CHAPTER XXVII
THE CHRISTIAN VENUS
The sane and steady procedure of the last few weeks—to prepare for the arousing of Admiration in Mademoiselle de Scudéry by a course in the art of pleasing—now seemed to Madeleine inadequate and frigid. She felt she could no longer cope with life without supernatural aid.
Once more her imagination began to pullulate with tiny nervous fears.
There would be onions for dinner—a vegetable that she detested. She would feel that unless she succeeded in gulping down her portion before her father gave another hiccough, she would never gain the friendship of Mademoiselle de Scudéry. She would wake up in the middle of the night with the conviction that unless, standing on one leg, she straightway repeated ‘cogito, ergo sum’ fifteen times, Conrart would be seized by another attack of gout which would postpone her visit.
But these little fears—it would be tedious to enumerate them all—found their source in one great fear, to wit lest the Sapphic Ode and the adventures of Nausicaa formed one story.
The Ode tells how Venus appeared to Sappho and promised her rare things; but were these promises fulfilled? The Ode does not tell us, but we know that Sappho leapt from a cliff into the cold sea. The Virgin appears to Nausicaa, and although her promises are not as explicit as those of Venus, they are every whit as enticing, and what do they lead to? To a maiden disillusioned, deserted, and heart-broken, finding her final consolation in the cold and ravishing embraces of an Angel.
She, too, by omens and signs had been promised rare things; she had abandoned God, but had she ceased to believe in His potency? She remembered the impression left on Jacques by the fourth book of the Eneid, and Descartes’ discarded hypothesis of an evil god, le grand trompeur—the ‘great cheat,’ he had called Him. Perhaps He had sent the Virgin to Nausicaa, Dame Venus to Sappho, and to herself a constellation of auspicious stars, to cozen them with fair promises that He might have the joy of breaking them—and their hearts as well.
One evening when her nerves were nearly cracking under the strain of this idea, she went to the kitchen to seek out Berthe.
‘Berthe,’ she said, ‘when you do strangely desire a thing shall come to pass, what means do you affect to compass it?’
Berthe gave her a sly look and answered: ‘I burn a candle to my patron saint, Mademoiselle.’
‘And is the candle efficacious to the granting of your prayers?’
‘As to their granting, it hangs upon the humour of Saint Berthe.’
‘Do you know of any charm that will so work upon her as to change her humour from a splenetic to a kindly one?’
‘There is but two charms, Mademoiselle, that will surely work upon the humours of the great—be they in Paradise or on the earth—they be flattery and presents. Albeit, I am a good Catholic, I hold my own opinions on certain matters, and I cannot doubt that once the Saints are safe in Paradise they turn exceeding grasping, crafty, and malicious. Like financiers, they are glutted on the farthings of the poor—a pack of Montaurons!’
‘And in what manner does one flatter them?’
‘Why, by novenas and candles and prostrating oneself before their images. As for me, except I have a prayer I strangely desire should be granted, I do never affect to kneel at Mass, I do but bend forward in my seat. In Lorraine we hold all this bowing and scraping as naught but Spanish tomfoolery! You’d seek long before you found one of us putting ourselves to any discomfort for the Saints, except it did profit us to do so!’ and for at least a minute she chuckled and winked.
Well, here was a strange confirmation of her theory—a wicked hierarchy could only culminate in a wicked god. Yes, but such ignoble Saints would surely not be incorruptible. Might not timely bribes change their malicious designs? Also, it was just possible that Nausicaa and Sappho had neglected the rites and sacrifices without which no compact is valid between a god and a mortal. But could she not learn from their sad example? Her story was still in the making, by timely rites she might bring it to a happy issue.
With a sudden flash of illumination she felt she had discovered the secret of her failure. It was due to her neglect of her own patron saint, Saint Magdalene, who was as well the patron saint of Madeleine de Scudéry, a mystic link between their two souls, without which they could never be united.
Forget not your great patron saint in your devotions. It was her particular virtue that she greatly loved, had been the words of Mère Agnès. She greatly loved—why, it was all as clear as day; was she not the holy courtesan, and as such had she not taken over the functions of the pagan Venus, she who had appeared to Sappho? As the Christian Venus, charm and beauty and wit and l’air galant, and all the qualities that inspire Admiration must be in her gift, and Madeleine had neglected her! It was little wonder she had failed. Why, at the very beginning of her campaign against amour-propre she should have invoked her aid—‘the saint who so greatly loved.’
Thus, link by link, was forged a formidable chain of evidence proving the paramount importance of the cult of Saint Magdalene.
What could she do to propitiate her? The twenty-second of July was her Feast, just a few days before the visit to Conrart. That was surely a good omen. She made a rapid calculation and found that it would fall on a Sunday, what if ... she shuddered, for something suddenly whispered to her soul a sinister suggestion.
That afternoon the Chevalier de Méré came to wait on her, and in the course of his elegantly didactic monologue, Madeleine inadvertently dropped her handkerchief: he sprang to pick it up, and as he presented it to her apostrophised it with a languorous sigh,—
‘Ah, little cambric flower, it would not have taken a seer to foretell that happiness as exquisite as yours should precede a fall!’
Then, according to his custom of following up a concrete compliment by a dissertation on the theory of Galanterie he launched into an historical survey of the use to which the Muse Galante had made, in countless admirable sonnets, of the enviable intimacy existing between their fair wearer and such insensible objects as a handkerchief or a glove.
‘But these days,’ he continued, ‘the envy of a poet à la mode is not so much aroused by gloves of frangipane and handkerchiefs of Venetian lace, in that a franchise far greater than they have ever enjoyed has been granted by all the Belles of the Court and Town to ignoble squares of the roughest cloth—truly evangelical, these Belles have exalted the poor and meek and——’
‘I don’t take your meaning, pray explain,’ Madeleine cut in.
‘Why, dear Rhodanthos, have you never heard of Mère Madeleine de Saint-Joseph of the Carmelites?’
‘That I have, many a time.’
‘Well, as you know, in her life time she worked miracles beyond the dreams of Faith itself, and at her death, as in the case of the founder of her Order, the great Elias, her virtue was transmitted to her cloak, or rather to her habit, portions of which fortunate garment are worn by all the belles dévotes next ... er ... their ... er next ... er ... their sk ... next their secret garden of lilies, with, I am told, the most extravagant results; it is her portion of the miraculous habit that has turned Madame de Longueville into a penitent, for example, but its effects are sometimes of a more profane nature, namely—breathe it low—success in the tender passion!’ Madeleine’s eyes grew round.
‘Yes, ’tis a veritable cestus of Venus, which, I need hardly remind a lady of such elegant learning as Mademoiselle, was borrowed by Juno when anxious to rekindle the legitimate passion in the bosom of Jove. And speaking of Juno I remember——’
But Madeleine had no more attention to bestow on the urbane flow of the Chevalier’s conversation. She was ablaze with excitement and hope ... Mère Madeleine de Saint-Joseph, the mystical name again! And the cestus of Venus ... it was surely a message sent from Saint Magdalene herself. The Chevalier had said that these relics had usurped the rôle previously played in the world of fashion by lace handkerchiefs and gloves of frangipane, in short of the feminine petite-oie. Thus, by obtaining a relic, she would kill two birds with one stone; she would absorb the virtue of Saint Magdalene and at the same time destroy for ever the bad magic of that petite-oie of bad omen which she had bought at the Foire St. Germain. The very next day she would go to the Carmelites, and perhaps, perhaps, if they had not long ago been all distributed, procure a piece of the magical habit. At any rate she would consolidate her cult for Saint Magdalene by burning some candles in the wonderful chapel set up in her honour in the Church of the Carmelites.