atheist, who had no chapel in his factory, and dared to blend the names
of Socrates, Marcus, Aurelius, and Plato, with our Savior's? Pity for the
Indian worshipper of Brahma? Pity for the two sisters, who have never
even been baptized? Pity for that brute, Jacques Rennepont? Pity for the
stupid imperial soldier, who has Napoleon for his god, and the bulletins
of the Grand Army for his gospel? Pity for this family of renegades,
whose ancestor, a relapsed heretic, not content with robbing us of our
property, excites from his tomb, at the end of a century and a half, his
cursed race to lift their heads against us? What! to defend ourselves
from these vipers, we shall not have the right to crush them in their own
venom?--I tell you, that it is to serve heaven, and to give a salutary
example to the world, to devote, by unchaining their own passions, this
impious family to grief and despair and death!"

As he spoke thus, Rodin was dreadful in his ferocity; the fire of his
eyes became still more brilliant; his lips were dry and burning, a cold
sweat bathed his temples, which could be seen throbbing; an icy shudder
ran through his frame. Attributing these symptoms to fatigue from writing
through a portion of the night, and wishing to avoid fainting, he went to
the sideboard, filled another glass with wine, which he drank off at a
draught, and returned as the cardinal said to him: "If your course with
regard to this family needed justification, my good father, your last
word would have victoriously justified it. Not only are you right,
according to your own casuists, but there is nothing in your proceedings
contrary to human laws. As for the divine law, it is pleasing to the Lord
to destroy impiety with its own weapons."

Conquered, as well as the others, by Rodin's diabolical assurance, and
brought back to a kind of fearful admiration, Father d'Aigrigny said to
him: "I confess I was wrong in doubting the judgment of your reverence.