CHAPTER XII--THE SOLITUDE OF MONSEIGNEUR WELCOME

  A bishop is almost always surrounded by a full squadron of little abbés,just as a general is by a covey of young officers. This is whatthat charming Saint François de Sales calls somewhere "les prêtresblancs-becs," callow priests. Every career has its aspirants, who forma train for those who have attained eminence in it. There is no powerwhich has not its dependents. There is no fortune which has not itscourt. The seekers of the future eddy around the splendid present. Everymetropolis has its staff of officials. Every bishop who possesses theleast influence has about him his patrol of cherubim from the seminary,which goes the round, and maintains good order in the episcopal palace,and mounts guard over monseigneur's smile. To please a bishop isequivalent to getting one's foot in the stirrup for a sub-diaconate.It is necessary to walk one's path discreetly; the apostleship does notdisdain the canonship.

  Just as there are bigwigs elsewhere, there are big mitres in the Church.These are the bishops who stand well at Court, who are rich, wellendowed, skilful, accepted by the world, who know how to pray, no doubt,but who know also how to beg, who feel little scruple at making a wholediocese dance attendance in their person, who are connecting linksbetween the sacristy and diplomacy, who are abbés rather than priests,prelates rather than bishops. Happy those who approach them! Beingpersons of influence, they create a shower about them, upon theassiduous and the favored, and upon all the young men who understandthe art of pleasing, of large parishes, prebends, archidiaconates,chaplaincies, and cathedral posts, while awaiting episcopal honors. Asthey advance themselves, they cause their satellites to progress also;it is a whole solar system on the march. Their radiance casts a gleamof purple over their suite. Their prosperity is crumbled up behindthe scenes, into nice little promotions. The larger the diocese of thepatron, the fatter the curacy for the favorite. And then, there is Rome.A bishop who understands how to become an archbishop, an archbishop whoknows how to become a cardinal, carries you with him as conclavist;you enter a court of papal jurisdiction, you receive the pallium, andbehold! you are an auditor, then a papal chamberlain, then monsignor,and from a Grace to an Eminence is only a step, and between the Eminenceand the Holiness there is but the smoke of a ballot. Every skull-cap maydream of the tiara. The priest is nowadays the only man who can become aking in a regular manner; and what a king! the supreme king. Then what anursery of aspirations is a seminary! How many blushing choristers,how many youthful abbés bear on their heads Perrette's pot of milk!Who knows how easy it is for ambition to call itself vocation? in goodfaith, perchance, and deceiving itself, devotee that it is.

  Monseigneur Bienvenu, poor, humble, retiring, was not accounted amongthe big mitres. This was plain from the complete absence of youngpriests about him. We have seen that he "did not take" in Paris. Not asingle future dreamed of engrafting itself on this solitary old man.Not a single sprouting ambition committed the folly of putting forth itsfoliage in his shadow. His canons and grand-vicars were good old men,rather vulgar like himself, walled up like him in this diocese, withoutexit to a cardinalship, and who resembled their bishop, with thisdifference, that they were finished and he was completed. Theimpossibility of growing great under Monseigneur Bienvenu was so wellunderstood, that no sooner had the young men whom he ordained left theseminary than they got themselves recommended to the archbishops of Aixor of Auch, and went off in a great hurry. For, in short, we repeat it,men wish to be pushed. A saint who dwells in a paroxysm of abnegationis a dangerous neighbor; he might communicate to you, by contagion,an incurable poverty, an anchylosis of the joints, which are useful inadvancement, and in short, more renunciation than you desire; andthis infectious virtue is avoided. Hence the isolation of MonseigneurBienvenu. We live in the midst of a gloomy society. Success; that is thelesson which falls drop by drop from the slope of corruption.

  Be it said in passing, that success is a very hideous thing. Its falseresemblance to merit deceives men. For the masses, success has almostthe same profile as supremacy. Success, that Menæchmus of talent, hasone dupe,--history. Juvenal and Tacitus alone grumble at it. In ourday, a philosophy which is almost official has entered into itsservice, wears the livery of success, and performs the service of itsantechamber. Succeed: theory. Prosperity argues capacity. Win in thelottery, and behold! you are a clever man. He who triumphs is venerated.Be born with a silver spoon in your mouth! everything lies in that. Belucky, and you will have all the rest; be happy, and people will thinkyou great. Outside of five or six immense exceptions, which composethe splendor of a century, contemporary admiration is nothing butshort-sightedness. Gilding is gold. It does no harm to be the firstarrival by pure chance, so long as you do arrive. The common herd is anold Narcissus who adores himself, and who applauds the vulgar herd.That enormous ability by virtue of which one is Moses, Æschylus, Dante,Michael Angelo, or Napoleon, the multitude awards on the spot, and byacclamation, to whomsoever attains his object, in whatsoever it mayconsist. Let a notary transfigure himself into a deputy: let a falseCorneille compose _Tiridate;_ let a eunuch come to possess a harem; leta military Prudhomme accidentally win the decisive battle of an epoch;let an apothecary invent cardboard shoe-soles for the army of theSambre-and-Meuse, and construct for himself, out of this cardboard, soldas leather, four hundred thousand francs of income; let a pork-packerespouse usury, and cause it to bring forth seven or eight millions, ofwhich he is the father and of which it is the mother; let a preacherbecome a bishop by force of his nasal drawl; let the steward of a finefamily be so rich on retiring from service that he is made ministerof finances,--and men call that Genius, just as they call the faceof Mousqueton _Beauty_, and the mien of Claude _Majesty_. With theconstellations of space they confound the stars of the abyss which aremade in the soft mire of the puddle by the feet of ducks.