Monsieur de Camors — Complete - Feuillet Octave

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outcome is often for a time in doubt. Yet as the accredited painter of the Faubourg Saint-Germain he contributed an essential element to the development of realistic fiction. No one has rendered so well as he the high-strung, neuropathic women of the upper class, who neither understand themselves nor are wholly comprehensible to others. In ‘Monsieur de Camors’, crowned by the Academy, he has yielded to the demands of a stricter realism. Especially after the fall of the Empire had removed a powerful motive for gilding the vices of aristocratic society, he painted its hard and selfish qualities as none of his contemporaries could have done. Octave Feuillet was elected to the Academie Francaise in 1862 to succeed Scribe. He died December 29, 1890.

      MAXIME DU CAMP

       de l’Acadamie Francaise.

       Table of Contents

       Table of Contents

       Table of Contents

      Near eleven o’clock, one evening in the month of May, a man about fifty years of age, well formed, and of noble carriage, stepped from a coupe in the courtyard of a small hotel in the Rue Barbet-de-Jouy. He ascended, with the walk of a master, the steps leading to the entrance, to the hall where several servants awaited him. One of them followed him into an elegant study on the first floor, which communicated with a handsome bedroom, separated from it by a curtained arch. The valet arranged the fire, raised the lamps in both rooms, and was about to retire, when his master spoke:

      “Has my son returned home?”

      “No, Monsieur le Comte. Monsieur is not ill?”

      “Ill! Why?”

      “Because Monsieur le Comte is so pale.”

      “Ah! It is only a slight cold I have taken this evening on the banks of the lake.”

      “Will Monsieur require anything?”

      “Nothing,” replied the Count briefly, and the servant retired. Left alone, his master approached a cabinet curiously carved in the Italian style, and took from it a long flat ebony box.

      This contained two pistols. He loaded them with great care, adjusting the caps by pressing them lightly to the nipple with his thumb. That done, he lighted a cigar, and for half an hour the muffled beat of his regular tread sounded on the carpet of the gallery. He finished his cigar, paused a moment in deep thought, and then entered the adjoining room, taking the pistols with him.

      This room, like the other, was furnished in a style of severe elegance, relieved by tasteful ornament. It showed some pictures by famous masters, statues, bronzes, and rare carvings in ivory. The Count threw a glance of singular interest round the interior of this chamber, which was his own—on the familiar objects—on the sombre hangings—on the bed, prepared for sleep. Then he turned toward a table, placed in a recess of the window, laid the pistols upon it, and dropping his head in his hands, meditated deeply many minutes. Suddenly he raised his head, and wrote rapidly as follows:

      “TO MY SON:

       “Life wearies me, my son, and I shall relinquish it. The true

       superiority of man over the inert or passive creatures that surround

       him, lies in his power to free himself, at will, from those,

       pernicious servitudes which are termed the laws of nature. Man,

       if he will it, need not grow old: the lion must. Reflect, my son,

       upon this text, for all human power lies in it.

       “Science asserts and demonstrates it. Man, intelligent and free,

       is an animal wholly unpremeditated upon this planet. Produced by

       unexpected combinations and haphazard transformations, in the midst

       of a general subordination of matter, he figures as a dissonance and

       a revolt!

       “Nature has engendered without having conceived him. The result is

       as if a turkey-hen had unconsciously hatched the egg of an eagle.

       Terrified at the monster, she has sought to control it, and has

       overloaded it with instincts, commonly called duties, and police

       regulations known as religion. Each one of these shackles broken,

       each one of these servitudes overthrown, marks a step toward the

       thorough emancipation of humanity.

       “I must say to you, however, that I die in the faith of my century,

       believing in matter uncreated, all-powerful, and eternal—the Nature

       of the ancients. There have been in all ages philosophers who have

       had conceptions of the truth. But ripe to-day, it has become the

       common property of all who are strong enough to stand it—for, in

       sooth, this latest religion of humanity is food fit only for the

       strong. It carries sadness with it, for it isolates man; but it

       also involves grandeur, making man absolutely free, or, as it were,

       a very god. It leaves him no actual duties except to himself, and

       it opens a superb field to one of brain and courage.

       “The masses still remain, and must ever remain, submissive under the

       yoke of old, dead religions, and under the tyranny of instincts.

       There will still be seen very much the same condition of things as

       at present in Paris; a society the brain of which is atheistic, and

       the heart religious. And at bottom there will be no more belief in

       Christ than in Jupiter; nevertheless, churches will continue to be

       built mechanically. There are no longer even Deists; for the old

       chimera of a personal, moral God-witness, sanction, and judge—is

       virtually extinct; and yet hardly a word is said, or a line written,

       or a gesture made, in public or private life, which does not ever

       affirm that chimera. This may have its uses perchance, but it is

       nevertheless despicable. Slip forth from the common herd, my son,

       think for yourself, and write your own catechism upon a virgin page.

       “As for myself, my life has been a failure, because I was born many

       years too soon. As yet the earth and the heavens were heaped up and

       cumbered with ruins, and people did not see. Science, moreover, was

       relatively still in its infancy. And, besides, I retained the

       prejudices and the repugnance to the doctrines of the new world that

       belonged to my name. I was unable to comprehend that there was

       anything better to be done than childishly to pout at the conqueror;

       that is, I could not recognize that his weapons were good, and that

       I should seize and destroy

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