The midday sun darted its clear white rays. Not a cloud in the sky, not
a breath in the air. The solitary orb swung across the vast repose in
which everything was wrapped and urged its blazing course towards the
horizon. On the deserted Mall the shadows lay still and heavy at the
foot of the elms. A road-mender slept in the bottom of the ditch that
bounds the ramparts. The birds were silent.
Seated at the shady end of a bench three parts steeped in sunlight, M.
Bergeret forgot, under these classic trees, in the friendly solitude,
his wife and his three daughters, his cramped life and his cramped
home; like Æsop he revelled in the freedom of his mind, and his
analytical imagination roved irresponsibly among the living and the
dead.
However Abbé Lantaigne, head of the high seminary, was passing, with
his breviary in his hand, down the broad walk of the Mall. M. Bergeret
rose to offer his shady place on the bench to the priest. M. Lantaigne
came up and sank into it composedly, with that priestly dignity which
never left him and which in him was just simplicity. M. Bergeret sat
near him, at the spot where the shadow fell mingled with light from the
feathery end of the branches, so that his black clothing was covered
with golden discs, and over his dazzled eyes his eyelids began to blink.
He congratulated Abbé Lantaigne in these words:
“It is said everywhere, monsieur l’abbé, that you will be called to the
bishopric of Tourcoing.
“The sign I hail, and from it dare to hope.[J]
But this choice is too good a one not to make one doubtful. You are
believed to be a royalist, and that counts against you. Are you not a
republican like the Pope?”
[J] “J’en accepte l’augure et j’ose l’espérer.”
M. LANTAIGNE: “I am a republican like the Pope. That is to
say, I am at peace and not at war with the government of the Republic.
But peace is not love. And I do not love the Republic.”
M. BERGERET: “I guess your reasons. You condemn it for being
freethinking and hostile to the clergy.”
M. LANTAIGNE: “Assuredly I condemn it as irreligious and
inimical to the priests. But this irreligion, these hostilities, are
not inherent in it. They are the attributes of republicans, not of the
Republic. They diminish or increase at every change of ministers. They
are less to-day than they were yesterday. Possibly they will increase
to-morrow. Perhaps a time will come when they will be non-existent, as
they were non-existent under the rule of Marshal MacMahon, or at least
during the delusive beginnings of that rule and under the deceptive
ministry of May 16th. They are accidental, not essential. But even if
it were respectful towards religion and its ministers, I should still
hate the Republic.”