“As for that,” Monsieur Coignard said roughly, disengaging the pretty hands clasped on his shoulder, “I refuse flatly. Promises made to pretty girls are but skin deep, and it is no sin to retract them. Don’t count on me, my beauty, to drag your bearded gallant from the hands of the ecclesiastical court! Should I write a sermon, or two, or twelve, they would be directed against the bad monks who are the shame of the Church, and are as vermin clinging to the robe of St. Peter. This brother Ange is a rascal. He gives good women to touch, as relics, some old mutton or pork bone which he has gnawed himself with disgusting greediness. I wager he bore on Monsieur La Perruque’s donkey a feather of the Angel Gabriel, a ray from the wise men’s star, and in a little phial a trifle of the sound of the bells that rang in the belfry of Solomon’s temple. He is a dunce, he is a liar, and you love him. There are three reasons why I should dislike him. I leave you to judge, Mademoiselle, which of the three is the strongest. Perchance it may well be the least honest; for in truth I was, a moment ago, drawn to you with a violence neither befitting my age nor my condition. But make no mistake; I resent extremely the insults offered by your cowled rascal to the Church of our Saviour Jesus Christ, of which I am a very unworthy member. And this capuchin’s example fills me with such disgust that I am possessed by a sudden longing to meditate on some beautiful passage of St. John Chrysostom, instead of sitting knee to knee with you, Mademoiselle, as I have been doing for the last quarter of an hour. For the desire of the sinner is short-lived and the glory of God is everlasting. I have never held an exaggerated notion of sins of the flesh. I think in justice to me that must be allowed. “I am not scared like Monsieur Nicodème, for example, at such a little thing as taking one’s pleasure with a pretty girl. But what I cannot endure is the baseness of soul, the hypocrisy, the lies, and the crass ignorance, which make your brother Ange an accomplished monk. From your intercourse with him, Mademoiselle, you get a habit of crapulence which drags you much below your position, which is that of a courtesan. I know the shame and the misery of it; but it is a far superior state to that of a monk. This rascal dishonours you even as he dishonours the gutters of the Rue St. Jacques by dipping his feet into them. Think of all the virtues with which you might adorn yourself, Mademoiselle, in your precarious walk of life, and one alone of which might one day open Paradise to you, if you were not subjugated and enslaved to this unclean beast.