"I could not dissemble from myself that the holy deed I was about to do, was at the bottom the action of a bandit." "The sophism which destroyed me," he says in one of those eloquent pieces of moralising, which bring ignoble action into a relief that exaggerates our condemnation, "is that of most men, who complain of lack of strength when it is already too late for them to use it.

It is only through our own fault that virtue costs us anything; if we could be always sage, we should rarely feel the need of being virtuous.

But inclinations that might be easily overcome, drag us on without resistance; we yield to light temptations of which we despise the hazard.

Insensibly we fall into perilous situations, against which we could easily have shielded ourselves, but from which we can afterwards only make a way out by heroic efforts that stupefy us, and so we sink into the abyss, crying aloud to God, Why hast thou made me so weak?
But in spite of ourselves, God gives answer to our conscience, 'I made thee too weak to come out from the pit, because I made thee strong enough to avoid falling into it.'"[28] So the hopeful convert did fall in, not as happens to the pious soul "too hot for certainties in this our life," to find rest in liberty of private judgment and an open Bible, but simply as a means of getting food, clothing, and shelter.[29] The boy was clever enough to make some show of resistance, and he turned to good use for this purpose the knowledge of Church history and the great Reformation controversy which he had picked up at M.Lambercier's.

He was careful not to carry things too far, and exactly nine days after his admission into the Hospice, he "abjured the errors of the sect."[30] Two days after that he was publicly received into the kindly bosom of the true Church with all solemnity, to the high edification of the devout of Turin, who marked their interest in the regenerate soul by contributions to the extent of twenty francs in small money.
With that sum and formal good wishes the fathers of the Hospice of the Catechumens thrust him out of their doors into the broad world.