Les Misérables
fortune? No one could have told: all that was known was, that when he
returned from Italy he was a priest.
In 1804, M. Myriel was the Curé of B—— [Brignolles]. He was already
advanced in years, and lived in a very retired manner.
About the epoch of the coronation, some petty affair connected with his
curacy—just what, is not precisely known—took him to Paris. Among other
powerful persons to whom he went to solicit aid for his parishioners
was M. le Cardinal Fesch. One day, when the Emperor had come to visit
his uncle, the worthy Curé, who was waiting in the anteroom, found
himself present when His Majesty passed. Napoleon, on finding himself
observed with a certain curiosity by this old man, turned round and
said abruptly:—
“Who is this good man who is staring at me?”
“Sire,” said M. Myriel, “you are looking at a good man, and I at a
great man. Each of us can profit by it.”
That very evening, the Emperor asked the Cardinal the name of the Curé,
and some time afterwards M. Myriel was utterly astonished to learn that
he had been appointed Bishop of D——
What truth was there, after all, in the stories which were invented as
to the early portion of M. Myriel’s life? No one knew. Very few
families had been acquainted with the Myriel family before the
Revolution.
M. Myriel had to undergo the fate of every newcomer in a little town,
where there are many mouths which talk, and very few heads which think.
He was obliged to undergo it although he was a bishop, and because he
was a bishop. But after all, the rumors with which his name was
connected were rumors only,—noise, sayings, words; less than
words—_palabres_, as the energetic language of the South expresses it.
However that may be, after nine years of episcopal power and of
residence in D——, all the stories and subjects of conversation which
engross petty towns and petty people at the outset had fallen into
profound oblivion. No one would have dared to mention them; no one
would have dared to recall them.
M. Myriel had arrived at D—— accompanied by an elderly spinster,
Mademoiselle Baptistine, who was his sister, and ten years his junior.
Their only domestic was a female servant of the same age as
Mademoiselle Baptistine, and named Madame Magloire, who, after having
been _the servant of M. le Curé_, now assumed the double title of maid
to Mademoiselle and housekeeper to Monseigneur.
Mademoiselle Baptistine was a long, pale, thin, gentle creature; she
realized the ideal expressed by the word “respectable”; for it seems
that a woman must needs be a mother in order to be venerable. She had
never been pretty; her whole life, which had been nothing but a
succession of holy deeds, had finally conferred upon her a sort of
pallor and transparency; and as she advanced in years she had acquired
what may be called the beauty of goodness. What had been leanness in
her youth had become transparency in her maturity; and this diaphaneity
allowed the angel to be seen. She was a soul rather than a virgin. Her
person seemed made of a shadow; there was hardly sufficient body to
provide for sex; a little matter enclosing a light; large eyes forever
drooping;—a mere pretext for a soul’s remaining on the earth.
Madame Magloire was a little, fat, white old woman, corpulent and
bustling; always out of breath,—in the first place, because of her
activity, and in the next, because of her asthma.
On his arrival, M. Myriel was installed in the episcopal palace with
the honors required by the Imperial decrees, which class a bishop
immediately after a major-general. The mayor and the president paid the
first call on him, and he, in turn, paid the first call on the general
and the prefect.
The installation over, the town waited to see its bishop at work.
CHAPTER II—M. MYRIEL BECOMES M. WELCOME
The episcopal palace of D—— adjoins the hospital.
The episcopal palace was a huge and beautiful house, built of stone at
the beginning of the last century by M. Henri Puget, Doctor of Theology
of the Faculty of Paris, Abbé of Simore, who had been Bishop of D—— in
1712. This palace was a genuine seignorial residence. Everything about
it had a grand air,—the apartments of the Bishop, the drawing-rooms,
the chambers, the principal courtyard, which was very large, with walks
encircling it under arcades in the old Florentine fashion, and gardens
planted with magnificent trees. In the dining-room, a long and superb
gallery which was situated on the ground floor and opened on the
gardens, M. Henri Puget had entertained in state, on July 29, 1714, My
Lords Charles Brûlart de Genlis, archbishop; Prince d’Embrun; Antoine
de Mesgrigny, the capuchin, Bishop of Grasse; Philippe de Vendôme,
Grand Prior of France, Abbé of Saint Honoré de Lérins; François de
Berton de Crillon, bishop, Baron de Vence; César de Sabran de
Forcalquier, bishop, Seignor of Glandève; and Jean Soanen, Priest of
the Oratory, preacher in ordinary to the king, bishop, Seignor of
Senez. The portraits of these seven reverend personages decorated this
apartment; and this memorable date, the 29th of July, 1714, was there
engraved in letters of gold on a table of white marble.
The hospital was a low and narrow building of a single story, with a
small garden.
Three days after his arrival, the Bishop visited the hospital. The
visit ended, he had the director requested to be so good as to come to
his house.
“Monsieur the director of the hospital,” said he to him, “how many sick
people have you at the present moment?”
“Twenty-six, Monseigneur.”
“That was the number which I counted,” said the Bishop.
“The beds,” pursued the director, “are very much crowded against each
other.”
“That is what I observed.”
“The halls are nothing but rooms, and it is with difficulty that the
air can be changed in them.”
“So it seems to me.”
“And then, when there is a ray of sun, the garden is very small for the
convalescents.”
“That was what I said to myself.”
“In case of epidemics,—we have had the typhus fever this year; we had
the sweating sickness two years ago, and a hundred patients at
times,—we know not what to do.”
“That is the thought which occurred to me.”
“What would you have, Monseigneur?” said the director. “One must resign
one’s self.”
This conversation took place in the gallery dining-room on the ground
floor.
The Bishop remained silent for a moment; then he turned abruptly to the
director of the hospital.
“Monsieur,” said he, “how many beds do you think this hall alone would
hold?”
“Monseigneur’s dining-room?” exclaimed the stupefied director.
The Bishop cast a glance round the apartment, and seemed to be taking
measures and calculations with his eyes.
“It would hold full twenty beds,” said he, as though speaking to
himself. Then, raising his voice:—
“Hold, Monsieur the director of the hospital, I will tell you
something. There is evidently a mistake here. There are thirty-six of
you, in five or six small rooms. There are three of us here, and we
have room for sixty. There is some mistake, I tell you; you have my
house, and I have yours. Give me back my house; you are at home here.”
On the following day the thirty-six patients were installed in the
Bishop’s palace, and the Bishop was settled in the hospital.
M. Myriel had no property, his family having been ruined by the
Revolution. His sister was in receipt of a yearly income of five
hundred francs, which sufficed for her personal wants at the vicarage.
M. Myriel received from the State, in his quality of bishop, a salary
of fifteen thousand francs. On the very day when he took up his abode
in the hospital, M. Myriel settled on the disposition of this sum once
for all, in the following manner. We transcribe here a note made by his
own hand:—
NOTE ON THE REGULATION OF MY HOUSEHOLD EXPENSES.
For the little seminary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,500 livres
Society of the mission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 ”
For the Lazarists of Montdidier . . . . . . . . . . 100 ”
Seminary for foreign missions in Paris . . . . . . 200 ”
Congregation of the Holy Spirit . . . . . . . . . . 150 ”
Religious establishments of the Holy Land . . . . . 100 ”
Charitable maternity societies . . . . . . . . . . 300 ”
Extra, for that of Arles . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 ”
Work for the amelioration of prisons . . . . . . . 400 ”
Work for the relief and delivery of prisoners . . . 500 ”
To liberate fathers of families incarcerated for debt 1,000 ”
Addition to the salary of the poor teachers of the
diocese . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2,000 ”
Public granary of the Hautes-Alpes . . . . . . . . 100 ”
Congregation of the ladies of D——, of Manosque, and of
Sisteron, for the gratuitous instruction of poor
girls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,500 ”
For the poor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6,000 ”
My personal expenses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,000 ”
———
Total . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15,000 ”
M. Myriel made no change in this arrangement during the entire period
that he occupied the see of D—— As has been seen, he called it
_regulating his household expenses_.
This arrangement was accepted with absolute submission by Mademoiselle
Baptistine. This holy woman regarded Monseigneur of D—— as at one and
the same time her brother and her bishop, her friend according to the
flesh and her superior according to the Church. She simply loved and
venerated him. When he spoke, she bowed; when he acted, she yielded her
adherence. Their only servant, Madame Magloire, grumbled a little. It
will be observed that Monsieur the Bishop had reserved for himself only
one thousand livres, which, added to the pension of Mademoiselle
Baptistine, made fifteen hundred francs a year. On these fifteen
hundred francs these two old women and the old man subsisted.
And when a village curate came to D——, the Bishop still found means to
entertain him, thanks to the severe economy of Madame Magloire, and to
the intelligent administration of Mademoiselle Baptistine.
One day, after he had been in D—— about three months, the Bishop said:—
“And still I am quite cramped with it all!”
“I should think so!” exclaimed Madame Magloire. “Monseigneur has not
even claimed the allowance which the department owes him for the
expense of his carriage in town, and for his journeys about the
diocese. It was customary for bishops in former days.”
“Hold!” cried the Bishop, “you are quite right, Madame Magloire.”
And he made his demand.
Some time afterwards the General Council took this demand under
consideration, and voted him an annual sum of three thousand francs,
under this heading: _Allowance to M. the Bishop for expenses of
carriage, expenses of posting, and expenses of pastoral visits._
This provoked a great outcry among the local burgesses; and a senator
of the Empire, a former member of the Council of the Five Hundred which
favored the 18 Brumaire, and who was provided with a magnificent
senatorial office in the vicinity of the town of D——, wrote to M. Bigot
de Préameneu, the minister of public worship, a very angry and
confidential note on the subject, from which we extract these authentic
lines:—
“Expenses of carriage? What can be done with it in a town of less than
four thousand inhabitants? Expenses of journeys? What is the use of
these trips, in the first place? Next, how can the posting be
accomplished in these mountainous parts? There are no roads. No one
travels otherwise than on horseback. Even the bridge between Durance
and Château-Arnoux can barely support ox-teams. These priests are all