The Queen Pedauque by Anatole France

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"Nothing is more credible," I replied.

"No doubt it is so. That sorcerer amuses himself when he talks to us
of his Salamanders. The truth is, he caresses that amazingly pretty
girl. He's an impostor."

I asked my tutor to favour me with the continuance of his narrative.
He willingly complied and said:

"Well, my dear boy, I'll briefly report the remainder of M.
d'Anquetil's discourse. I know very well that it's rather
commonplace, almost vulgar, to lay much stress on trifling
circumstances. It is, on the contrary, some sort of duty to express
them in the fewest possible words, to condense them carefully and
reserve the tempting abundance of word-flow to moral instruction and
exhortation, which may be hurled as the avalanches are hurled from
the mountains. On this principle I shall have mentioned enough of M.
d'Anquetil's sayings when I have told you that he impressed on me
that yonder young girl's beauty, charms, and accomplishments are
quite extraordinary. In the end he inquired of me if I knew her name
and position. And I replied to him that, from his description of
her, I was pretty sure that she was Rabbi Mosaide's niece Jahel,
whom by a lucky accident I had embraced one night on that very same
staircase, with this difference only, that my luck occurred between
the first and second flights of steps. 'I hope and trust,' said M.
d'Anquetil, 'that there may be other differences too, for, as far as
I am concerned, I embraced her very closely. I am also sorry that,
as you say, she is a Jewess, as, without believing in God, I feel
that I should have liked better for her to be a Christian. But can
anyone be sure of his own family? Who knows if she has not been
kidnapped as a child? Jews and gypsies steal children daily. And we
do not, as a rule, remember sufficiently that the Holy Virgin was
born a Jewess. But let her be Jewess or not, she pleases me; I want
her and shall have her!' Such were that reckless youngster's words.
But allow me, my boy, to sit down on yonder moss-covered stone; last
night's work, my fights, my flight, too, have nearly broken my
legs."

He sat down, took his snuff-box out of his pocket, and looked quite
disconsolate when he found it void of tobacco.

I took a seat at his side, agitated, crestfallen. Coignard's
discourse caused me acute pain. I cursed Fate for having given my
place to a brute at the very moment when my beloved mistress had
come to bring me her most passionate tenderness, expecting to find
me in my bed, the while I had to throw logs of wood on the fire in
the alchemist's furnace. The but too probable inconstancy of Jahel
tore my heart to pieces, and I could have wished that my dear tutor
had been more discreet with my rival. So I took the liberty to
reproach him mildly for his disclosure of Jahel's name.

"Sir," I said, "was it not somewhat imprudent to furnish such
indications to a gentleman so luxurious and violent as M.
d'Anquetil?"

M. Coignard seemed not to hear what I said, and continued his
speech:

"My snuff-box has unfortunately opened itself in my pocket during
the fight at Catherine's house, and the tobacco it contained, mixed
with the wine of the broken bottle, has formed a quite disgusting
paste. I do not dare ask Criton to grind down a few leaves for me;
the hard and cold features of that servant and judge inspire me with
awe. I suffer from the want of snuff, as my nose is irksome in
consequence of the shock I had last night, and I am quite
disconcerted by my failure to satisfy the never-tiring wants of that
nose of mine. I shall have to bear the misfortune quietly, till M.
d'Anquetil may, perhaps, let me have a few grains out of his box.
Now to return to that young gentleman, he said expressly to me: 'I
love that girl. Know, abbe, that I am resolved to take her with us
in the post-chaise should I be compelled to stay here a week, a
month, six months or longer; I will not go away without her.' I
represented all the dangers to him, which might occur through any
delay in our departure. He said he did not care a rap for those
dangers, less so as they were smaller for him than for us. 'You,
abbe, you and Tournebroche are both in danger of being hanged; my
risk is the Bastille only, where I can get cards and girls, and
whence my family could, and would, soon deliver me, as my father
would interest some duchess or some ballet dancer in my doom, and my
mother, devotee as she has become, could and would still get the
assistance of one or other of the royal princes. It is irrevocably
fixed; I take Jahel with me or I remain here. You and Tournebroche
are at liberty to hire a post-chaise of your own.'

"The cruel boy knows but too well that we have not the means to do
it. I tried to make him change his mind. I became pressing,
unctuous, parental. It was no use, and I wasted on him an eloquence
which, employed in the pulpit of a parish church, would have brought
me a full reward in honour and coin. Alas! my dear boy, it seems to
be written that none of my actions will ever produce any kind of
savoury fruit, and for me ought to have been written the following
words from Ecclesiastes:--_'Quid habet am plius homo de universe
labore suo, quo laborat sub sole?_' Far from bringing him to
reason, my discourses strengthened the young nobleman's obstinacy,
and I cannot deny that he actually counted on me for the success of
his desires, and pressed me to go to Jahel and induce her to fly
with him, promising her the gift of a trousseau of Dutch linen, of
plate, jewels and a handsome annuity."

"Oh, sir!" I exclaimed, "this M. d'Anquetil is very insolent. What
do you think will be Jahel's reply to his propositions when she
knows of them?"

"My boy, she knows by now, and I think she will accept them."

"If such is the case," I said, "then Mosaide must be warned."

"That he is already," replied my tutor. "You have just assisted at
the outbreak of his rage."

"What, sir?" said I, with much warmth, "you have informed yonder Jew
of the disgrace awaiting his family! That's nice of you! Allow me to
embrace you. But, if so, Mosaide's wrath threatened M. d'Anquetil,
and not yourself?"

The abbe replied with an air of nobility and honesty, with a natural
indulgence for human weaknesses, an obliging sweetness, and the
imprudent kindness of an easy heart--by all of which men are often
induced to do inconsiderate things and expose themselves to the
severity of the futile judgments of mankind:

"I will not keep it a secret from you, my dear Tournebroche, that,
giving way to the pressing solicitations of that young gentleman, I
obligingly promised to go on his errand to Jahel and to neglect
nothing to induce her to elope with him."

"Alas!" I exclaimed, "you did, sir. I cannot fully tell how deeply
your action wounds and affects me."

"Tournebroche," replied he sternly, "you speak like a Pharisee. One
of the fathers, as amiable as he was austere, has said: 'Turn your
eyes on yourself and take care not to judge the doings of others.
Judging others is an idle labour; usually one is erring, often
sinning, by so doing, but by examining and judging oneself your
labour will always be fruit-bearing.' It is written, 'Thou shalt not
be afraid of the judgment of men,' and the Apostle Paul said that he
did not trouble himself about being judged by men. If I refer to
some of the finest texts in morals it is to enlighten you,
Tournebroche, to make you return to the humble and sweet modesty
which suits you, and not to defend my innocence, when the multitude
of my iniquities weighs on me and bears me down. It is difficult not
to glide into sin, and proper not to fall into despondency at every
step one takes on this earth, whereon everything participates, at
one and the same time, in the original curse, and the redemption
effected by the blood of the Son of God. I do not want to colour my
faults, and I freely confess that the embassy I undertook at the
request of M. d'Anquetil is an outcome of Eve's downfall, and it
was, to say it bluntly, one of the numberless consequences, on the
wrong side, of the humble and painful sentiment which I now feel,
and is drawn out of the desire and hope of my eternal welfare. You
have to represent to yourself mankind balancing between damnation
and redemption to understand me truly when I say that at the present
hour I am sitting on the good end of the seesaw after having been
this very morning on the wrong end. I freely avow that in passing
through the mandrake lane, from whence Mosaide's cottage is to be
seen, I hid behind an ivy-thorn bush, waiting for Jahel to appear at
her window. Very soon she came. I showed myself, and beckoned her to
come down. She came as soon as she was able to escape her uncle's
vigilance. I gave her a brief report of the events of the night, of
which she had not known. I informed her of M. d'Anquetil's impetuous
plans, and represented to her how important it was for her own
interest, and for my and your safety, to make our escape sure by
coming with us. I made the young nobleman's promises glitter before
her eyes and said to her: 'If you consent to go with him to-night
you'll have a solid annuity, inscribed at the Hotel de Ville, and an
outfit richer than any ballet dancer or Abbess of Panthemont may
get, and a cupboard full of the finest silver.' 'He thinks me to be
one of those creatures," she said; 'he is an impudent fellow.' 'He
loves you,' I replied; 'you could not expect to be venerated?' 'I
must have an olio pot,' she said, 'an olio pot, and the heaviest
one. Did he mention the olio pot? Go, Monsieur Abbe, and tell him.'
'What shall I tell him?' 'That I am an honest girl.' 'And what
else?' 'That he is very audacious!' 'Is that all, Jahel? Think on
our safety!' 'Tell him that I shall not depart before he has given
me his legally worded written promise for everything.' 'He'll do it,
consider it as done. 'Oh, monsieur, I will not consent to anything
if he does not consent to have lessons given me by M. Couperin; I
want to study music.

"We had just reached this item of our negotiations when, unhappily,
Mosaide surprised us, and without having overheard our conversation
got the scent of its meaning.

"He called me at once a suborner, and heaped outrageous insults on
me. Jahel went and hid herself in her own room, and I remained alone
exposed to the fury of that God-killer, in the state you found me,
and out of which you helped me, you dear boy! As a fact, I may say
that the business had been concluded, the elopement assented to, our
flight assured. The wheels and Ezekiel's beasts are of no value
against a heavy silver olio pot. I am only afraid that yonder old
Mordecai has imprisoned his niece too securely."

"I must avow," I replied, without disguising my satisfaction, "that
I heard a loud noise of keys and bolts at the very moment I freed
you from the midst of the thorns. But is it really true, that Jahel
agreed so quickly to your propositions, which have not been quite
decorous, and which, for certain, you did not make with an easy
heart? I am abashed; and, say, my good master, did she not speak of
me, not mention my name, with a sigh or otherwise?"

"No, my boy, she did not pronounce your name, at least not in an
audible way. Neither did I hear her mention the name of M. d'Asterac
her lover, which ought to have been nearer to her feelings than
yours. But do not be surprised by her forgetting the alchemist. It
is not sufficient to possess a woman to impress on her soul a
profound and durable mark. Souls are almost impenetrable, a fact
showing the cruel emptiness of love. The wise man ought to say to
himself, I am nothing in the nothingness which that creature is. To
hope that you could leave a remembrance in a woman's heart is
equivalent to trying to impress a seal on running water. And
therefore let us never nurse the wish to establish ourselves in what
is fleeting and let us attach ourselves to that which never dies."

"After all," I said, "Jahel is locked and bolted up, and one may
rely on the vigilance of her guardian."

"My son, this very evening she has to join us at the _Red
Horse_. Twilight is favourable to evasions, abductions, stealthy
movements and underhand actions. We have to trust to the cunning of
that girl. As to you, be sure to attend at the Circus of the
Bergeres in the dusk. You know M. d'Anquetil is not patient, and it
quite the man to start without you."

When he gave me this counsel, the luncheon bell sounded.

"Have you by chance," he said to me, "a needle and thread? My
garments are torn at more than one place, and I should like to
repair them as much as possible before going to luncheon. Especially
my breeches do not leave me without some apprehension. They are so
much torn that, should I not promptly mend them, I run the risk of
losing them altogether."

CHAPTER XIX

Our last Dinner at M. d'Asterac's Table--Conversation of M. Jerome
Coignard and M. d'Asterac--A Message from Home--Catherine in the
Spittel--We are wanted for Murder--Our Flight--Jahel causes me much
Misery--Account of the Journey--The Abbe Coignard on Towns--Jahel's
Midnight Visit--We are followed--The Accident--M. Jerome Coignard is
stabbed.

I took my accustomed place that day at the dining-table of the
cabalist, oppressed by the idea that I sat down at it for the last
time. Jahel's treachery had saddened my soul. Alas! thought I, my
most fervent wish had been to fly with her, a wish which looked like
being granted, and was now fulfilled in a very cruel manner. Again
and again I admired my beloved tutor's wisdom who, on a day when I
desired too vivaciously the success of some affair, answered with
the following citation: _"Et tributt eis petitionem eorum."_ My
sorrows and anxieties spoilt my appetite, and I partook sparingly of
the dishes served. However, my dear tutor had preserved the
unalterable gracefulness of his soul.

He abounded in amiable discourse, and one might have said that he
was one of those sages which Telemachus shows us conversing in the
shades of the Elysian Fields, and not a man pursued as a murderer
and reduced to a roving and miserable life. M. d'Asterac, believing
that I had passed the night at the cookshop, kindly inquired after
my parents, and, as he could not abstract himself for a single
moment from his visions, said:

"When I speak of that cook as being your father it is quite
understood that I express myself in a worldly sense, and not
according to nature. Nothing proves, my son, that you have not been
begot by a Sylph. It is the very thing I prefer to believe, in so
far as your spirit, still delicate, shall grow in strength and
beauty."

"Oh, sir! don't speak like that,' replied my tutor, and smiled. "You
oblige him to hide his spirit so as not to damage his mother's good
name. But if you knew her better you could not but think with me
that she never had any intercourse with a Sylph; she is a good
Christian who has never accomplished the work of the flesh with any
other man than her husband, and who carries her virtue written
distinctly on her features, very different from the mistress of that
other cookshop, Madame Quonion, about whom they talked so much in
Paris, as well as in the provinces, in the days of my youth. Have
you never heard of her, sir? Her lover was M. Mariette, who later on
became secretary to M. d'Angervilliers. He was a stout man, who left
a jewel every time he visited his beloved; one day a Cross of
Lorraine or a Holy Ghost; another day a watch or a chatelaine, or
perhaps a handkerchief, a fan, a box. For her sake he rifled the
jewellers and seamstresses of the fair of St Germain. He gave her so
much that, finding his shop decorated like a shrine, the master-cook
became suspicious that all that wealth could not have been honestly
acquired. He watched her, and very soon surprised her with her
lover. It must be said that the husband was but a jealous fellow. He
flew into a temper, and gained nothing by it, but very much the
reverse. For the amorous couple, plagued by his wrangling, swore to
get rid of him. M. Mariette had no little influence. He got a
_lettre de cachet_ in the name of that unhappy Quonion. On a
certain day the perfidious woman said to her husband:

"Take me, I beg of you, on Sunday next out to dinner somewhere in
the country. I promise myself uncommon pleasure from such an
excursion."

"She became caressing and pressing, and the husband, flattered,
agreed to all her demands. On the Sunday, he got with her into a
paltry hackney coach to go to Porcherons. But they had hardly got to
Roule when a posse of constables placed in readiness by Marietta
arrested him, and took him to Bicetre, from whence he was sent to
the Mississippi, where he still remains. Someone composed a song
which finished thus:

'Un mari sage et commode
N'ouvre les yeux qu'a demi
II vaut mieux etre a la mode,
Que de voir Mississippi.'

And such is, doubtless, the most solid lesson to be derived from the
example given by Quonion the cook.

"As to the story itself, it only needs to be narrated by a Petronius
or by an Apuleius to equal the best Milesian fables. The moderns are
inferior to the ancients in epic poetry and tragedy. But if we do
not surpass the Greeks and Latins in story-telling it is net the
fault of the ladies of Paris, who never cease enriching the material
for tales by their ingenious and graceful inventions. You certainly
know, sir, the stories of Boccaccio. I am sure that had that
Florentine lived in our days in France he would make of Quonion's
misfortune one of his pleasantest tales. As far as I am myself
concerned I have been reminded of it at this table for the sole
purpose, and by the effect of contrast, to make the virtue of Madame
Leonard Tournebroche shine. She is the honour of cookshops, of which
Madame Quonion is the disgrace. Madame Tournebroche, I dare affirm
it, has never abandoned those ordinary commonplace virtues the
practice of which is recommended in marriage, which is the only
contemptible one of the seven sacraments."

"I do not deny it," said M. d'Asterac. "But Mistress Tournebroche
would be still more estimable if she should have had intercourse
with a Sylph, as Semiramis had and Olympias and the mother of that
grand pope Sylvester II."

"Ah, sir," said the Abbe Coignard, "you are always talking to us of
Sylphs and Salamanders. Now, in simple good faith, have you ever
seen any of them?"

"As clearly as I see you this very moment," replied M. d'Asterac,
"and certainly closer, at least as far as Salamanders are
concerned."

"That is not sufficient, my dear sir, to make me believe in their
existence, which is against the teachings of the Church. For one may
be seduced by illusions. The eyes, and all our senses, are
messengers of error and couriers of lies. They delude us more than
they teach us, and bring us but uncertain and fugitive images. Truth
escapes them, because truth is eternal, and invisible like
eternity."

"Ah!" said M. d'Asterac, "I did not know you were so philosophical,
nor of so subtle a mind."

"That's true," replied my good master. "There are days on which my
soul is heavier, and with preference attached to bed and table. But
last night I broke a bottle on the head of an extortioner, and my
mind is very much exalted over it. I feel myself capable of
dissipating the phantoms which are haunting you, and to blow off all
that mist. For after all, sir, these Sylphs are but vapours of your
brain."

M. d'Asterac stopped him with a kind gesture and said:

"I beg your pardon, abbe; do you believe in demons?"

"Without difficulty I can reply," said my good master, "that I
believe of demons all that is reported of them in the Scriptures,
and that I reject as error and superstition all and every belief in
spells, charms and exorcism. Saint Augustine teaches that when the
Scriptures exhort us to resist the demons, it requires us to resist
our passions and intemperate appetites. Nothing is more detestable
than the deviltries wherewith the Capuchins frighten old women."

"I see," said M. d'Asterac, "you do your best to think as an honest
man. You hate as much as I do myself the coarse superstitions of the
monks. But, after all, you do believe in demons, and I have not had
much trouble to make you avow it. Know, then, that they are no other
than Sylphs and Salamanders, ignorance and fear have disfigured them
in timid imaginations. But, as a fact, they are beautiful and
virtuous. I will not lead you in the ways of the Salamanders, as I
am not quite sure of the purity of your morals; but I can see no
impediment, abbe, to a frequentation of the Sylphs, who inhabit the
fields of air, and voluntarily approach man in a spirit of
friendliness and affection, so that they have been rightly named
helping genii. Far from driving us to perdition, as the theologians
believe, who change them into devils, they protect and safeguard
their terrestrial friends. I could make you acquainted with
numberless examples of the help they give. But to be short I'll
repeat to you one single case which was told to me by Madame la
Marechale de Grancey herself. She was middle-aged, and a widow for
several years, when, one night, in her bed, she received the visit
of a Sylph, who said to her: 'Madame, have a search made in the
wardrobe of your deceased husband. In the pocket of a pair of his
breeches a letter will be found, which, if it became known, would
ruin M. des Roches, my good friend and yours. Find that letter and
burn it.'

"The marechale promised not to neglect this recommendation and
inquired after news of the defunct marechal from the Sylph, who,
however, disappeared without giving any reply. On waking she
summoned her women, and bade them look if some of the late
marechal's garments remained in his wardrobe. The attendants
reported that nothing was left, and that the lackeys had sold them
all to old clothes dealers. Madame de Grancey insisted on her women
trying to find at least one pair of breeches.

"Having searched in every corner they finally discovered a very old-
fashioned pair of black satin, embroidered with carnations, and
handed them to their mistress, who found a letter in one of the
pockets, which contained more than would have been needed to
incarcerate M. des Roches in one of the state prisons. She burned
the letter at once, and so that gentleman was saved by his good
friends the Sylph and the marechale.

"Are such, I ask you, abbe, the manners of demons? But let me give
you another startling hit on the matter, which will impress you
more, and will I am sure go to the heart of a learned man such as
yourself. It is doubtless known to you that the Academy of Dijon is
rich in wits. One of them, whose name cannot be unknown to you,
living in the last century, prepared with great labour an edition of
Pindar. One night, worrying over five verses the sense of which he
could not disentangle, so much was the text corrupt, he dozed off,
quite despairing, at cockcrow. During his sleep, a Sylph, who wished
him well, transported his spirit to Stockholm into the palace of
Queen Christina, conducted him to the library, and took from one of
the shelves a manuscript of Pindar's showing him the difficult
passage. The five verses were there, as well as two or three
annotations which rendered them perfectly intelligible.

"In the violence of his contentment, our savant woke up, struck a
light, and pencilled down the verses as they appeared to him in his
sleep. After that he went to sleep again profoundly. On the
following morning, thinking over his night's adventure, he at once
resolved to try to get a confirmation. M. Descartes happened at that
very time to be in Sweden, reading to the queen on philosophy. Our
Pindarist knew him, but was on still closer terms with M. Chanut,
the Swedish ambassador in France. He wrote requesting him to forward
a letter to M. Descartes, in which he asked him to be informed if
there really was in the queen's library at Stockholm a manuscript of
Pindar containing the version he mentioned. M. Descartes, an
extremely courteous man, replied to the academician of Dijon that,
as a fact, her Majesty possessed a manuscript of Pindar, and that he
had himself read there the verses, with the various readings
contained in the letter."

M. d'Asterac, who had been peeling an apple during his narration,
looked at M. Coignard to enjoy the success of his discourse.

My dear tutor smiled and said:

"Ah, sir! I clearly see that I flattered myself with an idle hope,
and that one cannot make you give up your vain imaginations. I
confess with a good grace that you have shown us an ingenious Sylph,
and that I actually wish for such an obliging secretary. His
assistance would be particularly useful to me on two or three
passages in Zosimus the Panopolitan which are very obscure. Could
you not be so good as to give me the means to evoke, if necessary,
some Sylph librarian as expert as that of Dijon?"

M. d'Asterac replied gravely:

"That's a secret, abbe, that I will willingly unveil to you. But be
warned that you would be a lost man should you communicate it to a
profane person."

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