Monsignor Cantagalli did stay overnight, and at supper Louis got another impression of him. He had been talking easily and rather racily about the Curia, seeming to fling about great names in rather a careless fashion, but giving the listener no clue to the reason of his visit, which Louis, though he would have liked to know it, was much too well-bred to ask outright. The Pope’s patronage of the arts, his love of building, his munificence to the newly-founded Vatican museum next engaged his tongue, and it was plain that he himself appreciated to the full the advantages of living under a cultured Pontiff in an almost Renaissance Rome. Thence the talk had drifted on to the persecution of the Church in Vendée. Enquiring about the expatriated priests, Monsignor Cantagalli had been told the story of one, old and ill, who had been dragged, in a state unfit to travel, to Les Sables, and had there died from the effects of his journey. Instead of showing pity or horror, the Italian broke into exclamations of envy. “_Dio mio_, how glorious! May I die the death of the righteous, and may my last end be like his!” he said, crossing himself. “And one has wondered whether there was a chance of martyrdom nowadays! Here in France you have it. How enormously favoured a country!” Louis was tickled. “I think we might manage to do with a little less of the blessing in Vendée,” he observed. “But of course it is a good locality. Do you yearn to be a martyr, Monsignore? Personally I should prefer something a little more sensational than to die of overwalking myself.” A veritable fire flashed in the priest’s eyes as he turned them on the flippant young man. Yet it was not the flame of indignation nor of reproof but of something else. “It would be presumption, Monsieur,” was all he said; yet, as Louis remarked afterwards to M. des Graves, “he threw back his head as if he were already at the stake snuffing up the smoke.” The Vicomte added: “If the Monsignore makes a really determined effort to get martyred I think he has every chance of succeeding.” For Louis had not been greatly drawn to the visitor; and another cause of offence, though one which he naturally refrained from mentioning, was his suspicion that M. des Graves had taken advantage of the rare advent of a priest to be shriven, and for some reason the critic did not consider the newcomer worthy to confess a saint like M. des Graves.