This legal paper, much shorter and more imperative than such indictments are these days, when they are far more detailed and more precise, especially as to the antecedent life of accused persons, affected Godefroid deeply. The dryness of the statement in which the official pen narrated in red ink the principal details of the affair stirred his imagination. Concise, abbreviated narratives are to some minds texts into the hidden meaning of which they love to burrow.
In the middle of the night, aided by the silence, by the darkness, by the terrible relation intimated by the worthy Alain between the facts of that document and Madame de la Chanterie, Godefroid applied all the forces of his intellect to decipher the dreadful theme.
Evidently the name Lechantre stood for la Chanterie; in all probably the aristocracy of the name was intentionally thus concealed during the Revolution and under the Empire.
Godefroid saw, in imagination, the landscape and the scenes where this drama had taken place. The forms and faces of the accomplices passed before his eyes. He pictured to himself not “one Rifoel” but a Chevalier du Vissard, a young man something like the Fergus of Walter Scott, a French Jacobite. He developed the romance of an ardent young girl grossly deceived by an infamous husband (a style of romance then much the fashion); loving the young and gallant leader of a rebellion against the Empire; giving herself, body and soul, like another Diana Vernon, to the conspiracy, and then, once launched on that fatal incline, unable to stop herself. Had she rolled to the scaffold?
The young man saw in his own mind a whole world, and he peopled it. He wandered in the shade of those Norman groves; he saw the Breton hero and Madame Bryond among the gorse and shrubbery; he inhabited the old chateau of Saint-Savin; he shared in the diverse acts of all those many personages, picturing to himself the notary, the merchant, and those bold Chouans. His mind conceived the state of that wild country where lingered still the memory of the Comtes de Bauvan, de Longuy, the exploits of Marche-a-Terre, the massacre at La Vivetiere, the death of the Marquis de Montauran—of whose prowess Madame de la Chanterie had told him.
This sort of vision of things, of men, of places was rapid. When he remembered that this drama must relate to the dignified, noble, deeply religious old woman whose virtue was acting upon him so powerfully as to be upon the point of metamorphosing him, Godefroid was seized with a sort of terror, and turned hastily to the second document which Monsieur Alain had given him. This was entitled:—
“No longer any doubt!” murmured Godefroid.
Her defender, Bordin, Barrister of the Lower Court of the Department of the Seine.
This dreadful drama disturbed the little sleep that Godefroid took. He dreamed of that penalty of death such as the physician Guillotin has made it with a philanthropic object. Through the hot vapors of a nightmare he saw a young woman, beautiful, enthusiastic, enduring the last preparations, drawn in that fatal tumbril, mounting the scaffold, and crying out, “Vive le roi!”
Eager to know the whole, Godefroid rose at dawn, dressed, and paced his room; then stood mechanically at his window gazing at the sky, while his thoughts reconstructed this drama in many volumes. Ever, on that darksome background of Chouans, peasants, country gentlemen, rebel leaders, spies, and officers of justice, he saw the vivid figures of the mother and the daughter detach themselves; the daughter misleading the mother; the daughter victim of a monster; victim, too, of her passion for one of those bold men whom, later, we have glorified as heroes, and to whom even Godefroid’s imagination lent a likeness to the Charettes and the Georges Cadoudals,—those giants of the struggle between the Republic and the Monarchy.
As soon as Godefroid heard the goodman Alain stirring in the room above him, he went there; but he had no sooner opened the door than he closed it and went back to his own apartment. The old man, kneeling by his chair, was saying his morning prayer. The sight of that whitened head, bowed in an attitude of humble reverence, reminded Godefroid of his own forgotten duties, and he prayed fervently.
“I expected you,” said the kind old man, when Godefroid entered his room some fifteen minutes later. “I got up earlier than usual, for I felt sure you would be impatient.”
“Madame Henriette?” asked Godefroid, with visible anxiety.
“Was Madame’s daughter!” replied Monsieur Alain. “Madame’s name is Lechantre de la Chanterie. Under the Empire none of the nobiliary titles were allowed, nor any of the names added to the patronymic or original names. Therefore, the Baronne des Tours-Minieres was called Madame Bryond. The Marquis d’Esgrignon took his name of Carol (citizen Carol); later he was called the Sieur Carol. The Troisvilles became the Sieurs Guibelin.”
“But what happened? Did the Emperor pardon her?”
“Alas, no!” replied Alain. “The unfortunate little woman, not twenty-one years old, perished on the scaffold. After reading Bordin’s appeal, the Emperor answered very much in these terms: ‘Why be so bitter against the spy? A spy is no longer a man; he ought not to have feelings; he is a wheel of the machinery; Bryond did his duty. If instruments of that kind were not what they are,—steel bars,—and intelligent only in the service of the power employing them, government would not be possible. The sentences of criminal courts must be carried out, or the judges would cease to have confidence in themselves or in me. Besides, the women of the West must be taught not to meddle in plots. It is precisely in the case of a woman that justice should not be interfered with. There is no excuse possible for an attack on power?’ This was the substance of what the Emperor said, as Bordin repeated it to me. Learning a little later that France and Russia were about to measure swords against each other, and that the Emperor was to go two thousand miles from Paris to attack a vast and desert country, Bordin understood the secret reason of the Emperor’s harshness. To insure tranquillity at the West, now full of refractories, Napoleon believed it necessary to inspire terror. Bordin could do no more.”
“But Madame de la Chanterie?” said Godefroid.
“Madame de la Chanterie was sentenced to twenty years’ imprisonment,” replied Alain. “As she was already transferred to Bicetre, near Rouen, to undergo her punishment, nothing was attempted on her behalf until every effort had been made to save Henriette, who had grown dearer than ever to her mother during this time of anxiety. Indeed, if it had not been for Bordin’s assurance that he could obtain Henriette’s pardon, it is doubtful if Madame could have survived the shock of the sentence. When the appeal failed, they deceived the poor mother. She saw her daughter once after the execution of the other prisoners, not knowing that Madame Bryond’s respite was due to a false declaration of pregnancy, made to gain time for the appeal.”
“Ah! I understand it all now,” exclaimed Godefroid.
“No, my dear child, there are things that no one can imagine. Madame thought her daughter living for a long time.”
“How was that?”
“When Madame des Tours-Minieres learned from Bordin that her appeal was rejected and that nothing could save her, that sublime little woman had the courage to write twenty letters, dating them month by month after the time of her execution, so as to make her poor mother in her prison believe she was alive. In those letters she told of a gradual illness which would end in death. They covered a period of two years. Madame de la Chanterie was therefore prepared for the news of her daughter’s death, but she thought it a natural one. She did not know until 1814 that Henriette had died on the scaffold. For two years Madame was herded among the most depraved of her sex, but thanks to the urgency of the Champignelles and the Beauseants she was, after the second year, placed in a cell by herself, where she lived like a cloistered nun.”
“And the others?” asked Godefroid.
“The notary Leveille, Herbomez, Hiley, Cibot, Grenier, Horeau, Cabot, Minard, and Mallet were condemned to death, and executed the same day. Pannier, condemned to hard labor for twenty years, was branded and sent to the galleys. The Chaussards and Vauthier received the same sentence, but were pardoned by the Emperor. Melin, Laraviniere and Binet, were condemned to five years’ imprisonment. The woman Bourget to twenty years’ imprisonment. Chargegrain and Rousseau were acquitted. Those who escaped were all condemned to death, except the girl Godard, who was no other, as you have probably guessed, than our poor Manon—”
“Manon!” exclaimed Godefroid.
“Oh! you don’t know Manon yet,” replied the kind old Alain. “That devoted creature, condemned to twelve years’ imprisonment, gave herself up that she might take care of Madame de la Chanterie, and wait upon her. Our dear vicar was the priest at Mortagne who gave the last sacraments to the Baronne des Tours-Minieres; he had the courage to go with her to the scaffold, and to him she gave her farewell kiss. That courageous, noble priest had also accompanied the Chevalier du Vissard. Our dear Abbe de Veze has therefore known all the secrets of those days.”
“I see why his hair is so white,” said Godefroid.
“Alas! yes,” said Alain. “He received from Amedee du Vissard a miniature of Madame des Tours-Minieres, the only portrait of her that exists; therefore, the abbe became almost sacred in Madame de la Chanterie’s eyes when she re-entered social existence.”
“When did that happen?” asked Godefroid.
“Why, at the restoration of Louis XVIII., in 1814. The Marquis du Vissard, eldest brother of the Chevalier, was created peer of France and loaded with honors by the king. The brother of Monsieur d’Herbomez was made a count and receiver-general. The poor banker Pannier died of grief at the galleys. Boislaurier died without children, a lieutenant-general and governor of a royal chateau. Messieurs de Champignelles, de Beauseant, the Duc de Verneuil, and the Keeper of the Seals presented Madame de la Chanterie to the king. ‘You have suffered greatly for me, madame la baronne; you have every right to my favor and gratitude,’ he said to her. ‘Sire,’ she replied, ‘your Majesty has so many sorrows to console that I do not wish that mine, which is inconsolable, should be a burden upon you. To live forgotten, to mourn my daughter, and do some good, that is my life. If anything could soften my grief, it is the kindness of my king, it is the pleasure of seeing that Providence has not allowed our long devotion to be useless.’”
“And what did Louis XVIII. do?” asked Godefroid.
“He restored two hundred thousand francs in money to Madame de la Chanterie, for the estate of Saint-Savin had been sold to pay the costs of the trial. In the decree of pardon issued for Madame la baronne and her servant the king expressed regret for the suffering borne in his cause, adding that ‘the zeal of his servants had gone too far in its methods of execution.’ But—and this is a horrible thing; it will serve to show you a curious trait in the character of that monarch—he employed Bryond in his detective police throughout his reign.”
“Oh, kings! kings!” cried Godefroid; “and is the wretch still living?”
“No; the wretch, as you justly call him, who concealed his real name under that of Contenson, died about the close of the year 1829 or the beginning of 1830. In trying to arrest a criminal who escaped over a roof, he fell into the street. Louis XVIII. shared Napoleon’s ideas as to spies and police. Madame de la Chanterie is a saint; she prays constantly for the soul of that man and has two masses said yearly for him. As I have already told you, Madame de la Chanterie knew nothing of the dangers her daughter was incurring until the day when the money was carried to Alencon; nevertheless she was unable to establish her innocence, although defended by one of the greatest lawyers of that time. The president, du Ronceret, and the vice-president, Blondet, of the court of Alencon did their best to save our poor lady. But the influence of the councillor of the Imperial Court who presided at her trial before the Criminal and Special Court, the famous Mergi, and that of Bourlac the attorney-general was such over the other judges that they obtained her condemnation. Both Bourlac and Mergi showed extraordinary bitterness against mother and daughter; they called the Baronne des Tours-Minieres ‘the woman Bryond,’ and Madame ‘the woman Lechantre.’ The names of accused persons in those days were all brought to one republican level, and were sometimes unrecognizable. The trial had several very extraordinary features, which I cannot now recall; one piece of audacity remains in my memory which will serve to show you what sort of men those Chouans were. The crowd which assembled to hear the trial was immense; it even filled the corridors and the square before the court-house. One morning, after the opening of the court-room and before the arrival of the judges, Pille-Miche, a famous Chouan, sprang over the balustrade into the middle of the crowd, elbowing right and left, ‘charging like a wild boar,’ as Bordin told me, through the frightened people. The guards and the gendarmes dashed after him and caught him just as he reached the square; after that the guards were doubled. A picket of gendarmerie was stationed in the square, for they feared there were Chouans on the ground ready to rescue the prisoners. As it was, three persons were crushed to death on this occasion. It was afterwards discovered that Contenson (neither my friend Bordin nor I could ever bring ourselves to call him the Baron des Tours-Minieres, nor Bryond which is the name of an old family),—it was, I say, discovered that this wretch Contenson had obtained sixty thousand francs of the stolen money from the Chaussards; he gave ten thousand to the younger Chaussard, whom he took with him into the detective police and innoculated with his vices; his other accomplices got nothing from him. Madame de la Chanterie invested the money restored to her by the king in the public Funds, and bought this house to please her uncle, Monsieur de Boisfrelon, who gave her the money for the purpose, and died in the rooms you now occupy. This tranquil neighborhood is near the archbishop’s palace, where our dear abbe has duties with the cardinal. That was one of the chief reasons why Madame agreed to her uncle’s wish. Here, in this cloistral life, the fearful misfortunes which overwhelmed her for twenty-six years have been brought to a close. Now you can understand the majesty, the grandeur of this victim—august, I venture to call her.”
“Yes,” said Godefroid, “the imprint of all the blows she has received remains and gives her something, I can scarcely describe it, that is grand and majestic.”
“Every wound, every fresh blow, has increased her patience, her resignation,” continued Alain; “but if you knew her as we know her you would see how keen is her sensibility, how active the inexhaustible tenderness of her heart, and you would almost stand in awe of the tears she had shed, and the fervent prayers she had made to God. Ah! it was necessary to have known, as she did, a brief period of happiness to bear up as she has done under such misfortunes. Here is a tender heart, a gentle soul in a steel body hardened by privations, by toil, by austerities.”
“Her life explains why hermits live so long,” said Godefroid.
“There are days when I ask myself what is the meaning of a life like hers? Can it be that God reserves such trials, such cruel tests, for those of his creatures who are to sit on the morrow of their death at his right hand?” said the good Alain, quite unconscious that he was artlessly expressing the whole doctrine of Swedenborg on the angels.
“And you tell me,” said Godefroid, “that in prison Madame de la Chanterie was put with—”
“Madame was sublime in her prison,” said Alain. “For three whole years she realized the story of the Vicar of Wakefield, and was able to convert many of the worst women about her. During her imprisonment she observed the habits and customs of these women, and was seized with that great pity for the sorrows of the people which has since filled her soul and made her the angel of Parisian charity. In that dreadful Bicetre of Rouen, she conceived the plan to the realization of which we are now devoted. It was, she has often told us, a delightful dream, an angelic inspiration in the midst of hell; though she never thought she should realize it. When, in 1819, peace and quietude seemed really to return to Paris, her dream came back to her. Madame la Duchesse d’Angouleme, afterwards the dauphine, the Duchesse de Berry, the archbishop, later the chancellor, and several pious persons contributed liberally the first necessary sums. These funds have been increased by the addition of our own available property, from which we take only enough for our actual needs.”
Tears came into Godefroid’s eyes.
“We are the ministers of a Christian idea; we belong body and soul to its work, the spirit of which, the founder of which, is the Baronne de la Chanterie, whom you hear us so respectfully call ‘Madame.’”
“Ah! let me belong to you!” cried Godefroid, stretching out his hands to the kind old man.
“Now you understand why there are some subjects of conversation which are never mentioned here, nor even alluded to. You can now see the obligations of delicacy that all who live in this house contract towards one who seems to us a saint. You comprehend—do you not?—the influence of a woman made sacred by such sorrows, who knows so many things, to whom anguish has said its utmost word; who from each adversity has drawn instruction, in whom all virtues have the double strength of cruel trial and of constant practice; whose soul is spotless and without reproach, whose motherhood knew only grief, whose married love knew only bitterness; on whom life smiled for a brief time only, but for whom heaven reserves a palm, the reward of resignation and of loving-kindness under sorrow. Ah! does she not even triumph over Job in never murmuring? Can you wonder that her words are so powerful, her old age so young, her soul so communicative, her glance so convincing? She has obtained extraordinary powers in dealing with sufferers, for she has suffered all things.”
“She is the living image of Charity!” cried Godefroid, fervently. “Can I ever be one of you?”
“You must first endure the tests, and above all BELIEVE!” said the old man, gently. “So long as you have no faith, so long as you have not absorbed into your heart and mind the divine meaning of Saint Paul’s epistle upon Charity, you cannot share our work.”
Like evil, good is contagious. Therefore when Madame de la Chanterie’s lodger had lived in that old and silent house for some months after the worthy Alain’s last confidence, which gave him the deepest respect for the religious lives of those among whom his was cast, he experienced that well-being of the soul which comes of a regulated existence, gentle customs, and harmony of nature in those who surround us. At the end of four months, during which time Godefroid heard neither a loud voice nor an argument, he could not remember that he had ever been, if not as happy, at least as tranquil and contented. He now judged soundly of the world, seeing it from afar. At last, the desire he had felt for months to be a sharer in the work of these mysterious persons became a passion. Without being great philosophers we can all understand the force which passions acquire in solitude.
Thus it happened that one day—a day made solemn by the power of the spirit within him—Godefroid again went up to see the good old Alain, him whom Madame de la Chanterie called her “lamb,” the member of the community who seemed to Godefroid the least imposing, the most approachable member of the fraternity, intending to obtain from him some definite light on the conditions of the sacred work to which these brothers of God were dedicated. The allusions made to a period of trial seemed to imply an initiation, which he was now desirous of receiving. His curiosity had not been satisfied by what the venerable old man had already told him as to the causes which led to the work of Madame de la Chanterie; he wanted to know more.
For the third time Godefroid entered Monsieur Alain’s room, just as the old man was beginning his evening reading of the “Imitation of Jesus Christ.” This time the kindly soul did not restrain a smile when he saw the young man, and he said at once, without allowing Godefroid to speak:—
“Why do you come to me, my dear boy; why not go to Madame? I am the most ignorant, the most imperfect, the least spiritual of our number. For the last three days,” he added, with a shrewd little glance, “Madame and my other friends have read your heart.”
“What have they read there?” asked Godefroid.
“Ah!” replied the goodman, without evasion, “they see in you a rather artless desire to belong to our little flock. But this sentiment is not yet an ardent vocation. Yes,” he continued, replying to a gesture of Godefroid’s, “you have more curiosity than fervor. You are not yet so detached from your old ideas that you do not look forward to something adventurous, romantic, as they say, in the incidents of our life.”
Godefroid could not keep himself from blushing.
“You see a likeness between our occupations and those of the caliphs of the ‘Arabian Nights;’ and you are thinking about the satisfaction you will have in playing the part of the good genii in the tales of benevolence you are inventing. Ah, my dear boy! that shame-faced laugh of yours proves to me that we were quite right in that conjecture. How do you expect to conceal any feeling from persons whose business it is to divine the most hidden motion of souls, the tricks of poverty, the calculations of indigence,—honest spies, the police of the good God; old judges, whose code contains nothing but absolutions; doctors of suffering, whose only remedy is oftentimes the wise application of money? But, you see, my child, we don’t wish to quarrel with the motives which bring us a neophyte, provided he will really stay and become a brother of the order. We shall judge you by your work. There are two kinds of curiosity,—that of good and that of evil; just at this moment you have that of good. If you should work in our vineyard, the juice of our grapes will make you perpetually thirsty for the divine fruit. The initiation is, as in that of all natural knowledge, easy in appearance, difficult in reality. Benevolence is like poesy; nothing is easier than to catch the appearance of it. But here, as in Parnassus, nothing contents us but perfection. To become one to us, you must acquire a great knowledge of life. And what a life,—good God! Parisian life, which defies the sagacity of the minister of police and all his agents! We have to circumvent the perpetual conspiracy of Evil, master it in all its forms, while it changes so often as to seem infinite. Charity in Paris must know as much as vice, just as a policeman must know all the tricks of thieves. We must each be frank and each distrustful; we must have quick perception and a sure and rapid judgment. And then, my child, we are old and getting older; but we are so content with the results we have now obtained, that we do not want to die without leaving successors in the work. If you persist in your desire, you will be our first pupil, and all the dearer to us on that account. There is no risk for us, because God brought you to us. Yours is a good nature soured; since you have been here the evil leaven has weakened. The divine nature of Madame has acted upon yours. Yesterday we took counsel together; and inasmuch as I have your confidence, my good brothers resolved to give me to you as guardian and teacher. Does that please you?”
“Ah! my kind Monsieur Alain, your eloquence awakens—”
“No, my child, it is not I who speak well; it is things that are eloquent. We can be sure of being great, even sublime, in obeying God, in imitating Jesus Christ,—imitating him, I mean, as much as men are able to do so, aided by faith.”
“This moment, then, decides my life!” cried Godefroid. “I feel within me the fervor of a neophyte; I wish to spend my life in doing good.”
“That is the secret of remaining in God,” replied Alain. “Have you studied our motto,—Transire benefaciendo? Transire means to go beyond this world, leaving benefits on our way.”
“Yes, I have understood it; I have put the motto of the order before my bed.”
“That is well; it is a trifling action, but it counts for much in my eyes. And now I have your first affair, your first duel with misery, prepared for you; I’ll put your foot in the stirrup. We are about to part. Yes, I myself am detached from the convent, to live for a time in the crater of a volcano. I am to be a clerk in a great manufactory, where the workmen are infected with communistic doctrines, and dream of social destruction, the abolishment of masters,—not knowing that that would be the death of industry, of commerce, of manufactures. I shall stay there goodness knows how long,—perhaps a year,—keeping the books and paying the wages. This will give me an entrance into a hundred or a hundred and twenty homes of working-men, misled, no doubt, by poverty, even before the pamphlets of the day misled them. But you and I can see each other on Sundays and fete-days. We shall be in the same quarter; and if you come to the church of Saint-Jacques du Haut-Pas, you will find me there any day at half-past seven, when I hear mass. If you meet me elsewhere don’t recognize me, unless you see me rub my hands like a man who is pleased at something. That is one of our signs. We have a language of signs, like the deaf and dumb; you’ll soon find out the absolute necessity of it.”
Godefroid made a gesture which the goodman Alain interpreted; for he laughed, and immediately went on to say:—
“Now for your affair. We do not practise either the benevolence or the philanthropy that you know about, which are really divided into several branches, all taken advantage of by sharpers in charity as a business. We practise charity as our great and sublime Saint Paul defines it; for, my dear lad, we think that charity, and charity alone, which is Love, can heal the wounds of Paris. In our eyes, misery, of whatever kind, poverty, suffering, misfortune, grief, evil, no matter how produced, or in what social class they show themselves, have equal rights. Whatever his opinions or beliefs, an unhappy man is, before all else, an unhappy man; and we ought not to attempt to turn his face to our holy mother Church until we have saved him from despair or hunger. Moreover, we ought to convert him to goodness more by example and by gentleness than by any other means; and we believe that God will specially help us in this. All constraint is bad. Of the manifold Parisian miseries, the most difficult to discover, and the bitterest, is that of worthy persons of the middle classes who have fallen into poverty; for they make concealment a point of honor. Those sorrows, my dear Godefroid, are to us the object of special solicitude. Such persons usually have intelligence and good hearts. They return to us, sometimes with usury, the sums that we lend them. Such restitutions recoup us in the long run for the losses we occasionally incur through impostors, shiftless creatures, or those whom misfortunes have rendered stupid. Through such persons we often obtain invaluable help in our investigations. Our work has now become so vast, its details are so multifarious, that we no longer suffice of ourselves to carry it on. So, for the last year we have a physician of our own in every arrondissement in Paris. Each of us takes general charge of four arrondissements. We pay each physician three thousand francs a year to take care of our poor. His time belongs to us in the first instance, but we do not prevent him from attending other sick persons if he can. Would you believe that for many months we were unable to find twelve really trustworthy, valuable men, in spite of all our own efforts and those of our friends? We could not employ any but men of absolute discreetness, pure lives, sound knowledge, experience, active men, and lovers of doing good. Now, although there are in Paris some ten thousand individuals, more or less, who would gladly do the work, we could not find twelve to meet our needs in a whole year.”
“Our Saviour had difficulty in gathering his apostles, and even then a traitor and an unbeliever got among them,” said Godefroid.
“However, within the last month all our arrondissements are provided with a Visitor—that is the name we give to our physicians. At the same time the business is increasing, and we have all redoubled our activity. If I confide to you these secrets of our system, it is that you must know the physician, that is, the Visitor of the arrondissement to which we are about to send you; from him, all original information about our cases comes. This Visitor is named Berton, Doctor Berton; he lives in the rue d’Enfer. And now here are the facts: Doctor Berton is attending a lady whose disease puzzles and defies science. That, of course, is not our concern, but that of the Faculty. Our business is to discover the condition of the family of this patient; Doctor Berton suspects that their poverty is frightful, and concealed with a pride and determination which demand our utmost care. Until now, my son, I should have found time for this case, but the work I am undertaking obliges me to find a helper in my four arrondissements, and you shall be that helper. This family lives in the rue Notre-Dame des Champs, in a house at the corner of the boulevard du Mont-Parnasse. You will find a room to let in the same house, where you can live for a time so as to discover the truth about these persons. Be sordid for yourself, but as for the money you may think needed for this case have no uneasiness. I will remit you such sums as we may judge necessary after ourselves considering all the circumstances. But remember that you must study the moral qualities of these unfortunates: their hearts, the honorableness of their feelings; those are our guarantees. Miserly we may be for ourselves, and generous to those who suffer, but we must be prudent and even calculating, for we are dealing with the money of the poor. So then, to-morrow morning you can start; think over the power we put in your hands: the brothers are with you in heart.”
“Ah!” cried Godefroid, “you have given me such a pleasure in the opportunity of doing good and making myself worthy to belong to you some day, that I shall not sleep to-night.”
“One more word, my child. I told you not to recognize me without the signal; the same rule applies to the other gentlemen and to Madame, and even to the people you see about this house. We are forced to keep up an absolute incognito in all we do; this is so necessary to our enterprises that we have made a rule about it. We seek to be ignored, lost in this great Paris. Remember also, my dear Godefroid, the spirit of our order; which is, never to appear as benefactors, to play an obscure part, that of intermediaries. We always present ourselves as the agent of a pious, saintly person (in fact, we are working for God), so that none of those we deal with may feel the obligation of gratitude towards any of us, or think we are wealthy persons. True, sincere humility, not the false humility of those who seek thereby to be set in the light, must inspire you and rule all your thoughts. You may indeed be glad when you succeed; but so long as you feel within you a sentiment of vanity or of pride, you are not worthy to do the work of the order. We have known two perfect men: one, who was one of our founders, Judge Popinot; the other is revealed by his works; he is a country doctor whose name is written on the annals of his canton. That man, my dear Godefroid, is one of the greatest men of our time; he brought a whole region out of wretchedness into prosperity, out of irreligion into Christianity, out of barbarism into civilization.[*] The names of those two men are graven on our hearts and we have taken them as our models. We should be happy indeed if we ourselves could some day acquire in Paris the influence that country doctor had in his canton. But here, the sore is vast, beyond our strength at present. May God preserve to us Madame, may he send us some young helpers like you, and perhaps we may yet leave behind us an institution worthy of his divine religion. And now good-bye; your initiation begins—Ah! I chatter like a professor and forget the essential thing! Here is the address of that family,” he added, giving Godefroid a piece of paper; “I have added the number of Dr. Berton’s house in the rue d’Enfer; and now, go and pray to God to help you.”
Godefroid took the old man’s hands and pressed them tenderly, wishing him good-night, and assuring him he would not neglect a single point of his advice.
“All that you have said to me,” he added, “is graven in my memory forever.”
The old man smiled, expressing no doubts; then he rose, to kneel in his accustomed place. Godefroid retired, joyful in at last sharing the mysteries of that house and in having an occupation, which, feeling as he did then, was to him an untold pleasure.
The next day at breakfast, Monsieur Alain’s place was vacant, but no one remarked upon it; Godefroid made no allusion to the cause of his absence, neither did any one question him as to the mission the old man had entrusted to him; he thus took his first lesson in discreetness. Nevertheless, after breakfast, he did take Madame de la Chanterie apart and told her that he should be absent for some days.
“That is good, my child,” replied Madame de la Chanterie; “try to do honor to your godfather, who has answered for you to his brothers.”
Godefroid bade adieu to the three remaining brethren, who made him an affectionate bow, by which they seemed to bless his entrance upon a painful career.
ASSOCIATION, one of the greatest social forces, and that which made the Europe of the middle-ages, rests on principles which, since 1792, no longer exist in France, where the Individual has now triumphed over the State. Association requires, in the first place, a self-devotion that is not understood in our day; also a guileless faith which is contrary to the spirit of the nation, and lastly, a discipline against which men in these days revolt and which the Catholic religion alone can enforce. The moment an association is formed among us, each member, returning to his own home from an assembly where noble sentiments have been proclaimed, thinks of making his own bed out of that collective devotion, that union of forces, and of milking to his own profit the common cow, which, not being able to supply so many individual demands, dies exhausted.
Who knows how many generous sentiments were blasted, how many fruitful germs may have perished, lost to the nation through the infamous deceptions of the French Carbonari, the patriotic subscriptions to the Champ d’Asile, and other political deceptions which ought to have been grand and noble dramas, and proved to be the farces and the melodramas of police courts. It is the same with industrial association as it is with political association. Love of self is substituted for the love of collective bodies. The corporations and the Hanse leagues of the middle-ages, to which we shall some day return, are still impossible. Consequently, the only societies which actually exist are those of religious bodies, against whom a heavy war is being made at this moment; for the natural tendency of sick persons is to quarrel with remedies and often with physicians. France ignores self-abnegation. Therefore, no association can live except through religious sentiment; the only sentiment that quells the rebellions of mind, the calculations of ambition, and greeds of all kinds. The seekers of better worlds ignore the fact that ASSOCIATION has such worlds to offer.
As he walked through the streets Godefroid felt himself another man. Whoever could have looked into his being would have admired the curious phenomenon of the communication of collective power. He was no longer a mere man, he was a tenfold force, knowing himself the representative of persons whose united forces upheld his actions and walked beside him. Bearing that power in his heart, he felt within him a plenitude of life, a noble might, which uplifted him. It was, as he afterwards said, one of the finest moments of his whole existence; he was conscious of a new sense, an omnipotence more sure than that of despots. Moral power is, like thought, limitless.
“To live for others,” he thought, “to act with others, all as one, and act alone as all together, to have for leader Charity, the noblest, the most living of those ideal figures Christianity has made for us, this is indeed to live!—Come, come, repress that petty joy, which father Alain laughed at. And yet, how singular it is that in seeking to set myself aside from life I have found the power I have sought so long! Yes, the world of misery will belong to me!”