Trinquant hearing of the reports about his daughter, took upon himself as king’s attorney to have Marthe Pelletier arrested and imprisoned.  Being questioned about the child, she insisted that she was its mother, and would take its maintenance upon herself.  To have brought a child into the world under such circumstances was a sin, but not a crime; Trinquant was therefore obliged to set Marthe at liberty, and the abuse of justice of which he was guilty served only to spread the scandal farther and to strengthen the public in the belief it had taken up.

Hitherto, whether through the intervention of the heavenly powers, or by means of his own cleverness, Urbain Grandier had come out victor in every struggle in which he had engaged, but each victor had added to the number of his enemies, and these were now so numerous that any other than he would have been alarmed, and have tried either to conciliate them or to take precautions against their malice; but Urbain, wrapped in his pride, and perhaps conscious of his innocence, paid no attention to the counsels of his most faithful followers, but went on his way unheeding.

All the opponents whom till now Urbain had encountered had been entirely unconnected with each other, and had each struggled for his own individual ends.  Urbain’s enemies, believing that the cause of his success was to be found in the want of cooperation among themselves, now determined to unite in order to crush him.  In consequence, a conference was held at Barot’s, at which, besides Barot himself, Meunier, Trinquant, and Mignon took part, and the latter had also brought with him one Menuau, a king’s counsel and his own most intimate friend, who was, however, influenced by other motives than friendship in joining the conspiracy.  The fact was, that Menuau was in love with a woman who had steadfastly refused to show him any favour, and he had got firmly fixed in his head that the reason for her else inexplicable indifference and disdain was that Urbain had been beforehand with him in finding an entrance to her heart.  The object of the meeting was to agree as to the best means of driving the common enemy out of Loudon and its neighbourhood.

Urbain’s life was so well ordered that it presented little which his enemies could use as a handle for their purpose.  His only foible seemed to be a predilection for female society; while in return all the wives and daughters of the place, with the unerring instinct of their sex, seeing, that the new priest was young, handsome, and eloquent, chose him, whenever it was possible, as their spiritual director.  As this preference had already offended many husbands and fathers, the decision the conspirators arrived at was that on this side alone was Grandier vulnerable, and that their only chance of success was to attack him where he was weakest.  Almost at once, therefore, the vague reports which had been floating about began to attain a certain definiteness:  there were