There was one party in the town which openly declared that AbbÉ Lantaigne, principal of the high seminary, was a priest worthy of a bishopric and fitted to fill the vacant see of Tourcoing honourably, until the time when Monseigneur Charlot’s death should enable him, cross in hand and amethyst on finger, to assume the mitre in the town that had witnessed his labours and his merits. This was the scheme of the venerable M. Cassignol, ex-president in chief, and a State pensioner of twenty-five years’ standing. With these plans were associated M. Lerond, deputy attorney-general at the time of the decrees,[E] now a barrister practising at…, and AbbÉ de Lalonde, formerly an Army chaplain, and now chaplain to the Dames du Salut. These, belonging to the most respected, but not to the most influential, class in the town, made up practically the whole of AbbÉ Lantaigne’s party. The head of the high seminary had been invited to dine with M. Cassignol, the chief president, who said to him, in the presence of M. de Lalonde and M. Lerond:

“Monsieur l’abbÉ, put yourself forward as a candidate. When it shall come to a choice between AbbÉ Lantaigne, who has so nobly served both religion and Christian France by pen and tongue, who has protected the oft-betrayed cause of the rights of the French Church within the Catholic Church with the force of his mental endowments and high character, and M. Guitrel, none will have the effrontery to hesitate. And since it seems that this time the honour of supplying a bishop for the town of Tourcoing is to fall to our city, the faithful of the diocese are willing to lose you for a time for the good of the episcopate as well as of Christendom.”

And the venerable M. Cassignol, who was now in his eighty-sixth year, added with a smile:

“We shall see you again, I have a firm conviction of that. You will come back to us from Tourcoing, monsieur l’abbÉ.”

AbbÉ Lantaigne had replied:

“Monsieur le prÉsident, with no intention of anticipating any honour, I yet shall shirk no duty.”

He yearned and longed for the see of the lamented Monseigneur Duclou. But this priest, whose ambition was frozen by his pride, was waiting until they came to bring him the mitre. One morning M. Lerond came to see him at the seminary, and brought news of how AbbÉ Guitrel’s candidature was progressing at the Ministry of Public Worship. It was suspected that M. le prÉfet Worms-Clavelin was working hard in favour of M. Guitrel in the offices of the Ministry, where all the freemasons had already received their orders. This was what he had been told at the offices of le LibÉral, the religious and moderate paper of the district. With regard to the intentions of the Cardinal-Archbishop, nothing was known.

The truth was that Monseigneur Charlot dared neither oppose nor support any candidate. His characteristic caution had been growing on him for years. If he had any preferences he let no one guess them. For a long time he had been comfortably and pleasurably concealing his policy, just as he played his game of bezique every evening with M. de Goulet. And, in fact, the promotion of a priest of his diocese to a non-suffragan bishopric was in no way an affair of his. But he was forced to take part in this intrigue. M. Worms-Clavelin, the prÉfet, whom he did not wish to offend, had caused him to be sounded. His Eminence could not be ignorant of the shrewd and urbane disposition of which M. Guitrel had given plain proofs in the diocese. On the other hand, he believed this Guitrel to be capable of anything. “Who knows,” thought he, “whether he is not scheming to get himself appointed here as my coadjutor, instead of going to that gloomy little metropolis of Northern Gaul? And if I declare him worthy of a bishopric, will it not be believed that I intend him to share my see?” This apprehension that he would be given a coadjutor embittered Monseigneur Charlot’s old age. In AbbÉ Lantaigne’s case he had strong reasons for being silent and holding aloof. He would not have supported this priest’s candidature for the simple reason that he foresaw its failure. Monseigneur Charlot never willingly put himself on the losing side. Moreover, he loathed the principal of the high seminary. Yet this hatred, in a mind so easy-going and kindly as Monseigneur’s, was not actually prejudicial to M. Lantaigne’s ambitions. In order to get rid of him, Monseigneur Charlot would have consented to his becoming either bishop or Pope. M. Lantaigne had a high reputation for piety, learning, and eloquence: one could not, without a certain shamelessness, be openly against him. Now Monseigneur Charlot, being popular and very keen to gain every one’s goodwill, did not despise the opinion of honourable men.

M. Lerond was unable to follow the secret thoughts of Monseigneur, but he knew that the Archbishop had not yet committed himself. He judged that it might be possible to bring influence to bear on the old man’s mind and that an appeal to his pastoral instincts might not be in vain. He urged M. Lantaigne to proceed at once to the Archbishop’s palace.

“You will beg His Eminence, with filial deference, for advice in the probable event of the bishopric of Tourcoing being offered to you. It is the right step, and it will produce an excellent effect.”

M. Lantaigne objected:

“It behoves me to wait for a more solemn call.”

“What call could be more solemn than the suffrages of so many zealous Christians, who hail your name with a unanimity that recalls the ancient popular acclamations with which a MÉdard and a Remi were greeted?”

“But, monsieur,” answered honest Lantaigne, “those acclamations, in the obsolete custom to which you refer, came from the faithful of the diocese which these holy men were called upon to govern. And I am not aware that the Catholics of Tourcoing have acclaimed me.”

At this point lawyer Lerond said what had to be said:

“If you do not bar the road for him, M. Guitrel will become a bishop.”

The next day M. Lantaigne had fastened over his shoulders his visiting cloak, the turned-back wing of which flapped on his sturdy back, the while on the road to the Archbishop’s palace he besought his God to spare the Church of France an unmerited disgrace.

His Eminence, at the moment when M. Lantaigne bowed before him, had just received a letter from the nunciature asking him for a confidential note about M. Guitrel. The nuncio made no secret of his liking for a priest reputed to be intelligent and zealous and capable of being useful in negotiations with the temporal power. His Eminence had immediately dictated to M. de Goulet a note in favour of the nuncio’s protÉgÉ.

He exclaimed in his pleasant tremulous voice:

“Monsieur Lantaigne, how glad I am to see you!”

“Monseigneur, I have come to ask Your Eminence for your paternal counsel in case the Holy Father, regarding me with favour, should nominate me…”

“Very happy to see you, Monsieur Lantaigne. You come just in the nick of time!”

“I would venture, if Your Eminence did not deem me unworthy of…”

“You are, Monsieur Lantaigne, an eminent theologian and a priest of the highest possible learning in the canon law. You are an authority on knotty points of discipline. Your advice is precious on questions of the liturgy and, in general, on any point that concerns religion. If you had not come, I was going to send for you, as M. de Goulet can tell you. At the present moment I am in great need of your insight.”

And Monseigneur, with his gouty hand, well practised in benediction, waved the principal of the high seminary to a seat.

“Monsieur Lantaigne, be kind enough to listen to me. The venerable M. Laprune, the curÉ of Saint-ExupÈre, is just gone from here. I must tell you that this poor curÉ has this morning found a man hanged in his church. Just conceive his distress! He is beside himself. And in such a crisis, I myself need to take the advice of the most learned priest in my diocese. What ought we to do? Tell me!”

M. Lantaigne collected himself for a moment. Then, in the tone of a pedagogue, he began to expound the traditions concerning the purification of churches:

“The Maccabees, after having washed the temple profaned by Antiochus Epiphanes, in the year 164 before the Incarnation, celebrated its dedication. That is the origin, Monseigneur, of the festival called Hanicha—that is to say, renewal. In fact…”

And he developed his ideas.

Monseigneur listened with an air of admiration, and M. Lantaigne drew up from his inexhaustible memory endless texts relating to the ceremonies of purification, precedents, arguments, commentaries. “John, Chapter X., verse 22… the Roman Pontifical… the Venerable Bede, Baronius…”

He spoke for three-quarters of an hour.

After this the Cardinal-Archbishop replied:

“It should be noted that the hanged man was found in the porch of the side door, on the epistle side.”

“Was the inner door of the porch closed?” asked M. Lantaigne.

“Alas! alas!” answered Monseigneur, “it was not wide open… but neither was it completely shut.”

“Ajar, Monseigneur?”

“That’s it! Ajar.”

“And the suicide, Monseigneur, was within the space covered by the porch? That is a point which it is materially important to ascertain. Your Eminence perceives the whole importance of that?”

“Assuredly, Monsieur Lantaigne.… Monsieur de Goulet, was there not one arm of the hanged man which projected from the porch and jutted into the church?”

M. de Goulet replied with a blush and some incoherent syllables.

“I feel certain,” replied Monseigneur, “that the arm went beyond, or, at any rate, part of the arm.”

M. Lantaigne concluded from this that the church of Saint-ExupÈre was profaned. He quoted precedents and described the proceedings after the dastardly assassination of the Archbishop of Paris, in the church of Saint-Étienne-du-Mont. He travelled up the ages, passed through the Revolution, when the churches were transformed into armouries, referred to Thomas Becket and the impious Heliodorus.

“What scholarship! What sound doctrine!” said Monseigneur.

He rose and stretched out his hand for the priest to kiss.

“It is a priceless service that you have rendered me, Monsieur Lantaigne; be assured that I have a great esteem for your scholarship and accept my pastoral benediction. Farewell.”

And M. Lantaigne, dismissed, perceived that he had not been able to say a single word about the important business on which he had come. But, with the echoes of his own words all round him, full of his learning and his application of it, and much flattered, he descended the grand staircase still turning over in his own mind the matter of the suicide of Saint-ExupÈre and the urgent need for the purification of the parish church. Outside he was still thinking of it.

As he was descending the winding street of the Tintelleries, he met the curÉ of Saint-ExupÈre, the venerable M. Laprune, who, standing in front of cooper Lenfant’s shop, was examining the corks. His wine had been turning sour, and this deterioration he attributed to the defective way in which his bottles were corked.

“It is deplorable,” he murmured, “deplorable!”

“And your suicide?” demanded AbbÉ Lantaigne.

At this question the worthy curÉ of Saint-ExupÈre opened his full, round eyes and asked in astonishment:

“What suicide?”

“The man who hanged himself in Saint-ExupÈre, the miserable suicide whom you found this morning in the porch of your church.”

M. Laprune, terrified, wondering from what he had just heard, whether he or M. Lantaigne had gone mad, replied that he had found no one hanged.

“What!” replied M. Lantaigne, surprised in his turn, “wasn’t a man found this morning hanged in the porch of a door on the epistle side!”

In sign of denial, the vicar twice revolved on his shoulders a face whereon shone the sacred truth.

AbbÉ Lantaigne now looked like a man taken with giddiness:

“But it was the Cardinal-Archbishop who has just told me himself that you found a man hanged in your church!”

“Oh!” replied M. Laprune, suddenly reassured, “Monseigneur wanted to amuse himself. He loves a jest. He is a capital hand at it, and knows how to keep within the bounds of seemliness. He has so much wit!”

But AbbÉ Lantaigne, raising heavenwards his fiery, sombre glance, exclaimed:

“The Archbishop has deceived me! This man will, then, never speak the truth, save when on the steps of the altar, taking the consecrated host in his hands, he pronounces the words: Domine, non sum dignus!”