or false, if it only amuses for the moment. That is what makes them an
ideal prey for the quack physician. They will believe anything so long
as it is strange and complicated; a straightforward doctor is not
listened to; they want that mystery-making "priest-physician"
concerning whom a French writer--I forget his name--has wisely
discoursed. I once recommended a young woman who was bleeding at the
nose to try the homely remedy of a cold key. I thought she would have
died of laughing! The expedient was too absurdly simple to be efficacious.

The attitude of the clergy in regard to popular superstitions is the
same here as elsewhere. They are too wise to believe them, and too
shrewd to discourage the belief in others; these things can be turned to
account for keeping the people at a conveniently low level of
intelligence. For the rest, these priests are mostly good fellows of the
live-and-let-live type, who would rather cultivate their own potatoes
than quarrel about vestments or the Trinity. Violently acquisitive, of
course, like most southerners. I know a parish priest, a son of poor
parents, who, by dint of sheer energy, has amassed a fortune of half a
million francs. He cannot endure idleness in any shape, and a fine
mediaeval scene may be witnessed when he suddenly appears round the
corner and catches his workmen wasting their time and his money--

"Ha, loafers, rogues, villains, vermin and sons of _bastardi cornuti!_
If God had not given me these garments and thereby closed my lips to all
evil-speaking (seizing his cassock and displaying half a yard of purple
stocking)--wouldn't I just tell you, spawn of adulterous assassins, what
I think of you!"

But under the new regime these priests are becoming mere decorative
survivals, that look well enough in the landscape, but are not taken