April 16.
Saint Drocoveus and the early abbots of Saint-Germain-des-Pres have beenoccupying me for the past forty years; but I do not know if I shallbe able to write their history before I go to join them. It is alreadyquite a long time since I became an old man. One day last year, on thePont des Arts, one of my fellow members at the Institute was lamentingbefore me over the ennui of becoming old.
"Still," Saint-Beuve replied to him, "it is the only way that has yetbeen found of living a long time."
I have tried this way, and I know just what it is worth. The trouble ofit is not that one lasts too long, but that one sees all about him passaway--mother, wife, friends, children. Nature makes and unmakes allthese divine treasures with gloomy indifference, and at last we findthat we have not loved, we have only been embracing shadows. But howsweet some shadows are! If ever creature glided like a shadow throughthe life of a man, it was certainly that young girl whom I fell in lovewith when--incredible though it now seems--I was myself a youth.
A Christian sarcophagus from the catacombs of Rome bears a formula ofimprecation, the whole terrible meaning of which I only learned withtime. It says: "Whatsoever impious man violates this sepulchre, may hedie the last of his own people!" In my capacity of archaeologist, Ihave opened tombs and disturbed ashes in order to collect the shreds ofapparel, metal ornaments, or gems that were mingled with those ashes.But I did it only through that scientific curiosity which does notexclude feelings of reverence and of piety. May that malediction gravenby some one of the first followers of the apostles upon a martyr's tombnever fall upon me! I ought not to fear to survive my own people so longas there are men in the world; for there are always some whom one canlove.
But the power of love itself weakens and gradually becomes lost withage, like all the other energies of man. Example proves it; and itis this which terrifies me. Am I sure that I have not myself alreadysuffered this great loss? I should surely have felt it, but for thehappy meeting which has rejuvenated me. Poets speak of the Fountain ofYouth; it does exist; it gushes up from the earth at every step we take.And one passes by without drinking of it!
The young girl I loved, married of her own choice to a rival, passed,all grey-haired, into the eternal rest. I have found her daughter--sothat my life, which before seemed to me without utility, now once morefinds a purpose and a reason for being.
To-day I "take the sun," as they say in Provence; I take it on theterrace of the Luxembourg, at the foot of the statue of Margueritede Navarre. It is a spring sun, intoxicating as young wine. I sit anddream. My thoughts escape from my head like the foam from a bottleof beer. They are light, and their fizzing amuses me. I dream; sucha pastime is certainly permissible to an old fellow who has publishedthirty volumes of texts, and contributed to the 'Journal des Savants'for twenty-six years. I have the satisfaction of feeling that Iperformed my task as well as it was possible for me to do, and that Iutilised to their fullest extent those mediocre faculties withwhich Nature endowed me. My efforts were not all in vain, and I havecontributed, in my own modest way, to that renaissance of historicallabours which will remain the honour of this restless century. I shallcertainly be counted among those ten or twelve who revealed to Franceher own literary antiquities. My publication of the poetical works ofGautier de Coincy inaugurated a judicious system and fixed a date. Itis in the austere calm of old age that I decree to myself this deservedcredit, and God, who sees my heart, knows whether pride or vanity haveaught to do with this self-award of justice.
But I am tired; my eyes are dim; my hand trembles, and I see an image ofmyself in those old me of Homer, whose weakness excluded them from thebattle, and who, seated upon the ramparts, lifted up their voices likecrickets among the leaves.
So my thoughts were wandering when three young men seated themselvesnear me. I do not know whether each one of them had come in threeboats, like the monkey of Lafontaine, but the three certainly displayedthemselves over the space of twelve chairs. I took pleasure in watchingthem, not because they had anything very extraordinary about them, butbecause I discerned in them that brave joyous manner which is natural toyouth. They were from the schools. I was less assured of it by the booksthey were carrying than by the character of their physiognomy. Forall who busy themselves with the things of the mind can be at oncerecognised by an indescribably something which is common to all of them.I am very fond of young people; and these pleased me, in spite of acertain provoking wild manner which recalled to me my own college dayswith marvellous vividness. But they did not wear velvet doublets andlong hair, as we used to do; they did not walk about, as we used to do,"Hell and malediction!" They were quite properly dressed, and neithertheir costume nor their language had anything suggestive of the MiddleAges. I must also add that they paid considerable attention to the womenpassing on the terrace, and expressed their admiration of some of themin very animated language. But their reflections, even on this subject,were not of a character to oblige me to flee from my seat. Besides, solong as youth is studious, I think it has a right to its gaieties.
One of them, having made some gallant pleasantry which I forget, thesmallest and darkest of the three exclaimed, with a slight Gasconaccent,
"What a thing to say! Only physiologists like us have any right tooccupy ourselves about living matter. As for you, Gelis, who only livein the past--like all your fellow archivists and paleographers--you willdo better to confine yourself to those stone women over there, who areyour contemporaries."
And he pointed to the statues of the Ladies of Ancient France whichtowered up, all white, in a half-circle under the trees of the terrace.This joke, though in itself trifling, enabled me to know that theyoung man called Gelis was a student at the Ecole des Chartes. From theconversation which followed I was able to learn that his neighbor, blondand wan almost to diaphaneity, taciturn and sarcastic was Boulmier, afellow student. Gelis and the future doctor (I hope he will become onesome day) discoursed together with much fantasy and spirit. In the midstof the loftiest speculations they would play upon words, and make jokesafter the peculiar fashion of really witty persons--that is to say, ina style of enormous absurdity. I need hardly say, I suppose, that theyonly deigned to maintain the most monstrous kind of paradoxes. Theyemployed all their powers of imagination to make themselves as ludicrousas possible, and all their powers of reasoning to assert the contrary ofcommon sense. All the better for them! I do not like to see young folkstoo rational.
The student of medicine, after glancing at the title of the book thatBoulmier held in his hand, exclaimed,
"What!--you read Michelet--you?"
"Yes," replied Boulmier, very gravely. "I like novels."
Gelis, who dominated both by his fine stature, imperious gestures, andready wit, took the book, turned over a few pages rapidly, and said,
"Michelet always had a great propensity to emotional tenderness. Hewept sweet tears over Maillard, that nice little man introduced lapaperasserie into the September massacres. But as emotional tendernessleads to fury, he becomes all at once furious against the victims. Therewas no help for it. It is the sentimentality of the age. The assassinis pitied, but the victim is considered quite unpardonable. In his latermanner Michelet is more Michelet than ever before. There is no commonsense in it; it is simply wonderful! Neither art nor science, neithercriticism nor narrative; only furies and fainting-spells andepileptic fits over matters which he never deigns to explain. Childishoutcries--envies de femme grosse!--and a style, my friends!--not asingle finished phrase! It is astounding!"
And he handed the book back to his comrade. "This is amusing madness,"I thought to myself, "and not quite so devoid of common sense as itappears. This young man, though only playing has sharply touched thedefect in the cuirass."
But the Provencal student declared that history was a thoroughlydespicable exercise of rhetoric. According to him, the only true historywas the natural history of man. Michelet was in the right path when hecame in contact with the fistula of Louis XIV., but he fell back
intothe old rut almost immediately afterwards.
After this judicious expression of opinion, the young physiologistwent to join a party of passing friends. The two archivists, lesswell acquainted in the neighbourhood of a garden so far from the RueParadis-au-Marais, remained together, and began to chat about theirstudies. Gelis, who had completed his third class-year, was preparing athesis on the subject of which he expatiated with youthful enthusiasm.Indeed, I thought the subject a very good one, particularly because Ihad recently thought myself called upon to treat a notable part of it.It was the Monasticon Gallicanum. The young erudite (I give him the nameas a presage) wanted to describe all the engravings made about 1690 forthe work which Dom Michel Germain would have had printed but for the oneirremediable hindrance which is rarely foreseen and never avoided.Dom Michel Germain would have had printed but for the one irremediablehindrance which is rarely foreseen and never avoided. Dom Michel Germainleft his manuscript complete, however, and in good order when he died.Shall I be able to do as much with mine?--but that is not the presentquestion. So far as I am able to understand, Monsieur Gelis intends todevote a brief archaeological notice to each of the abbeys pictured bythe humble engravers of Dom Michel Germain.
His friend asked him whether he was acquainted with all the manuscriptsand printed documents relating to the subject. It was then that Ipricked up my ears. They spoke at first of original sources; and I mustconfess they did so in a satisfactory manner, despite their innumerableand detestable puns. Then they began to speak about contemporary studieson the subject.
"Have you read," asked Boulmier, "the notice of Courajod?"
"Good!" I thought to myself.
"Yes," replied Gelis; "it is accurate."
"Have you read," said Boulmier, "the article of Tamisey de Larroque inthe 'Revue des Questions Historiques'?"
"Good!" I thought to myself, for the second time.
"Yes," replied Gelis, "it is full of things."...
"Have you read," said Boulmier, "the 'Tableau des Abbayes Benedictinesen 1600,' by Sylvestre Bonnard?"
"Good!" I said to myself, for the third time.
"Mai foi! no!" replied Gelis. "Bonnard is an idiot!" Turning my head, Iperceived that the shadow had reached the place where I was sitting. Itwas growing chilly, and I thought to myself what a fool I was to haveremained sitting there, at the risk of getting rheumatism, just tolisten to the impertinence of those two young fellows!
"Well! well!" I said to myself as I got up. "Let this prattlingfledgling write his thesis and sustain it! He will find my colleague,Quicherat, or some other professor at the school, to show him what anignoramus he is. I consider him neither more nor less than a rascal;and really, now that I come to think of it, what he said about Micheletawhile ago was quite insufferable, outrageous! To talk in that way aboutan old master replete with genius! It was simply abominable!"