Which makes all the difference in the world in our ville, as well as elsewhere.

Pierre’s funny experience did not end with his betrothal.  In relating the adventure which follows, I wish it distinctly to be understood that I do it in all respect, admiration, and reverence for the Church which is the mother of all Churches calling themselves Christian.  The Holy Roman Catholic Church is no less holy that her servants are so often base and vile and that her livery is so often stolen to serve evil in.  What wickedness and hypocrisy have we not in our own Protestant clergy, and without even the tremendous excuse for it which the conditions of European society give for the occasional levity of its priesthood!  In France the Church is a recognized profession, to which parents destine and for which they educate their sons without waiting for them to exhibit any special bias toward a religious life.  In spite of themselves, many young men are even forced into the priesthood, not only by strong family influence, but through having been educated so as to be absolutely unfitted for any other walk of life.  With us the priesthood is a matter of deliberate and perfectly voluntary choice, and he who wears it as a cloak is ten thousand times the hypocrite his Catholic brother is.

It happened that our cure of Saint-Etienne was a jolly good fellow, somewhat given to wine-bibbing, and much given to Rabelaisian stories.  He was also hail-fellow-well-met with Pierre, and Pierre, like most of the young men of France, prided himself upon his entire freedom from the “superstitious.”  Pere Duhaut lived by teaching and preaching.

In France the church sacrament of marriage cannot be performed unless both the contracting parties furnish certificates of having made confession within three weeks.  To secure his certificate it would be necessary for Pierre to confess to the cure of Saint-Etienne, Pere Duhaut.

“I confess to Duhaut!” he laughed in our house.  “I’ll be—­what’s-his-named first.  Old Duhaut might as well confess to me.  I shall simply give him six francs and get my certificate without any more ado, just as the other fellows get theirs.”

That very afternoon Pere Duhaut took tea with us, and Emile was mean enough to betray Pierre’s intentions.

“We’ll see,” said our cure.

The next day Pierre passed our windows.  He bowed gayly, and called up that he was going for his six francs’ worth of ante-nuptial absolution.  An hour later he passed again, but he did not look up.  In the evening Pere Duhaut came, bursting with laughter.

“Ask Pierre how he got his certificate,” he guffawed.  Then he told us the story.  Pierre, it seems, had offered the six francs, which offer the confessor had rejected with scorn.

“In to the confessional,” he cried, “and make your confession like a penitent!”

“I’ll make it fifteen,” grinned Pierre.