Page:Novels of Honoré de Balzac Volume 23.djvu/62

 to the Curé Chaperon, who, knowing him to be charitable, was pleading for the poor.

“He is notoriously eccentric!”

This remark, said about Doctor Minoret, was the harmless revenge of offended vanity, for the doctor formed for himself a society of persons who deserved to be classed opposite the heirs. Now, those of the bourgeois who thought themselves worthy of swelling the court of a man with a black ribbon, treasured up a ferment of jealousy against the doctor and his privileged friends, which, unfortunately, had its results.

Through some odd freak explained by the proverb: “Extremes meet,” the materialist doctor and the Curé of Nemours quickly became friends. The old man was very fond of backgammon, a favorite game with churchmen, and the Abbé Chaperon and the doctor were evenly matched. So the game was the first link between them. Then Minoret was charitable, and the Curé of Nemours was the Fénelon of Gâtinais. Both were broadly educated; the man of God was the only one in all Nemours who could understand atheism. To be able to argue, two men must in the first place understand each other. What pleasure is there in addressing pungent words to some one who does not feel them? The doctor and the priest both had too much good taste, and had seen too much of good society not to practise its precepts; they could in that case, wage that mimic warfare which is so necessary to all conversation. Each disliked the other’s opinions, but they respected