Les miserables (Abridged) - Victor Hugo [37]
“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