“Monsieur Lantaigne, be kind enough to listen to me. The venerable M. Laprune, the curé of Saint-Exupère, is just gone from here. I must tell you that this poor curé has this morning found a man hanged in his church. Just conceive his distress! He is beside himself. And in such a crisis, I myself need to take the advice of the most learned priest in my diocese. What ought we to do? Tell me!” M. Lantaigne collected himself for a moment. Then, in the tone of a pedagogue, he began to expound the traditions concerning the purification of churches: “The Maccabees, after having washed the temple profaned by Antiochus Epiphanes, in the year 164 before the Incarnation, celebrated its dedication. That is the origin, Monseigneur, of the festival called Hanicha—that is to say, renewal. In fact …” And he developed his ideas. Monseigneur listened with an air of admiration, and M. Lantaigne drew up from his inexhaustible memory endless texts relating to the ceremonies of purification, precedents, arguments, commentaries. “John, Chapter X., verse 22 … the Roman Pontifical … the Venerable Bede, Baronius …” He spoke for three-quarters of an hour. After this the Cardinal-Archbishop replied: “It should be noted that the hanged man was found in the porch of the side door, on the epistle side.” “Was the inner door of the porch closed?” asked M. Lantaigne. “Alas! alas!” answered Monseigneur, “it was not wide open … but neither was it completely shut.” “Ajar, Monseigneur?” “That’s it! Ajar.” “And the suicide, Monseigneur, was within the space covered by the porch? That is a point which it is materially important to ascertain. Your Eminence perceives the whole importance of that?” “Assuredly, Monsieur Lantaigne. … Monsieur de Goulet, was there not one arm of the hanged man which projected from the porch and jutted into the church?” M. de Goulet replied with a blush and some incoherent syllables. “I feel certain,” replied Monseigneur, “that the arm went beyond, or, at any rate, part of the arm.” M. Lantaigne concluded from this that the church of Saint-Exupère was profaned. He quoted precedents and described the proceedings after the dastardly assassination of the Archbishop of Paris, in the church of Saint-Étienne-du-Mont. He travelled up the ages, passed through the Revolution, when the churches were transformed into armouries, referred to Thomas Becket and the impious Heliodorus. “What scholarship! What sound doctrine!” said Monseigneur. He rose and stretched out his hand for the priest to kiss. “It is a priceless service that you have rendered me, Monsieur Lantaigne; be assured that I have a great esteem for your scholarship and accept my pastoral benediction. Farewell.”