Meanwhile, a group of grave men were talking politics in the parlour. There had been a stormy sitting of the Senate the day before, where they were discussing the address respecting the Roman question; and Doctor Juillerat, whose opinions were atheistical and revolutionary, was maintaining that Rome ought to be given to the king of Italy; whilst the Abbé Mauduit, one of the heads of the Ultramontane party prophesied the most awful catastrophes, if Frenchmen did not shed the last drop of their blood in supporting the temporal power of the pope.
“Perhaps some modus vivendi may be found which will prove acceptable to both parties,” observed Léon Josserand arriving.
He was just then the secretary of a celebrated barrister, one of the deputies of the left. During two years, having nothing to expect from his parents, whose mediocrity moreover exasperated him, he had frequented the students’ quarter in the guise of a ferocious demagogue. But, since his acquaintance with the Dambrevilles, at whose expense he was satisfying his first appetites, he was calming down, and drifting into the learned Republican.
“No, no agreement is possible,” said the priest. “The Church could not make terms.”
“Then, it shall vanish!” exclaimed the doctor.
And, though great friends, having met at the bedsides of all the departing souls of the Saint-Roch district, they seemed irreconcilable, the doctor thin and nervous, the priest fat and affable. The latter preserved a polite smile, even when making his most absolute statements, like a man of the world, tolerant for the shortcomings of existence, but also like a Catholic who did not intend to abandon any of his religions belief.
“The Church vanish, pooh!” said Campardon with a furious air, just to be well with the priest, from whom he was expecting a large order.
Besides, it was the opinion of almost all the gentlemen: it could not vanish. Théophile Vabre, who, coughing and spitting, and shaking with fever, dreamed of universal happiness through the organization of a humanitarian republic, alone maintained that, perhaps, it would be transformed.
The priest resumed in his gentle voice:
“The Empire is committing suicide. You will see it is so, next year, when the elections come on.”