บทที่ บทที่ 13 · THE SOLITUDE OF MONSEIGNEUR WELCOME

A bishop is almost always surrounded by a full squadron of little

abbés, just as a general is by a covey of young officers. This is what

that charming Saint François de Sales calls somewhere “les prêtres

blancs-becs,” callow priests. Every career has its aspirants, who form

a train for those who have attained eminence in it. There is no power

which has not its dependents. There is no fortune which has not its

court. The seekers of the future eddy around the splendid present.

Every metropolis has its staff of officials. Every bishop who possesses

the least influence has about him his patrol of cherubim from the

seminary, which goes the round, and maintains good order in the

episcopal palace, and mounts guard over monseigneur’s smile. To please

a bishop is equivalent to getting one’s foot in the stirrup for a

sub-diaconate. It is necessary to walk one’s path discreetly; the

apostleship does not disdain the canonship.

Just as there are bigwigs elsewhere, there are big mitres in the

Church. These are the bishops who stand well at Court, who are rich,

well endowed, skilful, accepted by the world, who know how to pray, no

doubt, but who know also how to beg, who feel little scruple at making

a whole diocese dance attendance in their person, who are connecting

links between the sacristy and diplomacy, who are abbés rather than

priests, prelates rather than bishops. Happy those who approach them!

Being persons of influence, they create a shower about them, upon the

assiduous and the favored, and upon all the young men who understand

the art of pleasing, of large parishes, prebends, archidiaconates,

chaplaincies, and cathedral posts, while awaiting episcopal honors. As

they advance themselves, they cause their satellites to progress also;

it is a whole solar system on the march. Their radiance casts a gleam

of purple over their suite. Their prosperity is crumbled up behind the

scenes, into nice little promotions. The larger the diocese of the

patron, the fatter the curacy for the favorite. And then, there is

Rome. A bishop who understands how to become an archbishop, an

archbishop who knows how to become a cardinal, carries you with him as

conclavist; you enter a court of papal jurisdiction, you receive the

pallium, and behold! you are an auditor, then a papal chamberlain, then

monsignor, and from a Grace to an Eminence is only a step, and between

the Eminence and the Holiness there is but the smoke of a ballot. Every

skull-cap may dream of the tiara. The priest is nowadays the only man

who can become a king in a regular manner; and what a king! the supreme

king. Then what a nursery of aspirations is a seminary! How many

blushing choristers, how many youthful abbés bear on their heads

Perrette’s pot of milk! Who knows how easy it is for ambition to call

itself vocation? in good faith, perchance, and deceiving itself,

devotee that it is.

Monseigneur Bienvenu, poor, humble, retiring, was not accounted among

the big mitres. This was plain from the complete absence of young

priests about him. We have seen that he “did not take” in Paris. Not a

single future dreamed of engrafting itself on this solitary old man.

Not a single sprouting ambition committed the folly of putting forth

its foliage in his shadow. His canons and grand-vicars were good old

men, rather vulgar like himself, walled up like him in this diocese,

without exit to a cardinalship, and who resembled their bishop, with

this difference, that they were finished and he was completed. The

impossibility of growing great under Monseigneur Bienvenu was so well

understood, that no sooner had the young men whom he ordained left the

seminary than they got themselves recommended to the archbishops of Aix

or of Auch, and went off in a great hurry. For, in short, we repeat it,

men wish to be pushed. A saint who dwells in a paroxysm of abnegation

is a dangerous neighbor; he might communicate to you, by contagion, an

incurable poverty, an anchylosis of the joints, which are useful in

advancement, and in short, more renunciation than you desire; and this

infectious virtue is avoided. Hence the isolation of Monseigneur

Bienvenu. We live in the midst of a gloomy society. Success; that is

the lesson which falls drop by drop from the slope of corruption.

Be it said in passing, that success is a very hideous thing. Its false

resemblance to merit deceives men. For the masses, success has almost

the same profile as supremacy. Success, that Menæchmus of talent, has

one dupe,—history. Juvenal and Tacitus alone grumble at it. In our day,

a philosophy which is almost official has entered into its service,

wears the livery of success, and performs the service of its

antechamber. Succeed: theory. Prosperity argues capacity. Win in the

lottery, and behold! you are a clever man. He who triumphs is

venerated. Be born with a silver spoon in your mouth! everything lies

in that. Be lucky, and you will have all the rest; be happy, and people

will think you great. Outside of five or six immense exceptions, which

compose the splendor of a century, contemporary admiration is nothing

but short-sightedness. Gilding is gold. It does no harm to be the first

arrival by pure chance, so long as you do arrive. The common herd is an

old Narcissus who adores himself, and who applauds the vulgar herd.

That enormous ability by virtue of which one is Moses, Æschylus, Dante,

Michael Angelo, or Napoleon, the multitude awards on the spot, and by

acclamation, to whomsoever attains his object, in whatsoever it may

consist. Let a notary transfigure himself into a deputy: let a false

Corneille compose _Tiridate;_ let a eunuch come to possess a harem; let

a military Prudhomme accidentally win the decisive battle of an epoch;

let an apothecary invent cardboard shoe-soles for the army of the

Sambre-and-Meuse, and construct for himself, out of this cardboard,

sold as leather, four hundred thousand francs of income; let a

pork-packer espouse usury, and cause it to bring forth seven or eight

millions, of which he is the father and of which it is the mother; let

a preacher become a bishop by force of his nasal drawl; let the steward

of a fine family be so rich on retiring from service that he is made

minister of finances,—and men call that Genius, just as they call the

face of Mousqueton _Beauty_, and the mien of Claude _Majesty_. With the

constellations of space they confound the stars of the abyss which are

made in the soft mire of the puddle by the feet of ducks.