"Not one word of God's providence in all this!" cried the rector.
"Monsieur Clousier and Monsieur Roubaud are oblivious of religion. How is it with you, monsieur?" he added, turning to Gerard.
"Protestant," put in Grossetete.
"You guessed it," cried Veronique, looking at the rector as she took Clousier's arm to return to the salon.
The prejudice Gerard's appearance excited against him had been quickly dispelled, and the three notables congratulated themselves on so good an acquisition.
"Unfortunately," said Monsieur Bonnet, "there is a cause of antagonism between Russia and the Catholic countries which border the Mediterranean, in the very unimportant schism which separates the Greek religion from the Latin religion; and it is a great misfortune for humanity."
"We all preach our own saint," said Madame Graslin. "Monsieur Grossetete thinks of the lost millions; Monsieur Clousier, of the overthrow of rights; the doctor here regards legislation as a question of temperaments; and the rector sees an obstacle to the good understanding of France and Russia in religion."
"Add to that, madame," said Gerard, "that I see, in the hoarding of capital by the peasant and the small burgher, the postponement of the building of railroads in France."
"Then what is it you all want?" she asked.
"We want the wise State councillors who, under the Emperor, reflected on the laws, and a legislative body elected by the intelligence of the country as well as by the land-owners, whose only function would be to oppose bad legislation and capricious wars. The Chamber, as constituted to-day, will proceed, as you will soon see, to govern, and that is the first step to legal anarchy."
"Good God!" cried the rector, in a flush of sacred patriotism, "how can such enlightened minds as these," and he motioned to Clousier, Roubaud, and Gerard, "how can they see evil so clearly and suggest remedies without first looking within and applying a remedy to themselves? All of you, who represent the attacked classes, recognize the necessity of the passive obedience of the masses of the State, like that of soldiers during a war; you want the unity of power, and you desire that it shall never be brought into question. What England has obtained by the development of her pride and self-interest (a part of her creed) cannot be obtained in France but through sentiments due to Catholicism, and none of you are Catholics! Here am I, a priest, obliged to leave my own ground and argue with arguers. How can you expect the masses to become religious and obedient when they see irreligion and want of discipline above them? All peoples united by any faith whatever will inevitably get the better of peoples without any faith at all. The law of public interest, which gives birth to patriotism, is destroyed by the law of private interest, which it sanctions, but which gives birth to selfishness. There is nothing solid and durable but that which is natural; and the natural thing in human policy is the Family. The family must be the point of departure for all institutions. A universal effect proves a universal cause; and what you have just been setting forth as evident on all sides comes from the social principle itself; which is now without force because it has taken for its basis independence of thought and will, and such freedom is the parent of individualism. To make happiness depend on the stability, intelligence, and capacity of all is not as wise as to make happiness depend on the stability and intelligence of institutions and the capacity of a single head. It is easier to find wisdom in one man than in a whole nation. Peoples have heart and no eyes; they feel, and see not. Governments ought to see, and not determine anything through sentiment. There is, therefore, an evident contradiction between the impulses of the multitude and the action of power whose function it is to direct and unify those impulses. To meet with a great prince is certainly a rare chance (to use your term), but to trust to a whole assembly, even though it is composed of honest men only, is folly. France is committing that folly at this moment. Alas! you are just as much convinced of that as I am. If all right-minded men, like yourselves, would only set an example around them, if all intelligent hands would raise, in the great republic of souls, the altars of the one Church which has set the interests of humanity before her, we might again behold in France the miracles our fathers did here."
"But the difficulty is, monsieur," said Gerard,--"if I may speak to you with the freedom of the confessional,--I look upon faith as a lie we tell to ourselves, on hope as a lie we tell about the future, and on charity as a trick for children to keep them good by the promise of sugar-plums."
"Still, we sleep better for being rocked by hope, monsieur," said Madame Graslin.
This speech stopped Roubaud, who was about to reply; its effect was strengthened by a look from Grossetete and the rector.
"Is it our fault," said Clousier, "that Jesus Christ had not the time to formulate a government in accordance with his moral teaching, as did Moses and Confucius, the two greatest human law-givers?--witness the existence, as a nation, of the Jews and Chinese, the former in spite of their dispersion over the whole earth, and the latter in spite of their isolation."
"Ah! dear me! what work you are cutting out for me!" cried the rector naively. "But I shall triumph, I shall convert you all! You are much nearer to the true faith than you think you are. Truth always lurks behind falsehood; go on a step, turn round, and then you'll see it."
This little outburst of the good rector had the effect of changing the conversation.