Monsieur Alain stopped in his narrative for an instant and looked at Godefroid. “I remember that day with some satisfaction,” he said. Then he resumed:
“A week or so later I met Bordin and told him of that interview. He smiled and said: ‘I hope it was not a pretty bit of comedy. Didn’t he ask for anything?’ ‘No,’ I answered. ‘Well, he came to see me the same day. I was almost as touched as you; and he asked me for means to get food on his journey. Well, well, time will show!’ These remarks of Bordin made me fear I had foolishly yielded to mistaken sensibility. ‘Nevertheless,’ I said to myself, ‘he, the old lawyer, did as I did.’ I do not think it necessary to explain to you how I lost all, or nearly all, my property. I had placed a little in the Funds, which gave me five hundred francs a year; all else was gone. I was then thirty-four years old. I obtained, through the influence of Monsieur Bordin, a place as clerk, with a salary of eight hundred francs, in a branch office of the Mont-de-piete, rue des Augustins.1 From that time I lived very modestly. I found a small lodging in the rue des Marais, on the third floor (two rooms and a closet), for two hundred and fifty francs a year. I dined at a common boarding-house for forty francs a month. I copied writings at night. Ugly as I was and poor, I had to renounce marriage.”
As Godefroid heard this judgment which the poor man passed upon himself with beautiful simplicity and resignation, he made a movement which proved, far more than any confidence in words could have done, the resemblance of their destinies; and the goodman, in answer to that eloquent gesture, seemed to expect the words that followed it.
“Have you never been loved?” asked Godefroid.
“Never!” he said; “except by Madame, who returns to us all the love we have for her, – a love which I may call divine. You must be aware of it. We live through her life as she lives through ours; we have but one soul among us; and such pleasures, though they are not physical, are none the less intense; we exist through our hearts. Ah, my child!” he continued, “when women come to appreciate moral qualities, they are indifferent to others; and they are then old – Oh! I have suffered deeply, – yes, deeply!”
“And I, in the same way,” said Godefroid.
“Under the Empire,” said the worthy man, resuming his narrative, “the Funds did not always pay their dividends regularly; it was necessary to be prepared for suspensions of payment. From 1802 to 1814 there was scarcely a week that I did not attribute my misfortune to Mongenod. ‘If it were not for Mongenod,’ I used to say to myself, ‘I might have married. If I had never known him I should not be obliged to live in such privation.’ But then, again, there were other times when I said, ‘Perhaps the unfortunate fellow has met with ill luck over there.’ In 1806, at a time when I found my life particularly hard to bear, I wrote him a long letter, which I sent by way of Holland. I received no answer. I waited three years, placing all my hopes on that answer. At last I resigned myself to my life. To the five hundred francs I received from the Funds I now added twelve hundred from the Mont-de-piete (for they raised my salary), and five hundred which I obtained from Monsieur Cesar Birotteau, perfumer, for keeping his books in the evening. Thus, not only did I manage to get along comfortably, but I laid by eight hundred francs a year. At the beginning of 1814 I invested nine thousand francs of my savings at forty francs in the Funds, and thus I was sure of sixteen hundred francs a year for my old age. By that time I had fifteen hundred a year from the Mont-de-piete, six hundred for my book-keeping, sixteen hundred from the Funds; in all, three thousand seven hundred francs a year. I took a lodging in the rue de Seine, and lived a little better. My place had brought me into relations with many unfortunates. For the last twelve years I had known better than any man whatsoever the misery of the poor. Once or twice I had been able to do a real service. I felt a vivid pleasure when I found that out of ten persons relieved, one or two households had been put on their feet. It came into my mind that benevolence ought not to consist in throwing money to those who suffered. ‘Doing charity,’ to use that common expression, seemed to me too often a premium offered to crime. I began to study the question. I was then fifty years of age, and my life was nearly over. ‘Of what good am I?’ thought I. ‘To whom can I leave my savings? When I have furnished my rooms handsomely, and found a good cook, and made my life suitable in all respects, what then? – how shall I employ my time?’ Eleven years of revolution, and fifteen years of poverty, had, as I may say, eaten up the most precious parts of my life, – used it up in sterile toil for my own individual preservation. No man at the age of fifty could spring from that obscure, repressed condition to a brilliant future; but every man could be of use. I understood by this time that watchful care and wise counsels have tenfold greater value than money given; for the poor, above all things, need a guide, if only in the labor they do for others, for speculators are never lacking to take advantage of them. Here I saw before me both an end and an occupation, not to speak of the exquisite enjoyments obtained by playing in a miniature way the role of Providence.”
“And to-day you play it in a grand way, do you not?” asked Godefroid, eagerly.
“Ah! you want to know everything,” said the old man. “No, no! Would you believe it,” he continued after this interruption, “the smallness of my means to do the work I now desired to do brought back the thought of Mongenod. ‘If it were not for Mongenod,’ I kept saying to myself, ‘I could do so much more. If a dishonest man had not deprived me of fifteen hundred francs a year I could save this or that poor family.’ Excusing my own impotence by accusing another, I felt that the miseries of those to whom I could offer nothing but words of consolation were a curse upon Mongenod. That thought soothed my heart. One morning, in January, 1816, my housekeeper announced, – whom do you suppose? – Mongenod! Monsieur Mongenod! And whom do you think I saw enter my room? The beautiful young woman I had once seen, – only now she was thirty-six years old, – followed by her three children and Mongenod. He looked younger than when he went away; for prosperity and happiness do shed a halo round their favorites. Thin, pale, yellow, shrivelled, when I last saw him, he was now plump, sleek, rosy as a prebendary, and well dressed. He flung himself into my arms. Feeling, perhaps, that I received him coldly, his first words were: ‘Friend, I could not come sooner. The ocean was not free to passenger ships till 1815; then it took me a year to close up my business and realize my property. I have succeeded, my friend. When I received your letter in 1806, I started in a Dutch vessel to bring you myself a little fortune; but the union of Holland with the French Empire caused the vessel to be taken by the English and sent to Jamaica, from which island I escaped by mere chance. When I reached New York I found I was a victim to the bankruptcy of others. In my absence my poor Charlotte had not been able to protect herself against schemers. I was therefore forced to build up once more the edifice of my fortunes. However, it is all done now, and here we are. By the way those children are looking at you, you must be aware that we have often talked to them of their father’s benefactor.’ ‘Oh, yes, yes, monsieur!’ said the beautiful Mongenod, ‘we have never passed a single day without remembering you. Your share has been set aside in all our affairs. We have looked forward eagerly to the happiness we now have in returning to you your fortune, not thinking for a moment that the payment of these just dues can ever wipe out our debt of gratitude.’ With those words Madame Mongenod held out to me that magnificent box you see over there, in which were one hundred and fifty notes of a thousand francs each.”
The old man paused an instant as if to dwell on that moment; then he went on: —
“Mongenod looked at me fixedly and said: ‘My poor Alain, you have suffered, I know; but we did divine your sufferings; we did try every means to send the money to you, and failed in every attempt. You told me you could not marry, – that I had prevented it. But here is our eldest daughter; she has been brought up in the thought of becoming your wife, and she will have a dowry of five hundred thousand francs.’ ‘God forbid that I should make her miserable!’ I cried hastily, looking at the girl, who was as beautiful as her mother when I first saw her. I drew her to me to kiss her brow. ‘Don’t be afraid, my beautiful child!’ I said. ‘A man of fifty to a girl of seventeen? – never! and a man as plain and ugly as I am? – never!’ I cried. ‘Monsieur,’ she said, ‘my father’s benefactor could not be ugly for me.’ Those words, said spontaneously, with simple candor, made me understand how true was all that Mongenod had said. I then gave him my hand, and we embraced each other again. ‘My friend,’ I said, ‘I have done you wrong. I have often accused you, cursed you.’ ‘You had the right to do so, Alain,’ he replied, blushing; ‘you suffered, and through me.’ I took Mongenod’s note from my desk and returned it to him. ‘You will all stay and breakfast with me, I hope?’ I said to the family. ‘On condition that you dine with us,’ said Mongenod. ‘We arrived yesterday. We are going to buy a house; and I mean to open a banking business between Paris and North America, so as to leave it to this fellow here,’ he added, showing me his eldest son, who was fifteen years old. We spent the rest of the day together and went to the play; for Mongenod and his family were actually hungry for the theatre. The next morning I placed the whole sum in the Funds, and I now had in all about fifteen thousand francs a year. This fortune enabled me to give up book-keeping at night, and also to resign my place at the Mont-de-piete, to the great satisfaction of the underling who stepped into my shoes. My friend died in 1827, at the age of sixty-three, after founding the great banking-house of Mongenod and Company, which made enormous profits from the first loans under the Restoration. His daughter, to whom he subsequently gave a million in dowry, married the Vicomte de Fontaine. The eldest son, whom you know, is not yet married; he lives with his mother and brother. We obtain from them all the sums we need. Frederic (his father gave him my name in America), – Frederic Mongenod is, at thirty-seven years of age, one of the ablest, and most upright, bankers in Paris. Not very long ago Madame Mongenod admitted to me that she had sold her hair, as I suspected, for twelve francs to buy bread. She gives me now twenty-four cords of wood a year for my poor people, in exchange for the half cord which I once sent her.”
“This explains to me your relations with the house of Mongenod,” said Godefroid, – “and your fortune.”
Again the goodman looked at Godefroid with a smile, and the same expression of kindly mischief.
“Oh, go on!” said Godefroid, seeing from his manner that he had more to tell.
“This conclusion, my dear Godefroid, made the deepest impression on me. If the man who had suffered so much, if my friend forgave my injustice, I could not forgive myself.”
“Oh!” ejaculated Godefroid.
“I resolved to devote all my superfluous means – about ten thousand francs a year – to acts of intelligent benevolence,” continued Monsieur Alain, tranquilly. “About this time it was that I made the acquaintance of a judge of the Lower Civil Court of the Seine named Popinot, whom we had the great grief of losing three years ago, and who practised for fifteen years an active and most intelligent charity in the quartier Saint-Marcel. It was he, with the venerable vicar of Notre-Dame and Madame, who first thought of founding the work in which we are now co-operating, and which, since 1825, has quietly done much good. This work has found its soul in Madame de la Chanterie, for she is truly the inspiration of this enterprise. The vicar has known how to make us more religious than we were at first, by showing us the necessity of being virtuous ourselves in order to inspire virtue; in short, to preach by example. The farther we have advanced in our work, the happier we have mutually found ourselves. And so, you see, it really was the repentance I felt for misconceiving the heart of my friend which gave me the idea of devoting to the poor, through my own hands, the fortune he returned to me, and which I accepted without objecting to the immensity of the sum returned in proportion to the sum lent. Its destination justified my taking it.”
This narration, made quietly, without assumption, but with a gentle kindliness in accent, look, and gesture, would have inspired Godefroid to enter this noble and sacred association if his resolution had not already been taken.
“You know the world very little,” he said, “if you have such scruples about a matter that would not weigh on any other man’s conscience.”
“I know only the unfortunate,” said Monsieur Alain. “I do not desire to know a world in which men are so little afraid of judging one another. But see! it is almost midnight, and I still have my chapter of the ‘Imitation of Jesus Christ’ to meditate upon! Good-night!”
Godefroid took the old man’s hand and pressed it, with an expression of admiration.
“Can you tell me Madame de la Chanterie’s history?”
“Impossible, without her consent,” replied Monsieur Alain; “for it is connected with one of the most terrible events of Imperial policy. It was through my friend Bordin that I first knew Madame. He had in his possession all the secrets of that noble life; it was he who, if I may say so, led me to this house.”
“I thank you,” said Godefroid, “for having told me your life; there are many lessons in it for me.”
“Do you know what is the moral of it?”
“Tell me,” said Godefroid, “for perhaps I may see something different in it from what you see.”
“Well, it is this: that pleasure is an accident in a Christian’s life; it is not the aim of it; and this we learn too late.”
“What happens when we turn to Christianity?” asked Godefroid.
“See!” said the goodman.
He pointed with his finger to some letters of gold on a black ground which the new lodger had not observed, for this was the first time he had ever been in Monsieur Alain’s room. Godefroid turned and read the words: TRANSIRE BENEFACIENDO.
“That is our motto. If you become one of us, that will be your only commission. We read that commission, which we have given to ourselves, at all times, in the morning when we rise, in the evening when we lie down, and when we are dressing. Ah! if you did but know what immense pleasures there are in accomplishing that motto!”
“Such as – ?” said Godefroid, hoping for further revelations.
“I must tell you that we are as rich as Baron de Nucingen himself. But the ‘Imitation of Jesus Christ’ forbids us to regard our wealth as our own. We are only the spenders of it; and if we had any pride in being that, we should not be worthy of dispensing it. It would not be transire benefaciendo; it would be inward enjoyment. For if you say to yourself with a swelling of the nostrils, ‘I play the part of Providence!’ (as you might have thought if you had been in my place this morning and saved the future lives of a whole family), you would become a Sardanapalus, – an evil one! None of these gentlemen living here thinks of himself when he does good. All vanity, all pride, all self-love, must be stripped off, and that is hard to do, – yes, very hard.”
Godefroid bade him good-night, and returned to his own room, deeply affected by this narrative. But his curiosity was more whetted than satisfied, for the central figure of the picture was Madame de la Chanterie. The history of the life of that woman became of the utmost importance to him, so that he made the obtaining of it the object of his stay in that house. He already perceived in this association of five persons a vast enterprise of Charity; but he thought far less of that than he did of its heroine.
VIII. WHO SHE WAS – WIFE AND MOTHER
The would-be disciple passed many days in observing more carefully than he had hitherto done the rare persons among whom fate had brought him; and he became the subject of a moral phenomenon which modern philosophers have despised, – possibly out of ignorance.
The sphere in which he lived had a positive action upon Godefroid. The laws which regulate the physical nature under relation to the atmospheric environment in which it is developed, rule also in the moral nature. Hence it follows that the assembling together of condemned prisoners is one of the greatest of social crimes; and also that their isolation is an experiment of doubtful success. Condemned criminals ought to be in religious institutions, surrounded by prodigies of Good, instead of being cast as they are into sight and knowledge of Evil only. The Church can be expected to show an absolute devotion in this matter. If it sends missionaries to heathen or savage nations, with how much greater joy would it welcome the mission of redeeming the heathen of civilization? for all criminals are atheists, and often without knowing they are so.
Godefroid found these five associated persons endowed with the qualities they required in him. They were all without pride, without vanity, truly humble and pious; also without any of the pretension which constitutes devotion, using that word in its worst sense. These virtues were contagious; he was filled with a desire to imitate these hidden heroes, and he ended by passionately studying the book he had begun by despising. Within two weeks he reduced his views of life to its simplest lines, – to what it really is when we consider it from the higher point of view to which the Divine spirit leads us. His curiosity – worldly at first, and excited by many vulgar and material motives – purified itself; if he did not renounce it altogether, the fault was not his; any one would have found it difficult to resign an interest in Madame de la Chanterie; but Godefroid showed, without intending it, a discretion which was appreciated by these persons, in whom the divine Spirit had developed a marvellous power of the faculties, – as, indeed, it often does among recluses. The concentration of the moral forces, no matter under what system it may be effected, increases the compass of them tenfold.
“Our friend is not yet converted,” said the good Abbe de Veze, “but he is seeking to be.”
An unforeseen circumstance brought about the revelation of Madame de la Chanterie’s history to Godefroid; and so fully was this made to him that the overpowering interest she excited in his soul was completely satisfied.
The public mind was at that time much occupied by one of those horrible criminal trials which mark the annals of our police-courts. This trial had gathered its chief interest from the character of the criminals themselves, whose audacity, superior intelligence in evil, and cynical replies, had horrified the community. It is a matter worthy of remark that no newspaper ever found its way into the hotel de la Chanterie, and Godefroid only heard of the rejection of the criminals’ appeal from his master in book-keeping; for the trial itself had taken place some time before he came to live in his new abode.
“Do you ever encounter,” he said to his new friends, “such atrocious villains as those men? and if you do encounter them, how do you manage them?”
“In the first place,” said Monsieur Nicolas, “there are no atrocious villains. There are diseased natures, to be cared for in asylums; but outside of those rare medical cases, we find only persons who are without religion, or who reason ill; and the mission of charity is to teach them the right use of reason, to encourage the weak, and guide aright those who go astray.”
“And,” said the Abbe de Veze, “all is possible to such teachers, for God is with them.”
“If they were to send you those criminals, you could do nothing with them, could you?” asked Godefroid.
“The time would be too short,” remarked Monsieur Alain.
“In general,” said Monsieur Nicolas, “persons turn over to religion souls which have reached the last stages of evil, and leave it no time to do its work. The criminals of whom you speak were men of remarkable vigor; could they have been within our hands in time they might have become distinguished men; but as soon as they committed a murder, it was no longer possible to interfere; they then belonged to human justice.”
“That must mean,” said Godefroid, “that you are against the penalty of death?”
Monsieur Nicolas rose hastily and left the room.
“Do not ever mention the penalty of death again before Monsieur Nicolas,” said Monsieur Alain. “He recognized in a criminal at whose execution he was officially present his natural son.”
“And the son was innocent!” added Monsieur Joseph.
Madame de la Chanterie, who had been absent for a while, returned to the salon at this moment.
“But you must admit,” said Godefroid, addressing Monsieur Joseph, “that society cannot exist without the death penalty, and that those persons who to-morrow morning will have their heads cut – ”
Godefroid felt his mouth suddenly closed by a vigorous hand, and he saw the abbe leading away Madame de la Chanterie in an almost fainting condition.
“What have you done?” Monsieur Joseph said to him. “Take him away, Alain!” he added, removing the hand with which he had gagged Godefroid. Then he followed the Abbe de Veze into Madame de la Chanterie’s room.
“Come!” said Monsieur Alain to Godefroid; “you have made it essential that I should tell you the secrets of Madame’s life.”
They were presently sitting in the old man’s room.
“Well?” said Godefroid, whose face showed plainly his regret for having been the cause of something which, in that peaceful home, might be called a catastrophe.
“I am waiting till Manon comes to reassure us,” replied the goodman, listening to the steps of the maid upon the staircase.
“Madame is better,” said Manon. “Monsieur l’abbe has deceived her as to what was said.” And she looked at Godefroid angrily.
“Good God!” cried the poor fellow, in distress, the tears coming into his eyes.
“Come, sit down,” said Monsieur Alain, sitting down himself. Then he made a pause as if to gather up his ideas. “I don’t know,” he went on, “if I have the talent to worthily relate a life so cruelly tried. You must excuse me if the words of so poor a speaker as I are beneath the level of its actions and catastrophes. Remember that it is long since I left school, and that I am the child of a century in which men cared more for thought than for effect, – a prosaic century which knew only how to call things by their right names.”
Godefroid made an acquiescing gesture, with an expression of sincere admiration, and said simply, “I am listening.”
“You have just had a proof, my young friend,” resumed the old man, “that it is impossible you should remain among us without knowing at least some of the terrible facts in the life of that saintly woman. There are ideas and illusions and fatal words which are completely interdicted in this house, lest they reopen wounds in Madame’s heart, and cause a suffering which, if again renewed, might kill her.”
“Good God!” cried Godefroid, “what have I done?”
“If Monsieur Joseph had not stopped the words on your lips, you were about to speak of that fatal instrument of death, and that would have stricken down Madame de la Chanterie like a thunderbolt. It is time you should know all, for you will really belong to us before long, – we all think so. Here, then, is the history of her life: —
“Madame de la Chanterie,” he went on, after a pause, “comes from one of the first families of Lower Normandy. Her maiden name was Mademoiselle Barbe-Philiberte de Champignelles, of the younger branch of that house. She was destined to take the veil unless she could make a marriage which renounced on the husband’s side the dowry her family could not give her. This was frequently the case in the families of poor nobles.
“A Sieur de la Chanterie, whose family had fallen into obscurity, though it dates from the Crusade of Philip Augustus, was anxious to recover the rank and position which this ancient lineage properly gave him in the province of Normandy. This gentleman had doubly derogated from his rightful station; for he had amassed a fortune of nearly a million of francs as purveyor to the armies of the king at the time of the war in Hanover. The old man had a son; and this son, presuming on his father’s wealth (greatly exaggerated by rumor), was leading a life in Paris that greatly disquieted his father.
“The word of Mademoiselle de Champignelle’s character was well known in the Bessin, – that beautiful region of Lower Normandy near Bayeux, where the family lived. The old man, whose little estate of la Chanterie was between Caen and Saint-Lo, often heard regrets expressed before him that so perfect a young girl, and one so capable of rendering a husband happy, should be condemned to pass her life in a convent. When, on reflection, he expressed a desire to know more of the young lady, the hope was held out to him of obtaining the hand of Mademoiselle Philiberte for his son, provided he would take her without dowry. He went to Bayeux, had several interviews with the Champignelles’s family, and was completely won by the noble qualities of the young girl.
“At sixteen years of age, Mademoiselle de Champignelles gave promise of what she would ultimately become. It was easy to see in her a living piety, an unalterable good sense, an inflexible uprightness, and one of those souls which never detach themselves from an affection under any compulsion. The old father, enriched by his extortions in the army, recognized in this charming girl a woman who could restrain his son by the power of virtue, and by the ascendancy of a nature that was firm without rigidity.
“You have seen her,” said Monsieur Alain, pausing in his narrative, “and you know that no one can be gentler than Madame de la Chanterie; and also, I may tell you, that no one is more confiding. She has kept, even to her declining years, the candor and simplicity of innocence; she has never been willing to believe in evil, and the little mistrust you may have noticed in her is due only to her terrible misfortunes.
“The old man,” said Monsieur Alain, continuing, “agreed with the Champignelles family to give a receipt for the legal dower of Mademoiselle Philiberte (this was necessary in those days); but in return, the Champignelles, who were allied to many of the great families, promised to obtain the erection of the little fief of la Chanterie into a barony; and they kept their word. The aunt of the future husband, Madame de Boisfrelon, the widow of a parliamentary councillor, promised to bequeath her whole fortune to her nephew.
“When these arrangements had been completed by the two families, the father sent for the son. At this time the latter was Master of petitions to the Grand Council. He was twenty-five years of age, and had already lived a life of folly with all the young seigneurs of the period; in fact, the old purveyor had been forced more than once to pay his debts. The poor father, foreseeing further follies, was only too glad to make a settlement on his daughter-in-law of a certain sum; and he entailed the estate of la Chanterie on the heirs male of the marriage.
“But the Revolution,” said Monsieur Alain in a parenthesis, “made that last precaution useless.
“Gifted with the beauty of an angel,” he continued, “and with wonderful grace and agility in all exercises of the body, the young Master of petitions possessed the gift of charm. Mademoiselle de Champignelles became, as you can readily believe, very much in love with her husband. The old man, delighted with the outset of the marriage, and believing in the reform of his son, sent the young couple to Paris. All this happened about the beginning of the year 1788.
“Nearly a whole year of happiness followed. Madame de la Chanterie enjoyed during that time the tenderest care and the most delicate attentions that a man deeply in love can bestow upon a loving woman. However short it may have been, the honeymoon did shine into the heart of that noble and most unfortunate woman. You know that in those days women nursed their children. Madame de la Chanterie had a daughter. That period during which a woman ought to be the object of redoubled care and tenderness proved, in this case, the beginning of untold miseries. The Master of petitions was obliged to sell all the property he could lay his hands on to pay former debts (which he had not acknowledged to his father) and fresh losses at play. Then the National Assembly decreed the dissolution of the Grand Council, the parliament, and all the law offices so dearly bought.
“The young household, increased by a daughter, was soon without other means than those settled upon Madame de la Chanterie by her father-in-law. In twenty months that charming woman, now only seventeen and a half years old, was obliged to live – she and the child she was nursing – in an obscure quarter, and by the labor of her hands. She was then entirely abandoned by her husband, who fell by degrees lower and lower, into the society of women of the worst kind. Never did she reproach her husband, never has she allowed herself to blame him. She has sometimes told us how, during those wretched days, she would pray for her ‘dear Henri.’
“That scamp was named Henri,” said the worthy man interrupting himself. “We never mention that name here, nor that of Henriette. I resume:
“Never leaving her little room in the rue de la Corderie du Temple, except to buy provisions or to fetch her work, Madame de la Chanterie contrived to get along, thanks to a hundred francs which her father-in-law, touched by her goodness, sent to her once a month. Nevertheless, foreseeing that that resource might fail her, the poor young woman had taken up the hard and toilsome work of corset-making in the service of a celebrated dressmaker. This precaution proved a wise one. The father died, and his property was obtained by the son (the old monarchical laws of entail being then overthrown) and speedily dissipated by him. The former Master of petitions was now one of the most ferocious presidents of the Revolutionary tribunals of that period; he became the terror of Normandy, and was able to satisfy all his passions. Imprisoned in his turn after the fall of Robespierre, the hatred of his department doomed him to certain death.