He had no collection of suitable epitaphs, and, besides, he did not know whether it was right to use them.

Like all his race in New France he was jealous of any inroads of Protestantism, or what the Little Chemist called "Englishness." The good M.Fabre, the Cure, saw no harm in it, but said he could not speak for any one's grief.

What the bereaved folk felt they themselves must put in words upon the stone.

But still Francois might bring all the epitaphs to him before they were carved, and he would approve or disapprove, correct or reject, as the case might be.
At first he rejected many, for they were mostly conventional couplets, taken unknowingly from Protestant sources by mourning Catholics.

But presently all that was changed, and the Cure one day had laid before him three epitaphs, each of which left his hand unrevised and untouched; and when he passed them back to Francois his eyes were moist, for he was a man truly after God's own heart, and full of humanity.
"Will you read them to me, Francois ?" he said, as the worker in stone was about to put the paper back in his pocket.