Of course we
would have risked it, but we might not have been able to force our
way in without authority, since the vile Abbe was on his own ground,
and Madame Darpent told us her son had devised a better plan. He had
gone to the Coadjutor, who in the dotage of his uncle, the Archbishop
of Paris, exercised all his powers. As one of their monkish clergy,
this same Abbe was not precisely under his jurisdiction, but the
celebration of a marriage, and at such an hour, in a Priory Chapel,
was an invasion of the privileges of the parish priest, and thus the
Bishop of the See had every right to interfere. And this same
Coadjutor was sure to have an especial delight in detecting a
scandal, and overthrowing a plan of the Prince of Conde and the
ruling party at Court, so that if he could be found there was little
doubt of his assistance.
In order to lose no time, Clement Darpent had gone instantly in
search of him, and his good mother had come at once in her sedan to
see if I were returned, relieve our minds about my sister, and if my
mother were within reach, prepare her to go in search of Margaret,
since the Coadjutor, Bishop though he were, was still young, and not
at all the sort of man who could be suffered to bring her home
without some elder matron as her escort. Or if my mother were out of
reach, Madame Darpent was prepared, as an act of charity and
goodness, to go herself in quest of our poor Meg.
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