The Queen Pedauque | Page 6

to read."
"He is able to read all sorts of writing," replied my mother.
And going near the friar, she recognised the prayer of St Margaret by
the picture representing the maiden martyr with a holy-water sprinkler
in her hand.
"This prayer," she added, "is difficult to read because the words of it
are very small and hardly divided, but happily it is quite sufficient,
when in labour-pains, to apply it like a plaster on the place where the
most pain is felt and it operates just as well, and rather better, than
when it is recited. I had the proof of it, sir, when my son Jacquot was
born, who is here present."
"Do not doubt about it, my good dame," said Friar Ange. "The orison
of St Margaret is sovereign for what you mentioned, but under the
special condition that the Capuchins get their Maundy."
In saying so, Friar Ange emptied the goblet of wine which my mother
had filled up for him and, throwing his wallet over his shoulder, went
off in the direction of the Little Bacchus.
My father served a quarter of fowl to the priest, who took out of his
pocket a piece of bread, a flagon of wine and a knife, the copper handle
of which represented the late king on a column in the costume of a
Roman emperor, and began to have his supper.
But having hardly taken the first morsel in his mouth he turned round
on my father and asked for some salt, rather surprised that no salt cellar
had been presented to him offhand.

"So did the ancients use it," he said, "they offered salt as a sign of
hospitality. They also placed salt cellars in the temples on the
tablecloths of the gods."
My father presented him with some bay salt out of the wooden shoe
which was hung on the mantelpiece. The priest took what he wanted of
it and said:
"The ancients considered salt to be a necessary seasoning of all repasts,
and held it in so high esteem that they metaphorically called salt the wit
which gives flavour to conversation."
"Ah!" said my father, "high as the ancients may have valued it, the
excise of our days puts it still higher."
My mother, listening the while she knitted a woollen stocking, was
glad to say a word:
"It must be believed that salt is a good thing, because the priests put a
grain of it on the tongues of the babies held over the christening font.
When my Jacques felt the salt on his tongue he made a grimace; as tiny
as he was he already had some sense. I speak, Sir Priest, of my son
Jacques here present."
The priest looked on me and said:
"Now he is already a grown-up boy. Modesty is painted on his features
and he reads the 'Life of St Margaret' with attention."
"Oh!" exclaimed my mother, "he also reads the prayer for chilblains
and that of 'St Hubert,' which Friar Ange has given him, and the history
of that fellow who has been devoured, in the Saint Marcel suburb, by
several devils for having blasphemed the holy name of our Lord."
My father looked admiringly on me, and then he murmured into the
priest's ear that I learned anything I wanted to know with a native and
natural facility.

"Wherefore," replied the priest, "you must form him to become a man
of letters, which to be, is one of the honours of mankind, the
consolation of human life and a remedy against all evils, actually
against those of love, as it is affirmed by the poet Theocritus."
"Simple cook as I am," was my father's reply, "I hold knowledge in
high esteem, and am quite willing to believe that it also is, as your
reverence says, a remedy for love. But I do not think that it is a remedy
against hunger."
"Well, perhaps it is not a sovereign ointment," replied the priest; "but it
gives some solace, like a sweet balm, although somewhat imperfect."
As he spoke Catherine the lacemaker appeared on the threshold, with
her bonnet sideways over her ear and her neckerchief very much
creased. Seeing her, my mother frowned and let slip three meshes of
her knitting.
"Monsieur Ménétrier," said Catherine to my father, "come and say a
word to the sergeants of the watch. If you do not, they doubtless will
lock up Friar Ange. The good friar came to the Little Bacchus, where
he drank two or three pots without paying for them, so as not to go
contrary to the rules of St Francis, he said. But the worst of it is, that he,
seeing me in company under the arbour, came near me to teach me a
new prayer. I told