By some incredible effect of clemency She had endured the insult of the tenth-day festivals and the outrage of seeing the Goddess of Reason installed in her place on the altar, had suffered the infamous liturgy of obscene canticles rising with the thundering incense of gunpowder.  And She had forgiven it all, no doubt for the sake of the love shown Her by preceding generations, and the awed, but real affection of the humble believers who had come back to Her when the storm was over.

This cavern was crowded with memories.  The coating of those walls had been formed of the vapours of the soul, of the exhalations of accumulated desires and regrets, even more than of the smoke of tapers; how foolish it was then to have painted this crypt in squalid imitation of the catacombs, to have defaced the glorious darkness of these stones with colours which were indeed fast vanishing, leaving only traces as of palette scrapings in the consecrated soot on the roof!

Durtal was expatiating on these reflections as he went out of the garden, when he met the Abbe Gevresin walking along and reading his breviary.  He asked whether Durtal had taken the Sacrament.  And perceiving that his penitent always came back to his shame of the inert and torpid grief that came over him in contemplation of the Holy Sacrament, the old priest said to him,—­

“That is no concern of yours; all you have to do is to pray to the best of your power.  The rest is my concern—­if the far from triumphant state of your soul only makes you a little humble, that is all I ask of you.”

“Humble!  I am like a water cooler; my vanity sweats out at every pore as the water oozes from the clay.”

“It is some consolation to me that you perceive it,” said the Abbe, smiling.  “It would be far worse if you did not know yourself, if you were so proud as to believe that you had no pride.”

“But how then am I to set to work?  You advise me to pray; but teach me at least how not to dissipate myself in every direction, for as soon as I try to collect myself I go to pieces; I live in a perpetual state of dissolution.  It is like a thing arranged on purpose; as soon as I try to shut the cage all my thoughts fly off—­they deafen me with their chirping.”

The Abbe was thinking.

“I know,” said he; “nothing is more difficult than to free the spirit from the images that take possession of it.  Still, and in spite of all, you may achieve concentration of mind if you observe these three rules: 

“In the first place you must humble yourself, by owning the frailty of your mind, unable to preserve itself from wandering in the presence of God; next you must not be impatient or restless, for that would only stir up the dregs and bring other objects of frivolity to the surface; finally, it is well not to investigate the nature of the distractions that trouble your prayers till they are over.  This only prolongs the disturbance, and in a way recognizes its existence.  You thus run the risk, in virtue of the law of association of ideas, of inviting new diversions, and there would be no way of escape.