The next day I went to the offices of the newspapers Le Monde and l'Humanité . The editorial rooms of Le Monde were in an insane uproar. I was passed from one office to another; everyone was too busy to help me. Finally I was directed to a staff editor in charge of agricultural affairs. It turned out that he was away from Paris for 3 days. That was decisive: I had to leave that evening. Given the general strike, the telephones were down and there was no postal service.
The reception on the steps of L'Humanité was fairly wierd, albeit no stranger than Communism itself. I was prevented from entering by a security guard. He asked me my business, so I told him that I was looking for some indications about the percentage of agricultural schools on strike, particularly in the region of the Oise. Without yielding his place the guard spread his arms wide, and cried: "All! All of the schools are on strike! All of them!" I left, grateful to have gotten at least one man's opinion.
Well; it had been a fishing expedition and I hadn't expected any flounders. The students of Le Prieuré weren't mature enough to organize a strike on their own: political action would have to come from the faculty. Their indignation against the Abbé's obstinacy was real enough, but it didn't translate into a willingness to go on strike. Even with the information I'd sought it is doubtful that they would have acted: but there was a chance. When I handed Mourni the mimeographed directive from the Ministry of Education he permitted himself a sneer : "We received that paper two weeks ago, M. Lisker. Your trip to Paris was a waste of time."
It didn't make sense to remind him that if I hadn't organized the first forum, ( and Maurice hadn't written his note) , the faculty might not have made even the token gesture that it did.
Since my efforts to organize meaningful resistance at Le Prieuré had failed, I decided to make my own reforms within the limited confines of my own responsibilities: teaching English. At the beginning of my third week at the school I divided all my classes into 3 sections, 'beginning', 'intermediate' and 'advanced' . This was easily done: either a student knew hardly any English, or he could read a moderately difficult text such as a newspaper article, or he knew enough to attempt a conversation in my exotic language.
From then on I instructed one-third of the class at a time. The rest I told to go outside, play football, whittle faces in wood, whatever. If the students wanted free time I would give them free time: I would also see to it that they learned English. My students thought the new arrangement very funny. They considered much of what I did rather comic: they were utterly astonished that a teacher would allow them to step outside and do anything they wanted to. Yet in a short time this method began to produce results, primarily in the classes in conversation, where the students began to realize that they really were able to make themselves understood in English. Had I a free hand I would have liked to re-organize the entire school schedule, placing students into classes on the basis of their abilities. As it was, the new arrangement greatly increased the amount of work I had to do, as I had to prepare material for twelve different sections. Yet I was quite prepared to do this once it looked as if it were possible to accomplish something.
A few days after the new system went into effect, the chemistry teacher asked me if perhaps some of my students were cutting classes: he'd observed them playing on the grounds. I explained the new system to him.
" Do you mean to say they do nothing?", he gasped.
" That's right.." Noticing the great mortification this seemed to cause him, I added : " If they want to, they can study in their free time."
He breathed a sigh of relief : "Oh ... they're supposed to be studying."
When he'd calmed down somewhat I described the problems I faced in teaching English to students with widely divergent backgrounds.
"Well", he commented when he understood, " It's a good idea ... but watch out for the Abbé ..I don't think he'll approve."
He didn't. I was fired the next week, right after the Pentecost holiday. The tactic employed to get rid of me was among the more unorthodox in the history of faculty/administration conflicts. What the Abbé did was to eliminate English entirely from the curriculum for the rest of the term! He'd never bothered to conceal the fact that he considered the study of any language other than mother French corrupting to the youthful mind. The only reason English was given at all was that it was a requirement for the BAC. I later discovered that there was a long history of bad relations between the AbbŽ and his English teachers. He was always firing them; indeed it appears that he had only limited tolerance for foreigners of any sort. In the course of my being fired I was to receive a strong dose of his xenophobia.
For the four day Pentecost holiday I hitch-hiked to Vienna and back, with stop-overs in Strasbourg, Munich and Innsbruck. On the day of my return I bought a piano-tuner's key in Compiègne and set myself to work tuning the upright piano in the ground floor reading room of the chateau. The piano was in good condition. It must have gone untuned for decades. Apart from a single broken string in the bass it was undamaged. I was uninterrupted for about two hours when the school's medical director came by to tell me that the Abbé wanted to see me right away.
As in our previous encounter, the Abbé was standing when I entered. I'd the impression that his fists were clenched. He told me that the Ministry of Work in Paris had telephoned to complain that I did not have a work permit; it was against the law to employ me without one. Therefore I had to leave at once. The school could not afford to risk trouble with the police. I began to explain that the Ministry of Labor had just re-opened that day, but was cut short when he screamed at me, beside himself with rage: " This is my school! I make the rules here! Now get out!" To mollify me he gave me a compensation of 300 francs. I left him then and went immediately to the department of labor in Compiégne. It gave me all the papers needed for a work permit. Then I went to the City Hall in Pierrefonds and filled out the forms for a residence permit. Finally I returned to Le Prieuré and explained the situation to the secretary: all that the Abbé needed to do was to fill out the papers and sign them. I could have the work permit the same day.
She listened to me then called him up. From the other end of the telephone his voice could be heard barking with incoherent rage. He was not, after all, dismissing me because of the work permit: the English course was being dropped for the rest of the term. The students at Le Prieuré had more important things to do than bother their heads over this English nonsense. M. Lisker had no business coming back. No, he would not sign the papers to help me find a job elsewhere. Finally he agreed to see me in an hour. It was guaranteed , he assured me, to be a waste of time.
M. Vigier accompanied me as impartial negotiator. Once we were seated, I asked the Abbé if it was within his rights to dismiss me without notice or full compensation for a month's work.
" Yes", he replied, " You are not protected in France by any laws. You ought to consider the 300 francs I gave you as very generous."
" But, sir, do you believe it just to fire a man this way, even with the legal right to do so?"
" Justice?" he snarled, " I am justice here. This is my school . " He began laughing, as if I were a ridiculous person. Vigier, who seemed to feel it was his role to protect the Abbé against me , began laughing as well.
" Listen", the Abbé snapped, " If you think I'm unjust, what about the time you talked politics with the students? Was that just?" , it was obvious that the Abbé 's mind worker very simply, " I told you that your job was to instruct English. You did things you weren't hired to do. You were being unjust to me , the director of your school, a cleric! "
By this time his voice had risen to an insane pitch of fervor. Vigier regarded me with concern: had I no consideration for an old man's heart?
" Students have a right to know what is going on in the world", I replied. My words went right past him. I changed the subject:
" If you would at least sign the work papers, I could find a job somewhere else. " He became arrogant:
" What do I care what you do? It's not my problem what you do somewhere else. " He laughed again, as if he'd said something very clever. Vigier tried to make me see that the Abbé's responsibilities ended with the 300 francs which, from pure generosity and goodness of heart, he'd just given me. I'd no right to anything more; indeed the appropriate thing for me to do now was to thank him for his generosity and apologize for the criticisms I'd made before.
" But it's very difficult to obtain a work permit", I persisted, " Without that one can't work in France." This he received as a piece of very good news:
" Why don't you go back to America, then? Why did you come to France anyway? America is the richest country in the world. If you don't like it here, go home!"
" You mean to say you really consider that just?"
He laughed heartily, " This justice business again." Vigier took his side in every instance. My impression was that he had a somewhat inflated view of the inherent virtue of a clergyman.
" Look here", the AbbŽ said. He reached into his soutane and solemnly extracted his billfold. " Here's another 200 francs. I don't want you to go away with a bad opinion of yourAbbé. "
So that was it! Ultimately everything came down to the personal level : discussing the May revolution with the students; encouraging the faculty to join hands with the rest of the country; making reforms in the teaching of my subject - all of this things had been personal insults against the Abbé , evidences that I didn't like him! What I'd done had nothing to do with any larger issues, nothing to do with education here or anywhere else. Rather, I'd perpetrated a series of hostile actions against the Abbé himself. Another two hundred francs would smooth over all my impressions so that I would thinking he wasn't such a bad person after all.
Whether or not to accept the money was a difficult decision to make. Besides the 300 francs I had nothing. Without the work permit I would not find work again for a long time. I would need every penny, and if I refused it he still wouldn't give me a work permit. It was an accomplishment of sorts to have bargained another 200 francs out of him. This kind of reasoning could be fatal: if I accepted the money the Abbe would be convinced he really owed me nothing further. Yet he was very old and unlikely to change his ways.
Considering my situation I couldn't afford to second-guess the devious psychology of the Abbé . In a sense he was buying me off; on the other hand, I had no bargaining power to lose. With some regret I accepted the money:
" Good." He shrugged his shoulders: "Now don't bother me anymore. Thank this for that money !" , he tugged at his clerical soutane.
Vigier regarded me with anxiety : "You will thank the Abbé , won't you?"
I had accepted the money, so I had to thank him:
" Thanks for the little you've given me", I said, " against what you're saving by dropping the English course. It won't get me very far without the work permit."
" Why are you worrying ? You're still young. You complain about being poor?" He clenched his fist and glared at me with bitter anger:
" I worked my way up from the direst poverty! I tore the flesh off my fingers every inch of the way!" There was no more reasoning with him.
Before leaving I wrote out the story of my interview with the Abbé and left the manuscript in the student clubroom. I stressed the hostility of the Abbé towards me as a foreigner, his obstinate resistance to reform, and his absolute refusal to sign the work papers. The account ended with a plea that each student, on returning home, ask their parents if the 18,000 francs per year tuition they were giving to the school were not better spent in some other way. My work at Le Prieuré was finished. I took the next train back to Paris.