The Man of Forty Crowns/Chapter IX
CHAPTER IX.
A GREAT QUARREL.
During the stay of Mr. Andrew at Paris there happened a very important quarrel. The point was to decide whether Marcus Antoninus was an honest man and whether he was in hell or in purgatory, or in limbo, waiting till the day of resurrection. All the men of sense took the part of Marcus Antoninus. They said: "Antoninus has been always just, temperate, chaste, and beneficent. It is true, he has not so good a place in paradise as St. Anthony, for proportions ought to be observed, as has been before recommended. But certainly the soul of Antoninus is not roasting on a spit in hell. If he is in purgatory, he ought to be delivered out of it; there need only be masses said for him. Let the Jesuits, who have no longer anything to do, say three thousand masses for the repose of the soul of Marcus Antoninus. Putting each mass at fifteen pence, they will get two thousand two hundred and fifty livres by it. Besides, some respect is owing to a crowned head. He should not be lightly damned.
The party opposed to these good people pretended, on the contrary, that no compounding for salvation ought to be allowed to Marcus Antoninus; that he was a heretic; that the Carpocratians and the Alogi were not so bad as he; that he had died without confession; that it was necessary to make an example; that it was right to damn him, if but to teach better manners to the emperors of China and Japan—to those of Persia, Turkey, and Morocco—to the kings of England, Sweden, Denmark, and Prussia—to the stadtholder of Holland—to the avoyers of the Canton at Berne, who no more go to confession than did the Emperor Marcus Antoninus; that, in short, there is an unspeakable pleasure in passing sentence against a dead sovereign, which one could not fulminate against him in his lifetime, for fear of losing one's ears.
This quarrel became as furious as was formerly that of the Ursulines and the Annonciades. . . . In short, it was feared that it would come to a schism, as in the time of the hundred and one Mother Goose's tales, and of certain bills payable to the bearer in the other world. To be sure, a schism is something very terrible. The meaning of the word is a division in opinion, and till this fatal moment all men had been agreed to think the same thing.
Mr. Andrew, who was an excellent member of society, invited the chiefs of the two parties to sup with him. He is one of the best companions that we have. His humor is gentle and lively; his gayety is not noisy; he is open, frank, and easy. He has not that sort of wit which seems to aim at stifling that of others. The authority which he conciliates to himself is due to nothing but his graceful manner, to his moderation, and to a round, good-natured face, which is quite persuasive. He could have brought to sup cheerfully together a Corsican and a Genoese—a representative of Geneva and a negative man—the mufti and an archbishop. He managed so dextrously as to make the first stroke that the disputants of both parties aimed at each other fall to the ground, by turning off the discourse and by telling a very diverting tale, which pleased equally the damning and the damned. In short, when they had got a little good-humored and elevated with wine, he made them sign an agreement that the soul of Marcus Antoninus should remain in statu quo—that is to say, nobody knows where—till the day of final judgment.
The souls of the doctors of divinity returned quietly to their limbos after supper, and all was calm. This adjustment of the quarrel did great honor to the Man of Forty Crowns; and, since then, whenever any very peevish virulent dispute arose among men of letters, or among men not of letters, the advice given was, "Gentlemen, go and sup at Master Andrew's!"