The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard | Page 6

or coming in."
"Well! the heir of the Coccoz family will be able to say, like the Egg in
the village riddle: Ma mere me fit en chantant. ["My mother sang when
she brought me into the world."] The like happened in the case of
Henry IV. When Jeanne d'Albret felt herself about to be confined she
began to sing an old Bearnaise canticle:
"Notre-Dame du bout du pont, Venez a mon aide en cette heure! Priez
le Dieu du ciel Qu'il me delivre vite, Qu'il me donne un garcon!
"It is certainly unreasonable to bring little unfortunates into the world.
But the thing is done every day, my dear Therese and all the
philosophers on earth will never be able to reform the silly custom.
Madame Coccoz has followed it, and she sings. This is creditable at all
events! But, tell me, Therese, have you not put the soup to boil to-day?"
"Yes, Monsieur; and it is time for me to go and skim it."
"Good! but don't forget, Therese, to take a good bowl of soup out of the
pot and carry it to Madame Coccoz, our attic neighbor."
My housekeeper was on the point of leaving the room when I added,
just in time:
"Therese, before you do anything else, please call your friend the porter,
and tell him to take a good bundle of wood out of our stock and carry it
up to the attic of those Coccoz folks. See, above all, that he puts a
first-class log in the lot--a real Christmas log. As for the homunculus, if

he comes back again, do not allow either himself or any of his yellow
books to come in here."
Having taken all these little precautions with the refined egotism of an
old bachelor, I returned to my catalogue again.
With what surprise, with what emotion, with what anxiety did I therein
discover the following mention, which I cannot even now copy without
feeling my hand tremble:
"LA LEGENDE DOREE DE JACQUES DE GENES (Jacques de
Voragine);-- traduction francaise, petit in-4.
"This MS. of the fourteenth century contains, besides the tolerably
complete translation of the celebrated work of Jacques de Voragine, 1.
The Legends of Saints Ferreol, Ferrution, Germain, Vincent, and
Droctoveus; 2. A poem 'On the Miraculous Burial of Monsieur
Saint-Germain of Auxerre.' This translation, as well as the legends and
the poem, are due to the Clerk Alexander.
"This MS. is written upon vellum. It contains a great number of
illuminated letters, and two finely executed miniatures, in a rather
imperfect state of preservation:--one represents the Purification of the
Virgin, and the other the Coronation of Proserpine."
What a discovery! Perspiration moistened my forehead, and a veil
seemed to come before my eyes. I trembled; I flushed; and, without
being able to speak, I felt a sudden impulse to cry out at the top of my
voice.
What a treasure! For more than forty years I had been making a special
study of the history of Christian Gaul, and particularly of that glorious
Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Pres, whence issued forth those
King-Monks who founded our national dynasty. Now, despite the
culpable insufficiency of the description given, it was evident to me
that the MS. of the Clerk Alexander must have come from the great
Abbey. Everything proved this fact. All the legends added by the
translator related to the pious foundation of the Abbey by King

Childebert. Then the legend of Saint-Droctoveus was particularly
significant; being the legend of the first abbot of my dear Abbey. The
poem in French verse on the burial of Saint-Germain led me actually
into the nave of that venerable basilica which was the umbilicus of
Christian Gaul.
The "Golden Legend" is in itself a vast and gracious work. Jacques de
Voragine, Definitor of the Order of Saint-Dominic, and Archbishop of
Genoa, collected in the thirteenth century the various legends of
Catholic saints, and formed so rich a compilation that from all the
monasteries and castles of the time there arouse the cry: "This is the
'Golden Legend.'" The "Legende Doree" was especially opulent in
Roman hagiography. Edited by an Italian monk, it reveals its best
merits in the treatment of matters relating to the terrestrial domains of
Saint Peter. Voragine can only perceive the greater saints of the
Occident as through a cold mist. For this reason the Aquitanian and
Saxon translators of the good legend-writer were careful to add to his
recital the lives of their own national saints.
I have read and collated a great many manuscripts of the "Golden
Legend." I know all those described by my learned colleague, M.
Paulin Paris, in his handsome catalogue of the MSS. of the Biblotheque
du Roi. There were two among them which especially drew my
attention. One is of the fourteenth