'He is clearly a saint!' sniggered Madame Paloque to Monsieur de Condamin, who had taken a seat near her.
Then, bending forward towards him, she added:
'I could not speak openly before Madame Rougon, you know, but there is a great deal of talk about Abbé Faujas and Madame Mouret. I dare say those unpleasant reports have reached the Bishop's ears.'
'Madame Mouret is a charming woman, and extremely winning notwithstanding her forty years,' was all that Monsieur de Condamin said in reply.
'Oh, yes! she is very charming, very charming, indeed,' murmured Madame Paloque, whose face turned quite green with spleen.
'Extremely charming,' persisted the conservator of rivers and forests. 'She is at the age of genuine passion and great happiness. You ladies are given to judging each other unfavourably.'
Thereupon he left the drawing-room, chuckling over Madame Paloque's suppressed rage.
The town was now indeed taking an absorbing interest in the continual struggle that went on between Abbé Faujas and Abbé Fenil for influence over the Bishop. It was a ceaseless combat, like the struggles of a couple of buxom housekeepers for the affection of an old dotard. The Bishop smiled knowingly; he had discovered how to maintain a kind of equilibrium between these opposing forces which he pitted one against the other, amused at seeing them overthrown in turn, and securing peace for himself by accepting the services of the one who temporarily gained the upper hand. To the dreadful stories which were told him to the detriment of his favourites, he paid but little attention, for he knew that the rival Abbés were capable of accusing each other of murder.
'They are getting worse, my child,' the Bishop said, in one of his expansive moments to Abbé Surin. 'I fancy that in the end Paris will carry the day, and Rome will get the worst of it; but I am not quite sure, and I shall leave them to wear each other out. When one has made an end of the other, things will be settled——By the way, just read me the third Ode of Horace; I'm afraid I've translated one of the lines rather badly.'
On the Tuesday after the public procession the weather was lovely. Laughter was heard both in the garden of the Rastoils and in that of the Sub-Prefect, and numerous guests were sitting under the trees. Abbé Faujas read his breviary in the Mourets' garden after his usual custom, while slowly walking up and down beside the tall hedges of box. For some days past he had kept the little door that led to the lane bolted; he was indeed coquetting with his neighbours and keeping aloof, in order that he might make them more anxious to see him. Possibly too he had noticed a slight coldness in their manner after his last misunderstanding with the Bishop, and the abominable reports that his enemies had circulated against him.