Page:The red and the black (1916).djvu/232

212 who looked upon Besançon as exile. This Bishop had very bad sight, and was passionately fond of fish. The abbé de Frilair used to take the bones out of the fish which was served to my Lord. Julien looked silently at the abbé who was rereading the resignation when the door suddenly opened with a noise. A richly dressed lackey passed in rapidly. Julien had only time to turn round towards the door. He perceived a little old man wearing a pectoral cross. He prostrated himself. The Bishop addressed a benevolent smile to him and passed on. The handsome abbé followed him and Julien was left alone in the salon, and was able to admire at his leisure its pious magnificence.

The Bishop of Besançon, a man whose spirit had been tried but not broken by the long miseries of the emigration, was more than seventy-five years old and concerned himself infinitely little with what might happen in ten years' time.

"Who is that clever-looking seminarist I think I saw as I passed?" said the Bishop. "Oughtn't they to be in bed according to my regulations."

"That one is very wide-awake I assure you, my Lord, and he brings great news. It is the resignation of the only Jansenist residing in your diocese, that terrible abbé Pirard realises at last that we mean business."

"Well," said the Bishop with a laugh. "I challenge you to replace him with any man of equal worth, and to show you how much I prize that man, I will invite him to dinner for to-morrow."

The Grand Vicar tried to slide in a few words concerning the choice of a successor. The prelate, who was little disposed to talk business, said to him.

"Before we install the other, let us get to know a little of the circumstances under which the present one is going. Fetch me this seminarist. The truth is in the mouth of children."

Julien was summoned. "I shall find myself between two inquisitors," he thought. He had never felt more courageous. At the moment when he entered, two valets, better dressed than M. Valenod himself, were undressing my lord. That prelate thought he ought to question Julien on his studies before questioning him about M. Pirard. He talked a little theology, and was astonished. He soon came to the