Then a further scandal of the same nature
agitated the Court. At a time when he should have been
engaged in audibly invoking the gracious protection and
patronage of the holy serpents, Vespaluus was heard singing
a chant in honour of St. Odilo of Cluny. The king was
furious at this new outbreak, and began to take a gloomy
view of the situation; Vespaluus was evidently going to show
a dangerous obstinacy in persisting in his heresy. And yet
there was nothing in his appearance to justify such
perverseness; he had not the pale eye of the fanatic or the
mystic look of the dreamer. On the contrary, he was quite
the best-looking boy at Court; he had an elegant, well-knit
figure, a healthy complexion, eyes the colour of very ripe
mulberries, and dark hair, smooth and very well cared for.''
``It sounds like a description of what you imagine
yourself to have been like at the age of sixteen,'' said the
Baroness.
``My mother has probably been showing you some of my early
photographs,'' said Clovis. Having turned the sarcasm into
a compliment, he resumed his story.
``The king had Vespaluus shut up in a dark tower for three
days, with nothing but bread and water to live on, the
squealing and fluttering of bats to listen to, and drifting
clouds to watch through one little window slit.
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