Every system of government produces people who are dissatisfied. The Republic
or Public Thing produced them at first from among the nobles who had been
despoiled of their ancient privileges. These looked with regret and hope to
Prince Crucho, the last of the Draconides, a prince adorned both with the
grace of youth and the melancholy of exile. It also produced them from among
the smaller traders, who, owing to profound economic causes, no longer gained
a livelihood. They believed that this was the fault of the republic which they
had at first adored and from which each day they were now becoming more
detached. The financiers, both Christians and Jews, became by their insolence
and their cupidity the scourge of the country, which they plundered and
degraded, as well as the scandal of a government which they never troubled
either to destroy or preserve, so confident were they that they could operate
without hindrance under all governments. Nevertheless, their sympathies
inclined to absolute power as the best protection against the socialists,
their puny but ardent adversaries. And just as they imitated the habits of the
aristocrats, so they imitated their political and religious sentiments. Their
women, in particular, loved the Prince and had dreams of appearing one day at
his Court.
However, the Republic retained some partisans and defenders. If it was not in
a position to believe in the fidelity of its own officials it could at least
still count on the devotion of the manual labourers, although it had never
relieved their misery. These came forth in crowds from their quarries and
their factories to defend it, and marched in long processions, gloomy,
emaciated, and sinister. They would have died for it because it had given them
hope.
Now, under the Presidency of Theodore Formose, there lived in a peaceable
suburb of Alca a monk called Agaric, who kept a school and assisted in
arranging marriages. In his school he taught fencing and riding to the sons of
old families, illustrious by their birth, but now as destitute of wealth as of
privilege. And as soon as they were old enough he married them to the
daughters of the opulent and despised caste of financiers.
Tall, thin, and dark, Agaric used to walk in deep thought, with his breviary
in his hand and his brow loaded with care, through the corridors of the school
and the alleys of the garden. His care was not limited to inculcating in his
pupils abstruse doctrines and mechanical precepts and to endowing them
afterwards with legitimate and rich wives. He entertained political designs
and pursued the realisation of a gigantic plan. His thought of thoughts and
labour of labours was to overthrow the Republic. He was not moved to this by
any personal interest. He believed that a democratic state was opposed to the
holy society to which body and soul he belonged. And all the other monks, his
brethren, thought the same. The Republic was perpetually at strife with the
congregation of monks and the assembly of the faithful. True, to plot the
death of the new government was a difficult and perilous enterprise. Still,
Agaric was in a position to carry on a formidable conspiracy. At that epoch,
when the clergy guided the superior classes of the Penguins, this monk
exercised a tremendous influence over the aristocracy of Alca.
All the young men whom he had brought up waited only for a favourable moment
to march against the popular power. The sons of the ancient families did not
practise the arts or engage in business. They were almost all soldiers and
served the Republic. They served it, but they did not love it; they regretted
the dragon's crest. And the fair Jewesses shared in these regrets in order
that they might be taken for Christians.
One July as he was walking in a suburban street which ended in some dusty
fields, Agaric heard groans coming from a moss-grown well that had been
abandoned by the gardeners. And almost immediately he was told by a cobbler of
the neighbourhood that a ragged man who had shouted out "Hurrah for the
Republic!" had been thrown into the well by some cavalry officers who were
passing, and had sunk up to his ears in the mud. Agaric was quite ready to see
a general significance in this particular fact. He inferred a great
fermentation in the whole aristocratic and military caste, and concluded that
it was the moment to act.
The next day he went to the end of the Wood of Conils to visit the good Father
Cornemuse. He found the monk in his laboratory pouring a golden-coloured
liquor into a still. He was a short, fat, little man, with vermilion-tinted
cheeks and an elaborately polished bald head. His eyes had ruby-coloured
pupils like a guinea-pig's. He graciously saluted his visitor and offered him
a glass of the St. Orberosian liqueur, which he manufactured, and from the
sale of which he gained immense wealth.
Agaric made a gesture of refusal. Then, standing on his long feet and pressing
his melancholy hat against his stomach, he remained silent.
"Take a seat," said Cornemuse to him.
Agaric sat down on a rickety stool, but continued mute.
Then the monk of Conils inquired:
"Tell me some news of your young pupils. Have the dear children sound views?"
"I am very satisfied with them," answered the teacher. "It is everything to be
nurtured in sound principles. It is necessary to have sound views before
having any views at all, for afterwards it is too late. . . . Yes, I have
great grounds for comfort. But we live in a sad age."
"Alas!" sighed Cornemuse.
"We are passing through evil days. . . ."
"Times of trial."
"Yet, Cornemuse, the mind of the public is not so entirely corrupted as it
seems."
"Perhaps you are right."
"The people are tired of a government that ruins them and does nothing for
them. Every day fresh scandals spring up. The Republic is sunk in shame. It is
ruined."
"May God grant it!"
"Cornemuse, what do you think of Prince Crucho?"
"He is an amiable young man and, I dare say, a worthy scion of an august
stock. I pity him for having to endure the pains of exile at so early an age.
Spring has no flowers for the exile, and autumn no fruits. Prince Crucho has
sound views; he respects the clergy; he practises our religion; besides, he
consumes a good deal of my little products."
"Cornemuse, in many homes, both rich and poor, his return is hoped for.
Believe me, he will come back."
"May I live to throw my mantle beneath his feet!" sighed Cornemuse.
Seeing that he held these sentiments, Agaric depicted to him the state of
people's minds such as he himself imagined them. He showed him the nobles and
the rich exasperated against the popular government; the army refusing to
endure fresh insults; the officials willing to betray their chiefs; the people
discontented, riot ready to burst forth, and the enemies of the monks, the
agents of the constituted authority, thrown into the wells of Alca. He
concluded that it was the moment to strike a great blow.
"We can," he cried, "save the Penguin people, we can deliver it from its
tyrants, deliver it from itself, restore the Dragon's crest, re-establish the
ancient State, the good State, for the honour of the faith and the exaltation
of the Church. We can do this if we will. We possess great wealth and we exert
secret influences; by our evangelistic and outspoken journals we communicate
with all the ecclesiastics in towns and county alike, and we inspire them with
our own eager enthusiasm and our own burning faith. They will kindle their
penitents and their congregations. I can dispose of the chiefs of the army; I
have an understanding with the men of the people. Unknown to them I sway the
minds of umbrella sellers, publicans, shopmen, gutter merchants, newspaper
boys, women of the streets, and police agents. We have more people on our side
than we need. What are we waiting for? Let us act!"
"What do you think of doing?" asked Cornemuse.
"Of forming a vast conspiracy and overthrowing the Republic, of
re-establishing Crucho on the throne of the Draconides."
Cornemuse moistened his lips with his tongue several times. Then he said with
unction:
"Certainly the restoration of the Draconides is desirable; it is eminently
desirable; and for my part, desire it with all my heart. As for the Republic,
you know what I think of it. . . . But would it not te better to abandon it to
its fate and let it die of the vices of its own constitution? Doubtless,
Agaric, what you propose is noble and generous. It would be a fine thing to
save this great and unhappy country, to re-establish it in its ancient
splendour. But reflect on it, we are Christians before we are Penguins. And we
must take heed not to compromise religion in political enterprises."
Agaric replied eagerly:
"Fear nothing. We shall hold all the threads of the plot, but we ourselves
shall remain in the background. We shall not be seen."
"Like flies in milk," murmured the monk of Conils.
And turning his keen ruby-coloured eyes towards his brother monk:
"Take care. Perhaps the Republic is stronger than it seems. Possibly, too, by
dragging it out of the nerveless inertia in which it now rests we may only
consolidate its forces. Its malice is great; if we attack it, it will defend
itself. It makes bad laws which hardly affect us; if it is frightened it will
make terrible ones against us. Let us not lightly engage in an adventure in
which we may get fleeced. You think the opportunity a good one. I don't, and I
am going to tell you why. The present government is not yet known by
everybody, that is to say, it is known by nobody. It proclaims that it is the
Public Thing, the common thing. The populace believes it and remains
democratic and Republican. But patience! This same people will one day demand
that the public thing be the people's thing. I need not tell you how insolent,
unregulated, and contrary to Scriptural polity such claims seem to me. But the
people will make them, and enforce them, and then there will be an end of the
present government. The moment cannot now be far distant; and it is then that
we ought to act in the interests of our august body. Let us wait. What hurries
us? Our existence is not in peril. It has not been rendered absolutely
intolerable to us. The Republic fails in respect and submission to us; it does
not give the priests the honours it owes them. But it lets us live. And such
is the excellence of our position that with us to live is to prosper. The
Republic is hostile to us, but women revere us. President Formose does not
assist at the celebration of our mysteries, but I have seen his wife and
daughters at my feet. They buy my phials by the gross. I have no better
clients even among the aristocracy. Let us say what there is to be said for
it. There is no country in the world as good for priests and monks as
Penguinia. In what other country would you find our virgin wax, our virile
incense, our rosaries, our scapulars, our holy water, and our St. Orberosian
liqueur sold in such great quantities? What other people would, like the
Penguins, give a hundred golden crowns for a wave of our hands, a sound from
our mouths, a movement of our lips? For my part, I gain a thousand times more,
in this pleasant, faithful, and docile Penguinia, by extracting the essence
from a bundle of thyme, than I could make by tiring my lungs with preaching
the remission of sins in the most populous states of Europe and America.
Honestly, would Penguinia be better off if a police officer came to take me
away from here and put me on a steamboat bound for the Islands of Night?"
Having thus spoken, the monk of Conils got up and led his guest into a huge
shed where hundreds of orphans clothed in blue were packing bottles, nailing
up cases, and gumming tickets. The ear was deafened by the noise of hammers
mingled with the dull rumbling of bales being placed upon the rails.
"It is from here that consignments are forwarded," said Cornemuse. "I have
obtained from the government a railway through the Wood and a station at my
door. Every three days I fill a truck with my own products. You see that the
Republic has not killed all beliefs."
Agaric made a last effort to engage the wise distiller in his enterprise. He
pointed him to a prompt, certain, dazzling success.
"Don't you wish to share in it?" he added. "Don't you wish to bring back your
king from exile?"
"Exile is pleasant to men of good will," answered the monk of Conils. "If you
are guided by me, my dear Brother Agaric, you will give up your project for
the present. For my own part I have no illusions. Whether or not I belong to
your party, if you lose, I shall have to pay like you."
Father Agaric took leave of his friend and went back satisfied to his school.
"Cornemuse," thought he, "not being able to prevent the plot, would like to
make it succeed and he will give money." Agaric was not deceived. Such,
indeed, was the solidarity among priests and monks that the acts of a single
one bound them all. That was at once both their strength and their weakness.
Read next: BOOK V - MODERN TIMES: CHATILLON#CHAPTER II - PRINCE CRUCHO
Read previous: BOOK IV - MODERN TIMES: TRINCO#CHAPTER IV - THE JOURNEY OF DOCTOR OBNUBILE
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