The Celibates Part 18

From time to time, when some former son or daughter of Provins returns from Paris to settle down, you may hear them ask, as they leave Mademoiselle Rogron's house, "Wasn't there a painful story against the Rogrons,--something about a ward?"

"Mere prejudice," replies Monsieur Desfondrilles. "Certain persons tried to make us believe falsehoods. Out of kindness of heart the Rogrons took in a girl named Pierrette, quite pretty but with no money. Just as she was growing up she had an intrigue with a young man, and stood at her window barefooted talking to him. The lovers pa.s.sed notes to each other by a string. She took cold in this way and died, having no const.i.tution. The Rogrons behaved admirably. They made no claim on certain property which was to come to her,--they gave it all up to the grandmother. The moral of it was, my good friend, that the devil punishes those who try to benefit others."

"Ah! that is quite another story from the one old Frappier told me."

"Frappier consults his wine-cellar more than he does his memory,"

remarked another of Mademoiselle Rogron's visitors.

"But that old priest, Monsieur Habert says--"

"Oh, he! don't you know why?"

"No."

"He wanted to marry his sister to Monsieur Rogron, the receiver-general."

Two men think of Pierrette daily: Doctor Martener and Major Brigaut; they alone know the hideous truth.

To give that truth its true proportions we must transport the scene to the Rome of the middle ages, where a sublime young girl, Beatrice Cenci, was brought to the scaffold by motives and intrigues that were almost identical with those which laid our Pierrette in her grave.

Beatrice Cenci had but one defender,--an artist, a painter. In our day history, and living men, on the faith of Guido Reni's portrait, condemn the Pope, and know that Beatrice was a most tender victim of infamous pa.s.sions and base feuds.

We must all agree that legality would be a fine thing for social scoundrelism IF THERE WERE NO G.o.d.

ADDENDUM

The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.

Bianchon, Horace Father Goriot The Atheist's Ma.s.s Cesar Birotteau The Commission in Lunacy Lost Illusions A Distinguished Provincial at Paris A Bachelor's Establishment The Secrets of a Princess The Government Clerks A Study of Woman Scenes from a Courtesan's Life Honorine The Seamy Side of History The Magic Skin A Second Home A Prince of Bohemia Letters of Two Brides The Muse of the Department The Imaginary Mistress The Middle Cla.s.ses Cousin Betty The Country Parson In addition, M. Bianchon narrated the following: Another Study of Woman La Grande Breteche

Brigaut, Major The Chouans

Desplein The Atheist's Ma.s.s Cousin Pons Lost Illusions The Thirteen The Government Clerks A Bachelor's Establishment The Seamy Side of History Modeste Mignon Scenes from a Courtesan's Life Honorine

Gouraud, General, Baron Cousin Pons

Keller, Adolphe The Middle Cla.s.ses Cesar Birotteau

Matifat, Mademoiselle Cesar Birotteau The Firm of Nucingen

Montriveau, General Marquis Armand de The Thirteen Father Goriot Lost Illusions A Distinguished Provincial at Paris Another Study of Woman The Member for Arcis

Nucingen, Baron Frederic de The Firm of Nucingen Father Goriot Cesar Birotteau Lost Illusions A Distinguished Provincial at Paris Scenes from a Courtesan's Life Another Study of Woman The Secrets of a Princess A Man of Business Cousin Betty The Muse of the Department The Unconscious Humorists

Roguin Cesar Birotteau Eugenie Grandet A Bachelor's Establishment The Vendetta

Roguin, Madame Cesar Birotteau At the Sign of the Cat and Racket A Second Home A Daughter of Eve

Tillet, Ferdinand du Cesar Birotteau The Firm of Nucingen The Middle Cla.s.ses A Bachelor's Establishment Melmoth Reconciled A Distinguished Provincial at Paris The Secrets of a Princess A Daughter of Eve The Member for Arcis Cousin Betty The Unconscious Humorists

Tiphaine, Madame The Vendetta

Vinet The Member for Arcis The Middle Cla.s.ses Cousin Pons

THE VICAR OF TOURS

BY

HONORE DE BALZAC

Translated by

Katharine Prescott Wormeley

DEDICATION

To David, Sculptor:

The permanence of the work on which I inscribe your name --twice made ill.u.s.trious in this century--is very problematical; whereas you have graven mine in bronze which survives nations --if only in their coins. The day may come when numismatists, discovering amid the ashes of Paris existences perpetuated by you, will wonder at the number of heads crowned in your atelier and endeavour to find in them new dynasties.

To you, this divine privilege; to me, grat.i.tude.

De Balzac.

THE VICAR OF TOURS

I

Early in the autumn of 1826 the Abbe Birotteau, the princ.i.p.al personage of this history, was overtaken by a shower of rain as he returned home from a friend's house, where he had been pa.s.sing the evening. He therefore crossed, as quickly as his corpulence would allow, the deserted little square called "The Cloister," which lies directly behind the chancel of the cathedral of Saint-Gatien at Tours.

The Abbe Birotteau, a short little man, apoplectic in const.i.tution and about sixty years old, had already gone through several attacks of gout. Now, among the petty miseries of human life the one for which the worthy priest felt the deepest aversion was the sudden sprinkling of his shoes, adorned with silver buckles, and the wetting of their soles. Notwithstanding the woollen socks in which at all seasons he enveloped his feet with the extreme care that ecclesiastics take of themselves, he was apt at such times to get them a little damp, and the next day gout was sure to give him certain infallible proofs of constancy. Nevertheless, as the pavement of the Cloister was likely to be dry, and as the abbe had won three francs ten sous in his rubber with Madame de Listomere, he bore the rain resignedly from the middle of the place de l'Archeveche, where it began to come down in earnest.