I must observe the Concordat.

Moreover, whatever people may say, Catholicism is the most acceptable form of religious indifference." "Well then," objected Constantin Marc, "since you wish to show deference to the Church, why do you foist upon her, by force or by subterfuge, a coffin which she doesn't want ?" The doctor spoke in a similar strain, and ended by saying.
"My dear Pradel, don't you have anything more to do with the matter." "Whereupon Nanteuil, her eyes blazing, her voice sibilant, cried: "He must go to church, doctor; sign what is asked of you, write that he was not in possession of his faculties, I entreat you." There was not religion alone at the back of this desire.

Blended with it was an intimate feeling, an obscure background of old beliefs, of which she herself was unaware.

She hoped that if he were carried into the church, and sprinkled with holy water, Chevalier would be appeased, would become one of the peaceful dead, and would no longer torment her.
She feared, on the other hand, that if he were deprived of benediction and prayers he would perpetually hover about her, accursed and maleficent.

And, more simply still, in her dread of seeing him again, she was anxious that the priests should take good care to bury him, and that everybody should attend the funeral, so that he should be all the more thoroughly buried; as thoroughly buried, in short, as it was possible to be.