" There was a pause, and then he
began to speak of the day's work.
All the afternoon he had been in consultation with Crescenti, whose vast
historical knowledge was of service in determining many disputed points
in the tenure of land. The librarian was in sympathy with any measures
tending to relieve the condition of the peasantry; yet he was almost as
strongly opposed as Trescorre to any reproduction of the Tuscan
constitution.
"He is afraid!" broke from Fulvia. She admired and respected Crescenti,
yet she had never fully trusted him. The taint of ecclesiasticism was on
him.
Odo smiled. "He has never been afraid of facing the charge of
Jansenism," he replied. "All his life he has stood in open opposition to
the Church party."
"It is one thing to criticise their dogmas, another to attack their
privileges. At such a time he is bound to remember that he is a
priest--that he is one of them."
"Yet, as you have often pointed out, it is to the clergy that France in
great measure owes her release from feudalism."
She smiled coldly. "France would have won her cause without the clergy!"
"This is not France, then," he said with a sigh. After a moment he began
again: "Can you not see that any reform which aims at reducing the power
of the clergy must be more easily and successfully carried out if they
can be induced to take part in it? That, in short, we need them at this
moment as we have never needed them before? The example of France ought
at least to show you that.
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