6/40 _Hic jacet nobilis vir Johannes Racine._ It is not true! They make honest Boileau's epitaph lie. The body of Racine is not in this spot. It was laid to rest in the third chapel on the left, as you enter. What idiots!" Then, suddenly calm, he pointed to Pascal's tombstone. No praise can be too great for Lenoir, who, in the days of the Revolution, collected and preserved." Thereupon, he improvised a second lecture on lapidary archaeology, even more brilliant than the first, transformed the history of Pascal's life into a terrible yet amusing drama, and vanished. |