The ERROR of a GOOD FATHER: A Tale, by M. Marmontel. 'ONE NE day, when Voltaire was ill, Some months after, M. de Vanethe fage Vativenarque, the ville appeared violently agitated: he worthy Cideville, and I, then very was not one of those men who let young, were fitting by his bed-fide. people fee what is going forward in Voltaire was speaking of Terence, of their minds; and 1, too refpectful to the beauties of his pure and natural ask him, contented myself with paying ftyle, and of the truth, but at the him greater refpect than ever. He fame time of the weakness of his pen- faw that I was not infenfible to his cil. "For inftance," said he, "that forrows, and felt the obligation, but character fo fingular, and yet fo much he did not tell me their cause. A few in nature, of a father who punishes years after he loft his other two chilhimself for having made use of too dren and his fecond wife. When I much severity to a fon, his only hope, expreffed my affliction on the occafion, whom his rigour has banished from Heaven is juft, anfwered he, with a the paternal roof; that character gloomy look. These words were folwhich he might have rendered fo af- lowed by a figh and a long filence. fecting, is totally void of ftrength." At length, he told me, that he was We read the firft fcene. Do but fee," going to quit the world, and to refaid Voltaire, "how interesting it tire to a little folitary domain, called promises to be; and yet in the fequel Flamais, in the neighbourhood of all this intereft vanishes, and Me- Neufchâtel. Our parting was forrownedemus becomes little better than a ful, and when I bade him farewell, I good, filly kind of old man." asked his permiffion to write to him, and to go and fee him fometimes. I know,' faid Cideville, in the province I belong to, a Menedemus My good friend," faid he, with of eighty years of age, who, after a melancholy gentlenefs, "I fhall having been truly wretched, is now never forget you; however, I must the most happy of mankind.' "Let beg you to leave me fome time to us hear," faid Voltaire; and Cide- myself. As foon as I fhall have reville continued thus. covered my tafte for society, it is cer tainly your's that I fhall defire. Wait till I write to you." Then embracing me, he added, "Farewell, Cideville, and never think of marrying twice." I had for my guide and pattern in my profeffion, the prefident de Vaneville, a gentleman of the long robe, ftill more celebrated for his integrity than for his abilities. I spent the best This advice, which feemed to years of my youth under his care. He efcape him in fpite of himself, had, had been a widower, had married a however, no relation to his present fecond wife, and had three children; fituation. He had had two wives, but a fon by his firft wife, whom he had he was then a widower; and it was fondly loved, and two by his fecond, particularly fince his widowhood that whom he loved more fondly ftill. I his exiftence feemed embittered. This. thought him happy in the interior of I attributed to the folitude he was rehis family; and the ferenity pictured duced to, and to the ennui of which I in his countenance kept up the illu- faw he was the prey. He fet off, and fion. But by degrees I perceived his as I was three years without hearing temper grow worfe; and foon learned from him, I thought he had forgot that he had fent his eldest fon to a me. At length, he wrote to me to distance from town, to the fchool of a come and fee him. I haftened to mafter who was well spoken of, and who was the prior of a village in the vicinity of the forest of Lyons. avail myself of the invitation, and, when I arrived, found him at the table by the fide of a young and pretty Country country girl. Oppofite him was a young villager, and a man more advanced in years, who, though plainly dreffed, ftill looked like a man of the world. As to himself, nothing in his half ruftic appearance recalled to mind my old acquaintance the prefident. Inftead of the abundant and falfe locks to which my eyes had been accustomed, I faw nothing but a bald head befprinkled with white hairs; infomuch, that I could hardly recollect him. "Come, my good friend," faid he, "come and fit down in the midft of my family, and embrace my fon and his wife. Yes, in this plain drefs you fee mademoifelle de Leonval, my daughter-in-law, and the ward of that worthy man, M. de Nelcour, my neighbour, to whom I am indebted for all the happiness of my old age. I would lay a wager that you took thefe two young people for my gardener and his wife: well, you were not mistaken; for that is their condition as well as mine: we cultivate together the garden you fhall fee presently." 6 The dinner was good, although frugal, and not unlike that of the difciples of Pythagoras: little meat, but an abundance of excellent vegetables, and wicker baskets, loaded with deFicious fruit.' "As delicious as you please," said Voltaire," but pri'thee let us get into the garden: I am impatient to hear what the old man has to fay to you." "No, no, for heaven's fake!" faid Vauvenarque; "let us ftay a moment at table with the good old man and his children: we feel fo comfortable when we fee worthy people happy." They were all three fo,' continued Cideville, each in his own way: the father like a man, whofe heart long oppreffed by forrow, has juft given way to joy; the fon like a man, who is proud of having at laft found means to make his father contented; while the young woman, with a look of equal modefty and fenfibility, congratulated herfelf on adding to the happiness of both, and enjoyed their mutual tenderness as much as the affection with which she infpired them. The afternoon's walk difperfed us about the garden, where it was eafy to perceive the eye and hand of the mater. It was the luxuriancy of nature, in all its abundance, and agreeable variety, difpofed without regard to fymmetry. The branches of the plumb-tree were interwoven with the vine; a quincunx of cherry-trees threw its fertilizing fhade on beds of ftrawberries; and fruitful efpaliers formed an inclosure round the compartments, where the golden melon ripened, and the cauliflower bloomed. "All this," said Voltaire, "with a little harmony, would be very pretty in verfe; but, my good friend, the art of relating in profe confifts in dwelling little on defcription, and in proceeding quickly to the scene." Behold me there,' faid Cideville. As foon as the rest of the party perceived that M. de Vaneville wished to be left alone with me, they retired to a distance. We then fat down in a bower of honey-fuckle, and that virtuous man, taking me by the hand, addreffed me thus: " You fee the life I lead at prefent. It is tranquil, and agreeably employed: labour, a good appetite, found fleep, a mind at eafe, a pleafing and peaceful concern in the various fcenes the feafons afford, my pains rewarded, almost every year my hopes faithfully fulfilled; and what I value above all, the chearing fight of the love and happinefs of my children; fuch are the good things heaven referved for your friend's old age. It is not the evening of a fine day, but the fairest evening after a day of the most gloomy and horrible kind. "You faw my heart a prey to affiction, the caufe of which I con cealed from you; but now, Cideville, I can at length depofit the fecret in your friendly bofom. "After having loft an amiable and affectionate wife, who left me only one fon, then in his infancy, I felt painfully the vacancy left in my heart, and 1 and the folitude of my house. Instead of having, as before, the labours of the day rewarded by the comforts of the evening, the image of filent and folitary grief that I met at home, rendered my future prospect every day more gloomy, and I began to defpair of accuftoming myself to it, when I heard mention made in the world of a girl of good difponition, and of an age at which the mind, the manners, and the temper, have generally taken their bent. She was fpoken of as a pattern of goodness and difcretion. I was defirous of being acquainted with her, and I faw, or, at least, I thought I faw, that the merited all this praife. I married her, and fhe was all that I had hoped, till the moment the became a mother; or rather the was always the fame to me till the moment of her death. It was only in regard to the fon of my first wife, and unknown to me, that her difpofition changed, and that the excess of maternal love swallowed up every other fentiment. "In the early days of our marriage, I had seen her fondle my fon with almost as much tenderness as if he had been her own, and when the altered, she made use of so much address in hiding the averfion fhe had conceived for the boy, that I never perceived it. Entirely taken up with the functions of my office, you know how little I was at liberty to attend to the education of my children. I left the care of it to my wife, who made it her fole occupation: thofe that he employed under her were entirely at her command; fo that, even when I confulted them, I only knew what the chose I should know, or withed me to believe. "Her deep and fecret chagrin was the idea, that the child of my first wife had the fame right as her's in the divifion of my fortune. He was in her eyes a stranger who came to rob them of their property. You will eafily conceive what my fon fuffered in his early years from this ave: fion. At that age man is endowed with a very lively fenfe of natural equity; and my fon foon felt that he was unjuftly treated." "I have remarked it," faid Voltaire, "a child when justly punished, submits without murmur; he has pronounced judgment on himself; when he is ftubborn, it is because he has not deferved the chaftisement he undergoes.' "There is then," faid Vauvenarque, with his foft voice, "a primitive law engraved at the bottom of the heart; and who is the engraver?" "The fame," faid Voltaire," as the maker of the great time-keeper, of which Newton difcovered the balance and the fpring. But let us get on; for I am in love with this old man, and he is waiting for us." "I perceived," continued M. de Vaneville," that my fon's temper was altered. Sadnefs, distrust, and I know not what kind of gloomy timidity were pictured upon his countenance. As the care of business were also habitually impreffed in mine, my child never faw in me that look of fondness, nor met that kind and tender reception, that announces the eafy and indulgent father, and would have given him courage. Under the name of refpect, care was taken to inspire him with a dread of me, that ftified his complaints. Thus flighted, chaftifed feverely, and on every frivolous pretence; jealous above all of the preference hewn to his brothers, and comparing in his little wounded heart, the complaisance they experienced with the rigorous treatment he had to fuffer; he became from day to day more fad and peevish. I compleated the fouring of his temper by cruel reproof. He thought himfelf flighted by me; he thought himself hated by his father; and nature thus lofing her last hope and her laft confolation, he fell into a state of ftupid defpondency, that was taken for an obftinate determination to apply to nothing. "I fometimes reafoned with him but in a harsh unpleafant manner; I fcolded him, and while he liftened to me, I faw the tears ftanding in his eyes, " eyes, which my lips, wretched father that I was, ought fometimes at least to have dried! but I attributed his filence, which was that of defpair, to a hardened and stubborn disposition. Alas! the hardnefs was all on my fide. At laft I fent him out of my fight, and then it was that he became indeed untoward. Poor boy! what flights was he obliged to fuffer and put up with! "His nurfe's arms were his only afylum; and when fhe came to fee him, he threw himself headlong into them, and bathed her bofom with his tears. "O my good nurfe! O my only mother!" would he fay, fobbing aloud, "I have nobody but you in the world; you alone have pity on me; but why did you fuckle me? Why did my own mother, my mother, alas! that I have loft, why did the bring me into the world? Why did not both of you fmother me in my cradle? Poor orphan that I am! for what elfe am I? I am deftitute of both father and mother. There is no more a father for me; a ftep-mother has hardened his heart again a fon that is not hers." His nurse used to burft into tears, kiss him, and give him the beft confolation her tendernefs could fuggeft; but nothing could appease him; and to complete her cruelty, my wife having been apprized of the forrowful fcenes that paffed between my fon, and his nurse Juliana, and foreseeing that he would perhaps inform me of them, forbade her the house. 66 My fon heard it. He was then twelve years old, and his passions had acquired ftrength. He broke out, for the first time, into violent reproaches against his mother-in-law, and, told her, that out of respect for me he had endured all her oth injuftice; but to envy him his last and y confolation, to prevent his feeing his nurse, that not even the fhadow of a mother might remain, was a trait of barbarity of which none but a stepmother could be capable, and that fince she was no better than a fury to upon him, he was determined to get out of "You will take it for granted, that the abuse was the only part of these complaints that came to my ears. A step-mother, a fury, an unnatural father;-"See," faid my wife, "fee how at twelve years old, he speaks of you and me. I afflict you, and I am grieved myself to fee fuch a dif pofition in a child. But nature in fo tender an age is not perhaps inflexible. I have heard of a worthy man in a priory, near the foreft of Lyons, who takes children to board with him, and brings them up with the greatest care. He has above all the gift of correcting their difpofition, rendering the most stubborn tempers gentle and fimple." She then mentioned feveral inftances, and feeing me overwhelmed; "There is no help for it," faid she, "it is an evil whence good may fpring. Your fon's mind announces a great deal of energy; but it must be mastered, if you do not wish to fee his fiery temper lead him to commit the most dreadful exceffes." "What could I oppofe to this advice, perfuaded as I was that my fon's violence was natural to him. I confented to his leaving the house, which he himself seemed to defire. A village, a folitude in the heart of a foreft, nothing feemed to shake his refolution. "The day of his departure, when he came to take leave of me, he advanced with a ferious and steady air that would have furprifed me in a man. "Go, fon," faid I, "go and learn to govern your temper, and come back fome time hence with more docility and moderation. Give me a kifs, and bid me farewell."— It was at this moment that his poor heart was bursting. Instead of throwing himself into my arms, he fell at my feet, and took my hand. Ah! my good friend, I think I ftill feel upon this |