"Don't know him," returned the abbé.
Foureau hastened to explain: "He is from Caen. I have seen him at the Prefecture."
"But if your Deluge," Bouvard broke in again, "had sent shells drifting, they would be found broken on the surface, and not at depths of three hundred metres sometimes."
The priest fell back on the truth of the Scriptures, the tradition of the human race, and the animals discovered in the ice in Siberia.
"That does not prove that man existed at the time they did."
The earth, in Pécuchet's view, was much older. "The delta of the Mississippi goes back to tens of thousands of years. The actual epoch is a hundred thousand, at least. The lists of Manetho——"
The Count de Faverges appeared on the scene. They were all silent at his approach.
"Go on, pray. What were you talking about?"
"These gentlemen are wrangling with me," replied the abbé.
"About what?"