Les Misérables Read online

  CHAPTER V--MONSEIGNEUR BIENVENU MADE HIS CASSOCKS LAST TOO LONG

  The private life of M. Myriel was filled with the same thoughts as hispublic life. The voluntary poverty in which the Bishop of D---- lived,would have been a solemn and charming sight for any one who could haveviewed 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 anhour, then he said his mass, either at the cathedral or in his ownhouse. His mass said, he broke his fast on rye bread dipped in the milkof his own cows. Then he set to work.

  A Bishop is a very busy man: he must every day receive the secretaryof the bishopric, who is generally a canon, and nearly every day hisvicars-general. He has congregations to reprove, privileges to grant,a whole ecclesiastical library to examine,--prayer-books, diocesancatechisms, books of hours, etc.,--charges to write, sermons toauthorize, curés and mayors to reconcile, a clerical correspondence, anadministrative correspondence; on one side the State, on the other theHoly See; and a thousand matters of business.

  What time was left to him, after these thousand details of business, andhis offices and his breviary, he bestowed first on the necessitous,the sick, and the afflicted; the time which was left to him from theafflicted, the sick, and the necessitous, he devoted to work. Sometimeshe dug in his garden; again, he read or wrote. He had but one word forboth these kinds of toil; he called them _gardening_. "The mind is agarden," said he.

  Towards mid-day, when the weather was fine, he went forth and took astroll in the country or in town, often entering lowly dwellings. Hewas seen walking alone, buried in his own thoughts, his eyes cast down,supporting himself on his long cane, clad in his wadded purple garmentof silk, which was very warm, wearing purple stockings inside his coarseshoes, and surmounted by a flat hat which allowed three golden tasselsof large bullion to droop from its three points.

  It was a perfect festival wherever he appeared. One would have said thathis presence had something warming and luminous about it. The childrenand the old people came out to the doorsteps for the Bishop as for thesun. He bestowed his blessing, and they blessed him. They pointed outhis house to any one who was in need of anything.

  Enlarge

  Here and there he halted, accosted the little boys and girls, and smiledupon the mothers. He visited the poor so long as he had any money; whenhe no longer had any, he visited the rich.

  As he made his cassocks last a long while, and did not wish to have itnoticed, 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, MadameMagloire standing behind them and serving them at table. Nothing couldbe more frugal than this repast. If, however, the Bishop had one of hiscurés to supper, Madame Magloire took advantage of the opportunity toserve Monseigneur with some excellent fish from the lake, or with somefine game from the mountains. Every curé furnished the pretext fora good meal: the Bishop did not interfere. With that exception, hisordinary diet consisted only of vegetables boiled in water, and oilsoup. Thus it was said in the town, _when the Bishop does not indulge inthe cheer of a curé, he indulges in the cheer of a trappist_.

  After supper he conversed for half an hour with Mademoiselle Baptistineand 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 wasa man of letters and rather learned. He left behind him five or sixvery curious manuscripts; among others, a dissertation on this verse inGenesis, _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 abovewas precipitated upon the earth;_ and finally, the Chaldaic paraphraseof Onkelos, which renders it, _A wind coming from God blew upon the faceof the waters_. In another dissertation, he examines the theologicalworks of Hugo, Bishop of Ptolemaïs, great-grand-uncle to the writerof this book, and establishes the fact, that to this bishop must beattributed 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 mightbe which he had in his hand, he would suddenly fall into a profoundmeditation, whence he only emerged to write a few lines on the pages ofthe volume itself. These lines have often no connection whatever withthe book which contains them. We now have under our eyes a note writtenby him on the margin of a quarto entitled _Correspondence of LordGermain with Generals Clinton, Cornwallis, and the Admirals on theAmerican 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 theCreator; the Epistle to the Ephesians calls you liberty; Baruch callsyou Immensity; the Psalms call you Wisdom and Truth; John calls youLight; the Books of Kings call you Lord; Exodus calls you Providence;Leviticus, Sanctity; Esdras, Justice; the creation calls you God; mancalls you Father; but Solomon calls you Compassion, and that is the mostbeautiful of all your names."

  Toward nine o'clock in the evening the two women retired and betookthemselves to their chambers on the first floor, leaving him alone untilmorning on the ground floor.

  It is necessary that we should, in this place, give an exact idea of thedwelling of the Bishop of D----