The accusers looked toward the gallery of the Bishop of Poitiers, but discovered no expression in his dull countenance.

He was one of those old men of whom death appears to take possession ten years before all motion entirely ceases in them.

His eyes seemed veiled by a half sleep; his gaping mouth mumbled a few vague and habitual words of prayer without meaning or application; the entire amount of intelligence he retained was the ability to distinguish the man who had most power, and him he obeyed, regardless at what price.

He had accordingly signed the sentence of the doctors of the Sorbonne which declared the nuns possessed, without even deducing thence the consequence of the death of Urbain; the rest seemed to him one of those more or less lengthy ceremonies, to which he paid not the slightest attention--accustomed as he was to see and live among them, himself an indispensable part and parcel of them.

He therefore gave no sign of life on this occasion, merely preserving an air at once perfectly noble and expressionless.
Meanwhile, Father Lactantius, having had a moment to recover from the sudden attack made upon him, turned toward the president and said: "Here is a clear proof, sent us by Heaven, of the possession, for the Superior never before has forgotten the modesty and severity of her order." "Would that all the world were here to see me!" said Jeanne de Belfiel, firm as ever.