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The Bishop hung his head and replied, "Vermis sum I am a worm." "A worm of the earth in a carriage?" growled the conventionary. It was the conventionary's turn to be arrogant, and the Bishop's to be humble. The Bishop resumed mildly: "So be it, sir.
The conventionary began to pant; the asthma of the agony which is mingled with the last breaths interrupted his voice; still, there was a perfect lucidity of soul in his eyes. He went on: "Let me say a few words more in this and that direction; I am willing. Apart from the Revolution, which, taken as a whole, is an immense human affirmation, '93 is, alas! a rejoinder.
They have been suffering longer." Another silence ensued. The conventionary was the first to break it. He raised himself on one elbow, took a bit of his cheek between his thumb and his forefinger, as one does mechanically when one interrogates and judges, and appealed to the Bishop with a gaze full of all the forces of the death agony. It was almost an explosion.
"Monsieur," said the Bishop, "I like not this conjunction of names." "Cartouche? Louis XV.? To which of the two do you object?" A momentary silence ensued. The Bishop almost regretted having come, and yet he felt vaguely and strangely shaken. The conventionary resumed: "Ah, Monsieur Priest, you love not the crudities of the true. Christ loved them. He seized a rod and cleared out the Temple.
But explain to me how my carriage, which is a few paces off behind the trees yonder, how my good table and the moor-hens which I eat on Friday, how my twenty-five thousand francs income, how my palace and my lackeys prove that clemency is not a duty, and that '93 was not inexorable." The conventionary passed his hand across his brow, as though to sweep away a cloud.
And he knelt down. When the Bishop raised his head again, the face of the conventionary had become august. He had just expired. The Bishop returned home, deeply absorbed in thoughts which cannot be known to us. He passed the whole night in prayer.
And he added, regarding the member of the Convention steadily the while, "Louis XVII.?" The conventionary stretched forth his hand and grasped the Bishop's arm. "Louis XVII.! let us see. For whom do you mourn? is it for the innocent child? very good; in that case I mourn with you. Is it for the royal child? I demand time for reflection.
"That is true," said the Bishop in a low voice. "I persist," continued the conventionary G "You have mentioned Louis XVII. to me. Let us come to an understanding. Shall we weep for all the innocent, all martyrs, all children, the lowly as well as the exalted? I agree to that.
The conventionary opened his eyes again. A gravity mingled with gloom was imprinted on his countenance. "Bishop," said he, with a slowness which probably arose more from his dignity of soul than from the failing of his strength, "I have passed my life in meditation, study, and contemplation. I was sixty years of age when my country called me and commanded me to concern myself with its affairs.
We should incur a great risk of deceiving ourselves, were we to conclude from this that Monseigneur Welcome was "a philosophical bishop," or a "patriotic cure." His meeting, which may almost be designated as his union, with conventionary G , left behind it in his mind a sort of astonishment, which rendered him still more gentle. That is all.
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