“I understand it very well,” I said.

“Bien!  At that time there was one family richer than all the others.  They were the proprietors of the factory down yonder, and everybody submitted to them.  There was a daughter not married, but very devote.  I have been devote, myself.  I was coquette till I was thirty-five, then I became devote.  It is easier than being a simple Christian, like my brother the cure.  Mademoiselle Pineau was accustomed to have visions, ecstasies.  Sometimes the angels lifted her from the ground into the air when she was at her prayers.  Francis did not like that.  He was young, and she came very often to the confessional, and told him of these visions and ecstasies.  He discouraged them, and enjoined penances upon her.  Bref! she grew to detest him, and she was quite like a female cure in the parish.  She set everybody against him.  At last, when he removed all the plaster images of the saints, and would have none but wood or stone, she had him cited to answer for it to his bishop.”

“But what did he do that for?” I asked, seeing no difference between plaster images, and those of wood or stone.

“Madame, these Normans are ignorant and very superstitious,” she replied; “they thought a little powder from one of the saints would cure any malady.  Some of the images were half-worn away with having powder scraped off them.  My brother would not hold with such follies, and his bishop told him he might fight the battle out, if he could.  No one thought he could; but they did not know Francis.  It was a terrible battle, madame.  Nobody would come to the confessional, and every month or so, he was compelled to have a vicaire from some other parish to receive the confessions of his people.  Mademoiselle Pineau fanned the flame, and she had the reputation of a saint.”

“But how did it end?” I inquired.  Mademoiselle’s face was all aglow, and her voice rose and fell in her excitement; yet she lingered over the story as if reluctant to lose the rare pleasure of telling it.

“In brief, madame,” she resumed, “there was a terrible conflagration in the village.  You perceive that all our houses are covered with tiles?  In those days the roofs were of thatch, very old and very dry, and there was much timber in the walls.  How the fire began, the good God alone knows.  It was a sultry day in July; the river was almost dry, and there was no hope of extinguishing the flames.  They ran like lightning from roof to roof.  All that could be done was to save life, and a little property.  My brother threw off his cassock, and worked like Hercules.

“The Pineaux lived then close by the presbytery, in a house half of wood, which blazed like tinder; there was nothing comparable to it in all the village.  A domestic suddenly cried out that mademoiselle was in her oratory, probably in a trance.  Not a soul dares venture through the flames to save her, though she is a saint.  Monsieur le Cure hears the rumor of it; he steps in through the doorway through which the smoke is rolling; walks in as tranquilly as if he were going to make a visit as pastor; he is lost to their sight; not a man stirs to look after his own house.  Bref! he comes back to the day, his brown hair all singed and his face black, carrying mademoiselle in his arms.  Good:  The battle is finished.  All the world adores him.”