“And she was quite right,” Veronica would have said, “for how can pleasure hurt God.”

LXXXIII.

CONVENTICLE.

  “Je, dist Panurge, me trouve bien
  du conseil des femmes, et mesmement
  de vieilles.”

  RABELAIS (Panurge).

They took a light repast, and it was decided that Marcel should repair to the Palace that very day.

—­There is no time to lose, said the Comtesse.  The Cure of St. Marie is much coveted, and we have competitors in earnest.  There is firstly the Abbe Matou, who is supported by all the fraternity of the Sacred Heart; he is young, active, wheedling and honey-tongued.  He is the man I should choose myself, if I did not know you.  He has had certainly a funny little story formerly with some communicants, but that is passed and gone, and as, after all, he is an intelligent priest and very Ultramontane, Monseigneur would he desirous of nominating him in order to rehabilitate him in public esteem.  He is dangerous.

Now we have little Kock.  He has rendered important services.  But he is the son of an inn-keeper, and he has common manners.  Let us pass him by.  There is yet the Sweet Jesus.  Do you know the sweet Jesus, Abbe Ridoux?

—­Yes, it is the Abbe Simonet.

—­The Abbe Simonet, said Marcel, I know him; we were together at the
Seminary.  Do they call him the sweet Jesus?  He was a terrible lazy fellow.

—­Well, he is not so among the ladies, I assure you They all are madly in love with him.  He confesses the wives of the large and small shop-keepers, and he has enough to do.  The gentry used to go to the Abbe Gobin.  Now he has gone away, what will become of all the sinners of the Old-Town?  Supposing they were all to fall upon that poor Simonet!  It is enough to make one shudder.  Dear Sweet Jesus!  When I see him wandering in the Cathedral with his long fair hair, and his down-cast eyes, I understand the infatuation of the women.  He is nice enough to eat; yes, gentlemen, to eat.  Ah, you do not know as well as we do, how religion gains by young and handsome pastors for its interpreters, and with what rapidity the holy flock increases.  It is an astonishing thing.  I fear that we must strive very hard against the Sweet Jesus.

—­We will strive, said Ridoux.

—­And we will employ every means.  Go, dear Abbe, hasten to Monseigneur’s, he is warned of your visit, and before entering on the struggle, it is well to reconnoitre the ground.  Go, I have good hopes that we shall have St. Marie.