h the louder.

The case had been cleverly disfigured by the turning of an honest
Carmelite into Cadiere's lover, and the weaver of a whole chain of
libels against Girard and the Jesuits. Thenceforth the crowd of
idlers, of giddy worldlings, scoffers and philosophers alike, made
merry with either side, being thoroughly impartial as between
Carmelite and Jesuit, and exceedingly rejoiced to see this battle of
monk with monk. Those who were presently to be called _Voltairites_,
were even better inclined towards the polished Jesuits, those men of
the world, than towards any of the old mendicant orders.

So the matter became more and more tangled. Jokes kept raining down,
but raining mostly on the victim. They called it a love-intrigue. They
saw in it nothing but food for fun. There was not a scholar nor a
clerk who did not turn a ditty on Girard and his pupil, who did not
hash up anew the old provincial jokes about Madeline in the Gauffridi
affair, her six thousand imps, their dread of a flogging, and the
wonderful chastening-process whereby Cadiere's devils were put to
flight.

On this latter point the friends of Girard had no difficulty in
proving him clean. He had acted by his right as director, in
accordance with the common wont. The rod is the symbol of fatherhood.
He had treated his penitent with a view to the healing of her soul.
They used to thrash demoniacs, to thrash the insane and sufferers in
other ways. This was the favourite mode of hunting out the enemy,
whether in the shape of devil or disease. With the people it was a
very common idea. One brave workman of Toulon, who had witnessed
Cadiere's sad plight, declared that a bull's sinew was the poor
sufferer's only cure.

Thus strongly supported, Girard had only to act reasonably. He would
not take the trouble. His defence is charmingly flippant. He never
deigns even to agree with his own depositions. He gives the lie to his
own witnesses. He seems to be jesting, and says, with the coolness of
a great lord of the Regency, that if, as they charge him, he was ever
shut up with her, "it could only have happened nine times."

"And why did the good father do so," would his friends say, "save to
watch, to consider, to search out the truth concerning her? 'Tis the
confessor's duty in all such cases. Read the life of the most holy
Catherine of Genoa. One evening her confessor hid himself in her room,
waiting to see the wonders she would work, and to catch her in th