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. Nevertheless that play is considered the best we have. If that is so, he replied,  perhaps it s like the many people who donot deserve the positions they occupy.But, well, this is all a matter oftaste.Mine must be not properly developed yet.I may be wrong.But, as you know, I m rather accustomed to saying what I think, orrather what I feel.I suspect that illusion and fashion and personalwhim often have a lot to do with people s judgements.I said what Isaid with real life in mind.It may be that my idea of real life is farfrom perfect.But sometimes it may also be that the majority ofpeople don t much bother to judge according to real life.Then he recited some lines from Iphigénie, which he was full of,and although he did not declaim very well, he put so much real anddeep feeling into it that he reduced the old Jansenist to tears.He readCinna next.He did not weep, but he did admire. What does make me cross, though, he said,  is the way thissplendid girl keeps accepting rolls of coins every day from the veryman she is trying to have assassinated.My advice to her would be whatI read in Les Plaideurs:  for goodness sake, give the money back! CHAPTER 13The fair Saint-Yves goes to VersaillesWhile our unfortunate was finding more to enlighten him than toconsole him; while his natural gifts, which had been stifled for solong, were beginning to blossom with such rapidity and vigour; andwhile nature, as it perfected itself within him, was avenging him forthe outrages of fortune, what of the Prior and his good sister, and ofSaint-Yves, the fair recluse? After a month they began to be worried,and by the third they were deep in despair.False conjectures andill-founded rumours gave cause for alarm.At the end of six monthsThe Ingenu 227they thought he was dead.Eventually M.and Mlle de Kerkabonlearnt from a letter a guards officer had sent to Brittany some timepreviously that a young man who sounded like the Ingenu hadarrived at Versailles one evening, but that he had been abductedduring the night, and that nothing had been heard of him since. Oh, dear, said Mlle de Kerkabon,  I fear our nephew must havedone something silly and got himself into trouble.He is young andfrom Lower Brittany.He has no way of knowing how one shouldbehave at court.Brother dear, I have never seen either Versailles orParis.Now s our opportunity.Perhaps we may even find our poornephew.He is our brother s son.It is our duty to rescue him.Whoknows, we may yet make a sub-deacon of him, when his youthfulhigh spirits have moderated a little.He had a considerable aptitudefor study.Do you remember how he used to argue about the Old andNew Testaments? We are responsible for his soul.We had him bap-tized.His dear beloved Saint-Yves does nothing but spend her daysweeping over him.We really must go to Paris.If he s hiding in one ofthose dreadful houses of pleasure I ve heard so much about, we ll gethim out.The Prior was moved by what his sister said.He went off to findthe Bishop of Saint-Malo, who had baptized the Huron, and askedhim for his support and advice.The prelate agreed to the journey.He gave the Prior letters of introduction to Father La Chaise, theKing s confessor and the highest dignitary in the land, for Harlay,the Archbishop of Paris, and for Bossuet, the Bishop of Meaux.At length brother and sister set out.But when they reached Paris,they found themselves completely lost, as if in a vast labyrinth with-out thread or means of egress.Their resources were limited.Theyhad to hire carriages every day to carry out their search, but thesearch was fruitless.The Prior called on the reverend Father La Chaise: he was withMlle du Tron and unable to grant an audience to any prior.He wentto the Archbishop s door: this prelate was in conference with thebeautiful Mme de Lesdiguières on church business.He hurried tothe Bishop of Meaux s country-house: he and Mlle de Mauléon werecarrying out an investigation into Mme de Guyon s notion of mys-tical love.* He did, however, finally manage to speak to these last twoprelates.Both of them told him that they could not become involvedwith the Prior s nephew, given that he was not a sub-deacon.228 The IngenuIn the end he went to the Jesuits.One of this fraternity welcomedhim with open arms, assured him that he had always held him inparticularly high regard, not that he had ever met him, and sworeblind that the Society had always had a soft spot for the people ofLower Brittany. But this nephew of yours, he said,  he wouldn t by anyunfortunate chance be a Huguenot, would he? Absolutely not, reverend father. Nor a Jansenist? I can assure Your Reverence that he is scarcely even a Christian.It s about eleven months since we baptized him. Splendid, splendid.We will take care of him.Do you have asubstantial living? Oh, very modest, and my nephew does cost us a great deal. Any Jansenists in the vicinity? You must be very careful, my dearPrior.They re even more dangerous than the Huguenots and theatheists. Not a single one, reverend father.We don t know anything aboutany Jansenism at Our Lady of the Mountain. So much the better.Off you go, there is nothing I wouldn t dofor you.He dismissed the Prior with a fond farewell, and thought no moreabout him.Time passed, and the Prior and his good sister were beginning todespair.Meanwhile the cursed magistrate was urging the marriage of hisgreat booby of a son to the fair Saint-Yves, who had been let out ofthe convent for the purpose.She still loved her dear godson every bitas much as she detested the husband that was on offer.The affrontof having been put in a convent added to the fervour of her love.Being ordered to marry the magistrate s son was the final straw.Regrets, fond affection, and disgust seethed in her soul.Love, aseveryone knows, is considerably more resourceful and bold in ayoung girl than is friendship in an old prior and an aunt turnedforty-five.Moreover, she had learnt much in the convent from all theromances she had read on the sly.The fair Saint-Yves remembered the letter that a guards officerhad written home to Lower Brittany, and which had been the talkof the province.She resolved to go herself and make enquiries atThe Ingenu 229Versailles, to throw herself at ministerial feet if her  husband was inprison, as they said he was, and to obtain justice for him.Somethinggave her the secret inkling that at court a pretty girl is never refused:but she had yet to learn at what cost.Her decision made, she felt much better.She calmed down,stopped rebuffing her idiot fiancé, welcomed the detestable futurefather-in-law, showed warmth to her brother, and was all sweetnessand light throughout the household.Then, on the day appointed forthe ceremony, at four o clock in the morning, she left home in secret,with all her smaller wedding presents and everything else she hadmanaged to lay her hands on.She had arranged things so carefullythat she was already ten leagues off when they first entered her roomtowards midday.The surprise and consternation were considerable [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ]