PART I.
The name of this hotel I do not remember; it was always spoken of as “Mademoiselle Céleste’s,” this being the name of the worthy person who managed or owned it.
There was certainly no other hotel like it in Paris, for it was a kind of annex to the seminary, the rules of which were to a great extent in force there. Lodgers were not admitted without a letter of introduction from one of the directors of the seminary or some other notability in the religious world. It was here that students who wished for a few days to themselves before entering or leaving the seminary used to stay, while priests and superiors of convents whom business brought to Paris found it comfortable and inexpensive. The transition from the priestly to the ordinary dress is like the change which occurs in a chrysalis; it needs a little shade. Assuredly, if any one could narrate all the silent and unobtrusive romances associated with this ancient hotel, now pulled down, we should hear some very interesting stories. I must not, however, let my meaning be mistaken, for, like many ecclesiastics still alive, I can testify to the blameless course of life in Mlle. Céleste’s hotel.
While I was awaiting here the completion of my metamorphosis, M. Carbon’s good offices were being busily employed upon my behalf. He had written to Abbé Gratry, at that time director of the Collège Stanislas, and the latter offered me a place as usher in the upper division. M. Dupanloup advised me to accept it, remarking: “You may rest assured that M. Gratry is a priest of the highest distinction.” I accepted, and was very kindly treated by every one, but I did not retain the place more than a fortnight. I found that my new situation involved my making the outward profession of clericalism, the avoidance of which was my reason for leaving the seminary. Thus my relations with M. Gratry were but fleeting. He was a kindhearted man, and a rather clever writer, but there was nothing in him. His indecision of mind did not suit me at all, M. Carbon and M. Dupanloup had told him why I had left St. Sulpice. We had two or three conversations, in the course of which I explained to him my doubts, based upon an examination of the texts. He did not in the least understand me, and with his transcendentalism he must have looked upon my rigid attention to details as very commonplace. He knew nothing of ecclesiastical science, whether exegesis or theology; his capabilities not extending beyond hollow phrases, trifling applications of mathematics, and the region of “matter of fact.” I was not slow to perceive how immensely superior the theology of St. Sulpice was to these hollow combinations which would fain pass muster as scientific. St. Sulpice has a knowledge at first hand of what Christianity is; the Polytechnic School has not. But I repeat, there could be no two opinions as to the uprightness of M. Gratry, who was a very taking and highminded man.
I was sorry to part company with him; but there was no help for it. I had left the first seminary in the world for one in every respect inferior to it. The leg had been badly set; I had the courage to break it a second time. On the 2nd or 3rd of November, I passed from out the last threshold appertaining to the Church, and I obtained a place as “assistant master au pair”—to employ the phrase used in the Quartier Latin of those days—without salary, in a school of the St. Jacques district attached to the Lycée Henri IV. I had a small bedroom, and took my meals with the scholars, and as my time was not occupied for more than two hours a day, I was able to do a good deal of work upon my own account. This was just what I wanted.
PART II.
Constituted as I am to find my own company quite sufficient, the humble dwelling in the Rue des Deux Eglises (now the Rue de l’Abbé de l'Épée) would have been a paradise for me had it not been for the terrible crisis which my conscience was passing through, and the altered direction which I was compelled to give to my existence. The fish in Lake Baïkal have, it is said, taken thousands of years in their transformation from salt to fresh water fish. I had to effect my transition in a few weeks. Catholicism, like a fairy circle, casts such a powerful spell upon one’s whole life, that when one is deprived of it everything seems aimless and gloomy. I felt terribly out of my element. The whole universe seemed to me like an arid and chilly desert. With Christianity untrue, everything else appeared to me indifferent, frivolous, and undeserving of interest. The shattering of my career left me with a sense of aching void, like what may be felt by one who has had an attack of fever or a blighted affection. The struggle which had engrossed my whole soul had been so ardent that all the rest appeared to me petty and frivolous. The world discovered itself to me as mean and deficient in virtue. I seemed to have lost caste, and to have fallen upon a nest of pigmies.
My sorrow was much increased by the grief which I had been compelled to inflict upon my mother. I resorted, perhaps wrongly, to certain artifices with the view, as I hoped, of sparing her pain. Her letters went to my heart. She supposed my position to be even more painful than it was in reality, and as she had, despite our poverty, rather spoilt me, she thought that I should never be able to withstand any hardship. “When I remember how a poor little mouse kept you from sleeping, I am at a loss to know how you will get on,” she wrote to me. She passed her time singing the Marseilles hymns,[21] of which she was so fond, especially the hymn of Joseph, beginning—