Attracted by curiosity, Marc repaired with the crowd to the chapel, where during the next two hours he beheld the strangest things possible. The trade which the Maillebois Capuchins carried on with their St. Antony of Padua had become very considerable, amounting to some hundreds of thousands of francs every year, collected in little sums, varying from one franc to ten. Father Théodose, the superior, whose fine apostolic head sent all the lady devotees into raptures, had proved himself to be an inventor and manager of great genius. He had devised and organised the democratic miracle, the domestic, every-day miracle such as was within the reach of the humblest purses. At the outset St. Antony's statue in the chapel had been a somewhat paltry one, and the Saint had busied himself with little else than the finding of lost things, his old-time specialty. But after a few successes of this kind, as money began to flow in, Father Théodose by a stroke of genius extended the sphere of the Saint's miraculous action, applying it to all the needs and desires of his steadily increasing customers. The sick who were afflicted with incurable maladies, those also who merely suffered from head or stomach ache; the petty shopkeepers who were in embarrassed circumstances, who lacked the money to honour their acceptances, or who did not know how to get rid of damaged goods; the speculators who had embarked in shady undertakings and who feared the loss of their fortunes and their liberty; the mothers who were in despair at finding no husbands for their plain and dowerless daughters; the poor devils out of work, who were weary of seeking employment, and who felt that only a prodigy could enable them to earn their bread; the heirs who were anxious with respect to the sentiments of an ailing grandparent, and who desired the help of Heaven to ensure them a bequest; the idle schoolboys, the hare-brained school girls, all the dunces who were certain to fail at their examinations if Providence did not come to their assistance; all the sorry weaklings, destitute of will, incapable of effort, who, regardless of work and common sense, awaited some undeserved success from a superior power--all these might address themselves to St. Antony, confide their case to him, and secure his all-powerful intercession with the Deity, the chances of success in their favour being six to four, according to careful statistics which had been prepared!