The Bishop, who kept two nieces in the episcopal seraglio, would willingly
have pardoned his secretary if he had been accused of immorality, but he
could not carry his condescension so far as heresy. He wanted, however, to
assure himself personally, and as Marcel was incapable of lying, he quickly
recognized the sad reality.

The young Abbé was severely punished. He was compelled to make an apology,
to retract his horrible ideas, to stifle the germ of these infant
monstrosities; then he was condemned to spend six months in one of those
ecclesiastical prisons called _houses of retreat_, where the guilty priest
is exposed to every torment and every vexation.

He was definitely marked and classed as a dangerous individual.

His enemy, the Grand-Vicar, pursued him with his indefatigable hatred, so
far that from disgrace to disgrace he had reached the cure of Althausen.




XLIII.


ESPIONAGE.

"A sunbeam had traversed his heart;
it had just disappeared."

ERNEST DAUDET (_Les Duperies de l'Amour_).