"Do you consider their appearing here a proof that they are religious?" inquired my neighbour with a smile.
"Certainly I do, sir," I replied: "how can I interpret it otherwise?"
"Perhaps not—perhaps to a stranger it must have this appearance; but to a man who knows Paris...." He smiled again very expressively, and, after a short pause, added—"Depend upon it, that if a man of equal talent and eloquence with this Abbé Lacordaire were to deliver a weekly discourse in favour of atheism, these very identical young men would be present to hear him."
"Once they might," said I, "from curiosity: but that they should follow him, as I understand they do, month after month, if what he uttered were at variance with their opinions, seems almost inconceivable."
"And yet it is very certainly the fact," he replied: "whoever can contrive to obtain the reputation of talent at Paris, let the nature of it be of what kind it may, is quite sure that les jeunes gens will resort to hear and see him. They believe themselves of indefeasible right the sole arbitrators of intellectual reputation; and let the direction in which it is shown be as foreign as may be to their own pursuits, they come as a matter of prescriptive right to put their seal upon the aspirant's claim, or to refuse it."
"Then, at least, they acknowledge that the Abbé's words have power, or they would not grant their suffrage to him."
"They assuredly acknowledge that his words have eloquence; but if by power, you mean power of conviction, or conversion, I do assure you that they acknowledge nothing like it. Not only do I believe that these young men are themselves sceptics, but I do not imagine that there is one in ten of them who has the least faith in the Abbé's own orthodoxy."
"But what right have they to doubt it?... Surely he would hardly be permitted to preach at Notre Dame, where the archbishop himself sits in judgment on him, were he otherwise than orthodox?"
"I was at school with him," he replied: "he was a fine sharp-witted boy, and gave very early demonstrations of a mind not particularly given either to credulity, or subservience to any doctrines that he found puzzling."
"I should say that this was the greatest proof of his present sincerity. He doubted as a boy—but as a man he believes."