But Sunday, 29 April, came at last, the date which the bishop and préfet had fixed for the re-opening of the Roman Church and the installation of a new priest. In the morning, a squadron of the 4th regiment of rifles and a half section of the gendarmerie came and took up their position in front of the church. An hour later than the soldiers, the Préfet of Rigny arrived, also the commander-general of the department and the chief of the gendarmerie. They brought with them a new abbé, Abbé Dallier. This priest came supported by a respectable body of armed force to reinstate the true God in the church. Things began to wear the look of a parody from the _Lutrin._ Notwithstanding all this, the whole of the population of Lèves had gradually collected in the street that we will call La rue des Grands-Prés, although I am very much afraid that we are really its spouses. To prevent the re-opening of the Latin Church, the women, who were even more bitter than the men against the re-opening, had crowded themselves together under the porch. The préfet tried to break through their ranks, followed by a locksmith; for the Lévois threw the keys of the church into the river when the Abbé Duval arrived. As the locksmith possessed no claims of an administrative nature, it was to him they addressed their outcries and threats. These rose to such a swelling diapason that the poor devil took fright and fled. It will be seen that the protection of the préfet only half assured him. The example proved contagious: for, whether the préfet in his turn gave way to fright at these cries, whether, without the locksmith, any attempts to open the church doors were useless, he too beat a retreat. It is true, however, that they had just told him that the riflemen--seduced by the blandishments of the women of Lèves, as the King of Ithaca's companions were by the witchcraft of Circe--had forgotten themselves so far before the arrival of the authorities above mentioned, as to shout: "Vive l'Abbé Ledru!" "Vive l'Église française!" It was rather a seditious cry, at a period when the army neither voted nor deliberated! Whatever the cause, the préfet, as we have said, beat a retreat. Just at this moment the Abbé Ledru appeared at the door of his barn. Four women at once constituted themselves as alms-collectors, using their outstretched aprons as alms-boxes. The total of the four collections was employed in the purchase of eau-de-vie for the soldiers. Was it the Abbé Ledru who gave such corrupt advice? or was it, indeed, the alms-collectors' own idea? Woman is ever deceitful and the devil sly! The soldiers, after shouting "Vive l'Abbé Ledru!" drank to that abbé's health and to the supremacy of the French Church--this was, indeed, a serious thing! If he had known how to take advantage of the frame of mind the soldiers were in, the Abbé Ledru would have been equal to laying siege to Rome, as did the Constable of Bourbon. But his