“I am rather religiously inclined,” said M. de Terremondre, “but I still think that the words spoken in Notre Dame by PÈre Ollivier were ill advised. And that is the general opinion.”

“Of course,” replied M. Lantaigne, “you blame him for having explained this disaster as a lesson given by God against pride and infidelity. You think him wrong in describing the favoured people as being suddenly punished for their faithlessness and rebellion. Ought one, then, to give up attempting to trace a cause for such terrible events?”

“There are,” answered M. de Terremondre, “certain conventions which ought to be observed. The mere fact that the head of the State was present made a certain reserve incumbent on him.”

“It is true,” said M. Lantaigne, “that this monk actually dared to declare before the President and the ministers of the Republic, and before the rich and powerful, who are either the authors or accomplices of our shame, that France had failed in her age-long vocation, when she turned her back on the Christians of the East who were being massacred by thousands, and, like a coward, supported the Crescent against the Cross. He dared to declare that this once Christian nation had driven the true God from both its schools and its councils. This is the speech that you consider a crime, you, Monsieur de Terremondre, one of the leaders of the Catholic party in our department.”

M. de Terremondre protested that he was deeply devoted to the interests of religion, but he still persisted in the opinion he had first held. In the first place, he was not for the Greeks, but for the Turks, or, if he could not go so far as that, he was at least for peace and order. And he knew many Catholics who regarded the Eastern Church with absolute indifference. Ought one, then, to give offence to them by attacking perfectly lawful convictions? It is not incumbent on everyone to be friendly towards Greece. The Pope, for one, is not.

“I have listened, M. Lantaigne,” said he, “with all the deference in the world to your opinions. But I still think one ought to use a more conciliatory style when one has to preach on a day which was one of mourning and yet, at the same time, one full of a hope that bade fair to bring about the reconciliation of opposing classes....”

“Especially while stocks are going up, thus proving the wisdom of the course pursued by France and Europe on the Eastern question,” added M. Bergeret, with a malicious laugh.

“Exactly so,” answered M. de Terremondre. “A Government which fights the Socialists and in which religious and conservative ideas have made an undeniable advance ought to be treated with respect. Our prÉfet, M. Worms-Clavelin, although he is both a Jew and a freemason, shows keen anxiety to protect the rights of the Church. Madame Worms-Clavelin has not only had her daughter baptized, but has sent her to a Parisian convent, where she is receiving an excellent education. I know this to be the case, for Mademoiselle Jeanne Clavelin is in the same class as my nieces, the d’Ansey girls. Madame Worms-Clavelin is patroness of several of our institutions, and in spite of her origin and her official position, she scarcely attempts the slightest concealment of her aristocratic and religious sympathies.”

“I don’t doubt what you say in the least,” said M. Bergeret, “and you might even go so far as to say that at the present time French Catholicism has no stronger support than among the rich Jews.”

“You are not far wrong,” answered M. de Terremondre. “The Jews give generously in support of Catholic charities.... But the shocking part of PÈre Ollivier’s sermon is that he was ready, as it were, to imply that God Himself was the original author and inspirer of this disaster. According to his words, it would seem that the God of mercy Himself actually set fire to the bazaar. My aunt d’Ansey, who was present at the service, came away in a great state of indignation. I feel sure, Monsieur l’abbÉ, that you cannot approve of such errors as these.”

Usually M. Lantaigne refused to rush into random theological discussions with worldly-minded people who knew nothing about the subject, and although he was an ardent controversialist, his priestly habit of mind deterred him from engaging in disputes on frivolous occasions, such as the present one. He therefore remained silent, and it was M. Bergeret who replied to M. de Terremondre:

“You would have preferred then,” said he, “that this monk should make excuses for a merciful God who had carelessly allowed a disaster to happen in a badly-inspected point in His creation. You think that he should have ascribed to the Almighty the sad, regretful, and chastened attitude of a police inspector who has made a mistake.”

“You are making fun of me now,” said M. de Terremondre. “But was it really necessary to talk about expiatory victims and the destroying angel? Surely these are ideas that belong to a past age?”

“They are Christian ideas,” said M. Bergeret. “M. Lantaigne won’t deny that.”

But as the priest was still silent, M. Bergeret continued:

“I advise you to read, in a book of whose teaching M. Lantaigne approves, in the famous Essai sur l’indiffÉrence, a certain theory of expiation. I remember one sentence in it which I can quote almost verbatim: “We are ruled,” said Lamennais, “by one law of destiny, an inexorable law whose tyranny we can never avoid: this law is expiation, the unbending axis of the moral world on which turns the whole destiny of humanity.”

“That may be so,” said M. de Terremondre. “But is it possible that God can have actually willed to aim a blow at honourable and charitable women like my cousin Courtrai and my nieces Laneux and Felissay, who were terribly burnt in this fire? God is neither cruel nor unjust.”

M. Lantaigne gripped his breviary under his left arm and made a movement as if to go away. Then, changing his mind, he turned towards M. de Terremondre and lifting his right hand said solemnly:

“God was neither cruel nor unjust towards these women when, in His mercy, He made them sacrificial offerings and types of the Victim without stain or spot. But since even Christians have lost, not only the sentiment of sacrifice, but also the practice of contrition, since they have become utterly ignorant of the most holy mysteries of religion, before we utterly despair of their salvation, we must expect warnings still more terrible, admonitions still more urgent, portents of still greater significance. Good-bye, Monsieur de Terremondre. I leave you with M. Bergeret, who, having no religion at all, at any rate avoids the misery and shame of an easy-going faith, and who will play at the game of refuting your arguments with the feeble resources of the intellect unsupported by the instincts of the heart.”

When he had finished his speech, he walked away with a firm, stiff gait.

“What is the matter with him?” said M. de Terremondre, as he looked after him. “I believe he has a grudge against me. He is very difficult to get on with, although he is a man worthy of all respect. The incessant disputes he engages in have soured his temper and he is at loggerheads with his Archbishop, with the professors at the college, and with half the clergy in the diocese. It is more than doubtful if he will get the bishopric, and I really begin to think that, for the Church’s sake, as well as for his own, it is better to leave him where he is. His intolerance would make him a dangerous bishop. What a strange notion to approve of PÈre Ollivier’s sermon!”

“I also approve of his sermon,” said M. Bergeret.

“It’s quite a different matter in your case,” said M. de Terremondre. “You are merely amusing yourself. You are not a religious man.”

“I am not religious,” said M. Bergeret, “but I am a theologian.”

“On my side,” said M. de Terremondre, “it may be said that I am religious, but not a theologian; and I am revolted when I hear it said in the pulpit that God destroyed some poor women by fire, in order that He might punish our country for her crimes, inasmuch as she no longer takes the lead in Europe. Does PÈre Ollivier really believe that, as things now are, it is so very easy to take the lead in Europe?”

“He would make a great mistake if he did believe it,” said M. Bergeret. “But you are, as you have just been told, one of the leading members of the Catholic party in the department, and therefore you ought to know that your God used in Biblical times to show a lively taste for human sacrifices and that He rejoiced in the smell of blood. Massacre was one of His chief joys, and He particularly revelled in extermination. Such was His character, Monsieur de Terremondre. He was as bloodthirsty as M. de Gromance, who, from the beginning of the year to the end, spends his time in shooting deer, partridges, rabbits, quails, wild ducks, pheasants, grouse and cuckoos—all according to the season. So God sacrificed the innocent and the guilty, warriors and virgins, fur and feather. It even appears that He savoured the blood of Jephthah’s daughter with delight.”

“There you are wrong,” said M. de Terremondre. “It is true that she was dedicated to Him, but that was not a sacrifice of blood.”

“They argue so, I know,” said M. Bergeret; “but that is just out of regard for your sensitiveness. But, as a matter of actual fact, she was butchered, and Jehovah showed Himself a regular epicure for fresh meat. Little Joas, who had been brought up in the temple, knew perfectly well the way in which this God showed His love for children, and when good Jehosheba began to try on him the kingly fillet, he was much disturbed, and asked this pointed question:

“At this time Jehovah bears the closest resemblance to His rival Chamos; he was a savage being, compact of cruelty and injustice. This was what he said: ‘You may know that I am the Lord by the corpses laid out along your path.’ Don’t make any mistake about this, Monsieur de Terremondre—in passing down from Judaism to Christianity, He still retains His savagery, and about Him there still lingers a taste for blood. I don’t go so far as to say that in the present century, at the close of the age, He has not become somewhat softened. We are all, nowadays, gliding downwards on an inclined plane of tolerance and indifference, and Jehovah along with us. At any rate, He has ceased to pour out a perpetual flood of threats and curses, and at the present moment He only proclaims His vengeance through the mouth of Mademoiselle Deniseau, and no one listens to her. But His principles are the same as of old, and there has been no essential change in His moral system.”

“You are a great enemy to our religion,” said M. de Terremondre.

“Not at all,” said M. Bergeret. “It is true that I find in it what I will call moral and intellectual stumbling-blocks. I even find cruelty in it. But this cruelty is now an ancient thing, polished by the centuries, rolled smooth like a pebble with all its points blunted. It has become almost harmless. I should be much more afraid of a new religion, framed with scrupulous exactitude. Such a religion, even if it were based on the most beautiful and kindly morality, would act at first with inconvenient austerity and painful accuracy. I prefer intolerance rubbed smooth, to charity with a fresh edge to it. Taking one thing with another, it is AbbÉ Lantaigne who is in the wrong, it is I who am wrong, and it is you, Monsieur de Terremondre, who are right. Over this ancient Judaic-Christian religion so many centuries of human passions, of human hatreds and earthly adorations, so many civilisations—barbaric or refined, austere or self-indulgent, pitiless or tolerant, humble or proud, agricultural, pastoral, warlike, mercantile, industrial, oligarchical, aristocratic, democratic—have passed, that all is now rolled smooth. Religions have practically no effect on systems of morality and they merely become what morality makes them....”