CHAPTER XXI
‘WHAT IS CARTESIANISM?’
With the return of hope quite involuntarily Madeleine began once more to pray. But to whom was she praying? Surely not to the hard, remote God of the Jansenists, for that, she knew by bitter experience, would avail her nothing. Jansenism led straight to the ‘Heavenly Rape’; of that she was convinced. If, as in spite of herself she could not doubt, there was only one God, and He such a Being as the Jansenists presented Him, then she must not pray, for prayers only served to remind Him of her existence, and that He should completely forget her was her only hope of escape from the ‘ravishing arms.’
But ghostly weapons she must have with which to fight for success on Saturday. If not prayers, then something she could do; if not the belief in a Divine Ally, then some theory of the universe which justified her in hoping. For in Madeleine there was this much of rationalism—perverted and scholastic though it might be—that for her most fantastic superstitions she always felt the need of a semi-philosophical basis.
Suddenly she remembered Jacques’s words in the Place Maubert: ‘’Tis the will that Descartes writes of—a magic sword like to the ones in Amadis.’ To will, was not that the same as to desire? Mère Agnès had insisted on the importance of desiring. She had talked about the adamant of desire that neither the tools of earth can break nor the chemistry of Hell resolve. Hours of anguish could testify to that adamant being hers, but what if the adamant were a talisman, and that in its possession lay the certainty of success? She must find out about Cartesianism.
She ran into the parlour.
‘Jacques, I would fain learn something of Descartes,’ she cried.
‘Descartes? Oh, he’s the rarest creature! ’Tis reported he never ceases from sniffling in his nose, and like Allah, he sits clad in a dressing-gown and makes the world.’
Monsieur Troqueville cocked an eye full of intelligent interest and said, in his prim company voice: ‘In good earnest, is that so?’ But Madeleine gave one of Jacques’s ringlets a sharp tweak, and asked indignantly what he meant by ‘dressing-gowns and Allah.’
‘Why, Allah is the Turk’s God,’ then, seeing that Monsieur Troqueville with pursed-up lips was frowning and shaking his head with the air of a judge listening to an over-specious counsel, he added,—
‘Well, uncle, do you lean to a contrary opinion?’
‘All the world is aware that Mohammed is the Turk’s God—Mohammed. But you have ever held opinions eccentric to those of all staid and learned doctors!’
‘Uncle, I would have you know that Allah is the Turk’s God.’
‘Mohammed!’
‘Allah, I say, and as there is good ground for holding that he is ever clad in a Turkish dressing-gown, thus....’
‘They dub their God Mohammed,’ roared Monsieur Troqueville, purple in the face.
‘Mohammed or Allah, ’tis of little moment which. But I would fain learn something of Descartes’ philosophy,’ said Madeleine wearily.
‘Well,’ began Jacques, delighted to hold forth, ‘’Tis comprised in the axiom, cogito, ergo sum—I think, therefore I am—whence he deduces....’
‘Yes, but is it not he who holds that by due exercise of the will one can compass what one chooses?’ broke in Madeleine, to the evident delight of Monsieur Troqueville, for he shot a triumphant glance at Jacques which seemed to say, ‘she had you there!’
Jacques gave her a strange little look. ‘I fear not,’ he answered dryly; ‘the Will is not the bountiful beneficent Venus of the Sapphic Ode.’ Madeleine’s face fell.
‘’Tis the opinion he holds with regard to the power exercised by the will over the passions that you had in mind,’ he went on. ‘He holds the will to be the passions’ lawful king, and though at times ’tis but an English king pining in banishment, by rallying its forces it can decapitate “mee lord protectour” and re-ascend in triumph the steps of its ancient throne. This done, ’tis no longer an English king but an Emperor of Muscovy—so complete and absolute is its sway over the passions.
‘Ainsi de vos désirs toujours reine absolue
De la plus forte ardeur vous portez vos esprits
Jusqu’à l’indifférence, et peut-être au mépris,
Et votre fermeté fait succéder sans peine
La faveur au dédain, et l’amour à la haine.
‘There is a pretty dissertation for you, adorned with a most apt quotation from Corneille. Why, I could make my fortune in the Ruelles as a Professor of philosophie pour les dames!’ he cried with an affectionate little moue at Madeleine, restored to complete good humour by the sound of his own voice. But Madeleine looked vexed, and Monsieur Troqueville, his eyes starting from his head with triumph, spluttered out, ‘’Twas from Polyeucte, those lines you quoted, and how does Pauline answer them?
‘Ma raison, il est vrai, dompte mes sentiments;
Mais, quelque authorité que sur eux elle ait prise,
Elle n’y règne pas, elle les tyrannise,
Et quoique le dehors soit sans émotion,
Le dedans n’est que trouble et que sédition.
‘So you see, my young gallant, I know my Corneille as well as you do!’ and he rubbed his hands in glee. ‘“Le dedans n’est que trouble et que sédition,” how would your old Descartes answer that? ’Tis better surely to yield to every Passion like a gentleman, than to have a long solemn face and a score of devils fighting in your heart like a knavish Huguenot ... hein, Jacques? hein?’ (It was not that Monsieur Troqueville felt any special dislike to the tenets of Cartesianism in themselves, he merely wished to prove that Jacques had been talking rubbish.)
‘Well, uncle, there is no need to be so splenetic, ’tis not my philosophy; ’tis that of Descartes, and though doubtless——’
But Madeleine interrupted a discussion that threatened to wander far away from the one aspect of the question in which she was interested.
‘If I take your meaning, Descartes doesn’t teach one how to compass what one wishes, he only teaches us how to be virtuous?’
Monsieur Troqueville gave a sudden wild tavern guffaw, and rubbing his hands delightedly, cried, ‘Pitiful dull reading, Jacques, hein?’
‘You took his book for a manual of love-potions, did you?’ Jacques said in a low voice, with a hard, mocking glint in his eyes.
He had divined her thought, and Madeleine blushed. Then his face softened, and he said gently,—
‘I will get you his works, nor will it be out of your gain to read them diligently.’