The Village Rector

The abbe returned upon his steps and walked along the paths of the first garden, from which he could see, in the distance beyond the village, the magnificent stretch of valley, a true oasis at the edge of the vast plains, which now, veiled by the light mists of morning, lay along the horizon like a tranquil ocean. Behind him could be seen, on one side, for a foil, the dark masses of the bronze-green forest; on the other, the church and the ruins of the castle perched on the rock and vividly detached upon the blue of the ether. The Abbe Gabriel, his feet creaking on the gravelly paths cut in stars and rounds and lozenges, looked down upon the village, where some of the inhabitants were already gazing up at him, and then at the fresh, cool valley, with its tangled paths, its river bordered with willows in delightful contrast to the endless plain, and he was suddenly seized with sensations which changed the nature of his thoughts; he admired the sweet tranquillity of the place; he felt the influence of that pure air; he was conscious of the peace inspired by the revelation of a life brought back to Biblical simplicity; he saw, confusedly, the beauties of this old parsonage, which he now re-entered to examine its details with greater interest.

A little girl, employed, no doubt, to watch the house, though she was picking and eating fruit in the garden, heard the steps of a man with creaking shoes on the great square flags of the ground-floor rooms. She ran in to see who it was. Confused at being caught by a priest with a fruit in one hand and another in her mouth, she made no answer to the questions of the handsome young abbe. She had never imagined such an abbe, – dapper and spruce as hands could make him, in dazzling linen and fine black cloth without spot or wrinkle.

“Monsieur Bonnet?” she said at last. “Monsieur Bonnet is saying mass, and Mademoiselle Ursule is at church.”

The Abbe Gabriel did not notice a covered way from the house to the church; he went back to the road which led to the front portal, a species of porch with a sloping roof that faced the village. It was reached by a series of disjointed stone steps, at the side of which lay a ravine washed out by the mountain torrents and covered with noble elms planted by Sully the Protestant. This church, one of the poorest in France where there are so many poor churches, was like one of those enormous barns with projecting doors covered by roofs supported on brick or wooden pillars. Built, like the parsonage, of cobblestones and mortar, flanked by a face of solid rock, and roofed by the commonest round tiles, this church was decorated on the outside with the richest creations of sculpture, rich in light and shade and lavishly massed and colored by Nature, who understands such art as well as any Michael Angelo. Ivy clasped the walls with its nervous tendrils, showing stems amid its foliage like the veins in a lay figure. This mantle, flung by Time to cover the wounds he made, was starred by autumn flowers drooping from the crevices, which also gave shelter to numerous singing birds. The rose-window above the projecting porch was adorned with blue campanula, like the first page of an illuminated missal. The side which communicated with the parsonage, toward the north, was not less decorated; the wall was gray and red with moss and lichen; but the other side and the apse, around which lay the cemetery, was covered with a wealth of varied blooms. A few trees, among others an almond-tree – one of the emblems of hope – had taken root in the broken wall; two enormous pines standing close against the apsis served as lightning-rods. The cemetery, enclosed by a low, half-ruined wall, had for ornament an iron cross, mounted on a pedestal and hung with box, blessed at Easter, – one of those affecting Christian thoughts forgotten in cities. The village rector is the only priest who, in these days, thinks to go among his dead and say to them each Easter morn, “Thou shalt live again!” Here and there a few rotten wooden crosses stood up from the grassy mounds.

The interior of the church harmonized perfectly with the poetic tangle of the humble exterior, the luxury and art of which was bestowed by Time, for once in a way charitable. Within, the eye first went to the roof, lined with chestnut, to which age had given the richest tints of the oldest woods of Europe. This roof was supported at equal distances by strong shafts resting on transversal beams. The four white-washed walls had no ornament whatever. Poverty had made the parish iconoclastic, whether it would or not. The church, paved and furnished with benches, was lighted by four arched windows with leaded panes. The altar, shaped like a tomb, was adorned by a large crucifix placed above a tabernacle in walnut with a few gilt mouldings, kept clean and shining, eight candlesticks economically made of wood painted white, and two china vases filled with artificial flowers such as the drudge of a money-changer would have despised, but with which God was satisfied.

The sanctuary lamp was a night-wick placed in an old holy-water basin of plated copper hanging by silken cords, the spoil of some demolished chateau. The baptismal fonts were of wood; so were the pulpit and a sort of cage provided for the church-wardens, the patricians of the village. An altar to the Virgin presented to public admiration two colored lithographs in small gilt frames. The altar was painted white, adorned with artificial flowers in gilded wooden vases, and covered by a cloth edged with shabby and discolored lace.

At the farther end of the church a long window entirely covered by a red calico curtain produced a magical effect. This crimson mantle cast a rosy tint upon the whitewashed walls; a thought divine seemed to glow upon the altar and clasp the poor nave as if to warm it. The passage which led to the sacristy exhibited on one of its walls the patron saint of the village, a large Saint John the Baptist with his sheep, carved in wood and horribly painted.

But in spite of all this poverty the church was not without some tender harmonies delightful to choice souls, and set in charming relief by their own colors. The rich dark tones of the wood relieved the white of the walls and blended with the triumphal crimson cast on the chancel. This trinity of color was a reminder of the grand Catholic doctrine.

If surprise was the first emotion roused by this pitiful house of the Lord, surprise was followed speedily by admiration mingled with pity. Did it not truly express the poverty of that poor region? Was it not in harmony with the naive simplicity of the parsonage? The building was perfectly clean and well-kept. The fragrance of country virtues exhaled within it; nothing showed neglect or abandonment. Though rustic and poor and simple, prayer dwelt there; those precincts had a soul, – a soul which was felt, though we might not fully explain to our own souls how we felt it.

VIII. THE RECTOR OF MONTEGNAC

The Abbe Gabriel glided softly through the church so as not to disturb the devotions of two groups of persons on the benches near the high altar, which was separated from the nave at the place where the lamp was hung by a rather common balustrade, also of chestnut wood, and covered with a cloth intended for the communion. On either side of the nave a score of peasants, men and women, absorbed in fervent prayer, paid no attention to the stranger when he passed up the narrow passage between the two rows of seats.

When the young abbe stood beneath the lamp, whence he could see the two little transepts which formed a cross, one of which led to the sacristy, the other to the cemetery, he noticed on the cemetery side a family clothed in black kneeling on the pavement, the transepts having no benches. The young priest knelt down on the step of the balustrade which separated the choir from the nave and began to pray, casting oblique glances at a scene which was soon explained to him. The gospel had been read. The rector, having removed his chasuble, came down from the altar and stood before the railing; the young abbe, who foresaw this movement, leaned back against the wall, so that Monsieur Bonnet did not see him. Ten o’clock was striking.

“Brethren,” said the rector, in a voice of emotion, “at this very moment a child of this parish is paying his debt to human justice by enduring its last penalty, while we are offering the sacrifice of the mass for the peace of his soul. Let us unite in prayer to God, imploring Him not to turn His face from that child in these his last moments, and to grant to his repentance the pardon in heaven which is denied to him here below. The sin of this unhappy man, one of those on whom we most relied for good examples, can only be explained by his disregard of religious principles.”

Here the rector was interrupted by sobs from the kneeling group in mourning garments, whom the Abbe Gabriel recognized, by this show of affection, as the Tascheron family, although he did not know them. First among them was an old couple (septuagenarians) standing by the wall, their faces seamed with deep-cut, rigid wrinkles, and bronzed like a Florentine medal. These persons, stoically erect like statues, in their old darned clothes, were doubtless the grandfather and the grandmother of the criminal. Their glazed and reddened eyes seemed to weep blood, their arms trembled so that the sticks on which they leaned tapped lightly on the pavement. Next, the father and the mother, their faces in their handkerchiefs, sobbed aloud. Around these four heads of the family knelt the two married sisters accompanied by their husbands, and three sons, stupefied with grief. Five little children on their knees, the oldest not seven years old, unable, no doubt, to understand what was happening, gazed and listened with the torpid curiosity that characterizes the peasantry, and is really the observation of physical things pushed to its highest limit. Lastly, the poor unmarried sister, imprisoned in the interests of justice, now released, a martyr to fraternal affection, Denise Tascheron, was listening to the priest’s words with a look that was partly bewildered and partly incredulous. For her, her brother could not die. She well represented that one of the Three Marys who did not believe in the death of Christ, though she was present at the last agony. Pale, with dry eyes, like all those who have gone without sleep, her fresh complexion was already faded, less by toil and field labor than by grief; nevertheless, she had many of the beauties of a country maiden, – a plump, full figure, finely shaped arms, rounded cheeks, and clear, pure eyes, lighted at this instant with flashes of despair. Below the throat, a firm, fair skin, not tanned by the sun, betrayed the presence of a white and rosy flesh where the form was hidden.

The married daughters wept; their husbands, patient farmers, were grave and serious. The three brothers, profoundly sad, did not raise their eyes from the ground. In the midst of this dreadful picture of dumb despair and desolation, Denise and her mother alone showed symptoms of revolt.

The other inhabitants of the village united in the affliction of this respectable family with a sincere and Christian pity which gave the same expression to the faces of all, – an expression amounting to horror when the rector’s words announced that the knife was then falling on the neck of a young man whom they all knew well from his very birth, and whom they had doubtless thought incapable of crime.

The sobs which interrupted the short and simple allocution which the pastor made to his flock overcame him so much that he stopped and said no more, except to invite all present to fervent prayer.

Though this scene was not of a nature to surprise a priest, Gabriel de Rastignac was too young not to be profoundly touched by it. As yet he had never exercised the priestly virtues; he knew himself called to other functions; he was not forced to enter the social breaches where the heart bleeds at the sight of woes: his mission was that of the higher clergy, who maintain the spirit of devotion, represent the highest intellect of the Church, and on eminent occasions display the priestly virtues on a larger stage, – like the illustrious bishops of Marseille and Meaux, and the archbishops of Arles and Cambrai.

This little assemblage of country people weeping and praying for him who, as they supposed, was then being executed on a public square, among a crowd of persons come from all parts to swell the shame of such a death, – this feeble counterpoise of prayer and pity, opposed to the ferocious curiosity and just maledictions of a multitude, was enough to move any soul, especially when seen in that poor church. The Abbe Gabriel was tempted to go up to the Tascherons and say, —

“Your son and brother is reprieved.”

But he did not like to disturb the mass; and, moreover, he knew that a reprieve was only a delay of execution. Instead of following the service, he was irresistibly drawn to a study of the pastor from whom the clergy in Limoges expected the conversion of the criminal.

Judging by the parsonage, Gabriel de Rastignac had made himself a portrait of Monsieur Bonnet as a stout, short man with a strong and red face, framed for toil, half a peasant, and tanned by the sun. So far from that, the young abbe met his equal. Slight and delicate in appearance, Monsieur Bonnet’s face struck the eyes at once as the typical face of passion given to the Apostles. It was almost triangular, beginning with a broad brow furrowed by wrinkles, and carried down from the temples to the chin in two sharp lines which defined his hollow cheeks. In this face, sallowed by tones as yellow as those of a church taper, shone two blue eyes that were luminous with faith, burning with eager hope. It was divided into two equal parts by a long nose, thin and straight, with well-cut nostrils, beneath which spoke, even when closed and voiceless, a large mouth, with strongly marked lips, from which issued, whenever he spoke aloud, one of those voices which go straight to the heart. The chestnut hair, which was thin and fine, and lay flat upon the head, showed a poor constitution maintained by a frugal diet. WILL made the power of this man.

Such were his personal distinctions. His short hands might have indicated in another man a tendency to coarse pleasures, and perhaps he had, like Socrates, conquered his temptations. His thinness was ungraceful, his shoulders were too prominent, his knees knocked together. The body, too much developed for the extremities, gave him the look of a hump-backed man without a hump. In short, his appearance was not pleasing. None but those to whom the miracles of thought, faith, art are known could adore that flaming gaze of the martyr, that pallor of constancy, that voice of love, – distinctive characteristics of this village rector.

This man, worthy of the primitive Church, which exists no longer except in the pictures of the sixteenth century and in the pages of Martyrology, was stamped with the die of the human greatness which most nearly approaches the divine greatness through Conviction, – that indefinable something which embellishes the commonest form, gilds with glowing tints the faces of men vowed to any worship, no matter what, and brings into the face of a woman glorified by a noble love a sort of light. CONVICTION is human will attaining to its highest reach. At once both cause and effect, it impresses the coldest natures; it is a species of mute eloquence which holds the masses.

Coming down from the altar the rector caught the eye of the Abbe Gabriel and recognized him; so that when the bishop’s secretary reached the sacristy Ursule, to whom her master had already given orders, was waiting for him with a request that he would follow her.

“Monsieur,” said Ursule, a woman of canonical age, conducting the Abbe de Rastignac by the gallery through the garden, “Monsieur Bonnet told me to ask if you had breakfasted. You must have left Limoges very early to get here by ten o’clock. I will soon have breakfast ready for you. Monsieur l’abbe will not find a table like that of Monseigneur the bishop in this poor village, but we will do the best we can. Monsieur Bonnet will soon be in; he has gone to comfort those poor people, the Tascherons. Their son has met with a terrible end to-day.”

“But,” said the Abbe Gabriel, when he could get in a word, “where is the house of those worthy persons? I must take Monsieur Bonnet at once to Limoges by order of the bishop. That unfortunate man will not be executed to-day; Monseigneur has obtained a reprieve for him.”

“Ah!” exclaimed Ursule, whose tongue itched to spread the news about the village, “monsieur has plenty of time to carry them that comfort while I get breakfast ready. The Tascherons’ house is beyond the village; follow the path below that terrace and it will take you there.”

As soon as Ursule lost sight of the abbe she went down into the village to disseminate the news, and also to buy the things needed for the breakfast.

The rector had been informed, while in church, of a desperate resolution taken by the Tascherons as soon as they heard that Jean-Francois’s appeal was rejected and that he had to die. These worthy souls intended to leave the country, and their worldly goods were to be sold that very morning. Delays and formalities unexpected by them had hitherto postponed the sale. They had been forced to remain in their home until the execution, and drink each day the cup of shame. This determination had not been made public until the evening before the day appointed for the execution. The Tascherons had expected to leave before that fatal day; but the proposed purchaser of their property was a stranger in those parts, and was prevented from clinching the bargain by a delay in obtaining the money. Thus the hapless family were forced to bear their trouble to its end. The feeling which prompted this expatriation was so violent in these simple souls, little accustomed to compromise with their consciences, that the grandfather and grandmother, the father and the mother, the daughters and their husbands and the sons, in short, all who bore and had borne the name of Tascheron or were closely allied to it made ready to leave the country.

This emigration grieved the whole community. The mayor entreated the rector to do his best to retain these worthy people. According to the new Code the father was not responsible for the son, and the crime of the father was no disgrace to the children. Together with other emancipations which have weakened paternal power, this system has led to the triumph of individualism, which is now permeating the whole of modern society. He who thinks on the things of the future sees the spirit of family destroyed, where the makers of the new Code have introduced freedom of will and equality. The Family must always be the basis of society. Necessarily temporary, incessantly divided, recomposed to dissolve again, without ties between the future and the past, it cannot fulfil that mission; the Family of the olden time no longer exists in France. Those who have proceeded to demolish the ancient edifice have been logical in dividing equally the family property, in diminishing the authority of the father, in suppressing great responsibilities; but is the reconstructed social state as solid, with its young laws still untried, as it was under a monarchy, in spite of the old abuses? In losing the solidarity of families, society has lost that fundamental force which Montesquieu discovered and named HONOR. It has isolated interests in order to subjugate them; it has sundered all to enfeeble all. Society reigns over units, over single figures agglomerated like grains of corn in a heap. Can the general interests of all take the place of Family? Time alone can answer that question.

Nevertheless, the old law still exists; its roots have struck so deep that you will find it still living, as we find perennials in polar regions. Remote places are still to be found in the provinces where what are now called prejudices exist, where the family suffers in the crime of a child or a father.

This sentiment made the place uninhabitable any longer to the Tascherons. Their deep religious feeling took them to church that morning; for how could they let the mass be offered to God asking Him to inspire their son with repentance that alone could restore to him life eternal, and not share in it? Besides, they wished to bid farewell to the village altar. But their minds were made up and their plans already carried out. When the rector who followed them from church reached the principal house he found their bags and bundles ready for the journey. The purchaser of the property was there with the money. The notary had drawn up the papers. In the yard behind the house was a carriole ready harnessed to carry away the older couple with the money, and the mother of Jean-Francois. The remainder of the family were to go on foot by night.

At the moment when the young abbe entered the low room in which the family were assembled the rector of Montegnac had exhausted all the resources of his eloquence. The old pair, now insensible to the violence of grief, were crouching in a corner on their bags and looking round on their old hereditary home, its furniture, and the new purchaser, and then upon each other as if to say: —

“Did we ever think this thing could happen?”

These old people, who had long resigned their authority to their son, the father of the criminal, were, like kings on their abdication, reduced to the passive role of subjects and children. Tascheron, the father, was standing up; he listened to the pastor, and replied to him in a low voice and by monosyllables. This man, who was about forty-eight years of age, had the noble face which Titian has given to so many of his Apostles, – a countenance full of faith, of grave and reflective integrity, a stern profile, a nose cut in a straight and projecting line, blue eyes, a noble brow, regular features, black, crisp, wiry hair, planted on his head with that symmetry which gives a charm to these brown faces, bronzed by toil in the open air. It was easy to see that the rector’s appeals were powerless against that inflexible will.

Denise was leaning against the bread-box, looking at the notary, who was using that receptacle as a writing-table, seated before it in the grandmother’s armchair. The purchaser was sitting on a stool beside him. The married sisters were laying a cloth upon the table, and serving the last meal the family were to take in its own house before expatriating itself to other lands and other skies. The sons were half-seated on the green serge bed. The mother, busy beside the fire, was beating an omelet. The grandchildren crowded the doorway, before which stood the incoming family of the purchaser.

The old smoky room with its blackened rafters, through the window of which was visible a well-kept garden planted by the two old people, seemed in harmony with the pent-up anguish which could be read on all their faces in diverse expressions. The meal was chiefly prepared for the notary, the purchaser, the menkind, and the children. The father and mother, Denise and her sisters, were too unhappy to eat. There was a lofty, stern resignation in the accomplishment of these last duties of rustic hospitality. The Tascherons, men of the olden time, ended their days in that house as they had begun them, by doing its honors. This scene, without pretension, though full of solemnity, met the eyes of the bishop’s secretary when he approached the village rector to fulfil the prelate’s errand.

“The son of these good people still lives,” said Gabriel.

At these words, heard by all in the deep silence, the two old people rose to their feet as if the last trump had sounded. The mother dropped her pan upon the fire; Denise gave a cry of joy; all the others stood by in petrified astonishment.

“Jean-Francois is pardoned!” cried the whole village, now rushing toward the house, having heard the news from Ursule. “Monseigneur the bishop – ”

“I knew he was innocent!” cried the mother.

“Will it hinder the purchase?” said the purchaser to the notary, who answered with a satisfying gesture.

The Abbe Gabriel was now the centre of all eyes; his sadness raised a suspicion of mistake. To avoid correcting it himself, he left the house, followed by the rector, and said to the crowd outside that the execution was only postponed for some days. The uproar subsided instantly into dreadful silence. When the Abbe Gabriel and the rector returned, the expression on the faces of the family was full of anguish; the silence of the crowd was understood.