Les Miserables (abridged) (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (12 page)

And then he changed the subject.

He very often said: “There is a bravery for the priest as well as a bravery for the colonel of dragoons.” “Only,” added he, “ours should be quiet.”

THIS IS THE PROPER PLACE for an incident which we must not omit, for it is one of those which most clearly shows what manner of man the Bishop of D—was.

After the destruction of the band of Gaspard Bès, which had infested the gorges of Ollivolles, one of his lieutenants, Cravatte, took refuge in the mountains. He concealed himself for some time with his bandits, the remnant of the troop of Gaspard Bès, in the county of Nice, then made his way to Piedmont, and suddenly reappeared in France in the neighbourhood of Barcelonnette. He was first seen at Jauziers, then at Tuiles. He concealed himself in the caverns of the Joug de l’ Aigle, from which he made descents upon the hamlets and villages by the ravines of Ubaye and Ubayette.

He even pushed as far as Embrun, and one night broke into the cathedral and stripped the sacristy. His robberies devastated the country. The gendarmes were put upon his trail, but in vain. He always escaped; sometimes by forcible resistance. He was a bold wretch. In the midst of all this terror, the bishop arrived. He was making his visit to Chastelar. The mayor came to see him and urged him to turn back. Cravatte held the mountains as far as Arche and beyond; it would be dangerous even with an escort. It would expose three or four poor gendarmes to useless danger.

“And so,” said the bishop, “I intend to go without an escort.”

“Do not think of such a thing,” exclaimed the mayor.

“I think so much of it, that I absolutely refuse the gendarmes, and I am going to start in an hour.”

“But, monseigneur, the brigands?”

“True,” said the bishop, “I am thinking of that. You are right. I may meet them. They too must need some one to tell them of the goodness of God.”

“Monseigneur, but it is a band! A pack of wolves!”

“Monsieur Mayor, perhaps Jesus has made me the keeper of that very flock. Who knows the ways of providence?”

“Monseigneur, they will rob you.”

“I have nothing.”

“They will kill you.”

“A simple old priest who passes along muttering his prayer? No, no; what good would it do them?”

“Oh, my good sir, suppose you should meet them!”

“I should ask them for alms for my poor.”

“Monseigneur, do not go. In the name of heaven! You are risking your life.”

“Monsieur Mayor,” said the bishop, “that is just it. I am not in the world to care for my life, but for souls.”

He would not be dissuaded. He set out, accompanied only by a child, who offered to go as his guide. His obstinacy was the talk of the country, and all dreaded the result.

He would not take along his sister, or Madame Magloire. He crossed the mountain on a mule, met no one, and arrived safe and sound among his “good friends” the shepherds. He remained there a fortnight, preaching, administering the holy rites, teaching and exhorting. When he was about to leave, he resolved to chant a Te Deum with pontifical ceremonies. He talked with the cure about it. But what could be done? There was no episcopal furniture. They could only place at his disposal a paltry village sacristy with a few old robes of worn-out damask, trimmed with imitation braids.

“No matter,” said the bishop. “Monsieur le cure, at the sermon announce our Te Deum. That will take care of itself.”

All the neighbouring churches were ransacked, but the assembled magnificence of these humble parishes could not have suitably clothed a single cathedral singer.

While they were in this embarrassment, a large chest was brought to the parsonage, and left for the bishop by two unknown horsemen, who immediately rode away. The chest was opened; it contained a cope of cloth of gold, a mitre ornamented with diamonds, an archbishop’s cross, a magnificent crosier, all the pontifical raiment stolen a month before from the treasures of Our Lady of Embrun. In the chest was a paper on which were written these words: “Cravatte to Monseigneur Bienvenu.”

“I said that it would take care of itself,” said the bishop. Then he added with a smile: “To him who is contented with a curé’s surplice, God sends an archbishop’s cope.”

“Monseigneur,” murmured the cure, with a shake of the head and a smile, “God—or the devil.”

The bishop looked steadily upon the cure, and replied with authority: “God!”

When he returned to Chastelar, all along the road, the people came with curiosity to see him. At the parsonage in Chastelar he found Mademoiselle Baptistine and Madame Magloire waiting for him, and he said to his sister, “Well, was I not right? the poor priest went among those poor mountaineers with empty hands; he comes back with hands filled. I went forth placing my trust in God alone; I bring back the treasures of a cathedral.”

In the evening before going to bed he said further: “Have no fear of robbers or murderers. Such dangers are without, and are but petty. We should fear ourselves. Prejudices are the real robbers; vices the real murderers. The great dangers are within us. What matters it what threatens our heads or our purses? Let us think only of what threatens our souls.”

Then turning to his sister: “My sister, a priest should never take any precaution against a neighbour. What his neighbour does, God permits. Let us confine ourselves to prayer to God when we think that danger hangs over us. Let us beseech him, not for ourselves, but that our brother may not fall into crime on our account.”

To sum up, events were rare in his life. We relate those we know of; but usually he spent his life in always doing the same things at the same hours. A month of his year was like an hour of his day.

As to what became of the “treasures” of the Cathedral of Embrun, it would embarrass us to be questioned on that point. There were among them very fine things, and very tempting, and very good to steal for the benefit of the unfortunate. Stolen they had already been by others. Half the work was done; it only remained to change the course of the theft, and to make it turn to the side of the poor. We can say nothing more on the subject. Except that, there was found among the bishop’s papers a rather obscure note, which is possibly connected with this affair, that reads as follows:
“The question is, whether this ought to be returned to the cathedral or to the hospital.
”

A LITTLE WHILE later, the bishop performed an act, which the whole town thought far more perilous than his excursion across the mountains infested by the bandits.

In the country near D—, there was a man who lived alone. This man, to state the startling fact without preface, had been a member of the National Convention.
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His name was G—.

The little circle of D—spoke of the conventionist with a certain sort of horror. A conventionist, think of it; that was in the time when folks thee-and-thoued one another, and said “citizen.” This man came very near being a monster; he had not exactly voted for the execution of the king, but almost; he was half a regicide, and had been a terrible creature altogether. How was it, then, on the return of the legitimate princes, that they had not arraigned this man before the provost court?
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He would not have been beheaded, perhaps, but even if clemency were necessary he might have been banished for life; in fact, an example, etc., etc. Besides, he was an atheist, as all those people are. Babblings of geese against a vulture!

But was this G—a vulture? Yes, if one should judge him by the savageness of his solitude. As he had not voted for the king’s execution, he was not included in the sentence of exile, and could remain in France.

He lived about an hour’s walk from the town, far from any hamlet or road, in a secluded ravine of a very wild valley. It was said he had a sort of resting-place there, a hole, a den. He had no neighbours or even passers-by. Since he had lived there the path which led to the place had become overgrown, and people spoke of it as of the house of a hangman.

From time to time, however, the bishop reflectingly gazed upon the horizon at the spot where a clump of trees indicated the ravine of the aged conventionist, and he would say: “There lives a soul which is alone.” And in the depths of his thought he would add “I owe him a visit.”

But this idea, we must confess, though it appeared natural at first, yet, after a few moments’ reflection, seemed strange, impracticable, and almost repulsive. For at heart he shared the general impression and the conventionist inspired him, he knew not how, with that sentiment which is the fringe of hatred, and which the word “aversion” so well expresses.

However, the shepherd should not recoil from the diseased sheep. Ah! but what a sheep!

The good bishop was perplexed: sometimes he walked in that direction, but he returned.

At last, one day the news was circulated in the town that the young herdsboy who served the conventionist G—in his retreat, had come for a doctor; that the old wretch was dying, that he was becoming paralyzed, and could not live through the night. “Thank God!” added many.

The bishop took his cane, put on his overcoat, because his cassock was badly worn, as we have said, and besides the night wind was evidently rising, and set out.

The sun was setting; it had nearly touched the horizon when the bishop reached the accursed spot. He felt a certain quickening of the pulse as he drew near the den. He strode over a ditch, crossed through a hedge, lifted a pole out of his way, found himself in a dilapidated garden, and after a bold advance across the open ground, suddenly, behind some high brushwood, he discovered the retreat.

It was a low, poverty-stricken hut, small and clean, with a little vine nailed up in front.

Before the door in an old chair on rollers, a peasant’s armchair, there sat a man with white hair, looking with smiling gaze upon the setting sun.

The young herdsboy stood near him, handing him a bowl of milk.

While the bishop was looking, the old man raised his voice.

“Thank you,” he said, “I shall need nothing more;” and his smile changed from the sun to rest upon the boy.

The bishop stepped forward. At the sound of his footsteps the old man turned his head, and his face expressed as much surprise as one can feel after a long life.

“This is the first time since I have lived here,” said he, “that I have had a visitor. Who are you, monsieur?”

“My name is Bienvenu-Myriel,” the bishop replied.

“Bienvenu-Myriel? I have heard that name before. Are you he whom the people call Monseigneur Bienvenu?”

“I am.”

The old man continued half-smiling. “Then you are my bishop?”

“A bit.”

“Come in, monsieur.”

The conventionist extended his hand to the bishop, who did not take it. He only said:

“I am glad to find that I have been misinformed. You do not appear to me very ill.”

“Monsieur,” replied the old man, “I shall soon be better.”

He paused and said:

“I shall be dead in three hours.”

Then he continued:

“I am something of a physician; I know the steps by which death approaches; yesterday my feet only were cold; to-day the cold has crept to my knees, now it has reached the waist; when it touches the heart all will be over. The sunset is lovely, is it not? I had myself wheeled out to get a final look at nature. You can speak to me; that will not tire me. You do well to come to see a man who is dying. It is good that these moments should have witnesses. Every one has his fancy; I should like to live until the dawn, but I know I have scarcely life for three hours. It will be night, but no matter: to end is a very simple thing. One does not need morning for that. So be it; I shall die in the starlight.”

The old man turned towards the herdsboy:

“Little one, go to bed: thou didst watch the other night: thou art weary.”

The child went into the hut.

The old man followed him with his eyes and added, as if speaking to himself: “While he is sleeping, I shall lie: the two slumbers keep fit company.”

The bishop was not as much affected as he might have been: it was not his idea of a godly death; we must tell all for the little inconsistencies of great souls should be mentioned; he who had laughed so heartily at “His Highness,” was still slightly shocked at not being called monseigneur, and was almost tempted to answer “citizen.” He felt a desire to use the brusque familiarity common enough with doctors and priests, but which was not customary with him.

This conventionist after all, this representative of the people, had been a power on the earth; and perhaps for the first time in his life the bishop felt himself in a mood to be severe. The conventionist, however, watched him with a modest cordiality, in which perhaps might have been discerned that humility which is befitting to one so nearly dust unto dust.

The bishop, on his side, although he generally kept himself free from curiosity, which he thought was almost offensive, could not avoid examining the conventionist with an attention for which, as it had not its source in sympathy, his conscience would have condemned him as to any other man; but a conventionist he looked upon as an outlaw, even beyond the law of charity.

G—, with his self-possessed manner, erect figure, and resonant voice, was one of those noble octogenarians who are the marvel of the physiologist. The revolution produced many of these men equal to the epoch: one felt that here was a man who had endured ordeals. Though so near death, he preserved all the appearance of health. His bright glances, his firm accent, and the muscular movements of his shoulders seemed almost sufficient to disconcert death. Azrael, the Mahometan angel of the sepulchre, would have turned back, thinking he had mistaken the door. G—appeared to be dying because he wished to die. There was freedom in his agony; his legs only were paralysed; his feet were cold and dead, but his head lived in full power of life and light. At this solemn moment G—seemed like the king in the oriental tale, flesh above and marble below. The bishop seated himself upon a stone near by. The beginning of their conversation was
ex abrupto: