The Queen Pedauque | Page 3

it may be precipitately,
to disparage the plumage of birds on the ground that an egg has no
feathers... Whatever M. France may believe, our concern is here with
the conviction of M. Coignard that his religion is all-important and
all-significant. And it is curious to observe how unerringly the abbe's
thoughts aspire, from no matter what remote and low-lying
starting-point, to the loftiest niceties of religion and the high thin
atmosphere of ethics. Sauce spilt upon the good man's collar is but a
reminder of the influence of clothes upon our moral being, and of how
terrifyingly is the destiny of each person's soul dependent upon such
trifles; a glass of light white wine leads not, as we are nowadays taught
to believe, to instant ruin, but to edifying considerations of the life and
glory of St. Peter; and a pack of cards suggests, straightway,
intransigent fine points of martyrology. Always this churchman's
thoughts deflect to the most interesting of themes, to the relationship
between God and His children, and what familiary etiquette may be
necessary to preserve the relationship unstrained. These problems alone
engross Coignard unfailingly, even when the philosopher has had the ill
luck to fall simultaneously into drunkenness and a public fountain, and
retains so notably his composure between the opposed assaults of
fluidic unfriends.
What, though, is found the outcome of this philosophy, appears a
question to be answered with wariness of empiricism. None can deny
that Coignard says when he lies dying: "My son, reject, along with the
example I gave you, the maxims which I may have proposed to you
during my period of lifelong folly. Do not listen to those who, like
myself, subtilise over good and evil." Yet this is just one low- spirited
moment, as set against the preceding fifty-two high-hearted years. And

the utterance wrung forth by this moment is, after all, merely that
sentiment which seems the inevitable bedfellow of the
moribund,--"Were I to have my life over again, I would live
differently." The sentiment is familiar and venerable, but its
truthfulness has not yet been attested.
To the considerate, therefore, it may appear expedient to dismiss
Coignard's trite winding-up of a half-century of splendid talking, as just
the infelicitous outcropping, in the dying man's enfeebled condition, of
an hereditary foible. And when moralising would approach an
admonitory forefinger to the point that Coignard's manner of living
brought him to die haphazardly, among preoccupied strangers at a
casual wayside inn, you do, there is no questioning it, recall that a more
generally applauded manner of living has been known to result in a
more competently arranged-for demise, under the best churchly and
legal auspices, through the rigors of crucifixion.
So it becomes the part of wisdom to waive these mundane riddles, and
to consider instead the justice of Coignard's fine epitaph, wherein we
read that "living without worldly honors, he earned for himself eternal
glory." The statement may (with St. Peter keeping the gate) have been
challenged in paradise, but in literature at all events the unhonored life
of Jérome Coignard has clothed him with glory of tolerably longeval
looking texture. It is true that this might also be said of Iago and
Tartuffe, but then we have Balzac's word for it that merely to be
celebrated is not enough. Rather is the highest human desideratum
twofold,--_D'être célèbre et d'être aimé_. And that much Coignard
promises to be for a long while.
James Branch Cabell
Dumbarton Grange, July, 1921,

THE QUEEN PEDAUQUE

CHAPTER I
Why I recount the singular Occurrences of my Life
I intend to give an account of some odd occurrences in my life. Some
have been exquisite, some queer Recollecting them, I am myself in

doubt if I have not dreamed them. I have known a Gascon cabalist, of
whom I could not say that he was wise, because he perished miserably,
but he delivered sublime discourses to me, on a certain night on the Isle
of Swans, speeches [Footnote: The original manuscript, written in a
fine hand, of the eighteenth century, bears the sub-heading "Vie et
Opinions de M. l'Abbé Jérôme Coignard" [_The Editor_].] I was happy
enough to keep in my memory, and careful enough to put into writing.
Those speeches referred to magic and to occult sciences, with which
people were very much infatuated in my days.
Everyone speaks of naught else but Rosicrucian mysteries.[Footnote:
This writing dates from the second half of the eighteenth century [_The
Editor_]]. Besides I do not myself expect to gain great honour by these
revelations. Some will say that everything is of my own invention, and
that it is not the true doctrine, others that I only said what one had
already known. I own that I am not very learned in cabalistic lore, my
master