s it happened, Desplein asked him to
dine with him that day, not at his own house, but at a restaurant. At
dessert Bianchon skilfully contrived to talk of the mass, speaking of it
as mummery and a farce.

"A farce," said Desplein, "which has cost Christendom more blood than
all Napoleon's battles and all Broussais' leeches. The mass is a papal
invention, not older than the sixth century, and based on the _Hoc est
corpus_. What floods of blood were shed to establish the Fete-Dieu, the
Festival of Corpus Christi--the institution by which Rome established
her triumph in the question of the Real Presence, a schism which rent
the Church during three centuries! The wars of the Count of Toulouse
against the Albigenses were the tail end of that dispute. The Vaudois
and the Albigenses refused to recognize this innovation."

In short, Desplein was delighted to disport himself in his most
atheistical vein; a flow of Voltairean satire, or, to be accurate, a
vile imitation of the _Citateur_.

"Hallo! where is my worshiper of this morning?" said Bianchon to
himself.

He said nothing; he began to doubt whether he had really seen his chief
at Saint-Sulpice. Desplein would not have troubled himself to tell
Bianchon a lie, they knew each other too well; they had already
exchanged thoughts on quite equally serious subjects, and discussed
systems de natura rerum, probing or dissecting them with the knife and
scalpel of incredulity.

Three months went by. Bianchon did not attempt to follow the matter up,
though it remained stamped on his memory. One day that year, one of the
physicians of the Hotel-Dieu took Desplein by the arm, as if to question
him, in Bianchon's presence.

"What were you doing at Saint-Sulpice, my dear master?" said he.

"I went to see a priest who has a diseased knee-bone, and to whom the
Duchesse d'Angouleme did me the honor to recommend me," said Desplein.

The questioner took this defeat for an answer; not so Bianchon.

"Oh, he goes to see damaged knees in church!--He went to mass," said the
young man to himself.

Bianchon resolved to watch Desplein. He remembered the day and hour when
he had detected him going into Saint-Sulpice, and resolved to be there
again next year on the same day and at the same hour, to see if he
should find him there again. In that case the periodicity of his
devotion would justify a scientific investigation; for in such a man
there ought to be no direct antagonism of thought and