The Abbe Gabriel was now the centre of all eyes; his sadness raised a suspicion of mistake. To avoid correcting it himself, he left the house, followed by the rector, and said to the crowd outside that the execution was only postponed for some days. The uproar subsided instantly into dreadful silence. When the Abbe Gabriel and the rector returned, the expression on the faces of the family was full of anguish; the silence of the crowd was understood.
"My friends, Jean-Francois is not pardoned," said the young abbe, seeing that the blow had fallen; "but the state of his soul has so distressed Monseigneur that he has obtained a delay in order to save your son in eternity."
"But he lives!" cried Denise.
The young abbe took the rector aside to explain to him the injurious situation in which the impenitence of his parishioner placed religion, and the duty the bishop imposed upon him.
"Monseigneur exacts my death," replied the rector. "I have already refused the entreaties of the family to visit their unhappy son. Such a conference and the sight of his death would shatter me like glass.
Every man must work as he can. The weakness of my organs, or rather, the too great excitability of my nervous organization, prevents me from exercising these functions of our ministry. I have remained a simple rector expressly to be useful to my kind in a sphere in which I can really accomplish my Christian duty. I have carefully considered how far I could satisfy this virtuous family and do my pastoral duty to this poor son; but the very idea of mounting the scaffold with him, the mere thought of assisting in those fatal preparations, sends a shudder as of death through my veins. It would not be asked of a mother; and remember, monsieur, he was born in the bosom of my poor church."
"So," said the Abbe Gabriel, "you refuse to obey Monseigneur?"
"Monseigneur is ignorant of the state of my health; he does not know that in a constitution like mine nature refuses--" said Monsieur Bonnet, looking at the younger priest.
"There are times when we ought, like Belzunce at Marseille, to risk certain death," replied the Abbe Gabriel, interrupting him.
At this moment the rector felt a hand pulling at his cassock; he heard sobs, and turning round he saw the whole family kneeling before him.
Young and old, small and great, all were stretching their supplicating hands to him. One sole cry rose from their lips as he turned his face upon them:--"Save his soul, at least!"
The old grandmother it was who had pulled his cassock and was wetting it with her tears.
"I shall obey, monsieur."
That said, the rector was forced to sit down, for his legs trembled under him. The young secretary explained the frenzied state of the criminal's mind.
"Do you think," he said, as he ended his account, "that the sight of his young sister would shake his determination?"
"Yes, I do," replied the rector. "Denise, you must go with us."
"And I, too," said the mother.
"No!" cried the father; "that child no longer exists for us, and you know it. None of us shall see him."
"Do not oppose what may be for his salvation," said the young abbe.
"You will be responsible for his soul if you refuse us the means of softening it. His death may possibly do more injury than his life has done."
"She may go," said the father; "it shall be her punishment for opposing all the discipline I ever wished to give her son."
The Abbe Gabriel and Monsieur Bonnet returned to the parsonage, where Denise and her mother were requested to come in time to start for Limoges with the two ecclesiastics.
As the younger man walked along the path which followed the outskirts of upper Montegnac he was able to examine the village priest so warmly commended by the vicar-general less superficially than he did in church. He felt at once inclined in his favor, by the simple manners, the voice full of magic power, and the words in harmony with the voice of the village rector. The latter had only visited the bishop's palace once since the prelate had taken Gabriel de Rastignac as secretary. He had hardly seen this favorite, destined for the episcopate, though he knew how great his influence was. Nevertheless, he behaved with a dignified courtesy that plainly showed the sovereign independence which the Church bestows on rectors in their parishes. But the feelings of the young abbe, far from animating his face, gave it a stern expression; it was more than cold, it was icy. A man capable of changing the moral condition of a whole population must surely possess some powers of observation, and be more or less of a physiognomist; and even if the rector had no other science than that of goodness, he had just given proof of rare sensibility. He was therefore struck by the coldness with which the bishop's secretary met his courteous advances. Compelled to attribute this manner to some secret annoyance, the rector sought in his own mind to discover if he had wounded his guest, or in what way his conduct could seem blameworthy in the eyes of his superiors.
An awkward silence ensued, which the Abbe de Rastignac broke by a speech that was full of aristocratic assumption.
"You have a very poor church, monsieur," he said.
"It is too small," replied Monsieur Bonnet. "On the great fete-days the old men bring benches to the porch, and the young men stand outside in a circle; but the silence is so great that all can hear my voice."
Gabriel was silent for some moments.
"If the inhabitants are so religious how can you let the building remain in such a state of nudity?" he said at last.
