is no person of any learning and solid piety who does not know that
Margaret and Catherine were invented by Byzantine monks, whose
abundant and barbarous imaginations have altogether muddled up the
martyrology. It is a ridiculous impiety to pretend that God made two
saints who never existed appear to Jeanne Dulys. However, the
ancient chroniclers were not afraid to publish it. Why have they not
said that God sent to the Maid of Orleans the fair Yseult, Melusine,
Berthe the Bigfooted, and all the other heroines of the romances of
chivalry the existence of whom is not more fabulous that that of the
two virgins, Catherine and Margaret? M. de Valois, in the last
century, rose with full reason against these clumsy fables, as much
opposed to religion as error is to truth. It is desirable that an
ecclesiastic learned in history undertook to show the distinction
between real saints and saints such as Margaret, Luce or Lucie,
Eustache, and perhaps Saint George, about whom I have my doubts.

"If on a future day I should be able to retire to some beautiful
abbey, possessing a rich library, I will devote to this task the
remainder of a life, half worn out in frightful tempests and
frequent shipwrecks. I am longing for a harbour of refuge, and I
have the desire and the taste for a chaste repose suitable to my age
and profession."

While M. Coignard was holding this memorable discourse, M.
d'Anquetil, without listening to the abbe's words, was seated on the
edge of the fountain, shuffling the cards and swearing like a
trooper, because it was too dark to play a game of piquet.

"You are right," said my good master; "it is a bad light, and I am
somewhat displeased over it, less because I cannot play cards than