The _préfet_ dared not contradict the opinion of an ex-minister. He remembered at the same time that his official superior, the present Secretary of State for the Home Department, was a Protestant. He said: “As an official I respect all religions equally, Protestantism as well as Catholicism. As a man, I am a freethinker, and if I had any preference as to dogma, let me tell you, monsieur l’abbé, that it would be in favour of the Reformed Party.” M. Guitrel replied in an unctuous voice: “There are, doubtless, among Protestants, many persons eminently estimable from the point of view of morals, and I dare say many exemplary persons, if they are judged from the world’s standpoint. But the so-called reformed Church is but a limb hacked from the Catholic Church, and the place of the wound still bleeds.” Indifferent to this powerful phrase, borrowed from Bossuet, M. _le préfet_ drew from his case a big cigar, lighted it, and holding out the case to the priest: “Will you accept a cigar, monsieur l’abbé?” Being densely ignorant of ecclesiastical discipline, and believing that tobacco-smoking was forbidden to the clergy, he offered a cigar to M. Guitrel in order to make him look awkward or to lead him astray. In his ignorance he believed that by this offer he was leading a wearer of the cassock into sin, making him fall into disobedience, perhaps into sacrilege, and almost into apostasy. But M. Guitrel placidly took the cigar, slipped it carefully into the pocket of his great-coat, and said urbanely that he would smoke it after supper in his room. Thus M. _le préfet_ Worms-Clavelin and Abbé Guitrel, professor of sacred rhetoric at the high seminary, conversed in the goldsmith’s office. Near them, Rondonneau junior, contractor to the Archbishop, who also worked for the prefecture, listened to the conversation discreetly, without taking part in it. He was preparing his mail, and his bald pate came and went among his account-books and the samples of commercial jewellery heaped up on the table. With a brusque movement M. _le préfet_ stood upright, pushed Abbé Guitrel to the other end of the room, into the recess of the window, and whispered in his ear: “My dear Guitrel, you know that the bishopric of Tourcoing is vacant.” “I have in fact,” answered the priest, “learnt of the death of Monseigneur Duclou. It is a great loss for the Church of France. Monseigneur Duclou’s merits were only equalled by his modesty. He excelled in preaching. His pastoral addresses are models of hortatory eloquence. Shall I dare to recall to mind that I knew him in Orleans, at the time when he was still Abbé Duclou, the revered curé of Saint-Euverte, and that at that time he deigned to honour me with his gracious friendship? The news of his premature death was particularly distressing to me.” He was silent, letting his lips droop in sign of grief. “It’s not a question of that,” said the _préfet_. “He is dead; it is a question of filling his place.”