MONSIEUR L'ABBÉ
THE childhood of the Abbé Rosselot is as secret as his
origin, and no man may know whether Belfort or Bavaria smiled
upon his innocence. A like mystery enshrouds his early manhood,
and the malice of his foes, who are legion, denounces him for a
Jesuit of Innsbruck. But since he has lived within the eye of
the world his villainies have been revealed as clearly as his
attainments, and history provides him no other rival in the
corruption of youth than the infamous Thwackum.
It is not every scholar's ambition to teach the elements,
and Rosselot adopted his modest calling as a cloak of crime. No
sooner was he installed in a mansion than he became the mansion's
master, and henceforth he ruled his employer's domain with the
tyrannical severity of a Grand Inquisitor. His soul wrapped in
the triple brass of arrogance, he even dared to lay his hands
upon food before his betters were served; and presently,
emboldened by success, he would order the dinners, reproach the
cook with a too lavish use of condiments, and descend with
insolent expostulation into the kitchen. In a week
he had opened the cupboards upon a dozen skeletons, and made them
rattle their rickety bones up and down the draughty staircases,
until the inmates shivered with horror and the terrified
neighbours fled the haunted castle as a lazar-house. Once in
possession of a family secret, he felt himself secure, and
henceforth he was free to browbeat his employer and to flog his
pupil to the satisfaction of his waspish nature. Moreover, he
was endowed with all the insight and effrontery of a trained
journalist. So sedulous was he in his search after the truth,
that neither man nor woman could deny him confidence. And, as
vinegar flowed in his veins for blood, it was his merry sport to
set wife against husband and children against father. Not even
were the servants safe from his watchful inquiry, and housemaids
and governesses alike entrusted their hopes and fears to his
malicious keeping. And when the house had retired to rest, with
what a sinister delight did he chuckle over the frailties and
infamies, a guilty knowledge of which he had dragged from many an
unwilling sinner! To oust him, when installed, was a plain
impossibility, for this wringer of hearts was only too glib in
the surrender of another's scandal; and as he accepted the last
scurrility with Christian resignation, his unfortunate employer
could but strengthen his vocabulary and patiently endure the
presence of this smiling, demoniacal tutor.
But a too villainous curiosity was not the Abbé's
capital sin. Not only did he entertain his leisure
with wrecking the happiness of a united family, but he was an
enemy open and declared of France. It was his amiable pastime at
the dinner-table, when he had first helped himself to such
delicacies as tempted his dainty palate, to pronounce a pompous
eulogy upon the German Emperor. France, he would say with an
exultant smile, is a
pays pourri, which exists merely to
be the football of Prussia. She has but one hope of salvation—
still the monster speaks—and that is to fall into the benign
occupation of a vigorous race. Once upon a time—the infamy is
scarce credible—he was conducting his young charges past a town-hall, over the lintel of whose door glittered those proud
initials `R. F.' `What do they stand for?' asked this demon
Barlow. And when the patriotic Tommy hesitated for an answer,
the preceptor exclaimed with ineffable contempt, `Race de fous'!
It is no wonder, then, that this foe of his fatherland feared to
receive a letter openly addressed; rather he would slink out
under cover of night and seek his correspondence at the
poste
restante, like a guilty lover or a British tourist.
The Château de Presles was built for his reception.
It was haunted by a secret, which none dare murmur in the
remotest garret. There was no more than a whisper of murder in
the air, but the Marquis shuddered when his wife's eye frowned
upon him. True, the miserable Menaldo had disappeared from his
seminary ten years since, but threats of disclosure were uttered
continually, and respectability might
only be purchased by a profound silence. Here was the
Abbé's most splendid opportunity, and he seized it with
all the eagerness of a greedy temperament. The Marquise, a
wealthy peasant, who was rather at home on the wild hill-side
than in her stately castle, became an instant prey to his
devilish intrigue. The governess, an antic old maid of fifty-seven, whose conversation was designed to bring a blush to the
cheek of the most hardened dragoon, was immediately on terms of
so frank an intimacy that she flung bread pellets at him across
the table, and joyously proposed, if we may believe the priest on
his oath, to set up housekeeping with him, that they might save
expense. Two high-spirited boys were always at hand to encourage
his taste for flogging, and had it not been for the Marquis, the
Abbé's cup would have been full to overflowing. But the
Marquis loved not the lean, ogling instructor of his sons, and
presently began to assail him with all the abuse of which he was
master. He charged the Abbé with unspeakable villainy;
salop and
saligaud were the terms in which he would
habitually refer to him. He knew the rascal for a spy, and no
modesty restrained him from proclaiming his knowledge. But
whatever insults were thrown at the Abbé he received with
a grin complacent as Shylock's, for was he not conscious that
when he liked the pound of flesh was his own!
With a fiend's duplicity he laid his plans of ruin and
death. The Marquise, swayed to his will, received
him secretly in the blue room (whose very colour suggests
a guilty intrigue), though never, upon the oath of an
Abbé, when the key was turned in the lock. A journey to
Switzerland had freed him from the haunting suspicion of the
Marquis, and at last he might compel the wife to denounce her
husband as a murderer. The terrified woman drew the indictment
at the Abbé's dictation, and when her husband returned to
St. Amand he was instantly thrust into prison. Nothing remained
but to cajole the sons into an expressed hatred of their father,
and the last enormity was committed by a masterpiece of cunning.
`Your father's one chance of escape,' argued this villain in a
cassock, `is to be proved an inhuman ruffian. Swear that he beat
you unmercifully and you will save him from the guillotine.' All
the dupes learned their lesson with a certainty which reflects
infinite credit upon the Abbé's method of instruction.
For once in his life the Abbé had been moved by
greed as well as by villainy. His early exploits had no worse
motive than the satisfaction of an inhuman lust for cruelty and
destruction. But the Marquise was rich, and when once her
husband's head were off, might not the Abbé reap his share
of the gathered harvest? The stakes were high, but the game was
worth the playing, and Rosselot played it with spirit and energy
unto the last card. His appearance in court is ever memorable,
and as his ferret eyes glinted through glass at the President,
he seemed the villain of some Middle Age Romance. His head,
poised upon a lean, bony frame, was embellished with a nose thin
and sharp as the blade of a knife; his tightly compressed lips
were an indication of the rascal's determination. `Long as a day
in Lent'—that is how a spectator described him; and if ever a
sinister nature glared through a sinister figure, the
Abbé's character was revealed before he parted his lips in
speech. Unmoved he stood and immovable; he treated the
imprecations of the Marquis with a cold disdain; as the burden of
proof grew heavy on his back, he shrugged his shoulders in weary
indifference. He told his monstrous story with a cynical
contempt, which has scarce its equal in the history of crime; and
priest, as he was, he proved that he did not yield to the Marquis
himself in the Rabelaisian amplitude of his vocabulary. He
brought charges against the weird world of Presles with an
insouciance and brutality which defeated their own aim. He
described the vices of his master and the sins of the servants in
a slang which would sit more gracefully upon an idle roysterer
than upon a pious Abbé. And, his story ended, he leered
at the Court with the satisfaction of one who had discharged a
fearsome duty.
But his rascality overshot its mark; the Marquise,
obedient to his priestly casuistry, displayed too fierce a zeal
in the execution of his commands. And he took to flight, hoping
to lose in the larger world of Paris the notoriety which his
prowess won him
among the poor despised Berrichons. He left behind for our
consolation a snatch of philosophy which helps to explain his
last and greatest achievement. `Those who have money exist only
to be fleeced.' Thus he spake with a reckless revelation of
self. Yet the mystery of his being is still unpierced. He is
traitor, schemer, spy; but is he an Abbé? Perhaps not.
At any rate, he once attended the `Messe des Morts,' and was
heard to mumble a `Credo,' which, as every good Catholic
remembers, has no place in that solemn service.
Printed by T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to His Majesty
at the Edinburgh University Press
[The end]
