en
beyond the tomb.

The saints, themselves, fall into all the little meannesses so common with
the most ordinary sinners. Like candidates who solicit the votes of the mob
in order to gain power, and make the most brilliant promises which they
hasten to forget as soon as they have climbed the stairs, so the candidates
for canonization perform marvels at first, but once admitted into the
seventh heaven, they appear to trouble themselves no more concerning lowly
mortals.

Or perhaps miraculous properties are like all other faculties, as they grow
old they become worn-out, and an _elect_ who has stoutly brought the dead
to life when he was only an aspirant for honours, is now only capable of
curing the ringworm.

But, as I have said, it was a zealous candidate that the Abbe Ridoux had in
his church. His bones had been there for fifty years, and as the longed-for
time for his canonization had not yet arrived, and he had as yet only the
rank of _blessed_, his zeal had not grown cold.

Each saint, we all know, has his medical speciality, like Ricord, for
instance, or Dr. Ollivier.

Suppose you are suffering from ophthalmia, and instead of consulting a
physician, you pray to God, in hopes that God will cure you.

You are wrong, that does not concern God. It is the business of St. Claire,
who has the principal management of the sight of the faithful.

You are paralyzed, and you commend yourself to your patron saint. "You must
not address yourself to me, that one answers. Go to the other office. See
St. Marcel (or _Marchel_), to make the impotent walk is entrusted to him."

And so one after another:

St. Cloud cures the boils; St. Cornet, the deaf; St. Denis, anemia; St.
Marcou, diseases in the neck; St. Eutropus, the dropsy; St. Aignan, the
ringworm, and it is generally admitted that we ought to pray on All Saints
Day to be preserved from a cough.[2]

And observe how the good people of France are always the most enlightened
and intelligent people in the universe!

The speciality of Monsieur Ridoux's candidate was broken legs, girls in
complaints of childhood, and fluxes of the womb. That was what he healed,
but he must not be asked for anything else; besides fluxes of the womb,
sprains, and girls in complaints of childhood, he did not attend to
anything.

That is conceivable; one cannot do everything.

It is quite unnecessary to state that he did not give all his consultations
free, and that he did not work for