on my part after all, wasn't it?"

The magistrate showed an angry countenance.

"There will be other good jokes, too. Kindly wait until the end."

"Is the list of crimes still longer?"

"A severe enquiry into the sources would never find an end. The gravest
charge against you is the profanation of holy places."

"I profane some holy place? Why, for twenty years I have not been in the
precincts even of a church steeple."

"You desecrated a place used long ago for holy ceremonies by riotous
revels."

"Oh, you mean that, do you? Let us make distinctions, if you please.
Great is the difference between place and place. Do you mean the convent
of the Red Brothers? That is no church. The late Emperor Joseph drove
them out, and their property was put up to auction by the State,
together with all the buildings situate thereon. Thus it was that I came
into possession of the convent garden: I was there at the auction; I bid
and it was knocked down to me. There were buildings on it, but whether
any kind of church had been there I do not know, for they took away all
the movables, and I found only bare walls. No kind of 'servitus'
(engagement), as to what I would use the building for, had been included
in the agreement of purchase. In this matter I know of others who were
no more scrupulous. I know of a convent at Maria-Eich,[30] where in
place of the ancient altar stands the peasant-chimney, and here the
Swabian, into whose hands this honorable antiquity passed, keeps his
maize; why, in a town beside the Danube may be seen what was once a
convent, the 'aerarium' of which has been turned into a hospital."

[Footnote 30: A place in Austria where sacred relics exist.]

"Examples cannot help you. If the Swabian peasant keeps 'the blessing of
God' in that place, from which they had once prayed for it, that is not
profanity: the 'aerarium' too is pursuing an office of righteousness, in
nursing bodily sufferings in the place where once mental sufferings
gained comfort; but you have had disgusting pictures painted all over
the walls that have come into your possession."

"I beg your pardon, the subjects are all chosen from classical
literature: illustrations to the poems of Beranger and Lafontaine--'Mon
Cure,' 'Les Clefs Du Paradis,' 'Les Capulier,' 'Les Cordeliers Du
Catalogue,' etc. Every subject a pious one."

"I know: I am acquainted with the originals of them. You may cover the
walls of your own rooms with them, if you plea