The Dedalus Book of French Horror: The 19th Century (7 page)

Captain Dufour, commander of the square-rigged three-master
La Comtesse de Cérigny
, required only another passenger or two to enable him to set sail from Le Havre for his destination. The first leg of his journey would take him to the South Seas where he would sell his merchandise; then he would charge his vessel at the Spice Islands, returning home via the Cape of Good Hope; in all, it was almost a round-the-world voyage.

One morning his cabin-boy announced there was a gentleman to see him.

‘What sort of gentleman, boy?’

‘A sickly-looking fellow in a tail coat.’

‘Show in the sickly-looking fellow.’

The sickly-looking fellow came in: it was Belissan.

‘I believe your vessel is due to depart any moment now, captain.’

‘Yes, I require only one more passenger. I hope that passenger will prove to be your good self,’ replied the captain with bonhomie.

‘It is quite possible,’ said Belissan, ‘provided you can set me down at an island.’

‘Which island did you have in mind?’

‘Any island, captain, I am not particular – provided that it is wild and deserted; and provided that I shall not encounter there any lords, footmen, Danish horses or girls who break their promises. An island,’ Belissan continued in an increasingly excited manner, ‘where equality is proclaimed as a fundamental right; a wild and deserted island where I can experience at my leisure the greatest gift granted to mankind; an island where…’

‘If I may interrupt you for a moment,’ said Captain Dufour, who was by now firmly convinced that he was dealing with a lunatic, ‘are you quite serious about this?’

‘Do I look as if I am splitting my side with laughter,’ mumbled Belissan.

‘Then I regret to inform you, sir, that it is impossible for me to take charge of you. I am destined for Callao, in the South Seas, then I return via the Indian Ocean. Wait a second though, you wouldn’t want to be disembarked at Tahiti by any chance, would you? We could easily set you ashore there.’

Tahiti! The latest discovery of Bougainville,
¹
the Cytherea of the New World! Yes, yes! Set me ashore at Tahiti – that generous and youthful nation! I won’t find a single footman or a marquis or a Danish horse on the entire island; my existence will be as pure and calm as a mountain stream; sun, flowers, enough trees for everyone, nature in its most primitive and goodly expression, without social differences; we shall all be brothers and sisters. Yes, let it be Tahiti! I renounce my European citizenship: corrupted, stunted by civilisation, I will return to my natural state, the state on which I pride myself. I have fallen as low as civilisation; I will raise myself to a state of savagery!’ (At this point Belissan struck a classical pose. He stood on tip-toe in a futile attempt to make himself seem taller, and sought in vain to drape his ratteen frock-coat about himself like a toga.) ‘Tahiti! There will be no God there to enjoy the malicious satisfaction of frustrating men’s schemes; no kings; no vile courtesans devouring the labour of the people; no stupid shop signs, none of these ridiculous clothes which classify and determine your position in the social hierarchy … O Tahiti! O Voltaire! O D’Alembert! O Diderot! Philosophers, all! Eternal light of nations! Tahiti is where you belong! All you philanthropists who dream of peace and the universal family, Tahiti is the place for us! There we can live as one great family!’

Belissan’s philanthropic discourse took such a furious and frenetic turn at this point that M. Dufour was obliged to restrain him about the waist and call his cabin-boy.

The cabin-boy came running, and together they managed to calm Belissan who now only cried out feebly by fits and starts: ‘Tahiti! Tahiti!’

Captain Dufour reflected carefully whether he should allow Claude Belissan, who was quite mad in his estimation, on board his ship. However, knowing that Belissan would pay for his passage at the full rate, he eventually gave his consent.

Claude left France without informing his aged uncle, selling the little he had in the knowledge that on Tahiti money would be of absolutely no use whatsoever.

The ship was ready to cast off; and when the purser demanded the occupation of each of the passengers in order to inscribe it in the register, Belissan quite took his breath away by replying majestically:

‘Man!!!’

‘Man?’ queried the purser, springing from his seat.

‘Man,’ repeated Belissan.

‘What do you mean, “man”?’ asked the astonished purser. ‘What sort of man? What title of man?’

‘Pure and simply: man,’ screamed Claude, who had turned blue with rage. ‘
Man of nature
, if you prefer. That really sums everything up, doesn’t it?’ he went on with a bitter smile, shrugging his shoulders in pity. ‘What title of man, indeed! Because everyone has to have a title, however ludicrous. Yours is an ignoble job. There are still kings on their thrones, giants of creation! As for me, I am a savage. I have been degraded and abased by a selfish and degenerate society, the corrupting influence of civilisation. Do you understand?’ Having declaimed all this without a pause, Belissan turned his back on the respectable figure of the purser.

‘He is out of his head,’ said the latter, who had already been warned of Belissan’s peculiarity. Then, finding his place in the register, he wrote:

‘Claude Belissan, self-proclaimed man of nature, but travelling to the island of Tahiti for commercial reasons.’

The three-masted
Comtesse de Cérigny
left Le Havre on 13 June, 1789.

A month after embarking on
La Comtesse de Cérigny
, Claude Belissan was already blind in one eye; six weeks later he had lost two molars and an incisor; four months later he had three ribs broken as the ship rounded Cape Horn; in short, the day on which they docked at Callao did not come a moment too soon for him: had the crossing taken any longer, Claude Belissan, the equal of all men, would have been dismantled piece by piece.

The various accidents which had befallen the young man all resulted from his philosophical and philanthropical tendencies, his desire for the common good, his horror of social inequalities, and his dream of universal perfectionment.

First, catching sight of a thick-set sailor whipping a cabin-boy who had not stowed away the foresails quickly enough, Belissan had shouted:

‘Horror! Let nature tremble! Here is a brother who beats his brother! Sailor, this cabin-boy is your brother and your equal. Sailor, leave this cabin-boy in peace!’

And the sailor, chewing his quid unconcernedly, replied squarely to Claude, without letting go of his cabin-boy:

‘Bourgeois, this cabin-boy is no equal of mine, given that he is a cabin-boy while I am an able seaman; given that he is no more than a child while I have reached manhood; given that he stows away the sails badly while I stow them away well. When he becomes a seaman, he will whip cabin-boys in his turn. Now, bourgeois, I have promised him fifteen of the cat and I am only on the seventh. This will remind him of his station.’

‘Let me tell you at once that I am not a bourgeois, but plainly and simply a man, and as man to man I tell you that you will not mistreat this child any further and that you will let go of him, for he is brother to both of us. Tyrant! Despot! Cannibal!’ shouted Belissan, as he tried to pull the cabin-boy from his grasp. ‘Enough I tell you! We are equals, and as your equal I order you to finish what you are about – I mean not to finish what you are about!’

‘Bourgeois,’ replied the sailor stoically, ‘we are not equals because I am of the sea and you are of the land; nor are you an officer; nor…’

At this, Belissan rushed at him:

‘Very well,’ said the sailor, ‘since we are equals, try this punch for size and render me its equal…’

Belissan, as we know, was not capable of rendering its equal, and was blinded in one eye.

Another day, Belissan abused the captain who, during a storm, had kept his crew on deck. Claude bluffed and blustered that the honest seamen were under no obligation to lift a finger; indeed, that they had every right to let the vessel flounder. Tired of the sound of the little man’s voice, they gagged him and threw him in the hold. But as Claude resisted this development, he left his teeth behind him.

The immediate consequence of this accident was that Claude was overtaken by a bout of misanthropy of the severest and most disdainful variety. Claude began to hate the entire human race. ‘What is the cause of your beastly degradation,’ he shouted with a high-pitched whistle caused by the loss of his incisor, ‘what is the cause of your beastly degradation! It is civilisation which is the cause of it, civilisation and the bestial influence of aristocrats, kings, priests, footmen and Danish horses! It is civilisation which has ruined everything! How right they were, all those brilliant philosophers, who believed that the only way to regenerate society was a return to natural law, the state of nature! How right they were! That is where true happiness lies! I will offer all the insults and sufferings I have received, my eye and my three teeth, as a sacrifice to nature. Tahiti! Tahiti! That is where I shall find paradise, because this must be hell right now! And if I make use of such ridiculous expressions as paradise and hell,’ he added, in a tone of disgust, as an afterthought, ‘it only because I know no others.’ Then Belissan had an idea.

Belissan said to himself: ‘This ship is a fragment, a fraction, a portion of society. What is there to prevent me from humiliating the whole of society as represented by this fragment! Let me crush it under my feet and trample on it – by showing them all that I prefer to live with a simple animal, a savage and thoughtless animal, rather than maintaining the corrupt and degrading relations I enjoy with the ship’s company for a moment longer.’

And to the immense mortification of this society of which he was so contemptuous, Belissan elected to take up residence in the depths of the hold where a calf destined to feed the crew had been stowed. He lived with this calf, talked with this calf, ate with this calf, disported himself with this calf, and sometimes he would triumphantly shout to himself, as he rolled around in the animal’s dung: ‘Society! Have I shamed you enough now! How do you blush and weep now!’

The crew did not blush and weep; no, the crew simply heaved a sigh of relief since Belissan’s latest hare-brained scheme had effectively removed him from their presence.

But as well as rolling around discussing philosophical matters with his calf, Belissan tried to keep his new friend amused by blowing in his eyes and poking pieces of straw up his nostrils. So much so that the calf’s patience began to wear thin until, completely losing his temper, he butted Belissan in the stomach breaking three of his ribs. When they docked at Callao, he was dying. The ship’s company counted on his death; but, as a result of the care shown by the head of the Mission Station at Lima, the damned clerk recovered and at the last minute before the ship set sail for the Spice Islands was fit enough to be carried on board again.

The captain was too upright a man to leave Belissan in Peru, and allowed him back on board with an oath. Realising that he was nearing the end of his voyage, and hoping to shorten it still further, he suggested to Claude that he should disembark at the Marquesas Islands, which were well-known and had been explored by Marchand, and according to the latter were as cytherean as the Society Islands.

The aristocratic name of this cluster of islands slightly disturbed Belissan, but having sailed on
La Comtesse de Cérigny
, there was no reason why he should not disembark at the Marquesas. He consented readily enough to this change of plan, especially when he was shown on a map that the Marquesas were much closer than Tahiti.

Two months after calling into Acapulco, the brig hove-to downwind of the most easterly of the Marquesas Islands; a heavily-armed rowing-boat deposited Claude Belissan, to the great rejoicing of the crew, at the meridional tip of the island of Hatouhougou just before dawn; then the rowing-boat rejoined the brig which set sail for the south.

‘At last I set foot in the land of liberty and equality!’ exclaimed Belissan. ‘At last I see the birth place of those sons of nature who have remained men of nature. Here I shall drink water straight from the spring; the fruits of the trees and the occasional shellfish shall sustain me; this sweet-smelling grass shall be my bed; for clothes I shall … No, there is no need for clothes. Was I born wearing clothes? Clothes are nothing more than the product of social injustices. Here, nature reigns; here I shall assume my natural condition. Forget Europe, I no longer care two pins for civilisation; I am out of reach now of France, kings, courtesans and Danish horses!’ And as he shouted these words, he threw his shiny silk britches, his blue ratteen frock-coat and his quilted waist-coat as far away from him as he could.

‘Long live nature!’ he continued. ‘Nature which has no need of the pitiful and ridiculous industry of the so-called civilised world!’

But even as he uttered these words, he was disturbed by the sound of gunfire; then, as the sun had now risen and it was possible to see clearly, he caught his first terrifying sight of Toa-ka-Magarow, sovereign chief, autocrat, emperor and king of the island of Hatouhouhou.

This worthy seigneur was of a commanding stature, tattooed in red and blue, with a long, straight nose, a low forehead, and he had a lower lip which was greatly elongated by the weight of some kind of small bowl made from a coconut shell which was suspended by means of a ring set into his skin. What was more, Toa-ka-Magarow carried an English rifle in his hand and he strutted about proudly in an old military tunic with epaulettes which he had probably bartered or stolen; apart from a tight loin-cloth, he was otherwise naked. I shall only mention in passing, given its distasteful nature, the Cross of Saint-Louis which was held in place by another ring pierced through the nasal cartilage.