“My professor is the eldest of four children. His father wished to make him a priest and placed him at the Seminary of Beauvais. On entering there he was remarked for his intelligence, his religious ardour, his poetic talent, and for his theological science, and they soon endowed him with the minor orders.
“The archbishop of Beauvais became his protector and made Jean Louis Lambert his secretary. He was not bigoted, but very pious, even mystical, and they hastened on for him the moment when he should be invested with the major orders.
“On the evening before the day when he was to pronounce his new sacerdotal vows, he was present at a dinner which the archbishop gave to the members of the high clergy of his diocese, and he heard these gentlemen talk at table like ordinary convivial guests. As the dinner went on, they exchanged witty remarks on things terrestrial and even celestial, which seemed to Jean Louis Lambert suggested by the devil himself. A stupid joke about the pillars of the church confessing idle nonsense completely revolted the young postulant. On account of a few jests the young fellow, who was so artless, so little worldly, felt the whole scaffolding of his faith fall to the ground. He wished to speak, to cry anathema to those who seemed blasphemers to him, but, trembling, he slid out of the dining-room, went up to his room, took a valise, in which he packed his books, the manuscript of his ‘Canticles to the Virgin,’ his scant wardrobe, and left the archbishop’s residence half wild. Almost running, he walked twenty-four leagues, and arrived at his father’s house exhausted, in despair, and declared he would never be a priest.
“His excitement, the mad race he had run, gave him so bad a fever that his life was in danger. When he was cured he was obliged to suffer the pious exhortations of the old village priest who had instructed him; his masters came themselves to endeavour to win him back and calm his indignation. They succeeded in proving to him that he had exaggerated things to a ridiculous degree, but the ideal of his vocation was so shattered that his disillusions soon made him an atheist.
“I confess to you,” added M. Blangy, “that I am somewhat alarmed at having him as professor of philosophy, and I made some observations lately which offended him; but he is such a hard worker, and so intelligent, so full of loyalty and so conscientious, that in spite of my fears I do not regret having taken him into my school. His pupils adore him and make rapid progress with him, and were it not for his passion for negation, I think I should take him as my partner.”
This was sufficient to inflame Olympe’s mother’s imagination. A romance was within her reach. She would protect this young man, thrown out of place, who had abandoned his first proposed career and who was without fortune; she would make something of him, and induce him to accept the career she proposed for him, that of a physician. She would have in him a grateful son, who should become her daughter’s husband, and, perhaps, the father of a little girl whom she would love as her grandmother had loved her, and whom she would bring up as she had been educated.
“As badly?” asked her husband, laughing, to whom she at once confided her plans.
One Sunday Madame Seron invited Jean Louis Lambert to breakfast. He almost lost his mind with joy, for he was hopelessly in love with Olympe, his inaccessible star.
After breakfast my grandfather, according to his habit, hastened to leave the house, understanding besides that he would be in the way. Olympe also having left home to pass the afternoon with a friend, the romantic Pélagie, alone with her protégé, whom she already called to herself her “dear child,” experienced one of the sweetest joys of her life.
She questioned him, and—miracle of miracles! His great ambition was to be a doctor! But he could not impose upon his parents the expense that would necessitate the taking up of a new career. They were all so good to him, his sisters so devoted; and his young brother had just entered the army in order that he should not be obliged to perform his military service.