The Red and the Black (World's Classics Series). Stendhal

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      CHAPTER III

      THE POOR FUND

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      A virtuous curé who does not intrigue is a providence for the village.—Fleury

      It should be mentioned that the curé of Verrières, an old man of ninety, who owed to the bracing mountain air an iron constitution and an iron character, had the right to visit the prison, the hospital and the workhouse at any hour. It had been at precisely six o'clock in the morning that M. Appert, who had a Paris recommendation to the curé, had been shrewd enough to arrive at a little inquisitive town. He had immediately gone on to the curé's house.

      The curé Chélan became pensive as he read the letter written to him by the M. le Marquis de La Mole, Peer of France, and the richest landed proprietor of the province.

      "I am old and beloved here," he said to himself in a whisper, "they would not dare!" Then he suddenly turned to the gentleman from Paris, with eyes, which in spite of his great age, shone with that sacred fire which betokens the delight of doing a fine but slightly dangerous act.

      "Come with me, sir," he said, "but please do not express any opinion of the things which we shall see, in the presence of the jailer, and above all not in the presence of the superintendents of the workhouse."

      M. Appert realised that he had to do with a man of spirit. He followed the venerable curé, visited the hospital and workhouse, put a lot of questions, but in spite of somewhat extraordinary answers, did not indulge in the slightest expression of censure.

      This visit lasted several hours; the curé invited M. Appert to dine, but the latter made the excuse of having some letters to write; as a matter of fact, he did not wish to compromise his generous companion to any further extent. About three o'clock these gentlemen went to finish their inspection of the workhouse and then returned to the prison. There they found the jailer by the gate, a kind of giant, six feet high, with bow legs. His ignoble face had become hideous by reason of his terror.

      "Ah, monsieur," he said to the curé as soon as he saw him, "is not the gentleman whom I see there, M. Appert?"

      "What does that matter?" said the curé.

      "The reason is that I received yesterday the most specific orders, and M. the Prefect sent a message by a gendarme who must have galloped during the whole of the night, that M. Appert was not to be allowed in the prisons."

      "I can tell you, M. Noiroud," said the curé, "that the traveller who is with me is M. Appert, but do you or do you not admit that I have the right to enter the prison at any hour of the day or night accompanied by anybody I choose?"

      "Yes, M. the curé," said the jailer in a low voice, lowering his head like a bull-dog, induced to a grudging obedience by fear of the stick, "only, M. the curé, I have a wife and children, and shall be turned out if they inform against me. I only have my place to live on."

      "I, too, should be sorry enough to lose mine," answered the good curé, with increasing emotion in his voice.

      "What a difference!" answered the jailer keenly. "As for you, M. le curé, we all know that you have eight hundred francs a year, good solid money."

      Such were the facts which, commented upon and exaggerated in twenty different ways, had been agitating for the last two days all the odious passions of the little town of Verrières.

      At the present time they served as the text for the little discussion which M. de Rênal was having with his wife. He had visited the curé earlier in the morning accompanied by M Valenod, the director of the workhouse, in order to convey their most emphatic displeasure. M. Chélan had no protector, and felt all the weight of their words.

      "Well, gentlemen, I shall be the third curé of eighty years of age who has been turned out in this district. I have been here for fifty-six years. I have baptized nearly all the inhabitants of the town, which was only a hamlet when I came to it Every day I marry young people whose grandparents I have married in days gone by. Verrières is my family, but I said to myself when I saw the stranger, 'This man from Paris may as a matter of fact be a Liberal, there are only too many of them about, but what harm can he do to our poor and to our prisoners?'"

      The reproaches of M. de Rênal, and above all, those of M. Valenod, the director of the workhouse, became more and more animated.

      "Well, gentlemen, turn me out then," the old curé exclaimed in a trembling voice; "I shall still continue to live in the district. As you know, I inherited forty-eight years ago a piece of land that brings in eight hundred francs a year; I shall live on that income. I do not save anything out of my living, gentlemen; and that is perhaps why, when you talk to me about it, I am not particularly frightened."

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