{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_49924/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_49924","id":"gutenberg_49924","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/49924","summary":null,"tags":["Category: French Literature","Category: Novels","Category: Religion/Spirituality","French fiction -- Translations into English","Nobel Prizes in Literature"],"text":"THE WORKS OF ANATOLE FRANCE\n  IN AN ENGLISH TRANSLATION\n  EDITED BY FREDERIC CHAPMAN\n\n  THE ELM-TREE ON THE MALL\n\n  [Illustration]\n\n\n\n\n  THE ELM-TREE\n  ON THE MALL\n\n  A CHRONICLE OF OUR OWN TIMES\n  BY ANATOLE FRANCE\n\n  A TRANSLATION BY\n  M. P. WILLCOCKS\n\n  [Illustration]\n\n  LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD\n  NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY: MCMX\n\n\n\n\n  Printed by BALLANTYNE & CO. LIMITED\n  Tavistock Street, Covent Garden, London\n\n\n\n\nTHE ELM-TREE ON THE MALL\n\nI\n\n\nThe salon which the Cardinal-Archbishop used as a reception room had\nbeen fitted, in the time of Louis XV., with panellings of carved wood\npainted a light grey. Seated figures of women surrounded by trophies\nfilled the angles of the cornices. The mirror on the chimney-piece\nbeing in two divisions, was covered, as to its lower half, with a\ndrapery of crimson velvet which threw into relief a pure white statue\nof Our Lady of Lourdes with her pretty blue scarf. Along the walls, in\nthe middle of the panels, hung enamel plates framed in reddish plush,\nportraits of Popes Pius IX. and Leo XIII. printed in colours, and\npieces of embroidery, either souvenirs of Rome or gifts from the pious\nladies of the diocese. The gilded side-tables were loaded with plaster\nmodels of Gothic or Romanesque churches: the Cardinal-Archbishop was\nfond of buildings. From the plaster rose hung a Merovingian chandelier\nexecuted from the designs of M. Quatrebarbe, diocesan architect and\nKnight of the Order of Saint Gregory.\n\nTucking his cassock up above his violet stockings and warming his\nshort, stout legs at the fire, Monseigneur was dictating a pastoral\nletter, whilst, seated at a large table of brass and tortoiseshell, on\nwhich stood an ivory crucifix, the vicar-general, M. de Goulet, was\nwriting: _So that nothing may occur to sadden for us the joys of our\nretreat._\u00a0\u2026\n\nMonseigneur dictated in a dry, colourless voice. He was a very short\nman, but the great head with its square face softened by age was\ncarried erect. Notwithstanding its coarse and homely lineaments, his\nface was expressive of subtlety and a kind of dignity born of habit and\nthe love of command.\n\n\u201c_The joys of our retreat._\u00a0\u2026 Here you will expound the ideas of\nharmony, of the subduing of the mind, of that submission to the powers\nthat be which is so necessary, and which I have already dealt with in\nmy previous pastoral letters.\u201d\n\nM. de Goulet raised his long, pale, refined head adorned by beautiful\ncurled locks as though by a Louis Quatorze wig.\n\n\u201cBut this time,\u201d said he, \u201cwould it not be expedient, while repeating\nthese declarations, to show that reserve appropriate to the position\nof the secular powers, shaken as they are by internal convulsions\nand henceforth incapable of imparting to their covenants what they\nthemselves do not possess\u2014I mean continuity and stability? For you\nmust see, Monseigneur, that the decline of parliamentary predominance\u00a0\u2026\u201d\n\nThe Cardinal-Archbishop shook his head.\n\n\u201cWithout reservation, Monsieur de Goulet, without any species of\nreservation. You are full of learning and piety, Monsieur de Goulet,\nbut your old pastor can still give you a few lessons in discretion,\nbefore handing over the government of the diocese, at his death, to\nyour youthful energy. Have we not to congratulate ourselves upon\nthe attitude of M. _le pr\u00e9fet_ Worms-Clavelin, who regards our\nschools and our labours with favour? And are we not welcoming to\nour table to-morrow the general in command of the division and the\npresident-in-chief? And, _\u00e0 propos_ of that, let me see the menu.\u201d\n\nThe Cardinal-Archbishop inspected it, made alterations and additions,\nand gave special directions that the game should be ordered from\nRivoire, the poacher to the prefecture.\n\nA servant entered and presented him with a card on a silver tray.\n\nHaving read the name of Abb\u00e9 Lantaigne, head of the high seminary, on\nthe card, Monseigneur turned towards his vicar-general.\n\n\u201cI\u2019ll wager,\u201d said he, \u201cthat M. Lantaigne is coming to complain to me\nagain about M. Guitrel.\u201d\n\nAbb\u00e9 de Goulet rose to leave the salon. But Monseigneur stopped him.\n\n\u201cStay! I want you to share with me the pleasure of listening to M.\nLantaigne, who, as you know, is spoken of as the finest preacher in the\ndiocese. For, if one listened only to public opinion, it would seem\nthat he preaches better than you, dear Monsieur de Goulet. But that\nis not my opinion. Between ourselves, I care neither for his inflated\nstyle nor for his involved scholarship. He is terribly wearisome,\nand I am keeping you here to help me to get rid of him as quickly as\npossible.\u201d\n\nA priest entered the salon and bowed. He was very tall and immensely\ncorpulent, with a serious, simple, abstracted face.\n\nAt sight of him Monseigneur exclaimed gaily:\n\n\u201cAh! good-day, Monsieur l\u2019abb\u00e9 Lantaigne. At the very moment that you\nsent in your name the vicar-general and I were talking about you. We\nwere saying that you are the most distinguished orator in the diocese,\nand that the Lenten course you preached at Saint-Exup\u00e8re is proof\npositive of your great talents and profound scholarship.\u201d\n\nAbb\u00e9 Lantaigne reddened. He was sensitive to praise, and it was by the\ndoor of pride alone that the Enemy could find entrance to his soul.\n\n\u201cMonseigneur,\u201d he answered, his face lit up by a smile which quickly\ndied away, \u201cthe approval of Your Eminence gives me a deep delight which\ncomes felicitously to soothe the opening of an interview which is a\npainful one to me. For it is a complaint which the head of the high\nseminary has the misfortune to pour into your paternal ears.\u201d\n\nMonseigneur interrupted him:\n\n\u201cTell me, Monsieur Lantaigne, has that Lenten course at Saint-Exup\u00e8re\nbeen printed?\u201d\n\n\u201cA synopsis of it appeared in the diocesan _Semaine religieuse_. I am\nmoved, Monseigneur, by the marks of interest which you deign to show in\nmy apostolic labours. Alas! it is long enough ago since I first entered\nthe pulpit. In 1880, when I had too many sermons, I gave them to M.\nRoquette, who has since been raised to a bishopric.\u201d\n\n\u201cAh!\u201d cried Monseigneur, with a smile, \u201cthat good M. Roquette! When I\nwent last year _ad limina apostolorum_ I met M. Roquette for the first\ntime just as he was gaily setting out for the Vatican. A week later I\nmet him in Saint-Peter\u2019s, where he was imbibing the solace that he much\nneeded after being refused the cardinal\u2019s hat.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd why,\u201d demanded M. Lantaigne, in a voice that whistled like a\nwhip-lash, \u201cwhy should the purple have descended on the shoulders\nof this poor creature, a mediocrity in character, a nonentity in\ndoctrine, whose mental density has made him ridiculous, and whose\nsole recommendation is that he has sat at table with the President of\nthe Republic at a masonic banquet? Could M. Roquette only rise above\nhimself, he would be astonished at finding himself a bishop. In these\ntimes of trial, when a future confronts us pregnant with awful menace\nas well as with gracious promise, it would be expedient to build up\na body of clergy powerful both in character and in scholarship. And\nin fact, Monseigneur, I come to interview Your Eminence about another\nRoquette, about another priest who is unfitted to sustain the weight of\nhis great duties. The professor of rhetoric at the high seminary, M.\nl\u2019abb\u00e9 Guitrel\u00a0\u2026\u201d\n\nMonseigneur interrupted with a feigned jest, and asked, with a laugh,\nwhether Abb\u00e9 Guitrel were in a fair way to become a bishop in his turn.\n\n\u201cWhat an idea, Monseigneur!\u201d cried Abb\u00e9 Lantaigne. \u201cIf perchance this\nman were raised to a bishopric, we should behold once more the days of\nCautinus, when an unworthy pontiff defiled the see of Saint Martin.\u201d\n\nThe Cardinal-Archbishop, curled up in his arm-chair, remarked genially:\n\n\u201cCautinus, Bishop Cautinus\u201d (it was the first time he had heard the\nname), \u201cCautinus who was a successor of Saint Martin. Are you quite\nsure that this Cautinus behaved as badly as they make out? It is an\ninteresting point in the history of the Gallic Church concerning which\nI should much like to have the opinion of so learned a man as yourself,\nMonsieur Lantaigne.\u201d\n\nThe head of the high seminary drew himself up.\n\n\u201cThe testimony, Monseigneur, of Gregory of Tours is explicit in the\npassage touching Bishop Cautinus. This successor of the blessed Martin\nlived in such luxury and robbed the Church of its treasures to such an\nextent that, at the end of two years of his administration, all the\nsacred vessels were in the hands of the Jews of Tours. And if I have\ncoupled the name of Cautinus with that of this unhappy M. Guitrel, it\nis not without reason. M. Guitrel carries off the artistic curios,\nwood-carvings, or finely chased vessels, which are still to be found in\ncountry churches, in the care of ignorant churchwardens, and it is for\nthe benefit of the Jews that he devotes himself to this robbery.\u201d\n\n\u201cFor the benefit of the Jews?\u201d demanded Monseigneur. \u201cWhat is this that\nyou are telling me?\u201d\n\n\u201cFor the benefit of the Jews,\u201d returned Abb\u00e9 Lantaigne, \u201cand to\nembellish the drawing-rooms of M. _le pr\u00e9fet_ Worms-Clavelin, Jew and\nfreemason. Madame Worms-Clavelin is fond of antiquities. Through the\nmedium of M. Guitrel she has gained possession of the copes treasured\nfor three hundred years in the vestry of the church at Lusancy, and she\nhas, I am told, turned them into seats of the kind called _poufs_.\u201d\n\nMonseigneur shook his head.\n\n\u201c_Poufs!_ But if the transfer of these disused vestments has been\nconducted legally, I do not see that Bishop Cautinus\u00a0\u2026 I mean M.\nGuitrel, has done wrong in taking part in this lawful transaction.\nThere is no reason why these copes of the pious priests of Lusancy\nshould be revered as relics of the saints. There is no sacrilege in\nselling their cast-off clothes to be turned into _poufs_.\u201d\n\nM. de Goulet, who had been nibbling his pen for some moments, could not\nrefrain from a murmur. He deplored the fact that the churches should be\nthus robbed of their artistic treasures by infidels. The head of the\nhigh seminary answered in firm tones:\n\n\u201cLet us, Monseigneur, if you please, drop the subject of the trade to\nwhich the friend of M. Worms-Clavelin, the Jewish _pr\u00e9fet_, devotes\nhimself, and allow me to enumerate the only too definite complaints\nwhich I have to bring against the professor of rhetoric at the high\nseminary. I impugn: first, his doctrine; second, his conduct. I say\nthat I indict first his doctrine, and that on four grounds: first\u00a0\u2026\u201d\n\nThe Cardinal-Archbishop stretched out both his arms as though to ward\noff such a multitude of charges.\n\n\u201cMonsieur Lantaigne, I see that for some time the vicar-general has\nbeen biting his pen and making desperate signs to remind me that our\nprinter is waiting for our pastoral letter, which has to be read on\nSunday in the churches of our diocese. Allow me to finish dictating\nthis charge, which, I trust, will bring some solace to our priests and\nfaithful people.\u201d\n\nAbb\u00e9 Lantaigne bowed, and very sadly withdrew. After his departure the\nCardinal-Archbishop, turning to M. de Goulet, said:\n\n\u201cI did not know that M. Guitrel was so friendly with the _pr\u00e9fet_.\nAnd I am grateful to the head of the seminary for having warned me\nof it. M. Lantaigne is sincerity itself: I prize his frankness and\nstraightforwardness. With him, one knows where one is\u00a0\u2026\u201d\n\nHe corrected himself:\n\n\u201cWhere one would be.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nII\n\n\nM. Lantaigne, principal of the high seminary, was working in his\nstudy, the whitewashed walls of which were three parts covered by deal\nshelves loaded with the dark bindings of his working library, the whole\nof Migne\u2019s _Patrologie_, and cheap editions of Saint Thomas Aquinas,\nBaronius and Bossuet. A Virgin in the manner of Mignard surmounted the\ndoor, with a dusty sprig of box sticking out of the old gilt frame.\nUninviting horsehair chairs stood on the red tiles in front of the\nwindows, through which the stale smell of the refectory ascended to the\ncotton window-curtains.\n\nThe principal, bending over his little walnut-wood desk, was turning\nover the pages of the registers handed him by Abb\u00e9 Perruque, the master\nof method, who stood at his side.\n\n\u201cI see,\u201d said M. Lantaigne, \u201cthat again this week a hoard of sweetmeats\nhas been discovered in a pupil\u2019s room. Such infractions are far too\noften repeated.\u201d\n\nIn fact, the students of the seminary made a practice of hiding cakes\nof chocolate among their school-books. This was what they called\ntheology _Menier_. They used to meet in a room at night, by twos or\nthrees, to discuss it.\n\nM. Lantaigne begged the master of method to use unfaltering severity.\n\n\u201cThis disorder is deplorable in that it may involve the most serious\nmisconduct.\u201d\n\nHe asked for the register of the rhetoric class. But when M. Perruque\nhad handed it to him, he looked away from it. His heart swelled at\nthe idea that sacred rhetoric was taught by this Guitrel, a man with\nneither morals nor learning. He sighed within himself:\n\n\u201cWhen will the scales fall from the Cardinal-Archbishop\u2019s eyes, that he\nmay see the unworthiness of this priest?\u201d\n\nThen, tearing himself from this bitter thought only to plunge into the\nbitterness of another:\n\n\u201cAnd Pi\u00e9dagnel?\u201d he asked.\n\nFor two years Firmin Pi\u00e9dagnel had caused incessant anxiety to the head\nof the seminary. The only son of a cobbler who kept his stall between\ntwo buttresses of Saint-Exup\u00e8re, he was, through the brightness of\nhis intelligence, the most brilliant pupil in the house. Of placid\ntemperament, he had a very fair report for conduct. The timidity of his\ncharacter and the weakness of his constitution seemed a good safeguard\nfor his moral purity. But he had neither the instinct for theology nor\nthe vocation for the priesthood. His very faith was unstable. With his\ngreat spiritual knowledge, M. Lantaigne had no inordinate fear of those\nviolent crises among his young Levites, which, often salutary, are to\nbe allayed by grace. He dreaded, on the contrary, the indifference of\na placidly intractable mind. He almost despaired of a soul to whom\ndoubt was light and bearable and whose thoughts flowed to irreligion\nby a natural inclination. Such a one the shoemaker\u2019s clever son showed\nhimself to be. M. Lantaigne had one day unexpectedly chanced, by one\nof those brusque wiles which were natural to him, to plumb the depths\nof this nature, double-faced through its courtesy. He perceived with\nconsternation that from the teaching at the seminary Firmin had only\nacquired an elegant Latin style, skill in sophistry, and a kind of\nsentimental mysticism. From that time Firmin had appeared to him as a\nbeing weak and formidable, pitiable and noxious. Yet he loved this lad,\nloved him tenderly, to infatuation. In spite of his disappointment it\npleased him that he should be the honour, the glory of the seminary.\nHe loved in Firmin the charm of his mind, the subtle harmony of his\nstyle, and even the tenderness of those pale, short-sighted eyes,\nlike bruises under the quivering eyelids. He sometimes took pleasure\nin seeing in him one of the victims of this Abb\u00e9 Guitrel, whose\nintellectual and moral poverty must (so he firmly believed) injure and\ndepress an intelligent and quick-sighted pupil. He flattered himself\nthat, if better trained in the future, Firmin, although too weak ever\nto give to the Church one of those powerful leaders whom she so much\nneeds, would at least produce for religion, perhaps, a P\u00e9reyve or a\nGerbet, one of those priests who carry into the priesthood the heart\nof a young mother. But, incapable of long self-flattery, M. Lantaigne\nspeedily rejected this unlikely hope and saw in this lad a Gu\u00e9roult,\na Renan. And the sweat of anguish chilled his forehead. His fear was\nlest, in rearing such pupils, he might be training formidable enemies\nof the truth.\n\nHe knew that it was in the temple itself that the hammers were\nforged which overthrew it. He very often said: \u201cSuch is the power\nof theological discipline that it alone is capable of rearing great\nreprobates; an unbeliever who has not passed through our hands is\npowerless and without weapons for evil. It is within our walls that\nthey imbibe all knowledge, even that of blasphemy.\u201d From the mass of\nthe students he only demanded industry and integrity, feeling certain\nthat these would make good parish priests of them. But in his finest\nstudents he feared curiosity, pride, the impious boldness of the\nintellect, and even the qualities that brought the angels to perdition.\n\n\u201cMonsieur Perruque,\u201d said he brusquely, \u201clet us see the notes on\nPi\u00e9dagnel.\u201d\n\nThe master of method, with his thumb moistened at his lips, turned\nover the leaves of the register, and then pointed out with his great\ndirt-encircled forefinger the lines traced on the margin of the book:\n\n_M. Pi\u00e9dagnel holds thoughtless conversations._\n\n_M. Pi\u00e9dagnel gives way to depression._\n\n_M. Pi\u00e9dagnel refuses to take any physical exercise._\n\nThe director read and shook his head. He turned the leaf and continued\nreading:\n\n_M. Pi\u00e9dagnel has written a poor essay on the unity of the faith._\n\nAt this Abb\u00e9 Lantaigne burst out:\n\n\u201cUnity\u2014that is just what he will never grasp! And yet it is the idea\nabove all others which ought to be impressed on the priest\u2019s mind. For\nI do not fear to affirm that this conception is entirely of God, and,\nas it were, His most vivid manifestation among men.\u201d\n\nHe turned his hollow, gloomy gaze towards Abb\u00e9 Perruque.\n\n\u201cThis subject of the unity of the faith, Monsieur Perruque, is my\ntouchstone by which I try the spirits. The simplest minds, if they do\nnot fail in sincerity, draw logical conclusions from the idea of unity;\nand the most able derive an admirable philosophy from this principle.\nIn the pulpit, Monsieur Perruque, I have three times handled the unity\nof the faith, and the wealth of the subject still amazes me.\u201d\n\nHe resumed his reading:\n\n_M. Pi\u00e9dagnel has compiled a note-book, which has been found in his\ndesk, and which contains, written in M. Pi\u00e9dagnel\u2019s own hand, extracts\nfrom different love-poems, composed by Leconte de Lisle and Paul\nVerlaine, as well as by several other loose writers, and the choice\nof the extracts betrays excessive profligacy both of the mind and the\nsenses._\n\nHe shut the register and pushed it away roughly. \u201cWhat we lack\nnowadays,\u201d sighed he, \u201cis neither learning nor intelligence; it is the\ntheological mind.\u201d\n\n\u201cMonsieur,\u201d said Abb\u00e9 Perruque, \u201cthe steward wants to know if you can\nreceive him at once. The contract with Lafolie for butcher\u2019s meat\nexpires on the fifteenth of this month, and they are waiting for your\ndecision before renewing an arrangement upon which the house can\nscarcely plume itself. For you cannot fail to have remarked the bad\nquality of the beef supplied by Lafolie.\u201d\n\n\u201cTell the steward to come in,\u201d said M. Lantaigne.\n\nAnd, left alone, he put his head in his hands and sighed:\n\n\u201c_O quando finieris et quando cessabis, universa vanitas mundi?_[A] Far\nfrom Thee, O God, we are but wandering shadows. There are no greater\ncrimes than those committed against the unity of the faith. Vouchsafe\nto lead the world back to this blessed unity!\u201d\n\n  [A] \u201cWhen wilt thou end, when wilt thou cease to be, oh,\n      ever-present vanity of this world?\u201d\n\nWhen, during the recreation hour after the midday meal, the principal\ncrossed the courtyard, the seminarists were playing a game of football.\nOn the gravelled playground there was a great commotion of ruddy\nheads poised on stalks like black knife-handles, the jerky gestures\nof puppets, and shouts and cries in all the rustic dialects of the\ndiocese. The master of method, Abb\u00e9 Perruque, his cassock tucked up,\nwas joining in the game with the zest of a cloistered peasant, drunk\nwith air and exercise, and in athletic style was kicking from the toe\nof his buckled shoe the huge ball covered with its leather quarters. At\nsight of the principal the players stopped. M. Lantaigne made a sign to\nthem to continue. He followed the grove of stunted acacia trees that\nfringes the courtyard on the side towards the ramparts and the country.\nHalf-way along he met three pupils who, arm in arm, were walking up\nand down as they talked. Since they usually spent the recreation hours\nin this way, they were called the peripatetics. M. Lantaigne called\none of them, the shortest, a pale-faced lad, with slightly stooping\nshoulders, a refined and mocking mouth, and timid eyes. He did not hear\nat first, and his neighbour had to nudge him with an elbow and say to\nhim:\n\n\u201cPi\u00e9dagnel, the principal is calling you.\u201d\n\nAt this Pi\u00e9dagnel approached Abb\u00e9 Lantaigne and bowed to him with a\nhalf-graceful clumsiness.\n\n\u201cMy child,\u201d said the principal to him, \u201cyou will be so good as to be my\nserver at mass to-morrow.\u201d\n\nThe young man blushed. It was a coveted honour to serve the principal\u2019s\nmass.\n\nAbb\u00e9 Lantaigne, his breviary under his arm, went out by the little door\nthat opens on the fields and took the customary road in his walks, a\ndusty track edged with nettles and thistles that follows the ramparts.\n\nHe was thinking:\n\n\u201cWhat will become of this poor child, if he is suddenly expelled,\nignorant of any sort of manual labour, weak, delicate, and timid? And\nwhat grief there will be in his infirm father\u2019s shop!\u201d\n\nHe walked along over the flints of the barren road. Having reached the\nmission cross, he took off his hat, wiped the perspiration from his\nforehead with his silk handkerchief, and said in a low voice:\n\n\u201cOh God, inspire me to act according to Thy interests, whatever it may\ncost my paternal heart!\u201d\n\nAt half-past six next morning Abb\u00e9 Lantaigne was saying the concluding\nwords of the mass in the bare, deserted chapel.\n\nIn front of a side-altar a solitary old sacristan was setting paper\nflowers in porcelain vases, beneath the gilt statue of Saint Joseph. A\ngrey, rainy daylight poured sadly through the blurred window-panes. The\ncelebrant, upright at the left of the high altar, was reading the last\nGospel.\n\n\u201c_Et Verbum caro factum est_,\u201d said he, bending his knees.\n\nFirmin Pi\u00e9dagnel, who was serving the mass, knelt at the same time\non the step where stood the bell; then he rose and, after the last\nresponses, preceded the priest into the sacristy. Abb\u00e9 Lantaigne set\ndown the chalice with the corporal and waited for the server to help\nhim remove his priestly vestments. Firmin Pi\u00e9dagnel, being sensitive\nto the mysterious influences of things, felt the charm of this scene,\nso simple and yet so sacred. His soul, suffused with tender unction,\ntasted with a kind of joy the familiar grandeur of the priesthood.\nNever had he felt so deeply the desire to be a priest and in his turn\nto celebrate the holy sacrifice. Having kissed and carefully folded up\nthe alb and chasuble, he bowed before Abb\u00e9 Lantaigne ere retiring. The\nhead of the seminary, who had resumed his great-coat, made a sign to\nhim to stay, and looked at him with such nobility and kindness that the\nyoung man received the look as a favour and a blessing. After a long\nsilence:\n\n\u201cMy child,\u201d said M. Lantaigne, \u201cwhilst celebrating this mass which I\nasked you to serve, I prayed God to give me the strength to send you\naway. My prayer has been granted. You are no longer a member of this\nhousehold.\u201d\n\nAs he took in these words, Firmin was stupefied. It seemed to him that\nthe flooring was giving way beneath his feet. Through eyes big with\ntears, he vaguely saw the lonely road, the rain, a life darkened with\nmisery and toil, the fate of a lost child terrified by its own weakness\nand timidity. He looked at M. Lantaigne. The resolute gentleness,\nthe quiet strength, the calmness of this man revolted him. Suddenly\na feeling was born and grew in him, a feeling that sustained and\nstrengthened him, a hatred of the priest, a deathless and fruitful\nhatred, a hatred to fill a whole life. Without uttering a word, he went\nwith great strides out of the sacristy.\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\n\nAbb\u00e9 Lantaigne, head of the high seminary of\u00a0\u2026, wrote the following\nletter to Monseigneur the Cardinal-Archbishop of\u00a0\u2026:\n\n\u201cMONSEIGNEUR,\n\n\u201cWhen, on the 17th of this month, I had the honour of being received by\nYour Eminence, I feared to trespass on your paternal kindness and on\nyour pastoral clemency by expounding at sufficient length the matter\nabout which I came to converse with you. But as this affair reflects\non your high and holy jurisdiction and concerns the government of this\ndiocese, which counts among the most ancient and beautiful provinces of\nChristian Gaul, I conceive it to be my duty to submit to the watchful\nimpartiality of Your Eminence the facts concerning which it is called\nupon to judge in the plenitude of its authority and in the fulness of\nits wisdom.\n\n\u201cIn bringing these facts to the knowledge of Your Eminence, I am\nfulfilling a duty which I should characterise as painful to my heart,\nif I did not know that the accomplishment of every duty brings to the\nsoul an inexhaustible spring of consolation, and that it is not enough\nto obey God, if one does not obey Him with ready gladness.\n\n\u201cThe facts which it behoves you to know, Monseigneur, relate to Abb\u00e9\nGuitrel, professor of rhetoric at the high seminary. I will state them\nas briefly and as accurately as possible.\n\n\u201cThese facts concern:\n\n\u201cFirst, the doctrine;\n\n\u201cSecond, the morals of Abb\u00e9 Guitrel.\n\n\u201cI will first state the facts relating to M. Guitrel\u2019s doctrine.\n\n\u201cOn reading the note-books from which he delivers his lectures on\nsacred rhetoric, I noticed in them various opinions which do not agree\nwith the tradition of the Church.\n\n\u201cFirst, M. Guitrel, whilst condemning as to their conclusions the\ncommentaries on Holy Scripture drawn up by atheists and so-called\nreformers, does not condemn them in their principle and origin, in\nwhich he is seriously in error. For it is evident that, the care of\nthe Scriptures having been confided to the Church, the Church alone is\ncapable of interpreting the books which she alone preserves.\n\n\u201cSecond, led astray by the recent example of a monk who thirsted\nfor the applause of the age, M. Guitrel presumes to explain the\nscenes of the Gospel by means of that pretended local colour and\nthat pseudo-psychology of which the Germans make a great show; and\nhe does not perceive that, by thus walking in the way of infidels,\nhe is skirting the abyss into which they have fallen. I should\nweary the benevolent attention of His Eminence Monseigneur the\nCardinal-Archbishop were I to place before his reverend glance the\npassages where M. Guitrel with pitiable childishness follows the\nnarratives of travellers, as to \u2018the boat-service on the Lake of\nTiberias,\u2019 and those where, with intolerable indecency, he describes\nwhat he calls \u2018the soul-states\u2019 and \u2018the psychic crises\u2019 of our Lord\nJesus Christ.\n\n\u201cThese foolish innovations, blameworthy in a cloistered worldling,\nshould not be tolerated in a secular cleric entrusted with the\ninstruction of young aspirants to the priesthood. Hence I was more\ngrieved than surprised when I heard that an intelligent pupil, whom I\nhave since been obliged to expel for his bad disposition, described the\nprofessor of rhetoric as a \u2018fin de si\u00e8cle\u2019 priest.\n\n\u201cThird, M. Guitrel affects a culpable laxity in relying on the\nuntrustworthy authority of Clement of Alexandria, who is not included\nin the martyrology. In this the professor of rhetoric betrays the\nweakness of a mind misled by the example of the so-called mystics,\nwho imagine that they find in the _Stromata_ a purely allegorical\ninterpretation of the most concrete mysteries of the Christian faith.\nAnd, without actually going astray, M. Guitrel shows himself, in this\nmatter, to be inconsistent and light-minded.\n\n\u201cFourth, since depravity of taste is one of the results of doctrinal\nweakness, and since a mind which rejects strong food battens on\nworthless nourishment, M. Guitrel seeks models of eloquence for the use\nof his pupils even in the speeches of M. Lacordaire and the homilies of\nM. Gratry.\n\n\u201cSecondly, I will enumerate the facts relating to M. Guitrel\u2019s morals.\n\n\u201cFirst, Abb\u00e9 Guitrel consorts with M. _le pr\u00e9fet_ Worms-Clavelin both\nsecretly and constantly, and in this he throws off the reserve which it\nalways behoves an ecclesiastic of lower rank to observe in relation to\nthe public authorities, a reserve which, under present circumstances\nand towards a Jewish official, there is no excuse for dropping. And by\nthe care which he takes never to enter the prefecture save by a private\ndoor, M. Guitrel seems to acknowledge to himself the falseness of a\nposition which he nevertheless maintains.\n\n\u201cIt is also notorious that M. Guitrel occupies a position with respect\nto Madame Worms-Clavelin that is more mercantile than religious. This\nlady is fond of antiquities, and although a Jewess, she does not\ndespise any articles connected with religion, provided that they have\nthe merit of art or of antiquity. It is unhappily well attested that\nM. Guitrel busies himself in buying for Madame Worms-Clavelin at an\nabsurd price the antique furniture of village parsonages, left in\nthe care of ignorant churchwardens. In this way carved wainscoting,\npriestly vestments, chalices, and pyxes are torn from the sacristies\nof your rural churches, Monseigneur, in order that at the prefecture\nthey may adorn the private apartments of M. and Madame Worms-Clavelin.\nAnd everybody knows that Madame Worms-Clavelin has trimmed with the\nsplendid and sacred copes of Saint-Porchaire the species of furniture\nvulgarly called \u2018_poufs_.\u2019 I do not imply that M. Guitrel has derived\nany material and direct profit from these transactions; but it must\nneeds grieve your paternal heart that a priest of the diocese should\nhave joined in robbing your churches of that wealth which proves, even\nin the eyes of unbelievers, the superiority of Christian to profane art.\n\n\u201cSecond, without complaint or protest Abb\u00e9 Guitrel allows the rumour to\nspread and grow that his elevation to the vacant bishopric of Tourcoing\nis favoured by the President of the Council, the Minister for Justice\nand Religion. Now this rumour is prejudicial to the minister, for,\nalthough a freethinker and a freemason, he ought to be too careful of\nthe interests of the Church over which he has been appointed civil\noverseer to place in the seat of the blessed Loup a priest such as M.\nGuitrel. And if this invention were to be traced to its source, it is\nto be feared that in M. Guitrel himself would be found the first and\nforemost contriver of it.\n\n\u201cThird, having formerly occupied his leisure in translating into French\nverse the Bucolics of that Latin poet called Calpurnius, whom the best\ncritics agree in relegating to the lowest class of insipid babblers,\nAbb\u00e9 Guitrel, with a carelessness which I would fain believe to be\nquite unintentional, has allowed this work of his youth to circulate\nprivately. A copy of the Bucolics was addressed to the free-thinking\nradical paper of the district, _le Phare_, which published extracts\nfrom it; among them there occurred in particular this line, which I\nblush to put before the paternal eyes of Your Eminence:\n\n  \u201cAnd our heaven of bliss is a well-loved breast.[B]\n\n\u201cThis quotation was accompanied in _le Phare_ by the most derogatory\ncomments on the private character, as well as the literary taste, of\nAbb\u00e9 Guitrel. And the editor, whose ill-will is only too well known\nto Your Eminence, took this wretched line as a pretext for charges of\nwanton thoughts and dishonourable intentions generally against all the\nprofessors of the high seminary, and even against all the priests\nin the diocese. This is why, without inquiring whether as a scholar\nM. Guitrel had any excuse for translating Calpurnius, I deplore the\npublication of his work as the cause of a scandal which, I am sure,\nwas more bitter to your benevolent heart, Monseigneur, than gall and\nwormwood.\n\n\u201cFourth, M. Guitrel is in the habit of going every day at five o\u2019clock\nin the afternoon to the confectioner\u2019s shop kept by Dame Magloire,\nin the Place Saint-Exup\u00e8re. And there, leaning over the sideboards,\ncounters and tables, he examines with deep interest and careful\ndiligence the dainties piled up on plates and dishes. Then, stopping\nat the spot where are arranged the kinds of cakes which they tell\nme are called _\u00e9clairs_ and _babas_, he touches first one and then\nanother of these pasties with the tip of his finger, and afterwards\nhas these dainty morsels wrapped up in a sheet of paper. Far be it\nfrom me to bring a charge of sensuality against him on account of this\nridiculously careful choice of a few cream-cakes or sugar-pasties. But\nif one reflects that he goes to Dame Magloire\u2019s at the very moment\nwhen the shop is thronged with fashionable folk of both sexes, and\nthat he makes himself a butt for the jests of worldlings, one will ask\noneself whether the professor of rhetoric at the high seminary does\nnot leave some part of his dignity behind him in the confectioner\u2019s\nshop. In fact, the choice of two cakes has not escaped the ill-natured\ncomment of observers, and it is said, either rightly or wrongly, that\nM. Guitrel keeps one for himself and gives the other to his servant. He\nmay doubtless, without incurring any blame, share any dainties with the\nwoman attached to his service, especially if that woman has attained\nthe canonical age. But malicious gossip interprets this intimacy and\nfamiliarity in the most shameful sense, and I should never dare to\nrepeat to Your Eminence the remarks which are made in the town as to\nthe relations between M. Guitrel and his domestic. I do not wish to\nentertain these charges. Nevertheless, Your Eminence will see that M.\nGuitrel is not easily to be excused for having given a show of truth to\nthe calumny by his mischievous behaviour. I have related the facts. It\nnow remains for me only to conclude.\n\n\u201cI have the honour to propose that Your Eminence should cancel the\nappointment of M. Guitrel (Joachim) as professor of sacred rhetoric at\nthe high seminary of\u00a0\u2026, in accordance with your spiritual powers as\nrecognised by the State (decree of 17th March, 1808).\n\n\u201cVouchsafe, Monseigneur, to continue your paternal kindness towards\none who, being placed in command of your seminary, has no dearer wish\nthan to give you proofs of his complete devotion and of the profound\nrespect with which he has the honour to be,\n\n                                        \u201cMonseigneur,\n                                \u201dThe most humble and obedient servant\n                                             of Your Eminence,\n                                                         \u201cLANTAIGNE.\u201d\n\nHaving written this letter, M. Lantaigne sealed it with his seal.\n\n  [B] \u201cNotre ciel \u00e0 nous, c\u2019est un sein ch\u00e9ri.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\n\nIt is true that Abb\u00e9 Guitrel, professor of sacred rhetoric at the\nhigh seminary of\u00a0\u2026, was intimately connected with M. _le pr\u00e9fet_\nWorms-Clavelin and with Madame Worms-Clavelin, _n\u00e9e_ Coblentz. But\nAbb\u00e9 Lantaigne was wrong in believing that M. Guitrel frequented the\ndrawing-rooms of the prefecture, where his presence would have been\nequally disquieting to the Archbishop and to the masonic lodges, since\nthe _pr\u00e9fet_ was master of the lodge \u201cThe Rising Sun.\u201d It was in the\nconfectioner\u2019s shop kept by Dame Magloire in the Place Saint-Exup\u00e8re,\nwhere he went every Saturday at five o\u2019clock to buy two little\nthree-sou cakes, one for his servant and the other for himself, that\nthe priest had met the _pr\u00e9fet\u2019s_ wife, while she was eating _babas_\nthere in the company of Madame Lacarelle, wife of M. _le pr\u00e9fet\u2019s_\nprivate secretary.\n\nBy his demeanour, at once obsequious and discreet, which inspired\nentire confidence and removed all apprehensions, the professor\nof sacred rhetoric had instantly gained the good graces of Madame\nWorms-Clavelin, to whom he suggested the mind, the face, and almost\nthe sex of those old-clothes women, the guardian angels of her youth\nin the difficult days of Batignolles and the Place Clichy, when No\u00e9mi\nCoblentz had finished growing up and was beginning to fade in the\nbusiness office kept by her father Isaac in the midst of distress-sales\nand police-raids. One of these dealers in second-hand clothes, a\nMadame Vacherie, who esteemed her, had acted as go-between for her and\nan active and promising young barrister, M. Th\u00e9odore Worms-Clavelin,\nwho, finding her seriously-minded and practically useful, had married\nher after the birth of their daughter Jeanne, and she in return had\ncleverly pushed him in the administration. Abb\u00e9 Guitrel was very much\nlike Madame Vacherie. They had the same look, the same voice, the same\ngestures. This propitious likeness had aroused in Madame Worms-Clavelin\na sudden sympathy. Besides, she had always revered the Catholic\nclergy as one of the powers of this world. She constituted herself M.\nGuitrel\u2019s advocate in her husband\u2019s good graces. M. Worms-Clavelin, who\nrecognised in his wife a quality that remained him a deep mystery, the\nquality of tact, and who knew her to be clever, received Abb\u00e9 Guitrel\ncourteously the first time he met him in the jeweller\u2019s shop kept by\nRondonneau junior in the Rue des Tintelleries.\n\nHe had gone there to see the designs for the cups ordered by the\nState to be given as prizes in the races organised by the Society for\nthe Improvement of Horse-breeding. After that visit he frequently\nreturned to the goldsmith\u2019s, drawn by an innate taste for precious\nmetals. On his side, Abb\u00e9 Guitrel contrived frequent occasions for\nvisiting the show-rooms of Rondonneau the younger, maker of sacred\nvessels: candlesticks, lamps, pyxes, chalices, patens, monstrances, and\ntabernacles. The _pr\u00e9fet_ and the priest were not ill-pleased at these\nmeetings in the first-storey show-rooms, out of sight of prying eyes,\nin front of a counter loaded with bullion and amidst the vases and\nstatuettes that M. Worms-Clavelin called _bondieuseries_.[C] Stretched\nout in Rondonneau junior\u2019s one arm-chair, M. Worms-Clavelin sent a\nlittle wave of his hand to M. Guitrel, who, black and fat, stole along\nby the glass cases like a great rat.\n\n  [C] Lit. good-goderies\u2014_i.e._, pious gimcrackeries.\n\n\u201cGood-day, monsieur l\u2019abb\u00e9. Delighted to see you!\u201d\n\nAnd it was true. He vaguely felt that, in contact with this\necclesiastic of peasant stock, as French in priestly character and in\ntype as the blackened stones of Saint-Exup\u00e8re and the old trees on the\nMall, he was frenchifying himself, naturalising himself, stripping\noff the ponderous remnants of his German and Semitic descent. Intimacy\nwith a priest was flattering to the Jewish official. In it he tasted,\nwithout actually acknowledging it to himself, the pride of revenge.\nTo browbeat, to patronise one of those tonsured heads entrusted for\neighteen centuries, both by heaven and earth, with the excommunication\nand extermination of the circumcised, was for the Jew a keen and\nflattering success. And besides, this dirty, threadbare, yet respected,\ncassock that bowed before him entered ch\u00e2teaux where the _pr\u00e9fet_ was\nnot received. The aristocratic women of the department revered this\ngarb now humiliated before the official uniform. Deference from one of\nthe clergy was almost equivalent to deference from that rural nobility\nthat had not completely come over, and of whose scornful coldness the\nJew, though by no means sensitive, had had painful experiences. M.\nGuitrel, humble, yet with _finesse_, made his deference appreciated.\n\nBeing honoured as a powerful master by this ecclesiastical politician,\nthe head of the department returned in patronage what he received in\ndeference, and flung conciliatory speeches at Abb\u00e9 Guitrel:\n\n\u201cDoubtless there are good, devoted, and intelligent priests. When the\nclergy takes its stand upon its privileges\u00a0\u2026\u201d\n\nAnd Abb\u00e9 Guitrel bowed.\n\nM. Worms-Clavelin went on:\n\n\u201cThe Republic does not wage systematic war on the parish priests.\nAnd, if the fraternities had submitted to the law, many of their\ndifficulties would have been avoided.\u201d\n\nAnd M. Guitrel protested:\n\n\u201cIt is a matter of principle. I should have decided in favour of the\nfraternities. It is also a matter of business. The fraternities did a\ngreat deal of good.\u201d\n\nThe _pr\u00e9fet_ summed up from out of the cloud of his cigar-smoke.\n\n\u201cHarking back over what has been done is useless. But the new spirit is\na spirit of conciliation.\u201d\n\nAnd again M. Guitrel bowed, while Rondonneau junior bent over his\naccount books his bald head where the flies pitched.\n\nOne day, being asked to give her opinion about a vase that the _pr\u00e9fet_\nwas to present with his own hand to the winner in the race for\ndraught-horses, Madame Worms-Clavelin came to Rondonneau junior\u2019s with\nher husband. She found M. Guitrel in the jeweller\u2019s office. He made\na feint to leave the place. But they begged him to remain. They even\nconsulted him as to the nymphs who formed, by their bending figures,\nthe handles of the cup. The _pr\u00e9fet_ would have preferred them to be\nAmazons.\n\n\u201cAmazons, doubtless,\u201d murmured the professor of sacred rhetoric.\n\nMadame Worms-Clavelin would have liked centauresses.\n\n\u201cCentauresses, yes, yes,\u201d said the priest; \u201cor rather centaurs.\u201d\n\nMeanwhile Rondonneau junior was holding up the wax model in his fingers\nin front of the spectators and smiling in admiration.\n\n\u201cMonsieur l\u2019abb\u00e9,\u201d asked the _pr\u00e9fet_, \u201cdoes the Church always ban the\nnude in art?\u201d\n\nM. Guitrel replied:\n\n\u201cThe Church has never absolutely proscribed nude studies; but she has\nalways judiciously restrained their employment.\u201d\n\nMadame Worms-Clavelin looked at the priest and thought how remarkably\nlike Madame Vacherie he was. She confided to him that she had a passion\nfor curios, that she was mad about brocades, stamped velvets, gold\nfringes, embroidery and lace. She disclosed to him the covetous desires\naccumulated in her mind since the days when she used to trail in her\nyouth and poverty in front of the shop-windows of the second-hand\ndealers in the Quartier Br\u00e9da. She told him that she had dreams of\na salon with old copes and old chasubles, and that she was also\ncollecting antique jewels.\n\nHe answered that in truth the ornaments of the priests provided\nprecious models for artists, and that there we had a proof that the\nChurch was no enemy to art.\n\nFrom that day forward M. Guitrel began to hunt in the country\nsacristies for splendid antiques, and scarcely a week passed that\nhe did not carry into Rondonneau junior\u2019s, under his great-coat, a\nchasuble or a cope, adroitly pillaged from some innocent priest. M.\nGuitrel was, moreover, very scrupulous in remitting to the rifled\nvestry-board the hundred-sou piece with which the _pr\u00e9fet_ paid for the\nsilk, the brocade, the velvet and the lace.\n\nIn six months\u2019 time Madame Worms-Clavelin\u2019s drawing-room had become\nlike a cathedral treasury; a clinging odour of incense lingered round\nit.\n\nOne summer day in that year, M. Guitrel, according to custom, mounted\nthe goldsmith\u2019s stairs, and found M. Worms-Clavelin puffing away\nmerrily in the shop. For the day before the _pr\u00e9fet_ had succeeded\nin getting his candidate, a cattle-breeder, and young turn-coat\nroyalist, returned; and he was counting on the approval of the\nminister, who secretly preferred the new to the old republicans as\nbeing less exacting and more humble. In the elation of his boisterous\nsatisfaction, he slapped the priest on the shoulder:\n\n\u201cMonsieur l\u2019abb\u00e9, what we want is many priests like you, enlightened,\ntolerant, free from prejudices\u2014for you haven\u2019t any prejudices, not\nyou!\u2014priests who recognise the needs of the present day and the\nrequirements of a democratic society. If the episcopate, if the French\nclergy would only catch the progressive yet conservative sentiments\nthat the Republic professes, they would still have a fine part to play.\u201d\n\nThen, amidst the smoke of his big cigar, he expounded ideas on\nreligion which testified to an ignorance that filled M. Guitrel with\ninward dismay. The _pr\u00e9fet_, however, declared himself to be more\nChristian than many Christians, and in the language of the masonic\nlodge he extolled the moral teaching of Jesus, while he rejected\nindiscriminately local superstitions and fundamental dogmas, the\nneedles thrown into the piscina of Saint Phal by marriageable girls,\nand the real presence in the Eucharist.\n\nM. Guitrel, an easy-going soul, but incapable of yielding a point as to\ndogma, stammered out:\n\n\u201cOne must make a distinction, monsieur _le pr\u00e9fet_, one must make a\ndistinction.\u201d\n\nIn order to make a diversion, he drew out from a pocket of his\ngreat-coat a roll of parchment which he opened on the counter. It was\na large page of plain-chant, with Gothic text under the four-line\ndivisions, with rubrics and a decorated initial.\n\nThe _pr\u00e9fet_ fixed his great, lamp-globe eyes on the page. Rondonneau\njunior, stretching out his rosy bald head, said:\n\n\u201cThe miniature in the initial is rather fine. It\u2019s Saint Agatha, isn\u2019t\nit?\u201d\n\n\u201cThe martyrdom of Saint Agatha,\u201d said M. Guitrel. \u201cHere are seen the\nexecutioners torturing the breasts of the saint.\u201d\n\nAnd he added in a voice which flowed as sweetly as thick syrup:\n\n\u201cAccording to authentic records, such was in fact the torment\ninflicted on Saint Agatha of blessed memory by the proconsul. A page\nfrom an antiphonary, Monsieur _le pr\u00e9fet_\u2014a trifle, a mere trifle,\nwhich perhaps will find a little niche in the collections of Madame\nWorms-Clavelin, so devoted to our Christian antiquities. This page\ngives us a fragment of the proper of the saint.\u201d\n\nAnd he deciphered the Latin text, marking the tonic accent\nenergetically:\n\n\u201c_Dum torqueretur beata Agata in mamill\u00e2 graviter dixit ad judicem:\n\u2018Impie, crudelis et dire tyranne, non es confusus amputare in femin\u00e2\nquod ipse in matre suxisti? Ego habeo mamillas integras intus in anim\u00e2\nquas Domino consecravi.\u2019_\u201d[D]\n\n  [D] \u201cWhile the blessed Agatha was being cruelly tortured in the\n      breast, she said to the judge: \u2018Oh, wicked, cruel, and savage\n      tyrant, art thou not ashamed to mutilate in a woman that with\n      which your mother fed you? Within my soul I have breasts\n      undesecrated which I have sanctified to God.\u2019\u201d\n\nThe _pr\u00e9fet_, who was a graduate, half understood, and in his desire\nto appear Gallic, remarked that it was piquant.\n\n\u201cNa\u00efve,\u201d answered Abb\u00e9 Guitrel gently, \u201cna\u00efve.\u201d\n\nM. Worms-Clavelin granted that the language of the Middle Ages had, in\nfact, a certain na\u00efvet\u00e9.\n\n\u201cIt has also sublimity,\u201d said M. Guitrel.\n\nBut the _pr\u00e9fet_ was rather inclined to seek in Church Latin for\nthe piquancy of broad humour, and it was with a sly little laugh of\nobstinacy that he crammed the parchment into his pocket, with many\nthanks to his dear Guitrel for this discovery.\n\nThen, pushing the Abb\u00e9 into the window-recess, he whispered in his ear:\n\n\u201cMy dear Guitrel, when the chance comes, I will do something for you.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nV\n\n\nThere was one party in the town which openly declared that Abb\u00e9\nLantaigne, principal of the high seminary, was a priest worthy of a\nbishopric and fitted to fill the vacant see of Tourcoing honourably,\nuntil the time when Monseigneur Charlot\u2019s death should enable him,\ncross in hand and amethyst on finger, to assume the mitre in the\ntown that had witnessed his labours and his merits. This was the\nscheme of the venerable M. Cassignol, ex-president in chief, and a\nState pensioner of twenty-five years\u2019 standing. With these plans\nwere associated M. Lerond, deputy attorney-general at the time\nof the decrees,[E] now a barrister practising at\u00a0\u2026, and Abb\u00e9 de\nLalonde, formerly an Army chaplain, and now chaplain to the Dames du\nSalut. These, belonging to the most respected, but not to the most\ninfluential, class in the town, made up practically the whole of Abb\u00e9\nLantaigne\u2019s party. The head of the high seminary had been invited to\ndine with M. Cassignol, the chief president, who said to him, in the\npresence of M. de Lalonde and M. Lerond:\n\n  [E] The _coup d\u2019\u00e9tat_ of 1851.\n\n\u201cMonsieur l\u2019abb\u00e9, put yourself forward as a candidate. When it shall\ncome to a choice between Abb\u00e9 Lantaigne, who has so nobly served both\nreligion and Christian France by pen and tongue, who has protected\nthe oft-betrayed cause of the rights of the French Church within the\nCatholic Church with the force of his mental endowments and high\ncharacter, and M. Guitrel, none will have the effrontery to hesitate.\nAnd since it seems that this time the honour of supplying a bishop\nfor the town of Tourcoing is to fall to our city, the faithful of\nthe diocese are willing to lose you for a time for the good of the\nepiscopate as well as of Christendom.\u201d\n\nAnd the venerable M. Cassignol, who was now in his eighty-sixth year,\nadded with a smile:\n\n\u201cWe shall see you again, I have a firm conviction of that. You will\ncome back to us from Tourcoing, monsieur l\u2019abb\u00e9.\u201d\n\nAbb\u00e9 Lantaigne had replied:\n\n\u201cMonsieur _le pr\u00e9sident_, with no intention of anticipating any honour,\nI yet shall shirk no duty.\u201d\n\nHe yearned and longed for the see of the lamented Monseigneur Duclou.\nBut this priest, whose ambition was frozen by his pride, was waiting\nuntil they came to bring him the mitre.\n\nOne morning M. Lerond came to see him at the seminary, and brought news\nof how Abb\u00e9 Guitrel\u2019s candidature was progressing at the Ministry of\nPublic Worship. It was suspected that M. _le pr\u00e9fet_ Worms-Clavelin was\nworking hard in favour of M. Guitrel in the offices of the Ministry,\nwhere all the freemasons had already received their orders. This was\nwhat he had been told at the offices of _le Lib\u00e9ral_, the religious and\nmoderate paper of the district. With regard to the intentions of the\nCardinal-Archbishop, nothing was known.\n\nThe truth was that Monseigneur Charlot dared neither oppose nor support\nany candidate. His characteristic caution had been growing on him\nfor years. If he had any preferences he let no one guess them. For\na long time he had been comfortably and pleasurably concealing his\npolicy, just as he played his game of bezique every evening with M.\nde Goulet. And, in fact, the promotion of a priest of his diocese to\na non-suffragan bishopric was in no way an affair of his. But he was\nforced to take part in this intrigue. M. Worms-Clavelin, the _pr\u00e9fet_,\nwhom he did not wish to offend, had caused him to be sounded. His\nEminence could not be ignorant of the shrewd and urbane disposition of\nwhich M. Guitrel had given plain proofs in the diocese. On the other\nhand, he believed this Guitrel to be capable of anything. \u201cWho knows,\u201d\nthought he, \u201cwhether he is not scheming to get himself appointed here\nas my coadjutor, instead of going to that gloomy little metropolis of\nNorthern Gaul? And if I declare him worthy of a bishopric, will it not\nbe believed that I intend him to share my see?\u201d This apprehension that\nhe would be given a coadjutor embittered Monseigneur Charlot\u2019s old age.\nIn Abb\u00e9 Lantaigne\u2019s case he had strong reasons for being silent and\nholding aloof. He would not have supported this priest\u2019s candidature\nfor the simple reason that he foresaw its failure. Monseigneur Charlot\nnever willingly put himself on the losing side. Moreover, he loathed\nthe principal of the high seminary. Yet this hatred, in a mind so\neasy-going and kindly as Monseigneur\u2019s, was not actually prejudicial\nto M. Lantaigne\u2019s ambitions. In order to get rid of him, Monseigneur\nCharlot would have consented to his becoming either bishop or Pope. M.\nLantaigne had a high reputation for piety, learning, and eloquence: one\ncould not, without a certain shamelessness, be openly against him. Now\nMonseigneur Charlot, being popular and very keen to gain every one\u2019s\ngoodwill, did not despise the opinion of honourable men.\n\nM. Lerond was unable to follow the secret thoughts of Monseigneur, but\nhe knew that the Archbishop had not yet committed himself. He judged\nthat it might be possible to bring influence to bear on the old man\u2019s\nmind and that an appeal to his pastoral instincts might not be in\nvain. He urged M. Lantaigne to proceed at once to the Archbishop\u2019s\npalace.\n\n\u201cYou will beg His Eminence, with filial deference, for advice in the\nprobable event of the bishopric of Tourcoing being offered to you. It\nis the right step, and it will produce an excellent effect.\u201d\n\nM. Lantaigne objected:\n\n\u201cIt behoves me to wait for a more solemn call.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat call could be more solemn than the suffrages of so many zealous\nChristians, who hail your name with a unanimity that recalls the\nancient popular acclamations with which a M\u00e9dard and a Remi were\ngreeted?\u201d\n\n\u201cBut, monsieur,\u201d answered honest Lantaigne, \u201cthose acclamations, in\nthe obsolete custom to which you refer, came from the faithful of the\ndiocese which these holy men were called upon to govern. And I am not\naware that the Catholics of Tourcoing have acclaimed me.\u201d\n\nAt this point lawyer Lerond said what had to be said:\n\n\u201cIf you do not bar the road for him, M. Guitrel will become a bishop.\u201d\n\nThe next day M. Lantaigne had fastened over his shoulders his visiting\ncloak, the turned-back wing of which flapped on his sturdy back, the\nwhile on the road to the Archbishop\u2019s palace he besought his God to\nspare the Church of France an unmerited disgrace.\n\nHis Eminence, at the moment when M. Lantaigne bowed before him,\nhad just received a letter from the nunciature asking him for a\nconfidential note about M. Guitrel. The nuncio made no secret of his\nliking for a priest reputed to be intelligent and zealous and capable\nof being useful in negotiations with the temporal power. His Eminence\nhad immediately dictated to M. de Goulet a note in favour of the\nnuncio\u2019s prot\u00e9g\u00e9.\n\nHe exclaimed in his pleasant tremulous voice:\n\n\u201cMonsieur Lantaigne, how glad I am to see you!\u201d\n\n\u201cMonseigneur, I have come to ask Your Eminence for your paternal\ncounsel in case the Holy Father, regarding me with favour, should\nnominate me\u00a0\u2026\u201d\n\n\u201cVery happy to see you, Monsieur Lantaigne. You come just in the nick\nof time!\u201d\n\n\u201cI would venture, if Your Eminence did not deem me unworthy of\u00a0\u2026\u201d\n\n\u201cYou are, Monsieur Lantaigne, an eminent theologian and a priest of\nthe highest possible learning in the canon law. You are an authority\non knotty points of discipline. Your advice is precious on questions\nof the liturgy and, in general, on any point that concerns religion.\nIf you had not come, I was going to send for you, as M. de Goulet can\ntell you. At the present moment I am in great need of your insight.\u201d\n\nAnd Monseigneur, with his gouty hand, well practised in benediction,\nwaved the principal of the high seminary to a seat.\n\n\u201cMonsieur Lantaigne, be kind enough to listen to me. The venerable M.\nLaprune, the cur\u00e9 of Saint-Exup\u00e8re, is just gone from here. I must tell\nyou that this poor cur\u00e9 has this morning found a man hanged in his\nchurch. Just conceive his distress! He is beside himself. And in such a\ncrisis, I myself need to take the advice of the most learned priest in\nmy diocese. What ought we to do? Tell me!\u201d\n\nM. Lantaigne collected himself for a moment. Then, in the tone of\na pedagogue, he began to expound the traditions concerning the\npurification of churches:\n\n\u201cThe Maccabees, after having washed the temple profaned by Antiochus\nEpiphanes, in the year 164 before the Incarnation, celebrated its\ndedication. That is the origin, Monseigneur, of the festival called\nHanicha\u2014that is to say, renewal. In fact\u00a0\u2026\u201d\n\nAnd he developed his ideas.\n\nMonseigneur listened with an air of admiration, and M. Lantaigne\ndrew up from his inexhaustible memory endless texts relating to the\nceremonies of purification, precedents, arguments, commentaries.\n\n\u201cJohn, Chapter X., verse 22\u00a0\u2026 the Roman Pontifical\u00a0\u2026 the Venerable\nBede, Baronius\u00a0\u2026\u201d\n\nHe spoke for three-quarters of an hour.\n\nAfter this the Cardinal-Archbishop replied:\n\n\u201cIt should be noted that the hanged man was found in the porch of the\nside door, on the epistle side.\u201d\n\n\u201cWas the inner door of the porch closed?\u201d asked M. Lantaigne.\n\n\u201cAlas! alas!\u201d answered Monseigneur, \u201cit was not wide open\u00a0\u2026 but neither\nwas it completely shut.\u201d\n\n\u201cAjar, Monseigneur?\u201d\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s it! Ajar.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd the suicide, Monseigneur, was within the space covered by the\nporch? That is a point which it is materially important to ascertain.\nYour Eminence perceives the whole importance of that?\u201d\n\n\u201cAssuredly, Monsieur Lantaigne.\u00a0\u2026 Monsieur de Goulet, was there not one\narm of the hanged man which projected from the porch and jutted into\nthe church?\u201d\n\nM. de Goulet replied with a blush and some incoherent syllables.\n\n\u201cI feel certain,\u201d replied Monseigneur, \u201cthat the arm went beyond, or,\nat any rate, part of the arm.\u201d\n\nM. Lantaigne concluded from this that the church of Saint-Exup\u00e8re was\nprofaned. He quoted precedents and described the proceedings after\nthe dastardly assassination of the Archbishop of Paris, in the church\nof Saint-\u00c9tienne-du-Mont. He travelled up the ages, passed through the\nRevolution, when the churches were transformed into armouries, referred\nto Thomas Becket and the impious Heliodorus.\n\n\u201cWhat scholarship! What sound doctrine!\u201d said Monseigneur.\n\nHe rose and stretched out his hand for the priest to kiss.\n\n\u201cIt is a priceless service that you have rendered me, Monsieur\nLantaigne; be assured that I have a great esteem for your scholarship\nand accept my pastoral benediction. Farewell.\u201d\n\nAnd M. Lantaigne, dismissed, perceived that he had not been able to say\na single word about the important business on which he had come. But,\nwith the echoes of his own words all round him, full of his learning\nand his application of it, and much flattered, he descended the grand\nstaircase still turning over in his own mind the matter of the suicide\nof Saint-Exup\u00e8re and the urgent need for the purification of the parish\nchurch. Outside he was still thinking of it.\n\nAs he was descending the winding street of the Tintelleries, he met the\ncur\u00e9 of Saint-Exup\u00e8re, the venerable M. Laprune, who, standing in front\nof cooper Lenfant\u2019s shop, was examining the corks.\n\nHis wine had been turning sour, and this deterioration he attributed to\nthe defective way in which his bottles were corked.\n\n\u201cIt is deplorable,\u201d he murmured, \u201cdeplorable!\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd your suicide?\u201d demanded Abb\u00e9 Lantaigne.\n\nAt this question the worthy cur\u00e9 of Saint-Exup\u00e8re opened his full,\nround eyes and asked in astonishment:\n\n\u201cWhat suicide?\u201d\n\n\u201cThe man who hanged himself in Saint-Exup\u00e8re, the miserable suicide\nwhom you found this morning in the porch of your church.\u201d\n\nM. Laprune, terrified, wondering from what he had just heard, whether\nhe or M. Lantaigne had gone mad, replied that he had found no one\nhanged.\n\n\u201cWhat!\u201d replied M. Lantaigne, surprised in his turn, \u201cwasn\u2019t a man\nfound this morning hanged in the porch of a door on the epistle side!\u201d\n\nIn sign of denial, the vicar twice revolved on his shoulders a face\nwhereon shone the sacred truth.\n\nAbb\u00e9 Lantaigne now looked like a man taken with giddiness:\n\n\u201cBut it was the Cardinal-Archbishop who has just told me himself that\nyou found a man hanged in your church!\u201d\n\n\u201cOh!\u201d replied M. Laprune, suddenly reassured, \u201cMonseigneur wanted to\namuse himself. He loves a jest. He is a capital hand at it, and knows\nhow to keep within the bounds of seemliness. He has so much wit!\u201d\n\nBut Abb\u00e9 Lantaigne, raising heavenwards his fiery, sombre glance,\nexclaimed:\n\n\u201cThe Archbishop has deceived me! This man will, then, never speak the\ntruth, save when on the steps of the altar, taking the consecrated host\nin his hands, he pronounces the words: _Domine, non sum dignus_!\u201d\n\n\n\n\nVI\n\n\nNow that he was no longer inclined to the saddle and liked to keep his\nroom, General Cartier de Chalmot had reduced his division to cards\nin small cardboard boxes, which he placed every morning on his desk,\nand which he arranged every evening on the white deal shelves above\nhis iron bedstead. He marshalled his cards day by day with scrupulous\nexactitude, in an order which filled him with satisfaction. Every card\nrepresented a man. The symbol by which he henceforth thought of his\nofficers, non-commissioned officers and men, satisfied his craving\nfor method and suited his natural bent of mind. Cartier de Chalmot\nhad always been noted as an excellent officer. General Parroy, under\nwhom he had served, said of him: \u201cIn Captain de Chalmot the capacity\nfor obedience is exactly balanced by the power of command. A rare and\npriceless quality of the true military spirit.\u201d\n\nCartier de Chalmot had always been scrupulous in the performance of\nhis duty. Being upright, diffident, and an excellent penman, he had\nat last hit upon a system which fitted in with his abilities, and, in\ncommand of his division of cards, he applied his method with the utmost\nvigour.\n\nOn this particular day, having risen according to his custom at five\no\u2019clock in the morning, he had passed from his tub to his work-table;\nand, whilst the sun was mounting with solemn slowness above the elms\nof the Archbishop\u2019s palace, the general was organising man\u0153uvres by\nmanipulating the boxes of cards that symbolised reality, and that were\nactually identical with reality to an intelligence which, like his, was\nexcessively reverent towards everything symbolic.\n\nFor more than three hours he had been poring over his cards with a\nmind and face as wan and melancholy as the cards themselves, when his\nservant announced the Abb\u00e9 de Lalonde. Then he took off his glasses,\nwiped his work-reddened eyes, rose, and half smiling, turned towards\nthe door a countenance which had once been handsome and which in old\nage remained quite simple in its lineaments. He stretched out to the\nvisitor who entered a large hand the palm of which had scarcely any\nlines, and said good-day to the priest in a gruff, yet hesitating\nvoice, which revealed at the same time the diffidence of the man and\nthe infallibility of the commander.\n\n\u201cMy dear abb\u00e9, how are you? I am very glad to see you.\u201d\n\nAnd he pushed forward to him one of the two horsehair chairs which,\nwith the desk and the bed, comprised all the furniture of this clean,\nbright, empty room.\n\nThe abb\u00e9 sat down. He was a wonderfully active little old man. In his\nface of weather-worn, crumbling brick, there were set, like two jewels,\nthe blue eyes of a child.\n\nThey looked at one another for a moment, understandingly, without\nsaying a word. They were two old friends, two comrades-in-arms.\nFormerly a chaplain in the Army, Abb\u00e9 de Lalonde was now chaplain to\nthe Dames du Salut. As military chaplain, he had been attached to the\nregiment of guards of which Cartier de Chalmot had been colonel in\n1870, and which, forming part of the division\u00a0\u2026, had been shut up in\nMetz with Bazaine\u2019s army.\n\nThe memory of these homeric, yet lamentable, weeks came back to the\nminds of these two friends every time they saw one another, and every\ntime they made the same remarks.\n\nThis time the chaplain began:\n\n\u201cDo you remember, general, when we were in Metz, running short of\nmedicine, of fodder, running short of salt?\u00a0\u2026\u201d\n\nAbb\u00e9 de Lalonde was the least sensual of men. He had hardly felt the\nwant of salt for himself, but he had suffered much at not being able to\ngive the men salt as he gave them tobacco, in little packets carefully\nwrapped up. And he remembered this cruel privation.\n\n\u201cAh! general, the salt ran short!\u201d\n\nGeneral Cartier de Chalmot replied:\n\n\u201cThey made up for it, to a certain extent, by mixing gunpowder with the\nfood.\u201d\n\n\u201cAll the same,\u201d answered the chaplain, \u201cwar is a terrible thing.\u201d\n\nThus spoke this innocent friend of soldiers in the sincerity of his\nheart. But the general did not acquiesce in this condemnation of war.\n\n\u201cPardon me, my dear abb\u00e9! War is, of course, a cruel necessity, but\none which provides for officers and men an opportunity of showing the\nhighest qualities. Without war, we should still be ignorant of how far\nthe courage and endurance of men can go.\u201d\n\nAnd, very seriously, he added:\n\n\u201cThe Bible proves the lawfulness of war, and you know better than I how\nin it God is called Sabaoth\u2014that is, the God of armies.\u201d\n\nThe abb\u00e9 smiled with an expression of frank roguishness, displaying the\nthree very white teeth which were all that remained to him.\n\n\u201cPooh! I don\u2019t know Hebrew, not I.\u00a0\u2026 And God has so many more beautiful\nnames that I can dispense with calling him by that one.\u00a0\u2026 Alas!\ngeneral, what a splendid army perished under the command of that\nunhappy marshal!\u00a0\u2026\u201d\n\nAt these words, General Cartier de Chalmot began to say what he had\nalready said a hundred times:\n\n\u201cBazaine!\u00a0\u2026 Listen to me. Neglect of the regulations touching fortified\ntowns, culpable hesitation in giving orders, mental reservations\nbefore the enemy. And before the enemy one ought to have no mental\nreservations\u00a0\u2026 Capitulation in open country.\u00a0\u2026 He deserved his fate.\nAnd then a scapegoat was needed.\u201d\n\n\u201cFor my part,\u201d answered the chaplain, \u201cI should beware of ever saying a\nsingle word which might injure the memory of this unfortunate marshal.\nI cannot judge his actions. And it is certainly not my business to\nnoise abroad even his indubitable shortcomings. For he granted me a\nfavour for which I shall feel grateful as long as I live.\u201d\n\n\u201cA favour?\u201d demanded the general. \u201cHe? To you?\u201d\n\n\u201cOh! a favour so noble, so beautiful! He granted me a pardon for a poor\nsoldier, a dragoon condemned to death for insubordination. In memory\nof this favour, every year I say a mass for the repose of the soul of\nex-Marshal Bazaine.\u201d\n\nBut General Cartier de Chalmot would not let himself be turned from the\npoint.\n\n\u201cCapitulation in open country!\u00a0\u2026 Just imagine it.\u00a0\u2026 He deserved his\nfate.\u201d\n\nAnd, in order to hearten himself up, the general spoke of Canrobert,\nand of the splendid stand of the ... brigade at Saint-Privat.\n\nAnd the chaplain related anecdotes of a diverting kind, with an\nedifying climax.\n\n\u201cAh! Saint-Privat, general! On the eve of the battle, a great rascal of\na carabineer came to look for me. I see him still, all blackened, in a\nsheepskin. He cries to me: \u2018To-morrow\u2019s going to be warm work. I may\nleave my bones to rot there. Confess me, monsieur le cur\u00e9, and quickly!\nI must go and groom my little mare.\u2019 I say to him: \u2018I don\u2019t want to\ndelay you, friend. Still, you must tell me your sins. What are your\nsins?\u2019 In astonishment he looks at me and replies: \u2018Why, all!\u2019 \u2018What,\nall?\u2019 \u2018Yes, all. I have committed all the sins.\u2019 I shake my head.\n\u2018All, my friend\u2014that is a good many!\u00a0\u2026 Tell me, hast thou beaten thy\nmother?\u2019 At this question, my gentleman grows excited, waves his great\narms, swears like a Pagan, and exclaims: \u2018Monsieur le cur\u00e9, you are\nmocking me!\u2019 I reply to him: \u2018Calm yourself, friend. You see now that\nyou have not committed all the sins.\u2019\u00a0\u2026\u201d\n\nThus the chaplain cheerily narrated pious regimental anecdotes.\nAnd then he deduced the moral from them. Good Christians made good\nsoldiers. It was a mistake to banish religion from the Army.\n\nGeneral Cartier de Chalmot approved of these maxims.\n\n\u201cI have always said so, my dear abb\u00e9. In destroying mystical beliefs\nyou ruin the military spirit. By what right do you exact of a man the\nsacrifice of his life if you take away from him the hope of another\nexistence?\u201d\n\nAnd the chaplain answered, with a smile full of kindliness, innocence\nand joy:\n\n\u201cYou will see that there will be a return to religion. They are already\ngoing back to it on all sides. Men are not as bad as they appear and\nGod is infinitely good.\u201d\n\nThen at last he revealed the object of his visit.\n\n\u201cI come, general, to ask a great favour of you.\u201d\n\nGeneral Cartier de Chalmot became attentive; his face, already sad,\ngrew sadder still. He loved and respected this old chaplain, and would\nhave wished to give him pleasure. But the very idea of granting a\nfavour was alarming to his strict uprightness.\n\n\u201cYes, general, I come to ask you to work for the good of the Church.\nYou know Abb\u00e9 Lantaigne, head of the high seminary in our town. He is\na priest renowned for his piety and learning, a great theologian.\u201d\n\n\u201cI have met Abb\u00e9 Lantaigne several times. He made a favourable\nimpression on me. But\u00a0\u2026\u201d\n\n\u201cOh! general, if you had heard his lectures as I have done, you\nwould be amazed at his learning. Yet I was able to appreciate but a\ntrifling part of it. Thirty years of my life I have spent in reminding\npoor soldiers stretched on a hospital bed of the goodness of God.\nI have slipped in a good word along with a screw of tobacco. For\nanother twenty-five years I have been confessing holy maidens, full\nof sanctity, of course, but less charming in character than were my\nsoldiers. I have never had the time to read the Fathers; I have neither\nenough brain nor enough theology to appreciate M. l\u2019abb\u00e9 Lantaigne\nat his true worth, for he is a walking encyclopedia. But at least I\ncan assure you, general, that he speaks as he acts, and he acts as he\nspeaks.\u201d\n\nAnd the old chaplain, winking his eye roguishly, added:\n\n\u201cAll ecclesiastics, unfortunately, are not of this kind.\u201d\n\n\u201cNor are all soldiers,\u201d said the general, smiling a very wan smile.\n\nAnd the two men exchanged a sympathetic glance, in their common hatred\nof intrigue and falsity.\n\nAbb\u00e9 de Lalonde, who was, however, capable of a little guile, wound up\nhis eulogy of Abb\u00e9 Lantaigne with this touch:\n\n\u201cHe is an excellent priest, and if he had been a soldier he would have\nmade an excellent soldier.\u201d\n\nBut the general demanded brusquely:\n\n\u201cWell! what can I do for him?\u201d\n\n\u201cHelp him to slip on the violet stockings, which he has richly\ndeserved, general. He is an admitted candidate for the vacant bishopric\nof Tourcoing. I beg you to support him with the Minister of Justice and\nReligion, whom, I am told, you know personally.\u201d\n\nThe general shook his head. In fact, he had never asked anything of\nthe Government. Cartier de Chalmot, as a royalist and a Christian,\nregarded the Republic with a disapproval that was complete, silent\nand whole-hearted. Reading no newspapers and talking with no one, he\nundervalued on principle a civil power of whose doings he knew nothing.\nHe obeyed and held his tongue. He was admired in the ch\u00e2teaux of the\nneighbourhood for his melancholy resignation, inspired by the sentiment\nof duty, strengthened by a profound scorn for everything which was not\nmilitary, intensified by a growing difficulty in thought and speech\nrendered obvious and affecting by the progress of an affection of the\nliver.\n\nIt was well known that General Cartier de Chalmot remained a faithful\nroyalist in the depths of his heart. It was not so well known that one\nday in the year 1893 his heart had received one of those shocks which\ncan only be compared with what Christians describe as the workings\nof grace, and which bring with the force of a thunderbolt deep and\nunlooked-for peace to a man\u2019s innermost being. This event took place\nat five o\u2019clock in the evening of the 4th of June in the drawing-rooms\nof the prefecture. There, among the flowers that Madame Worms-Clavelin\nhad herself arranged, President Carnot, on his way through the town,\nhad received the officers of the garrison. General Cartier de Chalmot,\nbeing present with his staff, saw the President for the first time,\nand instantly, for no apparent reason, on no explicable grounds, was\npierced through and through by a terrible admiration. In a second,\nbefore the gentle gravity and honest inflexibility of the head of the\nState, all his prejudices fell away. He forgot that this sovereign\nwas a civilian. He revered and loved him. He suddenly felt himself\nbound with ties of sympathy and respect to this man, sad and sallow\nlike himself, but august and serene like a ruler. He uttered with a\nsoldierly stutter the official compliment which he had learnt by heart.\nThe President answered him: \u201cI thank you in the name of the Republic\nand of our country which you loyally serve.\u201d At this, all the devotion\nto an absent prince which General Cartier de Chalmot had stored up for\ntwenty-five years welled forth from his heart towards the President,\nwhose quiet face remained surprisingly immobile, and who spoke in a\nmelancholy voice with no movement of cheek or lips, on which his black\nbeard set a seal. On this waxen face, in these slow, honest eyes, on\nthis feeble breast, across which blazed the broad red ribbon of his\norder, in the whole figure of this suffering automaton, the general\nperceived both the dignity of the leader, and the affliction of the\nill-fated man who has never laughed. With his admiration there was\nmingled a strain of tenderness.\n\nA year later he heard of the tragic end of this President for whose\nsafety he would willingly have died, and whom he henceforth pictured in\nhis thoughts as dark and stiff, like the flag rolled round its staff in\nthe barracks and covered with its case.\n\nFrom that time he had ignored the civil rulers of France. He cared\nto know nothing save of his military superiors, whom he obeyed with\nmelancholy punctiliousness. Pained at the idea of answering the\nvenerable Abb\u00e9 de Lalonde by a refusal, he bethought himself for a\nmoment, and then gave his reasons.\n\n\u201cA matter of principle. I never ask anything of the government. You\nagree with me, don\u2019t you?\u00a0\u2026 For from the moment that one lays down a\nrule for oneself\u00a0\u2026\u201d\n\nThe chaplain looked at him with an expression of sadness that seemed\nas though thrown over his happy old face.\n\n\u201cOh! how could I agree with you, general\u2014I who beg of everybody? I am\na hardened beggar. For God and the poor, I have pleaded with all the\npowers of the day, with King Louis Philippe\u2019s ministers, with those of\nthe provisional government, with Napoleon III.\u2019s ministers, with those\nof the _Ordre Moral_ and those of the present Republic. They have all\nhelped me to do some good. And since you know the Minister of Religion\n\u2026\u201d\n\nAt this moment a shrill voice called in the passage:\n\n\u201cPoulot! Poulot!\u201d\n\nAnd a stout lady in a morning wrapper, her white hair crowned with\nhair-curlers, entered the room with a rush. It was Madame Cartier de\nChalmot, who was calling the general to d\u00e9jeuner.\n\nShe had already shaken her husband with imperious tenderness, and\nexclaimed once more: \u201cPoulot!\u201d before she became aware of the presence\nof the old priest crushed up against the door.\n\nShe apologised for her untidy dress. She had had so much to do\nthis morning! Three daughters, two sons, an orphan nephew and her\nhusband\u2014seven children to look after!\n\n\u201cAh! madame,\u201d said the abb\u00e9, \u201cit is God himself who has sent you! You\nwill be my providence.\u201d\n\n\u201cYour providence, monsieur l\u2019abb\u00e9!\u201d\n\nIn her grey dressing-gown her figure revealed the ample dignity of\nclassic motherhood. On her beaming moustachioed face shone a matronly\npride; her large gestures expressed at once the briskness of a\nhousewife habituated to work and the ease of a woman accustomed to\nofficial deference. The general disappeared behind her. She was his\nhousehold goddess and his guardian angel, this Pauline who carried on\nher brave, energetic shoulders all the burden of this poverty-stricken,\nostentatious house, who played the part of seamstress to the family,\nas well as cook, dressmaker, chambermaid, governess, apothecary, and\neven milliner with a frankly gaudy taste, and yet showed at big dinners\nand receptions an imperturbable good breeding, a commanding profile,\nand shoulders that were still beautiful. It was commonly said in the\ndivision that if the general became Minister of War, his wife would do\nthe honours of the h\u00f4tel in the Boulevard Saint-Germain[F] in capital\nfashion.\n\n  [F] Where the French War Office is situated.\n\nThe energy of the general\u2019s wife spread freely over into the outer\nworld and flourished vigorously in pious and charitable works.\nMadame Cartier de Chalmot was lady patroness of three cr\u00eaches and a\ndozen charities recommended by the Cardinal-Archbishop. Monseigneur\nCharlot showed a special predilection for this lady, and said to her\nsometimes, with his man-of-the-world smile: \u201cYou are a general in\nthe army of Christian charity.\u201d And, being a professor of orthodoxy,\nMonseigneur Charlot never failed to add: \u201cAnd there is no charity\noutside the Christian charity; for the Church alone is in a position to\nsolve the social problems whose difficulties perplex the minds of all\nand cause special anxiety to our paternal heart.\u201d\n\nThis was just what Madame Cartier de Chalmot thought. She was lavishly,\nglaringly pious, and not free from the rather loud magnificence that\nwas aptly accented by the sound of her voice and the flowers in her\nhats. Her faith, voluminous and decorative like the bosom which\nenshrined it, made a splendid show in drawing-rooms. By the breadth of\nher religious sentiments she had done much harm to her husband. But\nneither of them paid any heed to this. The general also believed in the\nChristian creed, although this would not have prevented him from having\nthe Cardinal-Archbishop arrested on a written order from the Minister\nof War. Yet he was regarded with suspicion by the democracy. And the\n_pr\u00e9fet_, M. Worms-Clavelin himself, though little of a fanatic,\nregarded General Cartier de Chalmot as a dangerous man. This was his\nwife\u2019s fault. She was ambitious, but the soul of honour and incapable\nof betraying her God.\n\n\u201cHow can I be your providence, monsieur l\u2019abb\u00e9?\u201d\n\nAnd when she heard that the point at issue was the raising to the\nbishopric of Tourcoing of Abb\u00e9 Lantaigne, a man of such noble,\nsteadfast piety, she caught fire and showed her courage.\n\n\u201cThose are the bishops we want. M. Lantaigne ought to be nominated.\u201d\n\nThe old chaplain began to make use of this happy valiancy.\n\n\u201cThen, madame, induce the general to write to the Minister of Religion,\nwho turns out to be his friend.\u201d\n\nShe shook the crown of curlers on her head vigorously.\n\n\u201cNo, monsieur l\u2019abb\u00e9. My husband will not write. It is useless to\npersist. He thinks that a soldier ought never to ask for anything. He\nis right. My father was of this opinion. You knew him, monsieur l\u2019abb\u00e9,\nand you know that he was a fine man and a good soldier.\u201d\n\nThe old Army chaplain smote his forehead.\n\n\u201cColonel de Balny! Yes, of course, I knew him. He was a hero and a\nChristian.\u201d\n\nGeneral Cartier de Chalmot interposed:\n\n\u201cMy father-in-law, Colonel de Balny, was chiefly commendable for\nhaving mastered in their entirety the regulations of 1829 on cavalry\nman\u0153uvres. These regulations were so complicated that few officers\nmastered them in their completeness. They were afterwards withdrawn,\nand Colonel de Balny conceived such a disgust at this that it hastened\nhis end. New regulations were imposed, possessing the unquestionable\nadvantage of simplification. Yet I question whether the old state of\nthings was not preferable. You must exact much from a cavalryman in\norder to get a little out of him. It is the same with the foot-soldier.\u201d\n\nAnd the general began anxiously to manipulate his division of cards\ndrawn up in the boxes.\n\nMadame Cartier de Chalmot had heard these same words very often. She\nalways made the same reply to them. Once more this time she said:\n\n\u201cPoulot! how can you say that papa died of chagrin, when he fell down\nin an apoplectic fit at a review?\u201d\n\nThe old chaplain, by a crafty wile, brought the conversation back to\nthe subject which interested him.\n\n\u201cAh! madame, your excellent father, Colonel de Balny, would have\ncertainly appreciated the character of M. Lantaigne, and he would have\noffered up prayers that this priest might be raised to a bishopric.\u201d\n\n\u201cI also, monsieur l\u2019abb\u00e9, will offer up prayers for that,\u201d answered the\ngeneral\u2019s wife. \u201cMy husband cannot, ought not to make any application.\nBut if you think that my intervention will be useful, I will drop a\nword to Monseigneur. He doesn\u2019t terrify me at all, our Archbishop.\u201d\n\n\u201cDoubtless a word from your mouth\u00a0\u2026\u201d murmured the old man. \u201c... The ear\nof Monseigneur Chariot will be open to it.\u201d\n\nThe general\u2019s wife announced that she would be seeing the Archbishop\nat the inauguration of the Pain de Saint Antoine, of which she was\npresident, and that there\u00a0\u2026\n\nShe interrupted herself:\n\n\u201cThe cutlets!\u00a0\u2026 Excuse me, monsieur l\u2019abb\u00e9\u00a0\u2026\u201d\n\nShe rushed out on to the landing and shouted orders to the cook from\nthe staircase. Then she reappeared in the room.\n\n\u201cAnd there I shall draw him aside, and beg him to speak to the nuncio\nin favour of M. Lantaigne. Is that the right way to go to work?\u201d\n\nThe old chaplain made as if to take her hands, yet without actually\ndoing so.\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s just the way, madame. I am sure that the good Saint Anthony\nof Padua will be with you and will help you to persuade Monseigneur\nCharlot. He is a great saint. I mean Saint Anthony.\u00a0\u2026 Ladies ought not\nto believe that he devotes himself exclusively to finding the jewels\nwhich they have lost. In heaven he has something better to do. To beg\nhim for bread for the poor, that is assuredly far worthier. You have\nrealised that, dear madame. The Pain de Saint Antoine is a fine work. I\nmust inform myself more fully about it. But I shall take good care not\nto breathe a word of it to my good sisters.\u201d\n\nHe was referring to the Dames du Salut, to whom he was chaplain.\n\n\u201cThey have already too many undertakings. They are excellent sisters,\nbut too much absorbed in trifling duties, and far too petty, the poor\nladies.\u201d\n\nHe sighed, recalling the time when he was a regimental chaplain, the\ntragic days of the war, when he accompanied the wounded stretched out\non an ambulance litter and gave them a drop of brandy. For it was by\ndoles of tobacco and spirits that he was in the habit of carrying\non his apostolic labours. He again gave way to his love of talking\nabout the fighting round Metz and told some anecdotes. He had several\nconcerning a certain sapper, a native of Lorraine called Larmoise, a\nman full of resources.\n\n\u201cI did not tell you, general, how this great devil of a sapper used to\nbring me a bag of potatoes every morning. One day I asked him where\nhe picked them up. Says he: \u2018In the enemy\u2019s lines.\u2019 \u2018You villain,\u2019\nI say to him. Thereupon he explains to me how he has found some\nfellow-countrymen among the German guards. \u2018Fellow-countrymen?\u2019 \u2018Yes,\nfellow-countrymen, fellows from home. We are only separated by the\nfrontier. We embraced one another, we talked about our relatives and\nfriends. And they said to me: \u201dYou can take as many potatoes as you\nlike.\u201d\u2019\u201d\n\nAnd the chaplain added:\n\n\u201cThis simple incident made me feel better than any reasoning how cruel\nand unjust war is.\u201d\n\n\u201cYes,\u201d said the general, \u201cthese annoying intimacies occasionally occur\nat the points of contact of two armies. They must be sternly repressed,\nhaving due regard, of course, to the circumstances.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nVII\n\n\nOn the promenade along the ramparts that evening Abb\u00e9 Lantaigne,\nhead of the high seminary, fell in with M. Bergeret, a professor of\nliterature who was considered a man of remarkable, but eccentric\ncharacter. M. Lantaigne forgave him his scepticism and chatted with\nhim willingly, whenever he met him under the elm-trees on the Mall.\nOn his side, M. Bergeret had no objection to studying the mind of an\nintelligent priest. They both knew that their conversations on a seat\nin the promenade were equally displeasing to the dean of the Faculty\nand to the Archbishop. But Abb\u00e9 Lantaigne knew nothing about worldly\nprudence, and M. Bergeret, very weary, discouraged, and disillusioned,\nhad given up caring for fruitless considerations of policy.\n\nSceptical within the bounds of decorum and good taste, the assiduous\ndevotions of his wife and the endless catechisms of his daughters had\nresulted in his being impeached of clericalism in the ministerial\nbureaux, whilst certain speeches that had been attributed to him\nwere used against him, both by professing Catholics and professional\npatriots. Foiled in his ambitions, he still meant to live in his own\nway, and having failed to learn how to please, tried discreetly to\ndisplease.\n\nOn this peaceful and radiant evening M. Bergeret, seeing the head of\nthe high seminary coming along his usual road, advanced several paces\nto meet the priest and joined him under the first elm-trees on the Mall.\n\n\u201cTo me the place is happy where I meet you,\u201d said Abb\u00e9 Lantaigne,\nwho loved, before a university man, to air his harmless literary\naffectations.\n\nIn a few very vague phrases they made a mutual confession of the great\npity aroused in them both by the world in which they lived. It was Abb\u00e9\nLantaigne alone who deplored the decay of this ancient city, so rich,\nduring the Middle Ages, in knowledge and thought, and now subject to\na few petty tradesmen and freemasons. In frank opposition to this, M.\nBergeret said:\n\n\u201cIn days gone by men were just what they are now; that is to say,\nmoderately good and moderately bad.\u201d\n\n\u201cNot so!\u201d answered M. Lantaigne. \u201cMen were vigorous in character and\nstrong in doctrine when Raymond the Great, surnamed the balsamic\ndoctor, taught in this town the epitome of human knowledge.\u201d\n\nThe professor and the priest sat down on a stone bench where two old\nmen, pale-faced and decrepit, were already sitting without saying a\nword. In front of this bench, green meadows, wreathed in light mist,\nstretched gently downwards to the poplars that fringed the river.\n\n\u201cMonsieur l\u2019abb\u00e9,\u201d said the professor, \u201cI have, like everybody else,\nturned over the pages of the _Hortus_ and the _Thesaurus_ of Raymond\nthe Great in the municipal library. Moreover, I have read the new book\nthat Abb\u00e9 Cazeaux has devoted to the balsamic doctor. Now, what struck\nme in that book\u00a0\u2026\u201d\n\n\u201cAbb\u00e9 Cazeaux is one of my pupils,\u201d interrupted M. Lantaigne. \u201cHis book\non Raymond the Great is based on facts, which is praiseworthy; it is\nfounded on theology, which is still more praiseworthy and rare, for\ntheology is lost in this decadent France, which was the greatest of the\nnations as long as she was the most theological.\u201d\n\n\u201cThis book of M. Cazeaux\u2019s,\u201d answered M. Bergeret, \u201cappeared to me to\nbe interesting from several points of view. For want of a knowledge\nof theology I lost myself in it more than once. Yet I fancied I could\nsee in it that the blessed Raymond, rigidly orthodox monk as he was,\nclaimed for the teacher the right of professing two contradictory\nopinions on the same subject, the one theological and in accordance\nwith revelation, the other purely human and based on experience or\nreason. The balsamic doctor, whose statue adorns so sternly the\ncourtyard of the Archbishop\u2019s palace, maintained, according to what\nI have been able to understand, that one and the same man may deny,\nas an observer or as a disputant, the truths which, as a Christian,\nhe believes and confesses. And it seemed to me that your pupil, M.\nCazeaux, approved of a system so strange.\u201d\n\nAbb\u00e9 Lantaigne, quite animated by what he had just heard, drew his\nred silk handkerchief from his pocket, unfurled it like a flag, and\nwith flushed face and mouth wide open flung himself fearlessly on the\nchallenge thrown down.\n\n\u201cMonsieur Bergeret, as to whether one can have, on the same subject,\ntwo distinct opinions, the one theological and of divine origin, the\nother purely rational or experimental and of human origin, that is a\nquestion which I answer in the affirmative. And I am going to prove to\nyou the truth of this apparent contradiction by a most common instance.\nWhen, seated in your study, before your table loaded with books and\npapers, you exclaim, \u2018It is incredible! I have just this moment put my\npaper-knife on this table and now I do not see it there. I see it, I\u2019m\nsure I see it, and yet I no longer see it,\u2019 when you think in this way,\nMonsieur Bergeret, you have two contradictory opinions with respect\nto the same object, one that your paper-knife is on the table because\nit ought to be there: that opinion is based on reason; the other that\nyour paper-knife is not on the table, because you do not see it there:\nthat opinion is based on experience. There you have two irreconcilable\nopinions on the same subject. And they are simultaneous. You affirm at\nthe same time both the presence and the absence of the paper-knife. You\nexclaim, \u2018It is there, I am sure of it,\u2019 at the very moment you are\nproving it is not there.\u201d\n\nAnd, having finished his demonstration, Abb\u00e9 Lantaigne waved his\nchequered, snuff-besprinkled silk handkerchief, like the flaming banner\nof scholasticism.\n\nBut the professor of literature was not convinced. He had no difficulty\nin showing the emptiness of this sophism. He replied quite gently in\nthe rather weak voice that he habitually husbanded, that, in looking\nfor his paper-knife, he experienced fear and hope, by turns and not\nsimultaneously, the result of an uncertainty which could not last; for\nit ended by his making sure whether the knife was on the table or not.\n\n\u201cThere is nothing, monsieur l\u2019abb\u00e9,\u201d added he, \u201cnothing in this\ninstance of the boxwood knife that is applicable to the contradictory\njudgment which the blessed Raymond, or M. Cazeaux, or you yourself,\nmight form on such or such a fact recorded in the Bible, when you state\nthat it is at the same time both true and false. Allow me, in my turn,\nto give you an instance. I choose,\u2014not, of course, in order to ensnare\nyou, but because this incident comes of its own accord into my mind,\u2014I\nchoose the story of Joshua causing the sun to stand still.\u00a0\u2026\u201d\n\nM. Bergeret passed his tongue over his lips and smiled. For in truth he\nwas, in the secret places of his soul, a Voltairean:\n\n\u201c... Joshua causing the sun to stand still. Will you tell me, straight\nout, monsieur l\u2019abb\u00e9, that Joshua made the sun stand still and did not\nmake it stand still?\u201d\n\nThe head of the high seminary had by no means an air of embarrassment.\nSplendid controversialist as he was, he turned to his opponent with\nflashing eyes and heaving breast.\n\n\u201cAfter every reservation has been expressly made with respect to the\ntrue interpretation, both literal and spiritual, of the passage in\nJudges which you attack and against which so many unbelievers have\nblindly dashed themselves before you, I will reply to you fearlessly.\nYes, I have two distinct opinions as to the interpretation of this\nmiracle. I believe as a natural philosopher, for reasons drawn from\nphysics, that is to say, from observation, that the earth turns\nround a motionless sun. And as a theologian I believe that Joshua\ncaused the sun to stand still. There is here a contradiction. But this\ncontradiction is not irreconcilable. I will prove it to you at once.\nFor the idea which we form of the sun is purely human; it only concerns\nman and could not be applicable to God. For man, the sun does not turn\nround the earth. I grant it, and I am willing to decide in favour\nof Copernicus. But I will not go so far as to force God to become a\nCopernican like myself, and I shall not inquire whether, for God, the\nsun turns or does not turn round the earth. To speak truly, I had no\nneed of the text of Judges in order to know that our human astronomy is\nnot the astronomy of God. Speculations as to time, number and space do\nnot embrace infinity, and it is a mad idea to wish to entangle the Holy\nSpirit in a physical or mathematical difficulty.\u201d\n\n\u201cThen,\u201d asked the professor, \u201cyou admit that, even in mathematics, it\nis permissible to have two contradictory opinions, the one human, the\nother divine?\u201d\n\n\u201cI will not risk being reduced to that extremity,\u201d answered Abb\u00e9\nLantaigne. \u201cThere is in mathematics an exactitude which practically\nreconciles it with absolute truth. Numbers, on the contrary, are only\ndangerous because the reason, being tempted to seek in them for its own\nprinciple, runs the risk of going so far astray as to see nothing in\nthe universe save a system of numbers. This error has been condemned by\nthe Church. Yet I will answer you boldly that human mathematics are not\ndivine mathematics. Doubtless, however, it would not be possible for\none to contradict the other, and I prefer to believe that you do not\nwish to make me say that for God three and three can make nine. But we\ndo not know all the properties of numbers, and God does.\n\n\u201cI hear that there are priests, regarded as eminent, who maintain that\nscience ought to agree with theology. I detest this impertinence, I\nwill say this impiety, for there is a certain impiety in making the\nimmutable and absolute truth walk in harmony with that imperfect and\nprovisional truth which is called science. This madness of assimilating\nreality to appearance, the body to the soul, has produced a multitude\nof miserable, baneful opinions through which the apologists of this\nperiod have allowed their foolhardy feebleness to be seen. One, a\ndistinguished member of the Society of Jesus, admits the plurality of\ninhabited worlds; he allows that intelligent beings may inhabit Mars\nand Venus, provided that to the earth there be reserved the privilege\nof the Cross, by which it again becomes unique and peculiar in the\nCreation. The other, a man who not without some merit occupied in the\nSorbonne the chair of theology which has since been abolished, grants\nthat the geologist can trace the vestiges of preadamites and reduces\nthe Genesis of the Bible to the organisation of one province of the\nuniverse for the sojourn of Adam and his seed. O dull folly! O pitiable\nboldness! O ancient novelties, already condemned a hundred times! O\nviolation of sacred unity! How much better, like Raymond the Great and\nhis historian, to proclaim that science and religion ought no more to\nbe confused with each other than the relative and the absolute, the\nfinite and the infinite, the darkness and the light!\u201d\n\n\u201cMonsieur l\u2019abb\u00e9,\u201d said the professor, \u201cyou despise science.\u201d\n\nThe priest shook his head.\n\n\u201cNot so, Monsieur Bergeret, not so! I hold, on the contrary, according\nto the example of Saint Thomas Aquinas and all the great doctors, that\nscience and philosophy ought to be held in high esteem in the schools.\n\n\u201cOne does not despise science without despising reason; one does not\ndespise reason without despising man; one does not despise man without\ninsulting God. The rash scepticism which lays the blame on human\nreason is the first step towards that criminal scepticism that defies\nthe divine mysteries. I value science as a gift which comes to us\nfrom God. But if God has given us science, he has not given us _His_\nscience. His geometry is not ours. Ours speculates on one plane or in\nspace; His works in infinitude. He has not deceived us: that is why I\nconsider that there is a true human science. He has not taught us all:\nthat is why I declare the powerlessness of this science, even though\ntrue, to agree with the truth of truths. And this discrepancy, every\ntime that it occurs between the two, I see without fear: it proves\nnothing, neither against heaven, nor earth.\u201d\n\nM. Bergeret confessed that this system seemed to him as clever as it\nwas bold, and ultimately consonant with the interests of the faith.\n\n\u201cBut,\u201d added he, \u201cit is not our Archbishop\u2019s doctrine. In his pastoral\nletters, Monseigneur Charlot speaks voluntarily of the truths of\nreligion being confirmed by the discoveries of science, and especially\nby the experiments of M. Pasteur.\u201d\n\n\u201cOh!\u201d answered Abb\u00e9 Lantaigne in a nasal voice that hissed with scorn,\n\u201cHis Eminence observes, in philosophy at least, the vow of evangelical\npoverty.\u201d\n\nAt the moment when this phrase was lashing the air beneath the\nquincunxes, a corpulent great-coat, capped by a wide clerical hat,\npassed in front of the bench.\n\n\u201cSpeak lower, monsieur l\u2019abb\u00e9,\u201d said the professor; \u201cAbb\u00e9 Guitrel hears\nyou.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nVIII\n\n\nM. _le Pr\u00e9fet_ Worms-Clavelin was chatting with Abb\u00e9 Guitrel in the\nshop of Rondonneau junior, goldsmith and jeweller. He leant back in an\narm-chair and crossed his legs so that the sole of one of his boots\nstuck up towards the placid old man\u2019s chin.\n\n\u201cMonsieur l\u2019abb\u00e9, it is useless for you to speak: you are an\nenlightened priest; you see in religion a collection of moral precepts,\na necessary discipline, and not a set of antiquated dogmas, of\nmysteries whose absurdity is only too little mysterious.\u201d\n\nAs a priest, M. Guitrel had excellent rules of conduct. One of these\nrules was to avoid scandal and to hold his tongue, rather than expose\nthe truth to the mockery of unbelievers. And, as this precaution agreed\nwith the bent of his character, he observed it scrupulously. But M.\n_le pr\u00e9fet_ Worms-Clavelin was lacking in discretion. His vast, fleshy\nnose, his thick lips, seemed like a powerful apparatus of suction and\nabsorption, whilst his receding forehead, above his great pale eyes,\nbetrayed his opposition to all moral delicacy. He persisted, marshalled\nagainst Christian dogmas the arguments of the masonic lodges and the\nliterary caf\u00e9s, and concluded by saying that it was impossible for an\nintelligent man to believe a word of the Catechism. Then, bringing down\nhis fat, beringed hand on the priest\u2019s shoulder, he said:\n\n\u201cYou don\u2019t answer, my dear abb\u00e9; you are of my opinion.\u201d\n\nM. Guitrel, in some sort a martyr, was forced to confess his faith.\n\n\u201cPardon me, monsieur _le pr\u00e9fet_; that little book, the Catechism,\nwhich it is the fashion to despise in certain quarters, contains more\ntruths than the great treatises on philosophy which make such a vast\nnoise in the world. The Catechism unites the most learned metaphysics\nwith the most effective simplicity. This appreciation is not mine;\nit is that of an eminent philosopher, M. Jules Simon, who ranks the\nCatechism above Plato\u2019s _Tim\u00e6us_.\u201d\n\nThe _pr\u00e9fet_ dared not contradict the opinion of an ex-minister. He\nremembered at the same time that his official superior, the present\nSecretary of State for the Home Department, was a Protestant. He said:\n\u201cAs an official I respect all religions equally, Protestantism as\nwell as Catholicism. As a man, I am a freethinker, and if I had any\npreference as to dogma, let me tell you, monsieur l\u2019abb\u00e9, that it\nwould be in favour of the Reformed Party.\u201d\n\nM. Guitrel replied in an unctuous voice: \u201cThere are, doubtless, among\nProtestants, many persons eminently estimable from the point of view\nof morals, and I dare say many exemplary persons, if they are judged\nfrom the world\u2019s standpoint. But the so-called reformed Church is but a\nlimb hacked from the Catholic Church, and the place of the wound still\nbleeds.\u201d\n\nIndifferent to this powerful phrase, borrowed from Bossuet, M. _le\npr\u00e9fet_ drew from his case a big cigar, lighted it, and holding out the\ncase to the priest:\n\n\u201cWill you accept a cigar, monsieur l\u2019abb\u00e9?\u201d\n\nBeing densely ignorant of ecclesiastical discipline, and believing that\ntobacco-smoking was forbidden to the clergy, he offered a cigar to M.\nGuitrel in order to make him look awkward or to lead him astray. In his\nignorance he believed that by this offer he was leading a wearer of\nthe cassock into sin, making him fall into disobedience, perhaps into\nsacrilege, and almost into apostasy. But M. Guitrel placidly took the\ncigar, slipped it carefully into the pocket of his great-coat, and said\nurbanely that he would smoke it after supper in his room.\n\nThus M. _le pr\u00e9fet_ Worms-Clavelin and Abb\u00e9 Guitrel, professor of\nsacred rhetoric at the high seminary, conversed in the goldsmith\u2019s\noffice. Near them, Rondonneau junior, contractor to the Archbishop,\nwho also worked for the prefecture, listened to the conversation\ndiscreetly, without taking part in it. He was preparing his mail, and\nhis bald pate came and went among his account-books and the samples of\ncommercial jewellery heaped up on the table.\n\nWith a brusque movement M. _le pr\u00e9fet_ stood upright, pushed Abb\u00e9\nGuitrel to the other end of the room, into the recess of the window,\nand whispered in his ear:\n\n\u201cMy dear Guitrel, you know that the bishopric of Tourcoing is vacant.\u201d\n\n\u201cI have in fact,\u201d answered the priest, \u201clearnt of the death of\nMonseigneur Duclou. It is a great loss for the Church of France.\nMonseigneur Duclou\u2019s merits were only equalled by his modesty. He\nexcelled in preaching. His pastoral addresses are models of hortatory\neloquence. Shall I dare to recall to mind that I knew him in Orleans,\nat the time when he was still Abb\u00e9 Duclou, the revered cur\u00e9 of\nSaint-Euverte, and that at that time he deigned to honour me with his\ngracious friendship? The news of his premature death was particularly\ndistressing to me.\u201d\n\nHe was silent, letting his lips droop in sign of grief.\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s not a question of that,\u201d said the _pr\u00e9fet_. \u201cHe is dead; it is a\nquestion of filling his place.\u201d\n\nM. Guitrel\u2019s face changed. Now, screwing up his little eyes till they\nwere quite round, he looked like a rat who sees bacon in the larder.\n\n\u201cYou must know, my dear Guitrel,\u201d continued the _pr\u00e9fet_, \u201cthat this\nbusiness has nothing whatever to do with me. It is not I who appoint\nthe bishops. I am not the keeper of the seals, nor the nuncio, nor the\nPope. God be thanked!\u201d\n\nAnd he began to laugh.\n\n\u201cBy the bye, on what terms do you stand with the nuncio?\u201d\n\n\u201cThe nuncio, monsieur _le pr\u00e9fet_, looks upon me with friendliness, as\na humble and dutiful servant of the Holy Father. But I do not flatter\nmyself that he especially heeds me, in the humble station in which I\nhave been placed and where I am content to remain.\u201d\n\n\u201cMy dear abb\u00e9, if I speak to you about this affair\u2014quite between\nourselves, isn\u2019t it?\u2014it is because there is a question of sending\na priest from my county town to Tourcoing. I hear on good authority\nthat the name of Abb\u00e9 Lantaigne, head of the high seminary, is being\nbrought forward, and it is not impossible that I may be asked to supply\nconfidential information about the candidate. He is your ecclesiastical\nsuperior. What do you think of him?\u201d\n\nM. Guitrel answered, with downcast eyes:\n\n\u201cIt is certain that Abb\u00e9 Lantaigne would bring to the episcopal\nsee once sanctified by the apostle Loup both eminent piety and\nthe precious gifts of eloquence. His Lenten sermons preached at\nSaint-Exup\u00e8re have been justly admired for their logical arrangement of\nideas and power of expression, and it is commonly recognised that some\nof the sermons would fall in no respect short of perfection, if there\nwere present in them that unction, that perfumed and consecrated oil,\nif I may dare so to call it, which alone penetrates the heart.\n\n\u201cThe cur\u00e9 of Saint-Exup\u00e8re took pleasure in being the first to\ndeclare that M. Lantaigne, in speaking the word from the pulpit of\nthe most venerable church in the diocese, had deserved well of the\ngreat apostle of the Gauls who laid the first stone of it, by reason\nof an ardour and a zeal whose very excesses were excused by their\nbenevolent origin. He only deplored the orator\u2019s excursions into the\ndomain of contemporary history. For it must needs be confessed that\nM. Lantaigne has no fear of walking on embers that are still burning.\nM. Lantaigne is distinguished by piety, learning and talent. What a\npity that a priest worthy of being raised to the highest positions in\nthe Church should believe it to be his duty to proclaim a devotion,\ndoubtless praiseworthy in principle, but reckless in its results, to\nan exiled family from whom he has received favours. He takes pleasure\nin showing a copy of the _Imitation de J\u00e9sus-Christ_, bound in purple\nand gold, which was given to him by the Comtesse de Paris, and he\ndisplays far too freely the extent of his gratitude and fidelity. And\nwhat a misfortune that an arrogance, excusable perhaps in such lofty\ntalent, should lead him even to the lengths of speaking publicly under\nthe quincunxes about the Cardinal-Archbishop in terms which I dare\nnot repeat! Alas! failing my voice, all the trees on the Mall would\nre-utter these words that fell from the mouth of M. Lantaigne, in the\npresence of M. Bergeret, professor of literature: \u2018In brain alone, His\nEminence observes the evangelical vow of poverty!\u2019 Such sayings are\nhabitual with him, and was he not heard to say at the last ordination,\nwhen His Eminence advanced clothed in those pontifical ornaments which\nhe bears with so much dignity, notwithstanding his short stature:\n\u2018Golden cross, wooden bishop\u2019? Most unseasonably he thus censured the\nmagnificence with which Monseigneur Charlot delights to celebrate the\noffices as well as to regulate the ordering of his official banquets,\nand especially the dinner which he gave to the general in command\nof the new army-corps, and to which you were invited, Monsieur _le\npr\u00e9fet_. And in particular any better agreement between the prefecture\nand the archbishopric offends Abb\u00e9 Lantaigne, who is far too inclined,\nunfortunately, to prolong the painful misunderstandings from which\nChurch and State suffer equally, in scorn of the precepts of St. Paul\nand the teaching of His Holiness Leo XIII.\u201d\n\nThe _pr\u00e9fet_ opened his mouth quite wide, being in the habit of\nlistening with it. He burst out:\n\n\u201cThis Lantaigne is steeped in the most detestable spirit of\nclericalism! He owes me a grudge? What has he got against me? Am I\nnot tolerant and liberal enough? Did I not shut my eyes when on all\nsides the monks and nuns re-entered the convents, the schools? For if\nwe vigorously uphold the essential laws of the Republic, we hardly\nenforce them. But priests are incorrigible. You are all the same. You\ncry out that you are being oppressed as soon as you yourself are not\noppressing. And what does he say about me, this Lantaigne of yours?\u201d\n\n\u201cNothing definite can be set forth against the administration of M. _le\npr\u00e9fet_ Worms-Clavelin, but an uncompromising soul like M. Lantaigne\nnever forgives either your association with freemasonry or your Jewish\norigin.\u201d\n\nThe _pr\u00e9fet_ shook the ash from his cigar. \u201cThe Jews are no friends\nof mine. I have no ties in the Jewish world. But be tranquil, my dear\nabb\u00e9, I give you my word that M. Lantaigne shall not be bishop of\nTourcoing. I have enough influence in the bureaux to checkmate him.\u00a0\u2026\nJust listen to me, Guitrel: I had no money when I started out in life.\nI made connections for myself. Connections are worth nearly as much as\nwealth. I have many and good ones. I shall be on the watch to see that\nAbb\u00e9 Lantaigne cuts his own throat in the bureaux. Besides, my wife has\na candidate for the bishopric of Tourcoing. And that candidate is you,\nGuitrel.\u201d\n\nAt this word, Abb\u00e9 Guitrel cast down his eyes and flung up his arms.\n\n\u201cI, sit in the seat sanctified by the blessed Loup and by so many pious\napostles of Northern Gaul! Can such a thought have occurred to Madame\nWorms-Clavelin?\u201d\n\n\u201cMy dear Guitrel, she wishes that you should wear the mitre. And I\nassure you she is powerful enough to create a bishop. For my part, I\nshall not be sorry to give a Republican bishop to the Republic. That\u2019s\nunderstood, my dear Guitrel; you look after the Archbishop and the\nnuncio; my wife and I will set the bureaux in motion.\u201d\n\nAnd M. Guitrel murmured with clasped hands:\n\n\u201cThe ancient and venerable see of Tourcoing!\u201d\n\n\u201cA third-class bishopric, a mere hole, my dear abb\u00e9. But one must\nmake a beginning. Why! do you know where I started my career in\nofficial life? At C\u00e9ret! I was _sous-pr\u00e9fet_ of C\u00e9ret, in the\nPyr\u00e9n\u00e9es-Orientales! Would any one credit it?\u00a0\u2026 But I am wasting my\ntime gossiping\u00a0\u2026 Good evening, Monseigneur.\u201d\n\nThe _pr\u00e9fet_ held out his hand to the priest. And M. Guitrel went off\nalong the winding street of the Tintelleries, humbly and with shoulders\nbent, yet planning cunning measures and promising himself, on the day\nwhen he wore the mitre and grasped the crozier, to resist the civil\nGovernment, like a prince of the Church, to fight the freemasons and to\nhurl anathemas at the principles of freethought, the Republic, and the\nRevolution.\n\n\n\n\nIX\n\n\nAn article in _le Lib\u00e9ral_ informed the town of\u00a0\u2026 that it possessed a\nprophetess. This was Mademoiselle Claude Deniseau, daughter of a man\nwho kept a registry for country servants. Up to the age of seventeen\nMademoiselle Deniseau had not revealed to the closest observer any\nabnormality of mind or body. She was a fair, fat, short girl, neither\npretty nor ugly, but pleasant and of a lively disposition. \u201cShe had\nreceived,\u201d said _le Lib\u00e9ral_, \u201ca good middle-class education, and she\nwas religious without bigotry.\u201d At the beginning of her eighteenth\nyear, on the 3rd of February, 189\u2013, at six o\u2019clock in the evening,\nbeing engaged in laying the cloth on the table in the dining-room, she\nthought she heard her mother\u2019s voice saying, \u201cClaudine, go to your\nroom.\u201d She went there and between the bed and the door she perceived\na bright light, and heard a voice which spoke from the light, saying:\n\u201cClaudine, this country must do penance, for that will ward off great\nmisfortunes. I am Saint Radegonde, Queen of France.\u201d Mademoiselle\nDeniseau then descried in the splendour a luminous and, as it were,\ntransparent face that wore a crown of gold and gems.\n\nAfter that Saint Radegonde came every day to converse with Mademoiselle\nDeniseau, to whom she revealed secrets and made prophecies. She had\nforetold the frosts that blighted the vine in blossom, and revealed\nthat M. Rieu, cur\u00e9 of Sainte-Agn\u00e8s, would not see the Easter festival.\nThe venerable M. Rieu actually died on Holy Thursday. For the Republic\nand for France she never ceased to foretell terrible disasters close\nat hand\u2014fires, floods, massacres. But God, wearied of chastising a\nfaithless people, would at last, under a king, bring back peace and\nprosperity to it. The saint diagnosed and cured diseases. Under her\ninspiration, Mademoiselle Deniseau had told Jobelin, the road-mender,\nof an ointment which had cured him of an anchylosis of the knee.\nJobelin had been able to resume his work again.\n\nThese marvels attracted a crowd of inquirers to the flat inhabited\nby the Deniseau family in the Place Saint-Exup\u00e8re, above the tramway\noffice. The young girl was studied by ecclesiastics, retired officers,\nand doctors of medicine. They believed that they noticed, when she was\nrepeating the words of Saint Radegonde, that her voice became deeper,\nher expression sterner, and that her limbs became rigid. They also\nnoticed that she used expressions which are not customary with young\ngirls, and that her words could be explained by no natural means.\n\nM. _le pr\u00e9fet_ Worms-Clavelin, at first indifferent and scoffing, soon\nfollowed the extraordinary success of the prophetess with anxiety, for\nshe announced the end of the Republic and the return of France to a\nChristian monarchy.\n\nM. Worms-Clavelin had entered office at the time of the scandals at\nthe \u00c9lys\u00e9e under President Gr\u00e9vy. Since then he had participated in\nthose cases of corruption that are endlessly being hushed up and\nas constantly revived to the great detriment of Parliament and the\npublic authority. And this spectacle, which seemed natural to him,\nhad ingrafted in his mind a profound feeling of laxity, which spread\nfrom him to all his subordinates. A senator and two deputies from his\ndepartment were being threatened with legal proceedings. The most\ninfluential members of the party, engineers and financiers, were either\nin prison or in hiding. Under these circumstances, satisfied that the\npeople were attached to the republican rule, he expected from them\nneither enthusiasm nor deference, which seemed to him but old-fashioned\nqualities and the empty symbols of a vanished age. Events had enlarged\nhis naturally limited intelligence. The vast irony of things had\npassed into his soul, making it easy-going, mocking, indifferent.\nHaving recognised, moreover, that the electoral committees constituted\nthe only real authority that still subsisted in the department, he\nobeyed them with a semblance of zeal and with secret opposition. If he\nexecuted their orders, it was not without a considerable modification\nof their rigour. In a word, from opportunist he had become liberal\nand progressive. He willingly allowed liberty of speech and action.\nBut he was too wise to allow any unbearable excesses, and, like a\nconscientious official, he took good care that the government should\nnot receive any glaring insult, and that the ministers should peaceably\nenjoy that common attitude of indifference which, by gaining over their\nfriends as well as their enemies, ensured at the same time both their\npower and their repose.\n\nIt pleased him that the governmental papers and the opposition ones,\nboth being compromised by financial transactions, should be utterly\ndiscredited, alike as to their praise and their blame. The socialist\nsheet, being the only independent one, was also the only violent one.\nBut it was very poor; and the fear which it inspired drove people\nback towards the government. Thus M. _le pr\u00e9fet_ Worms-Clavelin\nwas entirely sincere when he informed the Home Secretary that the\npolitical situation was excellent in his department. And here was\nthe prophetess of the Place Saint-Exup\u00e8re destroying the harmony\nof this happy state. Under the direction of Saint Radegonde, she\nannounced the fall of the ministry, the dissolution of Parliament, the\nresignation of the President of the Republic, and the collapse of a\ndiscredited government. She was much more violent than _le Lib\u00e9ral_\nand far more influential. For _le Lib\u00e9ral_ drew but few, while the\nwhole town thronged around Mademoiselle Deniseau. The clergy, the large\nlandowners, the nobility, the clerical press, hung upon her and drank\nin her words. Saint Radegonde rallied the defeated enemies of the\nRepublic and brought together the \u201cConservatives.\u201d A harmless rally,\nbut inconvenient. M. Worms-Clavelin was especially afraid lest a Paris\npaper should noise the affair about. \u201cIt would then assume,\u201d said he\nto himself, \u201cthe proportions of a scandal and would expose me to a\nreprimand from the minister.\u201d He resolved to look for the quietest way\nof silencing Mademoiselle Deniseau, and first began to make inquiries\nas to the character of her relations.\n\nHer father\u2019s family was not much respected in the town. The Deniseaux\nwere people of no position. Mademoiselle Claude\u2019s father kept a\nregistry office, the reputation of which was neither better nor worse\nthan that of other registries. Masters and servants complained of\nit, but still made use of it. In 1871 Deniseau had had the Commune\nproclaimed in the Place Saint-Exup\u00e8re. Somewhat later, upon the\nexpulsion of three Dominicans at the point of the sword, he had offered\nresistance to the gendarmes, and had got himself arrested. Next he had\nstood at municipal elections as a socialist, and had only obtained a\nvery small number of votes. He was hot-headed and weak-minded, but\nbelieved to be honest.\n\nThe mother was a Nadal. The Nadals, in a better position than the\nDeniseaux, were small agricultural proprietors, all much respected.\nOne of the Nadals, an aunt to Mademoiselle Claude, being subject to\nhallucinations, had been shut up in an asylum for some years. The\nNadals were religious and had clerical connections. M. Worms-Clavelin\ncould learn nothing more about them.\n\nOne morning he had a conversation on this subject with his private\nsecretary, M. Lacarelle, who belonged to an old family in the\nneighbourhood and knew the department well.\n\n\u201cMy dear Lacarelle, we must put an end to this madness. For it is plain\nthat Mademoiselle Deniseau is mad.\u201d\n\nLacarelle replied gravely, not without the kind of arrogance\ninseparable from his long fair moustaches.\n\n\u201cMonsieur _le pr\u00e9fet_, opinions are divided with respect to this, and\nmany people believe that Mademoiselle Deniseau is perfectly sane.\u201d\n\n\u201cAfter all, Lacarelle, you do not believe that Saint Radegonde comes\nevery morning to chat with her and to drag the head of the State, along\nwith the Government, down into the mire.\u201d\n\nBut Lacarelle was of opinion that there had been exaggeration,\nthat ill-disposed persons were making the most of an extraordinary\nmanifestation. It really was extraordinary that Mademoiselle Deniseau\nshould prescribe sovereign remedies for incurable diseases; she had\ncured Jobelin, the road-mender, and an old bailiff called Favru. That\nwas not all. She foretold events that fell out as she had said.\n\n\u201cI can vouch for one fact, monsieur _le pr\u00e9fet_. Last week Mademoiselle\nDeniseau said: \u2018There is a treasure hidden in a field called Faifeu, at\nNoiselles.\u2019 They dug at the place described and discovered a great slab\nof stone which blocked the entrance of an underground passage.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut, still,\u201d cried the _pr\u00e9fet_, \u201cyou cannot maintain that Saint\nRadegonde\u00a0\u2026\u201d\n\nHe stopped, thoughtful and questioning. He was profoundly ignorant of\nthe saintly legends of Christian Gaul and of the national antiquities\nof France. But at school he had studied text-books of history. He was\nstruggling to recall his boyish recollections.\n\n\u201cSaint Radegonde was the mother of Saint Louis?\u201d\n\nM. Lacarelle, who knew more history, only hesitated a moment.\n\n\u201cNo,\u201d said he, \u201cthe mother of Saint Louis was Blanche of Castille.\nSaint Radegonde was an earlier queen.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, she cannot be allowed to perform her conjuring tricks in the\ncounty town. And you, my dear Lacarelle, you ought to make her father\nunderstand\u2014this Deniseau, I mean to say\u2014that he has nothing to do but\nto give a good flogging to his daughter and put her under lock and key.\u201d\n\nLacarelle smoothed his Gallic moustaches.\n\n\u201cMonsieur _le pr\u00e9fet_, I advise you to go and see this Deniseau girl.\nShe is interesting. She will give you a private sitting quite to\nyourself.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou can\u2019t mean it, Lacarelle! Fancy my going to be instructed by a\nlittle hussy that my Government is on the point of collapse!\u201d\n\nM. _le pr\u00e9fet_ Worms-Clavelin was not credulous. He only thought of\nreligion from a political point of view. He had inherited no creed\nfrom his parents, who were aliens to every superstition, as they were\nto every land. His soul had sucked none of the nourishment of the past\nfrom any soil. He remained empty, colourless, unfettered. Through\nmetaphysical incompetency and the instinctive feeling for action and\nacquisition, he clung to tangible truth, and in all good faith believed\nhimself to be a positivist. Having but lately drunk his bocks in\nthe caf\u00e9s at Montmartre in the company of chemists with political\nopinions, he still preserved a blind trustfulness in scientific\nmethods, which he in his turn extolled in the lodges to the leading\nspirits among the freemasons. He enjoyed embellishing his political\nintrigues and administrative expedients with the fair appearance of\nsociological experiment. And the more useful science was to him the\nbetter he appreciated it. \u201cI profess,\u201d said he in all sincerity, \u201cthat\nunquestioning faith in facts which constitutes the scientist, the\nsociologist.\u201d And it was just because he only believed in facts and\nbecause he professed the creed of positivism that the affair of the\nSibyl began to worry him.\n\nHis private secretary, M. Lacarelle, had said to him: \u201cThis young\nwoman has cured a road-mender and a bailiff. These are facts. She has\npointed out the place where they would discover a treasure, and they\nreally found in that place a trap-door to the opening of a subterranean\npassage. That is a fact. She foretold the failure of the vines. That is\na fact.\u201d\n\nM. _le pr\u00e9fet_ Worms-Clavelin had the instinct of mockery and a sense\nof humour, but this word _fact_ exercised a spell over his mind; and\nit occurred vaguely to his memory that doctors like Charcot had made\nobservations in the hospitals on sick people gifted with extraordinary\npowers. He remembered certain curious phenomena of hysteria and cases\nof second sight. He wondered whether Mademoiselle Deniseau were not a\nsufficiently interesting hysteric patient for her to be handed over to\nthe experts in mental cases, which would rid the town of her.\n\nHe thought:\n\n\u201cI might give an official order for the consignment of this girl to\nan asylum, as in the case of any person whose mental derangement\nforms a danger to public order and personal safety; but the enemies\nof the government would squeal like polecats, and I can already hear\nlawyer Lerond charging me with unlawful committal. The plot must be\nunravelled, if the clericals of the county town have concocted one. For\nit is not to be endured that Mademoiselle Deniseau should declare every\nday, as the mouthpiece of Saint Radegonde, that the Republic is sinking\ninto the mire. I grant that some regrettable deeds have been done.\nCertain partial changes will force themselves on us, especially in\nnational representation, but, thank God, the government is still strong\nenough for me to support it.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nX\n\n\nAbb\u00e9 Lantaigne, principal of the high seminary, and M. Bergeret,\nprofessor of literature, were seated in conversation on a bench on\nthe Mall, according to their custom in summer. On every subject they\nwere opposed in opinion; never were two men more different in mind\nand character. But they were the only people in the town who took an\ninterest in general ideas. This fellow-feeling united them. While\nphilosophising beneath the quincunxes when the weather was fine, they\nconsoled each other, one for the loneliness of celibacy, the other for\nthe vexations of domestic life; both for their professional cares and\nfor the unpopularity each alike shared.\n\nOn this particular day they could see from the bench where they sat the\nmonument of Jeanne d\u2019Arc still shrouded in wrappings. The Maid having\nonce slept a night in the town, at the house of an honest dame called\nla Gausse, in 189\u2013 the municipality, with the concurrence of the State,\nhad caused a monument to be raised to commemorate this stay. This\nmonument, the work of two artists, the one a sculptor and the other\nan architect, both natives of the district, displayed the Maid fully\narmed, standing, meditative, on a high pedestal.\n\nThe date of the unveiling was fixed for the following Sunday. The\nMinister of Education was expected, and it was reckoned that there\nwould be a lavish distribution of crosses of honour and academic\ndecorations. The townsfolk thronged the Mall to gaze at the linen which\ncovered the bronze figure and the stone pedestal. Outsiders installed\nthemselves on the ramparts. On the booths set up under the quincunxes\nthe refreshment-sellers were nailing up bands of calico bearing the\nlegends: _V\u00e9ritable bi\u00e8re Jeanne d\u2019Arc._\u2014_Caf\u00e9 de la Pucelle._\n\nAt sight of this, M. Bergeret remarked that one ought to rejoice in\nthis concourse of citizens assembled to pay honour to the liberator of\nOrleans.\n\n\u201cThe archivist of the department, M. Mazure,\u201d added he, \u201cstands out\nfrom the crowd. He has written a memoir to prove that the famous\nhistorical tapestry, representing the meeting at Chinon, was not made\nabout 1430 in Germany, as was believed, but that it came at that period\nfrom some studio of Flemish France. He submitted the conclusions of his\nmemoir to M. _le pr\u00e9fet_ Worms-Clavelin, who called them eminently\npatriotic and approved of them. He expressed a hope that he would see\nthe author of this discovery receiving the insignia of an officer of\nthe Academy beneath Jeanne\u2019s statue. It is also rumoured that in his\nspeech at the unveiling M. _le pr\u00e9fet_ will say, with his eyes turned\ntowards the Vosges, that Jeanne was a daughter of Alsace-Lorraine.\u201d\n\nAbb\u00e9 Lantaigne, caring but little for a joke, made no reply and kept\na grave face. In principle he regarded these celebrations in honour\nof Jeanne d\u2019Arc as praiseworthy. Two years before he had himself\npronounced at Saint-Exup\u00e8re a panegyric on the Maid, and had declared\nher the type of the good Frenchwoman and the good Christian. He found\nno subject for jest in a solemnity which was a glorification of faith\nand country. As a patriot and a Christian, he only regretted that the\nbishop and his clergy would not take the first place in it.\n\n\u201cThe thing,\u201d said he, \u201cthat ensures the continuity of the French\nnation, is neither kings nor presidents of the Republic, neither\nprovincial governors nor _pr\u00e9fets_, neither officers of the crown nor\nofficials of the present government; it is the episcopacy which, from\nthe first apostles to the Gauls down to the present day, has continued,\nwithout break, change, or diminution, and forms, so to say, the solid\nweb of the history of France. The power of the bishops is spiritual\nand stable. The power of the kings, legitimate but transitory, is\ndecrepit from its birth. On its continuance that of the nation does\nnot depend. The nation is a spiritual conception inseparable from the\nmoral and religious idea. But, although absent in the body from the\ncelebrations that are being arranged for here, the clergy will be\npresent at them in spirit and in truth. Jeanne d\u2019Arc is ours, and it is\nvain for unbelievers to try and steal her from us.\u201d\n\nM. BERGERET: \u201cIt is, however, very natural that this simple\ngirl, having become a symbol of patriotism, should be claimed by all\npatriots.\u201d\n\nM. LANTAIGNE: \u201cI cannot imagine\u2014I have told you so\nbefore\u2014nationality without religion. Every duty comes from God, the\nduty of the citizen no less than that of others. If God be ignored the\ncall of duty is stilled. If it is a right and a duty to defend one\u2019s\nnative land against the foreigner, it is not in virtue of any pretended\nrights of man which never existed, but in conformity with the will of\nGod. This conformity appears in the stories of Jael and Judith. It\nshines clearly in the book of the Maccabees. It can be read in the\ndeeds of the Maid.\u201d\n\nM. BERGERET: \u201cThen you believe, monsieur l\u2019abb\u00e9, that Jeanne\nd\u2019Arc received her mission from God Himself? That will land you in\nnumberless difficulties. I will only submit to you one of these,\nbecause it is inherent in the nature of your beliefs. It relates to\nthe voices and apparitions which manifested themselves to the peasant\nof Domremy. Those who grant that Saint Catherine really appeared to\nJacquot d\u2019Arc\u2019s daughter, in company with Saint Michael and Saint\nMarguerite, will find themselves, I fancy, much embarrassed when it\nhas been proved to them that this Saint Catherine of Alexandria never\nexisted, and that her history is in reality only a rather poor Greek\nromance. Now this fact was proved as early as the seventeenth century,\nnot by the freethinkers of the period, but by a learned doctor of the\nSorbonne, Jean de Launoy, a man of piety and good life. The judicious\nTillemont, although so submissive to the Church, rejected the biography\nof Saint Catherine as an absurd fable. Is not that a difficulty,\nmonsieur l\u2019abb\u00e9, for those who believe that the Voices of Jeanne d\u2019Arc\ncame from Heaven?\u201d\n\nM. LANTAIGNE: \u201cThe martyrology, monsieur, worthy of all\nreverence as it is, is not an article of faith; and it is permissible,\nin imitation of Doctor de Launoy and Tillemont, to cast doubts on the\nexistence of Saint Catherine of Alexandria. For my part, I am not\ninclined to go so far, and I hold such an absolute denial as rash.\nI recognise that the biography of this saint has come to us from\nthe East overlaid everywhere with fabulous details, but I believe\nthat these embellishments have been laid over a solid foundation.\nNeither Launoy nor Tillemont is infallible. It is not certain that\nSaint Catherine never existed, and if by chance historic proof of\nher non-existence were established, that would give way before the\ntheological testimony to the contrary, furnished by the miraculous\nappearances of this saint authenticated by the Ordinary and solemnly\nrecognised by the Pope. For, after all, good logic requires that truths\nof the scientific plane should yield to truths of a higher order.\nBut we are not yet in a position to know the opinion of the Church\nas to the Maid\u2019s apparitions. Jeanne d\u2019Arc has not been canonised,\nand the miracles wrought for her or by her are open to discussion: I\nneither deny nor affirm them, and it is a purely human vision which\nmakes me perceive in the history of this marvellous girl the hand of\nGod stretched out over France. Truth to tell, though, that vision is\npowerful and penetrating.\u201d\n\nM. BERGERET: \u201cIf I have rightly understood you, monsieur\nl\u2019abb\u00e9, you do not consider the strange event at Fierbois as an\nattested miracle, when Jeanne, as they say, pointed out a sword\nconcealed in the wall. And you are not certain that the Maid, as she\nherself declared, brought back a child to life at Lagny. You know my\nopinions, and for my part I should give a natural interpretation to\nthese two facts. I suppose that the sword was fastened to the wall of\nthe Church as a votive offering, and was consequently visible. As for\nthe child that the Maid raised from the dead for the time necessary for\nthe administration of baptism, and who died again after having been\nbrought to the font, I confine myself to reminding you that there was\nnear Domremy a Notre-Dame-des-Aviots whose particular function it was\nto endow still-born children with a few hours of life. I suspect that\nthe memory of Notre-Dame-des-Aviots had a good deal to do with the\nillusions that possessed Jeanne d\u2019Arc when she believed, at Lagny, that\nshe had raised a new-born child from the dead.\u201d\n\nM. LANTAIGNE: \u201cThere is much uncertainty in these\nexplanations, monsieur. And rather than adopt them, I suspend my\njudgment, which inclines, I confess, towards the miraculous side, at\nleast with respect to Saint Catherine\u2019s sword. For the passage is\nprecise: the sword was _in_ the wall, and it was necessary to excavate\nto find it. Neither is it impossible, again, that God, upon the\nefficacious prayers of a virgin, should have given life back to a child\nthat had died without having received baptism.\u201d\n\nM. BERGERET: \u201cYou speak, monsieur l\u2019abb\u00e9, of \u2018the efficacious\nprayers of a virgin.\u2019 Do you then grant, in accordance with the belief\nof the Middle Ages, that there was some virtue, some peculiar power, in\nJeanne d\u2019Arc\u2019s virginity?\u201d\n\nM. LANTAIGNE: \u201cClearly virginity is pleasing to God, and Jesus\nChrist rejoices in the triumph of His virgins. A young girl turned\nAttila and his Huns back from Lutetia; a young girl delivered Orleans\nand caused the lawful king to be crowned at Rheims.\u201d\n\nThe priest having thus expressed himself, M. Bergeret seized on his\nwords in a way of his own.\n\n\u201cExactly,\u201d said he. \u201cJeanne d\u2019Arc was a mascotte.\u201d\n\nBut Abb\u00e9 Lantaigne did not hear. He rose and said:\n\n\u201cFrance\u2019s destined r\u00f4le in Christendom is not yet achieved. I foresee\nthat ere long God will yet again work His will through the nation which\nhas been the most faithful and the most faithless to Him.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd so it is,\u201d answered M. Bergeret, \u201cthat, as in the profligate times\nof King Charles VII., we behold the rise of prophetesses. Our town\nindeed holds one of them, who is making a happier start than Jeanne,\nsince Jacquot d\u2019Arc\u2019s daughter was regarded as mad by her parents, and\nMademoiselle Deniseau finds a disciple in her own father. Still I do\nnot believe that her good luck will be great and lasting. Our _pr\u00e9fet_,\nM. Worms-Clavelin, is somewhat wanting in good breeding, but he is less\nof a simpleton than Baudricourt, and it is no longer the custom for the\nheads of the State to give audience to prophetesses. M. F\u00e9lix Faure\nwill not be advised by his confessor to test Mademoiselle Deniseau.\nHere, perhaps, you may reply, monsieur l\u2019abb\u00e9, that the influence of\nBernadette of Lourdes is stronger in our days than that of Jeanne\nd\u2019Arc ever was. The latter overthrew some hundreds of starving and\npanic-stricken English; Bernadette has set countless pilgrims on the\nmarch and drawn thousands of millions to a mountain in the Pyrenees.\nAnd my revered friend, M. Pierre Laffitte, assures me that we have\nentered on an era of positive philosophy.\u201d\n\n\u201cAs for what happens at Lourdes,\u201d said Abb\u00e9 Lantaigne, \u201cwithout\nbecoming latitudinarian or falling into excessive credulity, I reserve\nmy opinion on a point upon which the Church has made no pronouncement.\nBut henceforth I see a triumph for religion in this crowd of pilgrims,\njust as you yourself see in it a defeat for materialistic philosophy.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nXI\n\n\nThe ministry had fallen. M. _le pr\u00e9fet_ Worms-Clavelin felt neither\nsurprise nor regret at this. In the depths of his heart he had always\nconsidered it too restless and too disturbing, an object of suspicion,\nand not without reason, to the agriculturist, the large merchant, and\nthe small investor. Without affecting the fortunate indifference of\nthe masses, this cabinet had exercised, to the _pr\u00e9fet\u2019s_ grief, a\nvexatious influence over freemasonry, the organisation by which, for\nfifteen years past, the whole political life of the department had\nbeen drawn together and held in check. M. _le pr\u00e9fet_ Worms-Clavelin\nhad been able to turn the masonic lodges of the department into boards\nvested with the preliminary choice of candidates for public offices,\nfor electoral functions, and for party favours. Exercising in this way\nwide and definite prerogatives, the lodges, being as much opportunist\nas they were radical, combined, acted in concert with one another, and\nworked together for the republican cause. The _pr\u00e9fet_, rejoicing\nto see the ambition of some restraining the desires of others,\ngathered together, on the joint recommendation of the lodges, a band\nof senators, deputies, municipal councillors and road-surveyors, all\nequally loyal to the government, yet sufficiently diverse in opinion\nand sufficiently moderate to satisfy and reassure all republican\nparties, save the socialists. M. _le pr\u00e9fet_ Worms-Clavelin had brought\nabout this unanimity. And now the radical ministry must needs break up\nso happy a harmony.\n\nIll-luck decreed that the holder of one of the minor portfolios\n(either agriculture or commerce) should travel through the department\nand stop for some hours in the county town. It sufficed for him to\ndeliver a philosophic and moral speech at one assembly to flutter\nall the assemblies, divide each lodge into two, set brother against\nbrother, and infuriate citizen Mandar, the chemist of the Rue Culture,\nmaster of the lodge \u201cNew Alliance,\u201d and a radical, against M. Tricoul,\nvine-grower of Les Tournelles, master of the lodge \u201cSacred Friendship,\u201d\nand an opportunist.\n\nMentally M. Worms-Clavelin made another complaint against the\nfallen ministry: that of having lavishly distributed academic\ndecorations and given Orders of Merit for agricultural proficiency to\nradical-socialists only, thus robbing the _pr\u00e9fet_ of the advantage of\ngoverning with the aid of these decorations, or at least by means of\ntardily fulfilled promises of them.\n\nM. _le pr\u00e9fet_ expressed his thoughts accurately as, alone in his\nstudy, he murmured these bitter words:\n\n\u201cIf they believed they could play at politics by upsetting my loyal\nlodges and fastening my useful palms to the tail of every drunken dog\nin the department, they\u2019ll find themselves finely mistaken!\u201d\n\nThus it was that he heard of the fall of the ministry without any\nregret.\n\nBesides, these changes that he had foreseen never surprised him.\nHis administrative policy was always founded on the assumption that\nminister succeeds minister. He made a point of never serving a Home\nSecretary with ardent zeal. He refrained from being over-pleasing\nto any one, and shunned all opportunities of doing too well. This\nmoderation, kept up during the continuance of one ministry, assured\nhim the sympathy of the next one, thus sufficiently predisposed in his\nfavour to acquiesce in its turn in the half-hearted zeal, which became\na claim to the favour of a third cabinet. M. _le pr\u00e9fet_ Worms-Clavelin\nreigned without ruling, corresponded briefly with the Place Beauvau,[G]\nman\u0153uvred the boards, and stayed in office.\n\n  [G] Where the French Home Office is situated.\n\nIn his study, through the half-open windows of which came the scent of\nflowering lilacs and the twittering of sparrows, he was meditating,\nin a gentle and peaceful mood, on the lingering extinction of the\nscandals which on two occasions had gone near to ruining the leaders\nof the party. He looked forward to the day, still far distant, on\nwhich it would again be possible to resume activity. He reflected\nthat, in spite of passing difficulties, and notwithstanding the\ndiscord unluckily communicated to the masonic lodges and the electoral\ncommittees, he would have capital municipal elections. The mayors in\nthis agricultural district were excellent. The spirit of the populace\nwas so loyal that the two deputies, who, being compromised in several\nfinancial transactions, were threatened with legal proceedings, had\nyet retained all their influence in their districts. He said to\nhimself that the _scrutin de liste_[H] would never have produced such\nfavourable results. In his exaltation of mind thoughts that were almost\nphilosophic came to the surface of his mind as to the ease with which\nmen can be governed. He had a confused vision of this human beast\nallowing itself to be led, and straggling along in tireless gloomy\ntractableness beneath the eye of the shepherding dog.\n\n  [H] In which each voter inscribes on his paper as many names\n      as there are vacancies to be filled.\n\nM. Lacarelle entered the study with a newspaper in his hand.\n\n\u201cMonsieur _le pr\u00e9fet_, the resignation of the ministers, having\nbeen accepted by the President of the Republic, is announced in\n_l\u2019Officiel_.\u201d\n\nM. _le pr\u00e9fet_ Worms-Clavelin continued his gentle musing, and\nM. Lacarelle turned up his long Gallic moustaches and rolled his\nchina-blue eyes, as a sign that he was about to give expression to a\nthought. And, as a matter of fact, he did so.\n\n\u201cOpinions differ as to the fall of the ministry.\u201d\n\n\u201cReally?\u201d asked M. _le pr\u00e9fet_, who was not listening.\n\n\u201cWell! monsieur _le pr\u00e9fet_, it cannot be denied that Mademoiselle\nClaudine Deniseau predicted that the ministry would fall at an early\ndate.\u201d\n\nM. _le pr\u00e9fet_ shrugged his shoulders. He had a mind wise enough to\nsee that there was nothing marvellous in the fulfilment of such a\nprophecy. But Lacarelle, with a profound knowledge of local affairs,\na marvellously contagious stupidity, and an exceptional aptitude for\nself-delusion, immediately related to him three or four new stories\nwhich were running through the town, and especially the story of M. de\nGromance, to whom Saint Radegonde had said, in reply to her visitor\u2019s\nsecret thought: \u201cBe at ease, monsieur _le comte_; the child that your\nwife will bear is really your son.\u201d Then Lacarelle returned to the\ndisclosure of the hidden treasure. Two Roman coins had been found at\nthe place indicated. The excavations were still going on. There had\nalso been some cures of which the private secretary gave vague and\nrambling descriptions.\n\nM. _le pr\u00e9fet_ Worms-Clavelin listened uncomprehendingly. The mere idea\nof the Deniseau girl saddened and worried him. The influence of this\nvisionary over the townsfolk at large was beyond his understanding. He\nwas afraid of using his abilities ineffectively in a psychic case such\nas this. This fear paralysed his reason, although it was strong enough\nin ordinary circumstances. As he listened to Lacarelle, he experienced\na dread of being convinced, and instinctively exclaimed brusquely:\n\n\u201cI don\u2019t believe in such things as these! I don\u2019t believe in them!\u201d\n\nBut doubt and anxiety overwhelmed him. He wished to know what Abb\u00e9\nGuitrel, whom he regarded as both learned and intelligent, thought on\nthe subject of this prophetess. It was just the time when he would meet\nthe abb\u00e9 at the goldsmith\u2019s house. He went to Rondonneau junior\u2019s, and\nfound him in the inner room, nailing up a case, whilst Abb\u00e9 Guitrel\nexamined a silver-gilt vase set on a long stem and surmounted with a\nrounded lid.\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s a fine chalice, isn\u2019t it, monsieur l\u2019abb\u00e9?\u201d\n\n\u201cIt is a pyx, monsieur _le pr\u00e9fet_, a ciborium, a vessel intended _ad\nferendos cibos_.[I] In fact, the pyx holds the sacred hosts, the food\nof the soul. Formerly they used to keep the pyx in a silver dove hung\nover the baptismal font, the altar, or the tomb of a martyr. This one\nis decorated in the style of the thirteenth century. An austere and\nmagnificent style, very suitable, monsieur _le pr\u00e9fet_, for church\nfurniture, and especially for the sacred vessels.\u201d\n\n  [I] To bear the bread.\n\nM. Worms-Clavelin was not listening to the priest, whose restless,\ncrafty profile he was observing. \u201cHere is the man,\u201d thought he, \u201cwho\nis going to tell me about Saint Radegonde and the prophetess.\u201d And the\ndepartmental representative of the Republic was already screwing up his\ncourage, concentrating his energies, lest he should appear weak-minded,\nsuperstitious and credulous, before an ecclesiastic.\n\n\u201cYes, monsieur _le pr\u00e9fet_\u201d said Abb\u00e9 Guitrel, \u201cour worthy M.\nRondonneau junior has executed this beautiful specimen of goldsmith\u2019s\nwork after ancient models. I am inclined to think that they could not\nhave done better in the Place Saint-Sulpice, in Paris, where the best\ngoldsmiths are to be found.\u201d\n\n\u201c_\u00c0 propos_, monsieur l\u2019abb\u00e9, what is your opinion of the prophetess\nwhom our town possesses?\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat prophetess, monsieur _le pr\u00e9fet_? Do you mean that poor girl who\npretends to be in communication with Saint Radegonde, queen of France?\nAlas! monsieur, it cannot possibly be the pious spouse of Clotaire\nwho suggests to that miserable girl sorry nonsense of every kind and\nrhapsodies which, being irreconcilable with good sense, are still less\nto be reconciled with theology. Foolery, monsieur _le pr\u00e9fet_, mere\nfoolery!\u201d\n\nM. Worms-Clavelin, who had prepared some subtle jests concerning\npriestly credulity, remained silent.\n\n\u201cNo, indeed,\u201d continued M. Guitrel, with a smile, \u201cit is incredible\nthat Saint Radegonde should suggest this trash, this folly, all these\nsilly, empty, sometimes heterodox, speeches that fall from the lips\nof this young maiden. The voice of the sainted Radegonde would have\nanother accent, believe me.\u201d\n\nM. LE PR\u00c9FET: \u201cVery little is known, in fact, about this Saint\nRadegonde.\u201d\n\nM. GUITREL: \u201cYou mistake, monsieur _le pr\u00e9fet_, you mistake!\nSaint Radegonde, reverenced by the whole Catholic Church, is the object\nof special worship in the diocese of Poitiers, which was formerly\nwitness of her merits.\u201d\n\nM. LE PR\u00c9FET: \u201cYes, as you say, monsieur l\u2019abb\u00e9, there is a\nspecial\u00a0\u2026\u201d\n\nM. GUITREL: \u201cEven atheists themselves have regarded this great\nfigure with admiration. What a sublime picture, monsieur _le pr\u00e9fet_!\nAfter the murder of her brother by her husband, Clotaire\u2019s noble spouse\nbetakes herself to Bishop M\u00e9dard at Noyon, and urges him to dedicate\nher to God. Taken by surprise, Saint M\u00e9dard hesitates; he urges the\nindissolubility of marriage. But Radegonde herself covers her head with\nthe veil of a recluse, and flings herself at the feet of the pontiff,\nwho, overcome by the saintly persistence of the queen, and braving the\nwrath of the savage monarch, offers this blessed victim to God.\u201d\n\nM. LE PR\u00c9FET: \u201cBut, monsieur l\u2019abb\u00e9, do you approve of a\nbishop defying the civil powers in that fashion and abetting the wife\nof his overlord in her revolt? The deuce! if these are your opinions, I\nshall be grateful to you for telling me so.\u201d\n\nM. GUITREL: \u201cAlas! monsieur _le pr\u00e9fet_, I have not, as\nthe blessed M\u00e9dard had, the illumination of sanctity to enable me\nto discern the will of God in extraordinary circumstances. Luckily\nnowadays the rules which a bishop should follow with regard to the\ncivil powers are definitely defined. And monsieur _le pr\u00e9fet_ will\nkindly remember, in speaking of me for the bishopric of Tourcoing to\nhis friends in the ministry, that I recognise all the obligations that\nfollow from the Concordat. But why intrude my humble personality in\nthese great scenes of history? Saint Radegonde, clothed in the veil of\na deaconess, founded the monastery of Sainte-Croix in Poitiers, where\nshe lived for more than fifty years in the practice of a rigorous\nasceticism. She observed fasts and abstinences with such scrupulousness\n\u2026\u201d\n\nM. LE PR\u00c9FET: \u201cKeep these stories of yours, monsieur\nl\u2019abb\u00e9 for your seminarists. You don\u2019t believe that Saint Radegonde\ncommunicates with Mademoiselle Deniseau. I congratulate you on\nthat. And I could wish that all the priests in the department were\nas reasonable as you. But it only needs this hysteric patient\u2014for\nhysteric she is\u2014to attack the government for all the cur\u00e9s to come in\nherds to listen, open-mouthed and applauding, to all the insults she\nspits out.\u201d\n\nM. GUITREL: \u201cOh! they make reservations, monsieur _le pr\u00e9fet_,\nthey make reservations. The Church instructs them to be extremely wary\nin face of every fact that assumes the appearance of a miracle. And I\nassure you that, for my part, I am very distrustful of modern miracles.\u201d\n\nM. LE PR\u00c9FET: \u201cTell me, between ourselves: you don\u2019t believe\nin miracles, my dear abb\u00e9?\u201d\n\nM. GUITREL: \u201cIn miracles that are not duly verified I have,\nindeed, but little belief.\u201d\n\nM. LE PR\u00c9FET: \u201cWe are alone. Confess, now, that there are no\nmiracles, that there never have been any, and that there never can\npossibly be any.\u201d\n\nM. GUITREL: \u201cNot at all, monsieur _le pr\u00e9fet_. A miracle is\npossible; it can be unmistakably recognised; it is useful for the\nconfirmation of doctrine; and its utility is proved by the conversion\nof nations.\u201d\n\nM. LE PR\u00c9FET: \u201cAnyhow, you grant that it is ridiculous to\nbelieve that Saint Radegonde, who lived in the Middle Ages\u00a0\u2026\u201d\n\nM. GUITREL: \u201cIn the sixth century, in the sixth century.\u201d\n\nM. LE PR\u00c9FET: \u201cExactly, in the sixth century.\u00a0\u2026 Should come in 189\u2013\nto gossip with the daughter of a registry-keeper on the political\nprogramme of the ministry and the Chambers.\u201d\n\nM. GUITREL: \u201cCommunications between the Church triumphant\nand the Church militant are possible; history supplies numberless\nundeniable instances of it. But, yet again, I do not believe that the\nyoung person of whom we are speaking is favoured with a communication\nof this kind. Her sayings, if I may dare to say so, do not bear the\nhall-mark of a celestial revelation. Everything she says is somehow\u00a0\u2026\u201d\n\nM. LE PR\u00c9FET: \u201cHumbug.\u201d\n\nM. GUITREL: \u201cIf you like.\u00a0\u2026 Though, indeed, it might be quite\npossible that she is possessed.\u201d\n\nM. LE PR\u00c9FET: \u201cWhat is this that you are saying? You, an\nintelligent priest, a future bishop of the Republic, you believe in\npossession! It is a medi\u00e6val superstition! I have read a book by\nMichelet on it.\u201d\n\nM. GUITREL: \u201cBut, monsieur _le pr\u00e9fet_, possession is a fact\nrecognised not only by theologians, but also by scientists, atheists\nfor the most part. And Michelet himself, whom you quote, believed in\nthe cases of possession at Loudun.\u201d\n\nM. LE PR\u00c9FET: \u201cWhat notions! You are all the same! And if\nClaudine Deniseau were possessed, as you say?\u00a0\u2026\u201d\n\nM. GUITREL: \u201cThen it would be necessary to exorcise her.\u201d\n\nM. LE PR\u00c9FET: \u201cExorcise her? Don\u2019t you think, monsieur l\u2019abb\u00e9,\nthat that would be absurd?\u201d\n\nM. GUITREL: \u201cNot at all, monsieur _le pr\u00e9fet_, not at all.\u201d\n\nM. LE PR\u00c9FET: \u201cWhat does one do?\u201d\n\nM. GUITREL: \u201cThere are rules, monsieur _le pr\u00e9fet_, a\nformulary, a ritual for this kind of operation, which has never ceased\nto be used. Jeanne d\u2019Arc herself had to undergo it, in the town of\nVaucouleurs, unless I mistake. M. Laprune, the cur\u00e9 of Saint-Exup\u00e8re,\nwould be the right person to exorcise this Deniseau girl, who is one\nof his parishioners. He is a very venerable priest. It is true that,\nas regards the Deniseau family, he is in a position which may react on\nhis character, and, to a certain extent, influence a wise and cautious\nmind, as yet unenfeebled by age, or which at any rate still seems able\nto bear the weight of years and the fatigues of a long and onerous\nministry. I mean to say that events, regarded by some as miracles, have\ntaken place in the parish of this worthy cur\u00e9; and M. Laprune\u2019s zeal\nmust needs have been led into error by the thought that the parish\nof Saint-Exup\u00e8re may have been privileged to such a degree that a\nmanifestation of divine power has taken place in it, in preference to\nall the other parishes in our town. Buoyed up by such a hope, he has\nperhaps formed illusions which he has unconsciously communicated to his\nclergy. An error and a mistake which one can excuse, if one considers\nthe circumstances. Indeed, what blessings would not a new miracle shed\non the parish church of Saint-Exup\u00e8re! The zeal of the faithful would\nbe revived by it, an outpouring of gifts would bring wealth into the\nfamous, but clean-stripped, walls of the ancient church. And the favour\nof the Cardinal-Archbishop would solace the last days of M. Laprune,\nnow arrived at the end of his ministry and strength.\u201d\n\nM. LE PR\u00c9FET: \u201cBut if I understand you rightly, monsieur\nl\u2019abb\u00e9, it is this doddering cure of Saint-Exup\u00e8re, it is M. Laprune,\nwith his vicaires, who has got up the affair of the Prophetess.\nUndoubtedly the priests are strong. They won\u2019t believe it in Paris,\nin the bureaux, but it is the truth. The priests are a fine power!\nHere your old Laprune has been organising these s\u00e9ances of clerical\nspiritualism which all the town attends in order to hear the\nParliament, the presidency, and myself insulted\u2014for I am perfectly\naware that they don\u2019t spare me in these conventicles of the Place\nSaint-Exup\u00e8re.\u201d\n\nM. GUITREL: \u201cOh! monsieur _le pr\u00e9fet_, far be it from me\nto think of suspecting the worthy cur\u00e9 of Saint-Exup\u00e8re of having\nconcocted a plot! On the contrary, I sincerely believe that, if he\nhas in any way encouraged this unhappy affair, he will soon recognise\nhis error, and will use all his influence to efface the results of\nit.\u00a0\u2026 But even in his interest and in that of the diocese, one might\nforestall him and inform His Eminence of the real facts, of which he\nis perhaps still ignorant. Once warned of these disorders, he will\ndoubtless put an end to them.\u201d\n\nM. LE PR\u00c9FET: \u201cThat\u2019s an idea!\u00a0\u2026 My dear abb\u00e9, are you willing\nto undertake the commission? For my part, as _pr\u00e9fet_, I am obliged to\nignore the fact that there is an Archbishop, save in cases provided\nfor by the law, such as bells and processions. When one thinks of it,\nit is an absurd situation, for from the moment that Archbishops have\nan actual existence\u00a0\u2026 But politics have their necessities. Tell me\nfrankly. Are you in favour at the Archbishop\u2019s palace?\u201d\n\nM. GUITREL: \u201cHis Eminence sometimes deigns to listen to me\nwith kindness. The affability of His Eminence is extreme.\u201d\n\nM. LE PR\u00c9FET: \u201cWell! tell him that it is inadmissible for\nSaint Radegonde to come to life again in order to plague the senators,\nthe deputies, and the _pr\u00e9fet_ of the department, and that, in the\ninterests of the Church as well as of the Republic, it is time to\nbridle the tongue of the fierce Clotaire\u2019s spouse. Just tell His\nEminence that.\u201d\n\nM. GUITREL: \u201cSubstantially, monsieur _le pr\u00e9fet_;\nsubstantially I will tell him that.\u201d\n\nM. LE PR\u00c9FET: \u201cSet about it as you like, monsieur l\u2019abb\u00e9, but\nprove to him that he must forbid his priests to enter the Deniseau\nhouse, that he must openly reprimand the cur\u00e9 Laprune, condemn in _la\nSemaine religieuse_ the speeches made by this mad woman, and officially\nrequest the editors of _le Lib\u00e9ral_ to cease the campaign they are\nwaging in support of a miracle both unconstitutional and contrary to\nthe Concordat.\u201d\n\nM. GUITREL: \u201cI will try it, monsieur _le pr\u00e9fet_. Certainly, I\nwill try it. But what am I, a poor professor of sacred rhetoric, before\nHis Eminence the Cardinal-Archbishop?\u201d\n\nM. LE PR\u00c9FET: \u201cHe is intelligent, is your Archbishop; he will\nunderstand that his own interests, and the honour of Saint Radegonde,\nby the Lord!\u00a0\u2026\u201d\n\nM. GUITREL: \u201cDoubtless, monsieur _le pr\u00e9fet_, doubtless. But\nHis Eminence, so devoted to the spiritual interests of the diocese,\nperhaps considers that the prodigious crowd of souls around this poor\ngirl is a token of that yearning after belief which torments the\nyounger generation, a proof that faith is more living than ever among\nthe masses, an example, in fact, which it would be well to present to\nthe consideration of statesmen. And it is possible that, thinking thus,\nhe may be in no hurry to cause the sign to cease, to suppress the proof\nand the example. It is possible\u00a0\u2026\u201d\n\nM. LE PR\u00c9FET: \u201c... that he may make fun of everybody. He is quite\ncapable of it.\u201d\n\nM. GUITREL: \u201cOh! monsieur _le pr\u00e9fet_, there is no foundation\nfor that assumption! But how much easier and more certain would my\nmission be, if, like the dove from the ark, I were the bearer of an\nolive branch, if I were authorised to say\u2014oh! just in a whisper!\u2014to\nMonseigneur, that the salary of the seven poor cur\u00e9s of the diocese,\nsuspended by the former Minister of Religion, was restored!\u201d\n\nM. LE PR\u00c9FET: \u201cGive, give, that\u2019s it, isn\u2019t it? I will think\nit over.\u00a0\u2026 I will telegraph to Paris, and I will bring you the answer\nat Rondonneau junior\u2019s. Good evening, monsieur _le diplomate_!\u201d\n\nA week after the day of this secret conference Abb\u00e9 Guitrel had\nsuccessfully accomplished his mission. The prophetess of the Place\nSaint-Exup\u00e8re, disowned by the archbishopric, abandoned by the\nclergy, abjured by _le Lib\u00e9ral_, kept on her side none save the two\ncorresponding members of the academy of psychical research, one of whom\nregarded her as a subject worthy of study and the other as a dangerous\ncharlatan. Freed from this mad woman, and delighted at the municipal\nelections, which had brought forth neither new measures nor new men, M.\n_le pr\u00e9fet_ Worms-Clavelin rejoiced from the bottom of his heart.\n\n\n\n\nXII\n\n\nM. Paillot was the bookseller at the corner of the Place Saint-Exup\u00e8re\nand the Rue des Tintelleries. For the most part the houses which\nsurrounded this square were ancient; those that leant against the\nchurch bore carved and painted signboards. Several had a pointed gable\nand a wooden frontage. One of these, which had kept its carved beams,\nwas a gem admired by connoisseurs. The main joists were upheld by\ncarved corbels, some in the shape of angels bearing shields, the others\nin the form of monks crouching low. To the left of the door, against\na post, rose the mutilated figure of a woman, her brow encircled by a\nfloreated crown. The townsfolk declared that this was Queen Marguerite.\nAnd the building was known by the name of Queen Marguerite\u2019s house.\n\nIt was believed, on the authority of Dom Maurice, author of a _Tr\u00e9sor\nd\u2019antiquit\u00e9s_, printed in 1703, that Margaret of Scotland lodged in\nthis house for several months of the year 1438. But M. de Terremondre,\npresident of the Society of Agriculture and Arch\u00e6ology, proves in a\nsubstantially constructed memoir that this house was built in 1488 for\na prominent citizen named Philippe Tricouillard. The arch\u00e6ologists\nof the town, whenever they conduct sightseers to the front of this\nbuilding, seizing a moment when the ladies are inattentive, take\npleasure in showing the canting arms of Philippe Tricouillard, carved\non a shield held by two angels. These arms, which M. de Terremondre\nhas judiciously compared with those of the Coleoni of Bergamo, are\nrepresented on the corbel which stands over the doorway, under the left\nlintel. The figures on it are very shadowy, and are only recognisable\nby those who have had them pointed out. As for the figure of a woman\nwearing a crown, which leans against the perpendicular joist, M. de\nTerremondre found no difficulty in proving that it must be regarded\nas a Saint Marguerite. In fact, there may still be made out at the\nfeet of the saint the remains of a hideous shape which is none other\nthan that of the devil; and the right arm of the principal figure,\nwhich is lacking to-day, ought to hold the holy-water sprinkler which\nthe blessed saint shook over the enemy of the human race. It is clear\nwhat Saint Marguerite typifies in this place, now that M. Mazure, the\narchivist of the department, has brought to light a document proving\nthat in the year 1488 Philippe Tricouillard, then about seventy\nyears of age, had lately married Marguerite Larriv\u00e9e, daughter of a\nmagistrate. By a confusion which is not very surprising, Marguerite\nLarriv\u00e9e\u2019s celestial patron was taken for the young princess of\nScotland whose sojourn in the town of\u00a0\u2026 has left a deep impression. Few\nladies have bequeathed a memory more full of pity than that princess\nwho died at twenty with this last sigh on her lips: \u201cOut upon thee,\nlife!\u201d\n\nThe house of M. Paillot, the bookseller, joins on to Queen Marguerite\u2019s\nhouse. Originally it was built, like its neighbour, with a wooden\nfront, and the visible timber-work was no less carefully carved. But,\nin 1860, M. Paillot\u2019s father, bookseller to the Archbishopric, had\nit pulled down in order to rebuild it simply, in the modern style,\nwithout any pretence at wealth or art, merely taking care to make it\nconvenient as a dwelling-house and place of business. A tree of Jesse,\nin Renaissance style, which covered the entire front of Paillot\u2019s\nhouse, at the corner formed by the Place Saint-Exup\u00e8re and the Rue\ndes Tintelleries, was torn down with the rest, but not destroyed.\nM. de Terremondre, coming upon it afterwards in a timber-merchant\u2019s\nyard, purchased it for the museum. This monument is in good style.\nUnfortunately the prophets and patriarchs, who cluster on each branch\nlike marvellous fruits, and the Virgin, blossoming on the summit of\nthe prophetic tree, were mutilated by the Terrorists in 1793, and\nthe tree suffered fresh damage in 1860, when it was carried to the\ntimber-yard as firewood. M. Quatrebarbe, the diocesan architect,\nexpatiates on these mutilations in his interesting pamphlet on _Les\nVandales modernes_. \u201cOne shudders,\u201d says he, \u201cat the thought that this\nprecious relic of an age of faith ran the risk of being sawn up and\nburnt before our very eyes.\u201d\n\nThis sentiment, being expressed by a man whose clerical tendencies were\nwell known, was trenchantly criticised by _le Phare_ in an anonymous\nparagraph in which was recognised, rightly or wrongly, the hand of\nthe archivist of the department, M. Mazure. \u201cIn twenty words,\u201d said\nthis paragraph, \u201cthe architect of the diocese supplies us with several\noccasions for surprise. The first is that any one should be able to\nshudder at the mere idea of the loss of an indifferently carved beam,\nand one so much mutilated that the details are not recognisable;\nthe second is that this beam should stand to M. Quatrebarbe, whose\ncreed is well known, as a relic of an age of faith, since it dates\nfrom 1530\u2014that is to say, from the year when the Protestant Diet of\nAugsburg assembled; the third is that M. Quatrebarbe should omit to\nsay that the precious beam was torn down and sent to the timber-yard\nby his own father-in-law, M. Nicolet, the diocesan architect, who, in\n1860, transformed the Paillot house in the way which one can now see;\nthe fourth is that M. Quatrebarbe ignores the fact that it was none\nother than M. Mazure, the archivist, who discovered the carved beam in\nClouzot\u2019s wood-yard, where it had been rotting for ten years under M.\nQuatrebarbe\u2019s very nose, and who pointed it out to M. de Terremondre,\npresident of the Society of Agriculture and Arch\u00e6ology, who purchased\nit for the museum.\u201d\n\nIn its actual condition the house of M. Paillot, the bookseller,\nshowed a uniform white frontage, three storeys in height. The shop,\nornamented with woodwork painted green, bore, in letters of gold, the\nwords, \u201cPaillot, libraire.\u201d The shop-window displayed terrestrial\nand celestial globes of different diameters, boxes of mathematical\ninstruments, school books and little text-books for the officers of\nthe garrison, with a few novels and new memoirs: these were what M.\nPaillot called works of literature. A window, narrower and not so deep,\nthat gave on the Rue des Tintelleries, contained works on agriculture\nand law, and thus completed the supply of instruments required by the\nintellectual life of the county town. On a counter inside the shop were\nto be found works of literature, novels, essays, and memoirs.\n\n\u201cClassics in sets\u201d were stacked in pigeon-holes, and quite at the\nbottom, by the side of the door which opened on the staircase, some\nshelves were reserved for old books. For M. Paillot combined in his\nshop the business of a new and second-hand bookseller. This dark corner\nof the old books attracted the bibliophiles of the district, who in\ndays gone by had found treasure-trove there. A certain copy of the\nfirst edition of the third book of Pantagruel was recalled, unearthed\nin excellent condition in 1871 by M. de Terremondre, father of the\npresent president of the Agricultural Society, at Paillot\u2019s, in the\nold-book corner. There was still more mysterious talk of a Mellin de\nSaint-Gelais, containing on the back of the title-page some autograph\nverses by Marie Stuart, that M. Dutilleul, the notary, had found, about\nthe same time, and in the same place, and for which he paid three\nfrancs. But, since then, no one had announced any marvellous discovery.\nThe gloomy, monotonous corner of the old books scarcely changed. There\nwas always to be seen there _l\u2019Abr\u00e9g\u00e9 de l\u2019Histoire des Voyages_, in\nfifty-six volumes, and the odd volumes of Kehl\u2019s Voltaire, in large\npaper. M. Dutilleul\u2019s discovery, doubted by many, was by some openly\ndenied. They based their opinion on the idea that the old notary was\nquite capable of having lied through vanity, and on the fact that after\nM. Dutilleul\u2019s death no copy of the poems of Mellin de Saint-Gelais was\nfound in his library. Yet the bibliophiles of the town, who frequented\nPaillot\u2019s shop, never failed to explore the old-book corner, at least\nonce a month. M. de Terremondre was one of the most assiduous visitors.\n\nHe was a large landed proprietor in the department, well connected, a\nbreeder of cattle and a connoisseur in artistic matters. He it was who\ndesigned the historic costumes for processions and who presided over\nthe committee formed for the erection of a statue of Jeanne d\u2019Arc on\nthe ramparts. He spent four months of the year in Paris, and had the\nreputation of being a man of gallantry. At fifty he preserved a slim\nand elegant figure. He was very popular with all three classes in the\ncounty town, and they had several times offered him the position of\ndeputy. This he had refused, declaring that his leisure, as well as\nhis independence, was dear to him. And people were curious about the\nreasons for his refusal.\n\nM. de Terremondre had thought of buying Queen Marguerite\u2019s house in\norder to turn it into a museum of local arch\u00e6ology and offer it to the\ntown. But Madame Houssieu, the widowed owner of this house, had not\nresponded to the overtures which he had made to her. Now more than\neighty years of age, she lived in the old house, alone, save for a\ndozen cats. She was supposed to be rich and miserly. All that could be\ndone was to wait for her death. Every time that he entered Paillot\u2019s\nshop, M. de Terremondre asked the bookseller:\n\n\u201cIs Queen Marguerite still in the land of the living?\u201d\n\nAnd M. Paillot replied that assuredly one morning she would be found\ndead in her bed, living shut up alone at her age. Meanwhile, he dreaded\nher setting his house on fire. This was her neighbour\u2019s constant fear.\nHe lived in terror lest the old lady should burn down her wooden house\nand his along with it.\n\nMadame Houssieu interested M. de Terremondre greatly. He was\ninquisitive about all that Queen Marguerite, as he called her, said\nand did. At the last visit which he had paid to her, she had shown\nhim a bad Restoration engraving representing the Duchess of Angoul\u00eame\npressing to her heart the portraits of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette\nenclosed in a medallion. This engraving, set in a black frame, hung in\nthe ground-floor sitting-room. Showing it to him, Madame Houssieu said:\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s the portrait of Queen Marguerite, who long ago lived in this\nhouse.\u201d\n\nAnd M. de Terremondre asked himself how a portrait of\nMarie-Th\u00e9r\u00e8se-Charlotte of France had, even by the dullest of minds,\nbeen taken for a portrait of Margaret of Scotland. He meditated on it\nfor a month.\n\nThen one day he exclaimed, as he entered Paillot\u2019s shop:\n\n\u201cI\u2019ve got it!\u201d\n\nAnd he explained to his friend the bookseller the very plausible\nreasons for this extraordinary confusion.\n\n\u201cListen to me, Paillot! Margaret of Scotland, mistaken for Marguerite\nLarriv\u00e9e, is confused with Marguerite of Valois, Duchess of Angoul\u00eame,\nand this princess is, in her turn, confused with the Duchess of\nAngoul\u00eame, daughter of Louis XVI. and Marie-Antoinette, Marguerite\nLarriv\u00e9e\u2014Margaret of Scotland\u2014Marguerite, Duchess of Angoul\u00eame\u2014the\nDuchess of Angoul\u00eame.\n\n\u201cI am rather proud of having found that out, Paillot. Tradition should\nalways be taken into account. But when we own Queen Marguerite\u2019s house,\nwe will furbish up the memory of that good Philippe Tricouillard a\nlittle.\u201d\n\nHard upon this declaration Dr. Fornerol entered the shop with the\nwonted impetuosity of that indefatigable visitor of the sick, who\nbrought with him hope and comfort. Gustave Fornerol was a fat,\nmoustachioed man. Possessed in his wife\u2019s right of a small country\nestate, he affected the fashions of a country proprietor and paid\nhis visits in a soft hat, a hunting waistcoat and leather leggings.\nAlthough his practice was exclusively among the lower middle class and\nthe rural population of the suburbs, he was considered the most skilful\npractitioner in the town.\n\nFriendly with Paillot, as with all his fellow-townsmen, he was not in\nthe habit of paying useless visits to him, nor of wasting his time\ngossiping in the shop. This time, however, he sank down on one of the\nthree rush-bottomed chairs which, set in the old-book corner, had\ngained for Paillot\u2019s shop the reputation for a hospitality at once\nliterary, learned, cultured, and academic.\n\nHe puffed, waved a good-day to Paillot with his hand, bowed with some\ndeference to M. de Terremondre, and said:\n\n\u201cI am tired.\u00a0\u2026 Well! Paillot, were you pleased with the show yesterday?\nWhat did Madame Paillot think of the play and the actors?\u201d\n\nThe bookseller did not commit himself. He considered that it is wise\nfor a tradesman to express no opinions in his shop. Besides, he went to\nthe theatre only _en famille_, and that but seldom. But Dr. Fornerol,\nwhose position as medical officer to the theatre procured him free\npasses, never missed a performance.\n\nA travelling company had given _la Mar\u00e9chale_ the night before, with\nPauline Giry in the leading part.\n\n\u201cShe is always capital, is Pauline Giry,\u201d said the doctor.\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s the general opinion,\u201d said the bookseller.\n\n\u201cShe isn\u2019t as young as she once was,\u201d said M. de Terremondre, who was\nturning over the leaves of volume xxxviii. of _l\u2019Histoire G\u00e9n\u00e9rale des\nVoyages_.\n\n\u201cBy Jove, no!\u201d answered the doctor. \u201cYou know that Giry isn\u2019t her real\nname?\u201d\n\n\u201cHer real name is Girou,\u201d answered M. de Terremondre authoritatively.\n\u201cI knew her mother, Cl\u00e9mence Girou. Fifteen years ago Pauline Giry was\ndark and very pretty.\u201d\n\nAnd the three of them, in the old-book corner, set to work to reckon\nthe actress\u2019s age. But as they were calculating from doubtful or\nincorrect data, they only reached contradictory, or sometimes even\nabsurd, conclusions, and with these they were by no means satisfied.\n\n\u201cI am worn out,\u201d said the doctor. \u201cYou all went to bed after the\ntheatre. But I was called up at midnight to go to an old farmer on\nDuroc hill, who was suffering from strangulated hernia. Says his man to\nme: \u2018He has brought up everything he can. He harps on one note. He is\ngoing to die.\u2019 I have the horse put in and I spin out to Duroc hill,\nover yonder, right at the end of the Faubourg de Tramayes. I find my\nman a-bed and howling. Corpse-like face, stercoraceous vomiting. Very\ngood! His wife says to me: \u2018It\u2019s in his inside that it takes him.\u2019\u201d\n\n\u201cShe\u2019s forty-seven, is Pauline Giry,\u201d said M. de Terremondre.\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s quite possible,\u201d said Paillot.\n\n\u201cAt least forty-seven,\u201d answered the doctor. \u201cDouble hernia, and\ndangerous it was. Very good! I proceed to reduce it by hand-pressure.\nAlthough it is only necessary to exercise a very faint pressure with\nthe hand, after thirty minutes of this business, one\u2019s arms and back\nare broken. And it was only at the end of five hours, at the tenth\nrepetition, that I was able to effect the reduction.\u201d\n\nAt this point in the narrative recounted by Dr. Fornerol, Paillot the\nbookseller went to serve some ladies who asked for some interesting\nbooks to read in the country. And the doctor, addressing himself to M.\nde Terremondre alone, continued:\n\n\u201cI was one ache. I say to my man: \u2018You must keep to your bed, and, if\npossible, you must remain lying on your back, until the truss-maker has\nmade a truss for you according to my directions. Lie stretched out, or\nlook out for strangulation. And you know whether that\u2019s nice! Without\ncounting that one day or another it\u2019ll carry you off. You understand?\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018Yes, sir.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018Very good.\u2019\n\n\u201cDown I go to the yard to wash myself at the pump. You may imagine\nthat after this business I wanted a bit of a wash. I strip myself to\nthe waist, and I rub myself with soft soap for, maybe, a quarter of an\nhour. I dress myself again. I drink a glass of white wine that they\nbring me in the yard. I see the grey dawn break, I hear the lark sing,\nand I go back to the sick man\u2019s room. There it was dark. I shout in\nthe direction of the bed: \u2018Hey? That\u2019s understood, isn\u2019t it? Perfect\nstillness whilst waiting for the new truss. The one you have is no good\nat all. D\u2019you hear?\u2019 No answer. \u2018Are you asleep?\u2019 Then I hear behind me\nthe voice of the old nurse: \u2018Doctor, our man\u2019s no longer in the house,\u2019\nshe tells me. \u2018He was wearying to go out to his vines.\u2019\u201d\n\n\u201cThere I recognise my peasants,\u201d said M. de Terremondre.\n\nHe lapsed into meditation and resumed:\n\n\u201cDoctor, Pauline Giry is now forty-nine. She made her _d\u00e9but_ at the\nVaudeville in 1876; she was then twenty-two. I am sure of it.\u201d\n\n\u201cIn that case,\u201d said the doctor, \u201cshe would be in her forty-third year,\nsince we are now in 1897.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt isn\u2019t possible,\u201d said M. de Terremondre, \u201cfor she is at least six\nyears older than Rose Max, who has certainly passed her fortieth year.\u201d\n\n\u201cRose Max? I don\u2019t say no, but she is still a fine woman,\u201d said the\ndoctor.\n\nHe yawned, stretched himself, and said:\n\n\u201cGetting back from Duroc hill, at six o\u2019clock in the morning, I find\ntwo baker\u2019s men in my hall, come to tell me that their mistress, the\nbaker\u2019s wife of the Tintelleries, has been brought to bed.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut,\u201d asked M. de Terremondre, \u201cdid it require two baker\u2019s men to tell\nyou that?\u201d\n\n\u201cThey had sent them one after the other,\u201d answered the doctor. \u201cI ask\nif the characteristic symptoms have set in. They give me no answer, but\na third baker\u2019s man turns up in his master\u2019s cart. Up I get and seat\nmyself at his side. We take half a turn, and there I am rolling over\nthe pavement of the Tintelleries.\u201d\n\n\u201cI have it!\u201d exclaimed M. de Terremondre, who was pursuing his own\nthoughts. \u201cIt was in \u201969 that she came out at the Vaudeville. And it\nwas in \u201976 that my cousin Courtrai knew her\u00a0\u2026 and was intimate with\nher.\u201d\n\n\u201cAre you speaking of Jacques de Courtrai, who was a captain of\ndragoons?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo, I am speaking of Ag\u00e9nor, who died in Brazil.\u00a0\u2026 She has a son who\nleft Saint-Cyr last year.\u201d\n\nThus spoke M. de Terremondre, just as M. Bergeret, professor of\nliterature at the University, entered the shop.\n\nM. Bergeret held one of the three academic chairs of the Paillot\nestablishment, and was the most indefatigable talker of the old-book\ncorner. There, with a friendly hand, he used to turn over the leaves\nof books old and books new, and although he never bought a single\nvolume, for fear of getting a wigging for it from his wife and three\ndaughters, he received the heartiest welcome from Paillot, who held him\nin high esteem as a reservoir, an alembic, of that science and those\nbelles-lettres on which booksellers live and flourish. The old-book\ncorner was the only place in the town where M. Bergeret could sit in\nutter contentment, for at home Madame Bergeret chased him from room\nto room for different reasons of domestic administration; at the\nUniversity, the Dean, in his hatred, forced him to give his lectures\nin a dark, unhealthy cellar, into which but few pupils descended, and\nall three classes in the town cast black looks at him for having called\nJeanne d\u2019Arc a military mascotte. Now M. Bergeret slipped into the\nold-book corner.\n\n\u201cGood-day, gentlemen! Anything new?\u201d\n\n\u201cA baby to the baker\u2019s wife in the Tintelleries,\u201d said the doctor.\n\u201cI brought it into the world just twenty minutes ago. I was going to\ntell M. de Terremondre about it. And I may add that it wasn\u2019t without\ndifficulty.\u201d\n\n\u201cThis child,\u201d replied the professor, \u201chesitated to be born. He would\nnever have consented to it if, being gifted with understanding and\nforesight, he had known the destiny of man on the earth, and more\nespecially in our town.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt is a pretty little girl,\u201d said the doctor, \u201ca pretty little girl\nwith a raspberry mark under the left breast.\u201d\n\nThe conversation continued between the doctor and M. de Terremondre.\n\n\u201cA pretty little girl, with a raspberry mark under the left breast,\ndoctor? It would seem that the bakeress had a longing for raspberries\nwhen she took off her corsets. The mere desire of a mother does not\nsuffice to stamp the picture of it on the offspring she bears. It is\nalso necessary that the longing woman should touch one particular\npart of her body. And the picture will be stamped on the child in the\ncorresponding spot. Isn\u2019t that the common belief, doctor?\u201d\n\n\u201cThat is what old women believe,\u201d replied Dr. Fornerol. \u201cAnd I have\nknown men, and even doctors, who were women in this respect, and who\nshared in the credulity of the nurses. For my part, the experience\nof an already long practice, my knowledge of observations made by\nscientists, and especially a general view of embryology, prevent my\nsharing in this popular belief.\u201d\n\n\u201cThen, according to your opinion, doctor, wishing-marks are just spots\nlike others, that form on the skin without known cause.\u201d\n\n\u201cStop a bit! \u2018Wishing-marks\u2019 present a particular characteristic. They\ncontain no blood-vessels and are not erectile, like the tumours with\nwhich you might perhaps be tempted to confuse them.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou declare, doctor, that they are a peculiar species. Do you make no\ninference from that as to their origin?\u201d\n\n\u201cAbsolutely none.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut if these spots are not really \u2018wishing-marks,\u2019 if you refuse\nthem a\u00a0\u2026 how shall I put it?\u00a0\u2026 a psychic origin, I am unable to\naccount for the accident of a belief which is found in the Bible,\nand which is still shared by such a great number of people. My aunt\nPastr\u00e9 was a very intelligent and by no means superstitious woman.\nShe died last spring, aged seventy-seven, in the full belief that the\nthree white currants visible on the shoulder of her daughter Bertha\nhad an illustrious origin and came from the Parc de Neuilly, where,\nin the autumn of 1834, during her pregnancy, she was presented to\nQueen Marie-Am\u00e9lie, who took her to walk along a path bordered by\ncurrant-bushes.\u201d\n\nTo this Dr. Fornerol made no reply. He was not remarkably given to\ncontradicting the opinions of rich patients. But M. Bergeret, professor\nof literature at the University, bent his head towards his left\nshoulder and gave a far-away look, as he always did whenever he was\ngoing to speak. Then he said:\n\n\u201cGentlemen, it is a fact that these marks, called \u2018wishing-spots,\u2019\nreduce themselves to a small number of types, which may be classified,\naccording to their colour and form, into strawberries, currants, and\nraspberries, or wine and coffee spots. It would, perhaps, be convenient\nto add to these types that of those diffused yellow spots in which\nfolks endeavour to recognise portions of tart or mince-pie. Now,\nwho can possibly believe that pregnant women desire nothing save to\ndrink wine or _caf\u00e9 au lait_, or to eat red fruits, and, possibly,\nforcemeat-pie? Such an idea runs counter to natural philosophy. That\ndesire which, according to certain philosophers, has alone created the\nworld and alone preserves it, works in them as in all living beings,\nonly with more range and diversity. It gives them secret fevers, hidden\npassions, and strange frenzies. Without going into the question of the\neffect of their particular condition on the appetites common to all\nthat lives, and even to plants, we recognise that this condition does\nnot produce indifference, but that it rather perverts and inflames\nthe deeper instincts. If the new-born child ought really to carry the\nvisible signs of its mother\u2019s desires, believe me, we should more\nfrequently see imprinted on its body other symbols than these innocent\nstrawberries and drops of coffee with which the folly of old wives\ndiverts itself.\u201d\n\n\u201cI see what you mean,\u201d said M. de Terremondre. \u201cWomen loving jewels,\nmany children would be born with sapphires, rubies, and emeralds on\ntheir fingers, and with gold bracelets on their wrists; necklaces of\npearls, rivi\u00e8res of diamonds would cover their neck and breast. Still,\none ought to be able to point to such children as these.\u201d\n\n\u201cJust so,\u201d replied M. Bergeret.\n\nAnd, taking up from the table, where M. de Terremondre had left it,\nthe thirty-eighth volume of _l\u2019Histoire G\u00e9n\u00e9rale des Voyages_, the\nprofessor buried his nose in the book, between pages 212 and 213, a\nspot which, every time that he had opened the inevitable old book\nduring the last six years, had confronted him like a fate, to the\nexclusion of every other page, as an instance of the monotony with\nwhich life glides by, a symbol of the uniformity of those tasks and\nthose days in a provincial university which precede the day of death\nand the travail of the body in the tomb. And this time, as he had\nalready done so many times before, M. Bergeret read in volume xxxviii.\nof _l\u2019Histoire G\u00e9n\u00e9rale des Voyages_ the first lines of page 212: \u201ca\npassage to the North. \u2018It is to this check,\u2019 said he, \u2018that we owe the\nopportunity of being able to visit the Sandwich Isles again, and to\nenrich our voyage with a discovery which, although the last, seems in\nmany respects to be the most important that Europeans have yet made in\nthe whole expanse of the Pacific Ocean.\u2019 The happy prophecy which these\nwords seemed to denote has, unfortunately, never been fulfilled.\u201d\n\nAnd this time, as always, the reading of these lines plunged M.\nBergeret into melancholy. Whilst he was immersed in it, the bookseller,\nM. Paillot, confronted a little soldier, who had come in to buy a sou\u2019s\nworth of letter-paper, with disdain and hauteur.\n\n\u201cI don\u2019t keep letter-paper,\u201d declared M. Paillot, turning his back on\nthe little soldier.\n\nThen he complained of his assistant, L\u00e9on, who was always on errands,\nand who, once gone out, never came back. Consequently he, Paillot, was\nconstantly being pestered by intruders. They actually asked him for\nletter-paper!\n\n\u201cI remember,\u201d said Dr. Fornerol to him, \u201cthat one market-day a good\ncountry-woman came in and asked you for a plaster, and that you had the\ngreatest difficulty in preventing her from tucking up her petticoats\nand showing you the painful spot where the paper was to be applied.\u201d\n\nPaillot, the bookseller, replied to this anecdotic sally by a silence\nwhich expressed offended dignity.\n\n\u201cHeavens!\u201d exclaimed M. de Terremondre, the book-lover, \u201cthis learned\nstorehouse of our Fr\u00f6ben, our Elzevir, our Debure, confused with the\nchemist\u2019s shop of Thomas Diafoirus! What an outrage!\u201d\n\n\u201cIndeed,\u201d replied Dr. Fornerol, \u201cthe good soul meant no harm in showing\nPaillot the seat of her trouble. But it won\u2019t do to judge the peasants\nby her. In general, they show extreme repugnance to letting themselves\nbe seen by the doctor. My country colleagues have often remarked this\nto me. Country-women, attacked by serious diseases, resist examination\nwith an energy and obstinacy which townswomen, and particularly women\nof the world, do not show in the same circumstances. I saw a farmer\u2019s\nwife at Lucigny die of an internal tumour, which she had never allowed\nto be suspected.\u201d\n\nM. de Terremondre, who, as president of several local academies, had\nliterary prejudices, took these remarks as a pretext for accusing Zola\nof having shamefully maligned the peasants in _La Terre_. At this\naccusation, M. Bergeret emerged from his pensive sadness and said:\n\n\u201cYet the peasants are drunkards and parricides, and voluntarily\nincestuous, as Zola has depicted them. Their repugnance to lend\nthemselves to clinical inspection by no means proves their chastity.\nIt only shows the power of prejudice in minds of limited intelligence.\nThe simpler a prejudice is, the stronger is its power. The prejudice\nthat it is wrong to be seen naked remains powerful with them. It has\nbeen weakened amongst artists and people of intelligence by the custom\nof baths, douches, and massage; it has been still further weakened by\n\u00e6sthetic feeling and by the taste for voluptuous sensations, and it\neasily yields to considerations of health and hygiene. This is all that\ncan be deduced from the doctor\u2019s observations.\u201d\n\n\u201cI have noticed,\u201d said M. de Terremondre, \u201cthat well-made women\u00a0\u2026\u201d\n\n\u201cThere are hardly any,\u201d said the doctor.\n\n\u201cDoctor, you remind me of my chiropodist,\u201d replied M. de Terremondre.\n\u201cHe said to me one day: \u2018If you were a chiropodist, sir, you would take\nno stock in women.\u2019\u201d\n\nPaillot, the bookseller, who for some moments had been glued to the\nwall listening intently, said:\n\n\u201cI don\u2019t know what is going on in Queen Marguerite\u2019s house; I hear\ncries and the noise of furniture being overturned.\u201d\n\nAnd he was again seized with his customary misgiving.\n\n\u201cThat old lady will set fire to her house, and the whole block of\nbuildings will be burnt: it\u2019s all wood.\u201d\n\nNobody heeded these words, nobody attempted to soothe his ridiculous\napprehensions. Dr. Fornerol rose painfully to his feet, stretched the\nwearied muscles of his arms with an effort, and went off on his round\nof visits through the town.\n\nM. de Terremondre put on his gloves and took a step towards the door.\nThen, perceiving a tall withered figure which was crossing the square\nin stiff, abrupt strides:\n\n\u201cHere,\u201d said he, \u201cis General Cartier de Chalmot. I hope the _pr\u00e9fet_\nwon\u2019t meet him.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd why not?\u201d demanded M. Bergeret.\n\n\u201cBecause these meetings are by no means pleasant for M. Worms-Clavelin.\nLast Sunday our _pr\u00e9fet_, while driving by in a victoria, caught sight\nof General Cartier de Chalmot, who was walking with his wife and\ndaughters. Lolling back in his carriage, with his hat on his head,\nhe saluted the gallant veteran with a little wave of his hand and a\n\u2018Good-day, good-day, general!\u2019 The general reddened with anger. For\nthe unassuming are always violent in their anger. General Chalmot was\nbeside himself. He was terrible. Before all the promenaders he imitated\nM. Worms-Clavelin\u2019s familiar salute and shouted at him in a voice of\nthunder: \u2018Good-day, good-day, _pr\u00e9fet_!\u2019\u201d\n\n\u201cThere is perfect silence now in Queen Marguerite\u2019s house,\u201d said M.\nPaillot.\n\n\n\n\nXIII\n\n\nThe midday sun darted its clear white rays. Not a cloud in the sky, not\na breath in the air. The solitary orb swung across the vast repose in\nwhich everything was wrapped and urged its blazing course towards the\nhorizon. On the deserted Mall the shadows lay still and heavy at the\nfoot of the elms. A road-mender slept in the bottom of the ditch that\nbounds the ramparts. The birds were silent.\n\nSeated at the shady end of a bench three parts steeped in sunlight, M.\nBergeret forgot, under these classic trees, in the friendly solitude,\nhis wife and his three daughters, his cramped life and his cramped\nhome; like \u00c6sop he revelled in the freedom of his mind, and his\nanalytical imagination roved irresponsibly among the living and the\ndead.\n\nHowever Abb\u00e9 Lantaigne, head of the high seminary, was passing, with\nhis breviary in his hand, down the broad walk of the Mall. M. Bergeret\nrose to offer his shady place on the bench to the priest. M. Lantaigne\ncame up and sank into it composedly, with that priestly dignity which\nnever left him and which in him was just simplicity. M. Bergeret sat\nnear him, at the spot where the shadow fell mingled with light from the\nfeathery end of the branches, so that his black clothing was covered\nwith golden discs, and over his dazzled eyes his eyelids began to blink.\n\nHe congratulated Abb\u00e9 Lantaigne in these words:\n\n\u201cIt is said everywhere, monsieur l\u2019abb\u00e9, that you will be called to the\nbishopric of Tourcoing.\n\n  \u201cThe sign I hail, and from it dare to hope.[J]\n\nBut this choice is too good a one not to make one doubtful. You are\nbelieved to be a royalist, and that counts against you. Are you not a\nrepublican like the Pope?\u201d\n\n  [J] \u201cJ\u2019en accepte l\u2019augure et j\u2019ose l\u2019esp\u00e9rer.\u201d\n\nM. LANTAIGNE: \u201cI am a republican like the Pope. That is to\nsay, I am at peace and not at war with the government of the Republic.\nBut peace is not love. And I do not love the Republic.\u201d\n\nM. BERGERET: \u201cI guess your reasons. You condemn it for being\nfreethinking and hostile to the clergy.\u201d\n\nM. LANTAIGNE: \u201cAssuredly I condemn it as irreligious and\ninimical to the priests. But this irreligion, these hostilities, are\nnot inherent in it. They are the attributes of republicans, not of the\nRepublic. They diminish or increase at every change of ministers. They\nare less to-day than they were yesterday. Possibly they will increase\nto-morrow. Perhaps a time will come when they will be non-existent, as\nthey were non-existent under the rule of Marshal MacMahon, or at least\nduring the delusive beginnings of that rule and under the deceptive\nministry of May 16th. They are accidental, not essential. But even if\nit were respectful towards religion and its ministers, I should still\nhate the Republic.\u201d\n\nM. BERGERET: \u201cWhy?\u201d\n\nM. LANTAIGNE: \u201cBecause it is diversity. In that it is\nessentially bad.\u201d\n\nM. BERGERET: \u201cI don\u2019t quite understand you, monsieur l\u2019abb\u00e9.\u201d\n\nM. LANTAIGNE: \u201cThat comes from your not having the theological\nmind. At one time even laymen received some impress of it. Their\ncollege note-books, which they preserved, supplied them with the\nelements of philosophy. That is especially true of the men of the\nseventeenth century. At that time all those who were educated knew\nhow to reason, even the poets. It is the teaching of Port-Royal that\nunderlies the _Ph\u00e8dre_ of Racine. But to-day when theology has been\nrelegated to the seminaries, no one knows how to reason, and men of\nthe world are almost as foolish as poets and savants. Did not M. de\nTerremondre, believing that he was speaking to the point, tell me\nyesterday, on the Mall, that Church and State ought to make mutual\nconcessions? People no longer know, they no longer think. Empty words\npass and repass in the air. We are in Babel. You, Monsieur Bergeret,\nare much better read in Voltaire than in Saint Thomas.\u201d\n\nM. BERGERET: \u201cIt is true. But did you not say, monsieur\nl\u2019abb\u00e9, that the Republic is _diversity_, and that in that respect it\nis essentially bad? That is what I beg you to explain to me. Perhaps\nI might succeed in understanding you. I know more theology than you\ncredit me with. Note-book in hand, I have read Baronius.\u201d\n\nM. LANTAIGNE: \u201cBaronius is only an annalist, although the\ngreatest of all; and I am quite sure that from him you have only been\nable to carry away some historic odds and ends. If you were in the\nslightest degree a theologian, you would be neither surprised nor\ndisconcerted at what I have just said.\n\n\u201cDiversity is hateful. It is the characteristic of evil to be diverse.\nThis characteristic manifests itself in the government of the Republic,\nwhich is more alienated than any other from unity. With its want of\nunity it fails in independence, permanence, and power. It fails in\nknowledge, and one may say of it that it knows not what it does.\nAlthough for our chastisement it continues, yet it has no continuity.\nFor the idea of continuity implies that of identity, and the Republic\nof one day is never the same as that of the day before. Even its\nugliness and its vices do not belong to it. And you have yourself\nremarked that by them it has never been discredited. Reproaches and\nscandals that would have ruined the mightiest empire have poured over\nit harmlessly. It is indestructible, for it is destruction. It is\ndispersion, it is discontinuity, it is diversity, it is evil.\u201d\n\nM. BERGERET: \u201cAre you speaking of Republics in general, or\nonly of our own?\u201d\n\nM. LANTAIGNE: \u201cObviously I am considering neither the Roman\nRepublic, nor the Dutch, nor the Swiss, but only the French. For these\ngovernments have nothing in common save the name, and you will not\ncharge me with judging them by the name by which they call themselves,\nnor by those points in which they seem, one and all, opposed to\nmonarchy\u2014an opposition which is not in itself necessarily to be\ncondemned; but the Republic in France means nothing more than the lack\nof a prince and the want of a governing power. And this nation was too\nold at the time of the amputation for one not to fear that it would die\nof it.\u201d\n\nM. BERGERET: \u201cYet France has already survived the Empire by\ntwenty-seven years, the _bourgeois_-king by forty-eight years, and the\nlegitimate sovereign by sixty-six years.\u201d\n\nM. LANTAIGNE: \u201cSay rather that for a century France, wounded\nto death, has been dragging out a miserable remnant of life in\nalternate fits of fever and prostration. And do not imagine that I\nflatter the past or base my regrets on lying pictures of an age of\ngold which never existed. The conditions of national life are quite\nfamiliar to me. Its hours are marked by perils, its days by disasters.\nAnd it is just and necessary that it should be so. Its life, like\nthat of individual men, if it were exempt from trials, would have no\nmeaning. The early history of France is full of crimes and expiations.\nGod ceaselessly chastened this nation with the zeal of an untiring\nlove, and in the time of the kings His mercy spared her no suffering.\nBut, being then Christian, her woes were useful and precious to her.\nIn them she recognised the ennobling power of chastisement. From them\nshe derived her lessons, her merits, her salvation, her power, and her\nrenown. Now her sufferings have no longer any meaning for her; she\nneither understands them nor acquiesces in them. Whilst undergoing\nthe test she rebels against it. And the demented state expects good\nfortune! It is in losing faith in God that one loses, along with the\nidea of the absolute, the knowledge of the relative and even the\nhistoric sense. God alone informs the logical sequence of human events\nwhich, without Him, would no longer follow one another in a rational\nand conceivable manner. And for the last hundred years the history of\nFrance has been an enigma for the French. Yet even in our days there\nwas one solemn hour of hope and expectation.\n\n\u201cThe horseman who rides forth at the hour appointed by God, and who\nis called now Shalmanezar, now Nebuchadnezzar, then Cyrus, Cambyses,\nMemmius, Titus, Alaric, Attila, Mahomet II., or William, had ridden\nwith fiery trail across France. Humiliated, bleeding, and mutilated,\nshe raised her eyes to Heaven. May that moment be counted to her for\nrighteousness! She seemed to understand, and along with her faith to\nrecover her intelligence, to recognise the value and the use of her\nvast and providential woes. She aroused her just men, her Christians,\nto form a sovereign assembly. Then appeared the spectacle of that\nassembly, renewing a solemn custom and consecrating France to the heart\nof Jesus. We saw, as in the times of Saint Louis, churches rising on\nthe mountains, before the gaze of penitent cities; we saw the foremost\ncitizens preparing for the restoration of the monarchy.\u201d\n\nM. BERGERET (_sotto voce_): \u201c1. The Assembly of Bordeaux. 2.\nThe Sacr\u00e9-C\u0153ur of Montmartre and the Church of Fourvi\u00e8res at Lyons. 3.\nThe Commission of the Nine and the mission of M. Chesnelong.\u201d\n\nM. LANTAIGNE: \u201cWhat do you say?\u201d\n\nM. BERGERET: \u201cNothing. I am filling in the headings in the\n_Discours sur l\u2019Histoire universelle_.\u201d\n\nM. LANTAIGNE: \u201cDo not jest and do not deny. Coming along the\nroads sounded the white horses that were bringing the king to his\nown again. Henri Dieudonn\u00e9 was coming to re-establish the principle\nof authority from which spring the two social forces: command and\nobedience; he was coming to restore human order along with divine\norder, political wisdom along with the religious spirit, the hierarchy,\nlaw, discipline, true liberty and unity. The nation, linking up its\ntraditions once more, was recovering, along with the sense of its\nmission, the secret of its power and the pledge of victory.\u00a0\u2026 God\nwilled it not. These great designs, thwarted by the enemy who still\nhated us after having satisfied his hatred, opposed by a great number\nof the French, miserably supported even by those who had formed them,\nwere brought to naught in one day. The frontier of our country was\nbarricaded against Henri Dieudonn\u00e9, and the people subsided into a\nRepublic; that is to say, they repudiated their birthright, they\nrenounced their rights and their duties, in order to govern themselves\naccording to their own inclinations and to live at their ease in that\nliberty which God curbs and which overturns both law and order, the\ntemporal images of Himself. Henceforth evil was king and proclaimed its\nedicts. The Church, exposed to incessant vexations, was perfidiously\ntempted on the one side to an impossible renunciation and on the other\nto revolt involving punishment.\u201d\n\nM. BERGERET: \u201cYou doubtless reckon among the vexatious\nmeasures the expulsion of the fraternities?\u201d\n\nM. LANTAIGNE: \u201cIt is clear that the expulsion of the\nfraternities was prompted by evil intentions, and was the result of\nmalicious calculation. It is also certain that the religious who were\nexpelled did not deserve such treatment. In striking them it was\nbelieved that the Church was being struck. But the blow, badly aimed,\nstrengthened the body that they wished to shake, and restored to the\nparishes the authority and the resources which had been diverted from\nthem. Our enemies did not know the Church, and their chief minister of\nthat time, less ignorant than they, but more desirous of satisfying\nthem than of destroying us, made a war on us that was merely mimic\nand for purposes of show. For I do not regard the expulsion of the\nnon-licensed orders as an effective attack. Of course, I honour the\nvictims of this clumsy persecution; but I consider that the Church\nof France has in the secular clergy a sufficient staff to govern and\nminister to souls without the help of the regulars. Alas! the Republic\nhas inflicted deeper and more secret wounds on the Church. You know\ntoo much about educational questions, Monsieur Bergeret, not to have\ndiscovered several of these plague-spots; but the most poisonous\none was induced by the introduction into the episcopate of priests\nfeeble in mind or in character.\u00a0\u2026 I have said enough about that. The\nChristian at least consoles and reassures himself, knowing that the\nChurch will not perish. But what will be the patriot\u2019s consolation?\nHe discovers that all the members of the State are gangrened and\nrotten. In twenty years what progress in corruption! A chief of the\nState whose sole virtue is his powerlessness, and who is denounced\nas criminal if it should get wind that he ventures to act, or even\nmerely to think; ministers subject to a foolish Parliament, which is\nbelieved to be corrupt, and whose members, more ignorant every day,\nwere chosen, moulded, nominated in the godless clubs of the freemasons\nto carry out an evil policy of which they are yet incapable, and\nwhich is surpassed by the evils brought about through their turbulent\ninaction; an incessantly increasing bureaucracy, vast, greedy, and\nmischievous, in which the Republic believes she is securing for herself\na band of supporters, but which she is nourishing to her own ruin; a\nmagistracy recruited without law or equity, and too often canvassed by\nthe government not to be suspected of obsequiousness; an army, nay, a\nwhole nation, unceasingly pervaded by the fatal spirit of independence\nand equality, is poured back straightway into town and country, a whole\ncommunity, depraved by barrack life, unfitted for arts and trades,\nand disliking all labour; an educational body which has a mission\nto teach atheism and immorality; a diplomatic corps which fails in\nreadiness and authority, and which leaves the care of our foreign\npolicy and the conclusion of our alliances to innkeepers, shopkeepers\nand journalists; in a word, all the powers, the legislative and the\nexecutive, the judicial, the military, and the civil, intermingled,\nconfused, destroyed one by the other; a farcical rule which, in its\ndestructive weakness, has given to society the two most powerful\ninstruments of death that wickedness ever devised: divorce and\nmalthusianism. And all the evils of which I have made a rapid summary\nbelong to the Republic and spring naturally from her: the Republic is\nessentially unrighteous. She is unrighteous in willing a liberty which\nGod has not willed, since He is the master, and since He has delegated\nto priests and kings a part of his authority; she is unrighteous in\nwilling an equality which God has not willed, since He has established\nthe hierarchy of dignities in Heaven and on earth; she is unrighteous\nin instituting that tolerance which cannot be the will of God, since\nevil is intolerable; she is unrighteous in consulting the will of the\npeople, as if the multitude of ignorant ought to prevail against the\nsmall company of those who bow themselves before the will of God, which\novershadows the government and even the details of administration, as\na principle whose consequences are never-ending; in a word, she is\nunrighteous in proclaiming her indifference to religion\u2014that is to\nsay, her impiety, her unbelief, her blasphemies (of which the very\nsmallest is mortal sin), and her adhesion to diversity, which is evil\nand death.\u201d\n\nM. BERGERET: \u201cDid you not say just now, monsieur l\u2019abb\u00e9, that\nbeing as republican as the Pope, you were resolved to live at peace\nwith the Republic?\u201d\n\nM. LANTAIGNE: \u201cCertainly, I will live with her in submission\nand obedience. In rebelling against her, I should act according to\nher principles, and contrary to my own. By being seditious I should\nresemble her, and I should no longer resemble myself.\n\n\u201cIt is unlawful to return evil for evil. Sovereignty is hers. Whether\nshe decrees ill or does not decree, hers is the guilt. Let it rest with\nher! My duty is to obey. I shall do it. I shall obey. As a priest and,\nif it please God, as a bishop, I shall refuse nothing to the Republic\nof what I owe her. I call to mind that Saint Augustine, in Hippo, then\nbesieged by the Vandals, died a bishop and a Roman citizen. For myself,\nthe lowest member of this illustrious Church of the Gauls, after the\nexample of the greatest of the doctors, I will die in France, a priest\nand a French citizen, praying God to scatter the Vandals.\u201d\n\nThe elm-trees on the Mall began to incline their shadow towards the\neast. A fresh breeze coming from a region of distant storm stirred\namong the leaves. Whilst a ladybird travelled over the sleeve of his\ncoat, M. Bergeret replied to Abb\u00e9 Lantaigne in a tone of the greatest\naffability.\n\n\u201cMonsieur l\u2019abb\u00e9, you have just traced, with an eloquence only to\nbe found on your lips, the characteristics of democratic rule. This\ngovernment is very much as you describe it. And yet it is the one I\nprefer. In it all bonds are loosened, which weakens the State, but\nrelieves individuals and ensures a certain ease of life and a liberty\nwhich unfortunately local tyrannies counteract. It is true that\ncorruption appears to be greater in it than in monarchies. That springs\nfrom the number and diversity of the people who are raised to power.\nBut this corruption would be less visible if the secret of it were\nbetter kept. The lack of secrecy and the want of continuity render\nall enterprise impossible in a democratic Republic. But, since the\nenterprises of monarchies have most often ruined the nations, I am not\nvery sorry to live under a government incapable of great designs. What\nrejoices me especially in our Republic is the sincere desire which she\nshows not to provoke war in Europe. She rejoices in militarism, but\nis not at all bellicose. In considering the chances of a war, other\ngovernments have nothing to fear save defeat. Ours fears equally\u2014and\njustly so\u2014both victory and defeat. This salutary fear secures us\npeace, which is the greatest of blessings.\n\n\u201cThe worst fault of the present _r\u00e9gime_ is that it costs very dear. It\nmakes no outward show: it is not ostentatious. It is gorgeous neither\nin its women nor its horses. But, with its humble appearance and\nneglected exterior, it is expensive. It has too many poor relations,\ntoo many friends to provide for. It is a spendthrift. The most grievous\npoint is that it lives on an exhausted country, whose powers are waning\nand which no longer thrives. And the administration has great need of\nmoney. It is aware that it is in difficulties. And its difficulties are\ngreater than it fancies. They will increase still more. The evil is not\nnew. It is the one which killed the old _r\u00e9gime_. I am going, monsieur\nl\u2019abb\u00e9, to tell you a great truth: as long as the State contents itself\nwith the revenues supplied by the poor, as long as it has enough from\nthe subsidies which are assured to it with mechanical regularity\nby those who work with their hands, it lives happy, peaceful, and\nhonoured. Economists and financiers are pleased to acknowledge its\nhonesty. But as soon as this unhappy State, driven by need, makes a\nshow of asking for money from those who have it, and of levying some\nslight toll on the rich, it is made to feel that it is committing a\nhorrible outrage, is violating all rights, is wanting in respect to a\nsacred thing, is destroying commerce and industry, and crushing the\npoor by touching the rich. No one hides his conviction that discredit\nis at hand. And it sinks beneath the genuine contempt of the good\ncitizen. Yet ruin comes slowly and surely. The State touches capital:\nit is lost.\n\n\u201cOur ministers are jesting at us when they speak of the clerical or\nthe socialist peril. There is but one peril, the financial peril.\nThe Republic is beginning to recognise this. I pity her, I shall\nregret her. I was reared under the Empire, in love for the Republic.\n\u2018She is justice,\u2019 my father, professor of rhetoric at the college of\nSaint-Omer, used to say to me. He did not know her. She is not justice,\nbut she is ease. Monsieur l\u2019abb\u00e9, if you had a soul less exalted,\nless serious, and more given to jesting thoughts, I should confide\nto you that the present Republic, the Republic of 1896, delights me\nand touches me by its modesty. She acquiesces in not being admired.\nShe exacts but a trifling respect, and even renounces esteem. It\nis enough for her to live. That is her sole desire; it is a lawful\none. The humblest beings cling to life. Like the woodcutter of the\nfabulist, like the apothecary of Mantua, who so greatly astonished that\nyoung fool of a Romeo, she fears death, and it is her only fear. She\nmistrusts princes and soldiers. In danger of death, she would be very\nill to handle. Fear would make her abandon her own nature and would\nrender her ferocious. That would be a pity. But as long as they make\nno attempt on her life, and as long as they only attack her honour,\nshe is good-natured. A government of this kind suits me and gives\nme confidence. So many others were merciless through self-esteem!\nSo many others made sure of their rights, their grandeur, and their\nprosperity by cruelties! So many others have poured out blood for\ntheir prerogative and their majesty! She has no self-esteem; she has\nno majesty. A fortunate lack which keeps her innocuous to us! Provided\nthat she lives, she is content. She rules laxly, and I should be\ntempted to praise her for that more than for all the rest. And since\nshe governs laxly, I forgive her for governing badly. I suspect men\nat all times of having much exaggerated the necessity of government\nand the benefits of a strong administration. Certainly strong\nadministrations make nations great and prosperous. But the nations\nhave suffered so much all through the centuries for their grandeur and\nprosperity, that I fancy they would renounce it. Glory has cost them\ntoo dear for them to resent the fact that our present rulers have only\nprocured for us the colonial variety of it. If the uselessness of all\ngovernment should at last be discovered, the Republic of M. Carnot\nwould have paved the way for this priceless discovery. And one ought\nto feel some gratitude towards it for that. Taking everything into\nconsideration, I feel much attached to our institutions.\u201d\n\nThus spoke M. Bergeret, professor of literature at the University.\n\nAbb\u00e9 Lantaigne rose, drew out from his pocket his blue-checkered\nhandkerchief, passed it over his lips, returned it to his pocket,\nsmiled, contrary to his custom, secured his breviary under his arm, and\nsaid:\n\n\u201cYou express yourself pleasantly, Monsieur Bergeret. Just so did the\nrhetors talk in Rome when Alaric entered it with his Visigoths. Yet\nunder the terebinth trees of the Esquiline the rhetors of the fifth\ncentury let fall thoughts of less vanity. For then Rome was Christian.\nYou are that no longer.\u201d\n\n\u201cMonsieur l\u2019abb\u00e9,\u201d replied the professor, \u201cbe a bishop and not the head\nof the University.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt is true, Monsieur Bergeret,\u201d said the priest with a loud laugh,\n\u201cthat if I were head of the University I should forbid you to be a\nteacher of youth.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd you would do me a great service. For then I should write in the\npapers, like M. Jules Lema\u00eetre, and who knows whether, like him\u00a0\u2026\u201d\n\n\u201cWell! well! you would not be out of place among the wits. And the\nFrench Academy has a partiality for freethinkers.\u201d\n\nHe spoke and walked away with a firm, straight, heavy tread. M.\nBergeret remained alone in the middle of the bench, which was now\nthree-parts covered by shade. The ladybird which had been fluttering\nits wing-cases on his shoulder for a moment flew away. He began to\ndream. He was not happy, for he had an acute mind whose points were\nnot always turned outwards, and very often he pricked himself with\nthe needle-points of his own criticism. An\u00e6mic and bilious, he had\na very weak digestion and enfeebled senses, which brought him more\ndisgust and suffering than pleasure and happiness. He was reckless in\nspeech, and in unerringness and precision his tactlessness attained\nthe same results as the most practised skill. With cunning art he\nseized every opportunity of injuring himself. He inspired the majority\nof people with a natural aversion, and being sociable and inclined\nto fraternise with his fellows, he suffered from that fact. He had\nnever succeeded in moulding his pupils, and he delivered his lectures\non Latin literature in a gloomy, damp, deserted cellar, in which he\nwas buried through the Dean\u2019s burning hatred of him. The University\nbuildings were, however, spacious. Built in 1894, \u201cthese new premises,\u201d\naccording to the words of M. Worms-Clavelin at the opening, \u201ctestified\nto the zeal of the government of the Republic for the diffusion of\nlearning.\u201d They boasted an amphitheatre, decorated by M. L\u00e9on Glaize\nwith allegorical paintings representing Science and Literature, where\nM. Compagnon gave his much-belauded lectures on mathematics. The other\ngownsmen in their red or yellow taught different subjects in handsome,\nwell-lighted rooms. M. Bergeret alone, under the bedel\u2019s ironic glance,\nhad to descend, followed by three students, into a dusky, subterranean\nhole. There, in the heavy, noisome air, he expounded the _\u00c6neid_ with\nGerman scholarship and French subtlety; there, by his literary and\nmoral pessimism, he afflicted M. Roux, of Bordeaux, his best pupil;\nthere, he opened up new vistas, whose aspect was terrifying; there, one\nevening he pronounced those words now become famous, but which ought\nrather to have perished, stifled in the shadow of the vault: \u201cFragments\nof differing origins, soldered clumsily on to each other, made up the\n_Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_. Such are the models of composition that\nhave been imitated by Virgil, by F\u00e9nelon, and in general, in classic\nliteratures, by writers of narratives in verse or in prose.\u201d\n\nM. Bergeret was not happy. He had received no honorary distinction. It\nis true that he despised honours. But he felt that it would have been\nmuch finer to despise them while accepting them. He was obscure and\nless well known in the town for works of talent than M. de Terremondre,\nauthor of a Tourist Guide; than General Milher, a distinguished\nmiscellaneous writer of the department; less even than his pupil, M.\nAlbert Roux, of Bordeaux, author of _Nir\u00e9e_, a poem in _vers libres_.\nCertainly he despised literary fame, knowing that that of Virgil in\nEurope rested on a double misconception, one absurd and the other\nfabulous. But he suffered at having no intercourse with writers who,\nlike MM. Faguet, Doumic, or Pellissier, seemed akin to him in mind. He\nwould have liked to know them, to live with them in Paris, like them to\nwrite in reviews, to contradict, to rival, perhaps to outstrip them.\nHe recognised in himself a certain subtlety of intellect, and he had\nwritten pages which he knew to be pleasing.\n\nHe was not happy. He was poor, shut up with his wife and his three\ndaughters in a little dwelling, where he tasted to the full the\ninconveniences of domestic life; and it harassed him to find\nhair-curlers on his writing-table, and to see the margins of his\nmanuscripts singed by curling-tongs. The only secure and pleasant place\nof retreat that he had in the world was that bench on the Mall shaded\nby an ancient elm, and the old-book corner in Paillot\u2019s shop.\n\nHe meditated for a moment on his sad condition; then he rose from his\nbench and took the road which leads to the bookseller\u2019s.\n\n\n\n\nXIV\n\n\nWhen M. Bergeret entered the shop, Paillot, the bookseller, with a\npencil thrust behind his ear, was collecting his \u201creturns.\u201d He was\nstacking up the volumes whose yellow covers, after long exposure to\nthe sunlight, had turned brown and become covered with fly-marks.\nThese were the unsaleable copies, which he was sending back to the\npublishers. M. Bergeret recognised among the \u201creturns\u201d several works\nthat he liked. He felt no chagrin at this, having too much taste to\nhope to see his favourite authors winning the votes of the crowd.\n\nHe sank down, as he was accustomed to do, in the old-book corner, and\nthrough mere habit took up the thirty-eighth volume of _l\u2019Histoire\nG\u00e9n\u00e9rale des Voyages_. The book, bound in green leather, opened of its\nown accord at p. 212, and M. Bergeret once more read these fatal lines:\n\n\u201ca passage to the North. \u2018It is to this check,\u2019 said he, \u2018that we owe\nthe opportunity of being able to visit the Sandwich Isles again\u00a0\u2026\u2019\u201d\n\nAnd M. Bergeret sank into melancholy.\n\nM. Mazure, the archivist of the department, and M. de Terremondre,\npresident of the Society of Agriculture and Arch\u00e6ology, who both had\ntheir rush-bottomed chairs in the old-book corner, came in opportunely\nto join the professor. M. Mazure was a paleographer of great merit.\nBut his manners were not elegant. He had married the servant of the\narchivist, his predecessor, and appeared in the town in a straw\nhat with battered crown. He was a radical, and published documents\nconcerning the history of the county town during the Revolution. He\nenjoyed inveighing against the royalists of the department; but having\napplied for academic honours without having received them, he began\ninvectives against his political friends, and particularly against M.\nWorms-Clavelin, the _pr\u00e9fet_.\n\nBeing insulting by nature, his professional practice of discovering\nsecrets disposed him to slander and calumny. Nevertheless he was good\ncompany, especially at table, where he used to sing drinking songs.\n\n\u201cYou know,\u201d said he to M. de Terremondre and M. Bergeret, \u201cthat the\n_pr\u00e9fet_ uses the house of Rondonneau junior for assignations with\nwomen. He has been caught there. Abb\u00e9 Guitrel also haunts the place.\nAnd, appropriately enough, the house is called, in a land-survey of\n1783, the House of the Two Satyrs.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut,\u201d said M. de Terremondre, \u201cthere are no women of loose life in the\nhouse of Rondonneau junior.\u201d\n\n\u201cThey are taken there,\u201d answered Mazure, the archivist.\n\n\u201cTalking of that,\u201d said M. de Terremondre, \u201cI have heard, my dear\nMonsieur Bergeret, that you have been shocking my old friend Lantaigne,\non the Mall, by a cynical confession of your political and social\nimmorality. They say that you know neither law nor curb\u00a0\u2026\u201d\n\n\u201cThey are mistaken,\u201d replied M. Bergeret.\n\n\u201c... that you are indifferent in the matter of government.\u201d\n\n\u201cNot at all! But, to tell the truth, I do not attach any special\nimportance to the form of the State. Changes of government make\nlittle change in the condition of individuals. We do not depend on\nconstitutions or on charters, but on instincts and morals. It serves no\npurpose at all to change the name of public necessities. And it is only\nthe crazy and the ambitious who make revolutions.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt is not above ten years ago,\u201d replied M. Mazure, \u201cthat I would have\nrisked a broken head for the Republic. To-day I could see her turn a\nsomersault, and only laugh and cross my arms. The old republicans are\ndespised. Favour is only granted to the turncoats. I am not referring\nto you, Monsieur de Terremondre. But I am disgusted. I have come to\nthink with M. Bergeret. All governments are ungrateful.\u201d\n\n\u201cThey are all powerless,\u201d said M. Bergeret; \u201cand I have here in my\npocket a little tale which I should very much like to read to you. I\nhave founded it on an anecdote which my father often related to me. It\nproves that absolute power is powerlessness itself. I should like to\nhave your opinion on this trifle. If you do not disapprove of it, I\nshall send it to the _Revue de Paris_.\u201d\n\nM. de Terremondre and M. Mazure drew their chairs up to that of M.\nBergeret, who pulled a note-book from his pocket and began to read in a\nweak, but clear voice:\n\n                       A DEPUTY MAGISTRATE\n\n    In a salon of the Tuileries the ministers had assembled\u00a0\u2026\n\n\u201cAllow me to listen,\u201d said M. Paillot, the bookseller. \u201cI am waiting\nfor L\u00e9on, who is not back yet. When he is out, he never comes back. I\nam obliged to tend the shop and serve the customers. But I shall hear\nat least a part of the reading. I like to improve my mind.\u201d\n\n\u201cVery well, Paillot,\u201d said M. Bergeret, and he resumed:\n\n\nA DEPUTY MAGISTRATE\n\nIn a salon of the Tuileries the ministers had assembled in council,\nunder the presidency of the Emperor. Napoleon III. was silently making\nmarks with a pencil on a plan of an industrial town. His long, sallow\nface, with its melancholy sweetness, had a strange appearance amid the\nsquare heads of the men of affairs and the bronzed faces of the men of\ntoil. He half raised his eyelids, glanced with his gentle, vague look\nround the oval table, and asked:\n\n\u201cGentlemen, is there any other matter to be discussed?\u201d\n\nHis voice issued from his thick moustaches a little muffled and hollow,\nand seemed to come from very far off.\n\nAt this moment the Keeper of the Seals made a sign to his colleague of\nthe Home Department which the latter did not seem to notice.\u2014At that\ntime the Keeper of the Seals was M. Delarbre, a magistrate in virtue of\nhis birth, who had displayed in his high judicial functions a becoming\npliability, abruptly laid aside now and then for the rigidity of a\nprofessional dignity that nothing could bend. It was said that, after\nhaving become an ultramontane and a member of the Empress\u2019s party, the\njansenism of those great lawyers, his ancestors, sometimes bubbled\nup in his nature. But those who had access to him considered him to\nbe merely punctilious, a trifle fanciful, indifferent to the great\nquestions which his mind did not grasp, and obstinate about the trifles\nwhich suited the pettiness of his intriguing character.\n\nThe Emperor was preparing to rise, with his two hands on the gilt arms\nof his chair. Delarbre, seeing that the Home Secretary, his nose in his\npapers, was avoiding his look, took it upon himself to challenge him.\n\n\u201cPardon me, my dear colleague, for raising a question which, although\nit started in your department, none the less concerns mine. But you\nhave yourself declared to me your intention of apprising the Council of\nthe extremely delicate situation in which a magistrate has been placed\nby the _pr\u00e9fet_ of a department in the West.\u201d\n\nThe Home Secretary shrugged his broad shoulders slightly and looked\nat Delarbre with some impatience. He had the air, at once jovial and\ncholeric, which belongs to great demagogues.\n\n\u201cOh,\u201d said he, \u201cthat was gossip, ridiculous tittle-tattle, a rumour\nwhich I should be ashamed to bring to the notice of the Emperor, were\nit not that my colleague, the Minister of Justice, seems to attach\nan importance to it which, for my part, I have not succeeded in\ndiscovering.\u201d\n\nNapoleon began sketching once more. \u201cIt has to do with the _pr\u00e9fet_ of\nLoire-Inf\u00e9rieure,\u201d continued the minister. \u201cThis official is reputed,\nin his department, to be a gallant squire of dames, and the reputation\nfor gallantry which has become attached to his name, combined with his\nwell-known courtesy and his devotion to the government, has contributed\nnot a little to the popularity which he enjoys in the country. His\nattentions to Madame M\u00e9reau, the wife of the _procureur-g\u00e9n\u00e9ral_, have\nbeen noticed and commented on. I grant that M. P\u00e9lisson, the _pr\u00e9fet_,\nhas given occasion for scandalous gossip in Nantes, and that severe\ncharges have been laid to his account in the bourgeois circles of\nthe county town, especially in the drawing-rooms frequented by the\nmagistracy. Assuredly M. P\u00e9lisson\u2019s attitude towards Madame M\u00e9reau,\nwhose position ought to have protected her from any such equivocal\nattentions, would be regrettable, if it were continued. But the\ninformation I have received enables me to state that Madame M\u00e9reau has\nnot been actually compromised and that no scandal is to be anticipated.\nA little prudence and circumspection will suffice to prevent this\naffair having any annoying consequences.\u201d\n\nHaving spoken in these terms, the Home Secretary closed his portfolio\nand leant back in his chair.\n\nThe Emperor said nothing.\n\n\u201cExcuse me, my dear colleague!\u201d said the Keeper of the Seals drily,\n\u201cthe wife of the _procureur-g\u00e9n\u00e9ral_ of the court of Nantes is the\nmistress of the _pr\u00e9fet_ of Loire-Inf\u00e9rieure; this connection, known\nthroughout the whole district, is calculated to injure the prestige of\nthe magistracy. It is important to call the attention of His Majesty to\nthis state of things.\u201d\n\n\u201cDoubtless,\u201d replied the Home Secretary, his gaze turned towards the\nallegories on the ceiling, \u201cdoubtless, such facts are to be regretted;\nyet one must in no way exaggerate; it is possible that the _pr\u00e9fet_ of\nLoire-Inf\u00e9rieure may have been a little imprudent and Madame M\u00e9reau a\nlittle giddy, but\u00a0\u2026\u201d\n\nThe minister wafted the rest of his ideas towards the mythological\nfigures which floated across the painted sky. There was a moment\u2019s\nsilence, during which one could hear the impudent chirping of the\nsparrows perched on the trees in the garden and on the eaves of the\nch\u00e2teau.\n\nM. Delarbre bit his thin lips and pulled his austere but coquettish\nmoustaches. He replied:\n\n\u201cExcuse my persistence; the secret reports which I have received leave\nno doubt as to the nature of the relationship between M. P\u00e9lisson\nand Madame M\u00e9reau. These relations were already established two\nyears ago. In fact, in the month of September 18\u2014 the _pr\u00e9fet_ of\nLoire-Inf\u00e9rieure got the _procureur-g\u00e9n\u00e9ral_ an invitation to hunt\nwith the Comte de Morainville, deputy for the third division in the\ndepartment, and during the magistrate\u2019s absence he entered Madame\nM\u00e9reau\u2019s room. He got in by way of the kitchen-garden. The next day\nthe gardener saw traces that the wall had been scaled and informed the\npolice. Inquiry was made; they even arrested a tramp, who, not being\nable to prove his innocence, endured several months of precautionary\nimprisonment. He had, it is true, a very bad record and no special\npoints of interest about him. Still to this day the _procureur-g\u00e9n\u00e9ral_\npersists, supported by a very small proportion of the public, in\nbelieving him to be guilty of house-breaking. The position, I repeat,\nis rendered by this fact no less annoying and prejudicial to the\nprestige of the magistracy.\u201d\n\nThe Home Secretary poured over the discussion, according to his wont,\ncertain massive phrases calculated to close and suppress it by their\nweight. He held, said he, his _pr\u00e9fets_ in the palm of his hand; he\nwould be able to lead M. P\u00e9lisson easily to a just appreciation of\nthings, without taking any drastic measure against an intelligent\nand zealous official, who had succeeded in his department, and who\nwas valuable \u201cfrom the point of view of the electoral position.\u201d No\none could say that he was more interested than the Home Secretary\nin maintaining a good understanding between the officials of the\ndepartments and the judicial authority.\n\nStill the Emperor kept that dreamy look in which he was usually\nwrapped when silent. He was evidently thinking of past events, for he\nsuddenly said: \u201cPoor M. P\u00e9lisson! I knew his father. He was called\nAnacharsis P\u00e9lisson. He was the son of a republican of 1792; himself a\nrepublican, he used to write in the opposition papers during the July\nadministration. At the time of my captivity in the fortress of Ham, he\naddressed a friendly letter to me. You cannot imagine the joy which the\nslightest token of sympathy gives a prisoner. After that we went on our\nseparate paths. We never saw one another again. He is dead.\u201d\n\nThe Emperor lit a cigarette and remained wrapped in his dream for a\nmoment. Then rising:\n\n\u201cGentlemen, I will not detain you.\u201d\n\nWith the awkward gait of a great winged bird when it walks, he returned\nto his private apartments; and the ministers went out, one after the\nother, through the long suite of rooms, beneath the solemn gaze of the\nushers. The marshal who was the Minister of War held out his cigar-case\nto the Keeper of the Seals.\n\n\u201cMonsieur Delarbre, shall we take a little walk outside? I want to\nstretch my legs.\u201d\n\nWhilst they were both walking down the Rue de Rivoli, by the railing\nthat borders the Terrasse des Feuillants:\n\n\u201cSpeaking of cigars,\u201d said the marshal, \u201cI only like very dry one-sou\ncigars. The others seem like sweetmeats to me. Don\u2019t you know\u00a0\u2026\u201d\n\nHe cut short his thought, then:\n\n\u201cThis P\u00e9lisson that you were talking about just now in the Council,\nisn\u2019t he a little dried up, swarthy man, who was _sous-pr\u00e9fet_ at\nSaint-Di\u00e9 five years ago?\u201d\n\nDelarbre replied that P\u00e9lisson had indeed been _sous-pr\u00e9fet_ in the\nVosges.\n\n\u201cSo I said to myself: I knew P\u00e9lisson. And I remember Madame P\u00e9lisson\nvery well. I sat next to her at dinner at Saint-Di\u00e9, when I went there\nfor the unveiling of a monument. Don\u2019t you know\u00a0\u2026\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat kind of woman is she?\u201d asked Delarbre.\n\n\u201cTiny, swarthy, thin. A deceptive thinness. In the morning, in a\nhigh-necked dress, she looked a mere wisp. At table in the evening, in\na low-necked dress with flowers in her bosom, very charming.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut morally, marshal?\u201d\n\n\u201cMorally.\u00a0\u2026 I am not an imbecile, am I, now? Well! I have never\nunderstood anything about a woman\u2019s morals. All that I can tell you is\nthat Madame P\u00e9lisson passed for a sentimentalist. They said she had a\nwarm heart for handsome men.\u201d\n\n\u201cShe gave you a hint to that effect, my dear marshal?\u201d\n\n\u201cNot the least in the world. She said to me at dessert, \u2018I dote on\neloquence. A noble speech carries me away.\u2019 I could not apply that\nremark to myself. It is true that I had that morning delivered an\naddress. But I had got my aide-de-camp, a short-sighted artillery\nofficer, to write it out for me. He had written so small that I could\nnot read it.\u00a0\u2026 Don\u2019t you know?\u00a0\u2026\u201d\n\nThey had reached the Place Vend\u00f4me. Delarbre held out his little\nwithered hand to the marshal, and stole under the archway of the\nMinistry.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe following week, at the breaking up of the Council, when the\nministers were already withdrawing, the Emperor laid his hand on the\nshoulder of the Keeper of the Seals.\n\n\u201cMy dear Monsieur Delarbre,\u201d said he to him, \u201cI have heard by\nchance\u2014in my position, one never learns anything save by chance\u2014that\nthere is a deputy magistrate\u2019s post vacant at the Nantes bar. I beg\nthat you will consider for that post a very deserving young doctor of\nlaw, who has written a remarkable treatise on Trade Unions. His name is\nChanot, and he is the nephew of Madame Ramel. He is to beg an audience\nof you this very day. Should you propose him to me for it, I shall sign\nhis nomination with pleasure.\u201d\n\nThe Emperor had pronounced the name of his foster-sister tenderly, for\nhe had never lost his affection for her, although, a republican of\nrepublicans, she repelled his advances, refused, poor widow as she was,\nthe master\u2019s offers, and raged openly in her garret against the _coup\nd\u2019\u00e9tat_. But yielding at last, after fifteen years, to the persistent\nkindness of Napoleon III., she had come to beg, as earnest of\nreconciliation, a favour from the prince\u2014not for herself, but for her\nnephew young Chanot, a doctor of law, and, according to his professors,\nan honour to the Schools. Even now it was an austere favour that Madame\nRamel demanded of her foster-brother; admission to the open court for\nyoung Chanot could scarcely be considered an act of partiality. But\nMadame Ramel was keenly anxious that her nephew should be sent to\nLoire-Inf\u00e9rieure, where his relatives lived. This fact recurred to\nNapoleon\u2019s mind, and he impressed it on the Minister of Justice.\n\n\u201cIt is very important,\u201d said he, \u201cthat my candidate should be nominated\nat Nantes, for that is his native place and where his parents live.\nThat is an important consideration for a young man whose means are\nsmall and who likes family life.\u201d\n\n\u201cChanot\u00a0\u2026 hard-working, meritorious, and with small means\u00a0\u2026\u201d answered\nthe minister.\n\nHe added that he would use his best endeavours to act in accordance\nwith the desire expressed by His Majesty. His only fear was lest the\n_procureur-g\u00e9n\u00e9ral_ should have already submitted to him a list of\nproposed nominees, among whom, naturally, the name Chanot would not\noccur. This _procureur-g\u00e9n\u00e9ral_ was, indeed, M. M\u00e9reau, concerning whom\nthere had been a discussion in the preceding Council. The Keeper of\nthe Seals was particularly anxious to act very handsomely towards him.\nBut he would strain every nerve to bring this affair to an issue that\nconformed with the intentions expressed by His Majesty.\n\nHe bowed and took his leave. It was his reception day. As soon as he\nhad entered his study, he asked his secretary, Labarthe, whether there\nwere many people in the ante-room. There were two presidents of courts,\na councillor of the Appeal Court, the Cardinal-Archbishop of Nicomedia,\na crowd of judges, barristers, and priests. The minister asked if\nthere was any one there called Chanot. Labarthe searched in the silver\nsalver, and discovered, among the pile of cards, that of Chanot, doctor\nof law, prizeman of the Faculty of Law, Paris. The minister ordered him\nto be called first, merely requesting that he should be conducted by\nthe back passages, in order not to offend the magistrates and clergy.\n\nThe minister seated himself at his table and murmured quite to himself:\n\n\u201c\u2018A sentimentalist,\u2019 said the marshal, \u2018with a warm heart for handsome\nmen who speak well.\u2019\u00a0\u2026\u201d\n\nThe usher introduced into the study a huge, tall young man, stooping,\nspectacled, and with a pointed skull. Every part of his uncouth frame\nexpressed at once the timidity of the recluse and the boldness of the\nthinker.\n\nThe Keeper of the Seals examined him from head to foot and saw that he\nhad the cheeks of a child and no shoulders. He signed to him to sit\ndown. The suitor, having perched himself at the edge of the chair, shut\nhis eyes and began to pour forth a flood of words.\n\n\u201cMonsieur _le Ministre_, I come to beg from your noble patronage the\nprivilege of admission to the magistracy. Possibly Your Excellence may\nconsider that the reports I have gained in the various examinations\nwhich I have undergone, and a prize which has been awarded to me for\na work on Trade Unions, are sufficient qualifications, and that the\nnephew of Madame Ramel, foster-sister of the Emperor, is not altogether\nunworthy\u00a0\u2026\u201d\n\nThe Keeper of the Seals stopped him with a wave of his little yellow\nhand.\n\n\u201cDoubtless, Monsieur Chanot, doubtless an august patronage, which would\nnever have been mistakenly bestowed on an unworthy recipient, has been\nsecured for you. I know it, the Emperor takes much interest in you. You\ndesire a chair as judge-advocate, Monsieur Chanot?\u201d\n\n\u201cYour Excellence,\u201d replied Chanot, \u201cwould put the finishing touch to my\nwishes by nominating me deputy magistrate at Nantes, where my family\nlive.\u201d\n\nDelarbre fixed his leaden eyes on Chanot and said drily:\n\n\u201cThere is no vacancy at the bar of Nantes.\u201d\n\n\u201cExcuse me, Your Excellency, I thought\u00a0\u2026\u201d\n\nThe minister rose.\n\n\u201cThere is none there.\u201d\n\nAnd whilst Chanot was making clumsily for the door and looking for an\nexit in the white panels as he made his bow, the Keeper of the Seals\nsaid to him, with a persuasive air and almost in a confidential tone:\n\n\u201cTrust me, Monsieur Chanot, and dissuade your aunt from making any new\nsolicitations which, far from being of any profit to you, will only do\nyou harm. Rest assured that the Emperor takes an interest in you, and\nrely on me.\u201d\n\nAs soon as the door was shut the minister called his secretary.\n\n\u201cLabarthe, bring me your candidate.\u201d\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAt eight o\u2019clock in the evening Labarthe entered a house in the Rue\nJacob, mounted the staircase as far as the attics, and called from the\nlanding:\n\n\u201cAre you ready, Lespardat?\u201d\n\nThe door of a little garret opened. Inside on a shelf there were\nseveral law-books and tattered novels; on the bed a black velvet\nmask with a fall of lace, a bunch of withered violets, and some\nfencing foils. On the wall a bad portrait of Mirabeau, a copper-plate\nengraving. In the middle of the room a big bronzed fellow was\nbrandishing dumb-bells. He had frizzled hair, a low forehead, hazel\neyes full of laughter and sweetness, a nose that quivered like the\nnostrils of a horse, and in his pleasantly gaping mouth strong white\nteeth.\n\n\u201cI was waiting for you,\u201d said he.\n\nLabarthe begged him to dress himself. He was hungry. What time would\nthey get their dinner?\n\nLespardat, having laid his dumb-bells on the floor, pulled off his\njersey, and showed the herculean nape that carried his round head on\nhis broad shoulders.\n\n\u201cHe looks at least twenty-six,\u201d thought Labarthe.\n\nAs soon as Lespardat had put on his coat, the thin cloth of which\nallowed one to follow the powerful, easy play of the muscles, Labarthe\npushed him outside.\n\n\u201cWe shall be at Magny\u2019s in three minutes. I have the minister\u2019s\nbrougham.\u201d\n\nAs they had matters to discuss, they asked for a private room at the\nrestaurant.\n\nAfter the sole and the _pr\u00e9-sal\u00e9_, Labarthe attacked his subject\nbluntly:\n\n\u201cListen to me carefully, Lespardat. You will see my chief to-morrow,\nyour nomination will be proposed by the _procureur-g\u00e9n\u00e9ral_ of Nantes\non Thursday, and on Monday submitted for the signature of the Emperor.\nIt is arranged that it shall be given to him unexpectedly, at the\nmoment when he will be busy with Alfred Maury in fixing the site of\nAlesia. When he is studying the topography of the Gauls in the time of\nC\u00e6sar, the Emperor signs everything they want him to. But understand\nclearly what is expected from you. You must win the favour of Madame\n_la pr\u00e9f\u00e8te_. You must win from her the ultimate favour. It is only by\nthis consummation that the magistracy will be avenged.\u201d\n\nLespardat swallowed and listened, pleased and smiling in his ingenuous\nself-conceit.\n\n\u201cBut,\u201d said he, \u201cwhat notion has budded in Delarbre\u2019s head? I thought\nhe was a puritan.\u201d\n\nLabarthe, raising his knife, stopped him.\n\n\u201cFirst of all, my friend, I beg that you will not compromise my chief,\nwho must remain ignorant of all that\u2019s going on here. But since you\nhave brought in Delarbre\u2019s name, I will tell you that his puritanism\nis a jansenist puritanism. He is a great-nephew of Deacon P\u00e2ris. His\nmaternal great-uncle was that M. Carr\u00e9 de Montgeron who defended the\nfanatics of Saint-M\u00e9dard\u2019s Cloister[K] before the Parliament. Now the\njansenists love to practise their austerities in nooks and crannies;\nthey have a taste for diplomatic and canonical blackguardism. It is\nthe effect of their perfect purity. And then they read the Bible. The\nOld Testament is full of stories of the same kind as yours, my dear\nLespardat.\u201d\n\n  [K] In 1730 miracles were claimed by the jansenists to have been\n      worked in the cemetery of St. M\u00e9dard, Paris, at the grave of\n      Fran\u00e7ois de P\u00e2ris, a young jansenist deacon. The spot became\n      a place of pilgrimage, and was visited by thousands of\n      jansenist fanatics.\n\nLespardat was not listening. He was floating in a sea of na\u00efve delight.\nHe was asking himself: \u201cWhat will father say? What will mother say?\u201d\nthinking of his parents, grocers of large ambitions and little wealth\nat Agen. And he vaguely associated his budding fortune with the glory\nof Mirabeau, his favourite hero. Since his college days he had dreamt\nof a destiny rich with women and feats of oratory.\n\nLabarthe recalled his young friend\u2019s attention to himself.\n\n\u201cYou know, monsieur _le substitut_, you are not irremovable. If after a\nreasonable interval you have not made yourself very agreeable to Madame\nP\u00e9lisson\u2014I mean completely agreeable\u2014you fall into disgrace.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut,\u201d asked Lespardat frankly, \u201chow much time do you give me to make\nmyself excessively pleasing to Madame P\u00e9lisson?\u201d\n\n\u201cUntil the vacation,\u201d answered the minister\u2019s secretary gravely. \u201cWe\ngive you, in addition, all sorts of facilities, secret missions,\nfurloughs, &c. Everything except money. Above all, we are an honest\nadministration. People don\u2019t believe it. But later on they will find\nthat we were no jobbers. Take Delarbre: he has clean hands. Besides,\nthe Home Office, which is on the husband\u2019s side, controls the Secret\nService Money. Do not count on anything save your two thousand four\nhundred francs of salary and your handsome face to captivate Madame\nP\u00e9lisson.\u201d\n\n\u201cIs she pretty, this _pr\u00e9f\u00e8te_ of mine?\u201d demanded Lespardat.\n\nHe asked this question carelessly, without exaggerating the importance\nof it, placidly, as behoves a very young man who finds all women\nbeautiful. By way of reply, Labarthe threw on the table the photograph\nof a thin lady in a round hat, with a double bandeau falling on her\nbrown neck.\n\n\u201cHere,\u201d said he, \u201cis the portrait of Madame P\u00e9lisson. It was ordered by\nthe Cabinet from the Prefecture of Police, and they sent it on after\nthey had stamped it with a warranty stamp, as you see.\u201d\n\nLespardat seized it eagerly with his square fingers.\n\n\u201cShe is handsome,\u201d said he.\n\n\u201cHave you a plan?\u201d asked Labarthe. \u201cA methodical scheme of operations.\u201d\n\n\u201cNo,\u201d answered Lespardat simply.\n\nLabarthe, who was keen-witted, protested that it was, however,\nnecessary to foresee, to arrange, not to allow oneself to be taken\nunawares by any contingencies.\n\n\u201cYou are certain,\u201d added he, \u201cto be invited to the balls at the\nprefecture, and you will, of course, dance with Madame P\u00e9lisson. Do you\nknow how to dance? Show me how you dance.\u201d\n\nLespardat rose, and, clasping his chair in his arms, took one turn of a\nwaltz with the deportment of a graceful bear.\n\nLabarthe watched him very gravely through his eyeglass.\n\n\u201cYou are heavy, awkward, without that irresistible suppleness which\u00a0\u2026\u201d\n\n\u201cMirabeau danced badly,\u201d said Lespardat.\n\n\u201cAfter all,\u201d said Labarthe, \u201cperhaps it is only that the chair does not\ninspire you.\u201d\n\nWhen they were both once more on the damp pavement of the narrow Rue\nContrescarpe, they met several girls who were coming and going between\nthe Carrefour Buci and the wine-shops of the Rue Dauphine. As one of\nthese, a thick-set, heavy girl, in a dingy black dress, was passing\nsadly by under a street lamp with slack gait, Lespardat seized her\nroughly by the waist, lifted her, and made her take with him two turns\nof a waltz across the greasy pavement and into the gutter, before she\nhad any idea what was happening.\n\nRecovering from her astonishment, she shrieked the foulest insults\nat her cavalier, who carried her away with irresistible verve. He\nhimself supplied the orchestra, in a baritone voice, as warm and\nseductive as military music, and whirled so madly with the girl that,\nall bespattered with mud and water from the street, they collided with\nthe shafts of prowling cabs and felt on their neck the breath of the\nhorses. After a few turns, she murmured in the young man\u2019s ear, her\nhead sunk on his breast and all her anger gone:\n\n\u201cAfter all, you are a pretty fellow, you are. You ought to make them\nhappy, didn\u2019t you?\u2014those girls at Bullier\u2019s.\u201d\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s enough, my friend,\u201d cried Labarthe. \u201cDon\u2019t go and get run in.\nMy word, you will avenge the magistracy!\u201d\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn the golden light of a September day four months later, the Minister\nof Justice and Religion, passing with his secretary under the arcades\nof the Rue de Rivoli, recognised M. Lespardat, the deputy magistrate\nof Nantes, at the very moment when the young man was hurrying into the\nH\u00f4tel du Louvre.\n\n\u201cLabarthe,\u201d asked the minister, \u201cdid you know that your prot\u00e9g\u00e9 was\nin Paris? Has he then nothing to keep him in Nantes? It seems to me\nthat it is now some time since you have given me any confidential\ninformation about him. His start interested me, but I don\u2019t know yet\nwhether he has quite lived up to the high opinion you formed of him.\u201d\n\nLabarthe took up the cudgels for the _substitut_; he reminded the\nminister that Lespardat was on regular leave; that at Nantes he had\nimmediately gained the confidence of his chiefs at the bar, and that he\nhad at the same time won the good graces of the _pr\u00e9fet_.\n\n\u201cM. P\u00e9lisson,\u201d added he, \u201ccannot get on without him. It is Lespardat\nwho organises the concerts at the prefecture.\u201d\n\nThen the minister and his secretary continued their walk towards the\nRue de la Paix, along the arcades, stopping here and there before the\nwindows of the photograph shops.\n\n\u201cThere are too many nude figures exposed in these shop-fronts,\u201d said\nthe minister. \u201cIt would be better to take away their license from\nthese shops. Strangers judge us by appearances, and such spectacles as\nthese are calculated to injure the good name of the country and the\ngovernment.\u201d\n\nSuddenly, at the corner of the Rue de l\u2019\u00c9chelle, Labarthe told his\nchief to look at a veiled woman who was coming towards them with a\nrapid step. But Delarbre, glancing at her for a moment, considered her\nvery ordinary, far too slender, and not at all elegant.\n\n\u201cShe is clumsily shod,\u201d said he; \u201cshe is from the provinces.\u201d\n\nWhen she had passed them:\n\n\u201cYour Excellency is quite right,\u201d said Labarthe. \u201cThat is Madame\nP\u00e9lisson.\u201d\n\nAt this name the minister, much interested, turned round eagerly. With\na vague feeling of his own dignity, he dared not follow her. But he\nshowed his curiosity in his look.\n\nLebarthe spurred it on.\n\n\u201cI\u2019ll wager, monsieur _le ministre_, that she won\u2019t go very far.\u201d\n\nThey both hastened their steps, and saw Madame P\u00e9lisson follow the\narcades, skirt the Place du Palais-Royal, and then, throwing uneasy\nglances to left and right, disappear into the H\u00f4tel du Louvre.\n\nAt that the minister began to laugh from the depths of his throat. His\nlittle leaden eyes lighted up. And he muttered between his teeth the\nwords which his secretary guessed rather than heard:\n\n\u201cThe magistracy is avenged.\u201d\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nOn the same day the Emperor, then in residence at Fontainebleau, was\nsmoking cigarettes in the library of the palace. He was leaning\nmotionless, with the air of a melancholy sea-bird, against the case in\nwhich is kept the Monaldeschi coat of mail. Viollet-le-Duc and M\u00e9rim\u00e9e,\nboth his intimate friends, stood by his side.\n\nHe asked:\n\n\u201cWhy, Monsieur M\u00e9rim\u00e9e, do you like the works of Brant\u00f4me?\u201d\n\n\u201cSire,\u201d replied M\u00e9rim\u00e9e, \u201cin them I recognise the French nation, with\nher good and bad qualities. She is never worse than when she is without\na leader to show her a noble aim.\u201d\n\n\u201cReally,\u201d said the Emperor, \u201cdoes one find that in Brant\u00f4me?\u201d\n\n\u201cOne also finds in him,\u201d answered M\u00e9rim\u00e9e, \u201cthe influence of women in\nthe affairs of state.\u201d\n\nAt that moment Madame Ramel entered the gallery. Napoleon had given\norders that she should be allowed to come to him whenever she presented\nherself. At the sight of his foster-sister he showed as much delight as\nhis expressionless, sorrowful face was capable of displaying.\n\n\u201cMy dear Madame Ramel,\u201d asked he, \u201chow is your nephew getting on at\nNantes? Is he satisfied?\u201d\n\n\u201cBut, sire,\u201d said Madame Ramel, \u201che was not sent there. Another was\nnominated in his place.\u201d\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s strange,\u201d murmured His Majesty thoughtfully.\n\nThen, placing his hand on the academician\u2019s shoulder:\n\n\u201cMy dear Monsieur M\u00e9rim\u00e9e, I am supposed to rule the fate of France,\nof Europe, and of the world. And I cannot get a nomination for a\n_substitut_ of the sixth class, at a salary of two thousand four\nhundred francs.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nXV\n\n\nHaving finished his reading, M. Bergeret folded up his manuscript and\nput it in his pocket. M. Mazure, M. Paillot, and M. de Terremondre\nnodded three times in silence.\n\nThen the last-named placed a hand on Bergeret\u2019s shoulder:\n\n\u201cWhat you have just read to us, my dear sir,\u201d said he, \u201cis truly\u00a0\u2026\u201d\n\nAt this moment L\u00e9on flung himself into the shop and exclaimed with a\nmixture of excitement and importance:\n\n\u201cMadame Houssieu has just been found strangled in her bed.\u201d\n\n\u201cHow extraordinary!\u201d said M. de Terremondre.\n\n\u201cFrom the state of the body,\u201d added L\u00e9on, \u201cit is believed that death\ntook place three days ago.\u201d\n\n\u201cThen,\u201d remarked M. Mazure, the archivist, \u201cthat would make it Saturday\nthat the crime was committed.\u201d\n\nPaillot, the bookseller, who had remained silent up till now, with his\nmouth wide open out of deference to death, now began to collect his\nthoughts.\n\n\u201cOn Saturday, about five o\u2019clock in the afternoon, I plainly heard\nstifled cries and the heavy thud produced by the fall of a body. I\neven said to these gentlemen\u201d (he turned towards M. de Terremondre\nand M. Bergeret) \u201cthat something extraordinary was going on in Queen\nMarguerite\u2019s house.\u201d\n\nNo one supported the claim that the bookseller was making that he\nalone, by the keenness of his senses and the penetration of his mind,\nhad suspected the deed at the moment when it was taking place.\n\nAfter a respectful silence, Paillot began again:\n\n\u201cDuring the night between Saturday and Sunday I said to Madame Paillot:\n\u2018There isn\u2019t a sound from Queen Marguerite\u2019s house.\u2019\u201d\n\nM. Mazure asked the age of the victim. Paillot replied that Madame\nHoussieu was between seventy-nine and eighty years of age, that she\nhad been a widow fifty years, that she owned landed property, stocks\nand shares, and a large sum of money, but that, being miserly and\neccentric, she kept no servant, and cooked her victuals herself over\nthe fireplace in her room, living alone amidst a wreckage of furniture\nand crockery, covered with the dust of a quarter of a century. It was\nactually more than twenty-five years since any one had wielded a broom\nin Queen Marguerite\u2019s house. Madame Houssieu went out but seldom,\nbought a whole week\u2019s supply of provisions for herself, and never let\nany one into the house save the butcher-boy and two or three urchins\nwho ran errands for her.\n\n\u201cAnd the crime is supposed to have been committed on Saturday\nafternoon?\u201d asked M. de Terremondre.\n\n\u201cSo it is believed, from the state of the body,\u201d replied L\u00e9on. \u201cIt\nappears that it is a ghastly sight.\u201d\n\n\u201cOn Saturday, in the afternoon,\u201d replied M. de Terremondre, \u201cwe were\nhere, merely separated by a wall from the horrible scene, and we were\nchatting about passing trifles.\u201d\n\nThere was again a long silence. Then some one asked if the assassin had\nbeen arrested, or if they even knew who it was. But, in spite of his\nzeal, L\u00e9on could not answer these questions.\n\nA shadow, which grew ever deeper and deeper and seemed funereal, began\nto fall across the bookseller\u2019s shop. It was caused by the dark crowd\nof sightseers swarming in the square in front of the house of crime.\n\n\u201cDoubtless they are waiting for the inspector of police and the public\nprosecutor,\u201d said Mazure, the archivist.\n\nPaillot, who was gifted with an exquisite caution, fearing lest the\neager people would break the window-panes, ordered L\u00e9on to close the\nshutters.\n\n\u201cDon\u2019t leave anything open,\u201d said he, \u201csave the window which looks on\nthe Rue des Tintelleries.\u201d\n\nThis precautionary measure seemed to bear the stamp of a certain moral\ndelicacy. The gentlemen of the old-book corner approved of it. But\nsince the Rue des Tintelleries was narrow, and since on that side the\npanes were covered with notices and drawing-copies, the shop became\nplunged in darkness.\n\nThe murmur of the crowd, till then unnoticed, spread with the shadow\nand became continuous, hollow, solemn, almost terrible, evidencing the\nunanimity of the moral condemnation.\n\nMuch moved, M. de Terremondre gave fresh expression to the thought\nwhich had struck him:\n\n\u201cIt is strange,\u201d said he, \u201cthat while the crime was being committed so\nnear us, we were talking quietly of unimportant affairs.\u201d\n\nAt this M. Bergeret bent his head towards his left shoulder, gave a\nfar-away glance, and spoke thus:\n\n\u201cMy dear sir, allow me to tell you that there is nothing strange in\nthat. It is not customary, when a criminal action is going on, that\nconversations should stop of their own accord around the victim, either\nwithin a radius of so many leagues or even of so many feet. A commotion\ninspired by the most villainous thought only produces natural effects.\u201d\n\nM. de Terremondre made no reply to this speech, and the rest of his\nhearers turned away from M. Bergeret with a vague sense of disquietude\nand disapproval.\n\nStill the professor of literature persisted:\n\n\u201cAnd why should an act so natural and so common as murder produce\nstrange and uncommon results? To kill is common to animals, and\nespecially to man. Murder was for long ages regarded in human\ncivilisation as a courageous action, and there still remain in our\nmorals and institutions certain traces of this ancient point of view.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat traces?\u201d demanded M. de Terremondre.\n\n\u201cThey are to be found in the honours,\u201d replied M. Bergeret, \u201cwhich are\npaid to soldiers.\u201d\n\n\u201cThat is not the same thing,\u201d said M. de Terremondre.\n\n\u201cCertainly it is,\u201d said M. Bergeret. \u201cFor the motive force of all human\nactions is hunger or love. Hunger taught savages murder, impelled\nthem to wars, to invasions. Civilised nations are like hunting-dogs.\nA perverted instinct drives them to destroy without profit or reason.\nThe unreasonableness of modern wars disguises itself under dynastic\ninterest, nationality, balance of power, honour. This last pretext is\nperhaps the most extravagant of all, for there is not a nation in the\nworld that is not sullied with every crime and loaded with every shame.\nThere is not one of them which has not endured all the humiliations\nthat fortune could inflict on a miserable band of men. If there\nyet remains any honour among the nations, it is a strange means of\nupholding it to make war\u2014that is to say, to commit all the crimes by\nwhich an individual dishonours himself: arson, robbery, rape, murder.\nAnd as for the actions whose motive power is love, they are for the\nmost part as violent, as frenzied, as cruel as the actions inspired by\nhunger; so much so that one must come to the conclusion that man is a\nmischievous beast. But it still remains to inquire why I know this, and\nwhence it comes that the fact arouses grief and indignation in me. If\nnothing but evil existed, it would not be visible, as the night would\nhave no name if the sun never rose.\u201d\n\nM. de Terremondre, however, had extended enough deference to the\nreligion of tenderness and human dignity by reproaching himself\nwith having conversed in a gay and careless fashion at the moment\nof the crime and so near the victim. He began to regard the tragic\nend of Madame Houssieu as a familiar incident which one might look\nat straightforwardly and of which one might deduce the consequences.\nHe reflected that now there was nothing to prevent his buying Queen\nMarguerite\u2019s house as a storehouse for his collections of furniture,\nchina, and tapestry, and thus starting a sort of municipal museum. As\na reward for his zeal and munificence, he counted on receiving, along\nwith the applause of his fellow-countrymen, the Cross of the Legion of\nHonour, and perhaps the title of correspondent of the Institute.\n\nHe had in the Academy of Inscriptions two or three comrades, old\nbachelors like himself, with whom he sometimes lunched in Paris in some\nwine-shop, and to whom he recounted many anecdotes about women. And\nthere was no correspondent for the district.\n\nHence he had already reached the point of depreciating the coveted\nhouse.\n\n\u201cIt won\u2019t stand upright much longer,\u201d said he, \u201cthat house of Queen\nMarguerite. The beams of the floors used to fall in flakes of touchwood\non the poor old octogenarian. It will be necessary to spend an immense\nsum in putting it in repair.\u201d\n\n\u201cThe best thing,\u201d said Mazure, the archivist, \u201cwould be to pull it down\nand remove the frontage to the courtyard of the museum. It would really\nbe a pity to abandon Philippe Tricouillard\u2019s shield to the wreckers.\u201d\n\nThey heard a great commotion among the crowd in the square. It was\nthe noise of the people whom the police were driving back to clear a\npassage for the magistrates into the house of crime.\n\nPaillot pushed his nose out of the half-open door.\n\n\u201cHere,\u201d said he, \u201ccomes the examining judge, M. Roquincourt, with M.\nSurcouf, his clerk. They have gone into the house.\u201d\n\nOne after the other the academicians of the old-book corner had\nslipped out behind the bookseller on to the pavement of the Rue des\nTintelleries, from which they watched the surging movements of the\npeople who crowded the Place Saint-Exup\u00e8re.\n\nAmong the mob Paillot recognised M. Cassignol, the president in chief.\nThe old man was taking his daily constitutional. The excited crowd, in\nwhich he had got entangled during his walk, impeded his short steps\nand feeble sight. He went on, still upright and sturdy, carrying his\nwithered, white head erect.\n\nWhen Paillot saw him, he ran up to him, doffed his velvet cap, and,\noffering him his arm, invited him to come and sit down in the shop.\n\n\u201cHow imprudent of you, Monsieur Cassignol, to venture into such a\ncrowd! It\u2019s almost like a riot.\u201d\n\nAt the word riot, the old man had a vision, as it were, of the century\nof revolution, three parts of which he had seen. He was now in his\neighty-seventh year, and had already been on the retired list for\ntwenty-five years.\n\nLeaning on the bookseller, Paillot, he crossed the doorstep of the shop\nand sat down on a rush-bottomed chair, in the midst of the respectful\nacademicians. His malacca cane, with its silver top, trembled under\nhis hand between his hollow thighs. His spine was stiffer than the\nback of his chair. He drew off his tortoiseshell spectacles to wipe\nthem, and it took him a long time to put them on again. He had lost his\nmemory for faces, and although he was hard of hearing, it was by the\nvoice that he recognised people.\n\nHe asked concisely for the cause of the crowds which had gathered in\nthe square, but he hardly listened to the answer given him by M. de\nTerremondre. His brain, sound but ossified, steeped as it were in\nmyrrh, received no new impressions, although old ideas and passions\nremained deeply embedded in it.\n\nMM. de Terremondre, Mazure, and Bergeret stood up in a circle round\nhim. They were ignorant of his story, lost now in the immemorial\npast. They only knew that he had been the disciple, the friend, and\nthe companion of Lacordaire and Montalembert, that he had opposed,\nas far as the precise limits of his rights and his office permitted,\nthe establishment of the Empire, that in former days he had been\nsubjected to the insults of Louis Veuillot,[L] and that he went every\nSunday to mass, with a great book under his arm. Like all the town,\nthey recognised that he retained his old-world honesty and the glory\nof having maintained the cause of liberty throughout his whole life.\nBut not one of them could have told of what type was his liberalism,\nfor none of them had read this sentence in a pamphlet, published by\nM. Cassignol in 1852, on the affairs of Rome: \u201cThere is no liberty\nsave that of the man who believes in Jesus Christ, and in the moral\ndignity of man.\u201d It was said that, still remaining active in mind at\nhis age, he was classifying his correspondence and working at a book\non the relations between Church and State. He still spoke fluently and\nbrightly.\n\n  [L] Louis Veuillot, author and journalist, born 1813, and much\n      given to duels, both with words and swords.\n\nDuring the conversation which he followed with difficulty, on hearing\na mention of the name of M. Garrand, the public prosecutor of the\nRepublic, he remarked, looking down at the knob of his stick as though\nit were the solitary witness of those bygone days that still survived:\n\n\u201cIn 1838 I knew at Lyons a public prosecutor for the Crown who had a\nhigh idea of his duties. He used to maintain that one of the attributes\nof public administration was infallibility, and that the king\u2019s\nprosecutor could no more be in the wrong than the king himself. His\nname was M. de Clavel, and he left some valuable works on criminal\ncross-examination.\u201d\n\nThen the old man was silent, alone with his memories in the midst of\nmen.\n\nPaillot, on the doorstep, was watching what was going on outside.\n\n\u201cHere is M. Roquincourt coming out of the house.\u201d\n\nM. Cassignol, thinking only of past events, said:\n\n\u201cI started at the bar. I was under the orders of M. de Clavel, who\nused again and again to repeat to me: \u2018Grasp this maxim thoroughly:\nThe interests of the prisoner are sacred, the interests of society\nare doubly sacred, the interests of justice are thrice sacred.\u2019\nMetaphysical principles had in those days more influence on men\u2019s minds\nthan they have nowadays.\u201d\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s very true,\u201d said M. de Terremondre.\n\n\u201cThey are carrying away a bedside-table, some linen, and a little\ntruck,\u201d said Paillot. \u201cThese are doubtless articles to be used in\nevidence.\u201d\n\nM. de Terremondre, no longer able to restrain himself, went forward\nto watch the loading of the truck. Suddenly, knitting his brows, he\nexclaimed:\n\n\u201cSacrebleu!\u201d\n\nThen, seeing Paillot\u2019s inquiring look, he added:\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s nothing! nothing!\u201d\n\nCunning collector that he was, he had just caught sight of a water-jug\nin _porcelaine \u00e0 la Reine_ among the articles attached, and he was\nmaking up his mind to inquire about it after the trial from Surcouf,\nthe registrar, who was an obliging man. In getting together his\ncollections he used artifice. \u201cOne must rise to the occasion,\u201d he used\nto say to himself. \u201cTimes are bad.\u201d\n\n\u201cI was nominated deputy at twenty-two years of age,\u201d resumed M.\nCassignol. \u201cAt that time my long, curly hair, my beardless, ruddy\ncheeks, gave me a look of youth that rendered me desperate. In order\nto inspire respect I had to affect an air of solemnity and to wear\nan aspect of severity. I carried out my duties with a diligence\nthat brought its reward. At thirty-three years of age I became\nattorney-general at Puy.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt is a picturesque town,\u201d said M. Mazure.\n\n\u201cIn the performance of my new duties I had to inquire into an affair\nof little interest, if one only took account of the nature of the\ncrime and the character of the accused, but which had indeed its own\nimportance, since it was a matter that involved the death sentence. A\nfairly prosperous farmer had been found murdered in his bed. I pass\nover the circumstances of the crime, which yet remain fixed in my\nmemory, although they were as commonplace as possible. I need only say\nthat, from the opening of the inquiry, suspicions fell on a ploughman,\na servant of the victim. This was a man of thirty. His name was\nPoudrailles, Hyacinthe Poudrailles. On the day following the crime he\nhad suddenly disappeared, and was found in a wine-shop, where he was\nspending pretty freely. Strong circumstantial evidence pointed to him\nas the author of this murder. A sum of sixty francs was found on him,\nfor the possession of which he could not account; his clothes bore\ntraces of blood. Two witnesses had seen him prowling round the farm on\nthe night of the crime. It is true that another witness swore to an\nalibi, but that witness was a well-known bad character.\n\n\u201cThe examination had been very well managed by a judge of consummate\nability. The case for the prosecution was drawn up with much skill.\nBut Poudrailles had made no confession. And in court, during the whole\ncourse of the cross-examination, he fenced himself about with a series\nof denials from which nothing could dislodge him. I had prepared my\naddress as public prosecutor with all the care of which I was capable\nand with all the conscientiousness of a young man who does not wish to\nappear unfitted for his high duties. I brought to the delivery of it\nall the ardour of my youth. The alibi furnished by the woman Cortot,\nwho pretended that she had kept Poudrailles in her house at Puy during\nthe night of the crime, was a great obstacle to me. I set myself\nto break it down. I threatened the woman Cortot with the penalties\nattaching to perjury. One of my arguments made a special impression on\nthe mind of the jury. I reminded them that, according to the report\nof the neighbours, the watch-dogs had not barked at the murderer.\nThat was because they knew him. It was, then, no stranger. It was the\nploughman; it was Poudrailles. Finally I called for the death penalty,\nand I got it. Poudrailles was condemned to death by a majority of\nvotes. After the reading of the sentence, he exclaimed in a loud voice:\n\u2018I am innocent!\u2019 At this a terrible doubt seized me. I felt that,\nafter all, he might be speaking the truth, and that I did not myself\npossess that certainty with which I had inspired the minds of the jury.\nMy colleagues, my chiefs, my seniors, and even the counsel for the\ndefence came to congratulate me on this brilliant success, to applaud\nmy youthful and formidable eloquence. These praises were sweet to me.\nYou know, gentlemen, Vauvenargues\u2019 dainty fancy about the first rays of\nglory. Yet the voice of Poudrailles saying, \u2018I am innocent\u2019 thundered\nin my ears.\n\n\u201cMy doubts still remained with me, and I was forced again and again to\ngo over my speech for the prosecution in my mind.\n\n\u201cPoudrailles\u2019 appeal was dismissed, and my uncertainty increased. At\nthat time it was comparatively seldom that reprieves arrested the\ncarrying out of the death sentence. Poudrailles petitioned in vain for\na commutation of the sentence. On the morning of the day fixed for the\nexecution, when the scaffold had already been erected at Martouret,\nI went to the prison, got them to open the condemned cell to me, and\nalone, face to face with the prisoner, said to him: \u2018Nothing can alter\nyour fate. If there remains in you one good feeling, in the interests\nof your own soul and to set my mind at rest, Poudrailles, tell me\nwhether you are guilty of the crime for which you are condemned.\u2019 He\nlooked at me for some moments without replying. I still see his dull\nface and wide, dumb mouth. I had a moment of terrible anguish. At last\nhe bent his head right down and murmured in a feeble but distinct\nvoice: \u2018Now that I have no hope left, I may as well tell you that I did\nit. And I had more trouble than you would believe, because the old man\nwas strong. All the same, he was a bad lot.\u2019 When I heard this final\nconfession I heaved a deep sigh of relief.\u201d\n\nM. Cassignol stopped, gazed fixedly for a long time at the knob of his\nstick with his faded, washed-out eyes, and then uttered these words:\n\n\u201cDuring my long career as a magistrate I have never known of a single\njudicial error.\u201d\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s a reassuring statement,\u201d said M. de Terremondre.\n\n\u201cIt makes my blood run cold with horror,\u201d murmured M. Bergeret.\n\n\n\n\nXVI\n\n\nThat year, as usual, M. Worms-Clavelin, the _pr\u00e9fet_, went shooting\nat Valcombe, at the house of M. Delion, an iron-master and a member\nof the General Council, who had the finest shooting in the district.\nThe _pr\u00e9fet_ enjoyed himself very much at Valcombe; he was flattered\nat meeting there many people of good family, especially the Gromances\nand the Terremondres, and he took a deep joy in winging pheasants.\nHere he was to be seen pacing the woodland paths in exuberant spirits.\nHe shot with twisted body, with raised shoulders and bent head, with\none eye closed and brows knitted, in the style of the inhabitants of\nBois-Colombes, the bookmakers and restaurant-keepers, his original\nshooting companions. He proclaimed noisily, with tactless delight,\nthe birds that he had brought down; and by now and then attributing\nto himself those that had fallen to his neighbours\u2019 guns, he aroused\nan indignation which he immediately allayed by the placidity of his\ntemper and by entire ignorance of the fact that any one could possibly\nbe vexed with him. In all his behaviour he united pleasantly enough\nthe importance of an official with the familiarity of a cheerful\nguest. He flung their titles at men as though they were nicknames,\nand because, like all the department, he knew that M. de Gromance was\nan oft-betrayed husband, at every meeting he would give this man of\nceremony several affectionate little taps without any apparent reason.\nAmong the company at Valcombe he imagined himself to be popular, and\nhe was not entirely wrong. When, despite his underbred manners and\ntoadying air, his companions had got off scot-free of both shot and\nimpertinences, he was considered dexterous, and they said that, at\nbottom, he had tact.\n\nThis year he had succeeded better than ever in the capitalist circle.\nIt was known that he was opposed to the income tax, which in private\nconversation he had felicitously described as inquisitorial. At\nValcombe, therefore, he was the recipient of the congratulations of a\ngrateful society, and Madame Delion smiled on him, softening for him\nher steel-blue eyes and her majestic forehead crowned with bandeaux of\niron-grey.\n\nOn leaving his room, where he had been dressing for dinner, he saw the\nlissom figure of Madame de Gromance gliding along the dark corridor,\nwith a rustle of clothes and jewels. In the dusk her bare shoulders\nseemed barer than ever. He frisked forward to overtake her, seized\nher by the waist and kissed her on the neck. When she freed herself\nhurriedly, he said to her in reproachful accents:\n\n\u201cWhy so cruel to _me_, Countess?\u201d\n\nThen she gave him a box on the ears which surprised him greatly.\n\nOn the ground-floor landing he came upon No\u00e9mi, who, very seemly in her\ndress of black satin covered with black tulle, was slowly drawing her\nlong gloves over her arms. He made a friendly little sign to her with\nhis eye. He was a good husband, and regarded his wife with a good deal\nof esteem and some admiration.\n\nShe deserved it, for she had need of rare tact not to ruffle the\nanti-Jewish society of Valcombe. And she was not unpopular there. She\nhad even won their sympathy. And what was most astonishing, she did not\nseem an outsider.\n\nIn that great cold provincial salon she assumed an awe-stricken face\nand a placid demeanour which produced a doubt of her intelligence,\nbut proclaimed her honest, sweet, and good. With Madame Delion and\nthe other women, she admired, approved, and held her tongue. And if a\nman of some intelligence and experience entered into a _t\u00eate-\u00e0-t\u00eate_\nwith her, she made herself still more demure, modest, and timid, with\ndowncast eyes; then suddenly she hurled some broad jest at him,\nwhich tickled him by its unexpectedness, and which he regarded as a\nspecial favour, coming from so prim a mouth and so reserved a mind. She\ncaptivated the hearts of the old sparks. Without a gesture, without a\nmovement, without the flutter of a fan, with an imperceptible quiver\nof her eyelashes and a swift pursing of the lips, she insinuated ideas\nthat flattered them. She made a conquest of M. Mauricet himself, who,\ngreat connoisseur as he was, said of her:\n\n\u201cShe has always been plain, she is no longer even attractive, but she\nis a woman.\u201d\n\nM. Worms-Clavelin was placed at table between Madame Delion and Madame\nLaprat-Teulet, wife of the senator of\u00a0\u2026 Madame Laprat-Teulet was a\nsallow little woman, whom one always seemed to be looking at through\ngauze, so soft were her features. As a young girl, she had been steeped\nin religion as if it had been oil. Now, the wife of a clever man who\nhad married her for her fortune, she wallowed in unctuous piety, while\nher husband devoted his energies to the anti-clerical and secular\nparties. She gave herself up to endless petty tasks. And deeply\nattached as she was to her wedded condition, when a demand was lodged\nbefore the Senate for the authorisation of judicial proceedings against\nLaprat-Teulet and several other senators, she offered two candles\nin the Church of Saint-Exup\u00e8re, before the painted statue of Saint\nAnthony, in order that by his good offices her husband\u2019s opponents\nmight be non-suited. And it was in that way that the affair ended. A\npupil of Gambetta, M. Laprat-Teulet had in his possession certain small\ndocuments, a photographic reproduction of which he had sent at a timely\nmoment to the Keeper of the Seals. Madame Laprat-Teulet, in the zeal of\nher gratitude, had a marble slab put up, as a votive-offering, on the\nwall of the chapel, with this inscription drawn up by the venerable M.\nLaprune himself: _To Saint Anthony from a Christian wife, in gratitude\nfor an unexpected blessing._ Since then M. Laprat-Teulet had retrieved\nhis position. He had given serious pledges to the Conservatives, who\nhoped to utilise his great financial talents in the struggle against\nsocialism. His political position had become satisfactory again,\nprovided he affronted no one and did not seize the reins of power for\nhimself.\n\nAnd with her waxen fingers Madame Laprat-Teulet embroidered\naltar-frontals.\n\n\u201cWell, madame,\u201d said the _pr\u00e9fet_ to her, after the soup, \u201care your\ngood works prospering? Do you know that, after Madame Cartier de\nChalmot, you are the lady in the department who presides over the\nlargest number of charities?\u201d\n\nShe made no answer. He recollected that she was deaf, and, turning\ntowards Madame Delion:\n\n\u201cTell me, I beg you, madame, about Saint Anthony\u2019s charity. It was this\npoor Madame Laprat-Teulet who made me think of it. My wife tells me it\nis a new cult that is becoming the rage in the department.\u201d\n\n\u201cMadame Worms-Clavelin is right, my dear sir. We are all devoted to\nSaint Anthony.\u201d\n\nThen they heard M. Mauricet, in reply to a sentence lost in the noise,\nsay to M. Delion:\n\n\u201cYou flatter me, my dear sir. The Puits-du-Roi, very much neglected\nsince Louis XIV.\u2019s time, is not to be compared with Valcombe for its\nsport. There is very little game there. Still, a poacher of rare\nskill, named Rivoire, who honours the Puits-du-Roi with his nocturnal\nvisits, kills plenty of pheasants there. And you\u2019ve no idea what an\nextraordinary old blunderbuss he shoots them with. It\u2019s a specimen for\na museum! I owe him thanks for having one day allowed me to examine it\nat leisure. Imagine a\u00a0\u2026\u201d\n\n\u201cI am told, madame,\u201d said the _pr\u00e9fet_, \u201cthat the worshippers address\ntheir requests to Saint Anthony in a sealed paper, and that they make\nno payment until after the blessing demanded has been received.\u201d\n\n\u201cDon\u2019t jest,\u201d replied Madame Delion; \u201cSaint Anthony grants many\nfavours.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt is,\u201d continued M. Mauricet, \u201cthe barrel of an old musket which has\nbeen cut through and mounted on a kind of hinge, so that it rocks up\nand down, and\u00a0\u2026\u201d\n\n\u201cI thought,\u201d replied the _pr\u00e9fet_, \u201cthat Saint Anthony\u2019s speciality was\nfinding lost articles.\u201d\n\n\u201cThat is why,\u201d answered Madame Delion, \u201cso many requests are made to\nhim.\u201d\n\nAnd she added, with a sigh:\n\n\u201cWho, in this world, has not lost a precious possession? Peace of\nheart, a conscience at rest, a friendship formed in childhood or\u00a0\u2026 a\nhusband\u2019s love? It is then that one prays to Saint Anthony.\u201d\n\n\u201cOr to his comrade,\u201d added the _pr\u00e9fet_, whom the ironmaster\u2019s wines\nhad elated, and who in his innocence was confusing Saint Anthony of\nPadua with Saint Anthony the hermit.\n\n\u201cBut,\u201d asked M. de Terremondre, \u201cthis Rivoire is known as the poacher\nto the prefecture, is he not?\u201d\n\n\u201cYou are mistaken, Monsieur de Terremondre,\u201d replied the _pr\u00e9fet_.\n\u201cHe has a still more honourable appointment as poacher to the\nArchbishopric. He supplies Monseigneur\u2019s table.\u201d\n\n\u201cHe also consents to put his skill at the service of the court,\u201d said\nPresident Peloux.\n\nM. Delion and Madame Cartier de Chalmot were conversing together in low\ntones:\n\n\u201cMy son Gustave, dear lady, is going to serve his military term this\nyear. I should so much like him to be placed under General Cartier de\nChalmot.\u201d\n\n\u201cDo not set your heart on that, monsieur. My husband hates favouritism,\nand he is chary of granting leave; he expects lads of good family to\nshow an example of work. And he has imbued all his colonels with his\nprinciples.\u201d\n\n\u201c... And the barrel of this musket,\u201d continued M. Mauricet,\n\u201ccorresponds with no recognised bore, so that Rivoire can only make use\nof undersized cartridges. You can easily imagine\u00a0\u2026\u201d\n\nThe _pr\u00e9fet_ was unfolding certain arguments calculated to bring Madame\nDelion completely over to the government, and he concluded with this\nnoble thought:\n\n\u201cAt the moment when the Czar is coming on a visit to France, it is\nnecessary that the Republic should identify itself with the upper\nclasses of the nation in order to put them in touch with our great\nally, Russia.\u201d\n\nMeanwhile, with the calm of a Madonna, No\u00e9mi was kissing feet with M.\n_le pr\u00e9sident_ Peloux, who had been feeling about for hers under the\ntable.\n\nYoung Gustave Delion was saying in a low voice to Madame de Gromance:\n\n\u201cI hope that this time you will not keep me hanging about as you did on\nthe day when you were playing the fool with that dotard of a Mauricet,\nwhilst I had no other amusement in your yellow drawing-room than to\npotter with the works of the clock.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat an excellent woman Madame Laprat-Teulet is!\u201d exclaimed Madame\nDelion in a sudden outburst of affection.\n\n\u201cExcellent,\u201d said the _pr\u00e9fet_, swallowing a quarter of a pear. \u201cIt is\na pity that she is as deaf as a post. Her husband also is an excellent\nman, and very intelligent. I am glad to see that people are beginning\nto readjust their views of him. He has gone through a difficult\ntime. The enemies of the Republic wanted to compromise him in order\nto discredit the government. He has been the victim of schemes that\naimed at excluding from Parliament the leading men belonging to the\nbusiness world. Such an exclusion would lower the level of national\nrepresentation and would be in all respects deplorable.\u201d\n\nFor a moment he remained thoughtful; then he said sadly:\n\n\u201cBesides, no further scandals can be hatched; no more charges are being\ntrumped up. And there we have one of the most grievous results of this\ncampaign of calumny, carried on with unheard-of audacity.\u201d\n\n\u201cPerhaps it is as well!\u201d sighed Madame Delion, thoughtfully and\nmeaningly.\n\nThen suddenly, with a burst of fervour:\n\n\u201cMonsieur _le pr\u00e9fet_, give us back our dear religious orders, let our\nSisters of Charity return to the hospitals and our God to the schools\nwhence you have expelled Him. No longer prevent our rearing our sons as\nChristians and\u00a0\u2026 we shall be very near to a mutual understanding.\u201d\n\nHearing these words, M. Worms-Clavelin flung up his hands, as well\nas his knife, on which was a morsel of cheese, and exclaimed with\nheartfelt sincerity: \u201cGood God! madame, don\u2019t you see that the streets\nof the county town are black with cur\u00e9s, and that there are monks\nbehind all the gratings? And as for your young Gustave, damn it! it\nisn\u2019t I who prevent him from going to mass all day instead of running\nafter the girls!\u201d\n\nM. Mauricet was finishing his description of the marvellous\nblunderbuss, amid the clatter of voices, the echo of laughter, and the\nlittle tinkling taps of silver upon china.\n\nM. _le pr\u00e9fet_ Worms-Clavelin, who was in a hurry to smoke, passed out\nfirst into the billiard-room. He was soon joined there by President\nPeloux, to whom he held out a cigar:\n\n\u201cHave one, do! They are capital.\u201d\n\nAnd in reply to M. Peloux\u2019s thanks, showing the box of regalias, he\nanswered:\n\n\u201cDon\u2019t thank me; it is one of our host\u2019s cigars.\u201d\n\nThis joke was one of his stock ones.\n\nAt last M. Delion appeared, leading the bulk of the guests, who with\ngreater gallantry had been chatting for a few minutes with the ladies.\nHe was listening approvingly to M. de Gromance, who was explaining to\nhim how necessary it was in shooting to calculate distances accurately.\n\n\u201cFor instance,\u201d he said, \u201con uneven ground a hare seems relatively\ndistant, whilst, on level ground, it seems nearer by more than fifty\nmetres. It is on this account that\u00a0\u2026\u201d\n\n\u201cCome,\u201d said M. _le pr\u00e9fet_ Worms-Clavelin, taking down a cue from the\nrack, \u201ccome, Peloux, shall we play a game?\u201d\n\nM. _le pr\u00e9fet_ Worms-Clavelin was a pretty fair stroke at billiards;\nbut M. _le pr\u00e9sident_ Peloux gave him points. A little Norman attorney\nwho, at the close of a disastrous estate case, had been forced to\nsell his practice, he had been appointed a judge at the time when the\nRepublic was purging the magistracy. Sent from one end of France to the\nother, in courts where the knowledge of the law had almost disappeared,\nhis skill in sharp practice made him useful, and his ministerial\nrelations secured him advancement. Yet everywhere a vague rumour of his\npast pursued him, and people refused to treat him with respect. But\nluckily he was wise enough to know how to endure persistent rebuffs.\nHe bore affronts placidly. M. Lerond, deputy attorney-general, now a\nbarrister at the bar at\u00a0\u2026, said of him in the Salle des Pas-Perdus: \u201cHe\nis a man of intelligence who knows the distance between his seat and\nthe prisoner\u2019s dock.\u201d Yet that public approval which he had not sought,\nand which evaded him, had at length, by a sudden recoil, come of its\nown accord. For the last two years the whole society of the district\nhad looked upon President Peloux as an upright magistrate. They admired\nhis courage when, smiling placidly between his two pale assessors, he\nhad condemned to five years\u2019 imprisonment three confederate anarchists,\nguilty of having distributed in the barracks bills exhorting the\nnations to fraternise.\n\n\u201cTwelve\u2014four,\u201d announced M. _le pr\u00e9sident_ Peloux.\n\nHaving practised for a long time in the sleepy restaurant of a county\ntown in a rural canton, he had learnt a close professional game. He\nraked his balls into a little corner of the billiard-table and brought\noff a series of cannons. M. _le pr\u00e9fet_ Worms-Clavelin played in the\nbroad, splendid, reckless style of the artist-caf\u00e9s of Montmartre and\nClichy. And laying the failure of his rash strokes to the charge of the\ntable, he complained of the hardness of the cushions.\n\n\u201cAt la Tuili\u00e8re,\u201d said M. de Terremondre, \u201cin my cousin Jacques\u2019 house,\nthere is a billiard-table with pockets, which dates from Louis XV.\u2019s\ntime, in a very low vaulted hall, of soft, whitewashed stone, where\nthis inscription is still to be read: \u2018Gentlemen are requested not to\nrub their cues on the walls.\u2019 It is a request to which no one has paid\nany attention, for the vaulting is pitted with a number of little round\nholes, whose origin is accurately explained by this inscription.\u201d\n\nM. _le pr\u00e9sident_ Peloux was asked in several directions at once for\ndetails as to the affair in Queen Marguerite\u2019s house. The murder of\nMadame Houssieu, which had excited all the district, was still arousing\ninterest. Every one knew that a crushing weight of evidence hung over a\nbutcher\u2019s boy of nineteen, named Lec\u0153ur, whom folks used to see twice\na week entering the old lady\u2019s house with his basket on his head. It\nwas also known that the prosecution was detaining two upholsterers\u2019\napprentices of fourteen and sixteen years of age as accomplices, and it\nwas said that the crime had been committed in circumstances which made\nthe story of it a particularly delicate one.\n\nBeing questioned on this point, M. _le pr\u00e9sident_ Peloux lifted his\nround, ruddy head from the billiard-table and winked.\n\n\u201cThe case is being tried _in camera_. The scene of the murder has\nbeen reconstructed in its entirety. I don\u2019t believe that there is a\ndoubt left as to the acts of debauchery which preceded the crime and\nfacilitated the perpetration of it.\u201d\n\nHe took up his liqueur glass, swallowed a mouthful of armagnac, smacked\nhis lips, and said:\n\n\u201cHeavens! what velvet!\u201d\n\nAnd, when a circle of inquirers crowded round him asking for details,\nthe magistrate, in a low voice, disclosed certain circumstances which\nprovoked murmurs of surprise and grunts of disgust.\n\n\u201cIs it possible?\u201d was the comment. \u201cA woman of eighty!\u201d\n\n\u201cThe case,\u201d answered M. _le pr\u00e9sident_ Peloux, \u201cis not unique. You may\ntake my word for it after my experience as a magistrate. And the young\nscamps of the faubourgs know much more on this subject than we do. The\ncrime in Queen Marguerite\u2019s house is of a well-known, classified sort;\nI might call it a classic type. I immediately scented it out as senile\ndebauchery, and I saw quite clearly that Roquincourt, the prosecuting\ncounsel, was following a wrong track. He had naturally ordered the\narrest of all the vagabonds and tramps found wandering within a wide\ncircumference. Every one of them aroused suspicions; and what put the\ncrowning touch to his mistake was that one of them, Sieurin, nicknamed\nPied-d\u2019Alouette, a regular old gaol-bird, made a confession.\u201d\n\n\u201cHow was that?\u201d\n\n\u201cHe was bored with solitary confinement. He had been promised a pipe\nof canteen tobacco if he confessed. He did confess. He told them all\nthey wanted. This Sieurin, who has been sentenced thirty-seven times\nfor vagabondage, is incapable of killing a fly. He has never committed\nrobbery. He is a simpleton, an inoffensive creature. At the time of the\ncrime, the gendarmes saw him on Duroc hill making straw fountains and\ncork boats for the school children.\u201d\n\nM. _le pr\u00e9sident_ resumed his game.\n\n\u201cNinety\u2014forty.\u00a0\u2026 During this time, Lec\u0153ur was telling all the girls\nin the Quartier des Carreaux that he had done the deed, and the\nkeepers of disorderly houses were bringing to the police-inspector\nMadame Houssieu\u2019s earrings, chain, and rings that the butcher-boy\nhad distributed among their inmates. This Lec\u0153ur, like so many other\nmurderers, gave himself up. But Roquincourt, in a rage, left Sieurin,\nor Pied-d\u2019Alouette, in solitary confinement. He is still there.\nNinety-nine\u00a0\u2026 and one hundred.\u201d\n\n\u201cSplendid!\u201d said M. _le pr\u00e9fet_ Worms-Clavelin.\n\n\u201cSo,\u201d murmured M. Delion, \u201cthis woman of eighty-three had still\u00a0\u2026 It is\nincredible!\u201d\n\nBut Dr. Fornerol, agreeing with President Peloux\u2019s opinion, declared\nthat the case was not as unusual as they fancied, and he supplied the\nphysiological explanation, which was listened to with interest. Then\nhe went on to quote different cases of sexual aberrations and wound up\nin these words:\n\n\u201cIf the devil on two sticks, lifting us up in the air, were to raise\nthe roofs of the town before our eyes, we should see appalling sights,\nand we should be staggered at the discovery among our fellow-citizens\nof so many maniacs, degenerates, mad men and mad women.\u201d\n\n\u201cBah!\u201d said M. Worms-Clavelin, the _pr\u00e9fet_, \u201cone must not look too\nclosely into that. All these people, taken one by one, are perhaps what\nyou say; but together they form a superb mass of constituents and a\nsplendid county-town population for the department.\u201d\n\nNow, on the raised divan which overlooked the billiard-table, Senator\nLaprat-Teulet sat caressing his long white beard. He had the majesty of\na river.\n\n\u201cFor my part,\u201d said he, \u201cI can only believe in goodness. Wherever I\ncast my eyes, I see virtue and honesty. I have been able to prove\nby numerous instances that the morals of the French women since the\nRevolution leave nothing to be desired, especially in the middle\nclasses.\u201d\n\n\u201cI am not so optimistic,\u201d replied M. de Terremondre, \u201cbut I certainly\ndid not suspect that Queen Marguerite\u2019s house hid such shameful\nmysteries behind its walls of crumbling woodwork and beneath the\ncobweb-curtains of its mullioned windows. I went to see Madame Houssieu\nseveral times; she seemed to me a miserly and mistrustful old woman, a\nlittle mad, yet like so many others. But, as they used to say in the\ntime of Queen Marguerite:\n\n  \u201cShe is under the sod.\n   Her soul be with God![M]\n\nShe will no longer, by her lewdness, blot the scutcheon of good\nPhilippe Tricouillard.\u201d\n\n  [M] \u201cElle est sous lame.\n       Dieu ait son \u00e2me!\u201d\n\nAt that name a shout of merry laughter burst from their knowing faces.\nIt was the secret joy and inward pride of the town, that emblematic\nshield, with its witness to the triple virtue and power that put this\nbourgeois ancestor of theirs on a level with the great condottiere\nof Bergamo. The people of ... loved him, their lusty forebear, the\ncontemporary of the king in the _Cent Nouvelles nouvelles_, their\nancient alderman Philippe Tricouillard, about whom, to tell the\ntruth, they knew nothing save the gift of nature to which he owed his\nillustrious surname.\n\nThe turn taken by the conversation led Dr. Fornerol to say that several\ninstances had been cited of a similar anomaly, and that certain writers\ndeclare that at times this honourable monstrosity is transmitted\nhereditarily and becomes persistent in a family. Unluckily the line of\nthe worthy Philippe had been extinct for more than two hundred years.\n\nAfter this remark, M. de Terremondre, who was president of the\nArch\u00e6ological Society, related a true anecdote.\n\n\u201cOur departmental archivist,\u201d said he, \u201cthe learned M. Mazure, has\nrecently discovered in the garrets of the prefecture some documents\nrelating to a charge of adultery, brought, at the very period when\nPhilippe Tricouillard was flourishing, towards the end of the fifteenth\ncentury, by Jehan Tabouret against Sidoine Cloche, his wife, for the\nreason that the aforesaid Sidoine, having had three children at a\nbirth, Sieur Jehan Tabouret only acknowledged two of them as his, and\nmaintained that the third was by another man, for he averred that he\nwas constitutionally incapable of begetting more than two at a time.\nAnd he gave a reason for this, founded on an error then common among\nmatrons, barber-surgeons, and apothecaries, who each as eagerly as\nthe others professed to believe that the normal frame of a man was\nphysiologically incapable of begetting more than twins, and that all\nover the number of pledges which the father can produce should be\ndisowned. For this reason, poor Sidoine was convicted by the judge of\nhaving played the harlot, and for this put naked on an ass, with her\nhead towards the tail, and thus led through the town to the pond at\nLes Ev\u00e9s, where she was ducked three times. She would scarcely have\nsuffered thus if her wicked husband had been as generously gifted by\nDame Nature as good Philippe Tricouillard.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nXVII\n\n\nIn front of Rondonneau\u2019s house-door, the _pr\u00e9fet_ glanced to right and\nleft to see that he was not being spied upon. He had heard that it was\nsaid in the town that he went to the jeweller\u2019s house for assignations\nand that Madame Lacarelle had been seen following him into this house,\ncalled the House of the Two Satyrs. He felt very bad-tempered over\nthis. He had another cause of annoyance. _Le Lib\u00e9ral_, which had\ntreated him respectfully for a long time, had attacked him vigorously\nover the departmental budget. He was censured by the Conservative organ\nfor having made a transfer to conceal the expenses of the electoral\npropaganda. M. _le pr\u00e9fet_ Worms-Clavelin was perfectly honest. Money\ninspired him with respect as well as love. He felt before \u201cProperty\u201d\nthat feeling of religious terror that the moon inspires in dogs. With\nhim wealth had become a cult.\n\nHis budget was very honestly put together. And, apart from the\nirregularities that had now become regular as the result of a faulty\nadministration common to the whole Republic, nothing worthy of blame\ncould be discovered in it. M. Worms-Clavelin knew this. He felt himself\nstrong in his integrity. But the polemics of the press put him out of\npatience. His heart was saddened by the animosity of his opponents\nand the rancour of the parties that he believed he had disarmed.\nAfter so many sacrifices he was pained at not having won the esteem\nof the Conservatives, which he secretly valued far more highly than\nthe friendship of the Republicans. He would have to inspire _le Phare_\nwith pointed and forceful replies, to conduct a lively, and, perhaps\nprotracted war. This thought was harassing to the deep slothfulness of\nhis mind and alarming to his prudence, which feared every action as a\nsource of peril.\n\nThus he was in a very bad temper. And it was in a sharp voice that,\nthrowing himself into the old leather arm-chair, he inquired of\nRondonneau junior whether M. Guitrel had arrived. M. Guitrel had not\nyet come. So M. Worms-Clavelin, roughly snatching a paper from the\njeweller\u2019s desk, tried to read while smoking his cigar. But neither\npolitical ideas nor tobacco-smoke served to dispel the gloomy pictures\nthat crowded into his mind. He read with his eyes, but thought of\nthe attacks of _le Lib\u00e9ral_: \u201cTransfer! There are not fifty people\nin the county town who know what a transfer is. And here I can see\nall the idiots in the department shaking their heads and solemnly\nrepeating the phrase in their newspaper: \u2018We regret to see that M.\n_le pr\u00e9fet_ has not abandoned the detestable and exploded practice\nof making transfers.\u2019\u201d He fell into thought. The ash from his cigar\nlavishly bestrewed his waistcoat. He went on thinking: \u201cWhy does _le\nLib\u00e9ral_ attack me? I got its candidate returned. My department shows\nthe greatest number of new adherents at election-times.\u201d He turned\nover the page of the paper. He thought on again: \u201cI have not covered\nup a deficit. The sums voted on the presentation of the estimates\nhave not been spent in a different way from what was proposed. These\npeople don\u2019t know how to read a budget. And they are disingenuous.\u201d He\nshrugged his shoulders; and gloomy, indifferent to the cigar ash which\ncovered his chest and thighs, he plunged into the reading of his paper.\n\nHis eyes fell on these lines:\n\n\u201cWe learn that a fire having broken out in a faubourg of Tobolsk, sixty\nwooden houses have fallen a prey to the flames. In consequence of the\ndisaster more than a hundred families are homeless and starving.\u201d\n\nAs he read this, M. _le pr\u00e9fet_ Worms-Clavelin emitted a deep shout,\nsomething like a triumphal growl, and, aiming a kick at the jeweller\u2019s\ndesk:\n\n\u201cI say, Rondonneau, Tobolsk is a Russian town, isn\u2019t it?\u201d\n\nRondonneau, raising his innocent, bald head towards the _pr\u00e9fet_,\nreplied that Tobolsk was, indeed, a town in Asiatic Russia.\n\n\u201cWell,\u201d cried M. _le pr\u00e9fet_ Worms-Clavelin, \u201cwe are going to give an\nentertainment for the benefit of the sufferers by the fire at Tobolsk.\u201d\n\nAnd he added between his teeth:\n\n\u201cI\u2019ll make\u00a0\u2026 a Russian entertainment for \u2019em. I shall have six weeks\u2019\npeace, and they won\u2019t talk any more about transfers.\u201d\n\nAt that moment Abb\u00e9 Guitrel, with anxious eyes, his hat under his arm,\nentered the jeweller\u2019s shop.\n\n\u201cDo you know, monsieur l\u2019abb\u00e9,\u201d said the _pr\u00e9fet_ to him, \u201cthat, by\ngeneral request, I am authorising entertainments for the benefit of the\nsufferers from the fire at Tobolsk\u2014concerts, special performances,\nbazaars, &c.? I hope that the Church will join in these benevolent\nentertainments.\u201d\n\n\u201cThe Church, monsieur _le pr\u00e9fet_,\u201d replied Abb\u00e9 Guitrel, \u201chas her\nhands full of comfort for the afflicted who come to her. And doubtless\nher prayers\u00a0\u2026\u201d\n\n\u201c_\u00c0 propos_, my dear abb\u00e9, your affairs are not getting on at all. I\ncome from Paris. I saw the friends whom I have at the Department of\nReligion. And I bring back bad news. To start with, there are eighteen\nof you.\u201d\n\n\u201cEighteen?\u201d\n\n\u201cEighteen candidates for the bishopric of Tourcoing. In the first rank\nis Abb\u00e9 Olivet, cur\u00e9 of one of the richest parishes in Paris, and the\npresident\u2019s candidate. Next there is Abb\u00e9 Lavardin, vicar-general at\nGrenoble. Ostensibly, he is supported by the nuncio.\u201d\n\n\u201cI have not the honour of knowing M. Lavardin, but I do not think he\ncan be the candidate of the nunciature. It is possible that the nuncio\nhas his favourite. But assuredly that favourite remains unknown. The\nnunciature does not solicit on behalf of its prot\u00e9g\u00e9s. It insists on\ntheir appointment.\u201d\n\n\u201cAh! ah! monsieur l\u2019abb\u00e9, they are cute at the nunciature.\u201d\n\n\u201cMonsieur _le pr\u00e9fet_, the members of it are not all eminent in\nthemselves; but they have on their side unbroken tradition, and their\naction is guided by secular rules. It is a force, monsieur _le pr\u00e9fet_,\na great force.\u201d\n\n\u201cBy Jove, yes! But we were saying that there is the president\u2019s\ncandidate and the nuncio\u2019s candidate. There is also your own\nArchbishop\u2019s candidate. When they first mentioned him, I thought to\nmyself that it was you.\u00a0\u2026 We were wrong, my poor friend. Monseigneur\nCharlot\u2019s prot\u00e9g\u00e9\u2014I\u2019ll wager you won\u2019t guess who it is.\u201d\n\n\u201cDon\u2019t make a wager, monsieur _le pr\u00e9fet_, don\u2019t make a wager. I would\nbet that the candidate of Monseigneur the Cardinal-Archbishop is his\nvicar-general, M. de Goulet.\u201d\n\n\u201cHow do you know that? I did not know it myself.\u201d\n\n\u201cMonsieur _le pr\u00e9fet_, you are not unaware that Monseigneur Charlot\ndreads that he may find himself saddled with a coadjutor, and that his\nold age, otherwise so august and serene, is darkened by this fear. He\nis afraid lest M. de Goulet should, so to say, attract this nomination\nto himself, as much by his personal merits as by the knowledge that\nhe has acquired of the affairs of the diocese. And His Eminence is\nstill more desirous, and even impatient, to separate himself from his\nvicar-general, since M. de Goulet belongs by birth to the nobility of\nthe district, and through that fact shines with a brilliancy which\nis far too dazzling for Monseigneur Charlot. Since, on the contrary,\nMonseigneur does not rejoice in being the son of an honest artisan who,\nlike Saint Paul, worked at the trade of weaver!\u201d\n\n\u201cYou know, Monsieur Guitrel, that they also talk of M. Lantaigne. He\nis the prot\u00e9g\u00e9 of Madame Cartier de Chalmot. And General Cartier de\nChalmot, although clerical and reactionary, is much respected in\nParis. He is recognised as one of the ablest and most intelligent of\nour generals. Even his opinions, at this moment, are advantageous\nrather than harmful to him. With a ministry disposed to reunion,\nreactionaries get all that they want. They are needed; they give\nthe turn to the scale. And then the Russian alliance and the Czar\u2019s\nfriendship have contributed to restore to the aristocracy and the army\nof our nation a part of their ancient prestige. We are shunting the\nRepublic on to a certain distinction of mind and manners. Moreover, a\ngeneral tendency towards authority and stability is declaring itself.\nI do not, however, believe that M. Lantaigne has great chances. In the\nfirst place, I have reported most unfavourably with regard to him. I\nhave represented him in high places as a militant monarchist. I have\ndescribed his uncompromising ways, his cross-grained temperament.\nAnd I have painted a sympathetic portrait of you, my dear Guitrel. I\nhave shown off your moderation, your pliancy, your politic mind, your\nrespect for republican institutions.\u201d\n\n\u201cI am very grateful to you for your kindness, monsieur _le pr\u00e9fet_. And\nwhat did they reply?\u201d\n\n\u201cYou want to know that. Well! they replied: \u2018We know such candidates as\nyour M. Guitrel. Once nominated, they are worse than the others. They\nshow more zeal against us. That is easily accounted for. They have\nmore to beg pardon for of their own party.\u2019\u201d\n\n\u201cIs it possible, monsieur _le pr\u00e9fet_, that they talked like this in\nhigh places?\u201d\n\n\u201cHa! yes. And my interlocutor added this: \u2018I do not like candidates for\nthe episcopacy who show too much zeal for our institutions. If I could\nget a hearing, the choice would be made from among the others. In the\ncivil and political ranks they prefer officials who are most devoted,\nmost attached to the government. Nothing can be better. But there are\nno priests devoted to the Republic. In this case, the wise thing is\nalways to take the most honest men.\u2019\u201d\n\nAnd the _pr\u00e9fet_, throwing the chewed end of his cigar into the middle\nof the floor, finished with these words:\n\n\u201cYou see, my poor Guitrel, that your affairs are not making headway.\u201d\n\nM. Guitrel stammered:\n\n\u201cI do not see, Monsieur _le pr\u00e9fet_, I do not perceive anything, in\nsuch speeches, that is calculated to produce in you this impression of\n\u2026 discouragement. On the contrary, I should rather derive from it a\nsentiment of\u00a0\u2026 confidence.\u00a0\u2026\u201d\n\nM. _le pr\u00e9fet_ Worms-Clavelin lit a cigar and said with a laugh:\n\n\u201cWho knows whether they are not right, at the bureaux?\u00a0\u2026 But reassure\nyourself, my dear abb\u00e9, I do not abandon you. Let\u2019s see, whom have we\non our side?\u201d\n\nHe opened his left hand, in order to count on his fingers.\n\nThey both considered.\n\nThey found a senator of the department who was beginning to emerge\nfrom the difficulties into which the recent scandals had plunged him,\na retired general, politician, publicist and financier, the bishop of\nEcbatana, well known in the artistic world, and Th\u00e9ophile Mayer, the\nfriend of the ministers.\n\n\u201cBut, my dear Guitrel,\u201d cried the _pr\u00e9fet_, \u201cyou have only the rag-tag\nand bobtail on your side.\u201d\n\nAbb\u00e9 Guitrel endured these manners, but he did not like them. He\nlooked at the _pr\u00e9fet_ with a saddened air and pressed his sinuous\nlips together. M. Worms-Clavelin, who had no spite, regretted the\nplayfulness of his words and took pains to console the old man:\n\n\u201cCome! come! they are by no means the worst protectors. Besides, my\nwife is for you. And No\u00e9mi by herself is well able to make a bishop.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n  [Illustration]\n\n  THE WORKS OF\n  ANATOLE FRANCE\n\n  IN AN ENGLISH\n  TRANSLATION EDITED\n  BY THE LATE FREDERIC\n  CHAPMAN, J. LEWIS MAY\n  AND BERNARD MIALL\n\n  Uniform, Demy 8vo.\n\n  7/6 net\n\n  $2.50 net\n  per volume.\n\n  LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD.\n  NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY.\n\n\n\n\nANATOLE FRANCE\n\n\n\u201cI do not believe that Thorfin Karlsefne was more astonished and\ndelighted when he discovered America than I was when, in my sixtieth\nyear, this great literary luminary sailed into my ken.\u00a0\u2026 I have three\ngood reasons for writing about Anatole France. I want to help the\nBritish people to enjoy his work; I want them to accord to the great\nFrenchman the full justice which I feel he has not yet received in\nthis country; and I want to ease my soul by some expression of my own\ngratitude and admiration.\u00a0\u2026 Of all the famous or popular men alive upon\nthis planet Anatole France is to me the greatest. There is no writer\nto compare to him, and he has few peers amongst the greatest geniuses\nof past ages and all climes.\u00a0\u2026 \u2018Penguin Island\u2019 is a masterpiece and a\nclassic. It is, in my opinion, a greater work than \u2018Gargantua\u2019 or \u2018Don\nQuixote\u2019 or \u2018Sartor Resartus\u2019 or \u2018Tristram Shandy.\u2019\u00a0\u2026 The laughing,\nmocking, learned and dissolute Abb\u00e9 Coignard is one of the greatest\ncreations of human genius. If it will not sound too audacious I will\nventure to claim that there is no character in Rabelais, Cervantes,\nDickens, or Sterne to equal the Abb\u00e9 Coignard, and, with the exception\nof the miraculous Hamlet, there is nothing greater in Shakespeare.\nThese be \u2018brave words.\u2019 I am writing of one of the world\u2019s greatest\nartists and humorists: of Anatole France, the Master.\u00a0\u2026 Then there\nis the great scene of the banquet in the house of Monsieur de la\nGeritande, which I have read fifty times, and hope to read a hundred\ntimes again. The whole chapter is one of the most artistic, humorous,\nhuman, and exhilarating achievements in literature. It is alive; it\nis real; it goes like a song. There is nothing finer or stronger in\nthe best comedy work of Shakespeare.\u00a0\u2026 Anatole France is a great man,\nand there is no living celebrity for whom I have so much reverence and\nregard.\u201d\u2014ROBERT BLATCHFORD in the _Sunday Chronicle_.\n\n\n\n\n  [N]THE RED LILY\n    A TRANSLATION BY WINIFRED STEPHENS\n\n  MOTHER OF PEARL\n    A TRANSLATION BY FREDERIC CHAPMAN\n\n  THE GARDEN OF EPICURUS\n    A TRANSLATION BY ALFRED ALLINSON\n\n  [N]THE CRIME OF SYLVESTRE BONNARD\n    A TRANSLATION BY LAFCADIO HEARN\n\n  THE WELL OF ST. CLARE\n    A TRANSLATION BY ALFRED ALLINSON\n\n  BALTHASAR\n    A TRANSLATION BY MRS. JOHN LAMB\n\n  [N]THAIS\n    A TRANSLATION BY ROBERT BRUCE DOUGLAS\n\n  THE WHITE STONE\n    A TRANSLATION BY C. E. ROCHE\n\n  [N]PENGUIN ISLAND\n    A TRANSLATION BY A. W. EVANS\n\n  THE MERRIE TALES OF JACQUES TOURNEBROCHE.\n    A TRANSLATION BY ALFRED ALLINSON\n\n  THE ELM TREE OF THE MALL\n    A TRANSLATION BY M. P. WILLCOCKS\n\n  THE WICKER-WORK WOMAN\n    A TRANSLATION BY M. P. WILLCOCKS\n\n  ON LIFE AND LETTERS. 2 Vols. First and\n    Second Series. A TRANSLATION BY A. W. EVANS\n\n  AT THE SIGN OF THE REINE PEDAUQUE\n    A TRANSLATION BY MRS WILFRID JACKSON\n\n  THE ASPIRATIONS OF JEAN SERVIEN\n    A TRANSLATION BY ALFRED ALLINSON\n\n  JOCASTA AND THE FAMISHED CAT\n    A TRANSLATION BY MRS. FARLEY\n\n  MY FRIEND\u2019S BOOK\n    A TRANSLATION BY J. LEWIS MAY\n\n  THE GODS ARE ATHIRST\n    A TRANSLATION BY ALFRED ALLINSON\n\n  THE OPINIONS OF JEROME COIGNARD\n    A TRANSLATION BY MRS. WILFRID JACKSON\n\n  THE REVOLT OF THE ANGELS\n    A TRANSLATION BY MRS WILFRID JACKSON\n\n  CRAINQUEBILLE\n    A TRANSLATION BY WINIFRED STEPHENS\n\n  PIERRE NOZI\u00c8RE\n    A TRANSLATION BY J. LEWIS MAY\n\n  THE AMETHYST RING\n    A TRANSLATION BY BERENGERE DRILLIEN\n\n  THE BRIDE OF CORINTH and other Plays\n    A TRANSLATION BY EMILIE AND WILFRID JACKSON\n\n  THE SEVEN WIVES OF BLUEBEARD\n    A TRANSLATION BY D. B. STEWART\n\n\n  _Also uniform in size_:\n\n  JOAN OF ARC\n    A TRANSLATION BY WINIFRED STEPHENS. With eight illustrations\n    Two vols. 25s. net\n\n\n  _IN PREPARATION_\n\n  LITTLE PIERRE\n    A TRANSLATION BY J. LEWIS MAY\n\n  M. BERGERET IN PARIS\n    A TRANSLATION BY J. LEWIS MAY\n\n  CLIO and THE CHATEAU DE VAUX LE\n    VICOMTE. A TRANSLATION BY WINIFRED STEPHENS\n\n  A COMIC STORY\n    A TRANSLATION BY C. E. ROCHE\n\n  LE G\u00c9NIE LATIN\n    A TRANSLATION BY WILFRID JACKSON\n\n  ON LIFE AND LETTERS\n    Third Series. A TRANSLATION BY D. B. STEWART\n\n  ON LIFE AND LETTERS\n    Fourth Series. A TRANSLATION BY BERNARD MIALL\n\n  [N] _Also Cheap Edition, with Illustrated Coloured Wrapper,\n      1s. net each._\n\n  JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD, VIGO ST., W.\n\n\n\n\nTranscriber\u2019s Note:\n\nHyphenation, spelling, accents and punctuation have been\nretained as they appear in the original publication except\nas follows:\n\n  Page 10\n    M Lantaigne, principal of the high _changed to_\n    M. Lantaigne, principal of the high\n\n  Page 20\n    Abbe Lantaigne, head of the high seminary _changed to_\n    Abb\u00e9 Lantaigne, head of the high seminary\n\n  Page 37\n    of the proper of the saint. _changed to_\n    of the proper of the saint.\u201d\n\n  Page 66\n    at all, our Archbishop. _changed to_\n    at all, our Archbishop.\u201d\n\n  Page 79\n    M _le Pr\u00e9fet_ Worms-Clavelin _changed to_\n    M. _le Pr\u00e9fet_ Worms-Clavelin\n\n  Page 118\n    should come in 189\u2013 _changed to_\n    Should come in 189\u2013\n\n  Page 125\n    M Paillot was the bookseller _changed to_\n    M. Paillot was the bookseller\n\n  Page 123\n    he may make fun o _changed to_\n    he may make fun of\n\n  Page 219\n    They are capital.\u2019 _changed to_\n    They are capital.\u201d","title":"The Elm-tree on the Mall","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":50904}