The abbé Pirard went and established himself in the finest inn at Besançon, and making an excuse of business which he had not got, insisted on passing a couple of days there. The Bishop had invited him to dinner, and in order to chaff his Grand Vicar de Frilair, endeavoured to make him shine. They were at dessert when the extraordinary intelligence arrived from Paris that the abbé Pirard had been appointed to the magnificent living of N. ---- four leagues from Paris. The good prelate congratulated him upon it. He saw in the whole affair a piece of good play which put him in a good temper and gave him the highest opinion of the abbé's talents. He gave him a magnificent Latin certificate, and enjoined silence on the abbé de Frilair, who was venturing to remonstrate. The same evening, my Lord conveyed his admiration to the Marquise de Rubempré. This was great news for fine Besançon society. They abandoned themselves to all kinds of conjectures over this extraordinary favour. They already saw the abbé Pirard a Bishop. The more subtle brains thought M. de la Mole was a minister, and indulged on this day in smiles at the imperious airs that M. the abbé de Frilair adopted in society. The following day the abbé Pirard was almost mobbed in the streets, and the tradesmen came to their shop doors when he went to solicit an interview with the judges who had had to try the Marquis's lawsuit. For the first time in his life he was politely received by them. The stern Jansenist, indignant as he was with all that he saw, worked long with the advocates whom he had chosen for the Marquis de la Mole, and left for Paris. He was weak enough to tell two or three college friends who accompanied him to the carriage whose armorial bearings they admired, that after having administered the Seminary for fifteen years he was leaving Besançon with five hundred and twenty francs of savings. His friends kissed him with tears in their eyes, and said to each other, "The good abbé could have spared himself that lie. It is really too ridiculous." The vulgar, blinded as they are by the love of money, were constitutionally incapable of understanding that it was in his own sincerity that the abbé Pirard had found the necessary strength to fight for six years against Marie Alacoque, the _Sacré Cœur de Jésus_, the Jesuits and his Bishop. CHAPTER XXX AN AMBITIOUS MAN There is only one nobility, the title of duke; a marquis is ridiculous; the word duke makes one turn round. _Edinburgh Review_. The Marquis de la Mole received the abbé Pirard without any of those aristocratic mannerisms whose very politeness is at the same time so impertinent to one who understands them. It would have been a waste of time, and the Marquis was sufficiently expeditious in big affairs to have no time to lose.