The Salt Smugglers (15 page)

This little adventure, — to be expected, seeing as how I was traveling without papers, — remained deeply engraved in my memory only because it recalled a similar contretemps which resulted in far more severe consequences for a friend of mine.

This man was a simple archaeologist by profession. Passing through L*** while awaiting the Senlis coach that would bring him back to Paris, he had stopped to contemplate a thirteenth-century church whose nondescript exterior was offset by its unusual age.

A gendarme, — all this happened a few months ago, — kept a steady eye on him as he was making his observations and made special note of the fact that he was scribbling things down in a notebook. For half an hour, he patiently kept his distance; — but in the end, no longer finding it natural that one might spend a half an hour examining a church, he became suspicious and decided to go tap him on the shoulder and ask for his papers.

« I need papers for L***? Only three leagues from Paris? the archaeologist calmly retorted.

— You have no papers? ... Follow me to the mayor's office. »

This was not the proverbial mayor of Meaux, — reputed to be a very literate man. The mayor of L*** said to the archaeologist:

« What were you doing in front of that church?

— I was establishing its antiquity.

— While taking notes?

— I have them here.

— I have no need to look at your notes. What you need are papers. And since you have none, these gentleman will take you to see the deputy public prosecutor of P***. »

He was marched off, escorted by the two gendarmes.

The prosecutor said to archaeologist, who was bitterly complaining about the treatment he had received: « I can't believe a single word of what you are telling me. It's impossible that a public office holder in the department of the Oise such as our mayor could take it upon himself to have a man arrested for looking at a church!

— Well, dogs can gawk at archbishops! said the Parisian scholar.

— In this case I consider you even more suspect. Since you claim you live in Paris, we'll just have to dispatch you back to the city and see what they make of this there. »

The archaeologist requested a carriage, having already gone two leagues on foot, — which is fairly disagreeable when one is escorted by gendarmes and exposed to the eyes of the ladies. — But luckily deliverance was at hand: a paddy wagon with room for
other
suspects had just arrived in town and was leaving for Paris.

The archaeologist was placed in the vehicle. This wagon had not yet been divided into separate cells, but at least thumb-cuffs had been provided. There was already a lone thief in the wagon. He was comfortably installed on a clump of straw ... and called out to the
new fellow
while they were getting tied up:

« Hello there, old chap! ... so they're not giving you any straw? You know you have the legal right to straw, so you can sit on it like me. Ask the driver for some. »

Instead of replying, the archaeologist just let out a roar: he wanted to go on suffering, just to further shame the mayor of L***.

Once in Paris, he produced his letters and was immediately released.

This anecdote, — which is completely historical, — merely illustrates the idiocy of a certain village mayor. And it yet it might also remind us that French functionaries characteristically overstep their authority; — which is very likely the reason they produce such extreme counter-reactions.

You have forwarded on to me two letters that were written in response to my initial articles concerning the abbé de Bucquoy. The first of these letters claims, on the basis of an abridged biography, that Bucquoy and Bucquoi are in fact not the same name. — To which I can only reply that the spelling of old names is never consistent. Only heraldry provides a relatively foolproof way of establishing family identities, and we have already provided the coat-of-arms of this particular family (gules, six bandlets, vair). This blazon is found among every branch of the family, be it in Picardy, Île-de-France, or Champagne (where the abbé de Bucquoy came from). Longueval borders on Champagne, as we have already seen. — It would be useless to push this discussion of heraldry any further.

You also forwarded on a second letter which comes from Belgium:

« As a reader who enjoys the work of M. Gérard de Nerval and who wishes to be of service to him, I am sending the enclosed document which might prove to be valuable as he pursues his humorous peregrinations in search of the abbé de Bucquoy, that elusive whippersnapper issued forth by the Riancey amendment. amendment.

A subscriber to the
National
».

156. Olivier de Wree, de vermoerde oorlogh-stucken van den woonderdadighen velt-heer Carel de Longueval, grave van BUSQUOY, Baron de Vaux. Brugge, 1625. — Ej. mengheldichten: fyghes noeper; Bachus-Cortryck. Ibid., 1625. — Ej. Venus-Ban. Ibid., 1625, in-12, oblong, vel.
⁷

Rare and curious item. The copy is water-stained.

I shall not attempt to translate this Dutch bibliographical entry. Let me only observe in passing that it has been excerpted from the prospectus of a library that is going to be offered for sale on December 5th and the following days under the direction of M. Héberlé, — 5, rue des Paroissiens, Brussels.

And this letter reaches me on the 15th!

I'd prefer to wait for Techener's sale, — which I certainly hope is still scheduled for the 20th.

POST-SCRIPTUM. — THE RUINS COUNTRY WALKS. — THE ABBEY OF CHÂALIS ERMENONVILLE. — ROUSSEAU'S TOMB

I'm thinking of all the various mistakes that I have committed in the letters I have just sent off to you: an error of twenty kilometers when estimating a distance is probably nothing to worry about; — I'm having difficulty getting used to the new metric system ... yet I know that it is henceforth illegal to use the old term
leagues
in public documents. It must be the influence of this region that I am currently inhabiting that is causing me to lapse back into these archaic turns of phrase.

My fear of compromising you in any way is such that when I returned to you the letter that had been addressed to me from Belgium in order to inform me of the book sale that would include a volume relating to the Bucquoy family, I added a word of my own ... I have dishonored the autograph of an unknown friend by using the term
issued forth
. The point was being made that the abbé de Bucquoy was an
elusive whippersnapper
who was bound to snap at the heels of the
Tinguy
amendment; — and I continue to regret that I conjured up this impish creature; — for you know just how much I respect the law. — I thought I was toning down my sarcasm by insisting that the
whippersnapper
in question had been
issued forth
by the said amendment.

Well, I was wrong; — having sworn to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God, following the example of that philosopher whose tomb I am about to visit and whose personal motto was
Vitam impendere vero
, — I should have merely reprinted the letter you sent me free from any additional commentary on my part. — The point of all this being that I am not out to attack the law per se, but merely the false interpretation that might be made of it, should it be seriously applied.

As for me, — as you well know, — I risk nothing; but you, you run the risk of being hit with a fine, — which could go as high as a million ... These are no laughing matters!

If you printed the passage where I described the arrest of the archaeologist, rest assured that this episode is entirely true and that I am ready to supply you with proof of the matter, — and what's more, could cite another example of this sort of thing that occurred in another part of the Oise. — If I am a little vague about the precise geographical locations, it's because I am afraid of compromising the persons in question.

In the material I just sent off to you there is yet another word which cost me an hour of sleep. I may well have committed an error in French, — or, as it were, against French, — when speaking of officials who
«
overstep their authority
and hence provoke extreme
counter-reactions
. »

The mistake would seem to be an elementary one at first glance; — but there are several kinds of reactions: some reactions involve
roundabout
responses, — others simply involve grinding to a halt. The point I wanted to make was that one excess can lead to another. How otherwise explain acts of arson or the wanton destruction of property, — admittedly rare events these days? Every time a crowd starts getting agitated, there is always some foreign or hostile element that takes advantage of the situation in order push things beyond the limits usually established (and enforced) by common sense.

An anecdote that was told to me by a well-known bibliophile will bear this out. As it so happens, the hero of the story is another bibliophile.

On the day the February Revolution broke out, several carriages were burned, — it was believed that they had been purchased for the royal court with monies provided by the civil list. — This act was no doubt very wrong; looking back on it today, people tend to blame it on the traitors who had infiltrated the crowd that had gathered in the wake of the uprising ...

The bibliophile in question went over to Palais-National that very evening. He could not have cared less about the carriages that were being set on fire; all he cared about was a work in four folio volumes entitled
Perceforest
.

It was one of those
romaunts
of the Arthurian cycle, — or perhaps it was the Charlemagne cycle, — containing the epic accounts of our ancient chivalric wars.

Elbowing his way through the assembled crowd, he managed to enter the palace courtyard. — He was a lanky fellow with a wizened face now and then creased by a benevolent smile; respectably dressed in a black suit, he had been let through by the crowd out of sheer curiosity.

« My friends, he asked, has the
Perceforest
been burned?

— No, we're just burning carriages.

— Very well. Carry on then. And the library?

— Hasn't been touched ... What do you want, anyway ?

— I want them to spare the four-volume edition of
Perceforest
, a hero of yesteryear ... an irreplaceable edition, with two pages that have been transposed and a large ink stain in the third volume. »

He was told:

« Check with the first floor. »

He went to the first floor, where he was informed:

« We absolutely deplore what happened when the situation flared up ... Several paintings were damaged in the initial confusion ...

— Yes, I know, a Horace Vernet ... All this is nothing: — the
Perceforest?
...

They looked at him as if he were stark mad. He beat a quick retreat and finally managed to locate the concierge of the Palais-National, who was hiding out in her quarters.

« Madame, if they have not yet taken over the library, could you please go and see whether the
Perceforest
is still there, — it's a sixteenth-century edition, bound in vellum by Gaume. The rest of the library is worthless ... poorly selected books for people who don't read ... But the
Perceforest
has been estimated to be worth forty thousand francs. »

The concierge's eyes opened wide.

« I would pay twenty thousand for it right here and now ... despite the depreciation of property values inevitably associated with revolutions.

— Twenty thousand francs!

— I have them at home! But if I bought the edition it would merely be in order to donate it to the nation. It's a national treasure. »

Dazzled and astonished, the concierge courageously agreed to sneak over into the library by a small back stairway. She had been swept up by the scholar's enthusiasm.

Presently she returned, having seen the book on the exact shelf indicated by the bibliophile.

« Sir, the book is there. But there are only three volumes ... You must have made some mistake.

— Three volumes! ... What a loss! ... I'm immediately going to inform the provisional government, — they usually set one up in these cases, don't they? ...
Perceforest
incomplete! Revolutions are terrible things! »

The bibliophile rushed over to the Hôtel-de-Ville. — People had other things to deal with than bibliography. He nonetheless managed to buttonhole M. Arago, — who understood the importance of his mission and immediately issued orders that the matter be looked into.

The
Perceforest
was incomplete only because one of its volumes was on loan.

We are delighted that this work was fortunate enough to remain in France.