The first subscription-list was opened by the Normal College of Avignon, and a special appeal was made to the schoolmasters of Vaucluse and the rest of France. Other appeals were addressed to all without distinction, and the subscriptions flowed in from all sides, from scientists and men of letters, priests and schoolmasters, bourgeois and workers in town and country, to whom it was explained that the statue was in honour of one of themselves who had achieved greatness by his labours.
He himself, in his modesty, wished all to regard him only as a diligent student.
“Master,” ventured an intimate of the harmas one day, “they are talking of putting up a statue of you close by here.”
“Well, well! I shall see myself, but shall I recognise myself? I’ve had so little time for looking at myself!”
“What inscription would you prefer?”
“One word: Laboremus.”
What lesson was ever more necessary than this eloquent reminder of the great law of labour! But this grand old man, who by labour has achieved fame, teaches us yet another lesson of even rarer quality.
Let us hear him confiding his impressions to a friend: “The Mayor of Sérignan, it [[376]]seems, proposes to erect a bust of me. At this very moment I have, staying in the house, the sculptor Charpentier, who is making my statue for a monument they are going to set up in the Normal College of Avignon. In my opinion there’s a good deal of the beautiful saints about it!”[8]
This reminds us of a remark whispered into a neighbour’s ear on the occasion of the jubilee celebrations, in the midst of all the fashionable folk by whom he was surrounded: “I must be very queer to look at!”
Here is a more sober if not more weighty remark. One day some one was reminding him, in my presence, of all the marks of honour lavished upon him during his last two days. I heard him reply quickly with the famous apostrophe: Ματαιότης ματαιοτήτων, καὶ πάντα ματαιότης.[9]