Father Pezelay's pale
hatchet-face gleamed paler than ordinary; and a great bandage hid one
temple and part of his face. But below the bandage the flame of his eyes
was not lessened, nor the venom of his tongue. To the King he had
come--for no other would deal with his violent opponent; to the King's
presence! and, as he prepared to blast his adversary, now his chance was
come, his long lean frame, in its narrow black cassock, seemed to grow
longer, leaner, more baleful, more snake-like. He stood there a fitting
representative of the dark fanaticism of Paris, which Charles and his
successor--the last of a doomed line--alternately used as tool or feared
as master; and to which the most debased and the most immoral of courts
paid, in its sober hours, a vile and slavish homage. Even in the midst
of the drunken, shameless courtiers--who stood, if they stood for
anything, for that other influence of the day, the Renaissance--he was to
be reckoned with; and Count Hannibal knew it. He knew that in the eyes
not of Charles only, but of nine out of ten who listened to him, a priest
was more sacred than a virgin, and a tonsure than all the virtues of
spotless innocence.
"Shall the King give with one hand and withdraw with the other?" the
priest began, in a voice hoarse yet strident, a voice borne high above
the crowd on the wings of passion.
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