She became a figure comparable, in another sense, with Jeanie
70 THE COUNTRY PARSON.
Deans, whom she resembled in charm of character, modesty,
in her religious nature and personal comeliness. So Francois
Tascheron still continued to excite the curiosity not merely of
Limoges, but of the whole department. Some romantic
women openly expressed their admiration of him.
" If there is a love for some woman about him at the
bottom of all this," said these ladies, " the man is certainly
no ordinary man. You will see that he will die bravely ! "
Would he confess? Would he keep silence? Bets were
taken on the question. Since that outburst of rage with
which he received his doom (an outburst which might have
had a fatal ending for several persons in court but for the
intervention of the police), the criminal threatened violence
indiscriminately to all and sundry who came near him, and
with the ferocity of a wild beast. The gaoler was obliged to
put him in a strait waistcoat ; for if he was dangerous to
others, he seemed quite as likely to attempt his own life.
Tascheron's despair, thus restrained from all overt acts of
violence, found a vent in convulsive struggles which frightened
the warders, and in language which, in the middle ages,
would have been set down to demoniacal possession.
He was so young that women were moved to pity that a
life so filled with an all-engrossing love should be cut off.
Quite recently, and as if written for the occasion, Victor
Hugo's sombre elegy and vain plea for the abolition of the
death-penalty (that support of the fabric of society) had
appeared, and " The Condemned's Last Day" was the order
of the day in all conversations. Then finally, above the
boards of the assizes, set, as it were, upon a pedestal, rose the
invisible mysterious figure of a woman, standing there with
her feet dipped in blood ; condemned to suffer heart-rending
anguish, yet outwardly to live in unbroken household peace.
At her every one pointed the finger and yet, they almost
admired that Limousin Medea with the inscrutable brow and
the heart of steel in her white breast. Perhaps she dwelt in
TASCHERON. 71
the home of this one or that, and was the sister, cousin, wife,
or daughter of such an one. What a horror in their midst !
It is in the domain of the imagination, according to Napo-
leon, that the power of the unknown is incalculably great.
As for the des Vanneaulx's hundred thousand francs, all the
efforts of the police had not succeeded in recovering the
money ; and the criminal's continued silence was a strange
defeat for the prosecution. M. de Granville (in the place of
the public prosecutor then absent at the Chamber of Deputies)
tried the commonplace stratagem of inducing the condemned
man to believe that the penalty might be commuted if a full
confession were made. But the lawyer had scarcely showed
himself before the prisoner greeted him with furious yells,
and epileptic contortions, and eyes ablaze with anger and
regret that he'could not kill his enemy. Justice could only
hope that the Church might effect something at the last
moment. Again and again the des Vanneaulx applied to the
Abbe Pascal, the prison chaplain. The Abbe Pascal was not
deficient in the peculiar quality which gains a priest a hearing
from a prisoner. In the name of religion, he braved Tas-
cheron's transports of rage, and strove to utter a few words
amidst the storms that convulsed that powerful nature. But
the struggle between spiritual paternity and the tempest of
uncontrolled passions was too much for poor Abbe Pascal ; he
retired from it defeated and worn out.
"That is a man who has found his heaven here on earth,"
the old priest murmured softly to himself.
Then little Mme. des Vanneaulx thought of approaching the
criminal herself, and took counsel of her friends. The Sieur
des Vanneaulx talked of compromise. Being at his wits' end,
he even betook himself to M. de Granville, and suggested
that he (M. de Granville) should intercede with the King for
his uncle's murderer if only, if only, the murderer would hand
over those hundred thousand francs to the proper persons.
The avocat general retorted that the King's majesty would not
72 THE COUNTRY PARSON.
stoop to haggle with criminals. Then the des Vanneaulx
tried Tascheron's counsel, offering him twenty per cent, on
the total amount as an inducement to recover it for them.
This lawyer was the one creature whom Tascheron could see
without flying into a fury; him, therefore, the next-of-kin
empowered to offer ten per cent, to the murderer, to be paid
over to the man's family. But in spite of the mutilations
which these beavers were prepared to make in their heritage,
in spite of the lawyer's eloquence, Tascheron continued obdu-
rate. Then the des Vanneaulx, waxing wroth, anathematized
the condemned man and called down curses upon his head.
" He is not only a murderer, he has no sense of decency ! "
cried they, in all seriousness, ignorant though they were of
the famous Plaint of Fualdes. The Abbe Pascal had totally
failed, the application for a reversal of judgment seemed likely
to succeed no better, the man would go to the guillotine, and
then all would be lost.
" What good will our money be to him where he is going ? "
they wailed. " A murder you can understand, but to steal a
thing that is of no use ! The thing is inconceivable. What
times we live in, to be sure, when people of quality take an
interest in such a bandit ! He does not deserve it."
" He has very little sense of honor," said Mme. des Van-
neaulx.
" Still, suppose that giving up the money should compro-
mise his sweetheart ! " suggested an old maid.
" We would keep his secret," cried the Sieur des Vanneaulx.
"But then you would become accessories after the fact,"
objected a lawyer.
" Oh ! the scamp ! " This was the Sieur des Vanneaulx' s
conclusion of the whole matter.
The des Vanneaulx's debates were reported with some
amusement to Mme. Graslin by one of her circle, a very
clever woman, a dreamer and idealist, for whom everything
must be faultless. The speaker regretted the condemned
TASCHERON. 73
man's fury ; she would have had him cold, calm, and dig-
nified.
"Do you not see," said Veronique, "that he is thrusting
temptation aside and baffling their efforts. He is deliberately
acting like a wild beast."
"Besides," objected the Parisienne in exile, "he is not a
gentleman, he is only a common man."
" If he had been a gentleman, it would have been all over
with that unknown woman long ago," Mme. Graslin answered.
These events, twisted and tortured in drawing-rooms and
family circles, made to bear endless constructions, picked to
pieces by the most expert tongues in the town, all contributed
to invest the criminal with a painful interest, when, two
months later, the appeal for mercy was rejected by the
Supreme Court. How would he bear himself in his last
moments ? He had boasted that he would make so desperate
a fight for his life that it was impossible that he should lose it.
Would he confess? Would his conduct belie his language?
Which side would win their wagers? Are you going to be
there? Are you not going? How are we to go? As a
matter of fact, the distance from the prison of Limoges to the
place of execution is very short, sparing the dreadful ordeal
of a long transit to the prisoner, but also limiting the number
of fashionable spectators. The prison is in the same building
as the Palais de Justice, at the corner of the Rue du Palais
and the Rue du Pont-Herisson. The Rue du Palais is the direct
continuation of the short Rue de Monte-a-Regret which leads
to the Place d'Aine or des Argnes, where executions take place
(hence, of course, its name). The way, as has been said, is
very short, consequently there are not many houses along it,
and but few windows. What persons of fashion would care
to mingle with the crowd in the square on such an occasion ?
But the execution expected from day to day was day after
day put off, to the great astonishment of the town, and for the
following reasons : The pious resignation of the greatest
74 THE COUNTRY PARSOX.
scoundrels on their way to death is a triumph reserved for the
Church, and a spectacle which seldom fails to impress the
crowd. Setting the interests of Christianity totally aside
(although this is a principle never lost sight of by the Church),
the condemned man's repentance is too strong a testimony to
the power of religion for the clergy not to feel that a failure
on these conspicuous occasions is a heart-breaking misfortune.
This feeling was aggravated in 1829, for party spirit ran high
and poisoned everything, however small, which had any bear-
ing on politics. The Liberals were in high glee at the pros-
pect of a public collapse of the " priestly party," an epithet
invented by Montlosier, a Royalist who went over to the
Constitutionals and was carried by his new associates further
than he intended. A party, in its corporate capacity, is
guilty of disgraceful actions which in an individual would be
infamous, and so it happens that when one man stands out
conspicuous as the expression and incarnation of that party,
in the eyes of the crowd he is apt to become a Robespierre, a
Judge Jeffreys, a Laubardemont a sort of altar of expiation
to which others equally guilty attach ex votos in secret.
There was an understanding between the episcopal authori-
ties and the police authorities, and still the execution was put
off, partly to secure a triumph for religion, but quite as much
for another reason by the aid of religion justice hoped to
arrive at the truth. The power of the public prosecutor,
however, had its limits ; sooner or later the sentence must be
carried out ; and the very Liberals who insisted, for the sake
of opposition, on Tascheron's innocence, and had tried to
upset the case, now began to grumble at the delay. Opposi-
tion, when systematic, is apt to fall into inconsistencies ; for
the point in question is not to be in the right, but to have a
stone always ready to sling at authority. So towards the
beginning of August, the hand of authority was forced by the
clamor (often a chance sound echoed by empty heads) called
public opinion. The execution was announced.
TASCHERON. 76
In this extremity the Abbe Dutheil took it upon himself to
suggest a last resource to the bishop. One result of the suc-
cess of this plan will be the introduction of another actor in
the judicial drama, the extraordinary personage who forms a
connecting link between the different groups in it ; the greatest
of all figures in this Stinc ; the guide who should hereafter
bring Mme. Graslin on a stage where her virtues were to shine
forth with the brightest lustre ; where she would exhibit a great
and noble charity and act the part of a Christian and a min-
istering angel.
The bishop's palace at Limoges stands on the hillside above
the Vienne. The gardens, laid out in terraces supported by
solidly-built walls, crowned by balustrades, descend stepwise,
following the fall of the land to the river. The sloping ridge
rises high enough to give the spectator on the opposite bank
the impression that the Faubourg Saint-Etienne nestles at the
foot of the lowest terrace of the bishop's garden. Thence,
as you walk in one direction, you look out across the river,
and in the other along its course through the broad fertile
landscape. When the Vienne has flowed westward past the
palace gardens, it takes a sudden turn towards Limoges, skirt-
ing the Faubourg Saint-Martial in a graceful curve. A little
further, and beyond the suburb, it passes a charming country
house called the Cluzeau. You can catch a glimpse of the
walls from the nearest point of the nearest terrace, a trick of
the perspective uniting them with the church towers of the
suburb. Opposite the Cluzeau lies the island in the river,
with its indented shores, its thickly growing poplars and forest
trees, the island which Veronique in her girlhood called the
Isle of France. Eastward, the low hills shut in the horizon
like the walls of an amphitheatre.
The charm of the situation and the rich simplicity of the
architecture of the palace mark it out among the other build-
ings of a town not conspicuously happy in the choice or
employment of its building materials. The view from the
76 THE COUNTRY PARSON.
gardens, which attracts travelers in search of the picturesque,
had long been familiar to the Abbe Dutheil. He had brought
M. de Grancour with him this evening, and went down from
terrace to terrace, taking no heed of the sunset shedding its
crimson and orange and purple over the balustrades along the
steps, the houses on the suburb, and the waters of the river.
He was looking for the bishop, who at that moment sat under
the vines in a corner of the furthest terrace, taking his dessert,
and enjoying the charms of the evening at his ease.
The long shadows cast by the poplars on the island fell like
a bar across the river ; the sunlight lit up their topmost crests,
yellowed somewhat already, and turned the leaves to gold.
The glow of the sunset, differently reflected from the different
masses of green, composed a glorious harmony of subdued
and softened color. A faint evening breeze stirring in the
depths of the valley ruffled the surface of the Vienne into a
broad sheet of golden ripples that brought out in contrast all
the sober hues of the roofs in the Faubourg Saint-Etienne.
The church towers and housetops of the Faubourg Saint-
Martial were blended in the sunlight with the vine-stems of
the trellis. The faint hum of the country town, half-hidden
in the re-entering curve of the river, the softness of the air
all sights and sounds combined to steep the prelate in the
calm recommended for the digestion by the authors of every
treatise on that topic. Unconsciously the bishop fixed his
eyes on the right bank of the river, on a spot where the length-
ening shadows of the poplars in the island had reached the
bank by the Faubourg Saint-Etienne, and darkened the walls
of the garden close to the scene of the double murder of old
Pingret and the servant ; and just as his snug felicity of the
moment was troubled by the difficulties which his vicars-general
recalled to his recollection, the bishop's expression grew
inscrutable by reason of many thoughts. The two subordinates
attributed his absence of mind to ennui ; but, on the contrary,
the bishop had just discovered in the sands of the Vienne the
TASCHERON. 77
key to the puzzle, the clue which the des Vanneaulx and the
police were seeking in vain.
" My lord," began the Abbe de Grancour, as he came up
to the bishop, " everything has failed ; we shall have the sor-
row of seeing that unhappy Tascheron die in mortal sin. He
will bellow the most awful blasphemies ; he will heap insults
on poor Abbe Pascal ; he will spit on the crucifix, and deny
everything, even hell-fire."
" He will frighten the people," said the Abbe Dutheil.
" The very scandal and horror of it will cover our defeat and
our inability to prevent it. So, as I was saying to M. de
Grancour as we came, may this scene drive more than one
sinner back to the bosom of the Church."
His words seemed to trouble the bishop, who laid down the
bunch of grapes which he was stripping on the table, wiped
his fingers, and signed to his two vicars-general to be seated.
" The Abbe Pascal has managed badly," said he at last.
" He is quite ill after the last scene with the prisoner," said
the Abbe de Grancour. "If he had been well enough to
come, we should have brought him with us to explain the
difficulties which put all the efforts which your lordship might
command out of our power."
" The condemned man begins to sing obscene songs at the
top of his voice when he sees one of us ; the noise drowns
every word as soon as you try to make yourself heard," said
a young priest who was sitting beside the bishop.
The young speaker leaned his right elbow on the table, his
white hand drooped carelessly over the bunches of grapes as
he selected the reddest berries, with the air of being perfectly
at home. He had a charming face, and seemed to be either
a table companion or a favorite with the bishop, and was, in
fact, a favorite and the prelate's table-companion. As the
younger brother of the Baron de Rastignac he was connected
with the bishop of Limoges by the ties of family relationship
and affection. Considerations of fortune had induced the
78 THE COUNTRY PARSON.
young man to enter the Church ; and the bishop, aware of
this, had taken his young relative as his private secretary
until such time as advancement might befall him ; for the
Abbe Gabriel bore a name which predestined him to the
highest dignities of the Church.
"Then have you been to see him, my son? " asked the bishop.
" Yes, my lord. As soon as I appeared, the miserable man
poured out a torrent of the most disgusting language against
you and me ; his behavior made it impossible for a priest to
stay with him. Will you permit me to offer you a piece of
advice, my lord ?"
" Let us hear the wisdom which God sometimes puts into
the mouth of babes," said the bishop.
"Did he not cause Balaam's ass to speak?" the young
Abbe de Rastignac retorted quickly.
"According to some commentators, the ass was not very
well aware of what she was saying," the bishop answered,
laughing.
Both the vicars-general smiled. In the first place, it was
the bishop's joke ; and, in the second, it glanced lightly on
this young abbe, of whom all the dignitaries and ambitious
churchmen grouped about the bishop were envious.
" My advice would be to beg M. de Granville to put off
the execution for a few days yet. If the condemned man
knew that he owed those days of grace to our intercession, he
would perhaps make some show of listening to us, and if he
listens "
" He will persist in his conduct when he sees what comes
of it," said the bishop, interrupting his favorite. "Gentle-
men," he resumed after a moment's pause, "is the town
acquainted with these details?"
"Where will you find the house where they are not dis-
cussed? " answered the Abb6 de Grancour. " The condition
of our good Abbe Pascal since his last interview is matter of
common talk at this moment,"
TASCHERON. 79
"When is Tascheron to be executed?" asked the bishop.
"To-morrow. It is market-day," replied M. de Grancour.
"Gentlemen, religion must not be vanquished," cried the
bishop. "The more attention is attracted to this affair, the
more determined am I to secure a signal triumph. The
Church is passing through a difficult crisis. Miracles are
called for here among an industrial population, where sedition
has spread itself and taken root far and wide ; where religious
and monarchical doctrines are regarded with a critical spirit ;
where nothing is respected by a system of analysis derived
from Protestantism by the so-called Liberalism of to-day,
which is free to take another name to-morrow. Go to M. de
Granville, gentlemen, he is with us heart and soul; tell him
that we ask for a few days' respite. I will go to see the
unhappy man."
"You, my lord !" cried the Abbe de Rastignac. "Will
not too much be compromised if you fail ? You should only
go when success is assured."
" If my lord bishop will permit me to give my opinion,"
said the Abbe Dutheil, "I think that I can suggest a means
of securing the triumph of religion under these melancholy
circumstances."
The bishop's response was a somewhat cool sign of assent,
which showed how low his vicar-general's credit stood with
him.
" If any one has any ascendency over this rebellious soul,
and may bring it to God, it is M. Bonnet, the cure of the
village where the man was born," the Abbe Dutheil went
on.
" One of your proteges," remarked the bishop.
" My lord, M. Bonnet is one of those who recommend
'themselves by their militant virtues and evangelical labors."
This answer, so modest and simple, was received with a
silence which would have disconcerted any one but the Abbe
Dutheil, He had alluded t<? merits which had been over*
80 THE COUNTRY PA US ON.
looked, and the three who heard him chose to regard the
words as one of the meek sarcasms, neatly put, impossible to
resent, in which churchmen excel, accustomed as they are by
their training to say the thing they mean without transgressing
the severe rules laid down for them in the least particular.
But it was nothing of the kind ; the abbe never thought of
himself. Then
" I have heard of Saint Aristides for too long," the bishop
made answer, smiling. " If I were to leave his light under a
bushel, it would be injustice or prejudice on my part. Your
Liberals cry up your M. Bonnet as if he were one of them-
selves ; I mean to see this rural apostle and judge for myself.
Go to the public prosecutor, gentlemen, and ask him in my
name for a respite ; I will await his answer before despatching
our well-beloved Abbe Gabriel to Montegnac to fetch the holy
man for us. We will put his beatitude in the way of work-
ing a miracle "
The Abbe Dutheil flushed red at these words from the
prelate-noble, but he chose to disregard any slight that they
might contain for him. Both vicars-general silently took
their leave, and left the greatly perplexed bishop alone with his
young friend.
" The secrets of the confessional which we require lie buried
there, no doubt," said the bishop, pointing to the shadows of
the poplars where they reached a lonely house half-way be-
tween the island and the Faubourg Saint-Etienne.
"So I have always thought," Gabriel answered. "I am
not a judge, and I do not care to play the spy; but if I had
been the examining magistrate, I should know the name of
the woman who is trembling now at every sound, at every
word that is uttered, compelled all the while to wear a smooth,
unclouded brow under pain of accompanying the condemned
man to his death. Yet she has nothing to fear. I have seen
the man he will carry the secret of his passionate love to his
grave."
TASCHERON. 81
" Crafty young man ! " said the bishop, pinching his secre-
tary's ear, as he pointed out a spot between the island in the
river and the Faubourg Saint-Etienne, lit up by a last red ray
from the sunset. The young priest's eyes had been fixed on
it as he spoke. "Justice ought to have searched there; is it
not so?"
" I went to see the criminal to try the effect of my guess
upon him ; but he is watched by spies, and, if I had spoken
audibly, I might have compromised the woman for whom he
is dying."
"Let us keep silent," said the bishop. "We are not con-
cerned with man's justice. One head will fall, and that is
enough. Besides, sooner or later, the secret will return to
the Church."
The perspicacity of the priest, fostered by the habit of medi-
tation, is far keener than the insight of the lawyer and the
detective. After all the preliminary investigations, after the
legal inquiry, and the trial at the assizes, the bishop and his
secretary, looking down from the height of the terrace, had
in truth, by dint of contemplation, succeeded in discovering
details as yet unknown.
M. de Granville was playing his evening game of whist in
Mme. Graslin's house, and his visitors were obliged to wait
for his return. It was near midnight before his decision was
known at the palace, and by two o'clock in the morning the
Abb Gabriel started out for Montegnac in the bishop's own
traveling carriage, loaned to him for the occasion. The place
is about nine leagues distant from Limoges ; it lies under the
mountains of the Correze, in that part of Limousin which
borders on the department of the Creuse. All Limoges, when
the abbe left it, was in a ferment of excitement over the exe-
cution promised for this day, an expectation destined to be
balked once more.
III.
THE CURE OF MONTE'GNAC.
In priests and fanatics there is a certain tendency to insist
upon the very utmost to which they are legally entitled where
their interests are concerned. Is this a result of poverty ? Is
an egoism which favors the development of greed one of the
consequences of isolation upon a man's character? Or are
shrewd business habits, as well as parsimony, -acquired by a
course of management of charitable funds ? Each tempera-
ment suggests a different explanation, but the fact remains the
same whether it lurks (as not seldom happens) beneath urbane
good-humor, or (and equally often) is openly manifested ; and
the difficulty of putting the hand in the pocket is evidently
increasingly felt on a journey.
Gabriel de Rastignac, the prettiest young gentleman who