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."

"What, is he so powerful, then?" cried Cinq-Mars.

"More so than is supposed--more so than could be believed. I know that
the possessed Abbess is his niece, and that he is provided with an order
in council directing him to judge, without being deterred by any appeals
lodged in Parliament, the Cardinal having prohibited the latter from
taking cognizance of the matter of Urbain Grandier."