'
_May_ 2.--Tocqueville dined with us.
A lady at the _table d'hote_ was full of a sermon which she had heard at
the Madeleine. The preacher said, sinking his voice to an audible
whisper, 'I will tell you a secret, but it must go no farther. There is
more religion among the Protestants than with us, they are better
acquainted with the Bible, and make more use of their reading: we have
much to learn from them.'
I asked Tocqueville, when we were in our own room, as to the feelings of
the religious world in France with respect to heretics.
'The religious laity,' he answered, 'have probably little opinion on the
subject. They suppose the heretic to be less favourably situated than
themselves, but do not waste much thought upon him. The ignorant priests
of course consign him to perdition. The better instructed think, like
Protestants, that error is dangerous only so far as it influences
practice.
'Dr. Bretonneau, at Tours, was one of the best men that I have known, but
an unbeliever. The archbishop tried in his last illness to reconcile him
to the Church: Bretonneau died as he had lived. But the archbishop, when
lamenting to me his death, expressed his own conviction that so excellent
a soul could not perish.
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