“If we take up the political attitude into which you would force yourself,” he went on, without heeding the lawyer’s remark, “and assume the part of Public Prosecutor of all the ages—for every Government has its public ministry—well, the Catholic religion is infected at its fountain-head by a startling instance of illegal union. In the opinion of King Herod, and of Pilate as representing the Roman Empire, Joseph’s wife figured as an adulteress, since, by her avowal, Joseph was not the father of Jesus. The heathen judge could no more recognize the Immaculate Conception than you yourself would admit the possibility of such a miracle if a new religion should nowadays be preached as based on a similar mystery. Do you suppose that a judge and jury in a police court would give credence to the operation of the Holy Ghost! And yet who can venture to assert that God will never again redeem mankind? Is it any better now than it was under Tiberius?”
“Your argument is blasphemy,” said Monsieur de Clagny.
“I grant it,” said the journalist, “but not with malicious intent. You cannot suppress historical fact. In my opinion, Pilate, when he sentenced Jesus, and Anytus—who spoke for the aristocratic party at Athens—when he insisted on the death of Socrates, both represented established social interests which held themselves legitimate, invested with co-operative powers, and obliged to defend themselves. Pilate and Anytus in their time were not less logical than the public prosecutors who demanded the heads of the sergeants of La Rochelle; who, at this day, are guillotining the republicans who take up arms against the throne as established by the revolution of July, and the innovators who aim at upsetting society for their own advantage under pretence of organizing it on a better footing. In the eyes of the great families of Greece and Rome, Socrates and Jesus were criminals; to those ancient aristocracies their opinions were akin to those of the Mountain; and if their followers had been victorious, they would have produced a little ‘ninety-three’ in the Roman Empire or in Attica.”
“What are you trying to come to, monsieur?” asked the lawyer.
“To adultery!—For thus, monsieur, a Buddhist as he smokes his pipe may very well assert that the Christian religion is founded in adultery; as we believe that Mahomet is an impostor; that his Koran is an epitome of the Old Testament and the Gospels; and that God never had the least intention of constituting that camel-driver His Prophet.”
“If there were many men like you in France—and there are more than enough, unfortunately—all government would be impossible.”
“And there would be no religion at all,” said Madame Piedefer, who had been making strangely wry faces all through this discussion.
“You are paining them very much,” said Bianchon to Lousteau in an undertone. “Do not talk of religion; you are saying things that are enough to upset them.”
“If I were a writer or a romancer,” said Monsieur Gravier, “I should take the side of the luckless husbands. I, who have seen many things, and strange things too, know that among the ranks of deceived husbands there are some whose attitude is not devoid of energy, men who, at a crisis, can be very dramatic, to use one of your words, monsieur,” he said, addressing Etienne.
“You are very right, my dear Monsieur Gravier,” said Lousteau. “I never thought that deceived husbands were ridiculous; on the contrary, I think highly of them—”