"These defenders of our God, Christians, have set you an example of duty," he said."Are you not ashamed of what will be said of you in paradise? If it were not for these blessed ones, who have just been received with open arms by all the saints, our Lord might have thought that your parish is inhabited by Mahometans!--Do you know, men, what is said of you in Brittany and in the king's presence? What! you don't know? Then I shall tell you.They say: 'Behold, the Blues have cast down altars, and killed priests, and murdered the king and queen; they mean to make the parish folk of Brittany Blues like themselves, and send them to fight in foreign lands, away from their churches, where they run the risk of dying without confession and going eternally to hell; and yet the gars of Marignay, whose churches they have burned, stand still with folded arms! Oh! oh! this Republic of damned souls has sold the property of God and that of the nobles at auction; it has shared the proceeds with the Blues; it has decreed, in order to gorge itself with money as it does with blood, that a crown shall be only worth three francs instead of six; and yet the gars of Marignay haven't seized their weapons and driven the Blues from Brittany! Ha!
paradise will be closed to them! they can never save their souls!'
That's what they say of you in the king's presence! It is your own salvation, Christians, which is at stake.Your souls are to be saved by fighting for religion and the king.Saint Anne of Auray herself appeared to me yesterday at half-past two o'clock; and she said to me these very words which I now repeat to you: 'Are you a priest of Marignay?' 'Yes, madame, ready to serve you.' 'I am Saint Anne of Auray, aunt of God, after the manner of Brittany.I have come to bid you warn the people of Marignay that they must not hope for salvation if they do not take arms.You are to refuse them absolution for their sins unless they serve God.Bless their guns, and those who gain absolution will never miss the Blues, because their guns are sanctified.' She disappeared, leaving an odor of incense behind her.Imarked the spot.It is under the oak of the Patte d'Oie; just where that beautiful wooden Virgin was placed by the rector of Saint-James;to whom the crippled mother of Pierre Leroi (otherwise called Marche-a-Terre) came to pray, and was cured of all her pains, because of her son's good deeds.You see her there in the midst of you, and you know that she walks without assistance.It was a miracle--a miracle intended, like the resurrection of Marie Lambrequin to prove to you that God will never forsake the Breton cause so long as the people fight for his servants and for the king.Therefore, my dear brothers, if you wish to save your souls and show yourselves defenders of God and the king, you will obey all the orders of the man whom God has sent to us, and whom we call THE GARS.Then indeed, you will no longer be Mahometans; you will rank with all the gars of Brittany under the flag of God.You can take from the pockets of the Blues the money they have stolen from you; for, if the fields have to go uncultivated while you are making war, God and the king will deliver to you the spoils of your enemies.Shall it be said, Christians, that the gars of Marignay are behind the gars of the Morbihan, the gars of Saint-Georges, of Vitre, or Antrain, who are all faithful to God and the king? Will you let them get all the spoils? Will you stand like heretics, with your arms folded, when other Bretons are saving their souls and saving their king? 'Forsake all, and follow me,' says the Gospel.Have we not forsaken our tithes, we priests? And you, I say to you, forsake all for this holy war! You shall be like the Maccabees.All will be forgiven you.You will find the priests and curates in your midst, and you will conquer! Pay attention to these words, Christians," he said, as he ended; "for this day only have we the power to bless your guns.
Those who do not take advantage of the Saint's favor will not find her merciful; she will not forgive them or listen to them as she did in the last war."This appeal, enforced by the power of a loud voice and by many gestures, the vehemence of which bathed the orator in perspiration, produced, apparently, very little effect.The peasants stood motionless, their eyes on the speaker, like statues; but Mademoiselle de Verneuil presently noticed that this universal attitude was the result of a spell cast by the abbe on the crowd.He had, like great actors, held his audience as one man by addressing their passions and self-interests.He had absolved excesses before committal, and broken the only bonds which held these boorish men to the practice of religious and social precepts.He had prostituted his sacred office to political interests; but it must be said that, in these times of revolution, every man made a weapon of whatever he possessed for the benefit of his party, and the pacific cross of Jesus became as much an instrument of war as the peasant's plough-share.
Seeing no one with whom to advise, Mademoiselle de Verneuil turned to look for Francine, and was not a little astonished to see that she shared in the rapt enthusiasm, and was devoutly saying her chaplet over some beads which Galope-Chopine had probably given her during the sermon.
"Francine," she said, in a low voice, "are you afraid of being a Mahometan?""Oh! mademoiselle," replied the girl, "just see Pierre's mother; she is walking!"Francine's whole attitude showed such deep conviction that Marie understood at once the secret of the homily, the influence of the clergy over the rural masses, and the tremendous effect of the scene which was now beginning.