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.His linen, thick with darns, rubbed his skin like a hair shirt.Madame de Portenduere, and other good souls, had an agreement with his housekeeper to replace the old clothes with new ones after he went to sleep, and the abbe did not always find out the difference.He ate his food off pewter with iron forks and spoons.When he received his assistants and sub-curates on days of high solemnity (an expense obligatory on the heads of parishes) he borrowed linen and silver from his friend the atheist."My silver is his salvation," the doctor would say.These noble deeds, always accompanied by spiritual encouragement, were done with a beautiful naivete.Such a life was all the more meritorious because the abbe was possessed of an erudition that was vast and varied, and of great and precious faculties.Delicacy and grace, the inseparable accompaniments of simplicity, lent charm to an elocution that was worthy of a prelate.His manners, his character, and his habits gave to his intercourse with others the most exquisite savor of all that is most spiritual, most sincere in the human mind.A lover of gayety, he was never priest in a salon.Until Doctor Minoret's arrival, the good man kept his light under a bushel without regret.Owning a rather fine library and an income of two thousand francs when he came to Nemours, he now possessed, in 1829, nothing at all, except his stipend as parish priest, nearly the whole of which he gave away during the year.The giver of excellent counsel in delicate matters or in great misfortunes, many persons who never went to church to obtain consolation went to the parsonage to get advice.One little anecdote will suffice to complete his portrait.Sometimes the peasants,—rarely, it is true, but occasionally,—unprincipled men, would tell him they were sued for debt, or would get themselves threatened fictitiously to stimulate the abbe's benevolence.They would even deceive their wives, who, believing their chattels were threatened with an execution and their cows seized, deceived in their turn the poor priest with their innocent tears.He would then manage with great difficulty to provide the seven or eight hundred francs demanded of him—with which the peasant bought himself a morsel of land.When pious persons and vestrymen denounced the fraud, begging the abbe to consult them in future before lending himself to such cupidity, he would say:—"But suppose they had done something wrong to obtain their bit of land? Isn't it doing good when we prevent evil?"Some persons may wish for a sketch of this figure, remarkable for the fact that science and literature had filled the heart and passed through the strong head without corrupting either.At sixty years of age the abbe's hair was white as snow, so keenly did he feel the sorrows of others, and so heavily had the events of the Revolution weighed upon him.Twice incarcerated for refusing to take the oath he had twice, as he used to say, uttered in "In manus." He was of medium height, neither stout nor thin.His face, much wrinkled and hollowed and quite colorless, attracted immediate attention by the absolute tranquillity expressed in its shape, and by the purity of its outline, which seemed to be edged with light.The face of a chaste man has an unspeakable radiance.Brown eyes with lively pupils brightened the irregular features, which were surmounted by a broad forehead.His glance wielded a power which came of a gentleness that was not devoid of strength.The arches of his brow formed caverns shaded by huge gray eyebrows which alarmed no one.As most of his teeth were gone his mouth had lost its shape and his cheeks had fallen in; but this physical destruction was not without charm; even the wrinkles, full of pleasantness, seemed to smile on others.Without being gouty his feet were tender; and he walked with so much difficulty that he wore shoes made of calf's skin all the year round.He thought the fashion of trousers unsuitable for priests, and he always appeared in stockings of coarse black yarn, knit by his housekeeper, and cloth breeches.He never went out in his cassock, but wore a brown overcoat, and still retained the three-cornered hat he had worn so courageously in times of danger [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]