1.F.5.2. MADELEINE
HE was a man about fifty years of age, who had a preoccupied
air, and who was good. That was all that could be said
about him.
Thanks to the rapid progress of the industry which he had
so admirably re-constructed, M. sur M. had become a rather
important centre of trade. Spain, which consumes a good
deal of black jet, made enormous purchases there each year.
M. sur M. almost rivalled London and Berlin in this branch
of commerce. Father Madeleine's profits were such, that at
the end of the second year he was able to erect a large factory,
in which there were two vast workrooms, one for the men, and
the other for women. Any one who was hungry could present
himself there, and was sure of finding employment and bread.
Father Madeleine required of the men good will, of the women
pure morals, and of all, probity. He had separated the workrooms
in order to separate the sexes, and so that the women
and girls might remain discreet. On this point he was inflexible.
It was the only thing in which he was in a manner
intolerant. He was all the more firmly set on this severity,
since M. sur M., being a garrison town, opportunities for
corruption abounded. However, his coming had been a boon,
and his presence was a godsend. Before Father Madeleine's
arrival, everything had languished in the country; now everything
lived with a healthy life of toil. A strong circulation
warmed everything and penetrated everywhere. Slack seasons
and wretchedness were unknown. There was no pocket so
obscure that it had not a little money in it; no dwelling so
lowly that there was not some little joy within it.
Father Madeleine gave employment to every one. He
exacted but one thing: Be an honest man. Be an honest
woman.
As we have said, in the midst of this activity of which he
was the cause and the pivot, Father Madeleine made his
fortune; but a singular thing in a simple man of business, it
did not seem as though that were his chief care. He appeared
to be thinking much of others, and little of himself. In 1820
he was known to have a sum of six hundred and thirty thousand
francs lodged in his name with Laffitte; but before
reserving these six hundred and thirty thousand francs, he
had spent more than a million for the town and its poor.
The hospital was badly endowed; he founded six beds there.
M. sur M. is divided into the upper and the lower town. The
lower town, in which he lived, had but one school, a miserable
hovel, which was falling to ruin: he constructed two, one for
girls, the other for boys. He allotted a salary from his own
funds to the two instructors, a salary twice as large as their
meagre official salary, and one day he said to some one who
expressed surprise, "The two prime functionaries of the state
are the nurse and the schoolmaster." He created at his own
expense an infant school, a thing then almost unknown in
France, and a fund for aiding old and infirm workmen. As
his factory was a centre, a new quarter, in which there were a
good many indigent families, rose rapidly around him; he
established there a free dispensary.
At first, when they watched his beginnings, the good souls
said, "He's a jolly fellow who means to get rich." When they
saw him enriching the country before he enriched himself, the
good souls said, "He is an ambitious man." This seemed
all the more probable since the man was religious, and even
practised his religion to a certain degree, a thing which was
very favorably viewed at that epoch. He went regularly to
low mass every Sunday. The local deputy, who nosed out all
rivalry everywhere, soon began to grow uneasy over this
religion. This deputy had been a member of the legislative
body of the Empire, and shared the religious ideas of a father
of the Oratoire, known under the name of Fouche, Duc
d'Otrante, whose creature and friend he had been. He
indulged in gentle raillery at God with closed doors. But
when he beheld the wealthy manufacturer Madeleine going to
low mass at seven o'clock, he perceived in him a possible candidate,
and resolved to outdo him; he took a Jesuit confessor,
and went to high mass and to vespers. Ambition was at that
time, in the direct acceptation of the word, a race to the
steeple. The poor profited by this terror as well as the good
God, for the honorable deputy also founded two beds in the
hospital, which made twelve.
Nevertheless, in 1819 a rumor one morning circulated
through the town to the effect that, on the representations of
the prefect and in consideration of the services rendered by
him to the country, Father Madeleine was to be appointed by
the King, mayor of M. sur M. Those who had pronounced
this new-comer to be "an ambitious fellow," seized with
delight on this opportunity which all men desire, to exclaim,
"There! what did we say!" All M. sur M. was in an uproar.
The rumor was well founded. Several days later the appointment
appeared in the
Moniteur. On the following day Father
Madeleine refused.
In this same year of 1819 the products of the new process
invented by Madeleine figured in the industrial exhibition;
when the jury made their report, the King appointed the
inventor a chevalier of the Legion of Honor. A fresh excitement
in the little town. Well, so it was the cross that he
wanted! Father Madeleine refused the cross.
Decidedly this man was an enigma. The good souls got
out of their predicament by saying, "After all, he is some sort
of an adventurer."
We have seen that the country owed much to him; the poor
owed him everything; he was so useful and he was so gentle
that people had been obliged to honor and respect him. His
workmen, in particular, adored him, and he endured this
adoration with a sort of melancholy gravity. When he was
known to be rich, "people in society" bowed to him, and he
received invitations in the town; he was called, in town, Monsieur
Madeleine; his workmen and the children continued to
call him Father Madeleine, and that was what was most
adapted to make him smile. In proportion as he mounted,
throve, invitations rained down upon him. "Society"
claimed him for its own. The prim little drawing-rooms
on M. sur M., which, of course, had at first been closed
to the artisan, opened both leaves of their folding-doors to
the millionnaire. They made a thousand advances to him.
He refused.
This time the good gossips had no trouble. "He is an ignorant
man, of no education. No one knows where he came
from. He would not know how to behave in society. It has
not been absolutely proved that he knows how to read."
When they saw him making money, they said, "He is a man
of business." When they saw him scattering his money about,
they said, "He is an ambitious man." When he was seen to
decline honors, they said, "He is an adventurer." When they
saw him repulse society, they said, "He is a brute."
In 1820, five years after his arrival in M. sur M., the
services which he had rendered to the district were so dazzling,
the opinion of the whole country round about was so unanimous,
that the King again appointed him mayor of the town.
He again declined; but the prefect resisted his refusal, all the
notabilities of the place came to implore him, the people in
the street besought him; the urging was so vigorous that he
ended by accepting. It was noticed that the thing which
seemed chiefly to bring him to a decision was the almost
irritated apostrophe addressed to him by an old woman of the
people, who called to him from her threshold, in an angry
way: "A good mayor is a useful thing. Is he drawing back
before the good which he can do?"
This was the third phase of his ascent. Father Madeleine
had become Monsieur Madeleine. Monsieur Madeleine became
Monsieur le Maire.