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190 "Why shouldn't I become Pope like Sixtus Quintus who kept pigs?"

"They only make Italians Popes," answered his friend. "But they will certainly draw lots amongst us for the great vicarships, canonries and perhaps bishoprics. M. P Bishop of Chlons, is the son of a cooper. That's what my father is."

One day, in the middle of a theology lesson, the Abbé Pirard summoned Julien to him. The young fellow was delighted to leave the dark, moral atmosphere in which he had been plunged. Julien received from the director the same welcome which had frightened him so much on the first day of his entry.

"Explain to me what is written on this playing card?" he said, looking at him in a way calculated to make him sink into the earth.

Julien read:

"Amanda Biriet of the Giraffe Café before eight o'clock. Say you're from Genlis, and my mother's cousin."

Julien realised the immense danger. The spies of the abbé Castanède had stolen the address.

"I was trembling with fear the day I came here," he answered, looking at the abbé Pirard's forehead, for he could not endure that terrible gaze. "M. Chélan told me that this is a place of informers and mischief-makers of all kinds, and that spying and tale-bearing by one comrade on another was encouraged by the authorities. Heaven wishes it to be so, so as to show life such as it is to the young priests, and fill them with disgust for the world and all its pomps."

"And it's to me that you make these fine speeches," said the abbé Pirard furiously. "You young villain."

"My brothers used to beat me at Verrières," answered Julien coldly, "When they had occasion to be jealous of me."

"Indeed, indeed," exclaimed M. Pirard, almost beside himself.

Julien went on with his story without being in the least intimidated:—

"The day of my arrival at Besançon I was hungry, and I entered a café. My spirit was full of revulsion for so profane a place, but I thought that my breakfast would cost me less than at an inn. A lady, who seemed to be the mistress of the