But, as I have said, he was a bad parishioner, a bunch of tare in the field of God, a scabby sheep in the flock of the Lord.

Taking no heed of his religious duties, reading the Siecle, speaking evil of priests and refusing the blessed bread, he was the scandal of the godly and not one of them in the village augured any good of him.

Never did a publican from Belleville or a novice of freemasonry proclaim with so much boldness his contempt for the things which everybody venerates.  He did not uncover himself in presence of funerals, saying he did not want to bow to the dead; he called the church the priests’ bank, the altar a parade of mountebanks, the confessional the antechamber to the brothel.

“That man will perish on the scaffold!” the former Cure of the village cried out one day in righteous indignation.

How had he come by this hatred, vigorous as that which Alcestis demands from virtuous souls against hypocrites and evil-doers?  What had the black-coats done to him?  He did not say, and perhaps he would have been embarrassed to say.  There are certain natures which will love at any price, there are others on the contrary which need to hate.  He was doubtless one of the latter, and he discharged all his excess of gall on the servants of Jesus.

“They are criminals,” he cried, “all without exception, from the first to the last.  Hypocrisy engenders wickedness.  It is a sore which spreads and becomes leprosy.  Everything which touches it catches it.  Those who associate with hypocrites become hypocrites, and then scoundrels, slowly but surely by infection.  That is the logic of the scab.  It is not necessary to dress up in a black gown and to swallow God in public to make a perfect priestling, it is enough to rub against the priest’s cap.  Look at the sacristans, the beadles, the lackeys of the Bishop’s palace, the hirers of chairs, the choir-men, the sellers of tapers, the tradesmen by appointment to the religious houses, the beggar who stretches out his hand to you at the door, and the man who hands you the holy-water sprinkler, have they not all the same hypocritical face, the same cunning, devoutly sanctimonious look?  Well! scratch the skins of the godly and you will find the hide of the scoundrel.”

An honourable man and brutally frank like many old soldiers he had kept in private life the tone and ways of barracks and camps.  As he said himself, he did not mince the truth to anybody, and he repeated readily, without understanding it, the saying of Gonsalvo of Cordova, the great captain, “The cloth of honour should be coarsely woven.”

When one evening, on returning home, he found the card of the Cure, he nearly fell backwards.

—­What, he has had the audacity to come to my house, this holy water merchant.  They have not told him then what I am!

—­Good heavens, I cried, my dear Captain, what has this poor man done to you?