The Quest of Glory

by Marjorie Bowen

But with equal conviction would come the afterthought that these broken lives, these lost causes, these ridiculed endeavours, these failures, these minorities had handed on the light from one century to another, and kept alive truth, courage, and all that is beautiful in the heart of man. Luc felt the intense force of the stirrings in his own bosom to be a response to these prophets, martyrs, lonely standard-bearers who were calling him to be one of them, to come forth from the sheltered happiness of common men and join the shadowy multitude who had climbed and perished and left a glimmering name behind. Life was little, yet tremendous; it was all a man had. Though its doings, its greatest events were so small, yet some could make marvels out of those few short years.

Millions did nothing with their lives, but all were not the same; the oak is large compared to the cherry tree, thought Luc, and some men can lift themselves. After the playing was over, and he was alone in his chamber, he would put some of his thoughts on paper for want of a better confidant—carefully concealing them, for his father considered it degradation for a gentleman to compose a line of verse or prose.

So the winter passed, and Luc remained in Aix doing homage to custom and family pride and family tradition and family affection. It happened that, at Christmas, a friend came from Paris and spent a few days with the de Clapiers; he was neither fashionable, nor of the Court, nor any admirer of M. de Voltaire and the new school of thought, but his speech unconsciously betrayed knowledge of a world that was alive with energy, change, and endeavour. Luc did not speak much with him, and never questioned him on any of those subjects on which he was burning to be enlightened; but when the visitor had left, Luc went to his chamber and wrote two letters, one to the King, one to M. Amelot, Minister for Foreign Affairs, both with the same request—that they would find him some employment for his eager abilities.

It was an extraordinary act of courage on the part of a nature reserved, shy, and socially timid; no one who knew him would have credited him with it; but he made no confidant of any. When the two letters were written, sealed, and lying ready for dispatch, Luc, with a flush like fever in his cheek, took up the pen again and wrote a third——

To M. de Voltaire.

A thousand hopes and questions rose in his bosom, eager for expression; but modesty and pride together forbade that he should put anything intimate before a stranger. He made the subject of his letter his opinion of Corneille and Racine; he asked the judgment of the great arbitrator of letters as to the relative merits of the two geniuses; he expressed the criticism he had conceived on the rival masters, and begged to know if he was right or wrong. He gave the address of an inn he knew in Paris, and prayed that the answer might be sent there, if M. de Voltaire deigned to answer.

He sealed this letter with more agitation than he had felt when writing either to the King or to the Minister, and with all three in his pocket went downstairs to post them.

When he reached the hall, he hesitated a moment, then turned into the sombre withdrawing-room in the front. The candles had just been lit and the curtains drawn, for, though not late, it was a wet, dreary day.

Round the hearth sat his mother, Joseph’s wife, and Clémence de Séguy; Joseph was at the clavichord, his father on the sofa with a little book in his hand.

The tender figures and light dresses of the women were surrounded with soft shadows from the rosy firelight; Clémence held up a pink silk hand-screen which cast a full glow of radiant light over her small sweet features and pale curls.