Les Misérables, v. 1/5: Fantine
Page 3
CHAPTER I.
M. MYRIEL.
In 1815 M. Charles Fran?ois Bienvenu Myriel was Bishop of D----. Hewas a man of about seventy-five years of age, and had held the see ofD---- since 1806. Although the following details in no way affect ournarrative, it may not be useless to quote the rumors that were currentabout him at the moment when he came to the diocese, for what is saidof men, whether it be true or false, often occupies as much space intheir life, and especially in their destiny, as what they do. M. Myrielwas the son of a councillor of the Aix Parliament. It was said thathis father, who intended that he should be his successor, married himat the age of eighteen or twenty, according to a not uncommon customin parliamentary families. Charles Myriel, in spite of this marriage(so people said), had been the cause of much tattle. He was wellbuilt, though of short stature, elegant, graceful, and witty; and theearlier part of his life was devoted to the world and to gallantry. TheRevolution came, events hurried on, and the parliamentary families,decimated and hunted down, became dispersed. M. Charles Myrielemigrated to Italy in the early part of the Revolution, and his wife,who had been long suffering from a chest complaint, died there, leavingno children. What next took place in M. Myriel's destiny? Did theoverthrow of the old French society, the fall of his own family, andthe tragic spectacles of '93, more frightful perhaps to the emigr?s whosaw them from a distance with the magnifying power of terror, causeideas of renunciation and solitude to germinate in him? Was he, in themidst of one of the distractions and affections which occupied hislife, suddenly assailed by one of those mysterious and terrible blowswhich often prostrate, by striking at his heart, a man whom publiccatastrophes could not overthrow by attacking him in his existence andhis fortune? No one could have answered these questions; all that wasknown was that when he returned from Italy he was a priest.
In 1804 M. Myriel was Cur? of B---- (Brignolles). He was already aged,and lived in great retirement. Towards the period of the coronation asmall matter connected with his curacy, no one remembers what, took himto Paris. Among other powerful persons he applied to Cardinal Feschon behalf of his parishioners. One day, when the Emperor was paying avisit to his uncle, the worthy cur?, who was waiting in the ante-room,saw his Majesty pass. Napoleon, noticing this old man regard him withsome degree of curiosity, turned and asked sharply,--
"Who is this good man who is staring at me?"
"Sire," M. Myriel said, "you are looking at a good man and I at a greatman. We may both profit by it."
The Emperor, on the same evening, asked the Cardinal the cur?'s name,and some time after M. Myriel, to his great surprise, learned that hewas nominated Bishop of D----. What truth, by the way, was there in thestories about M. Myriel's early life? No one knew, for few persons hadbeen acquainted with his family before the Revolution. M. Myriel wasfated to undergo the lot of every new comer to a little town, wherethere are many mouths that speak, and but few heads that think. He wasobliged to undergo it, though he was bishop, and because he was bishop.But, after all, the stories in which his name was mingled were onlystories, rumors, words, remarks, less than words, mere _palabres_, touse a term borrowed from the energetic language of the South. Whateverthey might be, after ten years of episcopacy and residence at D----,all this gossip, which at the outset affords matter of conversation forlittle towns and little people, had fallen into deep oblivion. No onewould have dared to speak of it, no one have dared to remember it.
M. Myriel had arrived at D----, accompanied by an old maid, Mlle.Baptistine, who was his sister, and ten years younger than himself.Their only servant was a female of the same age as Mademoiselle,of the name of Madame Magloire, who, after having been the servantof M. le Cur?, now assumed the double title of waiting-woman toMademoiselle, and house-keeper to Monseigneur. Mlle. Baptistine wasa tall, pale, slim, gentle person; she realized the ideal of whatthe word "respectable" expresses, for it seems necessary for a womanto be a mother in order to be venerable. She had never been pretty,but her whole life, which had been but a succession of pious works,had eventually cast over her a species of whiteness and brightness,and in growing older she had acquired what may be called the beautyof goodness. What had been thinness in her youth had become in hermaturity transparency, and through this transparency the angel could beseen. She seemed to be a shadow, there was hardly enough body for a sexto exist; she was a little quantity of matter containing a light--anexcuse for a soul to remain upon the earth. Madame Magloire was a fair,plump, busy little body, always short of breath,--in the first place,through her activity, and, secondly, in consequence of an asthma.
On his arrival M. Myriel was installed in his episcopal palace with allthe honors allotted by the imperial decrees which classify the Bishopimmediately after a Major-General. The Mayor and the President paid himthe first visit, and he on his side paid the first visit to the Generaland the Prefect. When the installation was ended the town waited to seeits bishop at work.