s. They cannot raise a Church against her, and
they do not dream of doing so. Atheists have existed at all times among
the heads and princes of the Church, and many of them have rendered
signal services to the Papacy. On the other hand, whoever does not
submit strictly to ecclesiastical discipline and breaks away from
tradition upon a single point, whoever sets up a faith against the
faith, an opinion, a practices against the accepted opinion and the
common practice, is a factor of disorder, a menace of peril, and must be
extirpated. This the vicar, Mouchaud, understood. He should have been
made a Cardinal."

Madame Doulce, who had been clever enough not to tell everything in a
breath, went on to say:

"I did not allow myself to be discomfited by the opposition of Monsieur
le Cure. I begged, I entreated. And his answer was: 'We owe respectful
obedience to the Ordinary. Go to the Archbishop's Palace. I will do as
Monseigneur bids me.' There is nothing left for me but to follow this
advice. I'm hurrying off to the Archbishop's Palace."

"Let us get to work," said Pradel.

Romilly called to Nanteuil:

"Nanteuil! Come, Nanteuil, begin your whole scene over again."

And Nanteuil said once more:

"'Cousin, I was so happy when I awoke this morning....'"

CHAPTER IX

The prominence given by the Press to the suicide of the Boulevard de
Villiers rendered the negotiations between the Stage and the Church all
the more difficult. The reporters had given the fullest details of the
event, and it was pointed out by the Abbe Mirabelle, the Archbishop's
second vicar, that to open the doors of the parish church to Chevalier,
as matters then stood, was to proclaim that excommunicated persons were
entitled to the prayers of the Church.

But for that matter, Monsieur Mirabelle himself, who in this affair
displayed great wisdom and circumspection, paved the way to a solution.

"You must fully understand," he observed to Madame Doulce, "that the
opinion of the newspapers cannot affect our decision. We are absolutely
indifferent to it, and we do not disturb ourselves in the slightest
degree, no matter what fifty public sheets may say about the unfortunate
young fellow. Whether the journalists have told the truth or distorted
it is their affair, not mine. I do not know and I do not wish to know
what they have written. But the fact of the suicide is notorious. You
cannot dispute it. It would now be advisable to investigate cl