When it was a question of charity, he was not to be rebuffed even by a
refusal, and on such occasions he gave utterance to remarks which
induced reflection. Once he was begging for the poor in a drawing-room
of the town; there was present the Marquis de Champtercier, a wealthy
and avaricious old man, who contrived to be, at one and the same time,
an ultra-royalist and an ultra-Voltairian. This variety of man has
actually existed. When the Bishop came to him, he touched his arm,
_“You must give me something, M. le Marquis.”_ The Marquis turned round
and answered dryly, _“I have poor people of my own, Monseigneur.” “Give
them to me,”_ replied the Bishop.
One day he preached the following sermon in the cathedral:—
“My very dear brethren, my good friends, there are thirteen hundred and
twenty thousand peasants’ dwellings in France which have but three
openings; eighteen hundred and seventeen thousand hovels which have but
two openings, the door and one window; and three hundred and forty-six
thousand cabins besides which have but one opening, the door. And this
arises from a thing which is called the tax on doors and windows. Just
put poor families, old women and little children, in those buildings,
and behold the fevers and maladies which result! Alas! God gives air to
men; the law sells it to them. I do not blame the law, but I bless God.
In the department of the Isère, in the Var, in the two departments of
the Alpes, the Hautes, and the Basses, the peasants have not even
wheelbarrows; they transport their manure on the backs of men; they
have no candles, and they burn resinous sticks, and bits of rope dipped
in pitch. That is the state of affairs throughout the whole of the
hilly country of Dauphiné. They make bread for six months at one time;
they bake it with dried cow-dung. In the winter they break this bread
up with an axe, and they soak it for twenty-four hours, in order to
render it eatable. My brethren, have pity! behold the suffering on all
sides of you!”
Born a Provençal, he easily familiarized himself with the dialect of
the south. He said, _“En bé! moussu, sés sagé?”_ as in lower Languedoc;
_“Onté anaras passa?”_ as in the Basses-Alpes; _“Puerte un bouen moutu
embe un bouen fromage grase,”_ as in upper Dauphiné. This pleased the
people extremely, and contributed not a little to win him access to all
spirits. He was perfectly at home in the thatched cottage and in the
mountains. He understood how to say the grandest things in the most
vulgar of idioms. As he spoke all tongues, he entered into all hearts.
Moreover, he was the same towards people of the world and towards the
lower classes. He condemned nothing in haste and without taking
circumstances into account. He said, “Examine the road over which the
fault has passed.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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