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_ He was a man about fifty years of age, who had a preoccupied air,
and who was good. That was all that could be said about him.
Thanks to the rapid progress of the industry which he had so
admirably re-constructed, M. sur M. had become a rather important
centre of trade. Spain, which consumes a good deal of black jet,
made enormous purchases there each year. M. sur M. almost rivalled
London and Berlin in this branch of commerce. Father Madeleine's
profits were such, that at the end of the second year he was able
to erect a large factory, in which there were two vast workrooms,
one for the men, and the other for women. Any one who was hungry
could present himself there, and was sure of finding employment
and bread. Father Madeleine required of the men good will,
of the women pure morals, and of all, probity. He had separated
the work-rooms in order to separate the sexes, and so that the women
and girls might remain discreet. On this point he was inflexible.
It was the only thing in which he was in a manner intolerant.
He was all the more firmly set on this severity, since M. sur M.,
being a garrison town, opportunities for corruption abounded.
However, his coming had been a boon, and his presence was a godsend.
Before Father Madeleine's arrival, everything had languished
in the country; now everything lived with a healthy life of toil.
A strong circulation warmed everything and penetrated everywhere.
Slack seasons and wretchedness were unknown. There was no pocket so
obscure that it had not a little money in it; no dwelling so lowly that
there was not some little joy within it.
Father Madeleine gave employment to every one. He exacted
but one thing: Be an honest man. Be an honest woman.
As we have said, in the midst of this activity of which he was the
cause and the pivot, Father Madeleine made his fortune; but a singular
thing in a simple man of business, it did not seem as though that
were his chief care. He appeared to be thinking much of others,
and little of himself. In 1820 he was known to have a sum of six
hundred and thirty thousand francs lodged in his name with Laffitte;
but before reserving these six hundred and thirty thousand francs,
he had spent more than a million for the town and its poor.
The hospital was badly endowed; he founded six beds there. M. sur
M. is divided into the upper and the lower town. The lower town,
in which he lived, had but one school, a miserable hovel, which was
falling to ruin: he constructed two, one for girls, the other for boys.
He allotted a salary from his own funds to the two instructors,
a salary twice as large as their meagre official salary, and one
day he said to some one who expressed surprise, "The two prime
functionaries of the state are the nurse and the schoolmaster."
He created at his own expense an infant school, a thing then almost
unknown in France, and a fund for aiding old and infirm workmen.
As his factory was a centre, a new quarter, in which there were a good
many indigent families, rose rapidly around him; he established there
a free dispensary.
At first, when they watched his beginnings, the good souls said,
"He's a jolly fellow who means to get rich." When they saw him
enriching the country before he enriched himself, the good souls said,
"He is an ambitious man." This seemed all the more probable
since the man was religious, and even practised his religion
to a certain degree, a thing which was very favorably viewed
at that epoch. He went regularly to low mass every Sunday.
The local deputy, who nosed out all rivalry everywhere, soon began
to grow uneasy over this religion. This deputy had been a member
of the legislative body of the Empire, and shared the religious
ideas of a father of the Oratoire, known under the name of Fouche,
Duc d'Otrante, whose creature and friend he had been. He indulged
in gentle raillery at God with closed doors. But when he beheld
the wealthy manufacturer Madeleine going to low mass at seven o'clock,
he perceived in him a possible candidate, and resolved to outdo him;
he took a Jesuit confessor, and went to high mass and to vespers.
Ambition was at that time, in the direct acceptation of the word,
a race to the steeple. The poor profited by this terror as well
as the good God, for the honorable deputy also founded two beds in
the hospital, which made twelve.
Nevertheless, in 1819 a rumor one morning circulated through the
town to the effect that, on the representations of the prefect
and in consideration of the services rendered by him to the country,
Father Madeleine was to be appointed by the King, mayor of M. sur
M. Those who had pronounced this new-comer to be "an ambitious fellow,"
seized with delight on this opportunity which all men desire,
to exclaim, "There! what did we say!" All M. sur M. was in an uproar.
The rumor was well founded. Several days later the appointment appeared
in the Moniteur. On the following day Father Madeleine refused.
In this same year of 1819 the products of the new process invented
by Madeleine figured in the industrial exhibition; when the jury
made their report, the King appointed the inventor a chevalier
of the Legion of Honor. A fresh excitement in the little town.
Well, so it was the cross that he wanted! Father Madeleine refused
the cross.
Decidedly this man was an enigma. The good souls got out of their
predicament by saying, "After all, he is some sort of an adventurer."
We have seen that the country owed much to him; the poor owed
him everything; he was so useful and he was so gentle that people had been
obliged to honor and respect him. His workmen, in particular, adored him,
and he endured this adoration with a sort of melancholy gravity.
When he was known to be rich, "people in society" bowed to him,
and he received invitations in the town; he was called, in town,
Monsieur Madeleine; his workmen and the children continued to call him
Father Madeleine, and that was what was most adapted to make him smile.
In proportion as he mounted, throve, invitations rained down upon him.
"Society" claimed him for its own. The prim little drawing-rooms on
M. sur M., which, of course, had at first been closed to the artisan,
opened both leaves of their folding-doors to the millionnaire.
They made a thousand advances to him. He refused.
This time the good gossips had no trouble. "He is an ignorant man,
of no education. No one knows where he came from. He would not
know how to behave in society. It has not been absolutely proved
that he knows how to read."
When they saw him making money, they said, "He is a man of business."
When they saw him scattering his money about, they said, "He is
an ambitious man." When he was seen to decline honors, they said,
"He is an adventurer." When they saw him repulse society, they said,
"He is a brute."
In 1820, five years after his arrival in M. sur M., the services
which he had rendered to the district were so dazzling, the opinion
of the whole country round about was so unanimous, that the King
again appointed him mayor of the town. He again declined;
but the prefect resisted his refusal, all the notabilities of the
place came to implore him, the people in the street besought him;
the urging was so vigorous that he ended by accepting.
It was noticed that the thing which seemed chiefly to bring him
to a decision was the almost irritated apostrophe addressed to him
by an old woman of the people, who called to him from her threshold,
in an angry way: "A good mayor is a useful thing. Is he drawing
back before the good which he can do?"
This was the third phase of his ascent. Father Madeleine had become
Monsieur Madeleine. Monsieur Madeleine became Monsieur le Maire. _
Read next: VOLUME I - FANTINE: BOOK FIFTH - THE DESCENT: CHAPTER III. Sums deposited with Laffitte
Read previous: VOLUME I - FANTINE: BOOK FIFTH - THE DESCENT: CHAPTER I. The History of a Progress in Black Glass Trinkets
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