"'Blessed would be the sins that left any shame in you.'"

     "'You reason like all the working classes.  Every family has its secrets.  What good would it do us to wash our dirty linen in public?  I might have been unfaithful to my husband considering the way he behaved.  But there's nothing in my past to be ashamed of.'

     'Blessed would be the sins that left any shame in you.  God grant that you may despise yourself [(Bénies soient les fautes qui laissent en nous de la honte !  Plût à Dieu que vous vous méprisiez vous-même !)].'"

     Mme la Comtesse and the country priest, in Georges Bernanos, The diary of a country priest 5, trans. Pamela Morris (New York:  Macmillan, 1937), 159.  French from p. 196 of the 1936 original.  "'Blessed would be the faults that left any shame in us!"