For it was no common vengeance, no layman's vengeance, coarse and clumsy,
which the priest had imagined in the dark hours of the night, when his
feverish brain kept him wakeful. To see Count Hannibal roll in the dust
had gone but a little way towards satisfying him. No! But to drag from
his arms the woman for whom he had sinned, to subject her to shame and
torture in the depths of some convent, and finally to burn her as a
witch--it was that which had seemed to the priest in the night hours a
vengeance sweet in the mouth.
But the thing seemed unattainable in the circumstances. The city was
cowed; the priest knew that no dependence was to be placed on Montsoreau,
whose vice was avarice and whose object was plunder. To the Archdeacon's
feeble words, therefore, "We must look," the priest retorted sternly,
"not to M. de Montsoreau, reverend Father, but to the pious of Angers! We
must cry in the streets, 'They do violence to God! They wound God and
His Mother!' And so, and so only, shall the unholy thing be rooted out!"
"Amen!" the Cure of St.-Benoist muttered, lifting his head; and his dull
eyes glowed awhile. "Amen! Amen!" Then his chin sank again upon his
breast.
But the Canons of Angers looked doubtfully at one another, and timidly at
the speakers; the meat was too strong for them. And Lescot and Thuriot
shuffled in their seats. At length, "I do not know," Lescot muttered
timidly.
"You do not know?"
"What can be done!"
"The people will know!" Father Pezelay retorted "Trust them!"
"But the people will not rise without a leader."
"Then will I lead them!"
"Even so, reverend Father--I doubt," Lescot faltered. And Thuriot nodded
assent. Gibbets were erected in those days rather for laymen than for
the Church.
"You doubt!" the priest cried. "You doubt!" His baleful eyes passed
from one to the other; from them to the rest of the company. He saw that
with the exception of the Cure of St.-Benoist all were of a mind. "You
doubt! Nay, but I see what it is! It is this," he continued slowly and
in a different tone, "the King's will goes for nothing in Angers! His
writ runs not here. And Holy Church cries in vain for help against the
oppressor. I tell you, the sorceress who has bewitched him has bewitched
you also. Beware! beware, therefore, lest it be with you as with him!
And the fire that shall consume her, spare not your houses!"
The two citizens crossed themselves, grew pale and shuddered. The fear
of witchcraft was great in Angers, the peril, if accused of it, enormous.
Even the Canons looked startled.
"If--if my brother were here," the Archdeacon repeated feebly, "something
might be done!"