Read "Monsieur Bergeret in Paris" by Anatole France online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Joseph Lacrisse had spoken the truth when he called himself a man of action. Idleness was a burden to him. The Secretary of an extinct Royalist Committee, he became a member of a Nationalist Committee which was very much alive. It was violent in tone, full of a malevolent love of France and a destructive patriotism. It was continually organizing rather savage demonstrations in the theatres or the churches. Joseph Lacrisse was the moving spirit of these demonstrations. When they took place in a church, Madame de Bonmont, who was religiously inclined, attended them, dressed in dark colours. _Domus mea domus orationis._ One day after joining the Nationalists in the Cathedral in order to pray in select company, Madame de Bonmont and Lacrisse mingled with a crowd of men in the square before the Cathedral who were expressing their patriotism by frantic and concerted shouts.
Lacrisse joined his voice to that of the crowd, and Madame de Bonmont quickened their courage by the smile of her blue eyes and her rosy lips, gleaming behind her veil.