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 Ribaut and Brirlaine.
 
 RABAUT AND BRIDAINE; 
 
 OR, 
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 
 
 PROM THK FRENCH OF 
 
 L. L. F. BUNGENER, 
 
 AUTHOR OF " BOURDALOUE AND LOUIS XIV," " LOUIS XV, AND HIS TIMES, 
 AND "THK TOWHR OF CONSTANCY." 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 PUBLISHED BY D. LOTHROP & CO. 
 
 DOVER, N. H. : G. T. DAY & CO.
 
 ROCKWELL * Ciirraoini.T., Printers. 
 1U"2 Washington St., Boston.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 I. VARIOUS EFFECTS OF THE DISCOMFITURE 
 
 II. A ROUGH VISITOR. NO ANSWER RECEIVED TO A 
 
 PLAIN QUESTION 9 
 
 III. A DIFFICULT THING FOR ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIESTS 
 
 TO BELIEVE IN TRANSUBSTANTIATION .... 16 
 
 IV. THE TWO BROTHERS. LIVES OK THE SAINTS ... W 
 
 V. SAINTS. MANUFACTURE OF SAINTS 22 
 
 VI. SAINT JUVENTIA 32 
 
 VII. THE MARQUIS REFLECTS 36 
 
 VIII. THE CEVENOL IN PRISON 37 
 
 IX. A VISITOR. THE CEVENOL'S HISTORY CONTINUED. 38 
 
 X. MADELEINE 07 
 
 XI. TWO PETITIONS GRANTED fi9 
 
 XII. BRIDAINE WITNESSES A SINGULAR SPECTACLE . . 71 
 
 XIII. L'ESPRIT OF HELVETIUS 74 
 
 XIV. A STRANGE AUTO-DA-FE 70 
 
 XV. THE CHARACTER AND WORKS OF HELVETIUS . . 78 
 
 XVI. FRENCH JOURNALS IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 82 
 
 XVII. VOLTAIRE'S IMPLACABILITY 85 
 
 XVIII. PECULIARITIES OF ROUSSEAU 88 
 
 2135532
 
 t CONTENTS. 
 
 XIX. THE ENCYCLOPEDISTS OBSERVE THE AUTO-DA- 
 FE FROM A DISTANCE 93 
 
 XX. RECANTATIONS OF THE INFIDELS 99 
 
 XXI. WANT OF CANDOtt OF AUTHORS OF THE PRES- 
 ENT DAY 100 
 
 XXII. HELVETIUS BECOMES THOUGHTFUL. SAD DIS- 
 COVERY CAUSING SERIOUS REFLECTIONS. . 103 
 
 XXIII. NOBLE CAREER OF ANTOINE COURT 107 
 
 XXIV. LITERARY LABORS OF COURT DE GEBELIN ... 110 
 XXV. GEBELIN AND THE BOOKSELLER. GREAT DIFFI- 
 CULTY WITH WHICH THE HUGUENOTS WERE 
 ABLE TO PRESERVE THEIR BIBLES AND RE- 
 LIGIOUS BOOKS 113 
 
 XXVI. GEBELIN'S CORRESPONDENCE 117 
 
 XXVII. RABAUT. DISHONESTY OF THE ROMISH CHURCH . 119 
 
 XXVIII. IS SHE ALTERED IN THIS RESPECT? 123 
 
 XXIX. GEBELIN'S GIGANTIC PLANS OF LITERARY LABOR. 
 
 THE PRISONERS OF AIGUES-MORTES 124 
 
 XXX. THE PRIEST AND THE HUGUENOT. DISCUSSION 
 OF THE UTILITY OF MONASTERIES IN A LIT- 
 ERARY POINT OF VIEW. AUTHORITY OF THE 
 
 BIBLE AND THE CHURCH 135 
 
 XXXI. THE BOOK WHICH WAS BURNT IN THE COURT 
 OF THE PALACE. CHOOSING A TEXT. SU- 
 PREME AUTHORITY OF THE CHURCH .... 14<5 
 XXXII. INTOLERANCE OF THE CLERGY 153 
 
 XXXIII. BRIDAINE CHOOSES HIS TEXT. UNIVERSAL DIF- 
 
 FUSION OF KNOWLEDGE AFTER THE REF- 
 ORMATION 154 
 
 XXXIV. DUTIES OF PREACHERS AND HEARERS. ... 157
 
 CONTENTS. O 
 
 XXXV. RABAUT'S TEXT. ROMAN FISCAL CODE 103 
 
 XXXVI. THE KING'S GAMBLING MONEY. MINES. THE 
 
 OLD ELMS. RICHELIEU'S IDEAS IN REGARD 
 
 TO THE SUPREME AUTHORITY OF KINGS . . 160 
 
 XXXVII. THE KING SEES MORE CLEARLY. A PLAN ... 173 
 XXXVIII. MADAME DE POMPADOUR'S BUDGET OP ANEC- 
 DOTES. A NEW PLAN TO AMUSE THE 
 
 KING 176 
 
 XXXIX. RABAUT'S MEMORIAL. THE PROTESTANT CLERGY- 
 IN FRANCE. THE CATHOLIC CLERGY. PER- 
 SECUTION 180 
 
 XL. THE KING WILL SEE RABAUT. HE WAVERS 
 
 AS TO HOW HE WILL RECEIVE HIM 187 
 
 XLI. RECEPTION OF RABADT. HE TAKES HIS DE- 
 PARTURE 190 
 
 XLII. RABAUT'S MEMORIAL 193 
 
 XLIII. SOFTENING EFFECTS ." 206 
 
 XLIV. AN EDICT 209 
 
 XLV. A BANKRUPT GOVERNMENT 213 
 
 XLVI. THE KING AND HIS MINISTER 218 
 
 XLVII. THE KING'S EDICT 220 
 
 XLVIII. THE KING'S CONFESSOR 222 
 
 XLIX. POLICY 225 
 
 L. A HARD STRUGGLE. VICTORY 229 
 
 LI. MADAME DU DEFFANT 233 
 
 LIT. CONVERSATION IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY . 230 
 
 LIII. RABAUT AND GEBELIN 240 
 
 LIV. HUGUENOT AND JANSENIST 259 
 
 LV. EXPECTATION 2C7 
 
 LVI. A YOUNG ORATOR 268
 
 > CONTENTS. 
 
 LVII. MAURY'S TEXT 271 
 
 L VIII. TIIK SKKMON 273 
 
 LIX. WHAT SHALL I CRY 277 
 
 LX. A PROPHETIC VISION 281 
 
 LXI. FASHIONABLE RELIGION 285 
 
 LXII. A COTERIE 287 
 
 LX1II. THE KING INCOGNITO 280 
 
 LX1V. THE CONFESSOR. HIS ADVERSARIES 201 
 
 LXV. THE PRIEST 203 
 
 LXVI. THE KING'S MIND 205 
 
 LXVII. SUPERSTITIOUS TERRORS ... , 207
 
 I]ST THK CITY. 
 
 i. 
 
 VARIOUS EFFECTS OF THE DISCOMFITURE. 
 
 The next day after the scene at Versailles, the bishop of 
 Meaux was talking with his nephews in his study. 
 
 The conversation, as may be imagined, turned upon the oc- 
 currences of the previous day. The bishop and the abbe were 
 profoundly cast down ; the colonel consoled himself as was his 
 custom, by an abundance of imprecations against all who had 
 in any way contributed to his brother's misfortune, against 
 the missionary, the courtiers, the king, and against God. 
 Fewer, perhaps, against God than the others, for he believed 
 in him too little to imagine seriously that he was in any way 
 concerned in such occurrences. 
 
 The abbe, in spite of his vices, had not been able to rid him- 
 self of another feeling. He had certainly not yet gone so far 
 as to thank God for the lesson which he had received ; but in 
 spite of himself this lesson had made some impression on him. 
 He vaguely perceived the emptiness and falseness of that elo- 
 quence which he had heretofore studied ; he understood how 
 far he was from being a Christian orator. But as he felt, on 
 the other hand, that he had neither faith enough to be one, nor
 
 8 RABAUT AND BRIDAINE, OR 
 
 ardor enough to endeavor to become one, he passively allowed 
 himself to fall into a state of complete discouragement. The 
 only person who could have given him a little hope, Madame 
 de Pompadour, had refused to see him after the affair, and he 
 knew that she had but little sympathy for those of her friends 
 who were unfortunate or awkward. He had been very near 
 sending in immediately his resignation of the post of preacher 
 to the king, and would not have hesitated, had it not been for 
 his uncle's petitions and his brother's fury. 
 
 And yet beneath all this fury, the marquis was filled with 
 impressions far more profound than those indicated by the 
 helpless discouragement of his brother. His mind, more im- 
 pulsive, had been more deeply moved ; the more hardened he 
 had been, the more he had been shaken. Yet not so much 
 shaken, that he could not still harden himself at least exter- 
 nally. He was vexed to find himself capable of feeling any- 
 thing besides blind fury. He would have blushed to have it 
 perceived ; he blushed to perceive it himself. But some few 
 good seed had fallen among the thorns of his heart, and they 
 might spring up better there than in the dry soil of his 
 brother's. 
 
 The bishop, a courtier more than anything else, regarded 
 the whole as a court mishap. Bridaine's sermon appeared to 
 him excellent ; that of his nephew not less so. " All styles 
 are good save the tiresome style," he said, with Boileau ; an . 
 as the abbe's was, in fact, not a tiresome one, his ancle did not 
 aee why he should not have the right to preach as he thought 
 best. " Come, come." he said to his nephew, " suppose this 
 were a real failure, which I do not admit, what is to prevent 
 your remedying it in a month. The king will be there, I will 
 wager you. There will be a crowd, and you will be higher 
 than ever."
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 9 
 
 The abbe shook his head. 
 
 " And to think," cried his brother, " to think that all this 
 has happened because the notion must seize Monsieur 1' abbe 
 to shut himself up one fine evening in the cathedral. As if he 
 could not have done just as well in his chamber or in the chapel 
 of the house ! What the devil was he doing in " 
 
 " In this galley !" said the bishop, who was acquainted with 
 Moliere, and never lost an opportunity of quoting him. 
 
 " In reality," he continued, " it is more my fault than his. 
 I sent after Father Bridaine, and it was I who brought this 
 poor sermon forward." 
 
 " No," said the abbe, " I prefer to think that it was all the 
 will of God." 
 
 The bishop looked at him with surprise. The marquis burst 
 into a laugh, 
 
 " Ha ! ha ! see, we are going to turn Trappist ' the will of 
 God !' When are we going to don the cowl, brother Ange ? 
 Poor sermon ! It little expected to accomplish such a fine 
 conversion ! Let any one say now that the sermon is worth 
 nothing !" 
 
 He laughed anew ; but like one who strove to forget him- 
 self. 
 
 II. 
 
 A ROUGH VISITOR. NO ANSWER RECEIVED TO A PLAIN QUESTION. 
 
 It was announced to the bishop that some one desired to 
 epeak to him immediately. 
 "Who is it?" he asked. 
 
 " A gentleman who would not give his name." 
 " Let him come in." 
 " Ah, good morning !" cried the marquis, hastening to meet
 
 10 RADAUT AND BRIDAINE, OB 
 
 the new comer. " You here ! You, Diderot ! you in a 
 bishop's house ! It is like the moon in a well. You think 
 you see it, but it is not there. A shadow, a " 
 
 " My dear friend, if there is any one a shade it is yourself. 
 I met a man about a quarter of an hour from Paris, whom 
 they were taking there to be hung, and that they told me for 
 assassinating the marquis de Narniers." 
 
 " That abominable business again !" interrupted the bishop. 
 " What, Henry, you have not had him set at liberty 1" 
 
 " How could I when he was once taken 1 You know very 
 well that there is a decree of the parliament of Toulouse " 
 
 " And you will allow it to be executed ?" 
 
 " Bah ! we shall see. Well, Diderot, what pleasant wind 
 blows you here ]" 
 
 " A tempest." 
 
 "The deuce! You have at least left it outside of the 
 door !" 
 
 " Yes. And it shall depend upon Monseigneur whether I 
 send it away, or make it come in." 
 
 " Sit down, Monsieur," said the prelate, " I have not for 
 many years had the pleasure of seeing you." 
 
 " For nearly twenty, Monseigneur ; and my visit to-day has 
 reference to our business at that time." 
 
 The bishop did not appear particularly pleased to find his 
 memory so good. 
 
 " Monseigneur," he continued, " you will be good enough to 
 allow me to come immediately to the point. At the time 
 when I wrote your mandates " 
 
 " You wrote my uncle's mandates ?" interrupted the mar- 
 quis. 
 
 " Why yes Did you not know it ? Then I am sorry 
 to have told it. But "
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 11 
 
 " To the point, to the point," said the bishop. 
 
 " At the time when I worked for you, Monseigneur, I worked 
 also for others, for my pen, as you know, has always been at 
 the service of all trades witness a very nice advertisement 
 I lately wrote, of an oil to make the hair grow " 
 
 " To the point, I beg, to the point !" 
 
 Diderot knew how to be brief, but he loved to torment, es- 
 pecially great people. For that matter the story of the oil 
 was true. His style was marvellously well suited to appeals 
 of all kinds, and he was frequently called up9n to write them. 
 
 " I am coming to it," he said. " Among my customers of 
 those days was a certain Aubry, a priest of your diocese. I 
 made him some sermons, arid he went to preach them in 
 America. So far so good. But here he has come back, and 
 he is going to publish them, it is said." 
 
 " Well r 
 
 " With the name of the author." 
 
 " Then their success is certain, an extravagant success " 
 
 " Extravagant, perhaps, but at my expense. This I have no 
 mind to endure." 
 
 " How can you prevent it ?" 
 
 " I cannot, but I have the good fortune to know some one 
 who can, and this some one will, I hope, be inclined " 
 
 " Can you possibly mean me ?" 
 
 " Precisely. Aubry still belongs to your diocese, does he 
 not?" 
 
 " I do not even know where he is." 
 
 " That shall be no hinderance to you. He is at Paris." 
 
 "Well, what then?" 
 
 " What then ? Why you will have the goodness to see that 
 these sermons are not published." 
 
 " You demand that in a tone "
 
 12 KABAUT AND BRIDAINE, OR 
 
 " Let us change it if necessary. Will Monseigntur have the 
 extreme goodness to condescend to forbid the said Aubry " 
 
 " Forbid 1 Forbid ? He is at Paris, you say." 
 
 " Well, to have him forbidden then " 
 
 " By Monsieur de Beaumont ? We are such good friends '" 
 
 " So you refuse ?" 
 
 But" 
 
 " Good. Adieu, Monseigneur." 
 
 " Already 1" said the marquis. " Will you not dine with 
 us?" 
 
 " No, I have business. Since my religious works are to be 
 published, I am at least determined that the collection shall be 
 complete." 
 
 " You say that you ?" cried the bishop. 
 
 " Monseigneur promises me an extravagant success ; I wish 
 to take advantage of it. Accordingly the collection shall be in 
 two parts. In one my sermons; in the other my man- 
 dates "* 
 
 " You will not do that !" 
 
 " Why not ?" 
 
 " It would be treacherous !" 
 
 " So is Aubry's project, and yet you will not prevent that ' 
 
 " The sermons are his " 
 
 "Yes; 
 
 "They say that the abb6 Roquette 
 Preaches sermons not his own, 
 But I, who know that he bought them, 
 Maintain they are his alone. 
 
 " In that sense, it is clear, that the mandates are yours. 
 
 * The bishops of the Romish church publish annually at the approach 
 of Lent, mandates, or pastoral letters, which are read by tho vicars or 
 curates throughout the diocese. [Tr.]
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 13 
 
 But I have no time to look so closely at the i flatter. So, for 
 the last time, you refuse ?" 
 
 " I do not say so I will try " 
 
 " Try. But I warn you beforehand that if you fail the man- 
 dates shall be made public. Do not shout about the indelicacy 
 of the thing. A drowning man cannot stay to choose how he 
 shall be saved. And I should consider myself drowned, 
 drowned in ridicule if these sermons should be published." 
 
 " They regard neither law, nor gospel," murmured the bis- 
 hop. " These infidels" 
 
 " I beg your pardon, Monseigneur, I did not hear exactly " 
 
 " I said nothing." 
 
 " Oh yes, you did say something. Something like ' these 
 infidels' " 
 
 " Perhaps." 
 
 "And these infidels, who regard neither law nor gospel 
 are?" 
 
 " You know better than I, I fancy." 
 
 " Well, since I know them, shall I tell you something about 
 who they are ?" 
 
 " Let us hear." 
 
 " The infidels without regard for law or gospel, Monseigneur, 
 are not those who do not believe, but those who pretend to 
 believe ; those who live, speak, reign, flourish, and persecute in 
 the name of an idea or a thing at which they themselves would 
 be the first to scoff, if they dared. The infide's without faith or 
 law are those Listen." 
 
 He seated himself gravely in the arm chair which he had 
 just quitted. " One day," he resumed, " ir a city the name 
 of which I will not mention, I chanced to enter a church. I 
 had never beheld a more beautiful 'spectacle, and if to be a 
 Christian it is only necessary to love music, perfumes, flowers,
 
 14 RABAUT AND BIUDAINE, OR 
 
 and rich tapestry, I swear to you that for a quarter of ai hour 
 J was one. At the right of the altar under a canopy of velvet 
 and gold, was throned a sort of god, a man so gorgeously 
 apparelled, so surrounded with homage, that this temple seemed 
 his, and this altar, an altar to his glory. Yet I saw him kneel ; 
 then taking in his hands a golden urn in the centre of which 
 appeared something white, he raised it above his head. All 
 knees save mine were bent ; all heads " 
 
 " We are aware what high mass is," said the bishop. 
 
 " Excuse him," said the marquis. " He had doubtless never 
 seen one." 
 
 " Well," he said, " I will be brief. In the midst of all this 
 pomp, standing alone in my corner, in the midst of this sea of 
 bowed heads, what calculation do you think I was making ? 
 All this, I thought, music, incense, lights, splendid vestments, 
 honors paid to the principal personage, all this means what ? 
 That a bit of bread is reckoned to be flesh, not bread. If he 
 who presents this for the adoration of the faithful, believes 
 firmly, sincerely, fully in the reality of the fact, I have nothing 
 to say ; if he does not believe in it, it is the most abominable 
 comedy ever played in the world. Well, Monseigneur, do you, 
 who were upon this throne, receiving this homage, do you, 
 whom I saw, for it was yourself, presenting the host for the 
 adoration of the people, do you believe in transubstantiation ?" 
 
 And Diderot planted himself before the bishop, motionless, 
 and arrogant as he knew how to be even when embarrassed, 
 and as he was to a most superlative degree when he was em- 
 barrassing others. 
 
 Confounded, horrified, the bishop stared at him. 
 
 " By what right 1 " he stammered. " By what right do 
 you come to to " 
 
 " Yes, what right have you T' repeated the abbe.
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XT. 15 
 
 " Ah ! you too !" said the encyclopedist. " Come, Monsieur 
 le marquis, join the chorus. Ask me what right I have " 
 
 " Yes, what right have you to come and trouble my uncle's 
 peace ? I suppose myself, that he has never seriously asked 
 himself if he believed in transubstantiation. He saw every 
 one believe in it or appear to do so, and so he did as every- 
 one else did." 
 
 " What !" said the bishop. " I have not studied the subject ? 
 Did I not publish ?" 
 
 He stopped short. Diderot smiled. 
 
 " A mandate, you would say ? I remember in fact that I 
 wrote you one which treated of this subject. You furnished 
 me with arguments, it is true ; but since I was able to develop 
 them without believing a word of them, you must acknowledge 
 that I may be allowed to think you might have given them to 
 me without believing them any more. Come, Monseigneur, 
 tell me conscientiously, and try to think this time that you 
 speak neither to an encyclopedist, nor an infidel, nor an atheist, 
 but simply to a man of sense, conscientiously tell me if when 
 you are there, before the altar, the host in your hand, and three 
 thousand persons kneeling before you, you are fully and per- 
 fectly convinced that you present to them a God ?" 
 
 " A God is everywhere. Why should he not also be iu the 
 host ?" 
 
 " Already a step back ! In this mandate, if I remember aright, 
 you make me quote certain decrees of the council of Trent. 
 There, as you well know, the material presence of Christ is taught 
 with hopeless distinctness ; and any opinion tending to soften, 
 to spiritualize this doctrine, is as much a heresy as that which 
 would deny it. Accordingly there is no medium. It is not I, 
 but the council of Trent and your old mandate, which repeat 
 my question. Once more, Monseigneur, do you believe that
 
 16 RABAUT AND BRIDAIXE, OR 
 
 this bread, although you cannot help perceiving it to possess 
 after the consecration the same color, form and taste as before, 
 do you believe that it is changed to flesh ? Do you really be- 
 lieve that the words which you pronounced, perhaps carelessly, 
 can have the power to work such a miracle ? Do you believe 
 that this wine, which is still the same in taste and color, has 
 become blood ? Are you persuaded that a body once the size 
 of yours and mine is entire in this host, in each fragment of this 
 host ? And finally, do you believe this body still entire, 
 always the same, capable of existing in a hundred thousand 
 places at once ? Answer, me Monseigneur, answer me. Say 
 yes, and I am silent. Here, looking at me, say yes, and I 
 swear that I will believe you." 
 
 "But still " 
 
 " I want yes or 710." 
 
 " You want no ! Do you dare to think " 
 
 " Very well, say yes then " 
 
 " Stop," cried the abbe, " stop, I implore. My uncle is ill." 
 
 And in fact the old man was in a state of terrible agitation. 
 His face was crimson, and his lips and hands trembled. 
 Diderot rose. 
 
 " We will say no more, then," he observed. And the abbe 
 heard him add to himself, " He did not say no,-^but neither 
 did he say yes." 
 
 III. 
 
 A DIFFICULT THING FOR ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIESTS TO BELIEVE 
 IN TRANSCBSTANTIATION. 
 
 Have not many priests, in the secret of their hearts, made 
 the same half confession which an infidel thus roughly extorted 
 froir the conscience of a bishop :
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. I 
 
 When Luther,* at that time a fervent Catholic, made his 
 journey to Italy, nothing wounded him more deeply than to 
 see the priests secretly laughing at the miracle which they 
 publicly pretended to perform. " Bread thou art, and bread 
 thou wilt remain," they said ironically, in a low voice, at the 
 very altar, instead of the sacramental words. 
 
 And are there not still such priests ? Do all believe, in the 
 nineteenth century, that which many did not in the six- 
 teenth 1 We know not, and it is not for us to examine. We 
 will not even say, as some have said, that a priest cannot be- 
 lieve in the mass ; we say only, (and we shall certainly be so 
 far right,) that it is necessarily more difficult for him to believe 
 than others, since he is obliged to see so closely, to touch, to 
 taste all the impossibilities which crowd around it. 
 
 And ought he not to be terrified to find the very smallest 
 doubt in his mind, when he observes the importance which his 
 church attributes to this pretended miracle 1 ? The mass has 
 become the summary, the centre, the most important part of 
 worship, and in many respects the summary of religion itself. 
 In like manner as Christ is declared to be incarnate in the 
 host, is Christianity incarnate in the mass. The church does 
 not say so ; but in all its precepts and usages, in all it teaches 
 and does, there is nothing which does not tend to nourish this 
 error. The mass, always and everywhere the mass. The 
 mass apropos to everything, the mass to gain every end. 
 From Rome to the smallest hamlet, there is not a church 
 where the building, as a whole, and in detail, where every 
 thing, in fact, does not proclaim the mass, is not made for the 
 mass, doe* not exclude from the very first all other ideas save 
 that of the mass. 
 
 * What follows is partly taken from our " History of the Council oj 
 Trent."
 
 18 RABAUT AND BRIDAIXE, OR 
 
 And all this, as Diderot said, all this pomp, singing 
 illumination, magic, on account of what is it ? A morsel of 
 bread which is asserted to be not bread, but flesh ; a miracle 
 of such a nature, that those who have to teach it are precisely 
 those who are hi the most danger of disbelieving it. 
 
 IV. 
 
 THE TWO BROTHERS. LIVES OF SAINTS. 
 
 The bishop had left the apartment. His nephews, after 
 having accompanied him to his chamber, returned to the 
 library ; but Diderot was no longer there. He had left a note 
 on the table, containing these words only : 
 
 " No sermons, or else look out for the mandates." 
 
 " What a man !" said the abbe. 
 
 " You cut a sorry figure there," said his brother. 
 
 " Can such a man be reasoned with ?" 
 
 " Reason about transubstantiation ! I should have liked to 
 see you try it." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 " Because it is a thing about which, so soon as you begin to 
 reason, you are beaten." 
 
 " You are no better than he." 
 
 " And you no better than our uncle." 
 
 " Well, I call this arranging one's disputes in private ! But, 
 joking aside, do you know what I was most afraid of? I 
 trembled lest while he was talking he should happen to glance 
 it this book." 
 
 "What is it 1 ?" 
 
 "You know very well. The Life of Saint Tryphon, by
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 19 
 
 Father Boidard, which has just been re-printed with my uncle's 
 approbation ; or rather with mine, for I gave it." 
 
 " Yes, I have 9 >me little recollection of the book. But why 
 were you afraid he would see it 1" 
 
 " Have you read it ?" 
 
 " Are you jesting ?" 
 
 " Well, my dear fellow, read it, for it will make you die of 
 laughter. You will hear how Saint Tryphon, shortly after his 
 birth, distinctly pronounced the names Jesus and Mary ; how, 
 when he was seven years old, his guardian angel appeared to 
 him ; how, at ten or twelve, when he went to his devotions, 
 the fervor of his soul kept his body suspended six inches, a foot, 
 two feet above the ground. You will learn a new method of 
 corresponding with heaven. It is only necessary to write a 
 letter to Jesus Christ or the Virgin, and to deposit it at night 
 in the wooden hand of your patron saint. Before the next day, 
 the letter arrives without fail at the end of its journey. You 
 may even hope for an answer in writing ; for Saint Tryphon 
 had a number of these miraculous autographs. One day, he 
 was taking bread to some poor people. He was accused by 
 some wicked persons of having stolen it. He wished to defend 
 himself! But God had already provided ; the bread was 
 changed in his hands into a bouquet of magnificent flowers. 
 A hundred years after his death, he was disinterred, and found 
 fresh colored and well preserved. Then at his tomb all sorts 
 of miracles took place. The dead were raised by dozens, the 
 lame cured by hundreds, the sick by thousands. In short, 
 but here, here, take the book, and you will see if I am ex- 
 aggerating." 
 
 " Oh, it is quite enough for me that the book does so. But 
 you have there an hundred copies, I think." 
 
 "Two hundred."
 
 20 RABAUT AXD BIUDAINE, OR 
 
 " Wliat are you going to do with them ?" 
 
 " They will be distributed among country cures and convents." 
 
 " Not to the women's convents, I hope." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 " Why not ? Well, that will be fine ! Have you not read 
 this adventure which I chanced to light upon as I opened the 
 book 1 Stay, listen. ' One day, when the saint ' " 
 
 " I know, I know !" 
 
 " Why, Diderot and Crebillon* never wrote anything viler!' 
 
 " My dear, you understand nothing of the matter. I tell 
 you that our devotees will be greatly edified by it. The in- 
 tention purifies everything." 
 
 " You understand your subjects, gentlemen." 
 
 " As if we had created them." 
 
 " Do not say as if. You have created them entirely ; and 1 
 will not compliment you upon them." 
 
 " Blessed are the poor in spirit !" 
 
 " If, to make them blessed, you only require this sort of 
 stuff", then give them plenty of it. For sooth to say, it cannot 
 be difficult to manufacture. But since it is only for the poor 
 in spirit, at least allow people of sense to laugh at it." 
 
 " Do I forbid them to laugh ?" 
 
 " Not you, it is true. Provided they do not laugh too loud, 
 and, above all, not before the people whom you feed with these 
 fine things, you willingly permit all to treat it as it deserves ; 
 ai.d if perchance this scorn reflects upon religion itself, you 
 will not concern yourself about that, provided, be it always 
 understood, that appearances are preserved. I can understand 
 how you can do all this, since you believe in nothing " 
 
 * The younger Crebillon, author of immoral romances; among 
 others, " Les Amours de Zeokinisul, roi des Kofirans." (Louis Kinze, 
 roi des Frankois.
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 21 
 
 Oh ! " 
 
 " In very little, certainly. But explain to me how the more 
 pious priests can also n ?,ke themselves the hawkers of this 
 foolery. For surely, if they do believe more than you in the 
 teachings of Christianity and the church, even in the bread 
 turned to flesh, they cannot believe any more than you in this 
 story of the bread changed into flowers, or the man suspended 
 in the air by the fervor of his soul, or tne letters come from 
 heaven, or " 
 
 " Did not Saint Paul say that we should be all things to all 
 men ?" 
 
 " Saint Paul, my friend, according to the little I know of 
 him, was, above all things, an honest man. I have heard you 
 yourself preach on this famous all things to all men. You ex- 
 plained it by showing how skilful he was in gaining all hearts 
 by his goodness, his charity, his at any rate, you did not say, 
 and I think you would have been at a loss to prove, that he 
 ever made use of falsehoods in ever so small a quantity, in his 
 method of winning men." 
 
 " Other times, other needs !" 
 
 " Are there periods then when lying is permitted 1 Upon 
 my honor, brother, you make me play a singular part ! I fan- 
 cied I was a famous miscreant, and here I am advocating 
 morals ! I have often lied, it is true ; I have made vows of 
 love and other vows, which I did not dream of keeping, and 
 what is more, I have repented little of my pranks. But to say 
 coolly that lying is allowable, to call it openly to the aid of a 
 religion asserted to be true, and the only true one, that is 
 something of which I must confess, I feel myself incapable. I 
 may ha ve been a scapegrace, but I never could have been a 
 priest.
 
 22 RABAUT AND BRIDAINE, OR 
 
 V. 
 
 SAINTS. MANUFACTURE OF SAINTS. 
 
 T( e abbe laughed. It appeared to him really very amusing 
 to hear the marquis talking of morals ; he did not go far 
 enough to see how hideous the system must be which revolted 
 even such a man. With what a cuirass does Catholicism sur- 
 round the conscience of its subjects ! For in our days, this 
 cuirass has become thicker and firmer. Books like "Saint 
 Tryphoh of Meaux," if not worse, have been spread abroad in 
 the last twenty years, by tens and hundreds of thousands, and 
 among all the clergy, from the humblest vicar to the pope, 
 there is not one heart which appears to be revolted, not one 
 voice raised in protestation ! 
 
 At last the marquis also laughed. He turned over the leaves 
 of the book, and his eyes fell upon tales more and more ab- 
 surd on every page. His levity as a libertine had calmed his 
 gentlemanly indignation. This book was for him nothing 
 more than a collection of fairy tales, and he found it, as such, 
 axtremely amusing. 
 
 And yet it was with a gesture of disgust, that he finally 
 closed the volume, and threw it upon the table. As he had 
 turned over the leaves, beginning at the close, he had at last 
 arrived at the bishop's approbation. There, among the other 
 praises, he had read : 
 
 " The charm of the narrative, and the interest of the epi- 
 sodes, with the orthodoxy and piety of the reflections, assure 
 to this work the favorable results which the author had in view. 
 We accordingly cannot but recommend it fur the perusal of 
 the faithful throughout our diocese."* 
 
 * It was nearly in these same terms that the archbishop of Paris, in
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 23 
 
 At the gesture which he made, the abbe asked, 
 
 " What is it now ?" 
 
 " Nothing." 
 
 " You certainly have a spite against this poor Father Boid- 
 ard. They say he is a saint." 
 
 " Yes, yes, of course. His life will undoubtedly be written 
 also in a hundred years. He will be rewarded for the pains 
 he has taken with Saint Tryphon. But what I just saw was 
 not bj him." 
 
 " Ah ! the approval ? It is in fact rather strong, but the 
 bookseller offered three hundred crowns, and " 
 
 " These things pay, do they ?" 
 
 " As a matter of course. The approval of the bishop se- 
 cures the sale. Why should not a part of the profit go into 
 the bishop's pocket 1 ?" 
 
 " Very good. But the good Fathers also have their part, 
 eh 1 As authors " 
 
 " Ah ! their part ! It is not necessary that any one should 
 trouble himself about that. They secure it themselves, and 
 all the better because they seem not to be thinking of the 
 matter. With their vow of poverty, they finger more money 
 than we do ; with their vow of obedience they are our mas- 
 ters." 
 
 " So much the worse for you." 
 
 " We must have them." 
 
 " And why not abolish them f 
 
 " Child ! Are they aboliskable, I should like to know ? The 
 parliament can do nothing with them, believe me, nor the pope 
 either. The order dissolved, the individuals would remain ; 
 the individuals dead, the spirit would remain, since this spirit 
 
 1846, recommended the Life of St. KotsJca, one of the most fabulous 
 productions of Jesuit literature.
 
 24 RABACT AND BRIDAINE, OR 
 
 is, .n fact, none other than that of the Church. We must 
 have them, I tell you ; we shall always need them or others 
 resembling them. They are somewhat expensive soldiers, 
 sometimes a little mutinous, but they never shrink from any- 
 thing. Command them to do something which does not suit 
 them, and if you were the pope himself they would find some 
 way of getting off, but anything which suits their ideas, you 
 can be sure that neither obstacles, dangers, nor anything in the 
 world can prevent them from accomplishing. We recommend 
 these miserable little books which are so serviceable to us 
 among certain people, but we do not write them. A Jesuit is 
 ready to dip his pen in anything you like ; ink or blood, gall 
 or mire, no matter to him. Nothing too high, nothing too low 
 for him. Have you some interest in communicating with a 
 peasant? Send a Jesuit to him. A king? Still, send a 
 Jesuit. The pope ? again, a Jesuit will serve you." 
 
 " Apropos of the pope and the Jesuits, how comes on that 
 affair of Saint What do you call him ? Saint " 
 
 " Eucharion. But do not call him saint. His diploma is 
 not yet signed." 
 
 " What a long delay ! You have been soliciting it three or 
 four years." 
 
 " Three or four years ! When I took up the affair it had 
 been going on for more than twenty ! It might have lasted 
 twenty more, if not longer ; but thanks to Father Pontcar- 
 lier " 
 
 " Your agent at Rome, I suppose." 
 
 " Yes, our factotum, for every bishop must have one, if he 
 wishes to obtain anything from Rome without a ruinous ex- 
 pense. It is through him that I procure indulgences, dispensa- 
 tions, rosaries, and other articles which have received a bene-
 
 THE. COURT OF LOUIS XV. 25 
 
 diction ; it was through him that I obtained for twenty-five 
 livres the permission not to read my breviary."* 
 
 " You might have taken the permission." 
 
 ' I had taken it in fact, long before ; but I thought that 
 would be better, after all, to go according to rule. It gives 
 one a certain air of austerity, of scrupulousness. When 
 Bossuet was at court, or at Paris, and was obliged from his 
 health to eat meat on fast days, he never failed to ask permis- 
 sion of the cure of Versailles, or of Saint-Roch. The better 
 one obeys, the better he can command." 
 
 " Well thought of. You were saying ?" 
 
 " That Father Pontcarlier has done wonders; but no money, 
 no saints. He has just now written me word that there is 
 no more. Two or three hundred louis, he says, are still neces- 
 sary." 
 
 " And you will send them to him ?" 
 
 " They are already on the road." 
 
 " And where did you get them f 
 
 " Out of the bishop's strong box. But we are expecting 
 soon to have a collection taken up, and in that case, we shall 
 soon have the sum replaced. f You do not know what the ac- 
 quisition of a saint is for a diocese !" 
 
 " And did Eucharion belong to this diocese V 
 
 * See a tariff of 1845, copied by a number of journals. 
 
 f Two collections of this kind recently took place in France, one at 
 Toulouse, for the canonization of a young girl, Germaine Cousin, who 
 died 1660, the other at Marseilles, for that of Benoit Labre, dead some 
 sixty years. "To arrive at this result," said the circular of the bishop 
 of Marseilles, " a considerable outlay is necessary. The sum destined 
 for the expense, is exhausted. I accordingly make an appeal to the 
 generosity of the faithful of my diocese, in order that they may aid by 
 their alms the continuation of a process truly interesting for France, 
 which gave to the church the holy person whom we wish to place 
 upon her altars."
 
 26 RABAUT AND BRIDAINE, OR 
 
 " He lived here at least, for his name is scarcely French. 
 He was called Gutgnad, which means, in Germany, Good 
 Grace. But ' Saint Gutgnad'' would have sounded somewhat 
 harsh ; ' Sain^ Good Grace ' would have made people laugh, 
 like that poor 'Alacoque,' whose suit is also commenced.* 
 Thanks to me, Gutgnad did as the learned men of the sixteenth 
 century did ; he translated his name into Greek ; he became 
 Eucharion, which sounds well even in verse. This alteration 
 was not effected, however, without trouble. It was under the 
 name of Gutgnad that our subject had obtained the first degree 
 of saintship, the title of venerable. ' It was unprecedented,' 
 said the council of the Congregation of Rites, ' for a saint to 
 change his name in passing from the first degree to the others. 
 Money banished the scruples. 'In fact,' wrote Pontcarlier, 'a 
 few ducats more would enable us to change, if you chose, not 
 only the name, but the person.' This would not be such an 
 astonishing thing, moreover, as one might think. In our old 
 chronicles I have discovered traces of four or five Gutgnads, 
 whom tradition, it appears, has blended into one. Our future 
 Eucharion is accordingly a certain creation of the reason, like 
 Hercules of antiquity, formed from the quintessence of several 
 others.f So much the worse for him. So far as we are con- 
 cerned, it makes no difference, provided that the form is 
 there, and that the people adore." 
 
 "Adore? I heard you preach on the invocation of saints, 
 and you proved, by a lengthy disquisition, that the church does 
 
 * It is not yet completed. In 1788, it was about to conclude, thanka 
 to the edifying efforts of the bishop of Autun, who was none other, it 
 will be remembered, than Monsieur de Talleyrand. The Revolution 
 took place, and the saint was forgotten. Gradually his cause was 
 talked of again ; and at the commencement of 1848, it was about to be 
 taken up anew. Poor Alacoque! Poor people 1 
 
 f Many of the most popular saints are in the same case.
 
 ^ THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 27 
 
 not command that they should be adored ; that it is a calumny 
 to assert it." 
 
 " In fact, the church does not order it, and the heretics them- 
 selves do not pretend that she does ; but we are obliged to 
 take for granted that they do pretend it, else what should we 
 have to answer them 7 We know as well as they do, and 
 better, that all these fine distinctions between invoke and adore 
 do not hold good in practice. There are but few persons, it is 
 evident, whose devotion to the saints is not a real adoration ; 
 lew people, very few, incontestibly, who confine themselves to 
 invoking them as intercessors, and who do not pray to them, 
 in reality, as to the Deity. But if these people like to do so, 
 and if, moreover, it is a salutary restraint, why should we 
 rouble ourselves about it ?" 
 
 " Very good. But what, then, is the meaning of this reply 
 to the heretics : ' We do not command the worship of the saints f 
 You do not command it, no ; but you place them upon the 
 altar, knowing perfectly well that they will be worshipped." 
 
 " Monsieur brother, I did not know that you were so good 
 i logician." 
 
 " Monsieur brother, I did not believe you to be so Jesuitical." 
 
 " Good ! the great word slips out ! But, my dear friend, 
 wno is not a Jesuit in this world 1 Many are so for the per- 
 dition of souls ; why should not we be so for their salvation ?" 
 
 " Do you think of the salvation of souls, you ? Is it for 
 the salvation of souls that you are going to have Gutgnad 
 canonized, Gutgnad the triple or quadruple, Gutgnad, who, 
 hi fact, never existed, for you confess yourself that he is a 
 combination of I know not how many monks ? Which, pray, 
 of the three or four will receive the petitions ?" 
 
 " The people will pray ; that is sufficient for them. They 
 will pay ; that is enough for us."
 
 28 RABAUT AND BRIDAINE, OR 
 
 "I m iy say now the great word is out ! Why did you not 
 begin with that ?" 
 
 " Because I was relating a story, and did not expect to meet 
 with such a caviller." 
 
 " Well, finish your story, then." 
 
 "Without further difficulties we arrived at the second 
 canonical degree, the title of blessed. But the greatest obstacle 
 was yet to be surmounted. It is indispensable at Rome that 
 a saint shoull have performed miracles, either during his life, 
 or after his death. The Congregation of Rites exacts that these 
 miracles shall be proved ; proved, you understand how, that 
 is to say, they may be perfectly false and absurd, provided 
 that the responsibility of the pope be protected. It is, at the 
 same time, the best way of making the suit last, without 
 appearing to have any motive but a religious conviction. It 
 is sometimes years before some miracle can be hunted up 
 which is wanting to the prescribed number. More than one 
 candidate for saintship has beheld himself condemned to remain 
 forever only venerable or blessed. 
 
 " If we have this misfortune, it will be from an excess of 
 good things. Four or five miracles are enough, and we have 
 more than thirty, each more astonishing than the others, all 
 so prodigious that we dare not quote them. W T here, more- 
 over, are the proofs to come from ? The chronicler was 
 awkward enough to put here and there, ' It is said :' his testi- 
 monials, in consequence, are desperately feeble. I admire 
 Pontcarlier's skill in this. In the first place, laying aside the 
 miracles which may be taken up later, when the life of the new 
 saint is written for the people, but which are decidedly too 
 marvellous not to destroy entirely the credibility of the others, 
 he only cites five or six of the least extraordinary, those 
 which the chronicler thought fit to assert without hesitation.
 
 THE COURT OP LOUIS XV. 29 
 
 Then, from some documents of the same period, he has brought 
 to light a few words which seem to confirm these ; and out of 
 all this he has manufactured us a memorial, to which, doubt- 
 less, for form's sake, a few little objections may be made, but 
 which will finish the affair. Cardinal Braschi informs my 
 uncle that all is going on well sano ma piano* he says, which 
 signifies that we may have yet to wait a year or two. Accord 
 ingly, to inspire us with patience, the pope has sent us some 
 portions " 
 
 "Of the true cross?" 
 
 "Of the bones of Saint Juventia, recently discovered in 
 Rome, and which, it appears, are the rage. A volume is to 
 be written, containing the miracles of all kinds which they 
 have already performed." 
 
 " It is a superb present, then !" 
 
 " There is a fragment of the skull, a finger, a rib, two teeth, 
 and several hairs." 
 
 " Mere scraps ! What can you do with such things ?" 
 
 " You shall see." 
 
 " And this Juventia, who was she ?" 
 
 " Between ourselves I am very much afraid she is a baptized 
 saint." 
 
 " Well, would you rather have had her a heathen or a 
 Jewess ?" 
 
 " Profane man, you understand nothing about it. We call 
 baptized saints those to whom the pope has given a name be- 
 cause their own could not be discovered. Do you understand 
 now ?" 
 
 " Yes, I understand now less than before. How can it 
 be certain whether these people whose names are not known, 
 are saints at all?" 
 
 * Well, although slowly.
 
 30 RABAUT AND BRIDAINE, OR 
 
 " It is kn . wn where the early Christians buried their martyrs. 
 Accordingly, all the bones found there are presumed to be " 
 
 " I see. But you will say I am still more profane. Even 
 if it should be certain that these were the remains of martyrs, 
 is it certain that all martyrs were saints ?" 
 
 " But, my dear friend, you question me as if I had began by 
 saying that I look upon all this as very fine, very wise. Once 
 more, I am only relating it to you. If you find it tiresome, 
 tell me so.' 
 
 " Well, go on." 
 
 ' They go, then, from time to time, to the ancient burial 
 places in the catacombs, in order to procure a new supply of 
 saints. Formerly they only rummaged in the tombs which 
 bore certain emblems said to be those of martyrdom ; but 
 they have not been so particular of late. The bones are taken 
 out and cleaned, and then they are ready to be sent where it is 
 judged most proper. Demands for them are numerous. 
 Nothing, as you see, need prevent the satisfaction of all these 
 demands, but the pious merchandise would soon have lost its 
 value. It is consequently a signal favor that we have received 
 these few bones, baptized with a name become celebrated from 
 its miracles. I had my choice between these fragments, and a 
 skeleton entire, but without reputation. I hesitated. This 
 skeleton might become that of a great saint ; but " 
 
 " What ! become ?" 
 
 "Yes, it has been known to happen. When one has the 
 bones then the story may be constructed ; the pope asks 
 nothing better than to see the fructification of what he has 
 planted. Monsieur Basquiat de la House managed well with 
 some he had. He owned a small estate in Gascony, which 
 produced a wine, which no one would buy. Do you know 
 what he did ? Being at Rome, as secretary of an embassy, he
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 31 
 
 had one of these bodies presented to him, and christened by a 
 name venerated in his part of the country. The peasants re- 
 ceived it with great pomp. A fete was appointed, then a 
 fair. And the wine sold well." 
 
 " Very good ; but it seems to me, that the more taste I had 
 for the worship of saints and their relics, the more I should 
 shudder at the idea of such a mistake." 
 
 " Not at all ; you would do like the others. It is now two 
 years since my Juventia has been invoked in Italy. Who has 
 dreamed of such a thing as questioning the authenticity of her 
 remains ? Free thinkers care too little about the matter to 
 .speak of it, and the opposite party are too prejudiced to trouble 
 themselves. Not that there have not been revelations and dis- 
 coveries from time to time, with which we could well dispense. 
 Father Mabillou, among others, brought forward extraordinary 
 facts.* It appears that it was not found worth the trouble 
 even to read attentively the inscriptions on the tombs to be 
 opened. A certain man, honored as a martyr, was afterwards 
 found to have died quietly in his bed, and to have left, accord- 
 ing to custom, an inconsolable widow. A certain virgin mar- 
 tyr, as for instance Argyride, honored at Ravenna, was found 
 to have been entombed by the hands of an inconsolable hus- 
 band." 
 
 " And Juventia," said the marquis. " Suppose anything of 
 the kind were to happen to her ?" 
 
 " Be easy in regard to that. They do not go so heedlessly 
 to work now. In the place where her bones were found, there 
 was no inscription whatever ; but in a neighboring wall, a 
 crumbling stone still bore some half-effaced letters, from which 
 they made Juventia. Juventia, according to tradition, was a 
 
 * See his famous Letter from Eusebius the Roman, to Theophilua the 
 Frenchman."
 
 32 RABAUT AXD BRIDAIXE, OR 
 
 young Roman maiden, who was persecuted by a pagan flither in 
 order to force her to abjure Christianity. He finally stabbed 
 her. The story was too dramatic not to be seized and made 
 use of. It was boldly asserted that the relics found were those 
 of a young girl ; the miracles soon followed. To make all sure, 
 the inscription has disappeared. So behold Juventia in full 
 possession of her title and honors ! More than twenty cities 
 have her relics already. Magnificent shrines have received her 
 smallest remains. I have done still better. 1 have contrived 
 But come. I will show you what it is." 
 
 " Come." 
 
 " I forewarn you that you will see nothing but the two teeth 
 and the hair." 
 
 " Come in." 
 
 VI. 
 
 SAINT JU VENTI A. 
 
 In the midst of the apartment, upon a Roman couch, was ex- 
 tended the form of .a woman. Her face was not visible from 
 the door, being slightly turned towards the window ; only her 
 hair was seen, falling in elegant disorder over a white neck and 
 a velvet cushion. A white robe, bordered with purple, allowed 
 the display of one foot, an arm, and a part of the bosom. On 
 the breast above the heart was a small but deep wound, from 
 which escaped a few drops of blood. The robe was stained 
 with it, and the couch also appeared saturated. 
 
 " Well," said the abbe, " are you satisfied ? There, I fancy, 
 is a relic the like of which is not often seen !" 
 
 The marquis stood confounded.
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 
 
 " But this is a jest," he said, " will you place that in a church ?" 
 
 "Why not 1" 
 
 " If an exhibitor of wax figures, should dare to make such an 
 one, he would be forbidden to exhibit it." 
 
 " And with justice ; but with us it is another thing. What, 
 after all, is our object ? We wish to render the history of a 
 martyr a little more effective." 
 
 " An imaginary martyr." 
 
 " Imaginary perhaps, but what matters that ? The moral 
 effect will be produced." 
 
 " Moral ah ! And those in whom this interesting victim 
 might only awaken sentiments " 
 
 " Of w r hich they may relieve themselves at confession. But 
 tell me, is not the idea, in itself, one of the most ingenious ?" 
 
 " You see that I am admiring it." 
 
 " Moreover, it is another invention of Pontcarlier. He even 
 spoke of it to cardinal Braschi, who thought it excellent. 
 Heaven knows how many saints will be thus remodelled ! 
 The smallest fragment of bone to insert " 
 
 " What ! the bones are in there ?" 
 
 " Undoubtedly. Do you not understand ? The piece of 
 skull is here, beneath the forehead. Here is the hair. There 
 are in all nine hairs." 
 
 " They are red." 
 
 " Yes. I shall have them dyed, in order that they may not 
 contrast too much with the others. This finger ornamented 
 with the ring is the one in which we put the finger bone." 
 
 " This hand is admirably well done." 
 
 "Is it not ?" 
 
 " Where did you find a workman." 
 
 " It is another of our dear Fathers. They do a little of 
 everything, as you know."
 
 3 I R A R A U T A V D B U I D A I N E , OR 
 
 " I did not know that they modelled in wax." 
 
 " They have cast cannons for the emperor of China." 
 
 " That is true. And the rib, where is it ?" 
 
 " There, underneath the wound. You can distinguish : t. 
 Look" 
 
 " I think I see it but what color is it ?" 
 
 " It has been painted rose-color. This was necessary, since 
 the wound is supposed to be fresh. As for the teeth, here 
 they are, here under the lower lip. Come to this side and 
 you will see them." 
 
 The marquis went on the other side of the couch, but when 
 he was opposite to the face of the figure he burst into a laugh, 
 and began to clap his hands. 
 
 "That is it !" he cried, " that is it ! There was never a bet- 
 ter likeness." 
 
 " At last !" said the abbe. " You recognize her ] It is a 
 good thing." 
 
 " She consented to sit?" 
 
 " Yes ; but she did not know what it was for. I only told 
 her afterwards." 
 
 " And then ?" 
 
 " She called me idolatrous, impious." 
 
 " True, it is rather strong. To put upon the altar in the 
 cathedral of Meaux the effigy of one's mistress." 
 
 " Pooh ! my dear, three-fourths of the Italian madonnas, 
 which we copy so untiringly, were the mistresses of the paint- 
 ers. Raphael never saw the Virgin any more than I have seen 
 Juventia. If the Fornarina is adored in Italy, Madeline may 
 be adored in France." 
 
 " A heretic !" 
 
 " A Jupiter at Rome was metamorphised into a Saint 
 Peter."
 
 T n E c o r R T OF LOUIS xv. 35 
 
 " Very good. But to sum \ip the matter. A legend, a few 
 bones, with a little wax over them, and you have the object 
 before which your people are to be called to prostrate them- 
 selves. I confess that I do not see very plainly in what our 
 most holy Church differs from the pagans. Between a divinity 
 constructed from such materials, and one boldly made out of 
 nothing, where is the difference ?" 
 
 "And vhere is the necessity that there should be a differ 
 ence 1 Christian or pagan, man is the same. For six thou- 
 sand years he has constantly demanded, like the Jews from 
 Aaron, ' gods to go before his face.' Well, here are the 
 gods ! If we wish to be followed, we must certainly appear 
 to follow the people. What is the matter ? You look at me 
 with an air " 
 
 VII. 
 
 THE MARQUIS REFLECTS. 
 
 And in truth the abbe remarked a gravity upon the features 
 of his brother which was far from being habitual. In spite of 
 his relapses into mirth, as for instance, when he had first seen 
 the face of the saint, he appeared to be thoughtful. The cynic- 
 ism of the priest revolted the heart of the libertine ; his soul, 
 benumbed by vice, was aroused to indignation by contact with 
 this other soul so degraded by hypocrisy. It was indeed the 
 first time that he had sounded the abbe's ideas in regard to re 
 ligion and worship with any attention. Until now he had 
 been satisfied to look upon his brother, if not as a believer, as 
 a man following his profession ; he had not imagined him 
 coolly giving an account of the frauds of which he was the 
 instrument. 
 
 The discoveries accordingly produced a singular effect upon
 
 36 RAHAUT AND BRIDAINE, OK 
 
 him. If he had been a believer he would perhaps have bo- 
 come sceptical ; being an infidel, although he did not become a 
 believer, he began to feel that this could not be Christianity, 
 that religion, in itself, had nothing in common with these tur 
 pitudes, and that he had perhaps been wrong in not seeking to 
 know more about it. 
 
 This last feeling was however still too vague for him to ven 
 ture upon its expression, especially to a man so little able to 
 comprehend it. 
 
 " I have always fancied," he said, " that I had no great 
 opinion of human nature. It appears that the priests respect 
 it even less." 
 
 " Because they know it better." 
 
 " But why then are there so many fine discourses about the 
 dignity of man, on the excellence of his faculties and his na- 
 ture ?" 
 
 " Because we absolutely must have grand words to conceal 
 little expedients. Two ways were open to us ; either to raise 
 man to the level of Christianity, or to lower Christianity to 
 the level of man. The second was the shortest and the most 
 certain. We chose it ; and you see," he added, casting a com- 
 placent look at the new deity, " that we have had no small 
 success." 
 
 " No more of that ;" said the marquis. " Enough and too 
 much about this image. What is the original about ?" 
 
 " The original is more intractable than ever. She heard, I 
 do not know how, of the arrest of her Bruyn. After having 
 cursed him so bitterly she still loves him. As long as this 
 man lives, the whole thing will constantly have to be recom- 
 menced. Happily he " 
 
 " You are mistaken. This man shall not die. The injus- 
 tice of it begins to weigh "
 
 THE COUKT OF LOUIS XV. 3 
 
 " You are going to save him ?" 
 
 Yes." 
 
 " After having him arrested not a week ago "?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " You are losing your head." 
 
 " Perhaps so, but I am regaining my heart." 
 
 VIII. 
 
 THE CEVENOL IN PRISON. 
 
 While the iniquities of his Church prepared the marquis to 
 repent of his own, his victim, the unhappy Cevenol, proceeded 
 sadly towards Paris between two horsemen of the royal patrol. 
 They had contented themselves, at Meaux, with ascertaining 
 his identity, and he had been sent, as condemned by the 
 parliament of Toulouse, to the prisons of the parliament of 
 Paris. 
 
 Not having been able to induce his companions to name the 
 author of his arrest, he remained convinced that it must be 
 Bridaine. This thought oppressed him more than the recol- 
 lection of all his ills, and more even than the expectation of 
 the torture. So much baseness beneath such compassion, so 
 much dissimulation beneath such frankness, appeared to him, 
 not without justice, to denote the last possible extreme of 
 human wickedness. 
 
 When he found himself alone, chained, upon a little straw in 
 one of the damp cells of the Conciergerie, he was surprised to 
 feel himself calmer. This cell was the haven. His adventur- 
 ous nature took a sort of pleasure in abandoning itself with- 
 out a struggle, without even a regret, to the grasp of an 
 inexorable fate.
 
 38 RABAUT AND BIUDAINE, OB 
 
 But his was not a nature to remain long in repose. This 
 very tranquillity was to become the cause of torment. 
 
 In his perpetual impulse to turn his thoughts within, he had 
 involuntarily begun to ask himself why he was so calm, and 
 had felt that he was less resigned than impassible, less submis- 
 sive than exhausted. He had been forced to confess to him- 
 self that the thought of God had little to do with this peace 
 which had been restored to him. 
 
 Then came bitter returning thoughts of his musings and his 
 p">ace of other days. What a difference between the present 
 and that period when his life was a perpetual offering, when 
 God was his all, when his earliest and latest feeling in all 
 things was to seek and find all in God ! He is to die, but 
 stiffening himself against the terrors of death, and not soothing 
 them by holy hopes. He will give up his life without regret, 
 but he no longer has the feelings which would render it an 
 acceptible sacrifice to God. He feels that before everything 
 he ought to pardon him who betrayed him ; but he cannot do 
 so, and he is full of horror at the idea of dying with hatred in 
 his heart. Then he too has been a traitor. He has heard him- 
 self called Judas, and this voice still vibrates in his ears. If 
 he do not receive pardon, and where shall he go to seek it- 
 he will hear this voice even upon the scaffold, until he reach 
 the judgment-seat of God. 
 
 IX. 
 
 A VISITOR. THE CEVENOL S HISTORY CONTINUED. 
 
 Two days after his arrival in Paris, he was seated in the 
 same spot, motionless and oroken, still wearing out his heart 
 by this struggle without result, and without end.
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 39 
 
 A sound made him raise his head. His eyes suddenly 
 kindled, his hands were clenched ; and the word Judas, which 
 weighed upon his heart, fell from his lips, which, though he 
 smiled terribly, were compressed with anger. 
 
 The door had opened, and the prisoner had recognized 
 Bridaine. 
 
 " Well, my poor friend," said the priest, but he stopped 
 Bhort. 
 
 He had not distinctly heard the exclamation of the Cevenol, 
 and it was not until he came close to him in the lightest part 
 bf the cell that he perceived his countenance. 
 
 " But what is the matter ?" he resumed. " Dost thou not 
 know me ? It is I." 
 
 Bruyn's glance grew softer beneath the benevolent eye of the 
 priest. A thought a sudden light darted through his mind. 
 
 " If he should not be the one !" he said to himself. 
 
 Bridaine had understood at last. He was astonished that it 
 had not occurred to him what suspicions the prisoner might 
 have had of him. The less a man has dreamed of being a 
 traitor, the less also he dreams of taking any pains to appear 
 as if he had not. But he understood, at the same time, it was 
 no longer necessary he should clear himself. He shook his 
 head with a smile, and put his hand on Bruyn's shoulder, 
 repeating, " My poor friend !" Then he silently went and took 
 his place opposite him upon the stone seat which surrounded 
 the prison. 
 
 "It was not you, God be praised!" said the Ce\enol. 
 "Who. then, was it?" 
 
 And a gloomy rage again filled his mind. 
 
 But without allowing the priest time to answer, he again 
 cried : 
 
 " No ! I do not wish to know. Wretch that I am ! I was
 
 40 R A B A U T AND B R I D A I \ E , OR 
 
 lamenting a moment since that I had some one to curse in 
 dying. God has relieved me of this burden and I am asking 
 that it should be restored to me ! No ! do not answer." 
 
 " I should not have answered," said the missionary. " Calm 
 thyself." 
 
 " But why have you left me so long in this error, which was 
 a perfect torture ? When I discovered your name " 
 
 " My name ! Dost thou know my name 1 Who told thee 1" 
 
 " And the letter f 
 
 "What letter?" 
 
 " The bishop's letter. The one which you left on the table." 
 
 " Ah ! I remember." 
 
 " Do you comprehend now ? I beheld myself betrayed by 
 him of whom I had spoken, without knowing him, as the only 
 man in his church in whom I could confide !" 
 
 " Listen. Since that time I have not lost sight of thee. If 
 they had not brought thee here, I would have returned to 
 Meaux to see thee. But, first of all, answer me. Didst thou, 
 or didst thou not, commit the crime for which thou hast been 
 condemned ]" 
 
 " I did not." 
 
 " God hears thee." 
 
 " I know it." 
 
 " Repeat to me that thou art innocent." 
 
 "I am innocent, of this crime, at least." 
 
 " Well, finish thy history now." 
 
 " What ! could you save me ?" 
 
 " Did I say I could ?" 
 
 " You will try ?" 
 
 " Perhaps." 
 
 " O God !" 
 
 And he burst into tears. The terror of death seized him
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 41 
 
 again, with the hope of living. But he still struggled. He 
 was indignant to feel himself moved. 
 
 " Another humiliation !" he murmured. 
 
 "A suggestion of pride!" said Bridaine, severely. " Wouldst 
 thou remain immovable where thy master and mine shrank 
 back 1 When he prayed to God that the cup might be taken 
 away from him, dost thou wish it to be said that thou couldst 
 drink thine unhesitatingly ? But come ; I asked thee to relate 
 the rest of thy story." 
 
 " I will try. Where was I ?" 
 
 " At the sermon at Nimes. Thou hadst made confession to 
 a priest, to me. I had listened with indignation to the 
 manoeuvres by which they had made thee a Catholic. I had 
 given thee, not absolution, for it appeared to me thou couldst 
 not believe in that, but my benediction." 
 
 "I remember. What good it did me! But I was not 
 worthy of it. My soul, like accursed ground, could for a long 
 time only bring forth the fruits of shame and death. 
 
 " Thus I had at last submitted to all requirements ; I had 
 disgraced myself in the eyes of my brethren by my abjuration, 
 and dishonored myself in my own by the public profession of 
 a worship which I despised. 
 
 " I awaited my reward ; my reward came not. It had been 
 agreed that Madeleine should be restored to me, and every 
 day came new pretexts for deferring this. They told me that 
 she was so happy in her convent, that she wished to delay 
 leaving it as long as possible, until all should be ready for our 
 union. My love became irritated oy these interminable 
 delays. I began to suspect that the opposition came from her 
 side. 1 trembled lest some new baseness, of which they dared 
 not yet speak to me, should be the price for which the} had 
 resolved to restore her to me.
 
 42 RABAUT AND BBIDAINE, OR 
 
 u My apprehensions caused me to meet half way the over- 
 tures which they were awaiting an opportunity of making. I 
 went to see Father Charnay. I fell into a passion, but he was 
 not the man to be insulted when he was certain of gaining in 
 the end. lie heard me quietly until I had finished ; and when 
 I cried, ' What more do you want ? Have I not yet done 
 enough !' 
 
 "'My dear son,' he said, 'a man cannot do too much to 
 ensure his salvation. You are, God be praised, a Catholic ; 
 but who can be so sincerely without wishing that all should 
 become so? The greatest obstacle to our preaching in the 
 provinces is Rabaut the minister. Help us to get rid of him.' 
 
 " I thought that I must spring upon him. Betray Rabaut ! 
 I ! Apostate as I was, I would rather have been cut to pieces 
 in his defence. Charnay did not insist. He had thrown the 
 dart. He doubtless concluded that he had only to let the 
 poison work. 
 
 " And the poison was indeed about to work. 
 
 " I was perishing of shame, impatience and weariness. 
 Friends and relations had all withdrawn from me. The 
 Catholic leaders granted me only a cold and contemptuous 
 protection. I began to believe there was no more hope, that 
 the only being in the world who, as I thought, was still dis- 
 posed to love me, and to share my disgrace, would never be 
 restored to me. 
 
 " Accordingly I returned, in spite of myself; to my last con- 
 versation with Father Charnay. The price which he had set 
 upon the release of Madeleine still appeared to me, as at first, 
 an infamy the idea of which it was not even necessary that I 
 should repulse, so impossible was it, I thought, that it should 
 ever enter my head to carry it out ; but I was startled to find 
 myself wishing that the imposed condition had been a little
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 43 
 
 less unacceptable, a little less monstrous. I familiarized my- 
 self with the idea of another blow to my conscience, provided 
 it were not too scandalous ; and like an animal tied, which 
 gradually lengthens its tether, I gradually enlarged the bounds 
 within which I should dare to be criminal. 
 
 " I went again to the Jesuit. Why did I do so ? I did not 
 explain it to myself; I obeyed I know not what infernal in- 
 stinct. 
 
 " In spite of my transports of rage, he perceived the pro- 
 gress which I had made. He repeated his demand, but this 
 time positively and coldly. I must betray Rabaut or never 
 again see Madeleine. There was, he said, no medium. 
 
 " I fled, cursing him. But it was no longer solely from hor- 
 ror of the crime ; it was also and chiefly because I began to 
 waver ! The struggle, however, was still to be obstinate and 
 painful. The expiation began before the crime ; remorse it- 
 self is almost a feeling of peace when compared with the tor- 
 ments of a soul which foresees remorse and is terrified at it, 
 and which hastens to meet it. Twenty times these anticipated 
 tortures were on the point of recalling me to myself, to my 
 former days ; twenty times, after having by these convulsive 
 struggles exhausted the little strength which remained me, I 
 again fell powerless into the current which hurried me on. 
 
 " At length I thought I had found a means of escape. You 
 will remember that I had only become a Catholic by first be- 
 coming an infidel. Your sermon at Nimes had reconciled me 
 with the faith ; but the little good seed which had then fallen 
 into my heart, had long since been swept away by these in- 
 ternal storms. 
 
 " Accordingly suicide appeared to me no great crime. It 
 would spare me one of which I had the greater horror, because 
 I beheld myself ready to commit it. Besides, it was in mj eyes
 
 44 RABAUT AND BIUDAINE, OR 
 
 a reparation, as it were, to be made for the tears of my former 
 brethren. They would blame the method, but they would 
 have the sad satisfaction of seeing that away from them I had 
 only found despair and ruin. 
 
 " Accordingly one day, decided that it should be the last of 
 my existence, I wandered from early morning upon the banks 
 of the Gard, and strangely enough, in the intense emotions of 
 a last day of life, I found a not unpleasing nourishment. I re- 
 turned, in thought, to my pilgrimages of other days, when I 
 went into our deserts to offer up my life to God. In vain did 
 my conscience attempt to point out to me the abyss which ex- 
 isted between a sacrifice and a crime. The resemblance of 
 the emotion in my eyes almost effaced the diversity of the cir- 
 cumstances. I wished to taste death ; I deferred the moment, 
 not from fear, but on the contrary, precisely because I felt no 
 terror, and because I was certain of being quite as ready later 
 as now. I decided at length, that at the moment when the sun 
 should disappear behind the mountain I would step by step 
 enter the river whose waves shortly after should sweep away 
 my body. 
 
 " There remained about an hour for me to live. I seated 
 myself upon a rock. The Gard foamed at my feet. The 
 breeze fanned me with all the perfumes of the shore, and 
 brought me all the murmurs of the evening hour. Behind 
 me were some olives and pines, from which the birds saluted 
 the setting sun; before me, solitary, brilliant, and already 
 seeming larger from its approach to the horizon, the orb which 
 carried with it my life. 
 
 " The shadows lengthened. Those of the opposite bank al- 
 ready took possession of the bed of the river. From moment 
 to moment the waters flowed more darkly. It was my tomb 
 which was making ready, and some scattered shadows, al-
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 45 
 
 ready ascending the rock upon which I was seated, warned me 
 that it was time to descend. 
 
 " I arose. As I stood, I was still beyond the boundaries of 
 twilight ; the sun granted me a last respite. My dazzled eyes 
 were fixed upon it, but if I had possessed the power to regu- 
 late its movements, I would neither have hastened nor retarded 
 its progress. It was necessary, in order to dissipate my last 
 scruples, to abdicate all will. It was no longer I who wished 
 to die ; it was the sun who commanded me not to survive 
 him. 
 
 " At length the summit of the mountain severed the disk of 
 the orb. The sentence was pronounced, I bowed my head 
 and descended. The pebbles rolled from beneath my feet. 
 My dim vision followed them mechanically to the river, as it 
 now followed the sun to the horizon. Did not they also point 
 out my path 1 What could I do better than to give myself 
 up, body and soul, to everything which might spare me the 
 trouble and the crime of volition. 
 
 " Already my feet had touched the water and now up to 
 my knees in the river, I only awaited the last adieu of the sun 
 from the mountain, in order to abandon myself to the cur- 
 rent. 
 
 " But suddenly I raised myself I uttered a cry I re- 
 coiled. There, opposite to me, upon the bank, where the bril- 
 liancy of the sun had until now prevented me fro,m distinguish- 
 ing any object, I perceived a man who stood looking at me, 
 immovable, his arms folded. And in this man, I recognized 
 Rabaut. 
 
 " How long had he been looking at me ? I knew not. His 
 presence in this spot was, moreover, nothing extraordinary. 
 Forced to avoid the thoroughfares, he was most often to be 
 met in the loneliest paths. But since my apostacy I had not
 
 46 RAHAUT AND BRIDAIXE, OR 
 
 seen him. Although I had met so many other angry or sor- 
 rowful glances without shrinking, my most constant appre- 
 hension had been that of encountering his ; and among the 
 miseries from which I wished to free myself, this had occurred 
 to me this very day, more importunate, more poignant than ever. 
 
 " My strength was at an end. This interminable day had 
 exhausted the inmost springs of my being. I had only re^ 
 served for the last, the courage to die ; where could I find that 
 to live another moment ? I felt the ardor which had supported 
 me during a night without sleep, and a day without food, sud- 
 denly fail. My knees tottered. I sank upon the sand. A few 
 vague emotions of terror passed through my mind. Then, 
 nothing more. 
 
 " When I came to myself I was lying upon a bed. I heard 
 voices speaking softly. Upon my making a movement a man 
 who sat beside me rose. But my eyes were again closed, for 
 I thought I recognized him whose presence had annihilated me 
 on the banks of the Gard. The man spoke. It was another 
 voice. It was that of Father Charnay ! 
 
 " He informed me that I was at Nimes ; but he did not add 
 that I was in one of the houses of his order. I had been 
 found upon the highway at a short distance from Gard. It 
 had been perceived, from certain indications, that I had been 
 carried there. By whom ? I guessed easily enough. Char- 
 nay was impatient to know, but I was silent. I had been re- 
 ceived in a village. Charnay was in the neighborhood, and it 
 was he who had me taken to the city. 
 
 " He never left me ; he overwhelmed me with care, and 
 proofs of interest. I knew him too well not to tremble at his 
 kindness. He never approached me without my imagining 
 that he was going to demand payment for it. And could I 
 doubt that this payment was still the same ?
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 47 
 
 " He introduced the subject at length, but so gradually, that I 
 had worn out, with my continual apprehensions, all the courage 
 and strength which I had regained. I was besides weakened 
 by fever. My nights and days were divided between tortur- 
 ing sleeplessness and overpowering langour, and in the inter- 
 vals, the faculties which remained were almost useless. The 
 way was prepared for those terrors from which the tempter 
 may expect complete success. 
 
 " He commenced by himself appearing full of alarm. He 
 feigned suddenly to become aware of the infidelity by which he 
 had permitted me to be brought into his church, and to shud- 
 der at it. I perceived him look at me with an expression of 
 anguish ; I heard him murmur aside, the words ; ' Lost ! 
 Damned !' One day when I awoke, an immense black crucifix 
 was before my eyes, and instead of teaching me to hope in the 
 mercy of Christ, all the tortures of hell were described to me 
 with horrible deliberation. This crucifix, the emblem of sal- 
 vation, became to me only an emblem of damnation. The 
 night came, and these terrific ideas were mingled with my 
 usual delirium. I felt myself in the midst of the flames ; I 
 heard the cries of the damned. Phantoms came and went 
 before my eyes ; the Christ, motionless upon his sable cross, 
 looked at me with flaming eyes. Was this but an illusion of 
 the senses 1 When, long afterwards, I recalled all the circum- 
 stances of these terrible nights, I felt convinced that fraud had 
 been used. I have seen more than one Protestant converted in 
 your convents by means of this kind. Why should there be 
 any scruples in regard to using them against us, when recourse 
 has been had to them so often in these institutions, against 
 Catholics themselves, in order to wrest from their excited im- 
 aginations, vows which could not be gained from their heart or 
 their reason ?
 
 48 RABAUT AND BBIDAINE, OR 
 
 " But it was my conscience which it was necessary to con- 
 quer, I must be brought to look upon something which I had 
 hitherto regarded as a crime, as a meritorious action. My 
 attempt to commit suicide, the confession of which Charnay 
 had succeeded in drawing from me, served his purposes won- 
 derfully well. ' A great expiation,' he said ' could alone cleanse 
 me from this crime. Ought I not to count myself happy to 
 be able to profit the Church, at the same time that I atoned for 
 so great an offence against God V As for the Church, I never 
 believed in it ; in God I scarcely believed ; and I abhorred the 
 man who was speaking to me. And yet, I listened to him, 
 and learned to give myself up to him. I had ceased to will, 
 and in some sort to live ; I mechanically sought some one who 
 might think, act, live for me. 
 
 " Must I go on ? His perseverance conquered. In order to 
 expiate one crime I consented to commit another. 
 
 " Accordingly, scarcely convalescent, given up like a corpse 
 into the hands of my pitiless master, I began to seek the means 
 of satisfying him. 
 
 " Treachery was rare in our provinces. It was an almost 
 unheard-of thing that a converted Protestant should betray his 
 former brethren. I had, therefore, no difficulty in discovering 
 the time and place of an expected meeting at which Rabaut was 
 to preside. 
 
 " It was in one of our deserts the most deserving of this 
 name. I knew the place for meetings had often been held 
 there ; it was found so convenient that it had been called the 
 temple. Five or six paths led to a little plain quite surrounded 
 by rocks, from whose summits our sentinels could see the 
 country for the distance of a league. The outlets were numer 
 ous. It would have required at least ten thousand men to sur- 
 round us with any hope of success.
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 49 
 
 " It was not accordingly in the place itself that it was deemed . 
 possible to capture the minister. But I knew the path by 
 which he generally arrived ; I had many a time been his com- 
 panion in it. This path, winding among the rocks, seemed 
 made for an ambush. 
 
 " It was necessary to conduct the soldiers thither. This was 
 not easy, for it would have been sufficient to give the alarm to 
 the whole neighborhood had only one been seen, even within 
 a league of the spot. I led them two by two to the place, dis- 
 guised as peasants. In ten nights and ten journeys there were 
 twenty lodged in a tolerably large cave which opened a few 
 steps from the pathway. The colonel was among the number. 
 He was not willing to yield to any other the glory and pleasure 
 which he promised himself from this expedition. 
 
 " I believed my task finished, but after the last journey 1 was 
 lesired to remain. The soldiers did not know the minister ; I 
 was to point him out to them. I implored in vain to be spared 
 this hateful task. I endeavored to escape, but I was prevented 
 and kept in sight. 
 
 " There were still two days before the assembly. How 
 long they were ! From time to time I succeeded in killing 
 thought, but only to be roused again in a short time under the 
 weight of a terrible anguish. When I remembered that I was 
 there, I, formerly the example and hope of my poor brethren, 
 to send their head to the scaffold, I repulsed the horrible idea 
 each time as one repels a dream. It seemed to me that the 
 dream must at last have an end, and that I should at length 
 know myself once more. Yes, I at length recognized myself, 
 but only to be inspired with a greater horror than ever ! 
 When through this grating I shall perceive the first beams of 
 my last day, it will terrify me less than did among those rocks 
 the dawn of the day which was to behold my crime accomplished.
 
 50 RABAUT AND BRIDAINE, OR 
 
 " The arrangements were made. Several soldiers concealed 
 twenty paces higher up were to close the passage at a given 
 signal. At the same moment those in the cave were to come 
 out, and the minister would be taken by the two parties. 
 They had granted me permission not to make my appearance. 
 The soldiers once out of the cave, I could slip forth, descend 
 the pathway and fly. 
 
 " My tortures had already commenced. Looking through a 
 crevice of the rock, I saw passing within ten paces of me, all 
 those with whom in other days I had traversed this same path. 
 Men, women, children, old men succeeded each other in groups, 
 upon the rugged descent of the rock. Few spoke. The 
 greater number were grave and thoughtful. A peacefulness. 
 with which I bitterly compared my wretchedness, was visible 
 upon these countenances embrowned by the fierce sun of 
 Languedoc. 
 
 " An old man who had been hidden from me until then by 
 other persons, stopped to take breath. It was my father ! He 
 took off his hat and wiped his brow. How much older he had 
 grown ! How plainly was my history to be read in his fur- 
 rowed countenance ! I followed with my eyes for a long time 
 those gray hairs of which I was to be the disgrace. He hud 
 disappeared and I was still gazing after him. 
 
 " I felt my arm touched. ' Is that he V asked the soldiers 
 hurriedly. 1 looked. ' No !' I replied. But it was in fact one 
 of our ministers, Paul Vincent. The soldiers stamped their 
 f.'ct ; their chief himself evidently had a struggle before he 
 could let such a prey escape. When, however, an instant 
 afterwards they perceived two others, two together, ' Is this 
 he 1 which of them is it ]' they asked, almost aloud ; and I 
 thought that they would spring out of the cave without even 
 allowing the pastors time to draw near. ' No,' I said, ' neither
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 51 
 
 of them They were the pastors Encontre and Guizot, the 
 two names, after Ribaut's, most known and venerated in the 
 province. 
 
 " I scarcely breathed. Three already ! The next must be 
 Eabaut, for it was rare for more than four to be present at 
 an assembly, and there were more frequently only one or two. 
 Three already ! Suppose he should not come 1 Suppose he 
 should at least come by another path ? But no. I felt that I 
 was to empty the cup to the dregs. It should have seemed 
 almost an injustice, if after having been able to consent to the 
 crime, I had not been condemned to accomplish it. 
 
 " But it pleased God still to delay the moment. I was not 
 yet sufficiently crushed ; I had not yet enough tasted my 
 infamy. 
 
 " A woman drew near. She walked with difficulty ; but it 
 seemed as if she regained courage as she approached these 
 mountains where she came to seek God. This woman was 
 my mother. 
 
 " She passed on. The moment drew near. A few of the 
 brethren who had been detained, and a few trembling old men, 
 were still passing by. The soldiers murmured; the chief 
 grew enraged. I almost began to hope. 
 
 " After some moments of silence and solitude, we again 
 heard steps. I looked. A terrible rushing sound filled my 
 head ; a hand of iron seemed to compress my brow. 
 
 " I had not seen him, but I was about to see him. Four 
 young men, with watchful eyes, advanced cautiously. It was 
 his guard on these important occasions, and I had more than 
 once taken part in it. He smiled at these fears. ' One 
 guardian in heaven,' he said, ' is better than four here.' But 
 in spite of this, they surrounded him with this active care. 
 Even in the assemblies, besides those who kept watch for the
 
 52 RABAUT AND BRIDAIXE, OR 
 
 whole, there were always several who only employed them 
 selves in caring for him. 
 
 "The young men passed on. I perceived him. He was 
 twenty or twenty-five paces behind them. One single man 
 accompanied him. It was Fabre of Nimes, the father of one 
 of the four advanced guards. 
 
 "What then took place? I scarcely saw or heard. He 
 was vithin ten steps, and I had not moved. 'Is it he this 
 time?' said the colonel. I believe I tried to say no. My 
 agitated countenance had said yes. 
 
 " The soldiers convulsively grasped their arms. The colonel, 
 with one foot at the entrance of the cave, prepared to spring 
 out first. But suddenly a whistle was heard. I saw Rabaut 
 stop, draw back, and disappear among the rocks. 
 
 " In a second all the soldiers had rushed out. They ran, but 
 Fabre stopped them. Instead of escaping with the minister, 
 he had placed himself in the middle of the pathway. He 
 shouted out that they must pass over his body before advanc 
 ing a single step. They sprang upon him, and bore him to 
 the earth. But this had taken a moment, and Rabaut was 
 already at a distance. 
 
 " Many of the soldiers sprang after him. They searched all 
 'fle rocks around ; they ascended all the eminences. Twenty 
 balls awaited him, in case he could not be taken alive. At 
 last they espied him, but out of reach. He was mounted, and 
 escaping at full speed. 
 
 " I had remained annihilated in a corner of the cave. The 
 joy of seeing him saved had not destroyed the recollection of 
 what I had done to betray him. The hand of Providence, so 
 visibly extended for his preservation, seemed to add to my 
 treachery all the horror of a sacrilege. 
 
 " The colonel was furious. A soldier of the other post had
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 53 
 
 been perceived by one of the young men. They had given the 
 alarm, and had been heard to salute the almost miraculous 
 flight of their pastor with a shout of joy. The colonel was 
 ready to run the soldier through with his sword when he heard 
 this shout. I heard his imprecations. The soldiers themselves 
 seemed frightened by them. 
 
 " They brought to him the venerable Fabre. He ordered, 
 still with terrible oaths, that he should be kept a prisoner. 
 ' Quick !' he said, ' quick ! His hands behind his back. To 
 Nimes ! to Nimes ! and to the galleys !' ' Proceed,' said 
 Fabre. And he held out his hands. 
 
 " But his son had remained near him. He sprang before 
 the colonel. ' Not him !' he cried, ' not him ! You would 
 take him to the galleys ! He would die before reaching them. 
 A man of his age ! Do you dream of such a thing 1 Take 
 me ! take me !' And he had already wrested from the hands 
 of a soldier the cord with which they were about to tie his 
 father. 
 
 " The discussion was long and terrible. It was not only the 
 colonel who refused to listen to the proposal, but the old man, 
 who implored that his son might not be heeded. ' I should 
 die before arriving, dost thou say 1 Well, be it so. I should 
 escape the galleys, but thou wouldst remain there twenty 
 years, thirty years. No, no ! You must take me.' 
 
 " And the son again implored ; and the soldiers paused, 
 uncertain, moved. 
 
 " The infamous colonel at length burst into a laugh. ' They 
 want the galleys,' he said, ' they shall have them. Take 
 them both.' 
 
 " But he had not concluded, before the son had snatched a 
 sabre from one of the soldiers, and placing his back against a 
 rock, cried, ' Both ? Let them try it ! I came voluntarily to
 
 54 RABAUT AND BRIDAINE, OR 
 
 offer myself. If they wish to take me against my will, they 
 shall not take me alive !' 
 
 " Several soldiers were about to spring upon him with their 
 bayonets. The father then cried, with tears, that he would 
 consent to the exchange. The colonel appeared to perceive 
 that his honor required him not to take a man by force who 
 had come voluntarily. He ordered that the father should be 
 set at liberty, and then the son no longer resisted. But they 
 were not even allowed time for a last embrace. In a moment 
 the pris* ner and the soldiers were out of sight. 
 
 " The father had not been able to follow them. He had 
 returned, and seated himself on the very spot where his son 
 had given himself up. I saw him ; I heard his sobs. And I 
 wondered why I did not dash out my brains against the sides 
 of the cavern ! I have heard that in certain countries the 
 assassin is fastened to the corpse of his victim. I was there, 
 fastened to mine. But it was not a lifeless body. I must still 
 be tormented by its sobs and tears, and by looks, which, 
 although they did not perceive me, yet penetrated like burning 
 daggers to the depths of my heart. 
 
 " Sometimes I was upon the point of coming out, and throw- 
 ing myself at his feet, and of confessing all. It mattered little 
 whether he pardoned or cursed me, provided that the horrible 
 secret was no longer sealed up within me. Sometimes, on the 
 contrary, I found some consolation in the thought that he was 
 ignorant of it, and perhaps always would be, and that I alo^e 
 should curse myself. 
 
 " But of this consolation I was soon to be deprived. 
 
 " I saw the three companions of his son approach him. I 
 perceived that they had observed the melancholy scene from a 
 distance. They took the old man's hands, and wept in silence.
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 55 
 
 " ' And do you know,' said one of them at length, ' do you 
 Know who betrayed us V 
 
 " ' Be silent,' said another. ' Why should we tell him V 
 
 " ' Why not, my children V said the venerable Fabre. ' Tell 
 me. It will make the blow none the more cruel.' 
 
 " He deceived himself. He shuddered upon hearing my 
 name. He repeated it several times, and I saw that he covered 
 his face with his hands. 
 
 " ' But who told you ?' he asked. ' How is it known ? Is 
 it certain ?' 
 
 " ' Too certain,' they replied. * It is remembered that he 
 was seen one night coming out of Nimes with two soldiers ; 
 and the next morning early, he returned without them. He 
 must have brought them two by two. Come, let usgo inhere.' 
 
 " I had only time to conceal myself in a corner, when two 
 of them entered. They were Madeleine's two brothers ! The 
 other, I learned, had remained with the poor father, who would 
 not enter. 
 
 " They looked through the cave. The fragments of food 
 proved the long stay of the soldiers. They discovered the 
 crevice from which the path could be perceived. ' It is with- 
 out doubt from here,' said one, ' that they watched us. And 
 who knows! ' He paused. 'What?' asked the other. 
 ' Who knows whether he was not there himself to give the 
 signal f He appeared to shudder at this idea. I saw them go 
 out with precipitation, as if they feared to be contaminated by 
 remaining any longer where a traitor might have been. 
 
 " At the first rumor of the event the assembly had dispersed 
 and the crowd fled ; but as the departure of the soldiers was 
 immediately made known, many returned. They wished to 
 see this place, henceforth so mournfully remarkable. Fabre 
 was already surrounded by friends. I heard their con versa-
 
 &6 RABAUT AND BK1DA1M!., uft 
 
 tion, their narratives, and then my name, again and again my 
 
 name ! 
 
 " The cave was full of people. I retreated like a reptile 
 into the furthest recesses of my place of concealment. At last 
 I found myself on my knees in a sort of tomb ; but I still con- 
 timu'd to hear everything. 
 
 " There was a great movement, followed by a profound 
 silence. I perceived that they were about to pray. 
 
 " A well-known voice, that of the pastor Vincent, pronounced 
 the usual 'Our help be in the name of God f but in place of 
 proceeding as usual to the confession of sins, he repeated 
 slowly three times, ' Our- help be in the name of the Lord !' 
 
 " Never had a preacher said more in so few words ; never 
 had more sorrow penetrated through such courage and faith. 
 
 " This was his whole prayer. He comprehended that each 
 one had completed it fittingly, and that in prolonging it he 
 could but weaken the touching impression. 
 
 " He accordingly opened the Bible, and new blows were to 
 fall upon me. With terror I heard him begin to read in a 
 trembling voice, the history of the Passion. He had not gone 
 beyond the third verse, before all present had already seized 
 the terrible appropriateness of his words. 
 
 " ' And then,' he said, ' entered Satan into Judas, surnamed 
 Iscariot, being of the number of the twelve. 
 
 " ' And he went his way and communed with the chief priests 
 and captains, how he might betray Him unto them. 
 
 " ' And they were glad ' 
 
 " A repressed murmur, a shudder accompanied these words. 
 You would have thought from their sorrowful attention, that it 
 was the first time they had heard this mournful story. 
 
 " From time to time they appeared to forget me. They 
 followed, with silent emotion, the history of the Saviour's long
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 5*7 
 
 agony. But the pitiless historian had not forgotten the traitor, 
 and his name mentioned here and there, as if to cast a shade 
 upon the picture, every moment recalled a murmur to their 
 lips and indignation into their hearts. 
 
 " ' And truly the Son of man goeth as it was determined, 
 hut woe to that man by whom he is betrayed !' 
 
 "And further on : 'Judas, betray est thou the Son rf man 
 with a kiss ]' 
 
 " I thought that the minister would speak of what he had 
 just read ; but what could he have added to that which all felt ? 
 He closed the book and joined his hands. He remained a long 
 time motionless, his eyes raised to heaven, then But how 
 should I attempt to repeat to you his prayer ! Ah ! you, in 
 your pompous cathedrals, you know not what it is to pray in 
 a cavern, with captivity or death before you, and two steps 
 from the spot where one of the members of your flock has just 
 been torn from the embrace of a father ! And I, the author 
 of the occurrence, found a charm in lamenting with my vic- 
 tims. Treachery, remorse, the terrible future, for the mo- 
 ment I forget all these. I lived again the life of two years 
 back ; I had again found my ardor, my faith, my purity of 
 other days. I should have been able, I felt, to conclude this 
 prayer, so eloquently begun. And I was only aroused to my 
 misery by hearing him pray for me. 
 
 " They went away. I had longed for this moment, and now 
 jhat it was come, I trembled. I was afraid. It seemed to me 
 that I had been present at my own burial, and that the crowd 
 left me alone, cold, in a corner of the grave-yard. 
 
 " At length I quitted the cave. The day had begun to de- 
 cline. 1 awaited the night in order to depart ; but I could not 
 prevail upon myself to follow the pathway. I gained the high 
 road by climbing over the rocks.
 
 58 RABAUT AND niilDAIXE, OK 
 
 "Since my illness I had remained in the house of the Jesuits. 
 Upon going in I desired to see Charnay. He refused to see 
 me, and the next day it was signified to me that I must leave 
 the house. I learned that the colonel had charged upon me 
 the ill success of the expedition, and they desired nothing bet- 
 ter than not to be obliged to pay me for my services. I was 
 a poor traitor ; these gentlemen do not like half-way blows. 
 When I ventured again to speak of Madeleine, they laughed 
 at me, and I could see plainly that they had never intended to 
 restore her to me. 
 
 "The event had caused a great sensation throughout the 
 country. The duke de Mirepoix, governor of Languedoc, of- 
 fered to release young Fabre from his sentence to the galleys, 
 upon condition that Rabaut should quit the country. Fabre 
 had written to him imploring him to refuse ; the pastor had 
 replied, with the unanimous approbation of the churches, that 
 nothing in the world would induce him to abandon his flock. 
 Fabre had been sent to Toulon. 
 
 "I no longer dared show myself; the very children had 
 learned to turn away from me. I must die, or expatriate 
 myself. I no longer thought of dying. I felt myself con- 
 demned to live, and condemned in such sort, that it would 
 have been useless to rebel against the decree. I resolved ac- 
 cordingly to depart. I had already thought of this when I be- 
 lieved that Madeleine was to be restored to me. I had wished 
 to take her with me in order to seek a repose which she, I 
 thought, as well as myself, could no longer find in our native 
 land. 
 
 " I had, as a converted Protestant, the odious right to force 
 my father to provide me with the means of existence inde- 
 pendent of him.* I wrote him declaring that I had no inten- 
 * Edict of June 17th, 1681.
 
 THE COURT OF I.OUIS XV. 59 
 
 tion of using this right, and that I would rather die of hinger; 
 but I asked, as an alms, some money for the voyage. 
 
 " He sent me what I had requested, but without a word of 
 reply. I was prepared for reproaches, but this mute curse 
 caused me more tears than I had yet shed. 
 
 " I set eut for Bordeaux, from whence I intended leaving for 
 the colonies. I was only obliged to stop in Toulouse long 
 enough to draw from a merchant of that place the amount of 
 the note which I had received from my father. 
 
 " This merchant, one Galas, was one of the most respectable 
 and esteemed Protestants in the counti'y. He received me 
 before he knew me, with a kindness which almost surprised 
 me, for I felt as if my history must be written on my counte- 
 nance. But he had scarcely read my name before a sorrowful 
 amazement became visible on his face. He began silently to 
 count out the money ; his hand trembled. At length he asked 
 me, hesitatingly, whether I was a relative of him whose abjura- 
 tion, he ventured to go no further, had lately caused such a 
 sensation. I cast down my eyes. He sighed, and asked after 
 my father. ' He is as well,' I answered, ' as he can be after ' 
 I did not finish. ' Yes,' he said, ' I know what it is to lose a 
 son.' ' One of your sons has abjured ?' I cried. He under- 
 stood that I rejoiced at this news, as one rejoices to find a com- 
 panion in misery. He gave me the address of his son, adding 
 that he rarely saw him, although he had never ceased to love 
 him. It was a delicate method of letting me know that I did 
 not inspire him with hatred. I admired a charity which was 
 too elevated for such an aversion ; I compared it, involuntarily, 
 with the blind hatred so generally felt among you for the de- 
 serters from your church. 
 
 " I went accordingly to seek Louis Galas, but I found in him 
 a gloomy bigot, whose conversation destroyed the little catho-
 
 60 RABATT AND BRIDAIXE, OR 
 
 licity which I had retained when with the Jesuits. ITe corn 
 plctcd my disgust by taking a high tone, in opposition to me, 
 for the defence of my conduct. lie was not far from con- 
 gratulating me upon having had occasion to raise myself in so 
 holy a cause above the vulgar laws of conscience and honor. 
 
 "I made, however, the acquaintance of his elder brother, Mark 
 Antony, whose character and sentiments were singularly ana- 
 logous to mine. An infidel, if he had not abjured, it was only 
 from regard for public opinion, and precisely too on account 
 of the advantages offered by an abjuration. We, in our far off 
 mountains, imagined the Protestants of the large cities much 
 happier than ourselves. It is true that you leave them more 
 undisturbed ; but how many privations, how many bitternesses 
 are there, which we did not suspect, and of which they expe- 
 rienced and do now experience the maddening influence ! They 
 are allowed to enrich themselves by commerce, and many in- 
 deed, by means of their strict probity,* do this ; but to those 
 who desire more than money, the path is blocked up on 
 whichever side they turn. The magistracy, the bar, instruction, 
 medicine, offices of all kinds, the smallest as well as the 
 greatest, are inexorably denied them ; the only thing open to 
 them, besides commerce, is that rude and laborious ministry 
 in which at each step they stumble on the scaffold of some one 
 of their predecessors. But in the cities few possess the courage 
 
 * Rulhiere, in lii " h's/ilanations of the Revocation of ike Edict of 
 A'linf'-x," m.ik-s :i somewhat curious remark. It is that during the first 
 half of the rei^u of Louis XIV., satires and comedies made no attacks 
 whatever on the financiers, so cried down shortly afterwards. Now dur- 
 ing this period, the majority of them were Protestants, 
 
 This financial and commercial probity must, moreover have been sin 
 gularly well established, since at the height of the subsequent persecu- 
 tions, when calumny was so commonly brought to the aid of violence 
 this subject was never touched upon.
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 61 
 
 and strength to enter upon this. They must have been accus 
 tomed from childhood to this rude and wandering life ; they 
 must have gradually become accustomed to this daily and 
 hourly peril. 
 
 " The elder Calas would have had as much courage as any one 
 I believe ; but he had not felt himself fit for so solemn a call- 
 ing, and had from conscientious scruples given up the studies 
 to be gone through for the ministry. Full of talent and ambi- 
 tion, abhorring the obscure toils of commerce, he had seen 
 himself condemned to vegetate without position, without future, 
 in the old paternal country house. Idleness had encouraged 
 vice, vice infidelity. A thousand new torments had filled the 
 fatal void of his existence. Accordingly, as I soon saw, he 
 cherished the design to free himself from it as soon as he should 
 become decidedly weary of its weight. 
 
 " Such was Mark Antony at the time when I knew him. In 
 a few days I was his best friend. He persuaded me to remain 
 at Toulouse. There was no need that I should banish myself, 
 he said. I could easily live unknown in so populous a city. 
 I had only to change my name. 
 
 " The idea began to please me. I asked nothing better than 
 to stay ; but I must live, and how ? ' Bah !' replied Calas ; ' in 
 a city one can always live.' I insisted. At last, he informed 
 me of a resource, which, as he said, had never yet failed him. 
 It was gaming. ' Gaming !' I cried ; ' and if I should lose ?' 
 ' You will not lose,' he said. ' But if I should ?' I repeated. 
 ' If you lose ? Well, you can do what many others have 
 done, what I shall also do when I lose.' 
 
 " He startled me and I allowed myself to be led. I sur- 
 rendered myself to vice as I had to fanaticism, without passion, 
 without taste. It seemed if I had coldly taken the part of exe 
 iutor of some inexorable decree pronounced against me.
 
 62 RABAUT AND BRIDAINE, OR 
 
 " Yet it was not without a strong emotion, that for the first 
 time I crossed the threshold of a gaming house. I recalled with 
 horror all I had heard related of these dens, where so many 
 have left their fortune, their honor, their life. The recollec- 
 tions of virtue caused a last attempt to arrest myself upon the 
 verge of the abyss of vice. 
 
 " It was in vain ; but vice on the other hand, did not suc- 
 ceed in dazzling me, even at the moment when I gave myself 
 up entirely to its dominion. The first day I said to myself, 
 I shall gain ; the second, I shall lose ; the third we shall see. 
 And in fact, I gained on the first day, I lost on the second, and 
 on the third I returned ready to stake all that remained. 
 
 " Whilst I awaited my turn, my attention was suddenly at- 
 tracted by a too well-known voice, that of the colonel. He 
 was in a neighboring saloon, where were accustomed to sup, 
 after the games were over, all the most abandoned of both 
 sexes in Toulouse. Without being seen myself, I could see 
 him haranging in the midst of a group ; it even seemed to me 
 that I heard my name. 
 
 " I gradually drew nearer. He was in the midst of relating 
 his last campaign, as he said, and his ambuscade in the desert. 
 He was just completing the account of Rabaut's escape, and 
 how he had taken Fabre instead of Rabaut, and finally the son 
 instead of the father. The audience laughed, and the history 
 as he related it, was not far from being exceedingly amusing. 
 
 " But when the audience thinking that he had finished, began 
 to disperse, he said; ' Do you think I have finished ? You have 
 not yet heard the most curious part.' They all returned. I 
 slipped through the crowd within three steps of him. 
 
 " ' You remember,' he resumed, ' the poor simpleton whom 
 we persuaded by means of the name of his Madeleine to do 
 everyt) ing we wished. The bet;t of the joke is, that while we
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. Go 
 
 led him on by talking of her, we led her also, but in a very 
 different path, as you will see, by talking of him.' 
 
 " And then, to the great amusement of my neighbors, was 
 described the abominable plot which I might have suspected, 
 but which I never could have suspected to be within many de- 
 grees so impudently perfidious. 
 
 " Madeleine had accordingly daily received news of me, as 
 false as that which had been brought me of her. Long before 
 my apostasy, when as yet I had scarcely begun to entertain 
 the idea, they had announced to her its completion ; also that 
 I dasired, that T was even anxious, she should follow my exam- 
 ple. Stronger thar I had been, this first blow had not shaken 
 her. They reserved for her a second. For a long time she 
 heard nothing more of me. She wept in silence, but vould lis- 
 ten to nothing more. At length she was induced to ask what 
 I was about ; then they pretended that they dared not reply. 
 She insisted. At length they told her that I was married. 
 But the proselyters again gained nothing by their falsehood. 
 She Avas more blest than I; God remained with her. She 
 wept, but she was not subdued. 
 
 " This story aroused in me the most contending emotions. 
 I was happy and proud to find that Madeleine was pure and 
 noble, as she had been of old ; but every one of these traits 
 showed me how unworthy I now was of her. But even in the 
 midst of these revelations, in which she appeared to me so 
 courageous and so firm, the triumphant air of the narrator 
 indicated that he was not yet through, and I awaited with in- 
 creasing anxiety a conclusion which I trembled lest 1 should 
 find little in agreement with the beginning. 
 
 " He went on to relate how, having had occasion to see 
 Madeleine, he had found her to his taste. The part which he 
 played, through his regiment, in the conversions of the pr >v
 
 61 RABAUT ANT) 15 I'. I !) A I X K , OK 
 
 inco, gained him access into the convent. He had been 
 enabled to talk with her alone. He had showed admiration 
 of her steadfastness, pity for her misfortunes. A master in the 
 art of beguiling, he had always remained grave and respectful, 
 and she had finally accepted, without suspicion, the offer of his 
 assistance in escaping from this odious house. 
 
 " Accordingly, one night he carried her off. He would take 
 her immediately t > her relations, he had told her. Then it 
 appeared to occur to him that she would not be in security 
 there, at least for a time, and he offered her an asylum with a 
 lady of high rank whom she knew by name. ' I did not even 
 speak of accompanying her,' he added. ' She entered my 
 carriage ; she saw me respectfully close the door. The trick 
 was played ; the bird taken.' 
 
 " ' Bravo, colonel !' cried a young officer who stood beside 
 me listening. 
 
 " The colonel turning, perceived me. I observed him grow 
 pale. lie turned to go away, as if the story was ended. ' Go 
 on ! go on !' was the cry ; and they followed him laughing, for 
 they doubted not that this feigned departure was in order to 
 pique their curiosity. But I advanced in front of the others, 
 and placing myself before him, said, ' Go on, Monsieur !' in a 
 tone which it was soon perceived contained nothing like a jest. 
 
 " But this sudden attack had already restored to him his 
 coolness. He stopped and said, with profound contempt, ' Go 
 on ? Does Monsieur take me for a man who may be ques- 
 tioned, or who can be induced by threats to speak ?' 
 
 '' ' You shall speak !' I cried. 
 
 " And I had already seized him by the arm. But his friends 
 threw themselves upon me. Galas, who wished to defend, 
 could not even approach me. In an instant we were expelled 
 from the house.
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 65 
 
 " I was beside myself. I wished to run to the Hotel de 
 Ville, to lay my complaint before the magistrates. Galas 
 laughed at me. ' A complaint on account of a scene in a 
 gaming house ! A complaint against the marquis de Narniers, 
 the right arm of the clergy in the province !' There was, 
 moreover, he added, a certain sheriff, a sworn enemy of the 
 Galas, who would also become mine, so soon as he knew me 
 to be their friend. In short, I must pocket the offence, or ask 
 satisfaction sword in hand. 
 
 " A duel ! Another of the things whose very name, from a 
 slight reminiscence of my sentiments of other days, seemed to 
 me an outrage against the holiest laws. But it was decreed 
 that I should trample upon all that I had adored. An hour 
 after, I was at the corner of the street, where, sword in hand, 
 I awaited the colonel's appearance. 
 
 " He came out. I went up to him. Galas remained at a 
 short distance. 
 
 " ' Monsieur,' I said, ' you doubtless do not imagine that the 
 affair can remain here 1 Answer or defend yourself.' 
 
 " But he, without even stopping, said : 
 
 " ' These fellows are strangely insolent.' 
 
 " Then, half turning, as if towards a beggar of whom he 
 wished to rid himself, he said, ' But, my friend, where did you 
 ever hear of a gentleman fighting with a maniac V 
 
 " I sprang upon him ; I seized him. 
 
 " ' Thou shalt defend thyself,' I repeated, ' or die.' 
 
 " Did I really mean to kill him, if he refused to fight? God 
 is my witness that I did not. What would I have done ? I 
 know not. But already, as I held him, I asked what I ought 
 to do. I was stronger than he. It only remained with me to 
 stab him ; bitf that alone would have restrained me, even if I 
 had wished t do it. At length I thought that he put his hand
 
 GO RABAUT AND BRIDAINE, OR 
 
 on his sword. I let him go, and scarcely was his arm at 
 liberty, when a pistol buliet grazed my cheek. But I had had 
 time to see him raise his arm. I had thrown myself on one 
 side ; and at the moment when the shot was fired, I heard a 
 cry. In throwing my hands forward to ward oft' a blow, I had 
 pierced his breast. 
 
 " Windows were thrown open ; the street was lighted. Galas 
 dragged me away. I remained some days concealed in the 
 house ol one of his friends. A search was made in his house, 
 I learned. He asserted that he had quitted me a short time 
 after our expulsion, and neither knew what I had done, nor 
 what had become of me. The affair was carried on, moreover, 
 with great activity. Nothing was spoken of but the attempted 
 assassination of the marquis de Narniers. The description of 
 the criminal, as complete as it could be made, had been sent 
 everywhere, and a reward was promised to whoever should 
 discover me. 
 
 " Although I had no fear of the intentions of my host, I 
 esolved to leave Toulouse. It was a torture for me to live 
 thus shut up. I must breathe the air of the country, although 
 at each step I might risk my life or liberty. 
 
 " I set out. A long beard and tattered clothes gave me the 
 aspect of one of those vagabonds who are allowed by the 
 patrols of the South to beg around the country. 
 
 " After having for some days submitted to this half savage 
 life as a necessity, it was to appear to me beneath a new aspect. 
 
 " I shall never forget the moment when this strange trans- 
 formation took place. It was in the evening, on the side of a 
 great highway, in the outskirts of a wood where I was about 
 to seek shelter for the night. Around me were trees ; before 
 me were hills, behind which the sun was going to disappear, 
 the whole scene, in short, of the banks of the Gard ! But
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 67 
 
 there, before my feet, in place of the river which murmured 
 and darkened, was the silent, white road, the road, now my 
 only home, as the waves of the Gard had seemed my only 
 asylum when I had resolved to end my days beneath them. 
 Then it seemed to me as if I were in the same place, at the 
 foot of the same rock which had beheld me fall when I per- 
 ceived Rabaut. The road had miraculously covered the bed 
 of the river ! The condemnation was written where the crime 
 was to have been committed ! My life, instead of ending, was 
 to drag on indefinitely from road to road, from village to 
 village, until the inward voice which had bidden me journey 
 should command me to stop. 
 
 " And thus you see how, moving from road to road, from vil- 
 lage to village, and from city to city, I arrived in two years 
 where you found me. Never during these two years have I 
 slept in an inhabited dwelling ; never did a second night find 
 me in the same spot. Seated at the doors of the churches like 
 the penitents of old, I never have crossed their threshold. As 
 houses of God, I felt myself unworthy of entering them ; as 
 the houses of priests, I could not have entered them without 
 horror. And never did a priest pass me that my heart, re- 
 volted, did not murmur : ' It is thanks to thee and thine that I 
 am here !' Can you understand now what I felt at Meaux iu 
 asking alii .3 of you ?" 
 
 X. 
 
 MADELEINE. 
 
 " 1 can understand," said Bridaine. " Hast thou finished '" 
 " I have." 
 
 " Thou hast not told me all. What has become of Made- 
 leine r
 
 68 RABAUT AND BRIDAINE, OR 
 
 " I do not know." 
 
 " Absolutely ?" 
 
 " Absolutely. I imposed on myself the d ^termination nevei 
 to inquire. What should I gain by it 1 Pure, the remem- 
 brance of her would have sharpened my remorse. Lost, I 
 must have accused myself of her fate while mourning her." 
 
 Bruyn spoke the truth. He was ignorant of the fate of his 
 betrothed. 
 
 We have heard that she was at Meaux. Before going fur- 
 ther, we may mention how she had come there. 
 
 The marquis had retained her at Toulouse. Free at first, at 
 least in appearance, she had gradually become his prisoner. 
 He found it amusing to put into practice what he had, as yet, 
 only read in romances. 
 
 But he gained nothing from all his trouble. Threats and 
 attentions were equally without effect upon the virtue of Made- 
 leine. He soon saw that he must renounce his designs, or else 
 have recourse to means which he disliked to use, for in spite 
 of his resolution he had submitted to the influence of his vic- 
 tim. He was angry at himself for respecting her so much. 
 He was only withheld by vanity from setting her at liberty, 
 and wished nothing better in reality, than to rid himself of 
 her. 
 
 It was the abbe who came to his aid. The priest boasted 
 of being more fortunate than the soldier ; he asserted that in 
 a month he would have gained more ground with Madeleine 
 than the marquis in a year. 
 
 She had accordingly been conducted to Meaux. A month 
 had passed, and the abbe was no farther advanced than his 
 brother.
 
 THE COURT 'OF LOUIS XV. 69 
 
 XI. 
 
 TWO PETITIONS GRANTED. 
 
 "So thou hast nothing more to tell me]" resumed Bri 
 daine. 
 
 " Nothing." 
 
 " Nothing to ask me ?" 
 
 " No, but stay. Yes, I have two things to ask you." 
 
 " Let me hear them." 
 
 " One is to accompany me when I shall be led " 
 
 " Be it so. But I hope" 
 
 " Let us hope nothing. You promise ?" 
 
 " I promise." 
 
 " But it is a friend I want, I must forewarn you. Not a con- 
 fessor." 
 
 " Unhappy man ! Wilt thou reject " 
 
 " All that does not come from God. I wish to be taught to 
 approach him, I do not wish that any one should put himself 
 between Him and me." 
 
 " Then thou hast again become a Protestant ?" 
 
 " I have begun again to be a Christian." 
 
 " Christian ! And yet to refuse " 
 
 " All which does not come from God, as I said before. 
 Would you rather that I should be an infidel ?" 
 
 Bridaine sighed. He could not, in fact, conceal from him- 
 self that an infidel, submissive and ready to confess, would 
 have less shocked him in the first moment, than a man refusing 
 his priestly aid from conviction. Rome has always been in- 
 finitely more indulgent towards those who do not believe at 
 all, than those who believe differently from her, and it would 
 be very difficult, not to say impossible, for a priest always to
 
 70 RABAUT AND URIDAJNE, OR 
 
 escape this singular impulse. We have seen Bridiiine at 
 Nimes offer Bruyn of his own accord a simple benediction ; 
 and now we see him alarmed at the idea of letting him die, 
 without having given him officially what "? A pardon which 
 he knows to be nothing unless confirmed by God. 
 
 " No," he resumed, " I cannot. If I accompany thee whither 
 thou wilt, it must be as a priest." 
 
 v Well, let us talk no more of it. I had something else to 
 ask you." 
 
 " Say on." 
 
 " There is but one pardon in the world which would appear 
 to me in dying an earnest of the pardon of God." 
 
 " I understand." 
 
 " Let me, before I die, see him who can alone give it. Is he 
 still at Meaux ?" 
 
 " He is at Paris, but I do not know where." 
 
 " Have you no trace ?" 
 
 " None." 
 
 " Then there is no hope. But no, stay Do you know 
 Monsieur de Gebelin ?" 
 
 " The orientalist 1 No But if it be only necessary to 
 go and see him " 
 
 " You will go 1 Well, then, for God's sake go to him. He 
 is the friend of Monsieur Rabaut. He must know -where he is.*' 
 
 " I will go ? Adieu, my son." 
 
 " Adieu, my Father. Your blessing was a comfort to ino 
 at Nimes." 
 
 " Receive it again. Adieu." 
 
 And the prisoner rose as though to accompany the priest. 
 The noise of his chains warned him that he could only take 
 one step. He stopped. 
 
 " You see ?" he said.
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 71 
 
 " What matters it, if the soul be free ]' 
 " Yes But if it be not free ?" 
 Ajid he again seated himself, sadly. 
 
 XII. 
 
 BRIDAINE WITNESSES A SINGULAR SPECTACLE. 
 
 And yet although Bridaine had almost promised to save 
 him, he did not know how to set about it ; he even thought it 
 very fortunate that this glimmer of hope had not dazzled the 
 prisoner too much, for he could not conceal from himself that 
 it might all fade away. Justice in the time of Louis XV. did 
 not easily let go her prey. In spite of the wise regulations 
 which Louis XIV. had mingled with the old customs, they were 
 very far from having been entirely reformed. " When Mon- 
 sieur de Malesherbes," says the abbe Morellet, " had read my 
 Manual of Inquisitors, he said, 'you think you have collected 
 extraordinary facts, unheard of proceedings "? Well, this juris- 
 prudence is almost precisely similar to our criminal jurispru- 
 dence.' " This was true. The judges were commonly better 
 than the justice, but they were not to be trusted. Every one who 
 was accused was accounted guilty ; still more so every one who 
 was condemned. It might happen that Bridaine could touch 
 the judges by an account of Bruyn's sufferings, and that Bruyn 
 would for all that not be saved, for the honor of the parlia- 
 ment of Toulouse, and of Justice in general. The tribunals 
 had not yet learned to refuse each other these little favors. 
 The life of a man began indeed to be ^orth something ; but 
 far more in the fashionable books of the day, than on the 
 bench or scaffold.* 
 
 * The state of the prisons was in accordance with the barbarity of the
 
 72 RABAUT AND BRIDAINE, OR 
 
 Bridaine was moreover ignorant of the favorable thougnts 
 of the marquis de Narniers, but he was none the less resolved 
 to try him. He would go and visit all the councillors in turn 
 if it was needful. He would gain the assistance of the arch- 
 bishop. He would summon the marquis to speak the truth 
 and confess that there had been no assassination. He would 
 go to the duke de Choiseul, to the king. Did not he know the 
 way? 
 
 While he walked, full of these thoughts, through the corri. 
 dors of the Palais de Justice, the smell of burnt paper suddenly 
 attracted his attention. He feared the breaking out of a fire, 
 out no one among the persons in sight seemed to be uneasy in 
 respect to it. 
 
 When he reached the top of the great staircase in order to 
 go out, he found himself in sight of the explanation which he 
 wished. 
 
 In the midst of the court was a small pile of wood, upon 
 which were some books burning. He perceived that it was 
 one of those harmless auto-da-fes which took place from time 
 to time, for the amusement of the Parisians. 
 
 At this moment, however, there were but few spectators 
 
 system. The greater number were horrid receptacles where accused and 
 condemned were herded together like the meanest beasts. It was not 
 until the time of Louis XVI. that any attention was paid to the physical 
 state of the prisoners. The abbe de Besplas, preaching at Versailles, 
 drew a picture of it which greatly struck the king. The courtiers were 
 astonished that so many horrors had remained unperceived in the midst 
 of so refined an age. 
 
 The hospitals, moreover, were not much better than the prisons. At 
 Paris, three patients were still put into one bed. A ce fltury before they 
 had put as many as six. 
 
 These details, it may be remarked in passing, are little like what 
 Chateaubriand has related of the marvels of Catholic charity. Protestant 
 countries were already quite different as regards humanity.
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 73 
 
 either in the court or the streets leading to it. People were 
 seen to approach and inquire what was going on ; the thing had 
 evidently not been announced beforehand. There was even an 
 appearance of stealth in the proceedings. A bailiff read the de- 
 crees, but so quickly and in so low a voice that the nearest by- 
 standers could scarcely catch a few words. Two councillors in 
 their robes presided at the execution. They seemed embar- 
 rassed. One of them especially, seemed to think that the 
 bailiff did not read rapidly enough, that the books burnt too 
 slowly. And more than one waggish clerk slyly observed the 
 effects of this impatience upon the very ugly countenance of the 
 abbe de Chauvelin, for it was he. All, down to the very hang- 
 man, seemed to be in haste to get through with it. In place 
 of " destroying" the books, as the decrees expressed it, he con- 
 fined himself to tearing out a page or two, and the fire did the 
 rest. 
 
 Not that all these writings which they made a feint of de- 
 stroying were not bad, detestably bad. The flames had already 
 devoured the " Chinese letters" of D'Argens, the Vision, of 
 Grimm, the Christianity unmasked, of Damilaville, the Man- 
 plant, of La Mettrie, five or six anonymous pamphlets where 
 Voltaire's hand betrayed itself in every line, and five or six 
 works signed with the unknown names of people thinking 
 themselves in possession of mind enough to prove that man is 
 a brute. The harvest was abundant we perceive, and it must 
 be acknowledged that so long as they must burn, the parlia- 
 ment could not have chosen better. But from the president to 
 the bailiff, from the attorney-general to the hangman, all felt 
 that it was lost labor. Some of them, partisans of the new 
 ideas, only looked upon it as a comedy to be played until the 
 age should be ripe for the predicted regeneration ; the others 
 more sincere, understood all the better on that account, the use
 
 74 RABAUT AND BRIDAINE, OR 
 
 lessness of the part they played, and the nothingness of their 
 efforts. From these causes proceeded the embarrassment of 
 all ; and also the singular contrivances by which they en- 
 deavored at least to escape ridicule, even if they must cast a 
 few grains of incense into the flame where they threw the 
 books. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 
 
 L'E SPRIT, OF HELVETIUS. 
 
 There remained but one to be burned. Bridaine thought he 
 perceived that the two councillors looked still more embar- 
 rassed. The bailiff read low, so low that nothing at all was to 
 be heard. 
 
 The passers by had gradually increased the number of spec- 
 tators ; there was almost a crowd. " Louder !" cried some- 
 body. "Louder," repeated several others. Bridaine then 
 bent all his attention to listen. He thought he distinguished 
 the words, poison, philosophy, venom, esprit^ 
 
 " Ah, ha !" said a subordinate clerk, " it appears that it is 
 * The Mind' (V Esprit,) of Monsieur Helvetius." 
 
 " Come !" said another. " Hast thou at last discovered 
 that 1 It is for his benefit that the whole ceremony takes 
 place." 
 
 " For him ? And what of these others, then ?" 
 
 '' The others are only there in order to keep him company. 
 Jfessieurs were desirous of burning the book, but they did not 
 wish to grieve the author, who is the good friend of almost all 
 of them. Since thou cans't comprehend he was once farmer 
 of the revenues, master of the household to the queen, and a 
 man of one hundred thousand crowns income ! When the 
 poison is in a golden vessel one cannot do less than be polite
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 75 
 
 in throwing it into the fire. So Messieurs resolved to unite in 
 the same batch, all that remained burnable in France." 
 
 " And dost thou call that polite, pray ? If I were named 
 Helvetius, there are people there whose ashes I should care 
 little to have mixed with mine." 
 
 " Well, the name is accordingly not mentioned in the de- 
 cree. What they wanted, dost thou see, was that the parlia- 
 ment should not appear to have lighted the fire entirely for 
 him. 'You are burning books are you, master hangman? 
 Well, here, since you are about it you may as well burn us up 
 these too without any fuss.' Wait, the clerk is just passing the 
 volume to Samson. Courage, Samson, my friend ! Tear, 
 tear, come ! a little more firmness ! To-day at least, art 
 thou the executor of all sorts of works ! Good ! there is 
 Mind in the fire. It burns, but it does not sparkle. In fact, I 
 found it perfectly tiresome." 
 
 " Thou hast read it ?" 
 
 " Six pages, of which I understood nothing, unless it was that 
 in place of calling the work Mind, it would have been more 
 honest to call it Matter. Ho ! what is all that ? A man 
 wants to throw himself out of the window ?" 
 
 In fact, a man had been perceived clapping his hands, in the 
 fourth story window of a neighboring house. Two or three 
 others whose arms alone were visible, endeavored to draw him 
 back, but he leaned still further out of the window, and still 
 clapped his hands, which remained at liberty. At length he 
 was drawn back Jnto the apartment, and the window was 
 dosed. Helvetius went on burning. 
 
 " Some madman," said one of the two clerks. 
 
 " Or some fanatic," said the other, " who has become so from 
 joy at the smell of this burned infidelity. That is all, I think." 
 
 " Probably. But no. What is it they are bringing out there ?"
 
 76 RABAUT AND BBIDAINE, OR 
 
 XIV. 
 
 A STRANGE AUTO-DA-F^. 
 
 Two bailiffs had rolled up a great bale of books to the side 
 of the smoking remains of Voltaire and Helvetius. Then, in 
 his nasal tone, but this time perfectly loud and clear, like a 
 man perfectly at his ease, the clerk read the following decree : 
 
 " The court, 
 
 " In consideration of the notification of the king, date 24th 
 of April, 1729, concerning books used by the so-called reformed 
 religion, under whatsoever title, form and denomination, they 
 may appear ; 
 
 " And in consideration, that notwithstanding the said notifi- 
 cation, and the decrees consequent upon the application of the 
 same, there have recently been made divers attempts to intro- 
 duce these books into the kingdom, in order to spread abroad 
 the poison which the late king of glorious memory had begun, 
 to extirpate, and which the king our lord has pursued into its 
 remotest hiding places ; 
 
 "And in consideration of the verbal process, date May 15, 
 1760, witnessing that a bale of the said works has been seized 
 in the possession of Master Dumont, bookseller of Paris ; 
 
 "The attorney-general having been heard in his various 
 representations and requisitions, 
 
 " In all things concerning said Master Dumont ; 
 
 " In consideration of the notification of the king, bearing date 
 August 10, 1685, pronouncing condemnation to fine of fifteen 
 hundred livres, with deprivation of employment, against the 
 booksellers who should hold or sell said books ;
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 77 
 
 " In consideration, on the one hand, that he does not deny 
 having known the contents of the before-mentioned bale ; 
 
 " In consideration, on the other hand, of his declaration that 
 he has sold none of the volumes therein enclosed, but that he 
 awaited, without even opening it, the arrival of the third, to 
 him unknown party, in order to take possession of it ; 
 
 " Pronounces that there is no cause for decieeing the de- 
 privation of employment ; 
 
 " Condemns Dumont only to a fine of fifteen hundred livres, 
 of which falls a third to the king, a third to the Hotel Dieu of 
 Paris, and a third to the informer, who has demanded, accord- 
 ing to the tenor of the ordinances, not to be named ; 
 
 " And concerning the books seized, 
 
 " Orders that the attorney-general shall see that they are 
 carried to the depot of the court, in order by the executioner 
 to be torn up and burned in the court of the palace, at the foot 
 of the grand staircase, as pernicious and seditious, contrary to 
 the laws and maxims of the religion of the State. 
 
 " Given at Paris, July 15, 1760." 
 
 During the reading of this decree, the hangman's assistants 
 had restored the fire, and enlarged the pile of wood. The 
 bailiffs emptied the bale. It contained four or five hundred 
 volumes, and, so far as could be judged from a distance, they 
 were all copies of the same work. The hangman took one, 
 then a second, then a third, and threw them one after the other 
 into the flames, after having torn them in two. The fourth 
 time he took an armful, then another armful, and thus he con- 
 tinued. From time to time he tore one. At length all were 
 in the fire, but it was only by means of the faggots of wood 
 that they could be made to burn. The spectators began to 
 laugh, and the two councillors had prudently gone into the
 
 78 RABAUT AND BRIDAINE, OR 
 
 palace. Some of the leaves of the book were picked up, as the 
 wind scattered them, half burned, about the court. Many were 
 highly entertained by them. Some, after having decyphered 
 a few lines, showed them to one another with an air of surprise. 
 
 The book which had just been torn and burned by the hang- 
 man, at the foot of the grand staircase of the Palace of Justice, 
 in Paris, in the year of grace 1760, was 
 
 Bridaine had picked up two leaves of it, and had with a sigh 
 put them into his pocket. Let us leave them there : we shall 
 find them again. 
 
 XV. 
 
 THE CHARACTER AND WORKS OF HELVETIU8. 
 
 Our readers doubtless know from what window came the 
 singular applause which was heard. But from whom this ap- 
 plause came, it remains for us to say. 
 
 The guests of Helvetius had been punctual at the rendez- 
 vous. The occasion was worth this trouble. Then an invita- 
 tion of Monsieur Helvetius was never willingly refused, even 
 if it were an invitation to the fourth story, and in one of the 
 narrow, winding streets of the Cite.* 
 
 To those whom we saw once before at the house of Helvetius 
 were added, by special invitation, several other members of 
 the sect, the abbe Raynal, already famous ; the abbe Morel- 
 let, who was to be so, for he had just come from the Bastile ; 
 Saint Lambert, author of the Seasons; Thiriot, Voltaire's fac- 
 totum ; and two or three less generally known ; among them 
 Doctor Roux, who preached atheism with so much unction and 
 faith. 
 
 * The island in the S^ine upon which stands Notre-Dame and the 
 Palace of Justice is called he Cite. Tr.
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 79 
 
 If the neighborhood appeared to them rather dirty, and the 
 stairs rather steep, they could not help forgetting this when 
 they entered. The humble lodging hired by the former farmer 
 of the revenues had been metamorphosed in a few days into a 
 charming little dwelling. 
 
 When they had expressed their admiration and astonish- 
 ment, for it was not supposed that he had had any other 
 object in view than that of receiving his guests agreeably, he 
 said: 
 
 " Come, you have not yet seen everything." 
 
 And beaming with satisfaction, he opened the door of a little 
 kitchen, furnished like the rest, bright, charmingly neat, and 
 provided with every utensil, and common utensils, moreover 
 which were evidently not there on account of this breakfast 
 given by him. 
 
 " Well, do you guess ?" he asked. " I was determined that 
 our frolic of to-day should at least be the occasion of a good 
 deed. In the teeth of the parliament, which is going to burn 
 my book, I install here, no later than to-morrow, a brave lad 
 of my acquaintance, a clerk of Dumont, the bookseller. He 
 is going to be married. He has not a cent except five hundred 
 livres, which have been left him, he says, by a cousin of his. 
 He intended using them to build his nest ; and lo ! the nest is 
 ready here, and he still has his five hundred livres. He knows 
 nothing of it as yet. I long for to-morrow, that I may see his 
 delight. He is going to invite me to his wedding. I shall go ! 
 1 shall go ! It will be one of my gala days. Ha ! ha ! Mes- 
 sieurs of the parliament, while you take your method of 
 disgracing me, I must reinstate myself in my own way." 
 
 This was the character of Helvetius. It would have been 
 necessary to go very high in the Christian scale to find believers 
 so happy as he to do good ; and if he labored as hard as he
 
 80 RABAUT AND BRIDATNE, OR 
 
 could to take from people all hope of another life, it must be 
 allowed that he also neglected nothing that might soften the 
 hardships of the present ! Everything about him breathed 
 kindness of heart. With one of the handsomest countenances 
 in France, he pleased without intimidating ; he did not like to 
 be with people whom his presence made ill at ease. He ex- 
 celled in giving without degrading, without wounding ; very 
 different from the stout La Popeliniere, his imitator, who only 
 succeeded in throwing his money to the dogs, and making his 
 house a tiresome collection of every sort of person. We may 
 add also, that he often allowed himself to be deceived. Is this 
 a criticism, or is it a further eulogium ? Just as may be pre- 
 ferred. It is certain that if, in doing good, he renounced the 
 recompenses of heaven, those of earth were not wanting. The 
 whole coterie, from Voltaire to the merest versifier, contended 
 which should sound his praises the loudest. Helvetius was 
 the virtuous man of the day the living reply to all those who 
 dared to pretend that it was necessary to believe in God, in 
 order to be so. How far did this antagonism and these praises 
 influence his love of goodness? Without these trumpeters, 
 would he have loved it so much? Did he perform good 
 actions, or splendid sins, as Saint Augustine says ? God alone 
 could see ; it is not for us to judge. 
 
 As for his weight as a philosopher, it would be superfluous 
 to demonstrate how much his position and services have con- 
 tributed to exaggerate it. Very few infidels at the present 
 time would like to subscribe to his book ; very few indeed 
 would be proud of having written it. They would have no 
 reason, indeed, to be proud of having done so, for such a book 
 could have no swxsess. " The work does not answer to the title. 
 The author takes great pains, to prove truisms, and what he says 
 new is not always true. He outrages humanity by putting on
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 81 
 
 l 
 
 the same level pride, ambition, avarice, and friendship. There 
 are false quotations in it, puerile stories, and a mixture of 
 poetic style and one puffed up with the language of philosophy. 
 Little order, much confusion, a revolting affectation of beprais- 
 ing poor works, and an air of decision still more revolting, etc., 
 etc." This judgment is not written by us, but by Voltaire.* 
 D'Alembert, Grimm, Raynal, Morellet, Diderot himself, who 
 had written out more than one page of it, in short all the 
 friends of the author, expressed in private the same opinion of 
 the book, which did not prevent them, according to their cus- 
 tom, from crushing with sarcasms any one who might openly 
 speak ill of it. 
 
 Almost all the refutations of it had in truth been miserable ; 
 the greater part of them had been no better than the work it- 
 self, if not worse.f We have already had occasion to remark 
 how poor France was, in good apologetical works. Among 
 this flood of anti-Christian publications, there were scarcely to 
 be found here and there some works which were not from their 
 weakness, rather calculated to aid the efforts of impiety. In 
 spite of many mandates, whether or not written by the 
 bishops, the best thing to be found was the old Apology of 
 Abbadie, which had so much success at the close of the pre- 
 ceding century. J Accordingly, this was frequently reprinted. 
 The bishops recommended it, the professors quoted it ; they 
 
 * Letter to Thiriot, Feb. 7, 1759. 
 
 f Catechism of the Cacouacs, by the abbe 1 de Saint-Cyr, undor-tutor of 
 the royal children of France ; Catechism of the Mind, by the abbe Gau- 
 chet ; Thanks to the Philosophers of the day, by Reruond de Saiut- 
 Sauveur, etc., etc. 
 
 \ Treatise upon the Christian Religion, by Abbadie, which appeared 
 at Rotterdam, in 1684. "Until now," wrote Bussi to Madame de Se- 
 vigne, " I have not been touched by any of the books which speak of God 
 But this one makes me value that fur which I did not care. Once more,
 
 82 RABAUT AND BRIDAINE, OR 
 
 merely neglected to mention that Abbadie was a Protestant 
 minister, and would have perished like any other if he had 
 been caught bringing his book into France. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 FRENCH JOURNALS IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 Great, accordingly, were the praises in regard to this brave 
 fellow whom Ilelvetius was going to put into these furnished 
 lodgings. Then they sat down and begun to converse. 
 
 The conversation of a party of literary men in 1760, was 
 something quite brilliant. At the present day we talk litera- 
 ture, or politics, or philosophy, or sciences ; then, they talked 
 of all these at once, for all were bound or mingled together, 
 and it was even in a great measure on this account that the 
 Encyclopedia, a jumble as it was, of so many things, was ' the 
 truest expression of the society of the day. In our re-unions, 
 every one, thanks to the newspapers, is furnished with an im- 
 mense common stock of ideas and facts ; then, it was necessary 
 that this common stock should be collected in the re-unions 
 themselves. Every time that people met, they had every- 
 thing to tell one another ; each one had to add to the informa- 
 tion of all ; and all had something to add to the information 
 of each one. 
 
 There were then no newspapers, at least in the sense attached 
 to this word since the revolution. The two publications which 
 resembled them most nearly were the Gazette of France and 
 the Mercury, and these were still what we should call reviews. 
 
 The Gazette of France had often changed hands. Sometimes 
 
 it is an admirable book. It sets vividly before my mind all that it says, 
 and forces my reason to doubt no longer those things which appeared to 
 it incredible."
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 83 
 
 free, with the exception of the censure be it understood, 
 sometimes attached to the department of foreign affairs, of 
 which it then became the official organ, its nature and editor- 
 ship were generally about the same. It put forth all that the 
 government judged good to publish, or to allow to be published, 
 either domestic, or more especially foreign news. Few articles 
 of weight were found in it, save from time to time a few tirades 
 against the enemies of the French name. There, were to be 
 read the court news, the marriages of high and mighty lords, 
 the entrances of the ambassadors, the great hunting parties, 
 the great balls, the great births and the great deaths. There 
 was often nothing at all said on many subjects about which all 
 would have been glad to read a few lines ; but then it was al- 
 ways to be seen at full length how such and such a squadron 
 had made its appearance in the seas of India or Mexico, how 
 such and such a pasha had promised satisfaction to the French 
 standard, how the brave sailors of Saint-Malo or Havre-de- 
 Grace had taken such and such a number of whales and 
 cachalots, how the Jesuit fathers had just been created man- 
 darins, etc. 
 
 The Mercury was a little less a government, and a little 
 more a national journal, so far, at least, as there was any na- 
 tion at that time. The Encyclopedia had a finger in it, through 
 Marmontel ; but the Marmontel of the Mercury had scarcely 
 the ability to belong to the Encyclopedia. The Mercury was 
 more than anything else, a literary journal ; facts only appeared 
 there arrayed in high-sounding prose, or in verse more or less 
 piquant. It was he who must narrate after the victories how 
 Champagne or Normandy, those old types of regiments, had 
 repulsed the Germans, English, or others ; he must shout after 
 the defeats, " All is lost save our honor !" which was, be it 
 said, not always true.
 
 81 RABAUT AN 7 D BKIDAIXE, OR 
 
 We may mention, in order to complete the list, the Ecclesi 
 astical News, organ of the Janscnists, the Literary Fear, of 
 Fivron, the Journal de Trevoux, organ of the Jesuits, and one 
 3r two other reviews, and we shall have, with the reports of 
 the academies, all the periodical publications of about the mid- 
 dle of the last century. Nothing daily, nothing complete, 
 nothing which was not necessarily behind-hand with the con- 
 versations of every day. 
 
 We complain, and not without reason, of the inaccuracies 
 with which our papers abound. But how long do these mis- 
 takes last I The greater number, not more than twenty four 
 hours. What one journal misstates, ten others rectify. If it 
 gives you a false piece of news this morning, it will withdraw 
 it to-morrow. The printing of a piece of news moreover, 
 necessarily stops any further alteration of it. If it has the in- 
 convenience of seizing, on their first going off, a multitude of 
 things only half true, it at least fixes them before they have 
 time to become quite false. Then discussion ensues, proofs 
 are brought forward, and it is rare that the most complicated 
 things are not made clear in the course of a few days. In those 
 days, however, there was nothing of the kind. All the labor 
 which now takes place among the papers, and gradually, must 
 be performed in the saloons, and founded upon hear-say, upon 
 stories which were modified from hour to hour, from one mo- 
 ment to another, according as they passed through more or 
 fewer hands. Some, from indolence, adopted the habit of 
 believing everything, and- there was no absurdity which they 
 could not be made to credit ; others discussed everything un 
 tiringly, and there were few men, even the most serious, 
 whose conversation did not frequently turn to gossip.
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 85 
 
 XVII. 
 VOLTAIRE'S IMPLACABILITY. 
 
 Our encyclopedists, with the exception of Grimm, had 
 scarcely been together half an hour, and of what had not they 
 already talked ! 
 
 Two or three subjects, however, had had the first, and the 
 principal attention. 
 
 One, the most exciting, was the representation of the Ecos- 
 saise, which had taken place on the preceding evening, but 
 which had been very near not taking place, for the government 
 had repented having authorized it, and it had been feared to the 
 last moment that the authorization might be withdrawn. An 
 order had been received to change the name of Frelon as too 
 much resembling that of Freron.* 
 
 The success had not answered their expectations. A certain 
 portion of the public had applauded, but the real public had 
 remained cool. The peice had appeared weak, very weak, as 
 it is, in fact, and manifestly inferior to that of which it was ex- 
 pected to efface the impression. The ' Ecossaise 1 had only 
 served to remind people of the ' Philosophers^ 1 and make them 
 wish to see or read the latter piece again. If Palissot, in at- 
 tacking, had not always confined himself within the bounds of 
 good taste, Voltaire in replying had always confined himself 
 to the worst. His Frelon is a sort of brute whose absurd and 
 odious part has not even the merit of being necessary to the 
 plot. It is only a rough sort of patchwork, and a patchwork 
 the sight of which makes one feel too well how all the rest has 
 been made. The five acts, in short, were written in order to 
 
 * They had accordingly substituted Wasp, the English translation of 
 Frelon.
 
 80 RABAUT AND BRIDAIXE, OR 
 
 introduce fivo or six scenes which are more malicious than 
 witty. If this judgment appears severe we must refer to that 
 of Grimm in his correspondence, some weeks before the repre- 
 sentation. 
 
 The public trial of the piece, had caused all these faults to 
 appear still more prominent ; the Encyclopedists felt them- 
 selves only poorly revenged. They tried to blame the actors 
 for it. It was because Mademoiselle Gaussin had spoiled the 
 part of Lindane ; or Mademoiselle Dangeville had spoiled 
 Polly. Brizard had weakened. Monrose; Armand had not 
 understood Fabrice ; etc., etc. But they ended by confessing 
 that neither Lindane nor Fabrice, nor Monrose, nor Polly, 
 were after all worth much. They asked with some alarm, if 
 the patriarch was on the wane, and calculated not without un- 
 easiness, the chances he might have of regaining lost ground by 
 his Tancred, then actually in rehearsal. 
 
 Apropos to Tancred, a question had recently arisen. When 
 Amenaide is led to the execution must the public perceive the 
 scaffold ? 
 
 The idea was suggested by Mademoiselle Clairon, who was 
 to play Amenaide. Opinions had been divided. The decision 
 of the author was awaited with great impatience. 
 
 Was this one of the questions whose importance arose out of a 
 want of more serious objects, and the idleness of the disputants? 
 
 Not entirely. It contained, as was subsequently perceived, 
 the germ of discussions of a higher significance. Tancred 
 without the scaffold was Racine ; Tancred with the scaffold was 
 Shakspeare. 
 
 Accordingly Voltaire had shuddered at the thought. He had 
 written to the actress, forbidding her to dream of it, to his cor- 
 respondents begging them not to allow it, and Thiriot showed 
 a letter from him containing this passage :
 
 THE COURT OP LOUIS XV. 87 
 
 " What do you think of Clairon, with her scaffold upon the 
 stage ? Is it not a fine idea to wish to change the French 
 theatre into a place de Greve? My friend, let us fight the 
 English, but not imitate their barbarous stage. Let us study 
 their philosophy, let us drive out the Jesuits and the wolves, 
 let us not blindly fight against attraction, nor inoculation, let 
 us learn from them to cultivate the earth, but let us take care 
 not to imitate their savage ideas of the stage. No, no ! this 
 abominable idea is only fit for the English theatre. If the 
 scaffold were for Freron, well and good ; but for Clairon, I 
 cannot permit it." 
 
 " There must always be a fling at Freron," said Helvetius. 
 
 He did not like this inveterate hatred. He advocated war 
 against ideas, he said, not against individuals. 
 
 " Always," said Damilaville. " He never lets him alone. 
 See what he writes me on the same day. ' It is not enough to 
 render Freron ridiculous ; to crush him is the great pleasure.' " 
 
 " That is very bad, now," resumed Helvetius. " We at- 
 tack ; the others defend themselves. When one deals out 
 blows, why be astonished to receive others in return 1 Go on. 
 What more does he say ?" 
 
 " ' To crush him is the great pleasure. But all these pas- 
 sions fade before the cordial hatred which I bear towards the 
 impudent Omer. Since I cannot chop off the hand with which 
 he wrote his famous request, I ' " 
 
 " Enough," said Helvetius. " It would be very mortifying 
 for us if such lines should come to be known. Monsieur de 
 Fleuri did his duty. He showed more courage in attacking 
 my book than I in writing it." 
 
 This was true ; but Helvetius was almost the only one who 
 did not give himself up to these bitter hatreds of which Voltaire 
 fanned the flame.
 
 88 RABAUT AND BRIDAINE, OR 
 
 " He takes good care," he resumed, " not to write me such 
 things. I too had a letter. Here it is.* He calls the attor- 
 ney general " our enemy," nothing more. He consoles me by 
 speaking of the progress made by philosophy." 
 
 " And he gives you a curious specimen of it," added d'Hol- 
 bach. " You would never guess, gentlemen, from whom he 
 has just had a visit at Ferney. Our Omer's own son !" 
 
 This was also true. While the father caused the writings of 
 Voltaire to be burned at Paris, the son went to Ferney, to 
 sacrifice upoii the altar of the divinity of the day. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 PECULIARITIES OF ROUSSEAU. 
 
 They talked of Ferney and of Voltaire. And now they 
 talked also of Rousseau. 
 
 What did they say of him? They did not know what to 
 say ; he became every day more incomprehensible. 
 
 His New Heloise, his Julie, as it was called, was awaited 
 with increasing impatience. The bookstores were besieged 
 with people who asked after it. Its success was certain, more 
 than certain. 
 
 "Well," said d'Holbach, "I went yesterday to Montmo- 
 rency, and found Rousseau more ennuye, sulkier, more bear- 
 ish than ever. He had that very morning rudely refused a 
 basket of game sent him by the prince de Conti, with the mes- 
 sage, as an additional piece of politeness, that it had been 
 killed by his own hand. Upon the entreaties of the bearer, he 
 kept it, but wrote on the spot to Madame de Boufflers that it 
 
 * Voltaire was iu the habit of sending off several letters at the same 
 time.
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 89 
 
 was the last which he would accept. Remark that a few days 
 before, he had received a visit from the prince himself, of which 
 he appeared to me excessively proud, in spite of all his dis- 
 dain. He spoke to me a dozen times of his misfortunes, and a 
 dozen times I tried in vain to make him tell me a little what 
 he meant by it. The Luxemburg people redouble their atten- 
 tions. The Hermitage is charming ; it is the hermit who is 
 crazy. All his good sense is transformed into genius, and slips 
 away at the point of his pen. He will soon not have a grain 
 left. He sees enemies everywhere, traps everywhere, calum- 
 niators everywhere. I thought myself the last person of whom 
 he could be distrustful. Not at all. He received me almost 
 rudely. I have been concerned, he gave me to understand, 
 and that with his Therese, in certain plots against him. I 
 thought at first that he meant some plots against his do- 
 mestic peace, an odd enough idea, when one has a wife who 
 looks as she does, and who is above all, so witty ; but no, it 
 was not even that. What was it then, pray 1 You know as 
 well as I do.* The plots made against him vanish like his 
 misfortunes, as soon as you insist upon his explaining them. 
 I reasoned with him as well as I could. He allowed me to 
 talk until I had finished all I had to say, and then began again, 
 as if I had not said a word. I compared him in my own 
 mind to those people who always think that there is a robber 
 concealed under their bed. They look, no robber. They go 
 away, the robber is back again. In the meantime he is pro- 
 foundly miserable, and will constantly become more so." 
 
 " So much the worse for him," said Diderot abruptly. 
 
 " You do not like him much, Diderot," resumed d'Holbach, 
 " and hf returns the compliment ; but we should all be wrong, 
 
 * In spite of the Confessions, no historian h;is ever succeeded in ex- 
 plaining the rupture of Rousseau with d'Holbach and so many others.
 
 90 RABAUT AND BRIDAINE, OR 
 
 I think all equally wrong, to regulate our feelings by his. So 
 much the worse for him I you said. Well, the more I study 
 him, the more I am assured that we cannot with justice blame 
 him either for his griefs or his faults. He is a sick man, a 
 child." 
 
 " A child who thinks himself the only reasonable being in 
 the world." 
 
 " Oh ! as for that it is true. Never was any man, beneath 
 the humblest exterior, more imperturbably self-satisfied. 
 Others have been as much so, but at least because they believe 
 themselves to be good and clever. But he, in order to tell 
 you that he is the best of men, must begin by relating to you 
 a parcel of turpitudes, which he confesses and exaggerates, and 
 of which at length he accuses himself, with the fervor of a 
 Trappist. His life, he says, has been but one tissue of mis- 
 takes ; try to save him from making another, and he will resist 
 like a man convinced that he never has made one, and is incapa- 
 ble of doing so. The only way of standing well with him, at 
 least for a few days, is to furnish him with an opportunity 
 of playing the generous. You, for instance, Diderot, he de- 
 tested yesterday a little less than usual. Do you know why ? 
 Duchesne the bookseller sent him the Philosophers, in which 
 Palissot tears you to pieces and spares him, Rousseau, in 
 quite a marked manner. Thereupon he expressed great indig- 
 nation that any one could have believed that he would be flat- 
 tered to see himself spared at your expense. He replied to 
 Duchesne that he would not accept his horrible present ; that he 
 had had the honor to be your friend ; that he could never take 
 pleasure in seeing a respectable man calumniated. So far as 1 
 know, Morellet, he has never yet said any bad of you, but 
 since he contributed to your release from the Bastile,* you are 
 * Through *he mediation of the Marechale de Luxembourg.
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 91 
 
 in his eyes the most virtuous and interesting of men. Do him 
 a service, and he will instantly distrust you. Release him 
 from the Bastile, if he should happen to be sent there, and 
 you are his enemy ; for the greater the service, the less he will 
 be able to persuade himself that it was rendered disinterest- 
 edly." 
 
 " He is a paradox incarnate," said Morellet. " One is ready 
 to ask at every line, whether one is dealing with the most lying 
 or the most sincere of mankind." 
 
 " If sincerity," said Helvetius, consists in being actually con- 
 vinced at the moment, of the truth advanced, then I think 
 there is no one more sincere than he ; if we are only to bestow 
 the name upon one who begins by interrogating himself, in 
 order to see if he really posseses the conviction which he is 
 going to put forth, then I must boldly say that he is not sin- 
 cere. All that he says, he thinks true ; but as for asking him- 
 self seriously why, it is a thing he has never done. Thus it 
 is that he has been able to defend, with equal sincerity, the 
 most contradictory things ; thus it is, that all parties can pro- 
 cure weapons from him. His conviction, an entirely instruct- 
 ive one, forms itself from page to page ; it remains full and 
 sincere, even when he is going to combat what he has once 
 upheld. From the time he first wrote, what has he done? 
 You know the story. His eye falls, by accident, upon a ques- 
 tion in the Mercury, proposed by the academy of Dijon : " Has 
 the progress of science and the arts contributed to corrupt or 
 to improve morals ?" He decides to enter into the compe- 
 tition. He becomes enthusiastic ; he has already sketched in 
 his mind a magnificent picture of the benefits of civilization. 
 He flies to a friend ; he excitedly describes to him his subject, 
 his plan. ' It is the asses' bridge,' says the friend. ' Take the 
 opposite theory, and you will see what a fine sensation you
 
 92 II A II ATT AM) 15 KID A INK, OR 
 
 will make !' A new flash ! And now he violently attacked 
 the n >tion he had at first intended to support. The friend was 
 yourself, Diderot." 
 
 " It was I. As you say, I had scarcely got the words out, 
 before he was just as much convinced, just as full of enthusi- 
 asm as he had been before ; just as ready to say black as he 
 had been to say white" 
 
 " But," said d'Holbach, " he denied the story to me." 
 
 " He lied !" cried Diderot. 
 
 " Hush ! hush !'' said Helvetius. " We know very well that 
 the story is true. He allowed you to relate it for ten years 
 without dreaming of contradicting you." 
 
 " And he dares " 
 
 "Hush! I tell you. Is he a man at whom one can be 
 angry ?" 
 
 " But if he lies, it is necessary " 
 
 " To prove it to him 1 You would not succeed. Remem- 
 ber what I was saying just now. If he has got so far as to 
 deny the thing, it is because he has got so far as not to believe 
 it. Blame his imagination, if you. will, but not his heart." 
 
 It was thus that Helvetius was accustomed to explain the 
 errors of Rousseau. Is this system applicable to all the cir- 
 cumstances of his life and writings ? Let others decide. 
 
 As to the story in question, we confess that it appears to us 
 impossible to doubt it. The Memoirs of Marmontel, and more 
 particularly of Morellet, so grave and impartial in his later 
 years, amply jounterbalance the tardy denial of Rousseau.
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 93 
 
 XIX. 
 
 THE ENCYCLOPEDISTS OBSERVE THE AUTO-DA-F6 FROM A DISTANCE. 
 
 The hour drew near. 
 
 " See, gentlemen," said Helvetius, " they have come to build 
 the funeral pyre. You know we promised ourselves the pleas- 
 ure of being at table." 
 
 Many drew near the window. 
 
 " Not so near," he said, " not so near, gentlemen ! One 
 of these bailiffs need only raise his eyes, and " 
 
 " And he would see us," said Morellet. " Well, what then f 
 
 " What then ? Why, you might be sent back where you 
 have just come from, Seigneur Mords-les." (Morellet, bite 
 them.*) 
 
 " Silence !" cried Damilaville. " The court enters !'' 
 
 " Oh no !" said the abbe ; " the court comes out." 
 
 And, in fact, the two councillors appeared at the top ^t the 
 grand staircase. 
 
 " Take your seats, then." said Helvetius. 
 
 And they did so. Damilaville, who sat neat the \nndow, 
 could, while eating, have an eye upon what took place. 
 
 " Attention !" he said. " They are going to commence. But 
 see ! there is one vacant place. Who is still absent ?" 
 
 " You know Grimm always comes last," said Marmontel. 
 
 " He must have time to run about after news." 
 
 " Or time to arrange his wig." 
 
 He was, in fkct, extremely particular about it. 
 
 " Or time to be seen by the ladies." 
 
 " Or time not to be seen by his creditors." 
 
 " Or time" 
 
 * The pun was one of Voltaire's. The fiery abbe proved the justice 
 of it constantly.
 
 9i RABAUT AND BRIDAINE, OK 
 
 "Gentlemen," said Helvetius, raising his glass, "to the 
 health of the parliament!" 
 
 " To the health of the parliament !" repeated all the guests. 
 
 And the glasses rang, and laughs and jests went round. 
 
 " Good !" said Morellet, " good ! Health, sanitas, which 
 means good sense also, which I wish our gentlemen with all 
 my heart. Mens sana in corpore sano." 
 
 " What are they about, Damilaville?" 
 
 "The bailiff is reading. Ah! he has finished the first decree. 
 Samson tears a book." 
 
 " Which one ?" 
 
 " Do you think I can see from here ?" 
 
 " Is it thick or thin, large or small ?" 
 
 " It burns. But it is too far off. If I had Grimm's glass " 
 
 " What for ?" said Grimm. " My glass 1 What for ?" 
 
 " Ah ! here you are at last ! Give him your glass, and sit 
 down." 
 
 '* TJP* me at least take a look." 
 
 44 Do so." 
 
 " Have they burned many yet ?" 
 
 " They are just tearing the second." 
 
 " Try to see when my turn comes," said Helvetius. 
 
 " Yes, I see now. Ha ! who is that priest who has just made 
 his appearance on the stairs 1 Ah ! it is my man of Versailles, 
 it is Father Bridaine." 
 
 Everybody, upon hearing this, ran to the window ; for the 
 occurrence at Versailles had made a prodigious sensation. 
 They passed around the glass, in order to see him better. They 
 made a hundred remarks on his figure, his manner, his dress. 
 
 In the meantime, the bailiff was reading, the hangman burn- 
 ing. Damilaville had promised to notify Helvetius. He 
 hoped to recognize the book from its shape and binding. 
 
 While waiting, for they had re-seated themselves at table,
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 95 
 
 they related to each other many traits, more or less authen- 
 tic, which have since taken their places in the biographies of 
 Bridaine. 
 
 " One day," said Grimm, "when he was heading a procession, 
 he suddenly stopped, and mounting on a stone, began, ' I am 
 going to take you to your home.' They followed him, and he 
 conducted them to a cemetery." 
 
 " He is constantly doing such things," said Raynal. " There 
 is not a sermon into which he does not contrive to put some- 
 thing new, piquant, or extraordinary, in order to arouse people's 
 attention. I often heard him at Pezenas." 
 
 " What is Pezenas ?" said d'Holbach. 
 
 " It is the province of my birth, Monsieur." 
 
 "And of your assent (accent), probably." 
 
 " Alas !" 
 
 He had often groaned over this unlucky accent, half Gascon, 
 half Languedocian, which had closed the career of the pulpit for 
 him. " I did not preach badly," he used to say, " but I had 
 a devilish assent." Upon what little things, much often de- 
 pends ! Without this accent, he would have devoted himself 
 to the pulpit ; he would have had success, great perhaps, for 
 he possessed all the means of gaining it. Born at Paris, Ray- 
 nal would have become a bishop ; born at Pezenas, he became 
 an encyclopedist. 
 
 " Nothing could have been more curious," he resumed, 
 " than the first appearance of Father Bridaine at Aigues-Mortes, 
 nearly forty years ago. The people had counted upon I do not 
 know what celebrated preacher for their Lent sermons. When 
 Ke was seen to appear, unknown and insignificant enough in 
 appearance, they plotted together not to go and hear him. On 
 A.sh Wednesday, he enters the pulpit. The church empty. 
 He takes a bell, and goes walking about, ringing and ringing, 
 through all the streets of the city. All Aigues-Mortes is
 
 96 RABAUT AND BRIDAINE, OR 
 
 presently at his heels. He re-enters the church, ascends the 
 pulpit, and, with his resounding voice, begins a chant upon 
 death. The people laugh ; he goes on his way. One by one 
 the people cease laughing. They listen ; at length they trem- 
 ble ; for he has set to work to paraphrase his chant, and pours 
 forth a torrent of images which must terrify the most hardened. 
 His reputation was made." 
 
 "I would not be surprised," said some one, "if Father 
 Bridaine should become if he is not so already one of those 
 men who live in the imaginations of the people, and whose 
 history, while they still live, is full of traditions." 
 
 " In that case," said d'Alembert, " he would be so in common 
 with a man to whom he certainly does not suspect that he 
 bears a resemblance, him whom you saw at my house last 
 week, Rabaut. He returned to visit me again. I induced him 
 to give me a few more details in regard to the position which 
 he holds among his people. He is really, for these poor 
 people, the hero of an epic. He has constantly to resist the 
 honors which they wish to pay him, and the inclination 
 which they have to give him all the rights of the leader of a 
 party. If he had encouraged them a little, he would have been 
 so long ago. Last year, when our great generals allowed 
 themselves to be beaten, and France could scarcely defend 
 herself on the north, Rabaut need but have willed in order to 
 raise the whole of the Southern provinces, and to rebel, at the 
 head of one hundred thousand men, against the abominable 
 oppression of the Protestants. It must " 
 
 " I think we are ready, gentlemen," interrupted Damilaville. 
 " I recognize the book. They are beginning to read the decree." 
 
 " Pass me the glass, gentlemen," said Helvetius. " Yes 
 That is it I recognize myself." 
 
 His hand trembled. He saw that they perceived his emo- 
 tion.
 
 THE COURT OF LOU IS XV. 97 
 
 Helvetius had relied too much on his strength. In reality, 
 we should say that it was because he did not depend upon it, 
 that he had done so much to drown thought. Pie had played 
 a part. He thought he should make it easier by selecting the 
 most insolent. The mask fell off in spite of him. 
 
 " You smile, Diderot ?" he said. " Smile. I should do as 
 much in your place. You know whether I am afraid of that 
 fire yonder. But there is one to whom all this is terrible. 
 One who weeps, Diderot, while we are laughing here. This 
 one" 
 
 " It is his mother," they murmured. 
 
 " It is my mother. Because the cause of her grief is is 
 absurd, shall I not feel a deep pity for it ?" 
 
 He knew that his mother had gone to pass in a church, this 
 hour, the prospect of which had tormented her for a year. 
 He saw her on her knees praying for him. 
 
 They smiled no more. Diderot alone remained sullen. He 
 did not comprehend why the sacred interests of philosophy 
 should not take precedence everywhere and in everything of 
 the old-fashioned feelings of nature and the old-fashioned preju- 
 dices of religion. Moreover, this was not the first time he had 
 accused Helvetius of only knowing how to be courageous with 
 the pen in his hand. He looked upon him, like Malesherbes 
 and Buffon, as too much of a gentleman and too rich to be a 
 true philosopher ; he liked not that any of them should put on 
 their gloves in order to crush the wretch, and in regard to this 
 extensive cultivation of the old soil of Saint Louis, he would 
 have willingly said, parodying the words of Christ ; " whoso- 
 ever putteth his hand to the plough and looketh behind him, is 
 not worthy to enter the kingdom of reason." 
 
 He looked out again. But as they could still hear nothing, 
 he said, 
 
 " I should like very much to read this decree."
 
 98 RABAUT AND BIUDAIXE, OR 
 
 " Wait," said Grimm, " I got a copy of it. See also " 
 
 " What is this !" cried Diderot. ' Recantation which Sieur 
 Helvetius deposited in the registry of the Court T " 
 
 " Read it," cried some. 
 
 " No, no !" said some others who appeared to have seen it 
 already, and to have little desire that it should be more widely 
 known. 
 
 But Diderot read ; 
 
 " ' I have not wished to attack any of the truths of Christi- 
 anity, which I profess sincerely in all the strictness of its doc- 
 trines and practice, and to which I glory in submitting all my 
 thoughts, all my opinions, and all the faculties of my being, 
 certain that all that is not in conformity with its spirit, cannot 
 be truth. These are my true sentiments. I have lived, I shall 
 live and die maintaining them.' " 
 
 Diderot, while reading these lines, had interrupted himself 
 two or three times, half suffocated with indignation, and in part 
 from hesitation to believe that the thing was authentic.* But 
 Helvetius sat immovable, with his eyes cast down ; he evi- 
 dently confessed. Diderot contained himself; but he was not 
 a man to do so long. He had thrown away the paper ; his 
 lips quivered. " A recantation," he muttered ; " a recanta- 
 tion !" Then growing excited : " when do they expect this old 
 idol to fall, when it has but to frown, in order to prostrate 
 them at its feet 1 A recantation !" And suddenly springing 
 to the window, he cried ; 
 
 " Bravo ! gentlemen, bravo ! Burn, burn since there are 
 still people who are afraid of your flames." 
 
 It was then that he had been seen, leaning out of the window, 
 clapping his hands, and resisting, like a madman, all efforts to 
 drag him back. 
 
 * T * is authentic. We have not changed a siugle woi d.
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 99 
 
 XX. 
 
 RECANTATIONS OF THE INFIDELS. 
 
 The tears of his mother, the advice of pious and prudent 
 friends, and the indignation of the queen and the dauphin, had 
 determined Helvetius upon this strange proceeding. 
 
 Strange indeed would be the history of all the recantations 
 tnus extorted from the infidelity of the last century. It is im- 
 possible to know which most to wonder at, the foolishness of 
 those who exacted them, or the dishonesty of those who dared 
 to sign them. 
 
 Voltaire, the first to attack, was also the first to recant. 
 He did not even wait to be forced to it ; he amused himself by 
 being beforehand. He thought it an excellent jest to scoff at 
 all those whose belief he had already scoffed at, by denying his 
 sarcasms, crying out against his calumniators, and professing to 
 be the most devout of believers. See his letters. If those were 
 collected in which he plays the Christian, there would be enough 
 to make a volume. Did he hope to deceive by these ? Perhaps 
 so at the outset ; afterwards he knew that no one believed a word 
 of them. But after all, what mattered it to him whether he 
 was believed or not 1 " If I had one hundred thousand men," 
 he writes to the count d'Argental, " I know very well what I 
 would do ; but as I have not, I shall commune at Easter, and 
 you may call me hypocrite as much as you will." If he was 
 taken ill, he confessed. If serious threats are made, he will 
 play the sick man in order to have an opportunity to confess. 
 If a stranger comes, of high rank, but religious, who appears to 
 wish to hear his profession of faith, see what he will write him :* 
 
 " The great Corneille was obliged to reply to his enemies, 
 that he submitted all his writings to the judgment of the Church. 
 
 * Letter to the marquis Albergati Capacelli, senator of Bologna, 1760
 
 100 RABAUT AND BRIDAINE, OR 
 
 " I say the same thing, and it is a pleasure to me, to say it 
 to a senator of the second city in the States of the holy Father ; 
 and it is delightful for me to say it upon an estate so near to 
 the possessions of the heretics as mine are. The more I am 
 filled with charity for their persons, and indulgence for their 
 errors, the firmer I am in my faith etc., etc." 
 
 Thus spoke the master ; and thus spoke the disciples with- 
 out scruple, if the weather was a little stormy, and the Bastile 
 appeared to prepare for new guests. 
 
 This insincerity was nevertheless too common for us to ap- 
 preciate it with entire justice. It was somewhat with recanta- 
 tions of this kind, as with forms of politeness. They had, so to 
 speak, passed into the language ; each one knew perfectly well, 
 a r hat allowances were to be made. To protest that a man was 
 submissive to the Church, was in the eyes of people in general, 
 no more extraordinary than to call one's self in a letter, the 
 obedient servant of one's inferior, or to assure one's respect and 
 consideration to a man generally despised. You may have 
 seen caricatures, of a man who makes apologies to his adver- 
 sary, saying innocently, that in insulting him, even in boxing 
 his ears, he had no intention of offending him. Thus acted 
 many people in this vast combat between intoxicated reason 
 and religion degraded. Thus had Helvetius acted, and Diderot 
 must be looked upon as brutal, as a Diogenes, for having taken 
 upon him to think that an infidel lies when he asserts that ho 
 is a Christian ! 
 
 XXI. 
 
 WANT OF CANDOR OF AUTHORS OF THE PRESENT DAY. 
 
 Those falsehoods have not ended with the despotism which 
 served as their excuse. You will find them still under a
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 101 
 
 tnousand forms in books, in newspapers, and in the language 
 and usages of the present day. 
 
 These farms may be reduced however to two ; the Christian 
 falsehood, and the Catholic falsehood. 
 
 The Christian falsehood, is that varnish of Christianity which 
 is unscrupulously thrown, at the present day, over so many 
 ideas more or less immoral, sentiments more or less false, and 
 theories more or less dangerous. There is in this, it is not to 
 be denied, a certain homage paid to the divinity, or at least 
 to the beauty of Christianity. Very few books now breathe 
 that brutal antagonism, that deep hatred, by which it was for- 
 merly considered good taste to distinguish one's self; reserv- 
 ing the privilege indeed, if Messieurs should be angry at it, of 
 writing that there had been no intention to attack any of the 
 truths of religion. Our authors generally try to avoid any 
 reproach of this kind. Instead of waiting for Christianity to 
 be invoked against them, they invoke it themselves ; and that 
 which they dare not put forth in opposition to it, they hasten 
 to place under its protection. They no longer assert, at the 
 commencement of an infidel book, that they intend living and 
 dying in the faith, but they will take care, as they go on their 
 way, to scatter about just enough .religious words and express- 
 ions to delude the ignorant, and the ignorant in matters con- 
 cerning religion, as we have already said, are the great ma- 
 jority of mankind, including often those who are the most con- 
 scientious and able in regard to all other matters. 
 
 And this, as we have already observed elsewhere, causes 
 the success of the second, which we have called the Catholic 
 falsehood. The ignorance of the age in religious matters is 
 nowhere more striking than in the facility with which people 
 pass from one to the other of these. 
 
 If our authors are many of them not Christians, they are 
 evidently still less Catholics ; if they only accept with privilege
 
 102 BABAUT AND BRIDAIXE, OR 
 
 of choice the simplest and most explicit teachings of Christi 
 anity, still more largely do they claim the right of choosing 
 among those of the Church. And yet this Church, to which 
 in fact they refuse all authority, this church to which they are 
 perfectly well aware that they do not belong, that they never 
 did belong, that they cannot belong without denying all that 
 they have written ; this Church whose pretensions, in short, 
 they know, and which they would deny with scorn if she 
 should attempt to exercise them in regard to them, this 
 Church receives from them, as they pass on, a thousand little 
 marks of respect ; they flatter her as if they feared her, praise 
 her as if they esteemed her, authorize her, in a word, to look 
 upon them as her children and champions. 
 
 Accordingly, there are now seen no more of those grossly 
 false recantations formerly forced from fear ; but in their stead 
 a thousand recantations in detail, a thousand falsehoods which 
 the Church finds still more to her advantage, because their 
 falsity is less apparent, and because the authors themselves, the 
 greater part of the time, do not pay enough attention to the 
 matter to see that they are falsifying. How many fine things, 
 for example, do we not hear, in regard to unity ! And yet, 
 among those who laud it, who openly assert that it is the first 
 characteristic of a true and holy Church, how many do you 
 find who contribute to this unity 1 How many who are really 
 in subjection to the laws which establish it in appearance 1 
 How many who would remain submissive if the application of 
 these laws to them should be attempted ? 
 
 The Church in fact takes good care not to attempt this ; but 
 at the bottom of this toleration there is the same principle 
 which formerly inspired her severities. For a long time she 
 burnt unorthodox authors, and thanks to the Church this cus- 
 tom had so thoroughly entered into the customs of Christian 
 nations, that the Protestants themselves took some little time
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 103 
 
 to get rid )f it. After awhile the books only were burned ; 
 the authors escaped all pursuit by means of a few words of 
 recantation. At length they no longer burned either authors 
 or books ; it was for the authors to decide what they would 
 offer as their ransom. In an age of liberty it was the best and 
 only method of obtaining anything more from them. Well, this 
 Church, now so accommodating, but so savagely exacting, as 
 long as she had it in her power to be so, is still the same ; this 
 velvet hand which she now extends to you, is the same iron one 
 which would have cast you into the flames. The same princi- 
 ple lies beneath her present indulgence and her rigors of for- 
 mer days ; unity at all risks. She knew that she did not 
 convert the people whom she used to burn, or whom she 
 forced to recant ; and she knows well that the people whom she 
 allows to say or think that they are her children, are not so. 
 In both cases, accordingly, what she desired above all was fair 
 appearance. In spite of the words of Christ, her kingdom is 
 essentially of this world. It is her chief glory, and it will be 
 her chief punishment. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 HELVETIUS BECOMES THOUGHTFUL. SAD DISCOVERY CAUSING 
 
 SERIOUS REFLECTIONS. 
 
 " But you are crazy ! Diderot !" cried all the guests. 
 
 " Ah !" he cried, when they had dragged him away from the 
 window ; " ah ! you must tamper with the wretch ! You wish 
 to restore her strength to her, and show her that she is very 
 kind not to burn anything more than paper! Very good, 
 gentlemen, very good ! But I shall not do it ! I shall have 
 nothing to do with it, I swear ! Recantations ! Recantations !" 
 
 And he had already reached the stairs. They endeavored, 
 but in vain, to retain him.
 
 104 RABAUT AND BRIDAINE, OR 
 
 " Let hirr go," said Helvetius. " Let his anger pass. I was 
 wrong " 
 
 " Wrong in what ?" asked Grimm. 
 
 " Oh ! to pour him out three or four glasses of champagne," 
 said Morellet. " Was not that what you were going to say ?" 
 
 But Helvetius was still thoughtful. 
 
 " A fine commotion," said Raynal. 
 
 " And a breakfast finely interrupted," added doctor Roux, 
 who had not left his place. 
 
 " The thing is done !" said Damilaville. " The fire is going 
 out. Peace to your ashes ! Ah ! another decree ?" 
 
 It was the one which we have already laid before the reader. 
 It may be remembered that the bailiff found his voice. He 
 was very distinctly heard. 
 
 " Protestants ?" said Helvetius, sadly. " They do not re- 
 cant, the Protestants !" 
 
 " Diderot would tell you," said d'Holbach, " that it is be- 
 cause they are neither farmers of the revenues, nor masters of 
 the queen's household." 
 
 " He would perhaps be right. But no. If they do not re- 
 cant, it is because they believe. We only think of man, and 
 we recant ; but they think of God, and they stand firm. But 
 listen ' Books found in the hands of Dumont. Fifteen hun- 
 dred livres fine, of which one-third falls to the informant, who 
 has requested not to be named ' Ah ! Good Heavens !" 
 
 " That does look badly enough," said d'Alembert. " The 
 third of fifteen hundred livres is five hundred, just what your 
 brave lad, the clerk at Dumont's, has received from his pre- 
 tended cousin. Another lesson, my dear philosopher ! You 
 have prepared this little nest for a viper. What ! you are cast 
 down ! Did you think that your charities were never bestowed 
 upon any but good people ?" 
 
 "No; but"
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 105 
 
 He hesitated. 
 
 "But what?" 
 
 " Gentlemen," interrupte J Grimm, " I forgot to tell you, 
 apropos to Father Bridaine, that he is to preach on Monday at 
 Saint-Sulpice. All Paris will be there." 
 
 " And all Versailles," added Damilaville. 
 
 "Shall we go?" 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 "It is iwlerstood, then. Who will bring Diderot?" 
 
 " I will take it upon me," said Morellet. 
 
 " Good. It will suit him, since he belongs to the trade." 
 
 "To the trade? Diderot?" 
 
 The story of the six sermons was related. Grimm added 
 the account of the journey to Meaux, and the visit to the bishop. 
 
 The books were still burning. Puffs of smoke came from 
 time to time through the window. They closed it, and went 
 on talking. 
 
 But nothing could amuse Helvetius. He hardly listened, 
 and scarcely answered. They at length went away, and he 
 was left alone with d'Alembert. 
 
 " But what is the matter with you ?" said the latter. " You 
 must have been very much interested in this young man, since 
 you are so troubled at having discovered ' : 
 
 " I myself, d'Alembert, am the guilty one." 
 
 "You?" 
 
 *' This young man, a year ago, was a model of fidelity. I 
 was so unfortunate as to lend him my book." 
 
 " Your book ? Well, in that you advocate nothing but vir- 
 tue, disinterestedness, honesty." 
 
 Helvetius shook his head. 
 
 " Virtue virtue. Yes, in fact, this word occurs very often 
 in the book. It remains to be seen whether, with our princi- 
 ples, it can be anything more than a word." 
 
 " These are scruples "
 
 106 RABAUT AND BKIDAIXE, OR* 
 
 " Too well founded, d'Alembert. This young man believed 
 in God ; he does so no longer." 
 
 " It is not your fault, then. You do not teach atheism." 
 " Not entirely. But it might be questioned whether, in our 
 systems, God is really anything more than a word. As for 
 myself, I have more than once confessed to myself, while 
 writing, that if 1 spoke of Him, it was what shall I call it ? 
 from complaisance, from politeness, as it were. God, you see, 
 is necessarily all or nothing. If it is not He who moves the 
 
 ty 
 
 car, He is nothing more than a fifth wheel. Well, in spite of 
 all our fine speeches, we reduce Him to this lowest position. 
 So long as we only theorize, we may deceive ourselves in respect 
 to this : it may be fancied, if our tirades are believed, that we 
 believe in God. But let an opportunity come for acting as if 
 we did not believe in Him, and see then what will happen." 
 
 "Messieurs of the parliament," said d'Alembert, "would 
 doubtless be agreeably surprised if they learned that their de- 
 cree had led you to make such reflections." 
 
 " I am not one of those," resumed Helvetius, " who think 
 that a book is good, only because it is condemned to be burned. 
 Besides, as you have seen, it is not the condemnation of the 
 parliament which has caused these sad reflections ; it is another 
 condemnation much more conclusive, which this wretched man 
 has pronounced by showing the effects which the reading of 
 my book has produced upon him. D'Alembert, you talk in 
 vain. This is a worse chastisement than all the censures and 
 decrees in the world. If this God whom we dethrone really 
 exists, do you know what would be the best thing He could 
 do to punish us ?" " Well what ?" 
 
 " To allow us to live another century, and to make us assist 
 in harvesting the tempests which we are now sowing."
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 10T 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 NOBLE CAREER OF ANTOINE COURT. 
 
 Let us accompany Bridaine in his visit to him who was 
 mentioned by the Cevenol as the friend of Rabaut. 
 
 Being ignorant of his address, he thought he might procure 
 it from the door-keeper of the Academy of Inscriptions. He 
 did so. Gebelin lived in the Rue des Menestriers. 
 
 Court de Gobelin had been for some time the central agent 
 of the French Protestants. A singular toleration had allowed 
 him to take this title almost officially. The Protestants, ac- 
 cording to the last edicts of Louis XIV., were no longer even 
 rebels for whom pardon might be demanded ; they no longer 
 existed ; their name was banished from the official decrees;*' 
 and yet at Paris, at Versailles, in the ministerial offices, in the 
 saloons, everywhere, a man was allowed to go about unceas- 
 ingly, with their grievances in his mouth, and their petitions in 
 his hand. 
 
 Tliis single fact is enough to show how undecided and de- 
 sultory was the despotism of this epoch. At the very time 
 when the most atrocious severities in the provinces sullied 
 those who instigated them, the man who passed his life in 
 
 * They were called new converts. We shall see further on what this 
 signified, and what au iufernal meaning had been given to the word.
 
 108 RABAUT AND BRIDAIKE, OR 
 
 branding them was allowed to have his liberty in the midst of 
 the capital. The very name Gebelin, a protest against th< 
 barbarous laws which oppressed his brethren in the faith, was 
 only one of the surnames which had aided his father, Antoine 
 Court, to elude the blood-hounds of the great king. 
 
 Antoine Court ! Another of those men who need only have 
 been placed in another sphere, in order to be universally counted 
 among the illustrious of their day, and the regenerators of their 
 country. 
 
 It was in 1713. Languedoc, after all the ravages of the 
 Camisard war, had borne its share of the general calamities. 
 To the rigors of oppression were added those of the disastrous 
 winter of 1709. Levies of troops and enormous contributions 
 had been exacted from this unhappy country. It might have 
 drawn tears of blood from those who had seen it before the 
 revocation of the edict of Nantes. 
 
 That which distressed them more than anything else, was the 
 internal state of the few remains of their churches. No longei 
 was there any organization, nor were there consistories, nor 
 pastors. War and persecution had broken, annihilated all. 
 Among the unfortunates who vegetated upon this soil crimsoned 
 with the blood of their brethren, were some who resigned all 
 hope, and waited for rest in death alone ; while others gave 
 themselves up to all the aberrations of a fanaticism more fatal 
 than persecution itself. Prophets and prophetesses, poor 
 creatures crazed by the magnitude of their perils, seriously 
 compromised the solemn heritage of Saurin, Jurieu and Claude. 
 Disorder and ridicule threatened to finish what the fire and 
 sword had spared. 
 
 Such was the chaos hi the midst of which we perceive the 
 appearance of Antoine Court. He is not eighteen years of age, 
 and his plan is already formed. He will gather together these
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 109 
 
 scattered remains. He will appoint himself aids. He will ex- 
 cite some, and calm others. He will go to the desert and set 
 up that pulpit which has been torn from the churches ; he will 
 ascend it, calm and discreet, and religion shall no longer speak 
 any but a language worthy of her. He will have consistories 
 with their elders, their deacons, their pastors regularly in- 
 stalled ; there shall again be seen conferences and synods ; in 
 short, all the former Church, in form and principles, zeal and 
 order, discipline and faith, shall reappear. And that which 
 others would not venture to attempt in times of peace, with the 
 aid and approbation of the powerful of this world, he will un- 
 dertake, he, hunted, outlawed, without other support than his 
 faith, without other aid than that of God. 
 
 Thus planned and thus performed Antoine Court. We shall 
 not follow him through the details of his long and laborious 
 career. Of the five pastors who had in 1717 signed with him 
 the report of the first synod held under his direction, four* 
 within a few years, had perished on the scaffold ; but on the 
 other hand, towards 1744, in the same places where he had at 
 first had so much trouble to assemble fifteen, thirty, an hundred 
 persons, there were now held meetings of five thousand, of 
 eight thousand, to whom he had the joy of preaching, or of 
 hearing Rabaut preach. He had been at first the only pastor ; 
 he left sixty. 
 
 Enthusiasm has more than once, in a shorter period, pro- 
 duced more striking results ; but the carrying on during thirty 
 years, step by step, in the midst of unceasing perils, without 
 appealing to enthusiasm in the beginning, but on the contrary 
 repressing it, of so great and so difficult a reorganization, is 
 a miracle of perseverance and courage such as history has sel- 
 dom, perhaps never, been called upon to record. 
 * Hue, Yesson, Aruaud, and Durand.
 
 110 RABAUT AND BBIDAINE, OR 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 LITERARY LABORS OF COURT DE GEBELIN. 
 
 Court died in 1760. Early worn out by the labors of this 
 fearful mission, he had gone to Lausanne to place himself at 
 the head of a seminary in that place, founded by him about 
 1725, with the aid of a few foreign sovereigns. 
 
 The archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Wake, and the celebrat- 
 ed Alphonse Turretin, professor at Geneva, had actively assist- 
 ed in the founding of this establishment. There, went on in 
 silence, the work which Louis XIV. believed buried beneath 
 the ruins of the schools of Saumur and of Sedan ; there were 
 gathered together from all parts of the kingdom, those who 
 were conscious, as Court said, of the vocation of martyrs. 
 There his son had studied, he whom we now perceive estab- 
 lished at Paris; there, at this time, was the eldest son of 
 Rabaut, afterwards known by the name of Saint-Etienne. who 
 was one day to perish on a different scaffold from that which 
 his father had braved. 
 
 Heir to these glorious traditions, Court de Gebelin had, how- 
 ever, not taken an active share in the ministry. Not because 
 he did not feel as much as any of the ethers, and even more, 
 the vocation exacted by his father. Before quitting Lausanne, 
 he had joyfully received his qualification for the gallows, as it 
 was called. But from his youth he had been remarkable for 
 talents so uncommon, that the most zealous hesitated to place 
 such a stake on the fearful risks of the Protestant apostleship. 
 It was perceived that his place was in the centre, that in that 
 position he could be of great service, and there had been but 
 one opinion in regard to his deciding upon it. A general tour
 
 THE COUKT OF LOUIS XV. Ill 
 
 throughout the provinces had made him acquainted with their 
 sufferings, their necessities, their wishes. Rabaut was to be 
 the bishop, as he had already been for a long time, and Court 
 the minister of the forms of worship. 
 
 Let us visit him in his house in the Rue des Menestriers, 
 where we shall soon see Bridaine make his appearance. 
 
 We are in his study. At first view, we might suppose our- 
 selves again in that of d'Alembert. But let us approach. 
 Never has such a medley of work and business offered itself to 
 our observation. 
 
 Court is seated before a large table, upon which are piled 
 books of every shape, and letters in every imaginable hand ; a 
 vast chaos in which you will never see him lose himself or even 
 hesitate for a moment. Two different sheets of paper are be- 
 fore him, upon both of which he has begun to write. One is a 
 petition to the Count de Saint-Florentin,* the other a memorial 
 to the president Des Brosses. " Yes, Monsieur," he writes in 
 the latter, " I have found more than three hundred French 
 words which are indisputably derived from the Arabic, " 
 " Yes, Monsieur," he writes in the former, " it is now two years 
 since Fabre was sent to the galleys on account of an action for 
 which in ancient times he would have been crowned." He 
 adds a sentence to one, and a sentence to the other, which does 
 not prevent him, as he goes on, from thinking of this and that 
 other work, which he also has on hand, and which he suddenly 
 goes to look for, in some drawer, in order to change a word, 
 or add some note or detail. You fancy that these two closed 
 books upon which he rests his elbow, are to aid him in the 
 
 * Minister of the kind's household, and charged, from this title, with 
 all that concerned the Protestants. The persecution was set down in the 
 list of the king's private affairs, as if it were feared that the glory of it 
 would otherwise not be sufficiently ascribed to him.
 
 112 RABAUT AND BRIDAINE, OR 
 
 same researches ? No, one is the polyglott of Alcala, quite 
 surprised to see itself in heretic hands ; the other is the Mar- 
 tyrology of Crespin, that sombre legend of French protestant- 
 ism. There are scarcely a dozen copies of it left in the king- 
 dom, it has been so hunted after, and so many have been 
 burned ! There, are the ancients, opened in many places ; 
 there, quite recent works, in which his searching pencil has 
 already noted many a page. Here is the Worship of Fetish 
 Deities, by president des Brosses ; here the History of Yemen, 
 and the Table of Arabic Kings, by the marquis de Brequigny ; 
 here the Explanation of the Mosaic of Pales trina, by the abbe 
 Arnaud ; here a Treatise on Mathematical Infinitude, by the 
 Genevese Achard, judge at Berlin ; here a memorial on the 
 Chinese, by Monsieur de Guignes, of the Academy of Inscrip- 
 tions ; here an answer to the memorial, Doubts, by Deshautes- 
 raies ; here a Theory of Taxes, for which its author, the marquis 
 de Mirabeau, is at this moment under lock and key ; here the 
 History of Wigs, by Thiefs, a doctor of theology, with Greek 
 and Hebrew quotations ; here, in a word is all that the first six 
 months of 1760 have produced of archaeological labors, and 
 learned novelties. But whilst the age has become learned in 
 order to amuse itself, in order to fill by means of labors of the 
 head, that vacuum which departed faith has left in the heart, 
 he, a man of faith above all, brings his tablet to the temple of 
 science, because he wishes that it may be a temple to God.
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 113 
 
 XXV. 
 
 OFBELIN AND THE BOOKSELLER. GREAT DIFFICULTY WITH 
 
 WHICH THE HUGUENOTS WERE ABLE TO PRESERVE 
 THEIR BIBLES AND RELIGIOUS BOOKS. 
 
 He has finished writing, and rises. 
 
 " Eleven o'clock, already, and I have not yet received my 
 letters. And Rabaut does not return." 
 
 He walked up and down the room a moment, with his arms 
 folded. 
 
 " Here he is, I believe Ah ! it is you, Dumont " 
 
 ' Ah ! Monsieur " 
 
 " Did you go to see the burning 1" 
 
 " Ah ! Monsieur, do not jest. Do you know who it was 
 that betrayed us ? My clerk " 
 
 " The protege of Monsieur Helvetius ?" 
 
 " The same." 
 
 " How did you discover it ?" 
 
 " It would be a long story ; but the thing is certain, too cer- 
 tain. He confesses, for that matter. 
 
 " You have turned him off 1 ?" 
 
 " Certainly ; but what is to be gained by it ? I shall be 
 watched now." 
 
 " They have other things to do, Dumont. I am going to 
 see these gentlemen, besides ; I wish to make them feel a 
 little ashamed of their decree." 
 
 " Good. But the fine, in the meantime ? I have advanced 
 it, you know." 
 
 " The fine ] I shall of course repay yo i as soon as I can. 
 Just at present I have not a crown. I have sent off within the 
 last few day all the funds I had left. Two hundred livres to
 
 114 RABAUT AND BRIDAIXK, OR 
 
 the galleys at Toulon ; two hundred to those at Marseilles, 
 and one hundred to our prisoners of Aignes Mortes. All to- 
 gether just what this miserable clerk received ! How bad laws 
 instigate bad actions ! If the privilege of remaining unknown 
 had not been offered him, would he have dreamed of betray- 
 ing us 1 And this fine, for his profit ! The time will come 
 when it will be asked how there ever could have existed such 
 immoral laws, or judges who did not recoil before the immor- 
 ality of executing them. But after all, thank God, they did 
 not find a great deal " 
 
 " Not one quarter of what I had in my back shop. Now 
 everything is in the cellar. If they come back " 
 
 " They will not come back. There remain " 
 
 " One hundred Bibles, I believe, and eight hundred New 
 Testaments. As for catechisms, there are perhaps three thou- 
 sand, besides the psalm books and the collections of prayers." 
 
 " Nearly as many, in fact, as were seized two years ago, 
 with Jean Carbiere, at Bordeaux. That was a fire, Dumont !* 
 Compared with that, what was the affair of this morning 1 We 
 are rich." 
 
 " With a buried treasure." 
 
 " Buried, indeed, since it is in your cellar. It must be taken 
 out of there, however. On all sides I am now asked for books. 
 In Guyenne, since the great burning at Bordeaux, they do not 
 know where to get any. In Beam, in Poitou, in Dauphiny, 
 the pastors lament that they receive so few. At Nimes, the 
 depots will soon be exhausted. Happily it is the season for 
 the fair of Beaucaire. All my measures are taken. In a 
 month, Dumont, your cellar is empty." 
 
 "God grant it!" 
 
 * About sixteen thousand volumes were burned at Bordeaux, the 17th 
 tf April, 1758.
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XT. 115 
 
 " He will grant it. Here are my letters, I believe. There 
 ought to be replies upon this very subject." 
 
 The fair of Beaucaire had many a time come in season to 
 aid the spiritual purveyors of the Protestants of the South. 
 During this great transportation of people and goods, pastors 
 and books could circulate with a little less danger. Eabaut 
 had even adopted sometimes, upon these occasions, the char- 
 icter of a merchant of fine pearls, doubtless in innocent allusion 
 to the pearl of great price, under which emblem, the Bible has 
 designated itself. It was true, that even at Beaucaire, in 1735, 
 there had been an auto-da-fe almost equal to that at Bordeaux ; 
 but these checks, very rare, moreover, only served to call 
 forth the invention of new methods of transportation. 
 
 The books generally came from Holland through Paris, and 
 from Geneva through Lyons or Grenoble. In all the cities 
 there were merchants who could be depended upon, and who 
 acted as intermediaries. Inside of bales of goods, and in cases 
 and barrels of provisions, sometimes without any other pre- 
 caution than a thick envelope and a false label, thousands of 
 volumes went from North to South, from East to West, from 
 the free to their oppressed brethren. But in the midst of these 
 courageous frauds, Protestant authority was on the watch that 
 nothing should be done save what necessity rendered legiti- 
 mate. A decree of the synod of 1734, excommunicates who- 
 soever should by fraud enter anything besides these religious 
 books. Difficult as it was to procure a sufficient number of 
 these, it was often still more so to preserve them. Various 
 edicts, renewed in 1729, had commanded the seizure and de- 
 struction of all books employed by Protestants. In the first 
 requisition it was enjoined upon them to bring these them- 
 selves ; if not, an arbitrary* fine, fixed upon them by the in- 
 
 * This word is in the edict of 1729, and in almost all those which
 
 llG RABAUT AND BRIDAINE, OR 
 
 tendant of the province. In case of a second offence, another 
 arbitrary fine, but which must not be less than a chird of the 
 culprit's possession ; finally, three years of banishment. All 
 information was received ; any consul of a commune, or any 
 priest, might enter the houses and make the necessary search. 
 It is by millions, therefore, that we must compute the volumes 
 destroyed in conformity to these edicts ; for instruction, the 
 companion of the Eeformation, had multiplied books among 
 all ranks, throughout Protestant France. It was a sad day 
 when the old family Bible must be given up, the book doubly 
 revered, sacred because it was the Bible, and sacred from the 
 recollections connected with it! Children, parents, grand- 
 parents, all, from their earliest years, had daily seen and 
 touched it. It had been present, like the household deities of 
 the ancients, at all the joys and all the sorrows of the family. 
 A touching custom had inscribed on its first or its last leaves, 
 sometimes even on the margin of its pages, the principal 
 events in all these humble lives. In such a year, on such a 
 day, a child was born, and this child was perhaps the grand- 
 father, even the great-grandfather, of the father or grandfather 
 now living, for these Bibles dated for the most part from the 
 earliest times of the Reformation. Then there were marriages, 
 and baptisms, and deaths, and other births. And now all 
 these pious monuments must perish at once in the flames ! 
 
 epeak of pecuniary penalties o be inflicted upon the Protestants. The 
 right of confiscation, ao odious even in the hands of princes or tribunals, 
 existed, iii fact, in those of the lowest intendants.
 
 THE COUBT OF LOUIS XV. 11T 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 GEBELIN'S CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 Court had just received his letters, through the hands of a 
 confidential bearer. Two or three bore his address ; the others 
 had been received by different persons in Paris, for although 
 the police appeared to close their eyes, it had been judged 
 more prudent not to draw attention to his immense corre- 
 spondence. There were also two for Rabaut, for Monsieur 
 Tuabar, for that it will be remembered, was his name when in 
 Paris. 
 
 " Well, Dumont, what did I tell you ?" cried Court, after 
 having opened one by hazard. " See, read. This, however, 
 does not come very far. It is from my friend Delabroue, chap- 
 lain to the embassy from Holland. It is true that I wrote 
 him yesterday." 
 
 Dumont took the letter and read : 
 
 "'I had not waited until I received your note, my dear 
 friend and brother, in order to busy myself about the matter 
 of which you speak. I wrote without delay to our friends in 
 Holland, and I hope that they will soon collect the sum. But 
 as the reply cannot be received for several days, I have -con- 
 trived to procure the fifteen hundred livres, and you will re- 
 ceive them in the course of the day. May God send you no 
 worse trial, and all will be well. Your friend aud brother. 
 
 " ' P. S. I have just put the finishing stroke to my work. 
 The title embarrasses me a little. It will be, I think, The 
 Spirit of Jesus Christ in regard to Toleration. What do you 
 think of it f " 
 
 " I shall reflect upon it," said Court. " In the meantime,
 
 118 KAHAUT AND BRIDAINE, OR 
 
 your fine is ready. Ah ! some more money ! But I expected 
 this. The quarter day is here, and this is the addition to the 
 salaries of the pastors which is sent by the committee at 
 Geneva."* 
 
 " That is to be sent to Nimes ]" said the bookseller. 
 
 x ' To Nimes, Alais and Toulouse. By the way, I have some 
 one who takes the charge of sending it. It is a Genevese, 
 named Necker, employed in the house of Thelusson, brothers." 
 
 " The Necker who is said to be so intelligent ?" 
 
 " Yes ; a young man who will make his way. Ah ! here is 
 what I was looking for, an excellent letter from Beaucaire. 
 Take it. Everything is marked, I see; the addresses, the 
 statements to be made. Good. Your cellar will be empty 
 in a week, instead of a month, Master Dumont, at least un- 
 less something arrives with which we must fill it again." 
 
 He went away, half contented, half uneasy. He was one of 
 those Protestants of which many were to be found in the large 
 cities, Protestant enough at heart, but little desirous of com 
 promising themselves. Shall we cast the first stone at them 1 
 Let us remember the difficulties of their position. The least 
 infringement of an edict might be followed by terrible punish- 
 ments. It was an indulgence that the parliament had not con- 
 demned Dumont to close his shop ; and if they had had the 
 slightest desire to send him to the galleys, they might easily 
 have found more than one clause in these same edicts to which 
 he could have found nothing' to reply. Guillaume Issoire had 
 been sent thither for having received barrels marked Black 
 and white peas, which had been found full of Ostervald's cate- 
 chisms. Besides, Dumont passed for a Catholic. The forced 
 
 * The salaries of the pastors were at this time from seven to eight 
 hundred franca. The addition sent from Geneva was three hundred aud 
 Vty.
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 119 
 
 abjuration of his father had transmitted him this title, which 
 he retained, like so many others, because he had need of it in 
 order to live. If this was hypocrisy, whose fault was it? 
 That of the unhappy creatures who submitted to it as to a dis- 
 grace, or of those who made it necessary for them to do so ? 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 RABAUT. DISHONESTY OF THE ROMISH CHURCH. 
 
 Left alone, Court again went to his letters. He had before 
 him a kind of registry, in which, as he went along, he wrote 
 what he did not wish to forget. 
 
 " To write to Monsieur de Voltaire, in order that he shall 
 interest himself for the galley slave, Chaumont of Geneva, 
 condemned for life, in '51, by Monsieur de Saint-Priest, in- 
 tendant of Languedoc, for having attended two meetings." * 
 
 " To see what has become of the petition of Jean Besson, of 
 Alais, that he may be allowed to sell his house for 4,500 livres 
 to Mark Ducros, of the same place." f 
 
 " To reply to the abbe Barthelemy that I shall go and see 
 him some of these days ; that if I can aid him in decyphering 
 the inscription, I shall do it with pleasure ; that the word in 
 question is not in the Polyglott, etc." 
 
 " To write to Lausanne that pastor Campredon cannot re- 
 main alone in Normandy ; that one or two colleagues must 
 absolutely be found for him." J 
 
 * Chaumont, for whom Voltaire wrote to the duke de Choiseul, waa 
 only liberated in 1764. 
 
 f Protestants were not allowed to sell houses and lands of more than 
 three thousand francs value. Emigration was thus impossible fcr land- 
 holders, unless they abandoned everything. 
 
 \ The churches in Normandy had only been reorganized toward* 
 17-14, by the pastor Viala.
 
 120 RABAUT AND BRIDAINE, OR 
 
 " To send to Monsieur Quesnay,* the commencement of my 
 calculations in regard to the price of grain at Rome, at the end 
 of the reign of Augustus." 
 
 " Ah ha !" he murmured, opening the last letter, " here is 
 the abbe de Caveirac, \vho is going to return to the charge ! f 
 He repents of having been too kind." 
 
 " Come in, come in," he continued, addressing himself to 
 Rabaut, whose step he heard in an adjoining apartment, 
 "come and see how far the fides romana can carry a man." 
 
 Rabaut entered. " What is it ?" he asked. 
 
 " I am informed that there is a publication of the abbe de 
 Caveirac, in which he pretends to prove that there were scarcely 
 a thousand persons killed in Paris on Saint Bartholomew's 
 day." 
 
 "A thousand? Oh, my dear friend, that is still quite 
 reasonable. People have asserted to me that there were not 
 five hundred killed, and two or three thousand, at the furthest, 
 in the whole kingdom." 
 
 " Why, they are crazy, these people ! Who do they think 
 will believe them ?" 
 
 " Who 1 Ah, my poor friend, it is easy to see that you only 
 live among the savants ! They will be believed by all 
 whose interest it is to believe them ; and the savants will at 
 length believe it also. Has it not already been attempted to 
 prove, in some histories, that the massacre of Saint Bartholo- 
 mew was a purely political affair, merely a game, in which the 
 Protestants had the ill luck to be neither the slyest nor tho 
 strongest ? This excuse comes rather late. It would be curi 
 
 * The economist. 
 
 f He had published, in 1755, in answer to the memorial of Ripper fc 
 de Mouclar, a Dissertation upon the Toleration of Protestants -n France. 
 Two years afterwards, he had added to it a Defence of Louis XIV. aud 
 hia council
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 121 
 
 ous enough for the Roman Church to have bowed its head for 
 nearly two hundred years beneath the infamy of such a reeol 
 lection, if it had had any means of throwing it off. But now 
 the career is open. The Saint Bartholomew massacre will, in 
 fifty years, be nothing more than a mere riot, maliciously 
 exaggerated by us; in an hundred years, it will be pure 
 calumny against the good mother church."* 
 
 " Probably ; and doubtless calumny also, all that oui de- 
 scendants may say of our sufferings at the present day." 
 
 "Yes," resumed Rabaut; "if I had not a thousand other 
 reasons for being persuaded that the Roman Church teaches 
 error, its condemnation might be taken, in ray opinion, from 
 this frightful facility in lying. Not a month passes, not a 
 week, that I am not obliged to take up my pen to combat the 
 most absurd falsities. And it is not by the cures and monks 
 only that these are circulated. The bishops, whom their 
 position itself, in default of conscience, ought to render more 
 careful, are only the bolder, as if they felt themselves placed 
 too high for our denials ever to reach them. After your father 
 had replied so well, in '52, to that famous letter f in which the 
 
 * Bossuet has computed at six thousind, (of which at least five hun- 
 dred were noblemen,) the number of deaths in Paris; and at twenty-five 
 or thirty thousand those in the provinces. " The news of the massacre 
 spread horror everywhere," he adds. " The hatred of heresy made them 
 receive it with pleasure at Rome." He denied that there was any plot 
 whatever on the pail of the Protestants. " In order to impress the idea 
 of a plot on all minds," he says, "public thanks were given to God, upon 
 the pretended discovery. These shams imposed upon no one, and the 
 action ju~t committed was considered so much the more detestable by 
 good people, because there had been no pretext found which had the 
 lea<4 plaiisibili'v." 
 
 Bossuet, it may be seen, is much less anti-Protestant than certain 
 writers and preachers of the present day. 
 
 f Letter to the comptroller-general, Monsieur de Machault, " Against
 
 122 RABAUT AND BRIDAINE, OR 
 
 bishop of Agcn, Monsieur de Chabannes, accuses us of rejoicing 
 at the misfortunes of France, it seemed as if this accusation 
 could never again be renewed. Well, in our provinces there 
 is never a single mandate published against us in which it is 
 not re-produced or insinuated. And this assertion, though it 
 be false, does not rest, after all, on an absurd foundation ; for 
 it would not be strange if we had but little love for a country 
 where we have suffered so much. But how many other accusa- 
 tions are there, entirely, impudently false, and invariably 
 repeated in all the writings of these gentlemen ! One only, 
 the bishop of Nimes,* is an exception ; and even he signalized 
 himself sadly, at the time of the numerous re-baptizals in '52. 
 As for the others, they put no restraint upon themselves ; 
 everything appears allowable. There is Monsieur de Mont- 
 clus, bishop of Alais, who collects all that is related most dis- 
 graceful of Luther, Calvin, and all our reformers ; or Monsieur 
 de Saint-Jal, bishop of Castres, who accuses us of undermining 
 the principles of morality, and authorizing debauchery and 
 adultery ; or Monsieur de Fontanges, bishop of Lavaur, who 
 represents us as extending our hand to the infidels and the 
 sacrilegious ; or Monsieur de Crussol d'Uzes, bishop of La 
 Rochelle, who thinks himself a great theologian, and who can 
 not write a sentence against our doctrines without seasoning i< 
 with a falsehood against ourselves. So much for written lies 
 Elsewhere it is still worse. In the pulpit, in the schools, ir. 
 families, in the confessional, everywhere that we cannot follow 
 our enemies step by step, they scatter and perpetuate the most 
 absurd prejudices. It is not the fault of the priests, if the 
 people among whom we live who can see and speak with us 
 
 .He toleration of the Huguenots in the kingdom" It was upon thii 
 occasion that Autoine Court published his " Impartial French Patriot." 
 * Monsieur de Becdelievre.
 
 THE COURT OP LOUIS XV. 123 
 
 every day who have but to keep their eyes open, in short, to 
 see what we are do not look upon us as a kind of monster, 
 scarcely belonging to the human race !" 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 18 SHE ALTERED ITU THIS RESPECT? 
 
 Did he exaggerate ? Or was the picture correct in 1760, 
 and would it be false at the present day 1 
 
 It would be so undoubtedly in some points, in one es- 
 pecially. 
 
 If the Church were to be believed, it was for the interests of 
 the throne that she exacted the destruction of the Protestants. 
 There was not a mandate, not a memorial, in which their 
 liberal ideas were not represented as deserving more than all 
 else, to draw upon them the severities of royalty. 
 
 This is a source which is no longer at the present day open 
 to their accusers. It would be re-opened without doubt, the 
 day when we should again behold a Louis XIV. or a Louis 
 XV. upon the throne ; in the meantime, they profess demo- 
 cracy as loudly as possible. Protestants, accordingly, receive 
 from their former oppressors, the permission to love liberty. 
 
 With this exception the old accusations go on their way ; 
 some just as they were formerly, others a little rejuvenated 
 but all, or almost all, more audacious than ever. 
 
 3
 
 124 BABAUT AND BRIDAINE, OR 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 OEBELIN'S GIGANTIC PLANS OF LITERARY LABOR. THE PRISON- 
 ERS OF AIGUES-MORTES. 
 
 "But enough of this," resumed the minister. "I have just 
 come from the Palace of Justice. I saw burned you know 
 what. I feel a longing to be with some one who can under- 
 stand what I felt at such a sight." 
 
 " Stay," said Court, " while the fire was burning, I received 
 another book which will perhaps also be burned by them, but 
 which will be nevertheless an eternal witness against their 
 Church and themselves. This is the first copy of the history 
 so long promised us by my father,* and the last pages of which 
 he wrote only a few days before his death. I have still a 
 precious manuscript, that of the General History of the Pro- 
 testants of France in their different places of refuge, since the 
 Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. It contains a vast number 
 of details which he alone could know, and which would be of 
 the deepest interest to those families who have been broken up 
 and scattered into exile. Unhappily these are merely notes, 
 and they are still far from forming a book. I will finish it, if 
 God spares my life.f It shall be the work of my old age." 
 
 "Another! You frighten me, Gebelin, with your plans. 
 Man proposes " 
 
 " And God disposes, I know. But God does not forbid us 
 to propose, particularly when it is for his glory." 
 
 " And who can tell us when it is really for his glory 1 Can 
 
 * History of the Disturbances in the Cevennes, by Antoine Court. 
 f The work waa never carried out. aud the uiauuscript was lost at the 
 death of Court.
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 125 
 
 we ever know -whether we actually think of him at such times? 
 I have trembled for you, I confess, when I saw you in such a 
 whirl. Reputation and fortune are there at your door." 
 
 " Let them enter, Rabaut, and we shall see. I too, some- 
 times tremble. I also fear that I may forget God for my- 
 self." 
 
 " Courage, then ! It is a proof that you do not forget him." 
 
 " God grant it ! But before trembling for the consequences, 
 I must tremble at the work itself. I have at length sketched 
 the plan of the enormous work, about which I have sometimes 
 spoken to you in my letters. There will be twenty volumes, 
 thirty, perhaps " 
 
 "And you will call it?" 
 
 " The Primitive World analyzed and compared with the 
 Modern" 
 
 " Let us hear the plan." 
 
 "In the first volume, I follow throughout the Greek and 
 Eastern allegories, the generating principles of the ancient re- 
 ligions. 
 
 " The second is an Universal Grammar, followed by a theo- 
 retical explanation of the process which 'has aided me in the 
 study of languages. 
 
 " In the third, which I think I shall call the Natural History 
 of Speech, I treat the great subject of the origin of language. 
 
 " The fourth, the History of the Calendar, will comprehend 
 everything connected with the division of time, with astronom- 
 ical observations, with chronology, etc. 
 
 " The fifth, is an Etymological Dictionary of our language. 
 
 " Thf sixth and seventh, an Etymological Dictionary of the 
 Latin language. 
 
 " The eighth, a collection of general observations upon those 
 which have preceded it.
 
 126 RABAUT AND BRIDAINE, OR 
 
 " The ninth, an Etymological Dictionary of the Greek lan- 
 guage. 
 
 " The tenth" 
 
 " Enough ! enough !" interrupted Rabaut. " You no longer 
 frighten, but you overwhelm me. Why it would take twenty 
 men to do all that !" 
 
 Gebelin laughed. " Twenty men, you say ? I begin to be 
 re-assured. Monsieur d'Alembert asserted that it would re- 
 quire forty.* Let us go on, and we shall see that one will do 
 enough. You see this schedule ? It is a dissertation in which 
 I demonstrate that the language of Langucdoc is anterior to the 
 invasion of the Visigoths. I give the etymology of more than 
 twelve hundred words of the language, of which about two 
 hundred are Greek, six hundred Celtic, and the remainder Latin 
 or Oriental. There are nearly an hundred pages, large ones as 
 you see. Now, how long do you think I was at this ?" 
 
 " A month ]" 
 
 " Six days and I was very far from having nothing else to 
 do." 
 
 " Your materials were ready. You had only to arrange and 
 write down " 
 
 " Not at all. When I began, I did not know the tenth part 
 of what I discovered or guessed as I went on. Lately, at the 
 house of the marquis d'Aubais, they brought me an old Bible 
 in the Grison language, which I had never studied in my life. 
 Whereupon, I began on the spot to arrange I do not know how 
 many observations on this idiom, its origin, its history, etc. 
 When I took up the Anglo-Saxon books of the venerable Bede, 
 I only had to apply my key, in order to understand them, and 
 I could read them as easily as French." 
 
 " I know, you do not study, you devour. But " 
 * Historical
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 127 
 
 " But there is a great deal of pride in it, you were going to say. 
 There is some pride. Yes I feel it. But less than you ap- 
 pear to apprehend. Would I dream of giving all these details 
 to another ? I have talked to you, as to a second self. If I 
 reach the end I propose, to God, to God alone the glory ! But 
 I shall die on the road or else I will reach this end."* 
 
 "Gebelin, you argue in vain. I do not like these gigantic 
 plans ; I cannot help looking upon them as a sort of defiance 
 of Providence. Take care. God forbids avarice, and science 
 is wealth ! All that weighs down the miser who amasses 
 gold, avidity, pride, attachment to the things of this world, 
 are you not sensible that these may be felt in amassing knowl- 
 edge 1 But pardon, dear brother, pardon ! you have no need 
 of my counsels." 
 
 " No need ! Ah why are you not always at my side ! You 
 would force me to be wiser ; and besides, you would give a more 
 practical direction to my labors. You would teach me to do 
 a little less for the learned, and much more for the world in 
 general. We would take up our plan of translating the 
 Bible." 
 
 " Have you altogether abandoned it ?" 
 
 " I translated several psalms quite recently." 
 
 " God be praised ! But shall you go on 1" 
 
 " I am alarmed, I who am not often alarmed, not at the la 
 bor, but at the responsibility. I have done enough, however 
 to be convinced how very far we still are from being able to 
 say that the Old Testament has been translated. But of all 
 the versions which have ever been brought to my notice, the 
 
 * Only the first nine volume appeared ; but at the death of the author, 
 (1784.) his manuscripts filled upwards of fifty large portfolios. The 
 letters and papers -relative to the affairs of the Protestants, according to 
 Rabaut, formed a still larger mass. All were lost.
 
 128 BABAUT AND BRIDAINE, OR 
 
 Vulgate is certainly the worst. And to think that in their 
 council of Trent, they dared to declare it authentic and inex- 
 pugnable ! I have made the brave abbe Arnaud pass many a 
 wretched hour on account of this unlucky decree. I showed 
 him in the 22d Psalm alone, just as it is chanted by his 
 Church, two or three contradictions which he was forced to ad- 
 mit. He asked me, if our translators had made none. I re- 
 plied that our translators were only men, and that we had 
 never declared them infallible. You should have seen him 
 then, struggling to prove that in declaring the Vulgate to be 
 authentic, and in forbidding its alteration, the Church had not 
 intended to proclaim its infallibility. ' But,' I said, ' suppose 
 that this is the case, the decree of the council would only be the 
 stranger. What ! be aware that the Vulgate has faults, and 
 yet declare that it must be used as it is, forever, just as if it had 
 none ! He was in agonies. I made up my mind to laugh. 
 ' Confess,' I said, ' that it is a hard task to be at the same time 
 a Catholic and a savant!' Another subject in regard to 
 which I almost brought him to confess himself in rebellion 
 against the council of Trent, was that of the apocryphal books. 
 He confessed, and how could he deny it ? that neither the 
 Jews, nor the early Christians, nor the Fathers, nor the doctors, 
 nor the Church herself, before this council, ever placed these 
 books in the same rank with the others. The whole question, 
 accordingly, is, whether the Church, with such precedents, had 
 a right to place them there 1 He endeavored to prove it. I 
 then asked him if in his heart and conscience he believed the 
 decree exact and good ; and as he dared not assert this, after 
 what he had confessed, I said ' you see to what you are re- 
 duced ! This decree, in which the Church gives you as authen- 
 tic and sacred, writings formerly looked upon as not authentic, 
 you do not believe any more than I do ; you limit yourself to
 
 THE COURT OF I.OUIS XV. Izy 
 
 maintaining that the Church had the right to make it, the right, 
 in other words, to decree error. Is that being submissive 1 
 Is that being a Catholic V " 
 
 "I have not met many persons," said Rabaut, -'who were 
 Catholics in any other way. As many rights as she may 
 claim, are granted the Church in theory ; but it is another 
 thing to believe all she teaches. I also have often amused 
 myself by condemning in the name of the council of Trent, 
 many persons who called and believed themselves Catholics, 
 thanks to the care which has been taken to conceal from them 
 many an article which would have made them reject all the 
 rest. This would all be diverting enough if the champions of 
 the Roman Church were reduced to take to their petty loop- 
 holes as their only defence, but the nearer you have been to 
 proving to them that they are not Catholics, the more they will 
 show }~ou by their hatred and violence, that they are still too 
 much so. They persecute us, in fact, far less because they are 
 Catholics, than because they fear to be thought not so ; we have 
 no greater enemies than those who are obliged to stiffen them 
 selves the most, in order not to surrender before our reason- 
 ings, and it seems as if every one chooses to impute to us as 
 crimes, precisely those points upon which we embarrass them 
 the most. The priests, for example, without equalling Ar- 
 naud by a great deal, still doubtless know more or less what 
 you were remarking just now, on the subject of the apocryphal 
 books. Well, to hear them talk, one of their chief complaints 
 against us, one of the principal sources of their indignation, is 
 that we, they say mutilate the Bible by rejecting these 
 books." 
 
 " It is an indulgence, moreover," added Gebelin, " if they do 
 not set to work and jest on the somewhat ancient language of 
 our old versions and our psalms, as if we were further from
 
 130 BABAUT AND BRIDAINE, OB 
 
 the French of Pascal and Racine, than they from the Latin of 
 Virgil and Cicero ! Moreover, we preceded these great models , 
 while they wrote their abominable Latin after Virgil and Cicero. 
 It would appear that the abbe de Caveirac, in the midst of his 
 atrocious calculations in regard to the Saint-Bartholomew mas- 
 sacre, still finds time to let fly a few bolts at us, upon this sub- 
 ject. I am going to send this letter to Delabroue. He will 
 procure the work, and as he has already broken more than one 
 lance with the author But I had forgotten. There are two 
 letters for you also. Here they are." 
 
 " This one what a seal !' 
 
 " Let me see. The arms of Richelieu !" 
 
 Rabaut opened it, not without a certain emotion. 
 
 He was requested to make his appearance, on the next day 
 but one, at Versailles. The letter was signed by one of the 
 secretaries of the marshal. 
 
 " God be praised !" he said. " The petition has been read." 
 
 "By the king?" 
 
 " The letter does not say ; but " 
 
 " If it does not say so, do not count upon it." 
 
 " If I can see the duke, it is something." 
 
 " It may be much, and it may be nothing. It is enough to 
 make one shudder, my poor friend, to reflect upon what the 
 fate of a thousand, of a million of human beings may depend , 
 for it is all the same, frequently, to those who have to rule 
 them. A moment of good or ill humor, an accident, a nothing, 
 a word which may please or displease in a petition of twenty 
 pages and behold some evil ceases, or else continues for 
 another century !" 
 
 " Here is something which I fear comes but in season to 
 confirm what you say," said Rabaut, breaking the seal of the 
 other letter. "Precisely. I recognized the hand. See
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 131 
 
 Marie Durand, prisoner for the sake of Jesus Christ, at the 
 tower of Constancy.""* 
 
 " She knew that you were at Paris T' 
 
 " No ; she writes to Nimes. The letter was sent me from 
 there." 
 
 " She is the oldest, is she not, of our poor sisters at Aigues- 
 Mortes ?" 
 
 " Anne Gaussaint, of Sommieres, has been there for thirty- 
 seven years ; five others have been there more than thirty. 
 Marie Durand only went there in 1732, the year in which her 
 brother, the minister, was executed at Montpellier." 
 
 " Twenty-eight, thirty, thirty-seven years of prison for poor 
 women, because they were convicted of praying to God other- 
 wise than as the king, or the king's* confessor, dictated! The 
 pagans were far less cruel. They adjudged death without 
 delay." 
 
 " More humane, indeed, and, above all, more excusable, 
 since there was war to the death between their deities and the 
 God of the Christians." 
 
 " Is it possible to know pretty accurately the number of our 
 female prisoners ?" 
 
 " At Aigues-Mortes, nineteen." 
 
 " I know it ; but elsewhere ?" 
 
 " Elsewhere, it is impossible to fix any number. All the 
 convents in the South contain some. Many may have died, 
 without our knowing anything of it ; many, of whom we can- 
 not hear anything more, are undoubtedly still living. It is a 
 terrible thing, Gebelin, even to pass by these dark buildings, 
 silent as the grave, in which slowly linger on these women, 
 torn from their husbands, their fathers, their children, f They 
 
 * At Aigues-Mortes. 
 
 f " It is just, Monsieur, that the patrol should be paid for the journeys
 
 132 RABAUT AND BRIDAINE, OR 
 
 are not quite so frequently carried off now as formerly ; but 
 the edicts still exist, the threats continue, and the sword is none 
 the less hanging over their heads. When a family is assembled 
 together, it can never know whether it is not for the last time. 
 Quite recently, after a truce, which it had been at last hoped 
 might continue a long time, the tower of Constancy has re- 
 ceived two new captives. One was the mother of Bruyn. She 
 had been captured when returning from a meeting : her hus- 
 band was sent to Toulon, she to Aigues-Mortes. The other 
 was quite a young woman, Marguerite Robert, arrested by an 
 order of Marshal de Thomond, governor of Guyenne. What 
 had she done ? Nothing more than thousands of others ; she 
 had refused to be married before a cure, and I had blessed her 
 union. They wished to make an example for the others : they 
 took the first comer, or rather they selected her, beautiful, 
 young, interesting, in order that her misfortune should produce 
 a more painful sensation. Her husband, Vincent, of Uzes, who 
 has been left at liberty, is almost mad with grief." 
 
 " He wrote to me," said Gebelin, " to implore me to interest 
 myself for her. I have moved heaven and earth, but in vain. 
 It is easier here to obtain the pardon of a criminal condemned 
 by justice, than that of a Protestant arraigned by one of those 
 condemnations which fall upon us by accident, and without 
 form of trial. Our tyrants fear, and not without reason, lest, 
 by mitigating the sentence, they might seem to confess its in- 
 justice. They prefer to forget a man in the galleys, or a 
 
 they make in arresting and conducting the daughters of Protestants to 
 the houses destined for their education. When the parents are really not 
 able to pay these expenses, I shall take the necessary measures for de- 
 fraying them." 
 
 Despatch of Monsieur de Saint-Florentin to the intendant at Rouen, 
 July 18, 1751.
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 133 
 
 woman shut up in a tower, to confessing publicly why they 
 have been sent, why they have been left there." * 
 
 " We had a sad proof of that," added Rabaut, " in regard to 
 one of these poor women, Jeanne Guingues. She had a son in 
 the army. This son was killed at Fontenoy in '45. In the 
 midst of the transports of joy which the victory caused through- 
 out the kingdom, we believed that the time was a favorable 
 one to request the freedom of his mother. It was refused. 
 Eight or ten years afterwards, the eldest of her grandsons was 
 killed while fighting beneath the same banner. Another 
 solicitation, another refusal. And she is still at Aigues-Mortes ! 
 Marie Durand, like the greater number of her companions, at 
 last ceased to think of liberty. Her letters for a long time 
 expressed unbounded resignation. Some friends, it appears, 
 gave her hopes, and she became very unhappy. She wrote 
 me constantly to implore me to act in her favor. In this letter 
 again, see : ' For the sake of the bowels of Divine mercy, do 
 everything you can to snatch us from this frightful sepulchre !' 
 Poor women ! What can I do 1 What can we do ?" 
 
 " What indeed, when those even to whom we must send our 
 petitions are not free to yield to our solicitations 1 During all 
 
 * " A long time since, Monsieur, you seat me a favorable notice of the 
 Sieur Serres, imprisoned at the fort of Brescou for about twenty years, 
 for bavins married the sister of a preacher. The king consents that he 
 shall be liberated." 
 
 Despatch <>f Monsieur de Saint-Florentin to the intendant of Languedoc, 
 (Lenain d'Asfold.) 
 
 It is comprehensible that the government did not like to grant pardons 
 which reminded them of such condemnations; accordingly, the decree of 
 liberation always stated that the condemned had testified a sincere regret 
 for his crime. Often, likewise, for fear that the pardon might seem to 
 recognize his innocence, certain restrictions accompanied it Thus this 
 same Serres, upon his liberation from the fort of Brescou, was banished 
 from Languedoc.
 
 134 RABAUT AND BRIDAINE, OR 
 
 my efforts for our galley slaves, for our prisoners, I have not 
 yet met any one, from the duke de Choiseul to the lowest 
 clerk, who did not receive me kindly, and appear to be inter 
 ested in their fate. At first I always went away full of hope ; 
 after each visit I was astonished to have succeeded so well, and 
 so quickly. But days, months went by, and the pardon never 
 came. The governor himself, the duke de'Fitz-James, solicited 
 the liberty of the prisoners at Aigues-Mortes, two years ago, 
 but in vain. It is because each one, in these affairs, each 
 intendant, governor, and minister, even the king himself, is 
 only the jailor of the Church, and the Church is inexorable. 
 The man who has been for forty years the instrument of all 
 our sufferings, the count de Saint-Florentin, is, I am convinced, 
 constantly at war with the bishops. It has been asserted to 
 me, proofs in hand. There is no severity which the bishops 
 have not requested to be increased, and made more complete ; 
 there is no relaxation in regard to which they do not show 
 themselves irritated, as if it were a treason against their Church 
 or against them. Monsieur de Saint-Florentin says to any 
 who wish to know, that his archives would furnish a singular 
 insight into this subject. Let these melancholy records be 
 care-fully preserved, for some day, when persecution has gone 
 out of fashion, the French clergy will not fail to cast all the 
 odium of it upon the government. Have not certain historians 
 already begun to make of the Inquisition a purely secular 
 tribunal, an entirely political institution, for whose enormities, 
 consequently, the Church is not to be reproached ?
 
 THK COURT OF LOUIS XV. 135 
 
 XXX. 
 
 THE PRIEST AND THE HUGUENOT. DISCUSSION ON THE UTILITY 
 
 OF MONASTERIES IN A LITERARY POINT OF VIEW. 
 
 AUTHORITY OF THE BIBLE AND OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 At this point of their conversation, Father Bridaine was an- 
 nounced. They looked at one another, amazed. Court could 
 not understand so unexpected a visit from a man whom he 
 only knew by reputation. Rabaut wished to retire, with the 
 intention of making his appearance afterwards. On second 
 thoughts he remained. 
 
 " I was not wrong, then," said the missionary, upon perceiv- 
 ing him. " It is you whom I sought, Monsieur ; I only came 
 to your friend in order to inquire your address. But you 
 were talking, gentlemen, I interrupt you " 
 
 " A fortunate interruption," said Gebelin, " since it procures 
 me the honor " 
 
 Bridaine bowed. " We have not seen each other," he re- 
 sumed, addressing himself to Rabaut, " since the day at Ver- 
 sailles." 
 
 " You think so ?" said Rabaut. " Shall I tell you where you 
 were an hour ago ?" 
 
 " You have seen Bruyn ?" 
 
 " Bruyn ? I do not know where he is. But I saw you, 
 yourself, in the court of the Palace of Justice. You were 
 present at what took place there. You picked up two half- 
 burned leaves ; you looked at them in a manner " 
 
 " Yes " said Bridaine, with a little embarrassment. " But 
 how did I happen to be there ?" 
 
 " I saw you there. That is all I know about it." 
 
 " I had just seen, in his cell, him whom you saw in Meaux,
 
 136 RABAUT AND BRIDAIXE, OR 
 
 at the deo/* of the church. lie was recognized and arrested. 
 He may at any time be executed. He wishes to see you." 
 
 " I will go. Shall I be able to enter ?" 
 
 "I will procure you the necessary permission." 
 
 Rabaut believed the Cevenol guilty of the assassination of 
 the colonel. Bridaine did not see fit to correct his error, or to 
 speak to him of the measures he was going to take to endeavor 
 to save Bruyn. 
 
 They took their seats. Bridaine would have preferred to be 
 alone with Rabaut ; Rabaut with Bridaine. An astonishing 
 intimacy had sprung up between these two souls. They both 
 felt themselves lofty enough to clasp each other's hands above 
 the ramparts of the two Churches. 
 
 Accordingly, for want of any other subject, the conversation 
 turned upon the labors of Gebelin. Bridaine had often heard 
 them spoken of; Rabaut, first as a friend, then as a Protestant, 
 was proud of them. He did not rest until the savant had laid 
 before the missionary, as he had just done before him, the plan 
 of his gigantic work. Bridaine was confounded by it. Men 
 of action are more liable than any others, to be alarmed at 
 extensive cabinet labors. 
 
 " Well," said the minister, " all Benedictines do not wear 
 the habit of Saint Benedict, do they ?" 
 
 " I did not believe that there existed in the midst of the dis- 
 tractions of the age, men so worthy to wear it." 
 
 " The distractions of the age," replied Rabaut, " injure those 
 only who are absorbed by them. For a mind naturally ac- 
 tive and strong, they form the materials of a struggle in which 
 it can but gain in force, activity and resources. For such an 
 one, the thought of time lost is but a stimulant to employ well 
 what remains. He hastens to his labors as others hasten to 
 their enjoyments. He does in a few hours more work, per-
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 137 
 
 haps, than a man who likes to work, but who has his whole 
 time, whom nothing hinders, nothing excites." i 
 
 Bridaine smiled. " Is that an observation aimed at the con- 
 vents." 
 
 " I did not think of them," replied the minister, " but if I 
 had, would I have been wrong ? Have we, without monas- 
 teries, had fewer learned men than you with them 1 And even 
 without speaking of any Church beside your own, have you 
 not had enough learned men who were not cloistered monks ?" 
 
 " Monasteries were not instituted in order to make learned 
 men." 
 
 "True; science was never less thought of than in those cen- 
 turies when the greatest number were founded. But that does 
 not prevent the service which has been done in this respect 
 from being generally presented in our days as a powerful ar- 
 gument in their favor. My observation might serve as a reply 
 to this argument." 
 
 " Were not all the master-pieces of antique literature pre- 
 served in the monasteries ?" 
 
 " Yes," said Gebelin : " but how ? I have made a number 
 of researches on this subject, by whose results I have been 
 struck, so little do they agree with what I have heard asserted 
 by your Church. In the first place, in order that a benefit 
 may deserve gratitude, it is necessary that the benefactor 
 should have intended to do a service, or at least that he should 
 not have rendered it without in the least suspecting it. And 
 in this matter, did the monks imagine how much future ages 
 were to owe to them ? Can many of them be mentioned, who 
 in preserving to us Virgil, Cicero, and Tacitus, appear to have 
 been acquainted with what they preserved ? The best proof 
 tnat they were scarcely aware of it, is the state in which they 
 have left the manuscripts to us ; and above all, the immense
 
 138 RABAUT AND BRIDAINE, OB 
 
 number which they defaced or allowed to be lost. Those 
 which were delivered to us at the Renaissance, were not the 
 thousandth part of the number which they could and ought to 
 have preserved. And how many writings completely lost ! 
 How many authors of whom the names alone remain 1 How 
 many works of the highest order, of which but three or four 
 manuscripts have been found in all Europe ? sometimes only 
 one, as for instance the Phadrus, among others, discovered at 
 Saint-Benedict, on the Loire ; it would still lie buried there, for 
 an indefinite length of time, if it had not been for the pillage 
 of the abbey in 1562. Even Cicero, one of those least 
 damaged during that thousand years of forgetfulness, we have 
 not complete." 
 
 " I have already made the remark," said Bridaine, " that the 
 convents were not established to serve as libraries. Perhaps, 
 as you say, the argument to which your observations are a re- 
 ply has been abused. Nevertheless, the fact is there ; if the 
 convents had not existed, where would you have gone to look 
 for the ancients, you who love them so much ?" 
 
 " Without the convents, that is to say, without the system. 
 of which the convents were a consequence, I think that we 
 should have done very well without people to take care of the 
 books, seeing that there would never have been any danger of 
 their being lost. The history of the decline of letters may be 
 divided, it seems to me, into three periods. During the first, 
 the Church gradually seizes the monopoly of learning. During 
 the second, having from day to day less to do in order to re- 
 main above the intellectual level of the people, she allows her- 
 self to decline into ignorance. In the third, she ends by find- 
 ing herself if not below the people, at least below all those 
 who have again begun to think and labor. It is from without, 
 from her enemies, that she must recover her intellectual and
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 139 
 
 literary life. You speak of the Benedictines. They were the 
 first, I know, to become an exception ; but their finest works 
 are posterioi to the Reformation, and I could show you in 
 every page ti aces of this great awakening. And what had the 
 Reformation to do in order to give the signal for so much 
 labor, to awaken in the opposite camp as well as in its own, all 
 existing intelligence? Very little, scarcely anything. An 
 old book was taken up out of the dust. This dust was that 
 which your Church had allowed to collect upon it, ordering 
 finally that it should eternally remain covered with it. Scarcely 
 has it again seen the light, before everything in the world of 
 ideas, seems to exist for and by it. Printing is proud to put 
 itself at its service ; all the sciences, all the arts come together 
 and converge in it. Doctrines which you may hold to be false, 
 but of which you cannot deny the immense renovating power, 
 spring from these pages so long and so obstinately sealed. 
 With this book alone in their hands, a few men find themselves 
 strong against all the powers of Europe, learned in the presence 
 of all its science, invincible to all the representatives of a past 
 wounded to the death, from the pope to the emperor, from the 
 magistrate to the hangman." 
 
 " Might I not retort all this ?" said Bridaine. " It is not the 
 first time, I might say, that God has allowed evil to gain the 
 victory. Is all emancipation a benefit 1 Doubtless the fruit 
 also, which the first man gathered in the terrestrial paradise, 
 was savory. And yet, this fruit was the forbidden fruit." 
 
 " Forbidden of God, and it is on that account, and that only, 
 that his action was a crime." 
 
 " I understand. You would say that the study of the Bible 
 has not been forbidden by God, but by the Church. But for 
 us, the voice of the Church is the voice of God." 
 
 " Even when its commands are contrary to those of God ?"
 
 140 KABAUT AND BRIDAINE, OR 
 
 " It must be proved, in the first place, that this contradiction 
 exists." 
 
 " Let us stop, Monsieur. I have not, in truth, the courage 
 to commence the demonstration -which you require. When a 
 Catholic sincerely accepts the combat, on the ground of the 
 Bible, / then feel tempted to refuse ; my adversary appears 
 to me, from this very fact, so little of a Catholic, that I should 
 fear, by exciting him, to make him still less so. I prefer sim- 
 ply to send him to the inspired book which he consents to 
 adopt as an arbitrator ; at furthest, I venture to point out two 
 or three questions which I should wish him to address to him- 
 self ; but solemnly, in the presence of this book, between his 
 conscience and God." 
 
 " And these questions ?" 
 
 " You wish to hear them 1 The first is this : ' among the 
 teachings of the Church, are there none of which I never should 
 have dreamed, neither I, nor any other person, if we had had 
 no other guide but the Scriptures ? Should I have found, for 
 instance, the mass, confession, purgatory, the worship of saints ? 
 Should I have seen in the Bible, in particular, either an inter- 
 diction to read it, or anything whatever, which could make me 
 believe in the future possibility of such an interdiction V This 
 is the first question." 
 
 " And now my turn," said Bridaine. 
 
 " Allow me to continue. My three questions are so con- 
 nected, that I must beg you to hear me to the end before re- 
 plying." 
 
 " Let us hear." 
 
 " The second, then, is this : ' among these things which I 
 should not have found in the Scriptures, how many are there 
 which the Scriptures really appear to teach or authorize, and 
 which I find it possible to prove from the Scriptures ?' The
 
 THE COURT OP LOUIS XV. 141 
 
 third and last is this ; ' I may, it is true, draw from another 
 source, tradition. But can I seriously believe that doctrines 
 so important in theory, so universally applicable in practice, 
 would have been omitted, or so vaguely indicated in the Scrip- 
 tures? Can I believe, for example, that mass, confession, 
 purgatory, not to take up any other points, these things 
 which occupy so prominent a place in my life, in my worship, 
 in the books which I read or write, in the sermons which I hear 
 or preach. can I believe, I say, that if God had wished to 
 teach them, there would have been not one formal mention of 
 them in the whole of the New Testament 1 The apostles, it is 
 true, spoke more than they wrote ; but can I imagine them 
 writing two or three hundred pages, nay, twenty pages, ten 
 pages, without clearly mentioning one of those grave points, 
 which the Protestants deny 1 Is not the very fact that there 
 may be a doubt upon the subject, a contest, in objects of such 
 importance, a powerful opposing argument V ' This is what I 
 would have all the sincere, intelligent and pious men among 
 you, ask themselves ; this is the examination which I would 
 have you one day make yourself." 
 
 " And how do you know that I have not made it ?" inter- 
 rupted the missionary. 
 
 " How ? Because you are still a Catholic, still a priest. 
 What ! You have weighed, seriously weighed what Scripture 
 says, or rather does not say, upon the subject of mass, confess- 
 ion, purgatory, and yet have continued to perform the mass, 
 hear confession, and speak of the souls in purgatory ! You 
 have seen that the Virgin is scarcely mentioned in the Gospels, 
 totally forgotten in the Epistles, and you have persisted iu 
 recommending her worship as dating from the early days of the 
 Church, as established at the direction of God and of the apos- 
 tles ! You have found hi the Bible scores of invitations to read
 
 142 RABAUT AND BRIDAINE, OR 
 
 it, scores of things which exclude the idea of any restriction 
 whatever in these invitations; you have perceived that the 
 Fathers advise, recommend, prescribe universally by the read- 
 ing of it, and you interdict it !" 
 
 " I ? never." 
 
 " Never 1 Then I have no more to say upon that subject. 
 It is a matter between you and your Church. Its voice, you 
 say, is the voice of God. If God commanded me to take the 
 Bible away from my brethren, I should take great care not to 
 allow them to have it." 
 
 " I also, if the Church had absolutely interdicted it. Does 
 not the council of Trent authorize us to allow those to read it 
 whom we judge to be in a state to profit by it ?" 
 
 " Let all the people, let everybody read it then, for if there 
 is one thing which the Fathers appeared to lay down clearly, it 
 is precisely this, that the Scripture is written for all, good for 
 all, necessary for all." 
 
 "Other times, other laws." 
 
 " Undoubtedly ; but in this case we ought to be able to for 
 get how the law came to be made. It was an after-thought ; 
 it was when the resuscitated Bible menaced the institutions, the 
 doctrines, the very existence of your church, that you concluded 
 to forbid it. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, when it 
 was less read than ever, still there was no law yet made to 
 forbid the reading of it. In the sixteenth, when it accidentally 
 fell into the hands of Luther, Luther then broke no law in 
 reading it. The council was held, and' the prohibition given ; 
 a bold but dangerous admission of that which we have repeated 
 to you for two centuries past, namely, that you cannot stand 
 before the Bible, and that there will forever be a mortal enmity 
 between it and you. You allow those to read it, you say, 
 whom you judge to be in a state to profit by it. But even if
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 143 
 
 all your colleagues should do the same, which they do not, 
 even if there were not, on the contrary, a very great number 
 of them who do not study it themselves, yet, is it enough 
 only to allow it ? What should you think of a cure who allowed 
 his people to go to mass, to confess, to commune ? What 
 would Augustine, Jerome, Chrysostom, have thought of a priest 
 of their day who confined himself to allowing what they recom- 
 mended with so much earnestness, to the ignorant as well as 
 the learned, to the poor as well as the rich 1 ' Other times 
 other laws,' you say. I know that these same Fathers com- 
 plained occasionally of the errors to which this liberty was 
 liable ; but what conclusion did they draw from it 1 That the 
 faithful must be deprived of it ? No. The only remedy which 
 occurred to them for the mistakes which might occur in reading 
 the Bible, was a more frequent and more attentive perusal of 
 it. And, on the other hand, there is nothing more embarrass- 
 ing for a defender of your church than the very nature of the 
 differences of which they complained. How comes it that 
 among these heresiarchs, who might be numbered by hundreds, 
 and who so profoundly discussed all questions of discipline and 
 doctrine, none attacked those which were attacked by the re- 
 formers ? Why do we not see those who carried independence 
 so far as to declare it unlimited, and without law of any kind, 
 attacking confession ? Why do not those who wished to have 
 no clergy attack the pope 1 Why do not those who wish to 
 have their worship without any ceremony whatever speak of 
 abolishing the mass"? Those who declared Christ to be a 
 simple doctor, why do not they make mention of the refusal 
 of their homage to the Virgin ? Let this be explained, or I 
 must be allowed to conclude that in the early ages there was 
 neither pope, nor confession, nor mass, nor anything of the 
 kind ; for you, I imagine, are not one of those who dare to
 
 144 RABAUT AND BRIDAINE, OR 
 
 assert that if these things were not attacked, it was because 
 they were then universally admitted, and beyond all dispute." 
 
 " We do not deny," said Bridaine, " that certain doctrines 
 and practices have, in course of time, received a wider develop- 
 ment than at the period of their origin. But you forget that 
 on the other hand, we contend for a perpetual intervention of 
 God in all that is said or done by the church. These develop 
 ments, accordingly, are as true, as sacred as the foundation. 
 Even if you prove that we are not exactly what we were 
 fifteen or sixteen centuries ago, what will you gain by if? 
 Because a man is more developed at thirty than at twenty, will 
 you dispute his right to present himself as the same individual, 
 to bear the same name, to inherit the same patrimony V 
 
 " No," said Rabaut ; " I will deny him nothing which he has 
 indisputably possessed from his birth, or in virtue of his birth ; 
 but I must ask to see his title to anything additional which he 
 may claim. Where is your title ? Can we reasonably permit 
 you to say, ' Believe, for the church is infallible?' In order to 
 believe, upon her own assertion, in her infallibility, it must 
 first be believed that she is not mistaken in this assertion. If 
 I am not persuaded of this beforehand, what good will her 
 assertion do me 1 If you have titles, they are not, they cannot 
 in fact, be anywhere but in the Bible. If all other rights were 
 yours, yoi/ have at least no right to conceal these titles from 
 those who wish to see them with their own eyes before be- 
 lieving in them." 
 
 " To conceal them, no ; but the right to keep them out of 
 the hands of those who would not be able to read them with 
 profit, is given us by reason itself. Do you ask a father by 
 what right he takes from his children those books which, in his 
 opinion, they cannot read with safety ?" 
 
 " You move in a circle, and there is no subject which does
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 145 
 
 not immediately bring your Church, if she be a little pressed, 
 back to the same point. As soon as you reason, you not only 
 lose all your advantages, but you place yourselves necessarily 
 outside of all the rules of logic. A debate of any kind whatso- 
 ever, supposes the possibility of a defeat ; but you are forced 
 to announce beforehand that you will not yield, that you cannot 
 yield. All debate is thus on your part an illusion ; the only 
 part which you can play in accordance with your principles, is 
 that of ordering, of constraining. Accordingly, nothing is 
 more confused, nothing more equivocal, than the regulations 
 made at Trent on the subject of the reading and interpretation 
 of the sacred books. They dared not positively interdict it ; 
 they could not permit it. It was necessary to give with one 
 hand, and take back with the other. Nothing can be more 
 curious than the discussions to which the preparation of the 
 decree gave rise ; and the decree had scarcely appeared, before 
 it was pronounced at Rome still too liberal. Three months 
 after the close of the council, Pius IV. interpreted it as an 
 almost absolute prohibition ; and it is not ten years since the 
 inquisitor-general * dared to write, ' Some men have carried 
 their audacity to the execrable extremity" 1 of reading the Bible 1 
 No, ' of asking permission to read the Bible !' Thus it is in 
 Spain, the most Catholic kingdom. Is it different elsewhere ? 
 You cannot mention a country in which your church does not 
 employ against the Bible all her available power and influence. 
 Where she allows it to be read, it is only because she cannot 
 prevent it. Where she can still burn those who read it, sho 
 does so. Where she can only burn the Bible itself " 
 
 Bridaine started. Rabaut paused a few seconds. 
 
 " Conscience has spoken," he resumed. " I see that I have 
 touched a sore spot in your heart. Courage, my friend ! Take 
 * Perez del Pi-ado, 1750.
 
 146 RABAUT AND BRIDAINE, OR 
 
 out those two leaves which I saw you pick up in the court of 
 the palace, for I was there, you know." 
 
 He took them out. 
 
 The book which had been torn and burnt by the hand of the 
 hangman, in the year of grace 1760, at Paris, in company with 
 the Esprit of Ilelvctius, the Human Plant of Lamettrie, and 
 the Chinese Letters of d'Argens, was the New Testament. 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 THE BOOK WHICH WAS BURNT IN THE COURT OF THE PALACE. 
 
 CHOOSING A TEXT. SUPREME AUTHORITY OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 And the three sat there motionless, contemplating with 
 various emotions these two leaves, torn, blackened, soiled with 
 mud. 
 
 With Bridaine the emotion was one of confusion, of shame ; 
 it was the painful dejection of a man condemned to submit to 
 an obligation against which his heart revolts. He did not 
 acknowledge himself conquered, but he had no longer strength, 
 nor courage, nor wish to combat. 
 
 With Rabaut it was a mingling of pity for his adversary, 
 indignation against an impious despotism, and, above all, love 
 for this sacred book so insultingly profaned. He would have 
 wished to kiss these pages, as the sacred remains of the mar- 
 tyrs of old were reverently kissed among the ashes of the stake. 
 
 And with his friend it was indignation of a cooler sort, as 
 well as the pity of a thoughtful man for those who imagined 
 that by burning a little paper, they could arrest the flight of 
 conscience and of thought. 
 
 " Give me these leaves," said the minister, at length. " I 
 will keep them as a souvenir of my journey to Paris."
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 147 
 
 " Here they are," said the priest. " But no ; not yet. I 
 wish to read them ; I wish also that they should serve me, as 
 I am going to preach in a few days." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " I will take my text from them." 
 
 Bridaine was glad of this kind of expiation which had 
 occurred to him. He joined thereby, as far as a Catholic 
 could, in the sorrow of having seen the Bible burned ; he 
 offered to God and to the two Protestants a reparation for the 
 outrage upon the sacred book. 
 
 He even wished to go farther. " Help me to choose one," 
 he said. 
 
 They took one of the two leaves. There was a fragment 
 from the book of Acts. 
 
 " I will read," said Rabaut. " Give it to me. 
 
 " ' they came to Thessalonica, where there was a syna- 
 gogue of the Jews.* 
 
 " ' And Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three 
 Sabbath days reasoned with them out of the Scriptures ' " 
 
 Rabaut paused without raising his eyes. Gebelin smiled. 
 And, in fact, after the discussion which had just taken place, 
 these last words were strangely pointed. 
 
 " ' Opening and alleging that Christ must needs have suffered, 
 and risen again from the dead? " 
 
 Then came several illegible lines. 
 
 " ' they drew certain brethren unto the rulers of the city, 
 
 crying, These that have turned the world upside down are come 
 hither also.' " 
 
 " They were really very foolish," said Gebelin. " Why did 
 they not quietly follow the religion of their fathers ? What 
 folly to wish to change what had been in existence for so many 
 * Acts, xviL
 
 148 RABAUT AND BRIDAINE, OR 
 
 centuries! The Jewish Church, moreover, had received the 
 most magnificent promises from God. What temerity to 
 suppose it degenerate, and capable of being mistaken !" 
 
 " Are we to re-commence our discussion ?" asked the mis- 
 sionary. 
 
 " I beg pardon I had forgotten." 
 
 " Those who are persecuted," said Rabaut, " find it difficult 
 not to seize, especially in the Scriptures, all that may appear 
 to them an allusion to their misfortunes." 
 
 " Pardon," repeated Gebelin. " And yet, since the subject 
 was mentioned, permit me to ask whether the comparison 
 which I hinted at has never presented itself to your mind 1 
 You enumerate promises which indicate, according to you, that 
 your church cannot be wrong ; and that, consequently, when 
 she condemns us, we are justly and fitly condemned. I do not 
 wish at this moment to discuss these promises. I admit that 
 it is to you, to you alone, that they are and can be addressed. 
 But the Jews received far more magnificent ones " 
 
 " For a time." 
 
 " Agreed ; but allow me to finish. They received much 
 clearer promises, I say, since there was no one among them 
 who dreamed of doubting; whilst there have always been, 
 even before our day, some Christians who did not interpret as 
 you do, the aid promised to the church. These promises, 
 moreover, had been confirmed by facts. God had presided 
 visibly, as it were, over the destiny of His people ; He had 
 not ceased to watch, not only in the ordinary way, but by 
 special ministers, by prophets, over the purity of the faith 
 preached by Moses. Thus the Jews had all the reasons for 
 believing in the infallibility of their church, which you have for 
 believing in the infallibility of yours ; they had them corrobo- 
 rated by the history of many ages, during which the Divine
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 149 
 
 manifestation had been plain and incontrovertible. This as- 
 surance, you say, was only for a time. Yes ; but it was to 
 last at least until the moment when they should pass under 
 another law. When the body of doctors denied that Jesus 
 was the Christ, what sign was there that they were not the 
 only and true directors of the nation ? None. Nothing had 
 yet announced that the primitive promises were not still in 
 force. And yet they were grossly mistaken. You also, even 
 if there were ages when you could not be mistaken, you may 
 be mistaken now ; and if the high priest erred in not receiving 
 the Christian law, may not the bishop of Rome have erred in 
 anathematizing Luther and his companions ? So that " 
 
 " Do not urge the question," said Rabaut. " He could not 
 read a line which would not furnish materials for observations 
 of this kind. I continue. 
 
 " ' and these all do contrary to the decrees of Ccesar ' " 
 
 But Court again interrupted. 
 
 " Yes ; not a line, in fact, in this picture of the persecutions 
 of those days, which does not seem written for us, and against 
 the laws which oppress us. ' They do contrary to the decrees 
 of Caesar,' was said at Rome. ' They do contrary to the decrees 
 of the king,' you repeat in France ; and thereupon " 
 
 " I never have thought it right," said Bridaine, " that civil 
 authority should intervene in matters of faith." 
 
 " You condemn persecution T' 
 
 "I abhor it." 
 
 " God be praised ! Here is at least one. But how, then, 
 how can you remain the minister and friend of a church which 
 persecutes ? How, at least, can you help rebelling against the 
 horrors with which she pollutes herself?" 
 
 " Monsieur Rabaut has seen me at work among the Protest- 
 a"ts of Languedoc. Let him say whether I had recourse to "
 
 150 RABAUT AND BRIDAINE, OR 
 
 "No," replied Rabaut, "but you do not answer. You 
 preached indulgence, it is true ; you did not wish, you said, 
 any other weapon but persuasion ; but you knew very well that 
 before you, behind you, on each side of you were men animat- 
 ed by very different principles. You knew that these Protest- 
 ants to whom you never addressed yourself otherwise than as 
 brothers, were treated like enemies, like slaves, like the off- 
 scouring of humanity. When and to whom have you ever 
 said plainly that there should be freedom of conscience, that 
 God alone has the power and the right to direct it, that it is an 
 abuse and a sacrilege to come between God and conscience? 
 When and to whom have you ever said but pardon ! It is 
 not you but your Church who must be appealed to. The 
 employment of force is a necessary, inevitable, fatal conse- 
 quence of the principles which she has laid down. As soon as 
 she no longer has power in her hands, as soon as, for one reason 
 or another, she ceases to employ it, what is she more than any 
 other church 1 As soon as she talks of reasoning, of persuad- 
 ing, of convincing, what is Rome more than Geneva ?" 
 
 " And her unity ?" said Bridaine, " and the co-operation of 
 so many millions of men ?" 
 
 " In a worldly point of view it is clear that the position is a 
 much better one. You undoubtedly possess all that would 
 make those who are disposed to receive a religion ready made, 
 cast themselves into your arms rather than into those of our 
 ministers. What I meant to say, and what you will not deny, 
 is that constraint once done away with, a reflecting man feels 
 himself immediately as free in respect to your instructions as 
 ours. Unity, numbers, seniority, all these are nothing more 
 than a presumption in your favor, it is true, but which cannot 
 be weighed against arguments, against facts. I repeat it ; do 
 away with constraint and you have nothing more than we have.
 
 THE COURT OP LOUIS XV. 151 
 
 Is it not proved at this very time ? We have been discussing 
 with you for nearly an hour. Have you found that the unity, 
 the infallibility of your Church have given you any advantage 
 over us 1 Have you even endeavored by argument to con- 
 vince us of this unity, this infallibility ? These latter are no 
 arguments, as you must feel, except with those already con- 
 vinced or disposed to be so without examination. In themselves 
 they prove nothing, for they themselves must always be proved 
 in the first place, and then we are again on those grounds of 
 logical reasoning, to which nothing else has a right to resort 
 but simple good sense and history. If we had given up just 
 now, would it have been because you are the organ of one 
 Church rather than another 1 By no means. We would have 
 yielded to your reasons, that is to say, to the authority of 
 reason, not to that of a man or of a Church. If we do not 
 yield, if your reasons appear to us insufficient, what can you do 
 more than any other doctor? What can your Church do? 
 There is no medium : she must either leave us in peace, or 
 persecute us. And in this, permit me to remark, we see the 
 first chastisement of her pride. She must be exclusive, intol- 
 erant, and cruel, or else she immediately descends to the 
 level of those sects of which she speaks with so much contempt. 
 She cannot remain what she is without constantly compromis- 
 ing herself yet more in the eyes of humanity and reason ; she 
 cannot change without forswearing herself." 
 
 " Toleration, I see," said Bridaine, " would not find you very 
 grateful." 
 
 " We would be very grateful towards the men who might 
 grant us toleration, although, strictly speaking, there is no oc- 
 casion to be grateful for the cessation of an injustice ; as for 
 your Church, there is no likelihood of her furnishing us, of her 
 own free will, an opportunity of being ungrateful."
 
 152 RABAUT AND BRIDAINE, OR 
 
 " How do you know ? A pamphlet has recently appeared " 
 
 " The Conciliator, you mean ?" 
 
 " Yes. You would subscribe to it almost entirely." 
 
 " That is true." 
 
 " Do you know by whom it was written 1" 
 
 " Not by a priest, certainly." 
 
 " You are mistaken. It is by the abbe de Brienne, grand 
 vicar of the archbishop of Rouen." 
 
 " Indeed ? Well, let us wait until he becomes archbishop 
 himself. If he persists I shall confess myself vanquished." 
 
 "You are inexorable." 
 
 "It is because I know with whom we have to deal. You 
 have no lack of those young priests, who half from liberality, 
 half from infidelity,* emulate each other as to who shall be most 
 tolerant. But once in possession of office, and what has become 
 of all this fine talk ? Within a few years, many of those who 
 were most distinguished in the saloons of Paris for the breadth 
 and generosity of their views, have risen to the episcopal 
 dignity. What have they done for us ? Or rather what have 
 they not done against us 1 It is quite simple. As soon as a 
 man becomes one of the heads of the church, he must deny her 
 tenets, or do as she does. After the frightful anathemas with 
 which your popes have loaded us, what bishops could treat us 
 as brethren ? After the encouragement given by your Church 
 to those sovereigns who persecute us, after the pompous 
 eulogiums so often showered by her upon those who have done 
 us the most injury, who, without condemning her, could blame 
 that which she has so often counselled, so often ordered, so often 
 commended ! No, no ! We shall never obtain anything from 
 her. If toleration is to be established, it will not be without 
 
 * The abbe de Brieune was closely connected with the abb de 
 Morellet
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 153 
 
 her having struggled till the last moment to maintain intoler- 
 ance. If peace be established, the Church may submit to it ; 
 but as to extending her hand to it, never 1" 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 INTOLERANCE OF THE C1ERGT. 
 
 Was Gcbelin too severe ? It might be thought so then, es- 
 pecially in the presence of Bridaine ; but events have proved 
 that he was but too correct. It is known that the clergy 
 struggled to the very last, against the tolerant views of Louis 
 XVI. and his council. And as for this very abbe Brienne, (the 
 author of the pamphlet on toleration,) he thus expresses him- 
 self after becoming an archbishop, in an address to this king 
 upon the occasion of his coronation, when he had been made to 
 swear, according to custom, " honestly to exterminate all 
 heretics." 
 
 " You will reject, Sire, the counsels of a false peace, the sys- 
 tems of a guilty toleration. We implore you to do so ; do not 
 delay to deprive error of the hope of having temples and altars 
 among us ; complete the work begun by Louis the Great, and 
 continued by Louis the Well-beloved. It is reserved for you 
 to give the finishing stroke to Calvinism in your kingdom. 
 Order that the assemblies of the Protestants shall be dispersed. 
 Exclude sectarians without distinction from all branches of the 
 public administration ; and you will assure to your subjects the 
 unity of a true Christian worship."
 
 154 RABAUT AXD BRIDAINE, OR 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 BRIDAINE CHOOSES HIS TEXT. UNIVERSAL DIFFUSION OF KNOWL 
 
 EDGE AFTER THE REFORMATION. 
 
 " God will judge," said Bridaine. 
 
 " God will judge," said Rabaut. " Let us continue. 
 
 " 'And they troubled the people, and the rulers of the city when 
 they heard those things. 
 
 " 'And when they had taken security of Jason and of the other, 
 they let them go. 
 
 " 'And the brethren immediately sent away Paul and Silas by 
 night unto Berea, who coming thither, went into the synagogue 
 of the Jews. 
 
 " ' These were more noble than those of Thessalonica, in that 
 they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched 
 the Scriptures daily whether these things were so." 1 " 
 
 Rabaut without pausing, had emphasized these last words. 
 
 "Well?" said Gebelin. 
 
 " Well ?" said the missionary. 
 
 " I will not ask you," continued Gebelin, " for it would be 
 almost a sarcasm, if you will take that for a text ; but let me 
 ask you once more, seriously, fraternally, what you make of 
 these lines. Here are people to whom it does not appear as 
 if even an apostle should be believed on his mere assertion ; 
 here is the companion of the labors of the apostle Saint Luke, 
 author of the book of Acts, who is not contented with looking 
 upon it as very natural, but who praises them very highly for 
 it. They believed, but only when they found in the Scrip- 
 tures " 
 
 " In what Scriptures, if you please ? In the Old Testament,
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 155 
 
 in the prophecies which predicted Jesus Christ. Nothing more 
 natural, as you say, than to consult them, since their object 
 was to aid the Jews in recognizing the Messiah. Is it the same 
 with the New Testament ? Are the books which it contains of 
 such a nature that their contents can and must be known only 
 by reading them ? Have you not yourselves, in your churches, 
 people who do not read them ? People who do not know how 
 to read ?" 
 
 " As for the last, we have scarcely any of them ; and it is no 
 small praise to the Reformation, be it said en passant, that it 
 has done so much from its very commencement for the instruc- 
 tion of the masses. ' Where two or three could read before,' 
 says Luther, somewhere, ' you will now scarcely find two or 
 three who cannot.' And if it were not so, what would that 
 prove ? Is a law just and good only provided every one chooses 
 to profit by it 1 Because in a Church there are people who do 
 not know how to read, and who do not care to know, shall this 
 Church have the right to exact that I shall accept as they do, a 
 religion ready made, and that I shall give up the right to ex- 
 amine it ? Confess, my friend, confess that you are ill at ease 
 when you are forced to give to intelligent, conscientious, re- 
 flecting men, such reasons as these ! Are you perchance igno- 
 rant with what vigor they were refuted in the early ages by 
 these same writers whose authority in all other matters appears 
 to you so high and so holy ? A folio volume might be made of 
 all that they have said upon this subject. There is one sermon 
 especially, of Chrysostom, which one might believe written by 
 a Protestant of our day, so clearly and directly does it reply 
 to the objections made to us. ' When we receive money,' he 
 says, ' we wish to count it ourselves ; and when things divine 
 are at stake, shall we shut our eyes and seize the offered 
 opinions of others ] Consult then the Scriptures.' But they
 
 156 RABAUT AND BIUDAINE, OR 
 
 are not plain enough. ' The Holy Spirit, he continues. ' has 
 confided the writing of them to unlettered men, in order that 
 all, even the most ignorant, may understand and profit by the 
 Word.' But have we time to occupy ourselves with these 
 things ? ' Let no one present these miserable pretexts to me ; 
 I must gain a livelihood ; I must bring up my children. It is 
 not for me to read the Scriptures, but for those who have re- 
 tired from the business of the age. Poor man ! Is it because 
 thou art distracted by a thousand cares, that it is not thy busi- 
 ness to read the word of God 1 Why thou hast far more need 
 of it than those who have retired from the world to give all 
 their time to God.' Thus speaks Chrysostom. Do you find 
 one of the Fathers who does not say about the same, one 
 who has preached from the Bible without recommending and 
 prescribing the reading of it, one, in short, who has put any 
 other restrictions to this right, to this duty, rather, than the 
 obligation to read it with attention and respect ? No, no ! no 
 more of these idle reasons in which you yourself do not be- 
 lieve. The true, the only reason is, that you are afraid of the 
 Bible." 
 
 "Afraid! Good God!" cried Bridaine. "Afraid of the 
 Bible !" 
 
 " Not you, as a Christian," said Eabaut. " Certainly not. 
 I know well enough that you love it ; I know with what ad- 
 mirable vigor you set forth its instructions. But it is one 
 thing to talk of it in the pulpit, and another to place it in the 
 hands of the faithful. In the pulpit, when you can quote it in 
 support of your assertions, you do so ; when you cannot, you 
 let it pass, but you do not say that you cannot. The hearer 
 who has confidence in you, supposes always that you can. 
 Never having seen the book as a whole, he imagines it contain- 
 ing in the plainest manner, all that you teach him ; he cannot
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 151 
 
 doubt that these things all occupy a place in it, proportionate 
 to the importance which they have in your Church. This is 
 an error which the sincerest among you are forced to abstain 
 from correcting. Thus every priest, even the most disposed to 
 love, to quote the Bible, and to communicate all its pages one 
 after the other to his flock, is necessarily afraid of putting it 
 into their hands entire. He feels that they would not find it 
 what they must imagine it to be, from the instructions and 
 practices of the Church ; he is alarmed to think what great 
 gaps the most submissive of the faithful, if he reflect a little, 
 cannot fail to find in it. But for the last time let us go on. 
 I do not ask you to answer. I ask no justification. We are 
 not your judges. God will judge, as you said just now. Let 
 us continue." 
 
 " Go on." 
 
 " Ah ! here is half a page entirely illegible. It was the dis- 
 course of Saint Paul in the Areopagus. Shall we take the 
 other?" 
 
 " No ; I said that I would take my text from this leaf." 
 
 " But there is nothing more. Ah ! yes, here is one more 
 verse. 
 
 " Because God hath appointed a day in which he will judge 
 the world." 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 DUTIES OF PREACHERS AND HEARERS. 
 
 " That is it !" exclaimed the missionary. " That sums up 
 admirably what I have to say to these fine lords, to these grand 
 ladies, who look upon it as a merry-making. I am told, to come 
 and hear me preach ! I will make them perceive, at" least 
 once, in its most terrible aspect, that religion which they make,
 
 158 BABAUT AND BRIDAINE, OB 
 
 or which is made for them, so large, so easy, so convenient. I 
 was hesitating ; was asking myself if I would not do better 
 to avoid such a sensation. But no. I am decided. It is the 
 will of Grd. He has spoken to me by this leaf." 
 
 " Good," said Rabaut ; " it is well, brother ! I love to see 
 this confidence and earnestness. What should we poor laborers 
 for the Lord do, if we did not feel ourselves from time to time 
 under His immediate direction ? Go, speak. It is He who 
 sends you to this crowd of brilliant sinners." 
 
 " Perhaps so. But He has sent so many others to them, 
 and so many others have failed !" 
 
 " Discouraged already ?" 
 
 " No. But every time that I go into the pulpit, I cannot 
 help asking myself, What will remain in a month, in a week, in 
 a few hours, of the discourse which is to be listened to ? What, 
 after all, am I going to do, I think to myself, if not to render 
 ' almost all my audience more guilty ? They know all that I 
 am going to tell them. They have been a thousand times 
 reproved for the same things in regard to which I am now 
 going to reprove them. They have promised a thousand times 
 all that I am now going to make them promise. O lamentable 
 dissimulation, where He who is deceived is God !" 
 
 " Alas !" said the minister, " how many times have I thought 
 the same thing within myself! I am less exposed than you, 
 it is true, to preach to an audience who come for form's sake. 
 I scarcely preach to any people but those who, in addition to 
 our habitual perils, must brave cold, heat, rain, snow, and dis- 
 tance, in order to hear me. Even if all these sacrifices did not 
 prepare their hearts to receive religious impressions, it would 
 still be natural that they should endeavor to profit by a sermon 
 so de*arly bought. But unhappily, in the country as in the 
 city, beneath the vault of heaven as well as beneath those of
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 159 
 
 your temples, human nature is, and always has been, the same. 
 I also have often asked myself whether, in preaching to those 
 who listened little or carelessly, I ought not to fear aggravating 
 their responsibility in the sight of God. But what is to be 
 done? Must we give up preaching the gospel? Must we 
 soften it so much, that our hearers, in violating it, shall be as 
 little guilty as possible ? God forbid ! And yet I think that 
 there is a way of profiting by your remark ; I think that the 
 preacher, without weakening any of the commands or threats 
 of the word of God, can and ought to avoid a too frequent 
 presentation of those to which he positively knows that his 
 hearers will pay but little attention. It is a sort of charity, 
 which, like all others, may degenerate into weakness ; but it 
 should not on that account be given up. I do not like to hear 
 death, the judgment, and hell, brought forward on every 
 occasion. 
 
 ' Nee Deus inter sit, nisi dignus vindice nodus' 
 
 I will willingly say with Horace. Not that the thought of God 
 and of eternity ought not to breathe forth from your smallest 
 words. Let it hover unceasingly above your audience, but 
 always too high for them to grow familiar with the holy ter- 
 rors which accompany it. It is only a poor commander who 
 would bring forward the whole of his army on every occasion. 
 Nothing leads more surely to success than to know, on all 
 occasions, exactly what energy and force to employ." 
 
 "And yet," observed Bridaine, "this precept is perhaps 
 more correct in rhetoric than in religion. There are no little 
 sins, strictly speaking. All displease God, if not equally, at 
 least sufficiently to prevent any true Christian from ever saying 
 to himself, ' This is one from which it is not worth while to 
 abstain.' But that which true Christians do not say, the
 
 160 BABAUT AND BRIDAINE, OR 
 
 wicked, who are the great majority, have a great inclination to 
 say. If they at last perceive that you reserve your thrcaten- 
 ings for sins of a graver sort, will they not feel themselves 
 more and more authorized to think that there are little sins, 
 which leads immediately to the conclusion that they may be 
 committed without fear of consequences ?" 
 
 "Your remark is correct," said Rabaut. "I may even add, 
 that it astonishes me to hear it from your lips, and that this is 
 another point in regard to which, you without knowing it, are 
 better than your Church. Nothing can be more unchristian, as 
 you said, than the division of sins into trivial and important ; 
 but what else in reality is your division of them into venial 
 and mortal? However that may be, to return to your idea, I 
 think that it would in fact be very dangerous in certain cases, 
 to manifest an intention to allow the great terrors of the law to 
 rest undisturbed. But it is one thing to soften them, to cover 
 them, to be false in short, to the ministry, and another to ab- 
 stain from scattering them too plentifully at the risk of leading 
 people to pay no more attention to them. A preacher who 
 can do nothing without having recourse to this extremity, is 
 like the wagoner held fast in the mud, who invokes the gods, 
 instead of disengaging his wheels ; or if you choose, he is like 
 him who cannot hold his whip without cracking it every mo- 
 ment, so that his horses at length take no more notice of it. 
 Once having adopted this style, it is difficult to abandon it. It 
 is only the most violent efforts which still from time to time 
 gain some little attention, and produce some few results. 
 These great resources which have been so miserably worn out 
 must then be rejuvenated by grandiose expressions ; this pal- 
 try mixture of a merely human style, will destroy the little 
 of true grandeur which may have remained." 
 
 " I believe in truth," added Bridaine, " that when we com-
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 161 
 
 plain of the little impression produced by the grandest ideas, 
 we ought often te begin by seeing if it is not more or less our 
 own fault. A cook, (excuse me the comparison, it will go 
 with that of the wagoner ; ) a cook, I say, who saw the finest 
 and most highly-seasoned dishes received with indifference, 
 would doubtless have reason to complain of the guests ; but he 
 would be very wrong at the same time, to put himself out of 
 the question, and not to inquire in what respect he himself 
 may have contributed to the ill success of which he complains. 
 To return to ourselves, I believe nothing would be more in- 
 structive than an examination of this sort. It would be a new, 
 interesting, and eminently practical manner of studying pulpit 
 eloquence. 
 
 " I understand," said the minister. " A conscientious preacher 
 cannot fail to have sometimes, by instinct, followed the method 
 you mention ; but the study would gain by being systematized. 
 In place of proceeding, as is generally the case, from the rules 
 to their application, we should go from the application to the 
 rules ; in place of asking what must be done, we should analyse 
 what we have done ; in short, instead of discussing the results 
 to be obtained, we should examine those that have been ob- 
 tained, and according to what is lacking in these, we may per- 
 ceive what has been faulty in our manner of proceeding. It 
 would be the best method of keeping constantly in view not 
 only the secondary and conventional object of writing more or 
 less correct, or more or less eloquent sermons ; but the true 
 and only object, that of instructing or regenerating. Let us not 
 ask, ' what must I say in order to persuade them ?' but, ' what 
 would be necessary to persuade me .' A true preacher beholds 
 himself seated among his audience. For him, the first sinner 
 to be condemned, is himself. This position, I know, is diffi- 
 cult to take, difficult to keep."
 
 162 RABAUT AND BRIDAINE, OR 
 
 " Almost impossible," said the missionary ; " and this, when 
 T examine myself in the presence of God, is one of my chief 
 subjects of confusion. How many times, after a long and 
 vehement sermon, have I suddenly perceived that I had taken 
 none of it to myself; that it had not even entered my mind to 
 do so! How many times have I not even perceived this 
 omission! And how can we be surprised, after that, that 
 others quit the church as we do the pulpit ! Always the story 
 of the mote and the beam, alas ! We complain that we are 
 unheeded by our hearers, and we do not even heed ourselves." 
 
 " Or we heed ourselves too much." 
 
 " It is the same thing : forgetfulness of the substance is 
 closely connected with an undue attention to the form. Here, 
 surely, we are not altogether in fault. However able or pious 
 a preacher may be, he must pay more or less attention to his 
 words, his phrases. If he extemporizes, he must seek them ; 
 if he recites, he must recollect them. But what preacher can 
 boast of never having given more attention to the form of his 
 discourse than was strictly necessary ? Who will assert that 
 he has never sought in the looks and motions of his audience 
 the human and worldly effects of his words ? Ah ! we say 
 often enough, in theory, that we must desire the safety of souls 
 before all else ; but even among those whose chief aim it is, 
 find me one who has not frequently been more occupied with 
 his human than his spiritual success, and more pained by the 
 failure of one sermon than the fruitlessness of twenty others !" 
 
 " Gentlemen," said Gebelin, " reassure yourselves. These 
 are things in regard to which, if a man feels his weakness, that 
 very fact makes him strong. Socrates was right in believing 
 himself to have learned much, when he had learned to know 
 that he knew nothing. And that which he said of human 
 wisdom, the gospel authorizes us to say of the wisdom of God.
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 163 
 
 Christian perfection in all things is less to be perfect, than to 
 feel conscious of our imperfections. As for myself, if I did not 
 already know that you are perhaps the most worthy in this age 
 to speak in the name of God, what I have just heard would 
 be sufficient to convince me." 
 
 " Enough !" they exclaimed. 
 
 "Enough," repeated the minister. "Since, according to 
 your own opinion, it is our humility which constitutes our only 
 merit, do not deprive us of it by praises on which our poor 
 hearts are but too much inclined to feast themselves. Let us 
 rather continue our reading. You have a text, Monsieur. It 
 is now my turn." 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 RABAUT'S TEXT . R OMAN FISCAL CODE. 
 
 " Your turn ?" said the missionary, astonished. 
 
 " Yes, I wish one also. I read for you, read now for me." 
 
 " Shall we discuss, as we go on ]" 
 
 " Why not f 
 
 " Because we have discussed only too much already." 
 
 " Are we less friends than before ?" 
 
 " I hope not." 
 
 " You hope ? / am sure." 
 
 Bridaine took the other leaf and read : 
 
 " ' Go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.* 
 
 " ' And as ye go, preach, saying, the kingdom of Heaven is at 
 hand. 
 
 " ' Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out 
 devils ; freely ye have received, freely give? " 
 
 He stopped, and smiled. 
 
 * Groapel according to Saint Matthew. Chapter X.
 
 164 RABAUT AND BRIDAINE, OR 
 
 " If I had not picked up these leaves myself," he said, " I 
 would believ e that you had selected them." 
 
 " Is there then any necessity that we should select," said 
 Gebelin, " in order to stumble upon things which your Church 
 would like better to forget ?" 
 
 " Come," replied Bridaine, " I await the tempest." 
 
 " It will not be a very severe one," said Rabaut ; " you expect 
 too violent an attack, for I see from your manner that you are 
 no partisan of the Roman fiscal code, and that you like not to 
 see those sell, whose master said to them, ' Give.' " 
 
 " Yes, I confess it. If I had to order a reformation, I think 
 I should begin there, for there is nothing which does more in- 
 jury to religion, to the priests " 
 
 " To the priests doubtless, but more especially to religion. 
 I do riot speak of the attacks to which this system exposes it 
 from infidels, mockers and superficial men. Those are either 
 allowed to say what they will, or are required to observe, that 
 it is necessary the priest should live ; that if they wish to pay 
 nothing, they are free, etc. But there is a graver aspect ; it is 
 the moral degradation of religion, in the minds even of those 
 who pay without complaining, and who see nothing evil in the 
 custom of paying. One is confounded to perceive how com- 
 pletely holy things become, in their eyes, a merchandize like 
 any other ; but the final consequence of these perpetual pur- 
 chases, from baptism to burial, from the confessional to pur- 
 gatory, is the opinion, not actually taught by you, but none 
 the less profoundly engraved upon the hearts of multitudes, 
 that salvation may be purchased, and that the only necessity, 
 in fact, is to pay well for it. I do not enter, you perceive, upon 
 the irritating side of the question. I do not say, that your 
 priests receive by this means most exorbitant revenues ; I as- 
 sert, that of all the means of providing for the maintenance of
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 165 
 
 worship and of its ministers, this is the least compatible with 
 the true interests of religion and the true dignity of the minis, 
 try. The evil is not that recourse should have been had to it 
 at periods when it was perhaps necessary ; but that it should 
 not have been abandoned as soon and as universally as possi- 
 ble, that it should no longer be felt how vicious and fatal the 
 system is." 
 
 " I have shown you what I feel in regard to it," said Bridaine. 
 " I shall now continue. 
 
 " ' And whosoever shall not receive you nor hear your words, 
 when ye depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust of 
 your feet. 
 
 " ' Behold I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves. 
 Be ye' " 
 
 " You do not stop there f interrupted Eabaut. " If you 
 but knew how much we love, in the midst of all our sufferings, 
 to read these words of our Saviour to His disciples ! All these 
 gloomy prophecies, with which He mingled the glimpses of 
 His grace, are seized by us as so many appeals to our zeal, 
 and aids to us in our misery. ' Behold I send you forth as 
 sheep in the midst of wolves !' How many a time I have said 
 it, in the name of my Master, to the poor flocks lost among so 
 many adversaries, to the poor shepherds upon whom I, their 
 brother, laid my hands, sending them to their work with 
 almost the certainty that they were going to meet their death ! 
 Listen. In eighteen months, if I live, I have to officiate at one 
 of these ceremonies. I have a new sheep to send forth among 
 your wolves. It is my son. I shall preach on that day. This 
 shall be my text." 
 
 They looked at one another with deep emotion. Bridaine 
 could scarcely restrain his tears.
 
 166 RABAUT AND BRIDAINE, OR 
 
 " Give me my leaf," said Rabaut. " Here is yours. On 
 Monday then " 
 
 " You are coming to hear me preach again ?" 
 
 " Certainly. And you, shall you ever hear me ?" 
 
 " I hear you T 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 "But when?" 
 
 " When I preach from this text which you have given me." 
 
 " But where ?" 
 
 " I do not know." 
 
 But, then" 
 
 " God will order it. Adieu, I am going to see your pris- 
 oner." . 
 
 Rabaut departed, and a short time after, Bridaine quitted 
 Gebelin. 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 THE KING'S GAMBLING MONEY. WINES. THE OLD ELMS. 
 
 RICHELIEU'S IDEAS IN REGARD TO THE SUPREME 
 AUTHORITY OF KINGS. 
 
 Two or three days after this conversation, if we had been 
 permitted to enter the smaller apartments of the chateau of 
 Versailles, we should have found towards evening, in the same 
 room, seated upon the same arm-chairs, beside the same chim- 
 ney-piece, the two men whom we have already seen there on a 
 former occasion. 
 
 Now, as then, they had just returned from a walk in the 
 gardens ; now, as then, one of them had exhausted for the en- 
 tertainment of the other, all that the court and city could fur- 
 nish of anecdotes, news, and little or great scandals ; now, as 
 then, the one had become weary of listening, the other of relat-
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 167 
 
 ing, and ennui, after having followed them step by step among 
 the marvels of Le Notre and Marigny, had come and installed 
 itself before them beneath the shelter of the palace. 
 
 The king, however, was even sadder and more ennuye than 
 usual. The marquise de Pompadour had thought proper to 
 celebrate her sudden return to favor by a number of brilliant 
 fetes. The chateau of Bellevue had been illuminated ; the old 
 royal forests, so silent and solitary since the king no longer 
 went to the chase, had echoed with the sound of the horn, the 
 baying of the hounds, and the brisk gallop of the horses through 
 the pathways overgrown with bushes. But all these sounds 
 had failed to awaken an echo in the desolate heart of the 
 monarch. These gaily spent days only served to increase the 
 vacancy within ; and although he had beforehand, but little ex- 
 pectation of any other results, still he had groaned in secret to 
 find no other. Thus it is that the invalid declares in vain, that 
 he has no faith in the efforts made to save him ; it is still with 
 a painful stupefaction that he beholds his prediction confirmed. 
 
 In this state in which nothing can quiet his anguish, the 
 thing most calculated to increase it, is that there should still be 
 a remedy which occurs to him, but of which he is obliged to 
 deprive himself. 
 
 This painful increase of misery, the king had felt for some 
 days. 
 
 The emotions excited by gaming had been from his child- 
 hood one of his resources against his incurable ennui; but he 
 had been obliged to increase them gradually, like the drinker 
 who must have his wines stronger and stronger. For some 
 years past, mountains of gold had alone been able to stimulate 
 him sufficiently to prevent him from becoming as weary of this 
 as of everything else. He generally lost ; and as his dignity 
 exacted that in case he won he should restore in some other
 
 168 RABAUT AND BRIDAINE, OR 
 
 form all that he had gained, his gambling funds, as they were 
 called, formed one of the heaviest expenses of his private 
 budget. 
 
 Now the comptroller-general Monsieur de Silhouette, had 
 just required the suppression of this, either in order to lighten 
 general expenses or in order to authorize more important sup- 
 pressions. The king had submitted ; but he suffered very 
 much from it, and every day increased his suffering. 
 
 After having done his best to enliven him, Richelieu had 
 finished by holding his peace and sulking a little. These were 
 his usual tactics in order to force him to listen a little better, 
 or to gain his consent to some new pleasure, that is to say, some 
 new ennui. We saw that it aided him, the preceding week, 
 to bring the king once more under the old dominion of the 
 marquise. And on these occasions it was always the king who 
 took the first step. 
 
 " Richelieu," he said, " what are you thinking about 1" 
 
 " I ? nothing," replied the marshal. " I am too good a ser- 
 vant of your Majesty, ever to occupy myself otherwise than 
 you do." 
 
 " Here is a new sort of flattery ! When I see you commit- 
 ting a folly I am to conclude that I have just committed one 
 also ? But you are mistaken, Richelieu ! No ; I was very far 
 from thinking of nothing. Tell me, Monsieur the governor of 
 Guyenne, is there any drinkable wine in the Bordelais coun- 
 try?" 
 
 It often happened that the poor king cut short his sad 
 thoughts by seizing abruptly upon a subject which had, for that 
 matter, always been a favorite one of the Bourbons. From 
 father to son, this race eat and drank largely and with relish, 
 and it was no jest that among the three talents attributed by 
 the old song to Henry IV., their ancestor, was numbered that
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 169 
 
 of a " good drinker." None of them, however, with the excep- 
 tion of the regent, had carried it to excess ; but what was not 
 excess for them would have been so for many others. Louis 
 XIV. at the summit of his glory, and Louis XVI. surrounded 
 by his gaolers, submitted equally to the laws of their imperi- 
 ous appetite. It was still more natural that it should reign 
 despotically over a prince who had neither the distractions of 
 glory, nor the preocupations of misfortune. 
 
 The duke was accordingly not surprised at this curious in- 
 terpellation. The governors were accustomed to hear them- 
 selves questioned in regard to the best productions of their 
 provinces, and it would have been dangerous for any one com- 
 ing from Perigord to neglect the collection of all possible in- 
 formation in regard to the truffle crop. 
 
 It is true that the governor of Guyenne might have known 
 at this period, but little of the wines belonging to his jurisdic- 
 tion. To the shame of the fashion, be it said, the laughing hills 
 of the Bordelais had until now been little noticed. Neither the 
 king nor any one else at Versailles had in all probability ever 
 tasted their productions. He did not even ask if the wine were 
 good, but whether it was drinkable. 
 
 Happily, Richelieu, who was unceasingly upon the track of 
 something new, in gastronomy as in all else, had made a toler- 
 ably profound examination of the subject. 
 
 " Sire," he replied, " they have what they call white Sau- 
 terne, which, though far from being so good as that of Mon- 
 rachet, or that of the little slopes in Burgundy, is still not to be 
 despised. There is also a certain wine from Grave which 
 smacks of the flint like an old carabine. It resembles Moselle 
 wine but keeps better. They have besides in Medoc and 
 Bazadois, two or three sorts of red wine, of which they boast 
 a great deal. It is nectar fit for the gods, if one is to believe
 
 170 RABAUT AND BRIDAIXE, OR 
 
 them ; yet it is certainly not comparable to the wine of Upper 
 Burgundy. Its flavor is not bad, however, and it has an in- 
 describable sort of dull saturine acid which is not disagreeable. 
 Besides, one can drink as much as one will. It puts people to 
 sleep and that is all." 
 
 " It puts people to sleep ?" said the king. " Send for a pipe 
 of it." 
 
 "I will write for it this evening, sire." 
 
 " By the way, they say that the Bordelais are furiously an- 
 gry at you." 
 
 " At me ! And pray why ?" 
 
 " Certain trees were mentioned " 
 
 " They have not yet done with that "? What memories these 
 provincials have !" 
 
 " What was it about these trees ? I do not exactly recol- 
 lect." 
 
 " Some old elms, sire, which were to be cut down to make 
 room for a magnificent theatre. The aldermen opposed it ; 
 the citizens, in order to provoke me, took sides with the alder- 
 men. The matter must be brought to an end. So, one fine 
 morning, the trees are found lying on the ground. Thereupon, 
 as your Majesty may well imagine, a grand uproar was raised ; 
 but in the meantime, my ground was ready, and the theatre 
 was built. Did I not do them a service f 
 
 " Perhaps so ; but it was their right, I think, to refuse. A 
 governor " 
 
 " A governor, sire, is your representative, is the king." 
 
 " And have I the right to cut down the trees in a city which 
 do not belong to me 1 ?" 
 
 "You certainly have that of cutting off the heads in it." 
 
 " After judgment." 
 
 " After and before."
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 171 
 
 * 
 
 " Indeed ? Suppose you go and say that to the gentlemen 
 of the parliament." 
 
 " And I would say it to their faces, confound them, the im- 
 pudent lawyers ! What, sire ! are you too going to fancy that 
 your power has limits ? Who established these parliaments 1 
 In whose name do they judge ? Are not you, in France, the 
 supreme and only judge ? These gentlemen are simply your 
 councillors in matters of justice, just as your councillors of 
 state and your ministers are in executive matters. Are you 
 bound by the decisions of your ministers'? Are you even 
 obliged to consult them 1 No, sire, no ! Your power has no 
 other bounds than those which you choose to put to it. The 
 laws and ordinances by which judgment is regulated were 
 made by yourself and your predecessors. You can modify 
 them, change them, abolish them. They only exist in you, as 
 do the bodies which use them. Take a bit of paper, and write 
 upon it, ' No more parliaments.' Sign it, and there will be 
 no longer any parliaments." 
 
 The old duke could understand no jesting upon the subject 
 of royalty. He was, in fact, supported by history. The king 
 was the supreme and only judge. No limit was found to his 
 power, the fixing of which, upon going back, was not to be 
 found in this power itself. We still regard with admiration 
 Louis IX. personally administering justice beneath the oak at 
 Vincennes. What did he do but exercise, as a father, it is 
 true, but still exercise the most terrible and absolute authority 1 
 
 Louis XV. liked well enough, in theory, these doctrines 
 which asserted that there was no reason why a king of France 
 should not be a despot, after the manner of the sultans, if it 
 pleased him. Practically, he was afraid. His weakness, aided 
 by a sufficient quantity of common sense, permitted him to see 
 the too logical absurdity. It was not until ten year^ after,
 
 172 RABAUT AND BRIDAINE, OR 
 
 when the parliaments consolidated their pretensions to be of 
 themselves something in the state, into a system, that he ven- 
 tured to make a solemn appeal to ancient facts and principles. 
 On the seventh of December, 1770, all the parliament of Paris 
 being at his order met together, clothed in crimson robes, in 
 the saloon of the guards, at Versailles, he made his appearance 
 in all the splendor of royal majesty. The parliament, stand- 
 ing and uncovered, was to listen and be silent. " Messieurs," 
 said the chancellor Maupeou, " his Majesty must believe that 
 you will receive with submission a law containing the true 
 principles, etc.* Go back to the first institution of the parlia- 
 ments, follow them in their progress. You will see that they 
 receive their existence and power from the king alone, and that 
 the plenitude of power resides always in the hand which has 
 communicated it. They are neither an emanation nor a part 
 one of the others. The authority which created them circum- 
 scribes their jurisdiction, and fixes its subjects as well as its 
 extent. Charged with the application of the laws, it is not for 
 you either to extend or restrict their stipulations. When the 
 law-giver wishes to manifest his will, you are his organ, and 
 his goodness permits you to be his council. There your min- 
 istry ends. The king weighs your observations ; he judges of 
 the advantages or disadvantages of the law ; and if he then 
 commands, you owe him the most perfect submission. If your 
 rights were more widely extended, you would no longer be his 
 officers, but his masters, etc." 
 
 * The edict which the parliament had refused to register contained 
 three principal stipulations : 
 
 1st. Prohibition to the parliaments from considering themselves ao 
 connected one with tho other, and forming but one body. 2d. Prohibition 
 from interfering in political affairs. 3d. Prohibition from deferring the 
 execution of edicts, when, after having heard their remonstrances, the 
 kiug should abide by his fi"st orders.
 
 THE COURT OP LOUIS XV. 173 
 
 This was harsh, but rigorously true. To maintain the con- 
 trary, and yet assert themselves to be the supporters of the 
 old monarchy, was no offence to Messieurs a lie. But how 
 can we be astonished that Messieurs were not in favor of the 
 old doctrines, when the king himself dared not be so ? 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 THE KING SEES MORE CLEARLY. A PLAN. 
 
 " Well said, Richelieu !" he exclaimed. " Your late grand- 
 uncle, the cardinal, could not have spoken more properly. 
 But, my poor Richelieu, he lived one hundred and twenty 
 years ago." 
 
 " And suppose it were five hundred ?" 
 
 " You would be a hundred times more mistaken, though 
 you are quite right all the time." 
 
 " What matter is it to them whether you can or cannot do 
 everything, provided that you wish to do what is for their 
 good, and keep up some few formalities ?" 
 
 " You kept up formalities finely you, my representative, 
 as you say with your trees at Bordeaux ! You have made 
 me perhaps more enemies down there than the cardinal made 
 for Louis XIII. by decapitating a Montmorency. The abuse 
 of power in little things contributes far more to alienate the 
 people from us than its abuse in great matters. Besides, we 
 are no longer in those days when, provided the king was good, 
 no one troubled himself as to whether it was in his power to 
 dc evil. They want guarantees now." 
 
 " And by what right do they want them ?" 
 
 " Understand, my friend, that I am here the advocate neither 
 of my parliament nor my people. They want them because
 
 174 RABAUT AND BRIDAINE, OR 
 
 they want them. I do not pronounce whether they are right 
 or wrong ; I only state facts. I repeat it, they want guaran- 
 tees. It is not enough for them that I am good or passable ; 
 they begin to wish it out of my power to be otherwise. You 
 know Quesnay, the physician of Madame de Pompadour. It 
 was remarked, indeed I had myself remarked, that he 
 avoided my presence. The marquise at last alluded to it one 
 day. ' Madame,' he said, ' I do not like to see a man who 
 could with a word have my head cut off.' ' Nonsense !' she 
 replied ; ' the king is so good !' But he went away shaking 
 this head which I permit him to keep, and muttering, 'So 
 good ! so good ! What does that prove ?' " 
 
 " Impertinent fellow," said Richelieu. 
 
 " Impertinent if you choose, but impertinent fellows of this 
 kind, begin to be so very numerous, that they will have to be 
 consulted some of these days." 
 
 " I hope I shall not see that day." 
 
 " Your children will see it. And the noble oaks of your 
 park, Richelieu, may one day pay well for the bourgeois elms . 
 of the aldermen of Bordeaux." 
 
 " Still talking of these elms, sire ?" 
 
 " You would never guess what made me think of them again. 
 for the story is rather old, and I confess that I had entirely for- 
 gotten it. Do you remember the passage in which Father 
 Bridaine gave us the other day such good receipts for getting 
 rid of all incumbrances upon the way of salvation ? ' No re- 
 flections,' he said. ' Seize the axe, and let the first stroke, if 
 possible, be an irreparable one, that it may deprive you of all 
 thought of regretting the obstacle, and your adversaries all 
 thought of setting it up again.' Good ! I said to myself; that 
 is the way. It is not exactly your practice, I fancy, in matters 
 >f salvation ; but at any ratCj this axe, this irreparable blow
 
 THE COURT OP LOUIS XV. 175 
 
 struck at the outset, made me think of your freak in Guyenne, 
 more, I confess, than I ought to have thought of it during the 
 sermon." 
 
 " Poor preachers ! while they are sweating with their en- 
 deavors to reason firmly, and carry on the minds of their 
 hearers with them, they do not imagine that as they gc on, 
 they can bring up all sorts of odd ideas, A-hich will take root 
 there instead of their own." 
 
 " It is, in fact, not the first time," said the king, " that I have 
 caught myself during a sermon, a hundred miles away from 
 preacher, sermon, church, and everything around me. As I 
 retraced my steps, I have amused myself by remarking by 
 what a series of jumps my thoughts had gone over the ground. 
 To hinder those excursions is, I should think, one of the great- 
 est, but likewise one of the rarest and most difficult triumphs 
 of the orator. I love secretly to play certain preachers the 
 trick of not following them, but leaving them to fight all 
 alone ; but there are some on the' contrary, whom I reproach 
 myself, afterwards, for not having followed more closely. 
 Father Bridaine is among this number. He pleased me de- 
 cidedly. I should like to hear him again, but how shall I? I 
 cannot have him preach at court. It would be a blow to the 
 marquise, the abbe Narniers, the bishop, and all their friends, 
 and to myself too somewhat." 
 
 " Let us go incognito to Paris, and hear him." 
 
 " To Paris 1 What are you talking about 1 ? I never have 
 been there incognito in my life, except to the Opera balls." 
 
 " Well 1 When But I beg pardon. I believe I was go- 
 ing to say something foolish." 
 
 " It appears then that I have just done so." 
 
 " Your Ma^sty 1 " 
 
 " Well ! Did you not decide that you were too good a
 
 176 RABAUT AND B HI I) A INK, Olt 
 
 servant ever to do anything else but what you have just seen 
 me do?" 
 
 " Your Majesty has a good memory." 
 
 " And a sharp scent, eh 1 ' When the devil grew old he be- 
 came a hermit.' That was the end of your sentence. Con- 
 fess." 
 
 " It is very certain that if it were known that " 
 
 " That the hermit of the Parc-aux-cerfs " 
 
 " Went incognito to Paris, it would be little imagined that 
 he went to hear a sermon." 
 
 " We will do what we can about it. I will go. 3 ' 
 
 " We will go. Ah ! I believe that madame la 'marquise is 
 coming." 
 
 " Do not go and tell her about this, I beg !" 
 
 " No, sire." 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 MADAME DE POMPADOUR'S BUDGET OF ANECDOTES. A NEW 
 
 PLAN TO AMUSE THE KINO. 
 
 The king had been amused for a few moments. He felt the 
 vague pleasure of a sick man who has passed an hour without 
 suffering, or who, on awaking, finds the night further spent 
 than he had ventured to hope. 
 
 Madame de Pompadour perceived this slight clearing up at 
 the first glance. Her task of amusing the king was to be a 
 little less difficult than usual this evening. Richelieu received 
 for his trouble, a half glance of gratitude. 
 
 She had, foi that matter, an ample fund of anecdotes. There 
 were enough fjr her to relate for an hour at least, and she told 
 story admirably.
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 177 
 
 It was about the abbe Coquet, a good old priest, who had 
 been arrested by a sergeant who had heard some talk of seiz- 
 ing the Abbe Coquet, a villainous little romance which was sold 
 surreptitiously. Or it was a village cure, who was preaching 
 about sudden deaths, and cried : " Thus it is with us. We go 
 to bed well, and get up stone dead !" 
 
 Or it was an old councillor, Monsieur d'Herbaut, who, writ- 
 ing to one of his friends of an estate which he has just bought, 
 adds, that there is a chapel upon it, " in which my wife and I 
 wish to be buried, if God spares our lives." 
 
 Or it was Monsieur de Zurlauben, a dull savant, whom it 
 was said Mademoiselle de Lussan had described as " an im- 
 mense library, the librarian of which is a fool." 
 
 Or it was the Chevalier de Florian, who going to see the 
 wood work which was being laid down at the Palais-Royal, 
 had put his finger so far into a pine knot that he remained 
 caught there. His rescue had required an hour's labor, to the 
 great jubilatidh of the duke of Orleans and his court. 
 
 Or it was the duchess of Orleans, who had put a guaze cap 
 upon the head of the old baron d'Estelan, who had gone to 
 sleep in her saloon, and allowed him to go to the theatre in this 
 pretty costume. 
 
 Or it was the princess de Carignan, who, in the midst of a 
 numerous company, had felt one of her mole skin eyebrows 
 coming off, and had put it on again but upside down, which 
 made a moustache of it. 
 
 " But apropos of the princess de Carignan," said the mar- 
 quise ; " does your Majesty know what happened to her pro- 
 tege, poor d'Orbigny 1" 
 
 " D'Orbigny ? I saw him yesterday," said the king. 
 
 " For the last time, perhaps." 
 
 "Ah!"
 
 178 RABAUT A\D I5RIDAINE, OR 
 
 " He was almost crushed to death, in the Rue Saint-Denis, 
 by one of those new vehicles. You know " 
 
 " A cabriolet ?" 
 
 " Yes. For this name begins to take, and it is not inappli- 
 cable, I assure you.* Nothing is to be seen in the streets of 
 Paris, but these hopping, jumping machines. The foot passen- 
 gers do not know what is to become of them." 
 
 " And have there been any others hurt ?" asked the king. 
 
 "A number," said Richelieu, "but only commoners. New 
 here is a gentleman wounded." 
 
 " If I were chief of the police," said the king, " I would pro- 
 hibit these cabriolets." 
 
 Was he jesting 1 No. Every day something or other led 
 him to make the remark that if he were such an one, he would 
 do such a thing. But the courtiers took care not to notice 
 these strange observations. It would have seemed too much 
 as if they perceived his indolence. 
 
 "Monsieur de Sartine," said Richelieu, "has a tolerable 
 amount of business on hand, just now. Thieves are plenty , 
 the convulsionaries have again taken to performing miracles ; 
 and the actresses are so insolent, that some one of them has to 
 be sent to For-1'Eveque every day." 
 
 " Yes," said the king, " and at For-1'Eveque the bolts are 
 scarcely drawn after them, before your finest equipages dash 
 up, gentlemen ; and the lieutenant of police has more trouble 
 in refusing your petitions in favor of these fine ladies, than to 
 take charge of all the thieves and convulsionaires in Paris." 
 
 " If it were not for us, what would become of the theatre ?" 
 
 " Oh ! go on go on. Happy are those who have it in 
 their power." % 
 
 " Sire," said the marquise, " it is a long time, it seems to me, 
 * Cabrioler, verb, to jump, to cut capers. Tr.
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 179 
 
 since we have acted anything for you. What would you 
 think of a little representation at Bellevue ?" 
 
 " In July ?" 
 
 " Why not ? We could have a little theatre arranged in the 
 open air. We would have only a few select guests ; only a 
 few of the best musicians. We might play some little piece, 
 Le Devln de Village* for instance, which you liked so much. 
 I have been amusing myself lately by looking over the part I 
 used to play in it. I still know it pretty well." 
 
 "You think so?" 
 
 He smiled his most malicious smile. The part which she 
 used to play ! She carried the matter off very well, however : 
 " Yes, sire," she said, in the most innocent tone. " The music 
 is so simple, so touching. Even your Majesty remembered 
 some of the airs." 
 
 It must be observed that Louis XV. had, as Rousseau said, 
 the most wretched voice in his kingdom. He knew it perfectly 
 well, and to remind him of his singing was a very good way to 
 repay him for his epigram. 
 
 He went on smiling, however. But suddenly, with a more 
 serious air, he said : 
 
 " When shall this fete take place ?" 
 
 " On Monday, sire." 
 
 " Impossible." 
 
 She looked at him with some surprise, and as if awaiting an 
 explanation, or at least an excuse. But she received neither the 
 one nor the other. 
 
 " Tuesday, then," she continued, in a half offended, half un- 
 certain tone. 
 
 " Tuesday be it." 
 
 He did not hope to conceal from her his expeditior to Paris, 
 * The Village Conjuror.
 
 180 RABAUT AND BRIDA1NE, OR 
 
 but he wished her at least not to know it beforehand. lie 
 asked, moreover, nothing better than to pique her curiosity. 
 It was one of his manias to perplex people. 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 RABAUT'S MEMORIAL. THE PROTESTANT CLERGY IN FRANCE. 
 THE CATHOLIC CLERGY. PERSECUTION. 
 
 But as he thought again of Bridaine, he remembered another 
 person from whom on the same day, and at the same moment, 
 he had received a paper which he had not seen again. Not 
 that he was in the habit of troubling himself much in regard 
 to the fate of the petitions which he made over to the duke de 
 Richelieu. Accident only, and perhaps also the physiognomy 
 of the unknown petitioner, had helped him to remember Rabaut. 
 
 " What became," he asked, " of the second paper which I 
 received on Sunday ]" 
 
 " It is not lost, sire ; but it treated of such grave mat- 
 ters" 
 
 " Good ! You may speak to me of it another time." 
 
 "Besides, before speaking to your Majesty about it, I- 
 thought I ought to send for the author, and gather " 
 
 "Well, well" 
 
 " Only a word more. Did your Majesty observe the per- 
 Fon ?" 
 
 " Why, yes, I believe so. Who is it ?" 
 
 " Ah, sire, you would never guess in a thousand chances. 
 It was Rabaut." 
 
 " Rabaut 1 And pray who is Rabaut ?" 
 
 'Why, Rabaut, the preacher, the pope of the French 
 Huguenots Rabaut, who has given me more trouble 'in gov-
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 181 
 
 erning Languedoc, than all the Huguenots put together Ra- 
 baut, against whom all your soldiers have been sent out for the 
 last twenty years." 
 
 " All very possible. But it is the first time I ever heard the 
 name." 
 
 " Why, all France knows it." 
 
 " All very possible, I tell you. Is this, then, the only thing," 
 he added, mournfully, " of which I am the only one who knows 
 nothing." 
 
 He was silent a moment, as if reflecting upon the reproach, 
 of which he himself had been the medium. It was, in fact, 
 one of the gravest of all reproaches. Certainly no one had 
 intentionally concealed from him a name so generally known. 
 It was accordingly, only to his absolute carelessness, that his 
 ignorance of it until this moment was to be ascribed. 
 
 " It was that Rabaut ?" he resumed. " He is brave, cer- 
 tainly. Is there not a penalty of death against these preach- 
 ers ?" 
 
 " Undoubtedly, as your Majesty confirmed those of the late 
 king." 
 
 " Yes, I recollect. I have signed so many things on this 
 subject !* What kind of man is he ?" 
 
 " A man who must be seen in order that you may have an 
 idea of him ; a soul of iron in a body apparently feeble, but 
 in reality also of iron. An unprecedented mingling of hu- 
 mility in all that regards himself, and of pride in all that con- 
 cerns his faith." 
 
 * A pamphlet published in 1736, contains n, catalogue of works, pur- 
 porting to have been published by an editor of Utrecht, and among the 
 number, is a " treatise on silence and timidity, interspersed with notes 
 upoq indolence, and the way to sign one's own name without knowing 
 why, by S. M. T. C." (So, Majctte Tres Chretienne.) His most Chris- 
 tian Majesty.
 
 182 RABAUT AND BRIDAINE, OR 
 
 " You have seen him, then ?" 
 " No later than to-day." 
 
 " And where did you find him 1 For 1 suppose he did not 
 wait to be traced." 
 
 " On the contrary, sire ; he gave his name and address." 
 " Extraordinary man ! I should like to see him." 
 " There is nothing to prevent, sire. He is in my apartments." 
 " In yours ? Here ? At the chateau ! He is not afraid " 
 '* Of what, sire ? By giving his name, he appealed to your 
 honor and mine. It is a truce. When he has gone back to 
 his mountains, then let the chase begin again. I believe, how- 
 ever, to tell the truth, that he will never be taken. He is so 
 watched, so guarded by these people, that only the most un- 
 heard-of chance could make him fall into our hands. Would 
 it be any great gain if he should 1 I doubt it. In the first 
 place, in spite of the executions, the number of preachers has 
 not ceased increasing. There are now sixty, it is said, and far 
 too well organized for the death of their chief to scatter them. 
 It would only increase their zeal. Then I would not promise 
 that there would not be a general insurrection throughout the 
 province ; and you know what it cost, during the last years of 
 the late king, to re-establish quiet there. When I governed in 
 Languedoc, I did all that was possible to have him taken, with- 
 out concealing from myself that I would be perhaps very sorry 
 to have him found. I knew that every time an attempt at 
 insurrection had been quieted by his exertions, the hatred had 
 only been repressed until the moment when he should be cap- 
 tured. There is, as it were, a tacit arrangement on this point 
 which is positively terrifying." 
 
 " Yes, truly," replied the king. " And if it were allowed 
 him to quit the country, without having his property confis- 
 cated, or his family troubled ?"
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 183 
 
 " It has been proposed to him often enough. More has been 
 done. It was attempted to force him to it. I thought of 
 having his wife and children arrested at Nimes, and to make 
 his quitting the kingdom the condition of their freedom. Ac- 
 cordingly, one night the house was surrounded by a hundred 
 soldiers. They had orders not to carry out the arrest this 
 time. I thought the fright would be sufficient. One door had 
 accordingly been left open, in order that the wife might escape; 
 but it was soon evident that nothing was to be gained from or 
 through her. She insisted upon remaining. She wished to be 
 arrested, she said, in order that the injustice should be more 
 flagrant. She was at length put out of the house, in order to 
 give her the appearance of having escaped. She wandered 
 about, I know not where, for two years, enduring, with her 
 little children, all sorts of hardships and fatigue, rather than 
 persuade her husband to leave France ; advice, for that matter, 
 to which he would certainly not have listened." 
 
 " What became of her 1" said the king ; for, in spite of him- 
 self, he felt interested in this unheard-of heroism of one of his 
 victims. 
 
 " She returned at length to Nimes, where she was left in 
 quiet." 
 
 " What a life," said the marquise, " is that of these women ! 
 They are almost all married, are they not 1" 
 
 "Almost all. They even marry generally very young. 
 They find a source of perseverance and courage, it is said, in 
 these unions so surrounded with danger." 
 
 "Which does not agree," said the king, "with what our 
 church declares, that a priest, unless he is single, cannot be a 
 devout man." 
 
 " Bah !" said Richelieu. " Do we fight any the worse, pray, 
 because we have wives and children? Our priests remain
 
 184 RABAUT AND BRIDAINE, OB 
 
 single because it suits them to do so, in order to have no other 
 interest in the world than that of their caste. And truly those 
 are very devout men, those cassocked bachelors, whom we see 
 crowding around the toilettes of our ladies ! People do me 
 the honor, sire, to set me down for a great many affairs of gal- 
 lantry. I do not know whether they do not even exaggerate a 
 little ; but this much I can say, that I have never taken the 
 field in these regions without finding at least one abbe in my 
 way." 
 
 " You are very severe, Seigneur Lovelace." 
 
 *' Perhaps so ; but against whom ? With all my heart I 
 pardon these poor abbes, who have nothing to do but to con- 
 sume the fruits of their benefices, even if they do run after the 
 forbidden fruit ; but what makes me angry is, to hear the 
 clergy, in spite of this, pretend to the monopoly of virtues and 
 morals. I do not ask that they shall be saints ; but let them 
 at least not pretend to remain single in order to be so. If they 
 wish to resemble the rest of mankind, let them do so ; but do 
 not let them begin by saying that they belong to a separate 
 class. I have seen the English clergy ; I have seen the clergy 
 of the Protestant States of Germany. They will tell you 
 there, in their somewhat abrupt biblical style, ' It is not good 
 for man to be alone.'* But among so many thousands of 
 ecclesiastics, years pass by without a single scandal being heard 
 of; and when the people wish to see the model of a pure and 
 united family, they have only to go to their pastors." 
 
 " Well preached !" said the king. " I should like to assem- 
 ble the gallant abbes in my dominions, and have them make a 
 retreat \ under your orders." 
 
 * Genesis, ii. c., 18 v. 
 
 f A phrase applied to certain periodical retirements from the world 
 practiced among Roman Catholics. Tr.
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 185 
 
 " At your service, sire. I am a little uneasy about one 
 thing." 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " I fear that there can be no cathedral found large enough to 
 lodge them." 
 
 The king laughed immoderately, the marquise less heartily. 
 As may be imagined, such a subject was not calculated to put 
 her at her ease. In other days, the king would have taken 
 care not to continue it ; but since he was now only bound to 
 her by the relaxed ties of old habit, he did not trouble himself 
 so much. 
 
 " Do not abuse the abbes of my kingdom too much," he 
 said. " In the first place, the lower orders of priests are better; 
 and then go and see how things are in Spain, Italy, America, 
 everywhere that the clergy are all-powerful. In the Spanish 
 colonies, the excess of the evil has finally brought a sort of 
 remedy with it, that is to say, many of the priests have a 
 woman residing with them whom they treat almost like a wife, 
 appearing with her in public ; bringing up her children ; mar- 
 ried, in short, with the exception of the ceremony. For that 
 matter, this was generally the case, but with still more scandal, 
 in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. When Calvin and 
 Luther attacked us on these points, they had only to repeat 
 what had for a long time been said even in the church, in 
 books, pamphlets and sermons, everywhere. It must be con- 
 fessed that they had excuse enough for declaiming against the 
 celibacy of the clergy." 
 
 " Ah ha, sire !" exclaimed Richelieu, " this conversation 
 smells terribly of the faggot ! If this Rabaut heard us, I think 
 he might be tempted to ask us why we persecute him and his 
 companions, if we know so well, upon occasion, how to differ 
 in opinion from the church. It is a question which I have
 
 186 RABAUT AND BRIDAINE, OB 
 
 sometimes asked myself, for that matter, particularly when I 
 commanded in Languedoc. Here, I said to myself, are these 
 poor people, who in every other respect are examples to the 
 province. Sober, industrious, saving, they have, in spite of our 
 tormenting, kept themselves very far superior to the surround- 
 ing population. The ordinary police has nothing to do, so far 
 as they are concerned. It is a miracle when one of them has 
 to be punished for anything besides his religion. ' Their whole 
 crime,' as Monsieur de Voltaire says, ' is that of praying to 
 God in bad French, instead of doing it in still worse Latin.' 
 And I, who would have scarcely anything to do in the province, 
 if it were entirely peopled with such quiet, submissive inhabit- 
 ants, I must persecute them, and harass myself in inventing, 
 every day, some new injury to do them, some new vexation 
 with which to afflict them ! What induces me to do it ? Do 
 I hate them ? No. Do I hate their doctrines ? I have been 
 told often enough that I must hate them ; but I have never 
 examined into them, and, to judge from their effects, they do 
 pot seem to me very abominable. Once more, I ask myself 
 what business I have to persecute these people ?" 
 
 " You have to execute my edicts," said the king. 
 
 " O ! sire, that is not the question. Your edicts were never 
 better executed than in my time. The governor faithfully per- 
 formed his duty ; the man asked himself, privately, if it would 
 not have been more agreeable had his duty been of another 
 nature ?" 
 
 " That is very nice reasoning, Richelieu," said the king, a 
 little out of humor. " With such reasoning as this, you would 
 soon come neither to obey or to make others obey any longer." 
 
 But the ill-humor of the monarch was founded upon quite 
 another cause than the fear of not being obeyed. He too had 
 vaguely asked h : mself why he persecuted the Protestants; and
 
 THE COURT OP LOUIS XV. 1ST 
 
 while the marshal could at least take refuge behind the edicts 
 of which he had been but the executor, the king beheld himself 
 alone, beneath the weight of a gigantic responsibility. In vain 
 he repeated to himself that he had found the system already 
 established ; that he had only carried out the errors of his 
 predecessor. Forty years of persecution, without his ever 
 having asked himself why ! This was, of all the weaknesses 
 of his reign, the most odious and the most guilty. The revoca- 
 tion of the edict of Nantes had, since the death of Louis XIV., 
 lost all the grandeur with which that prince knew how to clothe 
 the most monstrous ideas, the most iniquitous measures. 
 Louis XIV. had believed in the possibility of establishing re- 
 ligious unity in France ; he had seriously, strongly, obstinately 
 willed it. What had Louis XV. wished? He had never 
 known. He had allowed himself, from childhood to manhood, 
 to follow in the bloody track marked out by his ancestor. 
 Moreover, when Louis XIV. began to persecute the Protest- 
 ants, he had begun to become a good Catholic ; he had given 
 up his irregularities ; he had married Madame de Maintenon, 
 and gave to religion, or what he considered religion, a large 
 place in his life. But Louis XV., in the midst of indifference 
 and immorality, had augmented the cruelties of the great king. 
 His hand was weary of signing, even without having read them, 
 edicts which a blind obedience was to transcribe, in letters of 
 blood and fire, on the remotest parts of the kingdom. 
 
 XL. 
 
 THE KING WILL SEE RABAUT. HE WAVERS AS TO HOW HE 
 
 WILL RECEIVE HIM. 
 
 Such were the sad reflections which he had been led to make. 
 If he had been the man to make a good resolution on the
 
 188 RABAUT AND BIUDAINE, OR 
 
 spot. (that for instance, of inquiring seriously into the state 
 of things,) the cause of the Protestants would have been gained. 
 He would of his own accord, accompanied by their blessings, 
 have entered upon the path of toleration into which he allowed 
 himself to be dragged, ten years afterwards, but slowly, and 
 with a bad grace, far more from weakness and indolence, 
 than from humanity or reason, and without carrying with him 
 to the tomb the gratitude of any being. 
 
 After a tolerably long silence, he said : " Richelieu, I wish 
 to see this man. Go and bring him." 
 
 " What ! sire," exclaimed the marquise, " in earnest ?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Does your Majesty think of granting their demands 1" 
 
 " I know nothing about that. And you ?" 
 
 " Ah ! sire, it would be one of the most glorious days of 
 your reign." 
 
 He looked at her with surprise. Nothing, until now, had 
 ever made him dream of such language from her. 
 
 Not because she had never thought of the wretchedness of 
 the French Protestants. But if she thought of them, she 
 thought also, and still more, of herself. She would have been 
 wary of bringing up the subject so long as she saw that the day 
 had not come when she might gain honor and profit from it. 
 Secretly imbued with the liberal doctrines of the age, nothing 
 would have delighted her more than to connect her name with 
 some of the reforms to which the philosophers promised their 
 incense, and she would have been doubly flattered to receive 
 with the praises of the infidels, the blessings of men persecuted 
 for their faith. Add to this the desire of being avenged on the 
 clergy, by whorr she looked upon herself as persecuted, and to 
 whom she knew that nothing could be more displeasing than a 
 relaxation of these severities.
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 189 
 
 She repented however, of having too plainly allowed her in- 
 tention of acting in this direction to be perceived. The king 
 continued to look at her fixedly, without saying a word. He 
 evidently distrusted her, and himself still more. Because he 
 had allowed edicts of persecution to be dictated to him, he 
 wished not to be dictated to in regard to one of toleration. 
 When a weak man takes it into his head to be firm, it is rarely 
 that he does not happen to choose the wrong time for being so. 
 
 " Richelieu," he resumed, " go and bring this man here. I 
 v, ish him to hear from my lips " 
 
 The king's tone was completely changed. Richelieu, who 
 was just quitting the apartment, could not help turning his head 
 at these last words. 
 
 " Yes, from my mouth," he continued, " that there is neither 
 peace nor pardon to be expected for him and his fellows. 
 Ah ! you fancy that I shall always be led 1 You fancy that I 
 shall be made to give a specimen of a king undoing what he 
 has done, contradicting what he has said, and giving back with 
 one hand what he has taken away with the other. No, by 
 heaven, no ! No more heretics in France ! One king, one 
 people, one religion ! Go, Richelieu. Well, madame, I did 
 not request you to retire." 
 
 " I am in the way, sire." 
 
 " Remain here. You have often enough seen me weak and 
 slavish. Are you afraid to see me king ?" 
 
 She reseated herself and was silent. Louis XV., as we have 
 already remarked, was not without dignity, but he must not 
 have time to prepare for being dignified, for then he was no 
 longer so. Beneath the air, already rather more scowling 
 than majestic, with which he strode up and down the apartment 
 while he awaited the minister, madame de Pompadour had no 
 difficulty in perceiving the approach of an embarrassment into
 
 190 RABAUT AND BUIDAINE, OR 
 
 which she had always seen him thrown by occasions of this 
 kind, and which was moreover betrayed by a very curious 
 sign, a violent trembling of the chin. He evidently repented 
 of having sent for Rabaut. He did not feel himself strong 
 enough to look in the face of a man whom his edicts condemned 
 to the scaffold ; he felt that a courageous victim always has a 
 superiority over his tyrant. 
 
 XLI. 
 
 RECEPTION OF RABAUT. HE TAKES HIS DEPARTURE. 
 
 And it was not without strong emotion that Rabaut, preced 
 ed by the marshal, bent his steps towards the apartment of 
 the king. What is wanted with him by this master whose 
 words have hitherto reached him and his brethren, only as a 
 storm of persecution and death ? 
 
 Richelieu had declined giving him any particulars. The 
 king had appeared so agitated, so little decided, although he 
 strove to give himself the appearance of being so, that he 
 equally feared terrifying Rabaut by groundless apprehensions, 
 or deluding him with false hopes. 
 
 The king was seated. The marquise, at some distance, was 
 reading, or pretending to do so. 
 
 The steps of the duke were already heard in the anti-cham- 
 ber. 
 
 " Ah ! Good heavens," said the king, " he will speak to me 
 of his petition and I have not read it." 
 
 " I will come to your aid," said the marquise. 
 
 " But you have not read it either." 
 
 " Do not be uneasy." 
 
 And thus faded away this attempt at majesty. The actor
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 191 
 
 again called for his prompter ; the royal puppet himself aided 
 to refasten the strings by which he was to be made to move. 
 
 They entered. 
 
 "Sire," said Richelieu, "here is the person who had the 
 honor to present your Majesty with a petition last Sunday." 
 
 Rabaut bowed, first to the king, then to the marquise. 
 
 She blushed at this second salutation. Richelieu, with his 
 hand clenched, cast at him sideways one of those looks which 
 seem to say ; " are you mad ?" 
 
 The poor minister, in truth, had imagined himself saluting 
 the queen. He knew, as every one did, what were the morals 
 of the king, but in his simplicity as a provincial and a good 
 man, he could never have gone so far as to imagine him seated 
 beside his mistress, in his presence. He had by this time re- 
 gained all his quiet dignity, and waited respectfully to be ques- 
 tioned by the king. 
 
 " It has doubtless been made known to you," said the king 
 at length, " why you are summoned here." 
 
 " No, sire." 
 
 " Your Majesty did not desire me to do so," said Richelieu. 
 
 " Has your Majesty condescended," resumed Rabaut, " to 
 glance over the petition which I had the honor to present ?" 
 
 " Monsieur," said the marquise, hurriedly, " you are doubt- 
 less not aware that the king is never questioned." 
 
 " I was not aware of it, Madame ; but my question, sire, 
 was no question. In granting me this audience, for which I 
 had not dared to hope your Majesty informs me that my pe- 
 tition has been read." 
 
 " Monsieur," said the king, " I have no explanation to give ; 
 neither do I grant you an audience. I learned by accident 
 that you were in my palace. I wished that upon your return 
 among your Huguenots, for my clemency will permit youi re-
 
 192 RABAUT AND BRIDAINE, OR 
 
 turn, you should put an end to the unfounded rumors cf 
 toleration which are circulated in order to keep up their courage. 
 Expect nothing. Hope for nothing. New edicts if necessary, 
 shall be added to those which you teach them to violate. Let 
 them give up a resistance which will in future be useless, aim- 
 less and without end. Out of the Church there is no peace, no 
 salvation for them, neither in this world, nor in another." 
 
 Rabaut had raised his head upon hearing the first words. 
 Astonishment, and then indignation and disdain, scarcely re- 
 strained by a careless respect, were depicted upon his counte- 
 nance. The king, in spite of the increasing sharpness of his 
 words, had ceased looking him in the face. His tone, grave 
 and dignified at first, had become that of a man who makes a 
 great effort to speak loudly, and who is the first to be afraid of 
 the noise he makes. 
 
 He paused. Rabaut remained motionless. A moment, 
 which seemed an age to the king, passed in the most profound 
 silence. 
 
 "You have heard the king's orders, Monsieur," said the 
 marquise at length. 
 
 " Yes, Madame, and I still doubt whether I have heard 
 aright. Your Majesty " 
 
 "Madame is not the queen," said Louis XV. precipitately, 
 for it was to the marquise that Rabaut had said your Majesty. 
 
 It only needed this incident to complete the discomposure 
 of the king. Also disconcerted, but only by the shame of him 
 who had given cause for such a mistake, Rabaut turned towards 
 him with his eyes cast down, and without adding a single word. 
 
 Then, as the king did not dismiss him, Richelieu said : 
 
 " Speak ; his Majesty has perhaps still a moment to give 
 you."
 
 THE COURT OP LOUIS XV. 193 
 
 " Sire," he said slowly, " only a word : ' We ought to obey 
 God, rather than men.' "* 
 
 He bowed once more, but to the king only, and quitted the 
 apartment. 
 
 XLII. 
 RABAUT'S MEMORIAL. 
 
 " Ha ! ha !" cried the marshal, " laughing as loudly as he 
 could ;" that is their way ! Say what you will to them, and 
 they will throw a verse of the Bible in your teeth, that was 
 one, I fancy, and turn on their heel. Extraordinary beings, 
 on my word ! For just as your Majesty has seen him, will he 
 be, if he be taken, at the foot of the gallows. There was one 
 of them, however, who grew weak in the presence of death. 
 It was one Molines, of Nimes, sometimes called Flechier, be- 
 cause, it seems, he wrote sermons in the style of the late acade- 
 mician. The eve of his punishment, this fine speechifier trem- 
 bled. He offered to become Catholic. His offer was accepted, 
 and great rejoicings were made. And now my rascal is in 
 Holland, more Protestant than ever !" 
 
 " And is he the only one who has faltered ?" asked the king. 
 
 " There was also a certain Duperron, of Grenoble, in '45. 
 But he died shortly afterwards, a prey to the most frightful 
 remorse.* It is an unexampled obstinacy." 
 
 * Acts v. 29. 
 
 * Molines was still alive in 1778, but a prey to all the agonies of re- 
 morse which had killed Uu perron. A man who knew him has left us 
 some details of this long agony. " When very young, I remember to 
 have seen him many and many a time come to my father, a pastor in 
 Amsterdam, accusing himself bitterly ; while my father always strove to 
 make him understand that through the infinite merits of Jesus Christ, he 
 might hope for salvation, like any other repentant sinner. He never
 
 194 RABAUT AND BRIDAlNE, OR 
 
 " Oh yes, Richelieu, I know examples of it." 
 
 " What are they, sire?" 
 
 " Those martyrs of the early ages who are now upon our 
 altars were also famously obstinate." 
 
 The king might have added, that the persecutions of the 
 early Christians, although far more cruel, undoubtedly, than 
 Voltaire asserts, were, nevertheless, neither so long continued, 
 nor so tenacious, nor so odiously refined, as those organized by 
 Catholicism. 
 
 " Yes," he continued, " famously obstinate, these men who 
 preferred to suffer a thousand deaths rather than consent to 
 what 1 To a very small thing, a mere nothing to throw a 
 few grains of incense in the fire, before the image of a god or 
 an emperor. And we admire them, Richelieu. And we are 
 right. And because we believe those of the present time to 
 be in error, are they very different, in the sight of God, from 
 those martyrs of old ? Are we in fact much wiser than the 
 pagans, because in place of attacking a new God, we have for 
 the last two hundred years been bent upon persecuting a new 
 method of adoring the same God ?" 
 
 " Sire," said the duke, " permit me to decline following you 
 in the changes of opinion to which it appears your Majesty is 
 about to submit. I confess, that if it were permitted me to 
 entertain the sentiments which your Majesty has just ex- 
 pressed, and if I were king, the Protestants of my States would 
 
 came and seated himself silently among us, waiting that my father, for 
 the hundredth time, should repeat to him the words of consolation, 
 without my feeling a kind of terror. I walked around him in, a circle as 
 large as the size of the room would permit, but without for an instant 
 losing sight of him. He was so absorbed by his own feelings, that he 
 took i.o notice 01 anything whatever. Thirty years of repentance seemed 
 to him but a day and insufficient to weep over his crime." 
 
 M. CHATELAIN. Rcliyiou* paper of the canton de Vaud. 1840.
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 195 
 
 soon be at the end of their troubles. One would think, be- 
 sides, that your Majesty was quoting a page of the petition in 
 question, for everything you said is there almost in the same 
 terms." 
 
 " You must show me this petition." 
 
 " I have it with me, sire. Here it is." 
 
 " Well, read it to us, marquise." 
 
 She obeyed. 
 
 "'SiRE, One of the consolations which we have in our 
 sufferings, is the thought that your Majesty is ignorant of them, 
 that your Majesty is deceived in regard to us, and that we 
 might have a king who would love if he but knew us. 
 
 " ' But. sire, what way have we of making ourselves known 
 to your Majesty 1 Among the numerous petitions or memo- 
 rials which we have had laid at the foot of your throne by 
 different hands, we have not heard that a single one has been 
 placed before your Majesty." 
 
 " It is true," murmured the king. 
 
 " I beg pardon, sire," said Richelieu. " I have never come 
 from Languedoc without my hands full of them ; and as I had 
 promised to deliver them to your Majesty, I did so." 
 
 The king .did not reply. He had never read them ; he had 
 not even looked to see what they were about. 
 
 Madame de Pompadour continued : 
 
 " ' Will this meet with a different fate 1 It will be pre- 
 sented to you by one of the men who has the most audaciously 
 braved your laws. If he dares to present himself before you, 
 it is because he is conscious of having had all the respect for 
 royal authority which it can claim without infringing upon the 
 authority of God. 
 
 " { It is long since there has been or can be any idea among 
 us of claiming either privileges, guarantees, subsidies, or any-
 
 196 RABAUT AND BBIDAINE, OR 
 
 thing which it was concluded to grant us in times of dis- 
 turbance or war. We ask but to live in peace, mingling 
 with the rest of your subjects, and supporting, as we now do, 
 all the charges of the State, without asking in return anything 
 but the liberty to serve God as our consciences dictate. 
 
 " ' These are the terms in which we wish that the question 
 should be presented to the mind, and particularly to the heart, 
 of your Majesty. Everything, for a century past, proves to us 
 that we have scarcely any real and irreconcilable enemies save 
 in the ranks of the clergy. Among all others, the most pious 
 men advocate toleration, some openly, others in the depths of 
 their hearts. We are persecuted, and we venture to hope 
 that your Majesty is not an exception, far less from hatred ' " 
 
 "Just what you were saying, Richelieu," interrupted the 
 king. 
 
 " Yes, sire ; but I thought so long before I read thaf ." 
 
 " I did not ; but they are right. Go on." 
 
 " ' far less from hatred than from an old impulse of 
 
 hatred from a suspicion which has long been unfounded 
 from principles which become every day more relaxed in 
 regard to other matters, and which are only kept up in full 
 force against us in order that it may appear that they are not 
 altogether abandoned. We can understand that your Majesty, 
 being attached to the doctrines of the Roman Church, would 
 prefer to have children of that church alone for your subjects ; 
 but we implore you to consider whether the severity of the 
 means employed in your name is not disproportionate to the 
 small degree of antipathy with which we really inspire you. 
 
 " ' Moreover, we do not come at this time to defend our- 
 selves before you. We shall not remind you of the part which 
 we bore in the events which elevated the house of Bouibon to 
 the throne, nor the unshaken fidelity which we have always
 
 THE COURT OP LOUIS XV. 197 
 
 manifested towards it, nor the distinguished men we have had 
 the honor of giving to France. We shall commence no dis- 
 cussion of the motives which induce us to hold fast the religion 
 of our fathers, nor of the right which is assumed to be in pos- 
 session of those who would force us to abandon it. We wish 
 only to lay before you a statement, brief as possible, of the 
 system of laws which oppresses us. We are convinced that 
 your Majesty has never looked upon it as a whole, and that 
 you would have turned away with horror from a system so 
 cruelly monstrous. 
 
 " ' In the first place, if we examine its foundations we see that 
 for forty-five years they have reposed upon a fact which is 
 manifestly no fact. Louis XIV., a few months before his 
 death, thought himself authorized to affirm that there were no 
 longer any Protestants in France. " Their presence in our 
 States" he says in a last manifesto against them, " is a sufficient 
 proof that they have embraced the Catholic religion, without 
 which, they would not have been allowed to remain" These 
 words, sire, were signed, as is long since universally admitted, 
 without having been read by your ancestor. 
 
 " ' Whatever might be his antipathy against us, however de- 
 ceived he might have been as to the results of his efforts, he 
 had too much sense to believe we were all converted,* and 
 above all, to consider as a proof of this, the single fact that we 
 remained in France ; when we were forbidden to attempt 
 quitting France, under penalty of the galleys. 
 
 * In 1698, thirteen years after the conversion, in a body, of the Pro- 
 testants, with which Louis XIV. had been Deluded, Monsieur be Baville, 
 the intendant, writes : " There are districts of morn than twenty parishes, 
 in which the cure is the most unhappy and useless of the inhabitants, and 
 where, in spite of all the pains which have been taken, not a single con- 
 version could be made, nor a single Catholic from without established," 1 
 Quoted by Monsieur Breteuil, in 1786, in his memorial to Louis XVL
 
 198 RABAUT AND BRIDAINE, OR 
 
 " ' However this may be, this has been, ever since that time, 
 the starting point of all the measures taken against us. In 
 order better to harden themselves to the work of mangling us, 
 our tormentors had pronounced us dead. 
 
 " ' We were accordingly no longer called Protestants, or 
 Huguenots, or heretics, but new converts. From that period, 
 as we were supposed to be Catholics, all decrees in regard to 
 Protestantism placed us under terrible penalties, already de- 
 creed against whosoever, after having abjured, should again 
 become a Protestant. Until that time, so long as there had 
 been no formal abjuration, we were at least permitted to die in 
 peace. Since the edict of 1715, as we were all asserted to have 
 abjured, no one of us on his death-bed can refuse the sacra- 
 ments without being looked upon as a relapsed heretic. If he 
 should be restored to health he must go to the galleys ; if he 
 die, the action is carried on against his memory. His goods 
 are confiscated and his body dragged upon a hurdle. Woe be 
 to him also, who may have counselled the dying man to follow 
 the dictates of his conscience ! If it be a man, he is condemned 
 to the galleys ; if a woman, to solitary confinement for life. 
 In your armies every one is at liberty to be an infidel ; but if 
 a soldier should die, as it happened at Uzes, declaring himself 
 to be a Protestant, it is immediately decreed " that there will 
 be an action against his memory." And this is not, as might 
 be supposed, the decision of some obscure provincial tribunal, 
 or of some fiery intendant. It is a decree of your council of 
 State. 
 
 " ' False in its statements, cruel in its consequences, the alle- 
 gation of the last edict of Louis XIV. did not even agree with 
 its predecessors. The parliament of Paris remarked this, and 
 the registering of the edict was delayed a mouth. " The king,"
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 190 
 
 said the attorney-general,* " never exactly commanded the Hu- 
 guenots to become Catholics ; it cannot therefore be said that 
 this change is to be taken for granted. All the rigor of the 
 law falls upon the relapsed converts, namely upon those who 
 after having abjured, have fallen back into their errors; but it 
 is first necessary to prove that they have ever quitted these 
 errors, for in order to fall back one must have first arisen. It 
 will always be difficult to conceive how a man who does not 
 appear ever to have been converted, could have fallen back into 
 heresy, and how he could have been condemned as if the fact 
 were proved." 
 
 " ' Thus were trodden under foot, in this too famous edict, 
 together with the feelings of human nature, the first rules of 
 written law, and even those of common sense. 
 
 " ' These representations, however, either never reached the 
 monarch, or were unable to modify the all powerful-influence 
 which had induced him to sign the edict. The plan of Father 
 Letellier was to remain in full force. The edict was registered. 
 Those who had pointed out its errors, were the first to put it 
 into execution. 
 
 " ' Such, sire, was the heritage left you by your ancestor. 
 
 " ' In your edict of 1724, which your extreme youth at that 
 time, happily allows us to consider as not your work,f you de- 
 
 * D'Aguesseau. 
 
 f It was that of Lavergne de Tressan, archbishop of Rouen, aided, (for 
 the fact is only too well ascertained,) by the same d'Aguesseau then be- 
 come chancellor. So hard does the Roman Church make the hearts of 
 her champions, even of the wisest and most virtuous ! It may be seen in 
 particular, in his Discourse upon the life of his Father, with what com- 
 placeucy he expatiates upon the severities of which the latter when in 
 tendai:t of Languedoc. hud been the instrument. He censures the dragon- 
 odes ; ';ut with this exccp ion, looks upon all as legitimate, great and 
 fine.
 
 200 RABAUT AND BRIDAINE, OR 
 
 clared it to be y ur wish that all the laws already promulgated 
 against us, should be maintained in full force. You added to 
 them at the same time numerous particulars tending to co-or- 
 dinate them. It was you, sire, who definitely established the 
 cruel code which harasses us in our belief, in our temporal in- 
 terests, in our family affections, in the minutest details of all 
 which, in this world, is precious or sacred to us. 
 
 " ' In our belief, we say : 
 
 "' You have been doubtless led to believe, as was the late king, 
 that it was not exactly intended to do violence to our con- 
 sciences ; that it was only purposed to bring us by these hard- 
 ships to reflect upon our obstinacy, and to re-enter, but of our 
 own good will, into the bosom of the Church. 
 
 " ' And in fact, since the persecutions prior to the Edict of 
 Nantes, there has been no punishment individually levelled 
 against the heretic as a heretic Accordingly, when we are 
 punished, it is not as Protestants professing an erroneous belief, 
 but as disobeying your ordinances. 
 
 " ' It is accordingly, not the inquisition but in reality what is 
 wanting to make it the same ? Is it not exactly equivalent to 
 it, if we are punished, not as heretics, but as violators of laws 
 made against us because we are so ? We are not commanded 
 to believe; we are only commanded to profess belief. But 
 sire, in all matters in which conscience is concerned, it is doing 
 violence to conscience itself to force a mere external profession. 
 Unless you tell a dying man that he is at liberty to lie to God 
 and men, you cannot order him to appear to be a Catholic 
 without ordering him from that very fact to be one. Is this an 
 order which your Majesty feels it in your power to give 1 Or, 
 if we may be allowed to reverse the question, do you feel that 
 it would be possible for you, o your death-bed, to obey any 
 one who required you to profess another faith not your own ?
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 201 
 
 And if you knew, moreover, that you could not disobey with- 
 out condemning yourself to the galleys, and your children to 
 beggary, would not this pretended respect for your faith seem 
 to you a cruel irony 1 ? 
 
 " ' We are accordingly reduced to appeal, as to a protecting 
 law, to the very edict in which your ancestor revoked that of 
 Henry IV. The last clause, in fact, prohibits our being mo- 
 lested. Provided that we no longer had pastors, nor churches, 
 nor public worship, we were permitted to remain what we 
 were, enjoying our own property, and following the course of 
 our own business, " without being hindered or troubled on ac- 
 count of religion.''' 1 
 
 " 'Thus spoke Louis XIV. in October, 1685; and less than a 
 month after, on the fifth of November, we were already under 
 another law. " His Majesty," wrote Monsieur Louvois to the 
 commandants of the province, " desires that those who will not 
 embrace his religion, shall be subjected to the extreme rigors 
 of the law ; and those who may wish to have the foolish glory 
 of being the last to embrace it, ought to be driven to the last 
 extremity." 
 
 " ' Shall we relate how these conversions in a body were 
 obtained, upon which was soon to be founded the law which 
 commands us all to be looked upon as converts or relapsed ? 
 
 " ' So many Catholics have censured the dragonades, that we 
 need not draw attention to the strangeness or odiousness of 
 such a proceeding. 
 
 " ' Are they at least discontinued 1 It is generally believed 
 that they are, and yet, sire, this is not the case. Every year, 
 or nearly every year, they have been tried in some portion of 
 our unhappy provinces. Quite recently, in 1758, they were 
 renewed in all the southern ones with terrible vigor. It is 
 only by means of the compulsory quartering of dragoons and
 
 202 RABAUT AND BRIDAINE, OB 
 
 horsemen of the patrol that the consent of so many of our 
 people has lately been forced from them, to have their children 
 baptized in your Church. 
 
 " ' But it is most especially our assemblies which have been 
 the objects of the most constant, the severest persecution. 
 
 " ' Here, we feel that we are not so clearly upon the in- 
 violable grounds of conscience and belief. God is everywhere. ; 
 everywhere He may be adored and served. Your Majesty 
 has a right to desire that numerous assemblies should not take 
 place in your States without your authorization. 
 
 " ' Ah ! sire, our answer is in what we have suffered, and 
 still suffer every day in disobeying you upon this point. 
 The necessity of sympathizing and feeling in common, a ne- 
 cessity which is so universal and so pressing even in common 
 life is so strengthened by persecution, that neither threats, 
 nor tortures, nor anything in the world can repress it. We 
 had more than five hundred places of worship before our days 
 of suffering. These have all been destroyed. We pass by 
 the venerated spots where our fathers worshipped, without 
 even daring to cast a glance of regret towards them ; we go to 
 seek at a distance, beneath the vault of heaven, that which we 
 found in our happier days within the humble walls of our 
 churches. This is our crime, sire ; this is what has sent so 
 many of our brethren to the galleys, so many of our pastors 
 to death ; this is what is to be for an indefinite length of time 
 the cause of the same severities, for we feel that it is not in 
 our power to cease incurring them. As the storm howls more 
 loudly, we feel more deeply the need of clinging closely to 
 one another ; wherever it shall not be found utterly impossible 
 for us to meet together, there shall we meet. This is not a 
 bravado, sire ; God forbid ! None of your subjects desire 
 more earnestly than we do, not to be obliged to disobey you.
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 203 
 
 We only unveil our hearts to you now ; we supplicate you to 
 consider how deeply rooted are those principles which you en 
 deavor to tear from them. Ah ! if the feelings of love which 
 we bear for our king and for our France were not also deeply 
 rooted, think you it would be possible for us still to see in 
 you a father, and in this land our country "? 
 
 " ' Laws such as these are not alone cruel ; they have besides 
 the disadvantage of only being applied as it were, at a ven- 
 ture. If some of our number are punished for having been 
 present at one of our reunions, a thousand, two thousand, ten 
 thousand who have shared their crime, do not share their pun- 
 ishment. Is it proper, is it wise, even setting aside all con- 
 siderations of justice, that there should be in a State, laws 
 which strike blindly, never reaching more than two guilty in- 
 dividuals in a hundred ? What license is given to the arbitrary 
 will of the men charged with their execution ! Justice itself 
 in such a shape would become injustice. 
 
 " ' Has the attempt at least been made practically to amend 
 the defects inherent to such a state of things 1 
 
 " ' On the contrary. According as the laws became more 
 severe, you suppressed the protecting delays of ordinary jus- 
 tice. When Monsieur de Baville, in 1698, was seen in one 
 morning, to condemn as many as seventy-five Protestants to 
 the galleys, it might have been imagined that we had endured 
 the utmost degree of oppression. This was a mistake, sire ; 
 we are now still lower. At this time the law reached those 
 only who had been arrested in the act of attending an assem- 
 bly ; but since 1745 the same penalty has been extended to all 
 those, says the law, who are known to have been present at these 
 meetings. Further still : According to the old law, the in- 
 tendant could judge only in the presence of seven doctors of 
 the law. You have deprived us of this last guarantee. Since
 
 201 KAIIAUT AND IJIlIDAIXE, OR 
 
 this same edict of 1745, the intendant presides alone, and gives 
 the final judgment himself, without appeal. We must go back 
 to the periods of the most bitter persecutions by the pagans, 
 in order to find examples of such absolute power committed 
 to the hands of a simple governor. 
 
 " ' Masters of our life and liberty, the intendants are also 
 masters of our property. 
 
 " ' Their arbitrary power is in this matter exercised without 
 restraint. In the bosom of France, in the eighteenth century, 
 there are still people liable to taxation and statute labor, at 
 pleasure. These unhappy wretches, for whom the rights of 
 property are in fact annihilated, are ourselves. 
 
 " 'And there are none of us who are not constantly suffering 
 under one or another of the pecuniary penalties specified in 
 your edicts. It would require too much time to mention these 
 in detail. Besides, all former stipulations are now combined 
 in one, which, if it were executed literally, would be equiva- 
 lent to the entire confiscation of all that we possess in the 
 kingdom. The intendant has had conferred upon him the 
 right of arbitrary taxation, without appeal, of all the Protest- 
 tants of a district in which an assembly has been held, includ- 
 ing even those who can prove that they were not present. In 
 case of the capture of a minister, a fine is fixed, each head of a 
 family is taxed at three thousand livres, which is more than 
 the whole possession of a great number of us, who inhabit our 
 barren mountains. 
 
 " ' The intendants generally recoil from the odious task of thus 
 at a single blow redeeming the inhabitants of a village, a dis- 
 trict, an entire province to beggary ; but they cannot always 
 avoid it. Accordingly, every year some of our districts are 
 burdened with enormous fines ; every day, any one of them is 
 liable to have the same burden laid upon it. Many a one is
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 205 
 
 well off in the morning, who in the evening may perchance no 
 longer possess food or shelter. 
 
 " ' This money, scarcely out of our hands, serves to pay for 
 new means of oppression. It goes to the convents to answer 
 for the support of our wives, our daughters, who are dead to 
 us ; it goes to the prisons to reward our gaolers ; to the garri- 
 sons to stimulate the zeal of the soldiers; it is offered, in short, 
 to who ever shall give notice of an assembly, facilitate the cap- 
 ture of a minister, or inform either publicly or secretly, in re- 
 gard to some infraction of the edicts. Informers and traitors 
 are openly encouraged, openly paid. The first and simplest 
 notions of honor, honesty and even pity are asserted to be 
 criminal. There is not only money for those who will turn 
 informers ; but there are also punishments for such as refuse 
 to do so. If a fugitive minister comes and knocks at our door, 
 we must hasten to give him up to the executioner or we our- 
 selves must go to the galleys. Ah ! it is a great consolation, 
 sire, to be able to feel upon listening to the sentence, that these 
 men who condemn us according to an edict, for having done 
 thus, would have condemned us in their hearts if we had done 
 otherwise. But what kind of a law is it which forces judges to 
 punish that which in all other things they would look upon as 
 honorable and natural ? In the sight of the immutable laws 
 of reason and humanity, what difference is to be perceived be- 
 tween one of the early Christians hiding a fellow-believer from 
 the rage of the proconsuls, and a Protestant of our day con- 
 cealing his pastor from the search of an intendant 1 
 
 " ' There are unhappily many other points, sire, in which your 
 edicts agree no better with these eternal laws, of which you 
 would be the first, in all other matters, to condemn the viola- 
 tion. 
 
 u ' What shall we say of the blows aimed at paternal author!-
 
 206 RABAUT AND BRIDAINE, OR 
 
 ty and all family ties as well as affections. Our children do 
 not belong to us. Not only must we send them, under penalty 
 of enormous fines, to Catholic schools,* but \ve are forbidden 
 to make any resistance to the efforts made for their conversion. 
 After the age of seven they are allowed to abjure, and to this 
 also we are forbidden to offer any opposition. The abjuration, 
 even when unfairly obtained, is irrevocable. Frequently (his 
 is not waited for. As soon as it- is asserted that an inclination 
 has been perceived in any child to become Catholic, it is law- 
 ful to take him from his parents, in order, as it is said, to pre- 
 vent these precious germs from being destroyed. In this way, 
 sire, none of our children are safe, no father is sure of embrac- 
 ing those in the evening, upon whom in the morning he has 
 bestowed his benediction. And there is nothing fixed, nothing 
 regulated in the exercise of this frightful power. Bishops, 
 governors, intendants, delegates or under delegates, simple 
 cures, private individuals, it requires the merest pretext in 
 order to invest any or every one of these with it. The magis- 
 trates never refuse to sanction anything which has been inspired 
 by so noble a zeal !' " 
 
 XLIII. 
 
 SOFTENING EFFECTS. 
 
 " It is infamous !" cried the king. 
 
 Madame de Pompadour had followed in his face the effects 
 
 * In the midst of all the zealous interest for the poor peasants lost 
 among their mountains, it should be known what was taking place in 
 Paris. " The holy archbishop De Beaumont suddenly discovered not only 
 that the fish women ( fcmmes de la Halle), never sent their children to be 
 catechised, but that they themselves had not the least notion of religion 
 or morals, because their mothers and grandmothers had never been in- 
 structed in Miese." MADAME DE GENUS. Dictiontiaire dcs Maturs.
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 207 
 
 of what she read. In order to remain neutral, she had begun 
 by reading as calmly as possible. Gradually, whether she had 
 allowed herself to be carried away, or whether, as was more 
 probable, she had seen that there was no risk in appearing 
 moved, she had lent to the bitter sufferings of the oppressed 
 Huguenots, all the charm and all the art with which she knew 
 so well how to improve the paltry products of the muse of that 
 day. The marshal, on his part, no longer sought to conceal his 
 sympathy. A simple description of sufferings endured, would 
 have made less impression on him ; but this tissue of iniquities 
 revolted his ideas as a gentleman, his chivalry as an old soldier. 
 He would have better understood the extermination of the 
 Protestants, than these infernal machinations of a tyranny at 
 once mean and atrocious. 
 
 She went on. 
 
 " ' Behold, sire, the deplorable state to which you have 
 
 reduced so large a number of your most faithful subjects. 
 You have set aside, in your laws against them, all those princi- 
 ples, which elsewhere you hold yourself bound to proclaim ; 
 you have torn from your heart those feelings which you would 
 blush to forget towards your greatest enemies. Yes, we repeat 
 it, and your Majesty will not contradict us ; you would blush 
 to labor at the enfeebling of a nation with which you were at 
 enmity, by encouraging treason in the midst of it, by breaking 
 family ties, in torturing, by means of all that they hold most 
 dear, those of it who refused to concur in your plans. In the 
 midst of real wars, if a man had proposed to you to publish 
 against England or Prussia some manifesto analogous to your 
 edicts against us, you would have ejected him from your 
 council as an enemy of your glory, and you would have felt 
 yourself obliged to protest, in the hearing of all Europe, against
 
 208 RABAUT AND BRIDAINE, OR 
 
 the insult of which this man would have been guilty in suppos- 
 ing you capable of listening to his proposal. 
 
 " ' So cruel and unrighteous a set of laws can accordingly 
 have been conceived only by men who are accustomed to look 
 upon all as good which leads to the desired end. We know 
 not, sire, we wish not to know, to whom we owe your severi- 
 ties We only ask, in conclusion, one thing. Let your Majes- 
 ty take at random, from one of your edicts, or from one of 
 those of the late king, any one of the stipulations to which we 
 have called his atten ;ion. Let your Majesty present it, in the 
 form of a general question, to these same men who approved 
 of it in its application to us ; and if there is a single one who 
 says ; This is good ; this is wise and just, we will then no 
 longer complain, we will bow our heads forever beneath any 
 yoke which it may be thought proper to impose upon us. 
 
 " ' But no, sire ; leave all these hard-hearted counsellors to 
 their pitiless prejudices. In this matter consult only yourself, 
 your reason, your heart. Consider whether it is not time that 
 our sufferings should end, that our chains should fall, that we 
 should recover our rights, if not as citizens, at least as men ; 
 consider whether it is really your conscience which leads you 
 to offer us as a holocaust to the ill-will of a power whose am- 
 bition you fear. Your ancestor was never more terrible 
 towards us, than when he was on the worst terms with the 
 court of Rome ; all that he refused the pope in homage and 
 submission, he repaid in Huguenot blood. Is not this, in more 
 than one respect, the secret of our misfortunes ? And if there 
 are some who hate us because they are very Catholic, are there 
 not very many also who constitute themselves our persecutors 
 because they are so little Catholic 1 ? Their zeal may serve as 
 an excuse to the first ; but what a fearful account will the latter 
 be obliged to render to their God !' "
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 209 
 
 XLIV. 
 
 AN EDICT. 
 
 "Is that all T asked the king. 
 
 " It is all, sire " 
 
 " Well, marquise, write : 
 
 " To Monsieur the duke de Choiseul. 
 
 " I am of opinion, cousin, that there is somewhat, and 
 indeed very much to be modified in the manner in which the 
 members of the religion called reformed, are treated in my 
 kingdom. A memorial has been handed me, which shows me 
 that we have gone too far, and that my real intentions have 
 been exaggerated, in the edicts which I have been caused to 
 put forth. I see further, that with all the measures which I 
 have been induced to take, and all those which might still be 
 taken, two or three centuries of severities would perhaps not 
 be sufficient to attain the end which I had proposed to myself. 
 
 " My intention is, accordingly, that these should be given 
 up. Draw me up the plan of an edict, in which " 
 
 The king stopped. 
 
 " An edict ! That is very difficult. What will the clergy 
 say ? What will the pope say 1 An edict ! No. We will 
 send secretly to the intendants, the order to drop the present 
 ones. But suddenly 1 What will be said ?" 
 
 Such was Louis XV. He recoiled before the first difficul- 
 ties. 
 
 " What will be said 1" he resumed. " They might cry upon 
 this occasion, Dedil of the king.* No. No edict no orders. 
 I will leave it for my successor." 
 
 * This was a witticism of Monsieur d Cury, a wit by profession, and
 
 210 RABAUT AND BRIDAINK, OR 
 
 " In that case," said Richelieu, " the Protestants must have 
 patience. So much the more so because Monseigneur the 
 dauphin is not very friendly to them." 
 
 " Suppose your Majesty should speak to the duke de Choi- 
 seul ?" said the marquise, laughing. " He has drawn up more 
 edicts than your Majesty. Perhaps he could arrange it to 
 everybody's satisfaction." 
 
 " The bigots included ?" 
 
 " No but all reasonable people." 
 
 " That is to say scarcely any one." 
 
 " At least try." 
 
 " Let us try, then. Send for the duke." 
 
 " This evening 1" 
 
 " This evening. I wish to put an end to the thing. To 
 think that I can by a word, restore peace and happiness to 
 thousands of men, can deserve their blessings ! " 
 
 " Yes. It is a noble thing to be a king, sire." 
 
 " You think so ?" said Louis XV. bitterly. " A fine thing, 
 indeed, on my honor, to discover at the end of forty -five years, 
 that one has been the tyrant and butcher of a great part of his 
 subjects ! Shall we sup, marquise ?" 
 
 " And the duke de Choiseul, sire ? I have just ordered that 
 he should be sent for." 
 
 " So much the worse. What was I thinking of? Do you 
 know that I have already spent two hours with him and the 
 comptroller general ?" 
 
 well known to the king. At the time of the disputes with the Parlia- 
 ment, when they were selling in the streets an edict in which the king 
 had begun to retract, he said to one of the criers that it was not an Edit, 
 (edict,) but a Dedit, and the man, who did not know how to read, went 
 about crying Dedit, until he was stopped by the police. 
 
 (Edit, in French, signifies something said, dedit, signifies something un- 
 said. Tr.)
 
 THE COORT OF LOUIS XV. 211 
 
 She knew it, for Choiseul never omitted seeing her before 
 and after his interview with the king. But the king must not 
 know that they so constantly played into each other's hands. 
 They had the art of agreeing without seeming to have precon- 
 certed it, and thus the king, whom distrust alone could lead to 
 have an opinion of his own, ran no risk of adopting any other 
 than their's. 
 
 " Has your Majesty worked with him during the day ?" she 
 asked. 
 
 " Two hours, I tell you ; and such work ! Adding up mil 
 lions." 
 
 " And your Majesty objects to that V said Richelieu. 
 
 " Millions of deficit, Marshal. Every year worse. When 
 Choiseul showed me this gulf, I thought I should become dizzy. 
 We receive one hundred and seventy-two millions ; we spend 
 three hundred and fifty-seven. Count up." 
 
 " But there must be some mistake, sire." 
 
 " Not at all. The total of our receipts is three hundred and 
 twelve millions. Of this, one hundred and forty millions are 
 already pledged. Deficit, one hundred and twenty-five mil- 
 lions. It is plain enough. Five hundred thousand livres a 
 day, if you like it better." 
 
 " What is that for France 7" 
 
 " Oh, ho ! you also belong to the number ?" 
 
 " Of what, sire." 
 
 " Of those designated by the court of accounts in its last re- 
 monstrance. There, read. Here on this page." 
 
 Richelieu took the paper and read : 
 
 " ' Your Majesty cannot too much distrust those who, in 
 order to quench the insatiable thirst which they have for your 
 gifts' 
 
 " I have never asked for anything," said the duke, pausing.
 
 212 BABAUT AND BRIDAINE, OR 
 
 No you have only taken without asking" 
 
 "Sire!" 
 
 " Come ! we will not grow angry ! It was in Germany that 
 you took, I know, not in France. Have I ever seemed to 
 owe you a grudge for it ? But finish the sentence. It was the 
 end of it I thought of, when I gave it to you to read." 
 
 " ' magnify to you the wealth of the nation. The zeal of 
 
 your subjects is inexhaustible, but their ability does not equal 
 their zeal.' 
 
 " There they are, the insolent scoundrels," said the duke, as 
 he returned the paper to the king. " With what do they want 
 us to carry on the war ?" 
 
 " They would prefer that we should not carry it on at all. 
 But as we cannot give them this satisfaction just at present, we 
 have contrived another. I have just ordered that my plate 
 should be carried to the mint." 
 
 " That is great and magnanimous, sire." 
 
 " Yes ? Then I have no doubt I shall be imitated. You, 
 and all the court with you, will receive to-morrow an invita- 
 tion to do the same. Well, what is the matter 1 One would 
 think that you did not approve of the arrangement." 
 
 And in fact this blow had somewhat stunned him. For the 
 plate of the noble duke was indeed very magnificent. But he 
 soon recovered. 
 
 "To the mint, then!" he exclaimed. 
 
 And his decision was made. The next morning there was 
 1.0 longer a dish in his possession. As we have said, all that 
 he took or received with one hand, he was always ready to 
 give back with the other for the k'ng and for la France.
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 213 
 
 XLV. 
 
 * BANKRUPT GOVERNMENT. 
 
 But it was very curious to contemplate this government, 
 which regularly every year devoured half the income of the 
 next. Curious, we say, for there were still very few persons 
 who looked upon it as terrifying. The deficit had become the 
 normal state of things. People had grown accustomed to it 
 in time of peace, and it was found natural that it should he 
 doubled during the war. 
 
 Not that the parliaments in their remonstrances, and the 
 politieal economists in their books, neglected to attack such a 
 state of things ; the government had not yet thought of doing 
 as it concluded to do four years afterwards at the petition of 
 the comptroller general Laverdy, namely, to prohibit all pub- 
 lications in regard to the finances. But it was with their 
 warnings as with those of the pulpit ; many did not listen to 
 them ; and many although they listened could not become 
 alarmed. The longer the car had been rolling on towards the 
 abyss, the more they seemed to imagine that it would roll on 
 for an indefinite length of time. The king, in spite of his list- 
 lessness, was at times one of those who was the most con- 
 cerned at it. " What would a merchant do," he once asked 
 the abbe Terray, " if he should see his affairs in the same state 
 as mine ?" " He would go and drown himself, sire," said the 
 abbe. 
 
 And accordingly the gloomy king drowned himself after his 
 own fashion. He blunted as well as he could, by the distrac- 
 tions of dissipation, the consciousness of this overwhelming 
 ruin, of which he had neither the courage, nor the strength, 
 nor even the desire to become the reformer.
 
 214 BABAUT AND BRIDAINE, OR 
 
 Since the time of Colbert, the cardinal de Fleury alone had 
 drawn up a budget in which the expenses, at least on paper, 
 did not surpass the receipts ; and he had succeeded in this 
 only on account of a long peace, and by considerably reduc- 
 ing the army, and giving up the navy. 
 
 In the budget of 1726, the expenses were reduced to one 
 hundred and eighty -two millions, a sum equal and even inferior 
 to that of the ordinary receipts. 
 
 This total, which may be considered very small, was far 
 from being as small as it seems. 
 
 In the first place, one hundred and eighty-two millions was 
 at that time equivalent to at least three hundred millions of 
 our money. 
 
 In the second place, the population has doubled. These 
 three hundred millions would accordingly be equivalent to six 
 hundred. 
 
 Finally a great number of expenses defrayed at the present 
 time by the central exchequer, were then defrayed by the prov- 
 inces. Thus, for instance, in this same budget of 1726, the 
 public works were set down at only four millions. 
 
 To make amends, however, in spite of reductions which had 
 appeared exorbitant, the king's household figures there still for 
 twenty -one millions, (thirty-two or three of the present time ; 
 nearly one hundred thousand francs a day.) Now the king in 
 1726, was Louis XV., then sixteen years old, already married, 
 but without children, without mistresses, without expensive 
 tastes, and respectfully submissive to the old minister who had 
 laid out the plan of expenses. With the dominion of the 
 passions all must change. The fixed and acknowledged ex- 
 penses will receive but little increase. The king will even 
 consent willingly to their reduction, and it will be no sacrifice 
 to him, for splendor wearies him. He feels himself lost in the
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 215 
 
 immense galleries of his ancestor ; he belittles to tne best of 
 his ability, the palace of Louis XIV. But when he is seen to 
 retrench a million in the expenditures which at least serve to 
 keep up the dignity of the crown, it is a sign, alas ! that 
 he is going to throw away two, if not more, through those 
 channels in which is lost, together with the royal gold, all the 
 royal dignity. And besides, you may be almost certain that 
 these very economies which he allows to be trumpeted abroad, 
 will never be put into execution. He has not courage to carry 
 out those which are worth it ; he is told that it is not worth his 
 while to trouble himself about the smaller ones ; and, in fact, 
 a few crowns clipped from so many millions, would be a mere 
 farce. If the poverty arrive at its height, he will throw his 
 plate into the furnaces of the mint, but he will not give up a 
 louis of the expenses of the Parc-aux-Cerfs. 
 
 This very day, the alarming results of the comptroller- 
 general's calculations had not prevented his returning to the 
 subject of his gaming funds, in the presence of the duke de 
 Choiseul. We have alread} heard that Monsieur de Silhouette 
 had succeeded in inducing him to give these up ; and we have 
 seen how heavily the privation weighed upon him. Three or 
 four days after he had given it up he had begun to devise 
 means of recovering it. He dared not claim it again. Mon- 
 sieur de Silhouette was a grave personage ; and, moreover, the 
 public were acquainted with the transaction. The king had 
 been commended, the minister still more so. So that in this 
 direction there was nothing to be effected. 
 
 The king had accordingly consulted the duke de Choiseul. 
 " We shall see," the duke had said ; but he asked nothing 
 better than to set the king once more upon his old track. It 
 was a piece of good fortune to have it in his power to perform 
 such a service for the king, and Choiseul had accordingly
 
 210 RABAUT AND BBIDAINE, OB 
 
 almost promised to supply him with the necessary funds. S< 
 that the king, after having sent for him on quite a different 
 business, thought only of the money when his minister arrived. 
 
 He led him into his cabinet. 
 
 " Well, Monsieur the duke, what news ?" 
 
 " Despatches from Germany " 
 
 " Ah ! from Germany " said the king, in the tone of a man 
 who receives quite a different answer from that which he had 
 expected. 
 
 General news, grave, important news, be it understood, in- 
 terested him but little. He would at any time willingly lose 
 the thread of an important communication in order to hear an 
 anecdote from the city. " We have news from Bavaria," he 
 wrote one day to Madame de Chateauroux. " It bears date the 
 13th of December; but I have not seen it yet" And this was 
 written the 3d of January. Madame de Chateauroux, who as- 
 pired to play the part of Agnes Sorel, was excessively annoyed 
 at this strange indifference ; Madame de Pompadour, on the 
 contrary, drew her own advantage from it. 
 
 The king appeared to care little for knowing the contents of 
 the despatches ; but the minister was willing to let him remain 
 in suspense a little longer, hi regard to what he so much 
 wished to know. 
 
 " Yes, sire, from Germany. It appears that everything goes 
 on tolerably well. The campaign commenced rather late in 
 June." 
 
 " Which was ridiculous enough," said the king. 
 
 " Provisions were scanty, transportation difficult." 
 
 "According to the contractors." 
 
 " Perhaps so, but the marshal de Broglie is established in 
 Hesse. They are now putting Hanover under contribution."
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 21t 
 
 " Poor Hanover ! After Richelieu, Broglie ! Has an engage- 
 ment taken place ?" 
 
 " Yes, near Qostercamp." 
 
 " The whole army V ' 
 
 " One corps only, commanded by the marquis de Castries. 
 They relieved Wesel, which the duke of Brunswick was upon 
 the point of taking. He came very, near beating us." 
 
 " And these contributions," said the king, " which they are 
 levying in Hanover, are we to have none of them ?" 
 
 "No, sire. We think ourselves very fortunate that they 
 serve to defray a part of the expenses of the army." 
 
 " But, I suppose there will at least be something to deduct 
 from the allotted sum ?" 
 
 " On the contrary, the calculations have already proved too 
 small. We shall be obliged to add several millions." 
 
 " But at any rate, have you some money for me ? Am I to 
 be the last one served T' 
 
 " Your Majesty can command anything. But you are 
 aware, sire, how many eyes are fixed upon you at this time." 
 
 " You say that the duke of Brunswick came very near beat- 
 ing us ?" 
 
 " And he would have beaten us, sire, if it had not been for 
 the admirable devotion of an officei of the regiment of Au- 
 vergne, the chevalier d'Assas." 
 
 " Another one to be paid," murmured the king. 
 
 " No, sire ; he is dead." 
 
 "Ah!" 
 
 " They were about to fall "into an ambuscade. D'Assas, who 
 marched at the head of the column, found himself suddenly 
 surrounded by enemies. They ordered him to be silent or he 
 was a dead man. ' To the rescue !' he shouted, ' these are 
 enemies.' And he fell pierced with a thousand wounds."
 
 218 RABAUT AND BIUDAINE, OR 
 
 But the icing had something else to do besides admire those 
 who lost their lives for him. He wanted his gaming funds ; and 
 he returned to the subject with the pertinacity of a child who 
 resists too long a refusal. The minister perceived that unless 
 he wished to put the king's gratitude out of the question, this 
 was the moment to yield. 
 
 " Sire," he said, " having taken all things into consideration, 
 I have found that it will perhaps not be impossible to gratify 
 your wish. A few private retrenchments from the funds of 
 my department* would indemnify you for what you have 
 thought fit to give up." 
 
 " And no one will know of it ?" 
 
 "No one." 
 
 " And when they see that I play ?" 
 
 " The king is not obliged to give explanations of his actions." 
 
 He accepted. Two days afterwards, the affair was public. 
 Who had betrayed the secret? The minister perhaps; per- 
 haps the king himself, without suspecting it. But he continued 
 to imagine that no one saw any harm in it ; and as stolen 
 fruit is always sweeter, it is said, than that of one's own 
 trees, he had never played with more pleasure than with this 
 money purloined from diplomatic intrigues. 
 
 XLVI. 
 
 THE KING AND HIS MINISTER. 
 
 But to return to the edict. Once satisfied, the king appeared 
 
 rather more disposed to talk about business. He inquired 
 
 about the details of the campaign, recurred to the death of 
 
 d'Assas, and spoke of him with commendation. He even 
 
 * Foreign affairs.
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 219 
 
 made a memorandum of some observations to be suggested to 
 the count de Belle-Isle, the minister of war. In short, he 
 thought of everything except the subject in regard to which he 
 had sent for the minister. 
 
 But as the duke was leaving him, the king cried : 
 
 " Ah ! I was forgetting. You are to draw me up an edict, 
 if you please, in regard to the Protestants." 
 
 " But, sire, all the measures which can "possibly be taken 
 against them, have been taken." 
 
 " I did not say against them." 
 
 " It is to be then" 
 
 " What your friends the encyclopedists require. What, does 
 it not suit you ?" 
 
 " It is a very serious matter, sire." 
 
 " And therefore, you see that I charge you with it, and not 
 the count de Saint-Florentin, whose business it would be." 
 
 " It is a great honor, sire ; but " 
 
 He was greatly embarrassed. To object to it, would be to 
 deny the principles which the king knew to be his ; yet it did 
 not suit him at the present moment to change anything in re- 
 gard to the old severities. We have seen that it was pecu- 
 liarly necessary for him to contrive a reply to give to any one 
 who might accuse him of weakening Catholicism ; that he par 
 ticularly, must seek to cover with the ancient drapery of in- 
 tolerance, all that he began to dare against the old Romish 
 spirit. Moreover, he was not a man to torment himself by 
 thinking of the sufferings which must necessarily be continued 
 by this policy. When the general attains his object, he very 
 easily takes his part of the fatigues and evils to which he is 
 about to expose his soldiers. Thus proceeded Monsieur de 
 Choiseul. It cost him no more to leave a part of the popula- 
 tion under the dominion of unjust, cruel laws, than to
 
 220 RABAUT AND BRIDAINE, OR 
 
 send a regiment to the war in Germany, or a frigate to Pon. 
 dicherry. 
 
 " So you do not think it a good idea?" resumed the king. 
 
 " I do not say that, sire. But I repeat that it is a serious 
 matter. I should like to reflect. Your Majesty is not accus- 
 tomed to make such sudden resolutions." 
 
 " This was in truth a point which aroused the uneasiness of 
 the minister. He trembled lest he might discover in the de- 
 termination of the king the influence of some rival. 
 
 " You are surprised at that ?" said Louis XV. " Perhaps it 
 is not wonderful that you should be. But I know from ex- 
 perience that what I do not set about immediately, I never do 
 at all. Besides, the edict will be discussed in the council." 
 
 " But I should like your Majesty to inform me at least of 
 its grounds." 
 
 " Well, we will talk of it again." 
 
 " Has your Majesty any other commands ?" 
 
 " No. But stay. When will you send me something ?" 
 
 " Immediately, if your Majesty wishes." 
 
 " No. Not this evening. I have something else to do." 
 
 XLVII. 
 
 THE KING'S EDICT. 
 
 " What can he have to do f thought the minister, as he took 
 his departure. And he tried in vain to console himself by 
 the reflection that he should hear the next day from Madame 
 de Pompadour; he saw the king already throwing off his 
 guardianship, or choosing other guardians. 
 
 The king thought very little of any such thing ; he was only 
 delighted, though without explaining to himself why, to feel
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 221 
 
 himself once more disposed to do something of his own ac- 
 cord. It was like the pleasure of the child, which finds itself 
 able, without knowing how, to take a few steps all alone. 
 
 He reflected for a few moments, then as if proud of his new 
 way of proceeding, and desirous to display it, he returned to 
 the marquise. 
 
 She was alone. The duke de Richelieu, as she told the 
 king, had gone to give some orders concerning the fete at 
 Bellevue. 
 
 " Marquise," he said, " I wish this matter finished. I am 
 going to try my hand on this edict, which they pretend is so 
 difficult to draw up. You are going to serve me again as sec- 
 retary. Write : 
 
 " Although firmly resolved to live and die in the Catholic 
 faith, and to endure no attack of any kind whatsoever, against 
 its rights, honors, or privileges, yet as it has been represented 
 to us that a part of our subjects have never yet been induced 
 to embrace the truth, it has appeared to us that there is room 
 for the modification of our previous edicts, put forth in the 
 supposition that there existed but one religion in our kingdom. 
 
 " Our non-Catholic subjects will continue disqualified, in any 
 case, under any form or denomination possible, to constitute a 
 party in the State. They will remain subjected to all the 
 general ordinances, including those relative to the external ob- 
 servance of the fetes of the Church. No privilege can be 
 granted them ; no right which they might not have in common 
 with all our subjects, will result from the present edict. 
 
 " Out intentions thus declared, we have commanded, and 
 now command, as follows : 
 
 " Art. I. The civil incapacitation to which our non-Catholic 
 subjects have been liable until now, from the fact of their non- 
 Catholicity, is and remains abolished.
 
 222 RABAUT AND BRIDAINE, OR 
 
 " Art. II. Their declarations of births, marriages, or deaths, 
 may be received by the officers of justice, without the inter- 
 vention of the priests. 
 
 " Art. III. There shall be now, as always, but one public 
 worship, that of the Catholic religion. But " 
 
 The king considered, not without embarrassment, how he 
 should continue this article, when some one was heard to 
 scratch at the door. He opened it. A page presented himself. 
 
 " His reverence Father Desmarets requests to know whether 
 his Majesty will have the goodness to receive him for a few 
 moments." 
 
 " Father Desmarets, marquise !" said the king, turning sud- 
 denly. " What does he want with me ?" 
 
 " Ah ! sire, he has scented the edict." 
 
 " It is impossible." 
 
 "Fora Jesuit?" 
 
 " Must I see him f 
 
 " Certainly. But let me go out." 
 
 " Au revoir, then." 
 
 " At supper." 
 
 " Good." 
 
 She disappeared by one door, and a few seconds afterwards 
 Desmarets entered by the other. 
 
 XLVIII. 
 
 THE KING'S CONFESSOR. 
 
 She was not mistaken. The confessor had seer ted the edict. 
 But it was not this edict, projected scarcely an hour before, 
 which had brought him to Versailles this evening. 
 
 Richelieu had met him, pacing gravely and gloomily to-
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 223 
 
 wards the apartment of the king. These two very dissimilar 
 confidants of the faults of the same man, had always regarded 
 each other with considerable jealousy. Living personifications 
 of the two principles which strove together in the king's heart, 
 it was generally more or less perceptible from their manner 
 towards one another, which of the two had for the moment the 
 upper hand in this domain so constantly tossed to and fro be- 
 tween heaven and hell. The same feelings were, however, 
 displayed in a very different manner by these two men. 
 Richelieu when he triumphed, only glanced down at Des- 
 marets, from the height of his importance ; but Desmarets 
 triumphed with his eyes more humbly cast down, his voice 
 sweeter, and his demeanor more lowly than ever. And at the 
 moments when he himself knew not whether he were con- 
 queror or conquered, his deportment was a singular mingling 
 of resigned pride, and proud humility. 
 
 Richelieu amused himself, when he had an opportunity, by 
 drawing out the old Jesuit, as he said. With the vanity 
 which his successes with the ladies had encouraged, he actually 
 fancied that he had very little trouble in causing him to betray 
 his most private feelings, never perceiving that he began by 
 betraying his own, and that Desmarets had reached the inmost 
 recesses of his thoughts, while he himself had scarcely touched 
 those of Desmarets. 
 
 " Ah ! good evening, Father, good evening !" he cried. 
 " Are you going to the king ]" 
 
 " If his Majevty condescend to receive me." 
 
 " If his Majesty condescend 1 What ! is not Fatner Des 
 .narets always welcome, day and night 1" 
 
 He thought himself very cunning and mischevious in re 
 /rinding Desmar6ts of the evening when he had came as far as 
 che ante-chamber, only t^ be told by the valets that the king
 
 oo J RABAVT AND li KI D A I X E , OR 
 
 was with his mistress. But it was this very recollection that 
 the Jesuit was resolved to brave. He came now in the even 
 ing precisely to wipe out the old affront by having himself 
 announced to the king, wherever he might be, and in whatever 
 society he might chance to be engaged. 
 
 " Monsieur the duke is very good," he said. 
 
 " I will not detain you, Father. His Majesty is occupied, it 
 is true." 
 
 " Ah !" 
 
 "But in a very holy manner. About the affairs of the 
 Huguenots." 
 
 " Some edict, without doubt ?" 
 
 " Yes indeed an edict the like of which we have not yet 
 seen. Go, Father, go." 
 
 And he himself went on, with a sneer and a laugh. 
 
 " On my honor," he said, " the edict is in great peril. This 
 infernal man will never allow it to come to anything. And he 
 will be so much the more enraged because he expects some- 
 thing quite different persecutions, dragoons. I should like 
 to see his face when he learns the true state of the case." 
 
 And the good Father too, s'neered and laughed as he went on 
 His way ; and he better knew why. In the first place, he 
 guessed well enough from the air of the marshal, what must be 
 the spirit of the edict. And thanks to one of his trusty friends, 
 Richelieu's secretary, he had for the last two days had in his 
 pocket a copy of the petition which had just been read to the 
 king. And in these tolerant thoughts which had entered the 
 mind of Louis XV., he saw a means of gaining the accomplish- 
 ment of his designs. 
 
 A great council had been held at Paris, consisting of the 
 principal leaders of the order. They had agreed, as previously, 
 at the archbishop's, in acknowledging the imminence of their
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 225 
 
 danger, which made appalling progress. Some, particularly 
 the Provincial, persisted in thinking that they ought to await 
 the blow, and fall without a struggle, or conquer without war- 
 fare ; the others, while acknowledging that a public resistance 
 would but aggravate the evils of their situation, wished that it 
 should at least be more clearly ascertained how they stood 
 with the king, and what might be expected from him. It had 
 been decided that his confessor should go to him, ask him the 
 question frankly, and warn him that he must give a decision. 
 Desmarets, who was charged with this mission, was one of 
 those who hoped the least from it. He had brought forward as 
 an objection, the natural indecision of the king, and his incapa- 
 bility of carrying out his own most decided wishes ; he had said 
 that all might be lost, with scarcely a chance of gaining anything. 
 But the thing once decided, he had obeyed, as a Jesuit alone 
 knows how to obey. The will of his Order, represented by 
 these assembled Fathers, had become his own. He marched 
 to the combat without fear, as without hope, equally ready to 
 dare much or little, to press forward or to draw back. 
 
 XLIX. 
 
 POLICY. 
 
 " Enter, Father," said the king. " To what do I owe the 
 pleasure " 
 . " You are surprised to see me, sire 1" 
 
 Why" 
 
 " Yes, I asked myself as I came, what business I had here. 
 The king is willing to be lost, I thought, let him be lost ; but 
 to drag with him to perdition, France, the Church " 
 
 " This language Father "
 
 226 RABAUT AND BRIDAINE, OR 
 
 " Perchance God may punish me for not having spoken thus 
 to you sooner, more clearly. I shall speak no more to you of 
 your immorality. I have performed my duty on this point. 
 I have said all to you that I had to say, but in vain. But 
 lately, after resolutions and promises which I began to believe 
 serions, you mocked I will not say me ; the king of France 
 is perfectly at liberty to mock Father Desmarets, but God, 
 of whom the Scripture says ; ' Be not deceived, God is not 
 mocked." 1 And accordingly the punishment has followed hard 
 upon the offence." 
 
 " The punishment ?" said the king, astonished. 
 
 " Yes ; and it is a double punishment, since you are not con- 
 scious of it. ' Seeing, they may see,' saith the Scripture, ' and 
 not perceive ; and hearing, they may hear, and not understand ; 
 lest at any time they should be converted, and their sins should 
 be forgiven them.' " 
 
 " And where," said the king, " do you perceive this blindness 
 of which you speak ? I have sinned, but not without knowing 
 it. Would to God it were so !" 
 
 " A king is not responsible only for that evil which he him- 
 self does ; he is also responsible, perhaps even more so, for 
 the evil which he allows to be done. Well, sire, have you 
 reflected on the evil which you are allowing to be done ? Do 
 you prevent that which it is in your power to prevent 1 Do 
 you punish that which it is in your power to punish 1 Do you 
 lament over that which it is in your power neither to prevent 
 nor punish 1" 
 
 " If I were obliged to punish or deplore all the evil which is 
 said or done in France, should I hold out long ? No king ever 
 was saved, if this be necessary." 
 
 " In truth, no king was ever saved, if he refused to offer to
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 227 
 
 heaven, for his sins and those of his people, such atonements as 
 it lay in his power to offer." 
 
 " Yes that is it. We are to be the servants of the Church, 
 your servants more especially, and then we may do what we 
 like." 
 
 " What you like 1 No, sire. You will find us near you 
 whenever you sin. Before you sin, we will adjure you, in the 
 name of God, to desist ; afterwards, we will be there to offer 
 you pardon, still in the name of God. We are able to offer 
 it, but pay its price we cannot, if we should give our blood. 
 It is for you to pay this price ; and with what ] If the treasure 
 has not been amassed beforehand, where shall it be procured 
 at the last moment ?" 
 
 This embraces the whole of Jesuitism. We are to pay for 
 heaven, instead of receiving it by faith, accompanied by works, 
 as a pure gift of the mercy of God. 
 
 " Yes," he repeated ; " where shall it be procured ? Ah ! 
 what a frightful death ! The death of a sovereign forced to 
 exclaim, in expiring, ' I have had twenty years, thirty years, 
 half a century, in which to labor for the glory of God and I 
 have done nothing !' " 
 
 " Nothing ?" cried the king. 
 
 " Nothing. For so long as there is something to be done, 
 which can be done, and which is yet neglected, nothing is 
 done. Would you look upon an enemy as vanquished, suffi- 
 ciently vanquished, at least, for your glory and safety, whom 
 you had not crushed more than you have crushed these execra- 
 ble principles with which you permit your States to be over- 
 run ? Do you suppose your allies disposed to praise your 
 sincerity, those allies whom you allow to be threatened and 
 insulted as we are threatened and insulted ?" 
 
 " Allies !" murmured the king. " Since when ?"
 
 228 RABAUT AND BRIDAINE, OR 
 
 "Since when? Listen, sire. Since kings legan to exist, 
 there has been of necessity an alliance between those who 
 command, and those who preach obedience. Besides this, 
 there must stand above those who command in the name of 
 the earth, those who command in the name of heaven, and 
 the first have never endeavored to rid themselves of the second 
 with impunity. This principle of obedience, without which 
 all your power would be swept away like a vapor, by the first 
 w ind, dwells in us, sire, our society is at the present day 
 its representative, its embodiment. Do you ask by what 
 right ? Woe be to that sovereign who in these days when all 
 is tottering, should pause to seek our right ! We are, that is 
 sufficient. We do not begin, in the midst of the tempest, to 
 discuss the history, the form, the nature of the rock which of- 
 fered us a shelter." 
 
 " And if the rock also should totter ?" said the king. " If 
 there should be danger of our being swept away with it ?" 
 
 " There is more danger of this without it. Yes, sire ; what- 
 ever opinions and prejudices may exist in regard to us, we 
 have become, from the force of circumstances alone, the repre- 
 sentatives of the past, the depositories of all traditions. In our 
 soil, as if in their native ground, all monarchies as well as the 
 Church have struck deep root. Let this soil be torn up, and 
 you will see whether the plough of the age will spare one 
 more than the other. If you wish to precipitate yourself, in 
 the train of the philosophers, into that new world which they 
 speak of opening to the nations, then I have nothing to say to 
 you. First lay your crown upon the threshold, if you would 
 not have it presently rolled into the mire. But if you care to 
 keep it upon your head, then no more of these subterfuges 
 which lead to the perdition of your own soul and of your 
 kingdom. You must be openly the friend and supporter of
 
 THE COURT OP LOUIS XV. 229 
 
 those who cannot defend themselves without defending you, 
 nor fall without your falling also. The time no longer exists 
 when sensible people might assert that our society is not the 
 Church, is not religion. Religion and the Church were in ex- 
 istence before us, but will they exist after us ? That is the 
 question. It is no longer the time to inquire how we gained, 
 or allowed to be given us such a position as we now hold ; but 
 it is necessary to understand that such is our position, and that 
 M hoever at the present day is not for us, is necessarily against 
 us, against religion, and against monarchy, and against all that 
 monarchy, religion, and the Church have to uphold in this 
 world. After that, consider what you had better do." 
 
 L. 
 
 A HARD STRUGGLE . V I C T O R V. 
 
 Thus spoke the king's confessor. He was pertinacious, cut- 
 ting, and inexorable, and moreover, he was right. As we 
 have already said, then as now, Jesuitism was Catholicism in- 
 carnate. In spite of any precautions which might be taken, 
 and of any illusions which might be courted, a rupture with 
 Jesuitism, was a rupture with Catholicism ; it was opening to 
 the light of day all the abysses slumbering in the shadows of 
 the past. And a vague instinct had already long ago whis- 
 pered to the king all that he had just heard. Had ue been 
 bolder, more active, he would have been seen from his youth 
 at the head of the champions of the past. He might have 
 been broken perhaps, but would never have yielded. 
 
 " I am too old," he said. 
 
 " Too old to serve God ?" asked the Jesuit. " You {.re not 
 too old to sin against him."
 
 230 RABAUT AND BRIDAINE, OR 
 
 " Father," interrupted the king, " we are not now in the con 
 fessional. Do not oblige me to remind you that you are 
 before the king, and in his palace. Well, what is the mat- 
 ter ? What are you doing ?" 
 
 Desmarets made no reply. He kneeled slowly with his 
 head bowed and his hands joined, before a seat upon which he 
 had placed a crucifix. 
 
 " Oh God !" he at length said, " it is true that I am in the 
 palace of the king, and in his presence ; but I am none the less 
 in yours.* Have I gone beyond my duty ? Have I failed in 
 respect to your anointed? If I have done so, pardon me, 
 Lord. But above all, do not let him suffer for my fault ; let 
 not my imprudence be a pretext for him to harden his heart. 
 Let him break the vase, if he will, but let him gather up its 
 contents. Let him refuse to me, a sinner, the account of his 
 deeds, if he but give it to you, to you, my God ! You have 
 given him for a long time a high place in this world ; you have 
 willed that he should be born to effect the salvation or per- 
 dition of a multitude of your children. You have committed 
 to him not one, not five, not ten talents, as to the servant in 
 *he parable, but a hundred, a thousand, a hundred thousand. 
 What has he done with them, my God, and what will he bring 
 to you, when at the last day you ask him for the interest ? 
 You established him hi your place to make your laws respect- 
 ed, and behold these laws are violated with impunity. You 
 destined him to be a terror to the impious, and behold impiety 
 appears boldly. Eldest son of the Church, he is upon the 
 point of abandoning his mother, and of allowing her most de- 
 voted defenders to be driven from her side. Most Christian 
 king, he is about to extend his hand to heresy " 
 
 * The Romauists employ the second person plural in addressing the 
 Deity Tr.
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 231 
 
 ' It is false," cried the king. 
 
 But Desmarets continued, without pausing, or changing his 
 tone. 
 
 " He is going to restore to error the hope of oiice 
 
 fl ore raising her altars " 
 
 " It is false," repeated the king. 
 
 But he was shaken. The tone, the calmness of the Jesuit 
 moved him. He shuddered to hear himself spoken of, in his 
 Dwn presence, as the dead are spoken of. 
 
 " He must have been very guilty then, oh God, that 
 
 you should have forsaken him so far ! He must have appeared 
 to you very unworthy of defending your cause, that you 
 should have allowed him to lose all abhorrence for your 
 enemies ! " 
 
 " Read," cried the king, " read !" 
 
 " What is this ?" said Desmarets, slowly turning his gaze 
 from his ebony crucifix, and glancing at the paper extended to 
 him by the king. 
 
 " It is my edict. Read it. See whether I forsake the faith 
 which you accuse me of denying !" 
 
 Desmarets arose. The hand which held the paper trembled. 
 He had reached the last line before his look appeared to have 
 quitted the first, which he seemed to be reading slowly, word 
 for word. 
 
 " Good God !" he murmured, " good God !" 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " Words at the commencement ; deeds afterwards ; and the 
 deeds wipe out the words." 
 
 And again he fell upon his knees; he ago. HI clasped his 
 hands. His eyes wandered from the crucifix to the edict ; for 
 the paper had dropped from his hand, and fallen upon the floor 
 before the crucifix.
 
 232 RABAUT AND BRIDAINK, Oil 
 
 " My God ! ' he cried. " Behold what is offered you ! In- 
 stead of an active faith, vain protestations. Zeal professedly 
 but treason in reality ! He wishes to live and die, he says, in 
 the bosom of your Church, and he abandons the attempt to 
 bring those back who have abandoned it. He declares that he 
 has faith in her, and he permits other instructions beside hers. 
 He guarantees to her her prerogatives, and leaves in peace 
 those who deny them. In public, her worship alone may be 
 celebrated; but in private, heresy may freely carry on its 
 own. As if, Lord, there were any difference in your eyes 
 between an insult in the midst of a city, and an insult in the 
 solitude of a desert ; between an abomination committed in 
 the day, and one committed at night ! What will this pre- 
 tended most Christian kingdom be. when all this happens, but 
 a whited sepulchre, in which uncleanness gathers and increases ? 
 What will this king be" 
 
 " Enough, Father," said Louis XV. " Let it be as God will. 
 I should hold my salvation too dearly bought, if it must be 
 paid for by the continued sufferings of so many people. No ! 
 Do not speak of it again. Let them be converted ; I am most 
 willing ; but I have permitted their persecution already too 
 long. This edict shall be put into execution, Father." 
 
 "No." 
 
 "You said no, I think?" 
 
 "I said no." 
 
 " It shall be executed, I tell you." 
 
 " No." 
 
 " It is my will." 
 
 " It is not the will of God." 
 
 " It is mine. Unless a miracle take pkce " 
 
 But he could not go on. Desmarets stood with his arm 
 raised, his eye flashing, and seemed but to have a word to
 
 THE COUUT OF LOUIS XV. 233 
 
 speak to _call forth the miracle. The king recoiled, silent, 
 startled. It might have been taken for an apparition, with a 
 man terrified at having evoked it. 
 
 " A miracle !" said Desmarets, slowly. " If one be needed, 
 it will take place. Where? When 1 ? How? God only 
 knows ! But He will not permit the consummation of this 
 apostacy. The eldest son of the Church shall not batter down 
 her ramparts. Let him reflect and tremble. At the first 
 stroke his hand would wither." 
 
 And he let his hand drop, at d, with his eyes cast down and 
 his head bowed, as if beneath the weight of the maledictions 
 which could be seen in his glance, he quitted the apartment. 
 
 The king had held out, but only with the most violent effort. 
 He had in these few moments exhausted all the powers of his 
 mind, so unused to exerting a will of its own. A complete 
 prostration had followed the excitement of the struggle. A 
 weak man is his own most redoubtable enemy and constant 
 conqueror. 
 
 LI. 
 
 MADAME DU DEFFANT. 
 
 Let us return to Paris. 
 
 Towards the close of the same week, the Staff Officers of 
 Philosophy were one evening assembled at the house of the 
 marquise du Deffant. 
 
 They talked. Of what did they not talk ! We have already 
 described conversation at an era when newspapers were not in 
 existence, when all the news that now comes to us in a printed 
 form was circulated by means of lively gossip, and \vhen 
 liberty, banished from the press, took refuge in the saloons. 
 
 A saloon, in the sense assigned to the wore by custom, sig
 
 231 RABAUT AND BRIDAINE, OR 
 
 nified essentially a saloon presided over by a woman. A man, 
 however distinguished he might be, and however frequented 
 his house, might have re-unions, dinners, suppers, but he could 
 fcot have a saloon. 
 
 Each saloon, besides its casual visitors, had its special 
 habitues. "What woman of talent could do without her 
 menagerie?" said Madame de Tencin, whose two principal 
 leasts, to speak in her own style, were Fontenelle and Mon- 
 tesquieu ! 
 
 Now, of all the saloons of the day, that of Madame du Def- 
 fant was at this time the most in vogue. Madame GeofTrin, 
 her rival, was equally clever, and had an equal number of 
 friends ; but and it was an important point they felt a little 
 less at their ease with her. The bold spirits feared offending 
 her, and the timid preferred going where it was less dangerous 
 to be bold. They dined with pleasure with Madame Geoffrin ; 
 but they liked better to philosophize at Madame du Deffant's. 
 
 And at both places, moreover, was always to be met a 
 woman who began to dispute the pre-eminence with them, 
 Mademoiselle de 1'Espinasse. Her equivocal birth, peculiar 
 countenance, great wit, and tolerable amount of learning, had 
 soon made her the fashion. Madame du Deffant had received 
 her into her house, after she lost her sight, in order to receive 
 the guests, and still more in order to keep her company, for 
 she could not endure being alone, even for an instant. To 
 converse and to listen to conversation, was to her not merely 
 a pleasure, but a necessity, the greatest, and, in some sort, the 
 only one ; her all and her existence ; a mania, for that matter, 
 which was that of the age. In truth, the eighteenth century 
 was pretty well represented by this blind old woman philoso- 
 phizing in her arm-chair. 
 
 In the midst of this vor/ex, of which it pleased her to be the
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 235 
 
 centre, Madam e du Defiant was, according to her own state- 
 ment, the woman most ennuyee in all France. She spoke of 
 her ennui as Voltaire did of his ailments, that is to say, un- 
 ceasingly, and to everybody. She had commenced long before 
 becoming blind, as Voltaire had long before becoming infirm. 
 A singular compliment to the witty crowd who regaled her. 
 with their prattling ! But they did not heed it. It was of 
 little importance that she continued to complain of ennui, so 
 long as they continued to amuse themselves so well hi her saloon. 
 She had lately become sensible of that which she ought to 
 have foreseen. Her dependent was becoming her protectress ; 
 her saloon was now but that of Mademoiselle de 1'Espinasse. 
 What was to be done ? Dismiss her ? But there were plenty 
 of people ready to establish her in a house of her own, and this 
 new saloon once opened, who would remain faithful to that of 
 the poor blind woman ] A final discovery had nearly brought 
 on a rupture, which, however, only took place four years after- 
 wards. Three of the most constant visitors of the baronne's 
 soirees had been convicted of calling during the day, in order 
 to converse with Mademoiselle de 1'Espinasse. " Jt is a viper 
 which I have cherished hi my bosom," cried the mistress of the 
 house at this news. She would have overlooked a love affair ; 
 she forgave her very willingly afterwards, when people began 
 to give this name to her friendship for d'Alembert. But to 
 converse out of her presence, to deprive her of a portion of her 
 daily bread by carrying off" the best of the news and prattle, 
 could in her eyes be nothing less than the most abominable 
 treason. It caused an endless series of misunderstandings, dis- 
 putes as d reconciliations, whose history must be read in the 
 writings of the time, in order to form an idea of the importance 
 which the household of two women could assume, hi the vast 
 inactivity of French society.
 
 236 RABAUT AND BUIDAINE, OR 
 
 LII. 
 
 CONVERSATION IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 It has struck nine. The saloon is almost full it would be 
 still more crowded, if we were not in the beginning of August, 
 of Augustus as Monsieur de Voltaire would have us say. 
 We will enter and endeavor to seize a few words from the 
 midst of this heap of nothings presenting themselves in grave 
 costume, and of serious questions debated in trifling tones. 
 
 " It is overwhelming ! Come Monsieur de la Caille,* tell 
 us something more about it. What a pity that Monsieur de 
 Fontenelle should be dead !" 
 
 " Why, Madame 1" 
 
 " Because he was the only person who could tell us poor 
 women such things without terrifying us too much." 
 
 " Why do you ask us about them, then ?" 
 
 " Go on, malicious !" 
 
 " Well ! It is just as I had the honor of saying. I have 
 calculated, within a few millions, the number of leagues which 
 separate us from a certain star which I have been studying for 
 a long time. I discovered but I will not tell you the num- 
 ber. You could never remember it. Listen. Light travels, 
 I told you" 
 
 " About seventy leagues a second." 
 
 "Good. How long a time then do you imagine was re- 
 quired for my star to become visible ?" 
 
 "Six months." 
 
 " Nonsense !" 
 
 * The astronomer.
 
 TIIK COURT OF LOUIS XV. 237 
 
 " Six years !" 
 
 " Pooh !" 
 
 " How long then 2" 
 
 " More than nine thousand years."* 
 
 " Ah ! Good heavens ! I shall dream of that !" 
 
 '* Dream of it, Madame, indeed." 
 
 " Nine thousand years ! And seventy leagues a second '" 
 
 " Nine thousand years. There may be stars created eighty 
 centuries ago, which we have never yet seen." 
 
 " Poor Moses !" 
 
 This was the conclusion which was drawn from all the dis- 
 coveries of the age. They little imagined that science was one 
 day to make peace with the author of Genesis, by finding in 
 the succinct account of Moses, so sarcastically spoken of, all the 
 most exact information which men have since been able to extort 
 from the secrets of creation. 
 
 " Well ! So the beautiful Madame Baillet at length consents 
 to allow poor d'Herbigny to love her ?" 
 
 " Yes ? And who told you so T' 
 
 " He himself." 
 
 "Ha! Ha!" 
 
 " D'Herbigny is no boaster." 
 
 " Oh ! no." 
 
 " If he said so, it was because it is true." 
 
 " It was true.' 1 '' 
 
 " What ! Is it no longer 50 T 
 
 " It never has been." 
 
 " I cannot comprehend." 
 
 " It is thus. After more than a year of severity, she said to 
 him one fine morning : ' D'Herbigny, I want your portrait.' 
 * Much larger 'calculations have since been made.
 
 238 RABAUT AND BRIDAINE, OR 
 
 He was immediately in the clouds. He flies to an artist. 
 He sits six hours that same day, six hours the next. In two 
 days the portrait is finished and framed. He hastens, with 
 his likeness, to throw himself at the feet of his charmer. 
 ' Perfect !' she exclaims ; and she rings. The porter makes 
 his appearance, instead of the waitingmaid. ' Master Pierre,' 
 she says, ' here is what I promised to give you. Put that in 
 your lodge; and when the original comes you will recognize 
 him, will you not ?' ' Oh ! yes Madame' ' Tell him that I am 
 not at home.' " 
 
 " Ah ! good evening, my dear Abbe, good evening ! So 
 you have been remembered at last ?" 
 
 " At last, as you say." 
 
 " I hope it is at least a fat living, since you were allowed to 
 sigh after it so long ?" 
 
 " fat, no. My aspirations never rose so high. It is what 
 one may call a good living." 
 
 " Six or seven thousand livres income 1" 
 
 " About ten." 
 
 " Ah, ha !" 
 
 " I tell you the king of Prussia is a madman." 
 
 " A hero." 
 
 " A hypocrite." 
 
 " A wise man." 
 
 "A tyrant." 
 
 " A friend of mankind." 
 
 " A robber of kingdoms " 
 
 '* As Caesar was." 
 
 " A scribbler of paper " 
 
 " As Marcus Aurelius was."
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 239 
 
 " You are flattering the enemy of your country." 
 
 " I am doing justice to a great man." 
 
 " You rejoice at his successes." 
 
 " Because they are triumphs of reason." 
 
 " Of reason with cannon balls !" 
 
 " You would prefer thunder bolts, like your good friends of 
 the Vatican?" 
 
 " He alone has lighted more fires " 
 
 " Decidedly, you can pardon none but those lighted at the 
 stake." 
 
 K You do not know ? " 
 
 " What ?" 
 
 " That the abbe de Saint-Marcelin has a living at last." 
 
 " Come, come !" 
 
 " I have just heard him say so himself. A good one he said." 
 
 " Why he is a furious encyclopedist." 
 
 " What does that prove 1" 
 
 " It proves without doubt that he is a man of talent. 
 But" 
 
 " Is it not better that this living should profit a man of 
 talent, than that it should fall into the hands of a fool V 
 
 " Yes. I perceive a time is- coming when the first qualifi- 
 cation for advancement in the Church will be not to believe in 
 God. Here, abbe !" 
 
 " What do you want ?" 
 
 " Is there a God ?" 
 
 " Certainly since I am an abbe." 
 
 "Monsieur, the tradition is positive and unalterable. It 
 was from Montmatre to Saint-Denis, where the abbey now is, 
 that the saint of that name carried his head in his hands."
 
 240 RABAUT AND BRIDAINE, OR 
 
 "No, Monsieur, no. Reason does not admit of our be- 
 lieving in so long a journey. A few steps, that is well 
 authenticated. Is it not so, Madame la marquise ?" 
 
 " Why so, dear councillor 1 It is only the first step which 
 is difficult," 
 
 " W.hat is going on at Versailles V* 
 " Nothing of importance." 
 M And the marquise ?" 
 " More in favor than ever." 
 
 " But they say that the king appears singularly ennuye? 
 "She is only the more secure for that. It is just at &uch 
 times that he leaves everything to her." 
 "A great fete is spoken of, at Bellevue." 
 " Yes, on Tuesday." 
 " And the abbe de Narniers T 
 " Remains preacher to the king." 
 " And the other, he is still to preach on Monday *?" 
 " On Monday, at Saint-Sulpice." 
 " Good." 
 
 "This Monsieur de Buffon, with all his fine style, is some 
 times so vulgar, that " 
 
 " What indignation, Mademoiselle !" 
 
 " Did you see him just now, beside me 1 His legs crossed, 
 his head thrown back, his eyes half closed. He fancied him- 
 self alone, apparently." 
 
 " He was hunting out some phrase." 
 
 " Yes wait. I tried to begin a conversation. I spoke to 
 him of his style, for you know it is almost impossible to talk 
 to him of anything else. ' What a happy mingling,' I said, 
 ' of profundity and simplicity !' And Monsieur leaned him-
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 241 
 
 self back still farther. ' Oh ! the devil !' he exclaimed, ' oh ! 
 the devil ! When it is necessary to purify one's style, that is 
 another part of speech!'* Another part of speech! An- 
 other " 
 
 " By the way, is it true that he never writes except in his 
 sword and lace ruffles ?" 
 
 " I fancy, between ourselves, that he has never been .seen in 
 those famous working ruffles ; but " 
 
 " But he is capable of wearing them." 
 
 " At all events, he might at least put them on when he has 
 a compliment to acknowledge." 
 
 "Especially a compliment from Mademoiselle de 1'Es- 
 pinasse." 
 
 " You flatter me, Monsieur." 
 
 " I am but just. Do you know what he said the other day 
 to a friend who was reading to him some of his verses ?" 
 
 " No." 
 
 " ' That is beautiful,' he cried, ' beautiful as prose !' " 
 
 " Was he jesting ?" 
 
 " Not at all, it is his system." 
 
 " We shall see him erect a statue to prose, some of these 
 days." 
 
 " To his own prose." 
 
 " Monsieur, if the taxes should be reduced one half, and if 
 the strictest economy should regulate the employment of 
 them, still we would never pay them willingly, if the farming 
 of the revenues be still insisted upon. So long as the people 
 see the rich intermediaries between themselves and the public 
 funds, evidently thriving upon the sweat of their brow, you 
 
 * In the original, (Test une autre paire de matiches ; literally, It it an- 
 other pair of sleeves. A vulgarism. Tr.
 
 242 RABAUT AND BRIDAINE, OR 
 
 cannot rid them of the feeling that it is for these people they 
 labor, not for the State. Knowing beforehand what the State 
 will receive, each one is tempted to say, every one in the 
 lower classes does say, that what he has paid will not aug- 
 ment the sum employed for public expenses by a sous. Bad 
 reasoning, I admit, but it is incontestibly the reasoning of a 
 multitude, and that is enough to make it advisable that the 
 pretext should be done away with. The collecting of the 
 taxes ought to remain in the hands of the government, and the 
 collector should have a fixed salary ; the poor man should feel 
 when he pays, that he actually pays the government, and 
 really contributes his little part to the necessities of the coun- 
 try." 
 
 " Poor Poinsinet !* Are you never going to cease laughing 
 at him, vicomte 7" 
 
 " Ha ! ha ! ha ! I think I still see him reciting the Breton 
 verses which I gave him as Russian !" 
 
 " He has a good deal of talent, however." 
 
 " Yes, indeed ! His little piece, the Cercle, is one of the 
 prettiest which has been written for a long time. But he has 
 not a grain of common sense. The merest child could take 
 him in. He is one of those beings born to be mystified." 
 
 "To be what 7" 
 
 "Mystified." 
 
 " That is not one of the academy's words, so far as I know." 
 
 " I should think not. We manufactured it, not three months 
 ago, in honor of Poinsinet himself; and the academy does not 
 enjoy the reputation of being very prompt." 
 
 " Hush ! There is Duclos listening to us." 
 
 " Duclos has too much sense not to think as we do. Is it 
 * The dramatic author.
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV 243 
 
 not true, Duclos, that the academy is not very quick in its 
 movements ?" 
 
 " Make haste slowly" 
 
 "Yes, but by going too slowly, you may break your 
 necks, in public opinion." 
 
 " It is not my fault, however." 
 
 " No, to be sure not. It is well known that you push the 
 car on. You swear, in the very Louvre, loud enough to shake 
 the colonnade." 
 
 "I? Who says so?" 
 
 " Oh, your colleagues everybody." 
 
 "Ah! the hounds ! ah ! the" 
 
 " Hush now ! We are not at the Louvre. See him going 
 to swear, in order to prove that he never swears ! You would 
 have been the very man for cardinal Dubois." 
 
 "Much obliged." 
 
 " Why not 1 At the least contradiction, he swore, as you 
 know, at the top of his voice ; he threw away a great deal of 
 precious time at it. One of his secretaries asked him if he 
 would not do well to have a swearer general?" 
 
 " The place would be almost as good as that of screen to the 
 king." 
 
 " Screen to the king !" 
 
 * Y^s. Another mystification, begging pardon for the 
 word, which we made Poinsinet swallow. We told him he 
 had just been selected for this brilliant situation. Two days 
 afterwards, when we had forgotten all about it, we heard that 
 he was ill ; and from what, do you imagine ? From having 
 broiled his legs by standing before an infernally hot fire, in 
 order, as he said, to accustom himself to his new duty." 
 
 " I tremble, Madame, lest you should think me presuming."
 
 244 EABAUT AND BRIDAINE, OR 
 
 " Say on." 
 
 " The charming letter which you said you had received from 
 
 Monsieur de Voltaire " 
 "Well?" 
 
 " Might one dare to beg for a sight of it ?" 
 " If you will promise me to show it to no one." 
 "To no one, except those who charged me with the petition." 
 " Ah ! It is a deputation, then, which I receive ?" 
 " A deputation, as you say. Here are Chamfort and Saint 
 
 Lambert, who have been charged to support my request. This 
 
 letter" 
 
 " See, here it is. But be prudent. Let none hear it, you 
 
 understand, save friends. There are certain things " 
 
 " Do not be uneasy, Madame. Here, Messieurs. Here 
 
 in the small saloon " 
 " Read, Saint Lambert." 
 
 " ' FERNET, July 25, 1760. 
 
 " ' The eloquent Cicero, Madame, without whom no French- 
 man can think, always commenced his letters with these 
 words : " If you are well, I am rejoiced at it ; as for myself, I 
 am well." 
 
 " ' I am so unfortunate as to be quite the opposite of Cicero. 
 If you are ill, I am grieved at it ; as for myself, I am ill. 
 Happily, I have made myself a nest in which I can live or die 
 according to my own fancy. I have purchased estates around 
 my hermitage; I have enlarged my sepulchre. If I dared, I 
 should fancy myself wise, I am so happy. I have really lived 
 only since the day when I selected this retreat. Any other 
 sort of life would now be insupportable to me. Paris is 
 essential to you ; to me it would be death. 
 
 " ' Would to heaven, Madame, that you could live as I do,
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 215 
 
 and that your charming society might augment my happiness. 
 I congratulate you and Monsieur the president Henault upon 
 being frequently together, and being able mutually to console 
 one another for the absurdities of this world. 
 
 " ' You wish me to send you the works with which I employ 
 myself when I neither plough nor sow. In fact, I scarcely 
 know how I shall dare do so, I have become so bold with age. 
 I can no longer write what I think ; and I think so freely, that 
 it is scarcely probable I can send my ideas by post. I shall 
 have the honor, however, to send you one or two new cantos 
 of Tlie Maid of Orleans, which no one has seen as yet. If you 
 want a picture of this ugly world, you may find one shortly in 
 my Universal History of the follies of the human race. I have 
 also set to work to render an account to myself, in alphabetical 
 order, of all that I am to think about this world and the next, 
 for my own use, and perhaps, after my death, for the use of 
 good people. I think I shall call it Philosophical Dictionary. 
 
 " ' The semi-freedom with which people in France are be- 
 ginning to write, is still nothing but a disgraceful chain. Ac- 
 cordingly, you must accustom yourself to a dearth of talents 
 of every kind, to smartness grown common, and genius rare ; 
 to a perfect deluge of books on war, only to be beaten after- 
 wards, on finance, only to lack money as much as ever, on 
 population, only to be still in want of husbandmen and recruits, 
 in short, on all the arts, only to succeed in none. 
 
 " ' W have, in fact, no native inventions. In the arts, we 
 are silly savages compared with the Italians. In philosophy, 
 we have learned a little that was good from the English, 
 scarcely thirty years since. 
 
 " ' The Spaniards have conquered a new world ; the Portu- 
 guese have discovered the way to *:he Indies ; the Arabs and 
 Turks have founded powerful empires ; my friend the czar
 
 246 RABAUT AND BRIDAINE, OR 
 
 Peter has formed an empire of two thousand leagues extent in 
 twenty years; and the Scythians of my empress Elizabeth 
 have beaten my good Prussian king, while our armies are 
 routed by the peasants of Wolfenbiittel. 
 
 " ' We have been so clever as to establish ourselves in the 
 snows of Canada, among bears and beavers ; while the English 
 have peopled four hundred leagues of the most beautiful coun- 
 try in the world with their flourishing colonies, and we suffer 
 ourselves even to be chased out of Canada. 
 
 " ' We build also, from time to time, a few vessels for the 
 English ; but we build them badly. When they condescend 
 to capture them, they complain that we give them miserable 
 sailers. 
 
 " ' Upon my honor, our age is a miserable age ! 
 
 " ' You ask me what you will find the most interesting to 
 read. Read the gazettes, Madame : everything in them is 
 marvellous as a romance. One reads of vessels loaded with 
 Jesuits ; and one never wearies of wondering why they are 
 driven out of only one kingdom as yet. One reads of the 
 French being beaten in the four quarters of the globe, of our 
 ministers bundled out of office one after the other, of our flat 
 boats, and of our descents down the river of La Vilaine. 
 One reads 
 
 " ' But you say you want to read something else besides ga- 
 zettes. Well, I will mention all that may possibly amuse 
 you. There, for instance, is Infidelity opposed by common 
 sense, by dear brother Menon, the confessor of king Stanislas ; 
 or the Reconciliation of the understanding with religion, the 
 Norman reconciliation, as some call it, by bishop Pompignan, 
 brother of the academician Pompignan, or the But you live 
 in the midst of these fine things, and it is rather for you to 
 send them to me.
 
 TITE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 217 
 
 " ' And yet there is one pleasure greatly to be preferred to 
 all this ; it is to watch the wide-spreading meadows becoming 
 green, and the great harvests ripening slowly. 
 
 " ' I beg your pardon, Madame, for speaking to you of a 
 pleasure which is enjoyed by one's eyes alone. You no longer 
 know any enjoyment save that of the intellect. 
 
 " ' Apropos, have you a good digestion 1 I have become 
 sensible, after much reflection upon this best of worlds, and 
 upon the small number of the elect, that one is never truly un- 
 happy so long as one has a good digestion. After all, the only 
 thing is to end one's career comfortably. All the rest is 
 vanity of vanities, as somebody says. 
 
 " ' Accept my tender respects. V.' " 
 
 "Well, Monsieur de la Condamine, and our convulsion- 
 airesf 
 
 " Most extraordinary." 
 
 " You are going to tell us about them, are you not ?" 
 
 " If you choose. But hush ! There is Monsieur de Faillet, 
 who was there " 
 
 " As a spectator ?" 
 
 " As a believer, no offence to you. Let us go a little fur- 
 ther off. Good. Well, upon this occasion, sister Francoise 
 was to be crucified." 
 
 To be" 
 
 " Crucified, positively, I swear to you. A real cross, 
 good, strong nails. Ah, my hands and feet hurt me, when- 
 ever 1 think of what I saw. They pretend that they do not 
 suffer, and that, according to them, is the great miracle." 
 
 " Who knows ?" 
 
 " Who knows 1 I should like to see you try it ! To be 
 sure it is not impossible thai the pain yields a little to faith,
 
 248 RABAUT AND BRIDAIXE, OR 
 
 but sister Franchise suffered horribly, I promise you, although 
 she might not choose to proclaim it. Although she did not 
 cry out, she made grimaces enough to prove it." 
 " And the executioner, \vho " 
 
 "The executioner, no, the assistant, (secouriste,) as they 
 call him, in their cant language, for all the knick-knacks, 
 nails, swords, kicks, and so on, they call assistance, (secours) 
 the assistant was Father Cottu, of the Oratoire, aided by Fa- 
 ther Guidi, a tall, thin man, -with goggles, who exhausted him- 
 self in assuring the patient that the nails did not incommode 
 her." 
 
 " And what did the patient say ?" 
 
 " She deafened us all with declamations in a language which 
 I did not understand, upon the evils of the Church, they in- 
 formed me, and on the future reign of the saints." 
 
 "And the saints rubbed their hands, in the mean time?" 
 "No ; they rubbed hers, with a certain water of Saint Paris, 
 their patron, which has the virtue, they say, of causing all pain 
 to disappear." 
 
 " And how long did all this last f 
 " More than three hours." 
 
 " And who was there besides Monsieur de Faillet '* 
 " Monsieur de Merinville, his parliamentary colleague, Mon- 
 sieur de Janson, an officer in the mousquetaires, Monsieur de 
 la Tour-du-pin, Monsieur de Lafont-Saint-Yenne, who went 
 down upon his knees, from time to time, bathed in tears a 
 few others, besides."* 
 
 " And I tell you that Monsieur de Voltaire jests when he 
 pretends to believe in the prodigious antiquity of the Chinese 
 
 * Monsieur de la Condamine afterwards wrote an account of all that he 
 had witnessed in these strange assemblies.
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 2 9 
 
 and the Hindoos. No man ever lied as he does. And his ad- 
 miration for Confucius, of whom scarcely anything is known ! 
 And his adoration of Julian the Apostate, of whom only too 
 much is known ! And his mania for asserting that the early 
 Christians were scarcely persecuted at all ! Do you imagine 
 that he believes all this ridiculous or abominable stuff that he 
 puts forth in his pamphlets ?" 
 
 " Not all of it, I know ; but perhaps more of it than one 
 would think. By dint of repeating it, he impresses it upon his 
 mind, and then " 
 
 " I understand. By dint of lying, he becomes at last sin- 
 cere. Really a sublime method of employing speech and 
 reason !" 
 
 " Just as you please ; but the antiquity of the Hindoos is 
 nevertheless " 
 
 " Again ! Well, let us ask Monsieur de Gebelin. Ah ! he 
 was here just now. What has become of him ?" 
 
 " He is yonder, see, in that corner." 
 
 " But who is it that he is talking with ]" 
 
 " It is a face I do not know." 
 
 LIU. 
 
 RABAUT AND GEBELIN. 
 
 We have long known this face, which was new to the de- 
 fender of Monsieur de Voltaire and his ancient Hindoos. 
 Gebelin's companion was Rabaut. 
 
 He had desired more closely to observe this brilliant so- 
 ciety, whose scintillations dazzled all Europe, whose least 
 whispers imposed silence upon the past, and seemed to open 
 the future. Gebelin, who was received everywhere, had taken
 
 250 RARAUT AND BRIDAINE, OR 
 
 him wherever he could see without being too much seen, hear 
 without being obliged to talk, and judge without speaking. 
 
 They had retired into a corner, from whence they passed in 
 review all that the current of the saloon was causing to come 
 before their eyes. 
 
 " That man," said Gebelin, " whom you heard deciding upon 
 the antiquity of the Hindoos, is one of those learned sheep 
 who would deny the sun at noon, if Monsieur de Voltaire 
 thought fit to deny it. His adversary is an old Jansenist." 
 
 " I had fancied," said Eabaut, " that I should see none but 
 infidels here." 
 
 " I said Jansenist, take notice ; I did not say believer. The 
 Jansenism of the present day is often nothing more than a 
 decent sort of infidelity. Many are Jansenists, just as others 
 are infidels, from fashion, from opposition ; many, while they 
 are avowed infidels, belong nominally to the different religious 
 parties. ' You are persecuted,' said Boindin to one of his 
 friends, ' because you are a Jansenist atheist ; but I am left in 
 quietness, because I am a Molinist atheist.' 
 
 " In that group, yonder, you may recognize several of our 
 friends of the other day, d'Holbach, Damilaville, d'Alembert, 
 Grimm." 
 
 "AndHelvetius?" 
 
 "He has received official orders not to show himself for 
 several days." 
 
 "And Diderot ?" 
 
 "He speaks his mind too plainly. Madame du Defiant 
 hinted that she could dispense with his company. He comes 
 every now and then, in order not to seem banished ; and in- 
 deed he is not banished ; but he himself prefers having more 
 elbow-room than he generally has here. The marquise is 
 willing enough to be an infidel, but not to break with religion.
 
 TITE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 2 "1 1 
 
 Indeed, she has once or twice attempted to turn devotee ; for 
 you know that there is no medium, among the Catholics of the 
 higher classes, between high devotion, as they call it, and infi- 
 delity. ' I am ennuyee half to death, she said to her associates. 
 * Shall I not try a little of everything V They laughed ; and at 
 last she laughed also. ' I will wait until I am a little older,' 
 she said. So she is waiting." 
 
 " And how old is she, then ?" 
 
 "Sixty-two or sixty-three." 
 
 " Who is that old gentleman, who pays her such assiduous 
 attention?" 
 
 " The comte de Pont-de-Veyle, her lover." 
 
 " Ah !" 
 
 " At least he has held that situation for a long time. No- 
 thing can be more innocent, for that matter, than their relations. 
 In a certain set, a lover is looked upon as a necessary piece of 
 furniture. A slight varnish of scandal is absolutely necessary, 
 although there may not be the slightest inclination for it. It 
 is in order to set off the reputation, one might fancy, just as 
 patches set off the complexion. ' Do you not wonder,' said 
 Pont-de-Veyle to her lately, 'how we have contrived to live 
 thirty years without a single falling out?' 'My dear,' she 
 said, ' it is because we have never loved each other.' And yet 
 it was she who reproached Monsieur de Fontenelle with never 
 having loved any one. ' It is not a heart that you have here,' 
 she said, touching his breast with her finger ; ' it is a second 
 brain !' I thought for a long time that the same thing might 
 be said of her ; but it appears that an Englishman, lord Wai- 
 pole ' r 
 
 " The same who was lately in Paris ?" 
 
 " Yes."
 
 252 R ABA FT AND B RID A INK, OR 
 
 " She knew him, then, in her youth ?" 
 
 " Not at all ; she has fallen distractedly in love with him in 
 her sixtieth year. He laughed at her ; he went so far as to 
 say to her, in a letter since become public, that he wired little 
 at forty, to be the lover of a woman of sixty. She persists ; it 
 is asserted that she writes to him in the tenderest style. But 
 the most curious part of the matter is, that the public do not 
 laugh. Madame du Defiant is the fashion ; Madame du Def- 
 iant is the patroness of the formers of public opinion ; that is 
 enough ; she has the right to be an old fool, without any one 
 venturing to laugh or to stare. Then, mark well, it is for an 
 Englishman that she sighs ; and the surest way, in these days, 
 to be popular in France, is not to be French. All the men 
 whom you see here, with the exception of two or three, are in 
 love with the king of Prussia. How, then, could they blame 
 the mistress of the house for being in love with a noble lord, a 
 man of talent, and tolerably well versed in the ideas of the 
 day? This last point, as you may well think, is the indis- 
 pensable one. Out of infidelity, there is no salvation. The 
 reason why they so cry up the king of Prussia, is not that he 
 is an able writer, for in regard to this they laugh slyly, 
 indeed sometimes even loudly ; nor because of his liberal 
 political ideas, from which it is well known that his subjects 
 derive no benefit ; absolutely, the only reason is his infidelity. 
 His advancement, they assert, is the progress of reason. What 
 do they mean by that ? Is it for infidelity that he fights ? 
 Does he impose upon his vanquished enemies the obligation 
 to be infidels? No. But he is one himself; that is enough. 
 All his enterprises must be proper ; the French will be en- 
 chanted with all the harm which he may do them ; and the 
 only verses which Monsieur d'Alembert ever made in his life
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 253 
 
 were in his praise.* It is the most odious piece of folly ever 
 shown by any people. 
 
 " Another of the passions for the English, is that of Made- 
 moiselle de 1'Espinasse. It is true that Sterne, her hero, is a 
 grave churchman, to. whom I do not suppose she says tender 
 things ; but she is infatuated with his book, and it will not be 
 her fault if all our writers do not set to work to make Senti- 
 mental journies. 
 
 " The count de Buffon, whom I pointed out to you just now, 
 beside her, is the type of the aristocratic writer. Few reputa- 
 tions are less disputed than his. It is asserted that Rousseau, 
 who always runs into extremes, one day kissed the threshold 
 of his cabinet. He has a right to be proud of his works ; but 
 his pride is frequently undignified ; it somewhat resembles that 
 of a parvenu who thinks too much of his title, or of a man 
 lately become rich, and continually dreaming of his money. 
 The moment he condescends, he easily becomes low, almost 
 gross. He is accused of lacking a due appreciation of the 
 talents of his fellow authors. Two of them, Daubenton and 
 Gueneau, are now talking to him. See how ha Jghtily he holds 
 his head, and how he plants himself between them, with his 
 gold-buckled shoes. 
 
 " You heard Monsieur de La Caille. He is one of the first 
 astronomers of the age ; always calculating, always making 
 discoveries, philosophizing but little, and working all the better 
 for it. There is his colleague, Clairault, a little too much in- 
 clined to quit the heavens for earthly discussions ; which is, I 
 
 * " Father and monarch, valiant and wise, 
 
 He knows how to conquer, to reign and advise. 
 
 A hero he is, e'en when fallen he lies; 
 
 But risen, he puts forth his genius and ire, 
 
 And sees all Europe arise, 
 
 To combat, but more to admire."
 
 254 RABAUT AND BRIDAINE, OR 
 
 suspect, the fault of his disciple, Bailly, also, a great admirer 
 of the ancient republics. Clairault is none the less a very great 
 mathematician. Last year's comet, whose appearance he had 
 predicted, contributed equally to make him renowned among 
 the learned, and fashionable among the ladies. He is now 
 talking to But why does that lady scream ? Ah ! I under- 
 stand. He must have opened his snuff-box " 
 
 " Who ?" 
 
 " M. de Lalande, whom I was about to point out to you. 
 Spiders are his passion " 
 
 " He tames them ?" 
 
 " Not at all ; he eats them. That box, which he calls his 
 snuff-box, is full of them. He has just taken one out. See, 
 he pulls off the claws, and sucks them. He says nothing can 
 be more juicy. He is a good-hearted man, but an incurable 
 atheist. 
 
 " The group who were talking of taxes, is the party of po- 
 litical economists. There is young Necker, of whom I spoke 
 to you the other day. There, too, is his friend Turgot, a wise 
 thinker, but a great talker, not so great, however, as the 
 crabbed Marquis de Mirabeau, who would doubtless be here, 
 if he were not in the Bastile, whither he was sent on account 
 of his Theory of Taxation. There is Morellet, who, as you 
 know, has just been liberated. He excels in setting forth 
 clearly, the somewhat confused ideas of his companions in po- 
 litical economy. It is quite a new science. Its founders, to 
 begin with Quesnay, are still very far from having fixed its 
 foundations, or even from having determined its field. These 
 gentlemen sometimes do me the honor to request some infor- 
 mation from me in regard to the former manner of carrying on 
 these affairs ; they always come to the conclusion, sometimes 
 with a little pomposity, but often with too much reason, that
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 255 
 
 there has never been so badly governed a country in the 
 world. 
 
 " As for literary men, authors, properly speaking, all whom 
 I have not yet mentioned to you, belong to their ranks, or 
 wish to belong to them. There is young La Harpe, to whom 
 two prizes in rhetoric have opened a literary career, and who 
 is working at a tragedy, Warwick, which his friends commend- 
 highly. There is young Chamfort, renowned for his successes 
 at college, already a bold talker, much sought after, but little 
 liked. Two others, less sought after, but much better liked, 
 are now speaking to him. One is Corlardeau, still quite 
 crushed by the failure of his Caliste ; the other is Saurin, who 
 has met with more than one failure, but who will soon retrieve 
 these, it is said, by his Spartocus. There, at the corner of the 
 mantel, stands Barthe, an original thinker, but a weak poet, to 
 say nothing more ; and there is Suard, one of those men who 
 attain a certain reputation, without any one knowing well why 
 or how ; and there Saint Lambert, whom Madame du Defiant 
 called ' cold, insipid, and false,' but who is in such high favor 
 at Ferney, that he is well received everywhere. He is rich, 
 moreover, and has taken to enacting the Mecaenas, as you may 
 perceive from his air. The man to whom he is speaking at 
 this moment, is Chabanon, formerly a bigot, now an encyclo- 
 pedist. 
 
 " The two who are talking at the other corner, are also two 
 of our patrons of literature, the marquis, de Chastellux, and 
 the duke de Nivernais ; the marquis, amiable and unpretend- 
 ing, the duke, aspiring to authorship, writing a little upon all 
 subjects, never beyond mediocrity, but always praised. He 
 was a moment ago with president Renault, talking of the his- 
 tory of France, now he is talking to Vanloo, the king's painter, 
 talking, doubtless, of art ; and what he says to them this even-
 
 2">6 RABAUT AND B RID A INK, OR 
 
 ing, he will write to-morrow, to be published the next day. 
 The gentleman just coming up is the count d'Argental, the 
 particular friend and confidant of Monsieur de Voltaire, the 
 only man whom he is known to consult in regard to his works. 
 That will explain to you sufficiently, I imagine, why he is so 
 surrounded with respect and admiration. The confidant, the 
 adviser, the oracle ! He has no equal in Europe, some one 
 remarked, save the pope's confessor. 
 
 " Then as for the abbes, you see there is no lack of them, 
 all excelling in putting their livery to shame, some by their 
 infidelity, some by their immorality, many by both at once. 
 You have there the abbe de Voisenon, the great opera maker ; 
 there is the abbe Raynal, the Diderot of abbes. There are 
 several more, the abbe de Saint-Non, the abbe d'Ardigny, and 
 the abbe de Saint-Marcclin, so proud of his living, and so aston- 
 ished that he was obliged to wait for it so lojig, as if the abbe de 
 Bernis, who came here so often, had not just been made cardi- 
 nal, and as if it were necessary after all, that an abbe should 
 believe in God ! The abbe d'Argenteuil, who is a believer, 
 took it into his head to convert Diderot. He was laughed at, 
 and we have never seen him here since. 
 
 " Among the Jansenists, in spite of what I said to you about 
 them, we have some who exert themselves vigorously to be- 
 come true believers. Did you hear those two gentlemen, who 
 so honestly discussed the legend of Saint-Denis 1 Well, one 
 of them is a man of no intellect ; but the other is Monsieur de 
 la Chalotais the attorney-general, and enemy of the Jesuits. 
 Thus act and think the greater part of the prominent men 
 among them. They resist the instructions of the Church, and 
 put entire faith in the most miserable superstitions. The 
 deacon Paris, as you heard, has still more than one disciple. 
 The pol'ce is perpetually on the look-out for these meetings
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XT. 257 
 
 wnere kicks and blows, say the adepts, do no injury, so greatly 
 does God delight in glorifying his saints. And when one of 
 them is discovered, some man is sure to be found there whose 
 position and intelligence would have precluded all supposition 
 that he could participate in these follies. 
 
 " Yet it is among the Jansenists that we are to seek the few 
 true Christians, with two or three exceptions, which the 
 Church of Rome still numbers in France. In vain she casts 
 them off; they do more for her than any others." 
 
 " In the opinion of the ignorant," said Rabaut. " But is 
 their Catholicity really such 1 The Jesuits whom they pro- 
 scribe are the only true consistent Catholics. It ought to be 
 easy to make them confess this." 
 
 " Easy, you say ?" resumed Gebelin. " I have tried it a 
 hundred times ; a hundred times have I convinced myself that 
 we must not depend upon reason, even when we have to deal 
 with the most reasonable of mankind. One might imagine 
 that in all false and logically untenable positions, there must 
 be a certain charm which induces people to persist in defend- 
 ing them. The mind sets to work to find explanations, 
 distinctions, pretexts. It feels the pleasure of difficulties con- 
 quered, the pride of travelling in a path different from the 
 common highways, it feels how do I know what ? People 
 do not explain to themselves clearly what they feel, but they 
 persist, and their opponent has his trouble for his pains. Add 
 to that, in these questions the immense stride which would 
 have to bf made, if they concluded to carry out their consist- 
 ency. The Gallican who should confess himself no Catholic, 
 would have nothing more to do than to declare himself a Pro- 
 testant. He might retain some of the Romish doctrines ; but 
 he would retain them as we do ours, claiming the right to re- 
 ject them, as soon as he considers them as contrary to Scrip-
 
 258 RABAUT AND BRIDAINE, OR 
 
 ture and to his own conscience. In fact there are few Catho- 
 lics who do not use this right. It is already a proof that it has 
 been employed, and largely, too, when a man calls himself a 
 Gallican, or a Jansenist ; but to acknowledge and proclaim it, 
 is quite another thing. This terrifies him, he recoils, he looks 
 back, he slumbers once more. Would you like me to make 
 another trial 1" 
 
 " On Monsieur de la Chalotais ?" 
 
 " No ; on Monsieur de Faillet, whom I see yonder, one of 
 the mosi pious and sincere in short, the best Catholic among 
 all the frequenters of the house. You shall see with what an 
 air of pity he presses my hand, and how his look seems to say, 
 ' Poor creatures ! lost, damned !' " 
 
 " Very charitable, certainly ; but how, then, can he remain 
 under the same roof with some of these other gentlemen 1 ? 
 Does he believe that we are more lost or damned than a 
 d'Alembert or a d'Holbach?" 
 
 " In reality, no ; but as soon as these things are brought up, 
 he cannot help thinking a great deal more of us than of them. 
 They are lost sheep, about which no one any longer troubles 
 himself; but we are only straying sheep. Monsieur de Faillet 
 and his companions treat us on a small scale, just as the gov- 
 ernment on a large. If we are Christians otherwise than the 
 king wills, we must go to the galleys ; we must cease to be 
 Christians at all, if we would be left in peace. To be sure, this 
 is but one of the forms of the universal want of order which 
 prevails. The narrower the chasm separating two parties, the 
 greater is the antipathy, the more violent the warfare. ' But 
 he is a Jansenist !' said Louis XV. one day. ' He, sire ! It is 
 not even certain that he believes in God.' ' So much the bet- 
 ter !' said the king ; and he grants to the infidel the favor which 
 he would have refused to the Jansenist. And thus proceed
 
 THE COURT OP LOUIS XV. 259 
 
 these same Jansenists as soon as we come under discussion. 
 We are the horror of the more violent of them ; and the char- 
 itable ones pity us. Stay, see how our friend has just pressed 
 Grimm's hand. They almost embraced each other. They 
 whisper together. But he is coming this way." 
 
 LIV. 
 
 HUGUENOT AND JANSENIBT. 
 
 " Ah ! good evening, Monsieur de Faillet !" said Gebelin, as 
 if he had just perceived him. 
 
 " Good evening, my dear sir ! good evening !" 
 
 Rabaut could not help smiling. The tone, the grasp of the 
 hand, the look, everything, in short, was just what Gebelin 
 had predicted. 
 
 "What was Monsieur Grimm saying to you just now?" 
 asked Gebelin. " He had a most triumphant air." 
 
 " As he always has, the wretch, when he thinks he can enrage 
 me." 
 
 " Some impiety, doubtless ?" 
 
 " A jest. He is really very witty." 
 
 " How well you seem to bear it !" 
 
 "What can I do?" 
 
 " You would not endure a grave Protestant discussion so 
 quietly." 
 
 " Monsieur !" 
 
 " Is it perhaps because you are more afraid of the latter f 
 
 "Afraid!" 
 
 "Or because you concern yourself less about G-xl than 
 about the mass ]"
 
 200 RABAUT AND BRIDAINE, OR 
 
 "I concern myself both about God and about the mass, 
 Monsieur." 
 
 " Very good." 
 
 " And I shall prove it, I hope, if I publish my works. It 
 will be seen whether " 
 
 " Oh ! pen in hand, it is another matter. A man has time 
 to arrange his attacks and defences; to repress expressions 
 which may be too strong, and sharpen those which are not 
 strong enough. I was alluding to your ordinary, instinctive 
 ideas." 
 
 " God alone is judge of those." 
 
 " God alone ! and the Church ?" 
 
 " The Church cannot have the right to judge of that about 
 which she knows nothing." 
 
 " That is a speech which would sound very badly, I fancy, 
 to certain ears, in certain countries. Your Church has never 
 admitted that she is not to be the judge of the most secret 
 feelings. This opinion alone puts you in opposition to her." 
 
 "At all events, you are not the person to reproach me for it." 
 
 " Not I ; I only pray that God will cause you to make rapid 
 progress in this doctrine. But you have already gone far 
 enough for us to be surprised, when you seem to fancy your- 
 self so widely removed from us." 
 
 " That, in fact, is the point," added Rabaut. " Some details 
 have just been given me, Monsieur, in regard to the religious 
 party to which you belong ; and I could not, in conscience, 
 help asking myself why you do not belong to ours. For why 
 is it that we are not Catholics 1 Our reasons may be easily 
 reduced to three. That, in the first place, which I may term 
 hierarchical ; we do not believe in the authority of the pope. 
 Secondly, that, which I shall term doctrinal ; we will have no 
 rule of faith but Scripture. And finally, that which may be
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 2Gi 
 
 called moral ; namely, we leave to each one the responsibility 
 of his own belief, as well as his own actions. These principles 
 are yours." 
 
 " Ours !" cried Monsieur de Faillet. 
 
 " Yours. Be kind enough to listen to me." 
 
 " Suppose we take our -seats ?" said Gebelin. 
 
 They went on into a small apartment, and sat down. 
 
 "To resume our subject," said the minister. "My three 
 points are, in fact, closely connected. It would be useless to 
 develop them separately. 
 
 " With us, as I said, every man is responsible for his belief. 
 Among you, what do I see ? From Pascal to Quesnel, from 
 Arnauld to your leaders of the present day, an endless tissue 
 of discussions and struggles. Would this, I ask, be the spec- 
 tacle presented by men really convinced that the Church alone 
 is to be depended upon ; that what she gives must be accepted, 
 what she condemns be rejected, what she approves be approved, 
 and what she condemns be condemned 1 Either you resist, 
 and this I do not admit, for the mere pleasure of resisting, or 
 you feel yourselves, in the presence of God, responsible for 
 your belief. 
 
 " Still further. Not only do you not appear to believe that 
 the responsibility of the Church sufficiently shelters your own, 
 but, the case failing, you assume the position of a formal re- 
 sistance. It is not for me now to examine the points upon 
 which you have been condemned ; I confine myself to remark- 
 ing, that there are and have been numerous decisions to which 
 you have never entirely submitted yourselves. When the 
 archbishop of Paris, your legitimate pastor, refuses you the 
 sacraments, when the pope supports the archbishop, when the 
 whole body of bishops, with one or two exceptions, is unani- 
 mous against you, it is impossible for me to comprehend in
 
 202 RABAUT AND BRIDAINE, OB 
 
 what sense you are still the children of the Church which pre- 
 tends to speak in the name of God, and which this you your- 
 selves teach, when it is necessary to oppose its word to us 
 cannot err." 
 
 " We do not deny its authority," said Monsieur de Faillet ; 
 " we confine ourselves to distinguishing between the cases in 
 which the exercise of this authority is natural and legitimate, 
 and those in which it would be an usurpation." 
 
 " There it is ! But Monsieur, tell me, for Heaven's sake, 
 what difference do you see between us, who deny it in toto, 
 and yourselves, who deny it when it seems good to you ?" 
 
 " What ! would it be the same thing, do you think, to deny 
 the king's authority, and to resist it, in a case of flagrant op- 
 pression ?" 
 
 " Your comparison is not and cannot be just. The greatest 
 defenders of royal authority, have never claimed for it the 
 privilege of infallibility. They grant you, and how could 
 they do otherwise, that a king may make bad laws, give bad 
 orders, and have absurd ideas. Could you say the same of 
 the pope, without giving him up entirely ?" 
 
 " The pope is not the Church." 
 
 " Just as you like ; but pray what is the Church without 
 him "? As soon as his voice is not infallibly that of the Church, 
 where must you go 1 Where is the Church ? When, how, 
 through whom does she speak 1 Every one, then, may make 
 her speak ; each one may assert with equal authority, what 
 she ought to be understood to teach, or not to teach. We also 
 admit the authority of the Church in this manner, with this 
 difference, that instead of supporting ourselves upon what she 
 teaches at the present time, we rest upon what she taught in 
 the first or second century. True, we do not acknowledge 
 that any one has the right or power to tell us infallibly what
 
 THE COURT OP LOUIS XV. 2(>3 
 
 * 
 
 she then taught ; but you, if you do not acknowledge the pope 
 to be the person to tell you infallibly what she teaches now, 
 whom can you acknowledge 1 There we see you, like our- 
 selves, practising the right of individual judgment, we see you 
 laboring, each one for himself, and on his own responsibility, 
 to form for himself, with the triple aid of the Scriptures, con- 
 science, and history, the religion which he is to profess. I re- 
 peat it, unless you ackowledge a pope, an infallible pope, 
 you may say as much as you will, that you do not resemble 
 us ; you have in reality the same principles as ourselves." 
 
 " What matters it, provided that we, after all, are in the 
 right, while you remain in the wrong ] 
 
 " What matters it ? Why Monsieur, that is almost an ab- 
 juration. You could not possibly have confirmed more clearly 
 all that I just said. What matters it? you ask. What mat- 
 ters it how the truth be reached, if it be but reached ? Why 
 the Church in such a system is no longer anything more than 
 an assistance to be resorted to, when one feels the need of it, 
 and consequently to be laid aside, as soon as one feels it pos- 
 sible to do without her. She is an authority to be consulted ; 
 not the authority, in the absolute, complete, divine sense which 
 all Catholic authors have given to this word. Once more, the 
 consideration of results has nothing to do here. As soon as 
 you assume to yourself the right not to submit in everything, 
 but to examine, to determine yourself whether or not you will 
 submit, you have deserted the Catholic principle. It is all one 
 whether you reject the bull Unigenitus, or the Council of 
 Trent." 
 
 " Come ! come ! It is easy to see that you are ignorant 
 how we look upon these matters." 
 
 " Yes, thank God, I am ignorant of the sophisms in which 
 you are forced to take refuge, in order still to appear Catholic,
 
 261 RABAUT AND BIUDAINE, OR 
 
 while retaining certain rights of conscience and reason. To ap- 
 pear Catholic! Do you at least succeed in this? If you do 
 not deceive God, do you at least deceive men ? Yes ; those 
 who choose to to be deceived ; those whose interest it is 
 to be so ; those who would fear the sensation caused by an 
 honest, distinct explanation. But do you deceive those, who 
 like us, have no interest in being cautious ; those, who like the 
 Jesuits, wish that you should be Catholics in deed, and not in 
 word only 1 Do you expect to deceive them ? When they 
 summon you to submit, armed with the bull Unigenitus, 
 and you do not submit, what room is there for hesitation ? It 
 must be yes, or no. A bull, you say, is not a decree of the 
 council. But, so far I know, you have no permanent council." 
 
 " I beg your pardon," said Monsieur de Faillet ; " it is not 
 assembled, but it exists. When the body of bishops have 
 unanimously admitted a decree of the sovereign pontiff, then 
 this decree has the force of a law." 
 
 "Very good; you could not better have anticipated just 
 what I was about to say. A bull, according to you, has the 
 force of a law, only after having been received by the whole 
 body of bishops ; and the bull Unigenitus, you were undoubt- 
 edly about to add, has not been so received. Some bishops 
 have objected, and still object. Yes, but how many ? Does it 
 depend then upon a few, upon three or four, upon one, to pre- 
 vent a decree of the pope, received by all the others, from 
 being obligatory to the Church ? In that case, what you say 
 of the bulls might also be said of almost all the decrees of 
 the councils. Even at Trent, where they had so many reasons 
 for endeavoring to appear united, there was scarcely one 
 made which was not opposed by some of the bishops, fre- 
 quently by a number of them, a very great number, a quarter, 
 a third of the voters. Will you reject those "? I have no ob-
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 205 
 
 jections ; but in that case, what is it to be a Catholic? What 
 right have you to keep that name ? 
 
 " All this, you see, leads us back to the point where I com- 
 menced. The true and only Catholics are the Jesuits. One 
 day when the papal Nuncio visited Chancellor d'Aguesseau, at 
 Fresnes, he said : ' So it is here that weapons are forged against 
 Rome ?' ' No,' replied the Chancellor, ' not weapons, only 
 shields.' And the whole dispute is there. What the Jansen- 
 ists call shields, the Ultramontanists call weapons ; and the 
 Ultramontanists are right. At the Council of Trent, when 
 Lainez, the general of the Jesuits, undertook to set forth his 
 theory of the infallibility of the pope, he forced every one to 
 admit that he and his brethren alone, were, if not in the right, 
 at least the only honest and complete applicants of the princi- 
 ple of authority. He demonstrated, that in refusing infalli- 
 bility to the pope, it was also refused to the Church ; that if 
 the liberty of disobedience or even of examination be taken 
 in regard to one point, there is no reason why it may not be 
 done in regard to all others ; that there is, in short, between a 
 Protestant and a Jesuit, only a factitious, slippery, lying 
 medium. Ah ! if all the Jesuits had the frankness of Lainez ! 
 If they, like him, refused the name of Catholics to all those 
 who were really not such ! What amazement, what a dis- 
 banding there would be in your Church ! But no, they are as 
 accommodating to those who keep their rebellion within their 
 hearts, as they are bitter against those who raise the standard 
 of rebellion. Who ever say's that he is a Catholic, is allowed 
 by them to imagine that he is one." 
 
 " Why not ?" interrupted Monsieur de Faillet. " What is 
 the use of disquieting consciences actuated by good intentions? 
 I did not expect to find myself the apologist of the Jesuits, and 
 yet"
 
 266 RABAUT AND BR1DAINE, OB 
 
 " Listen. One of two t.iings is true ; either it is impossible 
 to be saved without being a Catholic, or it is not. If it is not, 
 let those be left in peace who have the courage and frankness 
 to confess that they are not Catholics. If it is, then it is cruel 
 to leave in their error those who imagine that they are, while 
 they are only half Catholics, or not Catholics at all, which is, 
 in fact, the same thing." 
 
 " That is singularly absolute." 
 
 " Is it my fault 1 All questions in your Church necessarily 
 assume this character. The best arm to employ against you, 
 I had almost said the best punishment to inflict upon you, is 
 to pin you down to your own principles, and forbid you to 
 deviate from them. Transgress against them, and you are 
 ours ; hold to them, and you find yourselves side by side with 
 these men whom you profess to combat and abhor. 
 
 " Permit me to say, then, that it is no small encouragement 
 to us, in our struggle against Catholicism, to see it execrated, 
 under the name of Jesuitism, by so great a number of its chil- 
 dren. On this point we agree perfectly with the Jesuits. We 
 esteem them right, perfectly right, in declaring themselves to 
 be the only true Catholics, the only ones truly consistent in 
 the application of Catholic principles, the only inheritors, in 
 virtue of their fidelity, of the divine promises which you assert 
 to have been made to your Church. They can prove that in 
 condemning them, you condemn her ; that in striking them, 
 you strike her. Condemn, strike. We shall not hinder you. 
 But remember that in striking them, you strike yourselves at 
 the same time."
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 26t 
 
 LV. 
 
 EXPECTATION. 
 
 Monsieur de Faillet affected not to listen. He had of course 
 felt, though vaguely, during his struggles with the Ultra-mon- 
 tanists, all that Rabaut had just said. Like all the Catholic 
 enemies of the Jesuits, he had been obliged to shut his eyes, in 
 order not to see where, in reality, fell the greater portion of 
 the blows directed against them. Like all Catholics who were 
 friends of an enlightened faith, of a wise freedom, and of a 
 serious and elevated piety, it was only by shutting his eyes 
 that he had been able, without falsehood, to continue to call 
 himself a Catholic. 
 
 But it is not easy unhesitatingly to give up an illusion with- 
 out which it would no longer be possible to avoid laying down 
 one's weapons. The heart is marvellously skilful in preventing 
 the head from comprehending the real state of the question. 
 It has been said that the head is frequently the dupe of the 
 heart. More frequently, we may add, it is, if not its dupe, its 
 slave. 
 
 The discussion could have no possible result. It was hap- 
 pily interrupted. 
 
 " Gentlemen," said a valet, who was going from one apart- 
 ment to another, calling together the scattered guests, " it will 
 be commenced in a moment. Madame la marquise takes the 
 liberty of recommending attention and silence." 
 
 " What can it be ?" said Rabaut. 
 
 But the valet had already passed on to another group of 
 talkers. 
 
 " Something is to be read, probably," said Gebelin.
 
 COS RABAUT AND BRIDAINE, OR 
 
 " Why should such a recommendation be given ? Do they 
 talk while reading is going on 1" 
 
 " That is as it happens. If the reader belongs to the set, you 
 might hear a pin drop ; if not, they do not trouble themselves 
 much to keep silence. Some days ago, a young author, one 
 Bernardin, I think, read us the first part of some little romance. 
 It was really very good ; a little effeminate, but charmingly 
 natural. The whole thing, moreover, was quite novel ; for the 
 scene was laid in the Isle of France, where our authors have 
 never yet thought of going in search of inspiration.* But all 
 our company here pronounced this simplicity and nature too 
 simple, too Creole, too natural, in short. ' Let the horses be 
 fut to my carriage !' said Monsieur de Buffon, in his most 
 grandiose tone ; and the poor author, a few moments after, 
 stopped reading. But come, gentlemen ; everybody is already 
 in the saloon." 
 
 The saloon presented rather a singular appearance. "What 
 is to be done ?" asked some. " We do not know," replied 
 others. Evidently something was plotting. 
 
 LVI. 
 
 A VOUNO ORATOR. 
 
 And great indeed, in all respects, was the surprise which 
 awaited the company this evening. 
 
 The hotel de Rambouillet, although for fifty years it had 
 ceased to exist, had left a profound impression. Its pretensions 
 were laughed at, and twenty houses now set up just as many. 
 
 Madame du Deffant especially continued it as well as she 
 
 * Bernardin de St. Pierre's " Paul and Virginia " is evidently alluded 
 to. Tr.
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 1*69 
 
 could. She hastened to attempt everything which occurred to 
 her, in order to make the succession more direct, and the 
 resemblance greater. 
 
 One day, as she enumerated on her fingers all the reputa- 
 tions which had dawned beneath her roof, she remembered 
 that no preacher had yet received in her house that baptism 
 of fame with which Bossuet and a few others had been grati- 
 fied in the old saloon of Rambouillet. 
 
 This idea tormented her. Devotion, for, as we have seen, 
 she occasionally had a slight inclination in that direction, 
 devotion joined its voice to that of vanity. After having 
 patronized so many infidels, it would be a sort of expiation to 
 patronize a believer, or at least a man who bore the dress and 
 aspect of a believer. 
 
 But where was such a man to be found ? He must be, at 
 the same time, youthful enough to admit of her having the 
 honor to form and direct him, and old enough, and particularly 
 well enough endowed, to enable the public to take him up 
 immediately. 
 
 " I have found him !" said the constant Pont-de-Veyle, at 
 length. " He is a young man from Venaissin, the son of a 
 shoemaker. Ne sutor ultra crepidam, you will say. But no. 
 I think he is the very man to disprove the proverb. Quite 
 newly arrived in Paris, he was asked, the other day, what he 
 came here for 1 ' To look for my hat,' was his reply. They 
 say the cardinal de Rohan laughed very heartily. He called 
 him his colleague in the blade. Let us water the plant, 
 and" 
 
 "How old is he?" 
 
 " Sixteen or seventeen." 
 
 " Why ! he is a mere child !" 
 
 " You would take him for twenty. Besides, it was just Bos-
 
 270 RABAT! T AND R RID A INK, OR 
 
 suet's age when he made his appearance at the hotel de Ram- 
 bouillet." 
 
 " Yes ; but Bossuet Bossuet was Bossuet." 
 
 " Bossuet himself at that age, certainly had not greater fa- 
 cility and confidence than this young man." 
 
 " He had more faith, probably " 
 
 " That is not my business !" 
 
 " Profane man !" 
 
 " Bigot !" 
 
 " Hush ! His name is ? " 
 
 " Maury." 
 
 " Maury. The abbe Maury." 
 
 " But he is not yet abbe !" 
 
 " So I should suppose. I am trying how it would sound. 
 The abbe Maury. Cardinal Maury. Oh yes ; the name does 
 very well. Decidedly he is the man to take up. We will do 
 so. We must make him extemporize a sermon, shall we 
 not?" 
 
 " A sermon ! You would " 
 
 " Why not ? You know very well that Bossuet made his 
 debut in that way." 
 
 "Yes; but " 
 
 "But what?" 
 
 " A sermon before these gentlemen 1 Before d'Holbach ? 
 Before Diderot, perhaps ]" 
 
 " Without counting you." 
 
 " Yes, without counting me. An edifying audience, on my 
 honor !" 
 
 " It will show whether the orator is a man of talent." 
 
 " I understand. If he knows how to play his part as a 
 Christian without interfering with those who are not so, we 
 will patronize him ; if he thinks himself obliged to thunder
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV.. 271 
 
 away at the infidels, we will say to him : 'Go in peace, my 
 dear. Become a village cure, and God be with you !' That 
 is the thing, is it not ?" 
 
 " Exactly." 
 
 The next day, a new guest made his appearance in the sa- 
 loon. This young man, with his lofty brow and fearless eyes, 
 had in two hours become familiar with all the great lords and 
 authors whom he found there. Whence did he come ? No 
 one from his aspect, would have imagined for an instant. 
 Everything about him indicated at the same time the man of 
 the people and the man of the world, the plebeian and the 
 aristocrat, that happy mixture by which high and low are so 
 easily attracted, the low, because they are easily imposed 
 upon by all greatness, and the high, because they are small in the 
 presence of that energetic aplomb, which is now so rarely met 
 with save among the people. This unknown youth was he, who 
 for the next twenty years was to be witty in the pulpit, and 
 sceptical in the saloons ; he who was to pass his youth at the 
 feet of Voltaire, and his old age at the feet of Napoleon ; not, 
 it is true, without having displayed during the perils of the 
 revolution, more than one flash of real courage and real elo- 
 quence. It was Siffrein Maury, the future Cardinal Maury. 
 
 LVII. 
 
 M AUE Y'S TEXT. 
 
 He had received with joy and eagerness, the proposal of this 
 trial, which might raise him at once to a higher position th;in 
 he could have attained by six years of persevering efforts. No 
 fear, not the slightest agitation rendered the prospect alarm- 
 ing.
 
 272 RABAUT AND BRIDAINK, OR 
 
 " So you -are not afraid of coming to a stand still ?" his pro- 
 tectress inquired. " Bah ! Madame, how is it possible for any 
 one to do that ]" 
 
 The whole age was in this reply. To know everything, to 
 be able to talk about everything, had been for the last forty 
 years the wish, the aim, the folly or the glory, as you may 
 decide, of this society, of which he was to be one of the 
 latest, but also one of the most thorough representatives. 
 
 At length an evening had been decided upon, and this was 
 the evening. 
 
 Gebelin and Rabaut could not for a long time understand 
 what was about to take place. The initiated continued to 
 smile without replying. We may be permitted to suppose 
 that discretion was not the only motive of their silence. At 
 the hotel de Rambouillet, in 1644, a sermon seemed only 
 strange; at Madame du DeflTant's, in 1760, a sermon was 
 ridiculous. Few people wished to have anything to do with 
 it. 
 
 At length, the aspect of the assembled guests denoted that 
 the matter was no longer a secret to any one. Some laughed, 
 some shrugged their shoulders. Some few, the most sincere 
 believers, and the most downright infidels, took their de- 
 parture. 
 
 Great was the embarrassment of many upon being re- 
 quested to name a text, in order that the orator might draw 
 one at hazard from among the number given. The holy Scrip- 
 tures at this epoch were but little known save by two classes 
 of persons; the followers of Jansenius, who read them for 
 their own edification, and also a little for the pleasure of dis- 
 obeying the pope ; and the followers of Voltaire, who studied 
 them in order to laugh at them. " Is it not necessary," he said 
 once, " to know the case of our adversaries ?" Half-way infi-
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 273 
 
 dels, worldly people, well-bred people in general, had nothing 
 to do with them, and it might have been said of the holy 
 books, as Voltaire said of Pompignon's hymns : 
 
 " Sacred they are, siuce they are touched by none." 
 
 Accordingly, throughout the saloon might be heard in a half 
 whisper : " A text, if you please." " A text !" And all the 
 superfluous verses with which some might be acquainted, they 
 generously bestowed upon their neighbors. " But is this cor 
 rect?" asked some. "Yes, nearly so." And from these 
 reminiscences resulted supposed verses which would have 
 called forth the horror of Sacy, or Martin, ancient or modern, 
 Eomanist or Protestant translators. Others, in the belief that 
 they were quoting the Bible, boldly wrote down some of the 
 sayings of the theophilanthropy of the day. " Christ was the 
 martyr of liberty." " Hell is the heart of the wicked." " God 
 wills the happiness of all." " But, Monsieur," said Rabaut 
 to one of his neighbors, who had just written down these last 
 words, " that is not in the Bible." " It is not in the Bible 1 
 Ah ! Well, so much the worse for the Bible." And he threw 
 his verse into the hat of Monsieur de Pont-de-Veyle, who was 
 occupied in collecting the texts. 
 
 LVIII. 
 
 THE SERMON. 
 
 In the meantime the orator had made his appearance. The 
 near approach of the moment had at length awakened in him 
 a certain degree of emotion. It is certainly a great thing not 
 to come to a stand still ; but there are plenty of people who 
 avoid this, and are still very prosing. Could he calculate upon
 
 274 RABAUT AND BRIDATXE, OR 
 
 having a text which would not condemn him to be prosing, in 
 spite of all his talent and assurance ? And suppose the sub- 
 ject should be too decidedly Christian for him reasonably to 
 indulge in philosophizing upon it ? And suppose but his un- 
 certainty was not of long duration. He plunged his hand into 
 the hat. A profound silence reigned. 
 
 " And what hast thou that thou didst not receive 1 Now if 
 thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory ?"* 
 
 Such were the words traced upon the paper which he had 
 drawn from the hat. But he had perceived at a glance, all 
 that there was embarrassing in the why at the close. Hu- 
 mility ! He cared no more to preach it than the audience to 
 hear it. Accordingly he read the first line only : " What 
 hast thou that thou didst not receive 1 ?" This was still humili- 
 ty, but humility in a form which which would allow him to 
 say but little about it. 
 
 And in fact, he said but a few words in regard to it, in his 
 exordium ; these words moreover being merely in order to 
 conceal his turning aside from the subject. " We owe all to 
 God. We participate, through our faculties, in his nature, his 
 intelligence, and all his perfections. Thence the prodigies of 
 all kinds accomplished by human nature, in the sciences, the 
 arts, in all the paths which Providence has opened to us." 
 This was the style of his commencement ; an able introduc- 
 tion to a magnificent picture of the grandeur of human intelli- 
 gence. 
 
 Viewed in this light, there was no subject in the world which 
 could have been more suited to the taste of the age, and es- 
 pecially of the audience which Maury had before him. The 
 eighteenth century doubtless thought much, accomplished 
 much, and made many discoveries ; but never was there a cen- 
 * 1 Cor. iv. 7.
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 27") 
 
 tury which more naively expressed its admiration for its own 
 thoughts and deeds. It sometimes even admitted this to be the 
 case. " It seems to me," wrote Grimm,* " that the eighteenth 
 century surpasses all others in the praises which it has bestowed 
 upon itself." Ours, we must in justice admit, is more modest. 
 Individual pride is the same ; public pride, if we may so en- 
 title it, has imposed upon itself tolerably wise limits. The 
 more progress we make, and the more rapidly we make it, the 
 more we feel what folly it would be to assert that we have 
 reached the utmost limits of discovery. At that time this 
 was believed to be the case. Superior men, inferior men, 
 commonplace men, all took part in the long hymn sung to the 
 glory of man ; all joined in the immense circle which noisily 
 danced around his pedestal. 
 
 Yet the youthful voice which on this day joined the deafen- 
 ing concert, did not lack grandeur and elevation. The only 
 fault of this sermon, was its being called a sermon at all. The 
 picture of the age's progress had never been delineated with 
 greater splendor and power. The surprise of all was great, 
 their attention was profound. In this rapid review of all that 
 had been accomplished in the last hundred years, there was 
 not a word, not a stroke which did not win over to the orator 
 some one of his audience. By turns, artist, savant, author, 
 and philosopher, he spoke to each his own language ; to each 
 ,one, like a sovereign scattering wide his honors, he knew how 
 to deal forth, as he went on, whatever he thought would best 
 suit his tastes, and his pride. He named no one, indicated no 
 one ; and yet all eyes were continually turned from him to 
 those whose labors he was exalting. He' allowed each one 
 time to taste well his glory ; and he made them all feel the 
 
 * Correspondence. 25th January, 1757.
 
 276 RABAUT AND BRIDAIXE, OR 
 
 honor of entering in some degree into the splendor of the 
 whole. 
 
 " What labors !" he cried. " What triumphs ! What an im- 
 mense extension of the field of our forefathers ! In other 
 days, hardly at the close of a long life, could one perceive any 
 considerable change and progress ; now, from year to year, 
 almost from month to month, all boundaries are changed, all 
 treasures increased. The earth has no longer any abysses, the 
 heavens have no depths, into which the human eye does not 
 penetrate. Hope no more, ye wandering stars, to terrify us 
 by your caprices ! Your path is marked out. We shall ex- 
 pect your return in future, as we expect that of the most 
 docile of your shining companions. Four elements were 
 bequeathed to us ; we shall bequeath forty to our successors. 
 Bring us from the ends of the earth some plant which no 
 human eye has yet seen ; we shall recognize it ; we shall tell 
 you its place in the vegetable world. Go and seek in the 
 deepest mines, a shapeless rock, a broken bone. We will 
 make this stone relate to you the history of the globe ; we will 
 restore life to it, and with it resuscitate before your eyes all the 
 generations of living creatures which have preceded us in the 
 universe." 
 
 Thus spoke the young and brilliant sophist ; thus, on the 
 altar of the eighteenth century, he burned the incense of his 
 glowing admiration. 
 
 He ceased. His discourse had been nearly an hour in 
 length. He had caressed the pride, and sung the triumphs of 
 all. Could he doubt of his success ? We may add that he 
 had taken good care not to spoil the admirable effect of this 
 picture by a Christian peroration. Like those flatterers who 
 conclude their eulogiums by throwing themselves on their 
 knees and thanking God for the virtues of their idol, he had
 
 TIIE COURT OF I.OUIS XV. 277 
 
 cried : " O God, behold our age has received all this from you ! 
 You have willed that it should tower above the other ages, like 
 the cedar of Lebanon above the surrounding groves, like the 
 lily above the lowly plants which it surpasses in its appear- 
 ance, and embalms with its fragrance ! Disappear then, hence- 
 forth disappear ye clouds ! The reign of intelligence is here. 
 Humanity has once more taken wing. Let it go onward ! 
 And the Infinite itself shall bend down beneath its triumphant 
 progress !" 
 
 Great, accordingly, was the enthusiasm ; and all, even Buflbn 
 himself, pressing through the throng, went to congratulate the 
 young orator. 
 
 LIX. 
 
 "WHAT SHALL i CRY"?" 
 
 The next day but one, at the same hour, in a remote 
 chamber in the archiepiscopal palace, another orator was prac- 
 ticing this same calling of eloquence, the noblest or the most 
 contemptible of callings. 
 
 This orator was not just commencing his career. His 
 debut had been made forty years before, and yet he mur- 
 mured : " Never, never have I felt as I now feel ! To-morrow^ 
 to-morrow, at Saint-Sulpice. All Paris will be there, they 
 tell me. All Paris, in fact, all their Paris, this nameless 
 mixture of false gold, infidelity and vice. Paris, all Paris. 
 And what shall I say to these people ! To-morrow, and no- 
 thing yet ready nothing that is worth anything." 
 
 And he pushed away several roughly-written papers, rum 
 pled, torn, and covered with erasures and ink. 
 
 "But why," he resumed, "why have I taken it into my 
 head to write? I was never made to write down these things,
 
 278 RABAUT AND BRIDAINE, OR 
 
 line by line. And shall I at sixty try to learn 1 But come, 
 come, I have lost two days. This work must at least profit 
 me a little." 
 
 He took the leaves again. 
 
 " This exordium, let me see. 
 
 " ' At the sight of an audience so new to me, the astonish- 
 ment aroused within me is only equalled by the fear of being 
 too far below what is apparently expected from me.' Me 
 me, three times me in one sentence. Would that happen if 
 I were talking ? But let me go on, I will correct afterwards. 
 
 " ' What can I do, in commencing, but solicit your indul- 
 gence 1 Grant it to me ' Good, another me. ' Grant it 
 to me, my dear brethren. I am but a poor missionary. Wha* 
 right have I to present myself before you. Pardon ' 
 
 " Falsehood !" cried Bridaine ; and this time the papers were 
 flung to the further side of the table. " Falsehood and coward- 
 ice ! And I I could write that ! I could O God, my pen 
 was a lying pen like so many others ! My lips could not 
 have spoken thus, my heart still less. And yet I wrote it, 
 I wrote it ; and even if I should burn these leaves, I should 
 none the less have written them. And I took hours to do it ! 
 And I only saw a few words to be corrected. What, what 
 could I have been about ? What was I thinking of ? To ex- 
 cuse myself ! To ask pardon ! ' What right have I to present 
 myself before you I What right 1 You shall read it upon my 
 brow, infidels !" 
 
 But suddenly a cloud seemed to pass over this brow, 
 whereon he felt was written his right to be the minister of 
 God. He bowed his head ; he was silent. His eyes seemed 
 endeavoring to fathom an abyss. This abyss was his own heart. 
 
 " Yes," he resumed, " yes ; I see it all. And God saw it 
 before I did. Not alone my pen was guilty. Yes. The poor
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 279 
 
 missionary was afraid. He imagined himself appearing with 
 his harsh voice, his clumsy gestures, and his rustic face, before 
 those great lords and beautiful ladies. He belittled himself, 
 oh God, he forgot that in your sight your ministry is always 
 exalted ! Yes, I was afraid. I thought of myself, of par- 
 don me, oh God ! of my reputation of the disenchantment 
 which might be felt upon hearing me. Misery ! oh misery ! 
 I. it quite certain that I am not thinking of the same things now 1 ?" 
 
 He remained for a long time in this attitude of mournful 
 self-examination, his hands hanging motionless beside him, 
 and his eyes fixed on the same spot. The passing hours were 
 tolled solemnly and slowly from the high towers of Notre- 
 Dame, but no sound reached his ear. 
 
 At length midnight sounded. At the first stroke Bridaine 
 arose, as if this solemn hour had resounded differently from 
 the others, through the long corridors of the palace. He lis- 
 tened ; he counted 
 
 " Midnight !" he murmured. " It is no longer to-morrow ; 
 it is to-day. A few hours more, and I shall see them, there, 
 crowded around my pulpit. O God ! oh God! once more, 
 what shall I say to them ?" 
 
 He fell back into his seat. But a book lay before him, upon 
 the table from which he had swept his manuscript. Upon the 
 worn parchment of its rough cover, might be read : 
 
 " Vox dicentis : Clama. Et dixi : quid clamabo ? 
 
 " Clama ; ne cesses. Quasi tuba exalta vocem tuam ; et an- 
 nuntia populo meo scelera eorum, et domui Jacob peccata 
 earum"* 
 
 * " And the voice said : Cry. And he said, What shall I cry ? 
 " Cry alond, spare not ; lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show my 
 people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins." 
 
 Isaiah xl. and Iviii.
 
 280 RABAUT AND B IM I) A I X E , OR 
 
 He himself had traced these words. He liked to have them 
 before his eyes. They were his credentials as an ambassador 
 of God ; his device as a champion of the faith, and in his mo- 
 ments of discouragement, his strength and consolation. 
 
 He took the book, and without opening it, held it a long 
 time upon his knees, gazing at the terrible, but re-assuring 
 inscription. 
 
 " Quid clamabo ?" he murmured. " Yes. What shall I cry ? 
 Alas \ Isaiah asked this before I did, Moses before Isaiah. 
 They also trembled before they went to work. Come, cour- 
 age! Why should he who supported them, abandon me? 
 Come. Where is my text 1 Let me read it over once more. 
 And God will do the rest." 
 
 He opened his book, it was the Bible, and soon placed 
 his finger on the verse which we saw him select at the house 
 of Gebelin, from the leaf saved from the fire. 
 
 Then, with more assurance, he said : 
 
 " Quid clamabo ?" he repeated. " This is what I shall cry ! 
 ' For God hath fixed a day when he shall judge the world.' 
 He \wsfixed a day. Yes. That is what I shall say. Fixed! 
 fixed! There is when? No matter ! There is, in the 
 course of ages, a day fixed, irrevocably fixed, when ye shall 
 appear before God. There is a day when all your iniquities 
 shall appear before you, inscribed forever inscribed upon the 
 flaming book of justice, upon the book But no, they are 
 familiar with these terrifying ideas. I wish to show them that 
 this book is their own heart ; that it is there they shall one day 
 perceive, as if by a lightning flash, all that they now accumu- 
 late there, of falsehood and vice. God will judge ; yes, but not 
 as man judges. He will have but to restore to the wicked 
 that internal consciousness which they have lost, and each one 
 shall instantly become his own accuser, judge, and executioner.
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 281 
 
 Fixed! fixed! Do you see it, as it draws nigh, still sur 
 rounded with obscurity, but certain, inexorable, that day when 
 you shall be plunged into the abyss ? Do you see it 1 Oh 
 God ! Do I, myself, look closely enough at it ? Do 1 feel 
 vividly enough the terror with which I wish to inspire others 1 
 Have I assured myself sufficiently that you will weigh in your 
 eternal balance my hesitations, my weaknesses, all ! even to 
 the words which just escaped me !" 
 
 LX. 
 
 A PROPHETIC VISION. 
 
 He was once more silent. He let his clasped hands fall 
 upon the book ; his brow rested upon his hands ; his eyes 
 were closed. Soon, beneath the double weight of fatigue and 
 meditation, he fell asleep, but with that half slumber in which 
 the soul seems to inherit the activity of the body. 
 
 And then he felt himself, as it were, transported into another 
 world, in which revived in other forms all the false virtues, all 
 the vices, all the crimes, against which he had inveighed in 
 this. He recognized them from his own delineation of them. 
 It was no longer the earth ; it was not hell. These spectres 
 were neither sad nor joyful. They advanced silently, and 
 their gaze seemed fastened upon some object. Some bran- 
 dished a hatchet, others affected to display their hands without 
 weapons, while a concealed poignard might be detected in the 
 graceful folds of their garments. 
 
 And these spectres came and went, like men full of busi- 
 ness. 
 
 And Bridaine went on, on with them, like one who had 
 something to see.
 
 282 RABAUT AND BR1DAINE, OR 
 
 And with the sound of the footsteps of these demons, 
 seemed to mingle a psalmody from on high. 
 
 " Who maketh his angels spirits ; his ministers a flaming 
 fire. 
 
 " He hath smitten the kings, because the kings transgressed. 
 
 " He hath smitten the nations, because the nations trans- 
 gressed. 
 
 " Sow, sow the wind, and ye shall reap the whirlwind. 
 
 " Sow, sow death, and ye shall reap death. 
 
 " He maketh his angels spirits, and his ministers a flaming 
 fire" 
 
 But the spectres listened not. They went on, on unceas- 
 ingly- 
 
 And those who bore the axes, brandished them more boldly. 
 
 And those who had the daggers, drew them forth. 
 
 And in the midst of the mist into which they rushed con- 
 fusedly, might be perceived upon a pedestal, a tall and majes- 
 tic statue. 
 
 Above its head, in starry letters, might be read, 
 
 LIBERTY ; 
 
 And upon the rock which supported it, 
 GOD; 
 
 Then they threw themselves upon their knees before it, and 
 all cried out, 
 
 " Help us, Liberty ! help us ! Descend ! descend !" 
 
 But she remained motionless. 
 
 And then they dashed themselves against the pedestal, and 
 all cried, " Overthrow ! Overthrow !" 
 
 But the pedestal was not shaken. 
 
 Then the ax 33 were raised, and all cried, "Break ! Break !"
 
 THE COURT OF T,OUT.S XV. 285 
 
 But the axes were blunted by the hard granite ; the name 
 of God was illuminated by all the sparks of fire elicited by 
 the iron from the unconquerable stone. 
 
 " Brethren," said one of the laborers, " what shall we do ?" 
 
 " What shall we do ?" they repeated. 
 
 " Brethren," he resumed, " let us begin by erecting another 
 pedestal." 
 
 Then they set to work. Some brought materials, others 
 builded, others set up around the statue the scaffolding by 
 means of which they were to take it away. 
 
 And from the top of the scaffolding they cried, "Is all 
 ready ?" 
 
 And those below replied, " No." Then they ran and over- 
 threw another throne, another altar. And they brought the 
 fragments, and heaped them up together, so at length they 
 raised the heap to the height of the old pedestal. 
 
 And upon the sides of the new one, to which had been given 
 the false appearance of granite, they wrote, 
 
 HONOUR, PATRIOTISM, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY. 
 
 Then, amidst the acclamations of the crowd, the statue was 
 taken down ; they carried it, with songs, to its new pedestal ; 
 they set it up 
 
 But immediately, with a terrible crash, it tottered, crum- 
 bled, fell. And its fragments mingled with those of which 
 the spectres had endeavored to make it a throne. 
 
 And to the commotion of the tottering earth, replied a sigh- 
 ing from above : 
 
 " Woe, woe to those who trust in man ! 
 
 "They wished to set up Liberty upon the virtues and 
 triumphs of man. She is fallen, and great was her fell. 
 
 " Woe, woe to those who trust in man !"
 
 284 RABAUT AND BRIDAIXE, OR 
 
 Then theie was a great division among those who had ac- 
 complished this work. 
 
 Some cast away their axes and clung to the granite which 
 they had striven to overthrow. They dashed their repentant 
 brows against it ; they kissed it devoutly. 
 
 An inner voice told these, that henceforward Liberty should 
 have her pedestal in their hearts. 
 
 The others had shut their eyes that they might not see ; and 
 at the first sound of the voice from on high, they had stopped 
 their ears. 
 
 These were condemned to an endless search. 
 
 And so they sought, sought unceasingly. Their axes stirred 
 up the fragments. Those of Liberty were shattered like the 
 rest beneath their mad blows. 
 
 And the mist which surrounded them became thicker and 
 thicker. 
 
 And they were heard to curse one another. 
 
 And the clash of arms followed the sound of the maledic- 
 tions, and the clash of arms was succeeded by tears and cries, 
 and the cries were followed by a fearful silence. 
 
 Then might be perceived, in the midst of the obscurity, a 
 statue, seated. Its feet were bathed in blood. Its right hair 
 \vus filled with chains ; its left held an iron sceptre. 
 
 This was Despotism, seated in peace upon the ruins of all 
 rights and all truths. 
 
 She seemed sometimes to wear a royal crown, sometimes 
 the cap of liberty, Her tattered garments changed to purple 
 robes, her purple robes to tattered garments. The sceptre 
 alone remained always of iron. 
 
 And a plaintive, far-heard voice, like the voice of many na- 
 tions, arose from time to time : " How long, oh Lord ! how long !" 
 
 And the answer too, was heard immediately :
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 285 
 
 " Repent ye, and be converted, and your souls shall find 
 peace." 
 
 And the multitude hearkened not ; and Bridaine repeated 
 after the voice from on high : " Repent ye and be converted." 
 
 And the voice said : " They have not hearkened to the voice 
 of God, will they hearken to the voice of man ?" 
 
 And Bridaine again cried aloud : " Repent ye and be con- 
 verted !" 
 
 But a terrible confusion was now all that could be seen. 
 All things changed their names. Good was called evil ; evil 
 was called good. Truth entered into the service of falsehood ; 
 falsehood into that of truth. All spoke, but none listened. 
 All touched, but no longer perceived each other. 
 
 And all was whirling round in an infernal tempest ; while 
 Bridaine, terrified, clung to the book upon which he had sup- 
 ported his head. 
 
 And when at length he re-opened his eyes, he saw by the 
 rays of his half extinguished lamp, only these words of the 
 scorched leaf: 
 
 " God hath appointed a day in the which he will judge the 
 world." 
 
 LXI. 
 
 FASHIONABLE RELIGION. 
 
 Whilst the preacher watched and prayed in the archiepisco- 
 pal palace, others were watching at Saint-Sulpice ; but these 
 latter did not pray. 
 
 Many people of rank had sent their valets to pass the night 
 in the church. This was the only way of securing places upon 
 grand occasions ; besides, it was the fashion, and that of itself 
 would have been sufficient reason.
 
 286 R A B A U T AND R II I I) A I \ T , OR 
 
 Fashion, which cannot fail to have its effect upon religious 
 matters, has so much the more influence at those periods when 
 there is least piety, and when religion is most an affair of form 
 and decency. 
 
 This observation, which is just in itself, has not always been 
 well applied. 
 
 It is agreed, for instance, to attribute to fashion all the piety 
 or at least the external appearance of piety which existed in 
 the last years of Louis XIV.'s reign. 
 
 That he may have encouraged, and if needs be, commanded, 
 these manifestations, is true. We know very well what may 
 be the influence of a king, more especially a king like him, 
 whom fashion itself, the most independent of powers, was in 
 the habit of obeying. 
 
 But we go too far in attributing to him alone all the de 
 votion and devotees to be found in the latter part of his reign. 
 Beneath these manifestations ordered by him, there existed be- 
 sides a large amount, we will not say of real piety, but of 
 pious habits, of pious -instincts which were easily aroused. 
 We may be sure that all these people who, to please Louis 
 XIV. performed their Easter devotions in public, would have 
 performed them, in secret, perhaps, and in a somewhat con- 
 fused style, to please their wives, their children, and them- 
 selves. 
 
 We must not forget, moreover, that these externals had 
 long outlived the old king. After all we know of the infi- 
 delity and immorality of the last century, we have some 
 trouble in not fancying the churches empty, the priests de- 
 rided, and the ceremonies of public worship turned into ridi- 
 cule. This would be an entire mistake. People had ceased, 
 it is true, to affect religious sentiments, for they would only 
 have met with sarcasms ; but external duties were generally
 
 THK ComT OF LOUIS XV. " 287 
 
 fulfilled as scrupulously as ever. Only the professed infidels, 
 and these were not numerous, had entirely broken with 
 the Church. Even among them there were but few who re- 
 fused a reconciliation with her on their death-beds ; many did 
 not even wait until then. In the evening they laughed at the 
 mass ; in the morning they attended it. They talked impiety 
 with immoral abbes, and theology with sincere priests. The 
 sins committed in the company of the former, were confessed 
 to the latter. And as for the easiest of all religious duties, 
 a sermon to be heard, it was natural that this should be care- 
 ful ly attended to, if the preacher should be renowned as a man 
 of talent, or of great peculiarities. 
 
 LXI1. 
 
 A COTERIE. 
 
 This last reputation, as we have seen, belonged to Bridaine. 
 He had been much talked of for several days. His merits 
 and defects had doubled in the public imagination. Those 
 who had seen him at Versailles, wished to hear him in Paris ; 
 those in Paris who wished to hear him, longed for the moment 
 when they should see him in the pulpit. 
 
 He was to preach, as was his custom, at nightfall, and the 
 church was full at noon. The chairs hired at five sous by the 
 people inclined to make a business of it, were let again and 
 again at higher and higher prices. Many who had come in 
 order to speculate, offered theirs, glad to sell for a crown what 
 had cost them the quarter of a livre; and more than one 
 honest bourgeois, after having hesitated for a long time be- 
 tween God and Mammon, had finally allowed himself to be 
 seduced by the louis d'or of the marquis or the banker.
 
 288 UAIIAUT AND HUIDA1NK, OR 
 
 The assembly contained, accordingly, to its remjtest ranks, 
 few save the great, the rich, and men of letters. Helvetius, 
 who was unsurpassed in the art of making himself at home 
 everywhere, had hired the whole of one of the side chapels, 
 and gallantly did the honors of it to all the philosophers, artists, 
 and literary men whom he could perceive among the crowd. 
 He did not implicitly observe the order, we see, that he should 
 wait a month or two before showing himself in public. But 
 who obeyed in those days 1 A few poor wretches at farthest. 
 
 There was much conversation going on in all directions, but 
 nowhere so much as in the said chapel. " What should we 
 do in a church but talk," when we are Grimm, Helvetius, 
 d'Holbach, and lutti quanti ?* They appeared astonished 
 enough, moreover, to find themselves there. Upon each new 
 arrival, it was easy to guess from their air, that the first words 
 exchanged, invariably turned upon their mutual surprise. 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " Well ?" 
 
 " Did you take holy water, too ?" 
 
 "Of course." 
 
 " And make the sign of the cross ?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Very edifying." 
 
 " We must howl when others yell, my friend." 
 
 " And play the simpleton with simpletons, eh ?" 
 
 " I believe there is some one in this confessional " 
 "It is Maury you remember, the other evening " 
 "Ah! good day, Monsieur Maury. I have not yet con. 
 plimcnted you " 
 
 * All the rest.
 
 THE COURT OF i.oris xv. 289 
 
 " Monsieur " 
 
 " But how you are established there ! Paper, oens " 
 
 " I am going to try and write down the sermon." 
 " Ah ! that is not a bad idea." 
 
 " Monsieur, I thank you a thousand times. I was horribly 
 uncomfortable in that mob. Thanks to you I now have one of 
 the best places." 
 
 " I am happy to have been able to be of service to you." 
 
 " You are used to act in that way. Who have you in that 
 Jittle gallery ?" 
 
 "Where?" 
 
 "There on the' left." 
 
 " I had not even seen it. I believe in fact, that some one has 
 just entered it." 
 
 LXIII. 
 
 THE KING INCOGNITO. 
 
 And who was this some one ] 
 
 About two hours before this conversation, a chariot with 
 the arms of Richelieu had left Versailles at a rapid trot, bear- 
 ing off the duke and the king. 
 
 The preparation for this enterprise had rid the king of two 
 or three days of his habitual ennui. The marquise, instructed 
 by Richelieu, had played the unconscious admirably. The 
 king had received with evident satisfaction her compliments 
 upon his good spirits, and these good spirits had increased 
 from hour to hour, at the thought that he had succeeded so well 
 in turning aside all suspicion. 
 
 As he rarely failed to pay for the few moments of gaiety he
 
 290 RABAUT AND BRIDAINE, OR 
 
 might experience, by a still more violent return of his ennui, 
 he had scarcely set out before his brow was clouded. Every- 
 thing had changed its aspect to him. He had found it amusing 
 to escape from the marquise, and now he asked himself bitter- 
 ly, what sort of king he must be who found it necessary to 
 escape thus from a woman like a schoolboy from his teacher, 
 or a slave from his master. He had anticipated the sermon 
 as a part of the pleasure, and now the seriousness of the thing 
 appeared to him in all its nakedness. What was he going to 
 Paris for ? To hear threats which would terrify him, but not 
 make him change his habits of life; warnings which could 
 teach him nothing new in regard to the state of his soul, and 
 would but serve, in fact, to make him still more inexcusable in 
 the sight of God. He had for a long time past despaired of 
 his strength ; he had no longer even the resource, often lying, 
 but at least consoling, of persuading himself that he would one 
 day change. Such as he now was, he felt that he should ap- 
 pear before the face of God, an unfaithful king, a man burdened 
 with vices, and a heart without life. 
 
 And yet this very despair, managed by such a man as 
 Bridaine, might still become a means of salvation. The more 
 serious, the more completely established the malady, so much 
 the more effect is often felt from a remedy energetically ap- 
 plied. At Versailles, in his chapel, the word of God reached 
 his ears like music more or less monotonous ; more fitted to 
 lull his conscience to sleep than to awaken it. There, more- 
 over, surrounded by homage, more honored than God himself, 
 it was but an affair of etiquette for him to hear a sermon ; 
 whether the discourse were strong or weak it was all the same 
 to the ears of the king. At Paris, in a vast church, mingled 
 with the multitude, recalled, by the universality of the in- 
 structions and denunciations, to a feeling of the equality of all
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 291 
 
 in the sight of God, he might yet be moved, he might return 
 to his palace with a little more energy in his mind, a little more 
 life in his heart. 
 
 LXIV. 
 
 THE CONFESSOR . H IS ADVERSARIES. 
 
 His bad angel, in the shape of his confessor, awaited him 
 upon the threshold of the church. 
 
 Richelieu had judged it impossible to bring the king thither 
 incognito, without admitting the cure into the secret. The 
 cure had offered the little retired gallery situated in the chapel 
 in which we have seen Helvetius and his friends. It had been 
 agreed that a priest should stand sentinel at the outside door by 
 which they entered. 
 
 And in fact, they found a priest at this door, but this priest 
 was Desmarets. 
 
 " You here !" said the king. 
 
 " Sire, I may be here as well as any other. I was charged 
 by the cure " 
 
 " Charged, charged " muttered the marshal ; " did he 
 know whether it might suit the king for you to know that he 
 was in Paris'?" 
 
 " However, sire, I am ready to retire " 
 
 The king entered without replying. A small staircase con- 
 ducted him to the gallery. There was room for three ; but 
 Richelieu placed himself so that there was no seat for the con 
 fessor. Desmarets remained standing. What cared he foi 
 the insult ? He had his plan. 
 
 Concealed by the grating, the king examined the multitude 
 with curiosity, at first those at a distance, then those nearer.
 
 292 RABAUT AND BRIDAIXE, OR 
 
 and at last hi s eye rested upon those who were conversing just 
 beneath him. He perceived immediately from their manner, 
 that they were all acquainted with one another, and that acci- 
 dent could not have drawn so many of them to the same spot. 
 He at length distinguished Helvetius, who had been at court, 
 it may be remembered, as master of the queen's household. 
 
 "Why here we are, I believe," he said to the duke, "in the 
 full encyclopedist conclave !" 
 
 The duke smiled. 
 
 " Ah, ha ! your Majesty has discovered 1 I noticed it as I 
 came in." 
 
 " And you said nothing to me of it ?" 
 
 " I feared lest this vicinity might displease " 
 
 '' And you feared also, did you not, that I might think you 
 too well acquainted with these gentlemen ?" 
 
 " I do not know them all." 
 
 " No, only the leaders and half of the subalterns. Come. 
 Tell me the names of some of them." 
 
 " With pleasure, sire. Beside Helvetius " 
 
 " He is just admitting some one else. Who is it ? Ha ! 
 one Protestant of the memorial. They are acquainted !" 
 . " Infidelity is the sister of heresy," said Desmarets, gravely ; 
 " in tolerating one " 
 
 " Beside Monsieur Helve tius," interrupted Richelieu, " is the 
 Baron d'Holbach, then on the right, the old Baronne du Def- 
 fant, attended by her Pont de-Vegle, of whom your Majesty 
 may have heard something, and here is Monsieur d'Alem- 
 bert, of the Academy of Sciences " 
 
 " I know him," said the king, with an absent air. 
 
 Richelieu went on, but the king no longer listened to him. 
 Like a general alarmed by the contemplation of the opposing 
 army, what to him mattered the names of the soldiers'?
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 293 
 
 Known or unknown, strong or weak, they were soldiers, this 
 was an army, these were the waves of a sea to which God 
 alone had the power and right to say, " thus fiir shalt thou 
 
 go!" 
 
 A terrible army this, in truth, of which all the soldiers, one 
 after another, might have been imprisoned without causing it 
 to cease advancing, increasing, encroaching ! With a word, 
 the king could cause any of the men at this moment before 
 his eyes, to be shut up for life within four walls. But he had 
 no longer faith even in prison walls. The new ideas were in 
 the atmosphere. 
 
 LXV. 
 
 THE PRIEST. 
 
 And so he became more and more dejected, as he silently 
 contemplated these demolishers of his throne, when a great 
 movement at length aroused him from his reverie. The hour 
 had struck. The crowd divided before the beadle, who ad- 
 vanced towards the pulpit, followed by a white-haired priest. 
 
 It was he. 
 
 He ascended, and with that glance which at once imposes si- 
 lence upon the farthest extremities of a crowd,, he looked 
 around the whole building ; then he said, slowly and gravely, 
 but with a voice which resounded to the farthest corners : 
 
 " At the sight of an audience so new to me, it might seem, 
 my brethren, that I should open my lips but to ask your in- 
 dulgence for a poor missionary, destitute of all the qualities 
 which you demand from those who come to speak to you of 
 your sal-ation. 
 
 " And yet I have a different feeling, and if I am humiliated, 
 do not imagine that I yield to the pitiful measiness of vanity.
 
 294 RABAUT AND BRIDA'.NF, , OR 
 
 God forbid that a minister of the word should ever think it 
 needful to excuse himself to you, for whoever you may be, 
 you are all sinners like myself. It is in the sight of your God 
 and mine that I feel impelled at this moment to smite upon 
 my breast. 
 
 " I have preached the judgments of the Most High in straw- 
 thatched temples ; I have preached the rigors of penitence to 
 the unfortunate who were destitute of bread ; I have saddened 
 the poor, the best friends of my God ; I have carried terror 
 and grief to these souls which I seemed called upon only to 
 console. This was my duty ; I performed it ; woe to me, if I 
 had dared to believe, or to allow the belief, that sin in the low- 
 ly hut is sheltered from condemnation ! 
 
 " But it is here, more especially, here, where I look only 
 upon the great, and the rich, upon bold and hardened sinners, 
 ah ! it is here that the holy word must resound with all its 
 power ; it is here that I must place before you, in this pulpit, 
 on the one hand, death, which threatens you, and on the other, 
 the great God who comes to judge you. 
 
 " This day, I hold your sentence in my hand. Tremble, 
 then, before me, proud and disdainful men ! The necessity of 
 salvation, the certainty of death, the uncertainty of its terrible 
 hour, final impenitence, the last judgment, the small number 
 of the elect, holly " 
 
 "Hell " murmured Desmarets, close to the ear of the 
 king. 
 
 " and, above all, eternity " 
 
 " Eternity !" repeated the Jesuit. 
 
 " these are the subjects of which I mean to speak to you, 
 and which, thank God, I feel less disposed than ever to miti- 
 gate. 
 
 " And what need have I of your approval, which would per-
 
 THE COUUT OF LOUIS XV. 295 
 
 haps ruin me, without benefiting you ? God will rouse your 
 emotions whilst His unworthy minister is talking to you ; for 
 I have had experience of his mercies. Then, penetrated with 
 horror for your past iniquities, you will come and throw your- 
 selves into my arms, with tears of compunction and repent- 
 ance, and then your remorse will make you think me suffi- 
 ciently eloquent." 
 
 LXVI. 
 
 THE KING'S MIND. 
 
 A murmur ran through the church. If the orator believed 
 that he had touched the hearts of his audience, he was mis- 
 taken. This murmur signified, " Good ! Excellent !" It was 
 with their heads they admired ; it was not that their hearts ac- 
 knowledged themselves subdued. To work, poor missionary, 
 to work ! Thou hast yet accomplished nothing, nothing but a 
 beautiful specimen of eloquence, which this young man, this 
 budding orator, will arrange to-morrow after his own fashion, 
 in order to deliver it, ridiculously philosophized, to the bravos 
 of an infidel age.* 
 
 Yet there was one man present in whose heart these words 
 had left a more profound impression. This was the king. 
 
 The words eternity and hell, more especially, were the only 
 ones which had retained the power to affect his imagination. 
 He might close his ears and suffer them to remain unheard, 
 but he could never hear them, that a violent shudder did not 
 agitate him, that a reflection of the never-dying flames was not, 
 to his terrified gaze, projected upon all around. It was from 
 
 * It is agreed that this famous exordium, as Maury reports it, is more 
 by himself than Bridaine.
 
 296 RABAUT AND BRJDAINE, OR 
 
 th/3 senses tha,: he demanded his happiness in this world ; it 
 was from the senses that he was to expect his chastisement in 
 the next. 
 
 His confessors had done nothing to inspire him with nobler 
 fears. Happy to perceive that after so many means had failed 
 there was still one to be employed, they had not troubled 
 themselves to raise him above the cowardly terrors of the 
 flesh. It mattered little to them whether he loved God or not, 
 provided that he continued to fear the devil. 
 
 This, then, was the feeling of which Desmarets had watched 
 the progress upon his countenance, during the exordium of the 
 sermon ; this was the feeling which he had done his best to 
 heighten, by his sinister interruptions, and his terrifying ad- 
 herence to the words of the orator. 
 
 From that moment the state of the king's mind was radi- 
 cally false. All that Bridaine might say grand and terrible, 
 would certainly be lowered by him to the standard of his own 
 terrified, childish imagination. After a few more shocks, Dos- 
 marets would try a great blow. The king would not be con- 
 verted by it, but he would bow his head. God would not be 
 satisfied, but the Jesuits would. 
 
 The thing was, as we have already said, to make the king 
 declare himself openly in their favor. But first he must be 
 brought to connect his own cause with theirs ; he must above 
 all'be fashioned to that obedience which they wished to find 
 in him. For a soul without energy once to have yielded, is 
 always a reason for it to yield again. 
 
 This was the reason why Desmarets was so anxious to crush 
 the project of an edict favorable to the Huguenots. His hatred 
 for them was not at this time his only, or even his chief mo- 
 tive. He wished that this abandonment of them should be 
 connected in the king's mind with scruples and fears which 
 might be made use of for another purpose.
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 297 
 
 LXVII. 
 
 SUPERSTITIOUS TERRORS. 
 
 If Bridaine had been disposed to aid him, he could not better 
 have done so, for he followed with terrible accuracy the sum- 
 mary which he had given in -his exordium. 
 
 His first division had turned upon death. 
 
 " You must die !" he said ; and the very tone in which he 
 had uttered the words, gave to this assertion, so common in 
 itself, and almost trivial, something new and striking. It was 
 no longer a mortal man announcing a fate which is also to be 
 his ; it was a messenger from on high pronouncing a sen- 
 tence. 
 
 " You must die ! How harsh is this saying to every human 
 ear ! Harsh to those who have had many enjoyments ; harsh, 
 especially to those who have sinned without enjoyment, and 
 who have lost their time for this life as well as the next ! 
 
 " You must die ! And when 1 It is a very happy thing, it. 
 is said, that you are ignorant of this. A happy thing that you 
 are ignorant of it? Happy, yes, in truth, happy, but only in 
 case you think of death, think of it unceasingly, so that you 
 may defy it to surprise and terrify you, at whatever hour it 
 may come. But if you never think of it, if you only approach 
 the idea when it is put directly beneath your eyes, and when 
 we hold you fast with both hands in order to prevent you 
 from turning away your eyes ; if, even then you only carry 
 away a vague and vain terror, oh ! then is it the chief punish- 
 ment of your crimes, the first link of the pitiless chain with 
 which an avenging God is going to bind you forever, that you 
 should be ignorant of it. To be ignorant when you are to
 
 298 RABAUT AND BIUDATNE, OR 
 
 die ! Yes, for the righteous it is a blessing, because he is pre- 
 pared for death at all times, and because the emotions of a 
 death-bed, capable of working so many marvels in an instant 
 of time, last for him twenty, forty years, a whole life-time ! 
 But for the wicked, the impious, for all those who have for- 
 gotten or braved the anger of God, this very ignorance is but 
 the beginning of the darkness which is to increase forever and 
 ever around those who are not worthy of the light. Once, 
 once only, the darkness will be torn aside for an instant. 
 When the last moment shall arrive, when the soul shall separ- 
 ate from the body which has lost and degraded it, then for an 
 instant there shall be a great light. Time which is ended, and 
 eternity which begins, shall be at the same moment illumi- 
 nated. On the one hand, a past without God ; and on the 
 other a future without God. Here remorse, there torment. 
 And when the criminal shall have clearly seen, well measured 
 the past," and fully comprehended that the future is now meas- . 
 ureless, then all will fall back again into its eternal obscurity. 
 Then go, go, thou guilty soul, go on, go on forever, go on, 
 as if thou wert seeking, but thou knowest that thou wilt find 
 nothing. Go on, as if thou wert hoping, but thou knowest that 
 there is no more hope for thee. The only thing that could 
 have rendered thy wretchedness endurable, was taken from 
 thee at the threshold. Where eternity begins there hope ends!" 
 
 Thus spoke Bridaine. Was he quite right? Ought the 
 hell of Dante to be that of the Christian theologian ? A poor 
 Christian he, in any case, who needs, in order to rouse his soul 
 and restrain him from committing too much evil, to be terri- 
 fied by eternal torments ! 
 
 But such Christians are of necessity numberless in a sensual 
 impressible age, when men pass lightly from impiety to fan- 
 aticism, from luxury to macerations.
 
 THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. 299 
 
 And accordingly the impression was great, deep, general. 
 It even reached the chapel of Helvetius. More than one of 
 the leaders of the infidelity of the day, felt a shudder run 
 through him, as he said to himself: " If it should be true !" 
 
 But the king no longer said if. He plunged his terrified 
 gaze, with a feverish avidity, into all the abysses which the 
 missionary uncovered ; he felt upon his brow the heat of all 
 those flames whose image was called up by Bridaine. His 
 head became confused ; his faculties weakened by dissipation, 
 floated in an ocean of horrors. 
 
 And Desmarets hanging over him, fascinated him by his 
 inexorable gaze. 
 
 And upon this motionless face, he seemed to see the smile 
 of a demon watching the tortures of the damned. 
 
 Suddenly he threw himself back ; with his convulsed hand 
 he seized that of Desmarets. 
 
 " Save me !" he cried. " Save me !" 
 \ But Desmarets appeared not to hear. 
 
 " Save me !" 
 
 "Sire," said Richelieu, "calm yourself; they will near 
 you." 
 
 " Save me !" he said, again. 
 
 " What can I do ?" said Desmarets, coldly. 
 . " Much, much." 
 
 " Nothing." 
 
 " Nothing oh God ! nothing !" 
 
 " Nothing, so long as " 
 
 He stooped and whispered in the king's ear. 
 
 " This edict which you purpose making ?" 
 
 " The edict 1" 
 
 "Yes. Hope not to move God while you are making trea- 
 ties with his enemies. This edict is already written down with
 
 300 RABAUT AXD BRIO A INK. 
 
 letters of fire in the book of crimes. It is there, for eter- 
 nity" 
 
 And the penetrating voice of the missionary resounded 
 through the gathering obscurity. 
 
 " Eternity," he said ; " eternity ! Know you what eternity 
 is ? It is a shoreless ocean, a boundless desert, a fathomless 
 abyss. It is time, but time again become motionless as before 
 the creation. It endures, and it does not endure. It moves 
 on, yet it moves not. And the damned strive in vain to 
 measure it. And a lamentable voice is heard from hour to 
 hour, crying ' What time, O what time is it now !' And 
 the voice of another unhappy wretch groans, ' It is eternity !' " 
 
 "Take it," said the king, precipitately, "take it, take it. 
 Tear it. Eternity, oh heaven ! eternity. Tear it tear it " 
 
 And the edict fell, torn into fragments, at the feet of the 
 Jesuit. 
 
 The charm was broken. The king had paid his ransom. 
 Would not the blood of the heretics lead him to heaven 1 
 
 He was calmer already. All his terrors were dispersed by 
 the magic influence of an expiation at the expense of another. 
 
 The next day, in the enchanted groves of Bellevue, he re- 
 lated himself to liis mistress the story of the gloomy sermon.