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DETAILS CONCERNING THE CHEESE-DAIRIES OF PONTARLIER.
Now, in order to convey an idea of what passed at that table,
we cannot do better than to transcribe here a passage from one
of Mademoiselle Baptistine's letters to Madame Boischevron, wherein
the conversation between the convict and the Bishop is described
with ingenious minuteness.
". . . This man paid no attention to any one.
He ate with the voracity of a starving man.
However, after supper he said:
"`Monsieur le Cure of the good God, all this is far too
good for me; but I must say that the carters who would not allow
me to eat with them keep a better table than you do.'
"Between ourselves, the remark rather shocked me.
My brother replied:--
"`They are more fatigued than I.'
"`No,' returned the man, `they have more money.
You are poor; I see that plainly.
You cannot be even a curate.
Are you really a cure?
Ah, if the good God were but just, you certainly ought to
be a cure!'
"`The good God is more than just,' said my brother.
"A moment later he added:--
"`Monsieur Jean Valjean, is it to Pontarlier that you
are going?'
"`With my road marked out for me.'
"I think that is what the man said.
Then he went on:--
"`I must be on my way by daybreak to-morrow. Travelling
is hard. If the nights are cold, the days are hot.'
"`You are going to a good country,' said my brother.
`During the Revolution my family was ruined.
I took refuge in Franche-Comte at first, and there I lived
for some time by the toil of my hands. My will was good.
I found plenty to occupy me.
One has only to choose. There are paper mills, tanneries,
distilleries, oil factories, watch factories on a large scale,
steel mills, copper works, twenty iron foundries at least, four
of which, situated at Lods, at Chatillon, at Audincourt, and at
Beure, are tolerably large.'
"I think I am not mistaken in saying that those are the
names which my brother mentioned.
Then he interrupted himself and addressed me:--
"`Have we not some relatives in those parts, my dear
sister?'
"I replied,--
"`We did have some; among others, M. de Lucenet, who
was captain of the gates at Pontarlier under the old regime.'
"`Yes,' resumed my brother; `but in '93, one had no longer
any relatives, one had only one's arms.
I worked.
They have, in the country of Pontarlier, whither you are going,
Monsieur Valjean, a truly patriarchal and truly charming industry,
my sister. It is their cheese-dairies, which they call fruitieres.'
"Then my brother, while urging the man to eat, explained
to him, with great minuteness, what these fruitieres of Pontarlier
were; that they were divided into two classes:
the big barns which belong to the rich, and where there are
forty or fifty cows which produce from seven to eight thousand
cheeses each summer, and the associated fruitieres, which belong
to the poor; these are the peasants of mid-mountain, who hold
their cows in common, and share the proceeds. `They engage the
services of a cheese-maker, whom they call the grurin; the grurin
receives the milk of the associates three times a day, and marks
the quantity on a double tally.
It is towards the end of April that the work of the cheese-dairies
begins; it is towards the middle of June that the cheese-makers
drive their cows to the mountains.'
"The man recovered his animation as he ate.
My brother made him drink that good Mauves wine, which he
does not drink himself, because he says that wine is expensive.
My brother imparted all these details with that easy gayety
of his with which you are acquainted, interspersing his words
with graceful attentions to me.
He recurred frequently to that comfortable trade of grurin,
as though he wished the man to understand, without advising him
directly and harshly, that this would afford him a refuge.
One thing struck me. This man was what I have told you.
Well, neither during supper, nor during the entire evening,
did my brother utter a single word, with the exception of a few
words about Jesus when he entered, which could remind the man
of what he was, nor of what my brother was. To all appearances,
it was an occasion for preaching him a little sermon, and of impressing
the Bishop on the convict, so that a mark of the passage might
remain behind.
This might have appeared to any one else who had this, unfortunate
man in his hands to afford a chance to nourish his soul as well
as his body, and to bestow upon him some reproach, seasoned with
moralizing and advice, or a little commiseration, with an exhortation
to conduct himself better in the future. My brother did not even
ask him from what country he came, nor what was his history.
For in his history there is a fault, and my brother seemed
to avoid everything which could remind him of it.
To such a point did he carry it, that at one time, when my
brother was speaking of the mountaineers of Pontarlier, who exercise
a gentle labor near heaven, and who, he added, are happy because
they are innocent, he stopped short, fearing lest in this remark
there might have escaped him something which might wound the man.
By dint of reflection, I think I have comprehended what was passing
in my brother's heart.
He was thinking, no doubt, that this man, whose name is Jean
Valjean, had his misfortune only too vividly present in his mind;
that the best thing was to divert him from it, and to make him
believe, if only momentarily, that he was a person like any other,
by treating him just in his ordinary way.
Is not this indeed, to understand charity well?
Is there not, dear Madame, something truly evangelical in
this delicacy which abstains from sermon, from moralizing, from
allusions? and is not the truest pity, when a man has a sore point,
not to touch it at all?
It has seemed to me that this might have been my brother's
private thought. In any case, what I can say is that, if he entertained
all these ideas, he gave no sign of them; from beginning to end,
even to me he was the same as he is every evening, and he supped
with this Jean Valjean with the same air and in the same manner
in which he would have supped with M. Gedeon le Provost, or with
the curate of the parish.
"Towards the end, when he had reached the figs, there
came a knock at the door.
It was Mother Gerbaud, with her little one in her arms. My
brother kissed the child on the brow, and borrowed fifteen sous
which I had about me to give to Mother Gerbaud.
The man was not paying much heed to anything then.
He was no longer talking, and he seemed very much fatigued.
After poor old Gerbaud had taken her departure, my brother
said grace; then he turned to the man and said to him, `You must
be in great need of your bed.'
Madame Magloire cleared the table very promptly.
I understood that we must retire, in order to allow this traveller
to go to sleep, and we both went up stairs.
Nevertheless, I sent Madame Magloire down a moment later,
to carry to the man's bed a goat skin from the Black Forest, which
was in my room.
The nights are frigid, and that keeps one warm. It is a pity
that this skin is old; all the hair is falling out. My brother
bought it while he was in Germany, at Tottlingen, near the sources
of the Danube, as well as the little ivory-handled knife which
I use at table.
"Madame Magloire returned immediately.
We said our prayers in the drawing-room, where we hang up
the linen, and then we each retired to our own chambers, without
saying a word to each other."
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