e is quite out of date
with you. It is in bad taste to sin,--as offensive to good manners as to
morality. And those of you who might be forgetful of their hereafter are
led to salvation by a becoming deference to the habits and observances
of well-bred people." The monarch himself was utterly ignorant in
matters of religion; the Duchess of Orleans wrote to her German
friends, that he had never even read the Bible. He was shocked to hear
that Christ had demeaned himself to speak the language of the poor and
the humble. "_Il avait la foi du charbonnier_," Cardinal Fleury
said,--the blind, unreasoning faith of the African in his fetich. He
considered it due to _gloire_ to assist Divine Providence in its
government of the souls of men. Was he not the greatest prince of the
earth, the eldest son of the Church, standing nearer to the throne of
grace than any insignificant pope? Of course he was responsible for the
orthodoxy of his subjects, a _demi-dieu qui nous gouverne_. He came to
think religion a part of his royal prerogative, and misbelief treason
against his royal person. He was quite capable of going a step beyond
Cardinal Wolsey, and of writing, "_Ego et Deus meus_." He said to a
prelate whose management of some ecclesiastical business particularly
gratified him,--"_J'ignore si Dieu vous tiendra compte de la conduite
que vous avez tenue; mais quant a moi, je vous assure que je ne
l'oublierai jamais_." The spiritual powers are never backward in taking
advantage of favorable circumstances: Huguenots, Jansenists, and
Quietists were sternly put down, and the girdle of superstition
tightened until it began to crack. The skeptics were quiet,--asked but
few questions,--pretended to be satisfied with the time-honored answers
Mother Church keeps for her uneasy children,--and seemed to be busy with
the "Querelle des Anciens et des Modernes," and the "Dispute sur les
Ceremonies Chinoises." It was not yet the time for them to announce
pompously their radical theories as new and true. A thin varnish of
decorum and orthodoxy overspread everything; but one may see the shadow
of the coming _Regence_ in Regnard's works. He and gentlemen like him
went to mass in the morning, and to pleasure for the rest of the day and
night.

"Ils sont chretiens a la messe,
Ils sont paiens a l'opera."

Regnard was almost as much of a pagan as his favorite Horace,--called
for wines, roses, and perfumes, and sang his Lydia and his Lalage almost