The Atheists Mass | Page 4

en dyable, with the y,

which in Rabelais seems to convey an intensity of devilry)--Bianchon
stole into the church, and was not a little astonished to see the great
Desplein, the atheist, who had no mercy on the angels--who give no
work to the lancet, and cannot suffer from fistula or gastritis--in short,
this audacious scoffer kneeling humbly, and where? In the Lady Chapel,
where he remained through the mass, giving alms for the expenses of
the service, alms for the poor, and looking as serious as though he were
superintending an operation.
"He has certainly not come here to clear up the question of the Virgin's
delivery," said Bianchon to himself, astonished beyond measure. "If I
had caught him holding one of the ropes of the canopy on Corpus
Christi day, it would be a thing to laugh at; but at this hour, alone, with
no one to see--it is surely a thing to marvel at!"
Bianchon did not wish to seem as though he were spying the head
surgeon of the Hotel-Dieu; he went away. As it happened, Desplein
asked him to dine with him that day, not at his own house, but at a
restaurant. At dessert Bianchon skilfully contrived to talk of the mass,
speaking of it as mummery and a farce.
"A farce," said Desplein, "which has cost Christendom more blood than
all Napoleon's battles and all Broussais' leeches. The mass is a papal
invention, not older than the sixth century, and based on the Hoc est
corpus. What floods of blood were shed to establish the Fete-Dieu, the
Festival of Corpus Christi--the institution by which Rome established
her triumph in the question of the Real Presence, a schism which rent
the Church during three centuries! The wars of the Count of Toulouse
against the Albigenses were the tail end of that dispute. The Vaudois
and the Albigenses refused to recognize this innovation."
In short, Desplein was delighted to disport himself in his most
atheistical vein; a flow of Voltairean satire, or, to be accurate, a vile
imitation of the Citateur.
"Hallo! where is my worshiper of this morning?" said Bianchon to
himself.

He said nothing; he began to doubt whether he had really seen his chief
at Saint-Sulpice. Desplein would not have troubled himself to tell
Bianchon a lie, they knew each other too well; they had already
exchanged thoughts on quite equally serious subjects, and discussed
systems de natura rerum, probing or dissecting them with the knife and
scalpel of incredulity.
Three months went by. Bianchon did not attempt to follow the matter
up, though it remained stamped on his memory. One day that year, one
of the physicians of the Hotel-Dieu took Desplein by the arm, as if to
question him, in Bianchon's presence.
"What were you doing at Saint-Sulpice, my dear master?" said he.
"I went to see a priest who has a diseased knee-bone, and to whom the
Duchesse d'Angouleme did me the honor to recommend me," said
Desplein.
The questioner took this defeat for an answer; not so Bianchon.
"Oh, he goes to see damaged knees in church!--He went to mass," said
the young man to himself.
Bianchon resolved to watch Desplein. He remembered the day and hour
when he had detected him going into Saint-Sulpice, and resolved to be
there again next year on the same day and at the same hour, to see if he
should find him there again. In that case the periodicity of his devotion
would justify a scientific investigation; for in such a man there ought to
be no direct antagonism of thought and action.
Next year, on the said day and hour, Bianchon, who had already ceased
to be Desplein's house surgeon, saw the great man's cab standing at the
corner of the Rue de Tournon and the Rue du Petit-Lion, whence his
friend jesuitically crept along by the wall of Saint-Sulpice, and once
more attended mass in front of the Virgin's altar. It was Desplein, sure
enough! The master-surgeon, the atheist at heart, the worshiper by
chance. The mystery was greater than ever; the regularity of the
phenomenon complicated it. When Desplein had left, Bianchon went to

the sacristan, who took charge of the chapel, and asked him whether the
gentleman were a constant worshiper.
"For twenty years that I have been here," replied the man, "M. Desplein
has come four times a year to attend this mass. He founded it."
"A mass founded by him!" said Bianchon, as he went away. "This is as
great a mystery as the Immaculate Conception--an article which alone
is enough to make a physician an unbeliever."
Some time elapsed before Doctor Bianchon, though so much his friend,
found an opportunity of speaking to Desplein of this incident of his life.
Though they met in consultation, or in