How many hours did he weep thus? What did he do after he had wept?
Whither did he go! No one ever knew. The only thing which seems
to be authenticated is that that same night the carrier who served
Grenoble at that epoch, and who arrived at D---- about three o'clock
in the morning, saw, as he traversed the street in which the
Bishop's residence was situated, a man in the attitude of prayer,
kneeling on the pavement in the shadow, in front of the door
of Monseigneur Welcome.



BOOK THIRD.--IN THE YEAR 1817


CHAPTER I

THE YEAR 1817


1817 is the year which Louis XVIII., with a certain royal assurance
which was not wanting in pride, entitled the twenty-second of his reign.
It is the year in which M. Bruguiere de Sorsum was celebrated.
All the hairdressers' shops, hoping for powder and the return of the
royal bird, were besmeared with azure and decked with fleurs-de-lys.
It was the candid time at which Count Lynch sat every Sunday as
church-warden in the church-warden's pew of Saint-Germain-des-Pres,
in his costume of a peer of France, with his red ribbon and his
long nose and the majesty of profile peculiar to a man who has
performed a brilliant action. The brilliant action performed