parish
is too poor to repair it. The poor old man will be buried in a living
tomb. Oh, it is an infamous plot!"

To end this history it will suffice to relate a few events in a simple
way, and to give one last picture of its chief personages.

Five months later the vicar-general was made Bishop of Troyes; and
Madame de Listomere was dead, leaving an annuity of fifteen hundred
francs to the Abbe Birotteau. The day on which the dispositions in her
will were made known Monseigneur Hyacinthe, Bishop of Troyes, was on
the point of leaving Tours to reside in his diocese, but he delayed his
departure on receiving the news. Furious at being foiled by a woman to
whom he had lately given his countenance while she had been secretly
holding the hand of a man whom he regarded as his enemy, Troubert again
threatened the baron's future career, and put in jeopardy the peerage
of his uncle. He made in the salon of the archbishop, and before an
assembled party, one of those priestly speeches which are big with
vengeance and soft with honied mildness. The Baron de Listomere went the
next day to see this implacable enemy, who must have imposed sundry hard
conditions on him, for the baron's subsequent conduct showed the most
entire submission to the will of the terrible Jesuit.

The new bishop made over Mademoiselle Gamard's house by deed of gift to
the Chapter of the cathedral; he gave Chapeloud's books and bookcases
to the seminary; he presented the two disputed pictures to the Chapel of
the Virgin; but he kept Chapeloud's portrait. No one knew how to
explain this almost total renunciation of Mademoiselle Gamard's bequest.
Monsieur de Bourbonne supposed that the bishop had secretly kept moneys
that were invested, so as to support his rank with dignity in Paris,
where of course he would take his seat on the Bishops' bench in the
Upper Chamber. It was not until the night before Monseigneur Troubert's
departure from Tours that the sly old fox unearthed the hidden reason
of this strange action, the deathblow given by the most persistent
vengeance to the feeblest of victims. Madame de Listomere's legacy to
Birotteau was contested by the Baron de Listomere under a pretence of
undue influence!

A few days after the case was brought the baron was promoted to the rank
of captain. As a measure of ecclesiastical discipline, the curate of
Saint-Symphorien was suspended. His superiors judged him guilty. The
murderer of Sophie Gamard was also a sw