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
reconstructed, 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
Fouché, 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 newcomer 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.