"I do raise a question about it."
"Look rather to history," exclaimed Pécuchet. "Recall to mind the assassinations of kings, the massacres amongst peoples, the dissensions in families, the affliction of individuals."
"And at the same time," added Bouvard, for they mutually excited each other, "this Providence takes care of little birds, and makes the claws of crayfishes grow again. Oh! if by Providence you mean a law which rules everything, I am of the same opinion, and even more so."
"However, sir," said the notary, "there are principles."
"What stuff is that you're talking? A science, according to Condillac, is so much the better the less need it has of them. They do nothing but summarise acquired knowledge, and they bring us back to those conceptions which are exactly the disputable ones."
"Have you, like us," went on Pécuchet, "scrutinised and explored the arcana of metaphysics?"
"It is true, gentlemen—it is true!"
Then the company broke up.
But Coulon, drawing them aside, told them in a paternal tone that he was no devotee certainly, and that he even hated the Jesuits. However, he did not go as far as they did. Oh, no! certainly not. And at the corner of the green they passed in front of the captain, who, as he lighted his pipe, growled:
"All the same, I do what I like, by God!"