As soon as she had retired Durtal sat down, then, becoming bored, he went over and began browsing among the books which covered the wall as in his own place.

“Des Hermies certainly has some curious items,” he murmured, opening a very old book.  Here’s a treatise written centuries ago to suit my case exactly. Manuale exorcismorum.  Well, I’ll be damned!  It’s a Plantin.  And what does this manual have to recommend in the treatment of the possessed?

“Hmmm.  Contains some quaint counter-spells.  Here are some for energumens, for the bewitched; here are some against love-philtres and against the plague; against spells cast on comestibles; some, even, to keep butter and milk sweet.  That isn’t odd.  The Devil entered into everything in the good old days.  And what can this be?” In his hand he held two little volumes with crimson edges, bound in fawn-coloured calf.  He opened them and looked at the title, The anatomy of the mass, by Pierre du Moulin, dated, Geneva, 1624.  “Might prove interesting.”  He went to warm his feet, and hastily skimmed through one of the volumes.  “Why!” he said, “it’s mighty good.”

On the page which he was reading was a discussion of the priesthood.  The author affirmed that none might exercise the functions of the priesthood if he was not sound in body, or if any of his members had been amputated, and asking apropos of this, if a castrated man could be ordained a priest, he answered his own question, “No, unless he carries upon him, reduced to powder, the parts which are wanting.”  He added, however, that Cardinal Tolet did not admit this interpretation, which nevertheless had been universally adopted.

Durtal, amused, read on.  Now du Moulin was debating with himself the point whether it was necessary to interdict abbes ravaged by lechery.  And in answer he cited himself the melancholy glose of Canon Maximianus, who, in his Distinction 81, sighs, “It is commonly said that none ought to be deposed from his charge for fornication, in view of the fact that few can be found exempt from this vice.”

“Why!  You here?” said Des Hermies, entering.  “What are you reading? The anatomy of the mass? Oh, it’s a poor thing, for Protestants.  I am just about distracted.  Oh, my friend, what brutes those people are,” and like a man with a great weight on his chest he unburdened himself.

“Yes, I have just come from a consultation with those whom the journals characterize as ‘princes of science.’  For a quarter of an hour I have had to listen to the most contradictory opinions.  On one point, however, all agreed:  that my patient was a dead man.  Finally they compromised and decided that the poor wretch’s torture should be needlessly prolonged by a course of moxas.  I timidly remarked that it would be simpler to send for a confessor, and then assuage the sufferings of the dying man with repeated injections of morphine.  If you had seen their faces!  They came as near as anything to denouncing me as a tout for the priests.