Concerning A Poor Man Who Was Called Le Vieux Par-Chemins
The old chronicler who furnished the hemp to weave the present story,
is said to have lived at the time when the affair occurred in the City
of Rouen.
In the environs of this fair town, where at the time dwelt Duke
Richard, an old man used to beg, whose name was Tryballot, but to whom
was given the nickname of Le Vieux par-Chemins, or the Old Man of the
Roads; not because he was yellow and dry as vellum, but because he was
always in the high-ways and by-ways--up hill and down dale--slept with
the sky for his counterpane, and went about in rags and tatters.
Notwithstanding this, he was very popular in the duchy, where everyone
had grown used to him, so much so that if the month went by without
anyone seeing his cup held towards them, people would say, "Where is
the old man?" and the usual answer was, "On the roads."
This said man had had for a father a Tryballot, who was in his
lifetime a skilled artisan, so economical and careful, that he left
considerable wealth to his son.
But the young lad soon frittered it away, for he was the very opposite
of the old fellow, who, returning from the fields to his house, picked
up, now here, now there, many a little stick of wood left right and
left, saying, conscientiously, that one should never come home empty
handed. Thus he warmed himself in the winter at the expense of the
careless; and he did well. Everyone recognised what a good example
this was for the country, since a year before his death no one left a
morsel of wood on the road; he had compelled the most dissipated to be
thrifty and orderly. But his son made ducks and drakes of everything,
and did not follow his wise example. The father had predicted the
thing. From the boy's earliest youth, when the good Tryballot set him
to watch the birds who came to eat the peas, beans, and the grain, and
to drive the thieves away, above all, the jays, who spoiled
everything, he would study their habits, and took delight in watching
with what grace they came and went, flew off loaded, and returned,
watching with a quick eye the snares and nets; and he would laugh
heartily at their cleverness in avoiding them. Tryballot senior went
into a passion when he found his grain considerably less in a measure.
But although he pulled his son's ears whenever he caught him idling
and trifling under a nut tree, the little rascal did not alter his
conduct, but continued to study the habits of the blackbirds,
sparrows, and other intelligent marauders. One day his father told him
that he would be wise to model himself after them, for that if he
continued this kind of life, he would be compelled in his old age like
them, to pilfer, and like them, would be pursued by justice. This came
true; for, as has before been stated, he dissipated in a few days the
crowns which his careful father had acquired in a life-time. He dealt
with men as he did with the sparrows, letting everyone put a hand in
his pocket, and contemplating the grace and polite demeanour of those
who assisted to empty it. The end of his wealth was thus soon reached.
When the devil had the empty money bag to himself, Tryballot did not
appear at all cut up, saying, that he "did not wish to damn himself
for this world's goods, and that he had studied philosophy in the
school of the birds."
After having thoroughly enjoyed himself, of all his goods, there only
remained to him a goblet bought at Landict, and three dice, quite
sufficient furniture for drinking and gambling, so that he went about
without being encumbered, as are the great, with chariots, carpets,
dripping pans, and an infinite number of varlets. Tryballot wished to
see his good friends, but they no longer knew him, which fact gave him
leave no longer to recognise anyone. Seeing this, he determined to
choose a profession in which there was nothing to do and plenty to
gain. Thinking this over, he remembered the indulgences of the
blackbirds and the sparrows. Then the good Tryballot selected for his
profession that of begging money at people's houses, and pilfering.
From the first day, charitable people gave him something, and
Tryballot was content, finding the business good, without advance
money or bad debts; on the contrary, full of accommodation. He went
about it so heartily, that he was liked everywhere, and received a
thousand consolations refused to rich people. The good man watched the
peasants planting, sowing, reaping, and making harvest, and said to
himself, that they worked a little for him as well. He who had a pig
in his larder owed him a bit for it, without suspecting it. The man
who baked a loaf in his oven often baked it for Tryballot without
knowing it. He took nothing by force; on the contrary, people said to
him kindly, while making him a present, "Here Vieux par-Chemins, cheer
up, old fellow. How are you? Come, take this; the cat began it, you
can finish it."
Vieux par-Chemins was at all the weddings, baptisms, and funerals,
because he went everywhere where there was, openly or secretly,
merriment and feasting. He religiously kept the statutes and canons of
his order--namely, to do nothing, because if he had been able to do
the smallest amount of work no one would ever give anything again.
After having refreshed himself, this wise man would lay full length in
a ditch, or against a church wall, and think over public affairs; and
then he would philosophise, like his pretty tutors, the blackbirds,
jays, and sparrows, and thought a great deal while mumping; for,
because his apparel was poor, was that a reason his understanding
should not be rich? His philosophy amused his clients, to whom he
would repeat, by way of thanks, the finest aphorisms of his science.
According to him, suppers produced gout in the rich: he boasted that
he had nimble feet, because his shoemaker gave him boots that do not
pinch his corns. There were aching heads beneath diadems, but his
never ached, because it was touched neither by luxury nor any other
chaplet. And again, that jewelled rings hinder the circulation of the
blood. Although he covered himself with sores, after the manner of
cadgers, you may be sure he was as sound as a child at the baptismal
font.
The good man disported himself with other rogues, playing with his
three dice, which he kept to remind him to spend his coppers, in order
that he might always be poor. In spite of his vow, he was, like all
the order of mendicants, so wealthy that one day at the Paschal feast,
another beggar wishing to rent his profit from him, Vieux par-Chemins
refused ten crowns for it; in fact, the same evening he spent fourteen
crowns in drinking the health of the alms-givers, because it is the
statutes of beggary that one should show one's gratitude to donors.
Although he carefully got rid of that of which had been a source of
anxiety to others, who, having too much wealth went in search of
poverty, he was happier with nothing in the world than when he had his
father's money. And seeing what are the conditions of nobility, he was
always on the high road to it, because he did nothing except according
to his fancy, and lived nobly without labour. Thirty crowns would not
have got him out of a bed when he was in it. The morrow always dawned
for him as it did for others, while leading this happy life; which,
according to the statements of Plato, whose authority has more than
once been invoked in these narratives, certain ancient sages had led
before him. At last, Vieux par-Chemins reached the age of eighty-two
years, having never been a single day without picking up money, and
possessed the healthiest colour and complexion imaginable. He believed
that if he had persevered in the race for wealth he would have been
spoiled and buried years before. It is possible he was right.
In his early youth Vieux par-Chemins had the illustrious virtue of
being very partial to the ladies; and his abundance of love was, it is
said, the result of his studies among the sparrows. Thus it was that
he was always ready to give the ladies his assistance in counting the
joists, and this generosity finds its physical cause in the fact that,
having nothing to do, he was always ready to do something. His secret
virtues brought about, it is said, that popularity which he enjoyed in
the provinces. Certain people say that the lady of Chaumont had him in
her castle, to learn the truth about these qualities, and kept him
there for a week, to prevent him begging. But the good man jumped over
the hedges and fled in great terror of being rich. Advancing in age,
this great quintessencer found himself disdained, although his notable
faculties of loving were in no way impaired. This unjust turning away
on the part of the female tribe caused the first trouble of Vieux par-
Chemins, and the celebrated trial of Rouen, to which it is time I
came.
In this eighty-second year of his age he was compelled to remain
continent for about seven months, during which time he met no woman
kindly disposed towards him; and he declared before the judge that
that had caused the greatest astonishment of his long and honourable
life. In this most pitiable state he saw in the fields during the
merry month of May a girl, who by chance was a maiden, and minding
cows. The heat was so excessive that this cowherdess had stretched
herself beneath the shadow of a beech tree, her face to the ground,
after the custom of people who labour in the fields, in order to get a
little nap while her animals were grazing. She was awakened by the
deed of the old man, who had stolen from her that which a poor girl
could only lose once. Finding herself ruined without receiving from
the process either knowledge or pleasure, she cried out so loudly that
the people working in the fields ran to her, and were called upon by
her as witnesses, at the time when that destruction was visible in her
which is appropriate only to a bridal night. She cried and groaned,
saying that the old ape might just as well have played his tricks on
her mother, who would have said nothing.
He made answer to the peasants, who had already raised their hoes to
kill him, that he had been compelled to enjoy himself. These people
objected that a man can enjoy himself very well without enjoying a
maiden--a case for the provost, which would bring him straight to the
gallows; and he was taken with great clamour to the jail of Rouen.
The girl, interrogated by the provost, declared that she was sleeping
in order to do something, and that she thought she was dreaming of her
lover, with whom she was then at loggerheads, because before marriage
he wished to take certain liberties: and jokingly, in this dream she
let him reconnoiter to a certain extent, in order to avoid any dispute
afterwards, and that in spite of her prohibitions he went further than
she had given him leave to go, and finding more pain than pleasure in
the affair, she had been awakened by Vieux par-Chemins, who had
attacked her as a gray-friar would a ham at the end of lent.
This trial caused so great a commotion in the town of Rouen that the
provost was sent for by the duke, who had an intense desire to know if
the thing were true. Upon the affirmation of the provost, he ordered
Vieux par-Chemins to be brought to his palace, in order that he might
hear what defence he had to make. The poor old fellow appeared before
the prince, and informed him naively of the misfortune which his
impulsive nature brought upon him, declaring that he was like a young
fellow impelled by imperious desires; that up to the present year he
had sweethearts of his own, but for the last eight months he had been
a total abstainer; that he was too poor to find favour with the girls
of the town; that honest women who once were charitable to him, had
taken a dislike to his hair, which had feloniously turned white in
spite of the green youth of his love, and that he felt compelled to
avail himself of the chance when he saw this maiden, who, stretched at
full length under the beech tree, left visible the lining of her dress
and two hemispheres, white as snow, which had deprived him of reason;
that the fault was the girl's and not his, because young maidens
should be forbidden to entice passers-by by showing them that which
caused Venus to be named Callipyge; finally the prince ought to be
aware what trouble a man had to control himself at the hour of noon,
because that was the time of day at which King David was smitten with
the wife of the Sieur Uriah, that where a Hebrew king, beloved of God,
had succumbed, a poor man, deprived of all joy, and reduced to begging
for his bread, could not expect to escape; that for that matter of
that, he was quite willing to sing psalms for the remainder of his
days, and play upon a lute by way of penance, in imitation of the said
king, who had had the misfortune to slay a husband, while he had only
done a trifling injury to a peasant girl. The duke listened to the
arguments of Vieux par-Chemins, and said that he was a man of good
parts. Then he made his memorable decree, that if, as this beggar
declared, he had need of such gratification at his age he gave
permission to prove it at the foot of the ladder which he would have
to mount to be hanged, according to the sentence already passed on him
by the provost; that if then, the rope being round his neck, between
the priest and the hangman, a like desire seized him he should have a
free pardon.
This decree becoming known, there was a tremendous crowd to see the
old fellow led to the gallows. There was a line drawn up as if for a
ducal entry, and in it many more bonnets than hats. Vieux par-Chemins
was saved by a lady curious to see how this precious violator would
finish his career. She told the duke that religion demanded that he
should have a fair chance. And she dressed herself as if for a ball;
she brought intentionally into evidence two hillocks of such snowy
whiteness that the whitest linen neckerchief would have paled before
them; indeed, these fruits of love stood out, without a wrinkle, over
her corset, like two beautiful apples, and made one's mouth water, so
exquisite were they. This noble lady, who was one of those who rouse
one's manhood, had a smile ready on her lips for the old fellow. Vieux
par-Chemins, dressed in garments of coarse cloth, more certain of
being in the desired state after hanging than before it, came along
between the officers of justice with a sad countenance, glancing now
here and there, and seeing nothing but head-dresses; and he would he
declared, have given a hundred crowns for a girl tucked up as was the
cowherdess, whose charms, though they had been his ruin, he still
remembered, and they might still have saved him; but, as he was old,
the remembrance was not sufficiently recent. But when, at the foot of
the ladder, he saw the twin charms of the lady, and the pretty delta
that their confluent rotundities produced, the sight so much excited
him that his emotion was patent to the spectators.
"Make haste and see that the required conditions are fulfilled," said
he to the officers. "I have gained my pardon but I cannot answer for
my saviour."
The lady was well pleased with this homage, which, she said, was
greater than his offence. The guards, whose business it was to proceed
to a verification, believed the culprit to be the devil, because never
in their wits had they seen an "I" so perpendicular as was the old
man. He was marched in triumph through the town to the palace of the
duke, to whom the guards and others stated the facts. In that period
of ignorance, this affair was thought so much of that the town voted
the erection of a column on the spot where the old fellow gained his
pardon, and he was portrayed thereon in stone in the attitude he
assumed at the sight of that honest and virtuous lady. The statue was
still to be seen when Rouen was taken by the English, and the writers
of the period have included this history among the notable events of
the reign.
As the town offered to supply the old man with all he required, and
see to his sustenance, clothing, and amusements, the good duke
arranged matters by giving the injured maiden a thousand crowns and
marrying her to her seducer, who then lost his name of Vieux par-
Chemins. He was named by the duke the Sieur de Bonne-C------. This
wife was confined nine months afterwards of a perfectly formed male
child, alive and kicking, and born with two teeth. From this marriage
came the house of Bonne-C------, who from motives modest but wrong,
besought our well-beloved King Louis Eleventh to grant them letters
patent to change their names into that of Bonne-Chose. The king
pointed out to the Sieur de Bonne-C------ that there was in the state
of Venice an illustrious family named Coglioni, who wore three
"C------ au natural" on their coat of arms. The gentlemen of the House
of Bonne-C------ stated to the king that their wives were ashamed to
be thus called in public assemblies; the king answered that they would
lose a great deal, because there is a great deal in a name.
Nevertheless, he granted the letters. After that this race was known
by this name, and founded families in many provinces. The first Sieur
de Bonne-C------ lived another 27 years, and had another son and two
daughters. But he grieved much at becoming rich, and no longer being
able to pick up a living in the street.
From this you can obtain finer lessons and higher morals than from any
story you will read all your life long--of course excepting these
hundred glorious Droll Tales--namely, that never could adventure of
this sort have happened to the impaired and ruined constitutions of
court rascals, rich people and others who dig their graves with their
teeth by over-eating and drinking many wines that impair the
implements of happiness; which said over-fed people were lolling
luxuriously in costly draperies and on feather beds, while the Sieur
de Bonne-Chose was roughing it. In a similar situation, if they had
eaten cabbage, it would have given them the diarrhoea. This may incite
many of those who read this story to change their mode of life, in
order to imitate Vieux par-Chemins in his old age.
-THE END-
Honore de Balzac's short story: Concerning A Poor Man Who Was Called Le Vieux Par-Chemins
GO TO TOP OF SCREEN
