Taking the Bastile (5 page)

We have already spoken of Pitou’s hands. .These

ANGE PITOU AT HIS AUNT’S 31

hands, which were by no means agreeable to look at, were still less agreeable to feel. Pitou at the end of each arm whirled round a fist equal in size to a child’s head, and he managed to apply to one of the eyes of his adversary a blow so skilfully directed that the eye he struck was instantly surrounded by a dark bistre-coloured circle, so geometrically drawn that the most skilful mathematician could not have formed it more correctly with his compasses. The second th*n presented himself. If Pitou had against him the fatigue occasioned by his first combat, on the other side, his adversary was visibly leas powerful than his former antagonist. The battle did not last long. Pitou gave a straightforward blow at his enemy’s nose, and his formidable net fell with such weight, that instantly his two nostrils gave evidence of the validity of the blow by spouting forth a doable stream of blood. The third got off with merely a broken tooth; he received much less damage than the two former. The other three declared that they were satisfied. Pitou then pressed through the crowd, which drew back as he approached with the respect due to a conqueror, and he withdrew safe and sound to his own fireside, or rather to that of hie aunt.

The next morning, when the three pupils reached the school, the one with his eye poached, the second with a fearfully lacerated nose, and a third with his lips swelled, the Abbe Fortier instituted an inquiry. But young collegians have their good points too. Not one of the wounded whispered a word against Pitou, and it was only through an indirect channel, that is to say, from a person who had been a witness of the fight, bat who was altogether unconnected with the school, that the Abbe Fortier learned, the following day, that it was Pitou who had done the damage to the faces of his pupils, which had caused him so much uneasiness the day before. And in fact, the Abbe Fortier was responsible to the parents, not only for the morals, but for the physical state of his pupils. Fortier had received complaints from the three families. A reparation was absolutely necessary. Pitou was kept in school three days : one day for the eye, one day for the bloody nose, and one day for the tooth. This three day’s detention suggested an ingenious idea to Mademoiselle Angelique. It was to deprive Pitou of his dinner every time that the Abbe Fortier kept him in school This determination must necessarily have an advantageous

32 TAKING THE BASTILLE

effect on Pitou’s education, since it would naturally induce him to think twice before committing a fault which would subject him to this double punishment.

From that forward the life of Pitou was pretty nearly that of most scholars, with this sole difference, that from his compositions being more defective than those of any of the rest, he was kept twice as often as any of his con-disciples. But, it must be said, there was one thing in Pitou’s nature which arose from the primary education he received, or rather from that which he did not receive, a thing which is necessary to consider as contributing at least a third to the numerous keepings he underwent, and this was his natural inclination for animals. The famous trunk which his Aunt Angelique had dignified with the name of desk, had become, thanks to its vastness, and the numerous compartments with which Pitou had decorated its interior, a sort of Noah’s ark, containing a couple of every species of climbing, crawling, or flying reptiles. There were lizards, adders, ant-eaters, beetles, and frogs, which reptiles became so much dearer to Pitou from their being the cause of his being subjected to punishment more or less severe. The two other thirds of Pitou’s keepings in were occasioned by those accursed solecisms, ana those confounded barbarisms, which sprang up in the themes written by Pitou, as tares do in a field of wheat.

As to Sundays and Thursdays, days when there was no attendance at school, he had continued to employ them in laying his lime-twigs or in poaching; only, as Pitou was still growing taller, as he was already five feet six, and sixteen years of age, a circumstance occurred which somewhat withdrew Pitou’s attention from his favourite occupations. Upon the road to the Wolf’s Heath is situated a small village, the same perhaps which gave a name to the beautiful Anne d’Heilly, the mistress of Francois I. Near this village stood the farmhouse of Father Billot, as he was called throughout the neighbourhood, and at the door of this farmhouse was standing, no doubt by chance, but almost every time when Pitou passed and repassed, a pretty girl from seventeen to eighteen years of age, fresh-coloured, lively, jovial, and who was called by her baptismal name, Catherine, bv*. still more frequently after her father’s name, La Billot*. Pitou began by bowing to La Billote; afterwards, he by

ANGE PITOU AT HIS AUNT’S 33

degrees became emboldened, and smiled while he was bowing; then at last, one fine day, after having bowed, after having smiled, he stopped, and although blushing deeply, ventured to stammer out the following words, which he considered as great audacity on his part : ‘Good -day. Mademoiselle Catherine.’

Catherine was a good, kind-hearted girl, and she welcomed Pitou as an old acquaintance. He was, in point of fact, an old acquaintance, for during two or three years she had seen him passing and repassing before the farm-gate at least once a week. Only that Catherine saw Pitou, and Pitou did not see Catherine. The reason was, that at first when Pitou used to pass by the farm in this manner Catherine was sixteen years old and Pitou but fourteen. We have just seen what happened when Pitou in his turn had attained his sixteenth year. By degrees Catherine had learned to appreciate the talents of Pitou, for Pitou had given her evidence of his talents by offering to her his finest birds and his fattest rabbits. The result of this was that Catherine complimented him upon these talents, and that Pitou, who was the more sensible to compliments from his being so little habituated to receive them, allowed the charm of novelty to influence him, and instead of going on straightforward, as heretofore, to the Wolf’s Heath, he would stop half-way, and instead of employing the whole of his day in picking up beech-mast and in laying his wires, he would lose his time in prowling round Father Billot’s farm, in the hope of seeing Catherine, were it only for a moment.

The result of this was a very sensible diminution in the produce of rabbit-skins, and a complete scarcity of robin-redbreasts and thrushes. Aunt Angelique complained of this. Pitou represented to her that the rabbits had become mistrustful, and that the birds, who had found out the secret of his lime-twigs, now drank out of hollows of trees, or out of leaves that retained the water. There was one consideration which consoled Aunt Angelique for this increase in the intelligence of the rabbits and the cunning of the birds, which she attributed to the progress of philosophy, and this was that her nephew would obtain the purse, enter the seminary, pass three years there, and on-leaving it would be an abbe. Now, being housekeeper to an abb6 had been the constant aim of Mademoiselle Angelique’ s ambition. This ambition could not fail of

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34 TAKING THE BASTILLE

being gratified, for Auge Pitou, having once become an abbe, could not do otherwise than take his aunt for housekeeper, and above all, after what his aunt had done for him.

The only thing which disturbed the golden dreams of the old maid was, when speaking of this hope to the Abbe Fortier, the latter replied, shaking his head :

‘My dear Demoiselle Pitou. in order to become an abbe, your nephew should give himself up less to the study of natural history, and much more to ” De virus illustribus.” or to the ” Seitcia i profanis scriptoribus,” ‘

‘And which means?’ said Mademoiselle Angelique inquiringly.

‘That he makes too many barbarisms, and infinitely too many solecisms.’ replied the Abbe Fortier.

THBSB details were indispensable to the reader, whatever be the degree of intelligence we suppose him to possess, in order that he might comprehend the whole horror of the position in which Pitou found himself on being finally expelled from the school. With one arm hanging down, the other maintaining the equilibrium of the trunk upon his head, his ears still ringing with the furious vitupera-tions of the Abbe Fortier, he slowly directed his steps towards the Pleux, in a state of meditation which was nothing more than stupor carried to the highest possible degree. At last an idea presented itself to his imagination, and four words, which composed his whole thought, escaped his lips : ‘Oh. Lord I my aunt I’

And indeed what would Mademoiselle Angelique Pitou say to this complete overthrow of all her hopes? Pitou had taken a quarter of an hour to traverse the distance between the great gate at the Abbe Fortier’s and the entrance to this street, and yet it was scarcely three hundred yards. At that moment the church clock struck twelve; he then perceived that his final conversation with the Abbe Fortier and the slowness with which he had walked, had delayed him in all sixty minutes, and that consequently he was half an hour later than the time at which no more dinner was to be had in Aunt Angelique’s

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abode. We have already said that such was the salutary restraint which Aunt Angelique had added to his being kept in school, and on the wild rambHngs of her nephew; it was thus that in the course of a year she managed to economise some sixty dinners at the expense of her poor nephew’s stomach.

There is a frightful torment, well known to a student, however perverse he may be, and this is the illegitimate hiding in some retired corner, after being expelled from college; it is the definitive and compelled holiday which he is constrained to take advantage of, while his fellow students pass by him with their books and writings under their arm, proceeding to their daily task. That college, formerly so hated, then assumes a most desirable form; the scholar occupies his mind with the great affairs of themes and exercises, to which he before so little directed hie attention, and which are being proceeded with in his absence. There is a strong similarity between a pupil so expelled by his professor and a man who has been excommunicated by the Church for his impiety, and who no longer has a nght to enter one, although burning with desire to hear a mass. And this was why, the nearer he approached his aunt’s house, his residence in that house appeared the more frightful to poor Pitou. And this was why, for the first time in his life, his imagination pictured to him the school as a terrestrial paradise, from which the Abbe Fortier, as the exterminating angel, had driven him forth, with his cat-o’-nine-tails wielded as a flaming sword. But yet, slowly as he walked, and although he halted at every ten steps he took, he could not avoid at last reaching the threshold of that most formidable house.

‘Ah 1 Aunt Angelique, I am really very sick,’ said he, in order to stop her raillery or her reproaches, and perhaps also to induce her to pity him, poor boy.

‘Good 1’ said Angelicme. ‘I well know what your sickness is; and it would oe cured at once by putting back the hands of the clock an hour and a half.’

‘Oh 1 good Heavens, no 1’ cried Pitou; ‘for 1 am not hungry.’

Aunt Angelique was surprised and almost anxious. Sickness equally alarms affectionate mothers and crabbed stepmothers aflectionate mothers from the dangers

36 TAKING THE BASTILLE

caused by sickness, and stepmothers from the heavy pulls it makes upon their purse.

‘Well 1 what is the matter? Come, now, speak out at once,’ said the old maid.

On hearing these words, which were, however, pronounced without any very tender sympathy, Ange Pitou burst into tears; and it must be acknowledged that the wry faces he made when proceeding from complaints to tears, were the most terrifically ugly wry faces that could be seen. ‘Oh 1 my good aunt, cried he, sobbing, ‘a great misfortune has happened to me.’

‘And what is it?’ asked the old maid.

‘The Abb6 Fortier has sent me away,’ replied Ange, sobbing so violently that he was scarcely intelligible.

‘Sent you away?’ repeated Mademoiselle Angelique, as if she had not perfectly comprehended what he said. ‘And from where has he sent you?’

‘From the school.’ And Pitou’s sobs redoubled.

‘What! altogether?’

‘Yes, aunt.’

‘So there is no longer any examination, no competition, no purse, no seminary.’

Pitou’s sobs were changed into perfect bowlings. Mademoiselle Angelique looked at him, as if she would read the very heart of her nephew, to ascertain the cause of his dismissal.

‘I will wager that you have again been among the bushes, instead of going to school. I would wager that you have again been prowling about Father Billot’s farm. Oh, fie I and a future abbe I’

Ange shook his head.

‘You are lying,’ cried the old maid, whose anger augmented in proportion as she acquired the certainty that the state of matters was very serious. ‘You are lying. Only last Sunday you were seen again in the Hall of Sighs, with La Billote.’

It was Mademoiselle Angelique who was lying. But devotees have, in all ages, considered themselves authorised to lie, in virtue of that Jesuitical axiom, ‘It is permitted to assert that which is false, in order to discover that which is true.’

‘No one could have seen me in the Hall of Sighs,’ replied Pitou; ‘that is impossible, for we were walking near the orangery.’

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‘Ah, wretch 1 you see that you were with her.’

‘But, aunt,’ rejoined Pitou, blushing, ‘Mademoiselle Billot has nothing to do with this question.’

‘Yes, call her mademoiselle, in order to conceal your impure conduct. But I will let this minx’s confessor know all about it.’

‘But, aunt, I swear to you that Mademoiselle Billot is not a minx.’

‘Ah 1 you defend her, when it is you that stand in need of being excused. Oh, yes; you understand each other better and better. What are we coming to, good Heaven 1 and children only sixteen years old.’

‘Aunt, so far from their being any understanding between me and Catherine, it is Catherine who always drives me away from her.’