e Middle Ages, so had she
saved the plastic arts, bringing to our own days those marvelous
fabrics and jewelries which the makers of sacred objects spoil to the
best of their ability, without being able to destroy the originally
exquisite form. It followed, then, that there was nothing surprising
in his having bought these old trinkets, in his having, together with
a number of other collectors, purchased such relics from the antique
shops of Paris and the second-hand dealers of the provinces.

But these reasons he evoked in vain. He did not wholly succeed in
convincing himself. He persisted in considering religion as a superb
legend, a magnificent imposture. Yet, despite his convictions, his
scepticism began to be shattered.

This was the singular fact he was obliged to face: he was less
confident now than in childhood, when he had been directly under the
influence of the Jesuits, when their instruction could not be shunned,
when he was in their hands and belonged to them body and soul, without
family ties, with no outside influence powerful enough to counteract
their precepts. Moreover, they had inculcated in him a certain
tendency towards the marvelous which, interned and exercised in the
close quarters of his fixed ideas, had slowly and obscurely developed
in his soul, until today it was blossoming in his solitude, affecting
his spirit, regardless of arguments.

By examining the process of his reasoning, by seeking to unite its
threads and to discover its sources and causes, he concluded that his
previous mode of living was derived from the education he had
received. Thus, his tendencies towards artificiality and his craving
for eccentricity, were no more than the results of specious studies,
spiritual refinements and quasi-theological speculations. They were,
in the last analysis, ecstacies, aspirations towards an ideal, towards
an unknown universe as desirable as that promised us by the Holy
Scriptures.

He curbed his thoughts sharply and broke the thread of his
reflections.

"Well!" he thought, vexed, "I am even more affected than I had
imagined. Here am I arguing with myself like a very casuist!"

He was left pensive, agitated by a vague fear. Certainly, if
Lacordaire's theory were sound, he had nothing to be afraid of, since
the magic touch of conversion is not to be consummated in a moment. To
bring about the explosion, the ground must be constantly and
assiduously mined. But just as the romancers speak