“Oh!” answered Abbé Lantaigne in a nasal voice that hissed with scorn, “His Eminence observes, in philosophy at least, the vow of evangelical poverty.”
At the moment when this phrase was lashing the air beneath the quincunxes, a corpulent great-coat, capped by a wide clerical hat, passed in front of the bench.
“Speak lower, monsieur l’abbé,” said the professor; “Abbé Guitrel hears you.”
VIII
M.le Préfet Worms-Clavelin was chatting with Abbé Guitrel in the shop of Rondonneau junior, goldsmith and jeweller. He leant back in an arm-chair and crossed his legs so that the sole of one of his boots stuck up towards the placid old man’s chin.
“Monsieur l’abbé, it is useless for you to speak: you are an enlightened priest; you see in religion a collection of moral precepts, a necessary discipline, and not a set of antiquated dogmas, of mysteries whose absurdity is only too little mysterious.”
As a priest, M. Guitrel had excellent rules of conduct. One of these rules was to avoid scandal and to hold his tongue, rather than expose the truth to the mockery of unbelievers. And, as this precaution agreed with the bent of his character, he observed it scrupulously. But M. le préfet Worms-Clavelin was lacking in discretion. His vast, fleshy nose, his thick lips, seemed like a powerful apparatus of suction and absorption, whilst his receding forehead, above his great pale eyes, betrayed his opposition to all moral delicacy. He persisted, marshalled against Christian dogmas the arguments of the masonic lodges and the literary cafés, and concluded by saying that it was impossible for an intelligent man to believe a word of the Catechism. Then, bringing down his fat, beringed hand on the priest’s shoulder, he said:
“You don’t answer, my dear abbé; you are of my opinion.”