THE LETTERS OF A FRENCH PRIEST.*
Lettres d'un Cure de Campagne and Lettres d'un Cure de Canton are practically two volumes of one book. The same priest is the hero of both, and he has the same Parisian lay- man for confidant and correspondent. Reintroduces himself to the reader the day that he enters upon his country living. His reception and his subsequent life, the society of the village and the character of the peasantry, are all admirably described, at times with a wearisomeness inseparable, we should think, from a true picture of provincial life in Prance. At first we are charmed by the cure, be is so good and so devoted, so anxious to serve his parishioners, from the haughty representative of the old nobility to the most sordid and parsimonious of the peasantry. As the book develops, however, we begin to feel that an absolutely faultless Character, especially when self-depicted, fails to con- vince; our cure's wisdom never fails, his morality, to use Charles Lamb's expression, never abates ! He ceases to be a .man and becomes a church, a church from whose windows we look down on the country, on the chateau, and on the town. The account of the first round of Parochial visits made by the new cure is excellent reading. The parish is poor, but not miserably so. "We eat more bread than butter here," says the Maire," more potatoes than • (1.) Lettres d'un Cur4 do Campagne. Par Yves le Quercloc. Paris : Victor Lecoffre.—(2.) Lettres d'un Curd de Canton. Same author and publisher. [3 Cr. 50
meat ; we drink more piquette than wine, but no one dies of hunger." If, however, there is plain living in the neighbour- hood, there is certainly very little high thinking. That a cure should visit the poor when there is no illness seems to be rather an innovation. The peasants are somewhat flattered to see him come, but they are afraid of being interfered with. or made to practise any more Catholic observances than are necessary to get to heaven. When the cure talks about agriculture they are pleased, but they do not quite respect him for his interest in worldly concerns, and the young men tell him embarrassing stories to see if he is shocked. " The peasant has a good heart, but he likes to be mischievous and facetious, and in order to maintain the necessary superiority —he respects and listens to no one whom he does not think his superior—one must, while seeming good-natured and even jovial, carefully avoid all familiarity." The people living in the little town are less Catholic than the peasantry, but they are more civilised. The Institateur, who, we suppose, corre- sponds to a Board-school master, while preserving some respect for the Church, begs the cure not to come too often to see him, nor to expect his wife too often at Mass, for though she has re- ligious intentions and sometimes hears the school-children their Catechism, it would not do for either master or mistress to be thought divots. M. l'Inspecteur and M. le Prefet might not like it. The priest is a Republican, ardently approving of the Pope's Encyclical. Accordingly he visits every peasant and shopkeeper in his parish before he goes to the castle.
M. de St. Julien, the old Marquis, whose ancestors owned the parish at the time of the Crusades, is offended at this lack of respect :—
"Have you not visited all the little revolutionaries of the Commune ? Have you not taken them by the hand ? You have come to the castle last, after visiting all these people, to let the world see in what esteem you hold us. Had you dared, you would not have come at all. For the future you need not do so. Society is upside down," he continues. "One might say the world desires to stand on its head. Up to the present the Church resisted. Now everything is changed. The Pope approves the Republic and blesses the democracy, the Bishops will soon imitate him, and as to the younger clergy, they are ready to sing the Marseillaise ' in the churches."
In spite of all these not very dignified expressions of feeling. M. de St. Julien is a delightful character. He asks nothing better than to work for the Commune and to spend all his money upon the common folk if only they will give him the
deference that he craves. He made an excellent Haire while the electors had the sense to let him remain in office, but as his bourgeois successor said, "He likes to hunt and shoot. He hunts and shoots everywhere, but if a poor man shoots on his land he has him arrested for a poacher. But for this he would be Moire now." He supports every charity and every com- munal improvement, but be wants to rule, and he is hated.
The Town Council decides to cut a new road through his garden and under his windows. The road is not wanted, the expense will be great, and the spite is evident. Nevertheless, all the townspeople are in favour of the road. The sufferings of the poor old Marquis are really touching. He cannot at first bring himself to appeal to the sous-prefet. He feels he will be exposing his quarrels and asking a favour. At last, however, his wife and daughter persuade him. Through their
influence also he becomes fast friends with the cure, and as by the end of the book the latter is adored by his parishioners, M. de Saint Julien's position becomes easier, and the priest is able to protect the Marquis. The progress of this popu-
larity, and the consequent increase of Christianity among the people, is the thread on which the letters hang. That M. le Care should be loved is inevitable. He is a clever man as well as a good one. Like the Pope, he considers him- self "the servant of the servants of God." He is as ready to sit up with a sick man, to decipher a crabbed letter, to write to an old woman's dictation, to read, simplify, and retail books on agriculture and political economy, as he is to administer the Sacraments. He never pays a visit without preparation. That is, he recalls all he knows of the family, and considers what it will interest and please them to have said, and having more social practice than they, he can generally govern the conversation. This entire want of spontaneity is somewhat disagreeable to the English Protestant mind, but it is the secret of detachment which is the secret of strength. Then he is full of charity. M. and Mme. H— come from Paris to St. Julien to spend a holiday ; they are not believers, but the cure accepts their assistance in all his schemes for the good of the poor. M. H— explains that though he holds no dogma, he thinks it necessary for the uneducated, and nothing would be further from him than to disturb their minds. The care is satisfied, and writes to his friend that he is touched by the care this agnostic takes not to show his want of faith, and by his awkward attempts to make the correct genuflexions in the service.
The end of the cure de campagne is that the Bishop, seeing he has reformed the parish, sends him to a small manufactur- ing town, and here the cure de canton begins. Here he meets at first with no hostility but with general indifference. The last priest baptised and buried such of the inhabitants as had believing relatives, said Mass to a few women, and considered that he bad done his duty. A few Catholics have heard stories of the miracles of reform wrought by the "cure de Saint Julien," and though considerably shocked by the poverty of his furniture, are anxious to hear "his method." Madame Chamboreau mire, the richest and most charitable woman in the parish, calls the day after his instalment, and is keenly disappointed that he has no scheme for Christianising the parish ; while the curate (abbe), accustomed to the ways of the last vicar, is scandalised to think that such a great lady has been obliged to sit on a cane-chair. Both, however, are soon devoted to M. le Cure, the poor abbe greatly to his own unhappiness. He is a commonplace, stupid person, fearfully oppressed by the example and precepts of his new chief. He does not want to do what is wrong, but neither does he want to spend all day doing right. He would like a little time to himself. Must he do good even in his recrea- tions? The thought that he is sacerdos in xternum in zeternum begins to prey upon him. However, he confesses to his superior, and personal devotion to a living saint con- firms his weak knees. In this second story we get tired of the philanthropic schemes, the system of loans which con- found the usurers, the political economy classes, the opera- tives' Union and the strike. We begin to feel like the curate. But the dinner-parties the cure describes are most entertain- ing. We recommend the descriptions of them to those people who insist that French middle-class manners are better than ours. They talk a great deal about the food and the wine, and when they have eaten and drunk rather too much they give their sharp French wits to irritating one another. At a dinner-party at the Maine, the Maire asks the cure if he believes in hell and in a Devil who toasts the damned on a fork. "The Devil is not dead," returns the priest, "but I don't know about the fork ; I never saw any fork in the Catechism." The cure must have known his company very well if that answer was prepared beforehand. The end of the book is enlivened by a love-story. The sketch of the two lovers is slight, but very pretty,—a doctor and a charming young lady, or, according to French ideas, a charming old maid, on the right side of thirty. The doctor is shy, and dare not pro- pose, and the lady thinks herself too old to be married, and does not perceive his intentions. The doctor begs the cure to present his petition, but as there are no parents in the case the good priest thinks it would not be convenable for him to speak directly to a lady on such a subject. The services of Madame Chamborean mere are accordingly secured, and the pair are made happy ; but, alas ! M. le Cure only just lives long enough to bless their union. The author, no doubt, felt that death or a bishopric were the only alternative endings for his hero. He chose death. Of course he was within his right, but all the same we feel sorry to think that M. le Cure is not still an ornament to the French priesthood. Whether these books are written with a religious purpose or not we leave the reader to decide; they are certainly not spoiled by one.
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