In this age there exist people who do not distinguish between the very great Saint Bernard and the Saint Bernard denominated of the poor Catholics, a certain good ecclesiastic who lived in the thirteenth century.
Others are so blasphemous as to compare the scaffold of Louis XVI. to the cross of Jesus Christ.
Louis XVI. was merely a king.
Let us beware of God!
There is no longer just nor unjust.
The name of Voltaire is known, but not the name of Cesar de Bus.
Nevertheless, Cesar de Bus is a man of blessed memory, and Voltaire one of unblessed memory.
The last arch-bishop, the Cardinal de Perigord, did not even know that Charles de Gondren succeeded to Berulle, and Francois Bourgoin to Gondren, and Jean-Francois Senault to Bourgoin, and Father Sainte-Marthe to Jean-Francois Senault.
The name of Father Coton is known, not because he was one of the three who urged the foundation of the Oratorie, but because he furnished Henri IV., the Huguenot king, with the material for an oath.
That which pleases people of the world in Saint Francois de Sales, is that he cheated at play.
And then, religion is attacked.
Why?
Because there have been bad priests, because Sagittaire, Bishop of Gap, was the brother of Salone, Bishop of Embrun, and because both of them followed Mommol.
What has that to do with the question?
Does that prevent Martin de Tours from being a saint, and giving half of his cloak to a beggar?
They persecute the saints.
They shut their eyes to the truth.
Darkness is the rule.
The most ferocious beasts are beasts which are blind.
No one thinks of hell as a reality.
Oh! how wicked people are!
By order of the king signifies to-day, by order of the revolution. One no longer knows what is due to the living or to the dead.
A holy death is prohibited.
Burial is a civil matter.
This is horrible.
Saint Leo II. wrote two special letters, one to Pierre Notaire, the other to the king of the Visigoths, for the purpose of combating and rejecting, in questions touching the dead, the authority of the exarch and the supremacy of the Emperor.
Gauthier, Bishop of Chalons, held his own in this matter against Otho, Duke of Burgundy.
The ancient magistracy agreed with him.
In former times we had voices in the chapter, even on matters of the day.
The Abbot of Citeaux, the general of the order, was councillor by right of birth to the parliament of Burgundy.
We do what we please with our dead.
Is not the body of Saint Benoit himself in France, in the abbey of Fleury, called Saint Benoit-sur-Loire, although he died in Italy at Mont-Cassin, on Saturday, the 21st of the month of March, of the year 543?
All this is incontestable.
I abhor psalm-singers, I hate priors, I execrate heretics, but I should detest yet more any one who should maintain the contrary.
One has only to read Arnoul Wion, Gabriel Bucelin, Trithemus, Maurolics, and Dom Luc d’Achery.”
The prioress took breath, then turned to Fauchelevent.
“Is it settled, Father Fauvent?”
“It is settled, reverend Mother.”
“We may depend on you?”
“I will obey.”
“That is well.”
“I am entirely devoted to the convent.”
“That is understood.
You will close the coffin.
The sisters will carry it to the chapel.
The office for the dead will then be said.
Then we shall return to the cloister.
Between eleven o’clock and midnight, you will come with your iron bar.
All will be done in the most profound secrecy.
There will be in the chapel only the four Mother Precentors, Mother Ascension and yourself.”