The old officer, the old curé, and the old doctor, happy in Ursule’s caresses and caprices, were never tired of answering her or playing with her. Her childish petulance, far from fretting them, was their delight; and they indulged all her desires, while making everything a subject of instruction. Thus the little girl grew up in the midst of old men, who smiled on her, and were to her like so many mothers, all equally attentive and watchful. Thanks to this learned education, Ursule’s soul developed in a congenial sphere. This rare plant found the soil that suited it, inhaled the elements of its true life, and assimilated the food of its native sunshine.
“In what faith will you bring this child up?” asked the Abbé Chaperon of Minoret, when Ursule was six years old.
“In yours,” replied the doctor.
He, an atheist after the pattern of Monsieur de Wolmar in the Nouvelle Héloïse, did not see that he had any right to deprive Ursule of the benefits offered by the Catholic faith.
The physician, just then sitting on a bench outside the window of the Chinese summerhouse, felt his hand warmly pressed by that of the curé.
“Yes, Curé, whenever she asks me about God, I shall refer her to her friend ‘Sapron,’ ” said he, mimicking Ursule’s baby accent. “I wish to see whether religious feeling is innate. So far, therefore, I have done nothing either for or against the tendencies of this young soul; but I have already, in my heart, appointed you her spiritual director.”
“It will be accounted to you by God, I trust!” said the curé, gently patting his hands together, and raising them to heaven, as though he were putting up a short mental prayer.
So, at the age of six, the little orphan came under the religious influence of the curé, as she had already under that of her old friend Jordy.
The captain, formerly a professor in one of the old military schools, and interested in grammar and the divergencies of European tongues, had studied the problem of an universal language. This learned man, patient as all old teachers are, made it his pleasure to teach Ursule to read and write, instructing her in French, and in so much arithmetic as it was needful that she should know. The doctor’s extensive library allowed of a choice of books fit to be read by a child, and adapted to amuse as well as to instruct her. The soldier and the priest left her mind to develop naturally and easily, as the doctor left her body. Ursule learned in play. Religion included reflection.
Thus left to the Divine culture of a nature guided by these three judicious teachers into a realm of purity, Ursule tended towards feeling rather than duty, and took as her rule of life the voice of conscience rather than social law. In her, beauty of sentiment and action would always be spontaneous; her judgment would come in to confirm the impulse of her heart. She was fated to do right as a pleasure before doing it as an obligation. This tone is the peculiar result of a Christian education. These principles, quite unlike those to be inculcated in a man, are suited to a woman, the soul and conscience of the family, the latent elegance of home life, the queen, or little less, of the household.
They all three acted in the same manner with this child. Far from being startled by the audacity of childish innocence, they explained to Ursule the purpose of things and their known processes, without ever giving her an inaccurate impression. When in her questioning about a plant, a flower, or a star, she went directly to God, the professor and the doctor alike told her that only the curé could answer her. Neither of them intruded on the ground of the other. Her godfather took charge of her physical progress and the matters of daily life; her lessons were Jordy’s affair; morality, metaphysics, and all higher matters were left to the curé.
This excellent education was not counteracted by bad servants, as is sometimes the case in wealthier houses. La Bougival, well lectured on the subject—and, indeed, far too simple in mind and nature to interfere—did nothing to mar the work of these great spirits.
Thus Ursule, a privileged creature, had to nurture her three good genii, who found their task easy and pleasant with so sweet a nature as hers. This manly tenderness, this seriousness tempered by smiles, this freedom without risk, this incessant care of mind and body, had made her, at the age of nine, a delightful and lovely child. Then, unfortunately, the fatherly trio was broken up. In the following year the old captain died, leaving it to the doctor and the curé to carry on his work, after he had achieved the most difficult part of it. Flowers would spring up naturally in a soil so well prepared. The good gentleman had, during these nine years, saved a thousand francs a year, and left ten thousand francs to his little Ursule, that she might have something to remember him by all her life through. In his will, full of pathetic feeling, he begged his legatee to spend the four or five hundred francs a year of interest on this little capital exclusively on dress.
When the Justice placed seals on his old friend’s possessions, he found, in a closet which no one had ever been allowed to enter, a quantity of toys, most of them broken, and all used; toys of the past, piously treasured, which Monsieur Bongrand himself was to burn, by the poor captain’s desire.
Not long after this, Ursule was to take her first
