as in minerals.
256 LOUIS LAMBERT
VI
Kumber, which produces variet}^ of all kinds, also gives
rise to Harmony, which, in the highest meaning of the word,
is the relation of parts to the whole.
VII
^ But for Motion, everything would be one and the same.
Its products, identical in their essence, differ only by Num-
ber, which gives rise to faculties.
VIII
Man looks to faculties ; angels look to the Essence.
IX
By giving his body up to elemental action, man can achieve
an inner union with the Light.
Number is intellectual evidence belonging to man alone;
by it he acquires knowledge of the Word.
XI
There is a Number beyond which the impure cannot pass :
the Number which is the limit of creation.
XII
The Unit was the starting-point of every product: com-
pounds are derived from it, but the end must be identical
with the beginning. Hence this Spiritual formula : the com-
pound Unit, the variable Unit, the fixed Unit,
LOUIS LAMBERT 257
XIII
The Universe is the Unit in variety. Motion is the means ;
Number is the result. The end is the return of all things
to the Unit, which is God.
XIV
Three and Seven are the two chief Spiritual numbers.
XV
Three is the formula of created worlds. It is the Spiritual
Sign of the creation, as it is the Material Sign of dimension.
In fact, God has worked by curved lines only: the Straight
Line is an attribute of the Infinite; and man, who has the
presentiment of the Infinite, reproduces it in his works. Two
is the number of generation. Three is the number of Life
which includes generation and offspring. Add the sum of
four, and you have Seven, the formula of Heaven. Above all
is God; He is the Unit.
After going in to see Louis once more, I took leave of his
wife and went home, lost in ideas so adverse to social life
that, in spite of a promise to return to Villenoix, I did not go.
The sight of Louis had had some mysteriously sinister in-
fluence over me. I was afraid to place myself again in that
heavy atmosphere, where ecstasy was contagious. Any man
would have felt, as I did, a. longing to throw himself into the
infinite, just as one soldier after another killed himself in a
certain sentry box where one had committed suicide in the
camp at Boulogne. It is a known fact that Napoleon was
obliged to have the hut burned which had harbored an idea
that had become a mortal infection.
Louis' room had perhaps the same fatal dffect as that sentry
box.
These two facts would then be additional evidence in favoi
258 LOUIS LAMBERT
of his theory of the transfusion of Will. I was conscious of
strange disturbances, transcending the most fantastic results
of taking tea, coffee, or opium, of dreams or of fever — mys-
terious agents, whose terrible action often sets our brains on
fire.
I ought perhaps to have made a separate book of these frag-
ments of thought, intelligible only to certain spirits who have
been accustomed to lean over the edge of abysses in the hope
of seeing to the bottom. The life of that mighty brain, which
split up on every side perhaps, like a too vast empire, would
have been set forth in the narrative of this man's visions — a
being incomplete for lack of force or of weakness ; but I pre-
ferred to give an account of my own impressions rather than
to compose a more or less poetical romance.
Louis Lambert died at the age of twenty-eight, September
25, 1824, in his true love's arms. He was buried by her
desire in an island in the park at Villenoix. His tombstone
is a plain stone cross, without name or date. Like a flower
that has blossomed on the margin of a precipice, and drops
into it, its colors and fragrance all unknown, it was fitting
that he too should fall. Like many another misprized soul,
he had often yearned to dive haughtily into the void, and
abandon there the secrets of his own life.
Mademoiselle de Villenoix would, however, have been quite
justified in recording his name on that cross with her own.
Since her partner's death, reunion has been her constant,
hourly hope. But the vanities of woe are foreign to faithful
souls.
A^illenoix is falling into ruin. She no longer resides there ;
to the end, no doubt, that she may the better picture herself
^here as she used to be. She had said long ago :
"His heart was mine; his genius is with God."
Chateau de Sache. June-July 1832.
THE EXILES
ALMAE SOEORI
In the year 1308 few houses were yet standing on the Island
formed by the alhiviiim and sand deposited by the Seine
above the Cite, behind the Church of ISTotre-Dame. The first
man who was so bold as to build on this strand, then liable
to frequent floods, was a constable of the watch of the City
of Paris, who had been able to do some service to their Eev-
erences the Chapter of the Cathedral ; and in return the
Bishop leased him twenty-five perches of land, with exemp-
tion from all feudal dues or taxes on the buildings he might
erect.
Seven years before the beginning of this narrative, Joseph
Tirechair, one of the sternest of Paris constables, as his
name [Tear Flesh] would indicate, had, thanks to his share
of the fines collected by him for delinquencies committed
within the precincts of the Cite, been able to build a house
on the bank of the Seine just at the end of the Rue du Port-
Saint-Landry. To protect the merchandise landed on the
strand, the municipality had constructed a sort of break-
water of masonry, which may still be seen on some old plans
of Paris, and which preserved the piles of the landing-place
by meeting the rush of water and ice at the upper end of
the Island. The constable had taken advantage of this for
the foundation of his house, so that there were several steps
up to his door.
Like all the houses of that date, this cottage was crowned
by a peaked roof, forming a gable-end to the front, or half
a diamond. To the great regret of historians, but two or
three examples of such roofs survive in Paris. A round
opening gave light to a loft, where the constable's wife dried
C859)
260 THE EXILES
the linen of the Chapter, for she had the honor of washing
for the Cathedral — which was certainly not a bad customer.
On the first floor were two rooms, let to lodgers at a rent,
one year with another, of forty sous Parisis each, an exorbi-
tant sum, that was however justified by the luxury Tirechair
had lavished on their adornment. Flanders tapestry hung
on the walls, and a large bed with a top valance of green
serge, like a peasant's bed, was amply furnished with mat-
tresses, and covered with good sheets of fine linen. Each
room had a stove called a chauffe-doux; the floor, carefully
polished by Dame Tirechair's apprentices, shone like the
woodwork of a shrine. Instead of stools, the lodgers had deep
chairs of carved walnut, the spoils probably of some raided
castle. Two chests with pewter mouldings, and tables on
twisted legs, completed the fittings, worthy of the most fas-
tidious knights-banneret whom business might bring to Paris.
The windows of those two rooms looked out on the river.
From one you could only see the shores of the Seine, and the
three barren islands, of which two were subsequently joined
together to form the He Saint-Louis; the third was the He
de Louviers. From the other could be seen, down a vista of
the Port-Saint-Landry, the buildings on the Greve, the
Bridge of Notre-Dame, with its houses, and the tall towers
of the Louvre, but lately built by Philippe- Auguste to over-
look the then poor and squalid town of Paris, which suggests
so many imaginary marvels to the fancy of modern ro-
mancers.
The ground floor of Tirechair's house consisted of a large
hall, where his wife's business was carried on, through which
the lodgers were obliged to pass on their way to their own
rooms up a stairway like a mill-ladder. Behind this were
a kitchen and a bedroom, with a view over the Seine. A tiny
garden, reclaimed from the waters, displayed at the foot of
rhis modest dwelling its beds of cabbages and onions, and a
few rose-bushes, sheltered by palings, forming a sort of hedge.
A little structure of lath and mud served as a kennel for a
big dog, the indispensable guardian of so lonely a dwelling.
THE EXILES 261
Beyond this kennel was a little plot, where the hens cackled
whose eggs were sold to the Canons. Here and there on this
patch of earth, muddy or dry according to the whimsical
Parisian weather, a few trees grew, constantly lashed by the
wind, and teased and broken by the passer-by — willows, reeds,
and tall grasses.
The Eyot, the Seine, the knding-place, the house, were all
overshadowed on the west by the huge basilica of Notre-Dame
casting its cold gloom over the whole plot as the sun moved.
Tlien, as now, there was not in all Paris a more deserted spot,
a more solemn or more melancholy prospect. The noise of
waters, the chanting of priests, or the piping of the wind, were
the only sounds that disturbed this wilderness, where lovers
would sometimes meet to discuss their secrets when the
church-folks and clergy were safe in church at the services.
One evening in April in the year 1308, Tirechair came
home in a remarkably bad temper. For three days past every-
thing had been in good order on the King's highway. Now,
as an officer of the peace, nothing annoyed him so much as
to feel himself useless. He flung down his halbert in a rage,
muttered inarticulate words as he pulled off his doublet,
half red and half blue, and slipped on a shabby camlet jerkin.
After helping himself from the bread-box to a hunch of
bread, and spreading it with butter, he seated himself on a
bench, looked round at his four whitewashed walls, counted
the beams of the ceiling, made a mental inventory of the
household goods hanging from the nails, scowled at the neat-
ness which left him nothing to complain of, and looked at his
wife, who said not a word as she ironed the albs and surplices
from the sacristy.
"By my halidom," he said, to open the conversation, "I
cannot think, Jacqueline, where you go to catch your appren-
ticed maids. Now, here is one," he went on, pointing to a
girl who was folding an altar-cloth, clumsily enough, it must
be owned, "who looks to me more like a damsel rather free of
her person than a sturdy country wench. Her hands are as
262 THE EXILES
white as a fine lady's ! By tlie Mass ! and lier hair smells of gs-
senees, I verily believe, and her hose are as fine as a queen's.
By the two horns of Old Nick, matters please me but ill as 1
find them here."
The girl colored, and stole a look at Jacqueline, full of
alarm not unmixed vv'ith pride. The mistress answered her
glance with a smile, laid down her work, and turned to her
husband.
"Come now," said she, in a sharp tone, "you need not harry
me. Are you going to accuse me next of some underhand
tricks? Patrol your roads as much as you please, but do
not meddle here with anything but what concerns your sleep-
ing in peace, drinking yonr wine, and eating what I set before
you, or else, I warn yofl, I will have no more to do with keep-
ing you healthy and happy. Let any one find me a happier
man in all the town," she went on, with a scolding grimace.
"He has silver in his purse, a gable over the Seine, a stout
halbert on one hand, an honest wife on the other, a house as
clean and smart as a new pin ! And he growls like a pilgrim
smarting from Saint Anthony's fire !"
"Hey day !" exclaimed the sergeant of the watch, "do" you
fancy, Jacqueline, that I have any wish to see my house
razed down, my halbert given to another, and my wife stand-,
ing in the pillory?"
Jacqueline and the dainty journeywoman turned pale.
"Just tell me what you are driving at," said the washer-
woman sharply, "and make a clean breast of it. For some
days, my man, I have observed that you have some maggot
twisting in your poor brain. Come up, then, and have it all
out. You must be a pretty coward indeed if you fear any
harm when you have only to guard the common council and
live under the protection of the Chapter ! Their Eeverences
the Canons would lay the whole bishopric under an interdict
if Jacqueline brought a complaint of the smallest damage."
As she spoke, she went straight up to her husband and
took him by the arm.
"Come with me," she added, pulling him up and out on to
the steps.
THE EXILES 263
When they were down by the water in their little garden,
Jacqueline looked saucily in her husband's face.
"I would have you to knoAV, you old gaby, that when mj
lady fair goes out, a piece of gold comes into our savings-
box."
"Oh, ho !" said the constable, who stood silent and medita-
tive before his wife. But he presently said, "Any wa}^, we are
done for. — What brings the dame to our house?"
"She comes to see the well-favored young clerk who lives
overhead," replied Jacqueline, looking up at the window that
opened on to the vast landscape of the Seine valley.
"The Devil's in it !" cried the man. "For a few base crowns
you have ruined me, Jacqueline- Is that an honest trade
for a sergeant's decent wife to ply? And, be she Countess
or Baroness, the lady will not be able to get us out of the
trap in which we shall find ourselves caught sooner or later.
Shall we not have to square accounts with some puissant
and offended husband? for, by the Mass, she is fair to look
upon !"
"But she is a widow, I tell you, gray gander ! How dare
j'ou accuse your wife of foul play and folly? And the lady
has never spoken a word to yon gentle clerk ; she is content
to look on him and think of him. Poor lad ! he would be
dead of starvation by now but for her, for she is as good as
a mother to him. And he, the sweet cherub ! it is as easy
to cheat him as to rock a new-born babe. He believes his
pence will last for ever, and he has eaten them through twice
over in the past six months."
"Woman," said the sergeant, solemnly pointing to the Place
de Greve, "do you remember seeing, even from this spot, the
fire in which they burnt the Danish woman the other day?"
"What then?" said Jacqueline, in a fright.
"What then?" echoed Tirechair. "Why, the two men who
lodge with us smell of scorching. Neither Chapter nor
Countess nor Protector can serve them. Here is Easter
come round; the year is ending; we must turn our company
out of doors, and that at once. Do you tliink you can teach
264 THE EXILES
an old constable how to know a gallows-bird? Our two
lodgers were on terms with la Porette, that heretic jade from
Denmark or Norway^ whose last cries you heard from here.
She was a brave witch ; she never blenched at the stake, which
was proof enough of her compact with the Devil. I saw her
as plain as I see you ; she preached to the throng, and de-
clared she was in heaven and could see God.
"And since that, I tell you, I have never slept quietly in
my bed. My lord, who lodges over us, is of a surety more
of a wizard than a Christian. On my word as an officer, I
shiver when that old man passes near me; he never sleeps
of nights; if I wake, his voice is ringing like a bourdon of
bells, and I hear him uttering incantations in the language
of hell. Have you ever seen him eat an honest crust of bread
or a hearth-cake n\ade by a good Catholic baker ? His brown
skin has been scorched and tanned by hell-fires. Marry, and
I tell you his eyes hold a spell like those of serpents. Jacque-
line, I will have none of those two men under my roof. I see
too much of the law not to know that it is well to have noth-
ing to do with it. — You must get rid of our two lodgers;
the elder, because I suspect him ; the youngster, because he is
too pretty. They neither of them seem to me to keep Chris-
tian company. The boy is ever staring at the moon, the stars,
and the clouds, like a wizard watching for the hour when he
shall mount his broomstick; the other old rogue certainly
makes some use of the poor boy for his black art. My house
stands too close to the river as it is, and that risk of ruin is
bad enough v/ithout bringing down fire from heaven, or the
love affairs of a countess. I have spoken. Do not rebel."
In spite of her sway in the house, Jacqueline stood stupe-
fied as she listened to the edict fulminated against his lodgers
by the sergeant of the watch. She mechanically looked up
at the window of the room inhabited by the old man, and
shivered with horror as she suddenly caught sight of the
gloomy, melancholy face, and the piercing eye that so affected
her husband, accustomed as he was to dealing with criminals.
At that period, great and small, priests and laymen, all
THE EXILES 265
trembled before the idea of any superriaiui-al power. The
word "magic" was as powerful as leprosy to root up feelingSj
break social ties, and freeze piety in the most generous soul.
It suddenly struck the constable's wife that she never, in
fact, had seen either of her lodgers exercising any human
function. Though the younger man's voice was as sweet and
melodious as the tones of a flute, she so rarely heard it that
she was tempted to think his silence the result of a spelL
As she recalled the strange beauty of that pink-and-white
face, and saw in memory the fine fair hair and moist brill-
iancy of those eyes, she believed they were indeed the artifices
of the Devil. She remembered that for days at a time she
had never heard the slightest sound from either room. Where
were the strangers during all those hours ?
Suddenly the most singular circumstances recurred to her
mind. She was completely overmastered by fear, and could
even discern witchcraft in the rich lady's interest in this
young Godefroid, a poor orphan who had come from Flanders
to study at the University of Paris. She hastily put her hand
into one of her pockets, pulled out four livres of Tournay
in large silver coinage, and looked at the pieces with an ex-
pression of avarice mingled with terror.
"That, at any rate, is not false coin," said she, showing
the silver to her husband. "Besides," she went on, "how can
I turn them out after taking next year's rent paid in ad-
vance ?"
"You had better inquire of the Dean of the Chapter," re-
plied Tirechair. "Is not it his business to tell us how we
should deal with these extraordinary persons?"
"Aj, truly extraordinary," cried Jacqueline. "To think
of their cunning; coming here under the very shadow of
Xotre-Dame ! Still," she went on, "or ever I ask the Dean,
why not warn that fair and noble lady of tbe risk she runs ?'^
As she spoke, Jacqueline went into the house with her
husband, who had not missed a mouthful. Tirechair, as a
man grown old in the tricks of his trade, affected to believti
that the strange lady was in fact a work-girl; stilly this as'
266 THE EXILES
sumed indifference could not altogether cloak the timidity of
a courtier who respects a royal incognito. At this moment
six was striking by the clock of Saint-Denis du Pas, a small
church that stood between N"otr;>Dame and the Port-Saint-
Landry — the first church erected in Paris, on the very spot
where Saint-Denis was laid on the gridiron, as chronicles
tell. The hour flew from steeple to tower all over the city.
Then suddenly confused shouts were heard on the left bank
3f the Seine, behind Xotre-Dame, in the quarter where the
schools of the University harbored their swarms.
At this signal, Jacqueline's elder lodger began to move
about his room. The sergeant, his wife, and the strange lady
listened while he opened and shut his door, and the old man's
heavy step was heard on the steep stair. The constable's
suspicions gave such interest to the advent of this personage,
that the lady was startled as she observed the strange ex-
pression of the two countenances before her. Eeferring the
terrors of this couple to the youth she was protecting — as
was natural in a lover — the young lady awaited, with some
uneasiness, the event thus heralded by the fears of her so-
called master and mistress.
The old man paused for a moment on the threshold to
scrutinize the three persons in the room, and seemed to be
looking for his young companion. This glance of inquiry,
unsuspicious as it was, agitated the three. Indeed, nobody,
not even the stoutest man, could deny that Xature had be-
stowed exceptional powers on this being, who seemed almost
supernatural. Though his eyes were somewhat deeply
shaded by the wide sockets fringed with long eyebrows, they
were set, like a kite's eyes, in eyelids so broad, and bordered
by so dark a circle sharply defined on his cheek, that they
seemed rather to be prominent. These singular eyes had in
them something indescribably domineering and piercing,
which took possession of the soul by a grave and thoughtful
look, a look as bright and lucid as that of a serpent or a
bird, but which held one fascinated and crushed by the swift
communication of some tremendous sorrow, or of some super-
human power.
THE EXILES 267
Every feature was in harmony with this eye of lead and
of fire, at once rigid and flashing, stern and cahn. While
in this eagle eye earthly emotions seemed in some sort extinct,
the lean, parched face also bore traces of unhappy passions
and great deeds done. The nose, "wdiich was narrow and
aquiline, was so long that it seemed to hang on hy the nos-
trils. The bones of the face were strongly marked by the
long, straight wrinkles that furrowed the hollow cheeks
Every line in the countenance looked dark. It would suggest
the bed of a torrent where the violence of former floods was
recorded in the depth of the water-courses, which testified
to some te^fTible, unceasing turmoil. Like the ripples left
by the oars of a boat on the waters, deep lines, starting from
each side of his nose, marked his face strongly, and gave an
expression of bitter sadness to his mouth, which was firm and
straight-lipped. Above the storm thus stamped on his counte-
nance, his calm brow rose with what may be called boldness,
and crowned it as with a marble dome.
The stranger preserved that intrepid and dignified manner
that is frequently habitual with men inured to disaster, and
fitted by nature to stand unmoved before a furious mob and to
face the greatest dangers. He seemed to move in a sphere
apart, where he poised above humanity. His gestures, no
less than his look, were full of irresistible power; his lean
hands were those of a soldier; and if your own eyes were
forced to fall before his piercing gaze, you were no less sure
to tremble when by word or action he spoke to your soul.
He moved in silent majesty that made him seem a king with-
out his guard, a god without his rays.
His dress emphasized the ideas suggested by the pecu-
liarities of his mien and face. Soul, body, and garb were in
harmony, and calculated to impress the coldest imagination.
He wore a sort of sleeveless gown of black cloth, fastened in
front, and falling to the calf, leaving the neck bare with no
collar. His doublet and boots were likewise black. On his
head was a black velvet cap like a priest's, sitting in a close
circle above his forehead, and not showing a single hair. It
268 THE EXILES
was the strictest mourning, the gloomiest habit a man could
wear. But for a long sword that hung by his side from a
leather belt which could be seen where his surcoat hung open,
a priest would have hailed him as a brother. Though of
no more than middle height, he appeared tall; and, looking
him in the face, he seemed a giant.
"The clock has struck, the boat is waiting; will you not
come ?"
At these words, spoken in bad French, but distinctly audi-
ble in the silence, a little noise was heard in the other top
room, and the young man came down as lightly as a bird.
When Godefroid appeared, the lady's face turned crimson;
she trembled, started, and covered her face with her white
hands.
Any woman might have shared her agitation at the sight
of this youth of about twenty, of a form and stature so
slender that at a first glance he might have been taken for a
mere boy, or a young girl in disguise. His black cap — like the
heret worn by the Basque people — showed a brow as white as
snow, where grace and innocence shone with an expression
of divine sweetness — the light of a soul full of faith. A
poet's fancy would have seen there the star which, in some old
tale, a mother entreats the fairy godmother to set on the
forehead of an infant abandoned, like Moses, to the waves.
Love lurked in the thousand fair curls that fell over his
shoulders. His throat, truly a swan's throat, was white and
exquisitely round. His blue eyes, bright and liquid, mirrored
the sky. His features and the mould of his brow were re-