Saint Medard, the old church of the Rue Mouffetard, once well known as
the scene of the Convulsionnaires, is a very poor parish. The "Faubourg
Marceau," as they call it there, has not much religion, and the
vestry-board must have hard work to make both ends meet. On Sundays, at
the hours of service, there are but few there, and they are for the most
part women: some twenty of the folk of the quarter and some servants in
their round caps. As for the men, there are not at the most more than
three or four--old men in peasant jackets, who kneel awkwardly on the
stone floor, near a pillar, their caps under their arms, rolling a great
chaplet of beads between their fingers, moving their lips, and raising
their eyes towards the arched roof, with an air as if they had given the
stained-glass windows. On week days, nobody. On Thursdays, in the
winter, the aisles resounded for an instant with the clang of wooden
shoes, when the students of the catechism came and went. Sometimes a
poor woman, leading one or two children and carrying a baby in her arms,
came to burn a little candle on the stand at the chapel of the Virgin,
or perhaps one heard by the baptismal font the wailing of a new-born
babe; or, more often, the funeral of some poor wretch: a deal box,
covered with a black cloth and resting on two trestles, hastily blessed
by the priest, before a little group of women, the men being
free-thinkers, and waiting the conclusion of the ceremony in the
drinking-shop across the way, where they played bagatelle for drinks.
Therefore, the old Abbé Faber, one of the vicars of the parish, is sure
that twice out of three times he will find no penitent before his
confessional, and has only to hear, for the most part of the time, the
uninteresting confession of some good women. But he is conscientious,
and on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, at seven o'clock precisely,
he betakes himself regularly to the chapel of St. John, only to make a
short prayer and return should there be nobody there.