M. MYRIEL BECOMES MONSEIGNEUR WELCOME.
The Episcopal Palace of D---- adjoined the hospital. It was a spacious,
handsome mansion, built at the beginning of the last century by
Monseigneur Henri Puget, Doctor in Theology of the Faculty of Paris,
and Abbé of Simore, who was Bishop of D---- in 1712. This palace was
a true seigneurial residence: everything had a noble air in it,--the
episcopal apartments, the reception rooms, the bed-rooms, the court
of honor, which was very wide, with arcades after the old Florentine
fashion, and the gardens planted with magnificent trees. In the
dining-room, a long and superb gallery on the ground floor, Monseigneur
Henri Puget had given a state dinner on July 29, 1714, to Messeigneurs
Charles Brûlart de Genlis, Archbishop, Prince of Embrun; Antoine de
Mesgrigny, Capuchin and Bishop of Grasse; Philip de Vendôme, Grand
Prior of France and Abbé of St. Honoré de Lérins; François de Berton
de Grillon, Baron and Bishop of Vence; Cæsar de Sabran de Forcalquier,
Bishop and Lord of Glandève, and Jean Soanen, priest of the oratory,
preacher in ordinary to the King, and Bishop and Lord of Senez. The
portraits of these seven reverend personages decorated the dining-room,
and the memorable date, JULY 29, 1714, was engraved in golden letters
on a white marble tablet.
The hospital was a small, single-storeyed house with a little garden.
Three days after his arrival the Bishop visited it, and when his visit
was over asked the Director to be kind enough to come to his house.
"How many patients have you at this moment?" he asked.
"Twenty-six, Monseigneur."
"The number I counted," said the Bishop.
"The beds are very close together," the Director continued.
"I noticed it."
"The wards are only bed-rooms, and difficult to ventilate."
"I thought so."
"And then, when the sun shines, the garden is very small for the
convalescents."
"I said so to myself."
"During epidemics, and we have had the typhus this year, and had
miliary fever two years ago, we have as many as one hundred patients,
and do not know what to do with them."
"That thought occurred to me."
"What would you have, Monseigneur!" the Director said, "we must put up
with it."
This conversation had taken place in the dining-hall on the ground
floor. The Bishop was silent for a moment, and then turned smartly to
the Director.
"How many beds," he asked him, "do you think that this room alone would
hold?"
"Monseigneur's dining-room?" the stupefied Director asked.
The Bishop looked round the room, and seemed to be estimating its
capacity.
"It would hold twenty beds," he said, as if speaking to himself, and
then, raising his voice, he added,--
"Come, Director, I will tell you what it is. There is evidently a
mistake. You have twenty-six persons in five or six small rooms. There
are only three of us, and we have room for fifty. There is a mistake,
I repeat; you have my house and I have yours. Restore me mine; this is
yours."
The next day the twenty-six poor patients were installed in the
Bishop's palace, and the Bishop was in the hospital. M. Myriel had no
property, as his family had been ruined by the Revolution. His sister
had an annuity of 500 francs, which had sufficed at the curacy for
personal expenses. M. Myriel, as Bishop, received from the State 15,000
francs a year. On the same day that he removed to the hospital, M.
Myriel settled the employment of that sum once for all in the following
way. We copy here a note in his own handwriting.
NOTE FOR REGULATING MY HOUSEHOLD EXPENSES.
For the little seminary 1500 francs.
Congregation of the mission 100 --
For the lazarists of Montdidier 100 --
Seminary of foreign missions at Paris 200 --
Congregation of Saint Esprit 150 --
Religious establishments in the Holy Land 100 --
Societies of maternal charity 300 --
Additional for the one at Aries 50 francs
Works for improvement of prisons 400 --
Relief and deliverance of prisoners 500 --
For liberation of fathers of family imprisoned for debt 1000 --
Addition to the salary of poor schoolmasters in
the diocese 2000 --
Distribution of grain in the Upper Alps 100 --
Ladies' Society for gratuitous instruction of poor
girls at D----, Manosque, and Sisteron 1500 --
For the poor 6000 --
Personal expenses 1000 --
Total 15,000 --
During the whole time he held the see of D----, M. Myriel made no
change in this arrangement. He called this, as we see, regulating his
household expenses. The arrangement was accepted with a smile by Mlle.
Baptistine, for that sainted woman regarded M. Myriel at once as her
brother and her bishop; her friend according to nature, her superior
according to the Church. She loved and venerated him in the simplest
way. When he spoke she bowed, when he acted she assented. The servant
alone, Madame Magloire, murmured a little. The Bishop, it will have
been noticed, only reserved 1000 francs, and on this sum, with Mlle.
Baptistine's pension, these two old women and old man lived. And when
a village curé came to D-, the Bishop managed to regale him, thanks
to the strict economy of Madame Magloire and the sensible management
of Mlle. Baptistine. One day, when he had been at D---- about three
months, the Bishop said,--
"For all that, I am dreadfully pressed."
"I should think so," exclaimed Madame Magloire. "Monseigneur has not
even claimed the allowance which the department is bound to pay for
keeping up his carriage in town, and for his visitations. That was the
custom with bishops in other times."
"True," said the Bishop, "you are right, Madame Magloire." He made
his claim, and shortly after the Council-general, taking the demand
into consideration, voted him the annual sum of 3000 francs, under the
heading, "Allowance to the Bishop for maintenance of carriage, posting
charges, and outlay in visitations."
This caused an uproar among the cits of the town, and on this occasion
a Senator of the Empire, ex-member of the Council of the Five Hundred,
favourable to the 18th Brumaire, and holding a magnificent appointment
near D----, wrote to the Minister of Worship, M. Bigot de Préameneu,
a short, angry, and confidential letter, from which we extract these
authentic lines:
"----Maintenance of carriage! what can he want one for in a town of
less than 4000 inhabitants? Visitation charges! in the first place,
what is the good of visitations at all? and, secondly, how can he
travel post in this mountainous country, where there are no roads,
and people must travel on horseback? The very bridge over the Durance
at Château Arnoux can hardly bear the weight of a cart drawn by oxen.
These priests are all the same, greedy and avaricious! This one played
the good apostle when he arrived, but now he is like the rest, and must
have his carriage and post-chaise. He wishes to be as luxurious as the
old bishops. Oh this priesthood! My Lord, matters will never go on well
till the Emperor has delivered us from the skullcaps. Down with the
Pope! (there was a quarrel at the time with Rome). As for me, I am for
Cæsar and Cæsar alone, etc., etc., etc."
The affair, on the other hand, greatly gladdened Madame Magloire.
"Come," she said to Mlle. Baptistine, "Monseigneur began with others,
but he was obliged to finish with himself. He has regulated all his
charities, and here are 3000 francs for us at last!"
The same evening the Bishop wrote, and gave his sister, a note
conceived thus:--
CARRIAGE AND TRAVELLING EXPENSES.
To provide the hospital patients with broth 1500 francs.
The society of maternal charity at Aix 250 --
The society of maternal charity at Draguignan 250 --
For foundlings 500 --
For orphans 500 --
Total 3000 --
Such was M. Myriel's budget. As for the accidental receipts, such
as fees for bans, christenings, consecrating churches or chapels,
marriages, &c., the Bishop collected them from the rich with so much
the more eagerness because he distributed them to the poor. In a short
time the monetary offerings became augmented. Those who have and those
who want tapped at M. Myriel's door, the last coming to seek the alms
which the former had just deposited. The Bishop in less than a year
became the treasurer of all charity and the cashier of all distress.
Considerable sums passed through his hands, but nothing could induce
him to make any change in his mode of life, or add the slightest
superfluity to his expenditure.
Far from it, as there is always more wretchedness at the bottom than
paternity above, all was given, so to speak, before being received;
it was like water on dry ground: however much he might receive he had
never a farthing. At such times he stripped himself. It being the
custom for the bishops to place their Christian names at the head of
their mandates and pastoral letters, the poor people of the country
had selected the one among them which conveyed a meaning, and called
him Monseigneur Welcome (Bienvenu). We will do like them, and call him
so when occasion serves. Moreover, the name pleased him. "I like that
name," he would say. "The Welcome corrects the Monseigneur."
We do not assert that the portrait we are here drawing is probably as
far as fiction goes: we confine ourselves to saying that it bears a
likeness to the reality.