M. GUITREL: “Alas! monsieur _le préfet_, I have not, as the blessed Médard had, the illumination of sanctity to enable me to discern the will of God in extraordinary circumstances. Luckily nowadays the rules which a bishop should follow with regard to the civil powers are definitely defined. And monsieur _le préfet_ will kindly remember, in speaking of me for the bishopric of Tourcoing to his friends in the ministry, that I recognise all the obligations that follow from the Concordat. But why intrude my humble personality in these great scenes of history? Saint Radegonde, clothed in the veil of a deaconess, founded the monastery of Sainte-Croix in Poitiers, where she lived for more than fifty years in the practice of a rigorous asceticism. She observed fasts and abstinences with such scrupulousness …” M. LE PRÉFET: “Keep these stories of yours, monsieur l’abbé for your seminarists. You don’t believe that Saint Radegonde communicates with Mademoiselle Deniseau. I congratulate you on that. And I could wish that all the priests in the department were as reasonable as you. But it only needs this hysteric patient—for hysteric she is—to attack the government for all the curés to come in herds to listen, open-mouthed and applauding, to all the insults she spits out.” M. GUITREL: “Oh! they make reservations, monsieur _le préfet_, they make reservations. The Church instructs them to be extremely wary in face of every fact that assumes the appearance of a miracle. And I assure you that, for my part, I am very distrustful of modern miracles.” M. LE PRÉFET: “Tell me, between ourselves: you don’t believe in miracles, my dear abbé?” M. GUITREL: “In miracles that are not duly verified I have, indeed, but little belief.” M. LE PRÉFET: “We are alone. Confess, now, that there are no miracles, that there never have been any, and that there never can possibly be any.” M. GUITREL: “Not at all, monsieur _le préfet_. A miracle is possible; it can be unmistakably recognised; it is useful for the confirmation of doctrine; and its utility is proved by the conversion of nations.” M. LE PRÉFET: “Anyhow, you grant that it is ridiculous to believe that Saint Radegonde, who lived in the Middle Ages …” M. GUITREL: “In the sixth century, in the sixth century.” M. LE PRÉFET: “Exactly, in the sixth century. … Should come in 189– to gossip with the daughter of a registry-keeper on the political programme of the ministry and the Chambers.” M. GUITREL: “Communications between the Church triumphant and the Church militant are possible; history supplies numberless undeniable instances of it. But, yet again, I do not believe that the young person of whom we are speaking is favoured with a communication of this kind. Her sayings, if I may dare to say so, do not bear the hall-mark of a celestial revelation. Everything she says is somehow …” M. LE PRÉFET: “Humbug.” M. GUITREL: “If you like. … Though, indeed, it might be quite possible that she is possessed.”