The Conquest of Plassans (La Conquête de Plassans)

by Émile Zola

'Oh, no! no!' the priest impatiently cried at last. 'You would get scarcely anyone to join, and the few members would only be jeered at. There must be no attempt to tack religion on to the business; indeed, I intend that we should leave religion outside its doors altogether. All we want to do is to win the young people over to our side by providing them with some innocent recreation; that is all.'

The justice of the peace gazed at the priest with such an expression of astonishment and anxiety that Monsieur Delangre was obliged to bend his head to conceal a smile, while he slyly pulled the Abbé's cassock. Then the priest went on in a calmer voice:

'I am sure, gentlemen, that you do not feel any distrust of me, and I ask you to leave the management of the matter in my hands. I propose to adopt some very simple name, such a one, for instance, as the Young Men's Club, which fully expresses all that is required.'

Monsieur Rastoil and Monsieur Maffre bowed, although this title seemed to them a little weak. They next spoke of nominating the Curé as president of a provisional committee.

'I fancy,' said Monsieur Delangre, glancing at the priest, 'that this suggestion will scarcely meet with his reverence's approbation.'

'Oh dear, no!' the Abbé exclaimed, slightly shrugging his shoulders. 'My cassock would frighten the timid and lukewarm away. We should only get the pious young people, and it is not for them that we are going to found our club. What we want is to gather in the wanderers; to win converts, in a word; isn't that so?'

'Clearly,' replied the presiding judge.

'Very well, then, it will be better for us to keep ourselves in the background, myself especially. What I propose is this: your son, Monsieur Rastoil, and yours, Monsieur Delangre, will alone come forward. It must appear as if they themselves had formed the idea of this club. Send them to me in the morning, and I will talk the matter over at length with them. I already have a suitable building in my mind and a code of rules quite prepared. Your two sons, Monsieur Maffre, will naturally be enrolled at the head of the list of members.'

The presiding judge seemed flattered at the part assigned to his son; and so matters were arranged in this way, notwithstanding the resistance of the justice of the peace, who had hoped to win some personal distinction from the founding of the club. The next day Séverin Rastoil and Lucien Delangre put themselves in communication with Abbé Faujas. Séverin was a tall young man of five-and-twenty, with a badly shaped skull and a dull brain, who had just been called to the bar, thanks to the position which his father held. The latter was anxiously dreaming of making him a public prosecutor's assessor, despairing of his ever succeeding in winning any practice for himself. Lucien, on the other hand, was short and sharp-eyed, had a crafty mind, and pleaded with all the coolness of an old practitioner, although he was a year younger than Séverin. The 'Plassans Gazette' spoke of him as a future light of the bar. It was more particularly to him that the Abbé gave the minutest instructions as to his scheme. As for young Rastoil he simply went fussing about, bursting with importance. In three weeks the Young Men's Club was founded and opened.

There was at that time beneath the church of the Minimes, situated at the end of the Cours Sauvaire, a number of very large rooms and an old monastery refectory, which were no longer put to any use. This was the place that Abbé Faujas had thought of for the club, and the clergy of the parish very willingly allowed him to use the rooms. One morning, when the provisional committee of the Young Men's Club had set workmen going in this cellar-like place, the citizens of Plassans were quite astounded to see what appeared to be a café being fitted up under the church. Five days afterwards there was no longer any room for doubt on the point. The place was certainly going to be a café. Divans were being brought thither, with marble-topped tables, chairs, two billiard-tables, and even three crates of crockery and glass. An entrance was contrived at the end of the building, as far as possible from the doorway of the church, and great crimson curtains, genuine restaurant-curtains, were hung behind the glass panes. You descended five stone steps, and on opening the door found yourself in a large hall; to the right of which there was a smaller one and a reading-room, while in a square room at the far end were placed the two billiard-tables. They were exactly beneath the high altar.