by Voltaire
The Huron replied that there was no need for anyone’s consent, and that he thought it was quite ridiculous to go and ask others what to do; for when two parties were agreed, there was no need of a third to bring them together.
‘I don’t consult anyone,’ he said, ‘when I want to have breakfast, or to go hunting, or to go to sleep, though I quite understand that in love it’s not a bad idea to have the consent of the person concerned. But as I am not in love with my uncle or my aunt, I have no need to consult them over this; and if you take my advice, you’ll leave the Abbé de St Yves out of it as well.’
Of course the lovely Breton used all her tact to reduce her Huron to a state of decorum. She even became angry, but she soon relented. There is no knowing how the conversation would have ended if the Abbé had not appeared at sunset to take his sister home. The Child of Nature let his uncle and aunt retire to bed, for they were a little tired after the ceremony and their lengthy dinner. He spent part of the night composing verses to his beloved in the Huron language, for one must remember that love will make lovers into poets the whole world over.
Next morning his uncle spoke to him after breakfast, in the presence of Mademoiselle de Kerkabon, who was much moved by the scene :
‘Heaven be praised, my dear nephew, that you have the honour of being a Christian and a Low Breton! But this is not enough. I am getting on in years. My brother left only a small plot of ground worth very little; but I have a fine Priory. If you will only be ordained a sub-deacon, as I hope you will, I will resign my Priory to you, and you will live very comfortably, after being the consolation of my old age.’
‘Much good may it do you, my dear uncle,’ replied the Child of Nature. ‘You must live as long as you can. I have no idea what it means to be a sub-deacon, nor to resign; but anything will suit me so long as I can have Mademoiselle de St Yves.’
‘Good Heavens, nephew, what are you talking about? Are you really so much in love with that beautiful girl?’
‘Yes, uncle, indeed I am.’
‘I am sorry, nephew, but it is quite impossible for you to marry her.’
‘On the contrary, uncle, it’s altogether possible. She not only took my hand when she left me, but she promised to be my wife, and I shall certainly marry her.’
‘I tell you it is out of the question. She is your godmother. It is a deadly sin for a godmother to take her godson’s hand! A man is forbidden to marry his godmother; the laws of Heaven and earth are against it.’
‘I believe you must be teasing me, uncle! Why should it be forbidden to marry one’s godmother when she is young and pretty? I saw nothing in the Book you gave me to say that it was wrong to marry girls who have helped people to be baptized. I notice every day that innumerable things go on here which are not in your Book, and that nobody follows what it says. I own it surprises me, it shocks me. If I am deprived of the lovely St Yves under pretext of my baptism, I warn you I shall carry her off and unbaptize myself.’
The Prior was confounded; and his sister burst into tears.
‘My dear brother,’ said she, ‘our nephew mustn’t damn himself. Surely our Holy Father the Pope can give him a dispensation, and then he will be able to live a happy Christian life with his beloved.’
The Child of Nature embraced his aunt.
‘Tell me, who is this delightful man,’ he asked, ‘who is so kind to boys and girls in love? I’ll go and speak to him straight away.’
They explained to him who the Pope was, and the Child of Nature was even more astonished than before.
‘There is not a word of all this in your Book, my dear uncle. I have travelled; I know what the sea is like. Here we are on the shores of the Atlantic. It’s a ridiculous idea, quite incomprehensible, that I should leave Mademoiselle de St Yves to go and ask permission to love her from a man who lives by the Mediterranean, four hundred leagues from here. Besides, I shouldn’t understand what he said! I am going straight to the Abbé de St Yves, who lives only a league from here, and I tell you I shall marry my darling this day.’
While he was still talking, the Magistrate entered, and as usual wanted to know where he was going.
‘I am going to be married,’ replied the Child of Nature, as he ran off; and a quarter of an hour later he was already at the house of his charming and beloved Breton, who was still asleep.
Meanwhile Mademoiselle de Kerkabon was remarking to the Prior with a sigh, ‘Brother, you’ll never make our nephew a sub-deacon.’
The Magistrate was very much displeased by this expedition, because he intended his son to marry Mademoiselle de St Yves; and this son was even more stupid and unbearable than his father.
CHAPTER 6
THE CHILD OF NATURE RUSHES TO HIS MISTRESS AND BECOMES ENRAGED
THE Child of Nature had no sooner arrived than he asked an old servant the way to her mistress’s room. He gave a hearty push at the door, which was not securely fastened, and flew towards the bed. Mademoiselle de St Yves woke up with a start, and cried out :
‘Good Heavens! You here! Can it be you? Stop it at once, what do you think you are doing?’
He replied, ‘I am going to marry you,’ and indeed he would have made her his, if she had not fought him off with all the decency of a girl who has been well brought up.
The Child of Nature had no intention of being trifled with; he regarded all such affectations as utterly silly.
‘This is not how my first mistress, Mademoiselle Abacaba, behaved! You have no honesty; you give me your word that you’ll marry me, and now you go back on it. This is breaking the first rules of honourable behaviour. I’ll teach you to keep your word, and set you on the path of virtue.’
The Child of Nature’s own virtue was virile and fearless, worthy of his patron saint Hercules, whose name he had been given at his baptism, and he was about to give it full scope. But the lady’s virtue was of a more discreet nature; and her piercing cries summoned the good Abbé de St Yves and his housekeeper, as well as a devout old servant and a parish priest. The sight of these people diminished the assailant’s ardour.
‘Heavens above, my dear neighbour,’ said the Abbé, ‘what do you think you are doing?’
‘My duty,’ replied the young man. ‘I am keeping my vows, and they are sacred.’
Mademoiselle de St Yves blushed as she covered herself up, while the Child of Nature was taken into another room. The Abbé pointed out to him the enormity of his proceedings, and he defended himself by citing the laws of nature, with which he was perfectly well acquainted. The Abbé maintained that positive law should always take precedence, and that, without the conventions men have accepted, the law of nature would almost always result in natural brigandage.
‘We have to have lawyers, priests, witnesses, contracts, and dispensations,’ said he. In reply the Child of Nature made the observation that savages have always made:
‘Then you must be very dishonest, if you need so many precautions amongst you.’
The Abbé had some trouble in resolving this difficulty.
‘I admit,’ he said, ‘that there are many rogues and cheats among us; and there would be just as many among the Hurons if they were all collected together in a large town. But we also have some wise, honest, and enlightened spirits, and it is these men who have made the laws. The more virtuous the man, the more he should submit to them; thus we set an example to profligates, who respect a curb that virtue voluntarily imposes.’
The Child of Nature was impressed by this reply. We have already noticed that he was a sensible fellow. He was calmed by flattering words, and given hopes for the future, two traps by which men are caught on both sides of the world. He was even allowed to see Mademoiselle de St Yves, once she had finished dressing. All this took place with the utmost decorum; at the same time, however, the sparkling eyes of Hercules kept his mistress blushing and the company all in a tremble.
There was great difficulty in persuading him to return to his family. Once more the power of the lovely St Yves had
to be used; the more she felt her influence over him, the more she loved him. She persuaded him to go, and she was sorry to have done so. When at last he had gone, the Abbe, who was Mademoiselle de St Yves’s guardian as well as her elder brother by many years, made up his mind to screen his pupil from the eagerness of this terrible lover. He went off to consult the Magistrate, who advised him to confine the poor girl in a convent, as he still had hopes of the Abbé’s sister for his son. It was a terrible blow. One could expect bitter protests over being put into a convent even from someone with untroubled feelings; but for a girl in love, and for one so good and tender too, it was enough to drive her to despair.
Meanwhile the Child of Nature was back at the Prior’s and was telling the whole story with his usual naïveté. He met with the same remonstrances, which had some effect on his mind, but none at all on his feelings. Next day he was proposing to go back to his darling and reason with her about the laws of nature and the laws of convention, but he was prevented by the Magistrate, who informed him with ill-concealed delight that she was in a convent.
‘All right,’ said he, ‘I will go and reason with her in the convent.’
‘You cannot do that,’ said the Magistrate, and explained to him at great length what a convent is, and its derivation from the Latin conventus, meaning an assembly. But the Huron could not understand why he could not be admitted to the assembly. He became really furious, however, when he eventually grasped that this assembly was a kind of prison for keeping girls locked up, a horrible idea, unheard-of among the Hurons and the English. He felt like his patron Hercules when Eurytus king of Oechalia, who was no less cruel than the Abbé de St Yves, refused him his lovely daughter Iole, who was no less lovely than the Abbé’s sister. He had a mind to go and set fire to the convent, and carry off his mistress or be burnt with her, proposals that terrified Mademoiselle de Kerkabon, who gave up all hopes of seeing her nephew a sub-deacon, and murmured through her tears that he seemed to be possessed of the devil ever since he was baptized.
CHAPTER 7
THE CHILD OF NATURE REPELS THE ENGLISH
PLUNGED in deepest melancholy, the Child of Nature directed his steps towards the seashore. His double-barrelled gun was at his shoulder, his great cutlass at his side. Every now and then he shot a few birds, and was often tempted to shoot himself, but the thought of Mademoiselle de St Yves still made life worth living. Sometimes he cursed his uncle, his aunt, the whole of Lower Brittany, and his baptism; but sometimes he blessed them, because through them he had come to know his beloved. He made up his mind to go and burn down the convent, and then stopped short for fear of burning his mistress. The waves of the Channel are not more buffeted by the east and west winds than his heart was by so many contrary impulses.
He was striding along without knowing where he was going, when he heard the sound of a drum. In the distance he saw a crowd of people, half of them running towards the shore, the other half running away. Shouts rent the air on all sides. Courage and curiosity drove him at full speed towards the source of all the clamour, and he reached it in four bounds. He was immediately recognized by the Commandant of the Militia, who had met him at supper with the Prior.
‘Ah, it’s the Child of Nature,’ cried the commandant. ‘He will fight for us,’ and the troops, who had been petrified with fear, rallied at his words and shouted:
‘It’s the Child of Nature, the Child of Nature.’
‘Pray tell me, gentlemen,’ said he, ‘what is it all about. Why are you so dismayed? Have your mistresses all been shut up in convents?’
At this, a hundred excited voices cried out: ‘Don’t you see that the English are landing?’
‘What of it?’ replied the Huron. ‘They are fine folk, the English. They have never tried to make me a sub-deacon or carried off my mistress.’
The commandant explained to him that the English had come to pillage the Abbey of the Mountain, drink his uncle’s wine, and perhaps carry off Mademoiselle de St Yves. The little vessel from which he had landed in Brittany had only come to reconnoitre the coast; this was an act of aggression committed without declaring war on the King of France, and the province was in danger.
‘Oh, if that’s the case, they are violating the law of nature. But leave it to me. I have spent a long time among them, and understand their language. Let me talk to them, for I cannot believe that they have such a wicked plan.’
During this conversation, the English squadron drew near. The Huron ran towards them, jumped into a little boat, reached the Admiral’s vessel, and climbed on board. He then asked whether it was true that they had come to ravage the country without declaring war in an honest manner. The Admiral and all on board burst into a hearty laugh; they gave him a drink of punch, and sent him back again.
The Child of Nature was deeply offended. He now had no other thought than that of putting up a good fight against his former friends, for the sake of his compatriots and his uncle the Prior. The gentry from all around came running up, and he joined them. They had a few cannon, which he loaded, aimed, and fired one after the other. As the English disembarked, he rushed at them and killed three with his own hand; he even wounded the Admiral who had laughed at him. His courage was an inspiration to the whole militia; the English were forced back to their ships, and the shores resounded with cries of victory:
‘Long live the King. Long live the Child of Nature.’
They all embraced him, and hurried to staunch the blood from a few scratches he had received.
‘If only Mademoiselle de St Yves were here,’ he sighed, ‘she would bandage me.’
The Magistrate, who had been hiding in his cellar while the battle lasted, came to congratulate him like the others. But he was not a little surprised when he heard Monsieur Hercules remarking to a handful of willing young men who surrounded him: ‘Saving the Abbey of the Mountain is nothing, lads; there’s a girl to be rescued!’
This was enough to rouse every one of these ardent youngsters. They were already flocking after him, making straight for the convent, and if the Magistrate had not immediately warned the commanding officer, and the merry band had not been pursued, it would have been all over. The Child of Nature was brought back to his uncle and aunt, who received him with tears of joy.
‘I can quite see that you will never be a sub-deacon, or a prior,’ his uncle told him. ‘You will be an even braver officer than my brother the captain, and I daresay you’ll be just as poor.’
Mademoiselle de Kerkabon wept over him as she embraced him and said : ‘He will be killed as my brother was. It would be much better for him to be a sub-deacon.’
In the course of the battle the Child of Nature had picked up a large purse full of guineas, which had probably been dropped by the Admiral. He had no doubt that with all this money he could buy up the whole of Lower Brittany and, more particularly, make Mademoiselle de St Yves a great lady. But what he was advised to do was to make a journey to Versailles to receive the reward for his services. The mayor and the chief officers loaded him with testimonials. His aunt and uncle gave their approval to their nephew’s journey, and saw no difficulty about his gaining access to the King. This alone would give him immense prestige in the province; and in so good a cause these kindly people added to his English purse a considerable sum from their savings. The Child of Nature said to himself:
‘When I see the King, I’ll ask him for the hand of Mademoiselle de St Yves in marriage, and surely he will not refuse me.’
So he set off amid the applause of the whole canton, overwhelmed with embraces, drenched with his aunt’s tears, blessed by his uncle, and recommending his spirit to the lovely St Yves.
CHAPTER 8
THE CHILD OF NATURE GOES TO COURT AND ON THE WAY HAS SUPPER WITH SOME HUGUENOTS
THE Child of Nature took the coach to Saumur, for at that time there was no other means of travel. When he arrived, he was surprised to find the place almost deserted, and to see many families moving out. He was told that six years earlie
r the population of Saumur had been over fifteen thousand, but that at present it was less than six thousand. This was the topic of discussion over supper at his inn. There were several Protestants at table, some complaining bitterly and some trembling with anger, while others wept as they lamented:
‘Nos dulcia linquimus arva, nos patriam fugimus.’
The Child of Nature, who knew no Latin, was told that these words meant: ‘We are leaving the country we love, we are fleeing from the land where we were born.’
‘And why are you leaving your country, gentlemen?’
‘Because they want us to recognize the Pope.’
‘And why shouldn’t you recognize him? You haven’t any godmothers you want to marry, have you? Because I was told that it was he that would give me permission.’
‘Oh, but this Pope, Sir, he says he rules over kings’ dominions!’
‘But, gentlemen, what is your profession?’
‘Most of us are drapers and manufacturers, Sir.’
‘Well, if your Pope says he is going to rule over your cloths and your factories, you are quite right not to recognize him. But as for kings, that’s their business. Why meddle in it?’
At this point a little man in black began to speak, and enlarged in a very learned manner on the grievances of the company. He spoke with such energy of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, he waxed so pathetic over the fate of fifty thousand fugitive families, and another fifty thousand who had been converted by quartering dragoons in their houses, that the Child of Nature found himself weeping in sympathy.
