and
stately, he went along the streets of Loudun like a Father of the
Church; but by night he would steal, with less of bluster, down the
byeways and through back-doors.

They all surrendered themselves to his pleasure. The wife of the Crown
Counsel was aware of his charms; still more so the daughter of the
Public Prosecutor, who had a child by him. This did not satisfy him.
Master of the ladies, this conqueror pushed his advantage until he had
gained the nuns.

By that time the Ursulines abounded everywhere, sisters devoted to
education, feminine missionaries in a Protestant land, who courted and
pleased the mothers, while they won over the little girls. The nuns of
Loudun formed a small convent of young ladies, poor and well-born. The
convent in itself was poor, the nuns for whom it was founded, having
been granted nothing but their house, an old Huguenot college. The
prioress, a lady of good birth and high connections, burned to exalt
her nunnery, to enlarge it, make it wealthier and wider known. Perhaps
she would have chosen Grandier, as being then the fashion, had she not
already gotten for her director a priest with very different rootage
in the country, a near kinsman of the two chief magistrates. The
Canon Mignon, as he was called, held the prioress fast. These two were
enraged at learning through the confessional--the "Ladies Superior"
might confess their nuns--that the young nuns dreamed of nothing but
this Grandier, of whom there was so much talk.

Thereupon three parties, the threatened director, the cheated husband,
the outraged father, joined together by a common jealousy, swore
together the destruction of Grandier. To ensure success, they only
needed to let him go on. He was ruining himself quite fast enough. An
incident that came to light made noise enough almost to bring down the
town.

* * * * *

The nuns placed in that old Huguenot mansion, were far from easy in
their minds. Their boarders, children of the town, and perhaps also
some of the younger nuns, had amused themselves with frightening the
rest by playing at ghosts and apparitions. Little enough of order was
there among this throng of rich spoilt girls. They would run about the
passages at night, until they frightened themselves. Some of them were
sick, or else sick at heart. But these fears and fancies mingled with
the gossip of the town, of which they heard but too much during the
day, until the ghost by