UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES BROWSING ROOM THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES e tie tie 13al?ac COUNTRY LIFE VOLUME I LIMITED TO ONE THOUSAND COMPLETE COPIES 713 IN THE BENASSIS BARN Gathered in little groups around three or four candles, some of the women were sewing, others were spinning ; several were quite idle, their necks stretched, their heads and eyes turned toward an old peasant who was relating a story. \ THE NOVELS OF HONORE DE BALZAC NOW FOR THE FIRST TIME COMPLETELY TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH THE COUNTRY DOCTOR BY G. BURNHAM IVES WITH FIVE ETCHINGS BV CHARLES GIROUX, AFTER PAINTINGS BY DANIEL HERNANDEZ IN ONE VOLUME PRINTED ONLY FOR SUBSCRIBERS BY GEORGE BARRIE & SON, PHILADELPHIA COPYRIGHT, 1898, BY GEORGE BARRIE 4 SON A r j j- 1 ** " ' i*. c ' t " * # 'c '. e - - : : : : .-. * * *^ PQ a 8 O 2; H- 1 Cfl & c THE COUNTRY DOCTOR For wounded hearts, shadow and silence 189967 TO MY MOTHER THE COUNTRY AND THE MAN On a fine spring morning in the year 1829, a man of about fifty years of age was riding on horse- back along a mountainous road which leads to a large country-town not far from the Grande-Chartreuse. This town is the chief place in a populous canton circumscribed by a long valley. A torrent with a rocky bed, frequently dry, filled at this time by the melting of the snows, waters this valley compressed between two parallel mountains, which command in every direction the peaks of Savoy and Dauphiny. Although there is. .a general resemblance jamong the landscapes enclosed between the chain of. the two Mauriennes, the carfton through which the stranger was riding presents undulations of the ground and accidents of light and shadow which may be vainly sought for elsewhere. Sometimes the valley, sud- denly widening, offers to the eye an irregular carpet of that verdure which the constant irrigation due to the mountains preserves so fresh and so pleasant to view at all seasons. Sometimes a saw-mill presents its humble constructions, picturesquely placed, its provision of long fir-trees stripped of their bark, and (5) 6 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR its water-course, diverted from the torrent and con- ducted through great square conduits of wood, from the crevices of which a sheet of thin streams issues. Here and there, thatched cottages, surrounded by gardens full of fruit-trees covered with blossoms, suggest the ideas inspired by an industrious pov- erty. Farther on, houses with red roofs, of flat and rounded tiles similar to fishes' scales, represent the ease gained by long industry. Over every door may be seen the basket suspended in which the cheeses are drying. Everywhere, the openings, the enclosures, are enlivened by vines embracing, as in Italy, the dwarf elms, the leaves of which are fed to cattle. In some places, the hills, by one of Nature's ca- prices, are brought so close together that there is no more room for mills, or fields, or thatched cot- tages. Separated only by the torrent which rages along in its cascades, the two high granite walls rear themselves, tapestried by firs with black foliage, and by beech-trees a hundred feet high. All upright, all oddly colored by spots of moss, all varied in foliage, these trees form magnificent colonnades, bordered above and below the road by irregular hedges of arbutes, viburnum, boxwood, and sweet-briar. The living odors of these bushes and undergrowth were at this moment mingling the wild perfumes of moun- tain nature with the penetrating scent of the young shoots of the larches, the poplars, and the resinous pines. A few clouds sailed among the rocks, alter- nately veiling and revealing the gray summits, often THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 7 as vaporous as the mists whose fleecy shreds were torn upon them. At every moment the country-side varied in aspect and the sky in light; the mountains changed color, the slopes their shades, the valleys their forms, multiplied images which unexpected oppositions, whether it was a ray of sun traversing the tree-trunks, whether a natural clearing or some fallen rocks, rendered delightful to the eye in the midst of the silence, in the season when everything is young, when the sun illumines a pure sky. In short, it was a beautiful country, it was France! A man of tall stature, the traveller was dressed completely in blue cloth as carefully brushed as was probably every morning the glossy coat of his horse, on which he sat, firm and upright, like an old cavalry officer. If, indeed, his black cravat and his doe-skin gloves, the pistols which filled his holster and the portmanteau well strapped on his horse's croup, had not indicated the soldier, his embrowned countenance pitted by the small-pox, but with regular features and characterized by an apparent indifference, his de- cided manner, the security of his glance, the carriage of his head, everything would have betrayed those regimental habits of which it is impossible for the soldier ever to divest himself, even after he has re- turned to domestic life. Any other would have mar- velled at the beauties of this Alpine nature, so smiling where it opens into the great valleys of France; but the officer, who had doubtless traversed those coun- tries into which the French armies were transported by the imperial wars, enjoyed this landscape without 8 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR manifesting any surprise at these manifold changes. Astonishment is a sensation which Napoieomseems to have destroyed in the souls of his soldiers, thus, the calmness of visage is a certain sign by which an Observer may recognize the men formerly enrolled under the ephemeral but imperishable eagles of the great Emperor. This man was, in fact, one of those soldiers, now sufficiently rare^whom the bullets had respected, although he had served on all those battle-fields on which Napoleon had commanded. His life had had in it nothing extraordinary. He had fought well, as a simple and loyal soldier, doing his duty as well at night as in daytime, far from his chief as well as near him, never dealing a useless sabre-stroke, and inca- pable of dealing one too many. If he wore in his buttonhole the rosette of the officers of the Legion of Honor, it was because, after the battle of the Moskowa, the unanimous voice of his regiment had designated him as the most worthy of that great day to receive it. Of the restricted number of these men seemingly cold, timid in self-assertion, always at peace with themselves, men whose spirit is humiliated by the very thought of soliciting a favor of any nature whatsoever, his promotion had been conferred upon him only in accordance with the slow laws of seniority. Sub-lieutenant in 1802, in 1829 he was only a major, notwithstanding his gray moustaches; but his life was so clean that no man in the army, were he a general, accosted him without experiencing a sentiment of involuntary respect, an incontestable THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 9 advantage which, perhaps, his superiors did not forgive him. In recompense, the simple soldiers all vowed to him something of that feeling which children bear to a good mother; for, toward them, he knew how to be at once indulgent and severe. Having been a soldier like themselves, he knew all the un- happy joys and the joyous miseries, the pardonable or punishable going astray of the soldiers, whom he always called his children, and whom he willingly allowed in a campaign to take provisions or forage from the civilians. As to his private history, it was buried in the most profound silence. Like most of the military men of the epoch, he had seen the world only through the smoke of the cannon, or during the moments of peace so rare in the midst of the European contest sustained by the Emperor. Had he, or had he not, thought of marriage? The question remained unanswered. Although no one entertained any doubt that the com- mandant Genestas had had love adventures while traversing cities and countries, while assisting at the fetes given or received by the regiments, neverthe- less, no one had the slightest certainty of it. Without being prudish, without refusing a party of pleas- ure, without offending the military customs, he was silent or responded laughingly when questioned con- cerning his amours. To these words: "And you, commandant?" addressed to him by an officer after drinking, he replied: " Let us drink, messieurs!" A species of Bayard without ostentation, Monsieur 10 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR ,/cPierre- Joseph Genestas thus had nothing poetical or romantic about him, so commonplace did he seem. His appearance was that of a substantial man. Al- though his pay was his sole fortune, and though his retirement was his only future, nevertheless, like shrewd old traders who have acquired from misfor- tunes an experience which resembles obstinacy, the major kept always in reserve two years' pay and never expended all his receipts. He was so little of a gambler that he looked at his boots when in company a new player was wanted or some addition to the stakes at ecarte. But, if he allowed himself no un- usual expenses, he was not wanting in any of the customary usages. His uniforms lasted him longer than those of any other officer of the regiment, in consequence of the care arising from the mediocrity of his fortune, a habit which had now become with him mechanical. Perhaps he would have been sus- pected of avarice had it not been for the admirable disinterestedness, the fraternal readiness with which he opened his purse to some heedless young fellow ruined by a deal at cards or by some other folly. It would seem that he had formerly lost heavy sums at play, so much delicacy did he bring to his obliging; he did not consider that he had the right to control the actions of his debtor, and never spoke to him of his indebtedness. A child of the troop, alone in the world, he had made for himself a country of the army and a family of his regiment. Consequently, the motive of his worthy economy was rarely sought for, pleasure was taken in attributing it to the sufficiently THE COUNTRY DOCTOR II natural desire to provide for the comfort of his old days. On the eve of becoming lieutenant-colonel of cav- alry, it was to be presumed that his ambition consisted in being able to retire, after some campaign, with the pension and the epaulettes of colonel. If the young officers discussed Genestas after drill, they classed him among the men who have obtained at college the prize of excellence; 'ancT who, throughout their life, jgmain 'precise. upt'l^hiUjyitrTolIf^slIonSj. useful andjnsipjd aT\vhlte_Bread'~but the serious men judged him very differently. Often some look, often some expression full of good sense, as is the speech of the savage, escaped this man and betrayed the tempests of the soul within him. Carefully considered, his calm forehead revealed the power of imposing silence on the passions and of thrusting them down into the bottom of his heart, a power dearly conquered by the habit of dangers and the unforeseen disasters of war. The son of a peer of France, who had newly joined the regiment, having said one day, when speaking of Genestas, that he would have been the most con- scientious of priests or the most honest of grocers : "Add, the least fawning of marquises!" he replied, surveying the young fop, who had not thought him- self overheard by his commandant. The auditors broke out laughing, the father of the lieutenant was the flatterer of all in authority, an elastic man accustomed to rebounding over all revolutions, and the son took after the father. There are to be met with in the French armies a few of 12 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR these characters, ingenuously great on occasions, becoming simple again after the action, careless of glory, forgetful of danger; there are perhaps to be met with a great many more than the defects of human nature would permit us to suppose. How- ever, we should be strangely mistaken in thinking that Genestas was perfect. Mistrustful, given to violent outbursts of rage, obstinate in discussions and wishing above all to be acknowledged right when he was in the wrong, he was full of the national prejudices. He had preserved from his life of a soldier an inclination for good wine. If he left the dinner-table in all the decorum of his grade, he appeared serious, meditative, and he was not then willing to admit anyone into the secret of his reflec- tions. Finally, if he were sufficiently well acquainted with the manners and customs of the world and the laws of politeness, a species of regulations which he observed with military stiffness; if he had a natural and acquired intelligence, if he were well acquainted with tactics, manoeuvres, the theory of equestrian fencing and the difficulties of the veterinary art, his studies had been prodigiously neglected. He knew, but vaguely, that Caesar was a Roman consul or emperor; Alexander, a Greek or a Macedonian; he would have granted you the one or the other origin or quality without discussion. Consequently, when the conversation was scientific or historical, he be- came grave and confined his participation in it to little approving nods of the head, like a profound man who had attained to Pyrrhonism. THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 13 When Napoleon wrote from Schonbrunn, the I3th of May, 1809, in the bulletin addressed to the grand army, then masters of Vienna, that, like Medea, the Austrian princes had cut the throats of their chil- dren with their own hands, Genestas, newly com- missioned captain, was not willing to compromise the dignity of his grade by asking who was Medea; he relied upon the genius of Napoleon, certain that the emperor could jatter_ only official statements to the grand army and to the house of Austria; he con- cluded that Medea was an archduchess of equivocal conduct. Nevertheless, as the thing might concern the military art, he was uneasy about the Medea of the bulletin until the day when Mademoiselle Rau- court revived Medea. After having read the an- nouncement,TrTe captain did not fail to go in the evening to the Theatre Francais, to see the celebrated actress in this mythological role, concerning which he enquired of his neighbors. ^However, a ma who, as a simple soldier, had had^enough energy to learn to read, to write, and to count, naturally comprehended that, as a captain, he should inform himself.^>Accordingly, since that period, he hac been reading eagerly the romances and the books o the day, which gave him half information of whic he made tolerably good use. In his gratitude to hi professors, he went so far as to take up the defenc of Pigault-Lebrun, saying that he found him instruct /ive and often profound. This officer, whose acquired prudence prevented him from undertaking any useless proceeding, had 14 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR left Grenoble and was proceeding toward the Grande- Chartreuse, after having obtained the day before from his colonel a week's leave of absence. He did not intend to make a long stage; but, deceived from one locality to another by the mendacious statements of the peasants whom he interrogated, he deemed it prudent not to ride farther without comforting his stomach. Although he had but a slight chance of finding a housewife in her dwelling at a season when every one was occupied in the fields, he stopped before some thatched cottages which stood around a common space, thus describing a sufficiently irregular square place, open to all comers. The soil of this family territory was solid and well swept, though cut by ditches for manure. Rose-bushes, ivy, and tall grasses were growing along the cracked walls. At the entrance of the open space was a shabby goose- berry-bush on which some rags were drying. The first inhabitant that Genestas encountered was a pig wallowing in a pile of straw which, at the sound of the horse's hoofs, grunted, raised its head, and put to flight a great black cat. A young peasant- girl, carrying on her head a bundle of herbs, sud- denly appeared, followed at a distance by four little brats, all in rags, but hardy, noisy, with bold eyes, pretty, brown of skin, real little devils who re- sembled angels. The sunshine sparkled and gave something indescribably pure to the air, to the cot- tages, to the dung-heaps, to the dishevelled troop. The soldier asked if it were possible to have a glass of milk. For sole reply, the young girl uttered a THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 15 hoarse cry. An old woman suddenly presented herself on the threshold of a cabin, and the young peasant passed into a stable after having indicated by a gesture the old woman, whom Genestas ap- proached, not without carefully directing his horse so as not to injure the children who were already running around his legs. He repeated his request, which the good woman flatly refused to grant. She did not wish, she said, to skim the cream off the pots of milk that were destined for the butter-making. The officer replied to this objection by promising to pay well for the damage; he attached his horse to the upright of a door and entered the cottage. The four children who belonged to this woman appeared to be all of the same age, an odd circumstance which struck the commandant. The old woman had a fifth, almost hanging to her skirts, who, feeble, pale, sickly, doubtless claimed her greatest cares; consequently, it was the well-beloved, the Benjamin. Genestas seated himself at the corner of a high chimney-place without a fire, on the mantelpiece of which was a Virgin in colored plaster holding in her arms the infant Jesus. A sublime symbol! The earth served for the floor of this house. In the /. course of time, the ground, at first beaten down, had become uneven, and, although clean, it presented the callosities of an orange-rind. In the hearth were hung up a sabot full of salt, a frying-pan, and a large kettle. The back of the apartment was filled by a four-post bed furnished with an open-work valance. Here and there were three-legged stools, made by 16 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR stakes inserted in a bit of beech-wood plank, a kneading-trough, a large wooden ladle for dipping up water, a pail and some earthenware bowls for milk, a spinning-wheel on the bread-trough, some stands for the cheese, black walls, a worm-eaten door having an impost with an opening for light, such were the decorations and the furnishing of this poor dwelling. Here, then, took place the drama at which the officer assisted as a spectator, he tapping the floor with his riding-whip without any suspicion of this coming drama. / When the old woman, followed by her scabby Benjamin, had disappeared through a door which led into her milk-room, the four children, after having sufficiently examined the soldier, commenced by ridding themselves of the pig. The animal, with which they habitually played, having appeared on the threshold of the door, the urchins threw them- selves upon it so vigorously, and applied such char- acteristic slaps to it, that it was forced to make a prompt retreat. The enemy once outside, the chil- dren next attacked a door, the latch of which, yield- ing to their efforts, escaped from the worn catch that retained it; then they precipitated themselves into a sort of fruit-closet, where the commandant, amused by this scene, presently saw them occupied in gnawing dried plums. The old woman with the parchment visage and the dirty rags re-entered at this moment, holding in her hand a pot of milk for her guest. "Ah! the good-for-nothings!" she said. THE ORPHAN ASYLUM An old woman suddenly presented herself on the threshold of a cabin, and the young peasant passed into a stable after having indicated by a gesture ^ the old woman, whom Genestas approached, not without carefully directing his horse so as not to injure the children who were already running around his legs. THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 17 She followed the children, grabbed each of them by the arms and threw them out into the room, but without taking from them their prunes, and closed carefully the door of her granary of abundance. " There, there, my little ones, do be good. If one was not watchful, they would eat up the pile of prunes, the crazy things!" she said, looking at Genestas. Then she seated herself upon a stool, took the scabby one between her knees and began to comb it, washing its head with a feminine dexterity and maternal care. The four little thieves remained, some standing, others leaning against the bed or the bread-trough, all of them dirty and running at the nose, very healthy otherwise, crunching their prunes without saying a word, but looking at the stranger with a sly and scornful air. ''Are these your children?" asked the soldier of the old woman. ..^^ K , j fe . ,^. ...~ ....^ , ....,.*, ~..~ a pound of soap for each of them." " But, my good woman, they must cost you twice as much." "Monsieur, that is just what Monsieur Benassis says to us; but, if others take the children for the same price, we must do the same. It is not every- one who wants them who can have the children! you have to have the cross and the banner to obtain them, v The milk we give them costs nothing, so that they are but little expense to us. Moreover, three 2 1 8 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR francs, monsieur, that is a sum. There is fifteen francs found, not counting the five pounds of soap. In our cantons, how much you have to break your heart in order to make ten sous a day!" "You have, then, some land in your possession?" asked the commandant. " No, monsieur. I had some in the time when my husband was living, but, since his death, I have been so unfortunate that I have been forced to sell it." "Well," said Genestas, "how can you come to the end of the year free of debt with this occupation of feeding, cleaning, and bringing up children at two sous a day?" " But," she replied, still combing her little scabby one, "we do not come to the Saint-Sylvestre with- out being in debt, my dear monsieur. What would you have! the good Lord allows it. I have two cows. Then, my daughter and I, we glean during the harvest; in winter, we gather wood; then, in the evenings, we spin. Ah! for example, we do not want to have every year a winter like the last one. I owe seventy -five francs to the miller for flour. Luckily, it is the miller of Monsieur Benassis Mon- sieur Benassis, there is a friend of the poor! He has never demanded what was due him from anyone, he will not commence with us. Moreover, our cow has a calf; that will also help us out a little." The four orphans, for whom all human protection was represented by the affection of this old peasant- woman, had finished their prunes. They took ad- vantage of the attention with which their mother THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 19 regarded the officer while talking to him to close up in serried columns in order to once more spring up the latch which separated them from the good heap of prunes. They went at it, not as the French soldiers go to the assault, but silent as the Germans, urged on as they were by nal've and unblushing greediness. "Ah! the little rogues! Will you stop? " The old woman rose, took the strongest of the four, gave him a tap on the posteriors, and threw him outdoors; he did not cry, the others remained quite aghast. " They give yra a great deal of trouble " " Oh! no, monsieur, but they smell my prunes, the little ones. If I were to leave them alone a moment, they would burst themselves." "You love them?" To this question the old woman raised her head, looked at the soldier with a mildly bantering air, and replied: " Do I love them! I have already given up three of them," she added, sighing; " I keep them only till they are six years old." " But where is your own?" " I lost it." "How old are you, then?" asked Genestas, to undo the effect ofJiis_jasjL4ue5ti.Q.rL. " Thirty -eight, monsieur. Coming next Saint- Jean, it will be two years since my man died." She finished the toilet of the little sufferer, who seemed to thank her by a pale and tender look. 20 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR " What a life of abnegation and of labor!" thought the horseman. Under this roof, worthy of the stable in which Jesus Christ was born, were fulfilled cheerfully and without pretence the most difficult duties of ma- ternity. What hearts buried in the most profound forgetfulness! What riches and what poverty! Sol- diers, better than other men, know how to appre- ciate what there is of the magnificent in the sublime in sabots, in the Gospel in rags. Elsewhere may be found the Book, the text illuminated, embroidered, ornamented, bound in moire, in taffeta, in satin; but here was certainly the spirit of the Book. It would have been impossible not to have believed in some religious meaning of Heaven, on seeing this woman, who had made herself mother as Jesus Christ made himself man, who gleaned, suffered, got her- self into debt for these forsaken children, and de- ceived herself in her reckoning, without being willing to recognize that she was ruining herself to be a mother. The sight of this woman compelled the admission of some sympathy between the good here below and the intelligences on high; so the com- mandant Genestas looked at her, shaking his head. " Is Monsieur Benassis a good doctor? " he asked, at length. " I do not know, my dear monsieur, but he cures the poor for nothing." "It appears," he said, talking to himself, "that this man is decidedly a man." "Oh! yes, monsieur, and a worthy man! Thus THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 21 there are scarcely any people around here who do not put him in their prayers, morning and even- ing." " This is for you, mother," said the soldier, giving her some coins. "And this is for the chil- dren," he continued, adding a crown. " Am I still far from the house of Monsieur Benassis?" he asked, when he had mounted his horse. " Oh! no, my dear monsieur, at the most a short league." The commandant departed, convinced that he had at least two leagues to traverse. Nevertheless, he presently perceived through the trees a first group of houses, then the roofs of the town gathered around a steeple which rose cone-shaped, and the slates of which were secured to the angles of the structure by strips of tin sparkling in the sun. This style of roof, original in its effect, announced the frontiers of Savoy, where it is in common use. In this locality the valley is wide. Several houses, pleasantly situ- ated in the little plain, or along the torrent, gave animation to this well-cultivated landscape, fortified on all sides by the mountains, and without any apparent outlet. At a few steps from this town, seated on the mid-slope, looking southward, Genes- tas stopped his horse under an avenue of elms, before a troop of children, and inquired of them which was the house of Monsieur Benassis. The children first looked at one another, and examined the stranger with the air with which they observe every- thing which presents itself for the first time to their 22 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR I eyes, so many countenances, so much curiosity, so many ideas. Then the one with the most ef- frontery, the most laughing one of the band, a little fellow with bright eyes, with bare and dirty feet, re- peated after him, according to the habit of children: " The house of Monsieur Benassis, monsieur?" And he added: " I will take you to it." He walked before the horse, as much to acquire a sort of importance by accompanying a stranger as with a childish willingness to oblige, or to obey the imperative need of movement which, at that age, rules the mind and the body. The officer followed along the principal street of the town, a rocky street, full of windings, bordered with houses constructed according to the whims of the several owners. There a bakery advanced into the middle of the public street; here a gable end presented itself in profile and partly barred the way; then a stream descending from the mountain traversed it in its ditches. Genes- tas perceived several roofs covered with black shingles, then more thatched ones, a few with tiles, seven or eight in slate, doubtless those of the cure, of the justice of the peace, and the bourgeois of the locality. It was all the negligence of a village out- side of which there was to be found no more ground, which seemed to end nowhere and to be attached to nothing; its inhabitants appeared to form but one family outside of the social movement, and to be con- nected with it only through the tax collector or by some imperceptible ramifications. THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 23 When Genestas had gone a few steps farther, he saw higher up on the mountain a large street which overlooked this village. There was, no doubt, an old and a new town. In fact, when the commandant reached a spot where he moderated his horse's pace, he could readily see through a vista the well-built houses whose new roofs enlivened the ancient village. In these new habitations, above which rose an avenue of young trees, he heard the singing peculiar to workmen at labor, the murmur of some workshops,the rasping of files, the sound of hammers, the confused cries of several industries. He noticed the thin smoke of the household chimneys and that more abundant from the forges of the wheelwright, the locksmith, the blacksmith. At last, at the extremity of the village toward which his guide directed him, Genestas perceived scattered farms, fields well culti- vated, plantations perfectly well laid out, and, as it were, a little corner of Brie lost in a vast fold of the earth, of which, at first sight, he would not have sus- pected the existence between the town and the mountains which terminated the landscape. Presently the child stopped. "There is the door of his house," he said. The officer dismounted, passed the bridle over his arm, then, reflecting that all labor was entitled to its hire, he drew out some sous from his fob and offered them to the child, who took them with an astonished air, opened great eyes, did not thank him, and re- mained where he was to see what happened. " In this locality, civilization has not made much 24 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR progress, the religion of labor is still in full observ- ance, and beggary has not yet penetrated," thought Genestas. More curious than interested, the soldier's guide leaned against a wall breast high which served to en- close the court of the house, and in which is fixed a railing in blackened wood on each side of the pilas- ters of the gate. This gate, filled in its lower part and formerly painted in gray, is terminated by yellow bars shaped into lance-heads. These ornaments, of which the color has vanished, describe a crescent in the upper part of each leaf of the gate, and come together to form a great pine cone composed by the upper parts of the uprights when the gate is closed. This portal, worm-eaten, spotted by the velvet of the mosses, is half destroyed by the alternative action of the sun and the rain. Surmounted by a few aloes and wall-parietary growing as chance might direct, the pilasters conceal the stems of two acacias inermis planted in the court, and the green tufts of which rise in the shape of powder-puffs. The condition of this portal revealed in the proprietor a certain care- lessness that appeared to displease the officer; he knit his brows like a man constrained to renounce some illusion. We are accustomed to judge others from ourselves, and, if we complacently absolve them from our de- fects, we condemn them severely for not having our qualities. If the commandant desired to find in Monsieur Benassis a careful or methodical man, cer- tainly the gate of his house revealed a complete THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 2$ indifference in matters of property. A soldier con- cerned about domestic economy as much as was Genestas might thence promptly draw conclusions from the portal as to the life and character of the unknown, which, notwithstanding his circumspec- tion, he did not fail to do. The gate was half open, another carelessness! Relying upon this rustic con- fidence, the officer entered without ceremony into the court, fastened his horse to the bars of the grating, and while he was knotting the bridle, a neighing was heard from a stable toward which the horse and the rider turned their eyes involuntarily; an old domestic opened the door and showed his head, adorned with the cap of red wool in usage in the country and which bears a perfect resemblance to the Phrygian cap with which Liberty is furnished. As there were stalls for several horses, the goodman, after having asked Genestas if he had come to see Monsieur Benassis, offered him for his horse the hospitality of the stable, looking with an expression of tenderness and admiration at the animal, which was a very hand- some one. The commandant followed his horse, to see how he would fare. The stable was clean, the bedding was abundant, and the two horses of Benassis had that comfortable appearance which makes a cure's horse recognizable among all other horses. A servant- woman, who had come out from the house upon the perron, seemed to wait officially for the stranger's interrogations, he having already been informed by the stableman that Monsieur Benassis was not at home. 26 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR " Our master has gone to the grain-mill," he said. " If you wish to join him, you have only to follow the path which leads to the field, the mill is at the end of it." Genestas preferred seeing the country to waiting indefinitely for the return of Benassis, and he set out on the path to the grain-mill. When he had passed the irregular line which the town traces on the side of the mountain, he perceived the valley, the mill, and one of the most delightful landscapes that he had yet seen. Checked in its course by the base of the moun- tains, the river formed a little lake above which the peaks rise from stage to stage, their numerous val- leys suggested to the eye by the different gradations of light or by the greater or less sharpness of their ridges, all clothed in black firs. The mill, recently constructed at the spot where the torrent falls into the little lake, has all the charm of an isolated dwell- ing which conceals itself in the midst of waters, among the heads of a number of aquatic trees. On the other side of the river, at the foot of a mountain then feebly lightened at its summit by the red rays of the setting sun, Genestas perceived a dozen aban- doned thatched cottages, without windows or doors, their ruined roofs revealing great openings; the land around them was fields, carefully cultivated and sown; their former gardens, converted into meadows, were watered by irrigation arranged with as much art as in Limousin. The commandant stopped mechan- ically to contemplate the remnants of this village. THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 27 Why is it that men never regard ruins, even the most humble, without profound emotion? Doubt- less they are for them an image of misfortune, the weight of which is felt by them so diversely. The cemeteries awaken thoughts of death, an abandoned village suggests the troubles of life; death is a fore- seen evil, the pains of life are infinite. Is not the infinite the secret of the great melancholies? The officer had reached the stony road to the mill without having been able to explain to himself the abandon- ment of this village; he inquired for Monsieur Benassis of a miller's assistant seated on the bags of grain at the door of the building. "Monsieur Benassis has gone there," said the miller, pointing to one of the ruined cottages. "That village has then been burned?" asked the commandant. " No, monsieur." "Why, then, is it in that condition?" asked Ge- nestas. "Ah! why?" replied the miller, shrugging his shoulders and entering his mill; "Monsieur Benassis will tell you." The officer crossed over a species of bridge made by great stones between which the torrent ran, and presently arrived at the house designated. The thatch of this habitation was still entire, covered with moss, but without holes, and the doors and windows seemed to be in good condition. On enter- ing, Genestas saw fire in the chimney-place, at the corner of which was an old woman kneeling before 28 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR a sick man seated in a chair, and a man standing, with his face turned toward the hearth. The inte- rior of this house formed only one room, lighted through a wretched window-frame furnished with canvas. The floor was of beaten earth. The chair, a table, and a miserable bed constituted all the furniture. Never had the commandant seen any- thing so simple and so bare, even in Russia, where the cabins of the moujiks resemble dens. Here nothing gave evidence of the things of life, there was not to be found even the slightest utensil necessary for the preparation of the coarsest food. You would have said that it was a dog's kennel, without his platter. Were it not for the bed, a peasant's frock hung on a nail, and sabots stuffed with straw, the only clothing of the sick man, this cottage would have seemed as deserted as the others. The kneel- ing woman, a very old peasant, was endeavoring to maintain the sick^man's feet in a tub filled with brownish water x^When he heard a step which the sound of the spurs rendered unusual for ears accus- tomed only to the monotonous walk of the country people,the man turned toward Genestas, manifest- ing assort of surprise, which was shared by the old woman. "I do not need," said the military man, "to ask if you are Monsieur Benassis. A stranger, impatient to see you, you will excuse me, monsieur, for coming to seek you on your field of battle, instead of having waited for you at your house. Do not inconven- ience yourself, attend to your affairs. When you THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 29 shall have finished, I will tell you the object of my visit." Genestas half seated himself on the edge of the table and was silent. The fire diffused through the cottage a light clearer than that of the sun, the rays of which, interrupted by the summits of the moun- tains, never could reach this part of the valley. By the light of this fire, made with some branches of resinous firs, which gave out a brilliant flame, the soldier could see the face of the man whom a secret interest constrained him to seek, to study, to become perfectly acquainted with. Monsieur Benassis, the physician of the canton, remained with his arms crossed, listened coldly to Genestas, returned his salutation, and turned again toward the invalid, not thinking himself the object of an examination as serious as was that of the soldier. Benassis was a man of ordinary stature, but broad in the shoulders and deep in the chest. An ample green redingote, buttoned up to the chin, prevented the officer from observing the peculiarly characteristic details of this personage or of his ap- pearance; but the shadow and the immobility in which the body remained served to relieve the face, which was then strongly illumined by the reflection from the fire. This man had a countenance resem- bling that of a satyr the same forehead, slightly arched but full of prominences all more or less signifi- cative; the same retrousse nose, with an intelligent cleft at the end; the same prominent cheeks. The line of the mouth was sinuous, the lips were thick 30 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR and red. The chin protruded abruptly. The eyes, brown and animated by a lively glance to which the pearly lustre of the white gave a great brilliancy, expressed passions that had cooled. The hair, for- merly black and now gray, the deep wrinkles of the visage, and the heavy eyebrows, already whitened, the nose, become bulbous and veined, the com- plexion yellow and marbled with red spots, all re- vealed in him his fifty years of age and the rude labors of his profession. The officer could only presume upon the capacity of the head, now covered with a cap; but, although concealed by this covering, it appeared to him to be one of those heads commonly called square heads. Accustomed, by the relations which he had entertained with the men of energy sought by Napoleon, to recognize the features of those who were destined for great things, Genestas was conscious of some mystery in this obscure life, and he said to himself, on seeing this extraordinary countenance: " Through what chance has he remained a country doctor?" After having seriously observed this physiognomy, which, notwithstanding its analogies with other human countenances, betrayed a secret existence not in accord with its apparently commonplace qualities, he was presently led to share the attention which the physician was giving to the sick man, and the sight of this sick man changed completely the current of his thoughts. Notwithstanding the innumerable sights of his THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 31 military life, the old officer experienced a shock of surprise mingled with horror, in perceiving a human face in which thought had never shone; a livid face in which suffering appeared ingenuous and silent, as on the face of an infant which did not yet know how to talk, and which could no longer cry, in short, the entirely animal face of an old cretin dying. A cretin was the only variety of the human species which the major had not yet seen. At the sight of a forehead of which the skin formed a great round fold, of two eyes similar to those of a cooked fish, of a head covered with thin stunted hair for which nourishment was lacking, this head, quite deprived and denuded of sensitive organs, who would not have experienced, as did Genestas, a sentiment of involuntary disgust for a creature that had neither the graces of the animal nor the privileges of the man, that had never had either reason or instinct, and had never heard or spoken any species of lan- guage? On seeing this poor creature coming to the end of an existence which was not life, it seemed difficult to bestow a regret upon him; nevertheless, the old woman looked at him with a touching anxiety, and, with as much affection as if he had been her husband, passed her hands over those parts of his legs which the hot water had not bathed. Benassis himself, after having studied this dead face and these eyes without light, went and gently took the cretin's hand to feel his pulse. " The bath is not acting," he said, shaking his head, " let us put him back to bed." 32 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR He himself took up this mass of flesh, carried it to the couch from which doubtless he had taken it, laid it down carefully on it, stretching out the legs, already almost cold, and placing the hands and the head with all the attentions which a mother could have for her child. " Everything is over, he is going to die," he added, remaining standing by the side of the bed. The old woman, with her hands on her hips, looked at the dying, shedding a few tears. Genestas himself remained silent, unable to explain to himself how the death of a being so little interesting could produce such an impression upon him. He already partook instinctively of the boundless pity which these unfortunate creatures inspire in the valleys deprived of all sunshine, into which nature has thrown them. This sentiment, which degenerates into a religious superstition among those families to which the cretins belong, is it not derived from the most beautiful of the Christian virtues, charity, and from that faith which is most conducive to social order, the idea of future recompense, the only one which enables us to accept our miseries? The hope of meriting eternal happiness aids the relatives of these poor beings, and those who surround them, to exercise on a large scale the cares of maternity in its sublime protection incessantly given to an inert creature that at first does not comprehend it, and, later, forgets it. Admirable religion! it has brought to a blind misfortune the succor of a blind benevo- lence. In those districts in which the cretins are THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 33 found, the population believes that the presence of a being of this species brings good luck to the family. This belief serves to render pleasant a life which, in the heart of cities, would be condemned to the rigors of a false philanthropy, and to the discipline of a hos- pital. In the upper valley of the^Js&re, where they abound, the cretins live in the open air with the flocks which they are taught to watch. At least they are free and respected as misfortune should be. For the last few moments the village bell had been tolling at distant, regular intervals to inform the faithful of the death of one of their number. In traversing space, this contribution of religion arrived faintly at the cottage, through which it diffused a gentle melancholy. Numerous footsteps were heard on the road outside, and announced the presence of a crowd, but a silent crowd. Then the chanting of the Church suddenly broke out and awakened those confused ideas which take possession of the most incredulous souls, obliged to yield to the touching harmonies of the human voice. The Church came to the succor of this creature that did not know her. The cure appeared, preceded by the cross borne by a choir-boy, followed by the sacristan carrying the holy-water vessel, and by some fifty women, old men and children, all come to join their prayers to those of the Church. The doctor and the soldier looked at each other in silence, and retired into a corner to give place to the crowd, which knelt within and without the cottage. During the consoling cere- mony of the viaticum, celebrated for this being that 3 34 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR had never sinned, but to which the Christian world bade adieu, the greater number of these gross vis- ages were sincerely affected to tenderness. Tears rolled down the rude cheeks creased by the sun and browned by labor in the open air. This sentiment of voluntary relationship was quite simple. There was no person in the commune who would not have pitied this poor being, who would not have given him his daily bread; had he not found a father in every child, a mother in the most light-hearted little girl? " He is dead," said the cure. This speech excited the most sincere consterna- tion. The tapers were lighted. Several persons wished to watch through the night with the body. Benassis and the officer went out. At the door, some peasants stopped the physician to say to him: "Ah! monsieur the mayor, if you did not save him, it was doubtless because God wished to recall him to Himself." " I did my best, my children," replied the doctor. "You would not believe, monsieur," said he to Ge- nestas, when they were at the distance of a few steps from the abandoned village, the last inhabitant of which had just died, " how much of true consolation there is in the words of those peasants for me. Ten years ago I was all but stoned in that village, to-day deserted, but then inhabited by thirty families." Genestas put so visible an interrogation into the expression of his countenance and into his gesture, that the physician related to him, as they walked along, the history foreshadowed by this opening. THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 35 " Monsieur, when I came to establish myself here, I found in this part of the canton a dozen cretins," said the doctor, turning to indicate to the officer the ruined houses. "The situation of this hamlet in a bottom without any current of air, near a torrent whose waters come from the melting snows, de- prived of the benefits of the sun, which lightens only the summit of the mountain, everything there fa- vored the propagation of this frightful malady. The laws do not forbid the pairing of these unfortunates, protected here by a superstition the strength of which was unknown to me, which I at first con- demned, then admired. Cretinism would then have extended from this locality as far as the valley. Would it not be a great service to the State to arrest this contagion, physical and intellectual? Notwith- standing its urgency, this benefit might well cost the life of him who undertook to bring it about. " Here, as in other social spheres, in order to ac- complish good, it is necessary to run against, not in- terests, but something more dangerous to deal with, religious ideas converted into superstitions, the most indestructible form of human ideas. I was afraid of nothing. In the first place, I solicited the post of mayor of the canton, and obtained it; then, after having received the verbal approbation of the prefect, I purchased the removal by night of some of these unfortunate creatures to the slopes of Aiguebelle, in Savoy, where there are many of them and where they would be very well taken care of. As soon as this act of humanity became known, I was held in 36 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR horror by the entire population. The cure preached against me. Notwithstanding my efforts to explain to the most intelligent of the town the importance of the expulsion of these cretins, notwithstanding the gratuitous attention which I gave to the sick of the country, I was fired at from the corner of a wood. I went to see the Bishop of Grenoble and requested from him the removal of the cure. Monseigneur was good enough to permit me to choose a priest who could associate himself with my works, and I had the happiness to encounter one of those beings who seem to have fallen from Heaven. I pursued my enter- prise. After having labored with the intelligent, I deported at night six other cretins. " In this second attempt I had for defenders some of those who were under obligations to me, and the mem- bers of the council of the commune, whose avarice I appealed to by proving to them the costliness of the support of these poor beings, how profitable it would be for the town to convert the lands possessed by them without titles into commons, of which the town had none. I had the rich on my side; but the poor, the old women, the children, and some obstinate ones remained hostile to me. Unfortunately, my last de- portation was incompletely carried out. The cretin whom you have just seen had not returned to his house, had not been taken, and found himself the next morning, alone of his kind, in the village in which there still remained a few families, the indi- viduals of which, almost imbecile, were at least ex- empt from cretinism. I wished to complete my work, THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 37 and came by day, in official costume, to take this un- fortunate from his dwelling. My intention was known as soon as I left my house, the friends of the cretin hastened before me, and I found before his cottage an assemblage of women, of children, of old men, who all saluted me with insults accompanied by a shower of stones. " In the midst of this tumult, in which I would per- haps have perished a victim of the genuine intoxica- tion which seizes a crowd transported by the cries and the agitation of feelings expressed in common, I was saved by the cretin! This poor being came out of his cabin, uttered his clucking sound, and appeared like the supreme chief of these fanatics. At this apparition, the cries ceased. The idea came to me to propose an agreement, and I was able to explain it by favor of the calm so happily obtained. My sup- porters would, doubtless, not dare not to sustain me under these circumstances, their help was necessarily purely passive, these superstitious folk would watch with the greatest zeal over the preservation of their last idol, it appeared to me to be impossible to take it from them. I promised, therefore, to leave the cre- tin at peace in his house, on condition that no one should approach it, that the families of this village should cross the stream and come to lodge in the town, in new houses which I took the charge of build- ing, joining to them lands the cost of which, later, was to be returned to me by the commune. " Well, my dear monsieur, it took me six months to overcome the resistance which was made to the 38 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR execution of this contract, notwithstanding the ad- vantages which it offered to the families of this village. The affection of country people for their hovels is an inexplicable fact. However insalubrious his thatched cottage may be, a peasant is much more strongly attached to it than a banker is to his hotel. Why? I do not know. Perhaps the strength of feelings is in proportion to their rarity. Perhaps the man who lives but little in thought lives much in things, and the less of them he possesses, the more, doubtless, he loves them. Perhaps it is with the peasant as with the prisoner he does not scatter the forces of his soul, he concentrates them upon a sole idea, and thus attains a great energy of feeling. Pardon these re- flections in a man who rarely exchanges his ideas. Moreover, do not believe, monsieur, that I occupy myself much with empty ideas. Here, everything must be practice and action. Alas! the fewer ideas these poor creatures have, the more difficult it is to make them understand their true interests. There- fore I have resigned myself to all the minute details of my enterprise. Each one of them said to me the same thing, one of those things full of good sense which do not admit of any reply: 'Ah! monsieur, your houses are not yet built!' ' Well,' I replied to them, ' promise me to come and live in them as soon as they are finished/ "Fortunately, monsieur, I secured a decision that our town owns the whole mountain at the foot of which is situated the village now abandoned. The value of the wood growing on the heights sufficed THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 39 to pay for the lands and for the promised houses, which were built. When a single one of my recal- citrant households had moved in, the others were not long in following. The benefits which resulted from this change were too evident not to be appreciated by those who clung most superstitiously to their village without sun, which is as much as to say, without soul. The conclusion of this affair, the acquiring of the communal property, the possession of which was confirmed to us by the Council of State, secured me great importance in the canton. But, monsieur, how much trouble!" said the doctor, stopping, and lifting one hand which he let fall again with an eloquent gesture. " I alone know the distance from the town to the prefecture, from which nothing issues, and from the prefecture to the Council of State, in which nothing enters. Well," he resumed, "peace to the powers that be, they yielded to my importunities; that is a great deal. If you could know the good that may be done by a signature carelessly given! Monsieur, two years after having undertaken such great little things and carried them to completion, all the poor households of my commune owned at least two cows each, and sent them to pasture on the mountain, where, without waiting for the authoriza- tion of the Council of State, I have carried out a system of transverse irrigation similar to those of Switzerland, of Auvergne, and of Limousin. " To their great surprise, the townspeople saw ex- cellent pastures spring up there, and they obtained a greater quantity of milk, thanks to the better quality 40 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR of the herbage. The results of this conquest were very great. Everyone imitated my irrigation. The meadows, the cattle, all the productions, multiplied. From that time I could without fear undertake the amelioration of this corner of the earth, yet unculti- vated, and the civilization of its inhabitants, up to this period deprived of intelligence. Ah! monsieur, we solitary people are great talkers: if anyone asks us a question, there is never any telling where the reply will stop; when I arrived in this valley, the population was seven hundred souls; at present, it amounts to two thousand. The affair of the last cretin has secured for me the esteem of everybody. After having constantly displayed to those under my charge mildness and firmness both at once, I have become the oracle of the canton. I did every- thing to merit confidence without soliciting it or appear- ing to desire it; only, I endeavored to inspire in all the greatest respect for my person by the exactitude with which I fulfilled all my engagements, even the most frivolous ones. After having promised to take care of the poor being whom you have just seen die, I watched over him better than his previous protect- ors had done. He was nourished, cared for, like the adopted child of the commune. Later, the inhabit- ants came to appreciate the service which I had ren- dered them despite themselves. Nevertheless, they still retain a remnant of their superstition; I am far from blaming them for it; has not their worship of the cretin often served me as a text to urge those who are intelligent to aid the unfortunate? But THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 41 here we are," Benassis added, after a pause, per- ceiving the roof of his house. Far from expecting from this listener the slightest phrase of eulogy or of thanks, while relating this episode of his administrative life, he seemed to have yielded to that ingenuous need of expansion which those who live retired from the world feel so strongly. " Monsieur," said the commandant to him, "I have taken the liberty of putting my horse in your stable, and you will have the goodness to excuse me when I have informed you of the object of my journey." "Ah! what is it?" asked Benassis, seeming to come out of his preoccupation and to remember that his companion was a stranger. His naturally frank and communicative character had led him to welcome Genestas as an acquaintance. " Monsieur," replied the soldier, " I have heard of the almost miraculous cure of Monsieur Gravier, of Grenoble, whom you took into your house. I come in the hope of obtaining the same care, without having the same claim to your kindness how- ever, perhaps I may merit it! I am an old mili- tary man whose old wounds leave him no repose. You will perhaps require a week to examine the condition in which I am, for my pains only return at intervals, and " "Well, monsieur," said Benassis, interrupting him, "the chamber of Monsieur Gravier is always ready; come in " 42 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR They entered the house, the door of which was pushed open by the doctor with a vivacity which Ge- nestas attributed to the pleasure of having a lodger. " Jacquotte," cried Benassis, " monsieur will dine here." "But, monsieur," objected the soldier, "would it not be well for us to arrange as to the price? " " The price of what?" said the doctor. "Of my board. You cannot keep me, me and my horse, without " "If you are rich," replied Benassis, "you will pay well; if not, I wish nothing." " Nothing," said Genestas, " seems to me too dear. But, rich or poor, ten francs a day, not counting the price of your services, will that be agreeable to you?" " Nothing is more disagreeable to me than to receive any price whatever for the pleasure of exer- cising hospitality," replied the physician, knitting his brows. "As to my services, you will have them only if you please me. The wealthy cannot pur- chase my time, it belongs to the people of this valley. I wish neither glory nor fortune, I ask of my patients neither praises nor gratitude. The money which you will hand over to me will go to the apothecaries of Grenoble to pay for the medi- cines indispensable to the poor of the canton." Whoever had heard these words, thrown out brusquely but without bitterness, would have said inwardly, as did Genestas: " Here is a good sort of man." THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 43 "Monsieur," replied the soldier, with his usual tenacity, " I will give you, then, ten francs a day, and you will do with them whatever you like. This being settled, we shall understand each other better," he added, taking the doctor's hand and grasping it with an infectious cordiality. " Notwithstanding my ten francs, you will see very well that I am not an Arab." After this contest, during which there was not on the part of Benassis the slightest desire to appear either generous or philanthropic, the pretended sick man entered the house of his physician, in which everything was found to be in conformity with the dilapidation of the gate and the garments of the owner. The smallest things there bore witness to the most profound indifference to whatever was not of essential utility. Benassis conducted Genestas through the kitchen, the shortest way to the dining- room. If this kitchen, smoked like that of an inn, was furnished with utensils in sufficient number, this luxury was the work of Jacquotte, an old servant- maid of the cure, who said we, and reigned as a sovereign over the physician's household. If there were lengthwise on the mantel of the chimney a warming-pan well polished, Jacquotte probably liked to sleep warm in winter, and, in consequence, warmed the sheets of her master, who, she said, thought of nothing; but Benassis had taken her in consequence of that which would have been for any other an intolerable defect. Jacquotte wished to rule in the household, and the doctor had wished 44 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR to find a woman who would rule in his house. Jac- quotte bought, sold, mended, changed, placed and displaced, all according to her own good pleasure; never did her master make any observation to her. Thus Jacquotte administered uncontrolled the court, the stable, the man-servant, the kitchen, the house, the garden, and the master. On her own author- ity, the linen was changed, the laundering done, and the provisions stored. She decided upon the bring- ing home and the death of the pigs, scolded the gar- dener, arranged the menu of the dejeuner and the dinner, went from the cellar to the garret, from the garret to the cellar, sweeping out everything according to her own whims, and finding nothing to resist her. Benassis had desired only two things, to dine at six o'clock, and to expend only a certain sum a month. A woman who is obeyed by all is always singing; therefore Jacquotte laughed, imitated the nightingale on the stairways, always humming when she was not singing, and singing when she was not humming. Naturally clean, she kept the house clean. If her taste had been different, Monsieur Benassis would have been very unhappy, she said, for the poor man was so little observing that he could be made to eat cabbages for partridges; had it not been for her, he would frequently have kept the same shirt on for a week at a time. But Jacquotte was an indefatigable folder of linen, naturally a polisher of furniture, enamored of a cleanliness quite ecclesiastical, the most painstaking, the most shining, the most sweet- smelling of cleanlinesses. A sworn enemy of dust, THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 45 she dusted, washed, whitened ceaselessly. The condition of the exterior gate gave her lively pain. For the last ten years she had drawn from her master on the first of every month the promise to have this gate renewed, to have the walls of the house repainted, and everything arranged nicely, and monsieur had not yet kept his word. Therefore, when she was deploring the profound carelessness of Benassis, rarely did she fail to pronounce this sac- ramental phrase by which were terminated all her eulogies of her master: "You cannot say that he is stupid, since he does almost miracles in the neighborhood; but he is some- times stupid all the same, so stupid that you have to put everything in his hand, like an infant!" Jacquotte loved the house like a thing of her own. Moreover, after having lived in it for twenty-two years, had she not the right to cherish illusions? When he came into the country, Benassis, having found this house for sale in consequence of the death of the cure, had bought everything, walls and ground, furniture, utensils, wine, chickens, the old timepiece with figures, the horse, and the servant- maid. Jacquotte, the model of the species cook, displayed a stout body invariably enveloped in a brown calico, spotted with red dots, laced, tightened in such a manner as to make it seem as if the stuff would crack at the least movement. She wore a round, pleated cap, beneath which her rather pallid face, with a double chin, appeared even whiter than it was. Petite, active, with a quick and dimpled 46 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR hand, Jacquotte talked loud and continuously. If she were silent for a moment, and took hold of the corner of her apron to lift it triangularly, this gesture announced some long remonstrance addressed to her master or the man-servant. Of all the cooks of the kingdom, Jacquotte was certainly the happiest. To render her happiness as complete as a happiness can be here below, her vanity found itself ceaselessly gratified, the town accepted her as an intermediate authority placed between the mayor and the rural guard. On entering the kitchen the master found no one there. "Where the devil have they gone?" said he. " Pardon me," he added, turning to Genestas, "for bringing you in this way. The entrance of honor is by the garden, but I am so little accustomed to receiving company, that Jacquotte!" To this name, uttered almost imperiously, a woman's voice replied from the interior of the house. A moment later Jacquotte took the offensive by calling in her turn Benassis, who went promptly into the dining-room. "There you are, monsieur!" she said; "you never do any other way. You always invite com- pany to dinner without giving me notice, and you think that everything is arranged when you have called out: 'Jacquotte!' Are you not going to receive monsieur in the kitchen ? Was it not necessary to open the salon, to light the fire in it? Nicole is there and is going to arrange everything. Meanwhile, THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 47 walk your monsieur about in the garden for a mo- ment: that will amuse him, that man; if he likes pretty things, show him the late monsieur's row of witch-elms, I shall have time to prepare every- thing, the dinner, the service, and the salon." "Yes. But, Jacquotte," replied Benassis, "this monsieur is going to stay here. Do not forget to give a look at Monsieur Gravier's chamber, to see to the linen and everything, to " "You are not going to meddle with the linen just now," replied Jacquotte. " If he sleeps here, I know very well what must be done for him. You have not even been into Monsieur Gravier's chamber for ten months. There is nothing to see there, it is as clean as my eye. He is then going to live here, this monsieur? " she added, in a softened tone. "Yes." " For a long time?" " Upon my word, I do not know. But what dif- ference does that make to you?" "Ah! what difference does that make to me, monsieur? Ah! well, what difference does that make to me? Here is, indeed, another! And the provisions, and everything, and " Without continuing the flood of words, with which, on any other occasion, she would have assailed her master in reproach for his want of confidence, she followed him into the kitchen. On learning that it was a question of a lodger, she was impatient to see Genestas, to whom she made an obsequious rever- ence while examining him from head to foot. The 48 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR countenance of the soldier had at this moment a melancholy and thoughtful expression which gave him a harsh appearance; the colloquy between the servant and the master seemed to him to reveal in the latter a nullity which caused him, though with regret, to modify the high opinion which he had formed when admiring his persistency in saving this little country-side from the miseries of cretin- ism. " He does not please me, this individual! " thought Jacquotte. " If you are not fatigued, monsieur," said the physician to his pretended patient, " we will take a turn in the garden before dinner." "Willingly," replied the commandant. They crossed the dining-room and entered the garden by a sort of antechamber situated at the foot of the stairway, which separated the dining- room from the salon. This apartment, closed by a great glass door, opened on the stone perron, the ornament of the garden facade of the house. Divided into four great equal squares by alleys bordered with boxwood which formed a cross, this garden was terminated by a thick hedge of witch-elms, the pride of the former proprietor. The soldier seated himself on a bench of worm-eaten wood, without noticing the trellises, or the wall-fruit, or the vegetables, of which Jacquotte took such great care, following the tradi- tions of the ecclesiastic gourmand to whom this precious garden owed its origin, indifferent enough as it was to Benassis. THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 49 Abandoning the commonplace conversation which he had begun, the commandant said to the doctor: " What was it that you did, monsieur, in order to triple in ten years the population of this valley in which you found seven hundred souls, and which, as you say, includes to-day more than two thou- sand?" " You are the first person who has asked me that question," replied the physician. " If I have had as my object the bringing this little corner of land into its full productiveness, the press of my busy life has not left me the leisure to reflect upon the manner by which I have, on a large scale, like the begging friar, made soup of pebbles. Monsieur Gravier himself, one of our benefactors, to whom I have been able to render the service of curing him, did not think of the theory while traversing with me our mountains to see on them the practical results." There was a moment of silence, during which Benassis meditated, without noticing the piercing look by which his guest endeavored to penetrate him. " How was that done, my dear monsieur?" he went on; "why, naturally, and in virtue of a social law of attraction between the necessities which we create for ourselves and the methods of satisfying them. Everything is in that. People without wants are poor. When I came to establish myself in this town, there were counted in it a hundred and thirty families of peasants, and, in the valley, about two hundred hearths. The authorities of the country, 4 50 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR in_keeping with the public poverty, consisted of a mayor who could not write, and of an associate, a farmer, living at a distance from the commune; of a justice of the peace, a poor devil living on his fees, and obliged to leave the drawing up of documents to his clerk, another unfortunate, scarcely in a condi- tion to comprehend his office. The old cure, having died at the age of seventy, his^vicar, an uninstructed man, came to succeed him. (These individuals com- prised the intelligence of the country and gov- erned it. . " In the midst of this beautiful nature, the inhabit- ants dwelt in filth and subsisted upon potatoes and the products of their dairies; the cheeses, which the greater number of them carried in little baskets to Grenoble and its environs, constituted the only produce from which they drew a little money. The richest, or the least indolent, sowed some buckwheat for the consumption of the town, sometimes ^barley or oats^ but never wheat. The only manufacturer in the country \vas the mayor, who owned a saw- mill, and bought at a low price the cuttings of the woods to retail them. The_want of roads compelled him to transport his trees, one by one", in the fine season, dragging them with great difficulty, by means of a chain attached to the harness of his horses, and terminated in an iron cramp buried in the wood. To go to Grenoble, either on horseback or on foot, it was necessary to take a broad path which crossed the top of the mountains, the valley was impassable. From here to the first village which you saw on THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 5 1 entering the canton, the handsome road by which you doubtless came was at all seasons nothing but a miry track. No political event, no revolution had ever taken place in this inaccessible region, completely outside the social movement. The^ame of Napoleon alone had penetrated here; it is here a religion, thanks to two or three soldiers of the country re- turned to their firesides, and who, in the long evenings, relate to these simple people fabulous adventures of this man and his armies. This return is, moreover, an inexplicable phenomenon. Before my arrival, the young men who went off to the army all remained there. This fact depicts clearly enough the poverty of the country to render it unnecessary for me to describe it to you. "This, monsieur, was the condition in which I found this canton, with which were connected, on the other side of the mountains, several communes, well culti- vated, sufficiently happy, and almost rich. I will not speak to you of the thatched cottages of the town, veritable stables, in which animals and people were then tumbled together, pell-mell. I passed through here in returning from the Grande-Char- treuse. Finding no inn, I was obliged to take lodgings with the vicar, who was temporarily inhab- iting this house, then for sale. By putting question after question, I obtained a superficial knowledge of the deplorable condition of this country, of which the beautiful climate, the excellent soil, and the natural productions had filled me with admiration. Mon- sieur, I was at that time seeking to make for myself 52 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR a life other than that of which sorrow had made a burden to me. There suddenly came into my soul one of those thoughts which God sends to us to make us accept our misfortunes. 1 resolved to edu- cate this country as a preceptor educates a child. Do not give me credit for my benevolence; I was too much actuated by the imperative need of distraction which I felt. I therefore endeavored to employ the remainder of my days in some arduous enterprise. The changes to be introduced into this canton, which nature had made so rich, and which man rendered so poor, would occupy a lifetime; they tempted me by the very difficulty of bringing them about. "As soon as I was certain of obtaining the house of the cure and a good deal of idle and unprofitable land at a low price, I vowed myself religiously to the condition of country physician, the last of all those which a man thinks of assuming in his own land. I wished to become the friend of the poor without ex- pecting from them the slightest recompense. Oh! I did not give myself up to any illusions, neither con- cerning the character of the country people nor the obstacles to be encountered in endeavoring to ame- liorate the condition of men or things. I have not made any idylls concerning my people, I have ac- cepted them for what they are poor peasants neither entirely good nor entirely wicked, to whom a constant labor permits no yielding to sentiments, but who sometimes feel keenly. In short, I compre- hended, above all, that I could act upon them only through calculations of self-interest and of immediate THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 53 benefit. All peasants are children of Saint Thomas, the doubting apostle: they always wish for facts to support words. "You will, perhaps, laugh at my debut, mon- sieur," resumed the doctor, after a pause. " I com- menced this difficult work by a basket-manufactory. These poor people purchased in Grenoble their little wicker-crates for their cheeses and the indispensable basket-work for their miserable commerce. I sug- gested to an intelligent young man to take, on a lease, along the torrent, a large portion of the shore which the alluvial deposits enrich annually, and where the osiers might very well grow. After having computed the quantity of basket-work consumed by the can- ton, I went to dislodge from Grenoble some young workman without any pecuniary resources, a skilful worker. When I had found him, I easily persuaded him to establish himself here by promising to advance him the price of the osiers necessary for his manu- facture until my planter of willows was able to fur- nish them to him. I persuaded him to sell his baskets under the Grenoble price, while making them better. He understood me. The osiers and the willow- work constituted a speculation the results of which would not be appreciated till after four years. You are doubtless aware that the osier is not good to cut till it is three years old. " During his first campaign, my basket-maker lived and found his provisions as perquisites. He soon after married a woman of Saint-Laurent-du-Pont, who had a little money. He then built himself a 54 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR house, healthful, well-aired, the site of which had been selected, the arrangements made, according to my advice. What a triumph, monsieur! I had created an industry in the town, I had brought to it a producer and several workpeople. You will consider my delight childish? During the first days of the establishment of my basket-maker, I never passed before his shop without feeling the beating of my heart quickened. When, in his new house, with shutters painted in green, and at the door of which is a bench, a vine, and bunches of osiers, I saw a woman, clean, well-dressed, nursing a great infant, pink and white, in the midst of workmen all cheerful, singing, actively constructing their wares, and under the direction of a man who, formerly poor and pallid, now breathed happiness, I admit to you, monsieur, I could not resist the pleasure of making myself a basket-maker for a moment by entering the shop to enquire after their affairs, and I gave myself up to a contentment which I should not know how to describe. 1 was joyous with the joy of those people and of my own. " The house of this man, the first who believed firmly in me, became all my hope. Was it not the future of this poor country, monsieur, which already I carried in my heart, as the wife of the basket-maker carried in hers her first nursling? I had to bring many things to pass, 1 ran against very many prejudices. I encountered a violent opposition instigated by the ignorant mayor, whose place I had taken, whose in- fluence was disappearing before mine; I wished to THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 55 make him my associate and the accomplice of my benefactions. Yes, monsieur, it was in this head, the hardest of all, that I endeavored to diffuse the first enlightenment. I took hold of my man both by his self-love and by his own interests. For six months we dined together, and I gave him a half interest in my plans of amelioration. Very many would have seen in this necessary friendship the most hopelessly wearying part of my task; but was not this man an instrument, and the most valuable of all ? Bad luck to him who despises his instrument, or who even throws it carelessly aside! Would I not have been, moreover, very inconsistent if, desiring to better a country, I had recoiled before the idea of bettering a man ? The surest means of bringing good fortune is a highway. If we obtained from the municipal council an authorization to construct a good road from here to the road to Grenoble, my associate was the first to profit by it, for, instead of dragging, with great trouble, his trees over bad paths, he could, by means of a good cantonal road, transport them with facility, undertake a large business in lumber of all kinds, and earn, not six hundred miserable francs a year, but handsome sums which would give him one day a cer- tain fortune. "Finally convinced, this man became my proselyte. During a whole winter my ex-mayor went to drink at the inn with his friends, and was able to demon- strate to our townsmen that a good carriage-road would be a source of fortune for the country by ena- bling everyone to communicate freely with Grenoble. 56 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR When the municipal council had voted for the road, I obtained from the prefect some money from the charitable funds of the department in order to pay for the means of transportation, which the commune was unable to undertake through lack of carts. Finally, in order to bring this great work to a termi- nation more promptly and make its results appre- ciated immediately by the ignorant, who murmured against me, saying that I wished to re-establish the forced peasant-labor of the old seigneurs, on every Sunday of the first year of my administration I transported the entire population of the town, will- ingly or by force, women, children, and even old men, to the top of the mountain, where I had traced out myself, on an excellent foundation, the high-road that leads from our village to the road to Grenoble. Abundant materials very fortunately were to be found along this route. This long enterprise required of me a great deal of patience. Sometimes some of them, ignorant of the laws, refused this service in kind; sometimes others, wanting for bread, could not really afford to lose a day; it was therefore necessary to distribute grain to these, and to calm the others by friendly words. " However, when we had completed two-thirds of this road, which covers about two leagues of the country-side, its advantages had become so well recognized by the inhabitants that the last third was completed with an ardor which surprised me. I en- riched the future of the commune by planting a double row of poplars along each of the side-ditches. THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 57 To-day these trees are almost a fortune already, and give the appearance of a royal road to our highway, always dry in consequence of its situation, and so well constructed, moreover, that it costs scarcely two hundred francs a year to maintain it; I will show it to you, for you have not seen it, you came here doubtless by the pretty lower road, another route which the inhabitants wished to make themselves, three years ago, in order to open communications with the establishments which were then being set up in the valley. Thus, monsieur, three years ago, the good public sense of this town, once without intelligence, had acquired ideas which, five years before, a traveller would perhaps have despaired of inculcating. But to proceed. "The establishment of my basket-maker was a fruitful example given to this poor population. If the road was to be the most direct cause of the future prosperity of the town, it was necessary to excite all the primary industries in order to make fruitful these two germs of comfort and luxury. While aiding the planter of osier beds and the maker of baskets, while constructing my road, I continued my work by insensible degrees. I had two horses; the lumber-dealer, my associate, had three; they could be shod only at Grenoble when they went there; I therefore engaged a blacksmith, who knew a little of the veterinary art, to come here, promising him plenty of work. I encountered on the same day an old soldier sufficiently in trouble about his position, whose whole property consisted 58 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR of a pension of a hundred francs, who knew how to read and write; I gave him the place of secretary to the mayor; by a lucky chance, I found him a wife, and his dreams of happiness were accom- plished. Monsieur, houses were required for these two new families, for that of my basket-maker and for the twenty-two families which abandoned the cretin village. Twelve other households, the heads of which were workmen, producers and consumers, then came to establish themselves here, masons, carpenters, tilers, joiners, locksmiths, glaziers, who had work for a long time ahead; would they not have to construct their own houses after having built those of others? would they not bring laborers with them ? "During the second year of my administration, seventy houses were built in the commune. One production required another. In peopling the town, I had created new necessities, unknown up to this time to these poor people. A want begets an industry, the industry a business, the business a profit, the profit a prosperity, and the prosperity useful ideas. These different workmen wanted bread already baked; we had a baker. But buckwheat could no longer be the nourishment of this popu- lation drawn from its degrading inertia and become essentially active; I had found them eating black grain; I desired to have them change at first to a regimen of rye or of a mixture of wheat and rye, then to see one day in the hands of the poorest a piece of white bread. For my part, the intellectual THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 59 progress was closely connected with the sanitary progress. A butcher in a district proclaims as much of intelligence as of riches. Who works, eats, and who eats, thinks. Foreseeing the day when the production of wheat would be necessary, I had care- fully examined the character of the soil; I was con- fident of being able to endow the town with a great agricultural prosperity, and of doubling its population as soon as it should be fully engaged in work. The moment had arrived. Monsieur Gravier, of Grenoble, was the owner of certain lands in the commune from which he drew no revenue, but which could be converted into grain-fields. He is, as you know, chief of division at the prefecture. As much through attachment to his district as van- quished by my importunities, he had already lent himself with great good nature to my requirements; I succeeded in making him comprehend that he had, unknown to himself, worked for his own interests. "After several days spent in solicitation, in con- "ferences, in measures debated; after having pledged my fortune to guarantee him against the risks of an enterprise concerning which his wife, a narrow woman, endeavored to excite his fears, he consented to lay out here four farms of a hundred arpents each, and promised to advance the sums necessary for the clearing of the ground, the purchase of seed, the instruments of husbandry, the cattle, and the opening of the necessary farm roads. On my side, I constructed two farms, as much to bring under cul- tivation my idle and unproductive land as to teach 60 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR by example the useful methods of modern agricul- ture. In six weeks the town was increased by three hundred inhabitants. Six farms which would necessarily require several households, enormous clearings to be undertaken, the tilling to be done all called for workmen. The wheelwrights, the terrace-makers, the journeymen, the laborers, flowed in. The road to Grenoble was covered with carts going and coming. There was a general movement throughout the country. The circulation of money aroused in everybody the desire of gain, the apathy had ceased, the town had awakened. I will finish in two words the history of Monsieur Gravier, one of the benefactors of this canton. "Notwithstanding the mistrust natural enough in a provincial citizen, in a man of bureaus, he, on the faith of my promises, advanced more than forty thousand francs, without knowing whether he would regain them. Each of his farms is to-day leased for a thousand francs; his farmers have so well managed their affairs that each one of them possesses at least a hundred arpents of land, three hundred sheep, twenty cows, ten oxen, five horses, and employs more than twenty persons. To resume. In the course of the fourth year, our farms were completed. We had a grain harvest that seemed miraculous to the country people, abundant as it was naturally on a virgin soil. I often trembled for my work during that fourth year! The rain or a drought might ruin my work by impairing the confidence which I had already inspired. The culture of wheat necessitated THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 6 1 the mill which you have seen, and whjch brings me in about five hundred francs a year^x ''Thus the peas- ants say, in their language, tha thane liick, and be- lieve in me as in their relics. Tliese-new construc- tions, the farms, the mill, the plantations, the roads, have given work to all the men with trades that I have brought here. Although our buildings fully rep- resent the sixty thousand francs which we have in- vested in the country, this money has been amply returned to us by the revenues created by the con- sumers. ' ' My efforts do not cease to animate this budding in- dustry. By my advice, a nursery-gardener came to establish himself in the town, where I preached to the poorest the advisability of cultivating fruit-trees in order to be able one day to acquire at Grenoble the monopoly of the sale of fruits. 'You carry cheese there/ I said to them; 'why not carry there chickens, eggs, vegetables, game, hay, straw, etc.?' Each one of my counsels was the source of a fortune, it was for whoever would follow it. There was formed, consequently, a multitude of little establish- ments, the progress of which, slow at first, became from day to day more rapid. Every Monday there now depart from the town for Grenoble more than sixty carts laden with our divers products, and there is more buckwheat gathered to feed the chickens than there was formerly sown to feed the men. The lumber trade, now become too considerable, is subdi- vided. Since the fourth year of our industrial era, we have had sellers of firewood, of squared lumber, of 62 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR planks, of bark, and charcoal-makers. Finally, there have been established four new saw-mills for planks and beams. "The ex-mayor, in acquiring some commercial ideas, began to feel the need of learning to read and to write. He has compared the price of wood in different localities; he has found such variations, with the advantage in favor of his own business, that he has procured new customers in various places, and he supplies to-day the third of the department. Our means of transportation have increased so rapidly that we keep three wheelwrights and two harness-makers busy, and each of them has not less than three assistants. Finally, we consume so much iron that an edge-tool maker has moved into the town, and has done very well here. The desire of gain develops an ambition which from that period has given my manufacturers and workpeople an impulse which has spread from the town to the canton and from the canton to the department, with the effect of increas- ing their profits by increasing their sales. I have had only to say one word to indicate to them new openings; their good sense did the rest. Four years sufficed to change the face of this town. When I first passed through here, I did not hear a sound in the streets; but, at the beginning of the fifth year, everything here was living and animated. The joy- ful chants, the noise o/ the workshops, and the dull or sharp sound of the tools resounded agreeably in my ears. I saw an active population coming and going, gathered together in a new town, clean, THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 63 healthful, well planted with trees. Each inhabitant had the consciousness of his own well-being, and all the countenances expressed the contentment given by a life usefully occupied. " These five years form in my eyes the first age of the prosperous life of our town," resumed the doctor, after a pause. " During this time I had cleared away everything, sown everything in germ in the heads and in the soil. The progressive move- ment of the population and of the industries could no longer be arrested. A second age was preparing. Presently, this little world began to desire to be bet- ter dressed. There came to us a haberdasher, and with him the shoemaker, the tailor, and the hat- maker. This beginning of luxury secured for us a butcher and a grocer; then a midwife, who became very necessary to me. I lost considerable time in attending to childbirths. The clearings gave excel- lent harvests. Then the superior quality of our agricultural products was maintained by the fertil- izers and the manure obtained by the increase in the population. My enterprise could then develop itself fully. "After having made the houses healthful and gradu- ally brought the inhabitants to nourish themselves better, to clothe themselves better, I desired that the animals should benefit by this commencement of civilization. Upon the care given to cattle depends the beauty of the races and the individuals, conse- quently that of the products, I therefore preached the cleaning and making wholesome of the stables. By 64 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR a comparison of the profit returned by an animal well lodged, well cared for, with the meagre return from a neglected beast, I brought about insensibly a change in the management of the cattle of the commune, not one animal suffered. The cows and the oxen were cared for as they are in Switzerland and in Au- vergne. The sheepfolds, the stables, the cow- houses, the dairies, the barns, were rebuilt on the models of my constructions and of those of Monsieur Gravier, which are large and well-aired, and conse- quently salubrious. Our farmers were my apostles: they promptly converted the incredulous by demon- strating to them the soundness of my precepts by the prompt results. As to those who were in want of money, I lent it to them, favoring especially the industrious poor; they served as examples. Follow- ing my advice, the defective animals, those that were sickly or mediocre in quality, were sold and replaced by fine specimens. " Thus it came about that our products, within a given time, became known in the markets as superior to those of the other communes. We had magnificent flocks, and consequently excellent leather. This progress was of the highest impor- tance. For this reason. Nothing is fruitless in rural economy. Formerly our bark sold at a very low price, and our leather had no great value; but, our bark and our leather once bettered, the river per- mitted us to construct tanneries, tanners came to us, and the industry rapidly increased. Good wine, formerly unknown in the town, where only the THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 65 thinnest vintage was drunk, became naturally a necessity; cabarets were established. Then the oldest of the cabarets was enlarged, was trans- formed into an inn, and furnished mules to the travellers who began to use our road to go to the Grande-Chartreuse. For the last two years we have had a commercial movement sufficient to sus- tain two innkeepers. "At the beginning of the second era of our pros- perity, the justice of the peace died. Very fortu- nately for us, his successor was a former notary of Grenoble ruined by an unfortunate speculation, but who had enough property remaining to make him rich in the village. Monsieur Gravier was able to induce him to come here; he has built a hand- some house, he has seconded my efforts by joining to them his own ; he has laid out a farm and cleared off the brushwood, and to-day he possesses three chalets in the mountain. His family is numerous. He has dismissed the former clerk and the former sheriff and replaced them by men much more capable and, above all, more industrious than their predecessors. These two new households have created a potato distillery and an establishment for washing wool, very useful industries, which the heads of the two families conduct without inter- ference with their official duties. After having established a revenue for the commune, I em- ployed it in building a town-house, in which I established a free school, and lodging-rooms for a primary instructor. I selected to fill this important 5 66 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR position a poor priest who had taken the oath to the constitutional authorities, rejected by the whole department, and who found among us an asylum for his old days. The schoolmistress is a worthy woman, financially ruined, who did not know where to lay her head, and for whom we have arranged a little competence; she has founded a boarding- school for girls to which the rich farmers of the environs are beginning to send their daughters. " Monsieur, if I have had the right to relate to you up to this point the history of this little corner of the earth in my own name, there comes a time when Monsieur Janvier, the new cure, a true Fenelon reduced to the proportions of a cure, has counted for one-half in this work of regeneration: he has known how to give to the manners and customs of the town a gentle and fraternal feeling which seems to make one family of the entire popu- lation. Monsieur Dufau, the justice of the peace, although he came later, merits equally the gratitude of the inhabitants. To sum up to you our situation by figures more significant than my statements, the commune possesses to-day two hundred arpents of woodland and a hundred and sixty arpents of pas- turage. Without recourse to increased taxation, it pays an additional sum of a hundred ecus to the cure, two hundred francs to the garde champgtre, as much to the schoolmaster and to the schoolmistress; it has five hundred francs for its roads, as much for the repairs of the town-house, the parsonage, the church, and for some other expenses. In fifteen THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 67 years from now, it will possess a hundred thousand francs' worth of standing timber, and will be able to meet all its expenses without costing the inhabit- ants a denier; it will certainly be one of the richest communes in France. But, monsieur, I am perhaps wearying you?" said Benassis to Genestas, seeing his auditor in so thoughtful an attitude that it might well be taken for that of an inattentive man. " Oh! no," replied the commandant. " Monsieur," resumed the doctor, "the trade, the industry, the agriculture, and our consumption were only local. Our prosperity was arrested at a cer- tain point. I therefore requested a post-office, retail stores to sell tobacco, powder, and cards; I even induced the collector of taxes, by the inducements of the locality and of our new society, to leave the commune in which, up to this time, he had preferred to live rather than in the chief place of the canton; I contrived to call in, in time and place when needed, each production of which I had made the need felt; I brought in households and industrious people, I communicated to all of them the sense of proprietor- ship, thus, in proportion as they acquired money the lands were cleared; the small plots of ground, the small proprietors, spread over the mountain, and gradually brought it under cultivation. The unfor- tunate poor whom I had found here carrying on foot a few cheeses to Grenoble, now went there comfort- ably in carts, taking fruit, eggs, chickens, and tur- keys. Everything had insensibly enlarged. The worst endowed was he who had only his garden, his 68 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR vegetables, his fruits, his early garden-truck, to cul- tivate. " Finally, a sign of prosperity, no one any longer baked his own bread, so as not to lose any time, and the children watched the flocks. But, monsieur, it was necessary to maintain this industrial centre by ceaselessly throwing into it new supplies. The town had not yet a growing industry that could support this commercial production and necessitate large transactions, an exchange, a market. It is not sufficient for a country to lose nothing on the amount of money which it owns and which forms its capital; you will not augment its prosperity by con- triving, with greater or less skill, to make this sum circulate, by the action of production and consump- tion, through the greatest possible number of hands. That is not the problem. When a country is in full production, and when its productions balance its con- sumption, it is necessary, in order to create new fortunes and to increase the public wealth, to estab- lish exchanges with abroad which will constantly bring new assets into its commercial balance. It is this idea which has constantly determined the States without territorial base, like Tyre, Carthage, Venice, Holland, and England, to take possession of the commerce of transportation. I sought for our little sphere an analogous idea, in order to create in it a third commercial epoch. Our prosperity, scarcely visible to the eyes of a traveller, for our chief town of the canton resembles all the others, was sur- prising for me alone. The inhabitants, insensibly THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 69 brought together, have not been able to judge of the whole while participating in the movement. " At the expiration of seven years I encountered two strangers, the true benefactors of this town, which they will perhaps metamorphose into a city. One of them is a Tyrolese, of an incredible skill, who makes shoes for the country people, boots for the fashionables of Grenoble, as no Parisian work- man can manufacture them. A poor itinerant musi- cian, one of those industrious Germans who make both the work and the tool, the music and the instrument, he halted in the town on his way from Italy, which he had traversed singing and working. He asked if someone did not need some shoes; he was sent to me; I ordered of him two pairs of boots of which he made the lasts. Surprised at this stranger's skill, I questioned him; I found him exact in his replies; his manner, his face, all confirmed me in the good opinion I had formed of him; I proposed to him to settle in the town, promising to aid his business by all the means in my power, and I placed at his disposition a sufficiently large sum of money. He accepted. I had certain ideas. Our leather, having become much superior in quality, could be in course of time consumed by ourselves in the fabri- cation of boots and shoes at moderate prices. I was about to begin again on a larger scale the business of the osiers. " Chance had offered me a man eminently skilful and industrious whom I should enlist in order to give to the town a productive and stable business. The 70 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR consumption of the shoemaker's wares is one that never stops, it is a manufacture in which the least advantage is promptly appreciated by the consumer. I had the good fortune not to be deceived, monsieur. To-day we have five tanneries; they consume all the leather of the department, they send for more as far as Provence, and each one possesses its bark-mill. Well, monsieur, these tanneries do not suffice to furnish the Tyrolese with all the leather he needs: he employs no less than forty workmen! The other man, whose story is no less curious, but which perhaps would be wearisome for you to hear, is a simple peasant who has found a method of making cheaper than anywhere else the broad- brimmed hats worn in the country; he exports them into all the neighboring departments, even to Swit- zerland and Savoy. "These two industries, never-ceasing sources of prosperity, if the canton can maintain the quality of the products and their low price, suggested to me the idea of founding here three annual fairs; the prefect, astonished at the industrial progress of this canton, seconded me in obtaining the royal ordi- nance which instituted them. Last year one of these fairs took place; they are already known in Savoy as the fair of shoes and hats. On learning of these changes, the head clerk of a notary of Grenoble, a young man, poor, but well-educated, a great worker, and to whom Mademoiselle Gravier is betrothed, went to Paris to solicit the establishment of a no- tary's office; his request was granted. His post THE COUNTRY DOCTOR ^\ cost him nothing; he has been able to build for him- self a house opposite that of the justice of the peace, on the principal square of the new town. We have now a weekly market at which there are very con- siderable transactions in cattle and grain. " Next year there will doubtless come to us an apothecary, then a clockmaker, a furniture-dealer, and a bookstore, in short, the superfluities necessary to life. Perhaps we shall end by taking on the style of a little city and by having bourgeois houses. The general instruction has made such progress that I did not encounter in the municipal council the slightest opposition when I proposed to repair, to decorate the church, to build a parsonage, to lay out a fine site for the fair, to plant trees on it, and to survey for streets to be opened later, dry, well-lighted, and well- planned. This is how, monsieur, we have attained to nineteen hundred hearths instead of a hundred and thirty-seven, three thousand horned cattle instead of eight hundred, and, instead of seven hundred souls, two thousand persons in the town, three thousand counting the inhabitants of the valley. There are in the commune twelve rich house's, a hundred fami- lies in easy circumstances, two hundred which are prosperous. The rest all work. Everybody can read and write. Finally, we have seventeen sub- scribers to different journals. You will still meet with enough unfortunates in our canton. I certainly see only too many of them; but no one has to beg; there is work for all. I now tire two horses a day in riding to minister to the sick; I can travel without 72 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR danger within a radius of five leagues, and whoever would fire at me now would not be left alive ten min- utes. The tacit affection of the inhabitants is all that I have personally gained by these changes, in addition to the pleasure of hearing said to me by everybody, with a joyous air, as I pass by: ' Good- day, Monsieur Benassis!' You will readily compre- hend that the fortune gained involuntarily by my model farms is, in my hands, a means and not a re- sult" " If everyone imitated your example everywhere, monsieur, France would be, indeed, great, and could defy all Europe!" exclaimed Genestas, in a transport. " But I have kept you here a half-hour," said Be- nassis; " it is almost dark; let us go to dinner." From the side of the garden the doctor's house pre- sents a facade with five windows on each story. It con- sists of a ground-floor surmounted by a first story, and covered with a tile roof pierced by projecting dormer windows. The shutters, painted in green, assert themselves on the grayish tone of the wall, on which for ornament a vine grows between the two stories, from one end to the other, in the form of a frieze. At the bottom, along the wall, some Bengal roses grow sadly, half drowned by the rain-water from the roof, which has no gutters. On entering by the large landing-place which forms the antechamber, there is found at the right a salon with four windows, opening some of them on the court, the others on the garden. This salon, doubtless the object of many economies and many hopes on the part of the poor THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 73 deceased proprietor, is floored with planks, wains- coted in the lower part of the walls and furnished with tapestries of the century before the last. The large and wide easy-chairs covered with flowered lampas, the antique gilded branched candlesticks which ornament the chimney-piece, and the curtains with heavy tassels, announced the opulence of the late cure. Benassis had completed this furnishing, which did not want for character, by two consoles of wood with sculptured garlands, placed opposite each other in the space between the windows, and by a timepiece in tortoise-shell incrusted with brass which decorated the chimney. The doctor rarely inhabited this room, which exhaled the damp odor of apartments which are always closed. There was in it still the smell of the defunct cure, the peculiar scent of his tobacco even seemed to issue from the corner of the chimney in which he habitually sat. The two large armchairs were placed symmetrically on each side of the hearth, in which there had been no fire since Monsieur Gravier's visit, but in which were now burning the clear flames of pine wood. "It is still cold in the evening," said Benassis, "the fire is very agreeable." Genestas, become thoughtful, was beginning to understand the indifference of the doctor to the ordinary things of life. "Monsieur," he said to him, "you have, indeed, the spirit of a good citizen, and I am surprised that, after having accomplished so many things, you have not attempted to enlighten the government." 74 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR Benassis commenced to laugh, but softly and with a melancholy air. " Write some memorial upon the methods of civil- izing France, is not that it? Monsieur Gravier said that to me, before you. Alas! a government is not to be enlightened, and, of all governments, that the least susceptible of being enlightened is that one which believes that it diffuses illumination. Doubt- less, that which we have done for this canton all mayors should do for theirs, the municipal magistrate for his city, the sub-prefect for the arrondissement, the prefect for the department, the minister for France, each one in the sphere of interest in which he acts. Where I have succeeded in constructing a road of two leagues, one would complete a highway, another a canal; where I have encouraged the manu- facture of peasants' hats, the minister would relieve France of the industrial yoke of the foreigner by en- couraging some manufacture of clocks, by aiding in the perfecting of our iron, our steel, our files, or our crucibles, in cultivating silk-worms, or plants for dyes. In the matter of commerce, encouragement does not signify protection. The enlightened policy of a country should tend to enfranchise it from all tribute to foreign nations, but without the mortifying assist- ance of customs and prohibitory duties. Industry can only be saved by itself, competition is its life. Protected, it is lulled to sleep; it perishes by mo- nopoly, as under the tariff. The nation that renders all others its tributaries will be that one which will proclaim commercial liberty; it will be conscious of THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 75 its own power to maintain its manufactured products at a lower price than that of its competitors. "France can attain this end much better than England, for she alone possesses a territory suffi- ciently extended to maintain the agricultural produc- tions at prices which will make possible the lowering of the wages of industry, to this should be directed the aim of the administration in France, for this is the whole modern question. My dear monsieur, this study has not been the aim of my life; the task which I have tardily taken up is an accidental one. Then, these things are too simple for anyone to constitute a science of them; they have nothing brilliant or theoretical about them, they have the misfortune to be merely useful. In short, labor cannot be hurried. " In order to obtain success in this, it is necessary to find in yourself every morning the same allowance of courage, the rarest and, apparently, the easiest courage, that of the professor repeating ceaselessly the same things, a courage that is but slightly recompensed. If we salute respectfully the man who, like yourself, has shed his blood on the field of battle, we deride him who has consumed slowly the fire of his life in repeating the same things to children of the same age. Good done in an obscure'' manner tempts no one. We are essentially lacking in the civic virtue with which the great men of antiquity rendered service to the country, by placing themselves in the last rank when they were not com- manding. The malady of our times is superiority. 76 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR There are more saints than niches. For this rea- son. With the monarchy, we lost hotior; with the religion of our fathers, Christian virtue; with our fruitless essays at government, patriotism. In- stead of animating the masses, these principles no longer exist but partially, for ideas never perish. "At present, to prop up society, we have no other support than . egotism. Individuals believe only in themselves. The future, it is man in human society; we see nothing beyond. The great man who will save us from the shipwreck toward which we are hastening will doubtless avail himself of the spirit of individualism to remake the nation; but, while wait- ing for this regeneration, we are still in the age of material and positive interests. This last phrase is that which applies to~all "the world. We are all reckoned, not according to our value, but according to what we weigh. If he is in his shirt-sleeves, the man of energy is scarcely noticed. This sentiment has passed into the government. The minister sends a pitiful medal to the sailor who has saved, at the peril of his life, a dozen men; he gives the cross of honor to the deputy who sells him his vote. Woe to the country thus constituted! Nations, like indi- viduals, owe their energy only to great sentiments. The sentiments of a people are its beliefs. Instead of having beliefs, we have interests. If each one believes only in himself and has faith only in himself, how can you expect to find much civil courage, when the essential condition of this virtue consists in self-renunciation? Civil courage and military THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 77 courage spring from the same principle. You are called upon to give your life at once, ours goes from us drop by drop. On each side are the same combats under other forms. It is not sufficient to be a worthy man to civilize the most humble corner of the earth; it is necessary, in addition, to be well informed; moreover, education, probity, patriotism, are nothing without the firm will which enables a man to detach himself from all personal interests in order to devote himself to a social idea. " Certainly, France counts more than one well- informed man, more than one patriot to each commune; but I am certain that there does not exist in each canton a man who, to these precious qual- ities, joins the continuous determination, the perti- nacity of the blacksmith hammering his iron. The man who destroys and the man who constructs are two phenomena of will, one prepares, the other completes the work; the first appears like the genius of evil, and the second seems to be the genius of good; one has glory, and the other, forgetful ness. Evil possesses a clamorous voice which awakens the commonplace souls and fills them with admiration, whilst the good is long silent. Human self-love promptly selected the most brilliant role. A great work of peace, accomplished without considerations for self, will never, then, be anything but accidental until education has changed the social customs in France. When these customs shall be changed, when we shall all be great citizens, shall we not become, notwithstanding the comforts of a trivial 78 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR life, the most wearisome people, the most wearied, the least artistic, the most unhappy, that there is on the earth ? These great questions are not for me to decide: I am not the head of the government. "Apart from these considerations, there are still other difficulties which oppose the adoption of fixed principles by the administration. In questions of civilization, monsieur, nothing is, absolute. Ideas which are appropriate to one country are fatal in an- other, and it is with intelligences as it is with soils. If we have so many bad administrators, it is because government, like taste, proceeds originally from a very elevated and very pure sentiment. In this, genius comes from a tendency of the soul, and not from a science. No one can appreciate either the acts or the ideas of an administrator, his true judges are far from him, the results more distant still. Everyone can thus, without danger, proclaim him- self an administrator. In France, the species of seduction which the intelligence exercises over us inspires in us a great esteem for the men with ideas; but ideas are but of small importance where only a will is required. In short, administration does not consist in imposing on the masses ideas or methods more or less just, but in imparting to the good or bad ideas of these masses a useful direction which will bring them into accord with the general welfare. If the prejudices and the fixed habits of a country lead to an evil termination, the inhabitants will them- selves abandon their errors. Does not every error in rural economy, political or domestic, entail losses THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 79 which self-interest will in the end rectify? Here, very fortunately, I found a blank page. In accord- ance with my advice, the land here is well culti- vated; but there was no system in agriculture, and the soil was good, it was therefore easy for me to introduce the cultivation of land in five suc- cessive rotations of crops, artificial meadows, and potatoes. My agricultural system offended no preju- dice. There was as yet no use of bad coulters, as in certain parts of France, and the hoe sufficed for the little cultivation that was done. The wheel- wright was interested in praising my wheel-ploughs to benefit his trade; I had in him a cordial ally. But here, as elsewhere, I have always endeav- ored .to make the interests of one converge to- ward those of others. Then I proceeded from the productions which directly interested these poor people to those which augmented their welfare. I brought nothing in from outside, I only aided those exportations which should enrich them, and the benefits of which are directly comprehended. These people were my disciples by their works and without knowing it. "Another consideration ! We are here only five leagues from Grenoble, and there are always to be found near a great city many outlets for productions. It is not every commune that is at the gates of a great city. In every affair of this nature, it is necessary to consult the spirit of the country, its situation, its resources, to study the land, the men, and the things, and not undertake to plant vines in Normandy. 80 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR Therefore, nothing is more variable than the admin- istration: it has very few general principles. The law is uniform, the customs, the soils, the intelli- gences are not; now, ad/ninistration is the art of applying the laws without offending the interests, everything therein is then local. On the other side of the mountain at the foot of which lies our aban- doned village, it is impossible to plough with wheel- ploughs, the soil has not depth enough; well, if the mayor of that commune had wished to imitate our methods, he would have ruined his people; I advised him to plant vineyards; and, last year, this little dis- trict had an excellent vintage, it exchanges its wine for our grain. In short, I had some credit with those to whom I preach; we were constantly in accord. I cured my peasants of their maladies so easy to cure; there is never a question, in fact, of anything more difficult than building up their strength by nourishing food. Whether through economy or through poverty, the country people nourish themselves so inefficiently that their illnesses come only from their indigence, and generally their health is very fair. "When I had decided religiously upon this life of obscure resignation, I hesitated a long time whether to make myself a cure, a country doctor, or a justice of the peace. It is not without reason, my dear monsieur, that they are proverbially classed together, the three black robes: the priest, the man of law, and the physician, one heals the wounds of the soul, the second those of the purse, the third those of the body; they represent society in its three principal terms of THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 8 1 existence, conscience, property, health. Formerly the first, later the second, composed the whole State. Those who have preceded us upon the earth thought, perhaps with reason, that the priest, the guide of ideas, should be the whole government, he was then king, pontiff, and judge; but everything was then belief and conscience. To-day, everything is changed; let us take our epoch such as it is. Well, I believe that the progress of civilization and the welfare of the masses depend upon these three men; they are the three powers which immediately im- press upon the people the action of facts, of interests, and of principles, the three great results produced in a nation by events, by property and by ideas. " Time progresses and brings changes, property augments or diminishes, everything must be regulated according to these divers mutations, thence come the principles of order. In order to civilize, to create productions, the masses must be made to compre- hend in what the individual interest is in accord with the national interests, which resolve them- selves into facts, interests, and principles. These three professions, necessarily in touch with these human results, have thus seemed to me to be obliged to be to-day the greatest levers of civilization; they alone can constantly offer to a man of position effica- cious means of ameliorating the condition of the poorer classes, with which they are in constant relation. But the peasant listens more willingly to the man who prescribes for him a remedy that will save his body than to the priest who discourses upon 6 82 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR the salvation of the soul, one can talk to him of the earth which he cultivates, the other is obliged to communicate with him concerning Heaven, of which, to-day, unfortunately, he thinks very little; I say un- fortunately, for the dogma of the life to come is not only a consolation, but, still more, an instrument adapted to govern with. Is not religion the sole power which sanctions social laws? We have re- cently vindicated God. In the absence of religion, the government was obliged to invent the Terror to render its laws executive; but that was a human terror; it has passed away. " Well, monsieur, when a peasant is sick, nailed to his couch, or convalescent, he is obliged to listen to consecutive reasons, and he comprehends them bet- ter when they are clearly presented to him. It was this reflection which made me a doctor. I reckoned with my peasants, for them; I gave them only advice of a certain effect which constrains them to recog- nize the justness of my views. With the people, it is necessary to be always infallible. Infallibility made Napoleon; it would have made of him a god, if the universe had not heard him fall at Waterloo. If Mahomet created a religion, after having con- quered a third of the globe, it was by concealing from the world the spectacle of his death. For the mayor of a village and the conqueror, the same principles, the nation and the commune are in the same troop. The masses are everywhere the same. Finally, I showed myself to be rigorous with those to whom I opened my purse. Had it not been for this THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 83 firmness, everyone would have mocked at me. The peasants, as well as people of the world, end by having a contempt for the man whom they deceive. To be duped, is not that to have committed an act of weakness ? strength alone governs. "I have never asked a denier of anyone for my serv- ices excepting of those who are known to be wealthy; but I have left no one ignorant of their proper value. I do not give my medicines gratuitously, except when the patient is indigent. If my peasants do not pay me, they know their debts; sometimes they appease their consciences by bringing me oats for my horses, wheat when it is not dear. But should the miller offer me eels only for the payment of my services, I would say to him that he was too generous for so little; my politeness bears fruit, in the winter I will obtain from him some sacks of flour for the poor. Yes, monsieur, these people have a heart when it is not spoiled. To-day, I think more good of them and less evil than in the past." "You have given yourself a great deal of care!" said Genestas. "I? not at all," replied Benassis. "It has not cost me any more to say something useful than to utter nonsense. In going among them, in talking, in laughing, I spoke to them of themselves. At first, these people would not listen to me, I had a great deal of repugnance to overcome in them, I was a bour- geois, and for them a bourgeois is an enemy. This contest amused me. Between doing good and do- ing evil there exists no other difference than that 84 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR between the peace of your conscience and its trouble; the effort is the same. If the scamps were willing to behave themselves, they would be millionaires, instead of being hanged, that is all." "Monsieur," exclaimed Jacquotte, entering, "the dinner is getting cold!" "Monsieur," said Genestas, arresting the doctor by the arm, " I have only one observation to offer you on that which I have just heard. I have no knowledge of the wars of Mahomet, so that I cannot judge of his military talents; but if you had seen the Emperor manoeuvering during the campaign of France, you would have readily taken him for a god; and if he were vanquished at Waterloo, it was that he was more than a man: he weighed too much upon the earth, and the earth turned under him, that was it! I am, moreover, perfectly of your opinion in every other respect, and, tonnerre de Dieu! the woman who bore you did not lose her time." "Come, "said Benassis, smiling, "let us go to dinner." The dining-room was entirely panelled and painted in gray. The furniture at that time consisted of some straw chairs, a buffet, closets, a stove, and the famous clock of the late cure, and white cur- tains at the windows. The table, furnished with white linen, had on it nothing suggestive of luxury. The dishes were of earthenware. The soup, made after a recipe of the late cure, was the most sub- stantial bouillon that ever a cook had boiled down. THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 85 Hardly had the doctor and his host finished their soup when a man came hastily into the kitchen and, in spite of Jacquotte, made a sudden irruption into the dining-room. "Well, what is it?" asked the doctor. "It is, monsieur, that our good woman, Madame Vigneau, has turned all white, so white that it frightens us all!" "Well!" exclaimed Benassis, cheerfully, " I must leave the table." He rose. In spite of the doctor's entreaty, Ge- nestas swore in military fashion, throwing down his napkin, that he would not remain at the table without his host, and, in fact, returned to warm himself in the salon, reflecting on the miseries which are inevitably to be encountered in every condition to which man is here below subjected. Benassis presently returned, and the two future friends returned to the table. " Taboureau came just now to speak to you," said Jacquotte to her master, bringing in the plates which she had kept warm. " Who is sick in his house?" he asked. "No one, monsieur; he wishes to consult you for himself, according to what he said, and will return." " It is well. This Taboureau," returned Benassis, addressing Genestas, " is for me a whole treatise on philosophy; watch him attentively when he comes, certainly he will amuse you. He was a laboring man, a worthy man, economical, eating little and 86 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR working much. As soon as the rogue had secured a few crowns for himself, his intelligence developed; he followed the movement which I had communicated to this poor canton, seeking to profit by it to enrich himself. In eight years he has made a large for- tune, large for this canton. He has perhaps at present some forty thousand francs. But I will give you one chance in a thousand to guess by what means he has been able to acquire this sum. He is a usurer, so thorough-going a usurer, and a usurer by a combination so well-founded upon the interests of all the inhabitants of the canton, that I should lose my time if I undertook to disabuse them con- cerning the advantages which they believe they draw from their relations with Taboureau. When this devil of a man saw everybody cultivating his land, he went about the neighborhood to purchase grain to furnish the poor with the seed which it would be necessary for them to have. Here, as every- where, the peasants, and even some farmers, have not enough money to pay for their seed. To some of them, Master Taboureau lent a sack of barley for which they returned to him a sack of rye after the harvest; to others, a setter about twelve bushels of grain for a sack of flour. To-day, my man has extended this singular species of commerce through- out the department. If nothing stops him on the way, he will gain, perhaps, a million. "Well, my dear monsieur, the workman Tabou- reau, an honest fellow, obliging, good-natured, would give a helping hand to whoever asked him; but, in THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 87 proportion to his gains, Monsieur Taboureau has be- come litigious, tricky, contemptuous. The richer he becomes, the worse he gets. As soon as the peasant passes from his purely laborious life to a comfortable living or to landed possession, he becomes insupport- able v There exists a class, half virtuous, half vicious, half learned, half ignorant, which will always be the despair of governments/^-^Tou will see a little of the spirit of this class in Taboureau; a man simple in appearance, ignorant even, but certainly deep when his own interests are concerned." The sound of a heavy step announced the arrival of the lender of grain. "Come in, Taboureau," exclaimed Benassis. Thus forewarned by the physician, the comman- dant examined the peasant and saw in Taboureau a thin man, much stooped, with a round forehead, very much wrinkled. This hollow countenance seemed pierced by two little gray eyes spotted with black. The usurer had a tight mouth, and his thin chin had a tendency to meet his nose ironically hooked. His prominent cheeks presented those diverging lines which denote a wandering life and the cunning of a dealer. His hair was already turning gray. He wore a blue vest, sufficiently clean, the square pock- ets of which flapped on his thighs, and the open skirts allowed to be seen a white, flowered waistcoat. He stood planted upon his legs, leaning upon a stick with a knobbed end. A little spaniel followed the grain merchant into the room in spite of Jacquotte, and lay down near him. 88 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR " Well, what is it?" asked Benassis. Taboureau looked with a distrustful air at the un- known person seated at the table with the doctor, and said: "It is not a case of sickness, monsieur le maire; but you know how to heal the injuries of the purse as well as those of the body, and I come to consult you about a little difficulty that we are having with a man of Saint-Laurent." " Why do you not go to see monsieur the justice of the peace, or his clerk?" "Eh! it is because monsieur is much more skilful, and I should be more sure of winning my case if I could have his approbation." "My dear Taboureau, I give willingly my medical consultations gratuitously to the poor, but I cannot examine for nothing the lawsuit of a man as rich as you are. Knowledge costs dearly to acquire." Taboureau began to twist his hat in his hand. " If you want my advice, as it will save you the big sous which you would be forced to count out to the lawyers in Grenoble, you will send a bag of rye to the woman Martin, she who brings up the hospital children." "Dame! monsieur, I will do that willingly, if it seems to you necessary. Can I relate my business without disturbing monsieur?" he added, indicating Genestas. " Well, then, monsieur," he went on, at a nod of the head from the doctor, " a man of Saint- Laurent, two months ago from now, then came to see me. ' Taboureau,' he said to me, ' could you sell me THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 89 a hundred and thirty-seven sellers of barley about 1644 bushels?' 'Why not?' I said to him; 'that is my trade. Do you want them right away?' ' No,' he said to me; ' at the beginning of spring, for March.' ' Good!' Then he disputed about the price, and, over our wine, we agreed that he should pay me for them at the price of barley at the last market at Grenoble, and that I should deliver them to him in March, deducting the loss in storage; that was under- stood. But, my dear monsieur, the barley goes up, up; there was my barley boiling up like a milk-soup. I, pressed for money, sell my barley. That was very natural, was it not, monsieur?" " No," said Benassis, " your barley no longer be- longed to you; you were only holding it for another. And, if barley had fallen, would you not have com- pelled your purchaser to take it at the price agreed upon?" " But, monsieur, he would not perhaps have paid me, that man. When you go to war, carry on war! The merchant should profit by his gains when they come to him. After all, a merchandise only belongs to you when you have paid for it; is not that true, monsieur 1'officier? for it can readily be seen that monsieur has served in the army." "Taboureau," said Benassis, gravely, "misfortune will come to you. God punishes evil actions sooner or later. How can a man as capable, as well-informed as you are, a man who carries on his business in an honorable manner, set such an example of dishon- esty in this canton? If you support such practices, 90 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR how can you expect that the poor folks will remain honest, and not steal from you? Your workmen will rob you of a part of the time which they owe to you, and everyone here will become demoralized. You are wrong. Your barley is accounted as de- livered. If it had been carried away by the man of Saint-Laurent, you would not have taken it back from him; you have therefore disposed of a thing which no longer belonged to you, your barley was already converted into current money, according to your bargain. But go on." Genestas threw at the doctor a glance of intelli- gence to call his attention to the immobility of Tabou- reau. Not a muscle of the countenance of the usurer had moved during this rebuke, his forehead had not reddened, his little eyes remained calm. "Well, monsieur, I am summoned to furnish the barley at the price of this winter; but I hold that I do not owe it." "Listen, Taboureau, deliver your barley quickly, or no longer count upon the esteem of anyone. Even if you gained such a suit as this you would be considered a man without faith or law, who did not keep his word, without honor " " Go on, do not be afraid, tell me I am a cheat, a beggar, a thief. Such things are said in business, monsieur the mayor, without offending anyone. In business, you see, everyone for himself:" " Well, why do you voluntarily place yourself in the position of meriting such terms?" " But, monsieur, if the law is on my side " THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 91 " But the law is not at all on your side." " Are you sure of that, monsieur, sure, sure? for, you see, it is an important affair." " Certainly I am sure of it. If I were not at table, I would make you read the Code. But if the suit is tried, you will lose it, and you will never set your foot in my house again. I do not wish to receive people for whom I have no respect. Understand, you will lose your case." "Ah! not at all, monsieur, I shall not lose it at all," said Taboureau. " Do you see, monsieur the mayor, it is the man of Saint-Laurent who owes me the barley; it is I who bought it of him, and it is he who refuses to deliver it to me. I wanted to be very certain that I should win before I went to see the sheriff and engaged myself in expenses." Genestas and the doctor looked at each other, concealing their surprise at the ingenious plan evolved by this man to ascertain the truth concern- ing this judicial case. " Well, Taboureau, your man is untrustworthy, and it is not necessary to make bargains with such people." " Ah ! monsieur, those people understand busi- ness." "Good-night, Taboureau." "Your servant, monsieur the mayor and the company." "Well," said Benassis, when the usurer had de- parted, "do you not think that at Paris that man would soon be a millionaire?" Q2 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR When the dinner was ended, the doctor and his lodger returned to the salon, where they conversed during the rest of the evening, while waiting for bedtime, on war and politics, a conversation during which Genestas manifested the most violent antip- athy to the English. " Monsieur," said the doctor, " may I know whom I have the honor of having for guest?" " My name is Pierre Bluteau," replied Genestas, " and I am a captain at Grenoble." " Very good, monsieur. Will you follow the re- gime that Monsieur Gravier did ? In the morning, after dejeuner, he was interested in accompanying me in my rounds in the neighborhood. It is not altogether certain that you will take pleasure in the things with which I am occupied, they are so commonplace. After all, you are neither a proprietor nor mayor of the vil- lage, and you will see in the canton nothing that you have not seen elsewhere. All the thatched cottages resemble each other; but, however, you will get the fresh air and you will give some object to your ride." "Nothing can give me more pleasure than this proposition, and I did not venture to make it to you, for fear of incommoding you." The commandant, Genestas, whose name we will preserve, notwithstanding his feigned pseudonym, was conducted by his host to a chamber situated on the first floor above the salon. "Good," said Benassis, "Jacquotte has made a fire for you. If you need anything, you will find a bell-pull at the side of your bed." THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 93 " I do not think that there can be the least thing lacking," exclaimed Genestas. " Here is even a boot- jack. It is necessary to be an old trooper to know the value of that piece of furniture! In war, mon- sieur, it happens more than once that you would be willing to burn a house down to get a beast of a boot-jack. After a number of marches, and es- pecially after an action, it sometimes happens that the feet, swollen in the wet leather, will yield to no effort; I have gone to sleep more than once in my boots. When one is alone, the misfortune is, how- ever, supportable."' The commandant winked, to give to these last words a sort of artful profundity; then he began to look about him, not without surprise, at a chamber in which everything was commodious, clean, and almost rich. "What luxury!" said he. "You must be mar- vellously well lodged? " " Come and see," said the doctor; " I am your neighbor, we are separated only by the stairway." Genestas was sufficiently surprised to perceive on entering the physician's room a bare chamber, the walls of which were ornamented only by an old yellowish paper with brown rosettes, and discol- ored in places. The bedstead, of iron, coarsely varnished, which had over it a wooden rod from which fell two curtains of gray calico, and at its foot a wretched narrow carpet, worn threadbare, resem- bled a bed in a hospital. At the side of the bed was one of those night-tables with four feet, the rolling 94 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR front of which opens and shuts, making a noise like castanets. Three chairs, two armchairs in straw, a chest of drawers in walnut, on which was a basin and a very ancient water-pot, the cover of which was secured by leaden hinges, completed this furnish- ing. The chimney-hearth was cold, and all the articles necessary for shaving were displayed on the painted stone of the mantel, before an old mirror hung on the wall by a bit of cord. The tiled floor, cleanly swept, was worn in several places, broken and sunk. Curtains of gray calico bordered with green fringes ornamented the two windows. Every- thing, even to the round table, on which were strewn some papers, an inkstand, and some pens, every- thing in this simple picture, on which the extreme cleanliness maintained by Jacquotte stamped a sort of correctness, gave the idea of a life almost mo- nastic, indifferent to things and full of sentiments. An open door allowed the commandant to see into a cabinet, in which the doctor doubtless occupied himself very little. This apartment was in a condi- tion nearly similar to that of the bed-chamber. A few dusty books lay scattered upon the dusty boards, and the shelves filled with labelled bottles indicated that pharmacy there occupied more space than science. " You are going to ask me why this difference between your chamber and mine?" said Benassis. " Listen. I have always been ashamed of those who lodge their guests under the roof, and give them those mirrors which disfigure you to such a degree THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 95 that, in looking in them, you think yourself either smaller or larger than life, or ill, or struck with apoplexy. Should we not endeavor to make our friends find their temporary apartment the most agreeable one possible? Hospitality seems to me at once a virtue, a happiness, and a luxury; but, under whatever aspect you consider it, not excepting the case in which it is a mercantile speculation, is it not necessary to display for your guest and for your friend all the cajoleries, all the blandishments of life? " In your room, then, are the handsome furniture, the warm carpet, the draperies, the clock, the candlesticks, and the night light; the wax candle is for you, for you all the cares of Jacquotte, who has doubtless brought for you new slippers, milk, and her warming-pan. I hope that you will never have been more comfortably seated than you will be in the soft armchair, the discovery of which was made by the defunct cure, I do not know where; but it is true that in everything, in order to find patterns of the good, the handsome, the commodious, we must have recourse to the Church. In short, I hope that in your chamber everything will please you. You will find there good razors, excellent soap, and all those little accessories which make home life such a pleasant thing. But, my dear Monsieur Bluteau, though my opinions concerning hospitality do not fully explain the difference between our two apart- ments, you will doubtless understand remarkably well the bareness of my chamber and the disorder of 96 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR my cabinet when to-morrow you will witness the comings and the goings which take place in my house. In the first place, my life is not an indoors one, I am always abroad. If 1 remain at home, the peasants are coming to see me at every moment; I belong to them, body, soul, and bed-chamber. Can I give myself all the cares of etiquette and those caused by the inevitable damages which would be inflicted upon my property involuntarily by these worthy people? Luxury is suitable only in hotels, in chateaux, in boudoirs, and in the chambers of friends. Finally, I am hardly ever here but to sleep; of what use, then, to me are the furnishings of wealth? Moreover, you do not know how in- different to me is everything here below!" They wished each other a friendly good-night, grasping each other's hands cordially, and they went to bed. The commandant did not fall asleep till he had reflected long upon this man who, from hour to hour, constantly increased in his esteem. II ACROSS THE COUNTRY The friendship which every horseman feels for his steed drew Genestas in the morning to the stable, and he was satisfied with the care taken of his horse by Nicolle. "Already up, Commandant Bluteau?" exclaimed Benassis, coming to meet his guest. "You are in- deed a soldier, you hear the morning gun every- where, even in town!" "Is everything well?" Genestas replied, offering him his hand with a friendly gesture. "I am never positively well," replied Benassis, in a tone half sad and half cheerful. "Has monsieur slept well?" said Jacquotte to Genestas. "Parbleu! ma belle, you made the bed as if it were for a bride." Jacquotte, smiling, followed her master and the military man. After seeing them seated at table: "He is a good fellow, all the same, monsieur Pofficier," she said to Nicolle. " I think so indeed, he has already given me forty sous!" 7 (97) Q8 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR " We will begin by going to visit two dead peo- ple," said Benassis to his guest as they left the dining-room. " Although the physicians rarely wish to find themselves face to face with their so-called victims, I will take you to two houses in which you can make a sufficiently curious observation of hu- man nature. You will there see two scenes which will prove to you how much the mountaineers differ from the inhabitants of the plain in the expression of their feelings. That part of our canton which is situated upon the high peaks preserves customs tinged with an antique color and which recall vaguely scenes from the Bible. There is, upon the chain of our mountains, a line traced by nature on each side of which everything is different in aspect, above it, strength; below it, dexterity; above, lofty sentiments; below, a perpetual concern for the inter- ests of material life. With the exception of the valley of Ajou, of which the northern slope is peopled by imbeciles and the southern by intelli- gent people, two populations which, separated only by a stream, are dissimilar in every respect, stature, carriage, physiognomy, manners, occupation, I have nowhere seen this difference more marked than it is here. This fact should oblige the administrators of a country to undertake very serious studies relative to the application of the laws to the masses. But the horses are ready; let us go!" The two horsemen presently arrived at a habita- tion situated in that part of the district which faced the mountains of the Grande-Chartreuse. At the door THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 99 of this house, which appeared to be sufficiently neat, they perceived a coffin covered by a black cloth, placed upon two chairs, surrounded by four candles; upon a stool was a copper platter, in which a sprig of boxwood was steeping in the holy water. Each passer-by entered the court, went and kneeled before the body, said a Pater, and sprinkled a few drops of holy water upon the bier. Above the black cloth rose the green bunches of a jessamine planted by the side of the door, and over the impost ran the tor- tuous branches of a vine already in leaf. A young girl was finishing sweeping before the house, obeying that vague necessity of making things presentable which all ceremonies, even the saddest of all, make felt. The eldest son of the dead man, a young peas- ant of twenty-two, was standing motionless, leaning against the side of the door. There were in his eyes tears which welled up without falling, or which, per- haps, at moments he endeavored to dry unperceived. At the moment when Benassis and Genestas entered the court, after having fastened their horses to one of the poplars growing along a little wall breast-high, over which they had surveyed this scene, the widow came out of her stable, accompanied by a woman who carried a pot full of milk. "Take courage, my poor Pelletier," said the lat- ter. "Ah! my dear woman, when one has lived twenty- five years with a man, it is very hard to separate from him!" And her eyes filled with tears. 100 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR " Will you pay the two sous?" she added, after a pause, extending her hand to her neighbor. "Ah! to be sure, I forgot," said the other woman, offering her her coin. " Come, now, console your- self, neighbor. Ah! here is Monsieur Benassis." "Well, my poor mother, are you getting on better?" asked the doctor. 11 Dame! my dear monsieur," she replied, weep- ing, " it is necessary to keep about, all the same. I say to myself that my man will suffer no more. He suffered so much! But come in, messieurs. Jacques, give these messieurs some chairs. Come, now, move yourself. Pardi! you will not bring your poor father to life, if you should stay there a hun- dred years! And now, you will have to work for two." " No, no, my good woman, leave your son where he is; we will not sit down. You have there a lad who will take care of you, and who is quite capable of taking his father's place." " Go then and dress yourself, Jacques," exclaimed the widow, " they are coming to get it." "Well, then, adieu, mother," said Benassis. "Messieurs, your servant." " You see," said the physician, " here death is ac- cepted as a foreseen accident which does not interfere with the family course of life, and mourning even is not worn. In the villages no one wishes to go to this expense, whether through poverty or through econ- omy. In the country-places the wearing of mourn- ing, then, does not exist. Now, monsieur, mourning THE COUNTRY DOCTOR IOI is neither a custom nor a law; it is something much better, it is an institution which is related to all those laws the observance of which depends upon the same principle, morality. " Well, notwithstanding our efforts, neither Mon- sieur Janvier nor I have been able to make our peasants comprehend the great importance of public demonstrations for the maintenance of the social order. These honest people, emancipated yesterday, are not yet prepared to appreciate the new relations which should connect them with these general ideas; as yet, they have gotten as far only as those ideas which lead to order and physical well-being; later, if some one continue my work, they will arrive at the principles which serve to preserve the public rights. f In fact, it is not sufficient to be an honest man, it is ( necessary to seem so. Society does not exist alone through ideas of morality; in order to maintain itself, it has need of actions in harmony with these ideas. " In the greater number of the rural communities, among a hundred families which death has deprived of their head, only a few individuals, endowed with a quick sensibility, will keep this dead man long in re- membrance; but all the others will have completely forgotten him in the course of the year. Is not this forgetfulness a great misfortune? A religion is the heart of a people, it expresses their feelings and en- larges them in giving them an object; but, without a God, visibly honored, religion does not exist, and in consequence human laws have no strength. If con- science belongs to God alone, the body falls under 102 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR the sway of the social law; now, is it not the begin- ning of atheism to thus efface the outward signs of a religious sorrow, not to indicate clearly to children who have not yet begun to reflect, and to all those who have need of examples, the necessity of obedi- ence to laws by a visible resignation to the orders of Providence, which afflicts and consoles, which gives and takes away the goods of this world? I admit that, after having passed through days of mocking incredulity, I have here come to comprehend the value of religious ceremonies, those of family solem- nities, the importance of the customs and festivals of the family circle. The basis of human societies will always be the family. There begins the action of power and of the law; there, at least, should obedi- ence be learned. The family spirit and the paternal authority, considered in all their relations, are two principles as yet too little developed in our new legis- lative system. The family, the commune, the de- partment, all our country, however, rests on these. The laws should, therefore, be based upon these three great divisions. " In my opinion, the marriage of betrothed couples, the birth of children, the death of fathers, cannot be surrounded by too many observances. That which has given Catholicism its strength, that which has so deeply rooted it in manners and customs, is pre- cisely the state with which it appears in the solemn circumstances of life to environ them with a pomp so simply affecting, so grand, when the priest elevates himself to the height of his mission and when he THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 103 knows how to bring his office into harmony with the sublimity of Christian morality. Formerly I consid- ered the Catholic religion as a mass of bigotry and of superstition, skilfully manipulated, which an intelli- gent civilization should reform. Here, I have recog- nized the political necessity and the moral utility of it; here, I have comprehended the power of it by the very meaning of the word which expresses it. Re- ligion signifies bond, and certainly the worship, or, in other words, the religion expressed, constitutes the only force which can bind together the social elements and give them a durable form. " Here, in short, I have found the balm with which religion soothes the wounds of life; without dis- cussing it, I have felt that it accords admirably with the passionate natures and manners of the southern nations. Take the road which ascends," said the doctor, interrupting himself; "we must reach the plateau. From there, we will overlook the two val- leys, and you will enjoy a beautiful spectacle. At an elevation of about three thousand feet above the Mediterranean, we shall see Savoy and Dauphiny, the mountains of the Lyonnais and the Rhone. We shall be in another commune, a mountainous com- mune, in which you will see in one of Monsieur Gra- vier's farms the spectacle of which I have spoken to you, that natural pomp which realizes my ideas con- cerning the great events of life. In this commune, mourning is worn religiously. The poor solicit con- tributions in order to be able to purchase for them- selves their black garments. In these circumstances, IO4 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR no one refuses them succor. There are but very few days in which a widow does not speak of her loss, always with weeping; and ten years after her mis- fortune her feelings are as deep as the day after. There, the manners are patriarchal, the father's authority is unlimited, his word is law; he eats alone, seated at the upper end of the table; his wife and his children wait on him, those around him do not speak to him without employing certain respectful formulas, before him everyone stands, and uncovered. " Brought up in this manner, men have the instinct of their grandeur. These customs constitute, in my eyes, a noble education. Thus, in this commune, the inhabitants are generally just, economical, and in- dustrious. It is the custom for each father of a family to divide his property equally among his children when age forbids him to work longer; his children then maintain him. During the last century, an old man of ninety, after having made his division among his four children, went to live three months of the year with each of them. When he left the eldest to go to the youngest, one of his friends asked him: 'Well, are you satisfied?' 'Upon my word, yes,' replied the old man, ' they have treated me as though I were their child.' This speech, monsieur, appeared so remarkable to an officer named Vauvenargues, a celebrated moral philosopher, then in garrison at Grenoble, that he repeated it in several salons in Paris, where this fine phrase was recorded by a writer named Chamfort. Well, there are often spoken THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 105 among us words more remarkable than these, but they want historians worthy of hearing them " " I have seen the Moravian brethren, the Lollards in Bohemia and Hungary," said Genestas; "they are Christians who bear considerable resemblance to your mountaineers. These brave people endure the evils of war with an angelic patience." " Monsieur," replied the doctor, " simple manners should be nearly similar in all countries. The true has only one form. In point of fact, life in the coun- try kills many ideas, but it weakens the vices and develops the virtues. In fact, the fewer men there are to be found gathered together upon one point, the fewer crimes there are to be met with, the fewer mis- demeanors, evil sentiments. The purity of the air counts for a good deal in the innocence of manners." The two horsemen, who had been ascending at a walk a stony road, finally arrived on the top of the plateau of which Benassis had spoken. This elevated plain surrounds a very lofty peak, completely bare, which overlooks it, and on which there is no sign of vegetation; the summit is gray, cleft in many places, abrupt and not to be scaled; the fertile land, enclosed by rocks, lies under this peak and surrounds it in an irregular shape to the extent of about a hundred arpents. To the south the eye perceives through an immense opening the French Maurienne, Dauphiny, the rocks of Savoy, and the distant mountains of the Lyonnais. As Genestas turned to contemplate this extended scene, then widely lit up by the spring sunshine, the sound of mournful cries was heard. 106 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR " Come," said Benassis to him, "the chanting has begun. Chanting is the name which is given to this part of the funeral ceremonies." The officer then perceived, on the western slope of the peak, the buildings of a considerable farm which formed a perfect square. The arched entrance, all in granite, has a certain grandeur, which is height- ened by the antiquity of this construction, the age of the trees which surround it, and the plants which cling to its angles. The main dwelling is at the back of the court, on each side of which are situated the barns, the sheepfolds, the stables, cattle-stalls, the wagon- houses, and, in the midst, the great pool of water in which the manure is steeping. This courtyard, the aspect of which is usually so animated in the rich and populous farms, was at this moment silent and gloomy. The gate of the poultry-yard was closed, the animals were all shut up in their stables, from which their various sounds could scarcely be heard. The stables, the cow-houses, were all carefully closed. The path which led up to the house had been swept. This perfect order where disorder habitually reigned, this lack of movement and this silence in so noisy a place, the calm of the mountain, the shadow thrown by the summit of the peak, all contributed to affect the mind. Accustomed as he was to strong impressions, Genestas could not repress a thrill when he saw a dozen men and women in tears, arranged outside the door of the great hall, who were all crying: "The master is dead!" with a frightful sameness of THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 107 intonation and twice repeated, during the interval which he occupied in arriving at the door of the farmer's dwelling. When this cry was ended, the sound of mourning was heard from the interior, and the voice of a woman came through the win- dows. " I would not venture to intrude into this sorrow," said Genestas to Benassis. " I always come to visit the families afflicted by death," replied the physician, " partly to see that no accident caused by grief has happened, partly to verify the decease; you can accompany me without any scruples; moreover, the scene is so imposing, and we shall find so many people, that you will not be noticed." As he followed the doctor, Genestas saw, in fact, that the first room was full of relatives. Both of them passed through this assembly, and placed themselves near the door of a bedroom adjoining the great hall which served as kitchen and general gathering-place for the whole family, it should rather be said, for the colony, for the length of the table indicated the habitual residence of some forty per- sons. The arrival of Benassis interrupted the dis- course of a tall woman, simply clothed, whose hair was thin, and who retained in her own the hand of the dead with a touching movement. The latter, clothed in his best, was extended stiffly upon his bed, the curtains of which had been lifted. This calm countenance, which seemed to breathe of Heaven, and, above all, the white hair, produced a 108 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR dramatic effect. On each side of the bed stood the children and the nearest relatives of the two spouses, each line keeping on its own side, the rela- tives of the wife on the left, those of the deceased on the right. Men and women, they were all kneel- ing and praying, the greater number were weeping. The bed was surrounded by wax tapers. The cure of the parish and his assistants had their post in the middle of the chamber, around the open coffin. It was a tragic spectacle, to see the head of this family in presence of the coffin which was ready to swallow him up forever. "Ah! my dear lord," said the widow, pointing to the doctor, " if the science of the best of men has not been able to save thee, it was doubtless written above that thou shouldst precede me into the grave! Yes, see it cold, this hand which has pressed mine with so much friendship! I have lost forever my dear companion, and our household has lost its precious head, for thou wast truly our guide. Alas! all those who weep for thee with me have been well acquainted with the light of thy heart and all the value of thy character, but I, alone, knew how sweet and patient thou wast! Ah! my spouse, my hus- band, it is then necessary to say adieu to thee, to thee, our support, to thee, my good master! and we, thy children, for thou didst cherish us all equally, we have all lost our father!" The widow threw herself upon the body, clasped it close, covered it with tears, warmed it with kisses; and, during this pause, the servants cried: THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 109 " The master is dead!" "Yes," resumed the widow, "he is dead, this dear man, dearly-beloved, who gave us our bread, who planted, gathered for us, and watched over our happiness whilst conducting us through life with an authority full of mildness; I can say it now in his praise, he never gave me the slightest grief, he was good, strong, patient; and when we tortured him in order to restore to him his precious health, ' Let me alone, my children, all is in vain!' this dear lamb said to us in the same voice in which he said to us a few days before: ' Everything is going well, my friends!' Yes, O God! a few days sufficed to take from us the joy of this house and to darken our life by closing the eyes of the best of men, of the most upright, of the most venerated, of a man who had not his equal for managing the plough, who traversed fearlessly our mountains night and day, and who, on his return, always smiled on his wife and his children. Ah! he was indeed our love, for all of us! When he was absent, the hearth became sad, we could not eat with good appetite. Oh! what will it be now, when our guardian angel is placed under ground and when we shall never see him more? Never, my friends! never, my good rela- tives! never, my children! Yes, my children have lost their good father, our relatives have lost their good relation, my friends have lost a good friend, and I, I have lost all, as the house has lost its master!" She took the hand of the dead man, kneeled down 110 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR to better press her face against it, and kissed it. The servants cried three times: " The master is dead!" At this moment the eldest son came up to his mother and said to her: " Mother, here are the people from Saint-Laurent coming, they will want some wine." "My son," she replied, in a low voice, quitting the solemn and lamentable tone in which she had given expression to her feelings, "take the keys, you are the master within this house; see that they find here the welcome which your father would have given them, and that nothing here seem changed to them. That I might see thee once more to my comfort, my honorable husband!" she resumed. "But, alas! thou no longer feelest me, I can no longer warm thee again! Ah! all that I could wish would be to console thee still in causing thee to know that, so long as I live, thou wilt dwell in this heart which thou hast gladdened, that I shall be happy in the memory of my happiness, and that thy dear remembrance shall remain in this chamber. Yes, it shall always be full of thee, so long as God leaves me here. Listen to me, my dear husband! I swear to keep thy bed as it now is. I have never entered it without thee, let it then remain empty and cold. In losing thee, I have indeed lost all that makes a woman, master, spouse, father, friend, companion, man, everything!" " The master is dead! " cried the servants. During this cry, which became general, the widow THE COUNTRY DOCTOR III took the scissors hanging at her girdle and cut off her hair, which she placed in her husband's hand. There was a deep silence. " That action signifies that she will not marry again," said Benassis. "Many relatives expected this resolution on her part." " Take it, my dear lord! " she said, with an effu- sion of voice and of heart which affected everyone; " guard in the tomb the faith which I have sworn to thee. We shall thus be always united, and I shall remain among thy children for love of that lineage which rejoiced thy soul. Oh, that thou couldst hear me, my husband, my only treasure, and learn that thou wilt still make me live, thou dead, to obey thy sacred wishes, and to honor thy memory!" Benassis pressed the hand of Genestas as an invitation to follow him, and they went out. The outer room was full of people who had come from another commune, also among the mountains; all of them were silent and thoughtful, as if the sorrow and mourning which filled this house had already affected them. As Benassis and the commandant passed the threshold, they overheard these words, said by one of these chance guests to the son of the deceased: "When did he die?" " Ah! " exclaimed the eldest son, who was a man of twenty-five, "I did not see him die! He called me, and I was not there!" His sobs interrupted him, but he continued: " The evening before, he said to me: ' Son, thou 112 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR wilt go to the town to pay our taxes; the ceremony of my funeral will cause it to be forgotten, and we shall be in arrears, which has never yet happened.' He seemed to be better, and I went. During my absence he died without my receiving his last em- braces! In his last hour he did not see me by his side, as I had always been." " The master is dead! " cried the mourners. " Alas! he is dead, and I have received neither his last look nor his last sigh. And how could we have thought of the taxes? Would it not have been better to have lost all our money rather than to leave the house? Can all our fortune pay for his last adieu? No. Mon Dieu, if thy father is ill, never leave him, Jean; thou wilt give thyself remorse for the rest of thy life." " My friend," said Genestas to him, " I have seen thousands of men die on battle-fields, and Death did not wait for their children to come to say adieu to them; therefore console yourself, you are not the only one." " A father, my dear monsieur," he replied, break- ing into tears, " a father who was such a good man!" " This funeral oration," said Benassis, directing Genestas toward the farm buildings, "will be con- tinued until the moment when the body is placed in the coffin, and during all that time the words of this weeping wife will increase in violence and in forcible figures of speech. But, to speak thus before this imposing assembly, it is necessary that a wife should have acquired the right by a spotless life. If the THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 113 widow had the least fault with which to reproach herself, she would not venture to say a single word; otherwise, it would be to condemn herself; to be at once accuser and judge. Is not this custom, which serves to judge the dead and the living, sublime? The mourning will not be assumed till a week later, in general assembly. During this week the rela- tives will remain with the children and the widow, to aid them in arranging their affairs and to console them. This gathering has a great influence upon the minds; it represses the evil passions by that human respect which takes possession of men when they are in the presence of each other. Finally, on the day when mourning is put on, there takes place a solemn repast, at which all the relatives say adieu. All this is grave, and he who would be found wanting in the duties which are imposed by the death of the head of a family would have no one at his own funeral chant." At this moment, the doctor, being near the cattle stables, opened the door and caused the commandant to enter that he might see them. "Look, captain, all our stables have been rebuilt on this model. Is it not superb?" Genestas could not but admire this vast establish- ment, in which the cows and the oxen were ranged in two rows, their tails turned toward the lateral walls, and their heads toward the middle of the stable, into which they entered by a sufficiently wide passage running between them and the wall; through their open mangers could be seen their horned heads 8 114 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR and their brilliant eyes. The master could thus readily pass his cattle in review. The fodder, placed overhead among the rafters, where a species of ceiling had been arranged, fell into the racks without trouble or loss. Between the two rows of mangers was a large paved space, clean and well aired. " During the winter," said Benassis, walking about with Genestas in the middle of the stable, "the evening gatherings and the work take place here in common. Tables are arranged, and every- one thus warms himself economically. The sheep- folds are also built upon this system. You would not believe how readily the animals become accus- tomed to order; I have often admired them when they came in, each one of them knows her place, and allows those which should do so to enter first. You see, there is plenty of room between the animal and the wall to allow of their being milked or cared for; then the floor is inclined in such a manner that the liquids drain off easily." " By this stable you can judge of all the rest," said Genestas; " without wishing to flatter you, these are, indeed, fine results." " They have not been obtained without trouble," replied Benassis; "but, moreover, what cattle!" "Certainly, they are magnificent, and you were justified in praising them to me," replied Genestas. "Now," said the doctor, when he was mounted and had passed through the gate, "we will ride across our new clearings and the grain lands, the THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 115 little corner of my commune which I have named La Beauce." For about an hour the two horsemen rode across the fields, on the fine cultivation of which the soldier complimented the physician; then they came out again on the territory of the town by following the slope of the mountain, sometimes talking and some- times silent, as the pace of their horses permitted them to converse or obliged them to be silent. " I promised you yesterday," said Benassis to Genestas as they entered a little gorge by which they issued into the great valley, " to show you one of the two soldiers who returned from the army after the fall of Napoleon. If I am not mistaken, we shall find him at a few steps from here, digging out again a sort of natural reservoir in which the streams from the mountain are gathered, and which the earth brought down has filled up. But, to render this man interesting to you, it is necessary to relate to you his life. His name is Gondrin; he was taken by the great conscription of 1792, at the age of eighteen, and enrolled in the artillery. As a private soldier he made the campaigns of Italy under Napoleon, fol- lowed him to Egypt, returned from the east after the Peace of Amiens; then, regimented under the Em- pire in the pontoon builders of the Guard, he served constantly in Germany. Finally, the poor fellow was sent to Russia." "We are in some respects brothers," said Ge- nestas; " I have made the same campaigns. It required constitutions of iron to resist the caprices Il6 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR of so many different climates! Upon my word! the good Lord must have given some patent for living to those who are still on their pins after having trav- ersed Italy, Egypt, Germany, Portugal, and Russia!" " So you are now going to see a fine stump of a man," replied Benassis. "You know all about the rout, it is useless torepeat it to you. My man was one of t\^xmtonniers^ of the Beresina; he aided in constructing the bridge over which the army passed, and, in order to place firmly the first trestles, he worked in the water up to his waist. General Eble, under whose orders were the pontonniers, could find only forty-two of them who were hairy enough, as Gondrin says, to undertake this work. Indeed, the general went into the water himself, encouraging them, consoling them, promising to each one a thou- sand francs of pension and the cross of the Legion. The first man who entered the Beresina had his leg carried off by a large block of ice, and the man fol- lowed his leg. But you will comprehend better the difficulties of the enterprise by the results, of the forty-two pontonniers there remains to-day only Gondrin. Thirty-nine of them perished at the pas- sage of the Beresina, and the other two ended miserably in the hospitals in Poland. This poor soldier did not return from Wilna till 1814, after the restoration of the Bourbons. General Eble, of whom Gondrin never speaks without tears in his eyes, was dead. The pontonnier, become deaf, infirm, and unable either to read or write, found, therefore, neither support nor defender. THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 117 " Having arrived at Paris by begging his bread, he there made application at the offices of the minister of war to obtain, not the thousand francs of pension promised, not the cross of the Legion, but simply the pension from the army to which he was en- titled after twenty-two years of service, and I do not know how many campaigns: but he received neither back pay, nor travelling expenses, nor pen- sion. After a year of useless solicitation, during which he had extended his hand to all those whom he had saved, the pontonnier returned here in de- spair, but resigned. This unknown hero digs ditches at ten sous a fathom. Accustomed to working in swamps, he has, as he says, the specialty of tasks which no other workman cares to undertake. By cleaning out pools, by digging ditches in the inun- dated meadows, he can make about three francs a day. His deafness gives him a melancholy air; he is naturally but little of a talker, but he has a good heart. We are very good friends. He dines with me on the days of the battle of Austerlitz, of the fe"te of the Emperor, of the disaster of Waterloo, and at dessert I present him with a Napoleon to pay for his wine for three months. The feeling of respect which I have for this man is, moreover, shared by the whole commune, which would not ask for anything better than to take care of him. If he works, it is through pride. In every house that he enters, everyone honors him as I do and asks him to dinner. I have been able to get him to accept my twenty-franc piece only as a portrait of Il8 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR the Emperor. The injustice with which he has been treated has deeply grieved him, but he regrets the cross even more than he desires his pension. One thing only consoles him. When General Eble pre- sented the surviving pontonniers to the Emperor after the construction of the bridges, Napoleon embraced our poor Gondrin, who, had it not been for that accolade, would have perhaps been dead before this; he lives only through this souvenir and in the hope of Napoleon's return; nothing can convince him of his death, and, persuaded as he is, that his captivity is due to the English, I believe that he would kill under the slightest pretext the best of aldermen travelling for his pleasure." " Come on, come on!" exclaimed Genestas, rous- ing himself from the close attention with which he had been listening to the doctor, "let us go more quickly, I wish to see this man." And the two horsemen put their steeds at a rapid trot. "The other soldier," resumed Benassis, "is also one of those men of iron who have rolled about in the armies. He has lived, as live all the French soldiers, on balls, on blows, on victories; he has suffered greatly and has never worn any but epau- lettes of wool. He has a jovial character, he fanat- ically loves Napoleon, who gave him the cross on the field of battle of Valontina. A true Dauphinois, he has always taken care of his affairs; so he has his pension of retirement and his Legionary honors. He is an infantry soldier, named Goguelat, who entered THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 1 19 the Guard in 1812. He is, in some sort, Gondrin's housekeeper. Both of them live in the house of the widow of a hawker, to whom they hand their money; the good woman lodges them, feeds them, clothes them, takes care of them as if they were her chil- dren. Goguelat is here the carrier of the mail. In this capacity, he is the bearer of news for the can- ton, and the habit of relating it has made him the orator of the evening gatherings, the official story- teller; therefore Gondrin regards him as a wit, as a keen satirist. When Goguelat speaks of Napoleon, the pontonnier seems to divine his words from the mere movement of his lips. If they come this even- ing to the gathering which takes place in one of my barns, and we can see them without being seen, I will enable you to be a spectator. But here we are in the neighborhood of the ditch, and I do not see my friend, the pontonnier." The doctor and the commandant looked attentively around them; they saw only the shovel, the pick, the wheelbarrow, the military jacket of Gondrin near a pile of black mud, but no sign of the man in the differ- ent rocky water-courses, species of capricious hollows, almost all of them shaded by small bushes and trees. " He cannot be far away. Ohe! Gondrin!" cried Benassis. Genestas then perceived the smoke of a pipe among the foliage of a pile of rubbish, and pointed it out to the doctor, who repeated his cry. Presently the old pontonnier thrust out his head, recognized the mayor, and descended by a little path. 120 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR "Well, my ancient," cried Benassis to him, making a species of speaking-trumpet with the palm of his hand, " here is a comrade, an Egyptian, who has wished to see you." Gondrin promptly lifted his eyes to Genestas and threw upon him that profound and investigating glance which the old soldiers have learned through being obliged to measure their dangers promptly. When he saw the red ribbon of the commandant, he silently carried the back of his hand to his forehead. " If the shaven little man were still living," cried the officer to him, " thou wouldst have the cross and a fine pension, for thou savedst the lives of all those who wore epaulettes and who found themselves on the other side of the river on the first of October, 1812; but, my friend," added the commandant, dis- mounting and taking his hand with a sudden effusion of feeling, " I am not the minister of war." On hearing these words, the old pontonnier straight- ened himself on his legs after having carefully shaken out the ashes of his pipe and put it in his pocket; then he said, lowering his head: " I only did my duty, my officer, but the others have not done theirs toward me. They asked me for my papers! ' My papers?' I said to them, ' why, they are the twenty-ninth bulletin!' " "We must demand again, comrade. With some influence, it is to-day impossible that thou shouldst not obtain justice." "Justice!" exclaimed the old pontonnier, in a tone which thrilled the doctor and the commandant. THE PONTONNIER OF THE BERESINA Genestas then perceived the smoke of a pipe among the foliage of a pile of rubbish, and pointed it out to the doctor, who repeated his cry. Presently the old pontonnier thrust out his head, recognized the mayor, and descended by a little path. . /. . , THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 121 There was a moment of silence, during which the two horsemen looked at this remnant of those soldiers of bronze whom Napoleon had culled out of three generations. Gondrin was certainly a fine specimen of that indestructible mass which broke without bending. This old man was scarcely five feet tall, his chest and his shoulders were prodigiously de- veloped; his countenance, tanned, furrowed with wrinkles, sunken but muscular, preserved still some traces of martial character. Everything about him betrayed a sort of roughness, his forehead seemed to be of stone; his hair, scarce and gray, fell in feeble locks as if already life were failing in his fatigued head; his arms, covered with hair, as well as his chest, part of which was exposed by the opening of his coarse shirt, revealed an extraordinary strength. And, finally, he was set upon his almost crooked legs as upon an unshakable base. "Justice?" he repeated, "there will never be any of that for such as we! We have no summons- servers to demand our just dues. And, as it is necessary to keep the bottle filled," he continued, striking his stomach, " we have not the time to wait. So that, seeing that the word of those who pass their lives in warming themselves in official bureaus has not the worth of vegetables, I have returned here to take my daily living out of the common funds," said he, striking the mud with his shovel. " My old comrade, things cannot go on in this way!" said Genestas. " I owe my life to you, and I should be an ingrate if I did not give you aid! I 122 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR remember passing over the bridges of the Beresina; I know some good fellows who also keep the memory of that always fresh, and they will second me in having you recompensed by the country as you de- serve." " They will call you a Bonapartist! Do not meddle with that, my officer. Moreover, I have fallen to the rear, and I have made my hole here like a spent bul- let. Only, I did not expect, after having traversed the desert on camels, and after having drunk a glass of wine at the corner of the fire in Moscow, to die under the trees which my father had planted," he said, as he resumed his work. " Poor old fellow," said Genestas. " In his place, I would do as he does; we no longer have our father. Monsieur," said he to Benassis, "the resig- nation of this man makes me very melancholy; he does not know how much he interests me, and he will believe that I am one of those gilded beggars who are insensible to the miseries of the soldier." He returned abruptly, seized the pontonnier by the hand, and cried in his ear: " By the cross which I wear, and which formerly signified honor, I swear to do all that is humanly possible to undertake to obtain a pension for you, though I have to swallow ten refusals from the minister, to solicit the king, the dauphin, and the whole shop!" When he heard these words, the old Gondrin shivered, looked at Genestas, and said to him: "You have, then, been a private soldier?" THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 123 The commandant nodded his head. At this sign the pontonnier wiped his hand, took that of Genestas, grasped it with a heartfelt pressure, and said to him: " My general, when I went into the water over there, I gave to the army my life as alms; well, there has been gain, since I am still on my spurs. Wait, now, would you like to know all about it? Well, since the other has been turned off, I no longer have any taste for anything. Finally, they have assigned me this place," he added, gayly, indicating the earth, " twenty thousand francs ,to take, and I am paying myself in detail, as that other said." " Come, comrade," said Genestas, affected by the sublimity of this pardon, " you will have here at least the only thing which you cannot prevent me from giving you." The commandant struck his heart, looked at the pontonnier a moment, remounted his horse, and con- tinued his ride by the side of Benassis. " It is such administrative cruelties as this which foment the war of the poor against the rich," said the doctor. " Those to whom power is temporarily confided have never thought seriously of the neces- sary results of an injustice committed against a man of the people. A poor man, obliged to gain his daily bread, does not contest for long, it is true; but he speaks, and finds an echo in all suffering hearts. A single iniquity is thus multiplied by the number of those who feel themselves injured by it. This leaven ferments. It is nothing as yet; there results 124 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR from it a greater evil. These injustices develop in the people a silent hatred for social superiority. The bourgeois becomes and remains the enemy of the poor, who put him outside the law, deceive him and rorj> him. For the poor, robbery is neither a misde- meanor nor a crime, it is a vengeance. If, when it is a question of rendering justice to the feeble, an administrator illtreats them and filches from them their acquired rights, how can we exact from the unfortunate without bread resignation under their trials, and respect for property? I shudder in think- ing that some clerk in a bureau, whose function it is to dust off the documents, has received the thousand francs of pension promised to Gondrin. And certain individuals, who have never measured the excess of sufferings, accuse the popular vengeances of excess! But on the day when the government causes more individual unhappiness than prosperity, its over- throw depends only upon a chance; in overturning it, the people settle their accounts in their own manner. A statesman should always depict to him- self the poor at the feet of Justice; she was invented only for them!" When they arrived in the precincts of the town, Benassis saw two persons walking in the road, and said to the commandant, who had been riding for some time in deep thought: " You have seen the resigned poverty of a veteran of the army; now you will see that of an old agricultu- rist. There is a man who, during the whole of his life, has dug, cultivated, sown, and harvested for others." THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 125 Genestas then perceived a poor old man who was walking with an old woman. The man appeared to be suffering from some sciatic trouble, and hobbled along painfully, his feet in wretched sabots. He carried on his shoulder a wallet, in the pouch of which shook about some instruments, the handles of which, blackened by long usage and by sweat, pro- duced a slight rattling; the pouch behind contained his bread, some raw onions, and some nuts. His legs seemed to be warped. His back, bowed by the habits of labor, obliged him to walk stooping, so that, to preserve his equilibrium, he leaned upon a long stick. His hair, white as snow, fell from under a shabby hat, reddened by exposure to the weather, and sewed up with white thread. His garments, of coarse stuff, pieced in a hundred places, presented various contrasts of color. It was a sort of human ruin, in which were lacking none of the characteristics that render ruins so affecting. His wife, a little straighter than he, but likewise covered with rags, wearing a coarse cap, carried on her back a stone- ware vase, round and flat, held by a cord passed through the handles. They raised their heads when they heard the sounds of the horses' hoofs, recognized Benassis, and stopped. These two old people, the one disabled by hard labor, the other, his faithful companion, equally decrepit, displayed, both of them, countenances in which the features were effaced by the wrinkles; the skin, blackened by the sun, and hardened by the intemperance of the weather, was pitiful to see. If the history of 126 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR their life had not been engraved on their physiog- nomies, their attitudes would have revealed it. Both of them had toiled unceasingly, and ceaselessly suf- fered together, having many evils and very few pleasures to share; they appeared to have become accustomed to their ill-fortune, as the prisoner ha- bituates himself to his jail; in them, everything was simplicity. Their faces did not want for a sort of cheerful frankness. On examining them, their monotonous life, the lot of so many poor creatures, seemed to be almost enviable. There were, indeed, to be seen in them traces of sorrow, but none of gloom and discontent. " Well, my worthy Father Moreau, you are then absolutely determined to work all the time?" " Yes, Monsieur Benassis. I will clear off for you a brush-land or two yet before I burst up," replied the old man, cheerfully, his little black eyas lighting up. " Is it wine that your wife is carrying? If you will not take some rest, at least it is necessary to drink some wine." " To rest myself! That bores me. When I am in the sunlight, occupied in clearing the land, the sun and the air reanimate me. As to the wine, yes, monsieur, that is wine, and I know very well that it was you who caused us to get it for almost nothing from monsieur the mayor of Courteil. Ah! you may be as sly as you please, you are recognized all the same." "Well, then, good-day, mother. Doubtless you THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 127 are going to-day to the piece of ground of Champ- ferlu?" "Yes, monsieur, it was commenced yesterday evening." " Good luck to you!" said Benassis. " You should be well content sometimes on seeing that mountain, which you have cleared off almost all yourselves." "Dame! yes, monsieur," replied the old woman, " it is our work! We have well earned the right to eat bread." "You see," said Benassis to Genestas, "labor, the earth to cultivate, that is the capital of the poor. That goodman would think himself dishonored if he went to the hospital or if he begged; he wishes to die, pick-axe in hand, in the midst of the fields in the sunlight. Upon my word, he has a proud courage. Through constant labor, labor has become his life; but, also, he does not fear death! he is profoundly philosophical without knowing it. This old Father Moreau gave me the idea of founding in this canton a hospital for the tillers, for the workmen, in short, for the country people who, after having worked all their lives, arrive at an honorable and poor old age. Monsieur, I did not reckon upon the fortune which I have made, and which is useless to me personally. But few things are required for the man fallen from the summit of his hopes. The life of the idle is the only one that costs dearly; perhaps it is even a social theft to consume without producing anything. On learning of the discussions which were raised at the time of his fall on the subject of his pension, 128 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR Napoleon said that he only needed a horse and a crown a day. "When 1 came here, I renounced money. Since, I have recognized that money represents faculties, and becomes necessary in order to do good. I have, then, in my will, left my house to found a hospital in which the unfortunate aged without an asylum, and who may be less proud than Moreau, may pass their last days. Then a certain portion of the nine thou- sand francs of income which my lands and my mill bring me in will be set aside to give aid at home in the too severe winters to those who are truly needy. This establishment will be under the surveillance of the municipal council, to which the cure will be added as president. In this manner, the fortune which chance has caused me to find in this canton will re- main here. The regulations of this institution are all drawn up in my will; it would be wearisome to repeat them to you, it will be sufficient to tell you that I have foreseen everything. I have even created a reserve fund, which should permit the commune some day to furnish several scholarships for those young persons who might give evidences of talent for the arts or the sciences. Thus, even after my death, my work of civilization will continue. You see, Captain Bluteau, when one has commenced a task, there is something in us which urges us on not to leave it imperfect. This need of order and of perfection is one of the most evident indications of a destiny yet to come. But at present let us go more quickly, I must finish my rounds, and I have still five or six patients to see." THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 129 After having trotted some time in silence, Benassis said to his companion, laughing: "Ah, there! Captain Bluteau, you make me chatter like a jay, and you tell me nothing of your life, which must have been remarkable. A soldier of your age has seen too many things not to have more than one adventure to relate?" " But," replied Genestas, " my life is the life of the army. All military figures resemble each other. Never having commanded, having always remained in the ranks to receive or give sabre-cuts, I have done just like the others. I went where Napoleon con- ducted us, and I found myself in line in all the battles in which the Imperial Guard was engaged. These are well-known events. To take care of his horses, to suffer sometimes from hunger and thirst, to fight when it is necessary, there is the whole life of a soldier. Is not that as simple as good-day? There are battles which, for us, are entirely summed up in a horse unshod, which has left us in an awk- ward position. In short, I have seen so many coun- tries that I have become accustomed to seeing them, and I have seen so many dead men that I have ended by counting my own life as nothing." " However, you must have been personally in danger during certain moments, and these particular individual dangers would be interesting, related by you?" " Perhaps," replied the commandant. "Well, tell me what has most moved you. Do not be afraid; go ahead! I will not believe that you 9 130 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR are wanting in modesty even when you relate to me some trait of heroism. When a man is quite certain of being comprehended by those in whom he confides, should he not experience a sort of pleasure in say- ing: 'I did that'?" " Well, I will relate to you an incident that some- times causes me remorse. During the fifteen years in which we fought, it did not happen to me to kill a man in a single case, excepting in the way of legiti- mate defence. We are in line, we charge; if we do not overthrow those who are in front of us, they will not ask our permission to bleed us, therefore, it is necessary to kill in order not to be demolished, the conscience is tranquil. But, my dear monsieur, it happened to me to break the back of a comrade under peculiar circumstances. On reflection, the thing has caused me pain, and the grimace of that man sometimes returns to me. You shall judge. It was during the retreat from Moscow. We had more the appearance of being a herd of harassed cattle than of being the grand army. Farewell to discipline and to the flags, each one was his own master, and the Emperor, it may be said, learned there where his power ended. " On arriving at Studzianka, a little village above the Beresina, we found barns, cabins to demolish, potatoes buried, and beets. For some time past we had encountered neither houses nor eatables, so the army junketed. The first comers, as you may suppose, had eaten everything. I arrived one of the last. Happily for me, I was hungry only for THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 131 sleep. I perceive a barn, I enter it, I see some twenty generals, superior officers, all of them men, without flattering them, of great merit, Junot, Nar- bonne, the aide-de-camp of the Emperor, in short, the great heads of the army. There were also simple soldiers who would not have given their bed of straw to a marshal of France. Some were sleeping stand- ing, leaning against the wall for want of a place, others were stretched on the ground, and all so closely wedged together in order to keep warm that I sought vainly for a corner in which to place myself. You might see me walking on this flooring of men, some of them growled, others said nothing, but no one moved. No one would have moved to avoid a cannon-ball, but you were not obliged there to follow the maxims of a puerile and respectable civility. "Finally, I perceived at the back of the barn a species of interior roof on which no one had had the idea, or perhaps the strength, to climb. I mount on it, I arrange myself, and when I am stretched out at length I look down at these men laid out like calves. This sorrowful spectacle almost made me laugh. Some were eating frozen carrots, giving ex- pression to a sort of animal pleasure, and generals wrapped in old shawls snored like thunder. A flaming fir bough lit up the barn; it might have set fire to it, no one would have risen to extinguish it. I am lying on my back, and, before going to sleep, I naturally raise my eyes in the air, I then see the main beam on which the roof rested and 132 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR which supported the rafters make a slight move- ment from east to west. This cursed beam danced very prettily. 'Messieurs,' I said to them, 'there is a comrade outside who wishes to warm himself at our expense.' The beam was on the point of falling. ' Messieurs, messieurs, we are about to be killed, look at the beam!' I cried loudly enough to awaken my bed-fellows. Monsieur, they indeed looked at the beam, but those who were sleeping went to sleep again; and those who were eating did not even reply to me. " Seeing this, it was necessary for me to leave my place, at the risk of having it taken, for it was a question of saving this heap of glories. I accord- ingly go out, I go around the barn, and I perceive a great devil of a Wiirtemberger who was pulling at the beam with a certain enthusiasm. 'Aho! aho!' I say to him, making him understand that he must cease his labors. 'Gehe mir aus dem Gesicht, oder ich schlage dich todt!' Get out of my sight, or I will strike you dead! he cried. 'Ah, well, yes! Que mire aous dem guesit,' imitation of the German, I replied to him, ' that is not the question!' I take his musket which he had left on the ground, I break his back, I re-enter the barn and go to sleep. That is the story." "But that was a case of legitimate defence ap- plied against one man for the sake of many others; you have, then, nothing with which to reproach yourself," said Benassis. "The others," resumed Genestas, "thought I THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 133 had some crotchet in my head; but, crotchet or not, many of those individuals are now living at their ease in fine mansions without having their hearts oppressed by gratitude." "Would you not have done good, then, except to receive that exorbitant interest which is called grati- tude?" said Benassis, laughing. "That would be to take usury." "Ah! I know very well," replied Genestas, "that the merit of a good action disappears at the slightest interest that you derive from it; to relate it, that is to set up for yourself an income of self- love which is worth quite as much as gratitude. However, if the honest man is always silent, the one obliged scarcely ever speaks of the benefit. In your system, the people have need of examples; now, in this general silence, where, then, will they find them? One thing more! If our poor pontonnier, who saved the French army and who has never found himself in a position to gabble about it profit- ably, had not preserved the use of his arms, would his conscience have given him his daily bread? Answer that, philosopher?" "Perhaps there is nothing absolute in morals," replied Benassis; " but this idea is dangerous, it allows egotism to interpret cases of conscience to the profit of personal interest. Listen, captain, the man who obeys strictly the principles of morality, is he not greater than he who departs from them, even through necessity? Our pontonnier, entirely crippled and dying with hunger, would he not be sublime in 134 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR the very same qualities that make Homer sublime? Human life is doubtless a last trial for virtue as for genius, both of them claimed by a better world. Virtue and genius seem to me the two finest forms of that complete and constant devotion which Jesus Christ came to teach to men. Genius remains poor while enlightening the world, virtue keeps silence in sacrificing herself for the general good." " Agreed, monsieur," said Genestas, " but the earth is inhabited by men and not by angels; we are not perfect." "You are right," replied Benassis. "For my part, I have greatly abused the faculty of committing faults. But should we not tend toward perfection? Is not virtue a beautiful ideal for the soul which it is necessary to contemplate ceaselessly as a celestial model?" "Amen!" said the soldier. "We will grant it to you, the virtuous man is a beautiful object; but admit also that virtue is a divinity which can permit a little bit of conversation, in all good, all honor." " Ah! monsieur," said the physician, smiling with a sort of bitter melancholy, "you have the indulgence of those who live in peace with them- selves, whilst I am severe like a man who sees a great many stains to efface in his life " The two horsemen had arrived at a thatched cottage situated on the edge of the torrent. The doctor entered it. Genestas remained on the thresh- old of the door, regarding alternately the spectacle offered by this fresh landscape and the interior of the THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 135 cottage, in which was a man in bed. After having examined his patient, Benassis suddenly exclaimed: " There is no use in my coming here, my good woman, if you do not do what I order! You have given some bread to your husband; you wish, then, to kill him? Sac-a-papier ! if you give him henceforth anything but his eau de chiendent, triticum repens, I will not set foot here again, and you can go and look for a doctor wherever you like." " But, my dear Monsieur Benassis, the poor old man was sick with hunger, and when a man has not put anything in his stomach for two weeks " " Now, then, will you listen to me? If you allow your man to eat a single mouthful of bread before I permit him to take nourishment, you will kill him, do you hear?" " He shall not have anything, my dear monsieur Is he better?" said she, following the doctor. " Why, no; you have made him worse by giving him something to eat. I cannot, then, persuade you, obstinate that you are, not to give nourishment to people who should diet? The peasants are incor- rigibles!" added Benassis, turning to the officer. "When a sick man has eaten nothing for a few days, they think he is dead, and stuff him with soup or with wine. Here is a wretched woman who has all but killed her husband." " Killed my husband with a poor little bit of bread soaked in wine!" "Certainly, my good woman. I am surprised to find him still alive after the bread soaked in wine 136 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR you gave him. Do not forget to do exactly what I have said to you." " Oh! my dear monsieur, I would rather die my- self than fail to do so." " Well, we will see about that. To-morrow even- ing I will return to bleed him. We will follow the torrent on foot," said Benassis to Genestas; "from this point to the house where I must go there is no road for the horses. This man's little boy will watch our animals. Admire our pretty valley a little!" he resumed; "is it not an English garden? We are going to the house of a workman, inconsolable for the death of one of his children. His eldest, still young, during the last harvest wished to do a man's work, the poor child exceeded his strength, he died of weakness at the end of the autumn. This is the first time that I have encountered the paternal sentiment so strongly developed. Usually, the peasants regret in the death of their children the loss of a useful thing which constitutes a part of their fortune; the regrets are in proportion to their age. When an adult, the child becomes a capital for its father. But this poor man loved his son truly. ' Nothing consoles me for this loss!' he said to me one day when I saw him in a meadow, standing motionless, forgetting his work, leaning on his scythe, holding in his hand his whet- stone, which he had taken to use, and which he was not using. He has not spoken to me since of his grief, but he has become taciturn and suffering. To-day, one of his little girls is sick " While still talking, Benassis and his guest arrived THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 137 at a little house situated on the road to a bark- mill. There, under a willow, they perceived a man of about forty years of age, standing and eating bread rubbed with garlic. " Well, Gasnier, is the little one better?" "I do not know, monsieur," he replied, with a sombre air, "you are going to see her; my wife is with her. Notwithstanding all your cares, I am afraid that Death has entered my house to carry off everything from me." "Death does not take up his lodging in any- one's house, Gasnier; he has not the time. Do not lose courage." Benassis entered the house, followed by the father. A half-hour later he came out, accompanied by the mother, to whom he said: " Do not be anxious, do that which I have recom- mended you to do, she is saved. If all this bores you," said the doctor to the soldier, as they re- mounted, "I can put you on the road to the town, and you can return there." " No, upon my word, I am not bored in the least." "But you will see everywhere thatched cottages which resemble each other; nothing is, apparently, more monotonous than the country." " Let us go on," said the soldier. For several hours they thus traversed the country, crossing the whole width of the canton, and, toward evening, they returned to the neighborhood of the town. 138 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR "I must go down there," said the physician to Genestas, indicating a locality where grew several elms. " These trees are, perhaps, two hundred years old," he added. " There lives that woman for whom a lad came to seek me yesterday just at din- ner-time, telling me that she had become quite white. ' ' " Was it dangerous?" "No," said Benassis, "an effect of pregnancy. This woman is in her last month. It frequently hap- pens at this period that women have spasms. But it is always necessary, as a precaution, that I should go to see if anything alarming has happened; I will de- liver this woman myself. Moreover, I will show you one of our new industries, a brick-field. The road is good, will you gallop?" "Will your horse follow me?" said Genestas, saying to his own: " Up, Neptune!" In the twinkling of an eye the officer was carried off a hundred feet, and disappeared in a whirlwind of dust; but, notwithstanding the swiftness of his horse, he constantly heard the doctor at his side. Benassis said a word to his own animal, and outstripped the commandant, who rejoined him only at the brick- works, at the moment when the doctor was tran- quilly tying his horse to the turnstile of a brushwood fence. " May the devil fly away with you!" exclaimed Genestas, looking at the horse which was neither blowing nor sweating. " What kind of a beast have you there, anyhow?" "Ah!" replied the doctor, laughing, " you took him THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 139 for a screw. At this moment, the story of this fine animal would take too much of our time; let it suffice you to know that Roustan is a true Barbary horse from the Atlas Mountains. A Barbary horse is worth an Arab horse. Mine ascends the mountains at full gallop without turning a hair, and trots sure- footed along the edge of the precipices. It was a gift well-earned, moreover. A father thought to pay me thus for the life of his daughter, one of the richest heiresses of Europe, whom I found dying on the road to Savoy. If I should tell you how I cured this young woman, you would take me for a charlatan. Ah! I hear the bells of the horses and the noise of a cart in the by-road, let us see if, by chance, this shall be Vigneau himself, and look well at this man!" Presently the officer perceived four enormous horses harnessed like those owned by the most well- to-do husbandmen of La Brie. The woollen ear- knots, the bells, the coats, had a sort of prosperous tidiness about them. In this enormous cart, painted blue, was a great chubby-faced youth, browned by the sun, who was whistling while holding his whip like a musket at the carry -arms. " No, it is only the carter," said Benassis. "Ad- mire for a moment how the industrial prosperity of the master is reflected in everything, even in the equipment of this driver. Is it not the indication of a commercial intelligence sufficiently rare in the depths of the country?" " Yes, yes; all that seems to be very well decked out," replied the soldier. 140 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR " Well, Vigneau owns two similar turn-outs. In addition, he has his little riding-pony, on which he goes about his affairs, for his business now extends to a great distance; and, four years ago, this man possessed nothing! I am mistaken, he had debts But let us enter." " My lad," said Benassis to the carter, " Madame Vigneau is at home?" " Monsieur, she is in the garden; I have just seen her over the hedge; I will go to notify her of your arrival." Genestas followed Benassis, who made him trav- erse a large enclosure surrounded by hedges. In a corner was piled up the white earth and the clay re- quired for the manufacture of tiles and white bricks; in another corner were heaped up the fagots of wood and the heather for heating the furnace; farther on, on a space surrounded by hurdle-work, several workmen were breaking up white stones or manipu- lating the brick clay; opposite the entrance, under the great elms, was the manufactory of round and square tiles, a great hall of verdure terminating in the roofs of the drying-sheds, near to which might be seen the furnace and its deep throat, its long shovels, its hollow and black passage-way. Parallel with these constructions was a building, sufficiently poor in aspect, which served as habitation for the family and in which the wagon-houses, the stables, the cow-houses, the barn, had been constructed. Chickens and pigs wandered about in the large enclos- ure. The cleanness which pervaded these different THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 141 establishments, and their good state of repair, testi- fied to the vigilance of the master. " Vigneau's predecessor," said Benassis, "was a wretch, an idler who loved only to drink. Formerly a workman, he knew how to heat his furnace and attend to his moulds, that was all; he had neither activity nor commercial spirit. If no one came for his merchandise, it remained there, deteriorating and ruining. Consequently, he was always starving. His wife, whom he had rendered almost imbecile by his bad treatment, grovelled in poverty. This idle- ness, this incurable stupidity, was so painful to me, and the aspect of this establishment was so disagree- able to me, that I avoided passing this way. Fortu- nately, this man and his wife were both old. "One fine day, the tile-maker had a paralytic stroke, and I immediately had him placed in the hos- pital at Grenoble. The proprietor of the tile-works consented to take them back without dispute in the state in which they were, and I sought some new tenants who would be able to participate in the ame- liorations which I wished to introduce in all the in- dustries of the canton. The husband of Madame Gravier's femme de chambre, a poor workman earn- ing very small wages with a potter for whom he worked, and who could not support his family, took my advice. This man had sufficient courage to take our tile-works on a lease without having a denier to his name. He installed himself, taught his wife, his wife's old mother, and his own to make tiles; he constituted them his workmen. Upon the word of an 142 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR honest man! I do not know how they managed it. Probably Vigneau borrowed the wood to heat his furnace, he doubtless went by night to seek for his materials by panierfuls at a time, and manufactured them during the day; in short, he manifested secretly a boundless energy, and the two old mothers, in rags, worked like negroes. Vigneau was thus able to turn out several kilnfuls, and got through his first year, eating bread dearly bought with the sweat of his family; but he sustained himself. His courage, his patience, his qualities, rendered him interesting to many persons, and he made himself known. Inde- fatigable, he hastened in the morning to Grenoble, there sold his tiles and his bricks; then he came back to his own place toward the middle of the day, and returned to the city during the night; he seemed to multiply himself. "Toward the end of the first year he took two young lads to aid him. Seeing this, I lent him some money. Well, monsieur, the condition of this family ameliorated from year to year. In the second year, the two old mothers no longer made bricks, nor broke up the stones; they cultivated the little gar- dens, made the soup, mended the garments, spun during the evening, and gathered wood in the day- time. The young wife, who knew how to read and write, kept the accounts. Vigneau had a little horse with which to go about the neighborhood to look for customers; then he studied the art of brickmaking, found a method of manufacturing handsome square white tiles, and sold them under the current price. THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 143 The third year, he had a cart and two horses. When he set up his first cart, his wife became almost elegant. Everything in his household was in accord with his gains, and he always maintained there order, economy, cleanliness, the generating principles of his little fortune. He was finally able to have six workmen and to pay them well; he had a carter, and set everything about him on a very good footing; in short, little by little, by using his ingenuity, by extending his fabrication and his busi- ness, he found himself in comfortable circumstances. "Last year he purchased the tile-works; next year he will rebuild his house. At present, all these good people are in good condition and well clothed. The wife, thin and pale, who at first shared the cares and the anxieties of her husband, has again become plump, fresh, and pretty. The two old mothers are very happy, and superintend the minor details of the house and the business. Labor has produced money, and money, in giving tran- quillity, has bestowed health, abundance, and cheer- fulness. Truly, this household is for me the living history of my commune and that of young commer- cial States. These tile-works, which I used to see dull, empty, dirty, unproductive, are now in full activity, well peopled, animated, rich, and well fur- nished. See, there is a good amount of wood, and all the materials necessary for the work of the season, for you know that tiles are only manufactured during a certain part of the year, between June and Sep- tember. Does not all this activity give pleasure? 144 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR My tile-maker has co-operated in all the buildings of the town. Always wide-awake, always going and coming, always active, he is called the devouring* by the people of the canton." Benassis had scarcely pronounced these words, when a young woman, well dressed, with a pretty cap, white stockings, a silk apron, a pink dress, a costume that recalled somewhat her former state as a femme de chambre, opened the latticed door which led into the garden and came forward as rapidly as her condition would admit. But the two horse- men went to meet her. Madame Vigneau was, in fact, a pretty woman, plump enough, with a tanned complexion, although her skin, naturally, should be fair. Although her forehead retained some wrinkles, vestiges of her former poverty, she had a happy and attractive countenance. " Monsieur Benassis," said she, with a persuasive accent, on seeing him stop, "will you not do me the honor to rest a moment in my house?" " Certainly," he replied. " Captain, pass in." "These messieurs must be quite warm! Will you have a little milk, or some wine? Monsieur Benassis, taste the wine that my husband has had the kindness to procure for my confinement; you will tell me if it is good." " You have a worthy man for a husband." "Yes, monsieur," she replied, calmly, turning round, " I have been greatly favored!" *Le dfroorant, or U devoirant, was one of an association of workmen. (See History of the Thirteen.) THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 145 " We will not take anything, Madame Vigneau; I came only to see if any accident had happened to you." " Nothing," she said. "You see, I was in the garden occupied in turning up the ground, for some- thing to do." At this moment the two mothers came up to see Benassis, and the carter remained motionless in the middle of the court in a position that permitted him to see the doctor. "Let us see, give me your hand," said he to Madame Vigneau. He felt the pulse of the young wife with a scrupulous attention, remaining thoughtful and si- lent. During this time the three women were examining the commandant with that nafve curi- osity which the country people have no shame in expressing. "All for the best," exclaimed the doctor, cheer- fully. "Will she soon be delivered?" said the two mothers. " Why, this week, doubtless. Vigneau is on the road?" he asked, after a pause. " Yes, monsieur," replied the young wife; " he is hurrying up his affairs so that he can remain at home when I am brought to bed, the dear man!" " Go on, my children, and prosper! Continue to increase your fortune and to increase the world." Genestas was full of admiration for the cleanliness which pervaded the interior of this almost ruined 10 146 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR house. On seeing the officer's surprise, Benassis said to him: "It is only Madame Vigneau who knows how to keep a household thus neat! I should like it if sev- eral of the people of the town came here to get some lessons." The tile-maker's wife turned her head away, blushing; but the two mothers frankly allowed to appear on their faces all the pleasure which the doctor's eulogy caused them, and all three of them accompanied him to the spot where the horses stood. "Well," said Benassis, addressing the two old women, " now you are very happy. Did you not wish to be grandmothers?" " Ah! do not speak to me of them," said the young wife, " they set me wild. My two mothers want a boy; my husband desires a little girl, I think that it will be very difficult for me to content them a41." "But you, what do you want?" said Benassis, laughing. " Ah! I, monsieur, I want a child." "You see, she is already a mother," said the doctor to the officer, as he took his horse by the bridle. " Adieu, Monsieur Benassis," said the young wife. " My husband will be very sorry not to have been here when he learns that you came." " He has not forgotten to send me my thousand tiles to the Grange-aux-Belles?" THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 147 " You know very well that he would leave all the orders in the canton to serve you. Yes, his greatest regret is to take your money; but I say to him that your crowns bring good luck, and that is true." "Au revoir," said Benassis. The three women, the carter, and the two work- men, who had come out of the buildings to see the doctor, stood in a group about the rustic fence which served as an entrance to the tile-works, so as to enjoy his presence up to the last moment, as all of us do for those dear to us. Should not the inspi- rations of the heart be the same everywhere! thus the pleasant customs of friendship are naturally observed in every country. After having looked at the sun, Benassis said to his companion: " We have still two hours of daylight, and, if you are not too hungry, we will go to see a charming creature to whom I almost always give the time which I have left between the hour of my dinner and that in which my visits are ended. She is called my bonne amie in the canton; but do not think that this appellation, here used to designate a future spouse, can cover or authorize the slightest slander. Although my care for this poor child renders her the object of a jealousy that may readily be compre- hended, the opinion which everyone has formed of my character forbids all malicious suggestions. " If no one is able to explain to himself the whim to which I seem to yield in allowing to La Fosseuse an income which enables her to live without working, 148 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR everybody believes in her virtue; everybody knows that if my affection once passed the bounds of a friendly protection I should not hesitate a moment to marry her. But," added the doctor, forcing a smile, "there does not exist any wife for me, neither in this canton nor elsewhere. An expansive man, my dear monsieur, feels an invincible need of attaching himself particularly to one thing or to one being among all the beings and all the things with which he is surrounded, above all, when for him life is empty. Therefore, believe me, always judge favorably a man who loves his dog or his horse! Among the many sufferers which chance has confided to me, this poor little sick one is for me what, in my country of the sun, in Languedoc, is the favorite ewe on which the shepherdesses put faded ribbons, to which they talk, which they allow to pasture by the side of the grain, and whose lagging steps the dog never hastens." As he spoke these words, Benassis remained standing, grasping the mane of his horse, ready to mount, and yet not mounting, as though the feeling which moved him was one which could not accord with any sudden movement. "Come," he exclaimed, "let us go to see her! To take you to her house, is not that to say to you that I treat her like a sister?" When the two horsemen were mounted, Genestas said to the doctor: " Should I be indiscreet in asking of you some information concerning your Fosseuse? Among all THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 149 the existences with which you have made me ac- quainted, she should not be the least interesting." "Monsieur," replied Benassis, stopping his horse, " perhaps you will not share in all the interest with which La Fosseuse inspires me. Her destiny re- sembles my own, we have both missed our voca- tions; the sentiment which I have for her, and the emotions which I experience in seeing her, arise from the similarity of our situations. Once entered on the career of arms, you have followed your inclination, or you have acquired a liking for this calling; otherwise you would not have remained till your present age under the heavy harness of military discipline; therefore you would naturally not com- prehend either the unhappiness of a soul, the de- sires of which constantly arise and are constantly disappointed, or the constant griefs of a creature forced to live otherwise than in her own sphere. Such sufferings remain a secret between these creat- ures and God, who sends to them these afflictions, for they alone are acquainted with the force of the impressions produced upon them by the events of life. "Nevertheless, you yourself, a hardened witness of so many misfortunes produced in the course of a long war, have you not surprised in your own heart a certain melancholy on seeing a tree the leaves of which were yellow in the midst of spring, a tree languishing and dying through not having been planted in a soil in which might be found the ele- ments necessary to its entire development? From 150 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR the age of twenty, the passive melancholy of a stunted plant has always been painful for me to see; to-day I always turn my head away at this sight. My youthful distress was the vague presentiment of my sorrows as a man, a sort of sympathy between my present and a future which I perceived instinct- ively in this vegetable life bowed before its time toward that final term which awaits both trees and men." " I thought, when I saw you to be so good, that you had suffered!" "You comprehend, monsieur," resumed the phy- sician, without replying to this speech of Genestas, "" that to speak of La Fosseuse is to speak of myself. La Fosseuse is a plant exiled, but a human plant, devoured incessantly by sad or profound thoughts which multiply themselves by each other. This poor girl is always suffering. In her, the soul is killing the body. Could I see with coldness a feeble creature a prey to the unhappiness the greatest and the least appreciated that there is in our egotistical world, when I, a man and strong against suffer- ing, am tempted every evening to refuse to carry the burden of a similar unhappiness? Perhaps I would even refuse, were it not for a religious idea which blunts my grief and expands in my heart soft illusions. Were we not all the children of the same God, La Fosseuse would still be my sister in suffering!" Benassis pressed the flanks of his horse and hastened on the commandant Genestas, as though THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 151 he dreaded continuing in this tone the conversation commenced. "Monsieur," he resumed, when the horses were trotting together, "Nature has, so to speak, created this poor girl for pain, as she has created other women for pleasure. When we see such predes- tinations, it is impossible not to believe in another life. Everything affects La Fosseuse, if the weather is gray and sombre, she is mournful and weeps with the sky; this expression belongs to her. She sings with the birds, becomes calm and serene again with the weather; finally she becomes beau- tiful on a fine day; a delicate perfume is for her an almost inexhaustible pleasure, I have seen her enjoying for an entire day the odor exhaled by mi- gnonette after one of those rainy mornings which de- velop the souls of flowers and give to the day I do not know what freshness and brilliancy; she had expanded with nature, with all the plants. If the atmosphere is heavy, charged with electricity, La Fosseuse has vapors which nothing can calm, she goes to bed and complains of a thousand different ills without know- ing what it is that ails her; if I question her, she replies that her bones are softening, that her flesh is dissolving into water. During these inanimate hours she is conscious of life only through suffering; her heart is outside of her, to repeat to you another of her sayings. " Sometimes I have seen the poor girl weeping at the appearance of certain scenes which are formed in our mountains at sunset, when numerous and 152 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR magnificent clouds gather over our golden peaks. 'Why do you weep, my little one?' I said to her. ' I do not know, monsieur/ she replied; ' I am like one stupefied in looking up, and I do not know where I am, through looking.' 'But what do you -see then?' ' Monsieur, I cannot tell it to you.' In vain you questioned her then during a whole evening, you would not draw from her a single word; but she would give you looks full of thoughtfulness, or remain with humid eyes, half silent, evidently meditating. Her meditation is so profound that it communicates itself; at least, she then acts upon me like a cloud too much charged with electricity. One day I pressed her with questions, I made every effort to make her talk and I said to her a few words a little too earnest, well, monsieur, she melted into tears. At other moments La Fosseuse is cheerful, at- tractive, laughing, active, spirituelle; she converses with pleasure, expresses novel ideas, original ones. Incapable, moreover, of any kind of consecutive work, when she goes into the fields, she remains for entire hours occupied in looking at a flower, in watching running water, in examining the pictur- esque marvels which are to be found under clear and tranquil streams, those pretty mosaics com- posed of pebbles, of earth, of sand, of aquatic plants, of mosses, of brownish sediments of which the colors are so soft, of which the tones offer such curious contrasts. " When I first arrived in this country, the poor girl was dying with hunger; humiliated at accepting THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 153 the bread of others, she had had recourse to public charity only at the moment she was compelled to do so by extreme suffering. Frequently, shame giving her energy, she would labor in the fields for several days; but, very soon exhausted, a malady would oblige her to abandon the work commenced. When scarcely restored, she would go to some farm in the neighborhood and ask to take charge of the cattle; but, after discharging her tasks with intelligence, she would leave without giving a reason. Her daily labor was doubtless too heavy a yoke for her, as she was all independence and caprice. Then she would gather truffles and mushrooms, and go to sell them in Grenoble. In the city, tempted by some trinkets, she forgot her poverty in finding herself rich with some small coins, and would buy herself ribbons and knick-knacks without thinking of her to-morrow's bread. Then, if some young girl of the town de- sired her brass cross, her heart a la Jeannette, or her velvet ribbon, she would give them to her, happy in bestowing pleasure, for she lived by her affections. Thus La Fosseuse was alternately loved, pitied, and contemned. The poor girl suffered in every- thing, in her idleness, in her generosity, in her coquetry; for she is coquettish, dainty, curious; in short, she is a woman, she yields to her impressions and to her tastes with the naivete of a child, relate to her some fine action, she thrills and reddens, her breast heaves, she weeps for joy; if you tell her some story of robbery, she grows pale with fright. It is the truest nature, the frankest heart, and the 154 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR most delicate probity that can be met with; if you were to confide to her a hundred pieces of gold, she would bury them in a corner and continue to beg her bread." There was an alteration in the doctor's voice as he pronounced these words. "I wished to try her, monsieur," he went on, "and I repented of it. A trial, is it not spying, suspicion at the very least?" Here the doctor paused as if making some secret reflection, and in nowise noticed the embarrass- ment into which his words had thrown his com- panion, who, not to allow his confusion to be perceived, occupied himself in disentangling his horse's reins. Benassis presently resumed his dis- course. " I should like to marry off my Fosseuse, I would give willingly one of my farms to some worthy youth who would render her happy, and she would be. Yes, the poor girl would love her children to distraction, and all the sentiments which are super- abundant in her would expand in that which com- prehends them all for the woman, in maternity ; but no man has been able to please her. She has, how- ever, a sensitiveness that is dangerous for her; she is aware of it, and confessed to me her nervous pre- disposition when she saw that I perceived it. She is of the small number of women in whom the slightest contact produces a dangerous thrill; for this reason we may admire her discretion, her womanly pride. She is as wild as a swallow. Ah! what a rich THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 155 nature, monsieur! She was made to be a woman opu- lent, beloved; she would have been beneficent and constant. At twenty-two, she is already sinking under the weight of her soul, and perishing a victim of her too vibrating fibres, of her organization too strong or too delicate. A vivid passion betrayed, would render her mad, my poor Fosseuse! "After having studied her temperament, after having recognized the reality of her long nervous attacks and of her electric aspirations, after having found her in most striking harmony with the changes in the atmosphere, with the variations of the moon, facts which I have carefully verified, I have taken charge of her, monsieur, as of a creature outside of the others, one whose sickly, delicate existence could be comprehended by me alone. It is, as I said to you, the ewe with the ribbons. But you are going to see her, there is her little house." At this moment they had arrived at about a third of the height of the mountain by slopes bordered by bushes, which they ascended at a walk. On attain- ing the turning of one of these slopes, Genestas perceived the house of La Fosseuse. This habita- tion was situated on one of the principal hillocks of the mountain. There, a pretty sward on a slope, of about three arpents in extent, planted with trees and from which sprang several cascades, was surrounded by a little wall high enough to serve as an enclosure, not high enough to shut off the view of the country. The house, built of bricks and covered with a flat roof which extended over on every side for several 156 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR feet, made a charming effect in the landscape. It consisted of a ground-floor and a first floor with a door and outside shutters painted green. Facing the south, it had neither sufficient depth nor width to have any other openings than those of the front, the rustic elegance of which consisted in an excessive neatness. The little protruding penthouses in the German manner were lined with boards painted white. Some acacias in flower and other odorous plants, some thorn-roses, climbing plants, a great walnut-tree which had been spared and some weep- ing-willows growing in the streams, surrounded this house. Behind it was a large group of beech-trees and firs, a great dark background against which this pretty little building was sharply relieved. At this hour of the day, the air was balmy with the different odors of the mountain and of the garden of La Fosseuse. The sky, pure and tranquil, was cloudy at the horizon. In the distance, the summits began to assume the rosy tints which the setting sun often gives them. At this height, the valley could be seen in its full extent, from Grenoble to the cir- cular enclosing rocks at the bottom of which is the little lake which Genestas had crossed the day be- fore. Above the house, and at a sufficiently great distance, appeared the line of poplars which indi- cated the great highway from the town to Grenoble. And finally the town, obliquely traversed by the rays of the sun, sparkled like a diamond in reflect- ing from all its windows the red illumination which seemed to twinkle. At this sight, Genastas stopped THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 157 his horse, pointed to the buildings in the valley, the new town, and the house of La Fosseuse. " Next to the victory of Wagram and the return of Napoleon to the Tuileries in 1815," said he, with a sigh, " this gives me the greatest emotion. I owe to you this pleasure, monsieur, for you have taught me to know the beauties which a man can find at the sight of a landscape." "Yes," said the doctor, smiling, "it is better to build cities than to take them." "Oh! monsieur, the taking of Moscow and the surrender of Mantua! But you do not know what that is! Is it not our glory for all of us? You are a brave man, but Napoleon also was a good man; had it not been for England, you two would have appre- ciated each othep and he would never have fallen, our Emperor <^T can well admit that I love him now, he is dead!" and," said the officer, looking around him, "there are no spies here. What a sovereign! he knew the whole world by instinct! he would have placed you in his Council of State because he was an administrator, and a great ad- ministrator, even to knowing how many cartridges there were in the pouches after an action. Poor man! Whilst you were speaking to me of your Fosseuse, I was thinking that he was dead at Saint "^Helena, he! Heinl was that the climate and the ^dwelTmgThat could satisfy the man accustomed to live with his fe^t in the stirrups and his posteriors on a throne ?<^Jt is said that he had a garden there. The deuce! he was not made for planting cabbages. 158 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR Now, we must serve the Bourbons, and loyally, monsieur; for, after all, France is France, as you said yesterday." As he uttered these last words, Genestas dis- mounted and mechanically imitated Benassis, who was attaching his horse by the bridle to a tree. " Is she not here? " said the doctor, not seeing La Fosseuse on the threshold of the door. They entered and found no one in the salon on the ground-floor. " She heard the noise of the two horses," said Benassis, smiling, " and has gone upstairs to put on a cap, a girdle, some adornment." He left Genestas alone, and went up himself to look for La Fosseuse. The commandant examined the salon. The walls were covered with a paper with a gray background spotted with roses, and the floor with a matting of straw in imitation of a carpet. The chairs, the easy-chair, and the table were of wood that still retained its bark. A kind of flower vases, made of hoops and willow-work, filled with flowers and mosses, decorated this chamber, the windows of which were draped with curtains of white percale with red fringes. On the mantel- piece was a mirror, a plain porcelain vase between two lamps; near the easy-chair a stool in fir-wood; then, on the table, some linen cut out, some gus- sets prepared, shirts commenced, in short, all the paraphernalia of a seamstress, her basket, her scissors, needle, and thread. All this was as clean and fresh as a shell thrown up by the sea on a THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 159 corner of the beach. On the other side of the corridor, at the end of which was a stairway, Ge- nestas saw a kitchen. The first story, like the ground-floor, could consist of only two rooms. " Do not be afraid," said Benassis to La Fosseuse. "Come, now, come down!" On hearing these words, Genestas promptly re- turned to the salon. A young girl, slender and with a good figure, wearing a dress with a neckerchief of pink percaline with a thousand stripes, presently appeared, red with shame and timidity. Her face was remarkable only in a certain flattening of the features, which made it resemble those Cossack and Russian countenances which the disasters of 1814 unfortunately rendered so familiar in France. La Fosseuse had, in fact, like the people of the North, the nose elevated at the end and much sunken; her mouth was large, her chin small, her hands and her arms were red, her feet large and strong like those of the peasant women. Although she had been exposed to the harsh effects of the weather, to the sun, and the open air, her complexion was as pale as a withered herb, but this lack of color made her face interesting at the first glance; then she had in her blue eyes an expression so gentle, in her movements so much grace, in her voice so much soul, that, notwithstanding the apparent want of harmony between her features and the qualities which Benassis had praised to the commandant, the latter recognized the capricious and sickly creature, a prey to all the sufferings of a nature thwarted in 160 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR its developments. After having briskly stirred up a fire of peat and dry branches, La Fosseuse seated herself in an armchair and resumed her work on an unfinished shirt, remaining under the officer's eyes, half-ashamed, not venturing to raise her own eyes, calm in appearance; but the hurried movement of her corsage, the beauty of which struck Genestas, betrayed her fear. "Well, my poor child, are you getting on well?" said Benassis to her, taking up the pieces of linen destined to make shirts. La Fosseuse looked at the doctor with a timid and supplicating air. " Do not scold me, monsieur," she replied; " I have done nothing on them to-day, although they were ordered of me by you and for people who are in great need of them; but the weather was so beauti- ful! I went out walking, I gathered for you mush- rooms and white truffles, which I carried to Jac- quotte: she was very well pleased, for you have company to dinner. I was very happy to have guessed that. Something told me to go in search of them." And she returned to her sewing. " You have here, mademoiselle, a very pretty house," said Genestas to her. "It is not mine at all, monsieur," she replied, looking at the stranger with eyes that seemed to blush, " it belongs to Monsieur Benassis." And she turned her eyes softly upon the doctor. " You know very well, my child," said he, taking A VISIT TO LA FOSSEUSE And she returned to her sewing. " You have here, mademoiselle, a very pretty house" said Genestas to her. "It is not mine at all, monsieur" she replied, looking at the stranger with eyes that seemed to blush, "it belongs to Monsieur Benassis" THE COUNTRY DOCTOR l6l her by the hand, "that you will never be turned out of it." La Fosseuse rose suddenly and left the room. " Well," said the doctor to the officer, " what do you think of her?" "Why," replied Genestas, "she singularly af- fected me. Ah! you have arranged her nest very nicely, indeed!" " Bah! paper at fifteen or twenty sous, but well selected, that was all. The furniture is no great things, it was made by my basket-maker, who wished to testify his gratitude to me. La Fosseuse made the curtains herself, with a few yards of calico. Her dwelling, her very simple furniture, seems to you pretty because you find it on the slope of a moun- tain, in a forsaken country where you did not expect to find anything neat and clean; but the secret of this elegance is in a sort of harmony between the house and nature, which has here brought together the streams, some trees well grouped, and given this sward her most beautiful grasses, her perfumed strawberry-plants, her pretty violets " "Well, what is it?" said Benassis to La Fos- seuse, who re-entered the room. " Nothing, nothing," she replied; " I thought that one of my chickens was lost." She was telling a falsehood; but the doctor alone perceived it, and whispered in her ear: "You have been weeping!" " Why do you say such things to me before anyone?" she replied. ii 1 62 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR " Mademoiselle," said Genestas to her, " you are very wrong to remain here all alone; in a cage so charming as this, you should have a husband." " That is true," she said; " but, what would you have, monsieur! I am poor and I am hard to please. I do not feel inclined to go and carry soup into the fields or to drive a cart, to be conscious of the poverty of those whom I love without being able to put an end to it, to hold children in my arms all day, and to mend the ragged garments of a man. Mon- sieur the cure tells me that such thoughts as these are scarcely Christian; I know it very well, but what is to be done? On some days I prefer to eat a piece of dry bread rather than to prepare for my- self something for dinner. Why would you have me burden a man with my faults? he would, per- haps, kill himself to satisfy my whims, and that would not be just. Bast! some kind of ill -fortune has been given to me, and I should support it alone." "Moreover, she was born indolent, my poor Fosseuse," said Benassis, "and she must be taken as she is. But that which she has said to you means that she has not yet been in love with anyone," he added, laughing. Then he rose and went out for a moment on the lawn. "You must love Monsieur Benassis very much?" asked Genestas of her. " Oh! yes, monsieur! and, like myself, there are many people in the canton who would like to cut THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 163 themselves in pieces for him. But he, who cures others, he has something himself which nothing can cure. You are his friend; you know, perhaps, what it is? Who is it that could give grief to a man like him, who is the real image of the good God on the earth ? I know several here who believe that their grain grows better when he has passed by the side of their field in the morning." "And you, what do you believe?" " Why, monsieur, when I have seen him " She seemed to hesitate, then she added: " I am happy for the whole day." She lowered her head, and plied her needle with a singular rapidity. " Well, has the captain told you some story about Napoleon?" said the doctor, re-entering. " Monsieur has seen the Emperor?" exclaimed La Fosseuse, regarding the officer's face with a passion- ate curiosity. " Parbleu!" said Genestas, "more than a thou- sand times." "Ah! how much I should like to know about something military!" " To-morrow, we will come, perhaps, to take a cup of cafe au lait with you. And you shall hear about something military, my child," said Benassis, taking her by the neck and kissing her on the forehead. "She is my daughter, you see!" he added, turning toward the commandant; "when I have not kissed her on the forehead, there is something missed for me in my day." 164 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR La Fosseuse clasped the hand of Benassis, and said to him, in a low voice: " Oh! how good you are!" They left her, but she followed them to see them mount. When Genestas was in the saddle: " Who is, then, this monsieur?" she whispered in Benassis's ear. "Ah! ah!" replied the doctor, setting his foot in the stirrup, " perhaps a husband for you." She remained standing, watching them descend the slope, and when they passed the end of the gar- den, they still saw her, mounted upon a little pile of stones that she might still follow them with her eyes and make a last sign with her head. "Monsieur, that young girl has something extra- ordinary about her," said Genestas to the physician when they were at some distance from the house. "Has she not?" he replied. "I have said to myself twenty times that she would make a charm- ing wife; but I could not love her other than as one loves his sister or his daughter, my heart is dead." " Has she any relatives?" inquired Genestas. "What occupation had her father and mother?" "Oh! that is quite a story," replied Benassis. " She has no longer either father or mother or rela- tives. There is nothing, not even to her name, which has not interested me. La Fosseuse was born in the town. Her father, a laboring man of Saint-Laurent-du-Pont, was named Le Fosseur, doubt- less an abbreviation of fossqyeur, grave-digger THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 165 for, from time immemorial, the office of interring the dead had remained in his family. There is in this name all the melancholy of the cemetery. By virtue of a Roman custom, still in usage here, as in some other parts of France, and by which wives are given the names of their husbands with the ad- dition of a feminine termination, this girl was called la Fosseuse, from her father's name. This day- laborer had married for love the femme de chambre of I know-not-what countess whose estates lay at a distance of a few leagues from the town. Here, as in all parts of the country, passion counts for but little in the marriages. Generally, the peasants want a wife in order to have children, to have a housekeeper who will make them good soup and bring it to them in the fields, who will spin their shirts and mend their garments. " Such an episode had not happened in this district for a long time, here where a young man frequently deserts his promise for another young girl richer than she by three or four arpents of land. The state of the Fosseur and his wife was not fortunate enough to win our Dauphinois from their selfish calcula- tions. The mother, who was a beautiful woman, died in child-bed of her daughter. The husband grieved so much at this loss that he died in the course of the year, leaving to his child nothing in the world but a frail and naturally very precarious existence. The little one was charitably taken care of by a female neighbor, who brought her up till she was nine years old. The charge of La Fosseuse 1 66 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR becoming too heavy a burden for this good woman, she sent her ward to beg her bread along the road in the season when many travellers are passing. " One day, the orphan having gone to ask for bread at the chateau of the countess, was retained there in memory of her mother. Here, educated to take the position one day of femme de chambre to the daughter of the house, who was married five years later, the poor little one was during all this time the victim of all the caprices of the rich, who, for the most part, have nothing constant or sustained in their gener- osity, benevolent at intervals and by whims, some- times protectors, sometimes friends, sometimes masters, they falsify the already false situations of the unfortunate children in whom they interest them- selves, and they divert themselves carelessly with their hearts, their lives, or their futures, considering them of but little value. La Fosseuse became at first almost the companion of the young heiress, she was then taught to read, to write, and her future mistress amused herself at times by giving her les- sons in music. Alternately young lady companion and waiting-maid, they made of her an incomplete being. She acquired a taste for luxury, for adorn- ment, and contracted habits not in accord with her real position. Misfortune has since then rudely re- formed her mind, but it has not been able to efface the vague sentiment of a superior destiny. " Finally, one day, a day indeed fatal for this poor girl, the young countess, then married, surprised La Fosseuse, who was then no more than her femme de THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 167 chambre, arrayed in one of her ball-dresses and dancing before a mirror. The orphan, then sixteen years old, was dismissed without pity. Her indo- lence caused her to fall into poverty, to wander along the roads, to beg, to work, as I have related to you. Often she thought of drowning herself, sometimes also of giving herself to the first comer; the greater part of the time she lay in the sun, along a wall, sombre, thoughtful, her head in the grass; the travel- lers would then throw her a few sous, precisely be- cause she asked for nothing. She was for a year in the hospital of Annecy, after a laborious harvest at which she had worked only in the hope of dying. You shall hear her relate herself her sentiments and her ideas during this period of her life; she is often very curious in her ingenuous confidences. Finally, she returned to the town about the period when I re- solved to settle myself there. I wished to become acquainted with the mental qualities of those whom I was to look after. I therefore studied her character, which impressed me; then, after having observed her organic imperfections, I resolved to take care of her. Perhaps, in course of time, she will end by becoming accustomed to the task of sewing; but, in any case, I have assured her future." " Is she entirely alone there?" asked Genestas. " No, one of my shepherdesses goes to sleep with her," replied the physician. " You did not see the buildings of my farm which are above the house; they are concealed by the firs. Oh! she is in safety. Moreover, there are no evil characters in our valley; 168 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR if, by chance, any of them are met with, I send them to the army, where they make excellent soldiers." " Poor girl! " said Genestas. "Ah! the people of the canton do not commiser- ate her," replied Benassis; "they consider her, on the contrary, very fortunate; but there exists this dif- ference between her and the other women, that to them God has given strength, to her, feebleness; and they do not see that." At the moment when the two horsemen came out on the road to Grenoble, Benassis, who had foreseen the effect of this new extended view upon Genestas, stopped with an air of satisfaction to enjoy his sur- prise. Two walls of verdure, sixty feet high, en- closed, as far as the eye could see, a wide highway, rounded upward in the middle like a garden-walk, and constituting a natural monument which any man might be proud of having created. The trees, untrimmed, formed all of them those immense green palms which render the Italian poplar one of the most magnificent objects in the vegetable kingdom. One side of the road, already invaded by the shad- ows, presented a vast wall of dark leaves, whilst the other, strongly lit up by the setting sun which gave to the young twigs golden tints, offered the contrast of the play of color and reflections which the light and the breeze produced upon its moving curtain. "You should be very happy here!" exclaimed Genestas. " Everything here is a pleasure for you." THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 169 " Monsieur," said the physician, "the love for Nature is the only one that does not deceive human hopes. Here, there are no deceptions. Look at those poplars of ten years' growth, did you ever see any as well grown as mine?" " God is great! " said the soldier, stopping in the middle of this road of which he could perceive neither the end nor the beginning. "You do me good," exclaimed Benassis. "It gives me pleasure to hear you repeat what I have often said in the midst of this avenue. There is to be found here, certainly, something religious. We are here like two points, and the consciousness of our littleness brings us always nearer to God." They rode along slowly and in silence, listening to the sound of their horses' hoofs, which resounded in this gallery of verdure as if they were under the vaults of a cathedral. " How many emotions of which the inhabitants of cities have no suspicion!" said the doctor. "Do you smell the perfume exhaled by the propolis of the poplars and by the resin of the larch-trees ? What delights!" "Listen!" exclaimed Genestas. "Let us stop." They then heard a singing in the distance. " Is it a woman or a man? is it a bird?" asked the commandant under his breath. " Is it the voice of this great landscape?" "There is something of all of them," replied the doctor, dismounting and tying his horse to a branch of a poplar. 170 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR Then he made a sign to the officer to imitate his example and to follow him. They went with slow steps along a path bordered with two hedges of hawthorn in flower which diffused penetrating odors in the humid evening air. The rays of the sun entered the path with a sort of impetuosity which the shadow projected by the long curtain of poplars rendered still more noticeable, and these vigorous jets of light enveloped with their reddish tints a thatched cottage situated at the end of this sandy road. A golden dust seemed to be thrown upon its roof of thatch, usually as brown as the shell of a chestnut, and the dilapidated ridges of which were green with house-leek and moss. The cottage could scarcely be seen in this mist of light ; but the old walls, the doors, everything had a fugitive brilliancy, everything was fortuitously beautiful, as is the hu- man countenance at moments, under the empire of some passion which lightens it up and colors it. There are to be met with in the life in the open air these pleasant places, sylvan and momentary, which draw from us involuntarily the wish of the apostle saying to Jesus Christ on the mountain: "Let us set up a tent and rest here." This landscape seemed to have at this moment a voice as pure and mild as it was itself pure and mild, but a voice sad as the light about to be extinguished in the west: vague image of death, a notification divinely given in the heavens by the sun, as it is given on earth by the flowers and the pretty ephemeral insects. At this hour the tints of the sun are touched with sadness, THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 171 and this song was sad; a popular song, moreover, a song of love and regret, which formerly had served the national hatred of France against England, but to which Beaumarchais has restored its true poetry, by translating it to the French stage and putting it in the mouth of a page who opens his heart to his god- mother. This air was modulated without words in a plaintive tune by a voice which vibrated in the soul and affected it to tenderness. " It is the swan's song," said Benassis. " In the course of a century, this voice does not sound twice in men's ears. Let us hasten, it is necessary to stop it from singing! This child is killing himself, it would be cruelty to listen longer. Be silent, there, Jacques! Come, now, be silent!" cried the doctor. The music ceased. Genestas remained standing, motionless and bewildered. A cloud covered the sun, the landscape and the voice were silent to- gether. Shadow, cold, and silence replaced the soft splendors of the light, the warm emanations of the atmosphere, and the singing of the child. "Why do you disobey me?'.', said Benassis. ."I will give you no more rice-cakes^ nor bouillon of snails, nor fresh dates, nor white bread! You then wish to die, and to break the heart of your poor mother?" Genestas advanced into a little court, kept toler- ably clean, and saw a boy of fifteen, feeble as a woman, blond, but having little hair and colored as though he had been rouging. He rose slowly from the bench on which he had been sitting under 172 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR a great jessamine, under flowering lilacs which pushed out in every direction and enveloped him with their foliage. "You know very well," said the doctor, "that I told you to go to bed with the sun; not to expose yourself to the evening chill, and not to talk, what induced you to sing?" "Dame! Monsieur Benassis, it was very warm here, and it is so nice to be warm! 1 am always cold. When I felt so well, without thinking, I commenced to say to amuse myself : 'Malbrouk s'en va-t-en guerre,' and I listened to myself, because my voice almost resembled that of the big flute of your shepherd." " Come, now, my poor Jacques, do not let this hap- pen to you again, do you hear? Give me your hand." The doctor felt his pulse. The child had blue eyes, usually very mild, but which a feverish expres- sion now rendered brilliant. " Ah, yes, I was sure of it, you are in a perspira- tion," said Benassis. " Your mother is not, then, at home?" "No, monsieur!" " Well, then, go into the house and go to bed." The young patient, followed by Benassis and the officer, re-entered the cottage. "Will you light a candle, Captain Bluteau," said the doctor, who was aiding Jacques to remove his coarse, ragged garments. When Genestas had lit up the cottage, he was struck with the extreme thinness of this child, who THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 173 was no longer anything but skin and bone. When the little peasant was in bed, Benassis tapped him on the chest, listening to the sound produced by his fingers; then, after considering carefully these sounds of ill omen, he drew the coverings over Jacques, fell back four steps, crossed his arms, and proceeded to examine him. " How do you feel, my little man?" " Comfortable, monsieur." Benassis pushed up to the bed a table with four turned legs, looked for a glass and a vial on the mantelpiece, and composed a potion by mingling with pure water a few drops of a brown liquid con- tained in the vial, and carefully measured by the light of the candle which Genestas held for him. " Your mother is a long time coming back." " Monsieur, she is coming," said the child, " I hear her on the path." The doctor and the officer waited and looked around them. At the foot of the bed was a mattress of moss, without sheets or covering, on which the mother slept, doubtless in all her clothes. Genestas indicated this bed with his finger to Benassis, who nodded his head slowly as if to say that he, too, had already admired this maternal devotion. A noise of sabots having been heard in the court, the doctor went out. " It will be necessary to watch with Jacques to- night, Mother Colas. If he tells you that he is suf- focating, you will give him a drink of that which I have put in a glass on the table. Be careful to give 174 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR him no more than two or three swallows each time. What is in the glass should last him all night. Above all, do not touch the vial, and begin by changing your child's linen, he is in a perspiration." " I was not able to wash his shirts to-day, my dear monsieur; I was obliged to carry my hemp to Grenoble to get some money." " Well, I will send you some shirts." "He is then worse, my poor boy?" asked the woman. " There is not much to be hoped for, Mother Colas; he has been so imprudent as to sing; but do not scold him, do not be harsh with him, have cour- age. If Jacques complains too much, send for me by & neighbor. Adieu!" The doctor called his companion, and returned toward the path. "That little peasant is consumptive?" said Ge- nestas to him. " Mon Dieu, yes!" replied Benassis. "Unless nature provides a miracle, science cannot save him. Our professors, of the Ecole de Medecine of Paris, fre- quently spoke to us of the phenomenon of which you have just been a witness. Certain maladies of this kind produce in the organs of the voice alterations which momentarily give to invalids the faculty of emitting notes the perfection of which cannot be equalled by any virtuoso. I have made you pass a melancholy day, monsieur," said the doctor, when he was again in the saddle. "Everywhere suffer- ing, and everywhere death, but everywhere also THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 175 resignation. The country people all die philosophi- cally: they suffer, are silent, and take to their beds after the manner of the animals. But let us speak no more of death, and quicken the pace of our horses, we must arrive before nightfall in the town, so that you may see the new quarter." " And there is a fire somewhere," said Genestas, pointing to a spot on the mountain where flames might be seen arising. " That fire is not dangerous. Our, lime-burner is doubtless preparing a kiln, of lime. Thls'new indus- try utilizes our heaths." The report of a gun was suddenly heard; Benassis uttered an involuntary exclamation, and said, im- patiently: " If that is Butifer, we shall see soon which of us two is the stronger." " It was fired there," said Genestas, indicating a wood of beech-trees situated above them, on the mountain. "Yes, up there; you can trust to an old soldier's ear." "Let us go there immediately!" exclaimed Be- nassis, who, aiming in a straight line for the little wood, made his horse fly over the ditches and the fields as if it were a steeple-chase, so much did he desire to surprise the shooter in the very act. "The man whom you are looking for is running away," cried Genestas, who was following him with difficulty. Benassis wheeled his horse quickly, returned on his steps, and the man whom he was looking for 176 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR presently showed himself on top of a steep rock, a hundred feet above the two horsemen. "Butifer," cried Benassis, seeing the long gun which he carried, "come down!" Butifer recognized the doctor, and replied by a sign, respectfully friendly, which promised perfect obedience. "I can imagine," said Genestas, "that a man under the impulse of fear or of some violent emotion might be able to climb up that point of rock; but how is he going to get down?" "I am not anxious about him," replied Benassis, "the goats might be jealous of that rascal. You will see." Accustomed to judge of the intrinsic value of men by the events of war, the commandant admired the singular quickness, the admirable security of Buti- fer 's movements while he was descending the de- clivities of the rock to the summit of which he had so courageously attained. The slender and vigor- ous body of the hunter kept his equilibrium grace- fully in every position which the steepness of the road obliged him to take; he put his foot on a point of rock more quietly than he would have set it on a floor, so certain did he seem of being able to maintain himself at need. He managed his long gun as if he had only a cane in his hand. Butifer was a young man, of medium height, but dry, thin, and nervous, whose virile beauty struck Genestas when he saw him near to him. He evi- dently belonged to that class of smugglers who carry THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 177 on their trade without violence, and employ only shrewdness and patience to defraud the exchequer. He had a masculine countenance, browned by the sun. His eyes, of a clear yellow, sparkled like those of an eagle, to the beak of which his thin nose, slightly curved at the end, had much resem- blance. His cheeks were covered with down; his mouth, red, partly opened, revealed his teeth of a dazzling whiteness. His beard, his moustache, his reddish whiskers, which he allowed to grow, and which curled naturally, enhanced still more the virile and indomitable expression of his counte- nance. In him, everything was strength. The muscles of his hand, continually exercised, had a curious firmness and largeness. His chest was wide and deep, and on his forehead shone an un- tamed intelligence. He had the intrepid and reso- lute, though quiet, air of a man accustomed to risk his life, and who has so often proved his bodily or intellectual power in perils of every kind that he no longer has any doubts of himself. Clothed in a blouse torn by the thorns, he wore on his feet leathern sandals attached by eel-skin lacings. Pan- taloons of blue canvas, pieced and slashed, allowed his legs to be seen, red, fine, wiry, and nervous as those of a deer. " This is the man who in bygone days fired at me once," said Benassis to the commandant, in a low voice. "If, now, I should evince a desire to be rid of anyone, he would kill him without hesitation. Butifer," he went on, addressing the poacher, " I 1/8 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR believed you truly a man of honor, and I gave my word, because I had yours. My promise to the procureur du roi at Grenoble was based upon your oath to hunt no more, to become a respectable man, careful and industrious. It was you who just now fired that shot, and you are on the property of the Comte de Labranchoir. Aha! what if his gamekeeper had heard you, unlucky one? Fortunately for you, I will draw up no proces-ver bal ; you would be guilty of a second offence, and you have no right to carry arms! I left you your gun in consideration of your attachment to that arm." "It is a fine one," said the commandant, recog- nizing a duck-gun of Saint-Etienne. The smuggler looked up toward Genestas as if to thank him for this approbation. " Butifer," continued Benassis, " your conscience should reproach you. If you take to your old trade again, you will find yourself once more in a park enclosed with walls; no protection will then be able to save you from the galleys; you will be marked, branded. You will bring me your gun this very evening. I will keep it for you." Butifer clasped the barrel of his weapon with a convulsive movement. "You are right, monsieur le maire," he said. " I am wrong, I have broken my ban, I am a dog. My gun should go to you, but you will have my inheritance in taking it from me. The last shot which my mother's child will fire will reach my brain. What would you have! I have done what THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 179 you wished, I kept quiet during the winter; but, in the spring, the sap has started. I do not know how to work, I have not the heart to spend my life in fattening chickens; I can neither bend my back to dig around vegetables, nor flog the air in driving a cart, nor stop to rub a horse's back in a stable; must one, then, starve to death? I only see clearly up there," he continued after a pause, pointing to the mountains. " I have been there for a week. I saw a chamois, and the chamois is there," he said, indicating the top of the rock, "he is at your service! My good Monsieur Benassis, leave me my gun. Listen, on the word of Butifer! I will leave the commune and I will go to the Alps, where the chamois hunters will not say anything to me; quite the contrary, they will receive me with pleas- ure, and I shall die there at the bottom of some glacier. See, now, to speak frankly, I would rather spend a year or two living thus, among the heights, without meeting either government, or custom-house officer, or gamekeeper, or procureur du roi, than to grovel a hundred years in your bog. There will be no one but you whom I shall regret, the others drive me crazy! Although you are in the right, at least you do not exterminate people " " And Louise?" said Benassis to him. Butifer stood thoughtful. "Eh! my lad," said Genestas, " learn to read, to write, come to my regiment, mount a horse, become a carabineer. If once the boot-and-saddle should sound for a somewhat decent war, you would see 180 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR that the good God had made you to live in the midst of cannon, of balls, of battles, and you would become a general." "Yes, if Napoleon had returned," replied Butifer. "You know our agreement?" said the doctor to him. " On the second infraction, you promised me to become a soldier. 1 give you six months to learn to write and to read; then I will find some son of a family whose place you can take." Butifer looked at the mountains. "Oh! you will not go to the Alps," exclaimed Benassis. "A man like you, a man of honor, full of great qualities, should serve his country, com- mand a brigade, and not die at the tail of a chamois. The life which you are leading will conduct you straight to the bagnio. Your excessive labors com- pel you to take long repose; in the end, you will contract the habits of an idle life, which will destroy in you all ideas of order, which will accustom you to abuse your strength, to punish yourself, and I wish, in spite of yourself, to set you on a good road." " I shall then have to burst with weariness and dulness? I suffocate when I am in a city. I can- not stay longer than one day in Grenoble when I take Louise there " "We have all of us inclinations, which we must know how to resist, or render useful to our neighbors. But it is late, I am in a hurry, you will come to see me to-morrow, bringing me your gun; we will talk this all over, my son. Adieu! Sell your chamois in Grenoble." THE COUNTRY DOCTOR l8l The two horsemen rode away. " That is what I call a man," said Genestas. "A man in a bad way," replied Benassis. " But what is to be done? You heard him. Is it not de- plorable to see such fine qualities wasted? If an enemy should invade France, Butifer, at the head of a hundred young men, would stop a division in the Maurienne for a month; but, in times" of peace, he can only display his energy in situations in which the laws are defied. He requires some power or other to vanquish; when he is not risking his life, he is struggling against society, he aids the smug- glers. That rascal crosses the Rh6ne, alone in a little boat, to carry shoes into Savoy; he takes refuge with his burden on an inaccessible peak, where he can remain two days, living on crusts of bread. In short, he loves danger as another loves slumber. Through tasting the pleasures which are given by extreme sensations, he has come to place himself outside of ordinary life. For my part, I do not wish that, in following the gradual decline of an evil life, such a man shfmld become a brigand and die on a scaffold. But do you see, captain, how our town shows itself?" Genestas perceived in the distance a large cir- cular place planted with trees, in the middle of which was a fountain surrounded by poplars. This place was enclosed by a sloping embankment on which were three rows of different trees, first, acacias, then Japanese varnish-trees, and at the top of the terrace, young elms. 1 82 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR " That is the field on which our fair is held," said Benassis. " Then the Grande-Rue begins with the two fine houses of which I have spoken to you, that of the justice of the peace and that of the notary." They then entered a large street carefully paved with round stones, on each side of which were some hundred new houses, almost all of them separated by gardens. The church, whose portal furnished a handsome end to the perspective, terminated this street, midway in which two others were also newly laid out, with several houses already built upon them. The mayor's office, situated on the public place of the church, was opposite to the curate's house. As Benassis rode down this street, women, children, and men, whose day's work was ended, came out of their doors; some took off their caps to him, others said good-day to him, the little children uttered cries and danced around his horse, as if the good nature of the animal was known to them as well as that of his master. It was a quiet joy, which, like all deep sentiments, had its peculiar modesty and its infectious attraction. When he saw this welcome accorded to the doctor, Genestas came to the conclusion that the physician had been too modest in the manner in which, the evening before, he had spoken of the affection which the inhabitants of the canton bore to him. It was, indeed, the most gentle of royalties, that of which the titles are engraved in the hearts of the subjects, a true royalty, moreover. However powerful may be the rays of the glory or of the power which a man THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 183 enjoys, his soul soon comes to estimate justly the feelings which any external action procures for him, and he quickly perceives his real nothingness in finding no change, nothing new, nothing greater, in the exercise of his physical powers. The kings, though they possessed the whole earth, are con- demned, like all other men, to live in a little circle to the laws of which they submit, and their happiness depends upon the personal impressions which they receive. Now, Benassis is met everywhere in the canton with obedience and friendship only. Ill THE NAPOLEON OF THE PEOPLE "You have come, then, monsieur!" exclaimed Jacquotte. " It is a long time that these messieurs have been waiting for you. It is always this way. You make me spoil my dinner when it should be particularly good. Now, everything is rotten with cooking " "Well, here we are," replied Benassis, smiling. The two horsemen dismounted and went into the salon, where were assembled the guests invited by the doctor. "Messieurs," said he, taking Genestas by the hand, " I have the honor to present to you Monsieur Bluteau, captain in the regiment of cavalry in garri- son at Grenoble, an old soldier who has promised me to remain some time among us." Then addressing himself to Genestas, he indicated to him a tall, spare man, with gray hair and clothed in black. " Monsieur," he said to him, " is Monsieur Dufau, the justice of the peace, of whom I have already spoken to you, and who has so greatly contributed to the prosperity of the commune. Monsieur," he (185) 1 86 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR resumed, presenting him to a thin, pale young man, of medium stature, also dressed in black, and who wore glasses, "Monsieur is Monsieur Tonnelet, the son-in-law of Monsieur Gravier, and the first notary established in our town." Then turning toward a stout man, half peasant, half bourgeois, with a coarse, pimpled face, but one full of good humor: "Monsieur," said he, continuing, " is my worthy deputy, Monsieur Cambon, the lumber merchant to whom I owe the friendly confidence which the inhabitants grant me. He is one of the creators of the road which you have admired. I have no need," added Benassis, indicating the cure, "to tell you the profession of monsieur. You see a man whom no can help loving." face of the priest attracted the soldier's at- tention by its expression of a jnoral beauty the charm of which was irresistible'X At first glance, Monsieur Janvier's countenance // might seem un- couth, so harsh and severe were its lines. His slight figure, his emaciation, his attitude, revealed great physical weakness; but his countenance, al- ways placid, attested the profound interior peace of the Christian and the strength which arises from the chastity of the soul. His eyes, in which the heavens seemed to be reflected, betrayed that inextinguish- able flame of charity which consumed his heart. His gestures, rare but natural, were those of a modest man; his movements had the modest sim- plicity of those of young girls. The sight of him THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 187 inspired respect, and the vague desire of entering into his intimacy. "Ah! monsieur le maire! " he said, bowing, as if to escape the eulogy which Benassis had pro- nounced upon him. The sound of his voice stirred the heart of the commandant, who was thrown into a reverie almost religious by the few insignificant words uttered by this unknown priest. "Messieurs," said Jacquotte, coming into the middle of the salon and standing there, her fist on her hip, " your soup is on the table." Upon the invitation of Benassis, who called each one in his turn to avoid the etiquette of precedence, the five guests of the physician passed into the dining-room and took their seats at the table, after having heard the Benedicite, which the cure pro- nounced without emphasis and in a low voice. The table was covered with a cloth of that damask linen invented under Henri IV. by the brothers Graindorge, skilful manufacturers, who have given their name to this thick tissue so well known to housekeepers. This linen was dazzling in whiteness and smelt of the thyme which Jacquotte used in her laundry. The service was of white fal'ence with blue borders, in perfect preservation. The carafes had that an- tique octagonal form which the provinces alone pre- serve in our day. The handles of the knives, all in carved horn, represented curious figures. In examining these objects, of a luxury ancient and yet almost new, each one found them in 188 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR harmony with the cheerfulness and frankness of the master of the house. The attention of Genestas was arrested for a moment by the cover of the soup tureen which was crowned by vegetables in relief, very well colored, in the manner of Bernard Pa- lissy, a celebrated artist of the sixteenth century. This company did not want for originality. The vigorous heads of Benassis and Genestas contrasted admirably with the apostolic head of Monsieur Jan- vier; in the same manner as the aging faces of the justice of the peace and the deputy mayor set off the youthful countenance of the notary. Society seemed to be represented by these diverse physiognomies, on which were equally depicted inward contentment, satisfaction with the present, and faith in the future. Monsieur Tonnelet and Monsieur Janvier only, not far advanced in life, loved to scrutinize future events, which they felt appertained to them, whilst the other guests naturally preferred to bring the conversation to the past ; but all of them gravely surveyed human affairs, and their opinions re- flected a double tint of melancholy, one had the paleness of the evening twilights, the souvenir, almost effaced, of joys that would never be born again; the other, like the dawn, gave hopes of a beautiful day. " You must have had a very fatiguing day, mon- sieur le cure?" said Monsieur Cambon. "Yes, monsieur," replied Monsieur Janvier; "the burial of the poor cretin and that of Father Pelletier took place at different hours." THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 189 "We shall now be able to demolish the ruins of the old village," said Benassis to his colleague. "These clearings off of the houses will give us at least an arpent of meadow-land; and the commune will gain, moreover, the hundred francs which the support of Chautard, the cretin, cost us." " We should allow these hundred francs for three years for the construction of a one-arched bridge on the road down there, to cross the large stream," said Monsieur Cambon. " The people of the town and of the valley have adopted the custom of crossing the land of Jean-Francois Pastoureau, and will, in the end, injure it in such a manner as to cause much loss to that poor good fellow." " Certainly," said the justice of the peace, " that money could not be put to a better use. In my opinion, the abuse of footpaths is one of the great- est plagues in the country. The tenth of the cases brought before the courts of the peace are caused by unjust obligations of land-owners. The rights of property are thus attacked, almost with impunity, in very many communes. The respect for property and respect for the law are two sentiments too often misunderstood in France, and which it is very neces- sary to propagate. It seems to be dishonoring to a great many people to lend any assistance to the law, and the ' Go and get yourself hanged elsewhere ! ' a proverbial phrase which seems to be dictated by a sentiment of praiseworthy generosity, is at bottom only a hypocritical formula which serves to veil our selfishness. Let us admit it, we are lacking in IQO THE COUNTRY DOCTOR patriotism! The true patriot is the citizen sufficiently penetrated with the importance of the laws to cause them to be executed, even at his own risks and peril. To allow a malefactor to go in peace, is not that to render ourselves guilty of his future crimes?" "All things are related to each other," said Be- nassis. " If the mayors kept their roads better, there would not be so many footpaths. Then, if the municipal councillors were better informed, they would sustain the proprietor and the mayor when these were opposed to the establishment of an unjust obligation, like this; all would make the ignorant people comprehend that the chateau, the field, the thatched cottage, the tree, are equally sacred, and that the RIGHT is neither augmented nor enfeebled by the differing values of property. But such ameliora- tions cannot be obtained quickly; they are related principally to the morality of the population, which we cannot reform completely without the efficacious intervention of the cures. This is not addressed to you, Monsieur Janvier." "Neither do I take it for myself," replied the cure, laughing. " Have I not endeavored to make the dogmas of the Catholic religion coincide with your administrative views ? Thus I have often tried, in my pastoral instructions regarding theft, to inculcate in the inhabitants of the parish the same ideas which you have just set forth concerning the right. In fact, God does not estimate the theft according to the value of the thing stolen, he judges the thief. Such was the meaning of the parables THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 19 1 which I have endeavored to adapt to the intelligence of my parishioners." "You have succeeded, monsieur le cure," said Cambon. " I am able to judge of the changes which you have wrought in their minds by comparing the present state of the commune with its former condi- tion. It is certain that there are but few cantons in which the workmen are as scrupulous as are our own concerning the fixed hours of labor. The cattle are well looked after, and do no damage unless acciden- tally. The woods are respected. In short, you have caused our peasants to understand very well that the leisure of the rich is the recompense of an economi- cal and industrious life." "Then," said Genestas, "you should be suffi- ciently well content with your foot-soldiers, monsieur le cure?" "Monsieur le capitaine," replied the priest, "it is not worth while to expect to find angels anywhere, here below. Everywhere where there is poverty there is suffering. Suffering and poverty are living forces which have their abuses, as power has its own. When the peasants have walked two leagues to go to their work, and are returning very tired in the evening, if they see the hunters crossing the fields and the meadows in order to reach their dinner-table sooner, do you believe that they will have any scruples in imitating them? Among those who thus beat down the path of which these mes- sieurs were just complaining, which is the delin- quent, he who works or he who amuses himself ? 192 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR To-day, the rich and the poor give us as much trouble the one as the other. Faith, like power, should always descend from the heights, either heavenly or social; and certainly, in our days, the educated classes have less faith than the people, to whom God has promised heaven in recompense of their ills patiently supported. "While always submitting to the ecclesiastical discipline and to the ideas of my superiors, 1 think that, for a long time to come, we should be less ex- acting concerning questions of worship, and en- deavor to reanimate the religious sentiment in the heart of the middle regions of the social body, there where they discuss Christianity instead of practising its precepts. The philosophism of the rich has been a very fatal example for the poor, and has caused too long interregnums in the kingdom of God. Whatever we may gain to-day over our flock depends entirely upon our personal influence; is it not a mis- fortune that the religious faith of a commune should be due to the consideration which a man obtains in it? When Christianity shall have fertilized anew the social order, by impregnating all classes with its conservative doctrines, its worship will no longer be called in question. The worship of a religion is its outward form, societies subsist only by their form. To you, the flags; to us, the cross " " Monsieur le cure, I should much like to know," said Genestas, interrupting Monsieur Janvier, " why you prevent these poor people from amusing them- selves by dancing on Sundays?" THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 193 "Monsieur le capitaine," replied the cure, "we do not hate the dance in itself ; we proscribe it as one cause of the immorality which troubles the peace and corrupts the manners of the country. To purify the family spirit, to maintain the sanctity of its bonds, is not that to cut down the evil at its roots?" "I am aware," said Monsieur Tonnelet, " that some disorders are committed in every canton, but in ours they are becoming rare. If a number of our peasants have no great scruples about taking from a neighbor a furrow of earth in ploughing, or about going to cut some osiers on the land of another when they need them, these are peccadillos in comparison with the sins of the people of the cities. Therefore, I consider the peasants of this valley to be very religious." " Oh! religious," said the cure, smiling; "fanati- cism is not to be feared here." "But, monsieur le cure," objected Cambon, "if the townspeople went to mass every mornihg, if they confessed to you every week, it would be difficult to cultivate the fields, and three priests would not suffice for the task " "Monsieur," replied the cure, "to work is to pray. Practical action implies the knowledge of the religious principles which give life to societies." "And what do you make, then, of patriotism?" asked Genestas. "Patriotism," replied the cure, gravely, "in- spires only passing sentiments, religion renders them 13 194 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR durable. Patriotism is a momentary forgetful ness of the personal interest, whilst Christianity is a complete system of opposition to the depraved ten- dencies of mankind." " However, monsieur, during the wars of the Revolution, patriotism " "Yes, during the Revolution we did marvels," said Benassis, interrupting Genestas; " but twenty years later, in 1814, our patriotism was already dead; whilst France and Europe threw themselves upon Asia a dozen times in a hundred years, urged by a religious sentiment." " Perhaps," said the justice of the peace, "it is easy to come to an agreement concerning the mate- rial interests which give rise to the combats of peo- ple against people; whilst the wars undertaken to maintain dogmas, the object of which is never pre- cisely defined, are necessarily interminable." "Well, monsieur, are you not serving the fish?" said Jacquotte, who, aided by Nicolle, had carried away the plates. Faithful to her usual custom, the cook brought in each dish, one after the other, a custom which has the inconvenience of obliging the gourmands to eat a great deal, and of causing the best things to be neg- lected by the temperate ones whose appetite is satis- fied by the first courses. " Oh! monsieur," said the priest to the justice of the peace, "how can you assert that the wars of religion have no precise aim? Formerly, religion was a bond so powerful in all societies that the THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 195 material interests could not be separated from the religious questions. Hence every soldier knew very well for what he fought " " If there has been so much fighting for religion," said Genestas, " it must be that God has built the edifice very imperfectly. Should not a divine insti- tution strike all men by its characteristics of truth?" All the guests looked at the cure. ''Messieurs," said Monsieur Janvier, "religion is felt, and is not defined. We are judges neither of the means nor of the end of the All-Powerful." "Then, according to you, it is necessary to be- lieve in all your salaams?" said Genestas, with the cheerful irreverence of a soldier who has never thought of God. "Monsieur," replied the priest, gravely, "the Catholic religion puts an end, better than any other, to all human anxieties; but if it should not be so, I would ask you what you risk in believing in its truths?" " Not much," said Genestas. " Well, what do you not risk in not believing at all? But, monsieur, let us speak of the terrestrial interests which touch you the nearest. See how the finger of God is strongly impressed upon human things by touching them through the hand of his vicar. Men have lost a great deal by departing from the paths traced by Christianity. The Church, of which few people think to read the history, and which is judged by certain erroneous opinions designedly spread among the people, has offered 196 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR the perfect model of government which men are seeking to establish to-day. The principle of elec- tion has made of it for a long time a great political power. There was not, formerly, a single religious institution which was not based upon liberty, upon equality. All possible means co-operated in this work. The principal of a college, the abbe, the bishop, the general of the order, the Pope, were then chosen conscientiously, according to the needs of the Church; they expressed its idea, therefore the most blind obedience was due them. I will not dwell upon the social benefits of this idea which has made the modern nations, inspired so many poems, cathedrals, statues, paintings, and musical compositions, to call your attention only to the fact that your popular elections, the jury, and the two Chambers have taken their root in the provincial and oecumenical councils, in the episcopate and the college of cardinals; with this difference nearly, that the present philosophical conceptions of civilization seem to me to pale before the sublime and divine idea of the Catholic communion, an image of a universal social communion, accomplished by the Word and by the act, reunited in the religious dogma. It will be difficult for the new political systems, however per- fect they may be supposed, to produce anew those marvels known in the ages in which the Church sustained human intelligence." "Why?" said Genestas. " In the first place, because the election, in order to become a principle, demands among the electors THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 197 an absolute equality, they should be equal quanti- ties, to make use of a geometrical expression, some- thing which modern politics will never obtain. Then, the great things of social existence are produced only by the power of sentiments, which alone can bring men together, and the modern philosophism has founded the laws on the personal interest, which tends to isolate them. Formerly, more than to-day, there were to be met with, among the nations, men generously animated by a maternal sense of the unrecognized rights, the sufferings of the masses. Thus the priest, a child of the middle classes, was opposed to the material force, and he defended the people against their enemies. The Church has acquired territorial possessions, and her temporal interests, which would seem to necessarily consoli- date her, have ended by enfeebling her action. In fact, when the priest has privileged property, he seems to be an oppressor; when the State pays him, he is a functionary, he owes his time, his heart, his life; the citizens make his virtues his duty, and his benevolence, withered in the principle of free will, dries up in his heart. But, when the priest is poor, when he is a priest voluntarily, without any other support than God, without other fortune than the heart of the faithful, he becomes again the mission- ary to America, he institutes himself an apostle, he is the prince of good. In short, he reigns only by destitution and he succumbs through opulence." Monsieur Janvier had secured the general atten- tion. The guests were silent while reflecting upon 198 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR these words so novel in the mouth of a simple cure. " Monsieur Janvier, in the midst of the truths which you have expressed, there is to be met with a grave error," said Benassis. " I do not like, as you know, to discuss the general interests brought into question by writers and by the modern authorities. In my opinion, a man who conceives a political system should, if he feel in himself the strength to apply it, be silent, seize the power and act; but, if he remain in the happy obscurity of a simple citizen, is it not folly to endeavor to convert the masses only by indi- vidual discussions? Nevertheless, I am going to com- bat you, my dear pastor, because here I am addressing myself to worthy men, accustomed to put their lights together in order to seek the truth in everything. My thoughts may appear strange to you, but they are the fruit of the reflections which have been inspired in me by the catastrophes of our last forty years. " Universal suffrage, which is demanded to-day by those belonging to the opposition which is called constitutional, was an excellent principle in the Church, because, as you have just observed, dear pastor, the individuals there were all informed, dis- ciplined by the religious sentiment, imbued with the same system, knowing very well wha--they wished and whither they were going. Bustle triumph of the ideas in aid of which modern liberalism impru- dently makes war on the prosperous government of the Bourbons would be the ruin of France and of the liberals themselves. The chiefs of the Left THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 199 know it well. For them, this contest is a simple question of power. If, which God forbid, the bour- geoisie, under the banners of the opposition, should succeed in beating down the social superiorities against which their vanity protests, this triumph would be immediately followed by a combat sus- tained by the bourgeoisie against the people, which, later, would see in them a sort of nobility, rather mean, it is true, but of which the fortunes and the privileges would be to them all the more odious that they felt them so much the nearer. In this combat, society, I do not say the nation, would perish again, because the triumph always momentary of the suffering masses implies the greatest disorders. This combat would be furious, without truce, for it would arise from the discord, instinctive or acquired, between the electors, of whom the portion the least enlightened but the most numerous would get the better of their social superiors in a system in which suffrages count and are not weighed. " It follows from this that a government is never more strongly organized, consequently more perfect, than when it is established for the defence of a more restricted privilege. That which I call at this mo- ment a privilege is not one of those rights formerly unjustly conceded to certain persons to the detriment of all; no, it expresses more particularly that social circle to which the evolutions of power are restricted. Power is, in some sort, the heart of a State. Now, in all her creations, Nature has restrained the vital principle in order to give it more elasticity, thus it 200 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR is with the body politic. I will explain my idea by examples. We will admit in France a hundred peers, they will cause only a hundred irritations. Abolish the peerage, all the wealthy classes become privileged; instead of a hundred, you will have ten thousand of them, and you will have enlarged the wound of social inequalities. In fact, for the people, the right of living without working alone constitutes a privilege. In their eyes, he who consumes with- out producing is a spoiler. They insist upon visible works, and take no account of intellectual produc- tions, which most enrich them. Therefore, in mul- tiplying the irritations, you extend the combat to all points of the social body, instead of restraining it within a narrow circle. When the attack and the resistance are general, the ruin of a country is im- minent. There will always be fewer rich than poor; hence the victory will be to the latter as soon as the contest becomes material. History comes to the support of my principle. The Roman republic owed the conquest of the world to the constitution of the senatorial privilege. The senate maintained fixed the idea of power. But, when the equestrian order and the new men had extended the action of the government by enlarging the patriciate, the public State was lost. In spite of Sylla, and after Caesar, Tiberius made of it the Roman empire, a system in which the power, being concentrated in the hands of a single man, gave several centuries more to this great domination. The emperor was no longer in Rome when the Eternal City fell before the barbarians. THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 2OI " When our soil was conquered, the Franks, who divided it among themselves, invented the feudal privilege in order to guarantee to themselves their individual possessions. The hundred or the thou- sand chiefs who possessed the country established their institutions with the object of defending the rights acquired by conquest. Thus feudalism endured so long as the privilege was restricted. But, when the men of this nation, the true translation of the word 'gentlemen,' instead of being five hundred, were fifty thousand, there was a revolution. Too much extended, the action of their power was with- out elasticity or force, and found itself, moreover, without defence against the enfranchisement of money and of thought, which it had not foreseen. Then, the triumph of the bourgeoisie over the monarchical system having for its object the aug- mentation in the eyes of the people of the number of the privileged, the triumph of the people over the bourgeoisie would be the inevitable effect of this change. If this perturbation comes to pass, it will have for its means of action the right of suffrage, extended without limit to the masses. Who votes, discusses. Powers discussed do not exist. Can you imagine a society without power ? No. Well, who says power, says strength. Strength should repose upon the things determined. " Such are the reasons which have led me to think that the principle of election is one of the most fatal to the existence of modern governments. Certainly, I think I have sufficiently well proven my attachment 202 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR to the poor and suffering class. I cannot be ac- cused of wishing its misfortune; but, while still admiring the industrious life which it leads, sublime in patience and in resignation, I declare it to be-in- capable of participating in the government.XThe proletarians seem to me to be the minors of a nation, and should always remain in a state of tutelage. Thus, in my opinion, messieurs, the word election is likely to cause as much damage as have done the words conscience and liberty, ill comprehended, ill defined, and thrown to the people as symbols of revolt and orders for destruction. >The tutelage of the masses seems to me, then, to be a thing just and necessary to the sustaining of society." "This system is so directly at variance with all our ideas of to-day, that we have somewhat the right to ask you your reasons," said Genestas, interrupting the doctor. "Willingly, captain." "What is it, then, that our master is saying?" exclaimed Jacquotte, as she re-entered her kitchen. "There is that poor dear man advising them to crush the people! and they are listening to him " " I should never have thought that of Monsieur Benassis," replied Nicolle. "If I advocate vigorous laws to repress the ignorant masses," resumed the doctor, after a slight pause, " I desire that the social system should have a weak and yielding network through which may rise above the crowd everyone who wills it and who is conscious of the faculties which will elevate him THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 203 toward the superior classes. All power tends to its own preservation. In order to live, to-day as for- merly, governments should assimilate the strong men, taking them wherever they are to be found, in order to make of them their defenders, and to take away from the masses the energetic individuals who cause them to rise in revolt. By offering to public am- bition careers at once arduous and easy, arduous to the feeble and vacillating, easy to the determined wills, a State forestalls the revolutions which are caused by the restrictions placed upon the rise of real superiority toward its own level. Our fort)T~\ years of torment should have proved to ^TsensTBIe man that eminence is a consequence of social order. It is of three kinds, and incontestable, eminence of thought, political eminence, and eminence of fortune. Is this not the art, the power and the wealth, or, in other words, the principle, the means and the result? " Now, as, supposing an even start, a tabula rasa, the social unities perfectly equalized, the births in the same proportion, and giving to each family an equal portion of land, you would very soon find again all the irregularities of fortune now existing, it results from this very evident truth that eminence of fortune, of thought, and of power is a fact to be reckoned with, a fact that the masses will always consider as oppressive, seeing privileges in rights the most justly acquired. The social contract, start- ing from this base, will be then a perpetual compact between those who possess against those who do 204 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR not possess. In accord with this principle, the laws will be made by those whom they profit, for they will necessarily have the instinct of their own preservation and foresee their own dangers. They are more interested in the tranquillity of the masses than are the masses themselves. The people re- quire a happiness ready-made. In considering so- ciety from this point of view, if you view it in its entirety, you will soon come to recognize with me that the right of election should be exercised only by men who possess fortune, power, or intelligence, and you will also recognize that their representatives should have only extremely restricted functions. " The legislator, messieurs, should be superior to his age. He verifies the tendency of the general errors, and specifies the points toward which the ideas of a nation tend; he labors, then, more for the future than for the present, more for the generation which is growing up than for that which is passing away. Now, if you call on the masses to make the laws, can the masses rise superior to themselves? No. The more faithfully the assembly represents the opinions of the crowd, the less understanding will it have of government, the less elevated will be its views, the less precise, the more vacillating will be its legislation, for the multitude is, in France especially, and will be always, only a multitude. Law carries with it a submission to rules; every rule is in opposition to natural customs, to the inter- ests of the individual; will the masses support laws against themselves? No. The tendency of the THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 205 laws should frequently be contrary to the tenden- cies of manners. To mould the laws upon the general manners and customs, would that not be to give, in Spain, prizes of encouragement to religious intolerance, to slothfulness; in England, to the mer- cantile spirit; in Italy, to the love of the arts des- tined to express society, but which cannot be all of society; in Germany, to classifications of rank; in France, to the spirit of levity, to the sway of ideas, to the facility of dividing among ourselves into fac- tions which have always rent us? What is it that has happened within the more than forty years since the electoral colleges began to lay their hands upon the laws? we have forty thousand laws! A people who have forty thousand laws have no law". Can five hundred mediocre intelligences, for a century has never more than a hundred great intelligences at its service, can they have the strength to rise to these considerations? No. Men constantly issuing from five hundred different localities will never com- prehend in the same manner the spirit of the law, and the law should be a unity. But I go further. Sooner or later, an assembly falls under the rule of one man, and, instead of having dynasties of kings, you have the changing and costly dynasties of prime ministers. At the end of all deliberations will be found Mirabeau, Danton, Robespierre, or Napoleon, pro-consuls or an emperor. " In fact, it requires a determinate force to lift a de- terminate weight; this force may be distributed over a greater or less number of levers; but the force 206 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR should be definitely proportioned to the weight, here, the weight is the ignorant and suffering mass which constitutes the first layer of all societies. Power, being repressive in its nature, has need of a great concentration in order to oppose an equal re- sistance to the popular movement. This is the ap- plication of the principle which I have just developed in speaking to you of the restriction of the privilege of participating in the government. If you admit to this privilege men of talent, they will submit to this natural law and cause the country to submit to it; if you assemble mediocre men, they will be vanquished sooner or later by the superior genius, the talented deputy is conscious of the right of the State, the mediocre deputy makes a bargain with power. In. short, an assembly yields^to anjd^ga, as did the Con- vention during the Terror; _to_a power, as did the Corps Legislatif under Napoleon; to a system, or " to money, as to-day. The republican assembly, dreamed of by some intelligent minds, is impossible; those who wish for it are either dupes ready-made, or future tyrants. A deliberating assembly which discusses the dangers of a nation, when it is neces- sary to make it act, does not that seem to you ridic- ulous? That the people should have representatives charged with the duty of granting or refusing taxes, this is something just, which has existed in all times, under the most cruel tyrant as under the most gracious prince. Money is unseizable; taxation has, moreover, natural limits, beyond which a nation rises to refuse, or lies down to die. Should this body, THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 207 elective and changing according to the needs, like the ideas which it represents, set itself in opposition to yielding the obedience of all to a bad law, every- thing is well. But suppose that five hundred men, gathered from all the corners of an empire, should make a good law, would not that be an ill jest which the people would expiate sooner or later ? They then change tyrants, that is all. " Power, the law, should, then, be the work of one only, who, by the force of circumstances, is obliged to submit his actions constantly to the general appro- bation. But the restrictions which are applied to the exercise of power, whether of one man only, or of several, or of the multitude, can be found only in the religious institutions of a people. Religion is the sole counter-weight truly efficacious against the abuses of supreme power. If the religious senti- ment perish in a nation, it becomes seditious through principle, and the prince transforms himself into a tyrant through necessity. The Chambers, which are interposed between the sovereign and his sub- jects, are only palliatives to these two tendencies. The assemblies, according to what I have just said, become accomplices either of the insurrection or of the tyranny. Nevertheless, the government of one man, toward which I incline, is not good of an abso- lute goodness; for political results will depend eter- nally upon manners and beliefs. If a nation has grown old, if philosophism and the spirit of contro- versy have corrupted it even to the marrow of its bones, that nation is drifting toward despotism, 208 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR notwithstanding all the forms of liberty; in the same manner that an intelligent people are nearly always able to find liberty under the forms of despotism. From all this there results the necessity of a great restriction in the electoral rights, the necessity of a strong authority, the necessity of a powerful religion which will render the rich the friend of the poor, and command from the poor an entire resignation. " Finally, there is an urgent need of reducing the assemblies to the consideration only of questions of taxation and of the registry of the laws, in taking away from them the direct framing of them. I am aware that there are other ideas which exist in sev- eral heads. To-day, as formerly, there are to be met with minds that are eager to search for the best, and who would have societies more sagely organized than they actually are. But innovations which tend to bring about complete social overturnings have need of a universal sanction. Innovators should have patience. When I measure the time which was required for the establishment of Christianity, a moral revolution which was necessarily purely pacific, I shudder in contemplating the calamities of a revolution in material interests, and I conclude in favor of the maintenance of existing institutions. To each one his own opinion, Christianity has said; to each one his own field, has said the modern law. The modern law has come into harmony with Christianity. To each one his own opinion, is the consecration of the rights of intelligence; to each one his own field, is the consecration of property acquired by labor. THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 209 From this, our society. Nature has based human life upon the sentiment of individual conservation; social life is founded upon the personal interest. "Such are, for me, the true political principles. By modifying these two egotistical sentiments by the consideration of a future life, religion tempers the harshness of the social contracts. Thus, God tem- pers the sufferings produced by the conflict of inter- ests by the religious sentiment, which makes a virtue of forgetfulness of self, as He has moderated by un- known laws the clashing in the mechanism of His worlds. Christianity bids the poor to endure the rich; the rich, to soothe the miseries of the poor; for me, these few words are the essence of all laws, divine and human." "I, who am not a statesman," said the notary, "I see in a sovereign the liquidator of a society which should remain in a constant condition of liquidation; he transmits to his successor actual effects equal in value to those he has received." " I am not a statesman!" replied Benassis, quickly, interrupting the notary. " It requires only good sense to ameliorate the condition of a commune, of a canton, or of an arrondissement; when it comes to governing a department, talent is necessary; but these four administrative spheres offer limited hori- zons which ordinary perceptions may readily in- clude; their interests are connected with the great movement of the State by visible bonds. In the higher region everything is enlarged, the eye of the statesman should survey the whole field from the 210 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR point of view which he occupies. While there is required, to produce much good in a department, in an arrondissement, in a canton or in a commune, only the foreseeing of the result of ten years of current affairs, there is required, as soon as it is a question of a nation, the foreseeing of its destinies, the measuring of them through the course of a century. " The genius of a Colbert, of a Sully, is nothing if it be not based upon the will-power which makes Napoleons and Cromwells. A great minister, mes- sieurs, is a great thought inscribed upon all the years of the age whose splendor and prosperity have been prepared by him. Constancy is the virtue which is most necessary for him. But, may we not say also that in all human affairs con- stancy is the highest expression of strength? For some time now, we have been seeing too many men who have only ministerial ideas, instead of having national ideas, for us not to admire as the true statesman him who offers us the very highest devel- opment of poetical human thought. To be able to see always beyond the present moment and in ad- vance of destiny, to be above power and to remain in it only through a consciousness of his utility with- out any self-deception as to his own strength; to discard his passions and even all commonplace ambi- tion in order to remain master of his faculties, to foresee, to will and to act incessantly; to make him- self just and absolute, to maintain order on a large scale, to impose silence upon his heart and to listen THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 211 only to his intelligence; to be neither suspicious nor confident, neither doubting nor credulous, neither grateful nor ungrateful, neither unprepared for an event nor surprised by an idea; to live, in short, through the sentiment of the masses, and to dominate them always by extending the wings of his intelli- gence, the volume of his voice, and the penetration of his eye; in seeing, not the details, but the con- sequences of everything, is not this to be a little greater than a man? Thus the names of these great and noble fathers of the nations should be held forever in popular remembrance." There was a moment of silence, during which the guests looked at each other. " Messieurs, you have said nothing of the army!" exclaimed Genestas. " The military organization seems to me to be the true type of all good civil society: the sword is the tutor of a people." " Captain," replied the justice of the peace, laugh- ing, "an old advocate has said that empires begin by the sword and finish by the inkstand; we are at the state of the inkstand." " Now that we have regulated the fate of the world, messieurs, let us speak of other things. Come, captain, a glass of the wine of the Hermit- age," exclaimed the doctor, laughing. " Two, rather than one," said Genestas, extending his glass, " and I wish to drink them to your health, as to that of a man who does honor to the species." "And whom we all cherish," said the cure in a voice full of mildness. 212 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR " Monsieur Janvier, do you then wish me to com- mit some sin of pride?" "Monsieur le cure has said in a whisper what all the canton cries aloud," replied Cambon. " Messieurs, I propose to you to conduct Monsieur Janvier home, taking a walk in the moonlight." " Let us go," said the guests, preparing to accom- pany the cure. " Come to my barn," said the doctor, taking Genestas by the arm, after having said good-night to the cure and to his other guests. "There, Cap- tain Bluteau, you will hear talk of Napoleon. I have some gossips that ought to make Goguelat, our foot-soldier, gabble about this god of the people. Nicolle, my stable-boy, has put up a ladder for us to ascend to a window in the roof above the hay, to a place where we can see the whole scene. Believe me, come, one of these gatherings is worth the trouble. This is not the first time that I have placed myself in the hay to listen to a soldier's story or some peasant's tale. But let us conceal ourselves well, when these poor people see a stranger, they behave strangely and are no longer themselves." "Well, my dear host," said Genestas, "have I not often made believe to sleep in order to listen to my horsemen, around the bivouac! Truly, I have never laughed at the Paris theatres as heartily as at a recital of the rout at Moscow, retailed in burlesque by an old quatermaster to some conscripts who were afraid of war. He said that the French army did in its sheets, that everything was drunk iced, that THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 213 the dead stopped themselves in the road, that White Russia was seen, that the horses were curried with your teeth, that those who liked to skate were very well treated, that the amateurs of frozen meats were satiated, that the women were generally cold, and that the only thing which had been sensibly dis- agreeable was not to have hot water for shaving In short, he retailed such comic broad stories that an old quartermaster who had Jiad his nose frozen, and who was called Neqrestant,* laughed at them him- self." "Hist!" said Benassis, " here we are; I will go in first, follow me." Both of them mounted the ladder and concealed themselves in the hay, without having been heard by the country people over whose heads they found themselves seated in such a manner as to enable them to see them very well. Gathered in little groups around three or four candles, some of the women were sewing, others were spinning; several were quite idle, their necks stretched, their heads and eyes turned toward an old peasant who was relating a story. The greater number of the men stood, or reclined upon bundles of hay. These groups, perfectly silent, were scarcely lit up by the wavering beams of some candles enclosed in glass globes full of water which concentrated the light in rays, in which the workwomen sat. The extent of the barn, the upper part of which remained black and sombre, enfeebled still more these lights, which * Neyeftant, literally, " nose remaining," character of romance. 214 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR colored the heads unequally, producing picturesque effects of chiaro-oscuro. Here, shone the brown forehead and the clear eyes of a curious young peasant girl; there, the bands of light cut out the rough foreheads of some old men and fantastically outlined their worn or discolored garments. All these individuals, attentive and varied in their atti- tudes, expressed on their motionless countenances the completeness with which they abandoned their intelligences to the narrator. It was a curious pic- ture in which was strongly displayed the very great influence exercised by poetry on all minds. In re- quiring from his story-teller a marvellousness always simple, or the impossible almost credible, does not the peasant show himself to be appreciative of the r ' purest poetry? " Although this house had a forbidding appear- ance," the peasant was saying at the moment when the two new hearers took their places to listen, "the poor humpbacked woman was so fatigued from hav- ing carried her hemp to the market that she entered it, compelled to do so also by the night which had fallen. All that she asked was to sleep there; for, as to food, she drew a crust from her wallet and ate it. So that the hostess, who was then the wife of the brigands, knowing nothing of what they had agreed to do during the night, welcomed the hump- back and conducted her upstairs, without any light. My humpback threw herself upon an old bed, said her prayers, thought of her hemp, and disposed herself for sleep. But, before she had fallen asleep, THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 215 she heard a noise and saw two men enter carrying a lantern; each of them held a knife, she was seized with fear, for, you see, in those times, the seigneurs loved pates of human flesh so much that they were made for them. But, as the little old woman's skin was quite like horn, she reassured herself, thinking that she would be considered a very poor food. The two men pass before the humpback, come to a bed which was in that great room, and in which had been put the monsieur with a great valise, who then was considered a negromancer . The taller of the two men lifts the lantern, taking hold of the feet of the mon- sieur; the little one, he who had pretended to be drunk, seizes him by the head and neatly cuts his throat with one stroke, croc! Then they leave there the body and the head, all bloody, rob the valise and go downstairs. Here was our woman in a fine embarrassment! She thinks at first of going away without anyone's knowledge, not knowing as yet that Providence had brought her here in order to give glory to God and cause the crime to be pun- ished. She was afraid, and when one is afraid, one does not worry about anything else in the world. But the hostess, who had asked the brigands about the humpbacked woman, frightens them, and they go softly up the little wooden staircase again. The poor humpback is paralyzed with fear, and hears them disputing in a whisper. '"I tell you to kill her.' " ' Not necessary to kill her.' "'Kill her!' 216 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR "'No!' "They come in. My woman, who was not stupid, closes her eyes and pretends that she is asleep. She sets herself to sleeping like a child, her hand on her heart, and breathing like one of the cherubim. He who had the lantern opens it, puts the light in the eye of the old woman asleep, and my woman does not even frown, so much is she afraid for her neck. " 'You see very well that she is sleeping like a top,' says the tall man. " ' They are so sly, these old women,' replies the little one. ' I am going to kill her, we shall be more easy. Moreover, we will salt her down, and we will give her to our hogs to eat.' " When she hears this proposition, my old woman does not budge. " ' Oh! well, she is asleep!' says the little ruffian, on seeing that the humpback had not budged. " This was the way the old woman saved herself. And it may very well be said that she was cou- rageous. Certainly there are here plenty of young girls who would not have the respiration of one of the cherubim on hearing talk of the hogs. The two brigands then lift up the dead man, roll him up in his sheets, and throw him into the little court, where the old woman hears the pigs come up, grunt- ing Hon! Hon! to eat him. "Well, then, the next morning," resumed the narrator after a pause, "the woman goes away, paying two sous for her night's lodging. She takes THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 217 up her wallet, pretends that nothing had happened, asks the news of the neighborhood, goes out in peace, and wants to run. Not at all! fear cuts off her legs, very fortunately for her. Hear why. She had scarcely made a half of a quarter of a league, when she sees one of the brigands coming, one who had followed her shrewdly to make certain that she had seen nothing. She guesses that, and sits down on a stone. "'What is the matter with you, my good woman?' says the little one to her, for it was the little one, the more malicious of the two, who was watching her. " ' Ah! my good man,' she replies, ' my wallet is so heavy and I am so tired, that I shall have need of the arm of an honest man Do you see, this artful one! to reach my poor dwelling.' " Thereupon, the brigand offers to accompany her. She accepts. The man takes her arm to see if she is afraid. Ah, well! this woman does not tremble at all, and walks along peacefully. And then you might hear them both talking agriculture and the best way of growing hemp, quite calmly, all the way to the suburb of the city where the humpback lived and where the brigand left her, for fear of meeting some one of the officers of justice. The woman arrives at her own house at the hour of noon and waits for her husband, reflecting upon the events of her journey and of the night. The hemp- grower came in toward evening. He was hungry; something must be gotten for him to eat. Then, all 218 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR the while she is greasing her frying-pan so that she can fry him something, she tells him how she has sold her hemp, gabbling after the manner of women; but she says nothing about the pigs, nor of the monsieur, killed, robbed, eaten. Then she burns out her pan to clean it; takes it up, goes to wipe it out, finds it full of blood. "'What did you put in it?' she says to her husband. " ' Nothing/ he replies. "She thinks she has some woman's crotchet in her head, and puts her pan back on the fire. Pouf! a head falls down the chimney. " ' See! it is precisely the head of the dead man,' says the old woman. ' How he looks at me! What does he want with me, then?' " ' That you avenge him!' says a voice to her. " ' How stupid you are!' says the hemp-grower; 'there you are with your nonsensical, near-sighted delusions.' " He takes the head, which bites his finger, and throws it out in his courtyard. '"Make my omelette,' he says, 'and do not bother yourself about that. It is a cat.' " 'A cat!' she says, ' it was as round as a ball.' "She puts her pan on the fire again. Pouf! down comes a leg. Same story. The man, no more surprised to see the foot than he had been to see the head, grabs the leg and throws it out of the door. Finally, the other leg, the two arms, the body, the whole of the assassinated traveller comes THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 2 19 down, one piece after the other. No omelette. The old hemp-merchant was very hungry. " ' By my eternal salvation/ says he, ' if my om- elette is made, we will see about satisfying that man there.' " ' You admit then now that it is a man,' says the humpback. ' Why did you say to me just now that it was not a head, you great plague?' " The woman breaks the eggs, fries the omelette, and serves it without scolding any more, for, in seeing this squabble, she began to be anxious. Her husband seated himself and began to eat. The humpback, who was afraid, says that she is not hungry. " ' Toe, toe!' a stranger knocks at the door. "'Who is there?' '"The dead man of yesterday.' " ' Come in,' says the hemp-merchant. "Then the traveller enters, sits down on the stool, and says: "'Remember God, who gives His peace for all eternity to those who confess His holy name ! Woman, you saw me die, and you keep silence ! I have been eaten by the pigs! Pigs do not enter into paradise. Therefore I, who am a Christian, I shall go into hell because a woman will not speak.' Such a thing has never been seen. I must be deliv- ered!' "And other things. "The woman, who was getting more and more afraid, cleans her pan, puts on her Sunday clothes, 220 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR goes and denounces the crime to the officers of jus- tice; it was revealed, and the thieves neatly broken on the wheel on the market-place. This good work accomplished, the woman and her husband have always the very finest hemp that you ever saw. Then, which was more agreeable to them, they had what they had long desired, that is to say, a male child, who became, in course of time, baron of the kingdom. This is the true story of The Brave Humpback." " I do not like such stories, they make me dream," said La Fosseuse. " I much prefer adventures of Napoleon." " That is true," said the rural guard. " Come, now, Monsieur Goguelat, tell us about the Emperor." "It is getting too late," said the letter-carrier, " and I do not like to shorten the victories." "All the same, tell them, nevertheless. We know them from having heard you tell them many times; but it is always pleasant to hear them." "Tell us about the Emperor!" cried several voices together. "You wish it?" said Goguelat. "Well, you will see that that means nothing when it is said at the double-quick. I prefer to relate to you the whole of a battle. Will you have Champ-Aubert, where there were no more cartridges and where they were pol- ished off, all the same, with the bayonet?" " No! The Emperor, the Emperor!" The foot-soldier rose from his bundle of hay, threw over the assemblage that dark look, full of the THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 221 souvenirs of misery, suffering, and many 'events, which characterizes the veterans. He took his jacket by the two skirts in front, lifted them as if to pack again the sack in which were formerly his clothes, his shoes, all his fortune; then he rested his weight on his left leg, advanced the right and yielded with a good grace to the wishes of the assembly. After having pushed back his gray hair from one side of his forehead to reveal it, he lifted his head toward heaven in order to raise himself to the height of the gigantic history which he was about to relate. "You see, my friends, Napoleon was born in Corsica, which is a French island, heated by the sun of Italy, where everything is as in a furnace, and where they kill each other, from father to son, apro- pos of nothing, an idea which they have. That you may begin at the commencement of this extra- ordinary thing, his mother, who was the most beau- tiful woman of her time and a very shrewd one, took the notion of vowing him to God, in order that he might escape all the dangers of his infancy and of his life, because she had dreamed that the world was on fire on the day of her delivery. This was a prophecy! Therefore she asked that God would protect him, on condition that Napoleon should estab- lish again His holy religion, which was then over- thrown This was what was agreed upon, and this was evidenced. " Now, then, follow me carefully, and tell me if that which you are going to hear is natural! "It is sure and certain that a man who had had 222 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR the imagination to make a secret compact could alone be capable of passing through the lines of the others, through the balls, the discharges of grape-shot which carried us away like flies, and which respected his head. 1 have had the proof of that, I particularly, at Eylau. I see him still, he ascends a hill, takes his glasses, looks at his battle, and says: " ' That is going well!' " One of my busybodies all beplumed, who plagued him considerably and followed him every- where, even while he was eating, we were told, wishes to do the smart thing and takes the Emperor's place when he goes away. Oh! swept away! no more plume! You understand well that Napoleon had promised to keep his secret to himself alone. This is why all those who accompanied him, even his particular friends, fell like nuts, Duroc, Bes- sieres, Lannes, all of them men strong as bars of steel which he melted to his own use. Finally, as a proof that he was a child of God, made to be the father of the soldier, it is that he was never seen either lieutenant or captain! Oh! indeed, yes! at the head immediately. He did not have the air of being more than twenty-four years old when he was an old general, after the taking of Toulon, where he commenced by letting the others see that they knew nothing about manoeuvring cannon. After that, we tumble, pretty thinnish, into being general-in-chief of the army of Italy, which wanted for bread, for munitions, for shoes, for clothes, a poor army, naked as a worm. THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 223 " ' My friends,' he said, ' here we are all together. Now, get this in your head, that in a fortnight from now you shall be victors, in new clothes, that you shall all have greatcoats, good gaiters, famous shoes; but, my friends, we must march to get them at Milan, where they are.' " And we marched. The French, crushed flat as a bed-bug, picked up. We were thirty thousand barefooted against eighty thousand German bullies, all fine men, well furnished, whom I can see now. Then Napoleon, who was then only Bonaparte, blew something into our stomachs, 1 don't know what, and we marched the night, and we marched the day, we smote them for you at Montenotte, we ran to drub them at Rivoli, Lodi, Arcola, Millesimo, and we did not let them alone for you. The soldier took a taste for being a vanquisher. Then Napoleon surrounds for you these German generals, who did not know where to hide themselves to be at their ease, cuffs them very well, filches from them ten thou- sand men at once in surrounding them for you with fifteen hundred Frenchmen whom he multiplies in his own way; in short, he takes from them their cannon, stores, money, munitions, all that they had that was good to take, throws them into the water for you, beats them on the mountain, bites them in the air, devours them on the earth, flogs them everywhere. Then you would see the troops putting on feathers again; because, you see, the Emperor, who was also a man of sense, makes himself welcome to the inhabitant, to whom he 224 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR says that he has come to deliver him. Accord- ingly, the citizen lodges us and makes much of us, the women also, who were very judicious women. Final end, in Ventose '96, which was at that time the month of March of to-day, we were huddled in a corner of the country of the marmots; but, after the campaign, there we were masters of Italy, as Napoleon had predicted. And, in the month of March following, in only one year and two cam- paigns, he set us in sight of Vienna, everything was swept away. We had eaten up three succes- sive, different armies, and ousted four Austrian generals, of whom one was an old one who had white hair, and who was cooked like a rat in the straw, at Mantua. The kings asked for mercy on their knees! The peace was secured. Could a man have done all that? No. God aided him, that is sure. He divided himself up like the five loaves of bread of the Gospel, ordered the battle in the daytime, prepared it during the night, the sentinels saw him always going and coming, and he neither slept nor ate. So, then, recognizing these prodigies, the soldier just adopted him for his father. And forward march! "The others, at Paris, seeing this, said to them- selves: " ' Here is a pilgrim who appears to take his orders from Heaven, he is singularly capable of putting his hand upon France; better let him loose upon Asia or upon America, he will be content with that, perhaps!' THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 22$ " This was written for him as 'for Jesus Christ. The fact is that he was given orders to do duty in Egypt. See his likeness to the Son of God. This is not all. He gathered together his best comrades, those whom he had particularly inspired with deviltry, and said to them like this: " ' My friends, for the next quarter of an hour they have given us Egypt to chew. But we will swallow it in one time and two movements, as we have done Italy. The private soldiers shall be princes who shall have estates for themselves. Forward!' " ' Forward, children!' said the sergeants. "And we arrive at Toulon, road to Egypt. At that time the English had all their vessels on the sea. But, when we embark, Napoleon says to us: " ' They will not see us, and it is well that you should know, at the present time, that your general possesses a star in the heavens which guides us and protects us!' "What was said, was done. In crossing the sea, we take Malta, like an orange to quench his thirst for victory, for this was a man who could not rest without doing something. Here we are in Egypt. Good! There, another order. The Egyptians, you see, are men who, since the world was a world, are in the habit of having giants for sovereigns, armies as numerous as ants; because it is a country of genii and of crocodiles, where they have built pyramids as big as our mountains, under which 15 226 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR they have had the idea of putting their kings to keep them fresh, a thing which pleases them gen- erally. Well, then, when disembarking, the Little Corporal says to us: " ' My children, the countries which you are going to conquer belong to a pile of gods who must be respected, because the French should be the friends of all the world, and beat people without vexing them. Get it in your noddles to touch nothing at first; because we shall have everything afterward! And march!' " This goes very well. But all those people there, to whom Napoleon was predicted under the name of Kebir-Bonaberdis, a word in their dialect which sig- nifies the sultan fires, are afraid of him like the devil. Then, the Grand Turk, Asia, Africa, have recourse to magic, and send us a demon, named Mody, suspected of having descended from heaven upon a white horse which was, like his master, incombustible to bullets, and which, both of them, lived upon the air of the period. There are those who have seen him; but I, I have no reasons for making you certain of it. This was the power of Arabia and the Mamelukes, who wished to make their troopers believe that the Mody was capable of preventing them from dying in battle, under the pretext that he was an angel sent to combat Na- poleon and to recover from him the seal of Solomon, one of their accoutrements, which they pretended had been stolen by our general. You understand that we made them grin, all the same. THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 227 "Ah, there! tell me, where had they learned about Napoleon's compact? Was that natural? "It was taken for certain in their minds that he commanded the genii, and transported himself in a twinkling from one place to another, like a bird. The fact is that he was everywhere. Finally, that he had come to carry off from them a queen, beauti- ful as the day, for whom he had offered all his treas- ures and diamonds as big as pigeon's eggs, a bargain which the Mameluke, of whom she was the favorite, although he had others, had positively refused. Under these conditions, things could not then be arranged without a great many combats. And there was no mistake as to this, for there were blows for everybody. Then, we are put in line at Alex- andria, at Gizeh, and before the Pyramids. It was necessary to march under the sun, in the sand, where those who were subject to fancies saw water which could not be drunken, and shade which made you sweat. But we ate up the Mamelukes ordinarily, and everything bends to the voice of Napoleon, who takes possession of Upper and Lower Egypt, Arabia, in short, even to the capitals of kingdoms which no longer existed, and where there were thousands of statues, the five hundred devils of nature, then, in particular, an infinity of lizards, a devil of a country in which each one could take his acres of land, if that were ever so little agreeable to him. While he is oc- cupied with his affairs in the interior, where he had a notion of doing superb things, the English burn his fleet for him at the battle of Aboukir, for they did not 228 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR know what to invent in order to contrary us. But Napoleon, who had the esteem of the Orient and the Occident, whom the Pope called his son and the cousin of Mahomet his dear father, wishes to avenge himself on England, and take from her the Indies, to replace his fleet. He was going to conduct us into Asia, by the Red Sea, to countries where there are only diamonds and gold to pay the soldiers with, and palaces for way-stations, when the Mody ar- ranges with the plague, and sends it to us to inter- rupt our victories. Halt! Then, everybody defiles on that parade from which you do not return on your feet. The dying soldier cannot take for you Saint- Jean d'Acre, into which there was an entrance made three times with an obstinacy generous and martial. But the plague was the stronger; you couldn't say: ' My good friend !' Everybody was very ill. Napoleon alone was as fresh as a rose, and the whole army saw him drinking the pest without its doing any- thing to him at all. "Ah, there! my friends, do you think that was natural ? " The Mamelukes, knowing that we were all in the ambulances, wished to bar the road to us; but, with Napoleon, that farce did not work. Then, he said to his damned ones, to those who had the hide thicker than the others: " ' Go and clear the road for me.' " Junot, who was a swordsman of the first quality, and his true friend, takes only a thousand men, and rips up for you all the same the army of a pasha THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 22Q who had had the presumption to put himself in the way. After that, we return to Cairo, our head- quarters. Another story. Napoleon absent, France had allowed her temperament to be destroyed by the people in Paris, who kept the pay of the soldiers, their allowance for linen, their clothes, allowed them to die of hunger, and wished them to make laws for the universe, without disturbing themselves in any other way. They were imbeciles who amused them- selves by gossiping, instead of putting their hands to the work. And then, our armies were beaten, the frontiers of France broken into, THE MAN was no longer there. You see, I say, the Man, because he was called like that, but that was a stupidity, since he had a star and all its peculiarities, it was we others who were the men! He learns the history of France after his famous battle of Aboukir, where, without losing more than three hundred men, and with one division only, he vanquished the great army of the Turks, twenty-five thousand men strong, and he tumbled into the sea more than a big half of them, r-r-rah! This was his last thunder stroke in Egypt. He says to himself, seeing every- thing lost down there: " ' I am the savior of France, I know it, I must go there.' " But you must know that the army did not know of his departure; otherwise, he would have been kept by force, to make of him Emperor of the Orient. Therefore we are very sorrowful when we are without him, for he was our joy. He leaves 230 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR his command to Kleber, who comes off guard one fine morning, assassinated by an Egyptian who was put to death by giving him a bayonet thrust in the behind, which is the manner of guillotining in that country; but that causes so much suffering that a soldier took pity on this criminal and offered him his gourd; and as soon as the Egyptian had drunk the water, he twisted his eye with an infinite pleasure. But we are not amused at this bagatelle. Napoleon sets foot on a cockle-shell, a little vessel of nothing at all, which was called La Fortune, and, in the wink of an eye, in the beard of the English, who were blockading him with ships of the line, frigates, and everything which sails, he disembarks in France, for he always had the gift of crossing the sea in a stride. Was that natural ? Bah! as soon as he is at Frejus, it is as much as to say that he has his feet in Paris. There, everybody adores him, but he, he convokes the government. " ' What have you done with my children, the soldiers?' he says to the lawyers; ' you are a pile of rascals who are bamboozling the people, and who devour France at your will. This is not just, and I speak for everybody who is not satisfied with you.' " Then, they all want to gabble and to kill him; but, wait a minute! He shuts them up in their talk- ing barracks, makes them jump out of the windows, and enrolls them for you in his following, where they become as dumb as fish, as supple as a tobacco- pouch. From this stroke he passes to be consul, THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 231 and, as it was not he who could doubt the Supreme Being, he then fulfilled his promise to the good God, who kept His word seriously with him; restores to God His churches, re-establishes His religion; the bells ring for God and for him. There you have all the world content, primo, the priests, whom he prevents from being worried; segondo, the bourgeois who carries on his business, without having to fear the rapiamus of the law which had become unjust; tertio, the nobles, whom he forbade to be put to death, according to the habit which had unfortu- nately been contracted. But there were enemies to be swept away, and he did not go to sleep over the mess, because, you see, his eye surveys the whole world for you just like a man's head. Well, then, he appeared in Italy, as if he had put his head through the window, and his look sufficed. The Austrians were swallowed up at Marengo, like gud- geons by a whale! Haouf! Here French victory chanted her gamut sufficiently high for all the world to hear it, and that sufficed. " ' We will not play that any more,' say the Ger- mans. " ' Enough as it is,' say the others. " Total, Europe shows the white feather, Eng- land gives In. General peace in which the kings and the peoples pretend to embrace each other. It is then that the Emperor invented the Legion of Honor, a very good thing, indeed. " ' In France,' he said, at Boulogne, before the entire army, ' everybody is brave! Therefore, the 232 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR civilian who shall do brilliant actions shall be the sister of the soldier, the soldier shall be his brother, and they will be united under the flag of honor.' " We others, who were down there, we return from Egypt. Everything was changed! We had left him a general, in no time at all we find him an Emperor. Upon my word/Prance had given her- self to him like a pretty girl tot lancer^Then, when this was done, to the general satisfaction, one may say, there took place a sacred ceremony such as had never been seen under the canopy of heaven. The Pope and the cardinals, in their robes of gold and of red, crossed the Alps expressly to crown him before the army and the people, who clapped their hands. There is a thing which I should be unfair not to say to you. In Egypt, in the desert, near to Syria, THE RED MAN appeared to him on the mountain of Moses, to say to him : " ' Things are going well!' " Then, at Marengo, the evening of the victory, for the second time, there arose before him on his feet the Red Man, who said to him: "'Thou shalt see the world at thy feet, and thou shalt be Emperor of the French, King of Italy, master of Holland, sovereign of Spain, of Portugal, of the Illyrian provinces, protector of Germany, savior of Poland, first eagle of the Legion of Honor, and everything!' " This Red Man, you see, was his inspiration, a sort of messenger who served him, as several say, to communicate with his star. I, I have never believed THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 233 that; but the Red Man is a veritable fact, and Napoleon spoke of him himself, and said that he came to him in those moments which were hard to endure, and lived in the palace of the Tuile- ries- in the garrets. So, at the coronation, Napo- leon saw him in the evening for the third time, and they were in deliberation over many things. Then, the Emperor went straight to Milan, to be crowned King of Italy. There commences the real triumph of the soldier. From that time, anyone who knew how to write became an officer. Then you might see it raining pensions, endowments of duchies; treasures for the general staff which cost nothing to France; and the Legion of Honor furnished incomes for the private soldiers, from which I still draw my pension. Finally, you might see the armies uniformed in such a manner as had never been seen before. But the Emperor, who knew that he was going to be emperor of the world, thinks of the bour- geois, and causes to be built for them, according to their ideas, fairy palaces, there where there was no more to be seen than there is on my hand. Sup- posing that you were returning from Spain to go to Berlin; well, you would find triumphal arches with private soldiers upon them in fine sculpture, neither more nor less than generals. Napoleon, in two or three years, without putting any taxes on you others, filled his vaults with gold, made bridges, palaces, roads, philosophers, fetes, laws, ships, ports; and expended millions of trillions, and so much, and so much, that I have been told that he could have 234 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR paved France with hundred-sou pieces, if that had been his fancy. Then, when he found himself com- fortably on his throne, and so completely the master of all, that Europe waited for his permission to attend to her affairs, as he had four brothers and three sis- ters, he said to us conversationally, in the order of the day: " ' My children, is it just that the relatives of your Emperor should have to seek alms? No. I wish that they should be brilliant, just like me! There- fore, it is quite necessary to conquer a kingdom for each of them, so that the French shall be the mas- ters of everything; that the soldiers of the Guard should make the world tremble, and that France may spit wherever she wants to, and that it should be said to her, as on my coins, "God protects you! " " 'Agreed!' replies the army, ' we will go and fish up kingdoms for thee with the bayonet.' "Ah! this was the time that there was no going backward, you see! and, if he had taken it into his head to conquer the moon, it would have been neces- sary to arrange for that, pack his knapsacks and climb. Luckily, he did not wish to do it. The kings, who were accustomed to the comfort of their thrones, naturally had to have their ears pulled, and then, forward march! for us. We march, we go, and the earthquake recommences in its entire solidity. How he used up men and shoes in those days! Then, there was fighting against our blows so cruelly that any others but the French would be tired of it. But you are not ignorant of the fact that the Frenchman THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 235 is born a philosopher, and, a little sooner, a little later, knows that he must die. Therefore we all died without saying anything, because it was a pleas- ure to see the Emperor do that on the geographies. Here the foot-soldier described quickly a circle with his foot on the threshing-floor of the barn. And he said: ' That, that will be a kingdom!' and that was a king- dom. What fine times! The colonels became gen- erals, in the time it took to see them; the generals, marshals; the marshals, kings. And there is still one who is alive to say it to Europe, although he is a Gascon, a traitor to France to keep his crown, who did not blush for shame, because, you see, the crowns are in gold! In short, the sappers who knew how to read became nobles, all the same. I who am speak- ing to you, I have seen at Paris eleven kings and a crowd of princes who surrounded Napoleon like the rays of the sun. You understand that every soldier had a chance to pick up a throne, provided that he had the merit, a corporal of the Guard was some- thing like a curiosity which was admired as he passed by, because each one had his contingent in the vic- tory, perfectly shown in the bulletin. And what battles there were ! Austerlitz, where the army ma- noeuvred as if on parade; Eylau, where the Russians were drowned in a lake, as if Napoleon had blown upon it; Wagram, where they fought for three days without grumbling. In short, there were as many battles as there are saints in the calendar. Also then was it proven that Napoleon had in his scabbard the real sword of God. Then, the soldier possessed his 236 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR esteem, and was made by him his child, he was con- cerned whether you had shoes, linen, greatcoats, bread, cartridges; although he maintained his maj- esty, since it was his trade to reign. But, all the same, a sergeant and even a soldier could say to him: ' My Emperor/ as you say to me sometimes: ' My good friend.' And he answered the arguments that were made to him, slept in the snow like the rest of us; in short, he had almost the air of a natural man. I who am speaking to you, I have seen him, the feet in the grape-shot, no more dis- turbed than you are there, and alert, looking through his glasses, always about his business; then, we re- mained there, as peaceable as Baptiste. I do not know how he managed it, but, when he spoke to us, his words put something like fire in our stomachs; and, to show him that we were his children, incapa- ble of grumbling, we went at marching gait before the blackguard cannons, which yawned and vomited regiments of bullets, without saying 'take. care.' In short, the dying had the idea of raising themselves up to salute him and to cry to him: "Wive I'Empereur!' "Was that natural? would you have done that for a simple man? "At that time, all his family established, the Empress Josephine, who was a good wife all the same, having the thing so arranged as not to give him any children, he was obliged to leave her, al- though he loved her considerably. But he had to have children, on account of the government. Learning THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 237 of this difficulty, all the sovereigns of Europe fought as to who should give him a wife. And he mar- ried, we were told, an Austrian woman, who was the daughter of a Csesar, an ancient man who is everywhere spoken of, and not only in our country, where you hear it said that he did everything, but in Europe. And this is so true that, I who am speak- ing to you at this moment, I have been on the Danube where I have seen portions of a bridge built by this man, who appears to have been, at Rome, a relative of Napoleon, where he authorized the Em- peror to take the heritage for his son. Then, after his marriage, which was a fete for the whole world, and where he remitted to the people ten years of taxes, which were paid all the same, because the tax-gatherers did not take account of it, his wife had a little one who was King of Rome; a thing which has not yet been seen upon the earth, for never was a child born a king while his father was living. That day a balloon left Paris to carry the news to Rome, and this balloon made the journey in a day. Ah, there! are there still some of you who will main- tain to me that all that was natural? No, it was written above! And the itch take him who will not say that he was sent by God himself to make France triumph! But now there was the Emperor of Russia, who had been his friend, who is vexed because he did not marry a Russian woman and who sustains the English, our enemies, to whom Napoleon had always been prevented from going to say two words in their shops. It was necessary, then, to finish 238 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR with these tricks. Napoleon is vexed, and says to us: "'Soldiers! you have been masters of all the capitals of Europe; save Moscow, which is allied to England. Now, to be able to conquer London and the Indies which belong to them, I find it definitely necessary to go to Moscow.' " Then, there assembles the greatest army that had ever trailed its gaiters over the globe, and so curiously well aligned that one day he passed in review a million of men. " 'Hourra!' say the Russians. " And then you might see the whole of Russia, those animals of Cossacks who fly away. It was country against country, a general uproar, and it was well to get out of its way. And, as the Red Man had said to Napoleon: " ' It is Asia against Europe!' " ' That is sufficient,' he said, ' I will take pre- cautions.' "And you might see, in fact, all the kings who came to lick the hand of Napoleon! Austria, Prus- sia, Bavaria, Saxony, Poland, Italy, all are with us, flatter us, and that was fine! The eagles never cooed as they did at these parades, where they were above all the flags of Europe. The Poles could not contain themselves for joy, because the Emperor had the idea of lifting them up; from that, Poland and France have always been brothers. Finally: " 'Russia for us!' cries the army. THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 239 " We enter, very well furnished ; we march, march, no Russians. Finally, we find our mas- tiffs encamped at the Moscova. It was there that I got the cross, and I have permission to say that it was a cursed battle! The Emperor was anxious, he had seen the Red Man, who said to him: " ' My son, thou art forcing the pace, men will fail thee, friends will betray thee.' "Then, proposals of peace. But, before signing: " ' Let us pummel the Russians!' he says to us. " * Done!' cried the army. " ' Forward!' said the sergeants. " My shoes were worn out, my clothes all torn, through having run up and down those roads, which are not convenient at all! But that is nothing! " ' Since it is the end of the earthquake,' I say to myself, ' I wish to get my belly full!' " We were before the great ravine; they were the front places! The signal is given, ^even hundred pieces of artillery begin a conversation that would make your blood come out of your ears. "There, you must do justice to your enemies, the Russians died like the French, without falling back, and we did not advance. "'Forward!' they say to us, 'there is the Em- peror!' " That was true, passes at a gallop making us a sign that it was very important to take the redoubt. He animates us, we run, I arrive the first in the ravine. Ah! Mon Dieu! the lieutenants fall, the colonels, the soldiers. That is all the same! That 240 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR made shoes for those who had none and epaulettes for the intriguers who knew how to read. ' Vic- tory!' it is the cry all along the line. As an example, that had never before been seen, there were twenty- five thousand Frenchmen on the ground. Excuse me a little! It was a real field of grain cut down, instead of ears, put men! we were sobered, we others. The man arrives, a circle is made around him. Then, he wheedles us, for he was amiable when he wished to be, to the point of satisfying our hardships with a hunger equal to that of two wolves. Then, my wheedler distributes the crosses himself, salutes the dead; then he says to us: "'To Moscow!' " ' On to Moscow!' says the army. " We take Moscow. Did not the Russians burn their city? It was like a straw fire for two leagues, which flamed for two days. The buildings tumbled like slates. There were rains of iron and of melted lead which were naturally horrible; and it can be said to you, to you here, this was the lightning of our misfortunes. The Emperor said: " ' Enough of this, all my soldiers shall rest here.' " We amuse ourselves by refreshing ourselves for a minute and by fixing up the body, for we were really much fatigued. We carry off a cross of gold which was on the Kremlin, and every soldier had a little fortune. But, on our return, the winter comes a month earlier, a thing which the savants, who are stupid, have not sufficiently explained, and the cold pinches us. No more an army, do you understand? THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 241 no more generals, no more sergeants even! Then, it was the reign of misery and hunger, a reign in which we were really all equals! Nothing was thought of but to see France again; no one stooped to pick up his gun or his money; and everyone went straight before him, his arms as he pleased, without thinking of glory. In short, Qi.QJl -that would kill a regiment, because, like Jesus Christ before His Passion, he believed himself to be aban- doned of God and by his talisman; but the poison had no effect upon him at all. Another thing! he recognized himself as immortal. Sure of himself, and of being always an Emperor, he goes on an island for a little time to study the manners and doings of those others, who did not fail to commit follies without end. Whilst he was on watch, the Chinese and the animals of the African coast, of the Bar bar y States and others who are not nice at all, were so convinced that he was something else than a man that they respected his flag, saying that to touch it was to offend God. He reigned over the whole 246 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR world, whilst these others had put him out of the door of his own France. Then, he embarks on the same cockle-shell as in Egypt, passes under the beard of the English vessels, sets his foot on French soil; all France recognizes him, the sacred cuckoo"^ 1 flies from steeple to steeple, all France cries: i'Empereur!' And just here the enthusiasm for this wonder of the ages was solid, Dauphine behaved excellently; and I was particularly pleased to know that they wept with joy when they saw his gray overcoat again. " On the first of March, Napoleon disembarked with two hundred men to conquer the kingdom of France and Navarre, which, on the 2oth of March, had become the French Empire. The man found himself on that day in Paris, having swept up every- thing, he had taken again his dear France, and gathered up his troopers by saying to them only these two words: ' Here I am!' It is the greatest miracle that God has done! Before him, did any man ever take an empire only by showing his hat? It was thought that France was crushed? Not at all. At the sight of the eagle, a national army is formed again, and we all march to Waterloo. At that time, there, the Guard die at a single blow. Napo- leon, in despair, throws himself three times before the enemy's cannon at the head of the rest, without finding death! We saw that, we others! Behold the battle lost. In the evening, the Emperor calls together his old soldiers, burns in a field full of our blood his flags and his eagles; those poor eagles, THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 247 always victorious, which had screamed in the battles ' Forward!' and which had flown over the whole of Europe, were saved from the infamy of being taken by the enemy. The treasures of all England could not give her even the tail of an eagle. No more eagles! . The rest is sufficiently well known. The Red Man passed over to the Bourbons, like the wretch that he is. "France is crushed, the soldier is no longer any- thing, he is deprived of what is due him, he is sent back to his own place for you, only to take in his stead the nobles who could no longer march, which was pitiful. Napoleon is captured by treason, the English nail him on a desert island in the midst of the ocean, on a rock elevated ten thousand feet above the world. Final ending, he is obliged to remain there, until the Red Man restores to him his power for the happiness of France. These others say he is dead! Ah, well, yes! dead! it is very evident that they do not know him. They repeat that humbug to catch the people and to make them stay quiet in their barracks of a gov- ernment. Listen: the truth of the matter is that his enemies left him alone in the desert, in order to fulfil a prophecy made about him, for I forgot to inform you that his name of Napoleon signifies the Lion of the desert. And this is as true as the Gospel. All the other things which you will hear said about the Emperor are stupidities which have no natural shape. Because, you see, it is not to the child of a woman that God would have given the right 248 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR to trace his name in red, as he has written his name upon the earth, which will always remember him! Vive Napoleon! the father of the people and of the soldier!" "Vive le General Eble ! " cried the pontonnier. "How did you manage so as not to die in the ravine of the Moscova?" said a peasant woman. " How do I know? We entered it a regiment, we were left standing there a hundred foot-soldiers, be- cause there were only foot-soldiers capable of taking it! The infantry, you see, it is everything in an army " "And how about the cavalry?" exclaimed Genes- tas, allowing himself to slide down from the top of the hay and appearing with a suddenness which caused the most courageous to utter a cry of affright. "He! my veteran, you forget the red lancers of Poniatowski, the cuirassiers, the dragoons, all the shock! When Napoleon, impatient at seeing his battle not advancing toward the conclusion of the victory, said to Murat: ' Sire, cut that in two for me!' we set out, at first, at a trot, then at a gallop; one, two ! the army of the enemy was split like an apple with a knife. A charge of cavalry, my old fellow why, it is a column of cannon-balls!" "And the pontonniers ? " exclaimed the deaf man. "Ah, there! my children," resumed Genestas, quite ashamed of his incursion on seeing himself in the midst of a circle silent and stupefied, "there are no inciters to disloyalty here! Hold! here is some- thing with which to drink to the Little Corporal." THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 249 "Vive rEmpereur! " cried, with one voice, all the gathering. "Chut! my children," said the officer, endeavor- ing to conceal his profound grief. "Chut! he died saying: ' Glory, France, and battle!' My children, he had to die, he; but his memory never!" Goguelat made a sign of incredulity, then he said in a low voice to his neighbors: " The officer is still in the service, and it is their orders to say to the people that the Emperor is dead. You must not be vexed with him, because, after all, a soldier knows only his orders." As he left the barn, Genestas overheard La Fos- seuse, who said: " That officer, you see, is a friend of the Emperor and of Monsieur Benassis." All the people in the barn hurried to the door to see the commandant again; and, by the light of the moon, they perceived him taking the arm of the physician. " I have done a stupid thing," said Genestas. "Let us get home quickly! Those eagles, those cannon, those campaigns! I no longer knew where I was." " Well, what do you say of my Goguelat?" asked the doctor. " Monsieur, with such recitals, France will always have in her stomach the fourteen armies of the Re- public, and will be perfectly able to sustain the con- versation with cannon-shot with Europe. That is my opinion." 250 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR In a few moments they reached the dwelling of Benassis, and presently found themselves, both some- what thoughtful, seated one on each side of the chim- ney-piece of the salon, where the dying fire still threw out a few sparks. Notwithstanding the testimonials of his confidence which he had received from the physician, Genestas still hesitated to put to him a last question which might seem indiscreet; but, after having regarded him with a few searching glances, he was encouraged by one of those smiles, full of the amenities, which animate the lips of men who are truly strong, and by which Benassis seemed already to reply favorably. He therefore said to him: " Monsieur, your life differs so greatly from that of ordinary people, that you will not be surprised to hear me ask of you the cause of your retirement. If my curiosity should seem to you inconvenient, you will admit that it is very natural. Listen: I have had comrades to whom I have never used the familiar thou, not even after having made several campaigns with them; but I have had others to whom I would say: ' Go and get our money from the paymaster!' three days after we had been tipsy to- gether, as sometimes may happen to the most honest people in the course of necessary convivialities. Well, you are one of those men whose friend I make myself, without waiting for their permission, and even without well knowing why." "Captain Bluteau " For some time past, on every occasion on which the physician had uttered the fictitious name that THE COUNTRY DOCTOR .251 his guest had assumed, the latter had been unable to repress a slight grimace. At this moment, Be- nassis surprised this expression of repugnance, and looked steadily at the officer in the endeavor to dis- cover the cause; but, as it was very difficult for him to divine the true one, he attributed this movement to some bodily pain, and said, continuing: " Captain, I am going to speak of myself. Sev- eral times already since yesterday I have done a sort of violence to myself in explaining to you the improvements which I have been able to bring about here; but it was a question of the commune and of its inhabitants, with the interests of which my own are necessarily mingled. Now, to tell you my own story, that would be to entertain you only with myself, and my life has but little of interest in it." "Were it simpler than that of your Fosseuse," replied Genestas, " I should still wish to hear it, that I might know of the vicissitudes which could throw into this canton a man of your quality." "Captain, for the last twelve years I have not spoken. Now that I am waiting, on the edge of my grave, the stroke that shall precipitate me into it, I will have the good faith to admit to you that this silence is beginning to weigh upon me. For the last twelve years I have suffered without having re- ceived the consolations which friendship lavishes on sorrowful hearts. My poor patients, my peasants, offer me, indeed, the example of a perfect resigna- tion, but I understand them, and they perceive it; 252 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR whilst no one here can receive my secret tears, nor give me that grasp of the hand of an honest man, the finest of recompenses, which is not wanting for anyone, not even for Gondrin." With a sudden movement, Genestas extended his hand to Benassis, who was strongly affected by this gesture. " Perhaps La Fosseuse would have understood me like an angel," he resumed, in an altered voice, "but she would, perhaps, have loved me, and that would have been a misfortune. See, captain, only an indulgent old soldier, such as you are, or a young man filled with illusions, could hear my con- fession, for it could be comprehended only by a man to whom life is well known, or by a youth to whom it is entirely strange. For want of a priest, the ancient captains, dying on the field of battle, con- fessed themselves on the cross of their sword-hilts; they made of it a trusty confidant between themselves and God. Now, you, one of Napoleon's best blades, you, strong and hard as steel, perhaps you will well understand me? In order to be interested in my recital, it is necessary to enter into certain delicacies of sentiment, and to share in the beliefs natural to simple hearts, but which would appear absurd to many philosophers accustomed to make use, for their private interests, of maxims usually reserved for the government of States. I am going to speak to you in good faith, like a man who wishes to justify neither the good nor the evil of his life, but who will conceal nothing from you, because he is to-day far THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 253 from the world, indifferent to the judgment of men, and full of hope in God." Benassis stopped, then he rose, saying: " Before taking up my story, I am going to order the tea. For the last twelve years Jacquotte has never failed to come to ask me if I would take it, she will certainly interrupt us. Will you have some, captain?" "No, I thank you." Benassis quickly returned. IV THE COUNTRY DOCTOR'S CONFESSION "I was born," began the doctor, "in a small town in Languedoc, where my father had long been settled, and where my early years were passed. At the age of eight I was sent to school at Sorreze, and left there only to complete my studies in Paris. My father had had the wildest and most extravagant youth; but his squandered patrimony was rehabili- tated by a fortunate marriage, and by the slow process of saving practised in the provinces, where wealth, not extravagance, is the source of vanity, where the ambition natural to mankind disappears and turns to avarice, for lack of generous food. Having become rich, and having but one son, he determined to transmit to him the cold indifference born of experience, for which he had exchanged his vanished illusions: the last and noble error of old men, who try in vain to bequeath their virtues and their, prudent habit of counting the cost to children, who are enchanted with life and in haste to enjoy. That foresight led to the adoption of a plan for my education to which I fell a victim. My father concealed from me the extent of his wealth, and condemned me, in my own interest, to undergo, (255) 256 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR during my best years, the privations and anxieties of a young man determined to win his own independ- ence; he wished to inculcate in me the virtues of poverty: patience, thirst for knowledge, and love of work. " By teaching me thus to appreciate wealth at its true value, he hoped to teach me to respect my inheritance; and so, as soon as I was in a position to listen to his advice, he urged me to adopt and follow some career. My tastes inclined me to the study of medicine. From Sorreze, where I had remained ten years subject to the semi-conventual discipline of the Oratorians, and buried in the soli- tude of a provincial school, I was taken, without any transition, to the capital. My father accom- panied me, to place me in charge of one of his friends. The two old men, without my knowledge, took minute precautions against the effervescence of my youth, at that time very innocent. My allowance was adapted strictly to the real necessi- ties of life, and I was to receive the quarterly payments only upon presentation of receipts for my fee-bills at the School of Medicine. This decidedly insulting distrust was disguised under pretexts re- lating to the orderly keeping of accounts. My father was quite liberal, however, in the matter of all the outlay made necessary by my education and in the matter of the pleasures of Parisian life. His old friend, who was delighted to have a young man to guide through the labyrinth I was about to enter, was one of those men who classify their sentiments THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 257 as carefully as they arrange their papers. On consulting his memoranda for the past year, he could always tell what he was doing at the hour of the day and day of the month corresponding to the time at which he consulted them. Life to him was like a business undertaking of which he kept the accounts. A man of considerable merit, but shrewd, over-precise, and suspicious, he never lacked specious reasons for explaining away the precautions he took in my regard; he bought my books, he paid for my tuition; when I wanted to learn to ride, the good man himself made inquiries as to the best school, took me there, and anticipated my wishes by placing a horse at my disposal for holi- days. Despite that old man's strategy, which I was able to defeat as soon as I had any interest in contending with him, the excellent man was a second father to me. " * My dear boy,' he said to me, when he realized that I should break my leash if he did not lengthen it, ' young men often do foolish things into which youthful impetuosity leads them, and it may happen that you will at some time be in need of money; in that case, come to me. Long ago your father cour- teously did me a great favor, and I shall always have a crown or two at your disposal; but never lie to me, don't be ashamed to confess your mistakes; I have been young myself, and we shall always understand each other, like two good friends.' "My father installed me in a bourgeois board- ing-house in the Latin Quarter, with a respectable 17 258 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR family, where I had a reasonably well-furnished room. And yet that first experience of independ- ence, my father's kindness, the sacrifice he seemed to be making for me, caused me little satisfaction. Perhaps one must have enjoyed liberty to appreciate it at its true value. But the memory of my inde- pendent childhood was almost effaced under the weight of the ennui of my school-days, which my mind had not yet shaken off; moreover, my father's instructions pointed to new tasks for me to perform; and, lastly, Paris was to me like an enigma, one cannot enjoy one's self there without having made a study of its amusements. So I saw little change in my position except that my present institution was more extensive and was called the School of Medicine. However, 1 studied bravely at first, I attended the lectures assiduously; I threw myself into my work, body and soul, without taking any relaxation, the treasures of knowledge in which the capital abounds so excited my imagination. But soon imprudent intimacies, whose dangers were veiled by the fool- ishly trustful friendship that seduces all young men, led me insensibly into Parisian dissipation. Theatres and actors, for whom I had a passionate admiration, began the work of my demoralization. The theat- rical performances of a capital have a very baleful influence on young men, who never go out from them without keen emotions against which they struggle unavailingly almost always, and society and the laws seem to me to share the responsibility for the faults which they commit at such times. THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 259 Our legislation has closed its eyes, so to speak, to the passions which torment the young man between twenty and twenty-five. In Paris everything assails him, his appetites are constantly appealed to; re- ligion preaches virtue to him, the laws enjoin it, while facts and customs invite him to vice; do not the most virtuous man and the most devout woman laugh at continence? In fact, the great city seems to have made it its duty to encourage only vices, for the obstacles which at the outset debar a young man from the professions in which he can honorably make a fortune are even more numerous than the snares constantly laid for his passions in order to rob him of his money. " For a long time, then, I went to some theatre every evening, and gradually contracted habits of idleness. I compounded with my duties, I often put off my most urgent occupations until the next day; soon, instead of trying to learn, I did only so much as was absolutely necessary to obtain the degrees that I must obtain in order to be a doctor. At the public lectures I no longer listened to the professors, who, as I declared, talked nonsense. I was already shattering my idols, I was becoming a Parisian. In short, I led the aimless life of a young man from the provinces, who, being turned adrift in the capital, still retains some worthy sentiments, still believes in certain moral rules, but who is corrupted by bad ex- amples, even while having a disposition to defend himself against them. I made a weak defence, I had accomplices within. Yes, monsieur, my face is 2(50 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR not misleading, I have had all the passions whose marks still remain upon me. And yet I preserved in the depths of my heart a feeling of moral perfec- tion which followed me throughout my disorderly life and which was destined to lead back to God, by the way of weariness and remorse, the man whose youth had quenched its thirst with the pure waters of religion. Is not he who keenly enjoys earthly pleasures, attracted sooner or later by a longing for the fruits of Heaven? I experienced at first the innumerable joys, the innumerable agonies of de- spair which are found, more or less active, in all youthful lives; sometimes I mistook the conscious- ness of my strength for a determined will, and deceived myself as to the extent of my faculties; sometimes, at sight of the most trivial obstacle with which I was about to come in contact, I fell much lower than I should naturally have fallen; I con- ceived the most immense schemes, I dreamed of glory, I made great preparations for work; but a pleasure party would put those noble resolutions to flight. The vague remembrance of my grand but abortive conceptions left in my mind deceptive gleams which accustomed me to believe in myself, without supplying me with the requisite energy to produce. That self-sufficient indolence resulted in my becoming a mere fool. Is not he a fool who does nothing to justify the good opinion he forms of himself? Such activity as I manifested was pur- poseless, I desired the flowers of life without the work that makes them bloom. Knowing nothing THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 261 of obstacles, I believed that everything was easy, I attributed to good luck the triumphs of science and the triumphs of fortune. To my mind genius was charlatanism! 1 imagined that I was a scholar, be- cause it was in my power to become one; and with- out a thought either of the patience that produces great works, or of the good sense that discloses their difficulties, I discounted all forms of glory. "My pleasures were speedily exhausted, the the- atre does not amuse one for long; Paris therefore soon seemed empty and deserted to a poor student whose society consisted of an old man who had for- gotten all that he ever knew, and a family where he met only tiresome people. And so, like all young men who are disgusted with the career they have adopted, but have no fixed idea nor any course of action decided upon in their minds, I wandered for hours at a time about the streets and quays, through the museums and public gardens. When one's time is unemployed, it hangs heavier at that age than at any other, for life is then overflowing with wasted sap and with aimless activity. I failed to appreciate the power that a firm will places in the hands of the young man when he has the intellect to conceive, and when he has at his disposal, to carry out his conceptions, all the vital forces, augmented by the fearless faith of youth. As children, we are innocent, we know nothing of the dangers of life; as young men, we perceive its difficulties and its vast scope: at that discovery the courage sometimes fails; being still new to the trade 262 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR of social life, we remain under the influence of a sort of idiocy, a feeling of stupor, as if we were friendless in a strange land. At every age the unknown causes involuntary terror. The young man is like the soldier who marches boldly up to the cannon's mouth and runs away from a ghost. He hesitates between the maxims of the world; he does not know how either to give or to accept, to defend himself or to attack; he loves women and respects them as if he were afraid of them; his good qualities serve him ill; he is all generosity, all modesty, and untainted by the selfish scheming of avarice; if he lies, it is for his pleasure, not for gain; his conscience, with which he has not yet compounded, points him to the right road among many doubtful ones, and he delays to follow it. " Men destined to be guided by inspirations of the heart, instead of listening to the projects that ema- nate from the brain, remain for a long time in that situation. That was my case. I became the play- thing of two opposing causes. I was simultaneously spurred on by a young man's passions and held back by his sentimental idiocy. The emotions of Paris have a cruel effect upon minds endowed with keen sensibility: the advantages which those of superior mind or the rich enjoy incite their passions; in this world of greatness and pettiness, jealousy acts more frequently as a dagger than as a spur; amid the con- stant conflict of ambitions, desires, and enmities, it is impossible not to be either the victim or the accomplice of this general tendency; the constant THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 263 picture of happy vice and virtue ridiculed, insensibly makes a young man waver; Parisian life soon rubs the gloss off his conscience; thereupon the infernal process of demoralization begins and is consummated. The first of pleasures, that which, at the outset, in- cludes all others, is surrounded by such perils that it is impossible not to reflect on the most trivial actions it provokes, and not to calculate all their conse- quences. Such calculations lead to selfishness. If some poor student, carried away by the impetuosity of his passions, is disposed to forget himself, those who surround him display and inspire so much dis- trust, that it is very difficult for him not to share it, not to put himself on his guard against ennobling ideas. The conflict withers and contracts the heart, drives life to the brain, and produces that Parisian insensibility, that moral state, wherein policy or money lies hidden beneath the most charming fri- volity, beneath extravagant demonstrations which mimic lofty sentiments. But the intoxication of hap- piness does not prevent the most ingenuous woman from retaining her faculties. " That atmosphere was certain to influence my conduct and my sentiments. The errors that poisoned my life would have weighed lightly on the hearts of many men; but we of the South have a religious faith which makes us believe in the truths of the Catholic religion and in a future life. This faith imparts great depth to our passions and great persistency to our remorse. At the period when I was studying medicine, the soldiers were 264 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR masters everywhere; in order to make an impres- sion on the ladies, one must be at least a colonel. What did a poor student amount to in society? nothing. Feeling keenly the stimulus of my ardent passions and finding no outlet for them; restrained at every step, at every wish, by lack of money; regarding study and glory as a too dilatory means of procuring the pleasures which tempted me; wavering between my secret modesty and the evil examples I had before me; finding every facility for dissipation in low life, and nothing but obstacles to gaining admission to good society, I passed many melancholy days, a prey to the surges of passion, to the idleness that kills, to fits of discouragement inter- spersed with moments of sudden exaltation. This crisis came to an end at last in a way not at all uncommon among young men. I have always had the greatest repugnance to disturbing the happiness of a household; moreover, my natural outspoken- ness makes it impossible for me to conceal my senti- ments; it would have been, therefore, a physical impossibility for me to live in a condition of flagrant falsehood. Pleasures snatched in haste have little attraction for me, I like to relish happiness. Not being openly vicious, I found myself without protec- tion against my isolation, after so many unavailing efforts to make my way into the best society, where I might have met a woman who would have devoted herself to explaining to me the dangers of each road, to giving me excellent manners, to advising me without offending my pride, and to introducing me THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 265 wherever I might have formed connections likely to be of benefit to me in the future. In my despair the most hazardous of liaisons would, perhaps, have attracted me; but everything failed me, even danger! and inexperience brought me back to my solitude, where I remained face to face with my betrayed passions. "At last, monsieur, I formed a liaison, secret at first, with a young woman whom I persistently assailed until she espoused my lot. That young woman, who belonged to a respectable but far from wealthy family, soon abandoned for my sake her modest life and fearlessly entrusted to me a future which her virtue had made bright with promise. The mediocrity of my condition seemed to her, I doubt not, the surest of safeguards. From that moment, the storms that caused a constant tur- moil in my heart, my extravagant longings, my ambition, all were allayed by pure happiness, the happiness of a young man who as yet knows neither the ways of the world, nor its maxims of order, nor the force of prejudices; but absolute happiness, like that of a child. What is first love but a second childhood cast athwart on days of toil and suffering? There are men who learn the whole of life at one stroke, judge it as it is, detect the errors of the world to profit by them, grasp its social precepts in order to turn them to their advantage, and who are able to estimate the scope of everything. Such cool, calculating men are wise according to the laws of mankind. Again, there are poor poets, 266 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR nervous creatures, who feel keenly and make mis- takes; I was of these last. My first attachment was not, to begin with, a real passion; I followed my in- stinct, not my heart. I sacrificed a poor girl to my- self, and I did not lack excellent reasons to persuade myself that I was doing nothing wrong. As for her, she was devotion itself, a heart of gold, a judicious mind, a beautiful soul. She never gave me any but excellent advice. At first her love rekindled my courage; then she gently led me to resume my studies, believing fully in me and predicting success, glory, and fortune for me. To-day medical science is connected with all the sciences, and to distinguish one's self in it is a difficult but handsomely rewarded task. Renown always means fortune in Paris. That excellent girl forgot herself for me, she shared my life in all its caprices, and her economy enabled us to live comfortably upon my moderate means, I had more money for my whims when there were two of us than when I was alone. Those were my best days, monsieur. I worked zealously, I had an object, I was encouraged; I attributed my thoughts and my acts to a person who knew how to make me love her, and, better still, to inspire in me profound esteem by the prudence she displayed in a position where pru- dence seems impossible. But all my days were ex- actly alike, monsieur! That monotonous happiness, the most delightful condition imaginable, whose true value is appreciated only after one has experienced all the tempests of the heart that sweet state in which the fatigue of living is no more, in which the THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 267 most secret thoughts are exchanged, in which one is understood: ah! to a man of ardent temperament, hungry for social distinctions, who had wearied of pursuing fame because it moves too slowly, to such a man that sort of happiness was soon a burden. My former dreams assailed me anew. I had a fierce longing for the pleasures of wealth, and demanded them in the name of love. I frankly expressed these desires one evening, when I was questioned by a loving voice just at the moment when, in pensive and melancholy mood, I was absorbed in the delights of imaginary wealth. Doubtless my remarks made the poor creature wince who had sacrificed herself to my welfare. To her it was the bitterest of sorrows to have me wish for something that she could not give on the instant. Oh! monsieur, the devotion of woman is sublime!" That exclamation from the physician was called forth by some secret bitterness of spirit, for he fell into a brief reverie which Genestas did not inter- rupt. "Well, monsieur," Benassis resumed, "an event which should have consummated that inchoate mar- riage destroyed it, and was the prime cause of my misfortunes. My father died, leaving a considerable fortune; the settlement of his estate required my presence for some months in Languedoc, and I went there alone. Thus I resumed my liberty. Any sort of obligation, even the least oppressive, is a burden when one is young : one must have had experi- ence of life to realize the necessity of a yoke and 268 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR of work. With all the vivacity of a Languedocian, I enjoyed the going in and out without having to account for my acts to anybody, even of my own free will. If I did not entirely forget the ties 1 had contracted, I was occupied with affairs which diverted my mind from them, and the memory of them insen- sibly grew fainter. I could not think, without an un- pleasant sensation, of resuming them on my return; then I would ask myself why I should resume them. Meanwhile, I received letters bearing the stamp of true affection; but, at twenty -two, a young man fancies that all women are equally affectionate; he does not as yet know how to distinguish between the heart and passion; he confounds everything with the sensations of pleasure, which seem at first to in- clude everything; not until later, when I was better acquainted with men and things, was I able to appre- ciate the genuine nobleness of those letters, in which no thought of self was mingled with the expression of the writer's feelings, in which she rejoiced for my sake in my good fortune, in which she deplored it on her own account, in which there was no word sug- gesting that I could ever change, because she knew that she was incapable of changing. But I was already deep in ambitious schemes, and thinking of plunging into the joys of the wealthy, of becoming a personage, of making a fine match. I contented my- self with saying: 'She loves me dearly!' with the cool fatuity of a coxcomb. Already I was perplexed to know how I should get clear of that liaison. That perplexity, that shame, led to brutality; to avoid THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 269 blushing before his victim, the man who has begun by wounding her, kills her. The reflections I have since indulged in concerning those days of sad mis- takes have revealed to me several abysses of the heart. Believe me, monsieur, the persons who have probed deepest the vices and virtues of human na- ture are those who have studied them in themselves with good faith. One's conscience is the starting- point. We reason from ourselves to other men, never from other men to ourselves. When I returned to Paris, I took up my abode in a house which I had hired through an agent, without a word of warning either of my change of domicile or of my return, to the only person who was interested. I desired to play a leading part among the young men of fashion. "After I had enjoyed for some days the first de- lights of opulence, and when I was sufficiently in- toxicated with them to be sure of not weakening, I went to call upon the poor creature whom I proposed to abandon. With the aid of the natural shrewdness of woman, she divined my secret sentiments and con- cealed her tears from me. She must have despised me; but she was always sweet and affectionate, and never gave any sign of contempt. That indulgence tortured me cruelly. We assassins of the salon or the highway like. to have our victims defend them- selves, for then the struggle seems to justify their death. At first I ostentatiously resumed my visits. If I was not affectionate, I tried to appear amiable; then I insensibly became coldly polite; one day, by a sort of tacit agreement, she allowed me to treat her as 2/0 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR a stranger, and I thought that I had acted very prop- erly. Nevertheless, I plunged almost with frenzy into society, in order to stifle in its festivities what little remorse I still felt. The man who does not esteem himself cannot bear to live alone, so I led the dissipated life that young men of wealth lead in Paris. As I had an excellent education and a good memory, I seemed to have more intellect than I really had, and thereupon fancied myself superior to my fellows: those persons who were interested in proving to me that I was a superior creature found me convinced of it beforehand. This superiority was so readily acknowledged that I did not even take the pains to demonstrate it. Of all the underhand devices known to the world, praise is the most adroitly treacherous. At Paris, especially, politicians of every sort know how to stifle talent at its birth by tossing a profusion of wreaths into its cradle. So that I did not do honor to my reputation, I did not take advantage of my popularity to make an opening for myself, nor did I form any profitable connections. I indulged in count- less frivolities of all sorts. I enjoyed some of those ephemeral passions which are the shame of Parisian salons, where everyone goes about in search of a genuine passion, becomes surfeited while in pursuit of it, becomes a fashionable libertine, and reaches a point where he is as much surprised at a real passion as the world at a noble action. I imitated the rest, I frequently wounded innocent and noble-minded souls by the same blows that secretly tortured my- self. THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 271 " Notwithstanding these false appearances, which caused me to be judged unfavorably, there was within me an unconquerable delicacy of feeling which I always obeyed. I was deceived on many occasions when I should have blushed not to be, and I discredited myself by the good faith for which I inwardly applauded myself. In truth, the world has great respect for cleverness in whatever guise it shows itself. So far as the world is concerned, the result determines the law in everything. So it attributed to me vices and virtues, triumphs and defeats, which I did not deserve; it gave me credit for successes in the line of making love of which I knew nothing; it blamed me for actions of which I had never heard. Through pride I disdained to contradict the slanders, and through self-esteem I accepted falsehoods that were favorable to me. My life was apparently happy, in reality, wretched. Except for the disasters that soon burst upon me, I should gradually have lost all my good qualities and allowed the evil ones to triumph by the constant activity of my passions, by excessive indulgence in pleasures which weaken the body, and by the de- testable habits of selfishness which wear out the springs of the mind. I ruined myself. This is how I did i^In Paris, however great a man's fortune may be, he always falls in with a greater one which he takes.for his objective point and which he tries to surpass. .Defeated in that contest, as so many other scatterbrains have been, I was obliged, after four years, to sell some securities and pledge others. 272 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR Then I received a terrible blow. For nearly two years I had not seen the young woman I had aban- doned; but at the rate at which I was going, misfor- tune would doubtless have sent me back to her. One night, in the midst of a merry party, I received a note, scrawled by a feeble hand, and containing nearly these words: '"I have only a few moments to live; I would like to see you, my friend, to find out what my child's fate is to be, whether he is to be your child ; and also to soften the regret you might some day feel for my death.' " That letter froze my blood, it revealed the secret pangs of the past, even as it concealed the mysteries of the future. I went out on foot, not waiting for my carriage, and walked all the way across Paris, driven by my remorse, in the grasp of a violent first impulse, which became a lasting senti- ment as soon as I saw my victim. The exquisite neatness beneath which her poverty concealed itself depicted the intense suffering of her life: she spared my shame by referring to it with noble reserve when I had solemnly promised to adopt our child. That woman died, monsieur, in spite of all the care and attention I lavished upon her, in spite of all the resources of science to which I appealed in vain. Those attentions, that belated devotion, served only to make her last moments less bitter. She had worked incessantly in order to support and bring up her child. The maternal sentiment had been strong enough to sustain her against poverty, but not THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 273 against the most poignant of her sorrows, my deser- tion. A hundred times she had tried to communicate with me, a hundred times her pride had held her back; she contented herself with weeping, but with- out cursing me, reflecting that of all the gold poured forth in floods to gratify my caprices not a single drop was diverted from its course by a memory, to fall into her poor household and assist in keeping life in a mother and her child. That terrible mis- fortune had seemed to her the natural punishment of her sin. Assisted by a kind-hearted priest from Saint-Sulpice, whose indulgent voice had restored her tranquillity, she had gone to the altar to wipe her tears away and to find hope. The flood of bit- terness poured into her heart by me had gradually abated. One day, upon hearing her son say: 'Father,' a word that she had not taught him, she forgave me for her sin. But in tears and sorrow, in hard work, night and day, her health had failed. Religion brought her too late its consolation and the courage to endure the hardships of life. She was attacked by a disease of the heart, caused by her mental suffering, by the constant anticipation of my return, a hope always disappointed, but always renewed. At last, realizing that she was in extremis, she had written me from her death-bed those few words, entirely free from reproach, and dictated by religion, but partly also by her belief in my kindness. She knew, she said, that I was blind rather than wicked; she went so far as to accuse herself of having carried her womanly pride too far. 18 274 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR " ' If I had written sooner,' she said, ' perhaps we should have had time to legitimize our child by being married.' " She desired that ceremony only for her son's sake, and would not have asked it had she not felt that it was already dissolved by death. But there was not time, she had only a few hours to live. Beside that bed, monsieur, where I learned to know the value of a devoted heart, my sentiments underwent a last- ing transformation. I was at an age when there are still tears in the eyes. During the last days of that precious life, my words, my actions, and my tears attested the repentance of a man stricken to the heart. I recognized too late the exceptional nature which the trivialities of society, the emptiness, the egotism of women of fashion, had taught me to desire, to seek. Weary of looking at so many masks, weary of listening to so many falsehoods, I had summoned the true love of which artificial pas- sions made me dream; I admired it as it lay there, slain by me, powerless to detain it by my side although it was so wholly mine. An experience of four years had revealed to me my real character. My disposition, the nature of my imagination, my religious principles, sleeping rather than destroyed, the character of my mind, my misunderstood heart, everything about me had disposed me, for some time past, to solve the problem of my life by joys of the heart, and the problem of passion by family joys, the most real of all. The result of strug- gling about in the void of an agitated, purposeless THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 275 existence, of forcing pleasures that are always lack- ing in the sentiments that should embellish them, was that the images of domestic life aroused my liveliest emotions. Thus the revolution that took place in my habits was lasting, although sudden. My south- ern nature, adulterated by residence in Paris, would certainly have led me to feel no pity for the fate of a poor betrayed girl, and I should have laughed at her sorrows if some jocose friend had described them to me in merry company; in France, the feeling of horror for a crime always disappears in the glamour of a witty remark; but in presence of that divine creature against whom I could bring no reproach, all subtleties of reasoning held their peace: the coffin was there, and my child smiled at me, not knowing that I had murdered his mother. " That woman died, she died happy in the assur- ance that I loved her, and that that new love was due neither to pity nor even to the bond that united us by force. Never shall I forget those last hours when love regained and satisfied motherhood im- posed silence on pain. The abundance, the luxury with which she was surrounded, the delight of her child, who seemed lovelier in the pretty garb of childhood, were pledges of a happy future for the little creature in whom she seemed to see herself living anew. The vicar of Saint-Sulpice, observing my despair, made it even more profound by offer- ing me no trite consolation, but enforcing upon me the serious nature of my obligations; but I needed no spur, my conscience talked loudly enough. A 276 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR woman had entrusted herself to me with noble confidence, and I had lied to her, telling her that I loved her when I was deceiving her; I had caused all the misery and suffering of a poor girl who, after she had accepted the humiliations of the world, should have been sacred to me; she died forgiving me, forgetting all her wrongs, because she placed her trust in the word of a man who had already broken his word to her. After giving me her faith as a girl, Agathe had found in her heart a mother's faith to give me. O monsieur, that child! her child! God alone can know what he was to me. The dear little fellow was, like his mother, charming in his movements, in his words, in his ideas; but, in my eyes, he was something more than a mere child! Was he not my pardon, my honor? I loved him as a father, I determined also to love him as his mother would have loved him, and to transform my remorse into happiness, if I could suc- ceed in making him believe that he had not ceased to lie upon his mother's breast; thus I was bound to him by all human ties and by all pious hopes. I had in my heart all the doting fondness that God has implanted in mothers. That child's voice sent a thrill through me, I would stand a long while and watch him as he lay asleep, with a delight that was constantly renewed, and a tear often fell on his fore- head; I had accustomed him to come and say his prayers in my bed as soon as he waked. What sweet emotion did the simple words of ' Our Father* cause me from the child's pure, rosy lips! but what THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 277 painful emotion as well! One morning, after 'Our Father who art in Heaven ' he stopped. " ' Why not "Our Mother? '"he asked me. " That question floored me. I adored my son and I had already sown in his life many seeds of unhap- piness. Although the laws have recognized the sins of youth, and have almost protected them by hesi- tatingly bestowing a legal existence on natural chil- dren, society has fortified the repugnance of the law by insurmountable prejudices. From that period, monsieur, date my serious reflections on the founda- tion of societies, their machinery, the duties of man, and the moral principles which should animate the citizen. Genius embraces, first of all, the bonds between the sentiment of man and the destinies of society; religion inspires in virtuous minds the principles essential to happiness; but repentance alone dictates them to impetuous imaginations: re- pentance enlightened me. I lived only for a child, and through that child, I was led to reflect upon the great social questions. I resolved to arm him be- forehand with all the elements of success, in order to assure his elevation. For instance, to teach him English, German, Italian, and Spanish, I provided him in succession with a tutor in each of those lan- guages, in each case a native of the country in ques- tion, who was instructed to teach him, while he was still a mere child, the pronunciation of the language. I was overjoyed to discover in him a most promising disposition to learn, of which I took advantage to instruct him while amusing him. I was determined 278 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR that not a single false idea should find its way into his mind; I sought, above all, to accustom him betimes to exercise his intelligence, to give him that swift and sure perception which enables one to gener- alize, and that patience which enables one to delve among the most trivial details of a specialty; lastly, I taught him to suffer and to hold his peace. I would not allow an impure or even an unseemly word to be pronounced before him. Through my efforts, the men and the objects by which he was surrounded contributed to ennoble him, to elevate his mind, to instill in him the love of the true, a horror of falsehood, to make him simple and natural in word and act and manner. The vivacity of his imagina- tion enabled him to grasp object-lessons quickly, while the aptitude of his intelligence made his other studies easy for him. What a charming plant to cultivate! What joy mothers have! I understood then how his mother had been able to live and endure her unhappiness. " That, monsieur, was the most momentous event in my life, and I come now to the catastrophe that drove me headlong to this canton. I am about to tell you now the most commonplace, the simplest story imaginable, but to me the most terrible. " After devoting all my energies for several years to the child of whom I wished to make a man, my solitary life began to alarm me; my son was grow- ing fast, he would soon turn his back upon me. In my mind love was a fundamental principle of exist- ence. I felt a craving for affection which, being THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 279 always ungratified, sprang up again stronger than before, and increased with age. At that time all the elements of a genuine affection were united in my person. I had been put to the proof, I appreciated the joys of constancy, and the happiness of trans- forming a sacrifice into a pleasure; and the woman whom I loved was certain to be always first in my thoughts and my acts. I took pleasure in imagining a love that had attained that degree of certainty in which the emotions it arouses have penetrated both so thoroughly that happiness has become a part of their lives, their glances, their words, and no longer causes any shock. Love is then a part of life as religious feeling is a part of the soul, it animates it, supports it, enlightens it. I understood conjugal love otherwise than most men understand it, and I considered that its beauty, its magnificence, are found in those very things that cause its death in innumerable families. I felt keenly the moral gran- deur of a dual life so intimately shared that the most commonplace actions should no longer be an obstacle to the perpetuity of sentiments. But where could one find two hearts whose pulsations were so per- fectly synchronous pardon me that scientific ex- pression as to make that celestial union possible? If such exist, nature or chance places them so far apart that they cannot meet, they know each other too late, or are parted too soon by death. That fatality must have some significance, but I have never tried to fathom it. I suffer too much from my wound to study it. Perhaps perfect happiness 280 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR is a monstrosity that would not perpetuate our spe- cies. " My eagerness for a marriage of that kind was heightened by other causes. I had no friends. To me the world was a desert. There is something in me that is opposed to the alluring phenomenon of the union of souls. Some persons have sought me, but nothing would make them seem near to me, strive as I might to become attached to them. With many men I imposed silence on what the world calls my superiority; I kept step with them, I espoused their ideas, 1 laughed when they laughed, I made excuses for the defects in their character; if I had won renown, I would have sold it to them for a little affection. Those men left me without regret. In Paris everything is a snare and an affliction to hearts that try to find genuine sentiments there. Wherever I placed my feet in society, the ground seemed to burn all around me. To some my passivity seemed weakness; if I showed them the claws of a man who felt that he possessed the strength to handle the reins of power some day, I was wicked. To others the delightful laugh which ceases at twenty years and in which we are almost ashamed to indulge later was a subject of raillery I amused them. In our day, society is bored and yet insists upon solemnity in the most trivial conversation. A horrible period, when people bow down before a cold, polished man of mediocre talent, whom everyone hates, but whom everyone obeys! I discovered later the explanation of this apparent inconsistency. THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 28 1 r '{^Mediocrity, monsieur, is a sufficient equipment everyliouT of one's life; it is the e very-day garb of society; whoever emerges from the pleasant shadow cast by mediocre people is, in a certain sense, too brilliant; genius, originality, are jewels which one stores awi^y and keeps for adornment on certain great days. ;>In short, monsieur, being alone in the midst of Paris, unable to find anything in society, which gave nothing back to me when 1 gave it all I had; having in my child not enough to satisfy my heart, because I was a man: one day, when I felt that my life was growing cold, that I was bending beneath the burden of my secret miseries, I met the woman through whom I was to become acquainted with love in its most violent form, and to respect acknowledged love, love with its fruitful hopes of happiness, in a word, love! " I had renewed my acquaintance with my father's old friend, who formerly had charge of my interests: it was at his house that I met the young woman for whom I conceived a passion which was to endure as long as my life. The older a man grows, monsieur, the more fully he recognizes the influences of ideas upon events. Eminently respectable prejudices, engendered by noble religious ideas, were the cause of my misfortunes. This young woman belonged to an extremely devout family, whose Catholic opinions were attributable to the influence of a sect improperly called Jansenists, which formerly caused much dis- turbance in France; do you know why?" " No," said Genestas. 282 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR " Jansenius, Bishop of Ypres, wrote a book which was alleged to contain propositions not in accord with the doctrines of the Holy See. Later, those propo- sitions as they were actually written did not seem heretical, and some authors went so far as to deny the material existence of the maxims. These mean- ingless discussions caused two factions to appear in the Gallican church, the Jansenists and the Jesuits. There were great men ranged on both sides. It was a struggle between two powerful bodies. The Jansenists accused the Jesuits of inculcating a too loose system of morals, and affected excessive purity both of morals and principles; thus the Jansenists were a sort of Catholic Puritans, if the two words can properly be placed side by side. " During the French Revolution, as a result of the unimportant schism produced by the Concordat, a congregation of pure Catholics was formed, who did not recognize the bishops appointed by the revolu- tionary authorities and by the Pope's compromises. That flock of the faithful constituted what was called the Little Church, whose members professed, like the Jansenists, that exemplary regularity of life which seems to be a rule necessary to the existence of proscribed and persecuted sects. Several Jansenist families belonged to the Little Church. The parents of the girl in question had embraced those two puri- tanisms, equally strict, which impart an imposing aspect to the character and the features; for it is the peculiar property of uncompromising doctrines to magnify the simplest actions by dwelling upon their THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 283 relation to the future life: hence that superb and pleasing purity of heart, that respect for others and themselves; hence an indefinably delicate sense of the just and the unjust; an abounding charity, too, but also a strict and, if I may say so, implacable equity; and, lastly, a deep-rooted horror of vice, especially of falsehood, which includes all vices. I cannot re- member that I ever knew more delightful moments than those at my old friend's house when I saw for the first time a genuine, bashful maiden, accustomed to implicit obedience, in whom all the virtues pecul- iar to that sect shone resplendent, although she dis- played no pride in their possession. Her slender little figure gave to her movements a charm which her puritanical ways could not diminish; her face had the distinguished contour, and her features the refinement, of a young woman of noble birth; her glance was at once sweet and reserved; her brow was unruffled; and her abundant hair, dressed with great simplicity, answered all the purposes, unknown to her, of a tiara. " In short, captain, she was in my eyes the type of the perfection we always find in the woman with whom we are in love; in order to love her we must find in her the elements of the beauty of which we have dreamed and which accords with our special ideas. When I spoke to her, she answered simply, without forwardness or false modesty, know- ing nothing of the pleasure caused by the harmony between her voice and her external gifts. All those angels have the same marks by which the heart 284 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR recognizes them: the same sweet voice, the same tender expression, the same fair complexion, some- thing attractive in the gesture. Those qualities harmonize with one another, blend and unite to charm us, although we cannot say in what the charm consists. A divine soul makes itself manifest in every movement. I loved her passionately. That love awoke and satisfied the sentiments by which I was agitated: ambition, wealth, in a word, all my dreams! Lovely, of noble birth, rich and well-bred, that girl possessed all the advantages which society arbitrarily demands of a woman in the lofty position I was determined to attain; her educa- tion enabled her to express herself with the witty eloquence that is so rare and yet so common in France, where, in the mouths of many women, the highest remarks seem meaningless, whereas in her case, wit was full of good sense. Lastly, she had a profound consciousness of her own dignity, which compelled respect; I know of no more estimable quality in a wife. " I desist, captain! one must always describe most inadequately a woman one loves; between her and ourselves there are pre-existent mysteries which defy analysis. I soon confided in my old friend, who introduced me to her family, and gave me the support of his respectable authority. Although re- ceived at first with the cold courtesy peculiar to exclusive people, who never abandon a friend when they have once adopted him, I succeeded eventually in being received on a familiar footing. I owed that THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 285 evidence of regard doubtless to my conduct at that crisis. Despite my passion, I did nothing that could disgrace me in my own eyes, I was guilty of no servile obsequiousness, 1 did not fawn on those upon whom my destiny depended, I showed myself as I was, a man before everything. When my charac- ter was well understood, my old friend, who was as desirous as myself to see the end of my unhappy bachelorhood, spoke of my hopes, which were lis- tened to favorably, but with the shrewd reserve which people in society seldom lay aside; and in his eagerness to procure for me a good match, an ex- pression which places an act of such solemnity on a level with a species of commercial transaction in which the prospective husband or wife seeks to deceive the other, the old man said nothing about what he called an error of my youth. In his view, a knowledge of my child's existence would excite a moral repulsion in comparison with which the ques- tion of fortune would be of no consequence, and which would inevitably lead to a rupture. He was right. " ' It will be an easy matter to arrange between yourself and your wife,' he said to me, ' and you will readily obtain full and free absolution from her.' "In fact, in his zeal to quiet my scruples, he neglected none of the specious arguments which ordinary worldly wisdom suggests. I will confess, monsieur, that, in spite of my promise, my first impulse led me to disclose everything frankly to the head of the family; but his stern puritanism 286 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR made me reflect, and the probable consequences of the disclosure terrified me; I made a cowardly compromise with my conscience, I determined to wait, and to obtain from my intended bride such pledges of attachment that my happiness would not be endangered by that appalling revelation. My determination to confess everything at an opportune moment justified the worldly old man's sophistries and those of society at large. I was, therefore, without the knowledge of the friends of the family, received by the young woman's parents as her future husband. The most marked characteristic of such devout families is unlimited reserve, and they maintain silence on all subjects, even those of little consequence. You cannot imagine, monsieur, what depth of feeling results from that charming gravity, displayed even in the most trivial acts. In that house everybody was engaged in some useful occu- pation; the women employed their leisure making clothes for the poor; the conversation was not friv- olous, but laughter was not tabooed, although the jesting was simple and not sarcastic. The talk of those rigidly orthodox people seemed strange at first, being devoid of the piquancy that slander and scandalous anecdotes impart to the conversation of society; for only the father and uncle read the news- papers, and my betrothed had never cast an eye on one of those sheets, the most harmless of which deal with crimes and public vices; but later the mind felt, in that pure atmosphere, the impression that our eyes receive from grayish tints, a pleasant sense of repose, THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 287 a soothing calm. In appearance theirs was a horribly monotonous life. There was something glacial in the aspect of the inside of that house: day after day I saw all the furniture, even that which was most used, placed in exactly the same position, and the smallest objects always equally spotless. Nevertheless, that mode of life exercised a powerful attraction. After I had overcome the first repugnance of a man accus- tomed to the pleasures of variety, of Parisian luxury and activity, I recognized the advantages of that kind of life; it develops one's ideas to their fullest extent and provokes involuntary contemplation; the heart reigns supreme, nothing distracts its attention, it ends by discovering there something as vast as the ocean. There, as in a cloister, the thought, as it constantly comes in contact with the same things, necessarily turns aside from things toward the infi- nite regions of sentiments. "To a man as sincerely in love as I was, the silence and simplicity of the life, the almost monastic repetition of the same acts at the same hours, im- parted greater force to love. In that profound tran- quillity, the slightest movements, a word, a gesture, assumed extraordinary interest. Without forcing in any way the expression of the feelings, a smile, a glance, offer to hearts that understand each other, inexhaustible images to depict their joys and their miseries. So it was that I learned at that time that language, with all its magnificent phrases, has noth- ing so varied, so eloquent, as the correspondence of glances and the harmony of smiles. How many 288 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR times I have tried to put my whole heart into my eyes or on my lips, when I found myself obliged to hold my peace and at the same time to paint the violence of my passion to a girl who always sat un- moved in my presence, and to whom the secret cause of my frequent visits to the house had not been re- vealed; for her parents proposed to leave her perfectly free in the most important act of her life. But, when one is under the spell of a genuine passion, does not the presence of the loved one allay our most impetu- ous desires? when we are admitted to her presence, is not our happiness like that of the Christian before God? Does not seeing mean adoring? If it was a keener torture to me than to any other man to be unable to express the impulses of my heart; if I was forced to bury therein the burning words that betray more burning emotions by giving expression to them, nevertheless, that restraint, by imprisoning my pas- sion, made it burst forth more ardently in little things, and the most trivial incidents acquired an excessive value. To admire for long hours, to await a reply and linger long over the modulations of her voice, seeking to decipher her most secret thoughts therein; to watch the trembling of her fingers when I handed her something she had been looking for, to invent pretexts for brushing against her dress or her hair, to take her hand, to make her talk more than she wanted to, all such trifles were momentous events. During those trances, so to speak, the eyes, the gesture, the voice, carried to the mind unfamiliar evidences of love. THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 289 "Such was my language, the only language that the girl's cold maidenly reserve permitted me to adopt; for her manner did not change, with me she was always as a sister is with a brother; but, as my passion increased, the contrast between my words and hers, between my glances and hers, became more striking, and I realized at last that that bashful silence was the only means at her disposal of express- ing her feelings. Was she not always in the salon when I arrived? did she not always remain during my anticipated call, of which she had a presenti- ment perhaps? Did not that silent devotion betray the secret of her innocent heart? Furthermore, did she not listen to what I said with a delight which she could not conceal ? The ingenuousness of our conduct and the melancholy of our love event- ually, I doubt not, troubled her parents' patience, and, seeing that I was almost as shy as their daughter, they formed a favorable opinion of me and looked upon me as a man worthy of their esteem. The father and mother confided in my old friend, said the most flattering things to him about me: I had become their son by adoption; they admired, espe- cially, the morality of my sentiments. To be sure, at that time I had grown young again. In that pure, devout atmosphere, the man of thirty-two became once more the youth overflowing with faith. " The summer was drawing to an end; the family had been detained in Paris contrary to their custom; but in the month of September they were free to leave the capital for a country estate in Auvergne, 19 290 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR and the father begged me to come and sojourn for two months in an old chateau in the heart of the mountains of Cantal. When that friendly invita- tion was extended to me, at first I made no reply. My hesitation was worth to me the sweetest, the most delightful of all the involuntary ejaculations by which a modest maiden can betray the mysteries of her heart. Evelina My God!" cried Benassis, and he became pensive and silent. " Forgive me, Captain Bluteau," he resumed after a long pause. " This is the first time in twelve years that I have uttered a name which is always fluttering about in my thoughts, and which a voice often calls out to me during my sleep. Evelina, then, since I have called her by name, raised her head with a movement whose abrupt suddenness was in striking contrast to the innate gentleness of her ges- tures under ordinary circumstances; she glanced at me, not proudly, but with sorrowful anxiety; she blushed and cast down her eyes. The moderation with which she lowered her eyelids caused me an indescribable pleasure I had never before known. I was unable to reply except in a faltering, broken voice. The emotion of my heart appealed eagerly to hers, and she thanked me with a sweet, almost tearful glance. We had said all that there was to be said. " I went with the family to their country estate. From the day that we understood each other, our surroundings assumed a novel aspect; nothing was indifferent to us any longer. Although true love is THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 291 always the same, it must borrow its shape from our ideas, and thus find itself constantly like and unlike itself in each being whose passion becomes a pro- duct unique in itself, in which his or her sympathies are expressed. Only the philosopher and the poet realize the profundity of this definition of love, which has become trite: selfishness a deux. We love ourselves in the other. But if the method of expressing love varies so widely that no two pairs of lovers in all history have been precisely alike, it nevertheless follows the same rule in its periods of expansion. So that all young women, even the most chaste, the most religiously inclined, employ the same language, and differ only in the charm of their ideas. But where, in another woman, the ingenuous revelation of her emotions would have been natural, Evelina saw a concession to unruly sentiments which carried the day over the habitual placidity of her religious youth, and even the most stealthy glance seemed to be violently torn from her by love. That constant conflict between her heart and her principles gave to the least momentous inci- dents of her life, which was so tranquil on the surface and in reality so profoundly agitated, a force- ful character far superior to the exaggerations of many girls whose manners are early perverted by worldly morals. During the journey, Evelina dis- covered beauties in nature of which she spoke with admiration. When we think that we are not en- titled to express the joy caused by the loved one's presence, we turn the overflow of the sensations 2Q2 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR with which our hearts are inundated upon the exterior objects which our hidden feelings em- bellish. The poetic beauty of the landscapes that passed before our eyes was to us two an interpreter whom we thoroughly understood, and the admiring words we bestowed on them ex- pressed to our hearts the secret of our love. On several occasions Evelina's mother amused herself by embarrassing her daughter with mischievous suggestions characteristic of womankind. "'You have passed through this valley twenty times without seeming to admire it particularly, my dear child!' she said, after a somewhat too enthusi- astic remark from Evelina. "'I suppose I was not old enough to appreciate natural beauties of this sort, mother.' "Pardon this detail, which will hardly interest you, captain; but that reply, simple as it was, caused me indescribable joy, all due to the glance in my direction which accompanied it. So it was that a village illuminated by the setting sun, an ivy- covered ruin, at which we had gazed together, served to imprint more deeply in our hearts, by the memory of a material object, blissful emotions in which our whole future was involved. " We arrived safely at the ancestral chateau, where I remained about forty days. That time, monsieur, is the only portion of perfect happiness that Heaven has ever vouchsafed to me. I ex- perienced delights unknown to the denizens of cities. They comprised all the happiness that two THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 293 lovers have in living under the same roof, in marry- ing in anticipation, in walking together across the fields, in being able to be alone sometimes, in sitting under a tree in the heart of a charming little valley and gazing at some old mill, in snatching confi- dences, you know, from the delicious little chats by which you move forward a little every day in each other's heart. Ah! monsieur, the life in the open air, the beauties of earth and sky harmonize so per- fectly with the joys and the perfection of the heart! To smile as you look up at the sky, to mingle simple words with the songs of the birds under the moist foliage, to walk slowly homeward listening to the clang of the bell that summons you too soon, to ad- mire together some little detail of the landscape, to follow the capricious flight of an insect, to examine a golden-winged fly, a fragile creature, in the hand of a pure and loving maiden, is to be drawn every day a little nearer Heaven. " In those forty days of bliss there was the mate- rial of memories to color my whole life, memories the sweeter and more far-reaching because it was my destiny never to be understood afterward. To- day images apparently unmeaning, but full of bitter significance for a broken heart, have reminded me of a vanished but not forgotten love. I do not know whether you noticed the effect of the sunset on little Jacques's cottage? In an instant the fiery rays of the sun made all nature resplendent, then the land- scape suddenly became dismal and dark. Those two widely contrasted aspects presented to my mind a 294 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR faithful picture of that period of my history. Mon- sieur, I received from her the first, the sublime and only testimony of her love which an innocent girl can give, and which binds the faster the more fur- tively it is given: love's sweet promise, a souvenir of the language spoken in a better world! There- upon, sure that I was loved, 1 made a vow to tell everything, to have no secret from her; I was ashamed that I had delayed so long to tell her of the wretchedness I had created for myself. Un- fortunately, on the day following that day of bliss, a letter from my son's tutor made me trem- ble for a life that was very dear to me. I went away without telling Evelina my secret, giving the family no other excuse than that of important business. " In my absence her parents became alarmed. Fearing that my heart might be subject to some prior claim, they wrote to Paris to make inquiries about me. Although such conduct was inconsistent with their religious principles, they distrusted me, without giving me an opportunity to dissipate their suspicions; one of their friends enlightened them, without my knowledge, as to the events of my youth, put my errors in the worst possible light, dwelling upon the existence of my child, which, he said, I had purposely concealed. When I wrote to my future parents, I received no reply; they re- turned to Paris, I called upon them and was not admitted. Alarmed beyond measure, I sent my old friend to ascertain the cause of conduct which I was THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 295 utterly unable to explain. When he learned the cause, the excellent old man sacrificed himself nobly; he assumed the whole responsibility for my silence, strove earnestly to justify me, but could effect nothing. Considerations of interest and morality were too grave in the sight of that family, their prejudices were too deeply rooted to make it pos- sible to change their determination. My despair knew no bounds. At first I tried to turn aside the storm; but my letters were returned to me unopened. " When all human means were exhausted; when the father and mother had informed the old man who was responsible for my misfortune that they would never consent to give their daughter to a man who had on his conscience the death of a woman and the life of a natural child, even although Evelina im- plored them on her knees to relent, then, monsieur, but one last hope was left to me, a hope as fragile as the willow branch to which a poor devil clings when he is drowning. I dared to believe that Evelina's love would be stronger than her parents' resolution, and that she would be able to overcome their inflex- ibility; her father might have concealed from her the reasons for the refusal which slew our love, and I proposed that she should decide my fate with full knowledge of the facts; so I wrote to her. Alas! monsieur, in tears and sorrow, I wrote, not without cruel hesitation, the only love-letter I have ever written. I have but a vague remembrance to-day of the words that despair dictated; doubtless I told 296 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR my Evelina that, if she were sincere and true, she could not, must not, ever love any other man than me; otherwise, would not her life be a failure, must she not lie to her future husband unless she had lied to me? would she not betray all womanly virtues by re- fusing to her misunderstood lover the same devotion she would have bestowed upon him if the marriage consummated in our hearts had been actually cele- brated? and what woman would not adore the thought that she was more firmly bound by the promises of the heart than by the chains of the law? I justified my sins by appealing to all the purity of innocence, neglecting nothing that was likely to touch a noble, generous heart. But, as I am telling you the whole story, I will go and get her reply and my last letter," said Benassis, leaving the room to go up to his own bedroom. He soon returned, holding in his hand a worn port- folio, from which, not without deep emotion, he took several papers, arranged in no order, which trembled in his hands. " Here is the fatal letter," he said. " The child who formed these characters had no idea of the importance to me of the paper that contains her thoughts. This," he continued, indicating another letter, "is the last cry that was torn from me by my suffering, and you shall pass judgment on it in a moment. My old friend took charge of my petition, delivered it secretly, humiliated his white locks by begging Evelina to read it, to reply to it; and this is what she wrote me: EVELINA TO M. BENASSIS "My old friend took charge of my petition, de- livered it secretly, humiliated his white locks by begging Evelina to read it, to reply to it ; and this is what she wrote me: " ' MONSIEUR,' * * * THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 297 " ' MONSIEUR,' " She called me, who so short a time before had been her beloved, a chaste name employed by her to express a chaste love she called me monsieur! That one word told the whole story. But listen to the letter: " ' It is very hard for a young girl to find that the man to whom her life was to be entrusted has been false to her ; still, I surely ought to forgive you, we are so weak ! Your letter has touched me, but do not write to me any more, your writ- ing causes me distress that I cannot endure. We are sep- arated forever. The reasons you gave me convinced me and stifled the feeling that had risen in my heart against you, it gave me such joy to believe that you were pure ! But you and I are too weak in opposition to my father ! Yes, mon- sieur, I dared to speak in your favor. Before appealing to my parents I had to overcome the greatest terror that I ever knew, and almost to give the lie to all the habits of my life. Now I yield once more to your entreaties, and do what I know to be wrong in writing to you without my father's knowledge ; but my mother knows it : her indulgence in leaving me alone for a moment with you proves to me how dearly she loves me, and confirms me in my respect for the wishes of my family, which I was very near failing to understand. And so, mon- sieur, I write to you for the first and last time. I forgive you unreservedly for the unhappiness you have brought into my life. Yes, you are right, a first love never wholly disappears. I am no longer a pure maiden, I could not be a chaste wife. Therefore I do not know what my fate will be. You see, mon- sieur, the year of my life that has been filled by you will echo for a long while in my future ; but 1 do not accuse you. I shall always be loved! why tell me so? will those words soothe the agitated heart of a poor lonely girl ? Have you not already destroyed my future life by sowing memories that will con- stantly return ? If I can give myself absolutely to Jesus now, 298 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR will He accept a broken heart? But He has not visited this affliction upon me for no purpose, He has his designs, and wished doubtless to call me to Him, to Him, my only refuge to-day. Nothing is left me on this earth, monsieur. You have all the ambitions natural to man to dispel your dis- appointment. I do not mean that as a reproach, but as a sort of religious consolation. It seems to me that I have a heavier portion of the cruel burden we are bearing at this moment. HE in whom I have placed all my hope, and of whom you cannot be jealous, has bound our lives together ; He will find a way to unbind them according to His will. I have noticed that your religious beliefs were not grounded on the pure and living faith which helps us to endure our trials here on earth. Monsieur, if God deigns to grant a fervent and constant prayer, He will grant you the blessings of His light. Adieu, you who should have been my guide, whom I have called my beloved without sin, and for whom I can still pray without shame. God disposes of our lives at His pleasure, He may summon you first of us two ; but if I should be left alone in the world, oh ! monsieur, entrust that child to me.' "That letter, overflowing with noble sentiments, dashed my hopes to the ground," said Benassis. "And so at first I listened only to my grief; later, I breathed the perfume of the balm that girl had tried to pour upon my wounds, forgetful of herself; but, in my despair, I wrote her a little harshly: " ' MADEMOISELLE, " ' That one word tells you that I obey you and give you up! A man finds an indefinable ghastly sweetness in obeying the woman he loves, even when she bids him leave her. You are right, and I condemn myself. Long ago I failed to appreciate a young girl's devotion, it is just that my passion should be unappreciated to-day. But I did not think that the only woman to whom I had given my heart would take it upon THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 299 herself to wreak that revenge. I should never have suspected the possibility of so much cruelty, so much virtue perhaps, in a heart that seemed to me so tender arid so loving. I have but just realized the extent of my love, it has survived the most excruciating of all pangs, the contempt that you mani- fest for me in shattering without regret the bonds by which we were united. Adieu forever. I retain the humble pride of repentance and am about to seek a station in which I can ex- piate the sins for which you, my interpreter in heaven, have had no mercy. God, perhaps, will be more merciful than you. My sufferings, sufferings full of you, will chastise a wounded heart which will continue to bleed in solitude ; for shadow and silence are for wounded hearts. No other image of love will ever be imprinted on my heart. Although I am not a woman, I understood when I said to you : "/ love you ! " that I pledged myself for my whole life. No, those words uttered in the ear of my beloved were not a lie ; if I could change, she would be justified in her contempt ; so you will be the idol of my solitude forever. Repentance and love are two virtues which should inspire all the others ; and so, despite the gulf that separates us henceforth, you will always be the moving principle of my acts. Although you have filled my heart with bitterness, no bitter thoughts against you will find a lodgment there; it would be a bad beginning of my new work not to cleanse my heart of all leaven. Adieu, then, to the only heart I love on this earth, the heart from which I have been driven forth ! Never will the word have expressed deeper sentiments, or greater tenderness ; for does it not bear away from me a heart and a life which it is in no man's power to bring back? Adieu ! To you peace, to me all the unhappiness ! ' ' When the two letters had been read, Genestas and Benassis looked at each other for a moment, under the spell of sad thoughts which they did not impart to each other. "After I had sent this last letter, of which, as you 300 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR see, I retained the rough draft, which represents to- day all my joys, joys that are withered now," resumed Benassis, "I fell into an indescribably depressed condition. All the bonds that can attach a man to life on this earth were united in that chaste hope, thenceforth and forever blasted. I must bid farewell to the joys of legitimate love, and allow the generous ideas that were taking root in the depths of my heart to perish. The cravings of a repentant soul, thirsty for the beautiful, the honorable, the good, were denied by people of genuine piety. For a moment, monsieur, my mind was agitated by the most extravagant resolutions, but luckily the sight of my son subdued them. I felt my affection for him increase by all the misery of which he was the innocent cause, but for which I could blame no one but myself. He became, therefore, my only conso- lation. .At the age of thirty -fbut\ I could still hope to be useful to my country in some noble way; I deter- mined to become a celebrated man, in order to efface by my renown, or by the glamour of power, the sin which stained my son's birth. How many noble sentiments do I owe to him, and what zest he added to life during the time that my mind was occupied with his future! I am suffocating!" cried Benassis. " After eleven years, I cannot even yet bear to think of that terrible year. Monsieur, I lost that child!" The doctor ceased to speak, and hid his face in his hands, which he removed again when he had re- covered his tranquillity somewhat. Genestas was THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 3