Thus it may, upon the whole, be said that I have come short in little of my clerical promises.  I have exchanged spirituality for ideality.  I have been truer to my engagements than many priests apparently more regular in their conduct.  In resolutely clinging to the virtues of disinterestedness, politeness, and modesty in a world to which they are not applicable I have shown how very simple I am.  I have never courted success; I may almost say that it is distasteful to me.  The pleasure of living and of working is quite enough for me.  Whatever may be egotistical in this way of engaging the pleasure of existence is neutralized by the sacrifices which I believe that I have made for the public good.  I have always been at the orders of my country; at the first sign from it, in 1869, I placed myself at its disposal.  I might perhaps have rendered it some service; the country did not think so, but I have done my part.  I have never flattered the errors of public opinion; and I have been so careful not to lose a single opportunity of pointing out these errors, that superficial persons have regarded me as wanting in patriotism.  One is not called upon to descend to charlatanism or falsehood to obtain a mandate, the main condition of which is independence and sincerity.  Amidst the public misfortunes which may be in store for us, my conscience will, therefore, be quite at rest.

All things considered, I should not, if I had to begin my life over again, with the right of making what erasures I liked, change anything.  The defects of my nature and education have, by a sort of benevolent Providence, been so attenuated and reduced as to be of very little moment.  A certain apparent lack of frankness in my relations with them is forgiven me by my friends, who attribute it to my clerical education.  I must admit that in the early part of my life I often told untruths, not in my own interest, but out of good-nature and indifference, upon the mistaken idea which always induces me to take the view of the person with whom I may be conversing.  My sister depicted to me in very vivid colours the drawbacks involved in acting like this, and I have given up doing so.  I am not aware of having told a single untruth since 1851, with the exception, of course, of the harmless stories and polite fibs which all casuists permit, as also the literary evasions which, in the interests of a higher truth, must be used to make up a well-poised phrase, or to avoid a still greater misfortune—­that of stabbing an author.  Thus, for instance, a poet brings you some verses.  You must say that they are admirable, for if you said less it would be tantamount to describing them as worthless, and to inflicting a grievous insult upon a man who intended to show you a polite attention.