II
In which François becomes a choir-boy, and serves two masters, to the impairment of his moral sense.
He was about fourteen, and the best of the choir, when a great change took place in his life. He was sent, with a dozen others, to the vestry of Notre Dame, and there carefully tested as to the power and quality of his voice. The masters of the choir were exacting, but, to his great delight, he was thought the best of the four who were finally selected to fill vacancies among the boy choristers of the cathedral. This came about in the autumn of the year 1781.
The next day he received a long lecture on how he should behave himself; and thus morally provided, was sent, with his small belongings in a bag, to the house of certain of the choir-masters who lived in the Rue des Chanteurs. One of the priests who escorted the four boys stood at the door of the house of the choir, and saying good-by to them as they went in, bade them come, if they might, and visit their old home; and so, with a benediction, sent them forth into a larger world.
It was not much larger, nor was it as agreeable. When the good father left them, one Tomas, who was steward of the choir-house, took the lads in charge.
“Up with ye, singing-birds!” he cried; “up! up!” And this at each story: “It will soon be your best chance of heaven; up! up!” until they reached a large attic under the tiles.
It was a dismal place, and hospitable to every wind that blew. Each of twelve choir-boys had a straw mattress on the floor, and pegs where hung his clothes and the white surplice he wore during service. The four newcomers took possession, and were soon informed by Tomas of their duties. They must be up at five to sing before breakfast with the second chanter.
“Before breakfast!” cried one of the recruits.
“Little animal!” said Tomas. “Before thou dost eat there is room to fill thy chest; but after, what boy hath room? Breakfast at six and a half; at seven a lesson. Thou wilt intone with Père Lalatte.”
Thus the day was to be filled; for here were lessons a-plenty in Latin, and all must learn to read and to write, for they might be priests some blessed day.
François reflected as Tomas packed the hours with this and that as one packs a bag. He made his face as grave as nature would let it be, and said it was very nice, and that he liked to sing. Was there anything else? Tomas replied that this first day they might ask questions, but that after that he (Tomas) had only one answer, because to have only one saved thinking.
This amused François, who was prematurely capable of seeing the fun of things.
When a duller boy who did not apprehend asked to know more he received an illustration in the form of a smart smack, which proved convincingly instructive, and silenced all but François, who asked, “Please, monsieur, when may we play?” and “Is there anything more?”
Tomas replied that there was a free hour before supper, and a little while somewhere about noon in the garden; also, they must wait on table; and oh, he forgot the prayers; and then went on to complete the packing of the day with various small duties in the nature of attentions to the comfort of Tomas. With some last words as to the time of the next meal, the steward left them.
The lads, silent and anxious, arranged their small possessions. A little goldfinch in a wicker cage was Francis’s most valued property; he had taught it many pretty tricks, and now he had been allowed to bring it with him. François put the cage on the window-ledge, and fed his brightly tinted bird from a small store of millet with which he had filled his pocket. Then he looked out to see what prospect the view from the attic afforded.
The home of the master-choristers was an ancient house of the days of Henri IV, and leaned so far over that as the boy looked out he had a sudden fear lest it should be about to tumble. The street was not more than twelve feet wide. The opposite dwellings were a full story below the attic from which the boy looked. The nearest house across the way had an ancient stoop. Others bent back from the line of the street, and the open windows gave them a look of yawning weariness which set the boy to gaping in sympathy.
Above was a mottled wilderness of discolored tiles, chimney-pots, and here and there gray corner turrets with vanes which seemed to entertain diverse views as to the direction whence the wind blew. Below was the sunless well of the street. As he gazed he saw the broad hats of priests hiding the figures beneath them. It interested the boy. It was new and strange. He was too intent to notice that all but he had gone, obedient to an order of Tomas.
A woman at a window over the way let fall a skirt she had been drying. It sailed to and fro, and fell on the head of a reflective abbé. The boy broke into laughter. A cat climbed on to a chimney-pot, and was met by a gust of smoke from the flue beside it. She scrambled off, sneezing.
“What fun!” cried the boy, and laughed again.
“Little beast!” shouted Tomas. “Must I come for thee? ’T is not permitted to laugh. It is forbid to laugh. It spoils the voice”—a queer notion which, to his sorrow, the boy found to prevail in the house of the choristers.
“How can that be?” said François, boldly.
The man gave him to understand that he was to obey his betters without answering, and then, taking the cage from the window, said: “Come—quick, too! Thou art late for the dinner, and must do without it. There is a singing-lesson. Off with thee!”
He was leaving the room when, suddenly, a strange fury of anger came on the boy. He snatched the cage from the man’s hand, crying, “My bird! It is my bird!”
Tomas caught him, and began to administer a smart cuffing; but the lad was vigorous and of feline agility. He used nails, teeth, and feet. Then, of a sudden, he ceased to struggle, and fell on a mattress in an agony of tears. The man had set his foot on the fallen cage, crying:
“I will teach thee a lesson, little animal!”
There lay in the crushed cage the dead bird, still quivering, a shapeless mass of green and yellow with a splotch of red. It was the first lesson of that larger world toward which the foundling had been so joyfully looking.
He made no further resistance to the discipline which followed. Then came a dark cell and bread and water for a weary day, and much profit in the way of experience. It was a gentle home he had left. He had known there no unkindness, nor had he ever so sinned as to suffer more than some mild punishment. The new life was hard, the diet spare. As the winter came on, the attic proved to be cold. The winds came in from the tiles above and through the shrunken window-frames. Once within, they seemed to stay and to wander in chilly gusts. The dark suits worn by the choir-boys were none too warm. If the white surplice were clean, little more was asked in that direction. There were long services twice a day at the great cathedral near by, and three hours of practice under the eye of a junior chorister. The boys were abed at eight, and up at five; and for play, there were two uncertain hours—after the noon meal and at seven in the evening—when they were free to move about a small court behind the house, or to rest, if they pleased, in the attic. Four days in the week there were lessons in Latin and in reading and writing. Assuredly the devil had little of the chance which idle hours are presumed to give. But this fallen angel has also the industry of the minute, and knows how to profit by the many chances of life. He provided suggestive lessons in the habits of the choristers who dwelt in the stories above the wine-shop on the first floor. Sounds of gay carouses reached the small garret saints at night, and gay voices were heard which had other than masculine notes. At meal-times the choir-boys waited on their masters, and fetched their food from the kitchen. The lads soon learned to take toll on the way, and to comfort their shrunken stomachs with a modest share of the diet of their betters.
“Little rats!” said Tomas the steward, “you will squeal in purgatory for this; and ’t were better to give you a dose of it here.” And so certain of the rats, on account of temporary excess of feed, were given none for a day, and left in a cold cellar to such moral aids as reflection might fetch.
François sat with his comrades of mishap in the gloom, and devised new ways of procuring food and concealing their thefts.
“Rats we are,” said François, gaily; “and rats had need be smart; and who ever heard that the bon Dieu sent rats to purgatory?” Then he hatched queer stories to keep up the spirits of the too penitent; and whether full or empty, cold or warm, took all that came with perpetual solace of good-humored laughter. It was not in him to bear malice. The choir-masters liked him, and with the boys he was the leader.
Most of the dozen choir-bays were dull fellows; but this sharp-witted François was of other make, and found in the table-talk of the choristers, and of the curé’s who came now and then to share their ample fare, food for such thoughts as a boy thinks. He soon learned, as he grew older, how difficult is complete sin; how many outlets there are for him who, being penitent, desires to create new opportunities for penitence. François was fast forming his character. He had small need to look for excuses, and a meager talent for regret. When his stomach was full he was good, and when it was empty he must, as he said in after years, “fill it to squeeze out Satan.”
There were singular books about, and for his education, now that he read Latin fairly well, a manual on confession. It was not meant for half-fed choir-boys. More fascinating were the confessions of one Rousseau—a highly educative book for a clever boy of sixteen. At this age François was a long-legged, active fellow, a keen-witted domestic brigand, expert in providing for his wants, and eagerly desirous of seeing more of the outside world, of the ways of which he was so ignorant. The procession of closely watched boys went to church and back again to the old house at least once a day, and this was his only glimpse of the entertaining life of the streets. When left to himself, he liked best in good weather to sit at the open attic window and watch the cats on the roofs across the way. So near were the houses that he could toss a bone or a crust on to the roof opposite, and delight to see these Ishmaelites contend for the prize. He grew to know them, so that they would come at dusk to the roof-edge, and contemplate dietetic possibilities with eager and luminous eyes. Being versed in the Bible, as all good choir-boys should be, he found names for his feline friends which fitted their qualities; for there, among the chimneys, was a small world of stirring life which no man disturbed. He saw battles, jealousies, greediness, and loves. Constancy was not there. Solomon of the many wives was king of the tiles; a demure blue cat was Susannah, for good reasons; and there, too, were the elders. It might have seemed to some pitiful angel a sad picture—this poor lad in the grasp of temptations, but made for better chances, finding his utmost joy in the distant company of these lean Arabs of the desert housetops.