Take Abbé Coignard in _La Reine Pédauque_, a man with an astoundingly able mind, a childlike soul, and a shameless body. Take Choulette in _Le Lys Rouge_, a childlike, drunken, shameless genius. This portrait of Verlaine we find again, with variations, in the Gestas of _L'Étui de Nacre_. In all three there is a mixture of simplicity and cynic voluptuousness--a half-childlike absence of shame. Abbé Coignard undermines everything established with his doubts and leads an exceedingly loose life, but remains faithful in the very smallest particular to the Catholic religion. Even more childlike than he himself is his disciple, Tourne-broche. Choulette is the old, ruined Bohemian, eternally young as the poet, melting with drunken compassion for the poor and the mean--as is said of Coignard, "half a St. Francis of Assisi, half an Epicurean, a big, believing, shameless child." It is in virtue of this combination--naïveté and shamelessness--that Riquet the dog becomes one of France's best characters. No man is as devoid of shame as a dog, and no child is more childlike. Biquet has great difficulty in seeing things from Monsieur Bergeret's point of view. He flies at the heels of the worthy carpenter, merely because that workman wears a blouse and carries tools; he is steeped in all the old prejudices of the feudal age. But his "Thoughts" are a little masterpiece of canine innocence and compressed irony. Let me give a few examples. "Men, animals, and stones grow larger as they approach me, and become enormous when they are quite close. It is not so with me. I remain the same size wherever I am." "The smell of a dog is a delicious smell." "My master keeps me warm when I lie behind him in his arm-chair. That is because he is a god. In front of the fire there is a warm hearthstone. The hearthstone is divine." "I speak when I choose. From my master's mouth, too, issue sounds which have a kind of meaning. But their meaning is less plain than that which I express with my voice. Everything uttered by my voice means something. But from my master's mouth comes much senseless noise." "There are carriages which horses draw in the streets. They are terrible. There are carriages which move of themselves, puffing loudly. These, too, are full of malice." "People in rags deserve to be hated, and also those who carry baskets on their heads or roll casks. Children who run about the streets, chasing each other and screaming, are hateful too." "I love my master because he is powerful and terrible." "An action for which one is thrashed is a bad action. An action for which one is caressed or given something to eat is a good action."