"But I should have foreseen!" he answered, wringing his hands openly. "I should have known that God's first gift to man was Order. Order, and to-day, in Cahors, there is no tribunal, or none that acts: the old magistrates are afraid, and the old laws are spurned, and no man can even recover a debt! Order, and the worst thing a criminal, thrown into prison, has now to fear is that he may be forgotten. Order, and I see arms everywhere, and men who cannot read teaching those who can, and men who pay no taxes disposing of the money of those who do! I see famine in the town, and the farmers and the peasants killing game or folding their hands; for who will work when the future is uncertain? I see the houses of the rich empty, and their servants starving; I see all trade, all commerce, all buying and selling, except of the barest necessaries, at an end! I see all these things, M. le Vicomte, and shall I not say, 'Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa'?"
"But liberty," I said feebly. "You once said yourself that a certain price must----"
"Is liberty licence to do wrong?" he answered with passion--seldom had I seen him so moved. "Is liberty licence to rob and blaspheme, and move your neighbour's landmark? Does tyranny cease to be tyranny, when the tyrants are no longer one, but a thousand? M. le Vicomte, I know not what to do, I know not what to do," he continued. "For a little I would go out into the world, and at all costs unsay what I have said, undo what I have done! I would! I would indeed!"
"Something more has happened?" I said, startled by this outbreak. "Something I have not heard?"
"The Assembly took away our tithes and our estates!" he answered bitterly. "That you know. They denied our existence as a Church. That you know. They have now decreed the suppression of all religious houses. Presently they will close also our churches and cathedrals. And we shall be pagans!"
"Impossible!" I said.
"But it is true."
"The suppression, yes. But for the churches and cathedrals----"
"Why not?" he answered despondently. "God knows there is little faith abroad. I fear it will come. I see it coming. The greater need--that we who believe should testify."
I did not quite understand at the time what he meant or would be at, or what he had in his mind; but I saw that his scrupulous nature was tormented by the thought that he had hastened the catastrophe; and I felt uneasy when he did not appear next day at his usual time for visiting me. On the following day he came; but was downcast and taciturn, taking leave of me when he went with a sad kindness that almost made me call him back. The next day again he did not appear; nor the day after that. Then I sent for him, but too late; I sent, only to learn from his old housekeeper that he had left home suddenly, after arranging with a neighbouring curé to have his duties performed for a month.