ed Louis de Longuemare. I am in truth a
Regular; but not a Capuchin, as those women would have it. There is the
widest difference; I am a monk of the Order of the Barnabites, which has
given Doctors and Saints without number to the Church. It is only a
half-truth to refer its origin to St. Charles Borromeo; we must account
as the true founder the Apostle St. Paul, whose cipher it bears on its
arms. I have been compelled to quit my cloister, now headquarters of the
Section du Pont-Neuf, and adopt a secular habit.

"Nay, Father," said Brotteaux, scrutinizing Monsieur de Longuemare's
frock, "your dress is token enough that you have not forsworn your
profession; to look at it, one might think you had reformed your Order
rather than forsaken it. It is your good heart makes you expose yourself
in these austere habiliments to the insults of a godless populace."

"Yet I cannot very well," replied the ex-monk, "wear a blue coat, like a
roisterer at a dance!"

"What I mention, Father, about your dress is by way of paying homage to
your character and putting you on your guard against the risks you run."

"On the contrary, sir, it would be much better to inspirit me to confess
my faith. For indeed, I am only too prone to fear danger. I have
abandoned my habit, sir, which is a sort of apostasy; I would fain not
have deserted, had it been possible, the House where God granted me for
so many years the grace of a peaceable and retired life. I got leave to
stay there, and I still continued to occupy my cell, while they turned
the church and cloister into a sort of petty _hotel de ville_ they
called the Section. I saw, sir, I saw them hack away the emblems of the
Holy Verity; I saw the name of the Apostle Paul replaced by a convicted
felon's cap. Sometimes I was actually present at the confabulations of
the Section, where I heard amazing errors propounded. At last I quitted
this place of profanation and went to live on the pension of a hundred
pistoles allowed me by the Assembly in a stable that stood empty, the
horses having been requisitioned for the service of the armies. There I
sing Mass for a few of the faithful, who come to the office to bear
witness to the eternity of the Church of Jesus Christ."

"For my part, Father," replied the other, "if you care to know my name,
I am called Brotteaux, and I was a publican in former days."

"Sir," returned the Pere Longuemare, "I was aware by St. Matthew's
example that one may look for