The Ghost of Monsieur Scarron by Janet Lewis

Author:Janet Lewis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ohio University Press
Published: 2013-06-13T00:00:00+00:00

Fourteen

In mid-August came a letter from Rouen, signed by Mademoiselle Marianne Cailloué.

“Since my mother is very infirm because of her advancing age, in order to spare her fatigue, I permit myself the honor of answering your inquiry regarding your son. Unfortunately we were unable to give him employment since our business is small and Monsieur Jean Dumesnil, who is my mother’s partner, is able to handle most of our work alone. He has also the assistance of his brother Jacques. We were happy to receive your son. He passed several evenings in conversation with Monsieur Jean Dumesnil before he left Rouen. Although I did not make one of their company, I can assure you that Monsieur Dumesnil was favorably impressed with this handsome young man whose prolonged silence must quite naturally distress you. I regret with all my heart that I can give you no further news of him nor of his intended destination upon leaving Rouen.”

“He never wrote a letter in his life,” said Marianne: “And by now, even if it occurred to him to write, he would say it wasn’t worth the trouble, since he’ll be home again soon.”

“How soon?”

“By autumn. That was what he said. Summer is almost over.”

Jean folded the letter and placed it in the pocket of his vest. His eyes were unhappy, and he did not look at the letter as he folded it, nor at his wife.

The abbé Têtu established himself in the rue Neuve St.-Paul that summer. This was the street, as one came from the river, which lay next after the rue des Lions. Like the rue des Lions, it had once been a part of the King’s gardens. The grave hôtels where the aristocracy had once lived were now inhabited largely by lawyers and rich bourgeois. The Marquise de Brinvilliers had lived there, and not so very long ago. Her poisons, her adulteries, and her murders were still fresh in the minds of the abbé’s acquaintances. To the common people, after her execution, she became a saint because of her touching repentance. When her body had been burned, they scrambled for a handful of her ashes, to be hoarded like holy relics. The Marquise de Sévigné had remarked, when the flames had died and nothing remained of La Brinvilliers except her ashes and a little smoke, “She is in the air now. We breathe her.”

Madame de Sévigné left Paris for Provence before the miracle of Sainte Geneviève, declaring herself happy to quit the scene of so much misery. But even in Paradise—“this life is too sweet; the days fly by too quickly, and we do no penance”—Madame de Sévigné longed for news of her friends in Paris, and her cousin, Monsieur de Coulanges, supplied her in detail. He wrote of his wife’s illness, of the Italian doctor who undertook to cure her, and of the abbé Têtu’s remove.

“Monsieur l’abbé Têtu is, as ever, most extraordinary; he has rented a house in the rue Neuve-Saint-Paul . . . Madame de Coulanges had a very bad night, but the remedies she is taking cannot cure her on the dot.

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