Droll Stories from the Abbeys of Touraine | Page 9

come back here again under pain of
excommunication."
"Do not move," cried the blushing Imperia, more lovely with passion
than she was with love, because now she was possessed both with
passion and love. "Stop, my friend. Here you are in your own house."
Then he knew that he was really loved by her.
"It is it not in the breviary, and an evangelical regulation, that you
should be equal with God in the valley of Jehoshaphat?" asked she of
the bishop.
"'Tis is an invention of the devil, who has adulterated the holy book,"
replied the great numskull of a bishop in a hurry to fall to.
"Well then, be equal now before me, who am here below your
goddess," replied Imperia, "otherwise one of these days I will have you
delicately strangled between the head and shoulders; I swear it by the
power of my tonsure which is as good as the pope's." And wishing that
the trout should be added to the feast as well as the sweets and other
dainties, she added, cunningly, "Sit you down and drink with us." But
the artful minx, being up to a trick or two, gave the little one a wink
which told him plainly not to mind the German, whom she would soon
find a means to be rid of.
The servant-maid seated the Bishop at the table, and tucked him up,

while Philippe, wild with rage that closed his mouth, because he saw
his plans ending in smoke, gave the archbishop to more devils than
ever were monks alive. Thus they got halfway through the repast,
which the young priest had not yet touched, hungering only for Imperia,
near whom he was already seated, but speaking that sweet language
which the ladies so well understand, that has neither stops, commas,
accents, letters, figures, characters, notes, nor images. The fat bishop,
sensual and careful enough of the sleek, ecclesiastical garment of skin
for which he was indebted to his late mother, allowed himself to be
plentifully served with hippocras by the delicate hand of Madame, and
it was just at his first hiccough that the sound of an approaching
cavalcade was heard in the street. The number of horses, the "Ho, ho!"
of the pages, showed plainly that some great prince hot with love, was
about to arrive. In fact, a moment afterwards the Cardinal of Ragusa,
against whom the servants of Imperia had not dared to bar the door,
entered the room. At this terrible sight the poor courtesan and her
young lover became ashamed and embarrassed, like fresh cured lepers;
for it would be tempting the devil to try and oust the cardinal, the more
so as at that time it was not known who would be pope, three aspirants
having resigned their hoods for the benefit of Christianity. The cardinal,
who was a cunning Italian, long bearded, a great sophist, and the life
and soul of the Council, guessed, by the feeblest exercise of the
faculties of his understanding, the alpha and omega of the adventure.
He only had to weigh in his mind one little thought before he knew
how to proceed in order to be able to hypothecate his manly vigour. He
arrived with the appetite of a hungry monk, and to obtain its
satisfaction he was just the man to stab two monks and sell his bit of
the true cross, which were wrong.
"Hulloa! friend," said he to Philippe, calling him towards him. The
poor Tourainian, more dead than alive, and expecting the devil was
about to interfere seriously with his arrangements, rose and said, "What
is it?" to the redoubtable cardinal.
He taking him by the arm led him to the staircase, looked him in the
white of the eye and said without any nonsense--"Ventredieu! You are
a nice little fellow, and I should not like to have to let your master
know the weight of your carcass. My revenge might cause me certain
pious expenses in my old age, so choose to espouse an abbey for the

remainder of your days, or to marry Madame to-night and die
tomorrow."
The poor little Tourainian in despair murmured, "May I come back
when your passion is over?"
The cardinal could scarcely keep his countenance, but he said sternly,
"Choose the gallows or a mitre."
"Ah!" said the priest, maliciously; "a good fat abbey."
Thereupon the cardinal went back into the room, opened an escritoire,
and scribbled upon a piece of parchment an order to the envoy of
France.
"Monseigneur," said the Tourainian to him while he was spelling out
the order, "you will not get rid of the Bishop of Coire so easily as you
have got rid of me, for he has as many abbeys as the soldiers have
drinking shops in the