Clochemerle-Babylon Quotes

“Once again was it proved that the designs of Providence are impenetrable and that the sinner, climbing out of the pit of his filthiness, may feel himself touched by grace.”
― Gabriel Chevallier, Clochemerle-Babylon

“The Curé Noive had a sister who acted as his housekeeper, a lady with a moustache, whose piety was astringent, and who fostered a splenetic God in a heart which was outraged at anything gracious, tender, or lovable that life might offer. There are such cross-grained natures, made spiteful and furious by anything that looks like happiness.”
― Gabriel Chevallier, Clochemerle-Babylon

“For the wine of Clochemerle is at once exquisite and treacherous; it charms first the nose, then the palate, finally the entire man. Mark well that if it makes a man drunk it does not do so malignantly. It produces an enchanting light-heartedness, an intellectual sparkle which liberates the drinker from the constraints and conventions which bind him in his daily life.”
― Gabriel Chevallier, Clochemerle-Babylon

“The desire for carnal possession quickly cools, whereas the desire to own land never quits the heart of man.”
― Gabriel Chevallier, Clochemerle-Babylon

“It was true that the elders found everything changing all about them with a precipitation which was leaving them stripped of authority. The girls (kids they remembered no bigger than that) suddenly flowered and married. The lads returned from their military service with blasé airs and a new vocabulary. A horde of new brats was born, making their disprespectful uproar in Clochemerle.”
― Gabriel Chevallier, Clochemerle-Babylon

“The death of the Curé Ponosse occurred in the vintage month, when his beloved Clochemerle was impregnated with the odour of new wine, in the golden glory of a brilliant, hot September. The old priest died in the apotheosis of a great year, famous for its wine, one of those years whose fragrant soul is destined to be poured, later, from bottles, to rejoice the heart of man, to celebrate earth's abundance, the memories of happy days, and perfect summers.”
― Gabriel Chevallier, Clochemerle-Babylon

“Frail to the point of invalidism, without family and with nothing to look forward to, she [Mlle Muguette] yet contrived to be happy. How strange a thing is happiness! Mlle Pimpalet, the notary's wife, arrogantly middle-class, well-furnished with the goods of this world, cared for and waited on, yet invariably looked as if she had been given rat poison for breakfast. While Muguette with nothing, almost on the parish, was radiant with carefree joyousness. Her courage almost made people want to kiss her.”
― Gabriel Chevallier, Clochemerle-Babylon

“There were, in Clochemerle, a number of lady 'invalids', their conversation one long jeremiad concerning their health, who had worn out their husbands and outlived them by fifteen or twenty years. Since, all their lives, they had spent themselves only drop by drop, their extreme old age was still charged with vital fluid, flowing very meagrely yet sufficient to keep them on their feet and living, so to speak, vegetatively, behind mask-like countenances of wood or old ivory. They breathed in slow motion, everything about them was almost dead excepting those feeble pulsations of the heart which kept just enough pale blood flowing beneath their wrinkled skins.”
― Gabriel Chevallier, Clochemerle-Babylon

“The Clochemerle 1929 was a magnificent wine. Drinking it in small sips, his grace the Archbishop felt himself well disposed towards the Clochemerlins. It takes all sorts to make a world and a Church, to people Heaven and Hell. But there was no denying that it took capable vignerons to make a wine like this, men whose minds must on no account be distracted by excessive metaphysical cares.”
― Gabriel Chevallier, Clochemerle-Babylon

“During several centuries Clochemerle, far from the cities and trade routes, had lived in stillness and isolation. But now, at last, the clamour of the great world was crossing the invisible barrier, bringing doubts, temptations, and discontents.”
― Gabriel Chevallier, Clochemerle-Babylon

“The Church needs a firm hierarchy and is forced to distrust such of her underlings as show a tendency to become too holy.”
― Gabriel Chevallier, Clochemerle-Babylon