The Clock of the Centuries

by Albert Robida

  Entitled to a pension from the July government, elected president of the syndical chamber of wine-merchants and spirit-sellers of Paris, and honored member of the Societé des Combatants des Trois Glorieuses.

  * Pierre Brigaille, little-known poet of the 17th century, died of indigestion in 1668 following a series of banquets in the homes of financiers and aristocrats. Reappeared in the home of a descendant, a bailiff’s clerk; did not wish to live on the produce of this labor and has returned fervently to work. Ten thousand rapidly-written lines of verse having procured him no more than a dinner and a pair of shoes, Brigaille immediately produced 10,000 lines of verse cursing the stupid and vilely utilitarian epoch into which he had so sadly fallen. Has fortunately been awarded a pension by the Societé des Gens de Lettres.

  * Jacob Manassé, money-changer, carried off by a plague that ravaged the Mainz ghetto in 1580. Suddenly re-emerged in the home of Monsieur le Duc de Marcoucy—a descendant of the illustrious Marcoucy of the Crusades, eight centuries of warrior nobility, 120 consecutive Marcoucys dead on battlefields, two constables, seven Maréchals de France, but also descended from Manassé via his mother, heiress to the Manassé fortune, an accumulation of millions harvested in various crashes or industrial enterprises enjoying great success…for their founders.

  Monsieur le Duc is very embarrassed by his ancestor, who refuses to understand anything and believes that he has come back to negotiate a little loan. Proposed at first two deniers per livre by way of interest, or 43% per annum—legal interest authorized by the ordinances of Louis X of France—but came down to 30%. The Duc established the ancestor in a remote room at the very end of one of the Château de Marcoucy’s wings and is keeping him carefully locked up, but Manassé, gradually brought up to date by he servants, is kicking up a fuss. Great aristocratic scandal.

  * Geoffroy, knight, Comte de Campigny, Vicomte de Mauvezin, Seigneur de Chamarans, patron of the most holy Abbaye de la Trinité-sur-Loire, slain while attacking the English defenses at Orléans with Jehanne la Pucelle in 1429. Suddenly returned in a room at the Château de Campigny and fell very quickly from his initial amazement into a state of fury closely akin to madness. In the first place, his beautiful château, which he had left almost new, solidly built, surrounded by deep moats and furnished with engines of war, munitions and skilled mercenaries in order to make war with the English, has been demolished—he does not know when or by whom—save for the keep, whose ditches have disappeared and which could not be held for two hours against a band of free archers. New and very ugly buildings have been constructed in place of the fine towers and walls; the chapel has vanished. Of the Abbaye de la Trinité-sur-Loire, nothing remains but three or four ivy-covered arches; the town of Campigny has lost its walls and has grown at the expense of the château’s projections!

  Moreover, this false Campigny is inhabited by Barons de Campigny who are neither his heirs nor his kindred—which is to say, by felonious usurpers. And Geoffroy, Comte de Campigny, Vicomte de de Mauvezin, Seigneur de Chamarans, who found himself in good health and strong in body, having already been in a mad mood at the moment of his accident at Orléans, did 100,000 francs’ worth of damage to the property of his successors at Campigny in the first few hours of his return. Fortunately, the new Campignys, from a large Jewish bank, have the means to sustain this petty loss. It required a dozen of their gamekeepers to prevent the old warrior from doing any further damage, and the new branch of the Campignys was generous enough to award him a pension of 1200 francs.

  * A patrol from the Egyptian army of year VI in the Revolutionary Calendar, massacred by the mamelukes on the eve of the battle of the Pyramids, named Pierre Beadu, Jean Crapotte, Joseph Bellart and Jean Lecoq, returned to the light of day in an Arab village and made their way back to Cairo with weapons and luggage. The four-day old—or rather young—soldiers were repatriated by the first available boat and are lodged at Les Invalides, not yet comprehending anything of their adventure and anxiously awaiting news of their comrades.

  * Claude Forquin, burger of Paris, sworn Great Warden of Hosiery-Drapers, merchant at the sign of the Agneau-d’Or, choked by anger in 1702 on learning, during his supper, of the 15th deferment of a lawsuit that the guild had brought against the braid-sellers. Returned to the home of his several-times-great-grandson in the same profession, a minor employee of Deux Magots, the biggest emporium of the latest fashions in Paris. When he had pulled himself together so far as was possible on that same day, Claude Forquin hastened to the superb offices of the guild in the Rue des Déchargeurs, which, to his great indignation, he found occupied by a cheese-merchant. He ran thereafter to the home of the guild’s bursar in the Rue Barredubec, where he found no one, the last bursar having ceased to practice 50 years before. It was impossible to obtain any information on the suit against the scheming braid-sellers, haberdasher and ribbon-makers!

  On his way, Claude Forquin passed the Deux Magots and went in to inform his grandson of his frustration. Horror! Within the shop were, all together, woolen cloths, silks, cottons, textiles, gloves, furs and made-up garments! These infamous mercers were, therefore, infringing the rights of the drapers’ guild, and usurping those of the glove-makers, fur-dealers, hat-makers, merchant tailors, etc. Had they, therefore, won a conclusive victory in the lawsuit? The grandson, interrogated, knew nothing. Other subjects of indignant amazement: instead of three apprentices at most, according to the regulations of the Guild, there were more than 30 employees.

  “Thirty?” said the grandson proudly. “No, 45! We’re the largest shop in Paris.”

  “Forty-five! The owner must have 42 sons, then? And look at these fabrics! Do you have Calmande, Espagnolette, Dauphine, frieze-cloth, baracan, wincey? Yes, these fabrics! Your drugget is nothing but a drug, my lad!24 What about the rules of mastership and wardenship? What have you done with them? And the wise ordinances of the King? Everything is lost!”

  * Jeanne Verdure, wife of Louis Goget, merchant butcher of the Rue Montmartre, departed for a less troubled world in ‘93 at the age of 24. The ci-devant curé of the church of the ci-devant Saint-Eustache having been arrested and his church transformed into a sort of public house, she dared to manifest an unpatriotic disapproval in the street. Was included in a batch condemned by Citizen Fouquier-Tinville and found herself in a tumbrel with her curé, a market-porter guilty of the same crime, a former Maréchal de France, two former provincial ladies, a drummer from the ex-Gardes Françaises who, while drunk in an inn, had spoken ill of Robespierre, an ex-monk, a girl from the Palais-Royal25 and a carpenter who had complained that he had no work.

  Returned in the home of one of her great-nephews, an opposition deputy, a Voltairean and Freemason, an admirer of the Great Revolution and its immortal principles—the regenerators of modern nations—and of Napoléon and his no-less-immortal method of rejuvenating Old Europe by means of a large bloodbath and the repeated application of 500,000 bayonets, and, on top of that, an old bachelor, a member of the Caveau and a bon vivant in private.

  * Messire Aubin de la Marre, equerry. Mayor of the little town of D***, which he quit at a ripe old age in 1625. Returned to the home of a petty coppersmith, his descendant, in the same town, rather embarrassed by this important magistrate. Messire Aubin’s heart is distraught with bitterness; in addition to the decadence of his family, which could look back in his own time on three or four centuries of haute bourgeoisie, he observes too many dire changes in his fine town, formerly so lively and very proud of its eight churches, its bishopric and its collegiate church, its four convents, its old belfry, its royal château, its ramparts, its privileges, its town council, etc., etc. None of that remains; everything has been erased. There are only two churches left, one of them the rather poor parish church, whose bell-tower is scarcely holding up, the other converted into a pump-house and feed-store. The belfry has collapsed, the bishopric has been suppressed and market-gardeners are growing salad vegetables on the site of the château; there are silly little houses whe
re the majestic ramparts and terraces once stood, and silence reigns in the dismal streets. Cleared of all monuments, vestiges of superstition and barbarism, the disgraced and disgruntled town vegetates, forgetful of its past. Of old and important families, extinct or vanished, no trace remains but names on crumbling headstones in the cemetery…

  In addition to these authentic reappearances, there are several doubtful cases, among which it is appropriate to cite that of a fallacious individual who dared to present himself one day at the prefecture in Poitiers, representing himself as a free Comte, grandmaster of Charlemagne’s cup-bearers, sent by that Emperor to inspect the Administration of Aquitaine. It was soon established that this extraordinary revenant had not come from such a distant past and was none other that a celebrated trickster named Romieu.

  To the mild public astonishment occasioned by these reappearances so far in advance of their times, young Doctor Montarcy, with the great authority derived from his long career, replied with reasonably strong considerations. What do we really know about natural laws? Almost nothing. It is necessary to admit that we are subject to them, and that we try with more or less success to work out what they are. There are phenomena that will always remain incomprehensible to us, mysteries that will remain eternally impenetrable, and before which thought must always retreat. Was it not the case before, in the former order of things, that one saw people veritably in advance or behind their times, in respect of their character, their ideas, and the entire-make-up of their personality?—people who had strayed into a century that was manifestly not their own? That happened continually. These irregularities of the former order furnish, by analogy, the only possible explanation of the troubling irregularities of today.

  CHAPTER XVII

  First Specimens of the 18th Century

  Our already-old acquaintance, the Marquis Houquetot de Chastelandry, who was getting younger every day, could pass for a very young man by comparison with Antoine-Claude Le Coq de la Bénardière, departed in 1788 at the age of 72, and Lady Etiennette Barbé, his wife, younger than he by 15 years, who had lived until 1815—both of whom were thrown back by an error of destiny into an absolutely unfamiliar society in a world transformed, to which they could not reconcile themselves.

  Antoine-Claude Le Coq de la Bénardière, in his time a bourgeois of Compiègne, lieutenant of the Administration of Rivers and Forests for the population of Soissons for Compiègne, Senlis, Beaumont-sur-Oise, Clermont en Beauvois, Noyon, Laigue, Villers-Cotteret, Coucy and Grurie du Valois, had found himself replanted in that region, considerably in advance of his time, with neither relatives nor friends—understandably—in the midst of a generation completely unknown to him. The initial pleasant surprise of this worthy old married couple in finding one themselves on Earth again, in seeing the green trees and the blue sky, in once again feeling the warm caress of the sunlight on their old bones, quickly changed into a confusion from which they would have had considerable difficulty in extracting themselves if Palluel and Montarcy had not enthusiastically seized the opportunity to collaborate to some degree with Providence.

  The young and savant Doctor Montarcy and the spirited Palluel, editor of the journal Backwards and champion of the past, were highly honored to arrange things on behalf of, and put themselves at the service of, the worthy old couple from Compiègne, welcoming them into the journal’s offices and venerating them as the first examples of the 18th century that was scheduled to return and was already almost on the horizon. They were lodged in a quiet little apartment above the journal’s offices, far from the noises of the street, in order to shelter them from indiscreet inquiries and from excessively violent mental shocks, as they were still somewhat startled by their return to life and their abrupt disembarkation in an unknown century.

  Monsieur Le Coq de la Bénardière was a tall, strong man, whose full and florid features radiated the benevolent tranquility of an optimistic temperament. His chin and lips were those of a man sensitive to the pleasures of life; he had the bright and intelligent eyes that one sees in bourgeois portraits of the 18th century, absolutely lacking in the vague anxiety or rather insolent irony of the eyes of 19th century portraiture.

  A rather marked tendency to plumpness gave Monsieur de la Bénardière’s flowery waistcoat a pleasant amplitude and a rather cheerful appearance, which completed the impression given by the general character of his physiognomy. Monsieur Le Coq de la Bénardière must have been a good, brave, honest and very happy bourgeois, a worthy man with well-developed faculties, a very healthy constitution and an open mind, satisfied with living a healthy and expansive life in which everything was happily equilibrated, with work and duties conscientiously accepted and distractions enjoyably accepted in both occupations and pleasure—a life facilitated by honest ease, due as much to personal endeavor as to an honest portion of a inheritance, representing the supplementary fraction of the accumulated labors of several good bourgeois generations, in commerce, in trade and in the king’s service.

  Monsieur Le Coq de la Bénardière was quite cheerful at first, disposed to accept philosophically the immense changes and upsets that confronted him. Open-minded and curious, he saw before him a new world to discover, a true journey into the unknown. His wife, however, who was still rather weak, did not appear to accept the situation as well; she spent every day ensconced in a large armchair, silent and sad. Monsieur de la Bénardière accused her of being childish, and became impatient with not being able to draw anything from her but vague replies when he questioned her on very important personal matters—family matters with which he was preoccupied.

  CHAPTER XVIII

  How the Difficulties of Doubling Awkward Cases

  Sorted Themselves Out Better Than Was Feared.

  Follies of Old Age of Some Young Political Men

  As time marched on and brought a modification of ideas and things, the political machine, especially in our country, did not function without a certain amount of friction and grinding of gears. There were two Chambers, the Chamber of Deputies and the Chamber of Peers, continually occupied in unmaking laws—a process which would have been subject to almost as much empty verbosity and vain agitation as that with which the previous era had made them, had not a few wise and alert minds, profiting from the lessons of life, been continually striving to calm the turmoil with appeals to reason and to stifle the prattle of parliamentary oratory.

  The existence of Chamber of Peers, which we mentioned above, suffices to indicate that certain political capes have already been doubled for a second time on the return journey—stormy capes, the first time around, whose reefs had broken several ships of State, the flagship of the July monarchy and the imperial galley.

  It was inevitable that the approach of certain fateful dates caused many people considerable anxiety, spreading a malaise of anticipation everywhere, from which commerce and industry suffered greatly. Then, when the day of the inverse revolution arrived, to everyone’s astonishment and relief, a truly amazing facility was observed in the event, a sort of simple gliding transition. 99 out of every 100 Frenchmen were suddenly satisfied, quite happy and content, for the great majority no longer remembered that they had imposed, acclaimed or accepted the opposite. With sentiments inverted in all sincerity, several groups of political men sat down at a new trough, ready to defend it as if they had never previously sought the exercise of their unbreakable convictions and the satisfaction of their appetites.

  Everything has, therefore, gone smoothly. Historians must surely have worn spectacles with excessively strong lenses, which made them see double or even triple, greatly exaggerating our little events. What exaggerations there are in the chronicles of our civil discords! It makes no difference whether it is a small matter of un-executing a few of those naïve individuals who, during the game of the Revolution, knew no better than to catch a dozen bullets in the head, or a simple opportunity for a voyage from the colonies at the expense of the State.

  It is, in all probability, much the same i
n the other countries of Europe or America; people everywhere must see things sorting themselves out quite well, thanks to the new progression of time.

  Thus, with the unfortunate capes negotiated and orderly life resumed, the Chambers were able to occupy themselves in unmaking the laws that had formerly been concocted, one by one—and, which may seem rather surprising at first, in the abrogation of laws inevitably called laws of progress, which were no longer making things go badly.

  Are we bound therefore, to concede that Palluel, the champion of the past, was right? Does true progress really consist in going backwards? The seasons of political perturbation that we have relived, the returns of social squalls, have not passed, however, without leaving some anxiety in certain minds that are agitated and muddled by nature, which cannot find, in the new order of things, either the philosophical joys of superior minds or the good and simple satisfactions of the host of good folk who live quite naturally.

  The danger, or rather the difficulty, comes from those malcontents by temperament, who never think that things are moving quickly enough—the same ones who, in the old order, under the pretext of going forward, were seized by vertigo, overturning institutions and customs and precipitating populations towards a chimerical and utopian future. Have they not assassinated the present sufficiently before, with the threat of a future that they claimed to be inevitable, forging unnecessary sorrows and creating enormous artificial currents in the indolence or panurgism of large numbers of people: veritable mental illnesses of the social organism? Now, these men who are always in too much of a hurry want to run too rapidly backwards, and are working to bring back too soon old institutions for which people were not ready, whose time has not yet come.