And the excellent old Abbe, taking his pupil’s head affectionately between his hands, continued: 

“Like other people, my dear son, I was curious to see the devils of the Ursulines; and knowing that they professed to speak all languages, I was so imprudent as to cease speaking Latin and to question them in Greek.  The Superior is very pretty, but she does not know Greek!  Duncan, the physician, observed aloud that it was surprising that the demon, who knew everything, should commit barbarisms and solecisms in Latin, and not be able to answer in Greek.  The young Superior, who was then upon her bed, turned toward the wall to weep, and said in an undertone to Father Barre, ‘I can not go on with this, father.’  I repeated her words aloud, and infuriated all the exorcists; they cried out that I ought to know that there are demons more ignorant than peasants, and said that as to their power and physical strength, it could not be doubted, since the spirits named Gresil des Trones, Aman des Puissance, and Asmodeus, had promised to carry off the calotte of Monsieur de Laubardemont.  They were preparing for this, when the physician Duncan, a learned and upright man, but somewhat of a scoffer, took it into his head to pull a cord he discovered fastened to a column like a bell-rope, and which hung down just close to the referendary’s head; whereupon they called him a Huguenot, and I am satisfied that if Marechal de Breze were not his protector, it would have gone ill with him.  The Comte du Lude then came forward with his customary ‘sang-froid’, and begged the exorcists to perform before him.  Father Lactantius, the Capuchin with the dark visage and hard look, proceeded with Sister Agnes and Sister Claire; he raised both his hands, looking at them as a serpent would look at two dogs, and cried in a terrible voice, ‘Quis to misit, Diabole?’ and the two sisters answered, as with one voice, ‘Urbanus.’  He was about to continue, when Monsieur du Lude, taking out of his pocket, with an air of veneration, a small gold box, said that he had in it a relic left by his ancestors, and that though not doubting the fact of the possession, he wished to test it.  Father Lactantius seized the box with delight, and hardly had he touched the foreheads of the two sisters with it when they made great leaps and twisted about their hands and feet.  Lactantius shouted forth his exorcisms; Barre threw himself upon his knees with all the old women; and Mignon and the judges applauded.  The impassible Laubardemont made the sign of the cross, without being struck dead for it!  When Monsieur du Lude took back his box the nuns became still.  ‘I think,’ said Lactantius, insolently, ’that—­you will not question your relics now.’  ‘No more than I do the possession,’ answered Monsieur du Lude, opening his box and showing that it was empty.  ‘Monsieur, you mock us,’ said Lactantius.  I was indignant at these mummeries, and said to him, ‘Yes, Monsieur, as you mock God and men.’  And this, my dear friend, is the reason why you see me in my seven-league boots, so heavy that they hurt my legs, and with pistols; for our friend Laubardemont has ordered my person to be seized, and I don’t choose it to be seized, old as it is.”