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THE POCKET BIBLE
THE FULL SERIES OF
The Mysteries of the People
::OR::
History of a Proletarian Family
Across the Ages
By EUGENE SUE
_Consisting of the Following Works_:
THE GOLD SICKLE; or, _Hena the Virgin of the Isle of Sen_.
THE BRASS BELL; or, _The Chariot of Death_.
THE IRON COLLAR; or, _Faustina and Syomara_.
THE SILVER CROSS; or, _The Carpenter of Nazareth_.
THE CASQUE'S LARK; or, _Victoria, the Mother of the Camps_.
THE PONIARD'S HILT; or, _Karadeucq and Ronan_.
THE BRANDING NEEDLE; or, _The Monastery of Charolles_.
THE ABBATIAL CROSIER; or, _Bonaik and Septimine_.
THE CARLOVINGIAN COINS; or, _The Daughters of Charlemagne_.
THE IRON ARROW-HEAD; or, _The Buckler Maiden_.
THE INFANT'S SKULL; or, _The End of the World_.
THE PILGRIM'S SHELL; or, _Fergan the Quarryman_.
THE IRON PINCERS; or, _Mylio and Karvel_.
THE IRON TREVET; or, _Jocelyn the Champion_.
THE EXECUTIONER'S KNIFE; or, _Joan of Arc_.
THE POCKET BIBLE; or, _Christian the Printer_.
THE BLACKSMITH'S HAMMER; or, _The Peasant Code_.
THE SWORD OF HONOR; or, _The Foundation of the French Republic_.
THE GALLEY SLAVE'S RING; or, _The Family Lebrenn_.
Published Uniform With This Volume By
THE NEW YORK LABOR NEWS CO.
28 CITY HALL PLACE NEW YORK CITY
THE POCKET BIBLE
OR
CHRISTIAN THE PRINTER
A Tale of the Sixteenth Century
By EUGENE SUE
In Two Volumes
Vol. I.
TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL FRENCH
By DANIEL DE LEON
NEW YORK LABOR NEWS COMPANY. 1910
Copyright 1910, by the
NEW YORK LABOR NEWS CO.
INDEX
Volume 1
PART I. THE SOCIETY OF JESUS.
INTRODUCTION 1
CHAPTER.
I. THE THEFT 7
II. THE NEOPHYTE 18
III. THE SALE OF INDULGENCES 33
IV. THE "TEST OF THE LUTHERANS" 53
V. MONSIEUR JOHN 78
VI. THE FRANC-TAUPIN 87
VII. BROTHER ST. ERNEST-MARTYR 112
VIII. IN THE GARRET 128
IX. THE PENITENT 133
X. LOYOLA AND HIS DISCIPLES 138
XI. MOTHER AND DAUGHTER 166
XII. HERVE'S DEMENTIA 176
XIII. CALVINISTS IN COUNCIL 193
XIV. HENA'S DIARY 231
XV. DIARY OF ST. ERNEST-MARTYR 244
XVI. THE TAVERN OF THE BLACK GRAPE 252
XVII. THE COTTAGE OF ROBERT ESTIENNE 266
XVIII. FOR BETTER AND FOR WORSE 286
XIX. ON THE ROAD TO PARIS 304
XX. JANUARY 21, 1535 323
Volume 2
PART II--THE HUGUENOTS.
INTRODUCTION 1
CHAPTER
I. THE QUEEN'S "FLYING SQUADRON" 7
II. ANNA BELL 32
III. THE AVENGERS OF ISRAEL 71
IV. GASPARD OF COLIGNY 90
V. FAMILY FLOTSAM 112
VI. THE BATTLE OF ROCHE-LA-BELLE 132
VII. "CONTRE-UN" 163
VIII. ST. BARTHOLOMEW'S NIGHT 185
IX. THE SIEGE OF LA ROCHELLE 215
X. THE LAMBKINS' DANCE 233
XI. CAPTURE OF CORNELIA 254
XII. THE DUKE OF ANJOU 264
XIII. THE BILL IS PAID 273
EPILOGUE 288
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.
The epoch covered by this, the 16th story of Eugene Sue's dramatic
historic series, entitled _The Mysteries of the People; or, History of a
Proletarian Family Across the Ages_, extends over the turbulent yet
formative era known in history as the Religious Reformation.
The social system that had been developing since the epoch initiated by
the 8th story of the series, _The Abbatial Crosier; or, Bonaik and
Septimine_, that is, the feudal system, and which is depicted in full
bloom in the 14th story of the series, _The Iron Trevet; or, Jocelyn the
Champion_, had been since suffering general collapse with the approach
of the bourgeois, or capitalist system, which found its first open, or
political, expression in the Reformation, and which was urged into life
by Luther, Calvin and other leading adversaries of the Roman Catholic
regime.
The history of the Reformation, or rather, of the conflict between the
clerical polity which symbolized the old and the clerical polity which
symbolized the new social order, is compressed within the covers of this
one story with the skill at once of the historian, the scientist, the
philosopher and the novelist. The various springs from which human
action flows, the various types which human crises produce, the virtues
and the vices which great historic conflicts heat into activity--all
these features of social motion, never jointly reproduced in works of
history, are here drawn in vivid colors and present a historic canvas
that is prime in the domain of literature.
In view of the exceptional importance of some of the footnotes in which
Sue refers the reader to the pages of original authorities in French
cited by him, the pages of an accessible American edition are in those
cases either substituted or added in this translation.
DANIEL DE LEON.
New York, February, 1910.
PART I
THE SOCIETY OF JESUS
INTRODUCTION.
What great changes, sons of Joel, have taken place in Paris since the
time when our ancestor Eidiol the Parisian skipper lived in this city,
in the Ninth Century, at the time of the Northman invasion! How many
changes even since 1350, when our ancestor Jocelyn the Champion fell
wounded beside Etienne Marcel, who was assassinated by John Maillart and
the royalists!
The population of this great city now, in the year 1534, runs up to
about four hundred thousand souls; daily new houses rise in the suburbs
and outside the city walls, whose boundaries have become too narrow,
although they enclose from twelve to thirteen thousand houses. But now,
the same as in the past, Paris remains divided into four towns, so to
speak, by two thoroughfares that cross each other at right angles. St.
Martin, prolonged by St. James Street, traverses the city from east to
west; St. Honore, prolonged by St. Antoine Street, traverses it from
north to south. The Louvre is the quarter of the people of the court;
the quarter of the Bastille, of the Arsenal, filled with arms, and of
the Temple is that of the people whose profession is war; the quarter of
the University is that of the men of letters; finally the quarter of
Notre Dame and St. Germain, where lie the convents of the Cordeliers, of
the Chartreux, of the Jacobins, of the Augustinians, of the Dominicans
and of many other hives of monks and nuns besides the monasteries that
are scattered throughout the city, is that of the men of the Church. The
merchants, as a general thing, occupy the center of Paris towards St.
Denis Street; the manufacturers are found in the eastern, the shabbiest
of all the quarters, where, for one liard, workingmen can find lodging
for the night. The larger number of the bourgeois houses as well as all
the convents are now built of stone, and are no longer frame structures
as they formerly were. These modern buildings, topped with slate or lead
roofs and ornamented with sculptured facades, become every day more
numerous.
Likewise with crimes of all natures; their increase is beyond measure.
With nightfall, murderers and bandits take possession of the streets.
Their numbers rise to twenty-five or thirty thousand, all organized into
bands--the _Guilleris_, the _Plumets_, the _Rougets_, the
_Tire-Laines_,[1] the latter of whom rob bourgeois, who are inhibited
from carrying arms. The _Tire-Soies_,[2] a more daring band, fall upon
the noblemen, who are always armed. The _Barbets_ disguise themselves as
artisans of several trades, or as monks of several Orders and introduce
themselves into the houses for the purpose of stealing. Besides these
there are the bands of _Mattes_ or _Fins-Mattois_, skilled cut-purses
and pick-pockets; and finally the _Mauvais-Garcons_,[3] the most
redoubtable of all, who publicly, for a price chaffered over and
finally agreed upon, offer their daggers to whomsoever wishes to rid
himself of an enemy.
Nor is this the worst aspect presented by the crowded city. Paris runs
over with lost women and courtesans of all degrees. Never yet did
immorality, to which the royal court, the Church and the seigniory set
so shocking a pace, cause such widespread ravages. A repulsive disease
imported from America by the Spaniards since the conquests of
Christopher Columbus poisons life at its very source.
Finally, Paris presents a nameless mixture of fanaticism, debauchery and
ferocity. Above the doors of houses of ill fame, images of male and
female saints are seen in their niches, before which thieves, murderers
and courtesans uncover and bend the knee as they hurry by, bent on their
respective pursuits. The Tire-Laines, the Guilleris and other brigands
burn candles at the altars of the Virgin or pay for masses for the
success of their crimes in contemplation. Superstition spreads in even
step with criminality. Pious physicians are cited who regularly take the
weekly communion, and who, bought by impatient heirs, poison with their
pharmaceutical concoctions the rich patients, whose decease is too slow
in arriving. The most horrid felonies have lost their dreadfulness,
especially since the papal indulgences, sold for cash, insure absolution
and impunity to the criminals. The virtues of the hearth and all good
morals seem to have fled to the bosom of those families only who have
discarded the paganism of Rome and, although styled heretics, practice
the simplicity of evangelical morality. One of these families is that
of Christian the Printer, the great-grandchild of Jocelyn the
Champion's son, who, due to the rapid progress made by the printing
press, which rendered manuscript books useless and unnecessarily
expensive, found it ever more difficult to earn his living at his trade
of copyist and illuminator of manuscripts.
Accordingly, after the death of his father, who was the son of Jocelyn
the Champion and continued to live at Vaucouleurs after witnessing the
martyrdom of Joan of Arc, Allan Lebrenn moved to Paris, induced thereto
by John Saurin, a master-printer of this city who, having during a short
sojourn at Vaucouleurs been struck by the young man's intelligence at
his trade, promised to aid him in finding work in the large city. He
accepted the offer and speedily succeeded in his new field. He married
in 1465, died in 1474, and left a son, Melar Lebrenn, who was born in
1466 and was the father of Christian the Printer.
Melar Lebrenn followed his father's occupation, and worked long after
his father's death in John Saurin's establishment, where his services
were highly appreciated. But after John Saurin's death, Melar Lebrenn,
who had in the meantime married and had three children, Christian and
two daughters, was dismissed by Saurin's successor, a man named Noel
Compaign. Compaign was a religious bigot. He was incensed at what he
termed Melar Lebrenn's unbelief, hounded him with odious calumnies, and
spoke of him to the other members of the guild as dishonest and
otherwise unfit. Melar Lebrenn soon felt the effect of these calumnies;
his trade went down; his savings were consumed; his family was
breadless; he had nothing left to him but the legends and relics of his
family, that were handed down from generation to generation.
Under these circumstances Melar Lebrenn made one more and desperate
effort to rise to his feet. He knew by reputation Henry Estienne, the
most celebrated printer of the last century. Estienne's goodness of
heart as well as his knowledge were matters of common repute. Melar
Lebrenn decided to turn to him, but he found Estienne strongly
prejudiced against him through the calumnies that Compaign had
circulated. But Melar Lebrenn was not yet discouraged. He explained to
Estienne circumstantially the reason of Compaign's hatred, and offered
Estienne to serve him on trial. The offer was accepted, and Melar
Lebrenn soon acquitted himself so well both as a typesetter and a reader
of proof, that Master Henry Estienne, judging from the falseness of the
accusations concerning Melar Lebrenn's skill at his trade, concluded he
was equally wronged in his private character. From that time on,
Estienne took a deep interest in Melar and was soon singularly attached
to him, as much by reason of his skill, as for the probity of his
character and the kindness of his heart.
The two daughters of Melar Lebrenn were carried away by the pest that
swept over Paris in 1512; his wife survived them only a short time; and
Melar himself died in 1519. His only surviving child, Christian, married
Bridget Ardouin, an embroiderer in gold and silver thread. Christian
entered the printing establishment of Henry Estienne as an apprentice at
his twelfth year. After the death of the venerated Henry Estienne,
Christian remained under the employ of Robert Estienne, his father's
heir in virtue and his superior in scientific acquirements. The editions
that Robert Estienne issued of the old Greek, Hebrew or Latin authors
are the admiration of the learned by the correctness of the text, the
beauty of the type, and the perfection of the printing. Among other
things he published a pocket edition of the New Testament, translated
into French, a veritable masterpiece of typography. The bonds that
united Master Robert Estienne and his workman Christian Lebrenn became
of the closest.
Three children were born of the marriage of Christian Lebrenn with
Bridget Ardouin--a boy, born in 1516, and at the commencement of this
history eighteen years of age; a girl in 1518, and a boy in 1520. The
latter is named Odelin; he is an apprentice in the establishment of
Master Raimbaud, one of the most celebrated armorers of Paris. The
eldest son is named Herve, in memory of his mother's father, and he
follows his father Christian's profession of printer. The girl is named
Hena in remembrance of the Virgin of the Isle of Sen.
CHAPTER I.
THE THEFT.
It was one evening towards the middle of the month of August of 1534.
Christian Lebrenn occupied a modest house situated at about the center
of the Exchange Bridge. Almost all the other bridges thrown over the two
arms of the Seine are, like this one, lined with houses and constitute a
street under which the river flows. The kitchen, where the meals were
taken, was on the first floor, even with the street; behind this room,
the door and window of which opened upon the public thoroughfare, was a
smaller one, used for bed chamber by Herve, Christian's eldest son, and
the younger brother Odelin, the apprentice at Master Raimbaud's. At the
time, however, when this narrative opens, Odelin was absent from Paris,
traveling in Italy with his master, who had gone to Milan in order to
study the process by which the Milanese armors, as celebrated as those
of Toledo, were manufactured. The upper floor of Christian's house
consisted of two rooms. One of these he occupied himself with his wife
Bridget; his daughter Hena occupied the other. Finally, a garret that
served as storeroom for winter provisions, topped the house and had a
window that opened upon the river.
On this evening Christian was in an animated conversation with his wife.
It was late. The children were both asleep. A lamp lighted the room of
the husband and wife. Near the window, with its small lozenge-shaped
panes fastened between ribs of lead, lay the embroideries at which
Bridget and Hena had been at work. In the rear of this rather spacious
chamber stood the conjugal bed, surmounted with its canopy and enclosed
by its curtains of orange serge. A little further away was a little
book-case containing in neat rows the volumes in the printing of which
Christian and his father contributed at the printing establishment of
Masters Henry and Robert Estienne. In the same case Christian kept under
lock his family legends and relics, together with whatever else that he
attached special value to. Above the case an old cross-bow and battle
axe hung from the wall. It was always well to have some arms in the
house in order to repel the attacks of bandits who had of late grown
increasingly bold. Two flat leather covered coffers for clothes and a
few stools completed the humble furnishings of the room. Christian
seemed greatly troubled in mind. Bridget, looking no less concerned than
her husband, dropped the work that she expected to finish by lamp-light,
and stepped towards her husband. With his eyes fixed upon the ground,
his elbows upon his knees and his head in his hands, the latter
observed:
"There can be no doubt. The person who stole the money, here, in this
room, out of that case, and without breaking the lock, must be familiar
with our house."
"I can assure you, Christian, since yesterday when we discovered the
theft, I have been in a continuous fever."
"None but we and our children enter this room."
"No, excepting our customers or their employees. But as I am well aware
that the Barbets are bold and wily enough to put on the disguise of
honest merchants, whenever occasion demands it, in order to gain access
to a house and steal, and that they might play that trick upon me under
the pretext of bringing an order for some embroidery, neither Hena nor I
ever leave the room when a stranger is with us."
"I am ransacking my mind for the intimate acquaintance who could have
entered the room," the printer proceeded as if communing with himself
with painful anxiety. "Occasionally, Lefevre spends an evening with us;
I have come up into this room with him several times when he requested
me to read some of our family legends to him."
"But, my friend, it is a long time since we have seen Lefevre; you
yourself were wondering the other day what may have become of him;
moreover, it is out of all question to suspect your friend, a man of
austere morals, always wrapt in science."
"God prevent my suspecting him! I was only going over the extremely
small number of persons who visit us familiarly."
"Then there is my brother. The fellow is, true enough, a soldier of
adventure; he has his faults, grave faults, but--"
"Ah, Bridget, Josephin has for you and our children so tender a love, so
touching--I hold him capable of doing almost anything in a hostile
country, as is customary with people of his vocation; but he, who almost
every day sits at our hearth--he, commit a theft in our house? Such a
thought never crossed my mind--and never will!"
"Oh, I thank you for these words! I thank you!"
"And did you suppose that I suspected your brother? No! A thousand
times, no!"
"What shall I say? The vagabond life that he has led since his early
youth--the habits of violence and rapine with which the 'Franc-Taupins,'
the 'Pendards,' and the other soldiers of adventure who are my brother's
habitual companions are so justly reproached, might have caused
suspicion to rise in some prejudiced mind, and--but my
God--Christian--what ails you, tell me what ails you?" cried Bridget,
seeing her husband hide his face between his hands in utter despair, and
then suddenly rise and pace the room, as if pursued by a thought from
which he sought to flee. "My friend," insisted Bridget, "what sudden
thought has struck and afflicts you? There are tears in your eyes. Your
face is strangely distorted. Answer me, I pray you!"
"I take heaven to witness," cried the artisan, raising his hands
heavenward with a face that betrayed the tortures of his heart, "the
loss of the twenty gold crowns, that we gathered so laboriously, is a
serious matter to me; it was our daughter's dower; but that loss is as
nothing beside--"
"Beside what? Let me know!"
"No. Oh, no! It is too horrible!"
"Christian, what have you in mind?"
"Leave me! Leave me!" but immediately regretting the involuntary
rudeness, the artisan took Bridget's hands in his own, and said to her
in a deeply moved voice: "Excuse me, poor, dear wife. You see, when I
think of this affair I lose my head. When, at the printing shop, to-day,
the horrible suspicion flashed through my mind, I feared it would drive
me crazy! I struggled against it all I could--but a minute ago, as I was
running over with you our intimate acquaintances who might be thought
guilty of the theft, the frightful suspicion recurred to me. That is the
reason of my distress."
Christian threw himself down again upon his stool; again a shudder ran
over his frame and he hid his face between his hands.
"Tell me, my friend, what is the suspicion that assails you and that you
so violently resist? Impart it to me, I pray you."
After a painful struggle with himself that lasted several minutes, the
artisan murmured in a faint voice as if every word burnt his lips:
"Like myself, you noticed, recently--since about the time of Odelin's
departure for Milan--you noticed, like myself, that a marked change has
been coming over the nature and the habits of Herve."
"Our son!" cried Bridget stupefied; and she added: "Mercy! Would you
suspect him of so infamous an act?"
Christian remained steeped in a gloomy silence that Bridget, distracted
with grief as she was, did not at first venture to disturb. Presently
she proceeded:
"Impossible! Herve, whom we brought up in the same principles as his
brother--Herve, who never was away from us--"
"Bridget, I told you, the suspicion is horrible; I have struggled
against it with all my might," and the artisan's voice was smothered
with sobs. "And yet, if after all it should be so! If our son is indeed
the guilty one!"
"My friend, your suspicion bereaves me of my senses. You love Herve so
dearly, and your judgment is always so sound, your mind so penetrating,
that I can not conceive how so unjustifiable a thought could take
possession of you. Our son is continuously at the printing shop, at your
side, as Hena is at mine; better than anyone else should you know your
son's heart." Bridget remained silent for a moment and then proceeded
while scalding tears rolled down her cheeks: "Oh, I feel it, even if
your suspicion is never justified, it will embitter the rest of my life!
Oh, to think our son capable of stealing!"
"And for that very reason there is no one else in the world but you, and
you alone, to whom I confide the horrid suspicion. Oh, Bridget, it is
more than a suspicion. Let us not exaggerate matters; let us not be
unnecessarily cast down; let us calmly look into the affair; let us
carefully refresh our memories; we may arrive--may God hear my words--at
the conclusion that the suspicion is unfounded. As I was just saying, a
great change has lately come over Herve. You noticed the singular
manifestations as well as I."
"Yes, recently, he, who formerly was so cheerful, so open, so
affectionate, has of late been cold and somber, dreamy and silent. He
has grown pale and thin; he is quickly irritated. Shortly before the
departure of our little Odelin, he often and without cause scolded the
poor boy, for whom he always before had only kind words. And often since
then, have I had occasion to reproach Herve for his rudeness, I should
almost say harshness towards his sister, whom he dearly loved. He now
seems to avoid her company. At times I simply cannot understand his
conduct towards her. Why, only yesterday, when you and he came home from
the printing shop, after embracing you, as is her custom, Hena offered
her forehead to her brother--but he rudely pushed her aside."
"I did not notice that; but I did notice the growing indifference of
Herve towards his sister. What mystery can lie below that?"
"And yet, my friend, we love all our children equally. Herve might feel
hurt if we showed any preference for Hena or Odelin. But we do not. We
are equally kind to all the three."
"Yes, indeed. We shall have to look elsewhere for the cause of the
change that afflicts us. Can it be that, without our knowledge, he keeps
bad company? There is one circumstance in this affair that has struck
me. Paternal love does not blind me. I see great aptitudes in Herve.
Not to mention the gift of an easy flowing eloquence that is
exceptional at his age, he has become an excellent Latinist. Owing to
his aptitude in that direction he has more than once been chosen to
gather precious manuscripts at the houses of some men of letters, who
are the friends of Master Robert Estienne. Usually our son attended to
such work with accuracy and despatch. Of late, however, his absence from
the shop on such errands is often long, unnecessarily so and also
frequent, and he does not attend properly to his errands, sometimes does
not attend to them at all. Master Robert Estienne has complained to me
in a friendly way, saying that Herve should be watched, that he was
drawing near his eighteenth year and might contract acquaintances that
would be cause of trouble for us later."
"On that very subject, my friend, only a few days ago I was reproaching
Herve for his estrangement from the friends of his boyhood, all of whom
are good and honest lads. He flees their company and spurns their
cordial advances. The only person with whom he seems to be intimate is
Fra Girard, the Franciscan friar and son of our neighbor the mercer."
"I would prefer some other company for our son, but not that I accuse
Fra Girard of being, like so many other monks, an improper person to
associate with. He is said to be of austere morals, but being older than
Herve, he has, I am afraid, gained considerable influence over him, and
rendered him savagely intolerant. Several of the artisans at the shop of
Master Estienne are, like he himself, partisans of the religious
reform; some are openly so, despite the danger that their outspokenness
entails, others more privately. More than once did our son raise his
voice with excessive violence against the new ideas which he calls
heresies. And yet he knows that you and I share them."
"Alas! my friend, what woman, what mother would not share the reform
ideas, seeing that they reject auricular confession? Did we not find
ourselves compelled to stop our daughter from attending the confessional
on account of the shameful questions that a priest dared to put to her
and which, in the candor of her soul, she repeated to us? But to return
to Herve, even though, in some respects, I dislike his intimacy with Fra
Girard and fear it may tend to render him intolerant, the influence of
the monk, the austerity of whose morals is commented upon, must have had
the effect of keeping far from our son's mind an act so ugly that we can
not mention it without shedding tears of sorrow," added Bridget wiping
her moist eyes; "Herve's piety, my friend, becomes daily more fervent;
as you know, the unhappy boy imposes upon himself, at the risk of
impairing his health, ever longer fasts. Did I not discover from the
traces of blood upon his shirt that on certain days he carries close to
his skin a belt that is furnished within with sharp iron pricks? That is
not the conduct of a hypocrite! He sought to conceal from all eyes the
secret macerations that he inflicts upon himself in penitence. It was
only accidentally that I discovered the fact. I deplore such fanaticism;
but his fanaticism may also be a safeguard. The very exaggeration to
which Herve carries his religious principles must strengthen him
against temptation. Heaven be blessed! You were right, Christian; by
closely considering the circumstances, we can come at no other
conclusion than that such suspicions are unfounded. Our son is innocent,
do you not think so, Christian?"
Gloomy and pensive the artisan listened to his wife without interrupting
her. He replied:
"No, dear wife; fanaticism is no safeguard against evil. Alas!
differently from you, the more I consider the facts that you adduce--I
hardly dare say so to you--my suspicions, so far from being removed,
grow in weight. Yes, I believe our son guilty."
"Great God! What a horrible thought!"
"I believe our son is sincere in his devout practices, however
exaggerated these may be. But I also know that one of the most frightful
consequences of fanaticism is that it clouds and perverts the most
elemental principles of right and wrong, of justice and injustice, with
those whom it dominates. Religious faith substitutes morality."
"But theft, seeing that I must mention the word--theft--how can
fanaticism excuse that? You must be mistaken upon that subject!"
"Listen, Bridget. A few days ago--and it was the recollection of the
circumstance that first awoke my suspicions--a few days ago one of our
fellow workmen at the shop expressed himself with indignation at the
traffic of indulgences that has recently been carried on in Paris, and
he said emphatically that besides the immorality of the trade that was
being practiced in the Pope's name, the extortion of money by such means
from ignorance and from popular credulity was nothing short of a fraud
practiced upon the people. And do you know the answer that our son made?
'That is a lie! It is impious! The money that is devoted to a pious
deed, even if it be the fruit of a theft, of a murder, is purified and
sanctified from the moment that it is employed to the greater glory of
the Lord!'"
Bridget grew pale, and murmured in a voice smothered by sobs:
"Oh! now I fear--I also fear! May God have mercy upon us!"
"Do you now understand how, if our son is indeed guilty of the shameful
act which we hesitate to impugn to him, in his blind fanaticism the
unhappy boy will have believed that he was doing a meritorious act if he
employed the money in some such work of devotion as ordering the saying
of masses?"