Editing Volume 1/Book 1/Chapter 5

Les Misérables, Volume 1: Fantine, Book 1: A Just Man, Chapter 5: Monseigneur Bienvenu made his Cassocks last too long

==General notes on this chapter==

==French text==

La vie int&eacute;rieure de M. Myriel &eacute;tait pleine des m&ecirc;mes pens&eacute;es que sa vie publique. Pour qui e&ucirc;t pu la voir de pr&egrave;s, c'e&ucirc;t &eacute;t&eacute; un spectacle grave et charmant que cette pauvret&eacute; volontaire dans laquelle vivait M. l'&eacute;v&ecirc;que de Digne.
 
Comme tous les vieillards et comme la plupart des penseurs, il dormait peu. Ce court sommeil &eacute;tait profond. Le matin il se recueillait pendant une heure, puis il disait sa messe, soit &agrave; la cath&eacute;drale, soit dans son oratoire. Sa messe dite, il d&eacute;jeunait d'un pain de seigle tremp&eacute; dans le lait de ses vaches. Puis il travaillait.
 
Un &eacute;v&ecirc;que est un homme fort occup&eacute;; il faut qu'il re&ccedil;oive tous les jours le secr&eacute;taire de l'&eacute;v&ecirc;ch&eacute;, qui est d'ordinaire un chanoine, presque tous les jours ses grands vicaires. Il a des congr&eacute;gations &agrave; contr&ocirc;ler, des privil&egrave;ges &agrave; donner, toute une librairie eccl&eacute;siastique &agrave; examiner, paroissiens, cat&eacute;chismes dioc&eacute;sains, livres d'heures, etc., des mandements &agrave; &eacute;crire, des pr&eacute;dications &agrave; autoriser, des cur&eacute;s et des maires &agrave; mettre d'accord, une correspondance cl&eacute;ricale, une correspondance administrative, d'un c&ocirc;t&eacute; l'&eacute;tat, de l'autre le Saint-Si&egrave;ge, mille affaires.
 
Le temps que lui laissaient ces mille affaires, ses offices et son br&eacute;viaire, il le donnait d'abord aux n&eacute;cessiteux, aux malades et aux afflig&eacute;s; le temps que les afflig&eacute;s, les malades et les n&eacute;cessiteux lui laissaient, il le donnait au travail. Tant&ocirc;t il b&ecirc;chait la terre dans son jardin, tant&ocirc;t il lisait et &eacute;crivait. Il n'avait qu'un mot pour ces deux sortes de travail; il appelait cela ''jardiner''.
 
&mdash;L'esprit est un jardin, disait-il.
 
&Agrave; midi, il d&icirc;nait. Le d&icirc;ner ressemblait au d&eacute;jeuner.
 
Vers deux heures, quand le temps &eacute;tait beau, il sortait et se promenait &agrave; pied dans la campagne ou dans la ville, entrant souvent dans les masures. On le voyait cheminer seul, tout &agrave; ses pens&eacute;es, l'&oelig;il baiss&eacute;, appuy&eacute; sur sa longue canne, v&ecirc;tu de sa douillette violette ouat&eacute;e et bien chaude, chauss&eacute; de bas violets dans de gros souliers, et coiff&eacute; de son chapeau plat qui laissait passer par ses trois cornes trois glands d'or &agrave; graine d'&eacute;pinards.
 
C'&eacute;tait une f&ecirc;te partout o&ugrave; il paraissait. On e&ucirc;t dit que son passage avait quelque chose de r&eacute;chauffant et de lumineux. Les enfants et les vieillards venaient sur le seuil des portes pour l'&eacute;v&ecirc;que comme pour le soleil. Il b&eacute;nissait et on le b&eacute;nissait. On montrait sa maison &agrave; quiconque avait besoin de quelque chose.
 
&Ccedil;&agrave; et l&agrave;, il s'arr&ecirc;tait, parlait aux petits gar&ccedil;ons et aux petites filles et souriait aux m&egrave;res. Il visitait les pauvres tant qu'il avait de l'argent; quand il n'en avait plus, il visitait les riches.
 
Comme il faisait durer ses soutanes beaucoup de temps, et qu'il ne voulait pas qu'on s'en aper&ccedil;&ucirc;t, il ne sortait jamais dans la ville autrement qu'avec sa douillette violette. Cela le g&ecirc;nait un peu en &eacute;t&eacute;.
 
Le soir &agrave; huit heures et demie il soupait avec sa s&oelig;ur, madame Magloire debout derri&egrave;re eux et les servant &agrave; table. Rien de plus frugal que ce repas. Si pourtant l'&eacute;v&ecirc;que avait un de ses cur&eacute;s &agrave; souper, madame Magloire en profitait pour servir &agrave; Monseigneur quelque excellent poisson des lacs ou quelque fin gibier de la montagne. Tout cur&eacute; &eacute;tait un pr&eacute;texte &agrave; bon repas; l'&eacute;v&ecirc;que se laissait faire. Hors de l&agrave;, son ordinaire ne se composait gu&egrave;re que de l&eacute;gumes cuits dans l'eau et de soupe &agrave; l'huile. Aussi disait-on dans la ville:
 
&mdash;Quand l'&eacute;v&ecirc;que fait pas ch&egrave;re de cur&eacute;, il fait ch&egrave;re de trappiste.
 
Apr&egrave;s son souper, il causait pendant une demi-heure avec mademoiselle Baptistine et madame Magloire; puis il rentrait dans sa chambre et se remettait &agrave; &eacute;crire, tant&ocirc;t sur des feuilles volantes, tant&ocirc;t sur la marge de quelque in-folio. Il &eacute;tait lettr&eacute; et quelque peu savant. Il a laiss&eacute; cinq ou six manuscrits assez curieux; entre autres une dissertation sur le verset de la Gen&egrave;se: ''Au commencement l'esprit de Dieu flottait sur les eaux''. Il confronte avec ce verset trois textes: la version arabe qui dit: ''Les vents de Dieu soufflaient;'' Flavius Jos&egrave;phe qui dit: ''Un vent d'en haut se pr&eacute;cipitait sur la terre'', et enfin la paraphrase chalda&iuml;que d'Onkelos qui porte: ''Un vent venant de Dieu soufflait sur la face des eaux''. Dans une autre dissertation, il examine les &oelig;uvres th&eacute;ologiques de Hugo, &eacute;v&ecirc;que de Ptol&eacute;ma&iuml;s, arri&egrave;re-grand-oncle de celui qui &eacute;crit ce livre, et il &eacute;tablit qu'il faut attribuer &agrave; cet &eacute;v&ecirc;que les divers opuscules publi&eacute;s, au si&egrave;cle dernier, sous le pseudonyme de Barleycourt.
 
Parfois au milieu d'une lecture, quel que f&ucirc;t le livre qu'il e&ucirc;t entre les mains, il tombait tout &agrave; coup dans une m&eacute;ditation profonde, d'o&ugrave; il ne sortait que pour &eacute;crire quelques lignes sur les pages m&ecirc;mes du volume. Ces lignes souvent n'ont aucun rapport avec le livre qui les contient. Nous avons sous les yeux une note &eacute;crite par lui sur une des marges d'un in-quarto intitul&eacute;: ''Correspondance du lord Germain avec les g&eacute;n&eacute;raux Clinton, Cornwallis et les amiraux de la station de l'Am&eacute;rique. &Agrave; Versailles, chez Poin&ccedil;ot, libraire, et &agrave; Paris, chez Pissot, libraire, quai des Augustins''.
 
Voici cette note:
 
&laquo;&Ocirc; vous qui &ecirc;tes!
 
&laquo;L'Eccl&eacute;siaste vous nomme Toute-Puissance, les Macchab&eacute;es vous nomment Cr&eacute;ateur, l'&Eacute;p&icirc;tre aux &Eacute;ph&eacute;siens vous nomme Libert&eacute;, Baruch vous nomme Immensit&eacute;, les Psaumes vous nomment Sagesse et V&eacute;rit&eacute;, Jean vous nomme Lumi&egrave;re, les Rois vous nomment Seigneur, l'Exode vous appelle Providence, le L&eacute;vitique Saintet&eacute;, Esdras Justice, la cr&eacute;ation vous nomme Dieu, l'homme vous nomme P&egrave;re; mais Salomon vous nomme Mis&eacute;ricorde, et c'est l&agrave; le plus beau de tous vos noms.&raquo;
 
Vers neuf heures du soir, les deux femmes se retiraient et montaient &agrave; leurs chambres au premier, le laissant jusqu'au matin seul au rez-de-chauss&eacute;e.
 
Ici il est n&eacute;cessaire que nous donnions une id&eacute;e exacte du logis de M. l'&eacute;v&ecirc;que de Digne.

==English text==

The private life of M. Myriel was filled with the same thoughts as his public life. The voluntary poverty in which the Bishop of D&mdash;&mdash; lived, would have been a solemn and charming sight for any one who could have viewed it close at hand.
 
Like all old men, and like the majority of thinkers, he slept little. This brief slumber was profound. In the morning he meditated for an hour, then he said his mass, either at the cathedral or in his own house. His mass said, he broke his fast on rye bread dipped in the milk of his own cows. Then he set to work.
 
A Bishop is a very busy man: he must every day receive the secretary of the bishopric, who is generally a canon, and nearly every day his vicars-general. He has congregations to reprove, privileges to grant, a whole ecclesiastical library to examine,&mdash;prayer-books, diocesan catechisms, books of hours, etc.,&mdash;charges to write, sermons to authorize, cures and mayors to reconcile, a clerical correspondence, an administrative correspondence; on one side the State, on the other the Holy See; and a thousand matters of business.
 
What time was left to him, after these thousand details of business, and his offices and his breviary, he bestowed first on the necessitous, the sick, and the afflicted; the time which was left to him from the afflicted, the sick, and the necessitous, he devoted to work. Sometimes he dug in his garden; again, he read or wrote. He had but one word for both these kinds of toil; he called them gardening. "The mind is a garden," said he.
 
Towards mid-day, when the weather was fine, he went forth and took a stroll in the country or in town, often entering lowly dwellings. He was seen walking alone, buried in his own thoughts, his eyes cast down, supporting himself on his long cane, clad in his wadded purple garment of silk, which was very warm, wearing purple stockings inside his coarse shoes, and surmounted by a flat hat which allowed three golden tassels of large bullion to droop from its three points.
 
It was a perfect festival wherever he appeared. One would have said that his presence had something warming and luminous about it. The children and the old people came out to the doorsteps for the Bishop as for the sun. He bestowed his blessing, and they blessed him. They pointed out his house to any one who was in need of anything.
 
Here and there he halted, accosted the little boys and girls, and smiled upon the mothers. He visited the poor so long as he had any money; when he no longer had any, he visited the rich.
 
As he made his cassocks last a long while, and did not wish to have it noticed, he never went out in the town without his wadded purple cloak. This inconvenienced him somewhat in summer.
 
On his return, he dined. The dinner resembled his breakfast.
 
At half-past eight in the evening he supped with his sister, Madame Magloire standing behind them and serving them at table. Nothing could be more frugal than this repast. If, however, the Bishop had one of his cures to supper, Madame Magloire took advantage of the opportunity to serve Monseigneur with some excellent fish from the lake, or with some fine game from the mountains. Every cure furnished the pretext for a good meal: the Bishop did not interfere. With that exception, his ordinary diet consisted only of vegetables boiled in water, and oil soup. Thus it was said in the town, when the Bishop does not indulge in the cheer of a cure, he indulges in the cheer of a trappist.
 
After supper he conversed for half an hour with Mademoiselle Baptistine and Madame Magloire; then he retired to his own room and set to writing, sometimes on loose sheets, and again on the margin of some folio. He was a man of letters and rather learned. He left behind him five or six very curious manuscripts; among others, a dissertation on this verse in Genesis, In the beginning, the spirit of God floated upon the waters. With this verse he compares three texts: the Arabic verse which says, The winds of God blew; Flavius Josephus who says, A wind from above was precipitated upon the earth; and finally, the Chaldaic paraphrase of Onkelos, which renders it, A wind coming from God blew upon the face of the waters. In another dissertation, he examines the theological works of Hugo, Bishop of Ptolemais, great-grand-uncle to the writer of this book, and establishes the fact, that to this bishop must be attributed the divers little works published during the last century, under the pseudonym of Barleycourt.
 
Sometimes, in the midst of his reading, no matter what the book might be which he had in his hand, he would suddenly fall into a profound meditation, whence he only emerged to write a few lines on the pages of the volume itself. These lines have often no connection whatever with the book which contains them. We now have under our eyes a note written by him on the margin of a quarto entitled Correspondence of Lord Germain with Generals Clinton, Cornwallis, and the Admirals on the American station. Versailles, Poincot, book-seller; and Paris, Pissot, bookseller, Quai des Augustins.
 
Here is the note:&mdash;
 
"Oh, you who are!
 
"Ecclesiastes calls you the All-powerful; the Maccabees call you the Creator; the Epistle to the Ephesians calls you liberty; Baruch calls you Immensity; the Psalms call you Wisdom and Truth; John calls you Light; the Books of Kings call you Lord; Exodus calls you Providence; Leviticus, Sanctity; Esdras, Justice; the creation calls you God; man calls you Father; but Solomon calls you Compassion, and that is the most beautiful of all your names."
 
Toward nine o'clock in the evening the two women retired and betook themselves to their chambers on the first floor, leaving him alone until morning on the ground floor.
 
It is necessary that we should, in this place, give an exact idea of the dwelling of the Bishop of D&mdash;&mdash;

==Translation notes==

==Textual notes==
@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-Les Misérables, Volume 1: Fantine, Book First: A Just Man, Chapter 5: Monseigneur Bienvenu made his Cassocks last too long<br />
+Les Misérables, Volume 1: Fantine, Book 1: A Just Man, Chapter 5: Monseigneur Bienvenu made his Cassocks last too long
-(Tome 1: Fantine, Livre premier: Un Juste, Chapitre 5: Que monseigneur Bienvenu faisait durer trop longtemps ses soutanes)
 ==General notes on this chapter==
@@ Line 83: / Line 82: @@
 ==Textual notes==
-==Citations==
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