diversion.  He was a very little, very cheery, round man, was Papa Patoux; he had no ideas at all in his bullet head save that he judged everything to be very well managed in the Universe, and that he, considered simply as Patoux, was lucky in his life and labours,—­also that it was an easy thing to grow celery, provided God’s blessing was on the soil.  For the rest, he took small care; he knew that the world wagged in different ways in different climates,- -he read his half-penny journal daily, and professed to be interested in the political situation just for the fun of the thing, but in reality he thought the French Senate a pack of fools, and wondered what they meant by always talking so much about nothing.  He believed in “La Patrie” to a certain extent,—­but he would have very much objected if “La Patrie” had interfered with his celery.  Roughly sneaking, he understood that France was a nation, and that he was a Frenchman; and that if any enemies should presume to come into the country, it would be necessary to take up a musket and fight them out again, and defend wife, children, and celery-beds till the last breath was out of his body.  Further than this simple and primitive idea of patriotism he did not go.  He never bothered himself about dissentient shades of opinion, or quarrels among opposing parties.  When he had to send his children to the Government school, the first thing he asked was whether they would be taught their religion there.  He was told no,—­that the Government objected to religious teaching, as it merely created discussion and was of no assistance whatever in the material business of life.  Patoux scratched his head over this for a considerable time and ruminated deeply,—­finally he smiled, a dull fat smile.

“Good!” said he—­“I understand now why the Government makes such an ass of itself now and then!  You cannot expect mere men to do their duty wisely without God on their side.  But Pere Laurent will teach my children their prayers and catechism,—­and I dare say Heaven will arrange the rest.”

And he forthwith dismissed the matter from his mind.  His children attended the Government school daily,—­and every Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday afternoons Pere Laurent, a kindly, simple-hearted old priest, took them, with several other little creatures “educated by the State”, and taught them all he knew about the great France-exiled Creator of the Universe, and of His ceaseless love to sinful and blasphemous mankind.

So things went on;—­and though Henri and Babette were being crammed by the national system of instruction, with learning which was destined to be of very slight use to them in their after careers, and which made them little cynics before their time, they were still sustained within bounds by the saving sense of something better than themselves,—­that Something Better which silently declares itself in the beauty of the skies, the blossoming of the flowers, and the loveliness of all things wherein man has no part,—­and neither of them was yet transformed into that most fearsome product of modern days, the child-Atheist, for whom there is no greater God than Self.