of Birotteau's removal from Madame de Listomere's house
seemed all the more amazing because the reason of it was wholly
impenetrable. Madame de Listomere said that her nephew was intending
to marry and leave the navy, and she wanted the vicar's apartment to
enlarge her own. Birotteau's relinquishment was still unknown. The
advice of Monsieur de Bourbonne was followed. Whenever the two facts
reached the ears of the vicar-general his self-love was certain to be
gratified by the assurance they gave that even if the Listomere family
did not capitulate they would at least remain neutral and tacitly
recognize the occult power of the Congregation,--to reconize it was,
in fact, to submit to it. But the lawsuit was still sub judice; his
opponents yielded and threatened at the same time.

The Listomeres had thus taken precisely the same attitude as the
vicar-general himself; they held themselves aloof, and yet were able
to direct others. But just at this crisis an event occurred which
complicated the plans laid by Monsieur de Bourbonne and the Listomeres
to quiet the Gamard and Troubert party, and made them more difficult
to carry out.

Mademoiselle Gamard took cold one evening in coming out of the
cathedral; the next day she was confined to her bed, and soon after
became dangerously ill. The whole town rang with pity and false
commiseration: "Mademoiselle Gamard's sensitive nature has not been
able to bear the scandal of this lawsuit. In spite of the justice of
her cause she was likely to die of grief. Birotteau has killed his
benefactress." Such were the speeches poured through the capillary
tubes of the great female conclave, and taken up and repeated by the
whole town of Tours.

Madame de Listomere went the day after Mademoiselle Gamard took cold
to pay the promised visit, and she had the mortification of that act
without obtaining any benefit from it, for the old maid was too ill to
see her. She then asked politely to speak to the vicar-general.

Gratified, no doubt, to receive in Chapeloud's library, at the corner
of the fireplace above which hung the two contested pictures, the
woman who had hitheto ignored him, Troubert kept the baroness waiting
a moment before he consented to admit her. No courtier and no
diplomatist ever put into a discussion of their personal interests or
into the management of some great national negotiation more
shrewdness, dissimulation, and ability than the baroness and the
priest displayed wh