# Crainquebille, Putois, Riquet and other profitable tales/Êmile

ÉMILE
ADEMOISELLE BERGERET was silent. She smiled, which was unusual.
"Why are you laughing, Zoé?" asked Monsieur Bergeret.
"I was thinking of Émile Vincent."
"What Zoé! You can think of that excellent man, whom we have just lost, whom we loved and whom we mourn, and you can laugh!"
"I laugh because I can see him again as he used to be, and the old memories are the strongest. But you should know, Lucien, that all smiles are not joyful any more than all tears are sorrowful. It takes an old maid to explain that."
"I am not unaware, Zoé, that laughter is the result of nervous agitation. Madame de Custine as she bade adieu in the prison to her husband condemned to death by the Revolutionary Tribunal, was seized with a fit of uncontrollable laughter at the sight of a prisoner walking past her in ​dressing-gown and night-cap, with his face painted and a candle in his hand."
"That is not at all the same thing," said Zoé.
"No," replied Monsieur Bergeret. "But I remember what happened to me when I heard of the death of poor Demay who used to sing comic songs at the cafés concerts. It was one evening during a reception at the Prefecture. Worms-Clavelin said: 'Demay is dead.'
"I for my part received the tidings in decorous sadness. And, reflecting that never again should I hear that wondrous woman sing: Je cas' des noisett's en m'asseyant d'ssus, I tasted to the dregs all the melancholy the thought engendered. I let it drip into my soul and relapsed into silence. The Chief Secretary, Monsieur Lacarelle, exclaimed in his deep voice, through his military moustache: 'Demay dead! What a loss to the gaiety of France!' 'It was in the evening paper,' said Judge Pilloux. 'True,' added General Cartier de Chalmont gently, 'and I am informed that she died consoled by the rites of the Church.'
"At the General's simple words suddenly a strange, incongruous vision flashed before my eyes. I imagined the end of the world as it is ​described in the 'Dies Irae,' according to the testimony of David and the Sibyl. I beheld the age reduced to ashes; I saw the dead issuing forth from their tombs, and, at the angel's summons, crowding before the Judgment Seat, and the massive Demay mother-naked at the Lord's right hand. At this conception I burst out laughing in the presence of the astonished officials civil and military. But worse still, the vision obsessed me and I added between bursts of laughter: 'You will see that by her very presence, she will upset the solemnity of the Last Judgment.' Never, Zoé, were words less comprehensible, less relevant."
"You are absurd, Lucien. I never have those curious visions. I smiled because I imagined our poor friend Vincent just as he was in life. That was all. It was quite natural. I mourn for him with all my heart. We never had a better friend."
"I too was very fond of him, Zoé, and I too when I think of him am tempted to smile. It was strange how so much military ardour came to reside in so small a body and how a soul so heroic could dwell in a form so spruce and plump. His life passed quietly in the suburb of a provincial town. He was a brushmaker at Les Tintelleries. But there was ​room in his heart for something besides his business."
"He was even smaller than Uncle Jean," said Mademoiselle Bergeret.
"And he was martial, he was civic, he was imperial," said Monsieur Bergeret.
"He was a very excellent man," said Mademoiselle Bergeret.
"He was in the war of 1870, Zoé. In that year he was twenty. I was only twelve. He seemed to me old and full of years. One day in the Terrible Year, he entered our peaceful provincial dwelling with the clashing of steel. He came to bid us farewell. He was dressed in the startling uniform of a franc-tireur. Protruding from his scarlet belt were the butts of two horse-pistols. And because a smile must enter even into the most tragic moments, the unconscious humour of some unknown armourer had hitched him to an enormous cavalry sword. Do not blame me for the expression, Zoé; it occurs in one of Cicero's letters. 'Whoever,' says the orator, 'hitched my son-in-law to that sword?'
"What astonished me most in the equipment of our friend Émile Vincent was this huge sword. To my childish mind it seemed to augur victory. You, Zoé, I believed, were more impressed by his ​boots, for you looked up from your work and cried: 'Why it is Puss in Boots!'"
"Did I say 'Puss in Boots.' Poor Émile."
"You said 'Puss in Boots'; and you need not regret it, Zoé. Madame d'Abrantès in her Memoirs relates how a young girl seeing Napoleon, then young and slender, ridiculously accoutred as a General of the Republic, likewise called him 'Puss in Boots.' Bonaparte never forgave her for it. Our friend was more magnanimous; the title did not offend him. Émile Vincent and his company were placed under the command of a general who did not like francs-tireurs, and who thus harangued them: 'It is not everything to be dressed for a carnival. You must know how to fight.'
"The caustic speech did not trouble my friend Vincent. He was splendid throughout the campaign. One day he was seen to approach the enemy's outposts with all the calm of a short-sighted man and a hero. He could not see three steps before him. Nothing could make him retreat. For the remaining thirty years of his life, while he was making carpet-brooms, he lived on the memory of that campaign. He read military newspapers, presided over meetings of his former companions in arms, was present at the unveiling of ​monuments raised to the soldiers of 1870. When from time to time there were erected on French soil monuments to Vercingetorix, to Jeanne d'Arc, to the soldiers of the Loire, at the head of the workmen in his factory, Émile defiled before them. He made patriotic speeches. And, here Zoé, we approach a scene in the comedy of life, the melancholy humour of which may one day be appreciated. During the Dreyfus Affair it occurred to Émile Vincent to say that Esterhazy was a fraud and a traitor. He said it because he knew it was so and because he was far too candid ever to conceal the truth. From that day he was regarded as the enemy of his country and of the army. He was treated as a traitor and an alien. He suffered from heart disease, and his grief at this treatment aggravated the malady. He died of sorrow and of shock. The last time I saw him he was talking of military tactics and strategy. They were his favourite topic of conversation. Although the campaign of '70, in which he had served, was conducted with the greatest disorder and confusion, he was persuaded that the art of war is the finest of all arts. And I fear that I must have vexed him by saying that properly speaking there is no art of war, for the arts that are really employed in campaigns are those of ​peace; baking, farriery, the maintenance of order, chemistry, etc."
"Why did you say such things, Lucien?" asked Mademoiselle Bergeret.
"Because I was convinced of their truth," replied her brother. "What is called strategy is really the art practised by Cook's agency. It consists in crossing rivers by way of bridges and getting the other side of mountains through passes. As for military tactics, the rules are childish. Great Captains pay no attention to them. Although they would never admit it, they leave much to chance. Their art is to create prejudices in their favour. Conquest becomes easy to them when they are believed to be unconquerable. It is only on a plan that a battle assumes that aspect of order and regularity which reveals a dominant will."
"Poor Émile Vincent!" sighed Mademoiselle Bergeret. "He was indeed passionately fond of the army. And I agree with you that he must have suffered cruelly when he found military society treating him as an enemy. General Cartier de Chalmot's wife was very hard on him. She knew better than anyone that he subscribed largely to military charities. And yet she would have nothing to do with him when she heard that he had called ​Esterhazy a fraud and a traitor. She broke with him in the most undisguised fashion. One day when he came to her house, she went close up to the hall where he was waiting and exclaimed so that he might hear her: 'Tell him that I am not at home.' Nevertheless she is not a malicious woman."
"No certainly," replied Monsieur Bergeret. "She acted according to that holy simplicity of which still better examples may be found in earlier times. Only commonplace virtues are left to us nowadays. And poor Émile died of nothing but grief."