Beneficence is a virtue: no one will deny it. But let no one deny, either, that there are benefactors maleficent in the extreme, through the stupidity of their benefactions.

In the distant days of my youth there flourished in the Woodland of the VendÉe a highly respected couple, who during a period of fifty years wearied three cantons with their "kindness."

These excellent people were, of course, possessed of great wealth, for in order to pester one's fellowman with generosity one must have received the means for it from heaven. They were, on top of that, pious, again as a matter of course, for the preacher's promise of eternal reward has killed in man the beautiful disinterestedness that is the fine flower of charity.

The Baron de GrillÈres was a small noble of large fortune. Formerly a member of the body guard of Charles X, he had little care for "Divine Right" or a return to the splendours of the old rÉgime, as he proved by accepting a captaincy in the militia called out by Louis Philippe to crush the royalist attempt at an uprising in the VendÉe, in which the Duchesse de Berry so miserably failed. I have seen in the Baron's study a shining panoply in which his epaulettes of a royal guardsman eloquently fraternized with his collar piece of a captain of the National Guard in arms against the King. In the centre were two crossed swords, one of them formerly worn in the service of the legitimate sovereign anointed at Rheims, the other drawn from its scabbard against that same legitimacy, to uphold the rights of the usurper.

It is certain that the excellent soldier had never perceived anything contradictory in these two manifestations of a martial spirit. He had consistently upheld established order, that is to say, the rÉgime which assured him the peaceful enjoyment of his property, and the logic of his conduct seemed to him unquestionable, for what in the world could be more sacred than that which promoted the quietness of his life? Totally uneducated, barely able to write his name, he was never troubled by any longings after learning. The Church answered for everything; he referred everything to the Church. This principle has the great advantage of dispensing one from any effort to think for himself.

The Baroness, of middle-class origin, and doubtless for that reason very proud of the three gates on her escutcheon, lived solely, as she was pleased to say, "for the glory of God." Divinity, according to this simple soul, needed the Baroness de GrillÈres in order to attain the fullness of glory. It is a common idea among believers that the Creator of the Universe is open to receiving from His creatures pleasant or unpleasant impressions, just as we are from our fellow-beings. These estimable people are convinced that the Good Lord of All is pleased or angered accordingly as they act thus or so. They hold Providence in such small esteem as to believe that It needs defending by those same human beings whom It could with a gesture reduce to the original dust. Do we not often hear it said that such and such a minister or party is bent on "driving out God" from somewhere or other, and that they would in all likelihood succeed but for some paladin, ecclesiastical or military, stepping in to defend the Supreme Being, unequal, apparently, to defending Himself? This Baroness of the VendÉe, dwelling in perpetual colloquy with the Eternal, either directly or through the mediation of the divine functionaries delegated for that purpose, had taken as her special mission to "contribute to the Glory of God." In some nebulous way it seemed to her that if she gave an example of all the virtues, the Sovereign Artificer, like Vaucanson, delighted with himself on account of his famous mechanical duck, would be puffed up with pride at His success in producing so perfect a human specimen, and that the admiration of the world for the genius capable of such a masterpiece would deliciously tickle the conceit of the Almighty. One might attribute to the Master of the Infinite less human causes of satisfaction. But, might one say, what matter, if this rather earthly view of Divinity incited the devout Baroness to the practice of the virtues?

"The virtues," when one has an income of 80,000 francs, and no personal tastes, no passion of mind or heart to satisfy, do not seem beyond human reach. For "the glory of God" the Baroness de GrillÈres was in life as chaste as an iceberg, and at death bequeathed her wealth to the rich.

God, the Holy Virgin, and the Saints bid us to give. More especially, they are pleased if we give first of all to the Church. Chapels sprang up in the Baroness's footprints. After a consultation with her spiritual adviser, she had dedicated her husband to Saint Joseph. The Saint and the Baron exchanged a thousand amenities. The one received statues and prayers, the other, the highest example of resignation. Wherever two avenues crossed in the park, stood a group of the Holy Family, with an inscription showing that the Baron and Baroness de GrillÈres aspired to linking their names in the public memory with those of the pair conspicuous for the greatest miracle known on earth.

Upon every religious establishment in the surrounding country successively were bestowed sums of money, in exchange for which the pious donors desired nothing but a marble tablet, placed well in view, whereon was published in golden letters that Christian charity in connection with which the Master has said that the right hand must not know what is done by the left. Of course, the presence of the poor, the sick, and the infirm, in an institution conducted by some congregation, did not actually constitute a reason in the minds of the Baron and Baroness for withholding their gifts. They considered, however, that direct service to God and the Saints must be given precedence, for the heavenly powers were the ones who dispensed rewards; it might, moreover, be feared that there was a sort of impiety in thwarting the unfathomable designs of Providence, by attempting to alleviate the trials It had seen fit to impose upon human beings.

When the mayor of La Fougeraie, a notorious Free Mason, headed a subscription for setting up a public fountain in the village square, the lord and lady of the chÂteau refused to contribute, but immediately devoted 2,000 francs to purchasing a holy water font of Carrara marble, on which might be seen a flight of angels carrying heavenward the escutcheon with the three gates.

As for the poor who did not shrink from personally soliciting alms, the Baron and Baroness alike held them in profound contempt. In the history of every wretched beggar there invariably turned out to be some fault in conduct making him unworthy of charity. One of them had got drunk last Sunday at the tavern, one was accused of stealing potatoes, another had been mixed up in a brawl at the village festival. How could disorderly living of this sort lead to anything but mendicancy? "You ought to go to work, my good man," they would say. "Look for employment. Do you so much as go to mass? Do you keep Lent? Go and see the curÉ. It is to him we give our alms, for the whole countryside knows we keep nothing for ourselves of what the Good God has given us. It is not to the deceitful riches of this earth that we must cling, my poor friend; for heavenly things only must we strive. Go and see the curÉ, he is so kind. He will know how to minister to the needs of your soul."

Sometimes the gift of a little brass medal with the image of Saint Joseph or the Virgin Mary would accompany this homily, and the beggar, however hardened in his evil ways, would depart with humble salutations and a melancholy thankfulness.

It is true that vice deserves hate, but can it be denied that certain aspects of virtue are utterly hateful? Vice, not unlikely to bring about humility and repentance, is sometimes capable of generous actions without hope of reward. The selfish goodness of calculating virtue sees in Christian charity the opening of a bank account with the Creator, and while making lavish gifts, forfeits the merit of giving, by the avowed exaction of a profit immeasurably greater than the amount paid. The Baron and Baroness de GrillÈres basked in the delight of hearing themselves praised from the pulpit. No flattering hyperbole seemed to them excessive, for, as they sowed money on all sides, they looked for a great harvest of splendidly ostentatious veneration. All they lacked in order to be loved was that they should first love a little.

Of family life they never knew anything but the companionship of two egoisms, both fiercely straining toward an incomprehensible future felicity, to be earned by the application of a language of love, in which was wrapped their lust of eternity. They had for incidental diversion the base adulation of poor relations, whose mean calculations did not, however, escape them. But the habit of hearing, at every step, every conceivable virtue attributed to them, was an agreeable one, and although they knew that money counted for something in the outpouring of eulogistic superlatives of which they were the objects, they lent themselves easily to the sweet belief that they did, in fact, achieve prodigies of kindness every hour of their lives. No need to say that they never made a gift of three shirts or a pair of shoes to a grand nephew without the fact being trumpeted abroad.

A delightful game, for the Baroness, was distributing legacies among her relatives. Not a piece of furniture, of jewellery, or of silver, did she possess, not a single object of commonest use, that she had not in theory and in anticipation given to some one of her heirs. She would open a wardrobe and show the happy prospective owner a label posted on the inside of the door: "I bequeathe this piece of furniture, which came to me from my dear Mamma, to my good little cousin Mary, whom I love with all my heart." Picture the embraces, the ensuing effusions of tenderness! Further on, the corner of a bit of paper would stick out from under the pedestal of a clock. "I bequeathe this clock, which was the property of my beloved Grandmother, to my grandnephew, Charles, who will pray for his good aunt." With what ecstasy little grandnephew Charles, led with much mystery to the spot, would with his own eyes read the text naming him possessor of the treasure! No member of the family was without his allotted share.

Only, the capricious Baroness, whom it was very easy to annoy, was perpetually taking offence. For a delayed letter, for thanks which seemed insufficient tribute to her generosity, she would declare that Mary or Charles no longer loved her, and as she looked upon affection merely as a marketable commodity, the little slips of paper referring to heirship were immediately replaced by others. Mary's wardrobe would fall to Selina. Charles's clock would leap into John's inheritance, who would be apprised of the fact in deep secret, until presently, for some unconscious fault, the clock would be temporarily bestowed upon Alphonse, and the wardrobe upon Rose. Variable book-keeping, which kindled among relatives inextinguishable hatreds. But the Baroness' masterpiece was the marriage between John and Rose.

John was an overseer of highway and bridge construction. He loved his cousin Mary, who contributed by her needlework to the slender family earnings. The young people had been betrothed six months, when one fine day, without any known reason, the Baroness declared that Rose was the one for John, and John exactly suited to Rose. Great commotion. The fear of being disinherited kept every one concerned in subjection to the "dearly beloved Aunt." Mary, desperately weeping, was preached into promising to enter a convent, the Baroness paying her dowry; this for the dear sake of John, whose name she might unite in her prayers with that of the Providential Aunt, who mercifully opened the way of salvation to her. John, alas, was more easily persuaded than she, when he learned that he and Rose together would be chief heirs; and Rose, who had ideas of grandeur, and dreamt of nothing less than going on to the stage, lent herself with her whole heart to the comedy of love fatly remunerative. John was invited to give up his work and "live like a gentleman," and Rose's natural tendencies coÖperating, the young couple, loaded down with gifts of sounding specie, spread themselves gloriously, under the happy eyes of the Baroness, in every description of silly extravagance.

The Baron died of an attack of gout, a disease unknown to clodhoppers. His wealth passed to his wife. Rose and John had received on their marriage an income of only 10,000 francs, but they had the formal promise of the entire inheritance. Unfortunately, a week before her death, the Baroness was shocked by "a lack of regard" on Rose's part, which consisted in not having evinced a sufficiently vociferous despair at the recital of her Aunt's sufferings! By a will made in her last moments everything was bequeathed to the Church, in payment for numberless ceremonies whereby the utmost of celestial bliss was to be secured for the dying woman.

Rose and John, after a torrent of invectives, left that part of the country. An income of 10,000 francs signified poverty for them. They fled to Paris, where in less than a year John lost down to his last penny in speculations. After that they went their respective ways, Rose to sing in a cafÉ-concert of the Faubourg St. Martin, John to take employment with a booking agency for the races. He has as yet only been sentenced to one month's imprisonment for a swindling card-game.

Admirable results of an Evil Beneficence!