Gravely, she replied: “Yes; I have.” “What, you are a prophetess!” I cried, smiling. “Here is something strange!” “You sneer and you doubt because you have never seen a prophetess so near at hand. How did you wish them to look?” “I thought that they must be virgins.” “That’s not necessary,” she replied, with assurance. The threatening carriage had disappeared at a turning of the road. But Jahel’s uneasiness had, without his acknowledging it, impressed M. d’Anquetil, who ordered the postboys to hurry their horses, promising them extra good tips. And by an excess of care he passed to each of them a bottle of the wine that the abbé had placed in reserve in the bottom of the carriage. The postillions made their horses feel the stimulus that the wine gave to them. “You can calm yourself, Jahel,” said he; “at the speed we are going that antique coach, drawn by the horses of the Apocalypse, will never catch us.” “We run like cats on hot bricks,” said the abbé. “If only it would last!” said Jahel. We saw the vineyards on our right disappear rapidly. On the left the River Saône ran slowly. Like a hurricane we passed the bridge of Tournus. The town itself rose on the other side of the river on a hill crowned by the walls of an abbey, proud as a fortress. “That,” said the abbé, “is one of the numberless Benedictine abbeys which are strewn like so many gems on the robe of ecclesiastical Gaul. If it had pleased God that my destiny should match my character I should have lived an obscure life, gay and sweet, in one of these abodes. There is no other religious order I hold in such high esteem, for their doctrines as well as for their morals, as the Benedictines. They have admirable libraries. Happy he who wears their habit and follows their holy rules! It may be from the inconvenience I feel at this moment in being shaken to pieces in this carriage, which no doubt will very soon be upset by sinking into one of the many holes of this confounded road, or it may perhaps be the effect of age, which is the time for retreat and grave thinking; whatever be the cause I wish more ardently than ever to seat myself at a table in one of those venerable galleries, where books plenty and choice are assembled in quiet and silence. I prefer their entertainment to that of men, and my dearest wish is to wait, in the work of the spirit, for the hour in which it will please God to call me from this earth. I shall write history, and by preference that of the Romans at the decline of the Republic, because it is full of great actions and examples. I’ll divide my zeal between Cicero, Saint John Chrysostom and Boethius and my modest and fruitful life would resemble the garden of the old man of Tarentum.