The Curé of the Mountain—Toby Gold Button—Hospitality—The Curé's pig—His hard fate and reflections—The Curé of the plain—His worth and influence—The agent of the Government—Landed Proprietors—Their influence—The Orator—Dialogue with a Peasant.
If the Burgundian curates dwelling in the richest parts of the province are fat, sleek, and jovial members of the Establishment,—if in their cellars are to be found the best and most generous wines, and on their tables the most exquisite dishes,—the curés of that portion of Le Morvan which is immediately adjacent to Burgundy enjoy the same abundance, and appreciate the advantages of good living equally with them. But this is not the case with their confrères who reside in the uplands, amongst the arid and volcanic mountains, without roads, and the thickly timbered hill-district which joins the Nivernais. There the village pastors are poor, thin, and badly fed; fairly buried in the forest, and surrounded by a population more wretched and squalid than the rats of their own churches;—they seem as it were abandoned by everybody. That which I am about to relate will prove this, and show what a deplorable existence theirs is, and the ingenious methods to which they are obliged to have recourse to keep up a fair outside.
One of them thus exiled to a most deserted part of our forests, and who, the whole year, except on a few rare occasions, lived only on fruit and vegetables, hit upon a most admirable expedient for providing an animal repast to set before the curés of the neighbourhood, when one or the other, two or three times during the year, ventured into these dreadful solitudes, with a view of assuring himself with his own eyes that his unfortunate colleague had not yet died of hunger. The curé in question possessed a pig, his whole fortune: and you will see, gentle reader, the manner in which he used it.
Immediately the bell of his presbytery announced a visitor, (the bell was red with rust, and its iron tongue never spoke unless to announce a formal visit,) and that his cook had shown his clerical friend into the parlour, the master of the house, drawing himself up majestically, said to his housekeeper (curés fortunately always have, cousins, nieces, or house-keepers), as Louis XIV. might have said to Vatal, "Brigitte, let there be a good dinner for myself and my friend." Brigitte, although she knew there were only stale crusts and dried peas in her larder, seemed in no degree embarrassed by this order; she summoned to her assistance "Toby, the Carrot," so called because his hair was as red as that of a native of West Galloway, and leaving the house together, they both went in search of the pig.
Toby the Carrot, a youth of seventeen, was the presbyter's page, a poor half-starved devil that the curé had taken into his service, who lodged him badly, boarded him worse, and gave him no clothes at all; but who, nevertheless, in his moments of good-humour—they were rare—and no doubt to recompense him for so many drawbacks, would call him "Toby Gold-button." At this innocent little pleasantry, this touch of affability, Toby grinned from ear to ear, made a deep reverence, and put the compliment carefully into his pocket, regretting however, no doubt, that he had nothing more substantial and savoury than this to eat with his coarse dry bread. Toby was a very useful servitor to the curé; he was always on the alert; fat did not check his rapid movements, and from the time the Angelus rang in the morning to Vespers in the evening, his long skinny legs were constantly going. He drew the water, peeled and washed the onions, blacked the shoes—and how curé's shoes do shine!—rang the chapel-bell, gathered the acorns for the pig, intoned the Amen when his master said mass, swept and weeded the garden, snared the thrushes—which he cooked and eat in secret—and, dressed in a white surplice, carried the cross and the Viaticum, and accompanied the curé at night when on his way to offer the last consolations of religion to some dying poacher in the forest. These expeditions were sometimes across the mountains, and along the dry bed of some torrent, in which, according to Toby's notion, they would have certainly perished had not the Bon Dieu been with them.
But we must return to our parson's pig, which after a short skirmish was caught by Brigitte and her carrotty assistant; and notwithstanding his cries, his grunts, his gestures of despair and supplication, the inhuman cook, seizing his head, opened a large vein in his throat, and relieved him of two pounds of blood; this, with the addition of garlic, shallots, mint, wild thyme and parsley, was converted into a most savoury and delicious black-pudding for the curé, and his friend, and being served to their reverences smoking hot on the summit of a pyramid of yellow cabbage, figured admirably as a small Vesuvius and a centre dish. The surgical operation over, Brigitte, whose qualifications as a sempstress were superior, darned up the hole in the neck of the unfortunate animal, and he was then turned loose until a fresh supply of black-puddings should be required for a similar occasion. This wretched pig was never happy: how could he be so? Like Damocles of Syracuse, he lived in a state of perpetual fever; terror seized him directly he heard the curé's bell, and seeing in imagination the uplifted knife already about to glide into his bacon, he invariably took to his heels before Brigitte was half way to the door to answer it.
If, as usual, the peal announced a diner-out, Brigitte and Gold-button were soon on his track, calling him by the most tender epithets, and promising that he should have something nice for his supper, skim-milk, &c.; but the pig, with his painful experience, was not such a fool as to believe them; hidden behind an old cask, some faggots, or lying in a deep ditch, he remained silent as the grave, and kept himself close as long as possible.
Discovered, however, he was sure to be at last, when he would rush into the garden, and running up and down it like a mad creature, upset everything in his way; for several minutes it was a regular steeple-chase—across the beds, now over the turnips, then through the gooseberry-bushes; in short, he was here, there, and everywhere; but in spite of all his various stratagems to escape the fatal incision, the poor pig always finished by being seized, tied, thrown on the ground, and bled: the vein was then once more cleverly sewn up, and the inhuman operators quietly retired from the scene to make the curé's far-famed black-pudding. Half dead upon the spot where he was phlebotomized, the wretched animal was left to reflect under the shade of a tulip-tree on the cruelty of man, on their barbarous appetites; cursing with all his heart the poverty of Morvinian curates, their conceited hospitality, of which he was the victim, and their brutal affection for pig's blood.
I shall now endeavour to give the reader a description of the curate of the plain; but he should clearly understand that I do not present this character to him as the general standard of ecclesiastical excellence,—quite the contrary; I am sorry to say I think it an exception. My sketch, therefore, applies only to those curés, who reside in a remote rural district like that of Le Morvan; I advance nothing that I have not seen myself, and if I should ever have the pleasure of meeting any of my English friends in Le Morvan, I could introduce them to ten curés one and all similar in every respect to the ecclesiastic I am about to pourtray.