r exposed the morals of a Jesuit, it would shed no
less light on the morals of a bishop. In a letter, clearly planned by
Girard, it was pretended that the Jesuits held themselves ready in the
background, to hurl dreadful recriminations against the prelate,
declaring his way of life not only unepiscopal, but _abominable_
withal. The sly, faithless Girard and the hot-headed Sabatier, swollen
with rage and spitefulness, would have pressed the calumnious charge.
They would not have failed to say that all this matter was about a
girl; that if Girard had taken care of her when ill, the bishop had
gotten her when she was well. What a commotion would be caused by such
a scandal in the well-regulated life of the great worldly lord! It
were too laughable a piece of chivalry to make war in revenge for the
maidenhood of a weak little fool, to embroil oneself for her sake with
all honest people! The Cardinal of Bonzi died indeed of grief at
Toulouse, but that was on account of a fair lady, the Marchioness of
Ganges. The bishop, on his part, risked his ruin, risked the chance of
being overwhelmed with shame and ridicule, for the child of a
retail-dealer in the Rue de l'Hopital!

Sabatier's threatenings made all the greater impression, because the
bishop himself clung less firmly to Cadiere. He did not thank her for
falling ill again; for giving the lie to his former success; for doing
him a wrong by her relapse. He bore her a grudge for having failed to
cure her. He said to himself that Sabatier was in the right; that he
had better come to a compromise. The change was sudden--a kind of
warning from above. All at once, like Paul on the way to Damascus, he
beheld the light, and became a convert to the Jesuits.

Sabatier would not let him go. He put paper before him, and made him
write and sign a decree forbidding the Carmelite, his agent with
Cadiere, and another forbidding her brother, the Jacobin.

CHAPTER XII.

THE TRIAL OF CADIERE: 1730-1731.

We can guess how this alarming blow was taken by the Cadiere family.
The sick girl's attacks became frequent and fearful. By a cruel chance
they brought on a kind of epidemic among her intimate friends. Her
neighbour, the German lady, who had trances also, which she had
hitherto deemed divine, now fell into utter fright, and fancied they
came from hell. This worthy dame of fifty years remembered that she,
too, had often had unclean thoughts: she believed herself given over
to th