The rallying word had been passed round, and all 'right-minded' people made a show of believing that the Brothers' school would triumph as soon as the impious adversaries of the unfortunate Brother Gorgias should be confounded. The school greatly needed such a victory, for, discredited as it was by the semi-confessions and unpleasant discoveries of recent times, it had just lost two more of its pupils. Only the final overthrow of Simon and his return to the galleys could restore its lustre. Until then it was fit that Brother Fulgence's successor should remain patiently in the background, while Father Théodose, the Superior of the Capuchins,—who also triumphed, even when others were being ruined,—skilfully exploited the situation by urging his devotees to make little periodical offerings, such for instance as two francs a month, to St. Antony of Padua, in order that the saint might exert his influence to keep the good Brothers' school at Maillebois.
However, the most serious incident of the turmoil in the town was supplied by Abbé Quandieu, who had long been regarded as a prudent Simonist. At that time it had been said that Monseigneur Bergerot, the Bishop, was behind him, even as Father Crabot was behind the Capuchins and the Brothers of the Christian Doctrine. As usual, indeed, the Seculars and the Regulars confronted each other, the priests resenting the efforts which were made by the monks to divert all worship and revenue to their own profit. And in this instance, as in fact in all others, the better cause was that of the priests, whose conception of the religion of Christ was more equitable and human than that of the monks. Nevertheless, Monseigneur Bergerot had been defeated, and by his advice Abbé Quandieu had submitted and had done penance by attending an idolatrous ceremony at the Capuchin Chapel.
But all the disastrous disclosures and occurrences of recent times—first Father Philibin shown guilty of perjury and forgery, then Brother Fulgence spirited away after compromising himself, then, too, Brother Gorgias absconding and almost confessing his guilt—had stirred the parish priest of Maillebois to rebellion, and revived his former belief in Simon's innocence. Nevertheless he would probably have remained silent, in a spirit of discipline, if Abbé Cognasse, the priest of Jonville, had not gone out of his way to allude to him in a sermon, saying that an apostate priest, a hireling of the Jews, a traitor to his God and his country, was unhappily at the head of a neighbouring parish. On hearing this, Abbé Quandieu's Christian ardour asserted itself; he could no longer control the grief he felt at seeing 'the dealers of the Temple,' as he called them, betraying the Saviour who was all truth and justice. Thus, in his sermon on the following Sunday, he spoke of certain baleful men who were slaying the Church by their abominable complicity with the perpetrators of the vilest crimes. One may picture the scandal, the agitation, that ensued in the clerical world, particularly as it was asserted that Monseigneur Bergerot was again behind Abbé Quandieu, and was determined this time that fanatical and malignant sectarians should not be allowed to compromise religion any further.
At last, while passion was thus running riot, the new trial began before the Rozan Assize Court. It had been possible to bring Simon back to France, though he was still ailing, imperfectly cured as yet of the exhausting fevers which had delayed his return for nearly a year. During the voyage it had been feared that he would not be put ashore alive. Moreover, for fear of disorder, violence, and outrage, it had been necessary to practise dissimulation with respect to the spot where he would land, and bring him to Rozan at night time by roundabout ways which none suspected. At present he was in prison near the Palace of Justice, having only a street to cross in order to appear before his judges. And pending that event he was closely watched and guarded, defended also, like the important and disquieting personage he had become, one with whose fate that of the whole nation was bound up.
The first person privileged to see him was Rachel his wife, whom that reunion, after so many frightful years, cast into wild emotion. Ah! what an embrace they exchanged! And how great was the grief she displayed after that visit, so thin, so weak had she found him, so aged, too, with his white hair! And he had showed himself so strange, ignorant as he still was of the facts, for the brief communication by which the Court of Cassation had informed him of the approaching revision of his case had given no particulars. It had not surprised him to hear of the revision, he had always felt that it would some day take place; and this conviction, in spite of all his tortures, had lent him the strength to live in order that he might once more see his children and give them back a spotless name. But how dark was the anguish in which he had remained plunged, his mind ever dwelling on the frightful enigma of his condemnation, which he could not unravel! His brother David and Advocate Delbos, who hastened to the prison, ended by acquainting him with the whole monstrous affair, the terrible war which had been waged for years respecting his case, between those perpetual foes, the men of authoritarian views who defended the rotten edifice of the past, and the men of free thought who went towards the future. Then only did Simon understand the truth and come to regard his personal sufferings as mere incidents, whose only importance arose from the fact that they had led to a splendid uprising in the name of justice, which would benefit all mankind. Moreover, he did not willingly speak of his torments; he had suffered less from his companions, the thieves and murderers around him, than from his keepers, those ferocious brutes who were left free to act as they pleased, and who, like disciples of the Marquis de Sade, took a voluptuous delight in torturing and killing with impunity. Had it not been for the strength of resistance which Simon owed to racial heredity, and his cold logical temperament, he would twenty times have provoked his custodians to shoot him dead. And at present he talked of all those things in a quiet way, and evinced a naïve astonishment on being told of the extraordinary complications of the drama of which he was the victim.
Having secured a citation as a witness, Marc obtained leave of absence, and, a few days before the trial began, he took up his abode at Rozan, where he found David and Delbos already in the thick of the supreme battle. He was surprised by the nervousness and anxious thoughtfulness of David, who was usually so brave and calm. And it seemed to him that Delbos, as a rule so gaily valiant, was likewise uneasy. As a matter of fact it was for the latter a very big affair, in which he risked both his position as an advocate and his increasing popularity as a Socialist leader. If he should win the case he would doubtless end by beating Lemarrois at Beaumont; but unfortunately all sorts of disquieting symptoms were becoming manifest. Indeed Marc himself, after reaching Rozan full of hope, soon began to feel alarmed amid his new surroundings.
Elsewhere, even at Maillebois, the acquittal of Simon appeared certain to everybody possessed of any sense. Father Crabot's clients, in their private converse, did not conceal the fact that they felt their cause to be greatly endangered. The best news also came from Paris, where the Ministers regarded a just dénouement as certain, lulled into confidence as they were by their agents' reports respecting the Court and the jury. But the atmosphere was very different at Rozan, where an odour of falsehood and treachery pervaded the streets, and found its way into the depths of men's souls. This town, once the capital of a province, and now greatly fallen from its former importance, had retained all its monarchical and religious faith, all the antiquated fanaticism of a past age, which elsewhere had disappeared.[2] Thus it supplied an excellent battle-ground for the Congregations, which absolutely needed a decisive victory if they were to retain their teaching privileges and control the future. And never had Marc more fully realised how deeply Rome was interested in winning that battle; never had he more plainly detected that behind the slightest incidents of that interminable and monstrous affair there was papal Rome, clinging stubbornly to its dream of universal domination—Rome which, at every step over the paving-stones of Rozan, he found at work there, whispering, striving, and conquering.
[2] If proof were wanted to show that by Rozan M. Zola means Rennes, the fanatical ex-capital of Brittany, it would be found in the passage given above.—Trans.
Delbos and David advised him to observe extreme prudence. They themselves were guarded by detectives for fear of some ambush; and he, on the very morrow of his arrival, found shadowy forms hovering around him. Was he not Simon's successor, the secular schoolmaster, the enemy of which the Church must rid itself if it desired to triumph? And the stealthy hatred by which Marc felt himself to be encompassed, the menace of an evil blow in some dark corner, sufficed to show him that the battle had sunk to the very lowest level, and that his adversaries were indeed those men of blind, bigoted violence, who through the ages had tortured, burnt, and murdered their fellow-beings in their mad dream of staying the march of mankind!
That much established, Marc understood the terror weighing on the town, the dismal aspect of its houses, whose shutters remained closed, as if an epidemic were raging. As a rule, there is little animation in Rozan during the summer, and at that moment the town seemed emptier than ever. Pedestrians hastened their steps, glancing anxiously around them as they went their way in the broad sunshine; shopkeepers stood at their windows, inspecting the streets as if they feared some massacre. The selection of the jury particularly upset those trembling folk; there was much melancholy jogging of heads when the names of the chosen jurors were made public. It was evidently considered a disaster to have one among one's relatives.