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#10535: Drop oftc, use another IRC network.
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Comment (by cypherpunks):

 CHAPTER IV—WORKS CORRESPONDING TO WORDS

 His conversation was gay and affable. He put himself on a level with the
 two old women who had passed their lives beside him. When he laughed, it
 was the laugh of a schoolboy. Madame Magloire liked to call him Your Grace
 [Votre Grandeur]. One day he rose from his arm-chair, and went to his
 library in search of a book. This book was on one of the upper shelves. As
 the bishop was rather short of stature, he could not reach it. "Madame
 Magloire," said he, "fetch me a chair. My greatness [grandeur] does not
 reach as far as that shelf."

 One of his distant relatives, Madame la Comtesse de Lo, rarely allowed an
 opportunity to escape of enumerating, in his presence, what she designated
 as "the expectations" of her three sons. She had numerous relatives, who
 were very old and near to death, and of whom her sons were the natural
 heirs. The youngest of the three was to receive from a grand-aunt a good
 hundred thousand livres of income; the second was the heir by entail to
 the title of the Duke, his uncle; the eldest was to succeed to the peerage
 of his grandfather. The Bishop was accustomed to listen in silence to
 these innocent and pardonable maternal boasts. On one occasion, however,
 he appeared to be more thoughtful than usual, while Madame de Lo was
 relating once again the details of all these inheritances and all these
 "expectations." She interrupted herself impatiently: "Mon Dieu, cousin!
 What are you thinking about?" "I am thinking," replied the Bishop, "of a
 singular remark, which is to be found, I believe, in St. Augustine,—'Place
 your hopes in the man from whom you do not inherit.'"

 At another time, on receiving a notification of the decease of a gentleman
 of the country-side, wherein not only the dignities of the dead man, but
 also the feudal and noble qualifications of all his relatives, spread over
 an entire page: "What a stout back Death has!" he exclaimed. "What a
 strange burden of titles is cheerfully imposed on him, and how much wit
 must men have, in order thus to press the tomb into the service of
 vanity!"

 He was gifted, on occasion, with a gentle raillery, which almost always
 concealed a serious meaning. In the course of one Lent, a youthful vicar
 came to D——, and preached in the cathedral. He was tolerably eloquent. The
 subject of his sermon was charity. He urged the rich to give to the poor,
 in order to avoid hell, which he depicted in the most frightful manner of
 which he was capable, and to win paradise, which he represented as
 charming and desirable. Among the audience there was a wealthy retired
 merchant, who was somewhat of a usurer, named M. Geborand, who had amassed
 two millions in the manufacture of coarse cloth, serges, and woollen
 galloons. Never in his whole life had M. Geborand bestowed alms on any
 poor wretch. After the delivery of that sermon, it was observed that he
 gave a sou every Sunday to the poor old beggar-women at the door of the
 cathedral. There were six of them to share it. One day the Bishop caught
 sight of him in the act of bestowing this charity, and said to his sister,
 with a smile, "There is M. Geborand purchasing paradise for a sou."

 When it was a question of charity, he was not to be rebuffed even by a
 refusal, and on such occasions he gave utterance to remarks which induced
 reflection. Once he was begging for the poor in a drawing-room of the
 town; there was present the Marquis de Champtercier, a wealthy and
 avaricious old man, who contrived to be, at one and the same time, an
 ultra-royalist and an ultra-Voltairian. This variety of man has actually
 existed. When the Bishop came to him, he touched his arm, "You must give
 me something, M. le Marquis." The Marquis turned round and answered dryly,
 "I have poor people of my own, Monseigneur." "Give them to me," replied
 the Bishop.

 One day he preached the following sermon in the cathedral:—

 "My very dear brethren, my good friends, there are thirteen hundred and
 twenty thousand peasants' dwellings in France which have but three
 openings; eighteen hundred and seventeen thousand hovels which have but
 two openings, the door and one window; and three hundred and forty-six
 thousand cabins besides which have but one opening, the door. And this
 arises from a thing which is called the tax on doors and windows. Just put
 poor families, old women and little children, in those buildings, and
 behold the fevers and maladies which result! Alas! God gives air to men;
 the law sells it to them. I do not blame the law, but I bless God. In the
 department of the Isere, in the Var, in the two departments of the Alpes,
 the Hautes, and the Basses, the peasants have not even wheelbarrows; they
 transport their manure on the backs of men; they have no candles, and they
 burn resinous sticks, and bits of rope dipped in pitch. That is the state
 of affairs throughout the whole of the hilly country of Dauphine. They
 make bread for six months at one time; they bake it with dried cow-dung.
 In the winter they break this bread up with an axe, and they soak it for
 twenty-four hours, in order to render it eatable. My brethren, have pity!
 behold the suffering on all sides of you!"

 Born a Provencal, he easily familiarized himself with the dialect of the
 south. He said, "En be! moussu, ses sage?" as in lower Languedoc; "Onte
 anaras passa?" as in the Basses-Alpes; "Puerte un bouen moutu embe un
 bouen fromage grase," as in upper Dauphine. This pleased the people
 extremely, and contributed not a little to win him access to all spirits.
 He was perfectly at home in the thatched cottage and in the mountains. He
 understood how to say the grandest things in the most vulgar of idioms. As
 he spoke all tongues, he entered into all hearts.

 Moreover, he was the same towards people of the world and towards the
 lower classes. He condemned nothing in haste and without taking
 circumstances into account. He said, "Examine the road over which the
 fault has passed."

 Being, as he described himself with a smile, an ex-sinner, he had none of
 the asperities of austerity, and he professed, with a good deal of
 distinctness, and without the frown of the ferociously virtuous, a
 doctrine which may be summed up as follows:—

 "Man has upon him his flesh, which is at once his burden and his
 temptation. He drags it with him and yields to it. He must watch it, cheek
 it, repress it, and obey it only at the last extremity. There may be some
 fault even in this obedience; but the fault thus committed is venial; it
 is a fall, but a fall on the knees which may terminate in prayer.

 "To be a saint is the exception; to be an upright man is the rule. Err,
 fall, sin if you will, but be upright.

 "The least possible sin is the law of man. No sin at all is the dream of
 the angel. All which is terrestrial is subject to sin. Sin is a
 gravitation."

 When he saw everyone exclaiming very loudly, and growing angry very
 quickly, "Oh! oh!" he said, with a smile; "to all appearance, this is a
 great crime which all the world commits. These are hypocrisies which have
 taken fright, and are in haste to make protest and to put themselves under
 shelter."

 He was indulgent towards women and poor people, on whom the burden of
 human society rest. He said, "The faults of women, of children, of the
 feeble, the indigent, and the ignorant, are the fault of the husbands, the
 fathers, the masters, the strong, the rich, and the wise."

 He said, moreover, "Teach those who are ignorant as many things as
 possible; society is culpable, in that it does not afford instruction
 gratis; it is responsible for the night which it produces. This soul is
 full of shadow; sin is therein committed. The guilty one is not the person
 who has committed the sin, but the person who has created the shadow."

 It will be perceived that he had a peculiar manner of his own of judging
 things: I suspect that he obtained it from the Gospel.

 One day he heard a criminal case, which was in preparation and on the
 point of trial, discussed in a drawing-room. A wretched man, being at the
 end of his resources, had coined counterfeit money, out of love for a
 woman, and for the child which he had had by her. Counterfeiting was still
 punishable with death at that epoch. The woman had been arrested in the
 act of passing the first false piece made by the man. She was held, but
 there were no proofs except against her. She alone could accuse her lover,
 and destroy him by her confession. She denied; they insisted. She
 persisted in her denial. Thereupon an idea occurred to the attorney for
 the crown. He invented an infidelity on the part of the lover, and
 succeeded, by means of fragments of letters cunningly presented, in
 persuading the unfortunate woman that she had a rival, and that the man
 was deceiving her. Thereupon, exasperated by jealousy, she denounced her
 lover, confessed all, proved all.

 The man was ruined. He was shortly to be tried at Aix with his accomplice.
 They were relating the matter, and each one was expressing enthusiasm over
 the cleverness of the magistrate. By bringing jealousy into play, he had
 caused the truth to burst forth in wrath, he had educed the justice of
 revenge. The Bishop listened to all this in silence. When they had
 finished, he inquired,—

 "Where are this man and woman to be tried?"

 "At the Court of Assizes."

 He went on, "And where will the advocate of the crown be tried?"

 A tragic event occurred at D—— A man was condemned to death for murder. He
 was a wretched fellow, not exactly educated, not exactly ignorant, who had
 been a mountebank at fairs, and a writer for the public. The town took a
 great interest in the trial. On the eve of the day fixed for the execution
 of the condemned man, the chaplain of the prison fell ill. A priest was
 needed to attend the criminal in his last moments. They sent for the cure.
 It seems that he refused to come, saying, "That is no affair of mine. I
 have nothing to do with that unpleasant task, and with that mountebank: I,
 too, am ill; and besides, it is not my place." This reply was reported to
 the Bishop, who said, "Monsieur le Curé is right: it is not his place; it
 is mine."

 He went instantly to the prison, descended to the cell of the
 "mountebank," called him by name, took him by the hand, and spoke to him.
 He passed the entire day with him, forgetful of food and sleep, praying to
 God for the soul of the condemned man, and praying the condemned man for
 his own. He told him the best truths, which are also the most simple. He
 was father, brother, friend; he was bishop only to bless. He taught him
 everything, encouraged and consoled him. The man was on the point of dying
 in despair. Death was an abyss to him. As he stood trembling on its
 mournful brink, he recoiled with horror. He was not sufficiently ignorant
 to be absolutely indifferent. His condemnation, which had been a profound
 shock, had, in a manner, broken through, here and there, that wall which
 separates us from the mystery of things, and which we call life. He gazed
 incessantly beyond this world through these fatal breaches, and beheld
 only darkness. The Bishop made him see light.

 On the following day, when they came to fetch the unhappy wretch, the
 Bishop was still there. He followed him, and exhibited himself to the eyes
 of the crowd in his purple camail and with his episcopal cross upon his
 neck, side by side with the criminal bound with cords.

 He mounted the tumbril with him, he mounted the scaffold with him. The
 sufferer, who had been so gloomy and cast down on the preceding day, was
 radiant. He felt that his soul was reconciled, and he hoped in God. The
 Bishop embraced him, and at the moment when the knife was about to fall,
 he said to him: "God raises from the dead him whom man slays; he whom his
 brothers have rejected finds his Father once more. Pray, believe, enter
 into life: the Father is there." When he descended from the scaffold,
 there was something in his look which made the people draw aside to let
 him pass. They did not know which was most worthy of admiration, his
 pallor or his serenity. On his return to the humble dwelling, which he
 designated, with a smile, as his palace, he said to his sister, "I have
 just officiated pontifically."

 Since the most sublime things are often those which are the least
 understood, there were people in the town who said, when commenting on
 this conduct of the Bishop, "It is affectation."

 This, however, was a remark which was confined to the drawing-rooms. The
 populace, which perceives no jest in holy deeds, was touched, and admired
 him.

 As for the Bishop, it was a shock to him to have beheld the guillotine,
 and it was a long time before he recovered from it.

 In fact, when the scaffold is there, all erected and prepared, it has
 something about it which produces hallucination. One may feel a certain
 indifference to the death penalty, one may refrain from pronouncing upon
 it, from saying yes or no, so long as one has not seen a guillotine with
 one's own eyes: but if one encounters one of them, the shock is violent;
 one is forced to decide, and to take part for or against. Some admire it,
 like de Maistre; others execrate it, like Beccaria. The guillotine is the
 concretion of the law; it is called vindicte; it is not neutral, and it
 does not permit you to remain neutral. He who sees it shivers with the
 most mysterious of shivers. All social problems erect their interrogation
 point around this chopping-knife. The scaffold is a vision. The scaffold
 is not a piece of carpentry; the scaffold is not a machine; the scaffold
 is not an inert bit of mechanism constructed of wood, iron and cords.

 It seems as though it were a being, possessed of I know not what sombre
 initiative; one would say that this piece of carpenter's work saw, that
 this machine heard, that this mechanism understood, that this wood, this
 iron, and these cords were possessed of will. In the frightful meditation
 into which its presence casts the soul the scaffold appears in terrible
 guise, and as though taking part in what is going on. The scaffold is the
 accomplice of the executioner; it devours, it eats flesh, it drinks blood;
 the scaffold is a sort of monster fabricated by the judge and the
 carpenter, a spectre which seems to live with a horrible vitality composed
 of all the death which it has inflicted.

 Therefore, the impression was terrible and profound; on the day following
 the execution, and on many succeeding days, the Bishop appeared to be
 crushed. The almost violent serenity of the funereal moment had
 disappeared; the phantom of social justice tormented him. He, who
 generally returned from all his deeds with a radiant satisfaction, seemed
 to be reproaching himself. At times he talked to himself, and stammered
 lugubrious monologues in a low voice. This is one which his sister
 overheard one evening and preserved: "I did not think that it was so
 monstrous. It is wrong to become absorbed in the divine law to such a
 degree as not to perceive human law. Death belongs to God alone. By what
 right do men touch that unknown thing?"

 In course of time these impressions weakened and probably vanished.
 Nevertheless, it was observed that the Bishop thenceforth avoided passing
 the place of execution.

 M. Myriel could be summoned at any hour to the bedside of the sick and
 dying. He did not ignore the fact that therein lay his greatest duty and
 his greatest labor. Widowed and orphaned families had no need to summon
 him; he came of his own accord. He understood how to sit down and hold his
 peace for long hours beside the man who had lost the wife of his love, of
 the mother who had lost her child. As he knew the moment for silence he
 knew also the moment for speech. Oh, admirable consoler! He sought not to
 efface sorrow by forgetfulness, but to magnify and dignify it by hope. He
 said:—

 "Have a care of the manner in which you turn towards the dead. Think not
 of that which perishes. Gaze steadily. You will perceive the living light
 of your well-beloved dead in the depths of heaven." He knew that faith is
 wholesome. He sought to counsel and calm the despairing man, by pointing
 out to him the resigned man, and to transform the grief which gazes upon a
 grave by showing him the grief which fixes its gaze upon a star.





 CHAPTER V—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, cures 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 mid-day, 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.

 Enlarge
 The Comfortor 1b1-5-comfortor

 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 cures
 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 cure 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 cure, 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
 Ptolemais, 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, Poincot, 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——





 CHAPTER VI—WHO GUARDED HIS HOUSE FOR HIM

 The house in which he lived consisted, as we have said, of a ground floor,
 and one story above; three rooms on the ground floor, three chambers on
 the first, and an attic above. Behind the house was a garden, a quarter of
 an acre in extent. The two women occupied the first floor; the Bishop was
 lodged below. The first room, opening on the street, served him as dining-
 room, the second was his bedroom, and the third his oratory. There was no
 exit possible from this oratory, except by passing through the bedroom,
 nor from the bedroom, without passing through the dining-room. At the end
 of the suite, in the oratory, there was a detached alcove with a bed, for
 use in cases of hospitality. The Bishop offered this bed to country
 curates whom business or the requirements of their parishes brought to D——

 The pharmacy of the hospital, a small building which had been added to the
 house, and abutted on the garden, had been transformed into a kitchen and
 cellar. In addition to this, there was in the garden a stable, which had
 formerly been the kitchen of the hospital, and in which the Bishop kept
 two cows. No matter what the quantity of milk they gave, he invariably
 sent half of it every morning to the sick people in the hospital. "I am
 paying my tithes," he said.

 His bedroom was tolerably large, and rather difficult to warm in bad
 weather. As wood is extremely dear at D——, he hit upon the idea of having
 a compartment of boards constructed in the cow-shed. Here he passed his
 evenings during seasons of severe cold: he called it his winter salon.

 In this winter salon, as in the dining-room, there was no other furniture
 than a square table in white wood, and four straw-seated chairs. In
 addition to this the dining-room was ornamented with an antique sideboard,
 painted pink, in water colors. Out of a similar sideboard, properly draped
 with white napery and imitation lace, the Bishop had constructed the altar
 which decorated his oratory.

 His wealthy penitents and the sainted women of D—— had more than once
 assessed themselves to raise the money for a new altar for Monseigneur's
 oratory; on each occasion he had taken the money and had given it to the
 poor. "The most beautiful of altars," he said, "is the soul of an unhappy
 creature consoled and thanking God."

 In his oratory there were two straw prie-Dieu, and there was an arm-chair,
 also in straw, in his bedroom. When, by chance, he received seven or eight
 persons at one time, the prefect, or the general, or the staff of the
 regiment in garrison, or several pupils from the little seminary, the
 chairs had to be fetched from the winter salon in the stable, the prie-
 Dieu from the oratory, and the arm-chair from the bedroom: in this way as
 many as eleven chairs could be collected for the visitors. A room was
 dismantled for each new guest.

 It sometimes happened that there were twelve in the party; the Bishop then
 relieved the embarrassment of the situation by standing in front of the
 chimney if it was winter, or by strolling in the garden if it was summer.

 There was still another chair in the detached alcove, but the straw was
 half gone from it, and it had but three legs, so that it was of service
 only when propped against the wall. Mademoiselle Baptistine had also in
 her own room a very large easy-chair of wood, which had formerly been
 gilded, and which was covered with flowered pekin; but they had been
 obliged to hoist this bergere up to the first story through the window, as
 the staircase was too narrow; it could not, therefore, be reckoned among
 the possibilities in the way of furniture.

 Mademoiselle Baptistine's ambition had been to be able to purchase a set
 of drawing-room furniture in yellow Utrecht velvet, stamped with a rose
 pattern, and with mahogany in swan's neck style, with a sofa. But this
 would have cost five hundred francs at least, and in view of the fact that
 she had only been able to lay by forty-two francs and ten sous for this
 purpose in the course of five years, she had ended by renouncing the idea.
 However, who is there who has attained his ideal?

 Nothing is more easy to present to the imagination than the Bishop's
 bedchamber. A glazed door opened on the garden; opposite this was the
 bed,—a hospital bed of iron, with a canopy of green serge; in the shadow
 of the bed, behind a curtain, were the utensils of the toilet, which still
 betrayed the elegant habits of the man of the world: there were two doors,
 one near the chimney, opening into the oratory; the other near the
 bookcase, opening into the dining-room. The bookcase was a large cupboard
 with glass doors filled with books; the chimney was of wood painted to
 represent marble, and habitually without fire. In the chimney stood a pair
 of firedogs of iron, ornamented above with two garlanded vases, and
 flutings which had formerly been silvered with silver leaf, which was a
 sort of episcopal luxury; above the chimney-piece hung a crucifix of
 copper, with the silver worn off, fixed on a background of threadbare
 velvet in a wooden frame from which the gilding had fallen; near the glass
 door a large table with an inkstand, loaded with a confusion of papers and
 with huge volumes; before the table an arm-chair of straw; in front of the
 bed a prie-Dieu, borrowed from the oratory.

 Two portraits in oval frames were fastened to the wall on each side of the
 bed. Small gilt inscriptions on the plain surface of the cloth at the side
 of these figures indicated that the portraits represented, one the Abbé of
 Chaliot, bishop of Saint Claude; the other, the Abbé Tourteau, vicar-
 general of Agde, abbe of Grand-Champ, order of Citeaux, diocese of
 Chartres. When the Bishop succeeded to this apartment, after the hospital
 patients, he had found these portraits there, and had left them. They were
 priests, and probably donors—two reasons for respecting them. All that he
 knew about these two persons was, that they had been appointed by the
 king, the one to his bishopric, the other to his benefice, on the same
 day, the 27th of April, 1785. Madame Magloire having taken the pictures
 down to dust, the Bishop had discovered these particulars written in
 whitish ink on a little square of paper, yellowed by time, and attached to
 the back of the portrait of the Abbé of Grand-Champ with four wafers.

 At his window he had an antique curtain of a coarse woollen stuff, which
 finally became so old, that, in order to avoid the expense of a new one,
 Madame Magloire was forced to take a large seam in the very middle of it.
 This seam took the form of a cross. The Bishop often called attention to
 it: "How delightful that is!" he said.

 All the rooms in the house, without exception, those on the ground floor
 as well as those on the first floor, were white-washed, which is a fashion
 in barracks and hospitals.

 However, in their latter years, Madame Magloire discovered beneath the
 paper which had been washed over, paintings, ornamenting the apartment of
 Mademoiselle Baptistine, as we shall see further on. Before becoming a
 hospital, this house had been the ancient parliament house of the
 Bourgeois. Hence this decoration. The chambers were paved in red bricks,
 which were washed every week, with straw mats in front of all the beds.
 Altogether, this dwelling, which was attended to by the two women, was
 exquisitely clean from top to bottom. This was the sole luxury which the
 Bishop permitted. He said, "That takes nothing from the poor."

 It must be confessed, however, that he still retained from his former
 possessions six silver knives and forks and a soup-ladle, which Madame
 Magloire contemplated every day with delight, as they glistened splendidly
 upon the coarse linen cloth. And since we are now painting the Bishop of
 D—— as he was in reality, we must add that he had said more than once, "I
 find it difficult to renounce eating from silver dishes."

 To this silverware must be added two large candlesticks of massive silver,
 which he had inherited from a great-aunt. These candlesticks held two wax
 candles, and usually figured on the Bishop's chimney-piece. When he had
 any one to dinner, Madame Magloire lighted the two candles and set the
 candlesticks on the table.

 In the Bishop's own chamber, at the head of his bed, there was a small
 cupboard, in which Madame Magloire locked up the six silver knives and
 forks and the big spoon every night. But it is necessary to add, that the
 key was never removed.

 The garden, which had been rather spoiled by the ugly buildings which we
 have mentioned, was composed of four alleys in cross-form, radiating from
 a tank. Another walk made the circuit of the garden, and skirted the white
 wall which enclosed it. These alleys left behind them four square plots
 rimmed with box. In three of these, Madame Magloire cultivated vegetables;
 in the fourth, the Bishop had planted some flowers; here and there stood a
 few fruit-trees. Madame Magloire had once remarked, with a sort of gentle
 malice: "Monseigneur, you who turn everything to account, have,
 nevertheless, one useless plot. It would be better to grow salads there
 than bouquets." "Madame Magloire," retorted the Bishop, "you are mistaken.
 The beautiful is as useful as the useful." He added after a pause, "More
 so, perhaps."

 This plot, consisting of three or four beds, occupied the Bishop almost as
 much as did his books. He liked to pass an hour or two there, trimming,
 hoeing, and making holes here and there in the earth, into which he
 dropped seeds. He was not as hostile to insects as a gardener could have
 wished to see him. Moreover, he made no pretensions to botany; he ignored
 groups and consistency; he made not the slightest effort to decide between
 Tournefort and the natural method; he took part neither with the buds
 against the cotyledons, nor with Jussieu against Linnaeus. He did not
 study plants; he loved flowers. He respected learned men greatly; he
 respected the ignorant still more; and, without ever failing in these two
 respects, he watered his flower-beds every summer evening with a tin
 watering-pot painted green.

 The house had not a single door which could be locked. The door of the
 dining-room, which, as we have said, opened directly on the cathedral
 square, had formerly been ornamented with locks and bolts like the door of
 a prison. The Bishop had had all this ironwork removed, and this door was
 never fastened, either by night or by day, with anything except the latch.
 All that the first passerby had to do at any hour, was to give it a push.
 At first, the two women had been very much tried by this door, which was
 never fastened, but Monsieur de D—— had said to them, "Have bolts put on
 your rooms, if that will please you." They had ended by sharing his
 confidence, or by at least acting as though they shared it. Madame
 Magloire alone had frights from time to time. As for the Bishop, his
 thought can be found explained, or at least indicated, in the three lines
 which he wrote on the margin of a Bible, "This is the shade of difference:
 the door of the physician should never be shut, the door of the priest
 should always be open."

 On another book, entitled Philosophy of the Medical Science, he had
 written this other note: "Am not I a physician like them? I also have my
 patients, and then, too, I have some whom I call my unfortunates."

 Again he wrote: "Do not inquire the name of him who asks a shelter of you.
 The very man who is embarrassed by his name is the one who needs shelter."

 It chanced that a worthy cure, I know not whether it was the cure of
 Couloubroux or the cure of Pompierry, took it into his head to ask him one
 day, probably at the instigation of Madame Magloire, whether Monsieur was
 sure that he was not committing an indiscretion, to a certain extent, in
 leaving his door unfastened day and night, at the mercy of any one who
 should choose to enter, and whether, in short, he did not fear lest some
 misfortune might occur in a house so little guarded. The Bishop touched
 his shoulder, with gentle gravity, and said to him, "Nisi Dominus
 custodierit domum, in vanum vigilant qui custodiunt eam," Unless the Lord
 guard the house, in vain do they watch who guard it.

 Then he spoke of something else.

 He was fond of saying, "There is a bravery of the priest as well as the
 bravery of a colonel of dragoons,—only," he added, "ours must be
 tranquil."

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