Author Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1919 edition. Excerpt:... off to write in his room. As for me, I suspected that all these slanders, spread abroad by the cures at the instigation of the Jesuit preachers, boded us no good. "Without doubt," I said to myself, "they are trying to discredit him in advance, in order to prepare the people for some severe measure against the cure Bonal." It was my guess that they wanted to take him away from Fanlac, and send him off to some wretched little parish, since nothing could be more painful to him than to leave the dear parishioners who loved him so well.... But I did not really know his enemies and persecutors. A few days later, another letter arrived, sealed, like the first, with violet wax. When he had read it, the cure, who was master of himself, did not flinch. He refolded the letter, and went out to walk thoughtfully in the garden. An hour later, he went off to find the Chevalier. The latter did not take matters as quietly as did the cure. As soon as he had learned what the trouble was, he cried out that it was an infamy and a piece of gross stupidity as well; that the Bishop must have lost his head to do such a thing as that, or that they had deceived him; that as for himself, he would never be seen again at mass--in his anger he shouted out the word--since the Tartuffes were shutting out of the Church the best cure in the diocese. As the next day was Sunday, the cure ascended his pulpit for the last time. When he announced to his parishioners that, according to the decree of Mon-seigneur the Bishop, he was interdicted, and would never say mass again, not even on the present Sunday, nor would any longer administer the sacraments, there was an explosion of surprise in the crowded church, which continued in a dull murmur that the cure was for a moment unable to...