"'Yes, father,' she replied, 'but I don't want to get married yet.'
"Pressed with questions on this strange caprice, she finally confessed her girlish idea. She wanted to wait, hoping that a day would come when she could get married, and have her union blessed in the church. My first burst of anger having passed, I cannot tell you all the fine reasons she gave me to obtain from me a thing so contrary to my rule of conduct. The marriage of her dead mother had been performed in the church; her memory required that pious action; she would not think herself married if it was not at the foot of the altar; she would prefer to remain single the rest of her days.
"She said so much, mingling her entreaties and tears with it all, that she vanquished me. She even showed me the retreat which a few days ago I would not have discovered with impunity to you all. I have come to seek thee out, and now I ask thee: Thou hast before thee thy persecutor: wilt thou bless according to thy rite, the marriage of his daughter?"
The worthy priest replied:—
"My ministry knows neither rancor nor exclusion; I am glad, besides, for what you ask of me; only one thing grieves me, and that is that the father should be hostile to his daughter's design."
"Thou mistakest: I understand all sentiments. That of a girl who wants to be married as her mother was, seems to me to be deserving of respect, and just now, I saw, there is something touching which I cannot explain in your ceremonies, and it has made me better understand her thought."
A few days later the same back shop contained a few intimate and conciliating friends who were attending a wedding. We need not say that from that day, whether through change of principles or through gratitude, the member of the revolutionary government was secretly the protector of the little church which could live on in peace, unknown to its persecutors.