“A great many, and some of them were illustrious warriors.  But these times are not like those senora.  It is true that, if we examine the matter closely, the faith is in greater danger now than it was then.  For what do the troops that occupy our city and the surrounding villages represent?  What do they represent?  Are they any thing else but the vile instruments of which the atheists and Protestants who infest Madrid make use for their perfidious conquests and the extermination of the faith?  In that centre of corruption, of scandal, of irreligion and unbelief, a few malignant men, bought by foreign gold, occupy themselves in destroying in our Spain the deeds of faith.  Why, what do you suppose?  They allow us to say mass and you to hear it through the remnant of consideration, for shame’s sake—­but, the day least expected—­For my part, I am tranquil.  I am not a man to disturb myself about any worldly and temporal interest.  Dona Perfecta is well aware of that; all who know me are aware of it.  My mind is at rest, and the triumph of the wicked does not terrify me.  I know well that terrible days are in store for us; that all of us who wear the sacerdotal garb have our lives hanging by a hair, for Spain, doubt it not, will witness scenes like those of the French Revolution, in which thousands of pious ecclesiastics perished in a single day.  But I am not troubled.  When the hour to kill strikes, I will present my neck.  I have lived long enough.  Of what use am I?  None, none!”

“May I be devoured by dogs,” exclaimed Vejarruco, shaking his fist, which had all the hardness and the strength of a hammer, “if we do not soon make an end of that thievish rabble!”

“They say that next week they will begin to pull down the cathedral,” observed Frasquito.

“I suppose they will pull it down with pickaxes and hammers,” said the canon, smiling.  “There are artificers who, without those implements, can build more rapidly than they can pull down.  You all know that, according to holy tradition, our beautiful chapel of the Sagrario was pulled down by the Moors in a month, and immediately afterward rebuilt by the angels in a single night.  Let them pull it down; let them pull it down!”

“In Madrid, as the curate of Naharilla told us the other night,” said Vejarruco, “there are so few churches left standing that some of the priests say mass in the middle of the street, and as they are beaten and insulted and spat upon, there are many who don’t wish to say it.”

“Fortunately here, my children,” observed Don Inocencio, “we have not yet had scenes of that nature.  Why?  Because they know what kind of people you are; because they have heard of your ardent piety and your valor.  I don’t envy the first ones who lay hands on our priests and our religion.  Of course it is not necessary to say that, if they are not stopped in time, they will commit atrocities.  Poor Spain, so holy and so meek and so good!  Who would have believed she would ever arrive at such extremities!  But I maintain that impiety will not triumph, no.  There are courageous people still; there are people still like those of old.  Am I not right, Senor Ramos?”