Collected Works of Eugène Sue
Page 562
Velleda’s words were listened to with rapt attention by all the members of her family. Her father was the first to break the silence:
“My children, if indeed our family history is priceless, the reason lies in that that history is the history, not of a family merely, but, above all, of all the proletarians and all the bourgeois of Gallic extraction, of that Gallic race that was conquered and subjugated by the Franks, the dominant race, until 1789, the date of their final emancipation. The struggle of the Children of Joel across the ages with the Children of Neroweg, of whom the Count of Plouernel is a descendant, is a summary of the centuries-old struggle between the vanquishers and the vanquished, the oppressors and the oppressed. By imparting to us a knowledge and the consciousness of what our forefathers have undergone in order to regain their freedom and their rights, this history must render us all the prouder and more jealous of the boon that we have conquered at the cost of so many tears, of such untold privations, and of such torrents of blood. It must inspire us with the desire to defend it unto death.”
THE END
The Seven Cardinal Sins
D’Allonville’s cavalry in Paris during Napoleon III’s coup d’état of 1851 — Sue was exiled from Paris in consequence of his protest against the coup. This exile would go on to stimulate his literary production.
Pride
Anonymous 1899 translation, published by Francis A. Niccolls
This series of novels was published between 1847 and 1849, entitled in the original French Les Sept Pêchés Capitaux. The sixteen volumes examine the Seven Deadly Sins, or cardinal sins, or capital vices, as they are variously known. In Christian teaching, the vices included were placed in the list if they gave rise to other sins in turn. The early Christian desert hermits and theologians, such as Evagrius Ponticus, were thought to be the first to develop the idea of evil thoughts or spirits that one needed to overcome. After the concept spread to Europe, it was taken up by the Catholic Church as a key part of the confessional and as a method of preventing what was considered immoral or unacceptable behaviour before it took hold. For just as long it has been an inspiration for writers and artists, it has been recreated many times.
The series of The Seven Cardinal Sins is probably the best of all Sue’s works to read as an introduction to his style and his skill at characterisation. Whereas in his longer works one can note the verbosity that serial writers tended to employ to eke out the story, in this collection one can see more of the essential Sue. Although the sins chosen as the themes for the stories have biblical connotations, the tales are not homilies per se and read as entertaining stories in their own right.
The first novel in the series is Pride, which introduces M. Bernard, a retired naval Commander, who lives quietly and modestly on his pension in Paris. His housekeeper, Mme Barbancon, rules him with almost military discipline, but is also his nurse, as he has a number of troublesome old wounds from his distinguished naval service. Free of domestic chores, while his health is monitored by his housekeeper, Bernard is able to indulge his passion for gardening. The two residents do disagree – about Mme Barbancon’s encroachment of her kitchen garden on his flower beds, over the reputation of Napoleon and Mme Barbancon’s endless repetition of the story of how she delivered the baby of a mysterious masked lady — but beneath the bickering lies a genuine mutual affection and loyalty that has lasted a decade.
Bernard has a nephew, the son of his late sister, whom he has taken in after he was sent home from military service on extended leave, suffering from a persistent fever. Olivier is a delightful young man, ‘cheerful, obliging quick-witted and delighted with everything,’ and he endeavours to make himself as useful as he can to help with household expenses and chores. Despite his great charms, Bernard and the housekeeper are shocked to be told that within the hour, Gerald, Duc de Senneterre will dine at their humble home, as Olivier’s former college classmate and respected comrade. Although Senneterre is from an ancient French noble family, much of their fortune is gone and he has enlisted in the army as a private.
Despite initial misgivings, the entire company have a delightful evening and the talk eventually turns to mutual acquaintance, including the school bully the two young men knew, a man named Macreuse and de Mornand, who had embarked upon a political career. Meanwhile, Mme Barbancon receives a mysterious letter from the wealthy Mme Beaumesnil, begging her to attend her sickbed. In a no more than a day, M Bernard, his housekeeper and Olivier, seem to have been propelled into the company of illustrious people with whom they previously had little or no contact. What will come of this change of fortune – if that is what it is?
The title page of the first edition of this translation
CONTENTS
VOLUME I.
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VIII.
CHAPTER IX.
CHAPTER X.
CHAPTER XI.
CHAPTER XII.
CHAPTER XIII.
CHAPTER XIV.
CHAPTER XV.
CHAPTER XVI.
CHAPTER XVII.
CHAPTER XVIII.
CHAPTER XIX.
CHAPTER XX.
CHAPTER XXI.
CHAPTER XXII.
CHAPTER XXIII.
CHAPTER XXIV.
CHAPTER XXV.
CHAPTER XXVI.
CHAPTER XXVII.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
CHAPTER XXIX.
CHAPTER XXX.
CHAPTER XXXI.
CHAPTER XXXII.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
VOLUME II.
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VIII.
CHAPTER IX.
CHAPTER X.
CHAPTER XI.
CHAPTER XII.
CHAPTER XIII.
CHAPTER XIV.
CHAPTER XV.
CHAPTER XVI.
CHAPTER XVII.
CHAPTER XVIII.
CHAPTER XIX.
CHAPTER XX.
CHAPTER XXI.
CHAPTER XXII.
CHAPTER XXIII.
CHAPTER XXIV.
CHAPTER XXV.
CHAPTER XXVI.
CHAPTER XXVII.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
CHAPTER XXIX.
CHAPTER XXX.
CHAPTER XXXI.
CHAPTER XXXII.
VOLUME I.
CHAPTER I.
THE OLD COMMANDER.
ELLE AVAIT UN vice, l’orgueil, qui lui tenait lieu de toutes les qualités.[A]
[A] She had one fault, pride, which, in her, answered in place of all the virtues.
Commander Bernard, a resident of Paris, after having served under the Empire in the Marine Corps, and under the Restoration as a lieutenant in the navy, was retired about the year 1830, with the brevet rank of captain.
Honourably mentioned again and again for his daring exploits in the maritime engagements of the East Indian war, and subsequently recognised as one of the bravest soldiers in the Russian campaign, M. Bernard, the most unassuming and upright of men, with the kindest heart in the world, lived quietly and frugally upon his modest pension, in a little apartment on one of the least frequented streets of the Batignolles.
An elderly woman, named Madame Barbançon, had kept house for him ten years or more, and, though really very fond of him, led him a rather hard life at times, for the worthy female, who had an extremely high temper and a very despotic disposition, was very fond of reminding her employer that she had sacrificed an enviable social position to serve him.
The real truth was, Madame Barbançon had long acted as assistant in the establishment of a well-known midwife, — an experience which f
urnished her with material for an inexhaustible stock of marvellous stories, her great favourite being her adventure with a masked lady who, with her assistance, had brought a lovely girl baby into the world, a child Madame Barbançon had taken care of for two years, but which had been claimed by a stranger at the expiration of that time.
Four or five years after this memorable event, Madame Barbançon decided to resign her practice and assume the twofold functions of nurse and housekeeper.
About this time Commander Bernard, who was suffering greatly from the reopening of several old wounds, needed a nurse, and was so well pleased with Madame Barbançon’s skill that he asked her to enter his service.
“You will have a pretty easy time of it, Mother Barbançon,” the veteran said to her. “I am not hard to live with, and we shall get along comfortably together.”
Madame Barbançon promptly accepted the offer, elevated herself forthwith to the position of Commander Bernard’s dame de confiance, and slowly but surely became a veritable servant-mistress. Indeed, seeing the angelic patience with which the commander endured this domestic tyranny, one would have taken the old naval officer for some meek-spirited rentier, instead of one of the bravest soldiers of the Empire.
Commander Bernard was passionately fond of gardening, and lavished any amount of care and attention upon a little arbour, constructed by his own hands and covered with clematis, hop-vines, and honeysuckle, where he loved to sit after his frugal dinner and smoke his pipe and think of his campaigns and his former companions in arms. This arbour marked the limits of the commander’s landed possessions, for though very small, the garden was divided into two parts. The portion claimed by Madame Barbançon aspired only to be useful; the other, of which the veteran took entire charge, was intended to please the eye only.
The precise boundaries of these two plats of ground had been, and were still, the cause of a quiet but determined struggle between the commander and his housekeeper.
Never did two nations, anxious to extend their frontiers, each at the expense of the other, resort to more trickery or display greater cleverness and perseverance in concealing and maintaining their mutual attempts at invasion.
We must do the commander the justice to say that he fought only for his rights, having no desire to extend, but merely to preserve his territory intact, — territory upon which the bold and insatiable housekeeper was ever trying to encroach by establishing her thyme, savory, parsley, and camomile beds among her employer’s roses, tulips, and peonies.
Another cause of heated controversy between the commander and Madame Barbançon was the implacable hatred the latter felt for Napoleon, whom she had never forgiven for the death of a young soldier, — the only lover she had ever been able to boast of, probably. She carried this rancour so far, in fact, as to style the Emperor that “Corsican ogre,” and even to deny him the possession of any military genius, an asseveration that amused the veteran immensely.
Nevertheless, in spite of these diverse political sentiments, and the ever recurring and annoying question of the boundaries of the two gardens, Madame Barbançon was, at heart, sincerely devoted to her employer, and attended assiduously to his every want, while the veteran, for his part, would have sorely missed his irascible housekeeper’s care and attentions.
The spring of 1844 was fast drawing to a close. The May verdure was shining in all its freshness; three o’clock in the afternoon had just sounded; and though the day was warm, and the sun’s rays ardent, the pleasant scent of freshly watered earth, combined with the fragrant odour of several small clumps of lilacs and syringas, testified to the faithful care the commander bestowed upon his garden, for from a frequently and laboriously filled wash-tub sunk in the earth, and dignified with the name of reservoir, the veteran had just treated his little domain to a refreshing shower; nor had he, in his generous impartiality, excluded his housekeeper’s vegetable beds and kitchen herbs from the benefits of his ministrations.
The veteran, in his gardening costume of gray linen jacket and big straw hat, was now resting from his labours in the arbour, already nearly covered with a vigorous growth of clematis and honeysuckle. His sunburned features were characterised by an expression of unusual frankness and kindness, though a heavy moustache, as white as his bristling white hair, imparted a decidedly martial air to his physiognomy.
After wiping the sweat from his forehead with a blue checked handkerchief and returning it to his pocket, the veteran picked up his pipe from a table in the arbour, filled and lighted it, then, establishing himself in an old cane-bottomed armchair, began to smoke and enjoy the beauty of the day, the stillness of which was broken only by the occasional twitter of a few birds and the humming of Madame Barbançon, who was engaged in gathering some lettuce and parsley for the supper salad. If the veteran had not been blessed with nerves of steel, his dolce far niente would have been sadly disturbed by the monotonous refrain of the old-fashioned love song entitled “Poor Jacques,” which the worthy woman was murdering in the most atrocious manner.
“Mais à présent que je suis loin de toi,
Je mange de tout sur la terre,”[B]
she sang in a voice as false as it was nasal, and the lugubrious, heart-broken expression she gave to the words, shaking her head sadly the while, made the whole thing extremely ludicrous.
[B] Instead of “Je manque de tout sur la terre.”
For ten years Commander Bernard had endured this travesty without a murmur, and without taking the slightest notice of the ridiculous meaning Madame Barbançon gave to the last line of the chorus.
It is quite possible that to-day the meaning of the words struck him more forcibly, and that a desire to devour everything upon the surface of the earth did not seem to him to be the natural consequence of separation from one’s beloved, for, after having lent an impartial and attentive ear a second time to his housekeeper’s doleful ditty, he exclaimed, laying his pipe on the table:
“What the devil is that nonsense you are singing, Madame Barbançon?”
“It is a very pretty love song called ‘Poor Jacques,’” snapped Madame Barbançon, straightening herself up. “Every one to his taste, you know, monsieur, and you have a perfect right to make fun of it, if you choose, of course. This isn’t the first time you have heard me sing it, though.”
“No, no, you’re quite right about that!” responded the commander, satirically.
“I learned the song,” resumed the housekeeper, sighing heavily, “in days — in days — but enough!” she exclaimed, burying her regrets in her capacious bosom. “I sang it, I remember, to that masked lady who came—”
“I’d rather hear the song,” hastily exclaimed the veteran, seeing himself threatened with the same tiresome story. “Yes, I much prefer the song to the story. It isn’t so long, but the deuce take me if I understand you when you say:
“‘Mais à présent que je suis loin de toi,
Je mange de tout sur la terre.’”
“What, monsieur, you don’t understand?”
“No, I don’t.”
“It is very plain it seems to me, but soldiers are so unfeeling.”
“But think a moment, Mother Barbançon; here is a girl who, in her despair at poor Jacques’s absence, sets about eating everything on the face of the earth.”
“Of course, monsieur, any child could understand that.”
“But I do not, I must confess.”
“What! you can’t understand that this unfortunate young girl is so heart-broken, after her lover’s departure, that she is ready to eat anything and everything — even poison, poor thing! Her life is of so little value to her, — she is so wretched that she doesn’t even know what she is doing, and so eats everything that happens to be within reach — and yet, her misery doesn’t move you in the least.”