66 it often spent in waiting for a husband. A legislator who would form a system on propagation would lay the foundation of a monarchy that could not fail of becoming one day formidable to the whole world. He ought, in the first place, to eradicate debauchery, which, so far from being dictated by nature, is one of her most inveterate enemies; would be necessary, therefore, to inculcate by education that sterility is one infallible consequence of it, which, after the age of fifteen, should be accounted dishonourable; and that the more children a woman had the happier would be her situation," which Saxe proposed to encourage by a system of tithes and motherhood endow ments. 'But the most effectual means would be by establishing a law that no future marriage should endure for more than five years, or be renewable without a dispensation, in case there was no child born in that time. That such parties likewise, as should have renewed their marriage three times and have had children, should be afterwards inseparable. All the theologians in the world would not be able to prove any impiety in this system, because marriage was instituted by divine authority on no other account but that of propagation." He then advocates women's right to freedom of choice, and argues that this liberty and the system of limited marriages would eradicate debauchery. The best comment on these ideas is supplied by the editor of the memoirs, who, admitting that they proceed from a good intention, says: "I believe all the world will agree with me that the Marshal was a greater general than he was a civilian ; and that these limited marriages, instead of doing good, would, on the contrary, make a dreadful confusion amongst society; for how many children, void of both fortune and education, would be abandoned by the caprice of their parents?" This liberty, moreover, of separation after marriage is of very little consequence with regard to propagation; for it is no more than what is secretly practised in these times, although it may lack the sanction of a law to confirm it. If mankind diminishes in numbers, let us not attribute it to the fetters of marriage, for, alas! there is nothing to which we nowadays make ourselves slaves so little as to conjugal fidelity." The editor then puts forward his own theory that the enemy to propagation is "luxury; formerly it was confined to the palaces of the great, but now it prevails even in cottages, and it is that which multiplies our wants, and renders children a burden to their parents, because their maintenance and education become thereby attended with extraordinary expenses. We were much happier in those times when plainness and frugality were not accounted dishonourable." PIERROT, THE GENTLEMAN. BY KENNETH MACNICHOL. 'PERHAPS," said Réné Guizet, you will remember a tale told about the brother of my father, Papa Hilaire, a fine old gentleman with a prodigious beak ? We nodded. The little journalist of Le Grand Bavard spoke to the waiter, calling for a bock. The three of us, again gathered at the third table on the right in the Café Provençal, each thrust forth a beckoning finger expressing the unanimity of our desires. This, then, is the tale of a little pig. You will remember how the good Papa Hilaire found his heart's desire on a small farm at St Pierre de la Croix, all near to Grasse. There he was well content playing at farming on a few hectares of good land, attending to a garden of flaming roses, followed everywhere by a pernicious goat, a creature with a distorted sense of humour, as one learned when, stooping over to inhale the perfume of a rose, one became the victim of a jest as unexpected as it was violent. There were a few hens and a little cow. Also, most favoured of all the family, there was a pig. Now the pig, being of that gender, nature presently had its way with her, so that the porcine wealth of Papa Hilaire was multiplied by seven, a brood that, following their various piggish propensities, shifted each one for himself, with starvation the penalty for the least capable. Observe, however, how by man's unwarranted interference the law of survival is rendered impotent. Papa Hilaire, a good Christian, taking pity on the one puny, inefficient runt, rescued that pigling from natural disaster, and made its protection the especial object of his solicitude. Almost literally he nourished the weakling in his bosom, so that the feeble and tottering nonentity, instead of dying as nature wisely arranges such affairs, by the very virtue of his weakness staggered into the luxurious lap of Papa Hilaire's mistaken charity. One may believe that it was not through her own wealth of maternal instinct that the little cow contributed to the beast's support. Papa Hilaire, whose benevolent instincts are often translated into foolish actions, even denied himself the usual rich pallor of his early morning café-au-lait that this little pig might pad his impoverished ribs with cream. Under such circumstances, being denied the sour delights of the trough by the ambitious snouts of energetic brethren, it could not fail to thrive. Brothers and sisters continued their recollections left him ignorant struggle for existence all in a of the fact that his relatives state of nature, an admirable were pigs. One may, therefore, fraternal democracy. Being of find some excuse for his inalmost equal strength, they creasing impudence and his enjoyed almost equal success. growing belief that he was an They fed and slept and played important member of society. about the byre, dancing like He displayed a very human pink whirligigs gone mad, a characteristic in rapidly forrecreation that finds favour getting his origin in the materwith young swine. But Pierrot, nal sty. He believed, sans granted the honour of a name, doute, that good Papa Hilaire, from his high social elevation from whom all milky benefits looked down upon all such so sweetly flowed, was indeed light amusements with disdain. his mother. Like a devoted Messieurs, you realise that child, he followed his proPapa Hilaire had not been tector everywhere, squealing trained in a school of states- loudly and without embarmanship. He did not realise rassment when, very often, how unsatisfactory it may be he desired to be fed. to exalt the lowly to a high estate. Not seldom very worthy individuals, when poured full of liquid running gold, become exceedingly distended with that inflation. Lest one offend, it may not be suggested that this Pierrot, his skin filled daily with the milk of kindness, began to resemble a little caricature of a profiteer, yet there was, no doubt, some haunting resemblance. There are types of men who, with no aid from Circe, quite easily assume the aspect of grunting swine. Papa Hilaire, reversing this wholly natural process, attempted to make a gentleman of a pig. In youth the power of observation is not developed to any considerable extent. Pierrot, sheltered from immediate contact with a rude world, had no reason to believe that he was not human. His earliest Even that goat, a creature without respect for man or devil, learned to walk wide about the path of this gentleman Pierrot. Once, in mere curiosity and without malice, he found amusement in pushing the infant Pierrot about on his tottering legs. For that petite farce Bichet was severely punished. He had love but no respect for Papa Hilaire. Now, being convinced through his own anatomy that respect was to be imposed for gentleman Pierrot, Bichet avoided the pig, proudly contemptuous. It had always been his privilege to follow at the heels of Papa Hilaire. When his place was usurped by an animal beneath notice, he was forbidden to defend his place. Such treatment is disheartening, even to a goat. Charity, mes amis, like love, is very blind. Otherwise, one nt is assured, Papa Hilaire could not have failed to see the many imperfections of his protégé. That he grew immensely; that he conducted himself like a pig in Paradise-these effects were completely evident. But that he should, in mere wantonness, root up the roses! "Poor fellow, he is so very young. In time he learns he knows no better now." So Papa Hilaire would forgive the scoundrel, even though he found him, as on one occasion, sleeping in his bed. Yes, it is true, that pig took liberties with an impunity that astonished Bichet. He knew no better, as Papa Hilaire said. He knew nothing, not even that he was a pig. He grew older, but he did not learn. The contrary was true. What could one reasonably expect? He remained ignorant of everything except the one art for the practice of which nature fitted him, the art of the gourmet—a divine gift certainly, but to be comprehended only in its baser manifestations by a pig. Yet he did his best, and all that experience could teach of the joys of eating he studied earnestly. With increase of girth the beast became rapacious. He sampled everything that fell beneath his snout with laudable ambition but complete lack of discrimination, and when he had finished he squealed for more. He ate the roses and developed a lamentable taste for garlic shoots; he snatched the fodder from the byre, and ran about with whiskered grasses dangling from his mouth; he reared himself against the table, and stole more than one suppe from beneath the hands Papa Hilaire. Once, the cover of the hive being raised, he poked a curious snout into the honeycomb-a mistake that did not escape the attention of the bees. Again, when a baking of fermenting bread was left for a moment unguarded in the trough, Pierrot ate that, and found it to his taste. Except soon afterwards he was attacked of a colic the most terrible that distended his ribs to the proportions of a Zeppelin, and for some hours thereafter he was so infinitely miserable that Papa Hilaire despaired that he should live. He was forgiven. It is true his groans were pitiful. Of a With all he grew. verity, mon Dieu, he grew! He became enormous, a monster of a pig. A pig, par exemple, like the father of all pigs, who was first cousin to a hippopotamus. A veritable behemoth of a pig waddling about, a mountain on four legs. And yet he thought-mes amis, imagine it-he thought he was not more than a little lap-dog to be carried in a lady's sleeve-a tender bud to be nursed and fondled by delicate white hands. No one took pains to disillusion him. There were no ladies whom his terrific mass could terrify. There was, in fact, only Margot Gibaud, a widow, nearest neighbour to Papa Hilaire. She was not a woman of poetic disposition weapon as a terrier wags its tail. Greatly as Pierrot had suffered from the bees, they were as flies to the hornet-stinging he received from the broom of Madame Gibaud. or of a weakly sentimental turn of mind. She saw, shocking as this may seem, only two sides of bacon when she looked at a pig. Even such a gentleman as Pierrot took on no other appearance in her eyes. Now all unhappily, ranging far afield, Pierrot made his first raid on Madame Gibaud's little field of cabbages. Was that, mon Dieu, a thing that could be endured? She thought it was not, making no account of Pierrot's tender sensibilities. She drove him away, bearing down upon him brusquely and bela bouring him at the rear with a brushwood broom. Pierrot, naturally, greatly resented this gross indignity. Something, undoubtedly, was wrong with the world when he could not fill himself with cabbages undisturbed. Presently, thinking this over, peevishly grunting, nosing along the ground, he returned cautiously to investigate this untoward happening in the cabbage-patch. Unhappily, he had no sooner decided that the original encounter was an accident and so dropped his head to crunch the first succulent morsel than Madame Gibaud, coming up stealthily behind him, again introduced him to the broom. Pierrot fled, acknowledging disaster; no retreat but a complete rout, with the enemy in pursuit. Fast as his shortened pegs could carry him Madame Gibaud ran close behind, being by nature entitled to honours in such a race. She wagged her One may surmise that Pierrot did not hasten silently. He was scarcely less silent than Madame Gibaud, who had the added advantage of being articulate. Heard even above the shrieking lamentations of the pig, she cried to the world her definite opinions of all thievish swine, and she spoke with particular detail of the appearance, character, and habits of gentleman Pierrot. One finds no difficulty in understanding, then, why Pierrot, being thus insulted and abused, should hurry with all speed possible to refuge near his natural protector, who was happily engaged in removing hungry slugs from his cherished roses. Hélas, in speaking of this contemplative bucolic occupation it becomes pathetic, for thereafter Papa Hilaire was to know neither peace nor happiness for a long time. His trials began when Madame Gibaud arrived before him, a disreputable figure, for her hair was down, and she had cast both sabots as she ran. Be assured she was sufficiently voluble. "The pig ! she cried, pausing to get her breath. "The pig, alors-one calls him Pierrot," gravely returned Papa Hilaire. He looked at the pig, then at the woman, in perplexity. Being short-sighted |