“My master warms me when I lie behind him in his armchair; that is because he is a god.” (“The Lord will provide.”) “In my master’s voice are many vain sounds. It is difficult and necessary to define the thought of the master.” (Catholic exegesis of the Bible.) “I love my master, Bergeret, because he is terrible and powerful.” (Jewish worship of Jehovah.) And the little black dog prays: “Oh, my master, Bergeret, God of Slaughter, I worship thee! Hail, oh God of wrath! Hail, oh bountiful God! I lie at thy feet, I lick thy hand. Thou art great and beautiful when at the laden board thou devourest abundant meats. Thou art great and beautiful when, from a thin strip of wood causing flame to spring, thou dost of night make day....” [3] In _Monsieur Bergeret à Paris_, and in the story entitled _Riquet_. Here indeed in the old professor who can whip Riquet is the God of Sabaoth, the God of Battles; in the professor with the carving knife is He who multiplied the fishes and the loaves. And I need not labour that when Bergeret strikes a match it is very wonderful: so was Genesis and the making of the sun.... For his aggressive, childish superstitions, for his puerile desire to find an unnatural explanation to what he does not understand, Anatole France might despise man, yet he loves him. He finds charm in hierophantic absurdity; he feels the poetry of the little hill. And he goes further: he feels the poetry even of the Middle Ages, though it was a period of bestial and ungraceful ignorance, raping knights, robber troubadours and fine ladies who never changed their underclothing; he loves historic truth as well as the highfalutin nonsense of Amadis of Gaul. For Amadis has a picaresque air. In his book, _The Well of St Clare_ notably, are several stories supposed to be told by a Siennese priest. There is that of Saint Satyr, out of whose tomb came a multitude of mists, each one of which was a woman. They floated in the darkling air; through their light tunics shone their light bodies. The clerics had hunted them into the tomb of the saint who was accepted of God the Christ, because the goat worshipped in his own fashion. (Anatole France hints that all religions have the same root and that one worshipper is as good as another; he has written another story on these lines, _Amycus and Célestin_.) The tomb is opened and the heart of the priest who saw the vision is in most mediæval style torn out by the ghosts of hags. In another story, _The Security_, the Virgin stands bail for a year for a debt, and leads the merchant’s barque back in time to redeem her, because he believed in her; there are other queer stories, such as _The Lady of Verona_, who so loved her body that she begged Satan to save it; such as _The Mystery of the Blood_, where a saint cheers a criminal whose blood falls upon her gown. She says: “Take not from me my purple and my perfumes.” In all these stories he shows how charmed he is by