Tales and Novels Volume VI Part 44

It was late in the evening, the lamps were lighting, and as Victoire crossed the Pont de Louis Seize, she stopped to look at the reflection of the lamps in the water, which appeared in succession, as they were lighted, spreading as if by magic along the river. While Victoire leaned over the battlements of the bridge, watching the rising of these stars of fire, a sudden push from the elbow of some rude pa.s.senger precipitated her pot of jonquils into the Seine. The sound it made in the water was thunder to the ear of Victoire; she stood for an instant vainly hoping it would rise again, but the waters had closed over it for ever.

"Dans cet etat affreux, que faire?

Mon devoir."

Victoire courageously proceeded to Mad. de Fleury's, and desired to see her.

"D'abord c'est impossible--madame is dressing to go to a concert;"

said Francois. "Cannot you leave your message?"

"Oh, no," said Victoire; "it is of great consequence--I must see _her_ myself; and she is so good, and you too, Monsieur Francois, that I am sure you will not refuse."

"Well, I remember one day you found the seal of my watch, which I dropped at your school-room door--one good turn deserves another.

If it is possible, it shall be done--I will inquire of madame's woman."--"Follow me up stairs," said he, returning in a few minutes; "madame will see you."

She followed him Up the large staircase, and through a suite of apartments sufficiently grand to intimidate her young imagination.

"Madame est dans son cabinet. Entrez--mais entrez done, entrez toujours."

Mad. de Fleury was more richly dressed than usual; and her image was reflected in the large looking-gla.s.s, so that at the first moment Victoire thought she saw many fine ladies, but not one of them the lady she wanted.

"Well, Victoire, my child, what is the matter?"

"Oh, it is her voice!--I know you now, madame, and I am not afraid--not afraid even to tell you how foolish I have been. Sister Frances trusted me to carry for you, madame, a beautiful pot of jonquils, and she desired me not to stop on the way to stare; but I did stop to look at the lamps on the bridge, and I forgot the jonquils, and somebody brushed by me, and threw them into the river--and I am very sorry I was so foolish."

"And I am very glad that you are so wise as to tell the truth, without attempting to make any paltry excuses. Go home to Sister Frances, and a.s.sure her that I am more obliged to her for making you such an honest girl than I could be for a whole bed of jonquils."

Victoire's heart was so full that she could not speak--she kissed Mad. de Fleury's hand in silence, and then seemed to be lost in contemplation of her bracelet.

"Are you thinking, Victoire, that you should be much happier, if you had such bracelets as these?--Believe me, you are mistaken if you think so; many people are unhappy, who wear fine bracelets; so, my child, content yourself."

"Myself! Oh, madam, I was not thinking of myself--I was not wis.h.i.+ng for bracelets, I was only thinking that--"

"That what?"

"That it is a pity you are so very rich; you have every thing in this world that you want, and I can never be of the least use to _you_--all my life I shall never be able to do _you_ any good--and what,"

said Victoire, turning away to hide her tears, "what signifies the grat.i.tude of such a poor little creature as I am?"

"Did you never hear the fable of the lion and the mouse, Victoire?"

"No, madam--never!"

"Then I will tell it to you."

Victoire looked up with eyes of eager expectation--Francois opened the door to announce that the Marquis de M---- and the Comte de S---- were in the saloon; but Mad. de Fleury stayed to tell Victoire her fable--she would not lose the opportunity of making an impression upon this child's heart.

It is whilst the mind is warm that the deepest impressions can be made. Seizing the happy moment sometimes decides the character and the fate of a child. In this respect what advantages have the rich and great in educating the children of the poor! they have the power which their rank, and all its decorations, obtain over the imagination.

Their smiles are favours; their words are listened to as oracular; they are looked up to as beings of a superior order. Their powers of working good are almost as great, though not quite so wonderful, as those formerly attributed to beneficent fairies.

CHAPTER VI.

"Knowledge for them unlocks her _useful_ page, And virtue blossoms for a better age."--BARBAULD.

A few days after Mad. de Fleury had told Victoire the fable of the lion and the mouse, she was informed by Sister Frances that Victoire had put the fable into verse. It was wonderfully well done for a child of nine years old, and Mad. de Fleury was tempted to praise the lines; but, checking the enthusiasm of the moment, she considered whether it would be advantageous to cultivate her pupil's talent for poetry.

Excellence in the poetic art cannot be obtained without a degree of application for which a girl in her situation could not have leisure.

To encourage her to become a mere rhyming scribbler, without any chance of obtaining celebrity or securing subsistence, would be folly and cruelty. Early prodigies, in the lower ranks of life, are seldom permanently successful; they are cried up one day, and cried down the next. Their productions rarely have that superiority which secures a fair preference in the great literary market. Their performances are, perhaps, said to be--_wonderful, all things considered_, &c. Charitable allowances are made; the books are purchased by a.s.sociations of complaisant friends or opulent patrons; a kind of forced demand is raised, but this can be only temporary and delusive.

In spite of bounties and of all the arts of protection, nothing but what is intrinsically good will long be preferred, when it must be purchased. But granting that positive excellence is attained, there is always danger that for works of fancy the taste of the public may suddenly vary; there is a fas.h.i.+on in these things; and when the mode changes, the mere literary manufacturer is thrown out of employment; he is unable to turn his hand to another trade, or to any but his own peculiar branch of the business. The powers of the mind are often partially cultivated in these self-taught geniuses. We often see that one part of their understanding is nourished to the prejudice of the rest--the imagination, for instance, at the expense of the judgment: so that, whilst they have acquired talents for show, they have none for use. In the affairs of common life, they are utterly ignorant and imbecile--or worse than imbecile. Early called into public notice, probably before their moral habits are formed, they are extolled for some play of fancy or of wit, as Bacon calls it, some _juggler's trick of the intellect_; they immediately take an aversion to plodding labour, they feel raised above their situation; _possessed_ by the notion that genius exempts them, not only from labour, but from vulgar rules of prudence, they soon disgrace themselves by their conduct, are deserted by their patrons, and sink into despair, or plunge into profligacy.[1]

[Footnote 1: To these observations there are honourable exceptions.]

Convinced of these melancholy truths, Mad. de Fleury was determined not to add to the number of those imprudent or ostentatious patrons, who sacrifice to their own amus.e.m.e.nt and vanity the future happiness of their favourites. Victoire's verses were not handed about in fas.h.i.+onable circles, nor was she called upon to recite them before a brilliant audience, nor was she produced in public as a prodigy; she was educated in private, and by slow and sure degrees, to be a good, useful, and happy member of society. Upon the same principles which decided Mad. de Fleury against encouraging Victoire to be a poetess, she refrained from giving any of her little pupils accomplishments unsuited to their situation. Some had a fine ear for music, others showed powers of dancing; but they were taught neither dancing nor music--talents which in their station were more likely to be dangerous than serviceable. They were not intended for actresses or opera-girls, but for shop-girls, mantua-makers, work-women, and servants of different sorts; consequently they were instructed in things which would be most necessary and useful to young women in their rank of life. Before they were ten years old, they could do all kinds of plain needlework, they could read and write well, and they were mistresses of the common rules of arithmetic. After this age, they were practised by a writing-master in drawing out bills neatly, keeping accounts, and applying to every-day use their knowledge of arithmetic. Some were taught by a laundress to wash, and _get up_ fine linen and lace; others were instructed by a neighbouring _traiteur_ in those culinary mysteries with which Sister Frances was unacquainted. In sweetmeats and confectionaries she yielded to no one; and she made her pupils as expert as herself. Those who were intended for ladies' maids were taught mantua-making, and had lessons from Mad. de Fleury's own woman in hair-dressing.

Amongst her numerous friends and acquaintances, and amongst the shopkeepers whom she was in the habit of employing, Mad. de Fleury had means of placing and establis.h.i.+ng her pupils suitably and advantageously: of this both they and their parents were aware, so that there was a constant and great motive operating continually to induce them to exert themselves, and to behave well. This reasonable hope of reaping the fruits of their education, and of being immediately rewarded for their good conduct; this perception of the connexion between what they are taught and what they are to become, is necessary to make young people a.s.siduous: for want of attending to these principles, many splendid establishments have failed to produce pupils answerable to the expectations which had been formed of them.

During seven years that Mad. de Fleury persevered uniformly on the same plan, only one girl forfeited her protection--a girl of the name of Manon; she was Victoire's cousin, but totally unlike her in character.

When very young, her beautiful eyes and hair caught the fancy of a rich lady, who took her into her family as a sort of humble playfellow for her children. She was taught to dance and to sing: she soon excelled in these accomplishments, and was admired, and produced as a prodigy of talent. The lady of the house gave herself great credit for having discerned, and having _brought forward_, such talents. Manon's moral character was in the mean time neglected. In this house, where there was a constant scene of hurry and dissipation, the child had frequent opportunities and temptations to be dishonest. For some time she was not detected; her caressing manners pleased her patroness, and servile compliance with the humours of the children of the family secured their good-will. Encouraged by daily petty successes in the art of deceit, she became a complete hypocrite. With culpable negligence, her mistress trusted implicitly to appearances; and without examining whether she were really honest, she suffered her to have free access to unlocked drawers and valuable cabinets. Several articles of dress were missed from time to time; but Manon managed so artfully, that she averted from herself all suspicion. Emboldened by this fatal impunity, she at last attempted depredations of more importance. She purloined a valuable, snuff-box--was detected in disposing of the broken parts of it at a p.a.w.nbroker's, and was immediately discarded in disgrace; but by her tears and vehement expressions of remorse, she so far worked upon the weakness of the lady of the house, as to prevail upon her to conceal the circ.u.mstance that occasioned her dismissal. Some months afterwards Manon, pleading that she was thoroughly reformed, obtained from this lady a recommendation to Mad. de Fleury's school. It is wonderful that people, who in other respects profess and practise integrity, can be so culpably weak as to give good characters to those who do not deserve them: this is really one of the worst species of forgery.

Imposed upon by this treacherous recommendation, Mad. de Fleury received into the midst of her innocent young pupils one who might have corrupted their minds secretly and irrecoverably. Fortunately a discovery was made in time of Manon's real disposition. A mere trifle led to the detection of her habits of falsehood. As she could not do any kind of needlework, she was employed in winding cotton; she was negligent, and did not in the course of the week wind the same number of b.a.l.l.s as her companions; and to conceal this, she pretended that she had delivered the proper number to the woman, who regularly called at the end of the week for the cotton. The woman persisted in her account; the children in theirs; and Manon would not retract her a.s.sertion. The poor woman gave up the point; but she declared that she would the next time send her brother to make up the account, because he was _sharper_ than herself, and would not be imposed upon so easily. The ensuing week the brother came, and he proved to be the very p.a.w.nbroker to whom Manon formerly offered the stolen box: he knew her immediately; it was in vain that she attempted to puzzle him, and to persuade him that she was not the same person. The man was clear and firm. Sister Frances could scarcely believe what she heard.

Struck with horror, the children shrunk back from Manon, and stood in silence. Mad. de Fleury immediately wrote to the lady who had recommended this girl, and inquired into the truth of the p.a.w.nbroker's a.s.sertions. The lady, who had given Manon a false character, could not deny the facts, and could apologize for herself only by saying, that "she believed the girl to be partly reformed, and that she hoped, under Mad. de Fleury's judicious care, she would become an amiable and respectable woman."

Mad. de Fleury, however, wisely judged, that the hazard of corrupting all her pupils should not be incurred for the slight chance of correcting one, whose had habits were of such long standing. Manon was expelled from this happy little community--even Sister Frances, the most mild of human beings, could never think of the danger to which they had been exposed without expressing indignation against the lady who recommended such a girl as a fit companion for her blameless and beloved pupils.

CHAPTER VII.

"Alas! regardless of their doom, The little victims play: No sense have they of ills to come, No care beyond to-day."--GRAY.

Good legislators always attend to the habits, and what is called the genius, of the people they have to govern. From youth to age, the taste for whatever is called _une fete_ pervades the whole French nation. Mad. de Fleury availed herself judiciously of this powerful motive, and connected it with the feelings of affection more than with the pa.s.sion for show. For instance, when any of her little people had done any thing particularly worthy of reward, she gave them leave to invite their parents to a _fete_ prepared for them by their children, a.s.sisted by the kindness of Sister Frances.

One day--it was a holiday obtained by Victoire's good conduct--all the children prepared in their garden a little feast for their parents.

Sister Frances spread the table with a bountiful hand, the happy fathers and mothers were waited upon by their children, and each in their turn heard with delight from the benevolent nun some instance of their daughter's improvement. Full of hope for the future, and of grat.i.tude for the past, these honest people ate and talked, whilst in imagination they saw their children all prosperously and usefully settled in the world. They blessed Mad. de Fleury in her absence, and they wished ardently for her presence.

"The sun is setting, and Mad. de Fleury is not yet come," cried Victoire; "she said she would be here this evening--What can be the matter?"

"Nothing is the matter, you may be sure," said Babet; "but that she has forgotten us--she has so many things to think of."

"Yes; but I know she never forgets us," said Victoire; "and she loves so much to see us all happy together, that I am sure it must be something very extraordinary that detains her."

Babet laughed at Victoire's fears: but presently even she began to grow impatient; for they waited long after sunset, expecting every moment that Mad. de Fleury would arrive. At last she appeared, but with a dejected countenance, which seemed to justify Victoire's foreboding. When she saw this festive company, each child sitting between her parents, and all at her entrance looking up with affectionate pleasure, a faint smile enlivened her countenance for a moment; but she did not speak to them with her usual ease. Her mind seemed pre-occupied by some disagreeable business of importance. It appeared that it had some connexion with them; for as she walked round the table with Sister Frances, she said with a voice and look of great tenderness, "Poor children! how happy they are at this moment!--Heaven only knows how soon they may be rendered, or may render themselves, miserable!"

None of the children could imagine what this meant; but their parents guessed that it had some allusion to the state of public affairs.