The Village Rector | Page 3

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Etext prepared by John Bickers, [email protected] and Dagny, [email protected]

The Village Rector
by Honore de Balzac
Katharine Prescott Wormeley

DEDICATION
To Helene.
The tiniest boat is not launched upon the sea without the protection of some living emblem or revered name, placed upon it by the mariners. In accordance with this time-honored custom, Madame, I pray you to be the protectress of this book now launched upon our literary ocean; and may the Imperial name which the Church has canonized and your devotion has doubly sanctified for me guard it from perils.
De Balzac.

THE VILLAGE RECTOR

I
THE SAUVIATS
In the lower town of Limoges, at the corner of the rue de la Vieille- Poste and the rue de la Cite might have been seen, a generation ago, one of those shops which were scarcely changed from the period of the middle-ages. Large tiles seamed with a thousand cracks lay on the soil itself, which was damp in places, and would have tripped up those who failed to observe the hollows and ridges of this singular flooring. The dusty walls exhibited a curious mosaic of wood and brick, stones and iron, welded together with a solidity due to time, possibly to chance. For more than a hundred years the ceiling, formed of colossal beams, bent beneath the weight of the upper stories, though it had never given way under them. Built /en colombage/, that is to say, with a wooden frontage, the whole facade was covered with slates, so put on as to form geometrical figures,--thus preserving a naive image of the burgher habitations of the olden time.
None of the windows, cased in wood and formerly adorned with carvings, now destroyed by the action of the weather, had continued plumb; some bobbed forward, others tipped backward, while a few seemed disposed to fall apart; all had a compost of earth, brought from heaven knows where, in the nooks and crannies hollowed by the rain, in which the spring-tide brought forth fragile flowers, timid creeping plants, and sparse herbage. Moss carpeted the roof and draped its supports. The corner pillar, with its composite masonry of stone blocks mingled with brick and pebbles, was alarming to the eye by reason of its curvature; it seemed on the point of giving way under the weight of the house, the gable of which overhung it by at least half a foot. The municipal authorities and the commissioner of highways did, eventually, pull the old building down, after buying it, to enlarge the square.
The pillar we have mentioned, placed at the angle of two streets, was a treasure to the seekers for Limousin antiquities, on account of its lovely sculptured niche in which was a Virgin, mutilated during the Revolution. All visitors with archaeological proclivities found traces of the stone sockets used to hold the candelabra in which public piety lighted tapers or placed its /ex-votos/ and flowers.
At the farther end of the shop, a worm-eaten wooden staircase led to the two upper floors which were in turn surmounted by an attic. The house, backing against two adjoining houses, had no depth and derived all its light from the front and side windows. Each floor had two small chambers only, lighted by single windows, one looking out on the rue de la Cite, the other on the rue de la Vieille-Poste.
In the middle-ages no artisan was better lodged. The house had evidently belonged in those times to makers of halberds and battle- axes, armorers in