cardinals, fifty patriarchs, sixteen hundred archbishops, four
thousand six hundred bishops, four emperors, twelve empresses, forty-six
kings, forty-one queens, three thousand six hundred canonized saints,
and has been in existence for fourteen hundred years. On one side Saint
Bernard, on the other the agent of the sanitary department! On one side
Saint Benoit, on the other the inspector of public ways! The state,
the road commissioners, the public undertaker, regulations, the
administration, what do we know of all that? There is not a chance
passer-by who would not be indignant to see how we are treated. We
have not even the right to give our dust to Jesus Christ! Your sanitary
department is a revolutionary invention. God subordinated to the
commissary of police; such is the age. Silence, Fauvent!"

Fauchelevent was but ill at ease under this shower bath. The prioress
continued:--

"No one doubts the right of the monastery to sepulture. Only fanatics
and those in error deny it. We live in times of terrible confusion. We
do not know that which it is necessary to know, and we know that which
we should ignore. We are ignorant and impious. In this age there exist
people who do not distinguish between the very great Saint Bernard and
the Saint Bernard denominated of the poor Catholics, a certain good
ecclesiastic who lived in the thirteenth century. Others are so
blasphemous as to compare the scaffold of Louis XVI. to the cross of
Jesus Christ. Louis XVI. was merely a king. Let us beware of God! There
is no longer just nor unjust. The name of Voltaire is known, but not
the name of Cesar de Bus. Nevertheless, Cesar de Bus is a man of blessed
memory, and Voltaire one of unblessed memory. The last arch-bishop,
the Cardinal de Perigord, did not even know that Charles de
Gondren succeeded to Berulle, and Francois Bourgoin to Gondren,
and Jean-Francois Senault to Bourgoin, and Father Sainte-Marthe to
Jean-Francois Senault. The name of Father Coton is known, not because
he was one of the three who urged the foundation of the Oratorie, but
because he furnished Henri IV., the Huguenot king, with the material
for an oath. That which pleases people of the world in Saint Francois de
Sales, is that he cheated at play. And then, religion is attacked. Why?
Because there have been bad priests, because Sagittaire, Bishop of Gap,
was the brother of Salone, Bishop of Embrun, and because both of them
followed Mommol. What has that to do with