ch would probably
not delight him."

"Do you think so, monsieur?" said I to my artist. "Is it thus you speak
of the King, our master,--of a King who has affection for you, and has
proved it to: you so many times?"

"My memory, recalls to me all that his munificence: has done for my
talent in a thousand instances," went on the painter; "but his edicts,
his cruel decrees, have upset my heart, and the persecutor of the true
Christians no longer merits my consideration or good-will."

I had been ignorant hitherto of the faith which this able man professed;
he informed me that he worshipped God in another fashion than ours, and
made common cause with the Protestants.

"Well," said I to him then, "what have you to complain of in the new
edicts and decrees? They only concern, so far, your ministers,--I should
say, your priests; you are not one, and are never likely to be; what do
these new orders of the Council matter to you?"

"Madame," resumed Petitot, "our ministers, by preaching the holy gospel,
fulfil the first of their duties. The King forbids them to preach; then,
he persecutes them and us. In the thousand and one religions which
exist, the cause of the priests and the sanctuary becomes the cause of
the faithful. Our priests are not imbecile Trappists and Carthusians, to
be reduced to inaction and silence. Since their tongues are tied, they
are resolved to depart; and their departure becomes an exile which it is
our duty to share. If you will entrust me with your portraits which have
been commenced, with the exception of that of Heliogabalus, I will finish
them in a hospitable land, and shall have the honour of sending them to
you, already fired and in all their perfection."

Petitot, until this political crisis, had only exhibited himself to me
beneath an appearance of simplicity and good-nature. Now his whole face
was convulsed and almost threatening; when I looked at him he made me
afraid. I did not amuse myself by discussing with him matters upon which
we were, both of us, more or less ignorant. I did all that could be done
to introduce a little calm into his superstitious head, and to gain the
necessary time for the completion of my five portraits. I was careful
not to confide to the King this qualification of Heliogabalus; but as his
intervention was absolutely necessary to me, I persuaded him to come and
spend half an hour at this chateau of Clagny, which he had deserted for a
long time past.