[1] The various chevaux-légers had not as yet been put by Louis into uniform, as was the case a few years before with most of the French regiments.
"In truth, monsieur, he is a rarity, an oddity. He is priest and bishop both——"
"So," interrupted St. Georges, "he is the Bishop of Lodève. I have heard of him. He has a brother, I think, comrade, who follows our profession."
"That is true, monsieur. One who will go far. 'Twas but last year the king sent him ambassador to Cologne; now they say he goes to Turin."
"So, so. But this one here—this bishop? And if Bishop of Lodève, what does he do in Burgundy?"
"Villainies, scélératesses," interrupted the hostess, turning away from the fowl she was basting on the spit and emphasizing her remarks with her great wooden spoon. "Oh! figure to yourself—he is a villain. Ma foi, oui! A bishop! Ha! A true one. Boasts he believes not in a God, yet rules Languedoc with a rod of iron since Cardinal Bonzi fell off his perch; entertains the wickedest mondaines of Louis's court as they pass through Lodève; has boys to sing to him while he dines and—and—But there," she concluded as she turned to the fowl again; "he is a Phélypeaux. That tells all. They are sacred with the king."
"But why?" asked St. Georges, as he rose from his seat—"but why? What does he here if he rules Languedoc, and why should Phélypeaux be a charmed name? Tell me before I go."
He had made arrangements with the good woman to leave his child there for the night, she swearing by many saints that it should sleep with her own and be as carefully guarded and as precious as they were. So he had confided it to her care, saying: "Remember, 'tis motherless, and, besides, is all I have in the world, all I have left to me of my dead wife. Remember that, I beseech you, as you are a mother yourself"; and she, being a mother and a true one, promised. Therefore it was now sleeping peacefully upstairs, its little arms around the neck of one of her own children.
"Why, monsieur, why is he here and why does he bear a charmed name?" repeated the other customer, the bon bourgeois, joining in the conversation for the first time. "I will tell you. First, he comes regularly to take his rights of seigniorage, his rents, his taxes, his fourths of all the produce of his vineyards and arable lands on our Côte d'Or. They are rich, these Phélypeaux; have been ever since the days of Charles the Bold, and they are greedy and grasping. Also they are great and powerful—they are of the Pontchartrain blood, and are of the court. One was minister to the late king under the cardinal. And for being bishop, tiens! he was priest under Mazarin, who had been a cavalryman, as monsieur is himself. It was Barberini who told him the gown was better than the sword. And it was Mazarin who made Phélypeaux bishop. To silence him, you understand, monsieur—to silence him. He knew too much."