pens every
day."

Through the garden gate they saw M. Girbal, superintendent of taxes,
making his way in, together with Captain Heurtaux, a landowner; and
Beljambe, the innkeeper, appeared, assisting with his arm Langlois, the
grocer, who walked with difficulty on account of his catarrh.

Pecuchet, without bestowing a thought on them, took up the argument:

"Excuse me, M. Jeufroy. The weight of the atmosphere, science
demonstrates to us, is equal to that of a mass of water which would make
a covering of ten metres[8] around the globe. Consequently, if all the
air that had been condensed fell down in a liquid state, it would
augment very little the mass of existing waters."

The vestrymen opened their eyes wide, and listened.

The cure lost patience. "Will you deny that shells have been found on
the mountains? What put them there, if not the Deluge? They are not
accustomed, I believe, to grow out of the ground of themselves alone,
like carrots!" And this joke having made the assembly laugh, he added,
pressing his lips together: "Unless this be another discovery of
science!"

Bouvard was pleased to reply by referring to the rising of mountains,
the theory of Elie de Beaumont.

"Don't know him," returned the abbe.

Foureau hastened to explain: "He is from Caen. I have seen him at the
Prefecture."

"But if your Deluge," Bouvard broke in again, "had sent shells drifting,
they would be found broken on the surface, and not at depths of three
hundred metres sometimes."

The priest fell back on the truth of the Scriptures, the tradition of
the human race, and the animals discovered in the ice in Siberia.

"That does not prove that man existed at the time they did."

The earth, in Pecuchet's view, was much older. "The delta of the
Mississippi goes back to tens of thousands of years. The actual epoch
is a hundred thousand, at least. The lists of Manetho----"

The Count de Faverges appeared on the scene. They were all silent at his
approach.

"Go on, pray. What were you talking about?"

"These gentlemen are wrangling with me," replied the abbe.

"About what?"

"About Holy Writ, M. le Comte."

Bouvard immediately pleaded that they had a right, as geologists, to
discuss religion.

"Take care," said the count; "you know the phrase, my dear sir, 'A
little science takes us away from it, a great deal leads us back to
it'?" And in a tone at the same time haughty and paternal: "Believe me,
you will come back to it