At this the bishop groaned, but Baville, pretending not to hear him, went on:
"Many have descended from the mountains at night and demanded alms and ammunition, having none themselves, from those who possessed them. The prior of St. Gervais had his house broken into and several musketoons taken, they having been left in his charge by some of De Broglie's soldiers."
"Malédiction!" exclaimed Julien, "why left they their arms with a priest?"
"They were scaling the mountains to find the outcasts," Baville answered. "Being good soldiers," and he looked severely at the other as he spoke, "they depended on their swords and pistols."
"Humph!" muttered the marshal, "a soldier who parts with his weapons is a fool. He who leaves them with a priest is a double fool."
"Treachery, too, is rife," the Intendant continued, still with his finger on the paper. "Some of these heretics who have refused conversion, yet were willing to swear fidelity to the king, were put on guard on the town walls here in Alais. Also at Nîmes and Anduse. In the morning their muskets were empty. They had not been fired, consequently the charges had been drawn. Needless to suggest where those charges went."
"Also," put in the bishop, "many murders have been committed. Du Chaila and the curé of Frugéres within the last two days. What next? What next?"
"Du Chaila," exclaimed Baville, "was my right hand. He feared naught, punished with justice, though with severity; would have assisted me to stamp out these rebels, I do believe, had he lived. Now he has been brutally murdered. Both he and the curé must be avenged." After which he proceeded to tell the whole story of the abbé's murder; from the beginning as it had been told to him; at the end, as he himself knew it. And he told them, too, how he had brought back with him to Alais the only person left in the village of Montvert when he reached it with de Peyre and the marquis.
"At present," he went on, "I know not what to do with them. One is Buscarlet, who was the Protestant curé, but who has been suspended from his heretical worship for some years and has lived upon some small means he has, supplemented by gifts from those of his crew who are well to do. He is of the best among them, at least openly. Preaches submission openly to law and the Government; what he may do in secret I know not. But, unlike so many of his brethren, he has never fled. The other is a stranger to these parts and a gentleman. A proprietor in the north. Speaks too, I think, truthfully. If it pleases you they can be examined."
"It would be best," the bishop said.