Bouvard and Pécuchet, part 1

The doctor having received some encouragement, repaired to the house of Heurtaux, and explained to him what his chances were. The captain did not stand on ceremony about it. Vaucorbeil was known, undoubtedly, but little liked by his professional brethren, especially in the case of chemists. Everyone would bark at him; the people did not want a gentleman; his best patients would leave him. And, when he weighed these arguments, the physician regretted his weakness.

As soon as he had gone, Heurtaux went to see Placquevent. Between old soldiers there should be mutual courtesy, but the rural guard, devoted though he was to Foureau, flatly refused to help him.

The curé demonstrated to M. de Faverges that the hour had not come. It was necessary to give the Republic time to get used up.

Bouvard and Pécuchet represented to Gorju that he would never be strong enough to overcome the coalition of the peasants and the village shop-keepers, filled him with uncertainty, and deprived him of all confidence.

Petit, through pride, had allowed his ambition to be seen. Beljambe warned him that, if he failed, his dismissal was certain.

Finally, the curé got orders from the bishop to keep quiet.

Then, only Foureau remained.

Bouvard and Pécuchet opposed him, bringing up against him his unfriendly attitude about the guns, his opposition to the club, his reactionary views, his avarice; and even persuaded Gouy that he wished to bring back the old régime. Vague as was the meaning of this word to the peasant's mind, he execrated it with a hatred that had accumulated in the souls of his forefathers throughout ten centuries; and he turned all his relatives, and those of his wife, brothers-in-law, cousins, grand-nephews (a horde of them), against Foureau.

Gorju, Vaucorbeil, and Petit kept working for the overthrow of the mayor; and, the ground being thus cleared, Bouvard and Pécuchet, without any doubt, were likely to succeed.

They drew lots to know which would present himself. The drawing decided nothing, and they went to consult the doctor on the subject.

He had news for them: Flacardoux, editor of Le Calvados, had announced his candidature. The two friends had a keen sense of having been deceived. Each felt the other's disappointment more than his own. But politics had an exciting influence on them. When the election-day arrived they went to inspect the urns. Flacardoux had carried it!

M. de Faverges had fallen back on the National Guard, without obtaining the epaulet of commander. The people of Chavignolles contrived to get Beljambe nominated.

This favouritism on the part of the public, so whimsical and unforeseen, dismayed Heurtaux. He had neglected his duties, confining himself to inspecting the military operations now and then, and giving utterance to a few remarks. No matter! He considered it a monstrous thing that an innkeeper should be preferred to one who had been formerly a captain in the Imperial service, and he said, after the invasion of the Chamber on the 15th of May: "If the military grades give themselves away like that in the capital, I shall be no longer astonished at what may happen."

The reaction began.

People believed in Louis Blanc's pineapple soup, in Flocon's bed of gold, and Ledru-Rollin's royal orgies; and as the province pretends to know everything that happens in Paris, the inhabitants of Chavignolles had no doubt about these inventions, and gave credence to the most absurd reports.

M. de Faverges one evening came to look for the curé, in order to tell him that the Count de Chambord had arrived in Normandy.

Joinville, according to Foureau, had made preparations with his sailors to put down "these socialists of yours." Heurtaux declared that Louis Napoleon would shortly be consul.

The factories had stopped. Poor people wandered in large groups about the country.

One Sunday (it was in the early days of June) a gendarme suddenly started in the direction of Falaise. The workmen of Acqueville, Liffard, Pierre-Pont, and Saint-Rémy were marching on Chavignolles. The sheds were shut up. The municipal council assembled and passed a resolution, to prevent catastrophes, that no resistance should be offered. The gendarmes were kept in, and orders were given to them not to show themselves. Soon was heard, as it were, the rumbling of a storm. Then the song of the Girondists shook the windows, and men, arm in arm, passed along the road from Caen, dusty, sweating, in rags. They filled up the entire space in front of the council chamber, and a great hurly-burly arose.

Gorju and two of his comrades entered the chamber. One of them was lean and wretched-looking, with a knitted waistcoat, the ribbons of which were hanging down; the other, black as coal – a machinist, no doubt – with hair like a brush, thick eyebrows, and old list shoes. Gorju, like a hussar, wore his waistcoat slung over his shoulder.

All three remained standing, and the councillors, seated round the table, which was covered with a blue cloth, gazed at their faces, pale from privation.

"Citizens!" said Gorju, "we want work."

The mayor trembled. He could not find his voice.

Marescot replied from the place where he sat that the council would consider the matter directly; and when the comrades had gone out they discussed several suggestions.

The first was to have stones drawn.

In order to utilise the stones, Girbal proposed a road from Angleville to Tournebu.

That from Bayeux had positively rendered the same service.

They could clear out the pond! This was not sufficient as a public work. Or rather, dig a second pond! But in what place?

Langlois' advice was to construct an embankment along the Mortins as a protection against an inundation. It would be better, Beljambe thought, to clear away the heather.

It was impossible to arrive at any conclusion. To appease the crowd, Coulon went down over the peristyle and announced that they were preparing charity workshops.

"Charity! Thanks!" cried Gorju. "Down with the aristocrats! We want the right to work!"

It was the question of the time. He made use of it as a source of popularity. He was applauded.

In turning round he elbowed Bouvard, whom Pécuchet had dragged to the spot, and they entered into conversation. Nothing could keep them back; the municipal building was surrounded; the council could not escape.

"Where shall you get money?" said Bouvard.

"In the rich people's houses. Besides, the government will give orders for public works."

"And if works are not wanted?"

"They will have them made in advance."

"But wages will fall," urged Pécuchet. "When work happens to be lacking, it is because there are too many products; and you demand to have them increased!"

Gorju bit his moustache. "However, with the organisation of labour – "

"Then the government will be the master!"

Some of those around murmured:

"No, no! no more masters!"

Gorju got angry. "No matter! Workers should be supplied with capital, or rather credit should be established."

"In what way?"

"Ah! I don't know; but credit ought to be established."

"We've had enough of that," said the machinist. "They are only plaguing us, these farce-actors!"

And he climbed up the steps, declaring that he would break open the door.

There he was met by Placquevent, with his right knee bent and his fists clenched:

"Advance one inch further!"

The machinist recoiled. The shouting of the mob reached the chamber. All arose with the desire to run away. The help from Falaise had not arrived. They bewailed the count's absence. Marescot kept twisting a pen; Père Coulon groaned; Heurtaux lashed himself into a fury to make them send for the gendarmes.

"Command them to come!" said Foureau.

"I have no authority."

The noise, however, redoubled. The whole green was covered with people, and they were all staring at the first story of the building when, at the window in the middle, under the clock, Pécuchet made his appearance.

He had ingeniously gone up by the back-stairs, and, wishing to be like Lamartine, he began a harangue to the populace:

"Citizens! – "

But his cap, his nose, his frock-coat, his entire personality lacked distinction.

The man in the knitted waistcoat asked him:

"Are you a workman?"

"No."

"A master, then?"

"Nor that either."

"Well, take yourself off, then."

"Why?" returned Pécuchet, haughtily.

And the next moment he disappeared, in the machinist's clutch, into the recess of the window.

Gorju came to his assistance. "Let him alone! He's a decent fellow." They clenched.

The door flew open, and Marescot, on the threshold, announced the decision of the council. Hurel had suggested his doing so.

The road from Tournebu would have a branch road in the direction of Angleville and leading towards the château of Faverges.

It was a sacrifice which the commune took upon itself in the interest of the working-men.

They dispersed.

When Bouvard and Pécuchet re-entered their house, women's voices fell upon their ears. The servants and Madame Bordin were breaking into exclamations, the widow's screams being the loudest; and at sight of them she cried:

"Ha! this is very fortunate! I have been waiting for you for the last three hours! My poor garden has not a single tulip left! Filth everywhere on the grass! No way of getting rid of him!"

"Who is it?"

"Père Gouy."

He had come with a cartload of manure, and had scattered it pell-mell over the grass.

"He is now digging it up. Hurry on and make him stop."

"I am going with you," said Bouvard.

At the bottom of the steps outside, a horse in the shafts of a dung-cart was gnawing at a bunch of oleanders. The wheels, in grazing the flower borders, had bruised the box trees, broken a rhododendron, knocked down the dahlias; and clods of black muck, like molehills, embossed the green sward. Gouy was vigorously digging it up.

One day Madame Bordin had carelessly said to him that she would like to have it turned up. He set about the job, and, in spite of her orders to desist, went on with it. This was the way that he interpreted the right to work, Gorju's talk having turned his brain.

He went away only after violent threats from Bouvard.

Madame Bordin, by way of compensation, did not pay for the manual labour, and kept the manure. She was wise: the doctor's wife, and even the notary's, though of higher social position, respected her for it.

The charity workshops lasted a week. No trouble occurred. Gorju left the neighbourhood.

Meanwhile, the National Guard was always on foot: on Sunday, a review; military promenades, occasionally; and, every night, patrols. They disturbed the village. They rang the bells of houses for fun; they made their way into the bedrooms where married couples were snoring on the same bolster; then they uttered broad jokes, and the husband, rising, would go and get them a glass each. Afterwards, they would return to the guard-house to play a hundred of dominoes, would consume a quantity of cider there, and eat cheese, while the sentinel, worn out, would keep opening the door every other minute. There was a prevailing absence of discipline, owing to Beljambe's laxity.

When the days of June came, everyone was in favour of "flying to the relief of Paris"; but Foureau could not leave the mayoral premises, Marescot his office, the doctor his patients, or Girbal his firemen. M. de Faverges was at Cherbourg. Beljambe kept his bed. The captain grumbled: "They did not want me; so much the worse!" – and Bouvard had the wisdom to put restraint on Pécuchet.

The patrols throughout the country were extended farther. They were panic-stricken by the shadow of a haystack, or by the forms of branches. On one occasion the entire National Guard turned and ran. In the moonlight they had observed, under an apple tree, a man with a gun, taking aim at them. At another time, on a dark night, the patrol halting under the beech trees, heard some one close at hand.

"Who is there?"

No answer.

They allowed the person to pursue his course, following him at a distance, for he might have a pistol or a tomahawk; but when they were in the village, within reach of help, the dozen men of the company rushed together upon him, exclaiming:

"Your papers!" They pulled him about and overwhelmed him with insults. The men at the guard-house had gone out. They dragged him there; and by the light of the candle that was burning on top of the stove they at last recognised Gorju.

A wretched greatcoat of lasting was flapping over his shoulders. His toes could be seen through the holes in his boots. Scratches and bruises stained his face with blood. He was fearfully emaciated, and rolled his eyes about like a wolf.

Foureau, coming up speedily, questioned him as to how he chanced to be under the beech trees, what his object was in coming back to Chavignolles, and also as to the employment of his time for the past six weeks.

"That is no business of yours. I have my liberty."

Placquevent searched him to find out whether he had cartridges about him.

They were about to imprison him provisionally.

Bouvard interposed.

"No use," replied the mayor; "we know your opinions."

"Nevertheless – "

"Ha! be careful; I give you warning. Be careful."

Bouvard persisted no further.

Gorju then turned towards Pécuchet: "And you, master, have you not a word to say for me?"

Pécuchet hung down his head, as if he had a suspicion against his innocence.

The poor wretch smiled bitterly.

"I protected you, all the same."

At daybreak, two gendarmes took him to Falaise.

He was not tried before a court-martial, but was sentenced by the civil tribunal to three months' imprisonment for the misdemeanour of language tending towards the destruction of society. From Falaise he wrote to his former employers to send him soon a certificate of good life and morals, and as their signature required to be legalised by the mayor or the deputy, they preferred to ask Marescot to do this little service for them.

They were introduced into a dining-room, decorated with dishes of fine old earthenware; a Boule clock occupied the narrowest shelf. On the mahogany table, without a cloth, were two napkins, a teapot and finger-glasses. Madame Marescot crossed the room in a dressing-gown of blue cashmere. She was a Parisian who was bored with the country. Then the notary came in, with his cap in one hand, a newspaper in the other; and at once, in the most polite fashion, he affixed his seal, although their protégé was a dangerous man.

"Really," said Bouvard, "for a few words – "

"But words lead to crimes, my dear sir, give me leave to say."

"And yet," said Pécuchet, "what line of demarcation can you lay down between innocent and guilty phrases? The thing that just now is prohibited may be subsequently applauded." And he censured the harshness with which the insurgents had been treated.

Marescot naturally rested his case on the necessity of protecting society, the public safety – the supreme law.

"Pardon me!" said Pécuchet, "the right of a single individual is as much entitled to respect as those of all, and you have nothing to oppose to him but force if he turns your axiom upon yourself."

Instead of replying, Marescot lifted his brows disdainfully. Provided that he continued to draw up legal documents, and to live among his plates, in his comfortable little home, injustices of every kind might present themselves without affecting him. Business called him away. He excused himself.

His theory of public safety excited their indignation. The Conservatives now talked like Robespierre.

Another matter for astonishment: Cavaignac was flagging; the Garde Mobile was exposing itself to suspicion. Ledru-Rollin had ruined himself even in Vaucorbeil's estimation. The debates on the Constitution interested nobody, and on the 10th of December all the inhabitants of Chavignolles voted for Bonaparte. The six millions of votes made Pécuchet grow cold with regard to the people, and Bouvard and he proceeded to study the question of universal suffrage.

As it belongs to everybody, it cannot possess intelligence. One ambitious man will always be the leader; the others will follow him like a flock of sheep, the electors not being compelled even to know how to read. This was the reason, in Bouvard's opinion, that there were so many frauds at presidential elections.

"None," replied Bouvard; "I believe rather in the gullibility of the people. Think of all who buy the patent health-restorer, the Dupuytren pomatum, the Châtelaine's water, etc. Those boobies constitute the majority of the electorate, and we submit to their will. Why cannot an income of three thousand francs be made out of rabbits? Because the overcrowding of them is a cause of death. In the same way, through the mere fact of its being a multitude, the germs of stupidity contained in it are developed, and thence result consequences that are incalculable."

"Your scepticism frightens me," said Pécuchet.

At a later period, in the spring, they met M. de Faverges, who apprised them of the expedition to Rome. We should not attack the Italians, but we should require guaranties. Otherwise our influence would be destroyed. Nothing would be more legitimate than this intervention.

Bouvard opened his eyes wide. "On the subject of Poland, you expressed a contrary opinion."

"It is no longer the same thing." It was now a question of the Pope.

And M. de Faverges, when he said, "We wish," "We shall do," "We calculate clearly," represented a group.

Bouvard and Pécuchet were disgusted with the minority quite as much as with the majority. The common people, in short, were just the same as the aristocracy.

The right of intervention appeared dubious to them. They sought for its principles in Calvo, Martens, Vattel; and Bouvard's conclusion was this:

"There may be intervention to restore a prince to the throne, to emancipate a people, or, for the sake of precaution, in view of a public danger. In other cases it is an outrage on the rights of others, an abuse of force, a piece of hypocritical violence."

"And yet," said Pécuchet, "peoples have a solidarity as well as men."

"Perhaps so." And Bouvard sank into a reverie.

The expedition to Rome soon began.

At home, through hatred of revolutionary ideas, the leaders of the Parisian middle class got two printing-offices sacked. The great party of order was formed.

It had for its chiefs in the arrondissement the count, Foureau, Marescot, and the curé. Every day, about four o'clock, they walked from one end of the green to the other, and talked over the events of the day. The principal business was the distribution of pamphlets. The titles did not lack attractiveness: "God will be pleased with it"; "The sharing"; "Let us get out of the mess"; "Where are we going?" The finest things among them were the dialogues in the style of villagers, with oaths and bad French, to elevate the mental faculties of the peasants. By a new law, the hawking of pamphlets would be in the hands of the prefects; and they had just crammed Proudhon into St. Pélagie – gigantic triumph!

The trees of liberty were generally torn down. Chavignolles obeyed orders. Bouvard saw with his own eyes the fragments of his poplar on a wheelbarrow. They helped to warm the gendarmes, and the stump was offered to the curé, who had blessed it. What a mockery!

The schoolmaster did not hide his way of thinking.

Bouvard and Pécuchet congratulated him on it one day as they were passing in front of his door. Next day he presented himself at their residence.

At the end of the week they returned his visit.

The day was declining. The brats had just gone home, and the schoolmaster, in half-sleeves, was sweeping the yard. His wife, with a neckerchief tied round her head, was suckling a baby. A little girl was hiding herself behind her petticoat; a hideous-looking child was playing on the ground at her feet. The water from the washing she had been doing in the kitchen was flowing to the lower end of the house.

"You see," said the schoolmaster, "how the government treats us."

And forthwith he began finding fault with capital as an infamous thing. It was necessary to democratise it, to enfranchise matter.

"I ask for nothing better," said Pécuchet.

At least, they ought to have recognised the right to assistance.

"One more right!" said Bouvard.

No matter! The provisional government had acted in a flabby fashion by not ordaining fraternity.

"Then try to establish it."

As there was no longer daylight, Petit rudely ordered his wife to carry a candle to his study.

The lithograph portraits of the orators of the Left were fastened with pins to the plaster walls. A bookshelf stood above a deal writing-desk. There were a chair, stool, and an old soap-box for persons to sit down upon. He made a show of laughing. But want had laid its traces on his cheeks, and his narrow temples indicated the stubbornness of a ram, an intractable pride. He never would yield.

"Besides, see what sustains me!"

It was a pile of newspapers on a shelf, and in feverish phrases he explained the articles of his faith: disarmament of troops, abolition of the magistracy, equality of salaries, a levelling process by which the golden age was to be brought about under the form of the Republic, with a dictator at its head – a fellow that would carry this out for us briskly!

Then he reached for a bottle of aniseed cordial and three glasses, in order to propose the toast of the hero, the immortal victim, the great Maximilian.

On the threshold appeared the black cassock of the priest. Having saluted those present in an animated fashion, he addressed the schoolmaster, speaking almost in a whisper:

"Our business about St. Joseph, what stage is it at?"

"They have given nothing," replied the schoolmaster.

"That is your fault!"

"I have done what I could."

"Ha! really?"

Bouvard and Pécuchet discreetly rose. Petit made them sit down again, and addressing the curé:

"Is that all?"

The Abbé Jeufroy hesitated. Then, with a smile which tempered his reprimand:

"It is supposed that you are rather negligent about sacred history."

"Oh, sacred history!" interrupted Bouvard.

"What fault have you to find with it, sir?"

"I – none. Only there are perhaps more useful things to be learned than the anecdote of Jonas and the story of the kings of Israel."

"You are free to do as you please," replied the priest drily.

And without regard for the strangers, or on account of their presence:

"The catechism hour is too short."

Petit shrugged his shoulders.

"Mind! You will lose your boarders!"

The ten francs a month for these pupils formed the best part of his remuneration. But the cassock exasperated him.

"So much the worse; take your revenge!"

"A man of my character does not revenge himself," said the priest, without being moved. "Only I would remind you that the law of the fifteenth of March assigns us to the superintendence of primary education."

"Ah! I know that well," cried the schoolmaster. "It is given even to colonels of gendarmes. Why not to the rural guard? That would complete the thing!"

And he sank upon the stool, biting his fingers, repressing his rage, stifled by the feeling of his own powerlessness.

The priest touched him lightly on the shoulder.

"I did not intend to annoy you, my friend. Keep yourself quiet. Be a little reasonable. Here is Easter close at hand; I hope you will show an example by going to communion along with the others."

"That is too much! I – I submit to such absurdities!"

At this blasphemy the curé turned pale, his eyeballs gleamed, his jaw quivered.

"Silence, unhappy man! silence! And it is his wife who looks after the church linen!"

"Well, what then? What has she done to you?"

"She always stays away from mass. Like yourself, for that matter!"

"Oh! a schoolmaster is not sent away for a thing of that kind!"

"He can be removed."

The priest said no more.

He was at the end of the room, in the shadow.

Petit was thinking, with his head resting on his chest.

They would arrive at the other end of France, their last sou eaten up by the journey, and they would again find down there, under different names, the same curé, the same superintendent, the same prefect – all, even to the minister, were like links in a chain dragging him down. He had already had one warning – others would follow. After that? – and in a kind of hallucination he saw himself walking along a high-road, a bag on his back, those whom he loved by his side, and his hand held out towards a post-chaise.