Part 26

(24.) Onuphriusʼ bed[727] has only grey serge valances, but he sleeps on flock and down; he also wears plain but comfortable clothes, I mean, made of a light material in summer, and of very soft cloth in winter; his body-linen is very fine, but he takes very good care not to show it; he does not call out for his “hair-shirt and scourge,”[728] for then he would show himself in his true colours, as a hypocrite, whilst he intends to pass for what he is not, for a religious man; however, he acts in such a way that people believe, without his telling it them, that he wears a hair-shirt and scourges himself. Several books lie about his apartments, such as the “Spiritual Fight,” the “Inward Christian,” the “Holy Year;”[729] his other books are under lock and key; if he goes along the streets and perceives from afar a man to whom he ought to seem devout, downcast looks, a slow and demure gait, and a contemplative air are at his command; he plays his part. If he enters a church, he observes whose eyes are upon him, and accordingly kneels down and prays, or else, never thinks of kneeling down and praying; if he sees an honest man and a man of authority approach him, by whom he is sure to be perceived, and who, perhaps, may hear him, he not only prays but meditates, has outbursts of devotion, and sighs aloud; but as soon as this honest man is gone, he becomes calm, and does not say a single word more. Another time he enters a chapel, rushes through the crowd, and chooses a spot to commune with himself, and where everybody may see how he humbles himself;[730] if he hears any courtiers speaking or laughing loud, and behave in chapel more boisterously than they would in an ante-chamber,[731] he makes a greater noise than they to silence them, and returns to his meditations, in which he always disdainfully compares those persons to himself, to his own advantage. He avoids an empty church where he could hear two masses one after another, as well as a sermon, vespers, and compline, with no one between God and himself, without any other witnesses, and without any one thanking him for it; but he likes his own parish, and frequents those churches where the greatest number of people congregate, for there he does not labour in vain and is observed. He chooses two or three days of the year to fast in or to abstain from meat, without any occasion; but at the end of the winter he coughs; there is something wrong with his chest, he is more or less splenetic,[732] and feels very feverish; people entreat him, urge him, and even quarrel with him to compel him to break his fast as soon as it has begun, and he obeys them out of politeness. If Onuphrius is chosen as an umpire by relatives who have quarrelled, or in a lawsuit amongst members of one and the same family, he always takes the side of the strongest, I mean the wealthiest, and cannot be convinced that any person of property can ever be in the wrong. If he is comfortable at the house of a rich man whom he can deceive, whose parasite he is, and from whom he may derive great advantages, he never cajoles his patronʼs wife, nor makes the least advances to her, nor declares his love;[733] but rather avoids her, and will leave his cloak behind,[734] unless he is as sure of her as he is of himself; still less will he make use of devotional[735] cant to flatter and seduce her, for he does not employ it habitually, but intentionally, when it suits him, and never when it would only make him ridiculous. He knows where to find ladies more sociable and pliable than his friendʼs wife; and very seldom absents himself from these ladies for any length of time, if it were only to have it publicly stated that he has gone into religious retirement; for who can doubt the truth of this report, when people see him reappear quite emaciated, like one who has, not spared himself?

Moreover, those women who improve and thrive under the shelter of piety[736] suit him, but with this trifling difference, that he neglects those who are declining in years, and courts the young, and amongst these is only attracted by the best looking and the finest shape; he goes where they go, and returns when they return, and if they stay anywhere he stays there also; he has the consolation of seeing them at all times and places, and nobody needs be shocked about this, for they are devout, and so is he. Onuphrius is sure to make the best use he can of his friendʼs cecity and of his prepossession; sometimes he borrows money of him; at other times he acts so artfully that his friend offers to lend him some; people are very angry with him because he does not apply to his other friends when he needs money; now and then he refuses to receive a small sum unless he gives his note of hand for it, though he is quite certain never to take it up; at another time he says, with a certain air, he is not in want of anything, and that is, when he only needs a trifling amount; and on a certain occasion he publicly extols the generosity of his friend, on purpose to induce him to give him a considerable sum. He does not expect to succeed to the whole of the real estate of his friend, nor to get a deed of gift of all his property, especially if the son, the right and lawful heir, has to be set aside.[737] A pious man is neither a miser, nor prejudiced, unjust, nor selfish; and, though Onuphrius is not a pious man, he wishes to be thought one, and perfectly to imitate piety, though he does not feel it, in order secretly to forward his interests; he, therefore, would never aim at robbing the direct heirs of any family, nor insinuate himself where there is a daughter to portion, and a son to establish;[738] he knows their rights are too strong and inviolable to be upset without loud clamours, which he dreads, and without such an undertaking coming to the ears of the prince,[739] from whom he conceals his intrigues for fear of his true character being discovered. He selects collateral heirs, whom he can attack with greater impunity, and is the terror of male and female cousins, nephews and nieces, and of the flatterers and professed friends of all rich uncles; he gives himself out to be the legitimate heir of every wealthy old man who dies without issue, and who will have to disinherit him, if he wishes his relatives to get possession of his estate. If Onuphrius does not find means[740] to deprive them of the whole, he will, at least, rob them of a good share of it; a trifling calumny or even the slightest slander are sufficient for this pious purpose, and, indeed, Onuphrius is a perfect master of the art of slandering, and considers it sometimes his duty not to let it lie dormant, for there are men and women whom, according to him, he must decry for conscienceʼ sake; and these are the people he does not like, whom he wishes to harm, and whose spoils he desires to get hold of. He compasses his ends without so much as opening his mouth; some persons talk to him of Eudoxus, he smiles or he weeps; they ask him why he does so, and they ask him again and again, but he does not reply; and he is right, for he has said quite enough.

(25.) “Laugh, Zelia,[741] be gay and frolicsome as you used to be. What has become of your mirth?” “I am wealthy,” you reply, “I can do as I please, and I begin to breathe freely.” “Laugh louder, Zelia, and louder still; what is the use of more riches if it makes you thoughtful and sad? Imitate the great, who are born in the lap of luxury; they laugh sometimes, and yield to their inclination; follow therefore yours, and do not let it be said that a new place, or a few thousand _livres_ a year more or less, drive you from one extreme to another.” “I only value favour because I can be thoughtful and sad,” you answer. “I thought so, Zelia; but, believe me, do not leave off laughing, and smile on me, when I pass, as you did formerly: fear nothing; I shall not have a worse opinion of you and your post; I shall as firmly believe that you are wealthy and a favourite as well.” “I have decided religious opinions,” you answer. “Thatʼs quite enough, Zelia; and I ought to remember that persons whose conscience is at rest no longer care to show a calm and joyful countenance; gloomy and austere feelings are in the ascendancy and outwardly displayed; but such feelings proceed still further, and we are no longer surprised to observe that piety[742] makes a woman still more proud and disdainful than beauty and youth.”

(26.) Arts and sciences have been greatly improved during this century, and have become highly refined; even salvation has now been reduced to rule and method, and to it have been added the most beautiful and sublime inventions of the human understanding. Devotion and geometry have each their own phraseology, or what are called “artistic expressions,” and a person who ignores them is neither devout nor a mathematician. The first devout men, even those who were taught by the apostles, did not know them; those simple-minded people only had faith, practised good works, merely believed, and led righteous lives.

(27.) It is a delicate thing for a prince to reform his court and to introduce piety;[743] for knowing to what extent courtiers will carry their complaisance, and that they will make any sacrifices to advance their interests, he manages them with prudence, bears with them and dissembles, lest they should be driven to hypocrisy or sacrilege; he expects that Providence and time will be more successful than his zeal and his activity are.

(28.) Already in ancient times courts granted pensions and bestowed favours on musicians, dancing-masters, buffoons, flute-players, flatterers, and sycophants; they possess undoubted merits, and their talents are recognised and well known, for they amuse the great and give them a little breathing-time during the intervals of grandeur. It is well known that Fabien is a fine dancer, and that Lorenzani[744] composes beautiful anthems; but who can tell if a pious man be really virtuous? There is no pension to be got for him from the kingʼs private purse, nor from the public treasury; and this is quite right, for piety is easy to counterfeit; and if it were rewarded, it would expose the prince to honour dissimulation and knavery, and to pension a hypocrite.

(29.) It is to be hoped the piety of the court, such as it is, will at least oblige prelates to reside in their dioceses.[745]

(30.) I am convinced that true piety is the source from which repose flows; it renders life bearable and death without sting; hypocrisy does not possess such advantages.

(31.) Every hour in itself, and in respect to us, is unique; when once it is gone, it is entirely lost, and millions of ages will not bring it back again; days, months, and years, are swallowed up and irrevocably lost in the abyss of time; time itself shall be destroyed; it is but a point in the immense space of eternity, and will be erased. There are several slight and frivolous periods of time which are unstable, pass away, and may be called fashions, such as grandeur, favour, riches, power, authority, independence, pleasure, joy and superfluities. What will become of such fashions when time itself shall have disappeared? Virtue alone, now so little in fashion, will last longer than time.

XIV.

OF CERTAIN CUSTOMS.

(1.) Certain people want a fortune to become ennobled.[746]

Some of these would have been ennobled[747] if they could have put off their creditors half a year longer.

Others, again, are commoners when they lay down, and rise noblemen.[748]

How many noblemen are there whose relatives are commoners?

(2.) Some man disowns his father, who is known to keep an office or a shop, and only mentions his grandfather, who has been dead this long time, is unknown and cannot be found now; he enjoys a large income, has a grand post, great connections, and wants nothing but a title to become a nobleman.

(3.) Formerly the words “granting letters of nobility” were considered good French and habitually employed, but now they have become antiquated and out of date, and the courts of justice use the word “rehabilitation.”[749] To rehabilitate supposes a wealthy man to be of noble descent,—for it is absolutely requisite he should be so,—and also his father to have forfeited the title by ploughing, digging, by becoming a pedlar, or by having been a lackey; it also supposes that the son only desires to be restored to the rights of his ancestors, and to wear the coat of arms his family always wore, though, perhaps, one of his own invention, and quite different from that on his old pewter ware; thus the granting of letters of nobility does not apply to his case, for they only confer an honour on a commoner, that is, on a man who has not yet discovered the secret of becoming rich.

(4.) A man of the people, by often affirming he was present when some prodigy happened, persuades himself that he has really seen it; another person, by concealing his age, comes to believe at last he is as young as he would be thought; and thus a commoner, who habitually asserts he is descended from some ancient baron, or from some noble lord, has the ideal pleasure of fancying himself of such illustrious descent.

(5.) What man is there, however meanly born, who having acquired some fortune, can be in want of a coat of arms, and with this coat, heraldic devices of the highest rank, a crest, supporters, a motto, and perhaps a war-cry? What is become of the distinction between head-pieces and helmets? They are no longer in use and not even mentioned; it does no more matter if they are worn in front or profile, open or closed, and with more or less bars; such niceties are out of date; coronets are worn, which is far simpler, for people think they deserve wearing them, and, therefore, bestow them on themselves. Some of the better sort of citizens have still a little shamefacedness left which prevents them using the coronet of a marquess, and they content themselves with an earlʼs, whilst a few do not even go a long way for their coat of arms, but take it from their signboards to put it on their carriages.[750]

(6.) Provided a person is not born in a city, but in some lonely thatched house in the country, or in some ruins in the midst of marshes, dignified with the name of castle, he will be taken for a nobleman upon his own affirmation.

(7.) A man of noble descent wishes to pass for a small lord, and he compasses his end; a great lord pretends to be a prince, and employs so many precautions that, thanks to some fine appellations, quarrels about rank and precedence, and a genealogy not recognised by DʼHozier,[751] he at last is allowed to be a petty prince.

(8.) In everything great men mould themselves, and follow the example of people of higher rank, who, on their side, that they may have nothing in common with their inferiors, willingly abandon all honorific appellations and distinctions with which their rank is burdened, and instead of their slavery prefer a life of more freedom and ease.[752] Those who follow their steps vie already to observe the same simplicity and modesty. And thus, through a feeling of pride, all will condescend to live naturally and as the people do. How horribly inconvenient they must feel!

(9.) Some people are so fond of names that they have three for fear of wanting some; one for the country, another for the town, and a third which they use when on duty or in their office; others have a dissyllabic name which they ennoble by the particle “du” or “de” as soon as their circumstances improve; some, again, by suppressing a syllable make a name illustrious which was before obscure; by changing one letter of his name another person disguises himself, and he who formerly was Syrus becomes Cyrus.[753] Many suppress their whole names, though far from ignominious, to adopt others which sound better, and by which they get nothing but to be always compared to the great men from whom those names are borrowed. Finally, there are some, who, though born within the walls of Paris, pretend to be Flemish or Italian, as if every country had not its commoners, lengthen their French names, and give them a foreign termination, as if names were the better for being far-fetched.[754]

(10.) The want of money has reconciled the nobility to the commoners, and put an end to all disputes about the quartering of escutcheons.[755]

(11.) How many persons would be gainers by a law which should decree that nobility can be inherited from the motherʼs side, but how many more would be losers by it.[756]

(12.) There are few families but who are related to the greatest princes as well as to the common people.

(13.) There is nothing lost by being a nobleman; those who have a title neither want franchises, immunities, exemptions, privileges. Do you think it was purely for the pleasure of being ennobled that certain monks have obtained a title? They are not so foolish; it is only for the advantages they receive from it. It is, after all, much better than to get money by having an interest in farming the salt tax, and that not alone for every individual of the community, for it is against their vows, but even for the community itself.[757]

(14.) I here declare openly and desire all men to take notice of it, that none may hereafter be surprised: if ever any great man will think me worthy of his patronage, if ever I happen to make my fortune, I then shall claim descent from a certain Godfrey de la Bruyère, whom all chronicles of France mention as one of the many French noblemen of the highest rank who followed Godfrey of Bouillon to conquer the Holy Land.[758]

(15.) If nobility be virtue, a flagitious man loses his title; and if it be not virtue, is a very trifling thing.

(16.) Certain things are astonishing and incomprehensible if we consider their principles and why they were established. Who could imagine, for example, that these _abbés_ who dress and are as effeminate and vain as any man or woman of rank can well be, and who vie for the ladiesʼ favours with a marquess or a financier, and defeat them both, were originally and etymologically the fathers and heads of holy monks and humble anchorites to whom they should be exemplars. How powerful, how absolute, how tyrannical is custom! And, not to mention greater irregularities, is it not to be feared that one day or other some young _abbés_ will figure in grey-flowered velvet dresses like a certain cardinal, or will paint and wear patches like women?[759]

(17.) That the obscenities of the gods, the Venus, the Ganymede, and all the other nudities of Carracci are represented on pictures painted for certain princes of the Church who style themselves successors of the apostles, may be proved by visiting the palace of the Farnese.[760]

(18.) A thing, however handsome, loses somewhat of its beauty by being out of place; decorum adds a certain perfection and is based on reason; thus we never behold a jig danced in a chapel,[761] or hear stagey elocution in the pulpit; whilst no profane imagery is seen in churches, nor a crucifix and a picture of the Judgment of Paris[762] in these same holy places, nor the dress and retinue of a military man in a churchman.[763]

(19.) Shall I freely declare my thoughts about what the world calls a fine morning choral service, decorations often profane, places reserved and paid for, books distributed as in the theatre,[764] frequent assignations and interviews, deafening murmurings and talk, a certain person mounted in the pulpit, who holds forth in a familiar and jejune manner, without any other ambition than to get the people together and to amuse them until an orchestra begins to play, and, shall I say it, until singers are heard who have rehearsed for a considerable time? Does it become me to exclaim that I burn with zeal for the Lordʼs house? and must I draw aside the slender curtain which covers those mysteries, witnesses of such gross indecencies? What! must I call all this the church service because they do not yet dance at the TT....[765]

(20.) We hear of no vows nor pilgrimages made to any saint, in order to attain a higher degree of benignity, a more grateful heart, to be more just and less evil-doing, and to be cured of vanity, restless activity, and a propensity for buffoonery?

(21.) What can be more eccentric than for a number of Christians of both sexes to meet on certain days in a large room to applaud and reward a company of excommunicated persons, who are only excommunicated for the very pleasure they give, and for which already they have been paid beforehand? Methinks either all theatres should be shut or a less severe anathema be fulminated against actors.[766]

(22.) On those days which are called holy a monk confesses, while the vicar thunders from the pulpit against the monk and his followers. A pious woman leaves the altar and then hears the preacher state in his sermon that she has committed sacrilege. Has the church no power either to make a clergyman hold his peace, or to suspend for a time the authority of a Barnabite?[767]

(23.) The fees in a parish church are higher for a marriage than for a christening, and amount to more for a christening than for confession; people would think them a tax laid upon the sacraments, which seem to be appreciated _ad valorem_; yet, after all, this is not the case; and those persons who receive money for these holy things do not think they sell them, whilst those who pay for them as little think they purchase them. Such an appearance of evil might indeed be avoided as well for the sake of the weak as for that of the scoffers.

(24.) A ruddy and quite healthy-looking parish priest,[768] wearing fine linen and Venice lace, has his seat in church near the cardinals and the doctors of divinity,[769] where he finishes to digest his dinner, whilst certain Bernardine or Franciscan monks come out of their cells or deserts to which decency and their own vows should confine them, to preach before him and his flock, and to be paid for their sermons as if they were vendible commodities. You will not let me continue, and you remark: “That such a censure is novel and unexpected, and that this shepherd and his flock ought not to be deprived from hearing the Word of God and receiving the bread of life.” “By no means, I would have him himself preach that word as well as administer that bread morning and evening, in the churches, in the houses, on the market-places, from the housetops, and have none assume such a grand and laborious office but with intentions, capacities, and physical strength deserving of the handsome offerings and wealthy emoluments belonging to it. However, I am compelled to excuse the vicarʼs conduct, for it is customary, and he found it already established and will transmit it to his successors; but still I must blame this strange, unreasonable, and unwarrantable custom, whilst I approve still less the habit of his being paid four times for the same funeral, once for himself, a second time as his fees, a third for his being present, and a fourth for his officiating.”

(25.) Titus served the church these twenty years in a small living, and is not yet held worthy of a better which becomes vacant; neither his talents, knowledge, his exemplary life, nor the wishes of his parishioners are sufficient to get him promoted; another clergyman starts up, as it were, from underground, and he obtains the preference; Titus is sent back and put off, but he does not complain, for custom will have it so.