a fire that had been lit on the
Place de Greve; but a poor woman of great piety, named Rouquin, went by
night at the peril of her life to gather up the calcined bones and the
ashes of the blessed saint. She preserved them in a jam-pot, and when
religion was again restored, brought them to the venerable Cure of
St. Maels. The woman ended her days piously as a vendor of tapers and
custodian of seats in the saint's chapel."

It is certain that in the time of Father Douillard, although faith was
declining, the cult of St. Orberosia, which for three hundred years had
fallen under the criticism of Canon Princeteau and the silence of the
Doctors of the Church, recovered, and was surrounded with more pomp,
more splendour, and more fervour than ever. The theologians did not
now subtract a single iota from the legend. They held as certainly
established all the facts related by Abbot Simplicissimus, and in
particular declared, on the testimony of that monk, that the devil,
assuming a monk's form had carried off the saint to a cave and had there
striven with her until she overcame him. Neither places nor dates caused
them any embarrassment. They paid no heed to exegesis and took good
care not to grant as much to science as Canon Princeteau had formerly
conceded. They knew too well whither that would lead.

The church shone with lights and flowers. An operatic tenor sang the
famous canticle of St. Orberosia:

Virgin of Paradise
Come, come in the dusky night
And on us shed
Thy beams of light.

Mademoiselle Clarence sat beside her mother and in front of Viscount
Clena. She remained kneeling during a considerable time, for the
attitude of prayer is natural to discreet virgins and it shows off their
figures.

The Reverend Father Douillard ascended the pulpit. He was a powerful
orator and could, at once melt, surprise, and rouse his hearers. Women
complained only that he fulminated against vice with excessive harshness
and in crude terms that made them blush. But they liked him none the
less for it.

He treated in his sermon of the seventh trial of St. Orberosia, who was
tempted by the dragon which she went forth to combat. But she did not
yield, and she disarmed the monster. The orator demonstrated without
difficulty that we, also, by the aid of St. Orberosia, and strong in the
virtue which she inspires, can in our turn overthrow the dragons that
dart upon us and are waiting to devour us, the dragon of doubt