Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the romances of the Middle Ages, the History
of France, and of Rome, etc., etc. Excepting Bossuet's _Histoire des
Variations_ and Pascal's _Provinciales_, I do not think there are many
books left to read if you insist on eliminating all those in which
illicit love is mentioned."

"Much loss that would be!" said Monsieur de Clagny.

Etienne, nettled by the superior air assumed by Monsieur de Clagny,
wanted to infuriate him by one of those cold-drawn jests which consist
in defending an opinion in which we have no belief, simply to rouse
the wrath of a poor man who argues in good faith; a regular
journalist's pleasantry.

"If we take up the political attitude into which you would force
yourself," he went on, without heeding the lawyer's remark, "and
assume the part of Public Prosecutor of all the ages--for every
Government has its public ministry--well, the Catholic religion is
infected at its fountain-head by a startling instance of illegal
union. In the opinion of King Herod, and of Pilate as representing the
Roman Empire, Joseph's wife figured as an adulteress, since, by her
avowal, Joseph was not the father of Jesus. The heathen judge could no
more recognize the Immaculate Conception than you yourself would admit
the possibility of such a miracle if a new religion should nowadays be
preached as based on a similar mystery. Do you suppose that a judge
and jury in a police court would give credence to the operation of the
Holy Ghost! And yet who can venture to assert that God will never
again redeem mankind? Is it any better now than it was under
Tiberius?"