A revenge.

They write from Marseille:

“Mr. X…, one of the most distinguished merchants of our city and esteemed by all, has just fired a pistol shot at the vicar of Saint-Barnabé. Last Monday Mr. X… learned, through an anonymous letter, that his wife maintained intimate relations with that priest. They gave him the most minute details, which left no room for doubt as to the magnitude of his misfortune. He arrived home and conducted an inquiry among the employees: chambermaid, servants, gardener, coachman, etc.; all confessed what they knew. The intrigue had already lasted fifteen months. Mr. X… was the target of the mockery of the whole neighborhood and the only one who suspected nothing. It was after that inquiry that he fired upon the vicar.” (Siècle of June 7, 1864.)

Who is most guilty in this sad case? The wife, the husband, or the priest? The wife who, seduced by pious sophisms, probably believed herself excused by the standing of her accomplice and had reassured herself with the hope of an easy absolution? The husband who, yielding to a reaction of indignation, could not master his anger? Or the priest who, in cold blood, with premeditation, violated his vows, abused his character, deceived trust in order to cast disorder, despair, and disunion into an honorable family? Public conscience has pronounced its verdict. But, leaving aside the material fact, there are considerations of the highest gravity.

A philosophy of elastic conscience might, perhaps, find an excuse in the carrying away of the passions and would limit itself to censuring the imprudent vows. Let us admit, if you wish, not an excuse, but an extenuating circumstance in the eyes of carnal men, and there will none the less remain an abuse of trust and of the ascendancy that the guilty one drew from his quality; the fascination that he exercised over the victim, protected in his sacred habit: there is the fault, there is the crime which, if it were not punished by the justice of men, would certainly be so by that of God.

Now, fifteen months were more than sufficient to give him time to reflect and to return to the sentiment of his duties. What did he do in the interval? He taught youth the truths of religion; he preached the virtues of the Christ, the chastity of Mary, the eternity of the penalties against sinners; he absolved or retained the faults of others, according to his own judgment. And he, the refractory one toward the commandments of God, which condemn what he was doing, was the infallible dispenser of God’s inflexible severity or of His mercy! Is it an isolated case? Ah! the history of all times is there to prove the contrary. Here we abstract from the individual, in order to see only a principle that gives rise to incredulity and secretly undermines the religious element. The absolving power of the priest, they say, is independent of his personal conduct. Be it so; we will not discuss this point, although it seems strange that a man who, by his infamies, deserves hell, can open or close the gates of paradise to whomever he pleases, when often his excesses entirely deprive him of lucidity of ideas. If the fear of eternal penalties does not hold back, on the road of evil and in the violation of God’s commandments, those who preach them, it is because they themselves do not believe in them. The first condition for inspiring confidence would be to preach by example.