were thus well-fitted for the little warfare so essential to conversation.  They hated each other’s opinions, but they valued each other’s character.  If such conflicts and such sympathies are not true elements of intimacy we must surely despair of society, which, especially in France, requires some form of antagonism.  It is from the shock of characters, and not from the struggle of opinions, that antipathies are generated.

The Abbe Chaperon became, therefore, the doctor’s chief friend.  This excellent ecclesiastic, then sixty years of age, had been curate of Nemours ever since the re-establishment of Catholic worship.  Out of attachment to his flock he had refused the vicariat of the diocese.  If those who were indifferent to religion thought well of him for so doing, the faithful loved him the more for it.  So, revered by his sheep, respected by the inhabitants at large, the abbe did good without inquiring into the religious opinions of those he benefited.  His parsonage, with scarcely furniture enough for the common needs of life, was cold and shabby, like the lodging of a miser.  Charity and avarice manifest themselves in the same way; charity lays up a treasure in heaven which avarice lays up on earth.  The Abbe Chaperon argued with his servant over expenses even more sharply than Gobseck with his—­if indeed that famous Jew kept a servant at all.  The good priest often sold the buckles off his shoes and his breeches to give their value to some poor person who appealed to him at a moment when he had not a penny.  When he was seen coming out of church with the straps of his breeches tied into the button-holes, devout women would redeem the buckles from the clock-maker and jeweler of the town and return them to their pastor with a lecture.  He never bought himself any clothes or linen, and wore his garments till they scarcely held together.  His linen, thick with darns, rubbed his skin like a hair shirt.  Madame de Portenduere, and other good souls, had an agreement with his housekeeper to replace the old clothes with new ones after he went to sleep, and the abbe did not always find out the difference.  He ate his food off pewter with iron forks and spoons.  When he received his assistants and sub-curates on days of high solemnity (an expense obligatory on the heads of parishes) he borrowed linen and silver from his friend the atheist.

“My silver is his salvation,” the doctor would say.

These noble deeds, always accompanied by spiritual encouragement, were done with a beautiful naivete.  Such a life was all the more meritorious because the abbe was possessed of an erudition that was vast and varied, and of great and precious faculties.  Delicacy and grace, the inseparable accompaniments of simplicity, lent charm to an elocution that was worthy of a prelate.  His manners, his character, and his habits gave to his intercourse with others the most exquisite savor of all that is most spiritual, most sincere in the