It was thus, after much debating with himself, that Monsieur l'Abbé Jacques Picot came to live in the old-fashioned home of the many pillars.
CHAPTER NINE
THE CHILD IS FATHER TO THE MAN
Monsieur l'Abbé Jacques Picot, in the old home of many pillars, sat in the library at his desk writing his memoirs. He was dressed with unusual neatness in the garb of a French priest. His closely cropped hair showed a well-shaped head, while his face, freshly shaven, presented strikingly interesting features. His mouth was big and amiable, his lips full yet firmly set, his nose almost too large, and his prominent lower jaw bespoke a strong will. It was a pair of humorous gray eyes, twinkling in irrepressible goodwill, that lighted and relieved a countenance which otherwise might have appeared unduly severe.... Can you imagine the disciple Peter with the eyes of Rabelais? Had he been a saint he would have been Francis of Assisi.
The room in which he wrote was filled with books and manuscripts. The library, upon closer inspection, would have shown that it was largely given to general literature. Subjects upon theology were conspicuously absent. The tastes of the owner were evidenced by the volumes upon the table. Poems by Ronsard; Rabelais' "Les Faits et Dicts Heroisques du Bon Pantegruel," "Twelfth Night" by Shakespeare, and "The Life and Adventures of Guzman d'Alfarache" by Mateo Aleman.
As he wrote in a memorandum evidently intended for amplification later, then to be placed in the memoirs, he smiled as if taking a whimsical joy in what he recorded.
This is what Monsieur l'Abbé wrote: