"'Never!'

"'Not even to the suicides?'

"'There are no suicides for Notre Dame: one is drowned by accident,
another killed by the bursting of a gun, a third has fallen from
a scaffold. I invent the excuse, and the conscience of the priest
accepts it. That's enough.'

"So, thought I! Notre Dame, which formerly witnessed the execution at
the stake of sorcerers, alchymists, and gipsies on the Grande Place,
has now no word of reprobation for the carcass of the suicide, once
allowed to rot on the ground, or be devoured by birds. She asks not
here what was his faith. The priest says mildly, 'Peace be with you.'

"We walked down, and François opened the first room, that which
contains the dresses; habits of all shapes, all dimensions, hideously
jumbled together; gaiters pinned to a sleeve, a shawl shading the neck
of a coat; dresses of peasants, workmen, carters and brewers' frocks,
women's gowns, all faded, discoloured, shapeless, flap against each
other in the current of air which entered through the windows. There
is something here appalling in the sight and sound of these objects,
soulless, body-less, yet moving as if they had life, and presenting
the form without the flesh. Your eye rests on a handkerchief, the
property of some poor labourer, suddenly seized with the idea of
suicide, after some day that he has wanted work.

"François, who followed the direction of my eyes to see what
impression the picture produced on me sighed heavily.