Works of Honore De Balzac, page 521
“You have allowed the coach to pass you, monsieur; you will lose your place unless you care to take a seat in my caleche and overtake the mail, for it is rather quicker traveling post than by the public conveyance.” The traveler spoke with extreme politeness and a very marked Spanish accent.
Without waiting for an answer, he drew a cigar-case from his pocket, opened it, and held it out to Lucien.
“I am not on a journey,” said Lucien, “and I am too near the end of my stage to indulge in the pleasure of smoking — — ”
“You are very severe with yourself,” returned the Spaniard. “Though I am a canon of the cathedral of Toledo, I occasionally smoke a cigarette. God gave us tobacco to allay our passions and our pains. You seem to be downcast, or at any rate, you carry the symbolical flower of sorrow in your hand, like the rueful god Hymen. Come! all your troubles will vanish away with the smoke,” and again the ecclesiastic held out his little straw case; there was something fascinating in his manner, and kindliness towards Lucien lighted up his eyes.
“Forgive me, father” Lucien answered stiffly; “there is no cigar that can scatter my troubles.” Tears came to his eyes at the words.
“It must surely be Divine Providence that prompted me to take a little exercise to shake off a traveler’s morning drowsiness,” said the churchman. “A divine prompting to fulfil my mission here on earth by consoling you. — What great trouble can you have at your age?”
“Your consolations, father, can do nothing for me. You are a Spaniard, I am a Frenchman; you believe in the commandments of the Church, I am an atheist.”
“Santa Virgen del Pilar! you are an atheist!” cried the other, laying a hand on Lucien’s arm with maternal solicitude. “Ah! here is one of the curious things I promised myself to see in Paris. We, in Spain, do not believe in atheists. There is no country but France where one can have such opinions at nineteen years.”
“Oh! I am an atheist in the fullest sense of the word. I have no belief in God, in society, in happiness. Take a good look at me, father; for in a few hours’ time life will be over for me. My last sun has risen,” said Lucien; with a sort of rhetorical effect he waved his hand towards the sky.
“How so; what have you done that you must die? Who has condemned you to die?”
“A tribunal from which there is no appeal — I myself.”
“You, child!” cried the priest. “Have you killed a man? Is the scaffold waiting for you? Let us reason together a little. If you are resolved, as you say, to return to nothingness, everything on earth is indifferent to you, is it not?”
Lucien bowed assent.
“Very well, then; can you not tell me about your troubles? Some little affair of the heart has taken a bad turn, no doubt?”
Lucien shrugged his shoulders very significantly.
“Are you resolved to kill yourself to escape dishonor, or do you despair of life? Very good. You can kill yourself at Poitiers quite as easily as at Angouleme, and at Tours it will be no harder than at Poitiers. The quicksands of the Loire never give up their prey — — ”
“No, father,” said Lucien; “I have settled it all. Not three weeks ago I chanced upon the most charming raft that can ferry a man sick and tired of this life into the other world — — ”
“The other world? You are not an atheist.”
“Oh! by another world I mean my next transformation, animal or plant.”
“Have you some incurable disease?”
“Yes, father.”
“Ah! now we come to the point. What is it?”
“Poverty.”
The priest looked at Lucien. “The diamond does not know its own value,” he said, and there was an inexpressible charm, and a touch of something like irony in his smile.
“None but a priest could flatter a poor man about to die,” exclaimed Lucien.
“You are not going to die,” the Spaniard returned authoritatively.
“I have heard many times of men that were robbed on the highroad, but I have never yet heard of one that found a fortune there,” said Lucien.
“You will hear of one now,” said the priest, glancing towards the carriage to measure the time still left for their walk together. “Listen to me,” he continued, with his cigar between his teeth; “if you are poor, that is no reason why you should die. I need a secretary, for mine has just died at Barcelona. I am in the same position as the famous Baron Goertz, minister of Charles XII. He was traveling toward Sweden (just as I am going to Paris), and in some little town or other he chanced upon the son of a goldsmith, a young man of remarkable good looks, though they could scarcely equal yours. . . . Baron Goertz discerned intelligence in the young man (just as I see poetry on your brow); he took him into his traveling carriage, as I shall take you very shortly; and of a boy condemned to spend his days in burnishing spoons and forks and making trinkets in some little town like Angouleme, he made a favorite, as you shall be mine.
“Arrived at Stockholm, he installed his secretary and overwhelmed him with work. The young man spent his nights in writing, and, like all great workers, he contracted a bad habit, a trick — he took to chewing paper. The late M. de Malesherbes use to rap people over the knuckles; and he did this once, by the by, to somebody or other whose suit depended upon him. The handsome young secretary began by chewing blank paper, found it insipid for a while, and acquired a taste for manuscript as having more flavor. People did not smoke as yet in those days. At last, from flavor to flavor, he began to chew parchment and swallow it. Now, at that time a treaty was being negotiated between Russia and Sweden. The States-General insisted that Charles XII. should make peace (much as they tried in France to make Napoleon treat for peace in 1814) and the basis of these negotiations was the treaty between the two powers with regard to Finland. Goertz gave the original into his secretary’s keeping; but when the time came for laying the draft before the States-General, a trifling difficulty arose; the treaty was not to be found. The States-General believed that the Minister, pandering to the King’s wishes, had taken it into his head to get rid of the document. Baron Goertz was, in fact, accused of this, and the secretary owned that he had eaten the treaty. He was tried and convicted and condemned to death. — But you have not come to that yet, so take a cigar and smoke till we reach the caleche.”
Lucien took a cigar and lit it, Spanish fashion, at the priest’s cigar. “He is right,” he thought; “I can take my life at any time.”
“It often happens that a young man’s fortunes take a turn when despair is darkest,” the Spaniard continued. “That is what I wished to tell you, but I preferred to prove it by a case in point. Here was the handsome young secretary lying under sentence of death, and his case the more desperate because, as he had been condemned by the States-General, the King could not pardon him, but he connived at his escape. The secretary stole away in a fishing-boat with a few crowns in his pocket, and reached the court of Courland with a letter of introduction from Goertz, explaining his secretary’s adventures and his craze for paper. The Duke of Courland was a spendthrift; he had a steward and a pretty wife — three several causes of ruin. He placed the charming young stranger with his steward.
“If you can imagine that the sometime secretary had been cured of his depraved taste by a sentence of death, you do not know the grip that a man’s failings have upon him; let a man discover some satisfaction for himself, and the headsman will not keep him from it. — How is it that the vice has this power? Is it inherent strength in the vice, or inherent weakness in human nature? Are there certain tastes that should be regarded as verging on insanity? For myself, I cannot help laughing at the moralists who try to expel such diseases by fine phrases. — Well, it so fell out that the steward refused a demand for money; and the Duke taking fright at this, called for an audit. Sheer imbecility! Nothing easier than to make out a balance-sheet; the difficulty never lies there. The steward gave his secretary all the necessary documents for compiling a schedule of the civil list of Courland. He had nearly finished it when, in the dead of night, the unhappy paper-eater discovered that he was chewing up one of the Duke’s discharges for a considerable sum. He had eaten half the signature! Horror seized upon him; he fled to the Duchess, flung himself at her feet, told her of his craze, and implored the aid of his sovereign lady, implored her in the middle of the night. The handsome young face made such an impression on the Duchess that she married him as soon as she was left a widow. And so in the mid-eighteenth century, in a land where the king-at-arms is king, the goldsmith’s son became a prince, and something more. On the death of Catherine I. he was regent; he ruled the Empress Anne, and tried to be the Richelieu of Russia. Very well, young man; now know this — if you are handsomer than Biron, I, simple canon that I am, am worth more than a Baron Goertz. So get in; we will find a duchy of Courland for you in Paris, or failing the duchy, we shall certainly find the duchess.”
The Spanish priest laid a hand on Lucien’s arm, and literally forced him into the traveling carriage. The postilion shut the door.
“Now speak; I am listening,” said the canon of Toledo, to Lucien’s bewilderment. “I am an old priest; you can tell me everything, there is nothing to fear. So far we have only run through our patrimony or squandered mamma’s money. We have made a flitting from our creditors, and we are honor personified down to the tips of our elegant little boots. . . . Come, confess, boldly; it will be just as if you were talking to yourself.”
Lucien felt like that hero of an Eastern tale, the fisher who tried to drown himself in mid-ocean, and sank down to find himself a king of countries under the sea. The Spanish priest seemed so really affectionate, that the poet hesitated no longer; between Angouleme and Ruffec he told the story of his whole life, omitting none of his misdeeds, and ended with the final catastrophe which he had brought about. The tale only gained in poetic charm because this was the third time he had told it in the past fortnight. Just as he made an end they passed the house of the Rastignac family.
“Young Rastignac left that place for Paris,” said Lucien; “he is certainly not my equal, but he has had better luck.”
The Spaniard started at the name. “Oh!” he said.
“Yes. That shy little place belongs to his father. As I was telling you just now, he was the lover of Mme. de Nucingen, the famous banker’s wife. I drifted into poetry; he was cleverer, he took the practical side.”
The priest stopped the caleche; and was so far curious as to walk down the little avenue that led to the house, showing more interest in the place than Lucien expected from a Spanish ecclesiastic.
“Then, do you know the Rastignacs?” asked Lucien.
“I know every one in Paris,” said the Spaniard, taking his place again in the carriage. “And so for want of ten or twelve thousand francs, you were about to take your life; you are a child, you know neither men nor things. A man’s future is worth the value that he chooses to set upon it, and you value yours at twelve thousand francs! Well, I will give more than that for you any time. As for your brother-in-law’s imprisonment, it is the merest trifle. If this dear M. Sechard has made a discovery, he will be a rich man some day, and a rich man has never been imprisoned for debt. You do not seem to me to be strong in history. History is of two kinds — there is the official history taught in schools, a lying compilation ad usum delphini; and there is the secret history which deals with the real causes of events — a scandalous chronicle. Let me tell you briefly a little story which you have not heard. There was, once upon a time, a man, young and ambitious, and a priest to boot. He wanted to enter upon a political career, so he fawned on the Queen’s favorite; the favorite took an interest in him, gave him the rank of minister, and a seat at the council board. One evening somebody wrote to the young aspirant, thinking to do him a service (never do a service, by the by, unless you are asked), and told him that his benefactor’s life was in danger. The King’s wrath was kindled against his rival; to-morrow, if the favorite went to the palace, he would certainly be stabbed; so said the letter. Well, now, young man, what would you have done?”
“I should have gone at once to warn my benefactor,” Lucien exclaimed quickly.
“You are indeed the child which your story reveals!” said the priest. “Our man said to himself, ‘If the King is resolved to go to such lengths, it is all over with my benefactor; I must receive this letter too late;’ so he slept on till the favorite was stabbed — — ”
“He was a monster!” said Lucien, suspecting that the priest meant to sound him.
“So are all great men; this one was the Cardinal de Richelieu, and his benefactor was the Marechal d’Ancre. You really do not know your history of France, you see. Was I not right when I told you that history as taught in schools is simply a collection of facts and dates, more than doubtful in the first place, and with no bearing whatever on the gist of the matter. You are told that such a person as Jeanne Darc once existed; where is the use of that? Have you never drawn your own conclusions from that fact? never seen that if France had accepted the Angevin dynasty of the Plantagenets, the two peoples thus reunited would be ruling the world to-day, and the islands that now brew political storms for the continent would be French provinces? . . . Why, have you so much as studied the means by which simple merchants like the Medicis became Grand Dukes of Tuscany?”
“A poet in France is not bound to be ‘as learned as a Benedictine,’” said Lucien.
“Well, they became Grand-Dukes as Richelieu became a minister. If you had looked into history for the causes of events instead of getting the headings by heart, you would have found precepts for your guidance in this life. These real facts taken at random from among so many supply you with the axiom — ’Look upon men, and on women most of all, as your instruments; but never let them see this.’ If some one higher in place can be useful to you, worship him as your god; and never leave him until he has paid the price of your servility to the last farthing. In your intercourse with men, in short, be grasping and mean as a Jew; all that the Jew does for money, you must do for power. And besides all this, when a man has fallen from power, care no more for him than if he had ceased to exist. And do you ask why you must do these things? You mean to rule the world, do you not? You must begin by obeying and studying it. Scholars study books; politicians study men, and their interests and the springs of action. Society and mankind in masses are fatalists; they bow down and worship the accomplished fact. Do you know why I am giving you this little history lesson? It seems to me that your ambition is boundless — — ”
“Yes, father.”
“I saw that myself,” said the priest. “But at this moment you are thinking, ‘Here is this Spanish canon inventing anecdotes and straining history to prove to me that I have too much virtue — — ’”
Lucien began to smile; his thoughts had been read so clearly.
“Very well, let us take facts that every schoolboy knows. One day France is almost entirely overrun by the English; the King has only a single province left. Two figures arise from among the people — a poor herd girl, that very Jeanne Darc of whom we were speaking, and a burgher named Jacques Coeur. The girl brings the power of virginity, the strength of her arm; the burgher gives his gold, and the kingdom is saved. The maid is taken prisoner, and the King, who could have ransomed her, leaves her to be burned alive. The King allows his courtier to accuse the great burgher of capital crime, and they rob him and divide all his wealth among themselves. The spoils of an innocent man, hunted down, brought to bay, and driven into exile by the Law, went to enrich five noble houses; and the father of the Archbishop of Bourges left the kingdom for ever without one sou of all his possessions in France, and no resource but moneys remitted to Arabs and Saracens in Egypt. It is open to you to say that these examples are out of date, that three centuries of public education have since elapsed, and that the outlines of those ages are more or less dim figures. Well, young man, do you believe in the last demi-god of France, in Napoleon? One of his generals was in disgrace all through his career; Napoleon made him a marshal grudgingly, and never sent him on service if he could help it. That marshal was Kellermann. Do you know the reason of the grudge? . . . Kellermann saved France and the First Consul at Marengo by a brilliant charge; the ranks applauded under fire and in the thick of the carnage. That heroic charge was not even mentioned in the bulletin. Napoleon’s coolness toward Kellermann, Fouche’s fall, and Talleyrand’s disgrace were all attributable to the same cause; it is the ingratitude of a Charles VII., or a Richelieu, or — — ”
“But, father,” said Lucien, “suppose that you should save my life and make my fortune, you are making the ties of gratitude somewhat slight.”
“Little rogue,” said the Abbe, smiling as he pinched Lucien’s ear with an almost royal familiarity. “If you are ungrateful to me, it will be because you are a strong man, and I shall bend before you. But you are not that just yet; as a simple ‘prentice you have tried to be master too soon, the common fault of Frenchmen of your generation. Napoleon’s example has spoiled them all. You send in your resignation because you have not the pair of epaulettes that you fancied. But have you attempted to bring the full force of your will and every action of your life to bear upon your one idea?”
“Alas! no.”
“You have been inconsistent, as the English say,” smiled the canon.
“What I have been matters nothing now,” said Lucien, “if I can be nothing in the future.”
“If at the back of all your good qualities there is power semper virens,” continued the priest, not averse to show that he had a little Latin, “nothing in this world can resist you. I have taken enough of a liking for you already — — ”
Lucien smiled incredulously.
“Yes,” said the priest, in answer to the smile, “you interest me as much as if you had been my son; and I am strong enough to afford to talk to you as openly as you have just done to me. Do you know what it is that I like about you? — This: you have made a sort of tabula rasa within yourself, and are ready to hear a sermon on morality that you will hear nowhere else; for mankind in the mass are even more consummate hypocrites than any one individual can be when his interests demand a piece of acting. Most of us spend a good part of our lives in clearing our minds of the notions that sprang up unchecked during our nonage. This is called ‘getting our experience.’”
