seducer in a tune solemn and ceremonious. When yonder Mosaide
brought his imprecations to an end, I endeavoured to let him have my
reply in two languages also. I replied in a mixture of Latin and
French that he was a manslayer and a sacrilegist, who murdered tiny
babes and stabbed sacred hosts. The fresh morning wind blowing
between my naked legs reminded me that I wore a shirt only. I felt
somewhat embarrassed, because it is evident, my boy, that a man
without breeches is in a state highly inconvenient to speak of
sacred truth, to confound error and to prevent crime. Withal I gave
him a prodigious sketch of his outrages, and I threatened him with
the terrors of justice both human and divine."

"What do you say, my good master?" I nearly screamed, "yonder
Mosaide, who has such a pretty niece, kills newborn babes and stabs
hosts?"

"I don't know anything about him," M. Jerome Coignard replied, "and
besides cannot know it. But those crimes are his, they are of his
race, and I can charge him with them without slandering him. I place
on that miscreant's back a long array of flagitious ancestors. You
cannot have remained ignorant of all that is said of the Jews and of
their abominable rites. You may see in an ancient cosmography of
Munster in Westphalia a drawing representing some Jews mutilating a
child; they are recognisable by the wheel or round of cloth they
wear on their clothes in sign of infamy. For all that I do not
believe these misdeeds to be of their daily and domestic use. I also
doubt that the majority of Israelites are inclined to outrage the
holy wafers. To accuse them of doing so would be to believe that
they are as deeply convinced of the divinity of our Lord Jesus
Christ as we are ourselves. Sacrilege without faith is unbelievable,