"Is that all?" the bishop asked laughing. "Have I committed no other sin? Have you no other charges to bring against me?"
"Germain the Strong, master carpenter of the suburb of Grande-Cognee, supported by two witnesses, has deposed before the Mayor and Councilmen that, while passing before the gate of the episcopal palace, he was first insulted and then stabbed in the arm by Black John, a domestic of your household, which constitutes a grave crime."
"Well, then, seigneur justiciary," said the bishop still laughing, "Condemn me, brave Councilman. Formulate your judgment and sentence."
"Not yet," coldly answered the baker. "The suit must first be entered; then the witnesses must be heard; next comes the judgment; and fourth its enforcement. Everything in its order."
"Just see! I am instructed! Let it be, I shall be patient. Yet I am curious to see how far your audacity will lead you, communier of Satan. Go ahead and to work!"
"My audacity is that of a man who fulfills his duty."
"An honest man, who dares not allow himself to be intimidated," put in Simonne with deftness; "a man who will know how to cause the rights of the Commune to be respected, who is not troubled by disdain. A man of sense and of action."
"I love to see your rogish face," replied the bishop, turning to the young woman; "it gives me the necessary humor to listen to this loafer, I swear it by your round and plump throat, by your beautiful black eyes, and by your secret charms!"
"And I swear by the poor eyes of Gerhard of Soisson, whom you have so cruelly deprived of sight, that the sight of you is odious to me, Bishop of Laon! You, whose hands are still red with the blood of Bernard des Bruyeres, whom you murdered in your own church!" And uttering these imprudent words, drawn from her by an impulse of generous indignation, the baker's wife brusquely turned her back upon the bishop.
Enraged at hearing himself reproached in such a manner for two of his crimes, the Bishop of Laon became livid with rage, and half rising from his seat, whose arms he clutched convulsively, he cried out: "Miserable serf! I shall teach you to control your viper's tongue!—"