Part 9 (2/2)
”And what is thy opinion of that gentleman? Tell me what he is.”
_Monk_. Great, bold, mighty, powerful, soft, and mild; but thou, his companion, art greater, bolder, mightier, more powerful, more soft, more mild.
Then looking at Faustus, he exclaimed:
”Mighty pupil of a mightier man, if thy spirit and thy heart could entirely catch his greatness, thou wouldst still be merely reflecting the rays of his glory. But seat thyself, and let me take thy shadow.”
Faustus, more and more enraged to see how infinitely the monk rated him below the Devil, now burst forth:
”Shadows! yes, indeed, shadows only hast thou seen. How darest thou thus judge and measure the human race? Hast thou seen men? Where, and how?
Thou hast merely seen their shadows, which thou adornest with the tinsel of thy crazed imagination, and givest them out as the true forms. Tell me what kind of human beings thou hast seen. Were they not sectaries, fanatics, visionaries, the very offscourings of human nature? Were they not vain devotees, young wives who have cold husbands, and widows who have sleepless nights? Were they not authors eager to have every mark and pimple on their insignificant features turned into a sign and prognostication of genius? Were they not grandees, whose brilliant stations rendered their physiognomies imposing to thine eye? Thou seest that I know thy customers, and have read thy book.”
_Devil_. Bravo, Faustus! Let me now put in a word, and tell his reverence a few mortifying truths. Brother monk, thou hast formed in thy solitary cell a phantom of perfection, and wouldst fain thrust that into people's heads, which, when there, poisons the brain, as the gangrene corrupts all the flesh around it. There were men long ago who ventured to judge of the innermost of their fellow-creatures from the outside; but there was some difference between them and thee. They had travelled over a considerable part of the earth; experience had made them gray; they had lived and conversed with men, visited all the lurking holes of vice and iniquity, roved from the palace to the cot, crept into the caves of savages, and thus knew what belonged to a well-organised man, and what he could do with his faculties. But shalt thou--swollen with prejudices, pent up in a convent like a toad in the trunk of an oak--pretend to have a clear idea of that which even they barely understood?
The monk stood between the two speakers as between two volcanoes in eruption; he crossed his hands humbly upon his breast, and cried, ”Have mercy!”
The Devil continued:
”Among the many impudent follies which I observed in thy book was an attempt to draw the Devil's portrait. It is now high time for him to appear to thee, in order that thou mayst correct the likeness. Look at me; and for once thou shalt be able to say thou hast seen an object in its proper form.”
The Devil then appeared to him in the most frightful of infernal figures; but he rolled a thick mist before the eyes of Faustus, in order that he might not blast his sight. The monk fell to the earth; and the Devil, resuming all his former comeliness, exclaimed:
”Now thou mayst paint the Devil in his proper colours, provided thou hast strength. Thou wouldst often be thus overcome, if thou didst in reality see the innermost of those whom thou makest angels.”
_Faustus_. Persist in thy folly; communicate it to others; and by thy extravagances render religion repulsive to reasonable people. Thou canst not farther more efficaciously the interests of the enemy. Farewell!
The monk had lost his senses through terror; but he still continued writing notwithstanding his madness; and his readers never once perceived his derangement, so much did his new books resemble his old ones.
Faustus was delighted with this adventure; but becoming weary of the town, he quitted it the next morning with the Devil, and took the road to France.
CHAPTER IV.
When Faustus and the Devil entered upon the fertile soil of France, it was groaning beneath the oppression of that cruel and cowardly tyrant Louis the Eleventh, who was the first that ever styled himself ”the most Christian king.” The Devil had determined not to give Faustus the slightest information beforehand concerning this prince. He had resolved to drive him to despair, and then overwhelm him with the most frightful blow a mortal can receive who has rebelliously transgressed the bounds which a powerful hand has drawn around him.
The Devil had learnt from one of his spies that the most Christian king was meditating a masterpiece of state policy; or, in other words, was on the point of getting rid of his brother, the Duke de Berry, in order that a province which had been granted to him might revert to the crown. The malicious fiend resolved to make Faustus a spectator of this horrid scene. They rode through a wood of oaks contiguous to a castle, and saw among the trees a Benedictine monk, who seemed to be telling his rosary.
The Devil rejoiced inwardly at this sight; for he read upon the countenance of the monk that he was imploring the Mother of G.o.d to a.s.sist him in the great enterprise which his abbot had intrusted him with, and likewise to save him from all danger. This monk was Faber Vesois, confessor of the king's brother. The Devil did not disturb him in his pious meditations, but went on to the castle with Faustus. They were received with all the respect generally shown to persons of distinction who come to visit a prince. The duke pa.s.sed his days here in the company of his beloved Monserau, thinking of no harm, and expecting no misfortune. His agreeable manners soon gained him the good-will of Faustus, who was delighted to see a scion of royalty think and act like a man; for he had been accustomed to see among the German princes nothing but pride, coldness, and that foolish ceremony which is only intended to make visitors appear contemptible in their own eyes. Some days were very pleasantly spent in hunting and other amus.e.m.e.nts, and the prince gained more and more upon the heart of Faustus. The only thing that displeased him in the prince was the weakness he displayed in regard to his confessor, the Benedictine. He loaded him with so much tenderness, and submitted with so much complaisance to his will, and the monk always looked so studiously devout, that Faustus could not conceive how a man so frank himself could prize such a hypocrite. The Devil, however, soon let him into the secret by informing him of the duke's connexion with Monserau. His love for this fair lady was equalled by his fear of h.e.l.l; and, Madame de Monserau having a husband still living, he was not altogether easy in respect to his amours with her. As he neither wished to renounce her nor expose himself to eternal punishment, he greedily caught at the baits which the monks hang out in order to make themselves masters of the minds of men; and when the dread of h.e.l.l tormented him too much, he allayed his fears by receiving absolution for his sins; while he thought it impossible for him to be too grateful to a man who encouraged him to enjoy the present, and tranquillised him in respect to the future.
”Thou seest, O Faustus,” said the Devil, ”what men have made of religion.
Its abuse has often been a.s.sociated with crimes and horrors, but is nevertheless used by the wicked to cajole and appease their rebellious consciences.”
The conduct of the prince in this respect did him little honour in the opinion of Faustus, who had long ago parted with his own conscience, and this last remark of the Devil's operated strongly upon his mind; however, he permitted things to go on in their own way, and chiefly thought of pa.s.sing his time pleasantly.
They were one evening at table in excellent humour; the Devil was diverting the company with his pleasant stories, and Faustus was employed in saying soft things to a pretty French widow, who listened to him very complaisantly; when all of a sudden, Death, in his most frightful shape, came to disturb the festival. The Benedictine caused a basket of extraordinarily large peaches, which he had just received as a present, to be brought in at dessert; and, selecting one of the finest, he offered it to the prince with a smiling and benignant air. The prince divided it with his beloved, and both ate of the peach without the slightest suspicion. They then rose from table; the monk gave his benediction to all, and hurried away. The Devil was about to commence a new story, when Madame de Monserau uttered a loud shriek. Her lovely features were distorted, her lips became blue, and the paleness of death covered her countenance. The prince rushed to her a.s.sistance; but the terrible poison began likewise to operate upon him; he fell at her feet, and cried, ”Listen, O Heaven: my brother, my cruel brother, has a.s.sa.s.sinated me by the hand of that monster. He who caused his father to die of hunger in order to avoid being poisoned, has now bribed the minister of religion to poison me.”
Faustus ran out of the room to seize the confessor, but he had fled; a troop of horse were waiting for him in the forest, and accompanied him in his flight. Faustus returned; but Death had seized his victims, and they had ceased to struggle with him. Faustus and the fiend instantly quitted the place.
_Devil_. Well, Faustus, what think you of the deed committed by the Benedictine in the name of the most Christian king?
<script>