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PRUDENCE COUNSELLED TO WISDOM.
That evening, the Bishop of D----, after his promenade through
the town, remained shut up rather late in his room.
He was busy over a great work on Duties, which was never completed,
unfortunately.
He was carefully compiling everything that the Fathers and
the doctors have said on this important subject.
His book was divided into two parts:
firstly, the duties of all; secondly, the duties of each individual,
according to the class to which he belongs. The duties of all
are the great duties.
There are four of these. Saint Matthew points them out:
duties towards God (Matt. vi.); duties towards one's self
(Matt. v.29, 30); duties towards one's neighbor (Matt. vii.12);
duties towards animals (Matt. vi. 20, 25). As for the other duties
the Bishop found them pointed out and prescribed elsewhere:
to sovereigns and subjects, in the Epistle to the Romans;
to magistrates, to wives, to mothers, to young men, by Saint Peter;
to husbands, fathers, children and servants, in the Epistle to
the Ephesians; to the faithful, in the Epistle to the Hebrews;
to virgins, in the Epistle to the Corinthians. Out of these precepts
he was laboriously constructing a harmonious whole, which he desired
to present to souls.
At eight o'clock he was still at work, writing with a good
deal of inconvenience upon little squares of paper, with a big
book open on his knees, when Madame Magloire entered, according
to her wont, to get the silver-ware from the cupboard near his
bed.
A moment later, the Bishop, knowing that the table was set,
and that his sister was probably waiting for him, shut his book,
rose from his table, and entered the dining-room.
The dining-room was an oblong apartment, with a fireplace,
which had a door opening on the street (as we have said), and
a window opening on the garden.
Madame Magloire was, in fact, just putting the last touches
to the table.
As she performed this service, she was conversing with Mademoiselle
Baptistine.
A lamp stood on the table; the table was near the fireplace.
A wood fire was burning there.
One can easily picture to one's self these two women, both
of whom were over sixty years of age.
Madame Magloire small, plump, vivacious; Mademoiselle Baptistine
gentle, slender, frail, somewhat taller than her brother, dressed
in a gown of puce-colored silk, of the fashion of 1806, which
she had purchased at that date in Paris, and which had lasted
ever since.
To borrow vulgar phrases, which possess the merit of giving
utterance in a single word to an idea which a whole page would
hardly suffice to express, Madame Magloire had the air of a peasant,
and Mademoiselle Baptistine that of a lady. Madame Magloire wore
a white quilted cap, a gold Jeannette cross on a velvet ribbon
upon her neck, the only bit of feminine jewelry that there was
in the house, a very white fichu puffing out from a gown of coarse
black woollen stuff, with large, short sleeves, an apron of cotton
cloth in red and green checks, knotted round the waist with a
green ribbon, with a stomacher of the same attached by two pins
at the upper corners, coarse shoes on her feet, and yellow stockings,
like the women of Marseilles.
Mademoiselle Baptistine's gown was cut on the patterns of
1806, with a short waist, a narrow, sheath-like skirt, puffed
sleeves, with flaps and buttons. She concealed her gray hair under
a frizzed wig known as the baby wig. Madame Magloire had an intelligent,
vivacious, and kindly air; the two corners of her mouth unequally
raised, and her upper lip, which was larger than the lower, imparted
to her a rather crabbed and imperious look.
So long as Monseigneur held his peace, she talked to him resolutely
with a mixture of respect and freedom; but as soon as Monseigneur
began to speak, as we have seen, she obeyed passively like her
mistress.
Mademoiselle Baptistine did not even speak.
She confined herself to obeying and pleasing him. She had
never been pretty, even when she was young; she had large, blue,
prominent eyes, and a long arched nose; but her whole visage,
her whole person, breathed forth an ineffable goodness, as we
stated in the beginning.
She had always been predestined to gentleness; but faith,
charity, hope, those three virtues which mildly warm the soul,
had gradually elevated that gentleness to sanctity.
Nature had made her a lamb, religion had made her an angel.
Poor sainted virgin! Sweet memory which has vanished!
Mademoiselle Baptistine has so often narrated what passed
at the episcopal residence that evening, that there are many people
now living who still recall the most minute details.
At the moment when the Bishop entered, Madame Magloire was
talking with considerable vivacity.
She was haranguing Mademoiselle Baptistine on a subject which
was familiar to her and to which the Bishop was also accustomed.
The question concerned the lock upon the entrance door.
It appears that while procuring some provisions for supper,
Madame Magloire had heard things in divers places.
People had spoken of a prowler of evil appearance; a suspicious
vagabond had arrived who must be somewhere about the town, and
those who should take it into their heads to return home late
that night might be subjected to unpleasant encounters.
The police was very badly organized, moreover, because there
was no love lost between the Prefect and the Mayor, who sought
to injure each other by making things happen. It behooved wise
people to play the part of their own police, and to guard themselves
well, and care must be taken to duly close, bar and barricade
their houses, and to fasten the doors well.
Madame Magloire emphasized these last words; but the Bishop
had just come from his room, where it was rather cold.
He seated himself in front of the fire, and warmed himself,
and then fell to thinking of other things.
He did not take up the remark dropped with design by Madame
Magloire.
She repeated it.
Then Mademoiselle Baptistine, desirous of satisfying Madame
Magloire without displeasing her brother, ventured to say timidly:--
"Did you hear what Madame Magloire is saying, brother?"
"I have heard something of it in a vague way," replied
the Bishop. Then half-turning in his chair, placing his hands
on his knees, and raising towards the old servant woman his cordial
face, which so easily grew joyous, and which was illuminated from
below by the firelight,--"Come, what is the matter?
What is the matter? Are we in any great danger?"
Then Madame Magloire began the whole story afresh, exaggerating
it a little without being aware of the fact.
It appeared that a Bohemian, a bare-footed vagabond, a sort
of dangerous mendicant, was at that moment in the town.
He had presented himself at Jacquin Labarre's to obtain lodgings,
but the latter had not been willing to take him in.
He had been seen to arrive by the way of the boulevard Gassendi
and roam about the streets in the gloaming. A gallows-bird with
a terrible face.
"Really!" said the Bishop.
This willingness to interrogate encouraged Madame Magloire;
it seemed to her to indicate that the Bishop was on the point
of becoming alarmed; she pursued triumphantly:--
"Yes, Monseigneur.
That is how it is.
There will be some sort of catastrophe in this town to-night.
Every one says so.
And withal, the police is so badly regulated" (a useful
repetition). "The idea of living in a mountainous country,
and not even having lights in the streets at night!
One goes out.
Black as ovens, indeed! And I say, Monseigneur, and Mademoiselle
there says with me--"
"I," interrupted his sister, "say nothing.
What my brother does is well done."
Madame Magloire continued as though there had been no protest:--
"We say that this house is not safe at all; that if Monseigneur
will permit, I will go and tell Paulin Musebois, the locksmith,
to come and replace the ancient locks on the doors; we have them,
and it is only the work of a moment; for I say that nothing is
more terrible than a door which can be opened from the outside
with a latch by the first passer-by; and I say that we need bolts,
Monseigneur, if only for this night; moreover, Monseigneur has
the habit of always saying `come in'; and besides, even in the
middle of the night, O mon Dieu! there is no need to ask permission."
At that moment there came a tolerably violent knock on the
door.
"Come in," said the Bishop.
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