130 APPENDIX. 



to my folks. It is enough that I have to pay to the 

 Pope a dispense for ray son and you ! Well, Madame, 

 I think you might save that money, for I am willing 

 to take the whole responsibility for all of us, and more. 

 Well, that is all right, for you, but I must be respon- 

 sible I have my soul to save .... do you understand, 

 paying the Pope to eat pigeons ?! L ... What sublime 

 thing faith is ! Nothing equal, except stupidity. I 

 do not know if she has saved her soul. Nobody can 

 know that, but if she did not it was not for lack of 

 credulity, for she would swallow any thing the priests 

 would tell her. I recollect once, a tall, swarthy fellow, 

 just (he said) coming from the Holy Land with splin- 

 ters of the wood of the " Holy Cross," and something 

 rarer yet : some bones of Saint Vincent, the saint 

 venerated by the " vine dressers" probably because he 

 was a liberal consumer of their produce ! ? I do not 

 affirm, I only ask the question. He (the discoverer of 

 traps to catch the simple-hearted, with an iron-clad 

 faith, managed, with the aid of co-swindlers, to per- 

 suade her to get some and have them enshrined. She 

 did so ! and I understood that it cost her 2,000 francs 

 ($400), at a time she was so hard up that she could not 

 pay me on my salary $20. I wanted to go to Pkris. . 

 to see the philosophers drinkers of essence of beef, 

 but not eating the meat for fear of losing their souls ! ! 

 O ! stupiditas stupiditarum ! O, God !!.... have mercy 



