‘Are we going to be pestered with this nonsense here?’ asked the bishop, angrily. ‘I pronounce this not to be the place for such questions to be ventilated.’ ‘What place is?’ suddenly asked Lindet, turning upon the prelate; ‘I have asked for a trial, open and fair; I cannot get one. I have no wish to be your representative, gentlemen; but what I do wish is, that the whole body of clergy here should protest unanimously against these arbitrary judgments, and insist on impartiality in our judges.’ He sat down. A murmur of sympathy ran through the crowd. A curé of the town of Évreux sprang up. ‘How shall we best declare our indignation at the exercise of authority which is unjust and arbitrary? Surely by electing the man who has thus signally been ill-treated. I second the nomination of M. Lindet.’ ‘I refuse to put his name to the meeting,’ said the bishop. ‘My brother!’ exclaimed Monseigneur de la Ferronnais, ‘you are throwing everything into their hands. Be cool.’ ‘You are not competent to refuse,’ said the Abbé Lecerf. ‘If you abdicate your place as president, we shall elect another president. As long as you occupy the chair, monseigneur, you must propose whoever is named.’ ‘I contend,’ spoke the dean, rising slowly, ‘that this proposal is indecent. There are certain charges which it is not well should be given to the world, and discussed in public. If the bishop sees fit to exercise his prerogative, and to secretly punish a priest without publishing his reasons, he is perfectly justified in so doing. It is necessary to screen the Church from scandal.’ ‘It is never justice to condemn unheard,’ said Lecerf. ‘We have groaned too long under this arbitrary exercise of power. The bishop may suspend and inhibit any congruist in his diocese,’ exclaimed another priest. ‘If he chooses, he can at any future occasion, when his gracious Majesty summons us again,--he can, I say, hold the election in his own hands by suspending and inhibiting all those who are stipendiary curates, and thus throw all the power into the scale of the high clergy.’ ‘It is a question of liberty to elect or of servitude,’ shouted another curé.