Les Misérables, v. 1/5: Fantine

In 1815 M. Charles François Bienvenu Myriel was Bishop of D----. He
was a man of about seventy-five years of age, and had held the see of
D---- since 1806. Although the following details in no way affect our
narrative, it may not be useless to quote the rumors that were current
about him at the moment when he came to the diocese, for what is said
of men, whether it be true or false, often occupies as much space in
their life, and especially in their destiny, as what they do. M. Myriel
was the son of a councillor of the Aix Parliament. It was said that
his father, who intended that he should be his successor, married him
at the age of eighteen or twenty, according to a not uncommon custom
in parliamentary families. Charles Myriel, in spite of this marriage
(so people said), had been the cause of much tattle. He was well
built, though of short stature, elegant, graceful, and witty; and the
earlier part of his life was devoted to the world and to gallantry. The
Revolution came, events hurried on, and the parliamentary families,
decimated and hunted down, became dispersed. M. Charles Myriel
emigrated to Italy in the early part of the Revolution, and his wife,
who had been long suffering from a chest complaint, died there, leaving
no children. What next took place in M. Myriel's destiny? Did the
overthrow of the old French society, the fall of his own family, and
the tragic spectacles of '93, more frightful perhaps to the emigrés who
saw them from a distance with the magnifying power of terror, cause
ideas of renunciation and solitude to germinate in him? Was he, in the
midst of one of the distractions and affections which occupied his
life, suddenly assailed by one of those mysterious and terrible blows
which often prostrate, by striking at his heart, a man whom public
catastrophes could not overthrow by attacking him in his existence and
his fortune? No one could have answered these questions; all that was
known was that when he returned from Italy he was a priest.
In 1804 M. Myriel was Curé of B---- (Brignolles). He was already aged,
and lived in great retirement. Towards the period of the coronation a

small matter connected with his curacy, no one remembers what, took him
to Paris. Among other powerful persons he applied to Cardinal Fesch
on behalf of his parishioners. One day, when the Emperor was paying a
visit to his uncle, the worthy curé, who was waiting in the ante-room,
saw his Majesty pass. Napoleon, noticing this old man regard him with
some 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 great
man. We may both profit by it."
The Emperor, on the same evening, asked the Cardinal the curé's name,
and some time after M. Myriel, to his great surprise, learned that he
was nominated Bishop of D----. What truth, by the way, was there in the
stories about M. Myriel's early life? No one knew, for few persons had
been acquainted with his family before the Revolution. M. Myriel was
fated to undergo the lot of every new comer to a little town, where
there are many mouths that speak, and but few heads that think. He was
obliged to undergo it, though he was bishop, and because he was bishop.
But, after all, the stories in which his name was mingled were only
stories, rumors, words, remarks, less than words, mere palabres, to
use a term borrowed from the energetic language of the South. Whatever
they might be, after ten years of episcopacy and residence at D----,
all this gossip, which at the outset affords matter of conversation for
little towns and little people, had fallen into deep oblivion. No one
would 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 servant
of M. le Curé, now assumed the double title of waiting-woman to
Mademoiselle, and house-keeper to Monseigneur. Mlle. Baptistine was
a tall, pale, slim, gentle person; she realized the ideal of what
the word "respectable" expresses, for it seems necessary for a woman

to 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 beauty
of goodness. What had been thinness in her youth had become in her
maturity transparency, and through this transparency the angel could be
seen. She seemed to be a shadow, there was hardly enough body for a sex
to exist; she was a little quantity of matter containing a light--an
excuse for a soul to remain on 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 all
the honors allotted by the imperial decrees which classify the Bishop
immediately after a Major-General. The Mayor and the President paid him
the first visit, and he on his side paid the first visit to the General
and the Prefect. When the installation was ended the town waited to see
its bishop at work.

M. MYRIEL BECOMES MONSEIGNEUR WELCOME
The Episcopal Palace of D---- adjoined the hospital. It was a spacious,
handsome mansion, built at the beginning of the last century by
Monseigneur Henri Puget, Doctor in Theology of the Faculty of Paris,
and Abbé of Simore, who was Bishop of D---- in 1712. This palace was
a true seigneurial residence: everything had a noble air in it,--the
episcopal apartments, the reception rooms, the bed-rooms, the court
of honor, which was very wide, with arcades after the old Florentine
fashion, and the gardens planted with magnificent trees. In the
dining-room, a long and superb gallery on the ground floor, Monseigneur
Henri Puget had given a state dinner on July 29, 1714, to Messeigneurs
Charles Brûlart de Genlis, Archbishop, Prince of Embrun; Antoine de
Mesgrigny, Capuchin and Bishop of Grasse; Philip de Vendôme, Grand
Prior of France and Abbé of St. Honoré de Lérins; François de Berton
de Grillon, Baron and Bishop of Vence; Cæsar de Sabran de Forcalquier,
Bishop and Lord of Glandève, and Jean Soanen, priest of the oratory,
preacher in ordinary to the King, and Bishop and Lord of Senez. The
portraits of these seven reverend personages decorated the dining-room,
and the memorable date, JULY 29, 1714, was engraved in golden letters
on a white marble tablet.
The hospital was a small, single-storeyed house with a little garden.
Three days after his arrival the Bishop visited it, and when his visit
was over asked the Director to be kind enough to come to his house.
"How many patients have you at this moment?" he asked.
"Twenty-six, Monseigneur."
"The number I counted," said the Bishop.
"The beds are very close together," the Director continued.
"I noticed it."
"The wards are only bed-rooms, and difficult to ventilate."
"I thought so."
"And then, when the sun shines, the garden is very small for the
convalescents."
"I said so to myself."
"During epidemics, and we have had the typhus this year, and had
miliary fever two years ago, we have as many as one hundred patients,
and do not know what to do with them."
"That thought occurred to me."
"What would you have, Monseigneur!" the Director said, "we must put up
with it."

This conversation had taken place in the dining-hall on the ground
floor. The Bishop was silent for a moment, and then turned smartly to
the Director.
"How many beds," he asked him, "do you think that this room alone would
hold?"
"Monseigneur's dining-room?" the stupefied Director asked.
The Bishop looked round the room, and seemed to be estimating its
capacity.
"It would hold twenty beds," he said, as if speaking to himself, and
then, raising his voice, he added,--
"Come, Director, I will tell you what it is. There is evidently a
mistake. You have twenty-six persons in five or six small rooms. There
are only three of us, and we have room for fifty. There is a mistake,
I repeat; you have my house and I have yours. Restore me mine; this is
yours."
The next day the twenty-six poor patients were installed in the
Bishop's palace, and the Bishop was in the hospital. M. Myriel had no
property, as his family had been ruined by the Revolution. His sister
had an annuity of 500 francs, which had sufficed at the curacy for
personal expenses. M. Myriel, as Bishop, received from the State 15,000
francs a year. On the same day that he removed to the hospital, M.
Myriel settled the employment of that sum once for all in the following
way. We copy here a note in his own handwriting.
NOTE FOR REGULATING MY HOUSEHOLD EXPENSES
For the little seminary 1500 francs.
Congregation of the mission 100 --
For the lazarists of Montdidier 100 --
Seminary of foreign missions at Paris 200 --
Congregation of Saint Esprit 150 --
Religious establishments in the Holy Land 100 --
Societies of maternal charity 300 --
Additional for the one at Aries 50 francs
Works for improvement of prisons 400 --
Relief and deliverance of prisoners 500 --
For liberation of fathers of family imprisoned for debt 1000 --
Addition to the salary of poor schoolmasters in
the diocese 2000 --
Distribution of grain in the Upper Alps 100 --
Ladies' Society for gratuitous instruction of poor
girls at D----, Manosque, and Sisteron 1500 --
For the poor 6000 --
Personal expenses 1000 --
Total 15,000 --
During the whole time he held the see of D----, M. Myriel made no

change in this arrangement. He called this, as we see, regulating his
household expenses. The arrangement was accepted with a smile by Mlle.
Baptistine, for that sainted woman regarded M. Myriel at once as her
brother and her bishop; her friend according to nature, her superior
according to the Church. She loved and venerated him in the simplest
way. When he spoke she bowed, when he acted she assented. The servant
alone, Madame Magloire, murmured a little. The Bishop, it will have
been noticed, only reserved 1000 francs, and on this sum, with Mlle.
Baptistine's pension, these two old women and old man lived. And when
a village curé came to D-, the Bishop managed to regale him, thanks
to the strict economy of Madame Magloire and the sensible management
of Mlle. Baptistine. One day, when he had been at D---- about three
months, the Bishop said,--
"For all that, I am dreadfully pressed."
"I should think so," exclaimed Madame Magloire. "Monseigneur has not
even claimed the allowance which the department is bound to pay for
keeping up his carriage in town, and for his visitations. That was the
custom with bishops in other times."
"True," said the Bishop, "you are right, Madame Magloire." He made
his claim, and shortly after the Council-general, taking the demand
into consideration, voted him the annual sum of 3000 francs, under the
heading, "Allowance to the Bishop for maintenance of carriage, posting
charges, and outlay in visitations."
This caused an uproar among the cits of the town, and on this occasion
a Senator of the Empire, ex-member of the Council of the Five Hundred,
favourable to the 18th Brumaire, and holding a magnificent appointment
near D----, wrote to the Minister of Worship, M. Bigot de Préameneu,
a short, angry, and confidential letter, from which we extract these
authentic lines:
"----Maintenance of carriage! what can he want one for in a town of
less than 4000 inhabitants? Visitation charges! in the first place,
what is the good of visitations at all? and, secondly, how can he
travel post in this mountainous country, where there are no roads,
and people must travel on horseback? The very bridge over the Durance

at Château Arnoux can hardly bear the weight of a cart drawn by oxen.
These priests are all the same, greedy and avaricious! This one played
the good apostle when he arrived, but now he is like the rest, and must
have his carriage and post-chaise. He wishes to be as luxurious as the
old bishops. Oh this priesthood! My Lord, matters will never go on well
till the Emperor has delivered us from the skullcaps. Down with the
Pope! (there was a quarrel at the time with Rome). As for me, I am for
Cæsar and Cæsar alone, etc., etc., etc."
The affair, on the other hand, greatly gladdened Madame Magloire.
"Come," she said to Mlle. Baptistine, "Monseigneur began with others,
but he was obliged to finish with himself. He has regulated all his
charities, and here are 3000 francs for us at last!"
The same evening the Bishop wrote, and gave his sister, a note
conceived thus:--
CARRIAGE AND TRAVELLING EXPENSES
To provide the hospital patients with broth 1500 francs.
The society of maternal charity at Aix 250 --
The society of maternal charity at Draguignan 250 --
For foundlings 500 --
For orphans 500 --
Total 3000 --
Such was M. Myriel's budget. As for the accidental receipts, such
as fees for bans, christenings, consecrating churches or chapels,
marriages, &c., the Bishop collected them from the rich with so much
the more eagerness because he distributed them to the poor. In a short
time the monetary offerings became augmented. Those who have and those
who want tapped at M. Myriel's door, the last coming to seek the alms
which the former had just deposited. The Bishop in less than a year
became the treasurer of all charity and the cashier of all distress.
Considerable sums passed through his hands, but nothing could induce
him to make any change in his mode of life, or add the slightest
superfluity to his expenditure.
Far from it, as there is always more wretchedness at the bottom than
paternity above, all was given, so to speak, before being received;
it was like water on dry ground: however much he might receive he had
never a farthing. At such times he stripped himself. It being the
custom for the bishops to place their Christian names at the head of

their mandates and pastoral letters, the poor people of the country
had selected the one among them which conveyed a meaning, and called
him Monseigneur Welcome (Bienvenu). We will do like them, and call him
so when occasion serves. Moreover, the name pleased him. "I like that
name," he would say. "The Welcome corrects the Monseigneur."
We do not assert that the portrait we are here drawing is probably as
far as fiction goes: we confine ourselves to saying that it bears a
likeness to the reality.