Chapter 2 - Page 2

dining-room?" exclaimed the stupefied director.

The Bishop cast a glance round the apartment, and seemed to be taking measures and calculations with his eyes.

"It would hold full twenty beds," said he, as though speaking to himself. Then, raising his voice:--

"Hold, Monsieur the director of the hospital, I will tell you something. There is evidently a mistake here. There are thirty-six of you, in five or six small rooms. There are three of us here, and we have room for sixty. There is some mistake, I tell you; you have my house, and I have yours. Give me back my house; you are at home here."

On the following day the thirty-six patients were installed in the Bishop's palace, and the Bishop was settled in the hospital.

M. Myriel had no property, his family having been ruined by the Revolution. His sister was in receipt of a yearly income of five hundred francs, which sufficed for her personal wants at the vicarage. M. Myriel received from the State, in his quality of bishop, a salary of fifteen thousand francs. On the very day when he took up his abode in the hospital, M. Myriel settled on the disposition of this sum once for all, in the following manner. We transcribe here a note made by his own hand:--

NOTE ON THE REGULATION OF MY HOUSEHOLD EXPENSES.

For the little seminary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,500 livres Society of the mission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 " For the Lazarists of Montdidier . . . . . . . . . . 100 " Seminary for foreign missions in Paris . . . . . . 200 " Congregation of the Holy Spirit . . . . . . . . . . 150 " Religious establishments of the Holy Land . . . . . 100 " Charitable maternity societies . . . . . . . . . . 300 " Extra, for that of Arles . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 " Work for the amelioration of prisons . . . . . . . 400 " Work for the relief and delivery of prisoners . . . 500 " To liberate fathers of families incarcerated for debt 1,000 " Addition to the salary of the poor teachers of the diocese . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2,000 " Public granary of the Hautes-Alpes . . . . . . . . 100 " Congregation of the ladies of D----, of Manosque, and of Sisteron, for the gratuitous instruction of poor girls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,500 " For the poor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6,000 " My personal expenses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,000 " ------ Total . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15,000 "

M. Myriel made no change in this arrangement during the entire period that he occupied the see of D---- As has been seen, he called it regulating his household expenses.

This arrangement was accepted with absolute submission by Mademoiselle Baptistine. This holy woman regarded Monseigneur of D---- as at one and the same time her brother and her bishop, her friend according to the flesh and her superior according to the Church. She simply loved and venerated him. When he spoke, she bowed;