THE BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE OF CHANTERIE AND COMPANY
Within a week after his arrival Godefroid had seen such a concourse of persons, he had overheard fragments of conversation relating to so many serious topics, that he began to perceive an enormous activity in the lives of the five inmates of the house.He noticed that none of them slept more than five hours at the most.
They had all made, in some sort, a first day, before the second breakfast.During that time strangers came and went, bringing or carrying away money, sometimes in considerable sums.A messenger from the Mongenod counting-room often came,--always very early in the morning, so that his errand might not interfere with the business of the bank.
One evening Monsieur Mongenod came himself, and Godefroid noticed that he showed to Monsieur Alain a certain filial familiarity added to the profound respect which he testified to the three other lodgers of Madame de la Chanterie.
On that evening the banker merely put a few matter-of-fact questions to Godefroid: "Was he comfortable? Did he intend to stay?" etc.,--at the same time advising him to persevere in his plan.
"I need only one thing to make me contented," said Godefroid.
"What is that?" asked the banker.
"An occupation."
"An occupation!" remarked the Abbe de Veze."Then you have changed your mind? I thought you came to our cloister for rest.""Rest, without the prayers that enlivened monasteries, without the meditation which peopled the Thebaids, becomes a disease," said Monsieur Joseph, sententiously.
"Learn book-keeping," said Monsieur Mongenod, with a smile; "you might become in a few months very useful to my friends here.""Oh! with pleasure," cried Godefroid.
The next day was Sunday; Madame de la Chanterie requested him to give her his arm to high mass.
"It is," she said, "the only coercion I shall put upon you.Several times during the past week I have wished to speak to you of religion, but it did not seem to me that the time had come.You would find plenty of occupation if you shared our beliefs, for then you would share our labors as well."During mass Godefroid noticed the fervor of Messieurs Nicolas, Joseph, and Alain; and as during the last few days he had also noticed their superiority and intelligence, and the vast extent of their knowledge;he concluded, when he saw how they humbled themselves, that the Catholic religion had secrets which had hitherto escaped him.
"After all," he said to himself, "it is the religion of Bossuet, Pascal, Racine, Saint-Louis, Louis XIV., Raffaelle, Michel-Angelo, Ximenes, Bayard, du Guesclin; and how could I, weakling that I am, compare myself to those intellects, those statesmen, those poets, those heroes?"If there were not some real instruction in these minor details it would be imprudent to dwell upon them in these days; but they are indispensable to the interests of this history, in which the present public will be none too ready to believe, and which presents at the outset a fact that is almost ridiculous,--namely, the empire which a woman of sixty obtained over a young man disappointed with the world.
"You did not pray at all," said Madame de la Chanterie to Godefroid as they left the portal of Notre-Dame; "not for any one,--not even for the soul of your mother."Godefroid colored and said nothing.
"Will you do me the favor," continued Madame de la Chanterie, "to go to your room and not come into the salon for an hour? You can meditate, if you love me, on the first chapter in the third book of the 'Imitation'--the one entitled: 'Of inward communing.'"Godefroid bowed stiffly and went to his room.
"The devil take them!" he exclaimed to himself, giving way to downright anger."What do they want with me here? What is all this traffic they are carrying on? Pooh! all women, even pious ones, are up to the same tricks.If Madame" (giving her the name by which her lodgers spoke of her) "wants me out of the way it is probably because they are plotting something against me."With that thought in his mind he tried to look from his window into that of the salon; but the situation of the rooms did not allow it.He went down one flight, and then returned,--reflecting that according to the rigid principles of the house he should be dismissed if discovered spying.To lose the respect of those five persons seemed to him as serious as public dishonor.
He waited three quarters of an hour; then he resolved to surprise Madame de la Chanterie and come upon her suddenly before she expected him.He invented a lie to excuse himself, saying that his watch was wrong; for which purpose he set it on twenty minutes.Then he went downstairs, making no noise, reached the door of the salon, and opened it abruptly.
He saw a man, still young, but already celebrated, a poet, whom he had frequently met in society, Victor de Vernisset, on his knees before Madame de la Chanterie and kissing the hem of her dress.If the sky had fallen, and shivered to atoms like glass, as the ancients thought it was, Godefroid could not have been more astonished.Shocking thoughts came into his mind, and then a reaction more terrible still when, before the sarcasm he was about to utter had left his lips, he saw Monsieur Alain in a corner of the room counting out bank-notes.
In an instant Vernisset was on his feet, and the worthy Alain looked thunderstruck.Madame de la Chanterie, on her part, gave Godefroid a look which petrified him; for the twofold expression on the face of the visitor had not escaped him.
"Monsieur is one of us," she said to the young poet, with a sign towards Godefroid.
"Then you are a happy man, my dear fellow," said Vernisset; "you are saved! But, madame," he added, turning to Madame de la Chanterie, "if all Paris had seen me, I should rejoice in it.Nothing can ever mark my gratitude to you.I am yours forever; I belong to you utterly.