The choir was filled with tardigrades and rotifers as large as men and dressed like choristers: they intoned, in solemn measure, a hymn of the German composer, Meiser, which began thus: The vital principle Is a gratuitous hypothesis! The poetry and the music appeared admirable to Leon; he was trying to impress them on his memory when the officiating priest advanced toward him with two gold rings on a silver salver.

This priest was a colonel of cuirassiers in full uniform.

Leon asked himself when and where he had met him.

It was on the previous evening before Clementine's door.

The cuirassier murmured these words: "The race of colonels has vastly degenerated since 1813." He heaved a profound sigh, and the nave of the chapel, which was a ship-of-the-line, was driven over the water at a speed of forty knots.