“They are good Church people, Monseigneur, and tend more to the Belgian form of Catholicism than to the French.”
“Yes, yes, I know. M. Duclou, the late lamented Bishop of Tourcoing, told me one day in Rome that he had only one fault to find with his flock: they drank beer. He used to say that if they would only drink the light wines of Orleans, they would be the most perfect Christians in the world, but the juice of the hop filled them with its melancholy and bitterness.”
“Monseigneur, allow me to say one thing: Monseigneur Duclou was both weak and brainless. He never brought out the energetic qualities of the sturdy northerners under his care. He was not a bad man, but his dislike of evil was only moderate. The Catholic town of Tourcoing must shine out on the whole of the Catholic world. Should His Holiness judge me worthy to fill the seat of the blessed St. Loup, I swear in ten years’ time to have won all hearts by the sacred energy of good works; to have stolen back all the souls gone over to the enemy and to re-establish around me the oneness of belief. In the depths of her innermost soul, France is Christian, and only needs energetic leaders. The Church is dying from sheer inanition.”
Monseigneur Cima rose from his chair, and held out to Abbé Lantaigne his golden ring, saying:
“You must go to Rome, M. l’Abbé, you must go to Rome!”
CHAPTER XVII
The drawing-room of the house in the grey Batignolles quarter was humble, the only decorations being copies of the engravings in the Louvre, little statues, cups and dishes of Sèvres china, trivial-looking ornaments, which somehow proclaimed the fact that the lady of the house was connected with Government officials.
Madame Cheiral, née Loyer, was the sister of the Minister of Justice and Public Worship. She was the widow of a commission-agent in the Rue d’Hauteville, who had died without leaving a penny, and she had attached herself to her brother, partly for the sake of a home, and partly out of maternal ambition. She ruled the old bachelor, who ruled the country, and had forced him to take as his secretary-in-chief her son Maurice, who was not fitted for anything in particular, and was good for nothing except some public office.