Books: The Master Christian

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Patoux hastily scrambled out of his chair.

"The Archbishop!" he whispered to his wife--"He himself! Our own
Archbishop!"

Madame Patoux jumped up, and seizing her children, held one in each
hand as she curtsied up and down.

Benedicite!" said the new-comer, lightly signing the cross in air
with a sociable smile--"Do not disturb yourselves, my children! You
have with you in this house the eminent Cardinal Bonpre?"

"Ah, yes, Monseigneur!" replied Madame Patoux--"Only just now he has
finished his little supper. Shall I show Monseigneur to his room?"

"If you please," returned the Archbishop, still smiling
benevolently--"And permit my secretary to wait with you here till I
return."

With this, and an introductory wave of his hand in the direction of
the attenuated and sallow-faced personage who had accompanied him,
he graciously permitted Madame Patoux to humbly precede him by a few
steps, and then followed her with a soft, even tread, and a sound as
of rustling silk in his garments, from which a faint odour of some
delicate perfume seemed wafted as he moved.

Left to entertain the Archbishop's secretary, Jean Patoux was for a
minute or two somewhat embarrassed. Henri and Babette stared at the
stranger with undisguised curiosity, and were apparently not
favourably impressed by his appearance.

"He has white eyelashes!" whispered Henri.

"And yellow teeth," responded Babette.

Meanwhile Patoux, having scratched his bullet-head sufficiently over
the matter, offered his visitor a chair.

"Sit down, sir," he said curtly.

The secretary smiled pallidly and took the proffered accommodation.
Patoux again meditated. He was not skilled in the art of polite
conversation, and he found himself singularly at a loss.

"It would be an objection no doubt, and an irreverance perhaps to
smoke a pipe before you, Monsieur--Monsieur--"

"Cazeau," finished the secretary with another pallid smile--"Claude
Cazeau, a poor scribe,--at your service! And I beg of you, Monsieur
Jean Patoux, to smoke at your distinguished convenience!"

There was a faint tone of satire in his voice which struck Papa
Patoux as exceedingly disagreeable, though he could not quite
imagine why he found it so. He slowly reached for his pipe from the
projecting shelf above the chimney, and as slowly proceeded to fill
it with tobacco from a tin cannister close by.

"I do not think I have ever seen you in the town, Monsieur Cazeau,"
he said--"Nor at Mass in the Cathedral either?"

"No?" responded Cazeau easily, in a half-querying tone--"I do not
much frequent the streets; and I only attend the first early mass on
Sundays. My work for Monseigneur occupies my whole time."

"Ah!" and Patoux, having stuffed his pipe sufficiently, lit it, and
proceeded to smoke peaceably--"There must be much to do. Many poor
and sick who need money, and clothes, and help in every way,--and to
try and do good, and give comfort to all the unhappy souls in Rouen
is a hard task, even for an Archbishop."

Cazeau linked his thin hands together with an action of pious
fervour and assented.

"There is a broken-hearted creature near us," pursued Patoux
leisurely--"We call her Marguerite La Folle;--I have often thought I
would ask Pere Laurent to speak to Monseigneur for her, that she
might be released from the devils that are tearing her. She was a
good girl till a year or two ago,--then some villain got the ruin of
her, and she lost her wits over it. Ah,'tis a sad sight to see her
now--poor Marguerite Valmond!"

"Ha!" cried Henri suddenly, pointing a grimy finger at Cazeau--"Why
did you jump? Did something hurt you?"

Cazeau had indeed "jumped," as Henri put it,--that is, he had sprung
up from his chair suddenly and as suddenly sat down again with an
air of impatience and discomfort. He rapidly overcame whatever
emotion moved him, however, and stretched his thin mouth in a would-
be amiable grin at the observant Henri.

"You are a sharp boy!" he observed condescendingly--"and tall for
your age, no doubt. How old are you?"

"Eleven," replied Henri--"But that has nothing to do with your
jumping."

"True," and the secretary wriggled in his chair, pretending to be
much amused--"But my jumping had nothing to do with you either, my
small friend! I had a thought,--a sudden thought,--of a duty
forgotten."

"Oh, it was a thought, was it?" and Henri looked incredulous. "Do
thoughts always make you jump?"

"Tais-toi! Tais-toi!" murmured Patoux gently, between two whiffs of
his pipe--"Excuse him, Monsieur Cazeau,--he is but a child."

Cazeau writhed amicably.

"A delightful child," he murmured--"And the little girl--his sister-
-is also charming--Ah, what fine dark eyes!--what hair! Will she not
come and speak to me?"

He held out a hand invitingly towards Babette, but she merely made a
grimace at him and retired backwards. Patoux smiled benevolently.

"She does not like strangers," he explained.

"Good--very good! That is right! Little girls should always run away
from strangers, especially strangers of my sex," observed Cazeau
with a sniggering laugh--"And do these dear children go to school?"

Patoux took his pipe out of his mouth altogether, and stared
solemnly at the ceiling.

"Without doubt!--they are compelled to go to school," he answered
slowly; "but if I could have had my way, they should never have
gone. They learn mischief there in plenty, but no good that I can
see. They know much about geography, and the stars, and anatomy, and
what they call physical sciences;--but whether they have got it into
their heads that the good God wants them to live straight, clean,
honest, wholesome lives, is more than I am certain of. However, I
trust Pere Laurent will do what he can."

"Pere Laurent?" echoed Cazeau, with a wide smile--"You have a high
opinion of Pere Laurent? Ah, yes, a good man!--but ignorant--alas!
very ignorant!"

Papa Patoux brought his eyes down from the ceiling and fixed them
enquiringly on Cazeau.

"Ignorant?" he began, when at this juncture Madame Patoux entered,
and taking possession of Henri and Babette, informed Monsieur Cazeau
that the Archbishop would be for some time engaged in conversation
with Cardinal Bonpre, and that therefore he, Monsieur Cazeau, need
not wait,--Monseigneur would return to his house alone. Whereupon
the secretary rose, evidently glad to be set at liberty, and took
his leave of the Patoux family. On the threshold, however, he
paused, looking back somewhat frowningly at Jean Patoux himself.

"I should not, if I were you, trouble Monseigneur concerning the
case you told me of--that of--of Marguerite Valmond,"--he observed--
"He has a horror of evil women."

With that he departed, walking across the Square towards the
Archbishop's house in a stealthy sort of fashion, as though he were
a burglar meditating some particularly daring robbery.

"He is a rat--a rat!" exclaimed Henri, suddenly executing a sort of
reasonless war-dance round the kitchen--"One wants a cat to catch
him!"

"Rats are nice," declared Babette, for she remembered having once
had a tame white rat which sat on her knee and took food from her
hand,--"Monsieur Cazeau is a man; and men are not nice."

Patoux burst into a loud laugh.

"Men are not nice!" he echoed--"What dost thou know about it, thou
little droll one?"

"What I see," responded Babette severely, with an elderly air, as of
a person who has suffered by bitter experience; and, undeterred by
her parents' continued laughter she went on--

"Men are ugly. They are dirty. They say 'Come here my little girl,
and I will give you something,'--then when I go to them they try and
kiss me. And I will not kiss them, because their mouths smell bad.
They stroke my hair and pull it all the wrong way. And it hurts. And
when I don't like my hair pulled the wrong way, they tell me I will
be a great coquette. A coquette is to be like Diane de Poitiers.
Shall I be like Diane de Poitiers?"

"The saints forbid!" cried Madame Patoux,--"And talk no more
nonsense, child,--it's bed-time. Come,--say good-night to thy
father, Henri;--give them thy blessing, Jean--and let me get them
into their beds before the Archbishop leaves the house, or they will
be asking him as many questions as there are in the catechism."

Thus enjoined, Papa Patoux kissed his children affectionately,
signing the cross on their brows as they came up to him in turn,
after the fashion of his own father, who had continued this custom
up to his dying day. What they thought of the benediction in itself
might be somewhat difficult to define, but it can be safely asserted
that a passion of tears on the part of Babette, and a fit of
demoniacal howling from Henri, would have been the inevitable result
if Papa Patoux had refused to bestow it on them. Whether there were
virtue in it or not, their father's mute blessing sent them to bed
peaceably and in good humour with each other, and they trotted off
very contentedly beside their mother, hushing their footsteps and
lowering their voices as they passed the door of the room occupied
by Cardinal Bonpre.

"The Archbishop is not an angel, is he?" asked Babette whisperingly.

Her mother smiled broadly.

"Not exactly, my little one. Why such a foolish question?"

"You said that Cardinal Bonpre was a saint, and that perhaps we
should see an angel come down from heaven to visit him," replied
Babette.

"Well, you could not have thought the Archbishop came from heaven,"
interpolated Henri, scornfully,--"He came from his own house over
the way with his own secretary behind him. Do angels keep
secretaries?"

Babette laughed aloud,--the idea was grotesque. The two children
were just then ascending the wooden stairs to their bedroom, the
mother carrying a lighted candle behind them, and at that moment the
rich sonorous voice of the Archbishop, raised to a high and somewhat
indignant tone, reached them with these words--"I consider that you
altogether mistake your calling and position."

Then the voice died away into inaudible murmurings.

"They are quarrelling! The Archbishop is angry!" said Henri with a
grin.

"Perhaps Archbishops do not like saints," suggested Babette.

"Tais-toi! Cardinal Bonpre is an archbishop himself, little silly,"
said Madame Patoux--"Therefore those great and distinguished
Monseigneurs are like brothers."

"That is why they are quarrelling!" declared Henri glibly,--"A boy
told me in school that Cain and Abel were the first pair of
brothers, and they quarrelled,--and all brothers have quarrelled
ever since. It's in the blood, so that boy says,--and it is his
excuse always for fighting HIS little brother. His little brother is
six, and he is twelve;--and of course he always knocks his little
brother down. He cannot help it, he says. And he gets books on
physiology and heredity, and he learns in them that whatever is IN
the blood has got to come out somehow. He says that it's because
Cain killed Abel that there are wars between nations;--if Cain and
Abel had never quarrelled, there would never have been any fighting
in the world,--and now that it's in the blood of every body--"

But further sapient discourse on the part of Henri was summarily put
an end to by his mother's ordering him to kneel down and say his
prayers, and afterwards bundling him into bed,--where, being sleepy,
he speedily forgot all that he had been trying to talk about.
Babette took more time in retiring to rest. She had very pretty,
curly, brown hair, and Madame Patoux took a pride in brushing and
plaiting it neatly.

"I may be like Diane de Poitiers after all," she remarked, peering
at herself in the small mirror when her thick locks were smoothed
and tied back for the night--"Why should I not be?"

"Because Diane de Poitiers was a wicked woman," said Madame Patoux
energetically,--"and thou must learn to be a good girl."

"But if Diane de Poitiers was bad, why do they talk so much about
her even now, and put her in all the histories, and show her house,
and say she was beautiful?" went on Babette.

"Because people are foolish," said Madame, getting impatient--
"Foolish people run after bad women, and bad women run after foolish
people. Now say thy prayers."

Obediently Babette knelt down, shut her eyes close, clasped her
hands hard, and murmured the usual evening formula, heaving a small
sigh after her "act of contrition," and looking almost saintly as
she commended herself to her "angel guardian." Then her mother
kissed her, saying--

"Good-night, little daughter! Think of Our Lady and the saints, and
then ask them to keep us safe from evil. Good-night!"

"Good-night." responded Babette sleepily,--but all the same she did
not think of Our Lady and the saints half as much as of Diane de
Poitiers. There are few daughters of Eve to whom conquest does not
seem a finer thing than humility; and the sovereignty of Diane de
Poitiers over a king, seems to many a girl just conscious of her own
charm, a more emphatic testimony to the supremacy of her sex, than
the Angel's greeting of "Blessed art thou!" to the elected Virgin of
the world.

III.

Meanwhile a somewhat embarrassing interview had taken place between
the Archbishop of Rouen and Cardinal Bonpre. The archbishop, seen by
the light of the one small lamp which illumined the "best room" of
the Hotel Poitiers was certainly a handsome and imposing personage,
broad-chested and muscular, with a massive head, well set on strong
square shoulders, admirably adapted for the wearing of the dark
violet soutane which fitted them as gracefully as a royal vesture
draping the figure of a king. One disproportionate point, however,
about his attire was, that the heavy gold crucifix which depended by
a chain from his neck, did not, with him, look so much a sacred
symbol as a trivial ornament,--whereas the simple silver one that
gleamed against the rusty black scarlet-edged cassock of Cardinal
Bonpre, presented itself as the plain and significant sign of
holiness without the aid of jewellers' workmanship to emphasize its
meaning. This was a trifle, no doubt;--still it was one of those
slight things which often betray character. As the most brilliant
diamond will look like common glass on the rough red hand of a cook,
while common glass will simulate the richness of the real gem on the
delicate white finger of a daintily-bred woman, so the emblem of
salvation seemed a mere bauble and toy on the breast of the
Archbishop, while it assumed its most reverent and sacred aspect as
worn by Felix Bonpre. Yet judged by mere outward appearance, there
could be no doubt as to which was the finer-looking man of the two.
The Cardinal, thin and pale, with shadows of thought and pain in his
eyes, and the many delicate wrinkles of advancing age marking his
features, would never possess so much attractiveness for worldly and
superficial persons as the handsome Archbishop, who carried his
fifty-five years as though they were but thirty, and whose fresh,
plump face, unmarred by any serious consideration, bespoke a
thorough enjoyment of life, and the things which life,--if
encouraged to demand them,--most strenuously seeks, such as good
food, soft beds, rich clothing, and other countless luxuries which
are not necessities by any means, but which make the hours move
smoothly and softly, undisturbed by the clash of outside events
among those who are busy with thoughts and actions, and who,--being
absorbed in the thick of a soul-contest,--care little whether their
bodies fare ill or well. The Archbishop certainly did not belong to
this latter class,--indeed he considered too much thought as
mischievous in itself, and when thought appeared likely to break
forth into action, he denounced it as pernicious and well-nigh
criminal.

"Thinkers," he said once to a young and ardent novice, studying for
the priesthood, "are generally socialists and revolutionists. They
are an offence to the Church and a danger to the community."

"Surely," murmured the novice timidly,--"Our Lord Himself was a
thinker? And a Socialist likewise?"

But at this the Archbishop rose up in wrath and flashed forth
menace;--

"If you are a follower of Renan, sir, you had better admit it before
proceeding further in your studies," he said irately,--"The Church
is too much troubled in these days by the members of a useless and
degenerate apostasy!" Whereupon the young man had left his presence
abashed, puzzled, and humiliated; but scarcely penitent, inasmuch as
his New Testament taught him that he was right and that the
Archbishop was wrong.

Truth to tell, the Archbishop was very often wrong. Wrapped up in
himself and his own fixed notions as to how life should be lived, he
seldom looked out upon the larger world, and obstinately refused to
take any thoughtful notice of the general tendency of public opinion
in all countries concerning religion and morality. All that he was
unable to explain, he flatly denied,--and his prejudices were as
violent as his hatred of contradiction was keen. The saintly life
and noble deeds of Felix Bonpre had reached him from time to time
through various rumours repeated by different priests and
dignitaries of the Church, who had travelled as far as the distant
little Cathedral-town embowered among towering pines and elm trees,
where the Cardinal had his abiding seat of duty;--and he had been
anxious to meet the man who in these days of fastidious feeding and
luxurious living, had managed to gain such a holy reputation as to
be almost canonized in some folks' estimation before he was dead.
Hearing that Bonpre intended to stay a couple of nights in Rouen, he
cordially invited him to spend that time at his house,--but the
invitation had been gratefully yet firmly refused, much to the
Archbishop's amazement. This amazement increased considerably when
he learned that the dingy, comfortless, little Hotel Poitiers had
been selected by the Cardinal as his temporary lodging,--and it was
not without a pious murmur concerning "the pride which apes
humility" that he betook himself to that ancient and despised
hostelry, which had nothing whatever in the way of a modern
advantage to recommend it,--neither electric light, nor electric
bell, nor telephone. But he felt it incumbent upon him to pay a
fraternal visit to the Cardinal, who had become in a manner famous
without being at all aware of his fame,--and when finally in his
presence, he was conscious not only of a singular disappointment,
but an equally singular perplexity. Felix Bonpre was not at all the
sort of personage he had expected to see. He had imagined that a
Churchman who was able to obtain a character for saintliness in days
like these, must needs be worldly-wise and crafty, with a keen
perception and comprehension of the follies of mankind, and an
ability to use these follies advantageously to further his own ends.
Something of the cunning and foresight of an ancient Egyptian
sorcerer was in the composition of the Archbishop himself, for he
judged mankind alone by its general stupidity and credulity;--
stupidity and credulity which formed excellent ground for the
working of miracles, whether such miracles were wrought in the name
of Osiris or Christ. Mokanna, the "Veiled Prophet," while corrupt to
the core with unnameable vices, had managed in his time to delude
the people into thinking him a holy man; and,--without any adequate
reason for his assumption,--the Archbishop had certainly prepared
himself to meet in Felix Bonpre, a shrewd, calculating, clever
priest, absorbed in acting the part of an excessive holiness in
order to secure such honour in his diocese as should attract the
particular notice of the Vatican. "Playing for Pope," in fact, had
been the idea with which the archbishop had invested the Cardinal's
reputed sanctity, and he was astonished and in a manner irritated to
find himself completely mistaken. He had opened the conversation by
the usual cordial trivialities of ordinary greeting, to which Bonpre
had responded with the suave courtesy and refined gentleness which
always dignified his manner,--and then the Archbishop had ventured
to offer a remonstrance on the unconventional--"Shall we call it
eccentric?" he suggested, smiling amicably,--conduct of the Cardinal
in choosing to abide in such a comfortless lodging as the Hotel
Poitiers.

"It would have been a pleasure and an honour to me to welcome you at
my house"--he said--"Really, it is quite a violation of custom and
usage that you should be in this wretched place; the accommodation
is not at all fitted for a prince of the Church."

Cardinal Felix raised one hand in gentle yet pained protest.

"Pardon me!" he said, "I do not like that term, 'prince of the
Church.' There are no princes in the Church--or if there are, there
should be none."

The archbishop opened his eyes widely.

"That is a strange remark!" he ejaculated--"Princes of the Church
there have always been since Cardinals were created; and you, being
a Cardinal and an Archbishop as well, cannot be otherwise than one
of them."

Felix Bonpre sighed.

"Still, I maintain that the term is a wrong one," he answered, "and
used in the wrong place. The Church has nothing, or should have
nothing to do with differing titles or places. The ordinary priest
who toils among his congregation day and night, scarcely resting
himself, working and praying for the spiritual welfare of others,
should to my thinking be as greatly held in honour as the bishop who
commands him and who often--so it chances--is able to do less for
our Lord than he. In things temporal, owing to the constant
injustice of man practised against his brother-man, we can seldom
attain to strict impartiality of judgment,--but in things spiritual,
there surely should be perfect equality."

"Seriously speaking, are those your views?" enquired the Archbishop,
his features expressing more and more astonishment.

"Assuredly!" responded the Cardinal gently,--"Are they not yours?
Did not the Master Himself say 'Whosoever will be chief among you,
let him be your servant'? And 'Whosoever shall exalt himself shall
be abased'? These statements are plain and true,--there is no
mistaking them."

The Archbishop was silent for a minute or so.

"Unfortunately we cannot apply our Lord's words literally to every-
day exigencies," he murmured suavely--"If we could do so--"

"We SHOULD do so," said the Cardinal with emphasis--"The outside
world may be disinclined to do so,--but we--we who are the
representatives of a God-given faith, are solemnly bound to do so.
And I fear--I very much fear--that it is because in many cases we
have not shown the example expected of us, that heresy and atheism
are so common among the people of the present day."

"Are you a would-be reformer?" asked the Archbishop good-humouredly,
yet not without a touch of satire in his tone,--"If so, you are not
alone--there have already been many!"

"Nay, I desire no reforms," responded the Cardinal, a faint flush
warming the habitual pallor of his cheeks--"I simply wish to
maintain--not alter--the doctrine of our Lord. No reform is
necessary in that,--it is clear, concise, and simple enough for a
child to understand. His command to His disciples was,--'Feed my
sheep'--and I have of late been troubled and perplexed, because it
seems to me that the sheep are not fed;--that despite churches and
teachers and preachers, whole flocks are starving."

The Archbishop moved uneasily in his chair. His habitual violent
spirit of contradiction rose up rebelliously in him, and he longed
to give a sharp answer in confutation of the Cardinal's words, but
there was a touch of the sycophant in his nature despite his
personal pride, and he could not but reflect that Cardinals ranked
above Archbishops, and that Felix Bonpre was in very truth a "prince
of the Church" however much he himself elected to disclaim the
title. And as in secular affairs lesser men will always bow the knee
to royalty, so the Archbishop felt the necessity of temporising with
one who was spiritually royal. Therefore he considered a moment
before replying.

"I think," he said at last, in soft persuasive tones, "that your
conscience may perhaps be a little tender on this subject. But I
cannot agree with you in your supposition that whole flocks are
starving;--for Christianity dominates the better and more
intellectual part of the civilized world, and through its doctrines,
men are gradually learning to be more tolerant and less unjust. When
we recollect the barbarous condition of humanity before the coming
of Christ--"

"Barbarous?" interrupted the Cardinal with half a smile,--"You would
hardly apply that term to the luxury-loving peoples of Tyre and
Babylon?--or to the ancient splendours of Athens and Rome?"

"They were heathens," said the Archbishop sententiously.

"But they were men and women," replied Bonpre, "And they too had
immortal souls. They were all more or less struggling towards the
fundamental Idea of good. Of course then, as now that Idea was
overgrown by superstitious myths and observances--but the working
tendency of the whole universe being ever towards Good, not Evil, an
impulse to press on in the right direction was always in the brain
of man, no matter how dimly felt. Primitive notions of honour were
strange indeed; nevertheless honour existed in the minds of the
early barbarians in a vague sense, though distorted out of shape and
noblest meaning. No,--we dare not take upon ourselves to assert that
men were altogether barbarous before the coming of Christ. They were
cruel and unjust certainly,--and alas! they are cruel and unjust
still! Eighteen hundred years of Christian teaching have not
eradicated these ingrained sins from any one unit of the entire
mass."