Page:The Writings of Prosper Merimee-Volume 1.djvu/189



HE last mass had been said at Saint Roch, and the beadle was making his rounds to close the deserted chapels. He was about to draw the grille to one of those aristocratic sanctuaries where certain devotees purchase permission to worship God, apart from the rest of the faithful, when he observed that a woman was there still, apparently absorbed in meditation and prayer. "It is Madame de Piennes," he said to himself, pausing at the door of the chapel. Madame de Piennes was well known to the beadle. At that epoch, a woman of the world, young, rich and pretty, who gave the consecrated bread, donated the altar cloths, and made large contributions to charity through the agency of her curate, de-