The only important effect produced by the discovery was upon the Prior of Renty himself.  Ottavio Gonzaga, the intimate friend of Don John, and now high in the confidence of Parma, wrote to La Motte, indignantly denying the truth of Bien Aime’s tattle, and affirming that not a word had ever been uttered by himself or by any gentleman in his presence to the disparagement of the Governor of Gravelines.  He added that if the Prior had worn another coat, and were of quality equal to his own, he would have made him eat his words or a few inches of steel.  In the same vehement terms he addressed a letter to Bien Aime himself.  Very soon afterwards, notwithstanding his coat and his quality, that unfortunate ecclesiastic found himself beset one dark night by two soldiers, who left him, severely wounded and bleeding nearly to death upon the high road, but escaping with life, he wrote to Parma, recounting his wrongs and the “sword-thrust in his left thigh,” and made a demand for a merced.

The Prior recovered from this difficulty only to fall into another, by publishing what he called an apologue, in which he charged that the reconciled nobles were equally false to the royal and to the rebel government, and that, although “the fatted calf had been killed for them, after they had so long been feeding with perverse heretical pigs,” they were, in truth, as mutinous as ever, being bent upon establishing an oligarchy in the Netherlands, and dividing the territory among themselves, to the exclusion of the sovereign.  This naturally excited the wrath of the Viscount and others.  The Seigneur d’Auberlieu, in a letter written in what the writer himself called the “gross style of a gendarme,” charged the Prior with maligning honorable lords and—­in the favorite colloquial phrase of the day—­with attempting “to throw the cat against their legs.”  The real crime of the meddling priest, however, was to have let that troublesome animal out of the bag.  He was accordingly waylaid again, and thrown into prison by Count Lalain.  While in durance he published an abject apology for his apologue, explaining that his allusions to “returned prodigals,” “heretic swine,” and to “Sodom and Gomorrah,” had been entirely misconstrued.  He was, however, retained in custody until Parma ordered his release on the ground that the punishment had been already sufficient for the offence.  He then requested to be appointed Bishop of Saint Omer, that see being vacant.  Parma advised the King by no means to grant the request—­the Prior being neither endowed with the proper age nor discretion for such a dignity—­but to bestow some lesser reward, in money or otherwise, upon the discomfited ecclesiastic, who had rendered so many services and incurred so many dangers.