Chapter XIX
Original French
L’Ingénu, la belle Saint-Yves, et leurs parents, sont rassemblés.
La généreuse et respectable infidèle était avec son frère l’abbé deSaint-Yves, le bon prieur de la Montagne, et la dame de Kerkabon. Tousétaient également étonnés; mais leur situation et leurs sentimentsétaient bien différents. L’abbé de Saint-Yves pleurait ses torts auxpieds de sa soeur, qui lui pardonnait. Le prieur et sa tendre soeurpleuraient aussi, mais de joie; le vilain bailli et son insupportablefils ne troublaient point cette scène touchante. Ils étaient partis aupremier bruit de l’élargissement de leur ennemi; ils couraientensevelir dans leur province leur sottise et leur crainte.
Les quatre personnages, agités de cent mouvements divers, attendaientque le jeune homme revînt avec l’ami qu’il devait délivrer. L’abbé deSaint-Yves n’osait lever les yeux devant sa soeur: la bonne Kerkabondisait: Je reverrai donc mon cher neveu! Vous le reverrez, dit lacharmante Saint-Yves, mais ce n’est plus le même homme; son maintien,son ton, ses idées, son esprit, tout est changé. Il est devenu aussirespectable qu’il était naïf et étranger à tout. Il sera l’honneur etla consolation de votre famille: que ne puis-je être aussi le bonheurde la mienne! Vous n’êtes point non plus la même, dit le prieur; quevous est-il donc arrivé qui ait fait en vous un si grand changement?
Au milieu de cette conversation l’Ingénu arrive, tenant par la main sonjanséniste. La scène alors devint plus neuve et plus intéressante. Ellecommença par les tendres embrassements de l’oncle et de la tante.L’abbé de Saint-Yves se mettait presque aux genoux de l’Ingénu, quin’était plus l’ingénu. Les deux amants se parlaient par des regards quiexprimaient tous les sentiments dont ils étaient pénétrés. On voyaitéclater la satisfaction, la reconnaissance, sur le front de l’un;l’embarras était peint dans les yeux tendres et un peu égarés del’autre. On était étonné qu’elle mêlât de la douleur à tant de joie.
Le vieux Gordon devint en peu de moments cher à toute la famille. Ilavait été malheureux avec le jeune prisonnier, et c’était un grandtitre. Il devait sa délivrance aux deux amants, cela seul leréconciliait avec l’amour; l’âpreté de ses anciennes opinions sortaitde son coeur: il était changé en homme, ainsi que le Huron. Chacunraconta ses aventures avant le souper. Les deux abbés, la tante,écoutaient comme des enfants qui entendent des histoires de revenants,et comme des hommes qui s’intéressaient tous à tant de désastres.Hélas! dit Gordon, il y a peut-être plus de cinq cents personnesvertueuses qui sont à présent dans les mêmes fers que mademoiselle deSaint-Yves a brisés: leurs malheurs sont inconnus. On trouve assez demains qui frappent sur la foule des malheureux, et rarement unesecourable. Cette réflexion si vraie augmentait sa sensibilité et sareconnaissance: tout redoublait le triomphe de la belle Saint-Yves; onadmirait la grandeur et la fermeté de son âme. L’admiration était mêléede ce respect qu’on sent malgré soi pour une personne qu’on croit avoirdu crédit à la cour. Mais l’abbé de Saint-Yves disait quelquefois:Comment ma soeur a-t-elle pu faire pour obtenir si tôt ce crédit?
On allait se mettre à table de très bonne heure: voilà que la bonneamie de Versailles arrive, sans rien savoir de tout ce qui s’étaitpassé; elle était en carrosse à six chevaux, et on voit bien à quiappartient l’équipage. Elle entre avec l’air imposant d’une personne decour qui a de grandes affaires, salue très légèrement la compagnie, ettirant la belle Saint-Yves à l’écart: Pourquoi vous faire tantattendre? Suivez-moi; voilà vos diamants que vous aviez oubliés. Ellene put dire ces paroles si bas que l’Ingénu ne les entendît: il vit lesdiamants; le frère fut interdit; l’oncle et la tante n’éprouvèrentqu’une surprise de bonnes gens qui n’avaient jamais vu une tellemagnificence. Le jeune homme, qui s’était formé par un an deréflexions, en fit malgré lui, et parut troublé un moment. Son amantes’en aperçut; une pâleur mortelle se répandit sur son beau visage, unfrisson la saisit, elle se soutenait à peine. Ah! madame, dit-elle à lafatale amie, vous m’avez perdue! vous me donnez la mort! Ces parolespercèrent le coeur de l’Ingénu; mais il avait déjà appris à seposséder; il ne les releva point, de peur d’inquiéter sa maîtressedevant son frère, mais il pâlit comme elle.
Saint-Yves, éperdue de l’altération qu’elle apercevait sur le visage deson amant, entraîne cette femme hors de la chambre dans un petitpassage, jette les diamants à terre devant elle. Ah! ce ne sont pas euxqui m’ont séduite, vous le savez; mais celui qui les a donnés ne mereverra jamais. L’amie les ramassait, et Saint-Yves ajoutait: Qu’il lesreprenne ou qu’il vous les donne; allez, ne me rendez plus honteuse demoi-même. L’ambassadrice enfin s’en retourna, ne pouvant comprendre lesremords dont elle était témoin.
La belle Saint-Yves, oppressée, éprouvant dans son corps une révolutionqui la suffoquait, fut obligée de se mettre au lit; mais pour n’alarmerpersonne elle ne parla point de ce qu’elle souffrait; et, ne prétextantque sa lassitude, elle demanda la permission de prendre du repos; maisce fut après avoir rassuré la compagnie par des paroles consolantes etflatteuses, et jeté sur son amant des regards qui portaient le feu dansson âme.
Le souper, qu’elle n’animait pas, fut triste dans le commencement, maisde cette tristesse intéressante qui fournit de ces conversationsattachantes et utiles si supérieures à la frivole joie qu’on recherche,et qui n’est d’ordinaire qu’un bruit importun.
Gordon fit en peu de mots l’histoire et du jansénisme et du molinisme,et des persécutions dont un parti accablait l’autre, et del’opiniâtreté de tous les deux. L’Ingénu en fit la critique, etplaignit les hommes qui, non contents de tant de discordes que leursintérêts allument, se font de nouveaux maux pour des intérêtschimériques, et pour des absurdités inintelligibles. Gordon racontait,l’autre jugeait; les convives écoutaient avec émotion, et s’éclairaientd’une lumière nouvelle. On parla de la longueur de nos infortunes et dela brièveté de la vie. On remarqua que chaque profession a un vice etun danger qui lui sont attachés, et que, depuis le prince jusqu’audernier des mendiants, tout semble accuser la nature. Comment setrouve-t-il tant d’hommes qui, pour si peu d’argent, se font lespersécuteurs, les satellites, les bourreaux des autres hommes? Avecquelle indifférence inhumaine un homme en place signe la destructiond’une famille, et avec quelle joie plus barbare des mercenairesl’exécutent!
J’ai vu dans ma jeunesse, dit le bon-homme Gordon, un parent dumaréchal de Marillac, qui, étant poursuivi dans sa province pour lacause de cet illustre malheureux, se cachait dans Paris sous un nomsupposé. C’était un vieillard de soixante et douze ans. Sa femme, quil’accompagnait, était à peu près de son âge. Ils avaient eu un filslibertin qui, à l’âge de quatorze ans, s’était enfui de la maisonpaternelle; devenu soldat, puis déserteur, il avait passé par tous lesdegrés de la débauche et de la misère: enfin, ayant pris un nom deterre, il était dans les gardes du cardinal de Richelieu (car ceprêtre, ainsi que le Mazarin, avait des gardes); il avait obtenu unbâton d’exempt dans cette compagnie de satellites. Cet aventurier futchargé d’arrêter le vieillard et son épouse, et s’en acquitta avectoute la dureté d’un homme qui voulait plaire à son maître. Comme illes conduisait, il entendit ces deux victimes déplorer la longue suitedes malheurs qu’elles avaient éprouvés depuis leur berceau. Le père etla mère comptaient parmi leurs plus grandes infortunes les égarementset la perte de leur fils. Il les reconnut, il ne les conduisit pasmoins en prison, en les assurant que son éminence devait être servie depréférence à tout. Son éminence récompensa son zèle.
J’ai vu un espion du P. de La Chaise trahir son propre frère, dansl’espérance d’un petit bénéfice qu’il n’eut point; et je l’ai vumourir, non de remords, mais de douleur d’avoir été trompé par lejésuite.
L’emploi de confesseur, que j’ai long-temps exercé, m’a fait connaîtrel’intérieur des familles; je n’en ai guère vu qui ne fussent plongéesdans l’amertume, tandis qu’au dehors, couvertes du masque du bonheur,elles paraissaient nager dans la joie; et j’ai toujours remarqué queles grands chagrins étaient le fruit de notre cupidité effrénée.
Pour moi, dit l’Ingénu, je pense qu’une âme noble, reconnaissante, etsensible, peut vivre heureuse; et je compte bien jouir d’une félicitésans mélange avec la belle et généreuse Saint-Yves; car je me flatte,ajouta-t-il, en s’adressant à son frère avec le sourire de l’amitié,que vous ne me refuserez pas, comme l’année passée, et que je m’yprendrai d’une manière plus décente. L’abbé se confondit en excuses dupassé et en protestations d’un attachement éternel.
L’oncle Kerkabon dit que ce serait le plus beau jour de sa vie. Labonne tante, en s’extasiant et en pleurant de joie, s’écriait: Je vousl’avais bien dit que vous ne seriez jamais sous-diacre! ce sacrement-civaut mieux que l’autre; plût à Dieu que j’en eusse été honorée! mais jevous servirai de mère. Alors ce fut à qui renchérirait sur les louangesde la tendre Saint-Yves.
Son amant avait le coeur trop plein de ce qu’elle avait fait pour lui,il l’aimait trop pour que l’aventure des diamants eût fait sur soncoeur une impression dominante. Mais ces mots qu’il avait tropentendus, vous me donnez la mort, l’effrayaient encore en secret, etcorrompaient toute sa joie, tandis que les éloges de sa belle maîtresseaugmentaient encore son amour. Enfin on n’était plus occupé que d’elle;on ne parlait que du bonheur que ces deux amants méritaient; ons’arrangeait pour vivre tous ensemble dans Paris; on fesait des projetsde fortune et d’agrandissement; on se livrait à toutes ces espérancesque la moindre lueur de félicité fait naître si aisément. Maisl’Ingénu, dans le fond de son coeur, éprouvait un sentiment secret quirepoussait cette illusion. Il relisait ces promesses signéesSaint-Pouange, et les brevets signés Louvois; on lui dépeignit ces deuxhommes tels qu’ils étaient, ou qu’on les croyait être. Chacun parla desministres et du ministère avec cette liberté de table, regardée enFrance comme la plus précieuse liberté qu’on puisse goûter sur laterre.
Si j’étais roi de France, dit l’Ingénu, voici le ministre de la guerreque je choisirais: je voudrais un homme de la plus haute naissance, parla raison qu’il donne des ordres à la noblesse. J’exigerais qu’il eûtété lui-même officier, qu’il eût passé par tous les grades, qu’il fûtau moins lieutenant-général des armées, et digne d’être maréchal deFrance; car n’est-il pas nécessaire qu’il ait servi lui-même, pourmieux connaître les détails du service? et les officiers n’obéiront-ilspas avec cent fois plus d’allégresse à un homme de guerre, qui auracomme eux signalé son courage, qu’à un homme de cabinet qui ne peut quedeviner tout au plus les opérations d’une campagne, quelque espritqu’il puisse avoir? Je ne serais pas fâché que mon ministre fûtgénéreux, quoique mon garde du trésor royal en fût quelquefois un peuembarrassé. J’aimerais qu’il eût un travail facile, et que même il sedistinguât par cette gaîté d’esprit, partage d’un homme supérieur auxaffaires, qui plaît tant à la nation, et qui rend tous les devoirsmoins pénibles. Il desirait que ce ministre eût ce caractère,parcequ’il avait toujours remarqué que cette belle humeur estincompatible avec la cruauté.
Mons de Louvois n’aurait peut-être pas été satisfait des souhaits del’Ingénu; il avait une autre sorte de mérite.
Mais pendant qu’on était à table, la maladie de cette fille malheureuseprenait un caractère funeste; son sang s’était allumé, une fièvredévorante s’était déclarée, elle souffrait, et ne se plaignait point,attentive à ne pas troubler la joie des convives.
Son frère, sachant qu’elle ne dormait pas, alla au chevet de son lit;il fut surpris de l’état où elle était. Tout le monde accourut; l’amantse présentait à la suite du frère. Il était, sans doute, le plus alarméet le plus attendri de tous; mais il avait appris à joindre ladiscrétion à tous les dons heureux que la nature lui avait prodigués,et le sentiment prompt des bienséances commençait à dominer dans lui.
On fit venir aussitôt un médecin du voisinage. C’était un de ceux quivisitent leurs malades en courant, qui confondent la maladie qu’ilsviennent de voir avec celle qu’ils voient, qui mettent une pratiqueaveugle dans une science à laquelle toute la maturité d’un discernementsain et réfléchi ne peut ôter son incertitude et ses dangers. Ilredoubla le mal par sa précipitation à prescrire un remède alors à lamode. De la mode jusque dans la médecine! Cette manie était tropcommune dans Paris.
La triste Saint-Yves contribuait encore plus que son médecin à rendresa maladie dangereuse. Son âme tuait son corps. La foule des penséesqui l’agitaient portait dans ses veines un poison plus dangereux quecelui de la fièvre la plus brûlante.
Musean translation
Complete machine-assisted Musean translation made directly from the French, independently of the Plain English edition. All twenty chapters and Voltaire’s three author notes are retained; Beuchot’s editorial apparatus is omitted.
The Ingénu, the beautiful Saint-Yves, and their relatives are reunited.
The generous and worthy unfaithful woman was with her brother, the abbé de Saint-Yves, the good prior of Our Lady of the Mountain, and Mademoiselle de Kerkabon. All were equally astonished, but their situations and feelings were very different. The abbé de Saint-Yves wept over his wrongs at the feet of his sister, who forgave him. The prior and his tenderhearted sister wept as well, but for joy. The odious bailiff and his insufferable son did not disturb this touching scene. They had left at the first report of their enemy's release, hurrying to bury their stupidity and their fear in their province.
Stirred by a hundred different emotions, the four awaited the young man's return with the friend he was to free. The abbé de Saint-Yves did not dare raise his eyes before his sister. Good Mademoiselle de Kerkabon said, "So I shall see my dear nephew again!" "You will see him again," said the charming Saint-Yves, "but he is no longer the same man. His bearing, his tone, his ideas, his mind—everything has changed. He has become as worthy of respect as he once was naïve and a stranger to everything. He will be the honor and consolation of your family. If only I could bring happiness to mine as well!" "You are not the same either," said the prior. "What has happened to you to bring about so great a change?"
In the midst of this conversation the Ingénu arrived, holding his Jansenist by the hand. The scene now grew still more novel and moving. It began with the tender embraces of the uncle and aunt. The abbé de Saint-Yves all but knelt before the Ingénu, who was no longer naïve. The two lovers spoke to each other through glances that expressed all the feelings filling their hearts. Satisfaction and gratitude shone on his face; distress was painted in her tender, slightly bewildered eyes. Everyone was surprised that she mingled sorrow with so much joy.
Within a few moments old Gordon had become dear to the whole family. He had suffered with the young prisoner, and that was a great claim on their affection. He owed his release to the two lovers, and that alone reconciled him to love. The harshness of his former opinions was leaving his heart; he had been transformed into a man, just as the Huron had. Before supper, everyone told their adventures. The two abbés and the aunt listened like children hearing ghost stories, and like people who all felt concern at so many disasters. "Alas!" said Gordon. "There may be more than five hundred virtuous people now in the same chains that Mademoiselle de Saint-Yves has broken. Their misfortunes are unknown. There are hands enough to strike the multitude of the unhappy, and rarely one to help." This reflection, so true, increased his tenderness and gratitude. Everything redoubled the beautiful Saint-Yves's triumph; they admired the greatness and firmness of her soul. Their admiration was mingled with the respect one feels, despite oneself, for someone believed to have influence at court. But the abbé de Saint-Yves sometimes said, "How can my sister have managed to obtain this influence so quickly?"
They were about to sit down to a very early supper when the good friend from Versailles arrived, knowing nothing of what had happened. She came in a carriage drawn by six horses, and it is easy to see whose equipage it was. She entered with the imposing air of a person from court who has important business, barely greeted the company, and drew the beautiful Saint-Yves aside. "Why keep us waiting so long? Come with me. Here are the diamonds you forgot." She could not say these words so softly that the Ingénu did not hear them. He saw the diamonds; the brother was dumbfounded; the uncle and aunt felt only the amazement of simple souls who had never seen such magnificence. The young man, who had formed himself through a year of reflection, now reflected despite himself, and looked troubled for a moment. His beloved noticed it. A deathly pallor spread over her beautiful face, a shudder seized her, and she could scarcely stand. "Ah, madame," she said to her fatal friend, "you have ruined me! You are killing me!" These words pierced the Ingénu's heart, but he had already learned self-control. He did not take them up, for fear of distressing his beloved in front of her brother, but he turned as pale as she.
Distraught at the change she saw in her lover's face, Saint-Yves drew the woman out of the room into a little passage and threw the diamonds on the floor before her. "Ah! These were not what led me astray, as you know. But the man who gave them will never see me again." Her friend was picking them up as Saint-Yves added, "Let him take them back or give them to you. Go, do not make me still more ashamed of myself." At last the ambassadress went away, unable to understand the remorse she had witnessed.
The beautiful Saint-Yves, oppressed by a turmoil in her body that was stifling her, was obliged to go to bed. But to alarm no one, she said nothing of her suffering. Pleading only fatigue, she asked leave to rest, but not before reassuring the company with comforting, flattering words and casting glances at her lover that set his soul on fire.
The supper, which she was not there to enliven, was sad at first, but with that engaging sadness which gives rise to absorbing and useful conversations, so far superior to the frivolous gaiety people seek, which is usually no more than tiresome noise.
In a few words Gordon related the history of both Jansenism and Molinism, the persecutions with which one party overwhelmed the other, and the obstinacy of both. The Ingénu criticized it all and pitied men who, not content with the many quarrels kindled by their interests, create new miseries for themselves over imaginary interests and unintelligible absurdities. Gordon recounted; the other judged. Their fellow diners listened with feeling and were enlightened by a new light. They spoke of the length of our misfortunes and the brevity of life. They observed that every occupation has a vice and a danger attached to it, and that from the prince to the lowest beggar, everything seems to accuse nature. How is it that so many men, for so little money, make themselves the persecutors, henchmen, and executioners of other men? With what inhuman indifference a man in office signs away a family's existence, and with what still more barbarous joy hirelings carry out its destruction!
"In my youth," said good old Gordon, "I knew a relative of Marshal de Marillac who, being pursued in his province for supporting that illustrious, unfortunate man, was hiding in Paris under an assumed name. He was an old man of seventy-two. His wife, who accompanied him, was about the same age. They had had a dissolute son who, at fourteen, had run away from his father's house. He became a soldier, then a deserter, and passed through every degree of debauchery and misery. At last, having assumed the name of an estate, he joined Cardinal de Richelieu's guards—for that priest, like Mazarin, had guards—and had won an exempt's baton in that company of henchmen. This adventurer was charged with arresting the old man and his wife, and carried out his task with all the harshness of a man eager to please his master. As he was leading them away, he heard these two victims lamenting the long succession of misfortunes they had endured since the cradle. Among their greatest sorrows, the father and mother counted their son's waywardness and loss. He recognized them, but took them to prison all the same, assuring them that serving His Eminence must come before everything. His Eminence rewarded his zeal.
"I have seen a spy of Father de La Chaise betray his own brother in the hope of a little benefice he never received; and I have seen him die, not of remorse, but of grief at having been deceived by the Jesuit.
"My office as confessor, which I exercised for a long time, gave me a knowledge of families' inner lives. I have scarcely seen one that was not steeped in bitterness while outwardly, covered by the mask of happiness, it seemed to swim in joy; and I have always observed that great sorrows were the fruit of our unbridled greed."
"For my part," said the Ingénu, "I think a noble, grateful, and sensitive soul can live happily; and I fully intend to enjoy unalloyed happiness with the beautiful and generous Saint-Yves. For I flatter myself," he added, turning to her brother with a friendly smile, "that you will not refuse me as you did last year, and that I shall go about it more decently." The abbé overwhelmed him with apologies for the past and protestations of eternal devotion.
Uncle Kerkabon said it would be the finest day of his life. The good aunt, in raptures and weeping for joy, cried, "I told you that you would never be a subdeacon! This sacrament is worth more than the other. If only God had granted me that honor! But I will be a mother to you." Then they vied with one another in praising the tender Saint-Yves.
Her lover's heart was too full of what she had done for him, and he loved her too much, for the episode of the diamonds to have made a prevailing impression on his heart. But those words he had heard only too well, you are killing me, still secretly frightened him and spoiled all his joy, while the praises of his beautiful beloved increased his love still more. At last they thought of nothing but her; they spoke only of the happiness these two lovers deserved. They made arrangements for everyone to live together in Paris, planned their fortunes and advancement, and surrendered to all those hopes that the faintest gleam of happiness so easily calls to life. But deep in his heart the Ingénu felt a secret misgiving that resisted this illusion. He reread those promises signed Saint-Pouange and those warrants signed Louvois. The two men were described to him as they were, or were believed to be. Everyone spoke of the ministers and the ministry with that freedom of the dinner table regarded in France as the most precious liberty one can enjoy on earth.
"If I were king of France," said the Ingénu, "here is the minister of war I would choose. I would want a man of the highest birth, because he gives orders to the nobility. I would require that he had been an officer himself, that he had risen through every rank, that he was at least a lieutenant general in the army and worthy to be a marshal of France. For must he not have served himself to know the details of the service better? And will officers not obey a military man who has distinguished himself by his courage, as they have, a hundred times more gladly than a man of the study who can at best only guess at the operations of a campaign, however clever he may be? I would not mind my minister's being generous, even if this sometimes embarrassed the keeper of my royal treasury a little. I would like him to work with ease, and even to be distinguished by that gaiety of spirit belonging to a man who is master of his business, which pleases the nation so much and makes every duty less burdensome." He wanted the minister to have this character because he had always observed that such good humor is incompatible with cruelty.
That Louvois might not have been pleased with the Ingénu's wishes; his merits were of a different kind.
But while they sat at table, the unhappy girl's illness was taking a fatal turn. Her blood was inflamed, a consuming fever had declared itself; she suffered and did not complain, careful not to disturb the diners' joy.
Her brother, knowing she was not asleep, went to her bedside and was startled at her condition. Everyone hurried in; her lover came behind her brother. He was undoubtedly the most alarmed and most deeply moved of all; but he had learned to add discretion to all the happy gifts nature had lavished on him, and a quick sense of propriety was beginning to govern him.
A doctor from the neighborhood was summoned at once. He was one of those who visit their patients at a run, confuse the illness they have just seen with the one before them, and bring blind routine to a science from which all the maturity of sound and thoughtful judgment cannot remove uncertainty and danger. He redoubled the harm by hastily prescribing a remedy then in fashion. Fashion even in medicine! This mania was all too common in Paris.
The sorrowful Saint-Yves did still more than her doctor to make her illness dangerous. Her soul was killing her body. The multitude of thoughts tormenting her carried into her veins a poison more dangerous than that of the fiercest fever.
Plain English translation
Complete machine-assisted Plain English translation made independently and directly from the French, not from the Musean edition. All twenty chapters and Voltaire’s three author notes are retained; Beuchot’s editorial apparatus is omitted.
The Ingénu, the beautiful Saint-Yves, and their relatives come together.
The generous, admirable woman who had been unfaithful was with her brother, the abbé de Saint-Yves, the good prior of Our Lady of the Mountain, and Mademoiselle de Kerkabon. They were all equally astonished, but their situations and feelings were very different. The abbé de Saint-Yves wept over his wrongdoing at his sister's feet, and she forgave him. The prior and his loving sister were crying too, but with joy. The wicked bailiff and his unbearable son didn't disturb this moving scene. They had left at the first news that their enemy was being freed. They were hurrying back to bury their foolishness and fear in their province.
Stirred by a hundred different feelings, the four of them waited for the young man to return with the friend he was going to free. The abbé de Saint-Yves didn't dare look his sister in the eye. Good Mademoiselle de Kerkabon said, "So I'll see my dear nephew again!" "You will," said the lovely Saint-Yves, "but he isn't the same man anymore. His manner, his way of speaking, his ideas, his mind—everything has changed. He has become as worthy of respect as he used to be naïve and unfamiliar with everything. He'll bring honor and comfort to your family. If only I could make mine happy too!" "You aren't the same either," said the prior. "What has happened to change you so much?"
In the middle of this conversation, the Ingénu arrived, holding his Jansenist's hand. The scene now became still more unusual and moving. It began with loving embraces from his uncle and aunt. The abbé de Saint-Yves almost went down on his knees before the Ingénu, who was no longer so naïve. The two lovers spoke to each other through looks that expressed all the feelings filling their hearts. Joy and gratitude shone on his face. Uneasiness showed in her tender, slightly bewildered eyes. Everyone was surprised that she mixed sorrow with so much joy.
In a few moments, old Gordon became dear to the whole family. He had suffered with the young prisoner, and that was a great claim on their affection. He owed his release to the two lovers. That alone reconciled him to love. The harshness of his former beliefs was leaving his heart. Like the Huron, he had become a new man. Before supper, everyone told their adventures. The two abbés and the aunt listened like children hearing ghost stories, and like people who all cared about so many disasters. "Sadly," said Gordon, "there may be more than five hundred virtuous people at this moment in the same chains Mademoiselle de Saint-Yves has broken. Their sufferings are unknown. There are plenty of hands to strike the mass of unhappy people, but rarely one to help." This thought, so true, deepened his compassion and gratitude. Everything added to the beautiful Saint-Yves's triumph. Everyone admired her noble, resolute spirit. Their admiration was mixed with the respect people can't help feeling for someone they believe has influence at court. But the abbé de Saint-Yves sometimes asked, "How did my sister manage to gain this influence so quickly?"
They were about to sit down to a very early supper when the good friend from Versailles arrived, knowing nothing of what had happened. She was in a carriage drawn by six horses, and it was easy to see who owned it. She came in with the imposing air of someone from court who had important business, barely greeted the company, and pulled the beautiful Saint-Yves aside. "Why keep us waiting so long? Come with me. Here are your diamonds, which you forgot." She couldn't say this quietly enough to keep the Ingénu from hearing. He saw the diamonds. Her brother was dumbfounded. The uncle and aunt felt only the surprise of simple people who had never seen such splendor. The young man, whose mind had developed through a year of reflection, couldn't help thinking about it and looked troubled for a moment. His lover noticed. A deathly paleness spread over her beautiful face. She shuddered and could barely stand. "Oh, madam," she told that disastrous friend, "you've ruined me! You're killing me!" These words pierced the Ingénu's heart. But he had already learned self-control. He didn't comment on them, for fear of upsetting his beloved in front of her brother, but he turned as pale as she did.
Saint-Yves, distraught at the change she saw in her lover's face, pulled the woman out of the room into a small passage and threw the diamonds on the ground in front of her. "Oh, they weren't what tempted me. You know that. But the man who gave them will never see me again." Her friend was picking them up, and Saint-Yves added, "Let him take them back or give them to you. Go away. Don't make me feel ashamed of myself anymore." At last the messenger went back, unable to understand the remorse she had witnessed.
The beautiful Saint-Yves, weighed down and feeling a violent disturbance in her body that made it hard to breathe, had to go to bed. But she didn't want to alarm anyone, so she said nothing about her suffering. Saying only that she was tired, she asked permission to rest. First, though, she reassured everyone with comforting, affectionate words and gave her lover looks that set his soul on fire.
Without her to bring life to it, supper was sad at first. But it was the kind of moving sadness that produces absorbing, useful conversations, far better than the frivolous gaiety people seek, which is usually nothing but tiresome noise.
In a few words Gordon told the history of Jansenism and Molinism, the persecutions one party inflicted on the other, and the stubbornness of both. The Ingénu criticized them and pitied people who weren't content with all the conflicts their interests stirred up, but made new troubles for themselves over imaginary interests and incomprehensible absurdities. Gordon told the story, and the other judged it. Their fellow diners listened with feeling and gained new understanding. They spoke of how long our troubles last and how short life is. They observed that every profession has its own vice and danger, and that everyone, from a prince to the lowest beggar, seems to accuse nature. How can there be so many people willing, for so little money, to persecute, hunt down, and execute other people? With what inhuman indifference a man in office signs an order to destroy a family, and with what still more barbarous joy hired men carry it out!
"In my youth," said good old Gordon, "I knew a relative of Marshal de Marillac. He was being hunted in his province for supporting that famous, unfortunate man, and was hiding in Paris under a false name. He was seventy-two years old. His wife, who was with him, was about the same age. They had had a dissolute son who ran away from home at fourteen. He became a soldier, then a deserter, and went through every stage of debauchery and poverty. At last he adopted the name of an estate and joined Cardinal de Richelieu's guards—for that priest, like Mazarin, had guards. He had obtained an exempt officer's baton in this band of henchmen. This adventurer was ordered to arrest the old man and his wife. He carried it out with all the brutality of a man eager to please his master. As he led them away, he heard these two victims lament the long series of misfortunes they had suffered since birth. The father and mother counted their son's waywardness and loss among their greatest sorrows. He recognized them, but took them to prison just the same, assuring them that serving His Eminence must come before everything else. His Eminence rewarded his zeal.
"I saw a spy working for Father de La Chaise betray his own brother in hopes of getting a small church benefice, which he never received. And I saw him die, not of remorse, but of grief at having been cheated by the Jesuit.
"My work as a confessor, which I did for a long time, let me see inside families. I hardly saw one that wasn't sunk in misery, while outwardly, behind a mask of happiness, they seemed to be swimming in joy. And I always noticed that our greatest sorrows came from our uncontrolled greed."
"For my part," said the Ingénu, "I think a noble, grateful, loving soul can live happily. I fully expect to enjoy complete happiness with the beautiful, generous Saint-Yves. For I hope," he added, turning to her brother with a friendly smile, "that you won't refuse me as you did last year, and I'll go about it more properly." The abbé poured out apologies for the past and promises of lasting affection.
Uncle Kerkabon said it would be the happiest day of his life. Overjoyed and crying with happiness, the good aunt exclaimed, "I told you that you'd never be a subdeacon! This sacrament is better than the other one. I wish to God I'd been honored with it! But I'll be a mother to you." Then they all tried to outdo each other in praising the loving Saint-Yves.
Her lover's heart was too full of what she had done for him, and he loved her too much, for the affair of the diamonds to dominate his feelings. But those words he had heard only too clearly, you're killing me, still frightened him in secret and spoiled all his joy, while the praise of his beautiful beloved made his love grow still stronger. At last everyone was thinking only of her. They spoke only of the happiness the two lovers deserved. They made plans to live together in Paris, plans for wealth and advancement. They gave themselves over to all the hopes that the smallest glimmer of happiness so easily brings to life. But deep in his heart the Ingénu felt something that resisted this illusion. He reread the promises signed by Saint-Pouange and the official grants signed by Louvois. They described these two men to him as they were, or as people believed them to be. Everyone spoke about the ministers and the government with that freedom of the dinner table which, in France, is considered the most precious freedom anyone can enjoy on earth.
"If I were king of France," said the Ingénu, "this is the kind of war minister I'd choose. I'd want a man of the highest birth, because he gives orders to the nobility. I'd require him to have been an officer himself, to have passed through every rank, to be at least a lieutenant general in the army and worthy of becoming a marshal of France. Doesn't he need to have served himself to understand the details of military service better? And won't officers obey a soldier who has shown his courage, just as they have, a hundred times more gladly than an office worker who, however clever he is, can at best only guess at the operations of a campaign? I wouldn't mind my minister being generous, even if it sometimes made things a little difficult for the keeper of my royal treasury. I'd like him to work with ease and even be known for the cheerful spirit of a man who is on top of his business. That pleases the nation so much and makes every duty less painful." He wanted the minister to have this character because he had always noticed that such good humor is incompatible with cruelty.
Monsieur de Louvois might not have been satisfied with the Ingénu's wishes. His merits were of another kind.
But while they were at the table, the unhappy girl's illness was taking a dangerous turn. Her blood had become inflamed, and a consuming fever had set in. She suffered without complaining, careful not to disturb the diners' happiness.
Her brother, knowing she wasn't asleep, went to her bedside. He was startled by her condition. Everyone hurried in, her lover following her brother. He was certainly the most alarmed and the most deeply moved of them all. But he had learned to add discretion to all the fine gifts nature had showered on him, and a quick sense of proper behavior was beginning to guide him.
They immediately sent for a neighborhood doctor. He was one of those who rush through their visits, confusing the illness they have just seen with the one they are looking at now. They follow blind routine in a science whose uncertainties and dangers can't be removed even by the most mature, sound, thoughtful judgment. He made the illness twice as bad by hastily prescribing a remedy then in fashion. Fashion, even in medicine! This craze was all too common in Paris.
The sorrowful Saint-Yves did even more than her doctor to make her illness dangerous. Her mind was killing her body. The crowd of thoughts tormenting her put a poison into her veins more dangerous than the poison of the most burning fever.
About this section
Chapter XIX is part of L’Ingénu, histoire véritable tirée des manuscrits du P. Quesnel by Voltaire. This page sets the French original beside 2 direct-source translations, so any line can be checked against the source. It is chapter 19 of 20 in the work, which is kept in the European tradition.
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