—What do you tell me? Must I fear then for all my little sheep? We must look after him then.
—I repeat, Monseigneur, that that would be nothing…. It is the abomination of abomination, a whole world of turpitude, heresies in embryo.
—Heresies! Oh, oh! That is serious.
—Heresies which would make the cursed shades of John Huss, Wickliffe,
Luther and Calvin himself tremble, if they appeared again.
—What do you say?
—I tell you, Monseigneur, that you have warmed a viper in your bosom.
—Ah, well, I will drive out this wicked viper.
The Bishop, who kept two nieces in the episcopal seraglio, would willingly have pardoned his secretary if he had been accused of immorality, but he could not carry his condescension so far as heresy. He wanted, however, to assure himself personally, and as Marcel was incapable of lying, he quickly recognized the sad reality.
The young Abbé was severely punished. He was compelled to make an apology, to retract his horrible ideas, to stifle the germ of these infant monstrosities; then he was condemned to spend six months in one of those ecclesiastical prisons called houses of retreat, where the guilty priest is exposed to every torment and every vexation.
He was definitely marked and classed as a dangerous individual.