Madame Patoux shook her head despondingly.

"He would have nothing of that kind," she replied--"Soup maigre, and
afterwards nothing but bread, dried figs, and apples to finish. Ah,
Heaven! What a supper for a Cardinal-Archbishop! It is enough to
make one weep!"

Patoux considered the matter solemnly.

"He is perhaps very poor?" he half queried.

"Poor, he may be," responded Madame,--"But if he is, it is surely
his own fault,--whoever heard of a poor Cardinal-Archbishop! Such
men can all be rich if they choose."

"Can they?" asked Henri with sudden vivacious eagerness. "How?"

But his question was not answered, for just at that moment a loud
knock came at the door of the inn, and a tall broadly built
personage in close canonical attire appeared in the narrow little
passage of entry, attended by another smaller and very much more
insignificant-looking individual.

Patoux hastily scrambled out of his chair.

"The Archbishop!" he whispered to his wife--"He himself! Our own
Archbishop!"

Madame Patoux jumped up, and seizing her children, held one in each
hand as she curtsied up and down.