The whole afternoon she was left to herself.  But instead of calling her “Madame” as they had done so far, they addressed her as mademoiselle, nobody knew why, as if they wanted to lower her one step in their esteem, which she had escaladed, and make her feel her shameful situation.

While soup was being served, Mr. Follenvie reappeared and repeated his sentence of the day before:—­“The Prussian Officer sends me to inquire whether Mademoiselle Elizabeth Rousset has not yet changed her mind?”

Boule de Suif replied curtly:  “No, Sir.”

But at dinner the coalition weakened.  Loiseau spoke three unfortunate sentences.  Each was racking his brains to find new examples and did not find any, when the Countess, possibly without premeditation, prompted by a vague desire to render homage to religion, questioned the elder of the two nuns about the most noteworthy deeds in the lives of the Saints.—­Now, many Saints had committed acts which would be crimes in our estimation; but the Church absolves readily such transgressions when they are committed for the glory of God and the love of our neighbors.  This was a powerful argument; the Countess made the most of it.  Then, either by one of those tacit understandings, those veiled complaisances in which whoever wears the clerical garb excels, or through fortunate stupidity, serviable foolishness, the old nun brought a formidable support to the conspiracy.  They thought she was timid; she showed herself bold, talkative, violent.  This one was not trouble by the hesitations of casuistry; her doctrine seemed to be an iron bar; her faith never hesitated; her conscience had no scruples.  She found quite natural Abraham’s sacrifice, because she would immediately have killed her father and mother if she had received an order from heaven to do so; and in her opinion nothing could displease God if the motive were laudable.  The Countess taking advantage of the sacred authority of her unexpected accomplice, led her on to make a kind of edifying paraphrase of this axiom of morality:  “The end justifies the means.”

She questioned her: 

—­“Then, Sister, you think that God accepts all methods and forgives the act when the motive is pure?”

—­“Who could doubt it, Madame?  An action condemnable in itself often becomes meritorious by the thought which inspires it.”

And they continued in this way, unraveling God’s intentions, forecasting his judgments, and making Him take interest in things that really did not concern Him at all.

All this was expounded in a veiled, clever, discreet and insinuating manner.  But each word of the holy woman in cornet made a breach in the indignant resistance of the courtesan.  Then the conversation drifting somewhat, the woman with the hanging rosary spoke of the Convents of her Order, of her Superior, of herself, and of her lovely neighbor, the dear Sister Saint-Nicephore.  They had been called to Havre