rene a daring, that the reverend father and the
princess were quite confounded by it. They felt themselves overawed by
this little old man, so sordid and so ugly. Father d'Aigrigny knew too
well the customs of the Company, to believe his humble secretary capable
of assuming so suddenly these airs of transcendent superiority without
a motive, or rather, without a positive right. Late, too late, the
reverend father perceived, that this subordinate agent might be partly
a spy, partly an experienced assistant, who, according to the
constitutions of the Order, had the power and mission to depose and
provisionally replace, in certain urgent cases, the incapable person
over whom he was stationed as a guard. The reverend father was not
deceived. From the general to the provincials, and to the rectors of
the colleges, all the superior members of the Order have stationed
near them, often without their knowledge, and in apparently the lowest
capacities, men able to assume their functions at any given moment, and
who, with this view, constantly keep up a direct correspondence with
Rome.

From the moment Rodin had assumed this position, the manners of Father
d'Aigrigny, generally so haughty, underwent a change. Though it cost him
a good deal, he said with hesitation, mingled with deference: "You have,
no doubt, the right to command me--who hitherto have commanded." Rodin,
without answering, drew from his well-rubbed and greasy pocket-book a
slip of paper, stamped upon both sides, on which were written several
lines in Latin. When he had read it, Father d'Aigrigny pressed this
paper respectfully, even religiously, to his lips: then returned it to
Rodin, with a low bow. When he again raised his head, he was purple with
shame and vexation. Notwithstanding his habits of passive obedience
and immutable respect for the will of the Order, he felt a bitter and
violent rage at seeing himself thus abruptly deposed from power. That
was not all. Though, for a long time past, all relations in gallantry
had ceased between him and Mme. de Saint-Dizier, the latter was not the
less a woman; and for him to suffer this humiliation in presence of a
woman was, undoubtedly, cruel, as, notwithstanding his entrance into the
Order, he had not wholly laid aside the character of man of the world.
Moreover, the princess, instead of appearing hurt and offended by this
sudden transformation of the superior into a subaltern, and of the
subaltern into a superior,