In order to make a diversion, he drew out from a pocket of his great-coat a roll of parchment which he opened on the counter. It was a large page of plain-chant, with Gothic text under the four-line divisions, with rubrics and a decorated initial.
The préfet fixed his great, lamp-globe eyes on the page. Rondonneau junior, stretching out his rosy bald head, said:
“The miniature in the initial is rather fine. It’s Saint Agatha, isn’t it?”
“The martyrdom of Saint Agatha,” said M. Guitrel. “Here are seen the executioners torturing the breasts of the saint.”
And he added in a voice which flowed as sweetly as thick syrup:
“According to authentic records, such was in fact the torment inflicted on Saint Agatha of blessed memory by the proconsul. A page from an antiphonary, Monsieur le préfet—a trifle, a mere trifle, which perhaps will find a little niche in the collections of Madame Worms-Clavelin, so devoted to our Christian antiquities. This page gives us a fragment of the proper of the saint.”
And he deciphered the Latin text, marking the tonic accent energetically:
“Dum torqueretur beata Agata in mamillâ graviter dixit ad judicem: ‘Impie, crudelis et dire tyranne, non es confusus amputare in feminâ quod ipse in matre suxisti? Ego habeo mamillas integras intus in animâ quas Domino consecravi.’”[D]
[D] “While the blessed Agatha was being cruelly tortured in the breast, she said to the judge: ‘Oh, wicked, cruel, and savage tyrant, art thou not ashamed to mutilate in a woman that with which your mother fed you? Within my soul I have breasts undesecrated which I have sanctified to God.’”
The préfet, who was a graduate, half understood, and in his desire to appear Gallic, remarked that it was piquant.