Les Misérables
which she has slept for the last twenty years.”
“That is just.”
“It is a continuation of her slumber.”
“So I shall have to nail up that coffin?”
“Yes.”
“And we are to reject the undertaker’s coffin?”
“Precisely.”
“I am at the orders of the very reverend community.”
“The four Mother Precentors will assist you.”
“In nailing up the coffin? I do not need them.”
“No. In lowering the coffin.”
“Where?”
“Into the vault.”
“What vault?”
“Under the altar.”
Fauchelevent started.
“The vault under the altar?”
“Under the altar.”
“But—”
“You will have an iron bar.”
“Yes, but—”
“You will raise the stone with the bar by means of the ring.”
“But—”
“The dead must be obeyed. To be buried in the vault under the altar of
the chapel, not to go to profane earth; to remain there in death where
she prayed while living; such was the last wish of Mother Crucifixion.
She asked it of us; that is to say, commanded us.”
“But it is forbidden.”
“Forbidden by men, enjoined by God.”
“What if it became known?”
“We have confidence in you.”
“Oh! I am a stone in your walls.”
“The chapter assembled. The vocal mothers, whom I have just consulted
again, and who are now deliberating, have decided that Mother
Crucifixion shall be buried, according to her wish, in her own coffin,
under our altar. Think, Father Fauvent, if she were to work miracles
here! What a glory of God for the community! And miracles issue from
tombs.”
“But, reverend Mother, if the agent of the sanitary commission—”
“Saint Benoît II., in the matter of sepulture, resisted Constantine
Pogonatus.”
“But the commissary of police—”
“Chonodemaire, one of the seven German kings who entered among the
Gauls under the Empire of Constantius, expressly recognized the right
of nuns to be buried in religion, that is to say, beneath the altar.”
“But the inspector from the Prefecture—”
“The world is nothing in the presence of the cross. Martin, the
eleventh general of the Carthusians, gave to his order this device:
_Stat crux dum volvitur orbis_.”
“Amen,” said Fauchelevent, who imperturbably extricated himself in this
manner from the dilemma, whenever he heard Latin.
Any audience suffices for a person who has held his peace too long. On
the day when the rhetorician Gymnastoras left his prison, bearing in
his body many dilemmas and numerous syllogisms which had struck in, he
halted in front of the first tree which he came to, harangued it and
made very great efforts to convince it. The prioress, who was usually
subjected to the barrier of silence, and whose reservoir was overfull,
rose and exclaimed with the loquacity of a dam which has broken away:—
“I have on my right Benoît and on my left Bernard. Who was Bernard? The
first abbot of Clairvaux. Fontaines in Burgundy is a country that is
blest because it gave him birth. His father was named Técelin, and his
mother Alèthe. He began at Cîteaux, to end in Clairvaux; he was
ordained abbot by the bishop of Châlon-sur-Saône, Guillaume de
Champeaux; he had seven hundred novices, and founded a hundred and
sixty monasteries; he overthrew Abeilard at the council of Sens in
1140, and Pierre de Bruys and Henry his disciple, and another sort of
erring spirits who were called the Apostolics; he confounded Arnauld de
Brescia, darted lightning at the monk Raoul, the murderer of the Jews,
dominated the council of Reims in 1148, caused the condemnation of
Gilbert de Poréa, Bishop of Poitiers, caused the condemnation of Éon de
l’Étoile, arranged the disputes of princes, enlightened King Louis the
Young, advised Pope Eugene III., regulated the Temple, preached the
crusade, performed two hundred and fifty miracles during his lifetime,
and as many as thirty-nine in one day. Who was Benoît? He was the
patriarch of Mont-Cassin; he was the second founder of the Sainteté
Claustrale, he was the Basil of the West. His order has produced forty
popes, two hundred cardinals, fifty patriarchs, sixteen hundred
archbishops, four thousand six hundred bishops, four emperors, twelve
empresses, forty-six kings, forty-one queens, three thousand six
hundred canonized saints, and has been in existence for fourteen
hundred years. On one side Saint Bernard, on the other the agent of the
sanitary department! On one side Saint Benoît, on the other the
inspector of public ways! The state, the road commissioners, the public
undertaker, regulations, the administration, what do we know of all
that? There is not a chance passer-by who would not be indignant to see
how we are treated. We have not even the right to give our dust to
Jesus Christ! Your sanitary department is a revolutionary invention.
God subordinated to the commissary of police; such is the age. Silence,
Fauvent!”
Fauchelevent was but ill at ease under this shower bath. The prioress
continued:—
“No one doubts the right of the monastery to sepulture. Only fanatics
and those in error deny it. We live in times of terrible confusion. We
do not know that which it is necessary to know, and we know that which
we should ignore. We are ignorant and impious. In this age there exist
people who do not distinguish between the very great Saint Bernard and
the Saint Bernard denominated of the poor Catholics, a certain good
ecclesiastic who lived in the thirteenth century. Others are so
blasphemous as to compare the scaffold of Louis XVI. to the cross of
Jesus Christ. Louis XVI. was merely a king. Let us beware of God! There
is no longer just nor unjust. The name of Voltaire is known, but not
the name of César de Bus. Nevertheless, César de Bus is a man of
blessed memory, and Voltaire one of unblessed memory. The last
arch-bishop, the Cardinal de Périgord, did not even know that Charles
de Gondren succeeded to Berulle, and François Bourgoin to Gondren, and
Jean-François Senault to Bourgoin, and Father Sainte-Marthe to
Jean-François Senault. The name of Father Coton is known, not because
he was one of the three who urged the foundation of the Oratorie, but
because he furnished Henri IV., the Huguenot king, with the material
for an oath. That which pleases people of the world in Saint François
de Sales, is that he cheated at play. And then, religion is attacked.
Why? Because there have been bad priests, because Sagittaire, Bishop of
Gap, was the brother of Salone, Bishop of Embrun, and because both of
them followed Mommol. What has that to do with the question? Does that
prevent Martin de Tours from being a saint, and giving half of his
cloak to a beggar? They persecute the saints. They shut their eyes to
the truth. Darkness is the rule. The most ferocious beasts are beasts
which are blind. No one thinks of hell as a reality. Oh! how wicked
people are! By order of the king signifies to-day, by order of the
revolution. One no longer knows what is due to the living or to the
dead. A holy death is prohibited. Burial is a civil matter. This is
horrible. Saint Leo II. wrote two special letters, one to Pierre
Notaire, the other to the king of the Visigoths, for the purpose of
combating and rejecting, in questions touching the dead, the authority
of the exarch and the supremacy of the Emperor. Gauthier, Bishop of
Châlons, held his own in this matter against Otho, Duke of Burgundy.
The ancient magistracy agreed with him. In former times we had voices
in the chapter, even on matters of the day. The Abbot of Cîteaux, the
general of the order, was councillor by right of birth to the
parliament of Burgundy. We do what we please with our dead. Is not the
body of Saint Benoît himself in France, in the abbey of Fleury, called
Saint Benoît-sur-Loire, although he died in Italy at Mont-Cassin, on
Saturday, the 21st of the month of March, of the year 543? All this is
incontestable. I abhor psalm-singers, I hate priors, I execrate
heretics, but I should detest yet more any one who should maintain the
contrary. One has only to read Arnoul Wion, Gabriel Bucelin, Trithemus,
Maurolics, and Dom Luc d’Achery.”
The prioress took breath, then turned to Fauchelevent.
“Is it settled, Father Fauvent?”
“It is settled, reverend Mother.”
“We may depend on you?”
“I will obey.”
“That is well.”
“I am entirely devoted to the convent.”
“That is understood. You will close the coffin. The sisters will carry
it to the chapel. The office for the dead will then be said. Then we
shall return to the cloister. Between eleven o’clock and midnight, you
will come with your iron bar. All will be done in the most profound
secrecy. There will be in the chapel only the four Mother Precentors,
Mother Ascension and yourself.”
“And the sister at the post?”
“She will not turn round.”
“But she will hear.”
“She will not listen. Besides, what the cloister knows the world learns
not.”
A pause ensued. The prioress went on:—
“You will remove your bell. It is not necessary that the sister at the
post should perceive your presence.”
“Reverend Mother?”
“What, Father Fauvent?”
“Has the doctor for the dead paid his visit?”
“He will pay it at four o’clock to-day. The peal which orders the
doctor for the dead to be summoned has already been rung. But you do
not understand any of the peals?”
“I pay no attention to any but my own.”
“That is well, Father Fauvent.”
“Reverend Mother, a lever at least six feet long will be required.”
“Where will you obtain it?”
“Where gratings are not lacking, iron bars are not lacking. I have my
heap of old iron at the bottom of the garden.”
“About three-quarters of an hour before midnight; do not forget.”
“Reverend Mother?”
“What?”
“If you were ever to have any other jobs of this sort, my brother is
the strong man for you. A perfect Turk!”
“You will do it as speedily as possible.”
“I cannot work very fast. I am infirm; that is why I require an
assistant. I limp.”
“To limp is no sin, and perhaps it is a blessing. The Emperor Henry
II., who combated Antipope Gregory and re-established Benoît VIII., has
two surnames, the Saint and the Lame.”
“Two surtouts are a good thing,” murmured Fauchelevent, who really was
a little hard of hearing.
“Now that I think of it, Father Fauvent, let us give a whole hour to
it. That is not too much. Be near the principal altar, with your iron
bar, at eleven o’clock. The office begins at midnight. Everything must
have been completed a good quarter of an hour before that.”
“I will do anything to prove my zeal towards the community. These are
my orders. I am to nail up the coffin. At eleven o’clock exactly, I am
to be in the chapel. The Mother Precentors will be there. Mother
Ascension will be there. Two men would be better. However, never mind!
I shall have my lever. We will open the vault, we will lower the
coffin, and we will close the vault again. After which, there will be
no trace of anything. The government will have no suspicion. Thus all
has been arranged, reverend Mother?”
“No!”
“What else remains?”
“The empty coffin remains.”
This produced a pause. Fauchelevent meditated. The prioress meditated.
“What is to be done with that coffin, Father Fauvent?”
“It will be given to the earth.”
“Empty?”
Another silence. Fauchelevent made, with his left hand, that sort of a
gesture which dismisses a troublesome subject.
“Reverend Mother, I am the one who is to nail up the coffin in the
basement of the church, and no one can enter there but myself, and I
will cover the coffin with the pall.”
“Yes, but the bearers, when they place it in the hearse and lower it
into the grave, will be sure to feel that there is nothing in it.”
“Ah! the de—!” exclaimed Fauchelevent.