M. de Goulet, who had been nibbling his pen for some moments, could not refrain from a murmur. He deplored the fact that the churches should be thus robbed of their artistic treasures by infidels. The head of the high seminary answered in firm tones:
“Let us, Monseigneur, if you please, drop the subject of the trade to which the friend of M. Worms-Clavelin, the Jewish _préfet_, devotes himself, and allow me to enumerate the only too definite complaints which I have to bring against the professor of rhetoric at the high seminary. I impugn: first, his doctrine; second, his conduct. I say that I indict first his doctrine, and that on four grounds: first …”
The Cardinal-Archbishop stretched out both his arms as though to ward off such a multitude of charges.
“Monsieur Lantaigne, I see that for some time the vicar-general has been biting his pen and making desperate signs to remind me that our printer is waiting for our pastoral letter, which has to be read on Sunday in the churches of our diocese. Allow me to finish dictating this charge, which, I trust, will bring some solace to our priests and faithful people.”
Abbé Lantaigne bowed, and very sadly withdrew. After his departure the Cardinal-Archbishop, turning to M. de Goulet, said:
“I did not know that M. Guitrel was so friendly with the _préfet_. And I am grateful to the head of the seminary for having warned me of it. M. Lantaigne is sincerity itself: I prize his frankness and straightforwardness. With him, one knows where one is …”
M. Lantaigne, principal of the high seminary, was working in his study, the whitewashed walls of which were three parts covered by deal shelves loaded with the dark bindings of his working library, the whole of Migne’s _Patrologie_, and cheap editions of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Baronius and Bossuet. A Virgin in the manner of Mignard surmounted the door, with a dusty sprig of box sticking out of the old gilt frame. Uninviting horsehair chairs stood on the red tiles in front of the windows, through which the stale smell of the refectory ascended to the cotton window-curtains.
The principal, bending over his little walnut-wood desk, was turning over the pages of the registers handed him by Abbé Perruque, the master of method, who stood at his side.