Kabanata Kabanata 6 · MONSEIGNEUR BIENVENU MADE HIS CASSOCKS LAST TOO LONG

The private life of M. Myriel was filled with the same thoughts as his

public life. The voluntary poverty in which the Bishop of D—— lived,

would have been a solemn and charming sight for any one who could have

viewed it close at hand.

Like all old men, and like the majority of thinkers, he slept little.

This brief slumber was profound. In the morning he meditated for an

hour, then he said his mass, either at the cathedral or in his own

house. His mass said, he broke his fast on rye bread dipped in the milk

of his own cows. Then he set to work.

A Bishop is a very busy man: he must every day receive the secretary of

the bishopric, who is generally a canon, and nearly every day his

vicars-general. He has congregations to reprove, privileges to grant, a

whole ecclesiastical library to examine,—prayer-books, diocesan

catechisms, books of hours, etc.,—charges to write, sermons to

authorize, curés and mayors to reconcile, a clerical correspondence, an

administrative correspondence; on one side the State, on the other the

Holy See; and a thousand matters of business.

What time was left to him, after these thousand details of business,

and his offices and his breviary, he bestowed first on the necessitous,

the sick, and the afflicted; the time which was left to him from the

afflicted, the sick, and the necessitous, he devoted to work. Sometimes

he dug in his garden; again, he read or wrote. He had but one word for

both these kinds of toil; he called them _gardening_. “The mind is a

garden,” said he.

Towards midday, when the weather was fine, he went forth and took a

stroll in the country or in town, often entering lowly dwellings. He

was seen walking alone, buried in his own thoughts, his eyes cast down,

supporting himself on his long cane, clad in his wadded purple garment

of silk, which was very warm, wearing purple stockings inside his

coarse shoes, and surmounted by a flat hat which allowed three golden

tassels of large bullion to droop from its three points.

It was a perfect festival wherever he appeared. One would have said

that his presence had something warming and luminous about it. The

children and the old people came out to the doorsteps for the Bishop as

for the sun. He bestowed his blessing, and they blessed him. They

pointed out his house to any one who was in need of anything.

[Illustration: The Comforter]

Here and there he halted, accosted the little boys and girls, and

smiled upon the mothers. He visited the poor so long as he had any

money; when he no longer had any, he visited the rich.

As he made his cassocks last a long while, and did not wish to have it

noticed, he never went out in the town without his wadded purple cloak.

This inconvenienced him somewhat in summer.

On his return, he dined. The dinner resembled his breakfast.

At half-past eight in the evening he supped with his sister, Madame

Magloire standing behind them and serving them at table. Nothing could

be more frugal than this repast. If, however, the Bishop had one of his

curés to supper, Madame Magloire took advantage of the opportunity to

serve Monseigneur with some excellent fish from the lake, or with some

fine game from the mountains. Every curé furnished the pretext for a

good meal: the Bishop did not interfere. With that exception, his

ordinary diet consisted only of vegetables boiled in water, and oil

soup. Thus it was said in the town, _when the Bishop does not indulge

in the cheer of a curé, he indulges in the cheer of a trappist_.

After supper he conversed for half an hour with Mademoiselle Baptistine

and Madame Magloire; then he retired to his own room and set to

writing, sometimes on loose sheets, and again on the margin of some

folio. He was a man of letters and rather learned. He left behind him

five or six very curious manuscripts; among others, a dissertation on

this verse in Genesis, _In the beginning, the spirit of God floated

upon the waters_. With this verse he compares three texts: the Arabic

verse which says, _The winds of God blew;_ Flavius Josephus who says,

_A wind from above was precipitated upon the earth;_ and finally, the

Chaldaic paraphrase of Onkelos, which renders it, _A wind coming from

God blew upon the face of the waters_. In another dissertation, he

examines the theological works of Hugo, Bishop of Ptolemaïs,

great-grand-uncle to the writer of this book, and establishes the fact,

that to this bishop must be attributed the divers little works

published during the last century, under the pseudonym of Barleycourt.

Sometimes, in the midst of his reading, no matter what the book might

be which he had in his hand, he would suddenly fall into a profound

meditation, whence he only emerged to write a few lines on the pages of

the volume itself. These lines have often no connection whatever with

the book which contains them. We now have under our eyes a note written

by him on the margin of a quarto entitled _Correspondence of Lord

Germain with Generals Clinton, Cornwallis, and the Admirals on the

American station. Versailles, Poinçot, book-seller; and Paris, Pissot,

bookseller, Quai des Augustins._

Here is the note:—

“Oh, you who are!

“Ecclesiastes calls you the All-powerful; the Maccabees call you the

Creator; the Epistle to the Ephesians calls you liberty; Baruch calls

you Immensity; the Psalms call you Wisdom and Truth; John calls you

Light; the Books of Kings call you Lord; Exodus calls you Providence;

Leviticus, Sanctity; Esdras, Justice; the creation calls you God; man

calls you Father; but Solomon calls you Compassion, and that is the

most beautiful of all your names.”

Toward nine o’clock in the evening the two women retired and betook

themselves to their chambers on the first floor, leaving him alone

until morning on the ground floor.

It is necessary that we should, in this place, give an exact idea of

the dwelling of the Bishop of D——