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"Abbe, abbe," said D'Harmental, shaking his head, "do not enter into my secrets before I wish it." "Oh," replied Brigaud, "a confessor, you know, is an abyss." "Then not a word will pass your lips?" "On my honor, chevalier."
D'Harmental advanced toward him with that ease of which people of a certain class have not even an idea. "It is to Monsieur Buvat," he said, "that I have the honor of speaking?" "To myself, sir," said Buvat, starting at the sound of a voice which he thought he recognized; "but the honor is on my side." "You know the Abbe Brigaud?" continued D'Harmental.
"Come, come; do not cry, Mother Denis, you are already wet enough," said Boniface; "you had better go and change your linen; there is nothing so unhealthy as wet clothes." "The child is full of sense," said Brigaud, "and I think you had better follow his advice." "If I might join my prayers to those of the abbe," said D'Harmental, "I should beg you, madame, not to inconvenience yourself for us.
"Will you be quiet, monsieur!" cried Madame Denis. "Listen!" answered Boniface; "one must inform one's lodgers when one has prohibited things about one's house. You are not in a lawyer's office; you do not know that." "The child is full of wit," said the Abbe Brigaud in that bantering tone, thanks to which it was impossible to know whether he was serious or not.
"Well," said the Abbe Brigaud, "although your conversation is somewhat frivolous, I hear it with pleasure, since it assures me that our affairs are not so bad as I thought." "On the contrary, the conspiracy is gone to the devil." "How so?" "I scarcely thought they would leave me time to bring you the news." "Were you nearly arrested then, Valef?" asked D'Harmental.
The Abbe Brigaud was the son of a Lyons merchant. His father, who was commercially related with the court of Spain, was charged to make overtures, as if on his own account, for the marriage of the young Louis XIV. with the young Maria Theresa of Austria.
Brigaud descended more quietly behind him, after having given the chevalier a rendezvous for eight o'clock in the evening. As to D'Harmental, he went back thoughtfully to his attic.
"God grant," said the Abbe Brigaud, "that we may not all be worse lodged a few days hence!" "Ah! you mean the Bastille! It is possible, abbe; but at least one does not go to the Bastille of one's own accord; moreover, it is a royal lodging, which raises it a little, and makes it a place where a gentleman may live without degradation; but a place like this fie, abbe!"
"Not at the Arsenal," said Brigaud, "it is too dangerous." "Can we not wait here?" asked the duchess. "Remember," said Brigaud, "that my pupil is a steady fellow, receiving scarcely any one, and that a long visit might arouse suspicion." "Can we not fix a rendezvous where there would be no such fear?" asked Pompadour.
"Well, come in, since you are here; it would be ridiculous now to go back. Besides," added Madame Denis, seating Athenais between herself and Brigaud, and Emilie between herself and the chevalier, "young persons are always best are they not, abbe? under their mother's wing."
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