The Adventures of Gil Blas of Santillane, Alain René le Sage [most read books .txt] 📗

is a busy

time at an episcopal ordinary; and yet we snatched a moment to

make our observations on each other. What a mortified propriety

was painted on the outside of the clergy? They had all the look

of a deputation from a better world: strange to think how place

and circumstance impose on the deluded sense of men! It never

once came into my thoughts that all this sanctity might possibly

be a false coin; just as if there could be nothing but what

appertained to the kingdom above, among the successors of the

apostles on earth.

 

I was seated by the side of an old valet-de-chambre, by name

Melchior de la Ronda. He took care to help me to all the nice

bits. His attentions were not lost upon me, and my good manners

quite enraptured him. My worthy sir, said he, in a low voice

after dinner, I should like to have a little private talk with

you. At the same time he led the way to a part of the palace

where we could not be overheard, and there addressed me as

follows: My son, from the very first instant that I saw you, I

felt a certain prepossession in your favour. Of this I will give

you a certain proof, by communicating in confidence what will be

of great service to you. You are here in a family where true

believers and painted hypocrites are playing at cross purposes

against each other, It would take an antediluvian age to feel the

ground under your feet. I will spare so long and so disgusting a

study, by letting you into the characters on both sides. After

this, if you do not play your cards, it is your own fault.

 

I shall begin with his grace. He is a very pious prelate,

employed without ceasing in the instruction of the people, whom

he brings back to virtue, like sheep gone astray, by sermons full

of excellent morality, and written by himself. He has retired

from court these twenty years, to watch over his flock with the

zeal of an affectionate pastor. He is a very learned person, and

a very impressive declaimer: his whole delight is in preaching,

and his congregation take care he should know that their whole

delight is in hearing him. There may possibly be some little

leaven of vanity in all this heavenly-mindedness; but, besides

that it is not for human fallibility to search the heart, it

would ill become me to rake into the faults of a person whose

bread I eat. Were it decent to lay my finger on anything

unbecoming in my master, I should discommend his starchness.

Instead of exercising forbearance towards frail churchmen, he

visits every peccadillo, as if it were a heinous offence. Above

all, he prosecutes those with the utmost rigour of the spiritual

court, who, wrapping themselves up in their innocence, appeal to

the canons for their justification, in bar of his despotic

authority. There is besides another awkward trait in his

character, common to him with many other people of high rank.

Though he is very fond of the people about him, he pays not the

least attention to their services, but lets them sink into years

without a moment’s thought about securing them any provision. If

at any time he makes them any little presents, they may thank the

goodness of some one who shall have spoken up in their behalf: he

would never have his wits enough about him to do the slightest

thing for them as a volunteer.

 

This is just what the old valet-de-chambre told me of his master.

Next, he let me into what he thought of the clergymen with whom

we had dined. His portraits might be likenesses; but they were

too hard-featured to be owned by the originals. It must be

admitted, however, that he did not represent them as honest men,

but only as very scandalous priests. Nevertheless, he made some

exceptions, and was as loud in their praises as in his censure of

the others. I was no longer at any loss how to play my part so as

to put myself on an equal footing with these gentry. That very

evening, at supper, I took a leaf out of their book, and arrayed

myself in the convenient vesture of a wise and prudent outside. A

clothing of humility and sanctification costs nothing. Indeed it

offers such a premium to the wearer, that we are not to wonder if

this world abounds in a description of people called hypocrites.

 

CH. III. — Gil Blas becomes the Archbishop’s favourite, and the

channel of all his favours.

 

I HAD been after dinner to get together my baggage, and take my

horse from the inn where I had put up, and afterwards returned to

supper at the archbishop’s palace, where a neatly furnished room

was got ready for me, and such a bed as was more likely to pamper

than to mortify the flesh. The day following, his grace sent for

me quite as soon as I was ready to go to him. It was to give me a

homily to transcribe. He made a point of having it copied with

all possible accuracy. It was done to please him; for I omitted

neither accent, nor comma, nor the minutest tittle of all he had

marked down. His satisfaction at observing this was heightened by

its being unexpected. Eternal Father! exclaimed he in a holy

rapture, when he had glanced his eye over all the folios of my

copy, was ever anything seen so correct? You are too good a

transcriber not to have some little smattering of the grammarian.

Now tell me with the freedom of a friend: in writing it over,

have you been struck with nothing that grated upon your feelings?

Some little careless idiom, or some word used in an improper

sense? Oh! may it please your grace, answered I with a modest

air, it is not for me, with my confined education and coarse

taste, to aim at making critical remarks. And though ever so well

qualified, I am satisfied that your grace’s works would come out

pure from the essay. The successor of the apostles smiled at my

answer. He made no observation on it; but it was easy to see,

through all his piety, that he was an arrant author at the

bottom: there is some thing in that dye, that not heaven itself

can wash out.

 

I seemed to have purchased the fee-simple of his good graces by

my flattery. Day after day did I get a step further in his

esteem; and Don Ferdinand, who came to see him very often, told

me my footing was so firm, that there could not be a doubt but my

fortune was made. Of this my master himself gave me a proof some

little time afterwards: and the occasion was as follows: — One

evening in his closet be rehearsed before me, with appropriate

emphasis and action, a homily which he was to deliver the next

day in the cathedral. He did not content himself with asking me

what I thought of it in the gross, but insisted on my telling him

what passages struck me most. I had the good fortune to pick out

those which were nearest to his own taste, his favourite commonplaces. Thus, as luck would have it, I passed in his estimation

for a man who had a quick and natural relish of the real and less

obvious beauties in a work. This, indeed, exclaimed he, is what

you may call having discernment and feeling in perfection! Well,

well, my friend! it cannot be said of you,

 

Baeotum in crasso jurares a�re natum.

 

In a word, he was so highly pleased with me, as to add in a tone

of extraordinary emotion — Never mind, Gil Blas! henceforward

take no care about hereafter; I shall make it my business to

place you among the favoured children of my bounty. You have my

best wishes; and to prove to you that you have them, I shall take

you into my inmost confidence.

 

These words were no sooner out of his mouth, than I fell at his

grace’s feet, quite overwhelmed with gratitude. I embraced his

elliptical legs with almost pagan idolatry, and considered myself

as a man on the high road to a very handsome fortune. Yes, my

child, resumed the archbishop, whose speech had been cut short by

the rapidity of my prostration, I mean to make you the receiver-general of all my inmost ruminations. Hearken attentively to what

I am going to say. I have a great pleasure in preaching. The Lord

sheds a blessing on my homilies; they sink deep into the hearts

of sinners; set up a glass in which vice sees its own image, and

bring back many from the paths of error into the high road of

repentance. What a heavenly sight, when a miser, scared at the

hideous picture drawn by my eloquence of his avarice, opens his

coffers to the poor and needy, and dispenses the accumulated

store with a liberal hand! The voluptuary, too, is snatched from

the pleasures of the table; ambition flies at my command to the

wholesome discipline of the monastic cell; while female frailty,

tottering on the brink of ruin, with one ear open to the siren

voice of the seducer, and the other to my saintly correctives, is

restored to domestic happiness and the approving smile of heaven,

by the timely warnings of the pulpit. These miraculous

conversions, which happen almost every Sunday, ought of

themselves to goad me on in the career of saving souls.

Nevertheless, to conceal no part of my weakness from my monitor,

there is another reward on which my heart is intent, a reward

which the seraphic scrupulousness of my virtue to little purpose

condemns as too carnal; a literary reputation for a sublime and

elegant style. The honour of being handed down to posterity as a

perfect pulpit orator has its irresistible attractions. My

compositions are generally thought to be equally powerful and

persuasive; but I could wish of all things to steer clear of the

rock on which good authors split, who are too long before the

public, and to retire from professional life with my reputation

in undiminished lustre.

 

To this end, my dear Gil Blas, continued the prelate, there is

one thing requisite from your zeal and friendship. Whenever it

shall strike you that my pen begins to contract, as it were, the

ossification of old age, whenever you see my genius in its

climacteric, do not fail to give me a hint. There is no trusting

to one’s self in such a case; pride and conceit were the original

sin of man. The probe of criticism must he intrusted to an

impartial stander-by, of fine talents and unshaken probity. Both

those requisites centre in you: you are my choice, and I give

myself up to your direction. Heaven be praised, my lord, said I,

there is no need to trouble yourself with any such thoughts yet.

Besides, an understanding of your grace’s mould and calibre will

last out double the time of a common genius; or to speak with

more certainty and truth, it will never be the worse for wear, if

you live to the age of Methusalem. I consider you as a second

Cardinal Ximenes, whose powers, superior to decay, instead of

flagging with years, seemed to derive new vigour from their

approximation with the heavenly regions. No flattery, my friend!

interrupted he. I know myself to be in danger of failing all at

once. At my age one begins to be sensible of infirmities, and

those of the body communicate with the mind. I repeat it to you,

Gil Blas, as soon as you shall be of opinion that my head