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_ A bishop is almost always surrounded by a full squadron of
little abbes, just as a general is by a covey of young officers.
This is what that charming Saint Francois de Sales calls somewhere "les
pretres blancs-becs," callow priests. Every career has its aspirants,
who form a train for those who have attained eminence in it.
There is no power which has not its dependents. There is no fortune
which has not its court. The seekers of the future eddy around
the splendid present. Every metropolis has its staff of officials.
Every bishop who possesses the least influence has about him
his patrol of cherubim from the seminary, which goes the round,
and maintains good order in the episcopal palace, and mounts guard
over monseigneur's smile. To please a bishop is equivalent to getting
one's foot in the stirrup for a sub-diaconate. It is necessary to walk
one's path discreetly; the apostleship does not disdain the canonship.
Just as there are bigwigs elsewhere, there are big mitres in the Church.
These are the bishops who stand well at Court, who are rich,
well endowed, skilful, accepted by the world, who know how to pray,
no doubt, but who know also how to beg, who feel little scruple
at making a whole diocese dance attendance in their person,
who are connecting links between the sacristy and diplomacy,
who are abbes rather than priests, prelates rather than bishops.
Happy those who approach them! Being persons of influence,
they create a shower about them, upon the assiduous and the favored,
and upon all the young men who understand the art of pleasing,
of large parishes, prebends, archidiaconates, chaplaincies,
and cathedral posts, while awaiting episcopal honors. As they
advance themselves, they cause their satellites to progress also;
it is a whole solar system on the march. Their radiance casts a gleam
of purple over their suite. Their prosperity is crumbled up behind
the scenes, into nice little promotions. The larger the diocese
of the patron, the fatter the curacy for the favorite. And then,
there is Rome. A bishop who understands how to become an archbishop,
an archbishop who knows how to become a cardinal, carries you
with him as conclavist; you enter a court of papal jurisdiction,
you receive the pallium, and behold! you are an auditor, then a
papal chamberlain, then monsignor, and from a Grace to an Eminence
is only a step, and between the Eminence and the Holiness there is
but the smoke of a ballot. Every skull-cap may dream of the tiara.
The priest is nowadays the only man who can become a king in a
regular manner; and what a king! the supreme king. Then what a
nursery of aspirations is a seminary! How many blushing choristers,
how many youthful abbes bear on their heads Perrette's pot of milk!
Who knows how easy it is for ambition to call itself vocation?
in good faith, perchance, and deceiving itself, devotee that
it is.
Monseigneur Bienvenu, poor, humble, retiring, was not accounted
among the big mitres. This was plain from the complete absence
of young priests about him. We have seen that he "did not take"
in Paris. Not a single future dreamed of engrafting itself on
this solitary old man. Not a single sprouting ambition committed
the folly of putting forth its foliage in his shadow. His canons
and grand-vicars were good old men, rather vulgar like himself,
walled up like him in this diocese, without exit to a cardinalship,
and who resembled their bishop, with this difference, that they
were finished and he was completed. The impossibility of growing
great under Monseigneur Bienvenu was so well understood, that no
sooner had the young men whom he ordained left the seminary than they
got themselves recommended to the archbishops of Aix or of Auch,
and went off in a great hurry. For, in short, we repeat it,
men wish to be pushed. A saint who dwells in a paroxysm of abnegation
is a dangerous neighbor; he might communicate to you, by contagion,
an incurable poverty, an anchylosis of the joints, which are useful
in advancement, and in short, more renunciation than you desire;
and this infectious virtue is avoided. Hence the isolation of
Monseigneur Bienvenu. We live in the midst of a gloomy society.
Success; that is the lesson which falls drop by drop from the slope
of corruption.
Be it said in passing, that success is a very hideous thing. Its false
resemblance to merit deceives men. For the masses, success has almost
the same profile as supremacy. Success, that Menaechmus of talent,
has one dupe,--history. Juvenal and Tacitus alone grumble at it.
In our day, a philosophy which is almost official has entered into
its service, wears the livery of success, and performs the service
of its antechamber. Succeed: theory. Prosperity argues capacity.
Win in the lottery, and behold! you are a clever man. He who
triumphs is venerated. Be born with a silver spoon in your mouth!
everything lies in that. Be lucky, and you will have all the rest;
be happy, and people will think you great. Outside of five or six
immense exceptions, which compose the splendor of a century,
contemporary admiration is nothing but short-sightedness. Gilding
is gold. It does no harm to be the first arrival by pure chance,
so long as you do arrive. The common herd is an old Narcissus who
adores himself, and who applauds the vulgar herd. That enormous ability
by virtue of which one is Moses, Aeschylus, Dante, Michael Angelo,
or Napoleon, the multitude awards on the spot, and by acclamation,
to whomsoever attains his object, in whatsoever it may consist.
Let a notary transfigure himself into a deputy: let a false
Corneille compose Tiridate; let a eunuch come to possess a harem;
let a military Prudhomme accidentally win the decisive battle of
an epoch; let an apothecary invent cardboard shoe-soles for the army
of the Sambre-and-Meuse, and construct for himself, out of this
cardboard, sold as leather, four hundred thousand francs of income;
let a pork-packer espouse usury, and cause it to bring forth seven
or eight millions, of which he is the father and of which it is
the mother; let a preacher become a bishop by force of his nasal drawl;
let the steward of a fine family be so rich on retiring from service
that he is made minister of finances,--and men call that Genius,
just as they call the face of Mousqueton Beauty, and the mien
of Claude Majesty. With the constellations of space they confound
the stars of the abyss which are made in the soft mire of the puddle
by the feet of ducks. _
Read next: VOLUME I - FANTINE: BOOK FIRST - A JUST MAN: CHAPTER XIII. What he believed
Read previous: VOLUME I - FANTINE: BOOK FIRST - A JUST MAN: CHAPTER XI. A Restriction
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