The Toilers of the Sea

by Victor Hugo

And the books that he had inherited from the dead woman, and that he read, were disturbing, too. When the Reverend Jaquemin Hérode, rector of St. Sampson’s, had been in the house for the woman’s funeral, he had read on the spines of the books the titles of Rosier’s Dictionary, Voltaire’s Candide, and Tissot’s Advice to the People on Health. 74 A French noble, an émigré who had come to live in St. Sampson, declared that this must have been the Tissot who had carried the Princesse de Lamballe’s head on a pike. The reverend gentleman had also noticed on one of the books the daunting and threatening title De Rhubarbaro. It must be said, however, that since this work, as the title indicates, was written in Latin, it was doubtful whether Gilliatt, who knew no Latin, read it. But it is just those books that a man does not read that provide evidence against him. The Spanish Inquisition considered this point and put the matter beyond doubt.