Les Misérables, v. 3

As for the priests, there was the Abbé Halma, the same to whom M. Larose, his fellow-contributor on la Foudre, said, "Stuff, who is not fifty years of age? a few hobble-de-hoys, perhaps." Then came the Abbé Letourneur, preacher to the King; the Abbé Frayssinous, who at that time was neither Bishop, Count, Minister, nor Peer, and who wore a soutane, from which buttons were absent; and the Abbé Keravenant, Curé of St. Germain des Prés. To them must be added the Papal Nuncio, at that date Monsignore Macchi, Archbishop of Nisibi, afterwards Cardinal, and remarkable for his long pensive nose; and another Monsignore, whose titles ran as follow: Abbate Palmieri, domestic Prelate, one of the seven Prothonotaries sharing in the Holy See, Canon of the glorious Liberian Basilica, and advocate of the Saints, postulatore Dei Santi, an office relating to matters of canonization, and meaning very nearly, Referendary to the department of Paradise. Finally, two Cardinals, M. de la Luzerne, and M. de Cl – T – . The Cardinal de Luzerne was an author, and was destined to have the honor a few years later of signing articles in the Conservateur side by side with Chateaubriand; M. de Cl – T – , was Archbishop of Toulouse, and frequently spent the summer in Paris with his nephew the Marquis de T – , who had been Minister of the Navy and of War. The Cardinal de Cl – T – was a merry little old gentleman, who displayed his red stockings under his tucked-up cassock. His specialty was hating the Encyclopædia and playing madly at billiards; and persons who on summer evenings passed along the Rue M – , where M. de Cl – T – then resided, stopped to listen to the sound of the balls and the sharp voice of the Cardinal crying to his Conclavist Monseigneur Cottret, Bishop in partibus of Caryste, "Mark me a carom, Abbé." The Cardinal de Cl – T – had been introduced to Madame de T – by his most intimate friend, M. de Roquelaure, ex-Bishop of Senlis and one of the Forty. M. de Roquelaure was remarkable for his great height and his assiduity at the Academy. Through the glass door of the room adjoining the library, in which the French Academy at that time met, curious persons could contemplate every Thursday the ex-Bishop of Senlis, usually standing with hair freshly powdered, in violet stockings, and turning his back to the door, apparently to display his little collar the better. All these ecclesiastics, although mostly courtiers as much as churchmen, added to the gravity of the salon, to which five Peers of France, the Marquis de Vib – , the Marquis de Tal – , the Marquis d'Herb – , the Vicomte Damb – , and the Duc de Val – , imparted the lordly tone. This Duc de Val – , though Prince de Mon – , that is to say, a foreign sovereign prince, had so lofty an idea of France and the Peerage, that he looked at everything through them. It was he who said, "The Cardinals are the French Peers of Rome, and the Lords are the French Peers of England." Still, as in the present age the Revolution must be everywhere, this feudal salon was ruled, as we have seen, by M. Gillenormand, a bourgeois.

It was the essence and quintessence of white Parisian society, and reputations, even Royalist ones, were kept in quarantine there, for there is always anarchy in reputation. Had Chateaubriand come in he would have produced the effect of Père Duchêne. Some converts, however, entered this orthodox society through a spirit of toleration. Thus the Comte Beug – was admitted for the purpose of correction. The "noble" salons of the present day in no way resemble the one which I am describing, for the Royalists of to-day, let us say it in their praise, are demagogues. At Madame de T – 's the society was superior, and the taste exquisite and haughty beneath a grand bloom of politeness. The habits there displayed all sorts of involuntary refinement, which was the ancient régime itself, which lived though interred. Some of these habits, especially in conversation, seemed whimsical, and superficial persons would have taken for provincialism what was merely antiquated. They called a lady "Madame la Générale," and "Madame la Colonelle" had not entirely been laid aside. The charming Madame de Léon, doubtless remembering the Duchesses de Longueville and de Chevreuse, preferred that appellation to her title of Princess, and the Marquise de Créquy was also called "Madame la Colonelle."

It was this small high society which invented at the Tuileries the refinement of always speaking of the King in the third person, and never saying, "Your Majesty," as that qualification had been "sullied by the usurper." Facts and men were judged there, and the age was ridiculed – which saved the trouble of comprehending it. They assisted one another in amazement, and communicated mutually the amount of enlightenment they possessed. Methusalem instructed Epimenides, – the deaf put the blind straight. The time which had elapsed since Coblenz was declared not to have passed, and in the same way as Louis XVIII. was Dei gratia in the twenty-fifth year of his reign, the émigrés were de jure in the twenty-fifth year of their adolescence.

Everything harmonized there: no one was too lively, the speech was like a breath, and the newspapers, in accordance with the salon, seemed a papyrus. The liveries in the ante-room were old, and these personages who had completely passed away were served by footmen of the same character. All this had the air of having lived a long time and obstinately struggling against the tomb. To Conserve, Conservation, Conservative, represented nearly their entire dictionary, and "to be in good odor" was the point. There were really aromatics in the opinions of these venerable groups, and their ideas smelt of vervain. It was a mummy world, in which the masters were embalmed and the servants stuffed. A worthy old Marchioness, ruined by the emigration, who had only one woman-servant left, continued to say, "My people."

What did they do in Madame de T – 's salon? They were ultra. This remark, though what it represent has possibly not disappeared, has no meaning at the present day, so let us explain it To be ultra is going beyond; it is attacking the sceptre in the name of the throne and the mitre in the name of the altar; it is mismanaging the affair you have in hand; it is kicking over the traces; it is disputing with the executioner about the degree of roasting which heretics should undergo; it is reproaching the idol for its want of idolatry; it is insulting through excess of respect; it is finding in the Pope insufficient Papism, in the King too little royalty, and too much light in the night; it is being dissatisfied with alabaster, snow, the swan, and the lily, on behalf of whiteness; it is being a partisan of things to such a pitch that you become their enemy; it is being so strong for, that you become against.

The ultra spirit specially characterizes the first phase of the Restoration. Nothing in history ever resembled that quarter of an hour which begins in 1814 and terminates in 1820, with the accession of M. de Villèle, the practical man of the Right. These six years were an extraordinary moment, at once noisy and silent, silent and gloomy, enlightened, as it were, by a beam of dawn, and covered, at the same time, by the darkness of the great catastrophe which still filled the horizon, and was slowly sinking into the past. There was in this light and this shadow an old society and a new society, buffoon and melancholy, juvenile and senile, and rubbing its eyes, for nothing is so like a re-awaking as a return. There were groups that regarded France angrily and which France regarded ironically; the streets full of honest old Marquis-owls, returned and returning, "ci-devants," stupefied by everything; brave and noble gentlemen smiling at being in France and also weeping at it, ravished at seeing their country again, and in despair at not finding their monarchy; the nobility of the Crusades spitting on the nobility of the Empire, that is to say, of the sword; historic races that had lost all feeling of history; the sons of the companions of Charlemagne disdaining the companions of Napoleon. The swords, as we have said, hurled insults at one another; the sword of Fontenoy was ridiculous, and only a bar of rusty iron; the sword of Marengo was odious, and only a sabre. The olden times misunderstood yesterday, and no one had a feeling of what is great or what is ridiculous. Some one was found to call Bonaparte Scapin. This world no longer exists, and nothing connected with it, let us repeat, remains at the present day. When we draw out of it some figure hap-hazard, and try to bring it to bear again mentally, it seems to us as strange as the antediluvian world; and, in fact, it was also swallowed up by a deluge and disappeared under two revolutions. What waves ideas are! How quickly do they cover whatever they have a mission to destroy and bury, and how promptly do they produce unknown depths!

Such was the physiognomy of the salon in those distant and candid days when M. Martainville had more wit than Voltaire. These salons had a literature and politics of their own: people in them believed in Fiévée, and M. Agier laid down the law there. M. Colnet, the publisher and bookseller of the Quai Malaquais, was commented on, and Napoleon was fully the ogre of Corsica there. At a later date the introduction into history of M. le Marquis de Buonaparté, Lieutenant-General of the armies of the King, was a concession to the spirit of the age. These salons did not long remain pure, and in 1818 a few doctrinaires, a very alarming tinge, began to culminate in them. In matters of which the ultras were very proud, the doctrinaires were somewhat ashamed; they had wit, they had silence, their political dogma was properly starched with hauteur, and they must succeed. They carried white neck-cloths and buttoned coats to an excessive length, though it was useful. The fault or misfortune of the doctrinaire party was in creating old youth: they assumed the posture of sages, and dreamed of grafting a temperate power upon the absolute and excessive principle. They opposed, and at times with rare sense, demolishing liberalism by conservative liberalism; and they might be heard saying: "Have mercy on Royalism, for it has rendered more than one service. It brought back traditions, worship, religion, and respect. It is faithful, true, chivalrous, loving, and devoted, and has blended, though reluctantly, the secular grandeurs of the Monarchy with the new grandeurs of the nation. It is wrong in not understanding the Revolution, the Empire, glory, liberty, young ideas, young generations, and the age; but do we not sometimes act quite as wrongly against it? The Revolution of which we are the heirs ought to be on good terms with everything. Attacking the Royalists is the contrary of liberalism; what a fault and what blindness! Revolutionary France fails in its respect to historic France; that is to say, to its mother, to itself. After September 5th, the nobility of the Monarchy were treated like the nobility of the Empire after July 8th; they were unjust to the eagle and we are unjust to the fleur-de-lys. There must be, then, always something to proscribe! Is it very useful to ungild the crown of Louis XIV., and scratch off the escutcheon of Henri IV.? We sneer at M. de Vaublanc, who effaced the N's from the bridge of Jena; but he only did what we are doing. Bouvines belongs to us as much as Marengo, and the fleur-de-lys are ours, like the N's. They constitute our patrimony; then why should we diminish it? The country must be no more denied in the past than in the present; why should we not have a grudge with the whole of history? Why should we not love the whole of France?" It was thus that the doctrinaires criticised and protected the Royalists, who were dissatisfied at being criticised, and furious at being protected.

The ultras marked the first epoch of the Revolution, and the Congregation characterized the second; skill succeeded impetuosity. Let us close our sketch at this point.

In the course of his narrative, the author of this book found on his road this curious moment of contemporary history, and thought himself bound to take a passing glance at it, and retrace some of the singular features of this society, which is unknown at the present day. But he has done so rapidly, and without any bitter or derisive idea, for affectionate and respectful reminiscences, connected with his mother, attach him to this past. Moreover, let him add, this little world had a grandeur of its own, and though we may smile at it, we cannot despise or hate it. It was the France of other days.

Marius Pontmercy, like most children, received some sort of education. When he left the hands of Aunt Gillenormand, his grandfather intrusted him to a worthy professor of the finest classical innocence. This young mind, just expanding, passed from a prude to a pedant. Marius spent some years at college, and then entered the law-school; he was royalist, fanatic, and austere. He loved but little his grandfather, whose gayety and cynicism ruffled him, and he was gloomy as regarded his father. In other respects, he was an ardent yet cold, noble, generous, proud, religious, and exalted youth; worthy almost to harshness, and fierce almost to savageness.

CHAPTER IV

THE END OF THE BRIGAND

The conclusion of Marius's classical studies coincided with M. Gillenormand's retirement from society; the old gentleman bade farewell to the Faubourg St. Germain and Madame de T – 's drawing-room, and proceeded to establish himself in the Marais at his house in the Rue des Filles du Calvaire. His servants were, in addition to the porter, that Nicolette who succeeded Magnon, and that wheezing, short-winded Basque, to whom we have already alluded. In 1827 Marius attained his seventeenth year; on coming home one evening he saw his grandfather holding a letter in his hand.

"Marius," said M. Gillenormand, "you will start to-morrow for Vernon."

"What for?" Marius asked.

"To see your father."

Marius trembled, for he had thought of everything excepting this, – that he might one day be obliged to see his father. Nothing could be more unexpected, more surprising, and, let us add, more disagreeable for him. It was estrangement forced into approximation, and it was not an annoyance so much as a drudgery. Marius, in addition to his motives of political antipathy, was convinced that his father, the trooper, as M. Gillenormand called him in his good-tempered days, did not love him; that was evident, as he had abandoned him thus and left him to others. Not feeling himself beloved, he did not love; and he said to himself that nothing could be more simple. He was so stupefied that he did not question his grandfather, but M. Gillenormand continued, —

"It seems that he is ill, and asks for you."

And after a silence he added, —

"Start to-morrow morning. I believe there is a coach which leaves at six o'clock and gets to Vernon at nightfall. Go by it, for he says that the matter presses."

Then he crumpled up the letter and put it in his pocket. Marius could have started the same night, and have been with his father the next morning; a diligence at that time used to run at night to Rouen, passing through Vernon. But neither M. Gillenormand nor Marius dreamed of inquiring. On the evening of the following day Marius arrived at Vernon, and asked the first passer-by for the house of "Monsieur Pontmercy;" for in his mind he was of the same opinion as the Restoration, and did not recognize either his father's Barony or Colonelcy. The house was shown him; he rang, and a woman holding a small hand-lamp opened the door for him.

"Monsieur Pontmercy?" Marius asked.

The woman stood motionless.

"Is this his house?" Marius continued.

The woman shook her head in the affirmative.

"Can I speak to him?"

The woman made a negative sign.

"Why, I am his son," Marius added; "and he expects me."

"He no longer expects you," the woman said.

Then he noticed that she was crying; she pointed to the door of a parlor, and he went in. In this room, which was lighted by a tallow candle placed on the mantel-piece, there were three men, one standing, one on his knees, and one lying full length upon the floor in his shirt. The one on the floor was the Colonel; the other two were a physician and a priest praying. The Colonel had been attacked by a brain fever three days before, and having a foreboding of evil, he wrote to M. Gillenormand, asking for his son. The illness grew worse, and on the evening of Marius' arrival at Vernon the Colonel had an attack of delirium. He leaped out of bed, in spite of the maid-servant, crying, "My son does not arrive, I will go to meet him." Then he left his bed-room, and fell on the floor of the ante-room; he had just expired. The physician and the curé were sent for, but both arrived too late; the son had also arrived too late. By the twilight gleam of the candle, a heavy tear, which had fallen from the Colonel's dead eye, could be noticed on his pallid cheek. The eye was lustreless, but the tear had not dried up. This tear was his son's delay.

Marius gazed upon this man whom he saw for the first time and the last, upon this venerable and manly face, these open eyes which no longer saw, this white hair, and the robust limbs upon which could be distinguished here and there brown lines which were sabre-cuts, and red stars which were bullet-holes. He gazed at the gigantic scar which imprinted heroism on this face, upon which God had imprinted gentleness. He thought that this man was his father, and that this man was dead, and he remained cold. The sorrow he felt was such as he would have felt in the presence of any other man whom he might have seen lying dead before him.

Mourning and lamentation were in this room. The maid-servant was weeping in a corner, the priest was praying, and could be heard sobbing, the physician wiped his eyes, and the corpse itself wept. The physician, priest, and woman looked at Marius through their affliction without saying a word, for he was the stranger. Marius, who was so little affected, felt ashamed and embarrassed at his attitude, and he let the hat which he held in his hand fall on the ground, in order to induce a belief that sorrow deprived him of the strength to hold it. At the same time he felt a species of remorse, and despised himself for acting thus. But was it his fault? he had no cause to love his father.

The Colonel left nothing, and the sale of the furniture scarce covered the funeral expenses. The maid-servant found a scrap of paper, which she handed to Marius. On it were the following lines, written by the Colonel: —

"For my son. The Emperor made me a Baron on the field of Waterloo, and as the Restoration contests this title, which I purchased with my blood, my son will assume it and wear it. Of course he will be worthy of it." On the back the Colonel had added, "At this same battle of Waterloo a sergeant saved my life; his name is Thénardier, and I believe that he has recently kept a small inn in a village near Paris, either Chelles or Montfermeil. If my son meet this Thénardier he will do all he can for him."

Not through any affection for his father, but owing to that vague respect for death which is ever so imperious in the heart of man, Marius took this paper and put it away. Nothing was left of the Colonel. M. Gillenormand had his sword and uniform sold to the Jews; the neighbors plundered the garden and carried off the rare flowers, while the others became brambles and died. Marius remained only forty-eight hours in Vernon. After the funeral he returned to Paris and his legal studies, thinking no more of his father than if he had never existed. In two days the Colonel was buried, and in three forgotten.

Marius had a crape on his hat, and that was all.

CHAPTER V

MARIUS MEETS A CHURCHWARDEN

Marius had retained the religious habits of his childhood. One Sunday, when he went to hear Mass at St. Sulpice, in the Chapel of the Virgin to which his aunt took him when a boy, being on that day more than usually absent and thoughtful, he placed himself behind a pillar, and knelt, without paying attention to the fact, upon a Utrecht velvet chair, on the back of which was written, "Monsieur Mabœuf, Churchwarden." The Mass had scarce begun when an old gentleman presented himself, and said to Marius, —

"This is my place, sir."

Marius at once stepped aside, and the old gentleman took his seat. When Mass was ended Marius stood pensively for a few moments, till the old gentleman came up to him and said, —

"I ask your pardon, sir, for having disturbed you just now, and for troubling you afresh at this moment; but you must have considered me ill-bred, and so I wish to explain the matter to you."

"It is unnecessary, sir," said Marius.

"No, it is not," the old man continued, "for I do not wish you to have a bad opinion of me. I am attached to this seat, and it seems to me that the Mass is better here, and I will tell you my reason. To this spot I saw during ten years, at regular intervals of two or three months, a poor worthy father come, who had no other opportunity or way of seeing his son, because they were separated through family arrangements. He came at the hour when he knew that his son would be brought to Mass. The boy did not suspect that his father was here – perhaps did not know, the innocent, that he had a father. The latter kept behind a pillar so that he might not be seen, looked at his child and wept; for the poor man adored him, as I could see. This spot has become, so to speak, sanctified for me, and I have fallen into the habit of hearing Mass here. I prefer it to the bench to which I should have a right as churchwarden. I even knew the unfortunate gentleman slightly. He had a father-in-law, a rich aunt, and other relatives, who threatened to disinherit the boy if the father ever saw him, and he sacrificed himself that his son might one day be rich and happy. They were separated through political opinions, and though I certainly approve of such opinions, there are persons who do not know where to stop. Good gracious! because a man was at Waterloo he is not a monster; a father should not be separated from his child on that account. He was one of Bonaparte's colonels, and is dead, I believe. He lived at Vernon, where I have a brother who is curé, and his name was something like Pontmarie or Montpercy. He had, on my word, a great sabre-cut."

"Pontmercy," Marius said, turning pale.

"Precisely, Pontmercy; did you know him?"

"He was my father, sir."

The old churchwarden clasped his hands and exclaimed, —

"Ah! you are the boy! Yes, yes, he would be a man now. Well, poor boy! you may say that you had a father who loved you dearly."

Marius offered his arm to the old gentleman and conducted him to his house. The next day he said to M. Gillenormand, —