The Queen Pedauque | Page 6

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 M��n��trier," 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 him it was not the right moment to do so, and he insisting on it, the limping cutler, who was sitting by me, tore his beard rather roughly. Friar Ange threw himself on the cutler, who fell to the ground, and by his fall upset the table and pitchers.
"The taverner, running up, seeing the table knocked over, the wine spilt, and Friar Ange with one foot on the cutler's head, swinging a stool with which he struck anyone approaching him, this vile taverner swore like a real devil and called for the watch. Monsieur M��n��trier, do come at once and take the little friar out of the watch's clutches. He is a holy man, and