This being settled, as a blue velvet pourpoint was not exactly the garb to play a confessor in, Louise ran in all haste to strip the Astrologer's robe we have already mentioned of all its profane symbols, and the Norman, casting its shadowy folds over his lusty limbs, and drawing the hood over his head, appeared to the eye as goodly a friar as ever cracked a bottle. No great regard to costume was necessary, for the landlady took it all for granted; and when she beheld the Norman issue forth from the room in which the valise had been placed, clothed in his long dark robes, she cast herself at his feet in a transport of reverence and piety.
Monsieur Marteville, otherwise the Père Alexis, did not fail to give her his blessing with great gravity, and with a solemn demeanour and slow step followed to the chamber of the sick man.
Poor Gaultier was no longer the gay rosy-cheeked innkeeper which he had appeared to Fontrailles, but, stretched upon his bed, he lay pale and wan, muttering over to himself shreds and tatters of prayers, and thinking of the little man in grey, Père Le Rouge, and the Devil. As soon as he beheld the pretended Père Alexis enter his chamber, he essayed to rise in his bed; but the Norman motioned him to be still, and sitting down by him, exhorted him to make a full confession of his sins, and then, to give greater authenticity to his character, he knelt down and composed an extempore prayer, in a language equally of his own manufacture, but which the poor _aubergiste_ believed devoutly to be Latin, hearing every now and then the words _sanctissimus_, _in secula seculorum_, and _benedictus_, with which the Norman did not fail to season it richly, being the only stray Latin he was possessed of.
"Humgumnibus quintessentialiter expositu dum dum; benedictus sint foolatii et sanctissimus fourbi. Hi sty Aubergisti rorum coram nobis excipe capones poulardici generi, fur grataverunt pectus, legbonibus venzon in secula seculorum sanctissimus benedictus," said the Norman.
"Amen!" cried the innkeeper from the bottom of his heart, with such fervency that the Père Alexis could scarcely maintain his gravity.
The Norman now proceeded to business, and putting down his ear to a level with the lips of Gaultier, he once more desired him to make a clear breast.