At the period of our story the relations between these two men had lasted for several years. The abbé Pirard imported into this affair his characteristic passion. Being in constant touch with the Marquis's advocates, he studied his case, and finding it just, he became quite openly the solicitor of M. de la Mole against the all-powerful Grand Vicar. The latter felt outraged by such insolence, and on the part of a little Jansenist into the bargain.
"See what this Court nobility who pretend to be so powerful really are," would say the abbé de Frilair to his intimates. M. de la Mole has not even sent a miserable cross to his agent at Besançon, and will let him be tamely turned out. None the less, so they write me, this noble peer never lets a week go by without going to show off his blue ribbon in the drawing-room of the Keeper of Seal, whoever it may be.
In spite of all the energy of the abbé Pirard, and although M. de la Mle was always on the best of terms with the minister of justice, and above all with his officials, the best that he could achieve after six careful years was not to lose his lawsuit right out. Being as he was in ceaseless correspondence with the abbé Pirard in connection with an affair in which they were both passionately interested, the Marquis came to appreciate the abbé's particular kind of intellect. Little by little, and in spite of the immense distance in their social positions, their correspondence assumed the tone of friendship. The abbé Pirard told the Marquis that they wanted to heap insults upon him till he should be forced to hand in his resignation. In his anger against what, in his opinion, was the infamous stratagem employed against Julien, he narrated his history to the Marquis.
Although extremely rich, this great lord was by no means miserly. He had never been able to prevail on the abbé Pirard to accept even the reimbursement of the postal expenses occasioned by the lawsuit. He seized the opportunity of sending five hundred francs to his favourite pupil. M. de la Mole himself took the trouble of writing the covering letter. This gave the abbé food for thought. One day the latter received a little note which requested him to go immediately on an urgent matter to an inn on the outskirts of Besançon. He found there the steward of M. de la Mle.
"M. le Marquis has instructed me to bring you his carriage,"
