

One morning, I said to my mother--

"Have you anything to say to M. Danré? I am going to Vouty."

"What do you want of M. Danré?"

"To ask him for a letter to General Foy."

My mother raised her eyes to heaven; she questioned whence came all these ideas to me, that converged all to one end.

M. Danré was my father's old friend, who, having had his left hand mutilated when out shooting, had been brought into our house. There, the reader will remember, Doctor Lécosse had skilfully amputated his thumb, and as my mother had nursed him with the greatest care through the whole of the illness the accident brought on, he had a warm feeling in his heart towards my mother, my sister and myself. It always, therefore, gave him great pleasure to see me, whether I arrived with a message from Me. Mennesson, his lawyer, when I was with Me. Mennesson, or whether on my own account. This time it was on my own affairs. I told him the object of my visit.

When General Foy was put on the lists for election, the electors would not appoint him; but M. Danré had supported his candidature, and, thanks to M. Danré's influence in the department, General Foy had been elected. We know what a foremost place the illustrious patriot took in the Chamber. General Foy was not an eloquent orator; he was far better than that: he possessed a warm heart, ready to act at the inspiration of every noble passion. Not a single great question came under his notice during all the time he was in the Chamber, that was not supported by him if it was a worthy object, or that was not opposed by him if it was unworthy; his words fell from the tribune, terrible as the return thrusts in a duel--piercing thrusts, nearly always deadly to his adversaries. But, like all men of feeling, he wore himself out in the struggle, the most constant and most maddening struggle of all: it killed him while rendering his name immortal.

In 1823, General Foy was at the height of his popularity, and from the pinnacle to which he had attained, he reminded M. Danré from time to time of his existence, which proved to the humble farmer, who, like Philoctètes, had made sovereigns, but had no desire to be one, that he was still his affectionate and grateful friend. Therefore M. Danré did not feel in any way averse to give me the letter I asked of him, and it was couched in the most favourable terms. Then, when M. Danré had written, signed and sealed the letter, he asked me about my pecuniary resources. I told him everything, even to the ingenious methods by the aid of which I had obtained what I had.

"Upon my word," he exclaimed, "I had half a mind to offer you my purse; but, really, it would smirch your record. People do not do that sort of thing to end in failure: you should succeed with that fifty francs of yours, and I do not wish to take away the credit of owing it entirely to yourself. Take courage, then, and go in peace! If you are absolutely in need of my services, write to me from Paris."

"So you feel hopeful?" I said to M. Danré.

"Very."

"Are you coming to Villers-Cotterets on Thursday?"

Thursday was market day.

"Yes; why do you ask?"

"Because if you are, I would beg you to call and tell my mother you are hopeful: she has great confidence in you, and as everybody seems bent on telling her I shall never do anything...."

"The fact is you have not done very much up to now!"

"Because they were determined to push me into a vocation I was not fitted for, dear Monsieur Danré; but you will see, directly they leave me alone to do what I am cut out for, I shall become a hard worker."

"Mind you do! I will reassure your mother, relying on your word."

"You may, and I will fulfil it."

The day but one after my visit, M. Danré came to Villers-Cotterets, as he had promised, and saw my mother. I was watching for his coming; I let him start the conversation and then I came in. My mother was crying, but seemed to have made up her mind. When she saw me, she held out her hand.

"You are bent on leaving me, then?" she said.

"I must, mother. But do not be uneasy; if we separate, this time it will not be for long."

"Yes, because you will fail, and return to Villers-Cotterets once more."

"No, no, mother; on the contrary, because I shall succeed, and bring you to Paris."

"And when do you mean to go?"

"Listen, mother dear: when a great resolution is taken, the sooner it is put into execution the better.... Ask M. Danré."

"Yes, ask Lazarille. I do not know what you did to M. Danré, but the fact is...."

"M. Danré is fair-minded, mother; he knows that everything must move in its own appointed surroundings if it is to become of any worth. I should make a bad lawyer, a bad solicitor, a bad sheriffs officer; I should make a shocking bad teacher I You know quite well that it took three schoolmasters to get me through the multiplication table and it was not a brilliant success. Very well! I believe I can do something better."

"What, you scamp?"

"Mother, I swear I know nothing about what I shall do, but you remember what the fortune-teller whom you questioned on my behalf predicted?"

My mother sighed.

"What did she predict?" asked M. Danré.

"She said," I replied, "'I cannot tell you what your son will become, madame; I can only see him, through clouds and flashes of lightning, like a traveller who is crossing high mountains, reaching a height to which few men attain. I do not say he will command people, but I foresee he will speak to them; although I cannot indicate the precise lines of his destiny, your son belongs to that class of men whom we style RULERS.' 'My son is to become a king, then?' my mother laughingly retorted. 'No, no, but something similar, something perhaps more desirable: every king has not a crown on his head and a sceptre in his hand.' 'So much the better,' said my mother; 'I never envied the lot of Madame Bonaparte.' I was five years old, Monsieur Danré, I was present when my horoscope was made; well--I will prove the gipsy to be in the right. You know that prophecies are not always fulfilled because they must be fulfilled, but because they put a fixed idea into the minds of those about whom they are made which influences events, which modifies circumstances, which finally brings them to the end aimed at; because this end was revealed to them in advance, whilst, had it not been for the revelation, they would have passed by the end without noticing it."

"I should like to know where he got all these notions from!" my mother exclaimed.

"Oh, why, from his own thoughts," said M. Danré.

"Then is it your judgment, too, that he ought to go?"

"I advise it."

"But you know the poor lad's resources!"

"Fifty francs and his carriage fare paid."

"Well?"

"That will be enough, if he is to succeed, or if his destiny urges him on as he says. If he had a million, he would not obtain what he wishes to obtain so long as he had no vocation for it."

"Well, well, he had better go, if he is so set on it."

"When shall I go, mother?"

"When you like. Only, you must let us have a day together first."

"Listen, mother mine. I will stay all to-day, to-morrow and Saturday with you. On Saturday night I will leave by the ten o'clock coach: I shall reach Paris by five.... I shall have time to get to Adolphe's house before he goes out."

"Ah!" said my mother, as she heaved a sigh, "he is the one who has led you astray!"

I did not much heed the sigh, because I felt sure the engagement made would be fulfilled. I began to make my round of farewells.

I had not seen Adèle since her marriage. I would not write to her: the letter might be opened by her husband, and compromise her. I applied to Louise Brézette, our friend in common. Alas! I found the poor child in tears. Chollet, whose education in forestry was finished, had been obliged to return to his parents, and he had carried off with him all the young girl's first dreams of love: she was forlorn and inconsolable; she mourned the whole of her life for her lover, and bore the marks of her love-sickness. I quoted the example of Ariadne to her, advising her to follow it, and I believe ... I believe she followed it, and that I contributed, in some measure, towards inducing her to follow it....

Poor beloved children! true and affectionate friends of my youth! my life is now so much taken up, the hours that belong to me are so few, I am common property to such an extent, that when, by chance, I go home, or you come here, I cannot give you all the time that the claims of love and of memory demand. But when I shall have won a few of those hours of repose in search of which Théaulon spent his life, and which he never found, oh! I promise you those hours shall be given to you unquestionably, unshared by others. You have ample claims to demand the leisure of my old age, and you will make my latter days to flourish as in my springtime. For there are closed tombs there which draw me as much, more even, than open houses; dead friends who talk to me more clearly than do the living.

When I left Louise, I went to Maître Mennesson; I had always kept on pretty good terms with him. But, since our separation, he had married. I think his marriage made him more sceptical than ever.

"Ah!" he said, when he caught sight of me, "so there you are!"

"Yes; I have come to bid you good-bye."

"You have decided to go, then?"

"On Saturday night."

"And how much do you take with you?"

"Fifty francs."

"My dear lad, there are people who started on less than that--M. Laffitte, for example."

"Yes, exactly so. I mean to pay him a call, and to ask him for a post in his office."

"Well, then, if you find a pin on his carpet, do not fail to pick it up and to put it on his mantelpiece."

"Why?"

"Because when M. Laffitte arrived in Paris, much poorer even than you, he went to see M. Perregaux, just as you are going to call on M. Laffitte; he went to ask for a place in his office, as you are going to ask for one in his. M. Perregaux had no vacancy; he dismissed M. Laffitte, who was going away, his eyes looking down sadly on the floor as father Aubry's were inclined towards the grave, when he perceived a pin, not on the earth but on the carpet. M. Laffitte was a tidy man: he picked up the pin and put it on the mantelpiece, saying, 'Pardon me, monsieur.' But M. Perregaux, be it known, was a person who noticed every little thing: he reflected that a young man who would pick up a pin from the ground must be an orderly person, and, as M. Laffitte was going away, he said to him, 'I have been thinking, monsieur, stay.' 'But you told me you had no opening in your office.' 'If there is not one, we will make one for you.' M. Perregaux did as a matter of fact make room for him--as his partner."

"That is a very delightful story, dear Monsieur Mennesson, and I thank you for your great kindness in relating it to me; but I am afraid it is no good to me; for, unluckily, I am no picker up of pins."

"Ah! that is precisely your great fault."

"Or my strongest point ... we shall see. Therefore, if you have any good advice to give me...?"

"Beware of priests, hate the Bourbons, and remember that the only state worthy of a great nation is a Republic."

"My dear Monsieur Mennesson, reversing the order of your advice, I would say: Yes, I am of your opinion as to the government which is most suited to a great nation, and on the supposition that if I am anything I am a Republican like yourself. As for the Bourbons, I neither love them nor hate them. I have heard it said that their race produced a holy king, a good one and a great one: Saint Louis, Henri IV. and Louis XIV. Only, the last reigning sovereign returned to France riding behind a Cossack; that, I believe, damaged the Bourbon cause in the eyes of France; so it comes about that if some day my voice is needed to hasten their going away, and my gun to assist their departure, those who are driving them out will find one voice and one gun the more. As to distrusting priests, I have only known but one, the Abbé Grégoire, and as he seemed to me the model of all Christian virtues, until I encounter a bad one, let me believe that all are good."

"Well, well, you will change all that."

"It is possible. Meanwhile, give me your hand: I am going to ask for his blessing."

"Go, then, and much good may it do you!"

"I believe it will."

I went to the abbé.

"Well, well," he said, "so you are going to leave us?"

It will be seen that the rumour of my departure had already spread all over the place.

"Yes, M. l'abbé, and I have come to ask you to remember me in your prayers."

"Oh! my prayers? I thought that was the thing you cared least about."

"M. l'abbé, do you remember the day I made my first communion?"

"Yes, I know, it produced a profound impression on you, but you let it stay at that, and you have never been seen at church since."

"Do you suppose the sacrament would have the same effect on me at the tenth time as on the first?"

"Ah! my God, no, certainly not. Unhappily, one gets accustomed to everything in this world."

"Very well, M. l'abbé, my other impressions would have effaced that. One must not get too used to sacred things, M. l'abbé; frequent use of them not only takes away their grandeur, but still more their efficacy. Who told you once that I should only need the consolation of the Church in great trouble, as one only requires bleeding in serious illness?" "You have a curious way of putting things...."

"Well, M. l'abbé, you said it yourself, more than once: we must treat men less according to their maladies than according to their temperaments. I am impressionability personified. I have an impulsive character, you yourself told me so. I shall commit all kinds of mistakes, all kinds of follies--never a wicked or disgraceful action. Not, indeed, because I am better than anyone else; but because bad and dishonourable actions are the result of reflection and of calculation, and when I act, it is on the spur of the moment; and this impulse is so quick, that the action springing from it is done before I have had time to consider the consequences or to calculate the results."--

"There is some truth in what you say: but come, what is the use of giving any advice to a character of your calibre?"

"Well, I did not come to ask for your advice, dear abbé; I came to beg your prayers."

"Prayers?.... You do not believe in them."

"Ah! pardon, that is another matter.... No, true, I have not always had faith in them; but do not be troubled: on the day when I shall have need to believe in them, I shall believe in them. Listen: when I took my communion, had I not read in Voltaire that it was a curious sort of God that needed to be digested? and, in Pigault-Lebrun, that the Host was nothing more than a wafer double the thickness of an ordinary wafer? Well, did that prevent me feeling a trembling that shook my whole body, when the Host touched my lips? Did it prevent the tears springing into my eyes, tears of humility, tears of thankfulness, above all, tears of love towards God? Do you not believe that God prefers a generous heart which abandons itself utterly to Him when it is too full, to a niggardly heart which only yields itself drop by drop? Should not prayer come from the depths of the soul, rather than consist of the words of one's lips? Do you believe God will be angry if I forget Him during ordinary daily life, as one forgets the beating of one's heart, so long as I return to Him at every time of trouble or of joy? No M. l'abbé, no; on the contrary, I believe God loves me, and that is why I forget Him, just as one forgets a good father whom one is always sure of."

"Well," replied the abbé, "it matters little to me if you forget God; but I do not want you to doubt His existence."

"Oh! be at rest on that point: it is not the hunter who ever doubts the existence of God--no man does who has spent whole nights in the moonlit woods, who has studied Nature, from the elephant down to the mite, who has watched the setting and the rising of the sun, who has heard the songs of the birds, their evening laments and their morning hymns of praise!"

"Then all will be well.... Now, you know, there is a text in the Gospels which is short and easy to remember; make it the foundation of your actions and you need not fear failure; this text, which ought to be engraved in letters of gold over the entry to every town, over the entry to every house, over the entry to every heart, is:'_Do not do unto others that ye would not have them do to you._' And when philosophers, cavillers, libertines, say to you, 'Confucius has a maxim better than that, as follows: Do unto others what you would have them do to you,' reply, 'No, it is not better!--for it is false in its application; one cannot always do what one would like others to do to oneself, whilst one can always abstain from doing what one would not like them to do to oneself.' Come, kiss me and let us leave matters here.... We could not say anything better than that."

And, with these words, we embraced warmly, and I left him.

The next day but one, after having made my last visit to the cemetery,--a pious pilgrimage which my mother made almost every day, and in which, this time, I accompanied her,--we wended our way towards the _Hôtel de la Boule d'or_ where the passing coach was to pick me up and take me away to Paris. At half-past nine we heard the sound of the wheels; my mother and I had still another half-hour together. We retired into a room where we were alone, and we wept together; but our tears were from different causes. My mother wept in doubt, I wept in hope. We could neither of us see the hand of God; but very certainly God was present and His grace was with us.