"An unjust excommunication ought to hinder [us] from doing our duty."

The enormity of this last is more striking than the simple truth of the
proposition condemned. The second is a shadow which better throws up the
light of the first. The results and the frightful consequences of the
condemnation are as clear as day.

I think I have before said that Father Tellier, without any advances on
my part, without, in fact, encouragement of any kind, insisted upon
keeping up an intimacy with me, which I could not well repel, for it came
from a man whom it would have been very dangerous indeed to have for an-
enemy. As soon as this matter of the constitution was in the wind, he
came to me to talk about it. I did not disguise my opinion from him, nor
did he disguise in any way from me the unscrupulous means he meant to
employ in order to get this bull accepted by the clergy. Indeed, he was
so free with me, showed me so plainly his knavery and cunning, that I
was, as it were, transformed with astonishment and fright. I never could
comprehend this openness in a man so false, so artificial, so profound,
or see in what manner it could be useful to him.

One day he came to me by appointment, with a copy of the constitution in
his hand in order that we might thoroughly discuss it. I was at
Versailles. In order to understand what I am going to relate, I must
give some account of my apartments there. Let me say, then, that I had a
little back cabinet, leading out of another cabinet, but so arranged that
you would not have thought it was there. It received no light except
from the outer cabinet, its own windows being boarded up. In this back
cabinet I had a bureau, some chairs, books, and all I needed; my friends
called it my "shop," and in truth it did not ill resemble one.