y
from the fowl she was basting on the spit and emphasizing her remarks
with her great wooden spoon. "Oh! figure to yourself--he is a villain.
_Ma foi, oui!_ A bishop! Ha! A true one. Boasts he believes not in a
God, yet rules Languedoc with a rod of iron since Cardinal Bonzi fell
off his perch; entertains the wickedest _mondaines_ of Louis's court
as they pass through Lodeve; has boys to sing to him while he dines
and--and--But there," she concluded as she turned to the fowl again;
"he is a Phelypeaux. That tells all. They are sacred with the king."

"But why?" asked St. Georges, as he rose from his seat--"but why? What
does he here if he rules Languedoc, and why should Phelypeaux be a
charmed name? Tell me before I go."

He had made arrangements with the good woman to leave his child there
for the night, she swearing by many saints that it should sleep with
her own and be as carefully guarded and as precious as they were. So
he had confided it to her care, saying: "Remember, 'tis motherless,
and, besides, is all I have in the world, all I have left to me of my
dead wife. Remember that, I beseech you, as you are a mother
yourself"; and she, being a mother and a true one, promised. Therefore
it was now sleeping peacefully upstairs, its little arms around the
neck of one of her own children.

"Why, monsieur, why is he here and why does he bear a charmed name?"
repeated the other customer, the _bon bourgeois_, joining in the
conversation for the first time. "I will tell you. First, he comes
regularly to take his rights of seigniorage, his rents, his taxes, his
fourths of all the produce of his vineyards and arable lands on our
Cote d'Or. They are rich, these Phelypeaux; have been ever since the
days of Charles the Bold, and they are greedy and grasping. Also they
are great and powerful--they are of the Pontchartrain blood, and are
of the court. One was minister to the late king under the cardinal.
And for being bishop, _tiens!_ he was priest under Mazarin, who had
been a cavalryman, as monsieur is himself. It was Barberini who told
him the gown was better than the sword. And it was Mazarin who made
Phelypeaux bishop. To silence him, you understand, monsieur--to
silence him. He knew too much."

"What did he know?" asked the soldier, lifting his cup to his lips for
the last time, though with his eyes fixed on the _bourgeois_ as he
spoke.

"Ha! he knew much. The king's first love for La Beauvais--his first
love--then