lace. Amongst the most
assiduous frequenters of the confessional in his church was a young
and pretty girl, Julie by name, the daughter of the king's attorney,
Trinquant--Trinquant being, as well as Barot, an uncle of Mignon. Now
it happened that this young girl fell into such a state of debility
that she was obliged to keep her room. One of her friends, named Marthe
Pelletier, giving up society, of which she was very fond, undertook to
nurse the patient, and carried her devotion so far as to shut herself
up in the same room with her. When Julie Trinquant had recovered and
was able again to take her place in the world, it came out that Marthe
Pelletier, during her weeks of retirement, had given birth to a child,
which had been baptized and then put out to nurse. Now, by one of those
odd whims which so often take possession of the public mind, everyone in
Loudun persisted in asserting that the real mother of the infant was
not she who had acknowledged herself as such--that, in short, Marthe
Pelletier had sold her good name to her friend Julie for a sum of money;
and of course it followed as a matter about which there could be no
possible doubt, that Urbain was the father.

Trinquant hearing of the reports about his daughter, took upon himself
as king's attorney to have Marthe Pelletier arrested and imprisoned.
Being questioned about the child, she insisted that she was its mother,
and would take its maintenance upon herself. To have brought a child
into the world under such circumstances was a sin, but not a crime;
Trinquant was therefore obliged to set Marthe at liberty, and the abuse
of justice of which he was guilty served only to spread the scandal
farther and to strengthen the public in the belief it had taken up.

Hitherto, whether through the intervention of the heavenly powers, or
by means of his own cleverness, Urbain Grandier had come out victor in
every struggle in which he had engaged, but each victor had added to
the number of his enemies, and these were now so numerous that any other
than he would have been alarmed, and have tried either to conciliate
them or to take precautions against their malice; but Urbain, wrapped in
his pride, and perhaps conscious of his innocence, paid no attention
to the counsels of his most faithful followers, but went on his way
unheeding.

All the opponents whom till now Urbain had encountered had been
entirely unconnected with each other, and had each struggled for his
own