POST-SCRIPTUM. — THE RUINS COUNTRY WALKS. — THE ABBEY OF CHÂALIS ERMENONVILLE. — ROUSSEAU’S TOMB
I’m thinking of all the various mistakes that I have committed in the letters I have just sent off to you: an error of twenty kilometers when estimating a distance is probably nothing to worry about; — I’m having difficulty getting used to the new metric system ... yet I know that it is henceforth illegal to use the old term leagues in public documents. It must be the influence of this region that I am currently inhabiting that is causing me to lapse back into these archaic turns of phrase.
My fear of compromising you in any way is such that when I returned to you the letter that had been addressed to me from Belgium in order to inform me of the book sale that would include a volume relating to the Bucquoy family, I added a word of my own ... I have dishonored the autograph of an unknown friend by using the term issued forth. The point was being made that the abbé de Bucquoy was an elusive whippersnapper who was bound to snap at the heels of the Tinguy amendment; — and I continue to regret that I conjured up this impish creature; — for you know just how much I respect the law. — I thought I was toning down my sarcasm by insisting that the whippersnapper in question had been issued forth by the said amendment.
Well, I was wrong; — having sworn to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God, following the example of that philosopher whose tomb I am about to visit and whose personal motto was Vitam impendere vero, — I should have merely reprinted the letter you sent me free from any additional commentary on my part. — The point of all this being that I am not out to attack the law per se, but merely the false interpretation that might be made of it, should it be seriously applied.
As for me, — as you well know, — I risk nothing; but you, you run the risk of being hit with a fine, — which could go as high as a million ... These are no laughing matters!
If you printed the passage where I described the arrest of the archaeologist, rest assured that this episode is entirely true and that I am ready to supply you with proof of the matter, — and what’s more, could cite another example of this sort of thing that occurred in another part of the Oise. — If I am a little vague about the precise geographical locations, it’s because I am afraid of compromising the persons in question.
In the material I just sent off to you there is yet another word which cost me an hour of sleep. I may well have committed an error in French, — or, as it were, against French, — when speaking of officials who « overstep their authority and hence provoke extreme counter-reactions. »
The mistake would seem to be an elementary one at first glance; — but there are several kinds of reactions: some reactions involve roundabout responses, — others simply involve grinding to a halt. The point I wanted to make was that one excess can lead to another. How otherwise explain acts of arson or the wanton destruction of property, — admittedly rare events these days? Every time a crowd starts getting agitated, there is always some foreign or hostile element that takes advantage of the situation in order push things beyond the limits usually established (and enforced) by common sense.
An anecdote that was told to me by a well-known bibliophile will bear this out. As it so happens, the hero of the story is another bibliophile.
On the day the February Revolution broke out, several carriages were burned, — it was believed that they had been purchased for the royal court with monies provided by the civil list. — This act was no doubt very wrong; looking back on it today, people tend to blame it on the traitors who had infiltrated the crowd that had gathered in the wake of the uprising ...
The bibliophile in question went over to Palais-National that very evening. He could not have cared less about the carriages that were being set on fire; all he cared about was a work in four folio volumes entitled Perceforest.
It was one of those romaunts of the Arthurian cycle, — or perhaps it was the Charlemagne cycle, — containing the epic accounts of our ancient chivalric wars.
Elbowing his way through the assembled crowd, he managed to enter the palace courtyard. — He was a lanky fellow with a wizened face now and then creased by a benevolent smile; respectably dressed in a black suit, he had been let through by the crowd out of sheer curiosity.
« My friends, he asked, has the Perceforest been burned?
— No, we’re just burning carriages.
— Very well. Carry on then. And the library?
— Hasn’t been touched ... What do you want, anyway ?
— I want them to spare the four-volume edition of Perceforest, a hero of yesteryear ... an irreplaceable edition, with two pages that have been transposed and a large ink stain in the third volume. »
He was told:
« Check with the first floor. »
He went to the first floor, where he was informed:
« We absolutely deplore what happened when the situation flared up ... Several paintings were damaged in the initial confusion ...
— Yes, I know, a Horace Vernet ... All this is nothing: — the Perceforest?...
They looked at him as if he were stark mad. He beat a quick retreat and finally managed to locate the concierge of the Palais-National, who was hiding out in her quarters.
« Madame, if they have not yet taken over the library, could you please go and see whether the Perceforest is still there, — it’s a sixteenth-century edition, bound in vellum by Gaume. The rest of the library is worthless ... poorly selected books for people who don’t read ... But the Perceforest has been estimated to be worth forty thousand francs. »
The concierge’s eyes opened wide.
« I would pay twenty thousand for it right here and now ... despite the depreciation of property values inevitably associated with revolutions.
— Twenty thousand francs!
— I have them at home! But if I bought the edition it would merely be in order to donate it to the nation. It’s a national treasure. »
Dazzled and astonished, the concierge courageously agreed to sneak over into the library by a small back stairway. She had been swept up by the scholar’s enthusiasm.
Presently she returned, having seen the book on the exact shelf indicated by the bibliophile.
« Sir, the book is there. But there are only three volumes ... You must have made some mistake.
— Three volumes! ... What a loss! ... I’m immediately going to inform the provisional government, — they usually set one up in these cases, don’t they? ... Perceforest incomplete! Revolutions are terrible things! »
The bibliophile rushed over to the Hôtel-de-Ville. — People had other things to deal with than bibliography. He nonetheless managed to buttonhole M. Arago, — who understood the importance of his mission and immediately issued orders that the matter be looked into.
The Perceforest was incomplete only because one of its volumes was on loan.
We are delighted that this work was fortunate enough to remain in France.
As for the History of the abbé de Bucquoy, which is due to go on sale on the 20th, it may very well not be as fortunate!
So I now beg you, please realize that mistakes do get made, — especially when a quick tour through a region such as this one is constantly interrupted by fog or rain ...
I regret having to leave Senlis; — but my friend is insisting that I continue on my way, if only to remain faithful to an idea that I was reckless enough to have shared with him ... Friends are like children, — they are royal pains, — another local expression.
I greatly enjoyed this town where virtually every street, stable, or cellar offers a glimpse of Roman antiquity, the Middle Ages, or the Renaissance. I mentioned « the Roman towers in ivy clad »! — The eternal greenery that covers them is a living indictment of the inconstancy of our northern climes. — In the Orient, the woods are always green; — each tree naturally has a season in which it is bound to lose its leaves, but this season varies with the species. In Cairo I saw sycamores losing their leaves in the summer. But on the other hand, these same trees were green in January.
The wooded paths surrounding Senlis follow the course of the ancient Roman fortifications which were restored during the long period when this town was the capital of the Carlovingian kings but this late in the season all they offer to the eye are the rusty leaves of elm and lime trees. But there are still splendid views to be had of the surrounding landscape at sunset. — The forests of Chantilly, Compiègne, and Ermenonville, as well as the woods of Châalis and Pont-Armé stand out as russet masses against the bright green of the intervening fields. In the distance, the castles still display their towers, — solidly built out of Senlis stone and, more often than not, now reduced to dovecotes.
The spindly spires, which bristle with jutting stone-work that is (I know not why) called bonework in the region, still echo with the sound of the bells that plunged Rousseau’s soul into such a sweet state of melancholy ...
Let us pursue the pilgrimage that we promised ourselves to undertake: it shall lead us not to his mortal remains, — which are enshrined in the Pantheon, — but rather to the original site of his tomb on the Isle of Poplars at Ermenonville.
The cathedral of Senlis, the church of Saint-Pierre, — which has now been turned into a cavalry barracks, — the castle of Henri IV snuggled within the town’s ancient fortifications, the Byzantine cloisters of Charles the Fat and his successors, — none of this can now keep us back ... It is time to strike out through the woods, despite the lingering morning mist.
We left Senlis on foot and made our way into the woods, delighting in every deep breath of the autumn mist. Gazing at the great trees whose tops were bare except for the occasional bouquet of yellowed leaves, my friend Sylvain said to me:
« Do you remember the days when we used to play in these woods, when your relatives used to let you come over to our place to see the rest of your family? ... When we used to pull the shrimp out from under the rocks under the bridges of the Nonette and the Oise?... You were very careful to take off your socks and shoes, and we all called you: the little Parisian?
— I remember, I told him, that one day you abandoned me when I was in danger. It was at one of the eddies of the Oise, up toward Neufmoulin, — I absolutely wanted to get to the other side of the river in order to take the shortcut back to my wetnurse’s place. — You said to me: “There’s a crossing-place here.” The tall weeds and the green foam that gathers at the bends of our rivers had convinced me that the bottom wasn’t very deep at that ford. I was the first at the river. Then I plunged into seven feet of water. Then you ran off, afraid that you would be blamed for having allowed the little Parisian to get drownded. You had decided to claim, should anybody ask you what had happened, that he wanted to go his own fool way. — And this is what we call a friend. »
Sylvain blushed and said nothing.
« But your sister, thank God, had followed us, — the poor little thing, — and as I was flailing around in the water with my hands, having cut myself on the sharp leaves of the irises when I plunged in, she lay down on the shore on her belly and got hold of my hair and pulled with all her might.
— Poor Sylvie! said my friend, choking up.
— I hope it’s clear, I continued, that I owe you absolutely nothing ...
— Oh yes you do: I taught you how to climb trees. You see those magpie nests up there in the poplar and chestnut trees? — Well, I was the one who taught you how to get at them, — not to mention the wood-pecker nests, which are even higher in the trees come spring. — Since you were a Parisian, you had to attach climbing irons onto your shoes to make it up the trees, — whereas I did it bare-footed!
— Sylvain, I said, let’s not descend into recriminations. We’re about to go visit the tomb of Rousseau’s missing ashes. So let’s take it easy. — The memories he has left behind in this region far outweigh his mortal remains. »
We followed a path that led to the castle of Montl’Évêque and its woods. Here and there ponds glinted through the red foliage, accented by the dark greens of the pines. Sylvain sang me a traditional song of the region:
Courage, my friend, courage!
We’ve almost reached the village!
At the very first house we meet,
We’ll stop for a bite to eat!
The local wine they served in the village proved to be quite refreshing to travelers. Seeing our beards, the innkeeper said to us, « So you’re painters? ... You’ve come to see Châalis? »
Châalis, — the very name brought back memories of distant times ... when I was taken to the abbey once a year to listen to mass and to see the fair they annually used hold near there.
« Châalis, I said ... you mean the place still exists?
— Child, didn’t you know? They’ve sold off everything, — the castle, the abbey, the ruins, everything! Except that the people who bought them have no intention of destroying them ... They’re from Paris: they bought the entire property, — in order to restore it. The lady said that she was ready to spend four hundred thousand francs on it.
— Gee, said Sylvain, if people have that kind of money to spend they should keep it in the bank.
— This will be a great boon to the entire region, said the innkeeper.
— When the revolution broke out, said Sylvain, people in Senlis were quite frightened. Many sold their carriages and their horses for virtually nothing. There was one individual who was so afraid that his carriage might politically compromise him that he actually gave it away! A brace of horses worth five thousand francs was sold for six hundred.
— I would like to have gotten my hands on those!
— The horses?
— No ...
— Except, Sylvain went on to add, it should be pointed out in honor of our town that there were others who decided, given the circumstances, that they would spread their money around. People whose age or whose styles of life would have normally kept them quietly out of public view now decided to organize festivals, create jobs for workers, order carriages and even buy horses, — but not the horses that the scaredy-cats were selling off ... and which eventually ended up in the hands of the horse-traders.
— Sylvain, I said, you fill me with admiration. What a nice turn you’ve given to this little tale. »
La Chapelle-en-Serval, this 20th of November.
Just as it is only fitting, even if the symphony be merely a pastoral one, that the major theme (whether sprightly, tender, or overpowering) be now and then reintroduced in order that it may at last thunder forth in the gradual storm of instruments that gathers for the finale, — so I think it would be useful to reintroduce the abbé de Bucquoy here without however interrupting my journey in search of the castle of his ancestors, an excursion I am undertaking so as to be able to provide a precise description of the setting of his adventures, — which would otherwise be of little interest.
But if the final chords refuse to fall, — it is (as you shall see) certainly not deliberate on my part ...
But first, let me repair an injustice I may have committed toward M. R*** of the Bibliothèque Nationale. Far from having lightly dismissed my bibliographical quest as a wild-goose chase, he went through the roughly eight hundred thousand books in their holdings. I was only informed of this later, — but being unable to locate the missing item, he sent me a semi-official notification of the sale that was going to be held at Techener’s, — in short, he conducted himself like a true scholar.
Aware that auctions of great libraries usually drag on over a number of days, I had tried to find out on what day precisely the book would be put up for sale; if it was going to be on the 20th, I wanted to be sure to be there for the evening session.
But it’s been put off until the 30th!
The book has in fact been classified under the category of History and has been assigned number 3584. Incident of the rarest sort, etc., — but you’re already familiar with the title.
This listing is accompanied by the following note:
« Rare. — Such is the title of this bizarre book whose frontispiece consists of an engraving depicting The Living Hell, that is, the Bastille. The remainder of the volume is made up of extremely singular items. »
« Catalogue of the Library of Monsieur M***, etc. »
I can provide you with a foretaste of this fascinating story, — the truth of which several people would seem to be doubting, — by reproducing some of the notes I took while leafing through Michaud’s Dictionary of National Biography.
Immediately following the biographical article on Charles Bonaventure, count de Bucquoy (generalissimo and member of the Order of the Golden Fleece, famous for his participation in the wars of France, Bohemia, and Hungary, and whose grandson, Charles, was later made a prince of the Empire), there is an entry devoted to the abbé de Bucquoy, who is identified as belonging to the same family as the previous gentleman. His political life began with five years of military service. Having miraculously escaped a major disaster, he made a vow to withdraw from the world and shut himself up in a Trappist monastery. Unconvinced of his vocation, the abbé of Rancé, — the subject of Chateaubriand’s last book, — expelled him from the monastery. He once again put on his military uniform, which he soon traded for beggar’s rags.
Following the example of the fakirs and dervishes, he wandered the world, hoping to provide an example of humility and austerity. He called himself The Dead Man, — and it was under this name that he even established a free school at Rouen.
I’ll stop here for fear of giving the whole story away. But just to prove it has its serious side, let me simply mention that he later proposed to the united states of Holland (who were at war with Louis XIV) « a project to transform France into a republic and to rid the land of arbitrary power. » He died in Hanover at the age of ninety, leaving his books and remaining worldly possessions to the Catholic church, to which he had always remained faithful. — As for his sixteen years of travels through India, only the Dutch book in the Bibliothèque Nationale makes any mention of them. — We shall return to all this later.
Well, all this is quite serious indeed; here’s a bit of news no less serious:
I have just received notice, along with other information that I’d been awaiting, that I have been expelled from the apartment that I had long been renting in Paris. — Excuse me for going on and on about myself again. But just as the life of the abbé de Bucquoy can illuminate an entire epoch, — following the well-known analytical procedure of moving from the simple toward the complex, — so it seems to me that because the existence of a writer is by definition more public than that of other men (whose lives inevitably conceal shadowy nooks and crannies), he therefore has to use his own existence to provide examples of those ordinary occurrences typical of any society.
What follows is a rather feudal document which I leave it up to you to quote from; you may just want to insert those passages which usefully demonstrate how insulting the obsolete language of our bureaucrats can be when addressed to private citizens. — What’s at issue here are general customs and usages, not any individual in particular; the individual here is but a cog in the administrative wheel.
The petitioner of record (the prefect of the Seine), proceeding with the expropriation, which is to be undertaken in the public interest, of the edifices required for the expansion of the approaches to the Louvre and for the extension of the rue de Rivoli, edifices which include the one inhabited by the below-mentioned individual, hereby informs him by the present letter that he is to vacate all the living quarters that he occupies in the said building, and that he shall do so by the first of January eighteen hundred and fifty-one, on the understanding that at this precise date he shall no longer reside in these premises, having removed himself and all of his belongings and having paid all the fees and arrears required of a tenant at the termination of his lease;
Not wishing however that the entirety of the expenses occasioned by this eviction in the public interest should be carried by the below-mentioned holder of the lease, the said petitioner hereby offers him the sum of twenty francs, payable to him by the municipal bank of Paris upon his acceptance of these terms within a fortnight of receipt.
Should the below-mentioned party refuse these terms within the agreed period, the petitioner will withdraw the offer officially tendered above of financial indemnification, and will purely and simply require the individual to vacate the premises as outlined above on the prescribed date in due accordance with the law.
This summons is served so that the below-mentioned party may not plead ignorance to the eviction order officially constituted by this document.
Cost, three francs.
BRIZARD
It is not my intention to get into politics here. — All I’ve ever wanted to do is to engage in opposition. — The expropriation may be perfectly justified, but the terms in which it is couched are contemptible. I observe that here in France the bureaucracies always take on a stern voice. — Similarly, in our courts a man is inevitably considered guilty before being proven innocent. And even if he is proven innocent, he still remains suspect.
This is one of the major causes of all our civil disturbances. If we merely examine the inner dynamics of households, we will observe that when the master starts scolding, everybody, — from the top floor to the bottom, — starts scolding everybody else. — Even the dog starts growling. When the master gets nervous, everybody gets nervous and suffers accordingly. — This becomes particularly evident to anybody who has lived in the provinces, where the social stratifications are far more marked.
Having descended on my mother’s side from peasants who lived in the early Frankish communes situated to the north of Paris, I have retained from earliest childhood a vivid sense of the importance accorded to the law in the French Flanders, — as is the case in England and the Low Countries. This is why, finding myself once again in this region, I am writing these lines to you, which may well seem somewhat peculiar to my Parisian readers, but whose heart-felt sentiments I hope they understand; — for Paris understands everything.
We went to Châalis to take a closer look at the estate before it was restored. The first thing that greets you is a large enclosure surrounded by elms; then there is a sixteenth-century structure to the left, no doubt restored at a later date in the ponderous architectural style of the small castle of Chantilly.
After you visit the kitchens and pantries, the great suspended staircase that dates back to the days of Henri IV leads you up to the first-floor galleries, — a series of large and small rooms that look out onto the woods. A few elaborately framed paintings, — the great Condé on horseback, several forest landscapes, — are all that drew my attention. One of the smaller rooms contains a portrait of Henri IV at the age of thirty-five.
This was the age at which he fell in love with Gabrielle, — and this castle no doubt was a scene of their amours. — This king (whom I cordially detest) resided in Senlis for quite some time, especially at the outset of the siege. Above the words Liberté, egalité, fraternité, his portrait in bronze graces the entrance of the town hall with an inscription claiming that the happiest days of his life were spent at Senlis, — in 1590. — Interestingly enough, however, it is not at Senlis that Voltaire places the crucial episode (imitated after Ariosto) of his love for Gabrielle d’Estrées.
Don’t you find it rather strange that the d’Estrées family should also be related to the abbé de Bucquoy? And yet this is what the genealogy of his family reveals ... I am inventing nothing.
It was the keeper’s son who guided us around the castle, — which has long been abandoned. — He was a fellow who, without being especially educated, nonetheless understood the respectful treatment that antiquities deserve. In one of the rooms he showed us
a monk he had discovered among the ruins. As I inspected this skeleton lying in its trough of stone, I imagined that it was not a monk but rather a Celtic or Frankish warrior who had been buried according to local tradition, — that is, with his face turned toward the East. The names Erman or Armen
8 are after all not infrequent in this region, — not to mention nearby Ermenonville, which the locals also call Arme-Nonville or Nonval, which is its archaic name.
As I was making these observations to Sylvain, we proceeded toward the ruins. A passer-by informed the keeper’s son that a swan had just fallen into a ditch.
« Go rescue him!
— Thanks a lot! ... I hope he won’t take a swipe at me. »
Sylvain observed that swans were hardly dangerous animals.
« Well, gentleman, said the keeper’s son, I’ve seen a swan break a man’s leg with a single blow of his wing. »
Sylvain remained pensive.
The ancient abbey accounts for the most prominent cluster of ruins at Châalis. It was most likely constructed during the reign of Charles VIII, its flamboyant gothic architecture resting on the sturdy pillars of the Carlovingian vaults which contained the tombs. All that is left of its cloister is a long gallery of ogives linking the abbey to an earlier monument, a structure made up of Byzantine columns carved in the era of Charles the Fat and later integrated into sturdy sixteenth-century walls.
The keeper’s son said to us, « They are thinking of tearing down the cloister wall so as to get a better view of the ponds from the castle. At least such was the advice that was given to Madame.
— She should instead be advised, I said, simply to knock out the masonry with which they bricked up the ogives; that way one will get a far more splendid view of the ponds through the arches of the gallery. »
He promised he would make a note of this.
Beyond these ruins there is a tower and a chapel. We climbed up the tower, from which we were able to get a glimpse of the entire valley, with its various ponds and rivers and the large expanse of bare terrain which is called the Desert of Ermenonville and which contains little else but outcroppings of gray sandstone, scrawny pine trees, and stretches of heath.
The reddish outlines of quarries were visible here and there through the naked trees, their hues contrasting with the greens of the woods and plains, — where the white birches with the ivy climbing around their trunks stood out against the russet masses of the forest, framed by the horizon’s blues.
We climbed down from our vantage point and visited the chapel, — an architectural gem. The soaring quality of its pillars and ribs, the delicacy and sobriety of its ornamental detail indicated that it dated back to a period somewhere between flamboyant Gothic and Renaissance. Upon entering the chapel we admired its paintings, which seemed to date from the latter period.
« You’re going to see some rather décolleté saints in here », the keeper’s son said to us. And indeed, next to the door there was a fresco depicting some sort of Glory, perfectly preserved despite its faded colors, except for its lower portion which had been painted over in tempera, — but which would not be that difficult to restore.
The good old monks of Châalis had evidently wanted to cover up some of the more egregious nudity characteristic of the Medici style. — And it was true, all these angels and all these saints could easily have been mistaken for so many cupids and nymphs with their naked breasts and thighs. Between the ribs of its vault, the apse of the chapel offers another series of well preserved figures in the allegorical style that came into fashion after Louis XII. — As we turned to leave, our eyes were caught by the armorial bearings above the door which might provide a clue to the date of these later ornamentations.
It was difficult to make out the details of the quartered escutcheon which had been painted over in blue and white at some later date. In the first and fourth quarters there were some birds that our guide identified as swans, marshaled by the second and first; — but, as it turned out, they were not swans.
Are they eagles displayed, or martlets or eaglets or osprey against a saltire of lightning flashes?
In the second and third quarters, there were spears or fleurs-de-lis, which are the same thing. Issuant from the shield was the crest of a cardinal’s beret whose triangular netting with tassels fell to either side. But unable to count the strands because the stone was so worn away, we were unable to determine whether it was in fact an abbot’s beret.
I have no reference books with me. But I would guess that what we have here are the arms of Lorraine, quartered by those of France. Could they be the arms of the cardinal of Lorraine who, under the name of Charles X, was proclaimed king by this region? Or do they belong to some other cardinal who was also supported by the League? ... I can make neither head nor tail of all this, remaining as I do (I admit) a rather amateur historian ...
