CHAPTER XI--A RESTRICTION

  We should incur a great risk of deceiving ourselves, were we to concludefrom this that Monseigneur Welcome was "a philosophical bishop," or a"patriotic curé." His meeting, which may almost be designated as hisunion, with conventionary G----, left behind it in his mind a sort ofastonishment, which rendered him still more gentle. That is all.

  Although Monseigneur Bienvenu was far from being a politician, this is,perhaps, the place to indicate very briefly what his attitude was in theevents of that epoch, supposing that Monseigneur Bienvenu ever dreamedof having an attitude.

  Let us, then, go back a few years.

  Some time after the elevation of M. Myriel to the episcopate, theEmperor had made him a baron of the Empire, in company with many otherbishops. The arrest of the Pope took place, as every one knows, on thenight of the 5th to the 6th of July, 1809; on this occasion, M. Myrielwas summoned by Napoleon to the synod of the bishops of France and Italyconvened at Paris. This synod was held at Notre-Dame, and assembledfor the first time on the 15th of June, 1811, under the presidencyof Cardinal Fesch. M. Myriel was one of the ninety-five bishops whoattended it. But he was present only at one sitting and at three or fourprivate conferences. Bishop of a mountain diocese, living so very closeto nature, in rusticity and deprivation, it appeared that he importedamong these eminent personages, ideas which altered the temperature ofthe assembly. He very soon returned to D---- He was interrogated as tothis speedy return, and he replied: _"I embarrassed them. The outsideair penetrated to them through me. I produced on them the effect of anopen door."_

  On another occasion he said, _"What would you have? Those gentlemen areprinces. I am only a poor peasant bishop."_

  The fact is that he displeased them. Among other strange things, it issaid that he chanced to remark one evening, when he found himself atthe house of one of his most notable colleagues: "What beautiful clocks!What beautiful carpets! What beautiful liveries! They must be a greattrouble. I would not have all those superfluities, crying incessantlyin my ears: 'There are people who are hungry! There are people who arecold! There are poor people! There are poor people!'"

  Let us remark, by the way, that the hatred of luxury is not anintelligent hatred. This hatred would involve the hatred of the arts.Nevertheless, in churchmen, luxury is wrong, except in connection withrepresentations and ceremonies. It seems to reveal habits which havevery little that is charitable about them. An opulent priest is acontradiction. The priest must keep close to the poor. Now, can one comein contact incessantly night and day with all this distress, all thesemisfortunes, and this poverty, without having about one's own person alittle of that misery, like the dust of labor? Is it possible to imaginea man near a brazier who is not warm? Can one imagine a workman who isworking near a furnace, and who has neither a singed hair, nor blackenednails, nor a drop of sweat, nor a speck of ashes on his face? The firstproof of charity in the priest, in the bishop especially, is poverty.

  This is, no doubt, what the Bishop of D---- thought.

  It must not be supposed, however, that he shared what we call the "ideasof the century" on certain delicate points. He took very little partin the theological quarrels of the moment, and maintained silence onquestions in which Church and State were implicated; but if he hadbeen strongly pressed, it seems that he would have been found to be anultramontane rather than a gallican. Since we are making a portrait, andsince we do not wish to conceal anything, we are forced to add that hewas glacial towards Napoleon in his decline. Beginning with 1813, hegave in his adherence to or applauded all hostile manifestations. Herefused to see him, as he passed through on his return from the islandof Elba, and he abstained from ordering public prayers for the Emperorin his diocese during the Hundred Days.

  Besides his sister, Mademoiselle Baptistine, he had two brothers, one ageneral, the other a prefect. He wrote to both with tolerable frequency.He was harsh for a time towards the former, because, holding a commandin Provence at the epoch of the disembarkation at Cannes, the generalhad put himself at the head of twelve hundred men and had pursued theEmperor as though the latter had been a person whom one is desirousof allowing to escape. His correspondence with the other brother, theex-prefect, a fine, worthy man who lived in retirement at Paris, RueCassette, remained more affectionate.

  Thus Monseigneur Bienvenu also had his hour of party spirit, his hourof bitterness, his cloud. The shadow of the passions of the momenttraversed this grand and gentle spirit occupied with eternal things.Certainly, such a man would have done well not to entertain anypolitical opinions. Let there be no mistake as to our meaning: we arenot confounding what is called "political opinions" with the grandaspiration for progress, with the sublime faith, patriotic, democratic,humane, which in our day should be the very foundation of every generousintellect. Without going deeply into questions which are only indirectlyconnected with the subject of this book, we will simply say this: Itwould have been well if Monseigneur Bienvenu had not been a Royalist,and if his glance had never been, for a single instant, turned away fromthat serene contemplation in which is distinctly discernible, above thefictions and the hatreds of this world, above the stormy vicissitudes ofhuman things, the beaming of those three pure radiances, truth, justice,and charity.

  While admitting that it was not for a political office that God createdMonseigneur Welcome, we should have understood and admired his protestin the name of right and liberty, his proud opposition, his just butperilous resistance to the all-powerful Napoleon. But that which pleasesus in people who are rising pleases us less in the case of people whoare falling. We only love the fray so long as there is danger, and inany case, the combatants of the first hour have alone the right to bethe exterminators of the last. He who has not been a stubborn accuser inprosperity should hold his peace in the face of ruin. The denunciator ofsuccess is the only legitimate executioner of the fall. As for us, whenProvidence intervenes and strikes, we let it work. 1812 commenced todisarm us. In 1813 the cowardly breach of silence of that taciturnlegislative body, emboldened by catastrophe, possessed only traits whicharoused indignation. And it was a crime to applaud, in 1814, in thepresence of those marshals who betrayed; in the presence of that senatewhich passed from one dunghill to another, insulting after havingdeified; in the presence of that idolatry which was loosing its footingand spitting on its idol,--it was a duty to turn aside the head. In1815, when the supreme disasters filled the air, when France was seizedwith a shiver at their sinister approach, when Waterloo could be dimlydiscerned opening before Napoleon, the mournful acclamation of the armyand the people to the condemned of destiny had nothing laughable in it,and, after making all allowance for the despot, a heart like that ofthe Bishop of D----, ought not perhaps to have failed to recognize theaugust and touching features presented by the embrace of a great nationand a great man on the brink of the abyss.

  With this exception, he was in all things just, true, equitable,intelligent, humble and dignified, beneficent and kindly, which is onlyanother sort of benevolence. He was a priest, a sage, and a man. It mustbe admitted, that even in the political views with which we have justreproached him, and which we are disposed to judge almost with severity,he was tolerant and easy, more so, perhaps, than we who are speakinghere. The porter of the town-hall had been placed there by the Emperor.He was an old non-commissioned officer of the old guard, a member of theLegion of Honor at Austerlitz, as much of a Bonapartist as the eagle.This poor fellow occasionally let slip inconsiderate remarks, which thelaw then stigmatized as _seditious speeches_. After the imperial profiledisappeared from the Legion of Honor, he never dressed himself in hisregimentals, as he said, so that he should not be obliged to wear hiscross. He had himself devoutly removed the imperial effigy from thecross which Napoleon had given him; this made a hole, and he would notput anything in its place. _"I will die,"_ he said, _"rather than wearthe three frogs upon my heart!"_ He liked to scoff aloud at Louis XVIII."The gouty old creature in English gaiters!" he said; _"let him takehimself off to Prussia with that queue of his."_ He was happy to combinein the same imprecation the two things which he most detested, Prussiaand England. He did it so often that he lost his place. There he was,turned out of the house, with his wife and children, and without bread.The Bishop sent for him, reproved him gently, and appointed him beadlein the cathedral.

  In the course of nine years Monseigneur Bienvenu had, by dint of holydeeds and gentle manners, filled the town of D----with a sort oftender and filial reverence. Even his conduct towards Napoleon had beenaccepted and tacitly pardoned, as it were, by the people, the good andweakly flock who adored their emperor, but loved their bishop.