The Aerial Valley

by Brian Stableford

  One going back into the cabin, we found Antonin with his daughter Dina, who were waiting for us to have the morning meal, which consisted of milk, butter and cakes.

  When it was finished, Antonin said to me: “We won’t interrupt the accustomed order of our occupations; for your part, Monsieur, act with the same frankness. When you want to leave us, it will be entirely your decision; we shall facilitate your exit, but we warn you that at the same time, we shall take infallible measures to ensure that neither you nor anyone else can penetrate into this retreat in future. On the other hand, if you desire to settle here with us, we will tell you in a few days whether you are acceptable to us.”

  After this declaration, the two hermits went out with Rubens. I told them that I was going to finish exploring their valley, and directed my steps southwards, toward the part that faced Spain. That side was only closed by a simple hill, not very high, the top of which it was easy to reach. The purity of the air, the perfume of the plants, the variety of locations and the rich vegetation that I encountered everywhere made that little journey a delightful stroll. From the summit of the hill, the view extended over an immense horizon, but the distribution of the other side of the hill rendered access to that part of the valley even more impracticable than the other, for the entire crest, in the extent of a full semicircle, advanced externally as a protrusion, in such a manner that it was impossible to see the foot of the rock, which was more than three hundred toises below. I explored the crest in the direction of the part that looked toward France, all the way to the escarpment that it was impossible for me to scale.

  It was easy for me to judge by that disposition of the encasement of the valley, entirely open to the south and closed to the north, that it must experience the mildest temperature that it elevation could permit.

  A short time after my return to the cabin, dinner was served; my hosts warned me that they would follow their custom that day of only taking two meals, and by the abundance of that one I understood that supper would be combined with it.

  The surprise, for those solitaries, after three years, of seeing an inhabitant of a world that one existed now in their memory, the ideas that encounter inspired in them, and the desire on my part to satisfy the curiosity of the good hermits, prolonged the meal.

  I shall only report of the conversation that followed it that which is indispensable to the explanation of my establishment in the Valley.

  “With Monsieur’s permission,” Dina’s father said to me, “we shall continue the reading commenced before his arrival. Rubens, go fetch it from the library.”

  “A library!” I exclaimed.

  And, indeed, Rubens having drawn a curtain at the back of the room, I perceived several shelves of books.

  “You seem” Antonin continued, “The excellent society of our soirées. These are the only friends that have remained faithful to us, so it is from them alone that we have not separated ourselves.”

  Having approached the bookshelves, I noticed a few books damaged by insects. “Your friends,” I said, “are resenting their solitude somewhat. In a few years they will have abandoned you like all the others, if you don’t take more care of them.”

  “Our plan,” he replied, “was certainly to enclose them in a cupboard, but after having wasted wood and time we renounced it. My dear Simeon has proved to be no more skilled than I am for that work.”

  “In your place, I would not have been so embarrassed.”

  “Monsieur is apparently a carpenter?”

  “Yes, like Télémaque. That book had just appeared when my father occupied himself with my education,20 and thanks to a little natural ability, I could compete with the best worker of that genre in Paris. You have the wood and the tools; I guarantee that within a week, your books will be sheltered from any accident.”

  From that moment on I was part of the little family. The three of us combined between us what was necessary, not only to found a society, but also to civilize and educate it. One was an excellent cultivator, the other a good musician and litterateur, and I, in addition to the art of carpentry, possessed some knowledge of mathematics and was a passable draughtsman.

  The work made rapid progress, and the body of the bookcase was in place before the time that I had promised.

  That task was immediately followed by another, rendered very urgent by the rigor of the season, which was beginning to make itself felt, which was to have doors and windows that closed exactly.

  The Pyrenees, in that part of architecture, and in general in relationship to the arts, and even to civilization, is about two hundred years behind the rest of France. Situated at the extremity of France and Spain, for eight months of the year it is almost devoid of communication with either of those two empires, and for the other four months only sees rich people who come to exchange their money and their vices for the local mineral waters. If any scientist or artist passes through, it is as if he were among Hottentots, incapable of appreciating his talent, much less profiting from it.

  Furthermore, the inhabitant of those mountains rarely goes far from his native soil; he has neither the appetite for work nor the industry necessary to seek his fortune in others regions. His dialect, half Spanish and half French, and limited in either respect, would be sufficient to render him a foreigner anywhere else. Thus, everything collaborates to isolate the Pyrenees, and until some branch of commerce and sociability is discovered there, that part of France will languish for a long time in ignorance and the species of barbarity into which it is plunged. That matter often served as a text for our evening conversations; we combined them with reading and music.

  Eventually, when I had obtained the entire confidence of my hosts, one of them revealed to me the motive for their retreat into this solitude in the following terms.

  III

  “I was born in Toulouse into the reformed religion. My father was one of the Lutheran counselors of the Parliament of that city. He was the best of men. Philanthropy was his only passion. Incessantly occupied with the wellbeing of his fellows, he consecrated to that honorable occupation all his time and a part of his fortune. Brought up in the Protestant religion, he was attached to it above all because it was the most tolerant, because in practicing it one could accord one’s esteem to all religions that render men sensitive, compassionate, generous and bring them to love their fellow and consider him as a brother, whatever his country of origin, his religion and his birth might be.

  “‘The creator of the Universe,’ he said, ‘is the father of all human beings; he spreads his sunlight and his dew over all the continents of the earth. The man who persecutes his brother, because he does not render God the same worship as himself, is mad or wicked. What happens between the creator and his creature ought to be irrelevant to the government; its sole duty is to watch over the actions of humans in relation to one another.’

  “In exercising those virtues he was constantly cherished by his family, esteemed by his colleagues and honored by the public. My education was in the first rank of his pleasures as well as his duties, and in order to complete it, he took care to guide the first sentiments of my heart toward a young woman that he judged best suited to my happiness by virtue of her personal qualities as well as those relative to public opinion. Shortly afterwards he obtained for me the succession to his responsibilities as a counselor.

  “Eventually, his health having been eroded even more by work then by age, I was accorded, at his request, the faculty of exercising that responsibility, of which he only retained the honorific title. I had replaced him for ten years, as happy as it is permissible for a man to be with my worthy spouse, my son, a few friends, and the best of them all, my respectable father, when the persecutions against the reformed commenced.

  “The government then had for ministers two men who, either out of ignorance or prejudice, excited the monarch to violent measures against the inhabitants of his realm who professed the Lutheran belief. At first, attempts were made to win over the leaders of the party by means
of money and honors, but when it was perceived that those means only succeeded with cowardly souls devoid of credit, the opposite means was decided: that of rigor.

  “Nearly five years passed in uncertainty and irresolution, which proved the ignorance of the government even m more than its weakness. Finally, the military and despotic spirit of the master prevailed over all advice and all considerations; in consequence, the Edict of Nantes was revoked, and all the favors accorded to the reformed—especially the principal one, Parliaments composed equally of Catholics and Protestants—were annulled.

  “We had anticipated the blow for some time and I had rid myself of my responsibilities before the decree was published, but what was infinitely more sensible to me was the order of the council to remove the children from Protestant families in order to have them brought up in the Catholic religion. That terrible order struck a mortal blow at the two people who were most dear to me, my father and my wife.

  “I was left alone with my son; overwhelmed by the grief of the losses I had just experienced I trembled that at any moment, it might be completed by the removal of my child. Well before the sale of my responsibility, I had already liquidated all my property in the region; thus being perfectly free, I did not hesitate to escape from the last and most frightful of the misfortunes that threatened me. I left my house furtively, taking my son and all my servants, who, professing the same religion as me, would have been exposed to the same persecutions, and I went to take refuge in a village in the Pyrenees, whose inhabitants, all of the reformed religion, had the greatest obligations to my father.

  “A short time afterwards, I saw one of my oldest friends, who lived all the year on a considerable estate in the vicinity of Toulouse, arrive in the same village. He had his daughter with him, twelve years old; it was the same motive that had torn them away from their home. It was a great consolation in my misfortune to share it with such a friend; we promised never to separate; but before making an extreme decision we thought it appropriate to be precisely informed regarding the present state of affairs. We flattered ourselves with the idea that the storm had been too violent to be durable, and hoped that sane politics would have prevailed over passion and opened eyes to the disastrous consequences of a momentous error.

  “In consequence, we sent an enlightened and prudent man to seek information as to the present and to sound out the future. The news that he brought us only increased our alarm. The barbaric Council of France, despairing of conversion, had resolved to suppress or annihilate; undisciplined dragoons were covering all the roads and chasing fugitive Protestants before them, like cruel tigers chasing a flock of timid ewes. All those that were caught were massacred pitilessly.

  “There was no more to deliberate; it was necessary to leave France—but where could we go from the frontier to which we had been driven? Into Spain, the country of ignorance and the Inquisition? There would be nothing there but a pyre ardent to consume us. Thus, we were enclosed on all sides in these mountains. New Israelites, chased from our hearths, it was necessary for us to seek a new promised land, which, without being covered in honey and irrigated by milk, could at least provide for our needs and shelter us from Pharaoh’s pursuits.

  “We learned from our hosts that there was a valley on the Spanish frontier that had once belonged to that kingdom, which had been conceded to the Duc de Bellegarde In exchange for a domain in the Low Countries that the lord in question had given to the Spaniards. That valley, which was leased to shepherds, as many from Spain as from France, appeared to us, according to the description given of it, to suit our objective perfectly. We went to visit it, and found that there was, indeed, no refuge that combined as many advantages.

  “We negotiated to buy it under an assumed name. The parties were soon in agreement with regard to the price. Monsieur de Bellegarde was as eager to sell a domain almost devoid of income as we were to buy it. We came to an arrangement thereafter for all the animals in the valley—sheep, cows, mules and horses—as well as the cabins and stables that had been constructed there.

  “Our plan was to take with us all the inhabitants of the Protestant village where we were and to found in that isolated region a new, perfectly independent colony, but the people, almost entirely limited to physical existence, could scarcely see beyond the moment. The evils of the future only affected them like bad dreams, rarely enough to influence their conduct. Our hosts were also attached to the ground they inhabited by their properties, for the loss of which, in their eyes, no others could compensate. A few unmarried young people, reduced to the state of domestic service, were the only ones who consented to come with us. They helped us to transport a great many objects of every species, of which we were perhaps about to be deprived forever.

  “Our first concern on arriving in this place was to render it inaccessible. Only one path led to it, which was the cornice that you scaled, and which was wide enough to permit the passage of animals. We succeeded, with the aid of long and assiduous labor, in narrowing it to the condition in which you have seen it. You are the first person in three years who has proved, much to our surprise, that it was not impracticable. Of all animals, only the chamois could cross it. Access being absolutely denied to the two other species of the bear and the wolf, so murderous in these mountains, we had no more to do than destroy the animals of those species that were enclosed in the valley in order to free our flocks from the fury of their enemies, as we were from ours.

  “As soon as we had ensured our tranquility against any species of attack from without, we redirected our attentions to the interior. First we regulated the order of labor. We had brought sufficient supplies to get us through the bad season, but after having isolated ourselves completely in this retreat, it was necessary to find means within its bounds to provide for the needs of the future.

  “Our predecessors had already made an attempt at cultivation that had succeeded perfectly, which was infallible in virgin ground fecundated for so many centuries by the rich deposits of the mountains. We had no more to do than to augment and vary that cultivation. All the plantations succeeded. We have brought in abundant harvests of wheat; you’ve seen the beauty of our vegetable garden; fruit trees, and even vines, so recalcitrant in the Pyrenees, gave us fortunate hopes.

  “The only thing that we lack is weavers to put to work the wool of our ewes and the flax of our harvests. The study that you appear to have made of the mechanical arts will surely be useful to us in that regard, and I hope that with your help we will soon be able to renounce the garments of savages and dress like civilized people.

  “It only remains for me to talk to you about the administration of the colony and the education of our children—which includes everything, the civil and the moral, for politics is henceforth an absolutely dead letter for us. But the evening is too far advanced to make a start on that matter. We shall leave it for another day, if you consent to remain with us. It is enough to say to you frankly that we desire you to do so. You have had time to reflect and we shall expect your response tomorrow morning.

  “It is necessary to warn you, however,” he added, in a solemn tone, “that whatever decision you make, whether to remain in this solitude or to leave, we have decided to break the remainder of the cornice that permitted your entry. Thus, either you will be fixed here for life, or you will never return.”

  IV

  I had spent part of the night reflecting on the choice that had been put to me. The next day, I went to find my hosts; I told them that I had decided to share their solitude, but that, before accepting me as a companion, it was appropriate that they should know who I was, and I gave them a brief account of my history in these terms:

  “I descend from an ancient Scots family attached at all times to the house of Stuart. My father, Lord Odgermont, occupied a distinguished place at the court of Charles I, and although faithful to the reformed religion of his ancestors, he enjoyed all the esteem of that unfortunate monarch. If he had also possessed his confidence, he would have inspired h
im with measures more in conformity with the mores of the English and the principles of their government, and the good but overly weak sovereign would have been able to conserve his crown and his life. His death brought the ruination of my entire family.

  “My father was arrested and condemned shortly after him, and I, the sole inheritor of immense properties that were all confiscated and sold, was saved by one of our faithful servants and taken to France in the retinue of Charles II. When that prince was recalled to his fatherland in order to remount the throne of his fathers, I constantly resisted all the requests that he made for me to accompany him.21 What would I have found in England? A brilliant servitude in a corrupt court, where cruel vengeances would need to be exercised if I hoped to recover my former heritage—a morality and principles that horrified me. With what eyes would the young favorites of a king delivered without restraint to all the impetuosity of the senses look upon a sage of their own age issuing by his conduct a daily censure of the court?

  “It is necessary to confess to you, however, that that precocious sagacity was inspired less by virtue than by the love with which I was smitten for a young Frenchwoman in Louis XIV’s court. I was rewarded in return, and, already occupying a distinguished rank in the army, I was able to hope to make my fortune promptly under a conquering king, and one day to obtain the consent of my beloved’s parents. I did not take long, in fact, to make it evident that I was guided by love and honor; the campaigns I made covered me with glory and recompenses.

  “Welcomed from then on with distinction by the family into which I desired to enter, I hazarded a request that was favorably received. A short while afterwards our union was decided and the contract taken to the king for signature. I was waiting for that formality, to which a great price was attached, when the edict forbidding marriages between Catholics and Protestants burst forth like a thunderclap, and closed forever entry to all positions, as many civil as military.