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“Monsieur, he whom you call Jehovah is really a coarse and ignorant demiurge, and his name is Ialdabaoth.”
“In that case, Monsieur, I am perfectly ready to believe in him. He is a narrow-minded ignoramus, is he? Then belief in his existence offers me no further difficulty. How is he getting on?”
“Badly! We are going to lay him low next month.”
“Don’t make too sure of that, Monsieur. You remind me of my brother-in-law, Cuissart, who has been expecting to hear of the fall of the Republic for the past thirty years.”
“You see, Arcade,” exclaimed Maurice, “Uncle Gaétan thinks as I do. He knows you won’t succeed.”
“And, pray, Monsieur Gaétan, what makes you think I shall not succeed?”
“Your Ialdabaoth is still very powerful in this world, if he isn’t in the other. In days gone by he used to be upheld by his priests, by those who believed in him. Now he is supported by those who do not believe in him, by the philosophers. A pedant of a fellow called Picrochole has recently come on the scene who wants to make a bankrupt of science in order to do a good turn to the Church. And just lately Pragmatism has been invented for the express purpose of gaining, credit for religion in the minds of rationalists.”
