The Village Rector

VII

MON­TEG­NAC

Priests and re­li­gious devo­tees have a ten­den­cy in the mat­ter of pay­ments to keep strict­ly to the let­ter of the law. Is this from pover­ty, or from the self­ish­ness to which their iso­la­tion con­demns them, thus en­cour­ag­ing the nat­ural in­cli­na­tion of all men to avarice; or is it from a con­sci­en­tious par­si­mo­ny which saves all it can for deeds of char­ity? Each na­ture will give a dif­fer­ent an­swer to this ques­tion. The dif­fi­cul­ty of putting the hand in­to the pock­et, some­times con­cealed by a gra­cious kind­li­ness, of­ten­er un­re­served­ly ex­hib­it­ed, is more par­tic­ular­ly no­tice­able in trav­el­ling. Gabriel de Rastignac, the pret­ti­est youth who had served be­fore the al­tar for many a long day, gave on­ly a thir­ty-​sous _pour-​boire_ to the pos­til­ion. Con­se­quent­ly he trav­elled slow­ly. Pos­til­ions drive bish­ops and oth­er cler­gy with the ut­most care when they mere­ly dou­ble the le­gal wage, and they run no risk of dam­ag­ing the epis­co­pal car­riage for any such sum, fear­ing, they might say, to get them­selves in­to trou­ble. The Abbe Gabriel, who was trav­el­ling alone for the first time, said, at each re­lay, in his dul­cet voice:--

“Pray go faster, pos­til­ion.”

“We ply the whip,” replied an old pos­til­ion, “ac­cord­ing to how the trav­eller plies his fin­ger and thumb.”

The young abbe flung him­self back in­to a cor­ner of the car­riage un­able to com­pre­hend that an­swer. To oc­cu­py the time he be­gan to study the coun­try through which he was pass­ing, mak­ing sev­er­al men­tal ex­cur­sions on foot among the hills through which the road winds be­tween Bor­deaux and Ly­on.

About fif­teen miles from Limo­ges the land­scape, los­ing the grace­ful flow of the Vi­enne through the un­du­lat­ing mead­ows of the Limousin, which in cer­tain places re­mind one of Switzer­land, es­pe­cial­ly about Saint-​Leonard, takes on a harsh and melan­choly as­pect. Here we come up­on vast tracts of un­cul­ti­vat­ed land, sandy plains with­out herbage, hemmed in on the hori­zon by the sum­mits of the Cor­reze. These moun­tains have nei­ther the abrupt rise of the Alpine ranges nor their splen­did ridges; nei­ther the warm gorges and des­olate peaks of the Ap­penines, nor the pic­turesque grandeur of the Pyre­nees. Their un­du­lat­ing slopes, due to the ac­tion of wa­ter, prove the sub­si­dence of some great nat­ural catas­tro­phe in which the floods re­tired slow­ly. This char­ac­ter­is­tic, com­mon to most of the earth con­vul­sions in France, has per­haps con­tribut­ed, to­geth­er with the cli­mate, to the epi­taph of _douce_ be­stowed by all Eu­rope on our sun­ny France.

Though this abrupt tran­si­tion from the smil­ing land­scapes of the Limousin to the stern­er as­pects of La Marche and Au­vergne may of­fer to the thinker and the po­et, as he pass­es them on his way, an im­age of the In­fi­nite, that ter­ror of cer­tain minds; though it in­cites to rev­el­ry the wom­an of the world, bored as she trav­els lux­uri­ous­ly in her car­riage,--to the in­hab­itants of this re­gion Na­ture is cru­el, sav­age, and with­out re­sources. The soil of these great gray plains is thank­less. The vicin­ity of a cap­ital town could alone re­pro­duce the mir­acle worked in Brie dur­ing the last two cen­turies. Here, how­ev­er, not on­ly is a town lack­ing, but al­so the great res­idences which some­times give life to these hope­less deserts, where civ­iliza­tion lan­guish­es, where the agri­cul­tur­ist sees on­ly bar­ren­ness, and the trav­eller finds not a sin­gle inn, nor that which, per­chance, he is there to seek,--the pic­turesque.

Great minds, how­ev­er, do not dis­like these bar­ren wastes, nec­es­sary shad­ows in Na­ture's vast pic­ture. Quite re­cent­ly Fen­imore Coop­er has mag­nif­icent­ly de­vel­oped with his melan­choly ge­nius the poesy of such soli­tudes, in his “Prairie.” These re­gions, un­known to botanists, cov­ered by min­er­al refuse, round peb­bles, and a ster­ile soil, cast de­fi­ance to civ­iliza­tion. France should adopt the on­ly so­lu­tion to these dif­fi­cul­ties, as the British have done in Scot­land, where pa­tient, hero­ic agri­cul­ture has changed the arid wastes in­to fer­tile farms. Left in their sav­age and prim­itive state these un­cul­ti­vat­ed so­cial and nat­ural wastes give birth to dis­cour­age­ment, lazi­ness, weak­ness re­sult­ing from poor food, and crime when needs be­come im­por­tu­nate.

These few words present the past his­to­ry of Mon­teg­nac. What could be done in that great tract of bar­ren land, ne­glect­ed by the gov­ern­ment, aban­doned by the no­bil­ity, use­less to in­dus­try,--what but war against so­ci­ety which dis­re­gard­ed its du­ty? Con­se­quent­ly, the in­hab­itants of Mon­teg­nac lived to a re­cent pe­ri­od, as the High­lands of Scot­land lived in for­mer times, by mur­der and rap­ine. From the mere as­pect of this re­gion a think­ing man would un­der­stand how, twen­ty years ear­li­er, the in­hab­itants were at war with so­ci­ety. The great up­land plain, flanked on one side by the val­ley of the Vi­enne, on the oth­er by the charm­ing val­leys of La Marche, then by Au­vergne, and bound­ed by the moun­tains of the Cor­reze, is like (agri­cul­ture apart) the plateau of La Beauce, which sep­arates the basin of the Loire from that of the Seine, al­so like those of Touraine and Berry, and many oth­er of the great up­land plains which are cut like facets on the sur­face of France and are nu­mer­ous enough to claim the at­ten­tion of the wis­est ad­min­is­tra­tors. It is amaz­ing that while com­plaint is made of the in­flux of pop­ula­tion to the so­cial cen­tres, the gov­ern­ment does not em­ploy the nat­ural rem­edy of re­deem­ing a re­gion where, as statis­tics show, there are many mil­lion acres of waste land, cer­tain parts of which, es­pe­cial­ly in Berry, have a soil from sev­en to eight feet deep.

Many of these plains which might be cov­ered by vil­lages and made splen­did­ly pro­duc­tive be­long to ob­sti­nate com­munes, the au­thor­ities of which refuse to sell to those who would de­vel­op them, mere­ly to keep the right to pas­ture cows up­on them! On all these use­less, un­pro­duc­tive lands is writ­ten the word “In­ca­pac­ity.” All soils have some spe­cial fer­til­ity of their own. Arms and wills are ready; the thing lack­ing is a sense of du­ty com­bined with tal­ent on the part of the gov­ern­ment. In France, up to the present time, these up­land plains have been sac­ri­ficed to the val­leys; the gov­ern­ment has cho­sen to give all its help to those re­gions of coun­try which can take care of them­selves.

Most of these luck­less up­lands are with­out wa­ter, the first es­sen­tial for pro­duc­tion. The mists which ought to fer­til­ize the gray, dead soil by dis­charg­ing oxy­gen up­on it, sweep across it rapid­ly, driv­en by the wind, for want of trees which might ar­rest them and so ob­tain their nour­ish­ment. Mere­ly to plant trees in such a re­gion would be car­ry­ing a gospel to it. Sep­arat­ed from the near­est town or city by a dis­tance as in­sur­mount­able to poor folk as though a desert lay be­tween them, with no means of reach­ing a mar­ket for their prod­ucts (if they pro­duced any­thing), close to an un­ex­plored for­est which sup­plied them with wood and the un­cer­tain liveli­hood of poach­ing, the in­hab­itants of­ten suf­fered from hunger dur­ing the win­ters. The soil not be­ing suit­able for wheat, and the un­for­tu­nate peas­antry hav­ing nei­ther cat­tle of any kind nor farm­ing im­ple­ments, they lived for the most part on chest­nuts.

Any one who has stud­ied zo­olog­ical pro­duc­tions in a mu­se­um, or be­come per­son­al­ly aware of the in­de­scrib­able de­pres­sion caused by the brown tones of all Eu­ro­pean prod­ucts, will un­der­stand how the con­stant sight of these gray, arid plains must have af­fect­ed the moral na­ture of the in­hab­itants, through the des­olate sense of ut­ter bar­ren­ness which they present to the eye. There, in those dis­mal re­gions, is nei­ther cool­ness nor bright­ness, nor shade nor con­trast,--none of all those ideas and spec­ta­cles of Na­ture which awak­en and re­joice the heart; even a stunt­ed ap­ple-​tree would be hailed as a friend.

A coun­try road, re­cent­ly made, runs through the cen­tre of this great plain, and meets the high-​road. Up­on it, at a dis­tance of some fif­teen miles from the high-​road, stands Mon­teg­nac, at the foot of a hill, as its name des­ig­nates, the chief town of a can­ton or dis­trict in the Haute-​Vi­enne. The hill is part of Mon­teg­nac, which thus unites a moun­tain­ous scenery with that of the plains. This dis­trict is a minia­ture Scot­land, with its low­lands and high­lands. Be­hind the hill, at the foot of which lies the vil­lage, ris­es, at a dis­tance of about three miles, the first peak of the Cor­reze moun­tains. The space be­tween is cov­ered by the great for­est of Mon­teg­nac, which clothes the hill, ex­tends over the val­ley, and along the slopes of the moun­tain (though these are bare in some places), con­tin­uing as far as the high­way to Aubus­son, where it di­min­ish­es to a point near a steep em­bank­ment on that road. This em­bank­ment com­mands a ravine through which the post-​road be­tween Bor­deaux and Ly­on pass­es. Trav­ellers, ei­ther afoot or in car­riages, were of­ten stopped in the depths of this dan­ger­ous gorge by high­way­men, whose deeds of vi­olence went un­pun­ished, for the site fa­vored them; they could in­stant­ly dis­ap­pear, by ways known to them alone, in­to the in­ac­ces­si­ble parts of the for­est.

Such a re­gion was nat­ural­ly out of reach of law. No one now trav­elled through it. With­out cir­cu­la­tion, nei­ther com­merce, in­dus­try, ex­change of ideas, nor any of the means to wealth, can ex­ist; the ma­te­ri­al tri­umphs of civ­iliza­tion are al­ways the re­sult of the ap­pli­ca­tion of prim­itive ideas. Thought is in­vari­ably the point of de­par­ture and the goal of all so­cial ex­is­tence. The his­to­ry of Mon­teg­nac is a proof of that ax­iom of so­cial sci­ence. When at last the ad­min­is­tra­tion was able to con­cern it­self with the needs and the ma­te­ri­al pros­per­ity of this re­gion of coun­try, it cut down this strip of for­est, and sta­tioned a de­tach­ment of gen­darmerie near the ravine, which es­cort­ed the mail-​coach­es be­tween the two re­lays; but, to the shame of the gen­darmerie be it said, it was the gospel, and not the sword, the rec­tor Mon­sieur Bon­net, and not Cor­po­ral Chervin, who won a civ­il vic­to­ry by chang­ing the morals of a pop­ula­tion. This priest, filled with Chris­tian ten­der­ness for the poor, hap­less re­gion, at­tempt­ed to re­gen­er­ate it, and suc­ceed­ed in the at­tempt.

Af­ter trav­el­ling for about an hour over these plains, al­ter­nate­ly stony and dusty, where the par­tridges flocked in tran­quil cov­eys, their wings whirring with a dull, heavy sound as the car­riage came to­ward them, the Abbe Gabriel, like all oth­er trav­ellers on the same road, saw with sat­is­fac­tion the roofs of Mon­teg­nac in the dis­tance. At the en­trance of the vil­lage was one of those cu­ri­ous post-​re­lays which are seen on­ly in the re­mote parts of France. Its sign was an oak board on which some pre­ten­tious pos­til­ion had carved the words, _Pauste o chevos_, black­en­ing the let­ters with ink, and then nail­ing the board by its four cor­ners above the door of a wretched sta­ble in which there were no hors­es. The door, which was near­ly al­ways open, had a plank laid on the soil for its thresh­old, to pro­tect the sta­ble floor, which was low­er than the road, from in­un­da­tion when it rained. The dis­cour­aged trav­eller could see with­in worn-​out, mildewed, and mend­ed har­ness­es, cer­tain to break at a plunge of the hors­es. The hors­es them­selves were hard at work in the fields, or any­where but in the sta­ble. If by any chance they hap­pen to be in their stalls, they are eat­ing; if they have fin­ished eat­ing, the pos­til­ion has gone to see his aunt or his cousin, or is get­ting in the hay, or else he is asleep; no one can say where he is; the trav­eller has to wait till he is found, and he nev­er comes till he has fin­ished what he is about. When he does come he los­es an im­mense amount of time look­ing for his jack­et and his whip, or putting the col­lars on his hors­es. Near by, at the door of the post-​house, a wor­thy wom­an is fum­ing even more than the trav­eller, in or­der to pre­vent the lat­ter from com­plain­ing loud­ly. This is sure to be the wife of the post-​mas­ter, whose hus­band is away in the fields.

The bish­op's sec­re­tary left his car­riage be­fore a post-​house of this kind, the walls of which re­sem­bled a ge­ograph­ical map, while the thatched roof, bloom­ing like a flow­er-​gar­den, seemed to be giv­ing way be­neath the weight of stone-​crop. Af­ter beg­ging the post-​mis­tress to have ev­ery­thing in readi­ness for his de­par­ture in an hour's time, the abbe asked the way to the par­son­age. The good wom­an showed him a lane which led to the church, telling him the rec­to­ry was close be­side it.

While the young abbe fol­lowed this lane, which was full of stones and closed on ei­ther side by hedges, the post-​mis­tress ques­tioned the pos­til­ion. Since start­ing from Limo­ges each pos­til­ion had in­formed his suc­ces­sor of the con­jec­tures of the Limo­ges pos­til­ion as to the mis­sion of the bish­op's mes­sen­ger. While the in­hab­itants of the town were get­ting out of bed and talk­ing of the com­ing ex­ecu­tion, a ru­mor spread among the coun­try peo­ple that the bish­op had ob­tained the par­don of the in­no­cent man; and much was said about the mis­takes to which hu­man jus­tice was li­able. If Jean-​Fran­cois was ex­ecut­ed lat­er, it was cer­tain that he was re­gard­ed in the coun­try re­gions as a mar­tyr.

Af­ter tak­ing a few steps along the lane, red­dened by the au­tumn leaves, and black with mul­ber­ries and damsons, the Abbe Gabriel turned round with the in­stinc­tive im­pulse which leads us all to make ac­quain­tance with a re­gion which we see for the first time,--a sort of in­stinc­tive phys­ical cu­rios­ity shared by dogs and hors­es.

The po­si­tion of Mon­teg­nac was ex­plained to him as his eyes rest­ed on var­ious lit­tle streams flow­ing down the hill­sides and on a lit­tle riv­er, along the bank of which runs the coun­try road which con­nects the chief town of the ar­rondisse­ment with the pre­fec­ture. Like all the vil­lages of this up­land plain, Mon­teg­nac is built of earth baked in the sun and mould­ed in­to square blocks. Af­ter a fire a house looks as if it had been built of brick. The roofs are of thatch. Pover­ty is ev­ery­where vis­ible.

Be­fore the vil­lage lay sev­er­al fields of pota­toes, radish­es, and rye, re­deemed from the bar­ren plain. On the slope of the hill were ir­ri­gat­ed mead­ows where the in­hab­itants raised hors­es, the fa­mous Limousin breed, which is said to be a lega­cy of the Arabs when they de­scend­ed by the Pyre­nees in­to France and were cut to pieces by the bat­tle-​ax­es of the Franks un­der Charles Mar­tel. The heights are bar­ren. A hot, baked, red­dish soil shows a re­gion where chest­nuts flour­ish. The springs, care­ful­ly ap­plied to ir­ri­ga­tion, wa­ter the mead­ows on­ly, nour­ish­ing the sweet, crisp grass, so fine and choice, which pro­duces this race of del­icate and high-​strung hors­es,--not over-​strong to bear fa­tigue, but showy, ex­cel­lent for the coun­try of their birth, though sub­ject to changes if trans­plant­ed. A few mul­ber­ry trees late­ly im­port­ed showed an in­ten­tion of cul­ti­vat­ing silk-​worms.

Like most of the vil­lages in this world Mon­teg­nac had but one street, through which the high road passed. Nev­er­the­less there was an up­per and a low­er Mon­teg­nac, reached by lanes go­ing up or go­ing down from the main street. A line of hous­es stand­ing along the brow of the hill pre­sent­ed the cheer­ful sight of ter­raced gar­dens, which were en­tered by flights of steps from the main street. Some had their steps of earth, oth­ers of peb­bles; here and there old wom­en were sit­ting on them, knit­ting or watch­ing chil­dren, and keep­ing up a con­ver­sa­tion from the up­per to the low­er town across the usu­al­ly peace­ful street of the lit­tle vil­lage; thus ru­mors spread eas­ily and rapid­ly in Mon­teg­nac. All the gar­dens, which were full of fruit-​trees, cab­bages, onions, and oth­er veg­eta­bles, had bee-​hives along their ter­races.

An­oth­er line of hous­es, run­ning down from the main street to the riv­er, the course of which was out­lined by thriv­ing lit­tle fields of hemp and the sorts of fruit trees which like mois­ture, lay par­al­lel with the up­per town; some of the hous­es, that of the post-​house, for in­stance, were in a hol­low, and were well-​sit­uat­ed for cer­tain kinds of work, such as weav­ing. Near­ly all of them were shared by wal­nut-​trees, the tree _par ex­cel­lence_ of strong soils.

On this side of the main street at the end far­thest from the great plain was a dwelling-​house, very much larg­er and bet­ter cared for than those in oth­er parts of the vil­lage; around it were oth­er hous­es equal­ly well kept. This lit­tle ham­let, sep­arat­ed from the vil­lage by its gar­dens, was al­ready called Les Tascherons, a name it keeps to the present day.

The vil­lage it­self mount­ed to very lit­tle, but thir­ty or more out­ly­ing farms be­longed to it. In the val­ley, lead­ing down to the riv­er, ir­ri­gat­ing chan­nels like those of La Marche and Berry in­di­cat­ed the flow of wa­ter around the vil­lage by the green fringe of ver­dure about them; Mon­teg­nac seemed tossed in their midst like a ves­sel at sea. When a house, an es­tate, a vil­lage, a re­gion, pass­es from the wretched con­di­tion to a pros­per­ous one, with­out be­com­ing ei­ther rich or splen­did, life seems so easy, so nat­ural to liv­ing be­ings, that the spec­ta­tor may not at once sus­pect the enor­mous la­bor, in­fi­nite in pet­ty de­tail, grand in per­sis­ten­cy like the toil buried in a foun­da­tion wall, in short, the for­got­ten la­bor on which the whole struc­ture rests.

Con­se­quent­ly the scene that lay be­fore him told noth­ing ex­traor­di­nary to the young Abbe Gabriel as his eye took in the charm­ing land­scape. He knew noth­ing of the state of the re­gion be­fore the ar­rival of the rec­tor, Mon­sieur Bon­net. The young man now went on a few steps and again saw, sev­er­al hun­dred feet above the gar­dens of the up­per vil­lage, the church and the par­son­age, which he had al­ready seen from a dis­tance con­fus­ed­ly min­gled with the im­pos­ing ru­ins clothed with creep­ers of the old cas­tle of Mon­teg­nac, one of the res­idences of the Navar­reins fam­ily in the twelfth cen­tu­ry.

The par­son­age, a house orig­inal­ly built no doubt for the bailiff or game-​keep­er, was no­tice­able for a long raised ter­race plant­ed with lin­dens from which a fine view ex­tend­ed over the coun­try. The steps lead­ing to this ter­race and the walls which sup­port­ed it showed their great age by the rav­ages of time. The flat moss which clings to stones had laid its drag­on-​green car­pet on each sur­face. The nu­mer­ous fam­ilies of the pel­li­to­ries, the chamomiles, the mesem­bryan­the­mums, pushed their var­ied and abun­dant tufts through the loop-​holes in the walls, cracked and fis­sured in spite of their thick­ness. Botany had lav­ished there its most el­egant drap­ery of ferns of all kinds, snap-​drag­ons with their vi­olet mouths and gold­en pis­tils, the blue an­chusa, the brown lichens, so that the old worn stones seemed mere ac­ces­sories peep­ing out at in­ter­vals from this fresh growth. Along the ter­race a box hedge, cut in­to ge­omet­ric fig­ures, en­closed a plea­sure gar­den sur­round­ing the par­son­age, above which the rock rose like a white wall sur­mount­ed by slen­der trees that drooped and swayed above it like plumes.

The ru­ins of the cas­tle looked down up­on the house and church. The house, built of peb­bles and mor­tar, had but one sto­ry sur­mount­ed by an enor­mous slop­ing roof with gable ends, in which were at­tics, no doubt emp­ty, con­sid­er­ing the di­lap­ida­tion of their win­dows. The ground-​floor had two rooms part­ed by a cor­ri­dor, at the far­ther end of which was a wood­en stair­case lead­ing to the sec­ond floor, which al­so had two rooms. A lit­tle kitchen was at the back of the build­ing in a yard, where were the sta­ble and coach-​house, both un­used, de­sert­ed, and worth­less. The kitchen gar­den lay be­tween the church and the house; a ru­ined gallery led from the par­son­age to the sac­risty.

When the young abbe saw the four win­dows with their lead­ed panes, the brown and mossy walls, the door in com­mon pine slit like a bun­dle of match­es, far from be­ing at­tract­ed by the adorable naivete of these de­tails, the grace of the veg­eta­tions which draped the roof and the di­lap­idat­ed wood­en frames of the win­dows, the wealth of the clam­ber­ing plants es­cap­ing from ev­ery cran­ny, and the clasp­ing ten­drils of the grape-​vine which looked in­to ev­ery win­dow as if to bring smil­ing ideas to those with­in, he con­grat­ulat­ed him­self hearti­ly on be­ing a bish­op in per­spec­tive in­stead of a vil­lage rec­tor.

This house, ap­par­ent­ly al­ways open, seemed to be­long to ev­ery­body. The Abbe Gabriel en­tered a room com­mu­ni­cat­ing with the kitchen, which was poor­ly fur­nished with an oak ta­ble on four stout legs, a tapestried arm­chair, a num­ber of chairs all of wood, and an old chest by way of buf­fet. No one was in the kitchen ex­cept a cat which re­vealed the pres­ence of a wom­an about the house. The oth­er room served as a sa­lon. Cast­ing a glance about it the young priest no­ticed arm­chairs in nat­ural wood cov­ered with tapestry; the wood­work and the rafters of the ceil­ing were of chest­nut which had turned as black as ebony. A tall clock in a green case paint­ed with flow­ers, a ta­ble with a fad­ed green cloth, sev­er­al chairs, two can­dle­sticks on the chim­ney-​piece, be­tween which was an In­fant Je­sus in wax un­der a glass case, com­plet­ed the fur­ni­ture of the room. The chim­ney-​piece of wood with com­mon mould­ings was filled by a fire-​board cov­ered by a paint­ing rep­re­sent­ing the Good Shep­herd with a lamb over his shoul­der, which was prob­ably the gift of some young girl,--the may­or's daugh­ter, or the judge's daugh­ter,--in re­turn for the pas­tor's care of her ed­uca­tion.

The for­lorn con­di­tion of the house was dis­tress­ing to be­hold; the walls, once white­washed, were now dis­col­ored, and stained to a man's height by con­stant fric­tion. The stair­case with its heavy balus­ter and wood­en steps, though very clean, looked as if it might eas­ily give way un­der the feet. On the oth­er side of the house, op­po­site to the en­trance door, an­oth­er door open­ing up­on the kitchen gar­den en­abled the Abbe de Rastignac to judge of the nar­row­ness of that gar­den, which was closed at the back by a wall cut in the white and fri­able stone side of the moun­tain, against which es­paliers were fas­tened, cov­ered with grape-​vines and fruit-​trees so ill tak­en care of that their leaves were dis­col­ored with blight.

The abbe re­turned up­on his steps and walked along the paths of the first gar­den, from which he could see, in the dis­tance be­yond the vil­lage, the mag­nif­icent stretch of val­ley, a true oa­sis at the edge of the vast plains, which now, veiled by the light mists of morn­ing, lay along the hori­zon like a tran­quil ocean. Be­hind him could be seen, on one side, for a foil, the dark mass­es of the bronze-​green for­est; on the oth­er, the church and the ru­ins of the cas­tle perched on the rock and vivid­ly de­tached up­on the blue of the ether. The Abbe Gabriel, his feet creak­ing on the grav­el­ly paths cut in stars and rounds and lozenges, looked down up­on the vil­lage, where some of the in­hab­itants were al­ready gaz­ing up at him, and then at the fresh, cool val­ley, with its tan­gled paths, its riv­er bor­dered with wil­lows in de­light­ful con­trast to the end­less plain, and he was sud­den­ly seized with sen­sa­tions which changed the na­ture of his thoughts; he ad­mired the sweet tran­quil­li­ty of the place; he felt the in­flu­ence of that pure air; he was con­scious of the peace in­spired by the rev­ela­tion of a life brought back to Bib­li­cal sim­plic­ity; he saw, con­fus­ed­ly, the beau­ties of this old par­son­age, which he now re-​en­tered to ex­am­ine its de­tails with greater in­ter­est.

A lit­tle girl, em­ployed, no doubt, to watch the house, though she was pick­ing and eat­ing fruit in the gar­den, heard the steps of a man with creak­ing shoes on the great square flags of the ground-​floor rooms. She ran in to see who it was. Con­fused at be­ing caught by a priest with a fruit in one hand and an­oth­er in her mouth, she made no an­swer to the ques­tions of the hand­some young abbe. She had nev­er imag­ined such an abbe,--dap­per and spruce as hands could make him, in daz­zling linen and fine black cloth with­out spot or wrin­kle.

“Mon­sieur Bon­net?” she said at last. “Mon­sieur Bon­net is say­ing mass, and Made­moi­selle Ur­sule is at church.”

The Abbe Gabriel did not no­tice a cov­ered way from the house to the church; he went back to the road which led to the front por­tal, a species of porch with a slop­ing roof that faced the vil­lage. It was reached by a se­ries of dis­joint­ed stone steps, at the side of which lay a ravine washed out by the moun­tain tor­rents and cov­ered with no­ble elms plant­ed by Sul­ly the Protes­tant. This church, one of the poor­est in France where there are so many poor church­es, was like one of those enor­mous barns with pro­ject­ing doors cov­ered by roofs sup­port­ed on brick or wood­en pil­lars. Built, like the par­son­age, of cob­ble­stones and mor­tar, flanked by a face of sol­id rock, and roofed by the com­mon­est round tiles, this church was dec­orat­ed on the out­side with the rich­est cre­ations of sculp­ture, rich in light and shade and lav­ish­ly massed and col­ored by Na­ture, who un­der­stands such art as well as any Michael An­ge­lo. Ivy clasped the walls with its ner­vous ten­drils, show­ing stems amid its fo­liage like the veins in a lay fig­ure. This man­tle, flung by Time to cov­er the wounds he made, was starred by au­tumn flow­ers droop­ing from the crevices, which al­so gave shel­ter to nu­mer­ous singing birds. The rose-​win­dow above the pro­ject­ing porch was adorned with blue cam­pan­ula, like the first page of an il­lu­mi­nat­ed missal. The side which com­mu­ni­cat­ed with the par­son­age, to­ward the north, was not less dec­orat­ed; the wall was gray and red with moss and lichen; but the oth­er side and the apse, around which lay the ceme­tery, was cov­ered with a wealth of var­ied blooms. A few trees, among oth­ers an al­mond-​tree--one of the em­blems of hope --had tak­en root in the bro­ken wall; two enor­mous pines stand­ing close against the ap­sis served as light­ning-​rods. The ceme­tery, en­closed by a low, half-​ru­ined wall, had for or­na­ment an iron cross, mount­ed on a pedestal and hung with box, blessed at East­er,--one of those af­fect­ing Chris­tian thoughts for­got­ten in cities. The vil­lage rec­tor is the on­ly priest who, in these days, thinks to go among his dead and say to them each East­er morn, “Thou shalt live again!” Here and there a few rot­ten wood­en cross­es stood up from the grassy mounds.

The in­te­ri­or of the church har­mo­nized per­fect­ly with the po­et­ic tan­gle of the hum­ble ex­te­ri­or, the lux­ury and art of which was be­stowed by Time, for once in a way char­ita­ble. With­in, the eye first went to the roof, lined with chest­nut, to which age had giv­en the rich­est tints of the old­est woods of Eu­rope. This roof was sup­port­ed at equal dis­tances by strong shafts rest­ing on transver­sal beams. The four white-​washed walls had no or­na­ment what­ev­er. Pover­ty had made the parish icon­oclas­tic, whether it would or not. The church, paved and fur­nished with bench­es, was light­ed by four arched win­dows with lead­ed panes. The al­tar, shaped like a tomb, was adorned by a large cru­ci­fix placed above a taber­na­cle in wal­nut with a few gilt mould­ings, kept clean and shin­ing, eight can­dle­sticks eco­nom­ical­ly made of wood paint­ed white, and two chi­na vas­es filled with ar­ti­fi­cial flow­ers such as the drudge of a mon­ey-​chang­er would have de­spised, but with which God was sat­is­fied.

The sanc­tu­ary lamp was a night-​wick placed in an old holy-​wa­ter basin of plat­ed cop­per hang­ing by silken cords, the spoil of some de­mol­ished chateau. The bap­tismal fonts were of wood; so were the pul­pit and a sort of cage pro­vid­ed for the church-​war­dens, the pa­tri­cians of the vil­lage. An al­tar to the Vir­gin pre­sent­ed to pub­lic ad­mi­ra­tion two col­ored lithographs in small gilt frames. The al­tar was paint­ed white, adorned with ar­ti­fi­cial flow­ers in gild­ed wood­en vas­es, and cov­ered by a cloth edged with shab­by and dis­col­ored lace.

At the far­ther end of the church a long win­dow en­tire­ly cov­ered by a red cal­ico cur­tain pro­duced a mag­ical ef­fect. This crim­son man­tle cast a rosy tint up­on the white­washed walls; a thought di­vine seemed to glow up­on the al­tar and clasp the poor nave as if to warm it. The pas­sage which led to the sac­risty ex­hib­it­ed on one of its walls the pa­tron saint of the vil­lage, a large Saint John the Bap­tist with his sheep, carved in wood and hor­ri­bly paint­ed.

But in spite of all this pover­ty the church was not with­out some ten­der har­monies de­light­ful to choice souls, and set in charm­ing re­lief by their own col­ors. The rich dark tones of the wood re­lieved the white of the walls and blend­ed with the tri­umphal crim­son cast on the chan­cel. This trin­ity of col­or was a re­minder of the grand Catholic doc­trine.

If sur­prise was the first emo­tion roused by this piti­ful house of the Lord, sur­prise was fol­lowed speed­ily by ad­mi­ra­tion min­gled with pity. Did it not tru­ly ex­press the pover­ty of that poor re­gion? Was it not in har­mo­ny with the naive sim­plic­ity of the par­son­age? The build­ing was per­fect­ly clean and well-​kept. The fra­grance of coun­try virtues ex­haled with­in it; noth­ing showed ne­glect or aban­don­ment. Though rus­tic and poor and sim­ple, prayer dwelt there; those precincts had a soul,--a soul which was felt, though we might not ful­ly ex­plain to our own souls how we felt it.