THE WORKS OF ANATOLE FRANCE
IN AN ENGLISH TRANSLATION
EDITED BY JAMES LEWIS MAY
AND BERNARD MIALL

MONSIEUR BERGERET
IN PARIS

MONSIEUR BERGERET
IN PARIS

BY ANATOLE FRANCE

A TRANSLATION BY
B. DRILLIEN

LONDON: JOHN LANE THE BODLEY HEAD LTD.
NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY: MCMXXII

SECOND EDITION

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDONAND BECCLES.

MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS

MONSIEUR BERGERET
IN PARIS

CHAPTER I

Monsieur Bergeret was seated at table taking his frugal evening meal.Riquet lay at his feet on a tapestry cushion. Riquet had a religioussoul; he rendered divine honours to mankind. He regarded his master asvery good and very great. But it was chiefly when he saw him at tablethat he realized the sovereign greatness and goodness of MonsieurBergeret.

If, to Riquet, all things pertaining to food were precious andimpressive, those pertaining to the food of man were sacred. Hevenerated the dining-room as a temple, the table as an altar. Duringmeals he kept his place at his master’s feet, in silence and immobility.

“It’s a spring chicken,” said old Angélique as she placed the dish uponthe table.

“Good. Be kind enough to carve it, then,” said Monsieur Bergeret, whowas a poor hand with weapons and quite hopeless as a carver.

“Willingly,” said Angélique, “but carving isn’t woman’s work, it’s thegentlemen who ought to carve poultry.”

“I don’t know how to carve.”

“Monsieur ought to know.”

This dialogue was by no means new. Angélique and her master exchangedsimilar remarks every time that game or poultry came to the table. Itwas not flippantly, it was certainly not to save herself trouble, thatthe old servant persisted in offering her master the carving-knife asa token of the respect which was due to him. In the peasant class fromwhich she had sprung and also in the little middle-class householdswhere she had been in service, it was a tradition that it was themaster’s duty to carve. The faithful old soul’s respect for traditionwas profound. She did not think it right that Monsieur Bergeret shouldfall short of it, that he should delegate to her the performance ofso authoritative a function, that he should fail to carve at his owntable, since he was not grand enough to employ a butler to do it forhim, like the Brécés, the Bonmonts and other such folk in town orcountry. She knew the obligations which honour imposes on a citizenwho dines at home,...