“Ewig ist das gane Grün,
Nur das Einzle welkt geschwind.”
ABOUT six months afterward Désiré Gerard wrote thus to Jules Prosper: ―
“PONTOISE, December 10, 1762.
“You reproach me, dear Prosper, for having so long concealed my place of retreat from you and others. I could not help it, mon ami. Does not instinct teach even the wounded stag to go away from the herd and hide itself?
“Nevertheless, I am not altogether sorry you have discovered me. I can be brave now, and thank you for your goodness, your sympathy. Yet there are two things for which I am not brave enough, and therefore I entreat you, for love’s sake, to urge them no more. Mine were not the tears of a child over a broken toy, to be dried by the promise of a new one. Bitter are the drops that well from the depths of a man’s heart―but I would not have them less bitter. Allow me, in. this world, where all things change, to believe that one passion will last as long as the heart it feeds on.
“And forbear to speak to me of my art. I hate music now―I fear it. It rouses that within me which I would fain lull to sleep forever―that which, like the majestic form of Israel’s prophet in the strange old-world legend, rises with the awful voice, ‘Wherefore hast thou disquieted me to bring me up?’ Nay, Prosper, let the dead rest―if they can.
“And yet, my friend, I am better, much better. Nature is beneficent; she favors life. Maladies cure themselves, wounds close, broken limbs groom sound again. I feel this curative process begun already. I cannot enjoy, but I can live, for I have found something worth living for.
“But again, what do I say? Nature is beneficent, but only to a certain point. Maladies cure themselves―all but one―the last, for which there is no cure. And that comes to all. To some, in due season; to others, too soon. What does Nature care? Her children must take their chance. At best and farthest, her beneficence only extends so far as to give each that chance, that ‘day’ appointed to all living. When that is past come despair and death, the universal, the inevitable end. The leaf fades, falls, is swept away. What cares Nature? Her smiles are for the glories of the coming spring.
“I sometimes think there was an awful truth veiled under those weird fantastic stories of flowers that suffer, and shriek with human voices, when plucked by a thoughtless hand. We men are but leaves and flowers plucked by a heartless fate―call it Nature if you please. What avail the cries of anguish that swell the breeze? Nature laughs at them. No; I forget―Nature neither laughs nor weeps. She is blind, deaf, dumb―force without mind, without love. Death is lord of all things. Yet death itself is a name, an abstraction, nothing. At the heart of the universe there is―Nothing.
“Prosper, my friend, forgive me. I did not mean to write such words as these. Set them down as a cry of pain, forgotten as soon as uttered. For, believe me, I have found comfort. I think I see your incredulous start, your mocking smile, when you hear from what quarter it has come to me. But our oracle himself, M. de Voltaire, has announced that ‘all the world, weary of thinking about religion and politics, about letters and philosophy, has begun to think about corn.’ And so have I. Why not? I am a little fragment of the world, a leaf in the great forest.
“A pamphlet of M. Turgot’s, and one or two economic treatises into which I dipped of late, have opened my eyes, sealed too long by thoughtlessness and self-interest. This science is more interesting to me than even M. Buffon’s splendid investigations into the animal world, because it has a present practical bearing upon the welfare of humanity. And, Prosper, the same sun warms, and the same blast shakes, all the leaves of the forest. If, being only leaves, it is their misfortune that they feel, let them at least feel each for the other.
“It is not pleasant to die―supremely unpleasant to die of hunger. Yet the continuous scarcity of corn, the frequent years of absolute famine, mean―death by starvation for thousands. Think of all that agony! Mothers hearing their children cry in vain for bread; strong men pining away with hunger; families scattered hopelessly; crime growing audacious, to be repressed with fresh cruelties. Ay, those who do not care to die of hunger may have their choice, and take instead the gibbet or the wheel.
“While all this misery can be prevented. I am not now going, with Jean Jacques Rousseau, to talk of the peasant ‘hiding his wine for fear of the aides, and his corn for fear of the gabelle, and thinking himself ruined if any one imagines he is not dying of hunger.’ There are worse evils in this realm than unfair and excessive taxation. And that evil in which I have been lately led, or misled, to take a share, is the worst of all. It is not less than a conspiracy to force up the price of grain for the royal benefit, and thus to starve the people. Need I say, Prosper, that I knew not what I did? I know all now, and, God helping me― (ah, what have I written? The old accustomed meaningless words glide unawares from tongue and pen) ―my own strong heart helping me, since there is none else―I shall do right, though the heavens fall and crush me.
“Enough, perhaps too much. Burn this, as you love me, as soon as you have read it. I need not explain that I trust the hand that brings it as I trust my own soul.
“Adieu.
“Thine ever,
“DÉSIRÉ GERARD.
“P.S.―The friend who bears this tells me he saw M. and Madame Bairdon at St. Sulpice last Sunday, assisting at early mass. Both looked sad, and Madame Bairdon wore deepest mourning, as for a child of her own. I love her for it, Prosper.”
To this imprudent communication of Gerard’s, Prosper returned a carefully-worded answer, very affectionate and very cautious. While warmly applauding the “benevolence and philanthropy” of his friend’s sentiments, he took occasion to hint that private persons ought to think rather more than twice ere they spread reports to the disadvantage of those in high places. Did Gerard not remember the riots of ‘57? He would not for the world dissuade his friend from any course dictated by honor, but since Gerard had recently been studying De Sacy’s Bible, he would venture to commend one passage to his particular attention: “Curse not the king, no, not in thy thought; and curse not the rich in thy bedchamber: for a bird of the air shall carry the voice, and that which hath wings shall tell the matter.”
Having thus discharged in the most exemplary manner the duties of friendship, Prosper added some of the current news of the gay Parisian world, signed, sealed, and directed his letter, and gave it to a person whom he trusted entirely, in order that it might be forwarded to Pontoise.
But his agent, finding that other business which he intended to transact in Pontoise could be managed equally well without leaving Paris, dishonestly evaded the journey, and betrayed both Prosper and Prosper’s correspondent, by putting the letter in the post.