And then that doughty swordsman, Monsieur Le Truc de Ruffec, also came to see the old antiquary on one occasion, and acquainted him with a plan he had on foot. Monsieur Le Truc de Ruffec was getting up a little historical exhibition of small arms at the Petit Palais in aid of the fund for the education of the native children in Morocco and wanted Père Guinardon to lend him a few of the most valuable articles in his collection.
“Our first idea,” he said, “was to organise an exhibition to be called ‘The Cross and the Sword.’ The juxtaposition of the two words will make the idea which has prompted our undertaking sufficiently clear to you. It was an idea preeminently patriotic and Christian which led us to associate the Sword, which is the symbol of Honour, with the Cross, which is the symbol of Salvation. It was hoped that our work would be graced by the distinguished patronage of the Minister of War and Monseigneur Cachepot. Unfortunately there were difficulties in the way, and the full realisation of the project had to be deferred. In the meantime we are limiting our exhibition to ‘The Sword.’ I have drawn up an explanatory note indicating the significance of the demonstration.”
Having delivered himself of these remarks, Monsieur Le Truc de Ruffec produced a pocket-case stuffed full of papers. Picking out from a medley of judgment summonses and other odds and ends a little piece of very crumpled paper, he exclaimed, “Ah, here it is,” and proceeded to read as follows: “ ‘The Sword is a fierce Virgin; it is par excellence the Frenchman’s weapon. And now, when patriotic sentiment, after suffering an all too protracted eclipse, is beginning to shine forth again more ardently than ever …’ and so forth; you see?”
And he repeated his request for some really fine specimen to be placed in the most conspicuous position in the exhibition to be held on behalf of the little native children of Morocco, of which General d’Esparvieu was to be honorary President.
Arms and armour were by no means Père Guinardon’s strong point. He dealt principally in pictures, drawings, and books. But he was never to be taken unawares. He took down a rapier with a gilt colander-shaped hilt, a highly typical piece of workmanship of the Louis XIII–Napoleon III period, and presented it to the exhibition pro moter, who, while contemplating it with respect, maintained a diplomatic silence.
“I have something better still in here,” said the antiquary, and he produced from his inner shop—where it had been lying among the walking-sticks and umbrellas—a real demon of a sword, adorned with fleurs-de-lys, a genuine royal relic. It was the sword of Philippe-Auguste as worn by an actor at the Odéon when Agnès de Méranie was being performed in 1846. Guinardon held it point downwards, as though it were a cross, clasping his hands piously on the crossbar. He looked as loyal as the sword itself.
“Have her for your exhibition,” said he. “The damsel is well worth it. Bouvines is her name.”
“If I find a buyer for it,” said Monsieur Le True de Ruffec, twirling his enormous moustachios, “I suppose you will allow me a little commission?”
Some days later, Père Guinardon was mysteriously displaying a picture to the Comte Desmaisons and Monsieur Blancmesnil. It was a newly discovered work of El Greco, an amazingly fine example of the Master’s later style. It represented a Saint Francis of Assisi standing erect upon Mont Alverno. He was mounting heavenward like a column of smoke, and was plunging into the regions of the clouds a monstrously narrow head that the distance rendered smaller still. In fine it was a real, very real, nay, too real El Greco. The two collectors were attentively scrutinizing the work, while Père Guinardon was belauding the depth of the shadows and the sublimity of the expression. He was raising his arms aloft to convey an idea of the greatness of Theotocopuli, who derived from Tintoretto, whom, however, he surpassed in loftiness by a hundred cubits.
“He was chaste and pure and strong; a mystic, a visionary.”
Comte Desmaisons declared that El Greco was his favourite painter. In his inmost heart Blancmesnil was not so entirely struck with it.
The door opened, and Monsieur Gaétan quite unexpectedly appeared on the scene.
He gave a glance at the Saint Francis, and said:
“Bless my soul!”
Monsieur Blancmesnil, anxious to improve his knowledge, asked him what he thought of this artist who was now so much in vogue. Gaétan replied, glibly enough, that he did not regard El Greco as the eccentric, the madman that people used to take him for. It was rather his opinion that a defect of vision from which Theotocopuli suffered compelled him to deform his figures.
“Being afflicted with astigmatism and strabismus,” Gaétan went on, “he painted the things he saw exactly as he used to see them.”
Comte Desmaisons was not readily disposed to accept so natural an explanation, which, however, by its very simplicity, highly commended itself to Monsieur Blancmesnil.
Père Guinardon, quite beside himself, exclaimed:
“Are you going to tell me, Monsieur d’Esparvieu, that Saint John was astigmatic because he beheld a woman clothed with the sun, crowned with stars, with the moon about her feet; the Beast with seven heads and ten horns, and the seven angels robed in white linen that bore the seven cups filled with the wrath of the Living God?”
“After all,” said Monsieur Gaétan, by way of conclusion, “people are right in admiring El Greco if he had genius enough to impose his morbidity of vision upon them. By the same token, the contortions to which he subjects the human countenance may give satisfaction to those who love suffering—a class more numerous than is generally supposed.”
“Monsieur,” replied the Comte Desmaisons, stroking his luxuriant beard with his long, thin hand, “we must love those that love us. Suffering loves us and attaches itself to us. We must love it if life is to be supportable to us.
