Page:Works of Voltaire Volume 02.djvu/301

Rh As I was saying this, I found myself just opposite a very imposing house. Already was I feeling myself pressed by hunger. I had not so much as the hundred and twentieth part of the sum that by right belongs to each individual. But as soon as I was told that this was the palace of my reverend fathers, the bare-footed Carmelites, I conceived great hopes, and said to myself, "Since these saints are humble enough to go bare-footed, they will be charitable enough to give me a dinner."

I rang. A Carmelite came to the door.

"What would you please to have, my son?"

"A morsel of bread, my reverend father. The new edicts have stripped me of everything."

"Son, know that we ourselves beg charity; we do not bestow it."

"What! while your holy institute forbids you to wear shoes, you have the house of a prince, and can you refuse to give me a meal!"

"My son, it is true, we go without stockings and shoes; that is an expense the less; we feel no more cold in our feet than in our hands. As to our fine house, we built it very easily, and we have a hundred thousand livres a year of income from houses in the same street."

"So, then! you suffer me to die of hunger, while you have an income of a hundred thousand livres! I suppose you pay fifty thousand of these to the new government?"

"Heaven preserve us from paying a single