“It is the Abbe Vergniaud they are burying,” he said,—­“He was a wonderful preacher!  All fashionable Paris used to go and hear him till he made that pretty scandal of himself a month or so ago.  He was a popular and a social favourite; but one fine morning he preached a sermon to his congregation all against the Church, and for that matter against himself too, for he then and there confessed before everybody that he was no true priest.  And as he preached,—­ what think you?—­a young man fired a pistol shot at him for his rascality, as everyone supposed, and when the gendarmes would have taken the assassin, this same Abbe stopped them, and refused to punish his own son!  What do you think of that for a marvel?  And something still more marvellous followed, for that very son who tried to kill him was no other than Gys Grandit, the man we have just heard speaking, though nobody knew it till a week afterwards.  Such a scene you never saw in a church!—­Paris was wild with excitement for a dozen hours, which is about as long as its fevers last,—­and the two of them, father and son, went straight away to a famous Cardinal then staying in Paris,—­and he, by the way, was in the church when the Abbe publicly confessed himself—­Cardinal Bonpre—­”

“Ah!” interrupted Patoux excitedly, “This interests me!  For that most eminent Cardinal stayed at my inn in Rouen before coming on here!”

“So!” And Cousin Pierre looked rather surprised.  “Without offence to thee, Jean, it was a poor place for a Cardinal, was it not?”

“Poor, truly,—­but sufficient for a man of his mind!” replied Patoux tranquilly,—­“For look you, he is trying to live as Christ lived,—­ and Christ cared naught for luxury.”

Pierre Midon laughed.

“By my faith!  If priests were to live as Christ lived, Paris might learn to respect them!” he said,—­“But we know that they will not,—­ and that few of them are better than the worst of us!  But to finish my story—­this Abbe and the son whom he so suddenly and strangely acknowledged, went to this Cardinal Bonpre for some reason—­most probably for pardon, though truly I cannot tell you what happened—­ for almost immediately, the Abbe went out of Paris to the Chateau D’Agramont some miles away, and his son went with him, and there the two stayed together till the old man died.  And as for Cardinal Bonpre, he went at once to Rome with his niece, the famous painter, Angela Sovrani,—­I imagine he may have interceded with the Pope, or tried to do so for the Abbe, but whatever happened, there they are now, for all I know to the contrary.  And we heard that the Church was about to excommunicate, or had already excommunicated Vergniaud, though I suppose Cardinal Bonpre had nothing to do with that?”

“Not he!” said Patoux firmly, “He would never excommunicate or do any unkind thing to a living soul—­that I am pretty sure of.  He is the very Cardinal who performed the miracle in my house that has caused us no end of trouble,—­and he is under the displeasure of the Pope for it now, if all I hear be true.”