t the Treguier College just then. Most of the students
who did not belong to the town boarded in private houses, and their
parents used to bring them in on market day their provisions for
the week. I remember one of these houses, close to our own, in which
several of my fellow-students lodged. The mistress of it, who was an
indefatigable housewife, died, and her husband, who at the best of
times was no genius, drowned what little he had in the cider-cup every
evening. A little servant-maid, who was wonderfully intelligent, took
the whole burden upon her shoulders. The young students determined to
help her, and so the house went on despite the old tippler. I always
heard my comrades speak very highly of this little servant, who was
a model of virtue and who was gifted, moreover, with a very pleasing
face.

The fact is that, according to my experience, all the allegations
against the morality of the clergy are devoid of foundation. I passed
thirteen years of my life under the charge of priests, and I never saw
anything approaching to a scandal; all the priests I have known have
been good men. Confession may possibly be productive of evil in
some countries, but I never saw anything of the sort during my
ecclesiastical experience. The old-fashioned book which I used for
making my examinations of conscience was innocence itself. There was
only one sin which excited my curiosity and made me feel uneasy. I
was afraid that I might have been guilty of it unawares. I mustered
up courage enough, one day, to ask my confessor what was meant by the
phrase: "To be guilty of simony in the collation of benefices." The
good priest reassured me and told me that I could not have committed
that sin.

Persuaded by my teachers of two absolute truths, the first, that no
one who has any respect for himself can engage in any work that is not
ideal--and that all the rest is secondary, of no importance, not to
say shameful, _ignominia seculi_--and the second, that Christianity
embodies everything which is ideal, I could not do otherwise than
regard myself as destined for the priesthood. This thought was not the
result of reflection, impulse, or reasoning. It came so to speak, of
itself. The possibility of a lay career never so much as occurred
to me. Having adopted with the utmost seriousness and docility the
principles of my teachers, and having brought myself to consider all
commercial and mercenary pursuits as inferior and degrading, and only