Part 11

This young man, who was gifted with a charming personality, had his right arm resting on the table, while his white hand dropped negligently on the bunches of grapes, seeking the ripest, with the ease and assurance of an habitual guest or favorite. He was both to the prelate, being the younger brother of Baron Eugene de Rastignac, to whom ties of family and also of affection had long bound the Bishop of Limoges. Aware of the want of fortune which devoted this young man to the Church, the bishop took him as his private secretary to give him time to wait for eventual preferment. The Abbe Gabriel bore a name which would lead him sooner or later to the highest dignities of the Church.

“Did you go to see him, my son?” asked the bishop.

“Yes, Monseigneur. As soon as I entered his cell the wretched man hurled the most disgusting epithets at you and at me. He behaved in such a manner that it was impossible for any priest to remain in his presence. Might I give Monseigneur a word of advice?”

“Let us listen to the words of wisdom which God Almighty sometimes puts into the mouths of children,” said the bishop, smiling.

“Well, you know he made Balaam’s ass speak out,” said the young abbe quickly.

“But according to some commentators she did not know what she was saying,” replied the bishop, laughing.

The two grand vicars smiled. In the first place, the joke came from Monseigneur; next, it bore gently on the young abbe, of whom the dignitaries and other ambitious priests grouped around the bishop were somewhat jealous.

“My advice would be,” resumed the young man, “to ask Monsieur de Grandville to reprieve the man for the present. When Tascheron knows that he owes an extension of his life to our intercession, he may pretend to listen to us, and if he listens--”

“He will persist in his present conduct, finding that it has won him that advantage,” said the bishop, interrupting his favorite. “Messieurs,” he said, after a moment’s silence, “does the whole town know of these details?”

“There is not a household in which they are not talked over,” said the Abbe de Grancour. “The state in which our good Abbe Pascal was put by his last efforts is the present topic of conversation throughout the town.”

“When is Tascheron to be executed?” asked the bishop.

“To-morrow, which is market-day;” replied Monsieur de Grancour.

“Messieurs,” exclaimed the bishop, “religion must not be overset in this way. The more public attention is attracted to the matter, the more I am determined to obtain a notable triumph. The Church is now in presence of a great difficulty. We are called upon to do miracles in this manufacturing town, where the spirit of sedition against religious and monarchical principles has such deep root, where the system of inquiry born of protestantism (which in these days calls itself liberalism, prepared at any moment to take another name) extends into everything. Go at once to Monsieur de Grandville; he is wholly on our side, and say to him from me that we beg for a few days’ reprieve. I will go myself and see that unhappy man.”

“You, Monseigneur!” said the Abbe de Rastignac. “If you should fail, wouldn’t that complicate matters? You ought not to go unless you are certain of success.”

“If Monseigneur will permit me to express my opinion,” said the Abbe Dutheil, “I think I can suggest a means which may bring victory to religion in this sad case.”

The prelate answered with a sign of assent, so coldly given as to show how little credit he gave to his vicar-general.

“If any one can influence that rebellious soul and bring it back to God,” continued the Abbe Dutheil, “it is the rector of the village in which he was born, Monsieur Bonnet.”

“One of your proteges,” remarked the bishop.

“Monseigneur, Monsieur Bonnet is one of those men who protect themselves, both by their active virtues and their gospel work.”

This simple and modest reply was received in a silence which would have embarrassed any other man than the Abbe Dutheil. The three priests chose to see in it one of those hidden and unanswerable sarcasms which are characteristic of ecclesiastics, who contrive to express what they want to say while observing the strictest decorum. In this case there was nothing of the kind. The Abbe Dutheil never thought of himself and had no double meaning.

“I have heard of Saint Aristides for some time,” said the bishop, smiling. “If I have left his light under a bushel I may have been unjust or prejudiced. Your liberals are always crying up Monsieur Bonnet as though he belonged to their party. I should like to judge for myself of this rural apostle. Go at once, messieurs, to Monsieur de Grandville, and ask for the reprieve; I will await his answer before sending our dear Abbe Gabriel to Montegnac to fetch the saintly man. We will give his Blessedness a chance to do miracles.”

As he listened to these words of the prelate the Abbe Dutheil reddened; but he would not allow himself to take notice of the incivilities of the speech. The two grand vicars bowed in silence and withdrew, leaving the prelate alone with his secretary.

“The secrets of the confession we are so anxious to obtain from the unhappy man himself are no doubt buried there,” said the bishop to his young abbe, pointing to the shadow of the poplars where it fell on a lonely house between the island and Saint-Etienne.

“I have always thought so,” replied Gabriel. “I am not a judge and I will not be an informer; but if I were a magistrate I should have known the name of that woman who trembles at every sound, at every word, while forced to keep her features calm and serene under pain of going to the scaffold with her lover. She has nothing to fear, however. I have seen the man; he will carry the secret of that passionate love to the grave with him.”

“Ah! you sly fellow!” said the bishop, twisting the ear of his secretary as he motioned to the space between the island and the suburb of Saint-Etienne which the last gleams of the setting sun were illuminating, and on which the young abbe’s eyes were fixed. “That is the place where justice should have searched; don’t you think so?”

“I went to see the criminal to try the effect of my suspicions upon him,” replied the young man. “I could not speak them out, for fear of compromising the woman for whose sake he dies.”

“Yes,” said the bishop, “we will hold our tongues; we are not the servants of human justice. One head is enough. Besides, sooner or later, the secret will be given to the Church.”

The perspicacity which the habit of meditation gives to priests is far superior to that of lawyers or the police. By dint of contemplating from those terraces the scene of the crime, the prelate and his secretary had ended by perceiving circumstances unseen by others, in spite of all the investigations before and during the trial of the case.