On seeing Don Vigilio so excited, in such a blaze of spite, Pierre
thought of extracting from him some of the many items of information
which he had hitherto sought in vain. "Well, tell me merely what is the
position of my affair," he responded. "When I questioned you on my
arrival here you said that nothing had yet reached Cardinal Boccanera.
But all information must now have been collected, and you must know of
it. And, by the way, Monsignor Fornaro told me that three French bishops
had asked that my book should be prosecuted. Three bishops, is it
possible?"

Don Vigilio shrugged his shoulders. "Ah!" said he, "yours is an innocent
soul! I'm surprised that there were /only/ three! Yes, several documents
relating to your affair are in our hands; and, moreover, things have
turned out much as I suspected. The three bishops are first the Bishop of
Tarbes, who evidently carries out the vengeance of the Fathers of
Lourdes; and then the Bishops of Poitiers and Evreux, who are both known
as uncompromising Ultramontanists and passionate adversaries of Cardinal
Bergerot. The Cardinal, you know, is regarded with disfavour at the
Vatican, where his Gallican ideas and broad liberal mind provoke perfect
anger. And don't seek for anything else. The whole affair lies in that:
an execution which the powerful Fathers of Lourdes demand of his
Holiness, and a desire to reach and strike Cardinal Bergerot through your
book, by means of the letter of approval which he imprudently wrote to
you and which you published by way of preface. For a long time past the
condemnations of the Index have largely been secret knock-down blows
levelled at Churchmen. Denunciation reigns supreme, and the law applied
is that of good pleasure. I could tell you some almost incredible things,
how perfectly innocent books have been selected among a hundred for the
sole object of killing an idea or a man; for the blow is almost always