l quantity of gold.

Accordingly, the pitiful wrapper of the Abbe Ridoux covered an excellent
soul. With his ugly face and his old stained cassock, he reminded me of
those dirty bottles, coated with spider-webs and dust, which we place
daintily on the table on days of rejoicing, and which lord it majestically
among the glittering decanters, soon to be despised, when their dusty sides
appear.

Thus Monsieur Ridoux lorded it amongst his curates, younger, handsomer,
fresher, more tasty than himself, and eclipsed them by all the brilliancy
of his good-sense, his tact, and his experience.

He had certainly his little failings!... Who can say that he is exempt from
them? But his mind was sound. A good companion, besides, and of a cheerful
disposition. "We have reached a period," he used to say, "when the priest
must lay aside the stern front and the anathema. There is already much to
obtain pardon for in the colour of his robe. Let us be cheerful, let us be
insinuating, let us be compassionate to human weaknesses. Let us sin, if
need be, with discretion and propriety; but, in heaven's name, let us not
terrify. Let us promise paradise to all. There are always plenty enough
whose life is a hell."

In that he was not of Veuillot's opinion, that rigid saint, who wished to
see all the world damned for the love of God.

Therefore, on seeing this cheerful countenance, this openness of manner,
this freedom of speech, this unrestrained good-nature, even those who had
been warned, could not help saying: "Well indeed! this Cure has a pleasant
phiz!"

Slanderous tongues, Voltairians--who is sheltered from the stings of that
race of vipers?--slanderous tongues affirmed that beneath this Rabelaisian
exterior, he was profoundly vicious, artful, and hypocritical. Marcel, who
had been brought up by him, and was acquainted with the most secret details
of his inmost life, has always assured me that he was nothing of the kind,
and that his uncle Ridoux, endowed with the ugliness of Socrates, had also
his wisdom.

Nevertheless, I would not dare to assert that he did not like to pinch the
young girls' chins, especially of those who had made their first communion
and were near to the marriageable age; a familiarity which, thanks to his
gray hairs, and the development of his abdomen, he thought was permitted
him, but which, however, is not always without danger.

Cazotte, a wise man, used to say to his daughters: "When you are alone with
yo