Bouvard and PÈcuchet (16 page)

One evening as they were dreaming about the dogmas of the Druids, the abbé cautiously stole in.

Immediately they showed the museum, beginning with the church window; but they longed to reach the new compartment--that of the phallus. The ecclesiastic stopped them, considering the exhibition indecent. He came to demand back his baptismal font.

Bouvard and Pécuchet begged for another fortnight, the time necessary for taking a moulding of it.

"The sooner the better," said the abbé.

Then he chatted on general topics.

Pécuchet, who had left the room a minute, on coming back slipped a napoleon into his hand.

The priest made a backward movement.

"Oh! for your poor!"

And, colouring, M. Jeufroy crammed the gold piece into his cassock.

To give back the bowl, the bowl for sacrifices! Never, while they lived! They were even anxious to learn Hebrew, which is the mother-tongue of Celtic, unless indeed the former language be derived from it! And they had planned a journey into Brittany, commencing with Rennes, where they had an appointment with Larsoneur, with a view of studying that urn mentioned in the Memorials of the Celtic Academy, which appeared to have contained the ashes of Queen Artimesia, when the mayor entered unceremoniously with his hat on, like the boorish individual he was.

"All this won't do, my fine fellows! You must give it up!"

"What, pray?"

"Rogues! I know well you are concealing it!"

Someone had betrayed them.

They replied that they had the curé's permission to keep it.

"We'll soon see that!"

Foureau went away. An hour later he came back.

They were obstinate.

In the first place, this holy-water basin was not wanted, as it really was not a holy-water basin at all. They would prove this by a vast number of scientific reasons. Next, they offered to acknowledge in their will that it belonged to the parish. They even proposed to buy it.

"And, besides, it is my property," Pécuchet asseverated.

The twenty francs accepted by M. Jeufroy furnished a proof of the contract, and if he compelled them to go before a justice of the peace, so much the worse: he would be taking a false oath!

During these disputes he had again seen the soup-tureen many times, and in his soul had sprung up the desire, the thirst for possession of this piece of earthenware. If the curé was willing to give it to him, he would restore the bowl, otherwise not.

Through weariness or fear of scandal, M. Jeufroy yielded it up. It was placed amongst their collection near the Cauchoise cap. The bowl decorated the church porch; and they consoled themselves for the loss of it with the reflection that the people of Chavignolles were ignorant of its value.

But the soup-tureen inspired them with a taste for earthenware--a new subject for study and for explorations through the country.

It was the period when persons of good position were looking out for old Rouen dishes. The notary possessed a few of them, and derived from the fact, as it were, an artistic reputation which was prejudicial to his profession, but for which he made up by the serious side of his character.

When he learned that Bouvard and Pécuchet had got the soup-tureen, he came to propose to them an exchange.

Pécuchet would not consent to this.

"Let us say no more about it!" and Marescot proceeded to examine their ceramic collection.

All the specimens hung up along the wall were blue on a background of dirty white, and some showed their horn of plenty in green or reddish tones. There were shaving-dishes, plates and saucers, objects long sought for, and brought back in the recesses of one's frock-coat close to one's heart.

Marescot praised them, and then talked about other kinds of faïence, the Hispano-Arabian, the Dutch, the English, and the Italian, and having dazzled them with his erudition:

"Might I see your soup-tureen again?"

He made it ring by rapping on it with his fingers, then he contemplated the two S's painted on the lid.

"The mark of Rouen!" said Pécuchet.

"Ho! ho! Rouen, properly speaking, would not have any mark. When Moutiers was unknown, all the French faïence came from Nevers. So with Rouen to-day. Besides, they imitate it to perfection at El-boeuf."

"It isn't possible!"

"Majolica is cleverly imitated. Your specimen is of no value; and as for me, I was about to do a downright foolish thing."

When the notary had gone, Pécuchet sank into an armchair in a state of nervous prostration.

"We shouldn't have given back the bowl," said Bouvard; "but you get excited, and always lose your head."

"Yes, I do lose my head"; and Pécuchet, snatching up the soup-tureen, flung it some distance away from him against the sarcophagus.

Bouvard, more self-possessed, picked up the broken pieces one by one; and some time afterwards this idea occurred to him: "Marescot, through jealousy, might have been making fools of us!"

"How?"

"There's nothing to show me that the soup-tureen was not genuine! Whereas the other specimens which he pretended to admire are perhaps counterfeit."

And so the day closed with uncertainties and regrets.

This was no reason for abandoning their tour into Brittany.

They even purposed to take Gorju along with them to assist them in their excavations.

For some time past, he had slept at the house, in order to finish the more quickly the repairing of the chest.

The prospect of a change of place annoyed him, and when they talked about menhirs and barrows which they calculated on seeing: "I know better ones," said he to them; "in Algeria, in the South, near the sources of Bou-Mursoug, you meet quantities of them." He then gave a description of a tomb which chanced to be open right in front of him, and which contained a skeleton squatting like an ape with its two arms around its legs.

Larsoneur, when they informed him of the circumstance, would not believe a word of it.

Bouvard sifted the matter, and started the question again.

How does it happen that the monuments of the Gauls are shapeless, whereas these same Gauls were civilised in the time of Julius Cæsar? No doubt they were traceable to a more ancient people.

Such a hypothesis, in Larsoneur's opinion, betrayed a lack of patriotism.

No matter; there is nothing to show that these monuments are the work of Gauls. "Show us a text!"

The Academician was displeased, and made no reply; and they were very glad of it, so much had the Druids bored them.

If they did not know what conclusion to arrive at as to earthenware and as to Celticism, it was because they were ignorant of history, especially the history of France.

The work of Anquetil was in their library; but the series of "do-nothing kings" amused them very little. The villainy of the mayors of the Palace did not excite their indignation, and they gave Anquetil up, repelled by the ineptitude of his reflections.

Then they asked Dumouchel, "What is the best history of France?"

Dumouchel subscribed, in their names, to a circulating library, and forwarded to them the work of Augustin Thierry, together with two volumes of M. de Genoude.

According to Genoude, royalty, religion, and the national assemblies--here are "the principles" of the French nation, which go back to the Merovingians. The Carlovingians fell away from them. The Capetians, being in accord with the people, made an effort to maintain them. Absolute power was established under Louis XIII., in order to conquer Protestantism, the final effort of feudalism; and '89 is a return to the constitution of our ancestors.

Pécuchet admired his ideas. They excited Bouvard's pity, as he had read Augustin Thierry first: "What trash you talk with your French nation, seeing that France did not exist! nor the national assemblies! and the Carlovingians usurped nothing at all! and the kings did not set free the communes! Read for yourself."

Pécuchet gave way before the evidence, and surpassed him in scientific strictness. He would have considered himself dishonoured if he had said "Charlemagne" and not "Karl the Great," "Clovis" in place of "Clodowig."

Nevertheless he was beguiled by Genoude, deeming it a clever thing to join together both ends of French history, so that the middle period becomes rubbish; and, in order to ease their minds about it, they took up the collection of Buchez and Roux.

But the fustian of the preface, that medley of Socialism and Catholicism, disgusted them; and the excessive accumulation of details prevented them from grasping the whole.

They had recourse to M. Thiers.

It was during the summer of 1845, in the garden beneath the arbour. Pécuchet, his feet resting on a small chair, read aloud in his cavernous voice, without feeling tired, stopping to plunge his fingers into his snuff-box. Bouvard listened, his pipe in his mouth, his legs wide apart, and the upper part of his trousers unbuttoned.

Old men had spoken to them of '93, and recollections that were almost personal gave life to the prosy descriptions of the author. At that time the high-roads were covered with soldiers singing the "Marseillaise." At the thresholds of doors women sat sewing canvas to make tents. Sometimes came a wave of men in red caps, bending forward a pike, at the end of which could be seen a discoloured head with the hair hanging down. The lofty tribune of the Convention looked down upon a cloud of dust, amid which wild faces were yelling cries "Death!" Anyone who passed, at midday, close to the basin of the Tuileries could hear each blow of the guillotine, as if they were cutting up sheep.

And the breeze moved the vine-leaves of the arbour; the ripe barley swayed at intervals; a blackbird was singing. And, casting glances around them, they relished this tranquil scene.

What a pity that from the beginning they had failed to understand one another! For if the royalists had reflected like the patriots, if the court had exhibited more candour, and its adversaries less violence, many of the calamities would not have happened.

By force of chattering in this way they roused themselves into a state of excitement. Bouvard, being liberal-minded and of a sensitive nature, was a Constitutionalist, a Girondist, a Thermidorian; Pécuchet, being of a bilious temperament and a lover of authority, declared himself a
sans-culotte
, and even a Robespierrist. He expressed approval of the condemnation of the King, the most violent decrees, the worship of the Supreme Being. Bouvard preferred that of Nature. He would have saluted with pleasure the image of a big woman pouring out from her breasts to her adorers not water but Chambertin.

In order to have more facts for the support of their arguments they procured other works: Montgaillard, Prudhomme, Gallois, Lacretelle, etc.; and the contradictions of these books in no way embarrassed them. Each took from them what might vindicate the cause that he espoused.

Thus Bouvard had no doubt that Danton accepted a hundred thousand crowns to bring forward motions that would destroy the Republic; while in Pécuchet's opinion Vergniaud would have asked for six thousand francs a month.

"Never! Explain to me, rather, why Robespierre's sister had a pension from Louis XVIII."

"Not at all! It was from Bonaparte. And, since you take it that way, who is the person that a few months before Égalité's death had a secret conference with him? I wish they would reinsert in the
Memoirs of La Campan
the suppressed paragraphs. The death of the Dauphin appears to me equivocal. The powder magazine at Grenelle by exploding killed two thousand persons. The cause was unknown, they tell us: what nonsense!" For Pécuchet was not far from understanding it, and threw the blame for every crime on the manoeuvres of the aristocrats, gold, and the foreigner.

In the mind of Bouvard there could be no dispute as to the use of the words, "Ascend to heaven, son of St. Louis," as to the incident about the virgins of Verdun, or as to the
culottes
clothed in human skin. He accepted Prudhomme's lists, a million of victims, exactly.

But the Loire, red with gore from Saumur to Nantes, in a line of eighteen leagues, made him wonder. Pécuchet in the same degree entertained doubts, and they began to distrust the historians.

For some the Revolution is a Satanic event; others declare it to be a sublime exception. The vanquished on each side naturally play the part of martyrs.

Thierry demonstrates, with reference to the Barbarians, that it is foolish to institute an inquiry as to whether such a prince was good or was bad. Why not follow this method in the examination of more recent epochs? But history must needs avenge morality: we feel grateful to Tacitus for having lacerated Tiberius. After all, whether the Queen had lovers; whether Dumouriez, since Valmy, intended to betray her; whether in Prairial it was the Mountain or the Girondist party that began, and in Thermidor the Jacobins or the Plain; what matters it to the development of the Revolution, of which the causes were far to seek and the results incalculable?

Therefore it was bound to accomplish itself, to be what it was; but, suppose the flight of the King without impediment, Robespierre escaping or Bonaparte assassinated--chances which depended upon an innkeeper proving less scrupulous, a door being left open, or a sentinel falling asleep--and the progress of the world would have taken a different direction.

They had no longer on the men and the events of that period a single well-balanced idea. In order to form an impartial judgment upon it, it would have been necessary to have read all the histories, all the memoirs, all the newspapers, and all the manuscript productions, for through the least omission might arise an error, which might lead to others without limit.

They abandoned the subject. But the taste for history had come to them, the need of truth for its own sake.

Perhaps it is easier to find it in more ancient epochs? The authors, being far removed from the events, ought to speak of them without passion. And they began the good Rollin.

"What a heap of rubbish!" exclaimed Bouvard, after the first chapter.

"Wait a bit," said Pécuchet, rummaging at the end of their library, where lay heaped up the books of the last proprietor, an old lawyer, an accomplished man with a mania for literature; and, having put out of their places a number of novels and plays, together with an edition of Montesquieu and translations of Horace, he obtained what he was looking for--Beaufort's work on Roman History.