in a room off the small cloister of the Abbey of St. Aubin, a room
known at Angers as the Little Chapter-house. It was a long chamber with
a groined roof and stone walls, panelled as high as a tall man might
reach with dark chestnut wood. Gloomily lighted by three grated windows,
which looked on a small inner green, the last resting-place of the
Benedictines, the room itself seemed at first sight no more than the last
resting-place of worn-out odds and ends. Piles of thin sheepskin folios,
dog's-eared and dirty, the rejected of the choir, stood against the
walls; here and there among them lay a large brass-bound tome on which
the chains that had fettered it to desk or lectern still rusted. A
broken altar cumbered one corner: a stand bearing a curious--and
rotting--map filled another. In the other two corners a medley of faded
scutcheons and banners, which had seen their last Toussaint procession,
mouldered slowly into dust--into much dust. The air of the room was full
of it.

In spite of which the long oak table that filled the middle of the
chamber shone with use: so did the great metal standish which it bore.
And though the seven men who sat about the table seemed, at a first
glance and in that gloomy light, as rusty and faded as the rubbish behind
them, it needed but a second look at their lean jaws and hungry eyes to
be sure of their vitality.

He who sat in the great chair at the end of the table was indeed rather
plump than thin. His white hands, gay with rings, were well cared for;
his peevish chin rested on a falling-collar of lace worthy of a Cardinal.
But though the Bishop's Vicar was heard with deference, it was noticeable
that when he had ceased to speak his hearers looked to the priest on his
left, to Father Pezelay, and waited to hear his opinion before they gave
their own. The Father's energy, indeed, had dominated the Angerins,
clerks and townsfolk alike, as it had dominated the Parisian _devotes_
who knew him well. The vigour which hate inspires passes often for solid
strength; and he who had seen with his own eyes the things done in Paris
spoke with an authority to which the more timid quickly and easily
succumbed.

Yet gibbets are ugly things; and Thuriot, the printer, whose pride had
been tickled by a summons to the conclave, began to wonder if he had done
wisely in coming. Lescot, too, who presently ventured a word.

"But if M. de Tavannes' order be to do nothing," he began doubtfully,