"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 -
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 francs
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."