y sinning. I have come, uncle, to beg you in all love and
charity to do likewise; for unless you do you cannot be saved. Remove,
I beg, your clothes, and adopt the posture of the animals, in whom God
joyfully sees His image which has not been distorted by sin. I give you
this advice by order of the holy brother Sulpice, and consequently by
order of God Himself, for the holy brother is in the Lord's secrets.
Strip yourself naked, uncle, and come with me, so that we may show
ourselves to the people for their edification."

"Can I believe my eyes and ears?" gasped the holy Bishop, whose voice
was stifled by sobs. "I had a niece blooming in beauty, virtue, and
piety; the three children whom I rescued from the salting-tub have
reduced her to the miserable condition in which I now see her. The first
has despoiled her of all her property, an abundant source of alms, and
the patrimony of the poor; the second has robbed her of her honour, and
the third has turned her into a heretic."

He threw himself on the flagstones, embracing his niece, begging her to
renounce so evil a way of life, and adjuring her to reclothe herself,
and walk on her feet like a human being, ransomed by the blood of Jesus
Christ.

But she replied only by sharp yelps and lamentable shrieks.

Before long the town of Trinqueballe was filled with naked men and
women, walking on all fours and barking; they called themselves the
Edenites, and their ambition was to lead back the world to the times of
perfect innocence, before the unfortunate creation of Adam and Eve.

The Reverend Father Gilles Caquerole, a Dominican, inquisitor of
the faith in the city, university, and ecclesiastical province of
Trinqueballe, became uneasy concerning this novelty, and proceeded to
look into it minutely. In the most urgent fashion, by letters under his
seal, he invited the Bishop Nicolas, in co-operation with himself, to
arrest, imprison, interrogate, and sentence these enemies of God, and
especially their principal leaders, the Franciscan monk, Sulpice, and
a dissolute woman named Mirande. The great St. Nicolas burned with an
ardent zeal for the unity of the Church and the destruction of heresy,
but he dearly loved his niece. He hid her in the episcopal palace, and
refused to hand her over to the inquisitor Caquerole, who denounced him
to the Pope as an abettor of disorder and the propagator of a new and
very detestable heresy. The Pope enjoined Nicolas to no longer
withhol