an I do for you, Monsieur le Cure?' asked the landlady, as she
reached down from the chimney one of the copper candlesticks placed with
their candles in a row. 'Will you take something? A thimbleful of
_cassis_? A glass of wine?'

"The priest declined very politely. He had come for his umbrella, that
he had forgotten the other day at the Ernemont convent, and after asking
Madame Lefrancois to have it sent to him at the presbytery in the
evening, he left for the church, from which the Angelus was ringing.

"When the chemist no longer heard the noise of his boots along the
square, he thought the priest's behavior just now very unbecoming. This
refusal to take any refreshment seemed to him the most odious hypocrisy;
all priests tippled on the sly, and were trying to bring back the days
of the tithe.

"The landlady took up the defense of her cure.

"'Besides, he could double up four men like you over his knee. Last year
he helped our people to bring in the straw; he carried as many as six
trusses at once, he is so strong.'

"'Bravo!' said the chemist. 'Now just send your daughters to confess to
fellows with such a temperament! I, if I were the Government, I'd have
the priests bled once a month. Yes, Madame Lefrancois, every month--a
good phlebotomy, in the interests of the police and morals.'

"'Be quiet, Monsieur Homais. You are an infidel; you've no religion.'

"The chemist answered: 'I have a religion, my religion, and I even have
more than all these others with their mummeries and their juggling. I
adore God, on the contrary. I believe in the Supreme Being, in a
Creator, whatever he may be. I care little who has placed us here below
to fulfill our duties as citizens and fathers of families; but I don't
need to go to church to kiss silver plates, and fatten, out of my
pocket, a lot of good-for-nothings who live better than we do. For one
can know him as well in a wood, in a field, or even contemplating the
eternal vault like the ancients. My God! mine is the God of Socrates,
of Franklin, of Voltaire, and Beranger! I am for the profession of faith
of the 'Savoyard Vicar,' and the immortal principles of '89! And I can't
admit of an old boy of a God who takes walks in his garden with a cane
in his hand, who lodges his friends in the belly of whales, dies
uttering a cry, and rises again at the end of three days; things absurd
in themselves, and completely opposed, moreover, to all physical laws,
Which proves to us, by