L'Abbe Constantin — Complete Read online

  CHAPTER II. THE NEW CHATELAINE

  This sub-lieutenant of artillery was called Jean Reynaud. He was the sonof a country doctor who slept in the churchyard of Longueval.

  In 1846, when the Abbe' Constantin took possession of his little living,the grandfather of Jean was residing in a pleasant cottage on theroad to Souvigny, between the picturesque old castles of Longueval andLavardens.

  Marcel, the son of that Dr. Reynaud, was finishing his medical studiesin Paris. He possessed great industry, and an elevation of sentiment andmind extremely rare. He passed his examinations with great distinction,and had decided to fix his abode in Paris and tempt fortune there,and everything seemed to promise him the most prosperous and brilliantcareer, when, in 1852, he received the news of his father's death--hehad been struck down by a fit of apoplexy. Marcel hurried to Longueval,overwhelmed with grief, for he adored his father. He spent a month withhis mother, and then spoke of the necessity of returning to Paris.

  "That is true," said his mother; "you must go."

  "What! I must go! We must go, you mean. Do you think that I would leaveyou here alone? I shall take you with me."

  "To live in Paris; to leave the place where I was born, where yourfather lived, where he died? I could never do it, my child, never! Goalone; your life, your future, are there. I know you; I know that youwill never forget me, that you will come and see me often, very often."

  "No, mother," he answered; "I shall stay here."

  And he stayed.

  His hopes, his ambitions, all in one moment vanished. He saw only onething--duty--the duty of not abandoning his aged mother. In duty, simplyaccepted and simply discharged, he found happiness. After all, it isonly thus that one does find happiness.

  Marcel bowed with courage and good grace to his new existence. Hecontinued his father's life, entering the groove at the very spot wherehe had left it. He devoted himself without regret to the obscure careerof a country doctor. His father had left him a little land and a littlemoney; he lived in the most simple manner possible, and one half of hislife belonged to the poor, from whom he would never receive a penny.

  This was his only luxury.

  He found in his way a young girl, charming, penniless, and alone in theworld. He married her. This was in 1855, and the following year broughtto Dr. Reynaud a great sorrow and a great joy--the death of his oldmother and the birth of his son Jean.

  At an interval of six weeks, the Abby Constantin recited the prayersfor the dead over the grave of the grandmother, and was present in theposition of godfather at the baptism of the grandson.

  In consequence of constantly meeting at the bedside of the sufferingand dying, the priest and the doctor had been strongly attracted to eachother. They instinctively felt that they belonged to the same family,the same race--the race of the tender, the just, and the benevolent.

  Year followed year--calm, peaceful, fully occupied in labor and duty.Jean was no longer an infant. His father gave him his first lessons inreading and writing, the priest his first lessons in Latin. Jean wasintelligent and industrious. He made so much progress that the twoprofessors--particularly the Cure--found themselves at the end of a fewyears rather cast into the shade by their pupil. It was at this momentthat the Countess, after the death of her husband, came to settle atLavardens. She brought with her a tutor for her son Paul, a very nice,but very lazy little fellow. The two children were of the same age; theyhad known each other from their earliest years.

  Madame de Lavardens had a great regard for Dr. Reynaud, and one day shemade him the following proposal:

  "Send Jean to me every morning," said she, "I will send him home inthe evening. Paul's tutor is a very accomplished man; he will make thechildren work together. It will be rendering me a real service. Jeanwill set Paul a good example."

  Things were thus arranged, and the little bourgeois set the littlenobleman a most excellent example of industry and application, but thisexcellent example was not followed.

  The war broke out. On November 14th, at seven o'clock in the morning,the mobiles of Souvigny assembled in the great square of the town; theirchaplain was the Abbe Constantin, their surgeon-major, Dr. Reynaud. Thesame idea had come at the same moment to both; the priest was sixty-two,the doctor fifty.

  When they started, the battalion followed the road which led throughLongueval, and which passed before the doctor's house. Madame Reynaudand Jean were waiting by the roadside. The child threw himself into hisfather's arms.

  "Take me, too, papa! take me, too!"

  Madame Reynaud wept. The doctor held them both in a long embrace, thenhe continued his way.

  A hundred steps farther the road made a sharp curve. The doctor turned,cast one long look at his wife and child-the last; he was never to seethem again.

  On January 8, 1871, the mobiles of Souvigny attacked the village ofVillersexel, occupied by the Prussians, who had barricaded themselves.The firing began. A mobile who marched in the front rank received aball in the chest and fell. There was a short moment of trouble andhesitation.

  "Forward! forward!" shouted the officers.

  The men passed over the body of their comrade, and under a hail ofbullets entered the town.

  Dr. Reynaud and the Abbe Constantin marched with the troops; theystopped by the wounded man; the blood was rushing in floods from hismouth.

  "There is nothing to be done," said the doctor. "He is dying; he belongsto you."

  The priest knelt down by the dying man, and the doctor rose to go towardthe village. He had not taken ten steps when he stopped, beat the airwith both hands, and fell all at once to the ground. The priest ran tohim; he was dead-killed on the spot by a bullet through the temples.That evening the village was ours, and the next day they placed in thecemetery of Villersexel the body of Dr. Reynaud.

  Two months later the Abbe Constantin took back to Longueval the coffinof his friend, and behind the coffin, when it was carried from thechurch, walked an orphan. Jean had also lost his mother. At the news ofher husband's death, Madame Reynaud had remained for twenty-four hourspetrified, crushed, without a word or a tear; then fever had seized her,then delirium, and after a fortnight, death.

  Jean was alone in the world; he was fourteen years old. Of that family,where for more than a century all had been good and honest, thereremained only a child kneeling beside a grave; but he, too, promisedto be what his father and grandfather before him had been--good, andhonest, and true.

  There are families like that in France, and many of them, more than oneventures to say. Our poor country is in many respects calumniated bycertain novelists, who draw exaggerated and distorted pictures of it. Itis true the history of good people is often monotonous or painful. Thisstory is a proof of it.

  The grief of Jean was the grief of a man. He remained long sad andsilent. The evening of his father's funeral the Abbe Constantin took himhome to the vicarage. The day had been rainy and cold. Jean was sittingby the fireside; the priest was reading his breviary opposite him. OldPauline came and went, arranging her affairs.

  An hour passed without a word, when Jean, raising his head, said:

  "Godfather, did my father leave me any money?"

  This question was so extraordinary that the old priest, stupefied, couldscarcely believe that he heard aright.

  "You ask if your father--"

  "I asked if my father left me some money?"

  "Yes; he must have left you some."

  "A good deal, don't you think? I have often heard people say that myfather was rich. Tell me about how much he has left me!"

  "But I don't know. You ask--"

  The poor old man felt his heart rent in twain. Such a question at such amoment! Yet he thought he knew the boy's heart, and in that heart thereshould not be room for such thoughts.

  "Pray, dear godfather, tell me," continued Jean, gently. "I will explainto you afterward why I ask that."

  "Well, they say your father had 200,000 or 300,000 francs."

  "And is that much?"


  "Yes, it is a great deal."

  "And it is all mine?"

  "Yes, it is all yours."

  "Oh! I am glad, because, you know, the day that my father was killed inthe war, the Prussians killed, at the same time, the son of a poor womanin Longueval--old Clemence, you know; and they killed, too, the brotherof Rosalie, with whom I used to play when I was quite little. Well,since I am rich and they are poor, I will divide with Clemence andRosalie the money my father has left me."

  On hearing these words the Cure rose, took Jean by both hands, and drewhim into his arms. The white head rested on the fair one. Two largetears escaped from the eyes of the old priest, rolled slowly down hischeeks, and were lost in the furrows of his face.

  However, the Cure was obliged to explain to Jean that, though he was hisfather's heir, he had not the right of disposing of his heritage ashe would. There would be a family council, and a guardian would beappointed.

  "You, no doubt, godfather?"

  "No, not I, my child; a priest has not the right of exercising thefunctions of a guardian. They will, I think, choose Monsieur Lenient,the lawyer in Souvigny, who was one of your father's best friends. Youcan speak to him and tell him what you wish."

  M. Lenient was eventually appointed guardian, and Jean urged his wishesso eagerly and touchingly that the lawyer consented to deduct from theincome a sum of 2,400 francs, which, every year till Jean came of age,was divided between old Clemence and little Rosalie.

  Under these circumstances, Madame de Lavardens was perfect. She went tothe Abbe and said:

  "Give Jean to me, give him to me entirely till he has finished hisstudies. I will bring him back to you every year during the holidays. Itis not I who am rendering you a service; it is a service which I ask ofyou. I cannot imagine any greater good fortune for my son than to haveJean for a companion. I must resign myself to leaving Lavardens for atime. Paul is bent upon being a soldier and going up to Saint-Cyr. It isonly in Paris that I can obtain the necessary masters. I will take thetwo children there; they will study together under my own eyes likebrothers, and I will make no difference between them; of that you may besure."

  It was difficult to refuse such an offer. The old Cure would have dearlyliked to keep Jean with him, and his heart was torn at the thought ofthis separation, but what was for the child's real interest? That wasthe only question to be considered; the rest was nothing. They summonedJean.

  "My child," said Madame de Lavardens to him, "will you come and livewith Paul and me for some years? I will take you both to Paris."

  "You are very kind, Madame, but I should have liked so much to stayhere."

  He looked at the Cure, who turned away his eyes.

  "Why must we go?" he continued. "Why must you take Paul and me away?"

  "Because it is only in Paris that you can have all the advantagesnecessary to complete your studies. Paul will prepare for hisexamination at Saint-Cyr. You know he wishes to be a soldier."

  "So do I, Madame. I wish to be one, too."

  "You a soldier!" exclaimed the Cure; "but you know that was not at allyour father's idea. In my presence, he has often spoken of yourfuture, your career. You were to be a doctor, and, like him, doctor atLongueval, and, like him, devote yourself to the sick and poor. Jean, mychild, do you remember?"

  "I remember, I remember."

  "Well, then, Jean, you must do as your father wished; it is your duty,Jean; it is your duty. You must go to Paris. You would like to stayhere, I understand that well, and I should like it, too; but it can notbe. You must go to Paris, and work, work hard. Not that I am anxiousabout that; you are your father's true son. You will be an honest andlaborious man. One can not well be the one without the other. And someday, in your father's house, in the place where he has done so muchgood, the poor people of the country round will find another DoctorReynaud, to whom they may look for help. And I--if by chance I am stillin this world--when that day comes, I shall be so happy! But I am wrongto speak of myself; I ought not, I do not count. It is of your fatherthat you must think. I repeat it, Jean, it was his dearest wish. You cannot have forgotten it."

  "No, I have not forgotten; but if my father sees me, and hears me, I amcertain that he understands and forgives me, for it is on his account."

  "On his account?"

  "Yes. When I heard that he was dead, and when I heard how he died, allat once, without any need of reflection, I said to myself that I wouldbe a soldier, and I will be a soldier! Godfather, and you, Madame, I begyou not to prevent me."

  The child burst into tears--a perfect flood of passionate tears. TheCountess and the Abbe soothed him with gentle words.

  "Yes--yes--it is settled," they said; "anything that you wish, all thatyou wish."

  Both had the same thought--leave it to time; Jean is only a child; hewill change his mind.

  In this, both were mistaken; Jean did not change his mind. In the monthof September, 1876, Paul de Lavardens was rejected at Saint-Cyr, andJean Reynaud passed eleventh at the Ecole Polytechnique. The day whenthe list of the candidates who had passed was published, he wrote to theAbbe Constantin:

  "I have passed, and passed too well, for I wish to go into the army, andnot the civil service; however, if I keep my place in the school, thatwill be the business of one of my comrades; he will have my chance."

  It happened so in the end. Jean Reynaud did better than keep his place;the pass-list showed his name seventh, but instead of entering'l'Ecole des Ponts et Chaussees', he entered the military college atFontainebleau in 1878.

  He was then just twenty-one; he was of age, master of his fortune, andthe first act of the new administration was a great, a very great pieceof extravagance.

  He bought for old Clemence and little Rosalie two shares in Governmentstock of 1,500 francs each. That cost him 70,000 francs, almost the sumthat Paul de Lavardens, in his first year of liberty in Paris, spent forMademoiselle Lise Bruyere, of the Palais Royal Theatre.

  Two years later Jean passed first at the examination, and leftFontainebleau with the right of choosing among the vacant places. Therewas one in the regiment quartered at Souvigny, and Souvigny was threemiles from Longueval. Jean asked for this, and obtained it.

  Thus Jean Reynaud, lieutenant in the ninth regiment of artillery, camein the month of October, 1880, to take possession of the house that hadbeen his father's; thus he found himself once more in the place wherehis childhood had passed, and where every one had kept green the memoryof the life and death of his father; thus the Abbe Constantin was notdenied the happiness of once again having near him the son of his oldfriend, and, if the truth must be told, he no longer wished that Jeanhad become a doctor.

  When the old Cure left his church after saying mass, when he saw comingalong the road a great cloud of dust, when he felt the earth trembleunder the rumbling cannon, he would stop, and, like a child, amusehimself with seeing the regiment pass, but to him the regimentwas--Jean. It was this robust and manly cavalier, in whose face, as inan open book, one read uprightness, courage, and goodness.

  The moment Jean perceived the Cure, he would put his horse to a gallop,and go to have a little chat with his godfather. The horse would turnhis head toward the Cure, for he knew very well there was always a pieceof sugar for him in the pocket of that old black soutane--rusty andworn--the morning soutane. The Abbe Constantin had a beautiful newone, of which he took great care, to wear in society--when he went intosociety.

  The trumpets of the regiment sounded as they passed through the village,and all eyes sought Jean--"little Jean"-for to the old people ofLongueval he was still little Jean. Certain wrinkled, broken-down,old peasants had never been able to break themselves of the habit ofsaluting him when he passed with, "Bonjour, gamin, ca va bien?"

  He was six feet high, this gamin, and Jean never crossed the villagewithout perceiving at one window the old furrowed parchment skin ofClemence, and at another the smiling countenance of Rosalie. The latterhad married during the previous year; Jean had given her away, andjoyously on
the wedding-night had he danced with the girls of Longueval.

  Such was the lieutenant of artillery, who, on Saturday, May 28, 1881, athalf-past four in the afternoon, sprang from his horse before the doorof the vicarage of Longueval. He entered the gate, the horse obedientlyfollowed, and went by himself into a little shed in the yard. Paulinewas at the kitchen window; Jean approached and kissed her heartily onboth cheeks.

  "Good-evening, Pauline. Is all well?"

  "Very well. I am busy preparing your dinner; would you like to know whatyou are going to have? potato soup, a leg of mutton, and a custard."

  "That is excellent; I shall enjoy everything, for I am dying of hunger."

  "And a salad; I had forgotten it; you can help me cut it directly.Dinner will be at half-past six exactly, for at half-past seven Monsieurle Cure has his service for the month of Mary."

  "Where is my godfather?"

  "You will find him in the garden. He is very sad on account of this saleof yesterday."

  "Yes, I know, I know."

  "It will cheer him a little to see you; he is always so happy when youare here. Take care; Loulou is going to eat the climbing roses. How hothe is!"

  "I came the long way by the wood, and rode very fast."

  Jean captured Loulou, who was directing his steps toward the climbingroses. He unsaddled him, fastened him in the little shed, rubbed himdown with a great handful of straw, after which he entered the house,relieved himself of his sword and kepi, replaced the latter by an oldstraw hat, value sixpence, and then went to look for his godfather inthe garden.

  The poor Abbe was indeed sad; he had scarcely closed an eye allnight--he who generally slept so easily, so quietly, the sound sleep ofa child. His soul was wrung. Longueval in the hands of a foreigner, of aheretic, of an adventuress!

  Jean repeated what Paul had said the evening before.

  "You will have money, plenty of money, for your poor."

  "Money! money! Yes, my poor will not lose, perhaps they will even gainby it; but I must go and ask for this money, and in the salon, insteadof my old and dear friend, I shall find this red-haired American. Itseems that she has red hair! I will certainly go for the sake of mypoor--I will go--and she will give me the money, but she will give menothing but money; the Marquise gave me something else--her life and herheart. Every week we went together to visit the sick and the poor; sheknew all the sufferings and the miseries of the country round, and whenthe gout nailed me to my easy-chair she made the rounds alone, and aswell, or better than I."

  Pauline interrupted this conversation. She carried an immenseearthenware salad-dish, on which bloomed, violent and startling,enormous red flowers.

  "Here I am," said Pauline, "I am going to cut the salad. Jean, would youlike lettuce or endive?"

  "Endive," said Jean, gayly. "It is a long time since I have had anyendive."

  "Well, you shall have some to-night. Stay, take the dish."

  Pauline began to cut the endive, and Jean bent down to receive theleaves in the great salad dish. The Cure looked on.

  At this moment a sound of little bells was heard. A carriage wasapproaching; one heard the jangling and creaking of its wheels. TheCure's little garden was only separated from the road by a low hedge, inthe middle of which was a little trellised gate.

  All three looked out, and saw driving down the road a hired carriage ofmost primitive construction, drawn by two great white horses, and drivenby an old coachman in a blouse. Beside this old coachman was seated atall footman in livery, of the most severe and correct demeanor. In thecarriage were two young women, dressed both alike in very elegant, butvery simple, travelling costumes.

  When the carriage was opposite the gate the coachman stopped his horses,and addressing the Abbe:

  "Monsieur le Cure," said he, "these ladies wish to speak to you."

  Then, turning toward the ladies:

  "This is Monsieur le Cure of Longueval."

  The Abbe Constantin approached and opened the little gate. Thetravellers alighted. Their looks rested, not without astonishment, onthe young officer, who stood there, a little embarrassed, with his strawhat in one hand, and his salad dish, all overflowing with endive, in theother.

  The visitors entered the garden, and the elder--she seemed abouttwenty-five--addressing the Abbe Constantin, said to him, with a littleforeign accent, very original and very peculiar:

  "I am obliged to introduce myself---Mrs. Scott; I am Mrs. Scott! Itwas I who bought the castle and farms and all the rest here at the saleyesterday. I hope that I do not disturb you, and that you can spare mefive minutes." Then, pointing to her travelling companion, "Miss BettinaPercival, my sister; you guessed it, I am sure. We are very much alike,are we not? Ah! Bettina, we have left our bags in the carriage, and weshall want them directly."

  "I will get them."

  And as Miss Percival prepared to go for the two little bags, Jean saidto her:

  "Pray allow me."

  "I am really very sorry to give you so much trouble. The servant willgive them to you; they are on the front seat."

  She had the same accent as her sister, the same large eyes--black,laughing, and gay-and the same hair, not red, but fair, with goldenshades, where daintily danced the light of the sun. She bowed to Jeanwith a pretty little smile, and he, having returned to Pauline thesalad dish full of endive, went to look for the two little bags.Meanwhile-much agitated, sorely disturbed--the Abbe Constantinintroduced into his vicarage the new Chatelaine of Longueval.