Faubourg Saint-Antoine

“ In the retired life that we led, my uncle spoke to me as to a friend; we talked on all subjects, but preferably those of literature, religion and philosophy, which we discussed without any anger or disagreeable results, although we were often of a different opinion.
It is easy to see that a man who could write Saint Antoine must be superabundantly occupied with religious thought as found in humanity, and its manifold manifestations. The old theogonies interested him extremely, and the excessive in all people had an infinite attraction for him. ”

“ Long after one has forgotten all the deliverances of critics with greater wisdom but less craft of phrase, one remembers his extraordinary opinion that Flaubert's La Tentation de Saint Antoine, that book which will appeal in every generation to those who have been visited by the angel of speculative thought, which is not only itself a beautiful growth but has borne beautiful fruit in Thaïs, is merely "strange" and has no more reference to life than the gimcrack Eastern Pavilion at an Exposition. ”

“ She can no longer walk alone, and is distressingly weak! How sad it is to see those whom one loves deteriorate little by little!
In order to think no longer on the public miseries or on my own, I have plunged again with fury into Saint-Antoine, and if nothing disturbs me and I continue at this pace, I shall have finished it next winter. I am very eager to read to you the sixty pages which are done. When we can circulate about again on the railroad, do come to see me for a little while. Your old troubadour has waited for you for such a long time! ”

“ But two loud voices in the anteroom reached his ears. They were that of M. de Nonancourt, an old beau with the air of a mummy preserved in cold cream, and that of Madame de Larsillois, the wife of a prefect of Louis Philippe. She was terribly frightened, for she had just heard an organ playing a polka which was a signal amongst the insurgents. Many of the wealthy class of citizens had similar apprehensions; they thought that men in the catacombs were going to blow up the Faubourg Saint-Germain. ”

“ He stamps his foot, and makes his way through the rocks with rapid step, then stops, out of breath, bursts into sobs, and flings himself upon the ground.
The night is calm; millions of stars are trembling in the sky. No sound is heard save the chattering of the tarantula.
The two arms of the cross cast a shadow on the sand. Antony, who is weeping, perceives it.
"Am I so weak, my God? Courage! Let us arise!"
He enters his cell, finds there the embers of a fire, lights a torch, and places it on the wooden stand, so as to illumine the big book. ”

“ Sainte-Beuve himself has told us that the Faubourg Saint-Germain /was closed to men of letters before 1830/, and since it had to spend a few years becoming accustomed to their admittance, Sainte-Beuve's testimony is not at all valid as regards the great ladies of the Restoration, even at the end. ”

“ Faguet says, "In its primitive and legendary state the temptation of St. Anthony was nothing more than the story of a recluse tempted by the Devil through the flesh, by all the artifices at the Devil's disposal. In the definite thought of Flaubert the temptation of St. Anthony has become man's soul tempted by all the illusions of human thought and imagination. St. Anthony to the eyes of the first naive hagiologists is a second Adam, seduced by woman, who was inspired by Satan. St. Anthony conceived by Flaubert is a more thoughtful Faust ”

“ Amongst these consolers Antony observes a bald man in a black tunic, a portion of whose face is plainly visible. He discourses with them on the nothingness of the world, and the happiness of the Elect. Antony is filled with transports of Divine love. He longs for the opportunity of sacrificing his life for the Saviour, not knowing whether he is himself one of [Pg 71] these martyrs. But, save a Phrygian, with long hair, who keeps his arms raised, they all have a melancholy aspect. An old man is sobbing on a bench, and a young man, who is standing, is musing with downcast eyes. ”

“ Ah! how you will lose yourself in my tresses, caress my breasts, marvel at my limbs, and be scorched by my eyes, between my arms, in a whirlwind——"
Antony makes the sign of the Cross.
"So, then, you disdain me! Farewell!"
She turns away weeping; then she returns.
"Are you quite sure? So lovely a woman?"
She laughs, and the ape who holds the end of her robe lifts it up. [Pg 39]
"You will repent, my fine hermit! you will groan; you will be sick of life! but I will mock at you! la! la! la! oh! oh! oh!" ”

“ Anthony did not reply. He turned to the monks of Antinoë those eyes whose looks no man could sustain. He gazed for a long time at Paul, called the Fool; then he made a sign to him to approach. And, as all were astonished that the saint should address himself to a man who was not in his senses, Anthony said —
"God has granted to him more grace than to any of you. Lift thy eyes, my son Paul, and tell me what thou seest in heaven." ”

“ Do you prefer a body cold as a serpent's skin, or, perchance, great black eyes more sombre than mysterious caverns? Look at these eyes of mine, then!"
Antony gazes at them, in spite of himself.
"All the women you ever have met, from the daughter of the cross-roads singing beneath her lantern to the fair patrician scattering leaves from the top of her litter, all the forms you have caught a glimpse of, all the imaginings of your desire, ask for them! I am not a woman—I am a world. My garments have but to fall, and you shall discover upon my person a succession of mysteries." ”

“ Antony represses an exclamation, and immediately Basilides, catching him by the elbow:
"The Supreme Being, with his infinite emanations, is called Abraxas, and the Saviour with all his virtues, Kaulakau, otherwise rank-upon-rank, rectitude-upon-rectitude. The power of Kaulakau is obtained by the aid of certain words inscribed on this calcedony to facilitate memory."
And he shows on his neck a little stone on which fantastic lines are engraved.
"Then you shall be transported into the invisible; and, unfettered by law, you shall despise everything, including virtue itself. ”

“ Unless it be that the world, being a perpetual flux of things, appearances, by a sort of contradiction, would not be a test of truth, and illusion would be the only reality.
"But are you sure that you see? Are you sure that you live? Perhaps nothing at all exists!" [Pg 150]
The Devil has seized Antony, and, holding him by the extremities of his arms, stares at him with open jaws ready to swallow him up. ”

“ Didier in Dauphiné, which took the name of Saint Antoine on account of the relics of the Saint, which were brought there in the 11th century.
It is as true as the Gospel, that three worthy merchants of Savoy set out with their wives to go on a pilgrimage to St. Anthony of Vienne. And in order to render their journey more devout and more agreeable to God and St. Anthony, they determined that from the time they left their houses, and all through the journey, they would not sleep with their wives, but live in continence, both going and returning. ”

“ At last, unable to endure any longer the crowds of those who visited the saint because of various afflictions or the assaults of demons, and deeming it a strange anomaly that he should have to bear in the desert the crowds of the cities, he thought it was better for him to begin as Antony had begun. Said he: “Antony is reaping the reward of victory like a hero who has proved his bravery. ”

“ Antony experiences a kind of relief. The whole scene vanishes, and the cell, the rocks, and the cross reappear! And now he distinguishes on the other side of the Nile a woman standing in the middle of [Pg 120] the desert. She holds with her hand the end of a long black veil, which conceals her figure; while she carries on her left arm a little child, which she is suckling. At her side a huge ape is squatted on the sand. She lifts her head towards the sky, and, in spite of the distance, her voice can be heard. ”

“ He suffered from the Bellephorentian sickness. Was not his mother, the seller of perfumes, seduced by a [Pg 97] Roman soldier, one Pantherus?.......................... [6]
Anthony (suddenly raising his head, looks at them a moment in silence; then advancing boldly upon them, exclaims) :
"Doctors, magicians, bishops, and deacons, men and phantoms, away from me! begone! Ye are all lies!"
The Heresiarchs. "We have martyrs more martyrs than thine, prayers that are more difficult, outbursts of love more sublime, ecstasies as prolonged as thine are."
Anthony. "But ye have no revelation! no proofs!" ”

“ It is the Devil, resting against the roof of the cell and carrying under his wings—like a gigantic bat that is suckling its young—the Seven Deadly Sins, whose grinning heads disclose themselves confusedly.
Antony, his eyes still closed, remains languidly passive, and stretches his limbs upon the mat, which seems to him to grow softer every moment, until it swells out and becomes a bed; then the bed becomes a shallop, with water rippling against its sides.
To right and left rise up two necks of black soil that tower above the cultivated plains, with a sycamore here and there. ”

“ And he pushes Anthony forward to a golden throne approached by five steps, whereon—surrounded by ninety-five disciples, all very thin and pale, and anointed with oil—sits the prophet Manes. He is beautiful as an archangel, immobile as a statue; he is clad in an Indian robe; carbuncles gleam in his plaited hair; at his left hand lies a book of painted images; his right reposes upon a globe. The images represent the creatures that erst slumbered in Chaos. Anthony bends forward to look upon them. ”

“ Anthony finds himself in the dungeons of a vast amphitheatre, among Christians condemned to the wild beasts. By this hallucination the tempter would prove to the Saint that martyrdom is not always suffered for purest motives. Anthony finds the martyrs possessed by bigotry and insincerity. He sees many compelled to die against their will; many who would forswear their faith could it avail them aught. He beholds heretics die for their heterodoxy more nobly than orthodox believers. ”

“ Antony, rises again—"This time, once more, it was the Devil, and under his two-fold aspect—the spirit of voluptuousness and the spirit of destruction. Neither terrifies me. I thrust happiness aside, and feel that I am eternal.
"Thus, death is only an illusion, a veil, masking at certain points the continuity of life. But substance, being one, why is there a variety of forms? There must be somewhere primordial figures, whose bodies are only images. If one could see, one would know the bond between mind and matter, wherein Being consists! ”

“ The consoler goes from one to another:
"What would ye say—what would any of you say—if they burned you with plates of iron; if horses tore you asunder; if your body, coated with honey, was devoured by insects? You will have only the death of a hunter who is surprised in a wood."
Antony would much prefer all this than the horrible wild beasts; he imagines he feels their teeth and their talons, and that he hears his back cracking under their jaws.
A belluarius enters the dungeon; the martyrs tremble. One alone amongst them is unmoved—the Phrygian, who has gone into a corner to pray. ”

“ And their voices, whose echoes, rolling forth, fill the horizon, become so powerful that Antony falls backward.
A shock, from time to time, causes him to half open his eyes; and he perceives, in the midst of the darkness, a kind of monster before him.
It is a death's-head with a crown of roses. It rises above the torso of a woman white as mother-of-pearl. Beneath, a winding-sheet, starred with points of gold, makes a kind of train;—and the entire body undulates, like a gigantic worm holding itself erect. ”

“ My husband crawled to me upon his knees among the stones, and cried—'Dost thou abandon me,' and I replied: 'Yes! go thy way!' that I might accompany Montanus."
Anthony. "A eunuch!"
Priscilla. "Ah! does that astound thee, vulgar soul! Yet Magdalen, Johanna, Martha and Susannah did not share the couch of the Saviour. Souls may know the delirium of embrace better than bodies. That he might keep Eustolia with impunity, the bishop Leontius mutilated himself—loving his love more than his virility. ”

“ It was largely due to the painters' conceptions of the nature of the hermit's trials that the story of Saint Anthony's spiritual struggle aroused instinctive terrors in all truly modest natures. The painters—who so dearly love to display their skill in drawing legs and busts—had been wont to push the poor old saint into the obscure of the background, and fill all the foreground with ladies of obviously the very lightest character, in garments still lighter, if possible. ”

“ He dared not go there every day, although he might have done so without fear that Monsieur Antoine would receive him less warmly. But there is in love a shrinking modesty which takes fright at happiness at the moment of grasping it. So he wandered about in every direction, and hid in the woods, where he could gaze at the ruins of Châteaubrun through the branches, as if he were afraid of being caught in the act of adoration. ”

“ Hilarion points out several of them to Saint Antony:
"There are thirty chief priests. Fifteen gaze upon the region above the earth, and fifteen on the region below it. At regular intervals one of them rushes from the upper regions to the lower, whilst another abandons the lower to mount towards the empyrean.
"Of the seven planets, two are benevolent, two malevolent, and three ambiguous; everything in the world depends on these eternal fires. According to their position and their movements, one may draw prognostications, and you are now treading on the most sacred spot on earth. ”