e is good-natured and knows how to
remember her old friends. You will have therefore to be amiable,
insinuating, respectful, assiduous. You might even tell her that she is
charming, and that one sees she has been very pretty; which is true. Old
ladies dote on young people, and devout old ladies on young priests,
especially on those with a figure and face like yours. "The face is
everywhere the first letter of introduction," said Bernardin de
Saint-Pierre, and I assure that with Madame de Montluisant, you will not
require another. Ah, the Comtesse de Montluisant, my friend, there is a
precious soul! What a misfortune that she is a little over-ripe! It is all
the same to you, and if you are wise, you will pass over that defect, which
she amply atones for by her amiable qualities. She has the complete mastery
of Monseigneur. She is the Maintenon of that old Louis XIV. Be to her what
she is to him, and have the mastery of her in your turn. I was talking to
you a little while ago about scruples; for once you must leave them at home
or put them in the bottom of your cassock. _Dixi_! You have understood me I
hope.

--No, uncle, I don't understand you.

--Are you talking seriously?

--I declare, uncle, that I don't understand you.

--_O rara avis in terris_, oh phoenix! oh pearl! you don't understand me!!!
Well, I am come expressly, however, to make myself understood. Must I put
the dots on the i's for you? You don't understand me, you say? Surely, you
are making fun of me. Come, look me straight in the face; in the white of
my eyes ... yes, like that, and dare to tell me that you have not
understood me, and keep serious. Ah, ah, you are laughing, you are
laughing. You see you cannot look at me without laughing.

LXV.

TABLE TALK.

"I allow that it is necessary to be
virtuous in order to be happy, but I
assert that it is necessary to be happy
in order to be virtuous."

CH. LEMESLES (_Tablettes d'un sceptique_).

They sat down to table. It was an excellent meal, and the worthy Ridoux
tried to make it cheerful, but a vague feeling of sorrow oppressed Marcel.

That departure, which he had so eagerly desired before, and the hope of
which he had clung to as one lays hold of a means of safety, he could not
think of without grief, when he saw it near and practicable. Undoubtedly he
would leave without regret this village, where his youth was buried, where
his abilities were rendered unfruitful, where his