As in the
olden time, the Saviour went, poor and lowly, to console the dying.
Young girls received their first communion in the home where they had
played since infancy. The marriage of the marquis and Mademoiselle de
Verneuil was now solemnized, like many other unions, by a service
contrary to the recent legal enactments. In after years these
marriages, mostly celebrated at the foot of oaks, were scrupulously
recognized and considered legal. The priest who thus preserved the
ancient usages was one of those men who hold to their principles in
the height of the storm. His voice, which never made the oath exacted
by the Republic, uttered no word throughout the tempest that did not
make for peace. He never incited, like the Abbe Gudin, to fire and
sword; but like many others, he devoted himself to the still more
dangerous mission of performing his priestly functions for the souls
of faithful Catholics. To accomplish this perilous ministry he used
all the pious deceptions necessitated by persecution, and the marquis,
when he sought his services on this occasion, had found him in one of
those excavated caverns which are known, even to the present day, by
the name of "the priest's hiding-place." The mere sight of that pale
and suffering face was enough to give this worldly room a holy aspect.
All was now ready for the act of misery and of joy.
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