a fair penitent(由衷的忏悔)

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A FAIR PENITENT

by WILKIE COLLINS

A FAIR PENITENT

Charles Pineau Duclos was a French writer of biographies and novels,

who lived and worked during the first half of the eighteenth century. He

prospered sufficiently well, as a literary man, to be made secretary to the

French Academy, and to be allowed to succeed Voltaire in the office of

historiographer of France. He has left behind him, in his own country,

the reputation of a lively writer of the second class, who addressed the

public of his day with fair success, and who, since his death, has not

troubled posterity to take any particular notice of him.

Among the papers left by Duclos, two manuscripts were found, which

he probably intended to turn to some literary account. The first was a

brief Memoir, written by himself, of a Frenchwoman, named

Mademoiselle Gautier, who began life as an actress and who ended it as a

Carmelite nun. The second manuscript was the lady's own account of the

process of her conversion, and of the circumstances which attended her

moral passage from the state of a sinner to the state of a saint. There are

certain national peculiarities in the character of Mademoiselle Gautier and

in the narrative of her conversion, which are perhaps interesting enough to

be reproduced with some chance of pleasing the present day.

It appears, from the account given of her by Duclos, that

Mademoiselle Gautier made her appearance on the stage of the Theatre

Francois in the year seventeen hundred and sixteen. She is described as a

handsome woman, with a fine figure, a fresh complexion, a lively

disposition, and a violent temper. Besides possessing capacity as an

actress, she could write very good verses, she was clever at painting in

miniature, and, most remarkable quality of all, she was possessed of

prodigious muscular strength. It is recorded of Mademoiselle, that she

could roll up a silver plate with her hands, and that she covered herself

with distinction in a trial of strength with no less a person than the famous

soldier, Marshal Saxe.

Nobody who is at all acquainted with the social history of the

eighteenth century in France, need be told that Mademoiselle Gautier had

a long list of lovers,--for the most part, persons of quality, marshals,

A FAIR PENITENT

counts, and so forth. The only man, however, who really attached her to

him, was an actor at the Theatre Francois, a famous player in his day,

named Quinault Dufresne. Mademoiselle Gautier seems to have loved

him with all the ardour of her naturally passionate disposition. At first,

he returned her affection; but, as soon as she ventured to test the sincerity

of his attachment by speaking of marriage, he cooled towards her

immediately, and the connection between them was broken off. In all her

former love-affairs, she had been noted for the high tone which she

adopted towards her admirers, and for the despotic authority which she

exercised over them even in her gayest moments. But the severance of

her connection with Quinault Dufresne wounded her to her heart. She

had loved the man so dearly, had made so many sacrifices for him, had

counted so fondly on the devotion of her whole future life to him, that the

first discovery of his coldness towards her broke her spirit at once and for

ever. She fell into a condition of hopeless melancholy, looked back with

remorse and horror at her past life, and abandoned the stage and the

society in which she had lived, to end her days repentantly in the character

of a Carmelite nun.

So far, her history is the history of hundreds of other women before

her time and after it. The prominent interest of her life, for the student of

human nature, lies in the story of her conversion, as told by herself. The

greater part of the narrative--every page of which is more or less

characteristic of the Frenchwoman of the eighteenth century--may be

given, with certain suppressions and abridgments, in her own words. The

reader will observe, at the outset, one curious fact. Mademoiselle

Gautier does not so much as hint at the influence which the loss of her

lover had in disposing her mind to reflect on serious subjects. She

describes her conversion as if it had taken its rise in a sudden inspiration

from Heaven. Even the name of Quinault Dufresne is not once

mentioned from one end of her narrative to the other.

On the twenty-fifth of April, seventeen hundred and twenty-two

(writes Mademoiselle Gautier), while I was still leading a life of pleasure--

according to the pernicious ideas of pleasure which pass current in the

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摘要：

AFAIRPENITENT1AFAIRPENITENTbyWILKIECOLLINSAFAIRPENITENT2CharlesPineauDucloswasaFrenchwriterofbiographiesandnovels,wholivedandworkedduringthefirsthalfoftheeighteenthcentury.Heprosperedsufficientlywell,asaliteraryman,tobemadesecretarytotheFrenchAcademy,andtobeallowedtosucceedVoltaireintheofficeofhisto...

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a fair penitent(由衷的忏悔)

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