t is well known that during the year 1722 the Parliament of Paris sat in judgment on the Mississippi affair, in which were implicated, along with the directors of the Company, a minister of State, secretary to the King, and many subinspectors of provinces. The Company was accused of having corrupted the officers of the King and his dominions, who had in reality stripped it with the greed usual to people in office under weak governments. And it is certain that at this period all the springs of government were slackened and warped.
At one of the sittings of this memorable action, Madame de la Morangère, wife of one of the directors of the Mississippi Company, was called before the members of Parliament in the upper chamber. She gave evidence that a Monsieur Lescot, secretary to the Lieutenant-Criminel,[3] having sent for her to come in secret to the Châtelet, made her understand that it lay with her entirely to save her husband, who was a fine man and of comely aspect. He said to her, nearly in these terms: "Madame, what vexes the true friends of the King in this business is that the Jansenists are not implicated in it. Jansenists are enemies to the Crown as well as to religion. Help us, Madame, to convict one of them and we will acknowledge the service to the State by giving you back your husband with all his possessions."
When Madame de la Morangère had reported this conversation, which was not intended for the public, the President of the Parliament was obliged to call Monsieur Lescot to the upper chamber, who at first tried to deny it. But Madame de la Morangère had beautiful ingenuous eyes, whose gaze he could not meet. He grew troubled and was confounded. He was a big, villainous-looking, red-haired man like Judas Iscariot. This affair, noticed by the Press, became the talk of Paris. It was spoken of in the salons, on the public walks, at the barbers', and in the coffee-houses. Everywhere Madame de la Morangère gained as much sympathy as Lescot caused disgust.
Public curiosity was still rife when I accompanied my good master Monsieur Jérôme Coignard to Monsieur Blaizot's, who, as you know, is a bookseller in the Rue St. Jacques, at the sign of the Image de Sainte Catherine. In the shop we found Monsieur Gentil, private secretary to one of the ministers of State, whose face was hidden in a book newly come from Holland, and the celebrated Monsieur Roman, who has treated of systems of State in various estimable works. Old Monsieur Blaizot was reading his paper behind the counter.
Monsieur Jérôme Coignard, always avid of news, slid up to him to glean what he could across his shoulder. This man, learned and of so rare a genius, owned nothing of the goods of this world, and when he had drunk his pint at the Petit Bacchus he had not a halfpenny left in his pockets to buy a news-sheet. Having read the depositions of Madame de la Morangère over Monsieur Blaizot's shoulder, he cried out that it was well, and that it pleased him to see wickedness topple from its high seat under the weak hand of woman, as in wonderful examples witnessed to in Holy Writ.
"This lady," he added, "although allied with public men of whom I do not approve, may be likened unto those strong women lauded in the Book of Kings. She pleases by an uncommon mixture of straightforwardness and finesse, and I applaud her telling victory."
Monsieur Roman interrupted him:
"Take care, Monsieur l'Abbé," said he, stretching out his arm, "take care how you look at this affair from an individual and personal point of view, without troubling yourself as you should do with the public interests that are bound up in it. There are reasons of State in all this, and it is clear that this supreme reason demanded that Madame de la Morangère should not speak, or that her words should not find credence."
Monsieur Gentil lifted his nose from his book. "The importance of this incident," said he, "has been much exaggerated."
"Ah, Mr. Secretary," retorted Monsieur Roman, "we cannot believe that an incident that will lose you your place can be without importance. For you will fall by it, sir, you and your master. For my part, I am full of regrets. But what consoles me for the fall of the Ministry now reeling under the shock is that they were powerless to prevent it."
Monsieur Gentil made us understand by a slight wink that on this point he saw eye to eye with Monsieur Roman.
The latter continued:
"The State is like the human body—all the functions it accomplishes are not noble. Some there are indeed that one must needs hide, I may say the most necessary."
"Ah, Monsieur," said the Abbé, "was it then necessary that Monsieur Lescot should so behave to the unfortunate wife of a prisoner? It was infamous!"
"Oh," said Monsieur Roman, "it was infamous when it was known. Before, it was of no importance. If you wish to enjoy the benefit of being governed, which alone raises mankind above the animals, you must leave, to those who govern, the means of exercising power, and the first of these means is secrecy. That is why popular government, which is the least secret of all, is also the weakest. Do you then think, Monsieur l'Abbé, that you can govern men by virtue? That is a wild dream!"
"I do not think so," replied my good master, "I have noticed in the varied chances of my life that men are evil beasts; one can only control them by force and cunning. But one must be measured and not offend the small amount of good tendencies which mingles with the evil instincts in their minds. For after all, Monsieur, man, all cowardly, stupid, cruel, as he is was made in God's image, and there remain to him still certain features of his primal shape. A government drawn from the common stock of average honesty, and that yet scandalises the people, should be deposed."
"Speak lower, Monsieur l'Abbé," said the Secretary.
"The King can do no wrong," said Monsieur Roman, "and your maxims are seditious, Monsieur l'Abbé. You deserve, you and your like, not to be governed at all."
"Oh!" said my good master, "if, as you give us to understand, government consists in swindling, violence, and exactions of all kinds, there is not much fear that this threat will take effect, and we shall find, for long enough yet, ministers of State and governors of provinces to carry on our affairs. Only I should much like to see others in place of these. The new-comers could not be worse than the old, and who knows but that they may be even slightly better?"
"Take care!" said Monsieur Roman, "take care! What is admirable in a state, is succession and continuity, and if there is no perfect state in this world, it is because, according to my idea, the flood in the time of Noah disordered the transmission of crowns. It is a confusion we have not quite set straight to this day."
"Monsieur," retorted my good master, "you are amusing with your theories. The history of the world is full of revolutions. One sees but civil wars, tumults, and seditions, caused by the wickedness of princes, and I know not which to admire the most nowadays, the impudence of the rulers, or the patience of the people."
The secretary complained then that Monsieur l'Abbé Coignard overlooked the benefits of royalty, and Monsieur Blaizot represented to us that it was not fitting to contend about public matters in a bookseller's shop.
When we were outside, I pulled my good master by the sleeve.
"Monsieur l'Abbé," I said, "have you then forgotten the old woman of Syracuse, that you now want to change the tyrant?"
"Tournebroche, my son," answered he, "I acknowledge with a good grace that I have fallen into a contradiction. But this ambiguity, that you justly point out in my words, is not as evil as that called antinomy by the philosophers. Charron, in his book on 'Wisdom,' affirms that antinomies exist which cannot be resolved. For my part, I am no sooner plunged in meditations of the kind than I see in my mind's eye half a dozen of these she-devils take each other by the nose and make pretence to tear each other's eyes out, and one sees at once that one would never come to the end of reconciling these obstinate shrews. I lose all hope of making them agree, and it is their fault if I have not much advanced metaphysics. But in the present case the contradiction, my son, is merely apparent. My reason always sides with the old woman of Syracuse. I think to-day what I thought yesterday. Only I have let my feelings run away with me and have yielded to passion as do the vulgar."