CHAPTER L. “BLESSED THEY WHO DIE DOING THY WILL.”
It was the practice of the Bourgeois Philibert to leave his counting-room to walk through the market-place, not for the sake of the greetings he met, although he received them from every side, nor to buy or sell on his own account, but to note with quick, sympathizing eye the poor and needy and to relieve their wants.
Especially did he love to meet the old, the feeble, the widow, and the orphan, so numerous from the devastation of the long and bloody war.
The Bourgeois had another daily custom which he observed with unfailing regularity. His table in the House of the Golden Dog was set every day with twelve covers and dishes for twelve guests, “the twelve apostles,” as he gayly used to say, “whom I love to have dine with me, and who come to my door in the guise of poor, hungry, and thirsty men, needing meat and drink. Strangers to be taken in, and sick wanting a friend.” If no other guests came he was always sure of the “apostles” to empty his table, and, while some simple dish sufficed for himself, he ordered the whole banquet to be given away to the poor. His choice wines, which he scarcely permitted himself to taste, were removed from his table and sent to the Hôtel Dieu, the great convent of the Nuns Hospitalières, for the use of the sick in their charge, while the Bourgeois returned thanks with a heart more content than if kings had dined at his table.
To-day was the day of St. Martin, the anniversary of the death of his wife, who still lived in his memory fresh as upon the day he took her away as his bride from her Norman home. Upon every recurrence of that day, and upon some other special times and holidays, his bounty was doubled, and the Bourgeois made preparations, as he jocularly used to say, “not only for the twelve apostles, but for the seventy disciples as well!”
He had just dressed himself with scrupulous neatness in the fashion of a plain gentleman, as was his wont, without a trace of foppery. With his stout gold-headed cane in his hand, he was descending the stairs to go out as usual to the market, when Dame Rochelle accosted him in the hall.
Her eyes and whole demeanor wore an expression of deep anxiety as the good dame looked up in the face of the Bourgeois.
“Do not go to the market to-day, dear master!” said she, beseechingly; “I have been there myself and have ordered all we need for the due honor of the day.”
“Thanks, good dame, for remembering the blessed anniversary, but you know I am expected in the market. It is one of my special days. Who is to fill the baskets of the poor people who feel a delicacy about coming for alms to the door, unless I go? Charity fulfills its mission best when it respects the misfortune of being poor in the persons of its recipients. I must make my round of the market, good dame.”