"A worm of the earth in a carriage?" growled the conventionary.
It was the conventionary's turn to be arrogant, and the Bishop's to be humble.
The Bishop resumed mildly:--
"So be it, sir.
But explain to me how my carriage, which is a few paces off behind the trees yonder, how my good table and the moor-hens which I eat on Friday, how my twenty-five thousand francs income, how my palace and my lackeys prove that clemency is not a duty, and that '93 was not inexorable.
The conventionary passed his hand across his brow, as though to sweep away a cloud.
"Before replying to you," he said, "I beseech you to pardon me. I have just committed a wrong, sir.
You are at my house, you are my guest, I owe you courtesy.
You discuss my ideas, and it becomes me to confine myself to combating your arguments.
Your riches and your pleasures are advantages which I hold over you in the debate; but good taste dictates that I shall not make use of them.
I promise you to make no use of them in the future."
"I thank you," said the Bishop.
G---- resumed.
"Let us return to the explanation which you have asked of me. Where were we?
What were you saying to me?
That '93 was inexorable?"
"Inexorable; yes," said the Bishop.
"What think you of Marat clapping his hands at the guillotine?"
"What think you of Bossuet chanting the Te Deum over the dragonnades?"
The retort was a harsh one, but it attained its mark with the directness of a point of steel.