Chamilly started off to talk with his innumerable constituents in the crowd.
"Let us cross over here, sir, and hear what they have to say about the sermon," proposed Genest.
They crossed to a stone building on the other side of the road, and passed through a group of countrymen into a hall of some length, where sat sunk in a rustic rocking-chair, a singular individual, whose observations seemed to be amusing the crowd.
In appearance, he reminded one of no less remarkable a person than the Devil, for he bore the traditional nose and mouth of that gentleman, and his body was lean as Casca's; but he seemed at worst a Mephistopheles from the extravagance of the delivery of his sarcasms.
The subject of discussion was the sermon.
"Baptême, it is terrible!" exclaimed the cadaverous humorist. "Ever this indigenous Pius IX—fulminating, fulminating, fulminating!—Too much inferno. The curé does half his burning for Beelzebub! We are served in a constant auto-da-fé."
"Heh, heh, heh," creaked an old skin-and-bones, with one tooth visible, which shook as the laugh emerged. Stolid men smoking, deigned to smile.
People seemed prepared to laugh at anything he said.
"What is it that an auto-da-fé is?" a young man demanded from a corner.
"You don't know auto-da-fes?—A dish, my child.—An auto-da-fé is
Liberal broiled."