But though deficient in evangelical morality, religious sentiment has still clung to them. As a pious and illustrious prelate, [Footnote 9] who knows the people well, who loves them, and is beloved in return, remarked to the Emperor, on his way to Moulins:--"I thank your Majesty for having understood that the French nation, left to its natural tendencies, preserves the character of the most Christian nation, and that, in spite of many rude shocks, the faith of their fathers is the first want of their hearts." [Footnote 9: Monseigneur de Dreux-Brézé, Bishop of Moulins.] {66} A dignitary of religion is always venerated by the people. They run to see him and to solicit his benediction. The visits of Monseigneur the late Archbishop of Paris to the faubourgs, tenanted by a population regarded as the most irreligious and immoral of the capital, may be adduced in illustration of this statement. Crowds of men and women flocked to him, bent under his paternal hand, and held up their squalid and half naked children to receive his blessing. In like manner, they brought him from all sides chaplets, images, and medals; while those who did not possess such pious articles brought halfpence, that he might bless them; and these they afterward preserved as sacred relics. The same soothing influence followed the devout prelate in the streets, the workshops, and the public places. His words had a magic effect everywhere among those hardened and redoubtable denizens of the faubourgs. It was in a quarter as poor in spiritual as in temporal things that an immense crowd thronged to him, and like the Good Shepherd--like the blessed Saviour--unwilling to send them away fasting, that is, without a few affectionate words, he mounted some steps, and stood on a landing, which served him for a pulpit. Among the crowd was a group of those men who are at perpetual war with society, keepers of smoking-dens, and worse places too; blacklegs, and setters-up of barricades. They looked at him without removing their caps, and with a sneer on their lips. {67} No sooner had the prelate begun to speak than there was silence. As he proceeded, one cap was doffed, then two or three more, and soon all heads were bared, in accordance with the rules of French politeness. When the sermon was ended, these men shouted louder than the rest:--"Vive Monseigneur! Vive la Religion!" It cannot be denied that the manners of the people are often painful in the extreme; but, then, they have so little to fall back upon, and are surrounded by so many temptations. Ignorance frets them, debauchery degrades them, and, besides, having constantly to struggle against the pinchings of want, it is not surprising that they become, as it were, linked to a necessity which weighs upon them so heavily.