“Allons-nous-en, allons-nous-en,” said Belon huskily. And so—in this touching fashion—farewell to the blanchisserie.
What changes, when next we beheld the Belons! Madame dressed attractively; and Monsieur, when he went a-gambling, was an ornament of brilliant, if not exclusive, clubs, and a power in busy, handsome newspaper offices. There were, as Belon prophesied, “magnificent dinners” at Paillard’s. There were constant visits to race-courses, theatres and music-halls, and he played high, and he conceived colossal “business” schemes, and he mixed familiarly with personages high up in the monde d’affaires, and in the demi-monde; one even had des relations with certain personages in the veritable monde. But the reader, as he followed Belon et Cie here, there and everywhere, still found himself in a whirl of adventurers, and the adventurers (despite their display) were still surrounded by difficulties. For Belon was too audacious, too “enterprising.” Wonderfully ingenious were his schemes, but their fate was disastrous.
In a word, Belon, with all his knowledge of Paris, overestimated the credulity of the Parisians, and was brought face to face with that unimaginative, relentless personage, the Commissaire de Police. Happier had been Madame Belon in the steamy days of the blanchisserie; happier had been Belon when he surveyed his shabby form in the café mirror, saying: “Times will change.” In the Belon ménage, not only a constant dread of M. le Commissaire de Police, but bitter, domestic quarrels, even infidelities. But the quarrels were “made up,” the infidelities were pardoned—for, as the troubles thickened, as the situation grew increasingly alarming, so did the Belons become drawn closely together; so did they display many, yes, admirable, yes—even heroic qualities. And when at last the “crisis” arrived, and when the practical, amiable, retired blanchisseuse saved her husband from a disgraceful fate, it was the good heart and good humour that had lived through, and survived, these difficulties which made the point—the very un-English moral—of the story! Thus, after discussing their short, stormy married career in every detail, and with the utmost candour, the Belons agreed that no great harm had been done, since they were better friends than ever! But Paris had become distasteful to them; what a blithe, refreshing change, then, to take up their abode in a quiet villa on the outskirts of the city! A little villa with a porch! A little villa with a garden! A little villa where one would be entirely chez soi. “We will plant cabbages,” cried Madame Belon enthusiastically. “We will be happy,” responded Belon, with emotion. So, another and a final change of scene. Behold—as a last tableau—the Belons installed tranquilly, comfortably and affectionately on the outskirts of Paris in a neat, innocent little villa.
Thus, very briefly, the story of Qui Perd Gagne. The author, I need scarcely say, was M. Alfred Capus; for who but that inimitable dramatist would have discovered good-heartedness and good humour as underlying qualities in such shady people as the Belons; and who but that genius at clearing up awkward, anxious situations could have got the retired blanchisseuse and her husband so generously and unexpectedly out of their moral, as well as their practical, scrapes?
Thus, a good many years ago, M. Capus, then a comparatively unknown journalist, already possessed those qualities which have made him by far the most popular playwright of to-day: a wonderful tolerance, a wonderful bonhomie, and a wonderful and incomparable talent at finding a way of carrying the treasure of faith in human goodness safely through perilous circumstances! As a consequence of these qualities M. Capus has been called an “optimist.” We are always and always hearing of the “optimism” of M. Capus; but if I may be permitted to differ from the vast majority of his admirers, I would suggest that, so far from being an optimist, M. Capus is, from the ideal point of view, a cynic. True, an amiable cynic. He regards mankind with a smile—not of mockery, because there is nothing unkind in it; a smile of raillery at the idealist’s effort to take the mote out of his brother’s eye and to afflict himself too seriously in his endeavour to get rid of the beam out of his own eye. From the point of view of M. Capus, motes and beams, big faults as well as little ones, belong to human nature. It is a pity, but it cannot be helped. “C’est la vie”—and so let us make the best of it.
And it might be worse! Mankind might be cruel, whereas the average man, the average woman, is kind—the hearts of average men and women are in the right place. Thus, let mankind not be judged too harshly. Since we are what we are, it is inevitable we should commit follies. But let us see to it that our hearts are in the right place, and when the moment arrives we shall know how to make atonement for those follies and pass on undisgraced. “Amusez-vous bien, soyez gais; mais soyez bons.” Such might be M. Capus’ message to mankind; and that message, indeed, he has delivered from the stage. For amongst French playwrights who bring home to us vividly, by means of illustration, French ways of feeling and methods of judgment that are not English methods, M. Alfred Capus stands out as the efficient interpreter of the typical personage recognised by general consent in France as “l’homme qui est foncièrement bon.”
Do not, however, let us suppose that we are in any way helped to a correct understanding of this personage by makers of dictionaries, who tell us that “l’homme qui est foncièrement bon” is a “thoroughly good man.” No. If we leave the thoroughly bad man out of account, no two more opposite types of human character can be compared with one another—no two worthy men can be brought together more certain to quarrel, and mutually to dislike and condemn each other than the “thoroughly good man,” approved by the English standard, and “l’homme qui est foncièrement bon,” recognised as such by general consent in France. Nor is this all. Not only have we here two worthy human beings who, by reason of the different directions wherein the special worthiness of each of them displays itself, cannot agree as friends, but for the services of friendship also their qualifications are so different that upon the occasions when one can help us the other will get us into trouble; and in the moods when we should cleave to the one, we should indubitably avoid the other. The cause of this essential difference is not entirely explained when the fact is stated that righteousness constitutes the predominant characteristic of goodness in England, and kindliness the predominant characteristic in France, because the Englishman is kind also—in his own way. In other words, his righteousness does exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, and the Frenchman who is foncièrement bon has virtues also of his own; he has not merely the good nature of the easy-going publican. What these special virtues really are, and how, whilst they do not make “l’homme qui est foncièrement bon” a “thoroughly good man,” in the English sense of the term, they do make him a lovable and sympathetic human character, one can discover by passing an evening in the society of Chartier, Lucien Briant, Hélène and Laure of Nôtre Jeunesse, Monsieur Piégois of the delightful comedy of that name, and Montferrand—the amazing Deputy Montferrand—of L’Attentat.
The bonhomie of M. Capus represents a life philosophy as well as a dramatic method, that might not be applied with equal success to British institutions. But used among French social conditions, it demonstrates how neglect of logic, and force of good feeling, may help an intelligent and a humane people to render faulty systems habitable, and make good nature serve as a substitute for, and even as a corrective of, a rigid, an unheroic, an unchristian worship of “respectability” at the expense of human kindness—that is to say, a form of respectability which does not necessarily mean a very ardent love of virtue.
The characters of Nôtre Jeunesse are essentially French. Take Chartier, for instance, the bonhomme philosophe par excellence. Chartier, at forty years of age, amused by his own past; tranquil as to the future; well satisfied, in the present, to make the best of his life upon a moderate income—the quarter of a once handsome fortune, considerately left him by a former mistress, the then famous “Pervenche,” who, after she had cost him a million and a half, herself broke off their liaison, in the amiable and reasonable fashion related by the Forsaken One himself thus:
Chartier. One evening she said to me: “Mon chéri, I have been looking into things. You have spent upon me three-fourths of your fortune. It is as much as any woman should expect from any gallant man. I am contented; and grateful to you. I have come across a man who is in love with me; and I am going to be married to him.”... She married an employé at the Louvre. It is an excellent ménage.