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MADELEINE
He was a man about fifty years of age, who had a preoccupied
air, and who was good.
That was all that could be said about him.
Thanks to the rapid progress of the industry which he had
so admirably re-constructed, M. sur M. had become a rather important
centre of trade.
Spain, which consumes a good deal of black jet, made enormous
purchases there each year.
M. sur M. almost rivalled London and Berlin in this branch
of commerce.
Father Madeleine's profits were such, that at the end of the
second year he was able to erect a large factory, in which there
were two vast workrooms, one for the men, and the other for women.
Any one who was hungry could present himself there, and was
sure of finding employment and bread.
Father Madeleine required of the men good will, of the women
pure morals, and of all, probity.
He had separated the work-rooms in order to separate the sexes,
and so that the women and girls might remain discreet.
On this point he was inflexible. It was the only thing in
which he was in a manner intolerant. He was all the more firmly
set on this severity, since M. sur M., being a garrison town,
opportunities for corruption abounded. However, his coming had
been a boon, and his presence was a godsend. Before Father Madeleine's
arrival, everything had languished in the country; now everything
lived with a healthy life of toil. A strong circulation warmed
everything and penetrated everywhere. Slack seasons and wretchedness
were unknown.
There was no pocket so obscure that it had not a little money
in it; no dwelling so lowly that there was not some little joy
within it.
Father Madeleine gave employment to every one.
He exacted but one thing:
Be an honest man.
Be an honest woman.
As we have said, in the midst of this activity of which he
was the cause and the pivot, Father Madeleine made his fortune;
but a singular thing in a simple man of business, it did not seem
as though that were his chief care.
He appeared to be thinking much of others, and little of himself.
In 1820 he was known to have a sum of six hundred and thirty
thousand francs lodged in his name with Laffitte; but before reserving
these six hundred and thirty thousand francs, he had spent more
than a million for the town and its poor.
The hospital was badly endowed; he founded six beds there.
M. sur M. is divided into the upper and the lower town.
The lower town, in which he lived, had but one school, a miserable
hovel, which was falling to ruin:
he constructed two, one for girls, the other for boys. He
allotted a salary from his own funds to the two instructors, a
salary twice as large as their meagre official salary, and one
day he said to some one who expressed surprise, "The two
prime functionaries of the state are the nurse and the schoolmaster."
He created at his own expense an infant school, a thing then almost
unknown in France, and a fund for aiding old and infirm workmen.
As his factory was a centre, a new quarter, in which there were
a good many indigent families, rose rapidly around him; he established
there a free dispensary.
At first, when they watched his beginnings, the good souls
said, "He's a jolly fellow who means to get rich."
When they saw him enriching the country before he enriched
himself, the good souls said, "He is an ambitious man."
This seemed all the more probable since the man was religious,
and even practised his religion to a certain degree, a thing which
was very favorably viewed at that epoch.
He went regularly to low mass every Sunday. The local deputy,
who nosed out all rivalry everywhere, soon began to grow uneasy
over this religion.
This deputy had been a member of the legislative body of the
Empire, and shared the religious ideas of a father of the Oratoire,
known under the name of Fouche, Duc d'Otrante, whose creature
and friend he had been.
He indulged in gentle raillery at God with closed doors.
But when he beheld the wealthy manufacturer Madeleine going
to low mass at seven o'clock, he perceived in him a possible candidate,
and resolved to outdo him; he took a Jesuit confessor, and went
to high mass and to vespers. Ambition was at that time, in the
direct acceptation of the word, a race to the steeple.
The poor profited by this terror as well as the good God,
for the honorable deputy also founded two beds in the hospital,
which made twelve.
Nevertheless, in 1819 a rumor one morning circulated through
the town to the effect that, on the representations of the prefect
and in consideration of the services rendered by him to the country,
Father Madeleine was to be appointed by the King, mayor of M.
sur M. Those who had pronounced this new-comer to be "an
ambitious fellow," seized with delight on this opportunity
which all men desire, to exclaim, "There! what did we say!"
All M. sur M. was in an uproar. The rumor was well founded.
Several days later the appointment appeared in the Moniteur.
On the following day Father Madeleine refused.
In this same year of 1819 the products of the new process
invented by Madeleine figured in the industrial exhibition; when
the jury made their report, the King appointed the inventor a
chevalier of the Legion of Honor.
A fresh excitement in the little town. Well, so it was the
cross that he wanted!
Father Madeleine refused the cross.
Decidedly this man was an enigma.
The good souls got out of their predicament by saying, "After
all, he is some sort of an adventurer."
We have seen that the country owed much to him; the poor owed
him everything; he was so useful and he was so gentle that people
had been obliged to honor and respect him.
His workmen, in particular, adored him, and he endured this
adoration with a sort of melancholy gravity. When he was known
to be rich, "people in society" bowed to him, and he
received invitations in the town; he was called, in town, Monsieur
Madeleine; his workmen and the children continued to call him
Father Madeleine, and that was what was most adapted to make him
smile. In proportion as he mounted, throve, invitations rained
down upon him. "Society" claimed him for its own.
The prim little drawing-rooms on M. sur M., which, of course,
had at first been closed to the artisan, opened both leaves of
their folding-doors to the millionnaire. They made a thousand
advances to him.
He refused.
This time the good gossips had no trouble.
"He is an ignorant man, of no education.
No one knows where he came from.
He would not know how to behave in society.
It has not been absolutely proved that he knows how to read."
When they saw him making money, they said, "He is a man
of business." When they saw him scattering his money about,
they said, "He is an ambitious man."
When he was seen to decline honors, they said, "He is
an adventurer."
When they saw him repulse society, they said, "He is
a brute."
In 1820, five years after his arrival in M. sur M., the services
which he had rendered to the district were so dazzling, the opinion
of the whole country round about was so unanimous, that the King
again appointed him mayor of the town.
He again declined; but the prefect resisted his refusal, all
the notabilities of the place came to implore him, the people
in the street besought him; the urging was so vigorous that he
ended by accepting. It was noticed that the thing which seemed
chiefly to bring him to a decision was the almost irritated apostrophe
addressed to him by an old woman of the people, who called to
him from her threshold, in an angry way:
"A good mayor is a useful thing.
Is he drawing back before the good which he can do?"
This was the third phase of his ascent.
Father Madeleine had become Monsieur Madeleine.
Monsieur Madeleine became Monsieur le Maire.
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