Furious at being foiled by a
woman to whom he had lately given his countenance while she had been
secretly holding the hand of a man whom he regarded as his enemy,
Troubert again threatened the baron's future career, and put in
jeopardy the peerage of his uncle. He made in the salon of the
archbishop, and before an assembled party, one of those priestly
speeches which are big with vengeance and soft with honied mildness.
The Baron de Listomere went the next day to see this implacable enemy,
who must have imposed sundry hard conditions on him, for the baron's
subsequent conduct showed the most entire submission to the will of
the terrible Jesuit.
The new bishop made over Mademoiselle Gamard's house by deed of gift
to the Chapter of the cathedral; he gave Chapeloud's books and
bookcases to the seminary; he presented the two disputed pictures to
the Chapel of the Virgin; but he kept Chapeloud's portrait. No one
knew how to explain this almost total renunciation of Mademoiselle
Gamard's bequest. Monsieur de Bourbonne supposed that the bishop had
secretly kept moneys that were invested, so as to support his rank
with dignity in Paris, where of course he would take his seat on the
Bishops' bench in the Upper Chamber. It was not until the night before
Monseigneur Troubert's departure from Tours that the sly old fox
unearthed the hidden reason of this strange action, the deathblow
given by the most persistent vengeance to the feeblest of victims.
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