t where
necessary. He is for all time, long-suffering and a man of peace."

Bonaparte pondered deeply awhile, as though a series of quite new ideas
were taking muster in his powerful brain. Then suddenly breaking
silence,

"You do not realize," he said, "the spirit of the age. We are highly
irreligious in France; impiety is deeply rooted in our soil. You do not
know the progress achieved by the ideas of Montesquieu, Raynal and
Rousseau. Public worship is abolished; veneration is a thing of the
past. You must have seen this from the scandalous talk my officers
indulged in just now at your own table."

The good Canon shook his head:

"Ah, yes! those fine young men, they are wild fellows enough, dissipated
and reckless! It is only a passing phase. Ten years more, and they will
be thinking less of the girls and more of going to Mass. The Carnival is
a matter of a few days, and even this mad one of your French Revolution
will not last for long. The Church is eternal."

Napoleon declared bluntly he cared too little about Religion himself to
meddle in a purely ecclesiastical matter like this.

Thereupon the Canon looked him in the eyes and told him:

"My son, I understand men. I can divine your nature; you are no sceptic.
Take up this case, the Blessed Father Bonaventura's case. He will repay
you the services you may render him. For myself, I am over old to
witness the success of this noble enterprise. I must die soon; but
knowing it to be in your hands, I shall die happy. Above all, never
forget, my kinsman, that all power comes of God by the instrumentality
of his priests."

He rose to his feet, raised his arms to bless his young kinsman and
withdrew.

Left alone, Bonaparte turned over the leaves of the ponderous Memorial
by the smoky light of his candle, as he pondered over the power of the
Church, and told himself the Papacy was a more enduring institution than
ever the Constitution of the Year III was likely to be.

A knock was heard at the door. It was Berthier, come to inform the
General that all was ready for their departure.

THE END

End of Project Gutenberg's The Well of Saint Clare, by Anatole France

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