taken over the business to recoup himself. In this concern
he invested more capital, and by this means, and by his ex-
tensive business connections, made of it one of the largest
factories in Limoges; so that when he sold it in three years
after he took it over, he made a large profit on the transaction.
He made his father-in-law the manager of this factory, situ-
THE COUNTRY PARSON 31
ated in the very same quarter of Saint-Martial where his
house stood; and in spite of Sauviat's seventy-two years, he
had done not a little in bringing about the prosperity of a
business in which he grew quite young again. The plan had
its advantages likewise for Graslin; but for old Sauviat, who
threw himself heart and soul into the porcelain factory, he
would have been perhaps obliged to take a clerk into partner-
ship and lose part of the profits, which he now received in
full; but as it was, he could look after his own affairs in the
town, and feel his mind at ease as to the capital invested in the
porcelain works.
In 1827 Sauviat met with an accident, which ended in his
death. He was busy with the stock-taking, when he stumbled
over one of the crates in which the china was packed, grazing
his leg slightly. He took no care of himself, and mortification
set in; they talked of amputation, but he would not hear of
losing his leg, and so he died. His widow made over about
two hundred and fifty thousand francs, the amount of Sau-
viat's estate, to her daughter and son-in-law, Graslin under-
taking to pay her two hundred francs a month, an amount
amply sufficient for her needs. She persisted in living on
without a servant in the little cottage ; keeping her point with
the obstinacy of old age, and in spite of her daughter's en-
treaties; but, on the other hand, she went almost every day
to the Hotel Graslin, and Veronique's walks, as heretofore,
usually ended at her mother's house. There was a charming
view from the windows of the river and the little island in
the Vienne, which Veronique had loved in the old days, and
called her Isle of France.
The story of the Sauviats has been anticipated partly to
save interruption to the other story of the Graslins' household,
partly because it serves to explain some of the reasons of the
retired life which Veronique Graslin led. The old mother
foresaw how much her child might one day be made to suffer
through Graslin's avarice; for long she held out, and refused
to give up the rest -of her fortune, and only gave way when
Veronique insisted upon it. Veronique was incapable of im-
32 THE COUNTRY PARSON
agining circumstances in which a wife desires to have the
control of her property, and acted upon a generous impulse;
in this way she meant to thank Graslin for giving her back
her liberty.
The unaccustomed splendors of Graslin's marriage has been
totally at variance with his habits and nature. The great
capitalist's ideas were very narrow. Veronique had had no
opportunity of gauging the man with whom she must spend
the rest of her life. During those fifty-five evening visits
Graslin had shown but one side of his character the man of
business, the undaunted worker who planned and carried out
large undertakings, the capitalist who looked at public affairs
with a view to their probable effect on the bank rate and
opportunities of money-making. And, under the influence
of his father-in-law's million, Graslin had behaved generously
in those days, though even then his lavish expenditure was
made to gain his own ends; he was drawn into expense in the
springtide days of his marriage partly by the possession of the
great house, which he called his "Folly," the house still called
the Hotel Graslin in Limoges.
As he had the horses, the caleche, and brougham, it was
natural to make use of them to pay a round of visits on his
marriage, and to go to the dinner-parties and dances given
in honor of the bride by official dignitaries and wealthy
houses. Acting on the impulses which carried him out of his
ordinary sphere, Graslin was "at home" to callers one day in
the week, and sent to Paris for a cook. For about a year in-
deed he led the ordinary life of a man who has seventeen hun-
dred thousand francs of his own, and can command a capital
of three millions. He had come to be the most conspicuous
personage in Limoges. During that year he generously al-
lowed Mme. Graslin twenty-five twenty-franc pieces every
month.
Veronique on her marriage had become a person of great
interest to the rank and fashion of Limoges; she was a kind
of godsend to the idle curiosity which finds such meagre sus-
tenance in the provinces. Veronique, who had so suddenly
THE COUNTRY PARSON 38
made her appearance, was a phenomenon the more closely
scrutinized on that account; but she always maintained the
simple and unaffected attitude of an onlooker who watches
manners and usages unknown to her, and seeks to conform
to them. From the first she had been pronounced to have a
good figure and a plain face, and now it was decided that
she was good-natured, but stupid. She was learning so many
things at once, she had so much to see and to hear, that her
manner and talk gave some color to this accusation. A sort
of torpor, moreover, had stolen over her which might well be
mistaken for stupidity. Marriage, that "difficult profession"
of wifehood, as she called it, in which the Church, the Code,
and her own mother bade her practise the most complete res-
ignation and perfect obedience, under pain of breaking all
laws human and divine, and bringing about irreparable evils ;
marriage had plunged her into a bewilderment which grew to
the pitch of vertigo and delirium. While she sat silent and
reserved, she heard her own thoughts as plainly as the voices
about her. For her "existence" had come to be extremely "dif-
ficult," to use the phrase of the dying Fontenelle, and ever
more increasingly, till she grew frightened, she was afraid
of herself. Nature recoiled from the orders of the soul;
the body rebelled against the wilL The poor snared creature
wept on the bosom of the great Mother of the sorrowful and
afflicted; she betook herself to the Church, she redoubled her
fervor, she confided to her director the temptations which
assailed her, she poured out her soul in prayer. Never at any
time in her life did she fufil her religious duties so zealously.
The tempest of despair which filled her when she knew that
she did not love her husband, flung her at the foot of the
altar, where divine comforting voices spoke to her of patience.
And she was patient and sweet, living in hope of the joys of
motherhood.
"Did you see Mme. Graslin this morning?" the women
asked among themselves. "Marriage does not agree with her;
she looked quite ghastly."
"Yes; but would you have given a daughter of yours to a
34 THE COUNTRY PARSON
man like M. Graslin. Of course, if you marry such a monster,
you suffer for it."
As soon as Graslin was fairly married, all the mothers who
had assiduously hunted him for the past ten years directed
spiteful speeches at him. Veronique grew thin, and became
plain in good earnest. Her eyes were heavy, her features
coarsened, she looked shamefaced and embarrassed, and wore
the dreary, chilling expression, so repellant in bigoted devo-
tees. A grayish tint overspread her complexion. She dragged
herself languidly about during the first year of her marriage,
usually the heyday of a woman's life. Before very long she
sought for distraction in books, making use of her privilege
as a married woman to read everything. She read Scott's
novels, Byron's poems, the works of Schiller and Goethe, lit-
erature ancient and modern. She learned to ride, to dance,
and draw. She made sepia drawings and sketches in water-
color, eager to learn every device which women use to while
away the tedium of solitary hours ; in short, that second edu-
cation which a woman nearly always undertakes for a man's
sake and with his guidance, she undertook alone and for her-
self.
In the loftiness of a nature frank and free, brought up,
as it were, in the desert, but fortified by religion, there was
a wild grandeur, cravings which found no satisfaction in the
provincial society in which she moved. All the books described
love; she looked up from her books on life, and found no
traces of passion there. Love lay dormant in her heart like
the germs which wait for the sun. Through a profound
melancholy, caused by constant brooding over herself, she
came by dim and winding ways back to the last bright
dreams of her girlhood. She dwelt more than once on
the old romantic imaginings, and became the heroine and
the theatre of the drama. Once again she saw the island
bathed in. light, full of blossom and sweet scents, and all
things grateful to her soul.
Not seldom her sad eyes wandered over her rooms with
searching curiosity; the men she saw were all like Graslin;
THE COUNTRY PARSON 35
she watched them closely, and seemed to turn questioningly
from them to their wives; but on the women's faces she saw
no sign of her own secret trouble, and sadly and wearily she re-
turned to her starting-point, uneasy about herself. Her high-
est thoughts met with a response in the books which she read
of a morning, their wit pleased her; but in the evening she
heard nothing but commonplace thoughts, which no one at-
tempted to disguise by giving a witty turn to them ; the talk
around her was vapid and empty, or ran upon gossip and local
news, which had no interest for her. She wondered sometimes
at the warmth of discussions in which there was no question
of sentiment, for her the very core of life. She was often seen
gazing before her with fixed, wide eyes, thinking, doubtless,
of hours which she had spent, while still a girl ignorant of
life, in the room where everything had been in keeping with
her fancies, and now laid in ruins, like Veronique's own ex-
istence. She shrank in pain from the thought of being drawn
into the eddy of petty cares and interests like the other women
among whom she was forced to live ; her ill-concealed disdain
of the littleness of her lot, visible upon her lips and brow,
was taken for upstart insolence.
Mme. Graslin saw the coolness upon all faces, and felt a
certain bitter tone in the talk. She did not understand the
reason, for as yet she had not made a friend sufficiently inti-
mate to enlighten or counsel her. Injustice, under which
small natures chafe, compels loftier souls to return within
themselves, and induces in them a kind of humility. Vero-
nique blamed herself, and tried to discover where the fault
lay. She tried to be gracious, she was pronounced to be insin-
cere; she redoubled her kindliness, and was said to be a
hypocrite (her devotion giving color to the slander) ; she was
lavish of hospitality, and gave dinners and dances, and was
accused of pride. All Mme. Graslin's efforts were unsuccess-
ful. She was misjudged and repulsed by the petty querulous
pride of provincial coteries, where susceptibilities are always
upon the watch for offences; she went no more into society,
and lived in the strictest retirement. The love in her heart
36 THE COUNTRY PARSON
turned to the Church. The great spirit in its feeble house of
flesh saw in the manifold behests of Catholicism but so many
stones set by the brink of the precipices of life, raised there
by charitable hands to prop human weakness by the way.
So every least religious observance was practised with the
most punctilious care.
Upon this, the Liberal party added Mme. Graslin's name
to the list of bigots in the town. She was classed among the
Ultras, and party spirit strengthened the various grudges
which Veronique had innocently stored up against herself,
with its periodical exacerbations. But as she had nothing
to lose by this ostracism, she went no more into society, and
betook herself to her books, with the infinite resources which
they opened to her. She thought over her reading, she com-
pared methods, she increased the amount of her actual knowl-
edge and her power of acquiring it, and by so doing opened
the gateways of her mind to curiosity.
It was at this period of close and persistent study, while
religion supported her, that she gained a friend in M. Grosse-
tete, an old man whose real ability had not grown so rusty
in the course of a life in a country town but that contact with
a keen intelligence could still draw a few sparks from it. The
kind soul was deeply interested in Veronique, who, in return
for the mild warmth of the mellowed affection which age
alone can give, put forth all the treasures of her soul ; for
him the splendid powers cultivated in secret first blossomed
forth.
A fragment of a letter written at this time to M. Grossetete
will describe the mental condition of a woman who one day
should give proof of a firm temper and lofty nature:
"The flowers which you sent to me for the dance were very
lovely, yet they suggested painful thoughts. The sight of
that beauty, gathered by you to decorate a festival, and to
fade on my breast and in my hair, made me think of other
flowers born to die unseen in your woods, to shed sweet scent
that no one breathes. Then I asked myself why I was danc-
THE COUNTRY PARSON 37
ing, why I had decked myself with flowers, just as I ask God
why I am here in the world. You see, my friend, that in
everything there lurks a snare for the unhappy, just as the
drollest trifles bring the sick back to their own sufferings.
That is the worst of some troubles : they press upon us so con-
stantly that they shape themselves into an idea which is ever
present in our minds. An ever-present trouble ought surely
to be a hallowed thought. You love flowers for their own
sake; I love them as I love beautiful music. As I once told
you, the secret of a host of things is hidden from me. . . .
You, my old friend, for instance, have a passion for garden-
ing. When you come back to town, teach me to share in this
taste of yours; send me with a light footstep to my hothouse
to feel the interest which you take in watching your plants
grow. You seem to me to live and blossom with them, to
take a delight in them, as in something of your own creation;
to discover new colors, novel splendors, which come forth
under your eyes, the result of your labors. I feel that the
emptiness of my life is breaking my heart. For me, my hot-
house is full of pining souls. The distress which I force
myself to relieve saddens my very soul. I find some young
mother without linen for her new-born babe, some old man
starving, I make their troubles mine, and even when I have
helped them, the feelings aroused in me by the sight of misery
relieved are not enough to satisfy my soul. Oh ! my friend,
I feel that I have great powers asserting themselves in me,
powers of doing evil, it may be, which nothing can crush
powers that the hardest commandments of religion cannot
humble. When I go to see my mother, when I am quite alone
among the fields, I feel that I must cry aloud, and I cry. My
body is the prison in which one of the evil genii has pent
up some moaning creature, until the mysterious word shall
be uttered which shatters the cramping cell. But this com-
parison is not just. In my case it should be reversed. It
is the body which is a prisoner, if I may make use of the ex-
pression. Does not religion occupy my soul? And the
treasures gained by reading are constant food for the mind.
4
38 THE COUNTRY PARSON
Why do I long for any change, even if it comes as suffering
for any break in the enervating peace of my lot? Unless
I find some sentiment to uphold me, some strong interest
to cultivate, I feel that I shall drift towards-the abyss where
every idea grows hazy and meaningless, where character is
enervated, where the springs of one's being grow slack and
inert, where I shall be no longer the woman Nature intended
me to be. That is what my cries mean. . . . But you
will not cease to send flowers to me because of this outcry of
mine? Your friendship has been so sweet and pleasant a
thing, that it has reconciled me with myself for several
months. Yes, I feel happy when I think that you sometimes
throw a friendly glance over the blossoming desert-place, my
inner self; that the wanderer, half dead after her flight on
the fiery steed of a dream, will meet with a kind word of
greeting from you on her return."
Three years after Veronique's marriage, it occurred to
Graslin that his wife never used the horses, and, a good
opportunity offering itself, he sold them. The carriages
were sold at the same time, the coachman was dismissed, and
the cook from Paris transferred to the Bishop's establishment.
A woman servant took his place. Graslin ceased to give his
wife an allowance, saying that he would pay all the bills. He
was the happiest man in the world when he met with no
opposition from the wife who had brought him a million.
There was not much credit, it is true, in Mme. Graslin's self-
denial. She knew nothing of money, she had been brought up
in ignorance of it as an indispensable element in life. Graslin
found the sums which he had given to her lying in a corner
of her desk; scarcely any of it had been spent. Veronique
gave to the poor, her trousseau had been so large that as yet
she had had scarcely any expenses for dress. Graslin praised
Veronique to all Limoges as the pattern of wives.
The splendor of the furniture gave him pangs, so he had
it all shrouded in covers. His wife's bedroom, boudoir, and
dressing-room alone escaped this dispensation, an economical
THE COUNTRY PARSON 39
measure which economized nothing, for the wear and tear
to the furniture is the same, covers or no covers.
He next took up his abode on the ground floor, where the
counting-house and office had been established, so he began
his old life again, and was as keen in pursuit of gain as before.
The Auvergnat banker thought himself a model husband
because he breakfasted and dined with his wife, who carefully
ordered the meals for him; but he was so extremely unpunc-
tual, that he came in at the proper hour scarce ten times a
month ; and though, out of thoughtf ulness, he asked her never
to wait for him, Veronique always stayed to carve for him ; she
wanted to fulfil her wifely duties in some one visible manner.
His marriage had not been a matter to which the banker gave
much thought ; his wife represented the sum of seven hundred
and fifty thousand francs; he had not discovered that that
wife shrank from him. Gradually he had left Mme. Graslin
to herself, and became absorbed in business ; and when he took
it into his head to have a bed put for him in a room next to
his private office, Veronique saw that his wishes were carried
out at once.
So after three years of marriage this ill-assorted couple
went their separate ways as before, and felt glad to return to
them. The capitalist, owner now of eighteen hundred thou-
sand francs, returned to his occupation of money-making with
all the more zest after the brief interval. His two clerks and
the office-boy were somewhat better lodged and a little better
fed that was all the difference between the past and the pres-
ent. His wife had a cook and a waiting-maid (the two ser-
vants could not well be dispensed with), and no calls were
made on Graslin's purse except for strict necessaries.
And Veronique was happy in the turn things had taken;
she saw in the banker's satisfaction a compensation for a
separation for which she had never asked; it was impossible
that Graslin should shrink from her as she shrank from him.
She was half glad, half sorry of this secret divorce; she had
looked forward to motherhood, which should bring a new in-
terest into her life ; but in spite of their mutual resignation,
there was no child of the marriage as yet in 1828.
40 THE COUNTRY PARSON
So Mme. Graslin, envied by all Limoges, led as lonely a
life in her splendid home as formerly in her father's hovel;
but the hopes and the childish joys of inexperience were gone.
She lived in the ruins of her "castles in Spain," enlightened
by sad experience, sustained by a devout faith, busying her-
self for the poor of the district, whom she loaded with kind-
nesses. She made baby-linen for them; she gave sheets and
bedding to those who lay on straw ; she went everywhere with
her maid a good Auvergnate whom her mother found for
her. This girl attached herself body and soul to her mistress,
and became a charitable spy for her, whose mission it was to
find out trouble to soothe and distress to relieve. This life of
busy benevolence and of punctilious performance of the duties
enjoined by the Church was a hidden life, only known by the
cures of the town who directed it, for Veronique took their
counsel in all that she did, so that the money intended for the
deserving poor should not be squandered by vice.
During these years Veronique found another friendship
quite as precious to her and as warm as her friendship with
old Grossetete. She became one of the flock of the Abbe
Dutheil, one of the vicars-general of the diocese. This priest
belonged to the small minority among the French clergy who
lean towards concession, who would fain associate the Church
with the popular cause. By putting evangelical principles
in practice, the Church should gain her old ascendency over
the people, whom she could then bind to the Monarchy. But
the Abbe Dutheil's merits were unrecognized, and he was per-
secuted. Perhaps he had seen that it was hopeless to attempt
to enlighten the Court of Borne and the clerical party; per-
haps he had sacrificed his convictions at the bidding of his
superiors; at any rate, he dwelt within the limits of the strict-
est orthodoxy, 'knowing the while that the mere expression of
his convictions would close his way to a bishopric. A great
and Christian humility, blended with a lofty character, dis-
tinguished this eminent churchman. He had neither pride
nor ambition, and stayed at his post, doing his duty in the
midst of peril. The Liberal party in the town, who knew
THE COUNTRY PARSON 41
nothing of his motives, quoted his opinions in support of
their own, and reckoned him as "a patriot," a word which
means "a revolutionary" for good Catholics. He was beloved
by those below him, who did not dare to praise his worth;
dreaded by his equals, who watched him narrowly; and a
thorn in the side of his bishop. He was not exactly perse-
cuted, his learning and virtues were too well known; it was
impossible to find fault with him freely, though he criticised
the blunders in policy by which the Throne and the Church
alternately compromised each other, and pointed out the inev-
itable results ; like poor Cassandra, he was reviled by his own
party before and after the fall which he predicted. Nothing
short of a Eevolution was likely to shake the Abbe Dutheil
from his place; he was a foundation stone in the Church, an
unseen block of granite on which everything else rests. His
utility was recognized, and he was left in his place, like
most of the real power of which mediocrity is jealous and
afraid. If, like the Abbe de Lamennais, he had taken up the
pen, he would probably have shared his fate ; at him, too, the
thunderbolts of Home would have been launched.
In person the Abbe Dutheil was commanding. Something
in his appearance spoke of a soul so profound that the surface
is always calm and smooth. His height and spare frame did
not mar the general effect of the outlines of his figure, which
vaguely recalled those forms which Spanish painters loved
best to paint for great monastic thinkers and dreamers
forms which Thorvaldsen in our own time has selected for his
Apostles. His face, with the long, almost austere lines in it,
which bore out the impression made by the straight folds of
his garments, possessed the same charm which the sculptors
of the Middle Ages discovered and recorded in the mystic
figures about the doorways of their churches. His grave
thoughts, grave words, and grave tones were all in keeping,
and the expression of the Abbe's personality. At the first
sight of the dark eyes, which austerity had surrounded with
hollow shadowy circles; the forehead, yellowed like old mar-
ble; the bony outlines of the head and hands, no one could
42 THE COUNTRY PARSON
have expected to hear any voice but his, or any teaching but
that which fell from his lips. It was this purely physical gran-
deur, in keeping with the moral grandeur of his nature, that
gave him a certain seeming haughtiness and aloofness, belied,
it is true, by his humility and his talk, yet unprepossessing