Jacques the Fatalist by Denis Diderot & David Coward

Author:Denis Diderot & David Coward [Diderot, Denis & Coward, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780199537952
Amazon: 0140444726
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Published: 1934-01-02T05:00:00+00:00

Marquis. We shall see.

Mme de La Pommeraye. Marquis, I know you. I also know them. It's all quite obvious.

The Marquis went two months without calling on Madame de La Pommeraye, and this is what he did in that time. He struck up an acquaintance with the confessor of both mother and daughter. This priest was a friend of the abbe I mentioned and, after raising all the hypocritical objections that can be put in the way of a dishonourable intention and selling the saintliness of his cloth for the highest price he could get for it, he finally agreed to everything the Marquis wanted.

The first villainy perpetrated by this man of God was to alienate the good opinion of the cure by persuading him that the two women Madame de La Pommeraye had taken under her wing were receiving parish charity at the expense of the poor, many of whom were in greater need than they. His aim was to make them do what he wanted by forcing them into destitution.

Next, using the weapon of the confessional, he proceeded to set mother against daughter. When he heard the mother complain of her

daughter, he exaggerated the wrongs of the one and fomented the resentment of the other. If it was the daughter who complained of her mother, he insinuated that there was a limit to the power mothers and fathers have over their children and that, should her mother's persecution reach a certain point, it might not be impossible for the daughter to cast off the yoke of a tyrannical parent. Then, for her penance, he would tell her to come back to confession.

At other times he would say, with a twinkle in his eye, that she was a pretty girl, but added that beauty was one of the most dangerous gifts God could bestow upon a woman. He would mention the impression she had made on a certain gentleman whom he did not name but whose identity was not hard to guess. He moved from there to God's infinite mercy and the lenient view He took of sins which are unavoidable in certain circumstances; to the frailty of human nature which we can all find it in our hearts to forgive; to the violence and universality of feelings to which even the most saintly men have not been immune. He asked if she had ever felt certain desires, if the promptings of nature spoke to her through dreams, if the proximity of men disturbed her. He then raised the question of whether a woman should yield to a passionate man or resist, and thus sentence to death and damnation one for whose sake Jesus Christ shed His holy blood: this question he did not dare settle for her. Then he would sigh deeply, raise his eyes to Heaven, and pray for the peace of all souls in torment... The young woman gave him his head. Her mother and Madame de La Pommeraye, to whom she gave a faithful account of

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