The Village Rector

VIII

THE REC­TOR OF MON­TEG­NAC

The Abbe Gabriel glid­ed soft­ly through the church so as not to dis­turb the de­vo­tions of two groups of per­sons on the bench­es near the high al­tar, which was sep­arat­ed from the nave at the place where the lamp was hung by a rather com­mon balustrade, al­so of chest­nut wood, and cov­ered with a cloth in­tend­ed for the com­mu­nion. On ei­ther side of the nave a score of peas­ants, men and wom­en, ab­sorbed in fer­vent prayer, paid no at­ten­tion to the stranger when he passed up the nar­row pas­sage be­tween the two rows of seats.

When the young abbe stood be­neath the lamp, whence he could see the two lit­tle transepts which formed a cross, one of which led to the sac­risty, the oth­er to the ceme­tery, he no­ticed on the ceme­tery side a fam­ily clothed in black kneel­ing on the pave­ment, the transepts hav­ing no bench­es. The young priest knelt down on the step of the balustrade which sep­arat­ed the choir from the nave and be­gan to pray, cast­ing oblique glances at a scene which was soon ex­plained to him. The gospel had been read. The rec­tor, hav­ing re­moved his cha­suble, came down from the al­tar and stood be­fore the rail­ing; the young abbe, who fore­saw this move­ment, leaned back against the wall, so that Mon­sieur Bon­net did not see him. Ten o'clock was strik­ing.

“Brethren,” said the rec­tor, in a voice of emo­tion, “at this very mo­ment a child of this parish is pay­ing his debt to hu­man jus­tice by en­dur­ing its last penal­ty, while we are of­fer­ing the sac­ri­fice of the mass for the peace of his soul. Let us unite in prayer to God, im­plor­ing Him not to turn His face from that child in these his last mo­ments, and to grant to his re­pen­tance the par­don in heav­en which is de­nied to him here be­low. The sin of this un­hap­py man, one of those on whom we most re­lied for good ex­am­ples, can on­ly be ex­plained by his dis­re­gard of re­li­gious prin­ci­ples.”

Here the rec­tor was in­ter­rupt­ed by sobs from the kneel­ing group in mourn­ing gar­ments, whom the Abbe Gabriel rec­og­nized, by this show of af­fec­tion, as the Tascheron fam­ily, al­though he did not know them. First among them was an old cou­ple (sep­tu­age­nar­ians) stand­ing by the wall, their faces seamed with deep-​cut, rigid wrin­kles, and bronzed like a Flo­ren­tine medal. These per­sons, sto­ical­ly erect like stat­ues, in their old darned clothes, were doubt­less the grand­fa­ther and the grand­moth­er of the crim­inal. Their glazed and red­dened eyes seemed to weep blood, their arms trem­bled so that the sticks on which they leaned tapped light­ly on the pave­ment. Next, the fa­ther and the moth­er, their faces in their hand­ker­chiefs, sobbed aloud. Around these four heads of the fam­ily knelt the two mar­ried sis­ters ac­com­pa­nied by their hus­bands, and three sons, stu­pe­fied with grief. Five lit­tle chil­dren on their knees, the old­est not sev­en years old, un­able, no doubt, to un­der­stand what was hap­pen­ing, gazed and lis­tened with the tor­pid cu­rios­ity that char­ac­ter­izes the peas­antry, and is re­al­ly the ob­ser­va­tion of phys­ical things pushed to its high­est lim­it. Last­ly, the poor un­mar­ried sis­ter, im­pris­oned in the in­ter­ests of jus­tice, now re­leased, a mar­tyr to fra­ter­nal af­fec­tion, Denise Tascheron, was lis­ten­ing to the priest's words with a look that was part­ly be­wil­dered and part­ly in­cred­ulous. For her, her broth­er could not die. She well rep­re­sent­ed that one of the Three Marys who did not be­lieve in the death of Christ, though she was present at the last agony. Pale, with dry eyes, like all those who have gone with­out sleep, her fresh com­plex­ion was al­ready fad­ed, less by toil and field la­bor than by grief; nev­er­the­less, she had many of the beau­ties of a coun­try maid­en, --a plump, full fig­ure, fine­ly shaped arms, round­ed cheeks, and clear, pure eyes, light­ed at this in­stant with flash­es of de­spair. Be­low the throat, a firm, fair skin, not tanned by the sun, be­trayed the pres­ence of a white and rosy flesh where the form was hid­den.

The mar­ried daugh­ters wept; their hus­bands, pa­tient farm­ers, were grave and se­ri­ous. The three broth­ers, pro­found­ly sad, did not raise their eyes from the ground. In the midst of this dread­ful pic­ture of dumb de­spair and des­ola­tion, Denise and her moth­er alone showed symp­toms of re­volt.

The oth­er in­hab­itants of the vil­lage unit­ed in the af­flic­tion of this re­spectable fam­ily with a sin­cere and Chris­tian pity which gave the same ex­pres­sion to the faces of all,--an ex­pres­sion amount­ing to hor­ror when the rec­tor's words an­nounced that the knife was then falling on the neck of a young man whom they all knew well from his very birth, and whom they had doubt­less thought in­ca­pable of crime.

The sobs which in­ter­rupt­ed the short and sim­ple al­lo­cu­tion which the pas­tor made to his flock over­came him so much that he stopped and said no more, ex­cept to in­vite all present to fer­vent prayer.

Though this scene was not of a na­ture to sur­prise a priest, Gabriel de Rastignac was too young not to be pro­found­ly touched by it. As yet he had nev­er ex­er­cised the priest­ly virtues; he knew him­self called to oth­er func­tions; he was not forced to en­ter the so­cial breach­es where the heart bleeds at the sight of woes: his mis­sion was that of the high­er cler­gy, who main­tain the spir­it of de­vo­tion, rep­re­sent the high­est in­tel­lect of the Church, and on em­inent oc­ca­sions dis­play the priest­ly virtues on a larg­er stage,--like the il­lus­tri­ous bish­ops of Mar­seille and Meaux, and the arch­bish­ops of Ar­les and Cam­brai.

This lit­tle as­sem­blage of coun­try peo­ple weep­ing and pray­ing for him who, as they sup­posed, was then be­ing ex­ecut­ed on a pub­lic square, among a crowd of per­sons come from all parts to swell the shame of such a death,--this fee­ble coun­ter­poise of prayer and pity, op­posed to the fe­ro­cious cu­rios­ity and just male­dic­tions of a mul­ti­tude, was enough to move any soul, es­pe­cial­ly when seen in that poor church. The Abbe Gabriel was tempt­ed to go up to the Tascherons and say,--

“Your son and broth­er is re­prieved.”

But he did not like to dis­turb the mass; and, more­over, he knew that a re­prieve was on­ly a de­lay of ex­ecu­tion. In­stead of fol­low­ing the ser­vice, he was ir­re­sistibly drawn to a study of the pas­tor from whom the cler­gy in Limo­ges ex­pect­ed the con­ver­sion of the crim­inal.

Judg­ing by the par­son­age, Gabriel de Rastignac had made him­self a por­trait of Mon­sieur Bon­net as a stout, short man with a strong and red face, framed for toil, half a peas­ant, and tanned by the sun. So far from that, the young abbe met his equal. Slight and del­icate in ap­pear­ance, Mon­sieur Bon­net's face struck the eyes at once as the typ­ical face of pas­sion giv­en to the Apos­tles. It was al­most tri­an­gu­lar, be­gin­ning with a broad brow fur­rowed by wrin­kles, and car­ried down from the tem­ples to the chin in two sharp lines which de­fined his hol­low cheeks. In this face, sal­lowed by tones as yel­low as those of a church ta­per, shone two blue eyes that were lu­mi­nous with faith, burn­ing with ea­ger hope. It was di­vid­ed in­to two equal parts by a long nose, thin and straight, with well-​cut nos­trils, be­neath which spoke, even when closed and voice­less, a large mouth, with strong­ly marked lips, from which is­sued, when­ev­er he spoke aloud, one of those voic­es which go straight to the heart. The chest­nut hair, which was thin and fine, and lay flat up­on the head, showed a poor con­sti­tu­tion main­tained by a fru­gal di­et. WILL made the pow­er of this man.

Such were his per­son­al dis­tinc­tions. His short hands might have in­di­cat­ed in an­oth­er man a ten­den­cy to coarse plea­sures, and per­haps he had, like Socrates, con­quered his temp­ta­tions. His thin­ness was un­grace­ful, his shoul­ders were too promi­nent, his knees knocked to­geth­er. The body, too much de­vel­oped for the ex­trem­ities, gave him the look of a hump-​backed man with­out a hump. In short, his ap­pear­ance was not pleas­ing. None but those to whom the mir­acles of thought, faith, art are known could adore that flam­ing gaze of the mar­tyr, that pal­lor of con­stan­cy, that voice of love,--dis­tinc­tive char­ac­ter­is­tics of this vil­lage rec­tor.

This man, wor­thy of the prim­itive Church, which ex­ists no longer ex­cept in the pic­tures of the six­teenth cen­tu­ry and in the pages of Mar­ty­rol­ogy, was stamped with the die of the hu­man great­ness which most near­ly ap­proach­es the di­vine great­ness through Con­vic­tion,--that in­de­fin­able some­thing which em­bel­lish­es the com­mon­est form, gilds with glow­ing tints the faces of men vowed to any wor­ship, no mat­ter what, and brings in­to the face of a wom­an glo­ri­fied by a no­ble love a sort of light. CON­VIC­TION is hu­man will at­tain­ing to its high­est reach. At once both cause and ef­fect, it im­press­es the cold­est na­tures; it is a species of mute elo­quence which holds the mass­es.

Com­ing down from the al­tar the rec­tor caught the eye of the Abbe Gabriel and rec­og­nized him; so that when the bish­op's sec­re­tary reached the sac­risty Ur­sule, to whom her mas­ter had al­ready giv­en or­ders, was wait­ing for him with a re­quest that he would fol­low her.

“Mon­sieur,” said Ur­sule, a wom­an of canon­ical age, con­duct­ing the Abbe de Rastignac by the gallery through the gar­den, “Mon­sieur Bon­net told me to ask if you had break­fast­ed. You must have left Limo­ges very ear­ly to get here by ten o'clock. I will soon have break­fast ready for you. Mon­sieur l'abbe will not find a ta­ble like that of Mon­seigneur the bish­op in this poor vil­lage, but we will do the best we can. Mon­sieur Bon­net will soon be in; he has gone to com­fort those poor peo­ple, the Tascherons. Their son has met with a ter­ri­ble end to-​day.”

“But,” said the Abbe Gabriel, when he could get in a word, “where is the house of those wor­thy per­sons? I must take Mon­sieur Bon­net at once to Limo­ges by or­der of the bish­op. That un­for­tu­nate man will not be ex­ecut­ed to-​day; Mon­seigneur has ob­tained a re­prieve for him.”

“Ah!” ex­claimed Ur­sule, whose tongue itched to spread the news about the vil­lage, “mon­sieur has plen­ty of time to car­ry them that com­fort while I get break­fast ready. The Tascherons' house is be­yond the vil­lage; fol­low the path be­low that ter­race and it will take you there.”

As soon as Ur­sule lost sight of the abbe she went down in­to the vil­lage to dis­sem­inate the news, and al­so to buy the things need­ed for the break­fast.

The rec­tor had been in­formed, while in church, of a des­per­ate res­olu­tion tak­en by the Tascherons as soon as they heard that Jean-​Fran­cois's ap­peal was re­ject­ed and that he had to die. These wor­thy souls in­tend­ed to leave the coun­try, and their world­ly goods were to be sold that very morn­ing. De­lays and for­mal­ities un­ex­pect­ed by them had hith­er­to post­poned the sale. They had been forced to re­main in their home un­til the ex­ecu­tion, and drink each day the cup of shame. This de­ter­mi­na­tion had not been made pub­lic un­til the evening be­fore the day ap­point­ed for the ex­ecu­tion. The Tascherons had ex­pect­ed to leave be­fore that fa­tal day; but the pro­posed pur­chas­er of their prop­er­ty was a stranger in those parts, and was pre­vent­ed from clinch­ing the bar­gain by a de­lay in ob­tain­ing the mon­ey. Thus the hap­less fam­ily were forced to bear their trou­ble to its end. The feel­ing which prompt­ed this ex­pa­tri­ation was so vi­olent in these sim­ple souls, lit­tle ac­cus­tomed to com­pro­mise with their con­sciences, that the grand­fa­ther and grand­moth­er, the fa­ther and the moth­er, the daugh­ters and their hus­bands and the sons, in short, all who bore and had borne the name of Tascheron or were close­ly al­lied to it made ready to leave the coun­try.

This em­igra­tion grieved the whole com­mu­ni­ty. The may­or en­treat­ed the rec­tor to do his best to re­tain these wor­thy peo­ple. Ac­cord­ing to the new Code the fa­ther was not re­spon­si­ble for the son, and the crime of the fa­ther was no dis­grace to the chil­dren. To­geth­er with oth­er eman­ci­pa­tions which have weak­ened pa­ter­nal pow­er, this sys­tem has led to the tri­umph of in­di­vid­ual­ism, which is now per­me­at­ing the whole of mod­ern so­ci­ety. He who thinks on the things of the fu­ture sees the spir­it of fam­ily de­stroyed, where the mak­ers of the new Code have in­tro­duced free­dom of will and equal­ity. The Fam­ily must al­ways be the ba­sis of so­ci­ety. Nec­es­sar­ily tem­po­rary, in­ces­sant­ly di­vid­ed, re­com­posed to dis­solve again, with­out ties be­tween the fu­ture and the past, it can­not ful­fil that mis­sion; the Fam­ily of the old­en time no longer ex­ists in France. Those who have pro­ceed­ed to de­mol­ish the an­cient ed­ifice have been log­ical in di­vid­ing equal­ly the fam­ily prop­er­ty, in di­min­ish­ing the au­thor­ity of the fa­ther, in sup­press­ing great re­spon­si­bil­ities; but is the re­con­struct­ed so­cial state as sol­id, with its young laws still un­tried, as it was un­der a monar­chy, in spite of the old abus­es? In los­ing the sol­idar­ity of fam­ilies, so­ci­ety has lost that fun­da­men­tal force which Mon­tesquieu dis­cov­ered and named HON­OR. It has iso­lat­ed in­ter­ests in or­der to sub­ju­gate them; it has sun­dered all to en­fee­ble all. So­ci­ety reigns over units, over sin­gle fig­ures ag­glom­er­at­ed like grains of corn in a heap. Can the gen­er­al in­ter­ests of all take the place of Fam­ily? Time alone can an­swer that ques­tion.

Nev­er­the­less, the old law still ex­ists; its roots have struck so deep that you will find it still liv­ing, as we find peren­ni­als in po­lar re­gions. Re­mote places are still to be found in the provinces where what are now called prej­udices ex­ist, where the fam­ily suf­fers in the crime of a child or a fa­ther.

This sen­ti­ment made the place un­in­hab­it­able any longer to the Tascherons. Their deep re­li­gious feel­ing took them to church that morn­ing; for how could they let the mass be of­fered to God ask­ing Him to in­spire their son with re­pen­tance that alone could re­store to him life eter­nal, and not share in it? Be­sides, they wished to bid farewell to the vil­lage al­tar. But their minds were made up and their plans al­ready car­ried out. When the rec­tor who fol­lowed them from church reached the prin­ci­pal house he found their bags and bun­dles ready for the jour­ney. The pur­chas­er of the prop­er­ty was there with the mon­ey. The no­tary had drawn up the pa­pers. In the yard be­hind the house was a car­riole ready har­nessed to car­ry away the old­er cou­ple with the mon­ey, and the moth­er of Jean-​Fran­cois. The re­main­der of the fam­ily were to go on foot by night.

At the mo­ment when the young abbe en­tered the low room in which the fam­ily were as­sem­bled the rec­tor of Mon­teg­nac had ex­haust­ed all the re­sources of his elo­quence. The old pair, now in­sen­si­ble to the vi­olence of grief, were crouch­ing in a cor­ner on their bags and look­ing round on their old hered­itary home, its fur­ni­ture, and the new pur­chas­er, and then up­on each oth­er as if to say:--

“Did we ev­er think this thing could hap­pen?”

These old peo­ple, who had long re­signed their au­thor­ity to their son, the fa­ther of the crim­inal, were, like kings on their ab­di­ca­tion, re­duced to the pas­sive role of sub­jects and chil­dren. Tascheron, the fa­ther, was stand­ing up; he lis­tened to the pas­tor, and replied to him in a low voice and by mono­syl­la­bles. This man, who was about forty-​eight years of age, had the no­ble face which Titian has giv­en to so many of his Apos­tles,--a coun­te­nance full of faith, of grave and re­flec­tive in­tegri­ty, a stern pro­file, a nose cut in a straight and pro­ject­ing line, blue eyes, a no­ble brow, reg­ular fea­tures, black, crisp, wiry hair, plant­ed on his head with that sym­me­try which gives a charm to these brown faces, bronzed by toil in the open air. It was easy to see that the rec­tor's ap­peals were pow­er­less against that in­flex­ible will.

Denise was lean­ing against the bread-​box, look­ing at the no­tary, who was us­ing that re­cep­ta­cle as a writ­ing-​ta­ble, seat­ed be­fore it in the grand­moth­er's arm­chair. The pur­chas­er was sit­ting on a stool be­side him. The mar­ried sis­ters were lay­ing a cloth up­on the ta­ble, and serv­ing the last meal the fam­ily were to take in its own house be­fore ex­pa­tri­at­ing it­self to oth­er lands and oth­er skies. The sons were half-​seat­ed on the green serge bed. The moth­er, busy be­side the fire, was beat­ing an omelet. The grand­chil­dren crowd­ed the door­way, be­fore which stood the in­com­ing fam­ily of the pur­chas­er.

The old smoky room with its black­ened rafters, through the win­dow of which was vis­ible a well-​kept gar­den plant­ed by the two old peo­ple, seemed in har­mo­ny with the pent-​up an­guish which could be read on all their faces in di­verse ex­pres­sions. The meal was chiefly pre­pared for the no­tary, the pur­chas­er, the menkind, and the chil­dren. The fa­ther and moth­er, Denise and her sis­ters, were too un­hap­py to eat. There was a lofty, stern res­ig­na­tion in the ac­com­plish­ment of these last du­ties of rus­tic hos­pi­tal­ity. The Tascherons, men of the old­en time, end­ed their days in that house as they had be­gun them, by do­ing its hon­ors. This scene, with­out pre­ten­sion, though full of solem­ni­ty, met the eyes of the bish­op's sec­re­tary when he ap­proached the vil­lage rec­tor to ful­fil the prelate's er­rand.

“The son of these good peo­ple still lives,” said Gabriel.

At these words, heard by all in the deep si­lence, the two old peo­ple rose to their feet as if the last trump had sound­ed. The moth­er dropped her pan up­on the fire; Denise gave a cry of joy; all the oth­ers stood by in pet­ri­fied as­ton­ish­ment.

“Jean-​Fran­cois is par­doned!” cried the whole vil­lage, now rush­ing to­ward the house, hav­ing heard the news from Ur­sule. “Mon­seigneur the bish­op--”

“I knew he was in­no­cent!” cried the moth­er.

“Will it hin­der the pur­chase?” said the pur­chas­er to the no­tary, who an­swered with a sat­is­fy­ing ges­ture.

The Abbe Gabriel was now the cen­tre of all eyes; his sad­ness raised a sus­pi­cion of mis­take. To avoid cor­rect­ing it him­self, he left the house, fol­lowed by the rec­tor, and said to the crowd out­side that the ex­ecu­tion was on­ly post­poned for some days. The up­roar sub­sid­ed in­stant­ly in­to dread­ful si­lence. When the Abbe Gabriel and the rec­tor re­turned, the ex­pres­sion on the faces of the fam­ily was full of an­guish; the si­lence of the crowd was un­der­stood.

“My friends, Jean-​Fran­cois is not par­doned,” said the young abbe, see­ing that the blow had fall­en; “but the state of his soul has so dis­tressed Mon­seigneur that he has ob­tained a de­lay in or­der to save your son in eter­ni­ty.”

“But he lives!” cried Denise.

The young abbe took the rec­tor aside to ex­plain to him the in­ju­ri­ous sit­ua­tion in which the im­pen­itence of his parish­ioner placed re­li­gion, and the du­ty the bish­op im­posed up­on him.

“Mon­seigneur ex­acts my death,” replied the rec­tor. “I have al­ready re­fused the en­treaties of the fam­ily to vis­it their un­hap­py son. Such a con­fer­ence and the sight of his death would shat­ter me like glass. Ev­ery man must work as he can. The weak­ness of my or­gans, or rather, the too great ex­citabil­ity of my ner­vous or­ga­ni­za­tion, pre­vents me from ex­er­cis­ing these func­tions of our min­istry. I have re­mained a sim­ple rec­tor ex­press­ly to be use­ful to my kind in a sphere in which I can re­al­ly ac­com­plish my Chris­tian du­ty. I have care­ful­ly con­sid­ered how far I could sat­is­fy this vir­tu­ous fam­ily and do my pas­toral du­ty to this poor son; but the very idea of mount­ing the scaf­fold with him, the mere thought of as­sist­ing in those fa­tal prepa­ra­tions, sends a shud­der as of death through my veins. It would not be asked of a moth­er; and re­mem­ber, mon­sieur, he was born in the bo­som of my poor church.”

“So,” said the Abbe Gabriel, “you refuse to obey Mon­seigneur?”

“Mon­seigneur is ig­no­rant of the state of my health; he does not know that in a con­sti­tu­tion like mine na­ture re­fus­es--” said Mon­sieur Bon­net, look­ing at the younger priest.

“There are times when we ought, like Belzunce at Mar­seille, to risk cer­tain death,” replied the Abbe Gabriel, in­ter­rupt­ing him.

At this mo­ment the rec­tor felt a hand pulling at his cas­sock; he heard sobs, and turn­ing round he saw the whole fam­ily kneel­ing be­fore him. Young and old, small and great, all were stretch­ing their sup­pli­cat­ing hands to him. One sole cry rose from their lips as he turned his face up­on them:--

“Save his soul, at least!”

The old grand­moth­er it was who had pulled his cas­sock and was wet­ting it with her tears.

“I shall obey, mon­sieur.”

That said, the rec­tor was forced to sit down, for his legs trem­bled un­der him. The young sec­re­tary ex­plained the fren­zied state of the crim­inal's mind.

“Do you think,” he said, as he end­ed his ac­count, “that the sight of his young sis­ter would shake his de­ter­mi­na­tion?”

“Yes, I do,” replied the rec­tor. “Denise, you must go with us.”

“And I, too,” said the moth­er.

“No!” cried the fa­ther; “that child no longer ex­ists for us, and you know it. None of us shall see him.”

“Do not op­pose what may be for his sal­va­tion,” said the young abbe. “You will be re­spon­si­ble for his soul if you refuse us the means of soft­en­ing it. His death may pos­si­bly do more in­jury than his life has done.”

“She may go,” said the fa­ther; “it shall be her pun­ish­ment for op­pos­ing all the dis­ci­pline I ev­er wished to give her son.”

The Abbe Gabriel and Mon­sieur Bon­net re­turned to the par­son­age, where Denise and her moth­er were re­quest­ed to come in time to start for Limo­ges with the two ec­cle­si­as­tics.

As the younger man walked along the path which fol­lowed the out­skirts of up­per Mon­teg­nac he was able to ex­am­ine the vil­lage priest so warm­ly com­mend­ed by the vicar-​gen­er­al less su­per­fi­cial­ly than he did in church. He felt at once in­clined in his fa­vor, by the sim­ple man­ners, the voice full of mag­ic pow­er, and the words in har­mo­ny with the voice of the vil­lage rec­tor. The lat­ter had on­ly vis­it­ed the bish­op's palace once since the prelate had tak­en Gabriel de Rastignac as sec­re­tary. He had hard­ly seen this fa­vorite, des­tined for the epis­co­pate, though he knew how great his in­flu­ence was. Nev­er­the­less, he be­haved with a dig­ni­fied cour­tesy that plain­ly showed the sovereign in­de­pen­dence which the Church be­stows on rec­tors in their parish­es. But the feel­ings of the young abbe, far from an­imat­ing his face, gave it a stern ex­pres­sion; it was more than cold, it was icy. A man ca­pa­ble of chang­ing the moral con­di­tion of a whole pop­ula­tion must sure­ly pos­sess some pow­ers of ob­ser­va­tion, and be more or less of a phys­iog­nomist; and even if the rec­tor had no oth­er sci­ence than that of good­ness, he had just giv­en proof of rare sen­si­bil­ity. He was there­fore struck by the cold­ness with which the bish­op's sec­re­tary met his cour­te­ous ad­vances. Com­pelled to at­tribute this man­ner to some se­cret an­noy­ance, the rec­tor sought in his own mind to dis­cov­er if he had wound­ed his guest, or in what way his con­duct could seem blame­wor­thy in the eyes of his su­pe­ri­ors.

An awk­ward si­lence en­sued, which the Abbe de Rastignac broke by a speech that was full of aris­to­crat­ic as­sump­tion.

“You have a very poor church, mon­sieur,” he said.

“It is too small,” replied Mon­sieur Bon­net. “On the great fete-​days the old men bring bench­es to the porch, and the young men stand out­side in a cir­cle; but the si­lence is so great that all can hear my voice.”

Gabriel was silent for some mo­ments.

“If the in­hab­itants are so re­li­gious how can you let the build­ing re­main in such a state of nu­di­ty?” he said at last.

“Alas, mon­sieur, I have not the courage to spend the mon­ey which is need­ed for the poor on dec­orat­ing the church,--the poor are the church. I as­sure I should not be ashamed of my church if Mon­seigneur should vis­it it on the Fete-​Dieu. The poor re­turn on that day what they have re­ceived. Did you no­tice the nails which are placed at cer­tain dis­tances on the walls? They are used to hold a sort of trel­lis of iron wire on which the wom­en fas­ten bou­quets; the church is fair­ly clothed with flow­ers, and they keep fresh all day. My poor church, which you think so bare, is decked like a bride; it is filled with fra­grance; even the floor is strewn with leaves, in the midst of which they make a path of scat­tered ros­es for the pas­sage of the holy sacra­ment. That's a day on which I do not fear com­par­ison with the pomps of Saint-​Pe­ter at Rome; the Holy Fa­ther has his gold, and I my flow­ers,--to each his own mir­acle. Ah! mon­sieur, the vil­lage of Mon­teg­nac is poor, but it is Catholic. In for­mer times the in­hab­itants robbed trav­ellers; now trav­ellers may leave a sack full of mon­ey where they please and they will find it in my house.”

“That re­sult is to your glo­ry,” said Gabriel.

“It is not a ques­tion of my­self,” replied the rec­tor, col­or­ing at this la­bored com­pli­ment, “but of God's word, of the blessed bread--”

“Brown bread,” re­marked the abbe, smil­ing.

“White bread on­ly suits the stom­achs of the rich,” replied the rec­tor, mod­est­ly.

The young abbe took the hands of the old­er priest and pressed them cor­dial­ly.

“For­give me, mon­sieur,” he said, sud­den­ly mak­ing amends with a look in his beau­ti­ful blue eyes which went to the depths of the rec­tor's soul. “Mon­seigneur told me to test your pa­tience and your mod­esty, but I can't go any fur­ther; I see al­ready how much in­jus­tice the prais­es of the lib­er­als have done you.”

Break­fast was ready; fresh eggs, but­ter, hon­ey, fruits, cream, and cof­fee were served by Ur­sule in the midst of flow­ers, on a white cloth laid up­on the an­tique ta­ble in that old din­ing-​room. The win­dow which looked up­on the ter­race was open; clema­tis, with its white stars re­lieved in the cen­tre by the yel­low bunch of their crisped sta­mens, clasped the rail­ing. A jas­mine ran up one side, nas­tur­tiums clam­bered over the oth­er. Above, the red­den­ing fo­liage of a vine made a rich bor­der that no sculp­tor could have ren­dered, so exquisite was the trac­ery of its lace-​work against the light.

“Life is here re­duced, you see, to its sim­plest ex­pres­sion,” said the rec­tor, smil­ing, though his face did not lose the look which the sad­ness of his heart con­veyed to it. “If we had known of your ar­rival (but who could have fore­seen your er­rand?) Ur­sule would have had some moun­tain trout for you; there's a brook in the for­est where they are ex­cel­lent. I for­get, how­ev­er, that this is Au­gust and the Gabou is dry. My head is con­fused with all these trou­bles.”

“Then you like your life here?” said the young abbe.

“Yes, mon­sieur; if God wills, I shall die rec­tor of Mon­teg­nac. I could have wished that my ex­am­ple were fol­lowed by cer­tain dis­tin­guished men who have thought they did bet­ter things in be­com­ing phi­lan­thropists. But mod­ern phi­lan­thropy is an evil to so­ci­ety; the prin­ci­ples of the Catholic re­li­gion can alone cure the dis­eases which per­me­ate so­cial bod­ies. In­stead of de­scrib­ing those dis­eases and ex­tend­ing their rav­ages by com­plain­ing ele­gies, they should put their hand to the work and en­ter the Lord's vine­yard as sim­ple la­bor­ers. My task is far from be­ing ac­com­plished here, mon­sieur. It is not enough to re­form the peo­ple, whom I found in a fright­ful con­di­tion of impi­ety and wicked­ness; I wish to die in the midst of a gen­er­ation of true be­liev­ers.”

“You have on­ly done your du­ty, mon­sieur,” said the young man, still cold­ly, for his heart was stirred with en­vy.

“Yes, mon­sieur,” replied the rec­tor, mod­est­ly, giv­ing his com­pan­ion a glance which seemed to say: Is this a fur­ther test? “I pray that all may do their du­ty through­out the king­dom.”

This re­mark, full of deep mean­ing, was still fur­ther em­pha­sized by a tone of ut­ter­ance, which proved that in 1829 this priest, as grand in thought as he was no­ble in hu­mil­ity of con­duct, and who sub­or­di­nat­ed his thoughts to those of his su­pe­ri­ors, saw clear­ly in­to the des­tinies of both church and monar­chy.

When the two af­flict­ed wom­en came the young abbe, very im­pa­tient to get back to Limo­ges, left the par­son­age to see if the hors­es were har­nessed. A few mo­ments lat­er he re­turned to say that all was ready. All four then start­ed un­der the eyes of the whole pop­ula­tion of Mon­teg­nac, which was gath­ered in the road­way be­fore the post-​house. The moth­er and sis­ter kept si­lence. The two priests, see­ing rocks ahead in many sub­jects, could nei­ther talk in­dif­fer­ent­ly nor al­low them­selves to be cheer­ful. While seek­ing for some neu­tral sub­ject the car­riage crossed the plain, the as­pect of which drea­ry re­gion seemed to in­flu­ence the du­ra­tion of their melan­choly si­lence.

“How came you to adopt the ec­cle­si­as­ti­cal pro­fes­sion?” asked the Abbe Gabriel, sud­den­ly, with an im­pul­sive cu­rios­ity which seized him as soon as the car­riage turned in­to the high-​road.

“I did not look up­on the priest­hood as a pro­fes­sion,” replied the rec­tor, sim­ply. “I can­not un­der­stand how a man can be­come a priest for any oth­er rea­son than the un­de­fin­able pow­er of vo­ca­tion. I know that many men have served in the Lord's vine­yard who have pre­vi­ous­ly worn out their hearts in the ser­vice of pas­sion; some have loved hope­less­ly, oth­ers have had their love be­trayed; men have lost the flow­er of their lives in bury­ing a pre­cious wife or an adored mis­tress; some have been dis­gust­ed with so­cial life at a pe­ri­od when un­cer­tain­ty hov­ers over ev­ery­thing, even over feel­ings, and doubt mocks ten­der cer­tain­ties by call­ing them be­liefs; oth­ers aban­don pol­itics at a pe­ri­od when pow­er seems to be an ex­pi­ation and when the gov­erned re­gard obe­di­ence as fa­tal­ity. Many leave a so­ci­ety with­out ban­ners; where op­pos­ing forces on­ly unite to over­throw good. I do not think that any man would give him­self to God from a cov­etous mo­tive. Some men have looked up­on the priest­hood as a means of re­gen­er­at­ing our coun­try; but, ac­cord­ing to my poor lights, a priest-​pa­tri­ot is a mean­ing­less thing. The priest can on­ly be­long to God. I did not wish to of­fer our Fa­ther--who nev­er­the­less ac­cepts all--the wreck of my heart and the frag­ments of my will; I gave my­self to him whole. In one of those touch­ing the­ories of pa­gan re­li­gion, the vic­tim sac­ri­ficed to the false gods goes to the al­tar decked with flow­ers. The sig­nif­icance of that cus­tom has al­ways deeply touched me. A sac­ri­fice is noth­ing with­out grace. My life is sim­ple and with­out the very slight­est ro­mance. My fa­ther, who has made his own way in the world, is a stern, in­flex­ible man; he treats his wife and his chil­dren as he treats him­self. I have nev­er seen a smile up­on his lips. His iron hand, his stern face, his gloomy, rough ac­tiv­ity, op­pressed us all--wife, chil­dren, clerks and ser­vants--un­der an al­most sav­age despo­tism. I could--I speak for my­self on­ly--I could have ac­com­mo­dat­ed my­self to this life if the pow­er thus ex­er­cised had had an equal re­pres­sion; but, cap­tious and vac­il­lat­ing, he treat­ed us all with in­tol­er­able al­ter­na­tions. We were al­ways ig­no­rant whether we were do­ing right or whether he con­sid­ered us to blame; and the hor­ri­ble ex­pectan­cy which re­sults from that is tor­ture in do­mes­tic life. A street life seems bet­ter than a home un­der such cir­cum­stances. Had I been alone in the house I would have borne all from my fa­ther with­out mur­mur­ing; but my heart was torn by the bit­ter, un­ceas­ing an­guish of my dear moth­er, whom I ar­dent­ly loved and whose tears put me some­times in­to a fury in which I near­ly lost my rea­son. My school days, when boys are usu­al­ly so full of mis­ery and hard work, were to me a gold­en pe­ri­od. I dread­ed hol­idays. My moth­er her­self pre­ferred to come and see me. When I had fin­ished my philo­soph­ical course and was forced to re­turn home and be­come my fa­ther's clerk, I could not en­dure it more than a few months; my mind, be­wil­dered by the fever of ado­les­cence, threat­ened to give way. On a sad au­tumn evening as I was walk­ing alone with my moth­er along the Boule­vard Bour­don, then one of the most melan­choly parts of Paris, I poured my heart in­to hers, and I told her that I saw no pos­si­ble life be­fore me ex­cept in the Church. My tastes, my ideas, all that I most loved would be con­tin­ual­ly thwart­ed so long as my fa­ther lived. Un­der the cas­sock of a priest he would be forced to re­spect me, and I might thus on cer­tain oc­ca­sions be­come the pro­tec­tor of my fam­ily. My moth­er wept much. Just at this pe­ri­od my el­dest broth­er (since a gen­er­al and killed at Leipzig) had en­tered the army as a pri­vate sol­dier, driv­en from his home for the same rea­sons that made me wish to be a priest. I showed my moth­er that her best means of pro­tec­tion would be to mar­ry my sis­ter, as soon as she was old enough, to some man of strong char­ac­ter, and to look for help to this new fam­ily. Un­der pre­tence of avoid­ing the con­scrip­tion with­out cost­ing my fa­ther a pen­ny to buy me off, I en­tered the sem­inary of Saint-​Sulpice at the age of nine­teen. With­in those cel­ebrat­ed old build­ings I found a peace and hap­pi­ness that were trou­bled on­ly by the thought of my moth­er and my sis­ter's suf­fer­ings. Their do­mes­tic mis­ery, no doubt, went on in­creas­ing; for when­ev­er they saw me they sought to strength­en my res­olu­tion. Per­haps I had been ini­ti­at­ed in­to the se­crets of char­ity, such as our great Saint Paul de­fines it, by my own tri­als. At any rate, I longed to stanch the wounds of the poor in some for­got­ten cor­ner of the earth, and to prove by my ex­am­ple, if God would deign to bless my ef­forts, that the Catholic re­li­gion, judged by its ac­tions for hu­man­ity, is the on­ly true, the on­ly benef­icent and no­ble civ­iliz­ing force. Dur­ing the last days of my di­aconate, grace, no doubt, en­light­ened me. I have ful­ly for­giv­en my fa­ther, re­gard­ing him as the in­stru­ment of my des­tiny. My moth­er, though I wrote her a long and ten­der let­ter, ex­plain­ing all things and prov­ing to her that the fin­ger of God was guid­ing me, my poor moth­er wept many tears as she saw my hair cut off by the scis­sors of the Church. She knew her­self how many plea­sures I re­nounced, but she did not know the se­cret glo­ries to which I as­pired. Wom­en are so ten­der! Af­ter I once be­longed to God I felt a bound­less peace; I felt no needs, no van­ities, none of those cares which trou­ble men so much. I knew that Prov­idence would take care of me as a thing of its own. I en­tered a world from which all fear is ban­ished; where the fu­ture is cer­tain; where all things are di­vine, even the si­lence. This qui­etude is one of the bene­fac­tions of grace. My moth­er could not con­ceive that a man could es­pouse a church. Nev­er­the­less, see­ing me hap­py, with a cloud­less brow, she grew hap­pi­er her­self. Af­ter I was or­dained I came to the Limousin to vis­it one of my pa­ter­nal re­la­tions, who chanced to speak to me of the then con­di­tion of Mon­teg­nac. A thought dart­ed in­to my mind with the vivid­ness of light­ning, and I said to my­self in­ward­ly: 'Here is thy vine­yard!' I came here, and you see, mon­sieur, that my his­to­ry is very sim­ple and un­event­ful.”

At this in­stant Limo­ges came in­to sight, bathed in the last rays of the set­ting sun. When the wom­en saw it they could not re­strain their tears; they wept aloud.