Les Misérables, page 17
CHAPTER X--THE BISHOP IN THE PRESENCE OF AN UNKNOWN LIGHT
At an epoch a little later than the date of the letter cited in thepreceding pages, he did a thing which, if the whole town was to bebelieved, was even more hazardous than his trip across the mountainsinfested with bandits.
In the country near D---- a man lived quite alone. This man, we willstate at once, was a former member of the Convention. His name was G----
Member of the Convention, G---- was mentioned with a sort of horror inthe little world of D---- A member of the Convention--can you imaginesuch a thing? That existed from the time when people called each other_thou_, and when they said "citizen." This man was almost a monster.He had not voted for the death of the king, but almost. He was aquasi-regicide. He had been a terrible man. How did it happen that sucha man had not been brought before a provost's court, on the return ofthe legitimate princes? They need not have cut off his head, if youplease; clemency must be exercised, agreed; but a good banishment forlife. An example, in short, etc. Besides, he was an atheist, like allthe rest of those people. Gossip of the geese about the vulture.
Was G---- a vulture after all? Yes; if he were to be judged by theelement of ferocity in this solitude of his. As he had not voted for thedeath of the king, he had not been included in the decrees of exile, andhad been able to remain in France.
He dwelt at a distance of three-quarters of an hour from the city, farfrom any hamlet, far from any road, in some hidden turn of a very wildvalley, no one knew exactly where. He had there, it was said, a sortof field, a hole, a lair. There were no neighbors, not even passers-by.Since he had dwelt in that valley, the path which led thither haddisappeared under a growth of grass. The locality was spoken of asthough it had been the dwelling of a hangman.
Nevertheless, the Bishop meditated on the subject, and from time to timehe gazed at the horizon at a point where a clump of trees marked thevalley of the former member of the Convention, and he said, "There is asoul yonder which is lonely."
And he added, deep in his own mind, "I owe him a visit."
But, let us avow it, this idea, which seemed natural at the first blush,appeared to him after a moment's reflection, as strange, impossible, andalmost repulsive. For, at bottom, he shared the general impression, andthe old member of the Convention inspired him, without his being clearlyconscious of the fact himself, with that sentiment which borders onhate, and which is so well expressed by the word estrangement.
Still, should the scab of the sheep cause the shepherd to recoil? No.But what a sheep!
The good Bishop was perplexed. Sometimes he set out in that direction;then he returned.
Finally, the rumor one day spread through the town that a sort of youngshepherd, who served the member of the Convention in his hovel, had comein quest of a doctor; that the old wretch was dying, that paralysis wasgaining on him, and that he would not live over night.--"Thank God!"some added.
The Bishop took his staff, put on his cloak, on account of his toothreadbare cassock, as we have mentioned, and because of the eveningbreeze which was sure to rise soon, and set out.
The sun was setting, and had almost touched the horizon when the Bishoparrived at the excommunicated spot. With a certain beating of the heart,he recognized the fact that he was near the lair. He strode over aditch, leaped a hedge, made his way through a fence of dead boughs,entered a neglected paddock, took a few steps with a good deal ofboldness, and suddenly, at the extremity of the waste land, and behindlofty brambles, he caught sight of the cavern.
It was a very low hut, poor, small, and clean, with a vine nailedagainst the outside.
Near the door, in an old wheel-chair, the arm-chair of the peasants,there was a white-haired man, smiling at the sun.
Near the seated man stood a young boy, the shepherd lad. He was offeringthe old man a jar of milk.
While the Bishop was watching him, the old man spoke: "Thank you," hesaid, "I need nothing." And his smile quitted the sun to rest upon thechild.
The Bishop stepped forward. At the sound which he made in walking, theold man turned his head, and his face expressed the sum total of thesurprise which a man can still feel after a long life.
"This is the first time since I have been here," said he, "that any onehas entered here. Who are you, sir?"
The Bishop answered:--
"My name is Bienvenu Myriel."
"Bienvenu Myriel? I have heard that name. Are you the man whom thepeople call Monseigneur Welcome?"
"I am."
The old man resumed with a half-smile
"In that case, you are my bishop?"
"Something of that sort."
"Enter, sir."
The member of the Convention extended his hand to the Bishop, but theBishop did not take it. The Bishop confined himself to the remark:--
"I am pleased to see that I have been misinformed. You certainly do notseem to me to be ill."
"Monsieur," replied the old man, "I am going to recover."
He paused, and then said:--
"I shall die three hours hence."
Then he continued:--
"I am something of a doctor; I know in what fashion the last hour drawson. Yesterday, only my feet were cold; to-day, the chill has ascended tomy knees; now I feel it mounting to my waist; when it reaches the heart,I shall stop. The sun is beautiful, is it not? I had myself wheeledout here to take a last look at things. You can talk to me; it does notfatigue me. You have done well to come and look at a man who is onthe point of death. It is well that there should be witnesses at thatmoment. One has one's caprices; I should have liked to last until thedawn, but I know that I shall hardly live three hours. It will be nightthen. What does it matter, after all? Dying is a simple affair. One hasno need of the light for that. So be it. I shall die by starlight."
The old man turned to the shepherd lad:--
"Go to thy bed; thou wert awake all last night; thou art tired."
The child entered the hut.
The old man followed him with his eyes, and added, as though speaking tohimself:--
"I shall die while he sleeps. The two slumbers may be good neighbors."
The Bishop was not touched as it seems that he should have been. Hedid not think he discerned God in this manner of dying; let us say thewhole, for these petty contradictions of great hearts must be indicatedlike the rest: he, who on occasion, was so fond of laughing at "HisGrace," was rather shocked at not being addressed as Monseigneur, and hewas almost tempted to retort "citizen." He was assailed by a fancy forpeevish familiarity, common enough to doctors and priests, but whichwas not habitual with him. This man, after all, this member of theConvention, this representative of the people, had been one of thepowerful ones of the earth; for the first time in his life, probably,the Bishop felt in a mood to be severe.
Meanwhile, the member of the Convention had been surveying him with amodest cordiality, in which one could have distinguished, possibly, thathumility which is so fitting when one is on the verge of returning todust.
The Bishop, on his side, although he generally restrained his curiosity,which, in his opinion, bordered on a fault, could not refrain fromexamining the member of the Convention with an attention which, as itdid not have its course in sympathy, would have served his conscience asa matter of reproach, in connection with any other man. A member of theConvention produced on him somewhat the effect of being outside the paleof the law, even of the law of charity. G----, calm, his body almostupright, his voice vibrating, was one of those octogenarians who formthe subject of astonishment to the physiologist. The Revolution hadmany of these men, proportioned to the epoch. In this old man one wasconscious of a man put to the proof. Though so near to his end, hepreserved all the gestures of health. In his clear glance, in his firmtone, in the robust movement of his shoulders, there was somethingcalculated to disconcert death. Azrael, the Mohammedan angel of thesepulchre, would have turned back, and thought that he had mistakenthe door. G---- seemed to be dying because he willed it so. There wasfreedom in his agony. His legs alone were motionless. It was there thatthe shadows held him fast. His feet were cold and dead, but his headsurvived with all the power of life, and seemed full of light. G----,at this solemn moment, resembled the king in that tale of the Orient whowas flesh above and marble below.
There was a stone there. The Bishop sat down. The exordium was abrupt.
"I congratulate you," said he, in the tone which one uses for areprimand. "You did not vote for the death of the king, after all."
The old member of the Convention did not appear to notice the bittermeaning underlying the words "after all." He replied. The smile hadquite disappeared from his face.
"Do not congratulate me too much, sir. I did vote for the death of thetyrant."
It was the tone of austerity answering the tone of severity.
"What do you mean to say?" resumed the Bishop.
"I mean to say that man has a tyrant,--ignorance. I voted for the deathof that tyrant. That tyrant engendered royalty, which is authorityfalsely understood, while science is authority rightly understood. Manshould be governed only by science."
"And conscience," added the Bishop.
"It is the same thing. Conscience is the quantity of innate sciencewhich we have within us."
Monseigneur Bienvenu listened in some astonishment to this language,which was very new to him.
The member of the Convention resumed:--
"So far as Louis XVI. was concerned, I said 'no.' I did not think that Ihad the right to kill a man; but I felt it my duty to exterminate evil.I voted the end of the tyrant, that is to say, the end of prostitutionfor woman, the end of slavery for man, the end of night for the child.In voting for the Republic, I voted for that. I voted for fraternity,concord, the dawn. I have aided in the overthrow of prejudices anderrors. The crumbling away of prejudices and errors causes light. Wehave caused the fall of the old world, and the old world, that vase ofmiseries, has become, through its upsetting upon the human race, an urnof joy."
"Mixed joy," said the Bishop.
"You may say troubled joy, and to-day, after that fatal return of thepast, which is called 1814, joy which has disappeared! Alas! The workwas incomplete, I admit: we demolished the ancient regime in deeds; wewere not able to suppress it entirely in ideas. To destroy abuses is notsufficient; customs must be modified. The mill is there no longer; thewind is still there."
"You have demolished. It may be of use to demolish, but I distrust ademolition complicated with wrath."
"Right has its wrath, Bishop; and the wrath of right is an element ofprogress. In any case, and in spite of whatever may be said, the FrenchRevolution is the most important step of the human race since the adventof Christ. Incomplete, it may be, but sublime. It set free all theunknown social quantities; it softened spirits, it calmed, appeased,enlightened; it caused the waves of civilization to flow over theearth. It was a good thing. The French Revolution is the consecration ofhumanity."
The Bishop could not refrain from murmuring:--
"Yes? '93!"
The member of the Convention straightened himself up in his chair withan almost lugubrious solemnity, and exclaimed, so far as a dying man iscapable of exclamation:--
"Ah, there you go; '93! I was expecting that word. A cloud had beenforming for the space of fifteen hundred years; at the end of fifteenhundred years it burst. You are putting the thunderbolt on its trial."
The Bishop felt, without, perhaps, confessing it, that something withinhim had suffered extinction. Nevertheless, he put a good face on thematter. He replied:--
"The judge speaks in the name of justice; the priest speaks in the nameof pity, which is nothing but a more lofty justice. A thunderbolt shouldcommit no error." And he added, regarding the member of the Conventionsteadily the while, "Louis XVII.?"
The conventionary stretched forth his hand and grasped the Bishop's arm.
"Louis XVII.! let us see. For whom do you mourn? is it for the innocentchild? very good; in that case I mourn with you. Is it for the royalchild? I demand time for reflection. To me, the brother of Cartouche,an innocent child who was hung up by the armpits in the Place de Grève,until death ensued, for the sole crime of having been the brotherof Cartouche, is no less painful than the grandson of Louis XV., aninnocent child, martyred in the tower of the Temple, for the sole crimeof having been grandson of Louis XV."
"Monsieur," said the Bishop, "I like not this conjunction of names."
"Cartouche? Louis XV.? To which of the two do you object?"
A momentary silence ensued. The Bishop almost regretted having come, andyet he felt vaguely and strangely shaken.
The conventionary resumed:--
"Ah, Monsieur Priest, you love not the crudities of the true. Christloved them. He seized a rod and cleared out the Temple. His scourge,full of lightnings, was a harsh speaker of truths. When he cried,_'Sinite parvulos,'_ he made no distinction between the little children.It would not have embarrassed him to bring together the Dauphin ofBarabbas and the Dauphin of Herod. Innocence, Monsieur, is its owncrown. Innocence has no need to be a highness. It is as august in ragsas in fleurs de lys."
"That is true," said the Bishop in a low voice.
"I persist," continued the conventionary G---- "You have mentioned LouisXVII. to me. Let us come to an understanding. Shall we weep for all theinnocent, all martyrs, all children, the lowly as well as the exalted?I agree to that. But in that case, as I have told you, we must go backfurther than '93, and our tears must begin before Louis XVII. I willweep with you over the children of kings, provided that you will weepwith me over the children of the people."
"I weep for all," said the Bishop.
"Equally!" exclaimed conventionary G----; "and if the balance mustincline, let it be on the side of the people. They have been sufferinglonger."
Another silence ensued. The conventionary was the first to break it. Heraised himself on one elbow, took a bit of his cheek between his thumband his forefinger, as one does mechanically when one interrogates andjudges, and appealed to the Bishop with a gaze full of all the forces ofthe death agony. It was almost an explosion.
"Yes, sir, the people have been suffering a long while. And hold! thatis not all, either; why have you just questioned me and talked to meabout Louis XVII.? I know you not. Ever since I have been in these partsI have dwelt in this enclosure alone, never setting foot outside, andseeing no one but that child who helps me. Your name has reached me ina confused manner, it is true, and very badly pronounced, I must admit;but that signifies nothing: clever men have so many ways of imposing onthat honest goodman, the people. By the way, I did not hear the sound ofyour carriage; you have left it yonder, behind the coppice at the forkof the roads, no doubt. I do not know you, I tell you. You have told methat you are the Bishop; but that affords me no information as to yourmoral personality. In short, I repeat my question. Who are you? You area bishop; that is to say, a prince of the church, one of those gildedmen with heraldic bearings and revenues, who have vast prebends,--thebishopric of D---- fifteen thousand francs settled income, ten thousandin perquisites; total, twenty-five thousand francs,--who have kitchens,who have liveries, who make good cheer, who eat moor-hens on Friday, whostrut about, a lackey before, a lackey behind, in a gala coach, andwho have palaces, and who roll in their carriages in the name of JesusChrist who went barefoot! You are a prelate,--revenues, palace, horses,servants, good table, all the sensualities of life; you have this likethe rest, and like the rest, you enjoy it; it is well; but this sayseither too much or too little; this does not enlighten me upon theintrinsic and essential value of the man who comes with the probableintention of bringing wisdom to me. To whom do I speak? Who are you?"
The Bishop hung his head and replied, _"Vermis sum_--I am a worm."
"A worm of the earth in a carriage?" growled the conventionary.
It was the conventionary's turn to be arrogant, and the Bishop's to behumble.
The Bishop resumed mildly:--
"So be it, sir. But explain to me how my carriage, which is a few pacesoff behind the trees yonder, how my good table and the moor-hens which Ieat on Friday, how my twenty-five thousand francs income, how my palaceand my lackeys prove that clemency is not a duty, and that '93 was notinexorable."
The conventionary passed his hand across his brow, as though to sweepaway a cloud.
"Before replying to you," he said, "I beseech you to pardon me. I havejust committed a wrong, sir. You are at my house, you are my guest, Iowe you courtesy. You discuss my ideas, and it becomes me to confinemyself to combating your arguments. Your riches and your pleasures areadvantages which I hold over you in the debate; but good taste dictatesthat I shall not make use of them. I promise you to make no use of themin the future."
"I thank you," said the Bishop.
G---- resumed.
"Let us return to the explanation which you have asked of me. Where werewe? What were you saying to me? That '93 was inexorable?"
"Inexorable; yes," said the Bishop. "What think you of Marat clappinghis hands at the guillotine?"
"What think you of Bossuet chanting the _Te Deum_ over the dragonnades?"
The retort was a harsh one, but it attained its mark with the directnessof a point of steel. The Bishop quivered under it; no reply occurred tohim; but he was offended by this mode of alluding to Bossuet. The bestof minds will have their fetiches, and they sometimes feel vaguelywounded by the want of respect of logic.
The conventionary began to pant; the asthma of the agony which ismingled with the last breaths interrupted his voice; still, there was aperfect lucidity of soul in his eyes. He went on:--
"Let me say a few words more in this and that direction; I am willing.Apart from the Revolution, which, taken as a whole, is an immense humanaffirmation, '93 is, alas! a rejoinder. You think it inexorable, sir;but what of the whole monarchy, sir? Carrier is a bandit; but what namedo you give to Montrevel? Fouquier-Tainville is a rascal; but whatis your opinion as to Lamoignon-Bâville? Maillard is terrible; butSaulx-Tavannes, if you please? Duchêne senior is ferocious; but whatepithet will you allow me for the elder Letellier? Jourdan-Coupe-Tetêis a monster; but not so great a one as M. the Marquis de Louvois. Sir,sir, I am sorry for Marie Antoinette, archduchess and queen; but I amalso sorry for that poor Huguenot woman, who, in 1685, under Louis theGreat, sir, while with a nursing infant, was bound, naked to the waist,to a stake, and the child kept at a distance; her breast swelled withmilk and her heart with anguish; the little one, hungry and pale, beheldthat breast and cried and agonized; the executioner said to the woman, amother and a nurse, 'Abjure!' giving her her choice between the death ofher infant and the death of her conscience. What say you to that tortureof Tantalus as applied to a mother? Bear this well in mind sir: theFrench Revolution had its reasons for existence; its wrath will beabsolved by the future; its result is the world made better. From itsmost terrible blows there comes forth a caress for the human race. Iabridge, I stop, I have too much the advantage; moreover, I am dying."
And ceasing to gaze at the Bishop, the conventionary concluded histhoughts in these tranquil words:--
"Yes, the brutalities of progress are called revolutions. When they areover, this fact is recognized,--that the human race has been treatedharshly, but that it has progressed."
The conventionary doubted not that he had successively conquered all theinmost intrenchments of the Bishop. One remained, however, and from thisintrenchment, the last resource of Monseigneur Bienvenu's resistance,came forth this reply, wherein appeared nearly all the harshness of thebeginning:--
"Progress should believe in God. Good cannot have an impious servitor.He who is an atheist is but a bad leader for the human race."
The former representative of the people made no reply. He was seizedwith a fit of trembling. He looked towards heaven, and in his glance atear gathered slowly. When the eyelid was full, the tear trickled downhis livid cheek, and he said, almost in a stammer, quite low, and tohimself, while his eyes were plunged in the depths:--
"O thou! O ideal! Thou alone existest!"
The Bishop experienced an indescribable shock.
After a pause, the old man raised a finger heavenward and said:--
"The infinite is. He is there. If the infinite had no person, personwould be without limit; it would not be infinite; in other words, itwould not exist. There is, then, an _I_. That _I_ of the infinite isGod."
The dying man had pronounced these last words in a loud voice, and withthe shiver of ecstasy, as though he beheld some one. When he had spoken,his eyes closed. The effort had exhausted him. It was evident that hehad just lived through in a moment the few hours which had been left tohim. That which he had said brought him nearer to him who is in death.The supreme moment was approaching.
The Bishop understood this; time pressed; it was as a priest that he hadcome: from extreme coldness he had passed by degrees to extreme emotion;he gazed at those closed eyes, he took that wrinkled, aged and ice-coldhand in his, and bent over the dying man.
"This hour is the hour of God. Do you not think that it would beregrettable if we had met in vain?"
The conventionary opened his eyes again. A gravity mingled with gloomwas imprinted on his countenance.
"Bishop," said he, with a slowness which probably arose more from hisdignity of soul than from the failing of his strength, "I have passed mylife in meditation, study, and contemplation. I was sixty years of agewhen my country called me and commanded me to concern myself with itsaffairs. I obeyed. Abuses existed, I combated them; tyrannies existed,I destroyed them; rights and principles existed, I proclaimed andconfessed them. Our territory was invaded, I defended it; France wasmenaced, I offered my breast. I was not rich; I am poor. I have been oneof the masters of the state; the vaults of the treasury were encumberedwith specie to such a degree that we were forced to shore up the walls,which were on the point of bursting beneath the weight of gold andsilver; I dined in Dead Tree Street, at twenty-two sous. I have succoredthe oppressed, I have comforted the suffering. I tore the cloth fromthe altar, it is true; but it was to bind up the wounds of my country. Ihave always upheld the march forward of the human race, forward towardsthe light, and I have sometimes resisted progress without pity. I have,when the occasion offered, protected my own adversaries, men of yourprofession. And there is at Peteghem, in Flanders, at the very spotwhere the Merovingian kings had their summer palace, a convent ofUrbanists, the Abbey of Sainte Claire en Beaulieu, which I saved in1793. I have done my duty according to my powers, and all the goodthat I was able. After which, I was hunted down, pursued, persecuted,blackened, jeered at, scorned, cursed, proscribed. For many years past,I with my white hair have been conscious that many people think theyhave the right to despise me; to the poor ignorant masses I present thevisage of one damned. And I accept this isolation of hatred, withouthating any one myself. Now I am eighty-six years old; I am on the pointof death. What is it that you have come to ask of me?"
_"Your blessing,"_ said the Bishop.
And he knelt down.
When the Bishop raised his head again, the face of the conventionary hadbecome august. He had just expired.
The Bishop returned home, deeply absorbed in thoughts which cannotbe known to us. He passed the whole night in prayer. On the followingmorning some bold and curious persons attempted to speak to him aboutmember of the Convention G----; he contented himself with pointingheavenward.
From that moment he redoubled his tenderness and brotherly feelingtowards all children and sufferers.
Any allusion to "that old wretch of a G----" caused him to fall into asingular preoccupation. No one could say that the passage of that soulbefore his, and the reflection of that grand conscience upon his, didnot count for something in his approach to perfection.
This "pastoral visit" naturally furnished an occasion for a murmur ofcomment in all the little local coteries.
"Was the bedside of such a dying man as that the proper place for abishop? There was evidently no conversion to be expected. All thoserevolutionists are backsliders. Then why go there? What was there to beseen there? He must have been very curious indeed to see a soul carriedoff by the devil."
One day a dowager of the impertinent variety who thinks herselfspiritual, addressed this sally to him, "Monseigneur, people areinquiring when Your Greatness will receive the red cap!"--"Oh! oh!that's a coarse color," replied the Bishop. "It is lucky that those whodespise it in a cap revere it in a hat."
