Claude. Having completed a leisurely inspection, I quietly took a
chair behind my companions, for fear of disturbing their devotions. I
found, however, that these were over long ago, and that, though in a
devout position, they were discussing fashion and gossip as a matter of
course! Twice, during my visits to the Cathedral, I had found thirty
Dominicans at vespers, and I was informed afterwards that these were
poor students who were maintained and prepared for the office of
teachers at the expense of a rich young Abbe of St. Claude. It happened
that I fell into conversation with this young Abbe in a photographic
shop, and found him very agreeable and instructed. It seems a pity he
could not find some better means of employing his fortune.
In that same photograph shop were hung photographs of the Pope and
Grambetta, side by side, the shop-keeper acting, I presume, on the
principle of one of George Eliot's characters, who had to vote "as a
family man." Doubtless, being the father of a family, this stationer
felt it expedient to be agreeable to both parties, Clerical and
Republican. St. Claude, like the other towns I have passed through in
the heart of the Jura, is eminently Republican, and a very intelligent
workman told me that Catholic parents were compelled to send their
children to the lay Communal Schools, instead of to the Freres
Ignorantins, because with the latter they learn nothing.
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