“That is curious—a young Parisian exquisite at prayer—that is worth seeing. Let us enter, too, Savarin.”
They enter the church. It is filled, and even the sceptical De Breze is impressed and awed by the sight. An intense fervour pervades the congregation. The majority, it is true, are women, many of them in deep mourning, and many of their faces mourning deeper than the dress. Everywhere may be seen gushing tears, and everywhere faintly heard the sound of stifled sighs. Besides the women are men of all ages—young, middle-aged, old, with heads bowed and hands clasped, pale, grave, and earnest. Most of them were evidently of the superior grade of life—nobles, and the higher bourgeoisie: few of the ouvrier class, very few, and these were of an earlier generation. I except soldiers, of whom there were many, from the provincial Mobiles, chiefly Bretons; you know the Breton soldiers by the little cross worn on their kepis.
Among them Lemercier at once distinguished the noble countenance of Alain de Rochebriant. De Breze and Savarin looked at each other with solemn eyes. I know not when either had last been within a church; perhaps both were startled to find that religion still existed in Paris—and largely exist it does, though little seen on the surface of society, little to be estimated by the articles of journals and the reports of foreigners. Unhappily, those among whom it exists are not the ruling class—are of the classes that are dominated over and obscured in every country the moment the populace becomes master. And at that moment the journals chiefly read were warring more against the Deity than the Prussians—were denouncing soldiers who attended mass. “The Gospel certainly makes a bad soldier,” writes the patriot Pyat.
Lemercier knelt down quietly. The other two men crept noiselessly out, and stood waiting for him on the steps, watching the Moblots (Parisian Moblots) at play.
“I should not wait for the roturier if he had not promised me a roti,” said the Vicomte de Breze, with a pitiful attempt at the patrician wit of the ancien regime.
Savarin shrugged his shoulders. “I am not included in the invitation,” said he, “and therefore free to depart. I must go and look up a former confrere who was an enthusiastic Red Republican, and I fear does not get so much to eat since he has no longer an Emperor to abuse.”
So Savarin went away. A few minutes afterwards Lemercier emerged from the church with Alain.
CHAPTER XIV.
“I knew I should find you in the Madeleine,” said Lemercier, “and I wished much to know when you had news from Duplessis. He and your fair fiancee are with your aunt still staying at Rochebriant?”