They were apparently practising to speak one
day at the Bar or in the Chamber. It was from surroundings such as these
that Gambetta emerged.
The young abbes and priests were very good fellows, earnest believers,
but so simple that conversations with them were only interesting because
of their ignorance and lack of understanding. Scandinavians in Paris who
knew only Roman Catholic priests from _Tartufe_ at the theatre, had
very incorrect conceptions regarding them. Bressant was the cold,
elegant hypocrite, Lafontaine the base, coarse, but powerful cleric,
Leroux the full-blooded, red-faced, voluptuary with fat cheeks and
shaking hands, whose expression was now angry, now sickly sweet.
Northern Protestants were very apt to classify the black-coated men whom
they saw in the streets and in the churches, as belonging to one of
these three types. But my ecclesiastical acquaintances were as free from
hypocrisy as from fanaticism. They were good, honest children of the
commonalty, with, not the cunning, but the stupidity, of peasants.
Many a day I spent exploring the surroundings of Paris in their company.
We went to St. Cloud and Sevres, to Versailles and St. Germain, to Saint
Denis, to Montmorency and Enghien, or to Monthlery, a village with an
old tower from the thirteenth century, and then breakfasted at
Longjumeau, celebrated for its postillion.
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