least invoked by
those of our contemporaries who ought to be most assiduous; since he is
regarded in the attributions of special virtues as the patron saint of
idiots."

"Pooh!" cried the Abbe Gevresin. "Why, if ever a man revealed a
magnificent comprehension of things human and divine, it was that great
Abbot and founder of monasteries!"

"Oh! there is no suggestion implied that Saint Columba was feeble of
brain; and as to why the mission was trusted to him rather than another
of protecting the greater part of the human race, I do not know."

"Perhaps he may have cured lunatics and healed those possessed?" the
Abbe Gevresin suggested.

"At any rate," said Durtal, "it would be vain to erect a chapel to him,
since it would always be empty; no one would come to entreat him, poor
saint! for the essential mark of an idiot is not to think himself one!"

"A saint out of work!" remarked Madame Bavoil.

"And who is not likely to find any," said Durtal, as he left them.

CHAPTER XI.

Durtal had begged his housekeeper, Madame Mesurat, to serve his coffee
in his study. He thus hoped to escape having her constantly standing in
front of him, as she did all through his meal, asking him if his
mutton-cutlet were good.

And though that meat had a taste of flannel, Durtal had nodded a sketchy
affirmative, knowing full well that if he ventured on the least comment
he would have to endure an incoherent harangue on all the butchers in
the town.

As soon as this woman, at once servile, despotic, and obsequious, had
placed his cup on the table, he buried his nose in a book, and by his
repellent attitude compelled her to fly.

He knew the book he was turning over almost by heart, for he had often
read it between the hours of service at the cathedral. It was so
entirely sympathetic to him, with its artless faith and ingenuous
enthusiasm, that it was to him like the familiar speech of the Church
itself.

The little volume contained the prayers composed in the fourteenth
century by Gaston Phoebus, Comte de Foix. Durtal had it in two editions,
one printed in the original form of his authentic words and antiquated
spelling, by the Abbe de Madaune; the other modernized, but with great
skill and taste, by Monsieur de la Briere.

Durtal, as he turned the pages, came on such lamentable and humble
prayers as these: "Thou who hast shapened me in my mother's womb, let me
not perish.... Lord, I confess my poverty.... My conscienc