Subsequently I learned the precise details of the life of the priest, who called himself the Abbé Bernard.
His history is so interesting that I cannot deny myself the pleasure of writing it a second time. The father of the abbé had accumulated great wealth in lending money with interest. He was one of those practical men who shut up their hearts in their money chest.
Widowed in early life, he sent his only son to college, where he remained until he had attained the age of seventeen; he then removed him to finish his studies by travelling for two years in England and eighteen months in Germany.
In translating the works of Shakespeare and Goethe, the young Bernard had acquired a knowledge of the two living languages that are now the keys of the commercial world.
He then returned to Paris, with his thoughts more filled with poetry and philosophy than with a mind prepared for the sterile labors of an accountant.
His father, upon placing him in his counting-house, generously allowed him a salary of 2,000 francs. Forced into acquiescence, Bernard began the life of an accountant, in which he continued for several years. Unhappily, the young man fell in love with the daughter of his father's cashier. She was a beautiful blonde, had every desirable quality, but possessed no greater fortune than modesty. Bernard's father, who had other views, dismissed the cashier from his employment and commanded his son never to speak to him again upon the subject of that foolish union. The young man fell ill, but his father remained inflexible, "I would rather," said he, "see him laid in his coffin than give him in marriage to an inferior. I have not worked like a horse and economized for forty years for the bright eyes of Mademoiselle Marie Closet; more than that, it is the extreme of folly; the time has passed ages ago since anyone died for love."
The father was right, nature triumphed over the malady, and the young Bernard's health was soon restored. The first day he went out during convalescence, he hastened to the father of his beloved, who declined seeing him, not wishing to give a pretext for calumny. Despairing on all sides, the young Bernard resolved to put an end to his existence; a frequent recourse for despairing lovers of twenty and twenty-five years!
His mother, a holy woman, had before her death inculcated in the spring-time of his life religious precepts, of which be retained the faithful remembrance. Strange caprice of the human heart! at the moment he determined to offend God the most, be felt unwilling to die before entering a church.
Finding himself within two steps of the church of St. Vincent de Paul, he entered the temple. Lights burned before the two altars. At his right, a marriage was being celebrated, and at the end of the chapel a funeral service was being performed. The bridal party was not numerous; but the deceased must have occupied a high position in society, judging from the numbers who followed his remains to their last resting-place. Bernard became absorbed in prayer. When he raised his eyes, he saw before him a young priest blessing the assemblage. An idea quick as lightning crossed the mind of the self-destroyer. It is noble, thought he, to console others, even when there is no hope of happiness for one's self. A week had not elapsed before Jean Léon Bernard entered a theological seminary. Two years after be received ordination; he never saw his father again, but the banker settled upon him an annuity of three thousand francs. The young Levite was sent to a small village to begin the exercise of his holy ministry. After celebrating his first mass, he found upon entering the sacristy a letter awaiting him sealed with black. His father had just died and left him an inheritance of over four millions.