The Queen Pedauque by Anatole France

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So he said, and drank deeply.

"That's well," replied the philosopher. "I'll expect both of you to-
morrow morning at my house. You will follow the road to St Germain
till you come to the Cross of the Sablons, from that cross you'll
count one hundred paces, going westward, and you'll find a small
green door in a garden wall. You'll use the knocker which represents
a veiled figure having a finger in her mouth. An old follower will
open the door to you; you'll ask to see M. d'Asterac."

"My son," said my good tutor, pulling my coat sleeve, "put all that
in your memory, put cross, knocker, and the rest, so that we'll be
able to find, to-morrow, the enchanted door. And you, Sir Maecenas----"

But the philosopher was gone. No one had seen him leaving.

CHAPTER VI

Arrival at the Castle of M. d'Asterac and Interview with the
Cabalist.

On the following day at an early hour we walked, my tutor and I, on
the St Germain road. The snow which covered the earth under the
russet light of the sky, rendered the atmosphere dull and heavy. The
road was deserted. We walked in wide furrows between the walls of
orchards, tottering fences and low houses, the windows of which
looked suspiciously on us. And, after having left behind two or
three tumbledown huts built of clay and straw, we saw in the middle
of a disconsolate heath the Cross of the Sablons. At fifty paces
farther commenced a very large park, closed in by a ruined wall,
wherein was the little door, and on it the knocker representing a
horrible-looking figure with a finger in her mouth. We recognised it
easily as the one the philosopher had described, and used the
knocker.

After some rather considerable time, an old servant opened it and
made us a sign to follow him across the untidy park. Statues of
nymphs, who must have seen the boyhood of the late king, secreted
under tree ivy their gloominess and mutilations. At the end of an
alley, the sloughs of which were covered with snow, stood a castle
of stone and brick, as morose as the one of Madrid, which, oddly
covered by a high slate roof, looked like the castle of the Sleeping
Beauty in the wood.

Following the silent valet, M. Coignard whispered to me:

"I confess, my son, that this lodging has no smiling appearance. It
shows the ruggedness wherein the customs of Frenchmen were still
immured in the time of King Henry IV., and it drives the soul to
gloom and nearly to melancholy by the state of forlornness in which
unhappily it has been left. How much sweeter it would be to climb
the enchanted hillocks of Tusculum with the hope of hearing Cicero
discourse of virtue, under the firs and pines of his villa so dear
to the philosopher! And have you not observed, my boy, that all
along yonder road neither taverns nor hostels are to be met with,
and that it would be necessary to cross the bridge and go up the
hill to the Bergeres to get a drink of fresh wine? There is
thereabout a hostel of the _Red Horse_, where, if I remember
well, Madame de St Ernest took me once to dinner in the company of
her monkey and her lover. You can't imagine, Tournebroche, how
excellent the victuals are there. The _Red Horse_ is as well
known for its morning dinners as for the abundance of horses and
carriages which it has on hire. I convinced myself of it when I
followed to the stables a certain wench who seemed to be rather
pretty. But she was not; it would be a truer saying to call her
ugly. But I illuminated her with the colours of my longings. Such is
the condition of men when left to themselves; they err wretchedly.
We are all abused by empty images; we go in chase of dreams and
embrace shadows. In God alone is truth and stability."

Meanwhile we ascended, behind the old servant, the disjointed flight
of steps.

"Alas!" said my tutor, "I begin to regret your father's cookshop,
where we ate such good morsels while explaining Quintilian."

After having scaled the first flight of large stone stairs, we were
introduced into a saloon, where M. d'Asterac was occupied with
writing near a big fire, in the midst of Egyptian coffins of human
form raised against the walls, their lids painted with sacred
figures and golden faces with long glossy eyes.

Politely M. d'Asterac invited us to be seated and said:

"Gentlemen, I expected you. And as you have both kindly consented to
do me the favour of staying with me, I beg of you to consider this
house as your own. You'll be occupied in translating Greek texts I
have brought back with me from Egypt. I have no doubt you will do
your best to accomplish this task when you know that it is connected
with the work I have undertaken, to discover the lost science by
which man will be re-established in his original power over the
elements. I have no intention of raising the veil of nature and
showing you Isis in her dazzling nudity; but I will entrust you with
the object of my studies without fear that you'll betray the
mystery, because I have confidence in your integrity and also in the
power I have to guess and to forestall all that may be attempted
against me and to dispose for my vengeance of secret and terrible
forces. From the defaults of a fidelity, of which I do not doubt; my
power, gentlemen, assures me of your silence.

"Know then that man came out of Jehovah's hands with that perfect
knowledge he has since lost. He was very powerful and very wise when
he was created, that's to be seen in the books of Moses. But it's
necessary to understand them. Before all it is clear that Jehovah is
not God, but a grand Demon, because he has created this world. The
idea of a God both perfect and creative is but a reverie of a
barbarity worthy of a Welshman or a Saxon. As little polished as
one's mind may be one cannot admit that a perfect being tags
anything to his own perfection, be it a hazelnut. That's common
sense; God has no understanding, as he is endless how could he
understand? He does not create, because he ignores time and space,
which are conditions indispensable to all constructions. Moses was
too good a philosopher to teach that the world was created by God.
He took Jehovah for what he really is--for a powerful Demon, or if
he is to be called anything, for the Demiurgos.

"It follows that Jehovah, creating man, gave him knowledge of the
visible and the invisible world. The fall of Adam and Eve, which
I'll explain to you another day, had not fully destroyed that
knowledge of the first man and the first woman, who passed their
teachings on to their children. Those teachings, on which the
domination of nature relies, have been consigned to the book of
Enoch. The Egyptian priests have kept the tradition which they fixed
with mysterious signs on the walls of the temples and the coffins of
the dead. Moses, brought up in the sanctuary of Memphis, was one of
the initiated. His books, numbering five, perhaps six, contain like
very precious archives the treasures of divine knowledge. You'll
discover there the most beautiful secrets if you have cleared them
of the interpolations which dishonour them; one scorns the literal
and coarse sense, to attach oneself to the most subtle. I have
penetrated to the largest part, as it will appear to you also later
on. Meanwhile, the truth, kept like virgins in the temples of Egypt,
passed to the wizards of Alexandria, who enriched them still more
and crowned them with all the pure gold bequeathed to Greece by
Pythagoras and his disciples, with whom the forces of the air
conversed familiarly. Wherefore, gentlemen, it is convenient to
explore the books of the Hebrews, the hieroglyphics of the Egyptians
and those treatises of the Greeks which are called Gnostic precisely
because they possessed knowledge. I reserve for myself, as is quite
equitable, the most arduous part of this extensive work. I apply
myself to decipher those hieroglyphics which the Egyptians used to
inscribe in the temples of their gods and on the graves of their
priests. Having brought over from Egypt a great number of those
inscriptions, I fathom their sense by means of a key I was able to
discover with Clement of Alexandria.

"The Rabbi Mosaide, who lives in retirement with me, works on the
re-establishment of the true sense of the Pentateuch. He is an old
man very well versed in magic, who has lived seventeen years shut up
in the crypt of the Great Pyramid, where he read the books of Toth.
Concerning yourselves, gentlemen, I intend to employ your knowledge,
in reading the Alexandrian MSS. which I have collected myself in
great numbers. There you'll find, no doubt, some marvellous secrets,
and I do not doubt that with the help of these three sources of
light-the Egyptian, the Hebrew and the Greek--I'll soon acquire the
means I still want, to command absolutely nature, visible as well as
invisible. Believe me I shall know how to reward your services by
making you in some way participators of my power.

"I do not speak to you of a more vulgar means to recognise them. At
the point I have reached in my philosophical labours, money is for
me but a trifle."

Arrived at this part of M. d'Asterac's discourse my good tutor
interrupted by saying:

"Sir, I'll not conceal from you that this very money, which seems to
be a trifle to you, is for myself a smarting anxiety, because I have
experienced that it is not easy to earn some and remain an honest
man or even otherwise. Therefore I should be thankful for the
assurance you would kindly give on that subject."

M. d'Asterac, with a movement which seemed to remove an invisible
object, gave M. Jerome Coignard the wished-for assurance; for
myself, curious as I was of all I saw, I did not wish for anything
better than to enter into a new life.

At his master's call, the old servant who had opened the door to us
appeared in the study.

"Gentlemen," said our host, "I give you your liberty till dinner at
noon. Meanwhile I should be very much obliged to you for ascending
to the rooms I have had prepared for you, and let me know that there
is nothing wanting for your comfort. Criton will conduct you."

Having assured himself that we were following him, silent Criton
went out and began to ascend the stairs. He went up to the roof
timbers, then, having taken some steps down a long passage, he
indicated to us two very clean rooms where fires sparkled. I could
never have believed that a castle as shattered on the outside, the
front of which showed nothing but cracked walls and dark windows,
was as habitable in some of its inner parts. My first care was to
know where I was. Our rooms looked on the fields, the view from them
embraced the marshy slopes of the Seine, extending up to the Calvary
of Mont Valerien. Eyeing our furniture, I could see, laid out on my
bed, a grey coat, breeches to match and a sword. On the carpet were
buckle shoes neatly coupled, the heels joined and the points
separated just as if they had of themselves the sentiment of a fine
deportment.

I augured favourably of the liberality of our master, To do him
honour, I dressed very carefully and spread abundantly on my hair
the powder a box full of which I found on a small table. And very
welcome were the laced shirt and white stockings I discovered in one
of the drawers of the chest.

Having put on shirt, stockings, breeches, vest and coat, I walked up
and down my room with hat under the arm, hand on the guard of my
sword, thinking all the time on the looking-glass, and regretting
that Catherine, the lace-maker, could not see me in such finery.

In this way I was occupied for a little while, when M. Jerome
Coignard came into my room with a new neckband and very respectable
clerical garb.

"Tournebroche," he exclaimed, "is it you, my boy? Never forget that
you owe these fine clothes to the knowledge I have given you. They
fit a humanist like yourself, as who says humanities says also
elegance. But look on me and say if I have a good mien. In this
dress I consider myself to be a very honest man. This M. d'Asterac
seems to be tolerably magnificent. It's a pity he's mad. Wise he is
in one way, as he calls his valet Criton, which means judge. And
it's very true that our valets are the witnesses of all our actions.
When Lord Verulam, Chancellor of England, whose philosophy I esteem
but little, entered the great hall to be tried, his lackeys, who
were clad with an opulence by which the copiousness of the
Chancellor's household could be judged, rose to render him due
honour. Lord Verulam said to them: 'Sit down, your rising is my
falling.' As a fact, those knaves, by their extravagance, had pushed
him to ruin and compelled him to do things for which he was indicted
as a peculator. Tournebroche, my boy, always remember this
misfortune of Lord Verulam, Chancellor of England and author of the
'Novum Organum.' But to return to that Sire d'Asterac, in whose
service we are; it is a great pity that he is a sorcerer and given
to cursed science. You know, my boy, I pride myself on my delicacy
in matters of faith I find it hard to serve a cabalist who turns our
Holy Scriptures upside down under the pretext to understand them
better that way. However, if he is, as his name and speech indicate,
a Gascon nobleman, we have nothing to be afraid of. A Gascon may
make a contract with the devil and you may be sure that the devil
will be done."

The dinner bell interrupted our conversation.

But while descending the stairs, my kind tutor said: "Tournebroche,
my boy, remember, during the whole meal, to follow all my movements,
to enable you to imitate them. Having dined at the third table of
the Bishop of Seez, I know how to do it. It's a difficult art. It's
harder to dine than to speak like a gentleman."

CHAPTER VII

Dinner and Thoughts on Food

We found in the dining-room a table laid for three, where M.
d'Asterac made us take our places.

Criton, who acted as butler, served us with jellies, and thick soup
strained a dozen times. But we could not see any joints. As well as
we could, my kind tutor and myself tried to hide our surprise. M.
d'Asterac guessed it and said:

"Gentlemen, this is only an attempt, and may seem to you an
unfortunate one. I shall not persist in it. I'll have some more
customary dishes served for you and I shall not disdain to partake
of them. If the dishes I offer you to-day are badly prepared, it is
less the fault of my cook than that of chemistry, which is still in
its infancy. But they will at all events give you an idea of what
will be in the future. At present men eat without philosophy. They
do not nourish themselves like reasonable beings. They do not think
of such. But of what are they thinking? Most of them live in
stupidity and actually those who are capable of reflection occupy
their minds with silly things like controversies and poetry.
Consider mankind, gentlemen, at their meals since the far-away times
when they ceased their intercourse with Sylphs and Salamanders.
Abandoned by the genii of the air they grew heavy and dull in
ignorance and barbarity Without policy and without art they lived,
nude and miserable, in caverns, on the border of torrents or in the
trees of the forest. The chase was their only industry. After having
surprised or captured by quickness a timid animal, they devoured
that prey still palpitating.

"They also fed on the flesh of their companions and infirm
relatives; the first sepulchres of human beings were living graves,
famished and insensible intestines. After long fierce centuries a
divine man made his appearance: the Greeks call him Prometheus. It
cannot be doubted that this sage had intercourse in the homes of the
Nymphs with the Salamander folks. He learnt of them and showed to
the unhappy mortals the art of producing and conserving fire. Of all
the innumerable advantages that men have drawn from this celestial
present, one of the happiest was the possibility of cooking food,
and by this treatment, to render it lighter and more subtle. And
it's in a large part due to the effect of a nourishment submitted to
the action of the flame that slowly and by degrees mankind became
intelligent, industrious, meditative and apt to cultivate the arts
and sciences. But that was only a first step, and it is grievous to
think that so many millions of years had to pass before a second
step was made. From the time when our ancestors toasted beasts'
quarters on fires of brambles in the shelter of a rock, we have not
made any true progress in cooking, for sure, gentlemen, you cannot
put a higher value on the inventions of Lucullus and that gross pie
to which Vitellius gave the name of Shield of Minerva than on our
roasts, patties, stews, our stuffed meats and all the fricassees
which still suffer from the ancient barbarity.

"At Fontainebleau, the king's table, where a whole stag is dished up
in his skin and his antlers, presents to the eye of the philosopher
a spectacle as rude as that of the troglodytes, cowering round the
smoking cinders, gnawing horse bones. The brilliant paintings of the
hall, the guards, the richly clad officers, the musicians playing
the melodies of Lambert and Lulli in the gallery, the golden
goblets, the silver plate, the silken tablecloth, the Venetian
glass, the chased epergnes full of rare flowers, the heavy
candlesticks--they cannot change, cannot lend a dissimulating charm
to the true nature of this unclean charnel-house, where men and
women assemble over animal bodies, broken bones and torn meats to
gloat greedily over them. Oh, what unphilosophical nourishment! We
swallow with stupid gluttony muscle, fat and intestines of beasts
without discerning in those substances such parts as are truly
adapted to our nourishment and those much more abundant which we
ought to reject; and we fill our stomach indiscriminately with good
and bad, useful and injurious. That's the very point, where a
separation is to be made, and, if the whole medical faculty could
boast of a chemist and philosopher, we should no more be compelled
to partake of such disgusting feasts.

"They would prepare for us, gentlemen, distilled meats, containing
nothing but what is in sympathy and affinity with our body. Nothing
would be used but the quintessence of oxen and pigs, the elixir of
partridges and capons, and all that is swallowed could be digested.
I do not give up all hope, gentlemen, of obtaining such results by
thinking somewhat deeper over chemistry and medicine than I have had
leisure to do up till now."

At these words of our host, M. Jerome Coignard, raising his eyes
over the thin black broth in his plate, looked uneasily at M.
d'Asterac, who continued to say:

"But that would still be quite insufficient progress. No honest man
can eat animal flesh without disgust, and people cannot call
themselves refined as long as they keep slaughter-houses and
butchers' shops in their towns. But the day will come when we shall
know exactly the nourishing elements contained in animal carcasses,
and it will become possible to extract those very same elements from
bodies without life, and which will furnish an abundance of them.
Those bodies without life contain, as a fact, all that is to be
found in living beings, because the animal has been built up by the
vegetable, which has itself drawn the substance out of the inert
ground.

"Then people will feed on extracts of metal and mineral conveniently
treated by physicians. I have no doubt but that the taste of them
will be exquisite and the absorption salutary. Cookery will be done
in retorts and stills and alchemists will be our cooks. Are you not
impatient, gentlemen, to see such marvels? I promise them to you at
a very near time. But you are not able at present to unravel the
excellent effects that they will produce."

"In truth, sir, I do not unravel them," said my kind tutor, and had
a long draught of wine.

"If such is the case," said M. d'Asterac, "listen to me for a
moment. No more burdened with slow digestions, mankind will become
marvellously active, their sight will become singularly piercing,
and they will see the ships gliding on the seas of the moon. Their
understanding will be clearer, their ways softer. They will greatly
advance in their knowledge of God and nature.

"But it also seems necessary to look forward on all the changes
which cannot fail to occur. Even the structure of the human body
will be modified. It is an uncontradictable fact that without
exercise all organs flatten and end by disappearing altogether. It
has been observed that fishes deprived of light become blind. I
myself have seen in Valais that shepherds who fed on curdled milk
lost their teeth very early; some of them never had any at all, When
men feed on the balms I have spoken of, their intestines will be
shortened by ells and the volume of the stomach will shrink
considerably."

"For once, sir," said my tutor, "you go too quickly and risk making
a mess of it. I never considered it to be disagreeable when women
get a little corporation, especially if all the remainder of her
body is well proportioned. It's a kind of beauty I'm rather partial
to. Do not transform it inconsiderately."

"No matter, we'll leave woman's body and flanks formed after the
canons of the Greek sculptors. That will be to give you pleasure,
reverend sir, and also in due consideration of the labours of
maternity. It is true, I intend in that case also, to make several
changes of which I'll speak to you on a future day. But to return to
our subject. I have to acknowledge that all I have till now
predicted is nothing but a preparatory measure for the real
nourishment, which is that of the Sylphs and all aerial spirits.
They drink light, which is sufficient to give to their bodies
marvellous strength and subtility. It is their only potion, one day
it will be ours also. Nothing more is to be done than to render the
rays of the sun drinkable. I confess that I do not see with
sufficient clearness the means to arrive at it, and I do foresee
many encumbrances and great obstacles on the road. But whensoever
some sage shall be able to do it, mankind will be the equal of
Sylphs and Salamanders in intelligence and beauty."

My good tutor listened to these words, folded in himself, his head
sadly lowered. He seemed to contemplate the changes to himself from
the kind of food imagined by our host.

"Sir," he said after a while, "did you not speak at yonder cookshop
of an elixir which dispenses with all kinds of food?"

"True, I did," replied M. d'Asterac, "but that liquor is only good
for philosophers, and by that you may understand how restricted is
the use of it. It will be better not to mention it."

One doubt tormented me. I asked leave of our host to submit it to
him, certain that he would enlighten me at once. He allowed me to
speak and I said:

"Sir, those Salamanders, who you say are so beautiful, and of whom,
after your relation, I have conceived a charming idea, have they
unhappily spoiled their teeth by light drinking, as the shepherds at
Valais lost theirs by feeding only on milk diet? I confess I am
rather uneasy about it."

"My son," replied M. d'Asterac, "your curiosity pleases me and I
will satisfy it. The Salamanders have no teeth that we should call
such. But their gums are furnished with two ranges of pearls, very
white and very brilliant, lending to their smiles an inconceivable
gracefulness. You should know that these pearls are light-hardened."

I said to M. d'Asterac that I was glad it was so and he continued:

"Men's teeth are a sign of ferocity. Once people are properly fed,
their teeth will give way to some ornament similar to the pearls of
the Salamander. Then it will become incomprehensible that a lover
could, without horror and disgust, contemplate dogs' teeth in the
mouth of his beloved."

CHAPTER VIII

The Library and its Contents

After dinner our host conducted us to a vast gallery adjoining his
study; it was the library. There were to be seen ranged on oaken
shelves an innumerable army, or rather a grand assembly, of books in
duodecimo, in octavo, in quarto, in folio, clad in calf, sheep,
morocco leather, in parchment and in pigskin. The light fell through
six windows on this silent assembly extended from one end of the
hall to the other, all along the high walls. Large tables,
alternated with globes and astronomical apparatus, occupied the
middle of the gallery. M. d'Asterac told us to make choice of the
place most convenient for our work.

My dear tutor, his head high, with look and breath inhaled all these
books drivelling with joy.

"By Apollo!" he exclaimed, "what a splendid library! The Bishop of
Seez's, over rich in works of canonical law, is not to be compared
to this. There is no pleasanter abode in my opinion, actually the
Elysian Fields as described by Virgil. At first sight I can discover
such rare books and precious collections that I have my doubts, sir,
if any other private library prevails over this, which is inferior
in France only to the Mazarin and the Royal. I dare say, seeing all
these Greek and Latin MSS. closely pressed together in this single
corner, one may, after the Bodleian, the Ambrosian, the Laurentinian
and the Vatican also name, sir, the Asteracian. Without flattering
myself I may say that I smell truffles and books at a long distance
and I consider myself from now, to be the equal of Peiresc, of
Grolier and of Canevarius, who are the princes of bibliophiles."

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