to discredit
the Tribunal,"--and the President went on to the woman Rochemaure, who
answered with despairing protestations of innocence, tears and
quibblings.

The Pere Longuemare referred himself purely and entirely to God's will.
He had not even brought his written defence with him.

All the questions put to him he answered in a spirit of resignation.
Only, when the President spoke of him as a Capuchin, did the old Adam
wake again in him:

"I am not a Capuchin," he said, "I am a priest and a monk of the Order
of the Barnabites."

"It is the same thing," returned the President good-naturedly.

The Pere Longuemare looked at him indignantly:

"One cannot conceive a more extraordinary error," he cried, "than to
confound with a Capuchin a monk of this Order of the Barnabites which
derives its constitutions from the Apostle Paul himself."

The remark was greeted with a burst of laughter and hooting from the
spectators, at which the Pere Longuemare, taking this derision to
betoken a denial of his proposition, announced that he would die a
member of this Order of St. Barnabas, the habit of which he wore in his
heart.

"Do you admit," asked the President, "entering into plots with the girl
Gorcut, known as Athenais, the same who accorded you her despicable
favours?"

At the question, the Pere Longuemare raised his eyes sorrowfully to
heaven, but made no answer; his silence expressed the surprise of an
unsophisticated mind and the gravity of a man of religion who fears to
utter empty words.

"You, the girl Gorcut," the President asked, turning to Athenais, "do
you admit plotting in conjunction with Brotteaux?"

Her answer was softly spoken:

"Monsieur Brotteaux, to my knowledge, has done nothing but good. He is a
man of the sort we should have more of; there is no better sort. Those
who say the contrary are mistaken. That is all I have to say."

The President asked her if she admitted having lived in concubinage
with Brotteaux. The expression had to be explained to her, as she did
not understand it. But, directly she gathered what the question meant,
she answered, that would only have depended on him, but he had never
asked her.

There was a laugh in the public galleries, and the President threatened
the girl Gorcut to refuse her a hearing if she answered in such a
cynical sort again.

At this she broke out, calling him sneak, sour face, cuckold, and
spewing out over him, judges, and jury a torrent of inve