At this preliminary meeting, it was agreed that Savaron the lawyer
should be named as candidate, a motion received with such enthusiasm
as no one looked for from Besancon. Albert, waiting at home for Alfred
Boucher to fetch him, was chatting with the Abbe de Grancey, who was
interested in this absorbing ambition. Albert had appreciated the
priest's vast political capacities; and the priest, touched by the young
man's entreaties, had been willing to become his guide and adviser
in this culminating struggle. The Chapter did not love Monsieur de
Chavoncourt, for it was his wife's brother-in-law, as President of the
Tribunal, who had lost the famous suit for them in the lower Court.

"You are betrayed, my dear fellow," said the shrewd and worthy Abbe, in
that gentle, calm voice which old priests acquire.

"Betrayed!" cried the lover, struck to the heart.

"By whom I know not at all," the priest replied. "But at the Prefecture
your plans are known, and your hand read like a book. At this moment I
have no advice to give you. Such affairs need consideration. As for this
evening, take the bull by the horns, anticipate the blow. Tell them
all your previous life, and thus you will mitigate the effect of the
discovery on the good folks of Besancon."

"Oh, I was prepared for it," said Albert in a broken voice.

"You would not benefit by my advice; you had the opportunity of making
an impression at the Hotel de Rupt; you do not know the advantage you
would have gained--"

"What?"

"The unanimous support of the Royalists, an immediate readiness to go
to the election--in short, above a hundred votes. Adding to these what,
among ourselves, we call the ecclesiastical vote, though you were
not yet nominated, you were master of the votes by ballot. Under such
circumstances, a man may temporize, may make his way--"

Alfred Boucher when he came in, full of enthusiasm, to announce the
decision of the preliminary meeting, found the Vicar-General and the
lawyer cold, calm, and grave.

"Good-night, Monsieur l'Abbe," said Albert. "We will talk of your
business at greater length when the elections are over."

And he took Alfred's arm, after pressing Monsieur de Grancey's hand
with meaning. The priest looked at the ambitious man, whose face at that
moment wore the lofty expression which a general may have when he hears
the first gun fired for a battle. He raised his eyes to heaven, and left
the room, saying to himself, "What a priest he