“Hold, Monsieur the director of the hospital, I will tell you
something. There is evidently a mistake here. There are thirty-six of
you, in five or six small rooms. There are three of us here, and we
have room for sixty. There is some mistake, I tell you; you have my
house, and I have yours. Give me back my house; you are at home here.”
On the following day the thirty-six patients were installed in the
Bishop’s palace, and the Bishop was settled in the hospital.
M. Myriel had no property, his family having been ruined by the
Revolution. His sister was in receipt of a yearly income of five
hundred francs, which sufficed for her personal wants at the vicarage.
M. Myriel received from the State, in his quality of bishop, a salary
of fifteen thousand francs. On the very day when he took up his abode
in the hospital, M. Myriel settled on the disposition of this sum once
for all, in the following manner. We transcribe here a note made by his
own hand:—
NOTE ON THE REGULATION OF MY HOUSEHOLD EXPENSES.
For the little seminary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,500 livres
Society of the mission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 ”
For the Lazarists of Montdidier . . . . . . . . . . 100 ”
Seminary for foreign missions in Paris . . . . . . 200 ”
Congregation of the Holy Spirit . . . . . . . . . . 150 ”
Religious establishments of the Holy Land . . . . . 100 ”
Charitable maternity societies . . . . . . . . . . 300 ”
Extra, for that of Arles . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 ”
Work for the amelioration of prisons . . . . . . . 400 ”
Work for the relief and delivery of prisoners . . . 500 ”
To liberate fathers of families incarcerated for debt 1,000 ”
Addition to the salary of the poor teachers of the
diocese . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2,000 ”
Public granary of the Hautes-Alpes . . . . . . . . 100 ”
Congregation of the ladies of D——, of Manosque, and of
Sisteron, for the gratuitous instruction of poor
girls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,500 ”
For the poor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6,000 ”
My personal expenses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,000 ”
———
Total . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15,000 ”
M. Myriel made no change in this arrangement during the entire period
that he occupied the see of D—— As has been seen, he called it
_regulating his household expenses_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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