While they were thus embarrassed, a large chest was brought and
deposited in the presbytery for the Bishop, by two unknown horsemen,
who departed on the instant. The chest was opened; it contained a cope
of cloth of gold, a mitre ornamented with diamonds, an archbishop’s
cross, a magnificent crosier,—all the pontifical vestments which had
been stolen a month previously from the treasury of Notre Dame
d’Embrun. In the chest was a paper, on which these words were written,
_“From Cravatte to Monseigneur Bienvenu.”_
“Did not I say that things would come right of themselves?” said the
Bishop. Then he added, with a smile, “To him who contents himself with
the surplice of a curate, God sends the cope of an archbishop.”
“Monseigneur,” murmured the curé, throwing back his head with a smile.
“God—or the Devil.”
The Bishop looked steadily at the curé, and repeated with authority,
“God!”
When he returned to Chastelar, the people came out to stare at him as
at a curiosity, all along the road. At the priest’s house in Chastelar
he rejoined Mademoiselle Baptistine and Madame Magloire, who were
waiting for him, and he said to his sister: “Well! was I in the right?
The poor priest went to his poor mountaineers with empty hands, and he
returns from them with his hands full. I set out bearing only my faith
in God; I have brought back the treasure of a cathedral.”
That evening, before he went to bed, he said again: “Let us never fear
robbers nor murderers. Those are dangers from without, petty dangers.
Let us fear ourselves. Prejudices are the real robbers; vices are the
real murderers. The great dangers lie within ourselves. What matters it
what threatens our head or our purse! Let us think only of that which
threatens our soul.”
Then, turning to his sister: “Sister, never a precaution on the part of
the priest, against his fellow-man. That which his fellow does, God
permits. Let us confine ourselves to prayer, when we think that a
danger is approaching us. Let us pray, not for ourselves, but that our
brother may not fall into sin on our account.”
However, such incidents were rare in his life. We relate those of which
we know; but generally he passed his life in doing the same things at
the same moment. One month of his year resembled one hour of his day.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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