mother rouquin.

aegidius aucupis, the erasmus of the penguins, was not mistaken; his age was an age of free inquiry. but that great man mistook the elegances of the humanists for softness of manners, and he did not foresee the effects that the awaking of intelligence would have amongst the penguins. it brought about the religious reformation; catholics massacred protestants and protestants massacred catholics. such were the first results of liberty of thought. the catholics prevailed in penguinia. but the spirit of inquiry had penetrated among them without their knowing it. they joined reason to faith, and claimed that religion had been divested of the superstitious practices that dishonoured it, just as in later days the booths that the cobblers, hucksters, and dealers in old clothes had built against the walls of the cathedrals were cleared away. the word, legend, which at first indicated what the faithful ought to read, soon suggested the idea of pious fables and childish tales.

the saints had to suffer from this state of mind. an obscure canon called princeteau, a very austere and crabbed man, designated so great a number of them as not worthy of having their days observed, that he was surnamed the exposer of the saints. he did not think, for instance, that if st. margaret’s prayer were applied as a poultice to a woman in travail that the pains of childbirth would be softened.

even the venerable patron saint of penguinia did not escape his rigid criticism. this is what he says of her in his “antiquities of alca”:

“nothing is more uncertain than the history, or even the existence, of st. orberosia. an ancient anonymous annalist, a monk of dombes, relates that a woman called orberosia was possessed by the devil in a cavern where, even down to his own days, the little boys and girls of the village used to play at a sort of game representing the devil and the fair orberosia. he adds that this woman became the concubine of a horrible dragon, who ravaged the country. such a statement is hardly credible, but the history of orberosia, as it has since been related, seems hardly more worthy of belief. the life of that saint by the abbot simplicissimus is three hundred years later than the pretended events which it relates and that author shows himself excessively credulous and devoid of all critical faculty.”

suspicion attacked even the supernatural origin of the penguins. the historian ovidius capito went so far as to deny the miracle of their transformation. he thus begins his “annals of penguinia”:

“a dense obscurity envelopes this history, and it would be no exaggeration to say that it is a tissue of puerile fables and popular tales. the penguins claim that they are descended from birds who were baptized by st. mael and whom god changed into men at the intercession of that glorious apostle. they hold that, situated at first in the frozen ocean, their island, floating like delos, was brought to anchor in these heaven-favoured seas, of which it is today the queen. i conclude that this myth is a reminiscence of the ancient migrations of the penguins.”

in the following century, which was that of the philosophers, scepticism became still more acute. no further evidence of it is needed than the following celebrated passage from the “moral essay.”

“arriving we know not from whence (for indeed their origins are not very clear), and successively invaded and conquered by four or five peoples from the north, south, east, and west, miscegenated, inter-bred, amalgamated, and commingled, the penguins boast of the purity of their race, and with justice, for they have become a pure race. this mixture of all mankind, red, black, yellow, and white, round-headed and long-headed, has formed in the course of ages a fairly homogeneous human family, and one which is recognisable by certain features due to a community of life and customs.

“this idea that they belong to the best race in the world, and that they are its finest family, inspires them with noble pride, indomitable courage, and a hatred for the human race.

“the life of a people is but a succession of miseries, crimes, and follies. this is true of the penguin nation, as of all other nations. save for this exception its history is admirable from beginning to end.”

the two classic ages of the penguins are too well-known for me to lay stress upon them. but what has not been sufficiently noticed is the way in which the rationalist theologians such as canon princeteau called into existence the unbelievers of the succeeding age. the former employed their reason to destroy what did not seem to them essential to their religion; they only left untouched the most rigid article of faith. their intellectual successors, being taught by them how to make use of science and reason, employed them against whatever beliefs remained. thus rational theology engendered natural philosophy.

that is why (if i may turn from the penguins of former days to the sovereign pontiff, who, today governs the universal church) we cannot admire too greatly the wisdom of pope pius x. in condemning the study of exegesis as contrary to revealed truth, fatal to sound theological doctrine, and deadly to the faith. those clerics who maintain the rights of science in opposition to him are pernicious doctors and pestilent teachers, and the faithful who approve of them are lacking in either mental or moral ballast.

at the end of the age of philosophers, the ancient kingdom of penguinia was utterly destroyed, the king put to death, the privileges of the nobles abolished, and a republic proclaimed in the midst of public misfortunes and while a terrible war was raging. the assembly which then governed penguinia ordered all the metal articles contained in the churches to be melted down. the patriots even desecrated the tombs of the kings. it is said that when the tomb of draco the great was opened, that king presented an appearance as black as ebony and so majestic that those who profaned his corpse fled in terror. according to other accounts, these churlish men insulted him by putting a pipe in his mouth and derisively offering him a glass of wine.

on the seventeenth day of the month of may-flowers, the shrine of st. orberosia, which had for five hundred years been exposed to the veneration of the faithful in the church of st. mael, was transported into the town-hall and submitted to the examination of a jury of experts appointed by the municipality. it was made of gilded copper in shape like the nave of a church, entirely covered with enamels and decorated with precious stones, which latter were perceived to be false. the chapter in its foresight had removed the rubies, sapphires, emeralds, and great balls of rock-crystal, and had substituted pieces of glass in their place. it contained only a little dust and a piece of old linen, which were thrown into a great fire that had been lighted on the place de greve to burn the relics of the saints. the people danced around it singing patriotic songs.

from the threshold of their booth, which leant against the town-hall, a man called rouquin and his wife were watching this group of madmen. rouquin clipped dogs and gelded cats; he also frequented the inns. his wife was a ragpicker and a bawd, but she had plenty of shrewdness.

“you see, rouquin,” said she to her man, “they are committing a sacrilege. they will repent of it.”

“you know nothing about it, wife,” answered rouquin; “they have become philosophers, and when one is once a philosopher he is a philosopher for ever.”

“i tell you, rouquin, that sooner or later they will regret what they are doing today. they ill-treat the saints because they have not helped them enough, but for all that the quails won’t fall ready cooked into their mouths. they will soon find themselves as badly off as before, and when they have put out their tongues for enough they will become pious again. sooner than people think the day will come when penguinia will again begin to honour her blessed patron. rouquin, it would be a good thing, in readiness for that day, if we kept a handful of ashes and some rags and bones in an old pot in our lodgings. we will say that they are the relics of st. orberosia and that we have saved them from the flames at the peril of our lives. i am greatly mistaken if we don’t get honour and profit out of them. that good action might be worth a place from the cure to sell tapers and hire chairs in the chapel of st. orberosia.”

on that same day mother rouquin took home with her a little ashes and some bones, and put them in an old jam-pot in her cupboard.