Cathelineau,
because he was a simple peasant, and was trusted by the priests who
were still dominant. As they were all equal there arose a demand for a
bishop who should hold sway over them. Nonjuring bishops were scarce
in France; but Lescure contrived to supply the need of the moment.
Here, in the midst of so much that was tragic, and of so much that was
of good report, we come to the bewildering and grotesque adventure of
the bishop of Agra.

At Dol, near St. Malo, there was a young priest who took the oath to
the Constitution, but afterwards dropped the cassock, appeared at
Poitiers as a man of pleasure, and was engaged to be married. He
volunteered in the republican cavalry, and took the field against the
royalists, mounted and equipped by admiring friends. On May 5, he was
taken prisoner, and as his card of admission to the Jacobins was found
upon him, he thought himself in danger. He informed his captors that
he was on their side; that he was a priest in orders, whom it would be
sacrilege to injure; at last, that he was not only a priest, but a
bishop, whom, in the general dispersion, the Pope had chosen as his
vicar apostolic to the suffering Church of France. His name was
Guyot, and he called himself Folleville. Such a captive was worth more
than a regiment of horse. Lescure carried the republican trooper to
his country house for a few days; and on May 16 Guyot reappeared in
the robes proper to a bishop, with the mitre, ring, and crozier that
belonged to his exalted dignity.

It was a great day in camp under the white flag; and the enemy,
watching through his telescope, beheld with amazement the kneeling
ranks of Vendean infantry, and a gigantic prelate who strode through
them and distributed blessings. He addressed them when they went into
action, promising victory to those who fought, and heaven to those who
fell, in so good a cause; and he went under fire with a crucifix in
his hand, and ministered to the wounded. They put him at the head of
the council, and required every priest to obey him, under pain of
arrest. Bernier, who had been at school with Guyot, was not deceived.
He denounced him at Rome, through Maury, who was living there in the
enjoyment of well-earned honours. The fraud was at once exposed. Pius
VI. declared that the bishop of Agra did not exist; and that he knew
nothing of the man so called, except that he was an impostor and a
rogue.

From the moment when Bernier wrote, Guyot was in his