o be an
atheist is to be a philosopher." There are, undoubtedly, a good many
deists, especially after Rousseau appeared, but I question whether, out
of a hundred persons, there were in Paris at this time ten Christian men
or women. "The fashionable world for ten years past," says Mercier[4224]
in 1783, "has not attended mass. People go only on Sundays so as not
to scandalize their lackeys, while the lackeys well know that it is
on their account." The Duc de Coigny,[4225] on his estate near Amiens,
refuses to be prayed for and threatens his curate if he takes that
liberty to have him cast out of his pulpit; his son becomes ill and
he prohibits the administering of the sacraments; the son dies and he
opposes the usual obsequies, burying the body in his garden; becoming
ill himself he closes his door against the bishop of Amiens, who comes
to see him twelve times, and dies as he had lived. A scandal of this
kind is doubtless notorious and, therefore, rare. Almost everybody,
male and female, "ally with freedom of ideas a proper observance of
forms."[4226] When a maid appears and says to her mistress, "Madame
la Duchesse, the Host (le bon Dieu) is outside, will you allow him
to enter? He desires to have the honor of administering to you,"
appearances are kept up. The troublesome individual is admitted and he
is politely received. If they slip away from him it is under a decent
pretext; but if he is humored it is only out of a sense of decorum. "At
Sura when a man dies, he holds a cow's tail in his hand." Society was
never more detached from Christianity. In its eyes a positive religion
is only a popular superstition, good enough for children and innocents
but not for "sensible people" and the great. It is your duty to raise
your hat to the Host as it passes, but your duty is only to raise your
hat.

The last and gravest sign of all! If the curates who work and who are of
the people hold the people's ideas, the prelates who talk, and who are
of society hold the opinions of society. And I do not allude merely to
the abbes of the drawing-room, the domestic courtiers, bearers of news,
and writers of light verse, those who fawn in boudoirs, and who, when
in company, answer like an echo, and who, between one drawing room
and another, serve as megaphone; an echo, a megaphone only repeats the
phrase, whether skeptical or not, with which it is charged. I refer to
the dignitaries, and, on this point, the witnesses all concur. In the