As for the bishop, the sight of the guillotine was a great shock to him, from which he recovered only slowly.

People do not read stupidities with impunity.

The most beautiful of altars, he said, is the soul of an unhappy creature consoled and thankfing God.

Prayer is an august avowal of ignorance.

Should we continue to look upwards? Is the light we can see in the sky one of those which will presently be extinguished? The ideal is terrifying to behold... brilliant but threatened on all sides by the dark forces that surround it: nevertheless, no more in danger than a star in the jaws of the clouds.

Civil war.... What did the words mean? Was there any such thing as "foreign war"? Was not all warfare between men warfare between brothers?

There is one spectacle grander than the sea, that is the sky; there is one spectacle grander than the sky, that is the interior of the soul.