Of their tremendous significance be sure that the modest
house at Meudon knew as little as that the Records would one day
be the planet's standard in all official meteorology. It was
enough for them that their Xavier--this son, this father, this
husband--ascended periodically to commune with powers, it might
be angelic, beyond their comprehension, and that they united
daily in prayers for his safety.
"Pray for me," he says upon the eve of each of his excursions,
and returning, with an equal simplicity, he renders thanks "after
supper in the little room where he kept his barometers."
To the last Lavalle was a Catholic of the old school,
accepting--he who had looked into the very heart of the
lightnings--the dogmas of papal infallibility, of absolution, of
confession--of relics great and small. Marvellous--enviable
contradiction!
The completion of the Tellurionical Records closed what Lavalle
himself was pleased to call the theoretical side of his
labours--labours from which the youngest and least impressionable
planeur might well have shrunk.
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