“I am only making a little sketch of the church,” I deigned to explain.
“Est-ce que je vous gêne, Madame?” said the “clod,” deprecatingly. “If so, I will go. I am an ignorant peasant and I never, until now, saw a picture make itself.”
Upon receiving permission to remain, he lowered his scythe and stood leaning upon it, while the poor little picture “made itself.” To put him at his ease, I asked who built the church.
“M. Voltaire. My grandfather has told me of him.”
“What of him?”
“That he built Ferney and would have made of it a great city—much finer than Geneva—perhaps as grand as Paris. Who knows? And free, Madame! He would have had all the people hereabouts”—waving his hand to indicate a circuit of miles—“free, and learnèd, and happy. He was a wise man—this M. Voltaire! un si bon Protestant!”
“Protestant!”
“Mais, oui, parfaitement, Madame! He hated the priests. He succored many distressed Protestants. He was, without doubt, a good Christian.”
I recollected Calas and Sirven, and refrained from polemics.