"Yes, and I am surprised at it, especially as it is placed in a thoroughly commercial quarter, two paces from the Exchange, whose ignoble shouts can be heard in it."
"It was itself an Exchange," said the abbé.
"In what way?"
"After having been baptized by the monks, and having served as a chapel for the discalced Augustinians, it was horribly desecrated in the Revolution, and the Exchange was set up within its walls."
"I was not aware of that detail," said Durtal.
"But," continued the abbé, "it was with it, as with those holy women, who, if we believe their biographers, recovered by a life of prayer the virginity they had formerly lost. Our Lady washed it from its violation, and though it is comparatively modern, it is at the present day saturated with emanations, infused by effluences of angels, penetrated with divine drugs, it is for sick souls what certain thermal springs are for the body. People keep their season there, make their novenas, and obtain their cure.
"Now to come back to our point; I tell you you will do wisely, if on your bad evenings you will attend Benediction in that church. I shall be surprised if you do not come out cleansed and at peace."
"If he have only that to offer me, it is little enough," thought Durtal. And after a disappointed silence he rejoined,
"But, Monsieur l'Abbé, even were I to visit that sanctuary, and follow the offices in other churches, when temptations assail me, even were I to confess and draw near the Sacraments, how would that advantage me? I should meet as I came out the woman whose very sight inflames my senses, and it would be with me as after my leaving St. Severin all unnerved; the very feeling of tenderness which I had in the chapel would destroy me, and I should fall back into sin."
"What do you know about it?" and the priest suddenly rose, and took long strides through the room.