Les Misérables Read online

  CHAPTER III--A HARD BISHOPRIC FOR A GOOD BISHOP

  The Bishop did not omit his pastoral visits because he had converted hiscarriage into alms. The diocese of D---- is a fatiguing one. There arevery few plains and a great many mountains; hardly any roads, as we havejust seen; thirty-two curacies, forty-one vicarships, and two hundredand eighty-five auxiliary chapels. To visit all these is quite a task.

  The Bishop managed to do it. He went on foot when it was in theneighborhood, in a tilted spring-cart when it was on the plain, and ona donkey in the mountains. The two old women accompanied him. When thetrip was too hard for them, he went alone.

  One day he arrived at Senez, which is an ancient episcopal city. He wasmounted on an ass. His purse, which was very dry at that moment, did notpermit him any other equipage. The mayor of the town came to receivehim at the gate of the town, and watched him dismount from his ass,with scandalized eyes. Some of the citizens were laughing around him."Monsieur the Mayor," said the Bishop, "and Messieurs Citizens, Iperceive that I shock you. You think it very arrogant in a poor priestto ride an animal which was used by Jesus Christ. I have done so fromnecessity, I assure you, and not from vanity."

  In the course of these trips he was kind and indulgent, and talkedrather than preached. He never went far in search of his arguments andhis examples. He quoted to the inhabitants of one district the exampleof a neighboring district. In the cantons where they were harsh to thepoor, he said: "Look at the people of Briançon! They have conferred onthe poor, on widows and orphans, the right to have their meadows mownthree days in advance of every one else. They rebuild their houses forthem gratuitously when they are ruined. Therefore it is a country whichis blessed by God. For a whole century, there has not been a singlemurderer among them."

  In villages which were greedy for profit and harvest, he said: "Look atthe people of Embrun! If, at the harvest season, the father of a familyhas his son away on service in the army, and his daughters at service inthe town, and if he is ill and incapacitated, the curé recommends him tothe prayers of the congregation; and on Sunday, after the mass, all theinhabitants of the village--men, women, and children--go to the poorman's field and do his harvesting for him, and carry his straw and hisgrain to his granary." To families divided by questions of money andinheritance he said: "Look at the mountaineers of Devolny, a country sowild that the nightingale is not heard there once in fifty years.Well, when the father of a family dies, the boys go off to seek theirfortunes, leaving the property to the girls, so that they may findhusbands." To the cantons which had a taste for lawsuits, and where thefarmers ruined themselves in stamped paper, he said: "Look at those goodpeasants in the valley of Queyras! There are three thousand souls ofthem. Mon Dieu! it is like a little republic. Neither judge nor bailiffis known there. The mayor does everything. He allots the imposts,taxes each person conscientiously, judges quarrels for nothing, dividesinheritances without charge, pronounces sentences gratuitously; and heis obeyed, because he is a just man among simple men." To villages wherehe found no schoolmaster, he quoted once more the people of Queyras: "Doyou know how they manage?" he said. "Since a little country of adozen or fifteen hearths cannot always support a teacher, they haveschoolmasters who are paid by the whole valley, who make the roundof the villages, spending a week in this one, ten days in that, andinstruct them. These teachers go to the fairs. I have seen them there.They are to be recognized by the quill pens which they wear in the cordof their hat. Those who teach reading only have one pen; those who teachreading and reckoning have two pens; those who teach reading, reckoning,and Latin have three pens. But what a disgrace to be ignorant! Do likethe people of Queyras!"

  Thus he discoursed gravely and paternally; in default of examples, heinvented parables, going directly to the point, with few phrases andmany images, which characteristic formed the real eloquence of JesusChrist. And being convinced himself, he was persuasive.