It is high time for me to go; the town is fading away. I never knew that my mind was subjective to such a mad extent. A man never knows himself, and is a monster without realizing it.” Thus did M. Bergeret examine himself with praiseworthy sincerity. As he was passing the church of Saint-Exupère, however, he stopped under the porch of the Last Judgment. He had always loved the old legendary sculptures, and taken an interest in the stories graven upon the stone. One devil in particular, who had a dog’s head on his shoulders, and a man’s face on the nether portion of his anatomy, had a peculiar fascination for him. He was occupied in dragging a long file of damned souls chained together, and his two countenances expressed absolute contentment. There was also a little monk whom an angel was trying to draw up by his hands, while a devil dragged him down by the feet. M. Bergeret loved that one, but he had never before looked with so much interest at these objects which he was now on the point of leaving. He could not take his eyes away from them. The naïve idea of the universe expressed in stone by men who had been dead for more than five hundred years touched him, and seemed to him lovable in its absurdity. He regretted never having studied it more closely or examined it more sympathetically. He remembered that this porch of the Last Judgment which he had seen gilded by the rays of the sun and whitened by the moonbeams, in the joyous summer time and the dark winter days, would be with him only a little longer, and then he would see it no more. He realized then that he was attached to things by invisible links not to be broken asunder without pain, and his heart was suddenly filled with great veneration for his town. He loved her old walls and her old trees. He went out of his way to go up the Mall and look at a favourite elm that grew there, the one he always sat beneath at the close of the long summer days. The beautiful tree was now bare of foliage, and its strong, slender framework stood out naked and black against the sky. M. Bergeret gazed at it long. The tranquil giant was motionless and silent, and the mystery of its peaceful life gave rise to deep meditation on the part of the man who was about to enter upon a new phase of his destiny. It was thus M. Bergeret learned that he loved his mother soil and the town where he had suffered tribulation and tasted quiet happiness. CHAPTER XXVI Monseigneur Guitrel, Bishop of Tourcoing, addressed to the President of the Republic the following letter, the text of which was published _in extenso_ by the _Semaine religieuse_, the _Vérité_, the _Étendard_, the _Études sérieuses_, and several other diocesan papers: “MONSIEUR LE PRÉSIDENT,