The Village Rector Part 20

But what is the good of talking? When a few young and able engineers, full of ardor, solve, at the outset of their career, the problem of maintaining the roads of France, which need some hundred millions spent upon them every quarter of a century (and which are now in a pitiable state), they gain nothing by making known in reports and memoranda their intelligent knowledge; it is immediately engulfed in the archives of the general Direction,-- that Parisian centre where everything enters and nothing issues; where old men are jealous of young ones, and all the posts of management are used to shelve old officers or men who have blundered.

This is why, with a body of scientific men spread all over the face of France and const.i.tuting a part of the administration,--a body which ought to enlighten every region on the subject of its resources,--this is why we are still discussing the practicability of railroads while other countries are making theirs. If ever France was to show the excellence of her inst.i.tution of technical schools, it should have been in this magnificent phase of public works, which is destined to change the face of States and nations, to double human life, and modify the laws of s.p.a.ce and time.

Belgium, the United States of America, England, none of whom have an Ecole Polytechnique, will be honeycombed with railroads when French engineers are still surveying ours, and selfish interests, hidden behind all projects, are hindering their execution.

Thus I say that as for the State, it derives no benefit from its technical schools; as for the individual pupil of those schools, his earnings are poor, his ambition crushed, and his life a cruel deception. Most a.s.suredly the powers he has displayed between sixteen and twenty-six years of age would, if he had been cast upon his own resources, have brought him more fame and more wealth than the government in whom he trusted will ever give him. As a commercial man, a learned man, a military man, this choice intellect would have worked in a vast centre where his precious faculties and his ardent ambition would not be idiotically and prematurely repressed.

Where, then, is progress? Man and State are both kept backward by this system. Does not the experience of a whole generation demand a reform in the practical working of these inst.i.tutions? The duty of culling from all France during each generation the choice minds destined to become the learned and the scientific of the nation is a sacred office, the priests of which, the arbiters of so many fates, should be trained by special study. Mathematical knowledge is perhaps less necessary to them than physiological knowledge.

And do you not think that they need a little of that second-sight which is the witchcraft of great men? As it is, the examiners are former professors, honorable men grown old in harness, who limit their work to selecting the best themes. They are unable to do what is really demanded of them; and yet their functions are the n.o.blest in the State and demand extraordinary men.

Do not think, dear sir and friend, that I blame only the Ecole itself; no, I blame the system by which it is recruited. This system is the _concours_, compet.i.tion,--a modern invention, essentially bad; bad not only in science, but wherever it is employed, in arts, in all selections of men, of projects, of things. If it is a reproach to our great Ecoles that they have not produced men superior to other educational establishments, it is still more shameful that the _grand prix_ of the Inst.i.tute has not as yet furnished a single great painter, great musician, great architect, great sculptor; just as the suffrage for the last twenty years has not elected out of its tide of mediocrities a single great statesman. My observation makes me detect, as I think, an error which vitiates in France both education and politics. It is a cruel error, and it rests on the following principle, which organizers have misconceived:--

_Nothing, either in experience or in the nature of things, can give a certainty that the intellectual qualities of the adult youth will be those of the mature man._

At this moment I am intimate with a number of distinguished men who concern themselves with all the moral maladies which are now afflicting France. They see, as I do, that our highest education is manufacturing temporary capacities,--temporary because they are without exercise and without future; that such education is without profit to the State because it is devoid of the vigor of belief and feeling. Our whole system of public education needs overhauling, and the work should be presided over by some man of great knowledge, powerful will, and gifted with that legislative genius which has never been met with among moderns, except perhaps in Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

Possibly our superfluous numbers might be employed in giving elementary instruction so much needed by the people. The deplorable amount of crime and misdemeanors shows a social disease directly arising from the half-education given the ma.s.ses, which tends to the destruction of social ties by making the people reflect just enough to desert the religious beliefs which are favorable to social order, and not enough to lift them to the theory of obedience and duty, which is the highest reach of the new transcendental philosophy. But as it is impossible to make a whole nation study Kant, therefore I say fixed beliefs and habits are safer for the ma.s.ses than shallow studies and reasoning.

If I had my life to begin over again, perhaps I would enter a seminary and become a simple village priest, or the teacher of a country district. But I am too far advanced in my profession now to be a mere primary instructor; I can, if I leave my present post, act in a wider range than that of a school or a country parish. The Saint-Simonians, to whom I have been tempted to ally myself, want now to take a course in which I cannot follow them.

Nevertheless, in spite of their mistakes, they have touched on many of the sore spots which are the fruits of our present legislation, and which the State will only doctor by insufficient palliatives,--merely delaying in France the moral and political crisis that must come.

Adieu, dear Monsieur Grossetete; accept the a.s.surance of my respectful attachment, which, notwithstanding all these observations, can only increase.

Gregoire Gerard.

According to his old habit as a banker, Grossetete had jotted down his reply on the back of the letter itself, heading it with the sacramental word, _Answered_.

It is useless, my dear Gerard, to discuss the observations made in your letter, because by a trick of chance (I use the term which is, as you say, the pet word of fools) I have a proposal to make to you which may result in withdrawing you from the situation you find so bad. Madame Graslin, the owner of the forests of Montegnac and of a barren plateau extending from the base of a chain of mountains on which are the forests, wishes to improve this vast domain, to clear her timber properly, and cultivate the stony plain.

To put this project into execution she needs a man of your scientific knowledge and ardor, and one who has also your disinterested devotion and your ideas of practical utility. It will be little money and much work! a great result from small means! a whole region to be changed fundamentally! barren places to be made to gush with plenty! Isn't that precisely what you want,--you who are dreaming of constructing a poem? From the tone of sincerity which pervades your letter, I do not hesitate to bid you come and see me at Limoges. But, my good friend, don't send in your resignation yet; get leave of absence only, and tell your administration that you are going to study questions connected with your profession outside of the government works. In this way, you will not lose your rights, and you will have time to judge for yourself whether the project conceived by the rector of Montegnac and approved by Madame Graslin is feasible.

I will explain to you by word of mouth the advantages you will find in case this great scheme can be carried out. Rely on the friends.h.i.+p of

Yours, etc, T. Grossetete.

Madame Graslin replied to Grossetete in few words: "Thank you, my friend; I shall expect your _protege_." She showed the letter to the rector, saying,--

"One more wounded man for the hospital."

The rector read the letter, reread it, made two or three turns on the terrace silently; then he gave it back to Madame Graslin, saying,--

"A fine soul, and a superior man. He says the schools invented by the genius of the Revolution manufacture incapacities. For my part, I say they manufacture unbelievers; for if Monsieur Gerard is not an atheist, he is a protestant."

"We will ask him," she said, struck by an answer.

XVII. THE REVOLUTION OF JULY JUDGED AT MONTEGNAC

A fortnight later, in December, and in spite of the cold, Monsieur Grossetete came to the chateau de Montegnac, to "present his protege,"

whom Veronique and Monsieur Bonnet were impatiently awaiting.

"I must love you very much, my dear child," said the old man, taking Veronique's two hands in his, and kissing them with that gallantry of old men which never displeases women, "yes, I must love you well, to come from Limoges in such weather. But I wanted to present to you myself the gift of Monsieur Gregoire Gerard here present. You'll find him a man after your own heart, Monsieur Bonnet," added the banker, bowing affectionately to the rector.

Gerard's external appearance was not prepossessing. He was of middle height, stocky in shape, the neck sunk in the shoulders, as they say vulgarly; he had yellow hair, and the pink eyes of an albino, with lashes and eyebrows almost white. Though his skin, like that of all persons of that description, was amazingly white, marks of the small-box and other very visible scars had destroyed its original brilliancy.

Study had probably injured his sight, for he wore gla.s.ses.

When he removed the great cloak of a gendarme in which he was wrapped, it was seen that his clothing did not improve his general appearance.

The manner in which his garments were put on and b.u.t.toned, his untidy cravat, his rumpled s.h.i.+rt, were signs of the want of personal care with which men of science, all more or less absent-minded, are charged. As in the case of most thinkers, his countenance and his att.i.tude, the development of his bust and the thinness of his legs, betrayed a sort of bodily debility produced by habits of meditation. Nevertheless, the ardor of his heart and the vigor of his mind, proofs of which were given in this letter, gleamed from his forehead, which was white as Carrara marble. Nature seemed to have reserved to herself that spot in order to place there visible signs of the grandeur, constancy, and goodness of the man. The nose, like that of most men of the true Gallic race, was flattened. His mouth, firm and straight, showed absolute discretion and the instinct of economy. But the whole mask, worn by study, looked prematurely old.

"We must begin by thanking you, monsieur," said Madame Graslin, addressing the engineer, "for being willing to direct an enterprise in a part of the country which can offer you no other pleasure than the satisfaction of knowing that you are doing a real good."

"Madame," he replied, "Monsieur Grossetete has told me enough about your enterprise as we came along to make me already glad that I can in any way be useful to you; the prospect of living in close relations with you and Monsieur Bonnet seems to me charming. Unless I am dismissed from this region, I expect to end my days here."

"We will try not to let you change your mind," replied Madame Graslin, smiling.

"Here," said Grossetete, addressing Veronique, whom he took aside, "are the papers which the _procureur-general_ gave to me. He was quite surprised that you did not address your inquiry about Catherine Curieux to him. All that you wished has been done immediately, with the utmost prompt.i.tude and devotion. Three months hence Catherine Curieux will be sent to you."

"Where is she?" asked Veronique.

"She is now in the hospital Saint-Louis," replied the old man; "they are awaiting her recovery before sending her from Paris."

"Ah! is the poor girl ill?"

"You will find all necessary information in these papers," said Grossetete, giving Veronique a packet.

Madame Graslin returned to her guests to conduct them into the magnificent dining-room on the ground-floor. She sat at table, but did not herself take part in the dinner; since her arrival at Montegnac she had made it a rule to take her meals alone, and Aline, who knew the reason of this withdrawal, faithfully kept the secret of it till her mistress was in danger of death.

The mayor, the _juge de paix_, and the doctor of Montegnac had been invited.

The doctor, a young man twenty-seven years of age, named Roubaud, was extremely desirous of knowing a woman so celebrated in Limoges. The rector was all the more pleased to present him at the chateau because he wanted to gather a little society around Veronique to distract her mind and give it food. Roubaud was one of those thoroughly well-trained young physicians whom the Ecole de Medecine in Paris sends forth to the profession. He would undoubtedly have shone on the vast stage of the capital; but frightened by the clash of ambitions in Paris, and knowing himself more capable than pus.h.i.+ng, more learned than intriguing, his gentle disposition led him to choose the narrow career of the provinces, where he hoped to be sooner appreciated than in Paris.

At Limoges, Roubaud came in contact with the settled practice of the regular physicians and the habits of the people; he therefore let himself be persuaded by Monsieur Bonnet, who, judging by the gentle and winning expression of his face, thought him well-suited to co-operate in his own work at Montegnac. Roubaud was small and fair; his general appearance was rather insipid, but his gray eyes betrayed the depths of the physiologist and the patient tenacity of a studious man. There was no physician in Montegnac except an old army-surgeon, more devoted to his cellar than to his patients, and too old to continue with any vigor the hard life of a country doctor. At the present time he was dying.

Roubaud had been in Montegnac about eighteen months, and was much liked there. But this young pupil of Desplein and the successors of Cabanis did not believe in Catholicism. He lived in a state of profound indifference as to religion, and did not desire to come out of it. The rector was in despair. Not that Roubaud did any wrong; he never spoke against religion, and his duties were excuse enough for his absence from church; besides, he was incapable of trying to undermine the faith of others, and indeed behaved outwardly as the best of Catholics; he simply prohibited himself from thinking of a problem which he considered above the range of human thought. When the rector heard him say that pantheism had been the religion of all great minds he set him down as inclining to the doctrine of Pythagoras on reincarnation.

Roubaud, who saw Madame Graslin for the first time, experienced a violent sensation when he met her. Science revealed to him in her expression, her att.i.tude, in the ravages of her face, untold sufferings both moral and physical, a nature of almost superhuman force, great faculties which would support her under the most conflicting trials; he detected all,--even the darkest corners of that nature so carefully hidden. He felt that some evil, some malady, was devouring the heart of that fine creature; for just as the color of a fruit shows the presence of a worm within it, so certain tints in the human face enable physicians to detect a poisoning thought.

From this moment Monsieur Roubaud attached himself so deeply to Madame Graslin that he became afraid of loving her beyond the permitted line of simple friends.h.i.+p. The brow, the bearing, above all, the glance of Veronique's eye had a sort of eloquence that men invariably understand; it said as plainly that she was dead to love as other women say the contrary by a reversal of the same eloquence. The doctor suddenly vowed to her, in his heart, a chivalrous wors.h.i.+p.

He exchanged a rapid glance with the rector, who thought to himself, "Here's the thunderbolt which will convert my poor unbeliever; Madame Graslin will have more eloquence than I."

The mayor, an old countryman, amazed at the luxury of this dining-room and surprised to find himself dining with one of the richest men in the department, had put on his best clothes, which rather hampered him, and this increased his mental awkwardness. Moreover, Madame Graslin in her mourning garments seemed to him very imposing; he was therefore mute.

After living all his life as a farmer at Saint-Leonard, he had bought the only habitable house in Montegnac and cultivated with his own hands the land belonging to it. Though he knew how to read and write, he would have been incapable of fulfilling his functions were it not for the help of his clerk and the _juge de paix_, who prepared his work for him. He was very anxious to have a notary established in Montegnac, in order that he might s.h.i.+ft the burden of his responsibility on to that officer's shoulders. But the poverty of the village and its outlying districts made such a functionary almost useless, and the inhabitants had recourse when necessary to the notaries of the chief town of the arrondiss.e.m.e.nt.