CHAPTER XIV
A DEMONSTRATION IN FAITH
The scruples with regard to having compromised with an uncompromising God which Madeleine entertained in spite of herself were silenced by the determination of settling things with Jacques. For a right action is a greater salve to conscience than a thousand good resolutions.
This determination gave her a double satisfaction, for she had realised that the relationship was also a sin against preciosity—and a very deadly sin to boot. For one thing, les honnêtes femmes must never love more than once, and then her shameful avowal that ‘she loved him very much, and that he might take his fill of kissing,’ would surely cause the belles who staked their reputation on never permitting a gallant to succeed in expressing his sentiments and who were beginning to shudder at even the ‘minor favours,’ such as the acceptance of presents and the discreetest signs of the chastest complacency, to fall into a swoon seven fathoms deep of indignation, horror, and scorn.
The retraction should be made that very evening, she decided; it was to be her Bethel, a spiritual stone set up as a covenant between herself and God. But Jacques did not come back to supper that evening, so it happened that she celebrated her new coup de grâce in a vastly more agreeable manner.
After supper she had gone into her own room and had begun idly to turn over the pages of Cyrus, and, as always happened, it soon awoke in her an agonising sense of the author’s charms, and a craving for closer communion with her than was afforded by the perusal of even these intimate pages. This closer communion could only be reached through a dance. In a second she was up and leaping:—
She has gone to a ‘Samedi’ where she finds a select circle of Sappho’s friends ... then by a great effort of will she checks herself. Is she a Jansenist or is she not? And if she is a Jansenist, is this dancing reconcilable with her tenets? As a means of moulding the future it certainly is not, for the future has been decided once and for all in God’s inscrutable councils. As a mere recreation, it is probably harmless. But is there no way of making it an integral part of her religious life? Yes, from the standpoint of Semi-Pelagianism it was a means of helping God to make the future, from the standpoint of Jansenism it can be a demonstration in faith, by which she tells God how safe her future is in His hands, and how certain she is of His goodness and mercy in the making of it.
Then, an extra sanctity can be given to its contents by the useful device of Robert Pilou’s screen—let the talk be as witty and gallant as you please, as long as every conceit has a mystical second meaning.
This settled, once more she started her dance.
Madeleine has gone to a ‘Samedi’ at Mademoiselle de Scudéry’s, where she finds a select circle of Sappho’s friends.
The talk drifts to the writings of ‘Callicrate,’ as the late Monsieur Voiture was called.
‘There is a certain verse of his from which an astute reader can deduce that he was not a Jansenist,’ says Madeleine, with a deliciously roguish smile. ‘Can any of the company quote this verse?’
A wave of amused interest passes over the room.
‘I did not know that Callicrate was a theologian,’ says Sappho.
‘A theologian, yes, for he was an admirable professor of love’s theory, but a real Christian, no, for he was but a feeble and faithless lover,’ answers Madeleine, looking straight into Sappho’s eyes. Sappho colours, and with a laugh which thrills Madeleine’s ear, with a tiny note of nervousness says:—
‘Well, Mademoiselle, prove your theory about Callicrate by quoting the verses you allude to, and if you cannot do so, we will exact a forfeit from you for being guilty of the crime of having aroused the delightful emotion of curiosity without the justification of being able to gratify it.’ The company turn their smiling eyes on Madeleine, who proceeds to quote the following lines:—
‘Ne laissez rien en vous capable de déplaire.
Faites-vous toute belle: et tachez de parfaire
L’ouvrage que les Dieux ont si fort avancé:’
‘Now these lines allow great power to le libre arbitre, and suppose a collaboration between the gods and mortals in the matter of the soul’s redemption, which would, I am sure, bring a frown to the brows of les Messieurs de Port-Royale.’
‘Sappho, I think it is we that must pay forfeits to Mademoiselle, not she to us, for she has vindicated herself in the most spirituel manner in the world,’ says Cléodamas.
‘Let her lay a task on each of us that must be performed within five minutes,’ suggests Philoxène.
‘Mademoiselle, what labours of Hercules are you going to impose on us?’ asks Sappho, smiling at Madeleine. Madeleine thinks for a moment and then says:—
‘Each of you must compose a Proposition Galante on the model of one of the Five.’
The company is delighted with the idea, and Théodamas writes out the five original Propositions that the company may have their models before them, and proceeds to read them out:—
(1) Some of God’s commandments it is impossible for the Just to obey owing to the present state of their powers, in spite of the desire of doing so, and in spite of great efforts: and the Grace by which they might obey these commandments is lacking.
(2) That in the state of fallen nature, one never resists the interior grace.
(3) That to merit and demerit in the state of fallen nature, it is not necessary that man should have liberty opposed to necessity (to will), but that it suffices that he should have liberty opposed to constraint.
(4) That the Semi-Pelagians admitted the necessity of the inward grace preceding every action, even the inception of Faith, but that they were heretics in so far as they held that grace to be of such a nature that the will of man could either resist it or obey it.
(5) That it is a Semi-Pelagian error to say that the Founder of our faith died and shed His blood universally, for all men.
They all take out their tablets and begin to write. At the end of five minutes Madeleine tells them to stop.
‘I have taken the first as my model,’ says Sappho, ‘and indeed I have altered it only very slightly.’ The company begs to hear it.
‘No commandment of a lady is too difficult for an homme galant to obey, for to him every lady is full of grace, and this grace inspires him with powers more than human.’
Every one applauds, and expresses their appreciation of her wit.
‘And now,’ says Madeleine, ‘that our appetite has been so deliciously whetted—if I may use the expression—by Sappho, have the rest of the company got their ragoûts ready?’
Doralise looks at Théodamas, and Théodamas at Philoxène, and they laugh.
‘Mademoiselle, blindness is the penalty for looking on a goddess, and dumbness, I suppose, that of listening to two Muses. We are unable to pay our forfeits,’ says Théodamas, with a rueful smile.
‘Will not Mademoiselle rescue the Sorbonne galante from ignominy, and herself supply the missing propositions?’ says Sappho, throwing at Madeleine a glance, at once arch and challenging.
‘Yes! Yes!’ cries the company, ‘let the learned doctor herself compile the theology of Cupid!’
‘When Sappho commands, even the doctors of the Sorbonne obey,’ says Madeleine gallantly. ‘Well, then, I will go on to the second proposition in which I will change nothing but one word. “That in the state of fallen nature, man never resists the external grace.”’ The company laughs delightedly.
‘By the third I must admit to be vanquished,’ she continues, ‘the fourth is not unlike that of Sappho’s! “That courtiers, although they admit the necessity of feminine grace preceding every movement of their passions, are heretics in so far that they hold the wishes of ladies to be of such a nature that the will of man can either, as it chooses, resist or obey them.”’
‘Delicious!’ cries the company, ‘that is furiously well expressed, and a well-merited condemnation of Condé and his petits-maîtres.’
‘And now we come to the fifth, which calls for as much pruning as one of the famous Port-Royal pear-trees. “That it is an error of provincials and other barbarians to say that lovers burn with a universal flame, or that les honnêtes femmes give their favours to all men.”’ Loud applause follows.
‘Mademoiselle,’ says Théodamas, ‘you have converted me to Jansenism.’
‘Such a distinguished convert as the great Théodamas will certainly compensate the sect for all the bulls launched against it by the Holy Father,’ says Madeleine gallantly.
‘Well, I must admit that by one thing the Jansenists have certainly added to la douceur de la vie, and that is by what we may call their Miracle of the Graces,’ says Sappho.
‘What does Madame mean by “the Miracle of the Graces”?’ asks Madeleine, smiling.
‘I mean the multiplication of what till their day had been three Graces into at least four times that number. To have done so deserves, I think, to be called a miracle.’
‘The most miraculous—if I may use the expression—of the miracles recorded in the Lives of the Saints has always seemed to me the Miracle of the Beautiful City,’ says Madeleine innocently.
‘What miracle is that? My memory fails me, if I may use the expression,’ says Sappho, in a puzzled voice.
‘Madame, I scarcely believe that a lady so widely and exquisitely informed as Sappho of Lesbos in both what pertains to mortals and in what pertains to gods, in short in Homer and in Hesiod, should never have heard of the “Miracle of the Beautiful City,”’ says Madeleine, in mock surprise.
‘Then Mademoiselle—as you say you can scarcely believe it—you show yourself to be a lady of but little faith!’ says Sappho, her eye lighted by a delicious gleam of raillery.
‘I must confess that the miracle Mademoiselle mentions has—if I may use the expression—escaped my memory too,’ says Théodamas.
‘And ours,’ say Doralise and Philoxène.
‘So this company of all companies has never heard of the Miracle of the Beautiful City!’ cries Madeleine. ‘Well, I will recount it to you.
‘Once upon a time, in a far barbarian country, there lived a great saint. Everything about her was a miracle—her eyes, her hands, her figure, and her wit. One night an angel appeared to her and said: (I will not yet tell you the saint’s name), “Take your lyre” (I forgot to mention that the saint’s performance on this instrument was also a miracle, and a furiously agreeable one), “Take your lyre, and go and play upon it in the wilderness.” And the saint obeyed the angel’s command, though the wilderness was filled with lions and tigers and every other ferocious beast. But when the saint began to play they turned into ... doves and linnets.’ A tiny smile of comprehension begins to play round the eyes of the company. Madeleine goes on, quite gravely:—
‘But that was only a baby miracle beside that which followed. As the saint played, out of the earth began to spring golden palaces, surrounded by delicious gardens, towers of porphyry, magnificent temples, in short, all the agreeable monuments that go to the making of a great city, and of which, as a rule, Time is the only building contractor. But, in a few minutes, this great Saint built it merely by playing on her lyre. Madame, the city’s name was Pretty Wit, and the Saint’s name was ... can the company tell me?’ and she looks roguishly round.
‘It is a name of five letters, and its first letter is S and its last O,’ says Théodamas, with a smile.
Madeleine flung herself breathless and exhausted on her bed.
Deep down her conscience was wondering if she had achieved a genuine reconciliation between Preciosity and Jansenism.