Let us now proceed to France, where the pope’s brief, obtained by Francis I. gave beginning to the envy which the shaved priests bore the bearded ones. Their jealousy had been brewing a long time, and only waited, to show itself, for the death of that prince, whose orders seemed still to be respected. Their animosity, already too much increased by this obstacle, broke out at length on the person of William Duprat, the son of the famous chancellor of that name: he was returning from the council of Trent, where his eloquence had made him conspicuous, and was going to take possession of the bishopric of Clermont, which he had been given some time before. The reader should take along with him that he had one of the finest beards in the kingdom. One Easter-day, when he came to his cathedral church to perform divine service, he found the gates of the choir shut; three dignitaries of the chapter were waiting for him at the entrance: one of them held a razor in his hand, the other a pair of scissars, and the third the book of the ancient statutes of that church, and pointing with his finger to these words; _barbis rasis_. At the sight of this frightful preparation, the prelate clearly perceived that they aimed at his beard, the dearest object of his attention; two of these fatal enemies seemed to threaten it with the instruments with which they were armed; and the third kept crying: Reverend father in God, _barbis rasis_. The impatient dean had already laid hold of this episcopal fleece, when our bearded bishop stopped him, and being a little recovered from his fright, he endeavoured to convince him of the impropriety of working on such a great holy-day, and that it was better to defer this operation ’till the next day; but the temporizing prelate’s eloquence made no impression on the minds of these intractable men; the unmerciful dean kept his hold: full of indignation at this mortifying insult, and terrified for the fate of his cherished beard, William Duprat suddenly took to his heels, crying: _I save my beard, and quit my bishopric_.[83] He immediately repaired to his country-house at Beauregard, three leagues from Clermont, and swore he would never more live in that capital. Footnote 83: William Major, a doctor of the Sorbone and canon of the church of Clermont, in a work intituled _defence de feu M. Savaron, &c._ maintains, against abbot Faydit, that this anecdote is a story of his invention. In order to free his old brethren from the imputation of having designed to shear their bishop, in the warmth of his zeal, he breaks out into invectives against his adversary; but he proves it least, in his long refutation, that the canons saw with grief a long beard on the chin of their bishop, and that when the latter wished to be present at some synod, he was obliged to ask permission of his chapter to come without being shaved. He quotes several resolutions of the chapter, by which he was granted this permission.