Join Host Bree Carlile as she reads the second chapter of Les Miserables.

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Take it chapter by chapter one fight at a time so many adventures and mountains we can climb take it word for word, line by line, one bite at a time.

Welcome to bite at a time books where we read you your favorite classics one bite at a time.

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Values today well be continuing les miserable by Victor Hugo chapter two Monsieur Miriel becomes Monsieur welcome.

The Episcopal palace of Dee adjoins the hospital.

The Episcopal palace was a huge and beautiful house, built of stone at the beginning of the last century by Monsieur Henry Puget, doctor of theology of the faculty of Paris Abbe of Samore, who had been bishop of D in 1712.

This palace was a genuine signorial residence.

Everything about it had a grand air the apartments of the bishop, the drawing rooms, the chambers, the principal courtyard, which was very large, with walks encircling it under arcades in the old Florentine fashion, and gardens planted with magnificent trees in the dining room, a long and superb gallery which was situated on the ground floor and opened on the gardens.

Monsieur Henry Puget had entertained an estate on July 29, 1714.

My lords, Charles Brulart de Genlis, Archbishop Prince d'Imbrun, Antoine de Misegnry, the captuan bishop of Grasse Philip de Vendme, Grand Prior of France Abbe of St.

Honor de Lorenz, Francois de Burton de Crillon, bishop Baron de Vince, Cesare de Sabrin, de Forlequir, bishop, senor of Glendive, and Jean Sonen, priest of the oratory, preacher in ordinary to the king, bishop, senor of Senes.

The portraits of these seven reverend personages decorated this apartment in this memorable date, the 29 July 1714, was there, engraved in letters of gold on a table of white marble.

The hospital was a low and narrow building of a single story with a small garden.

Three days after his arrival, the bishop visited the hospital.

The visit ended.

He had, the director requested to be so good as to come to his house.

Monsieur, the director of the hospital, said he to him, how many sick people have you at the present moment?

26, monseigneur.

That was the number which I counted, said the bishop.

The beds, pursued the director, are very much crowded against each other.

That is what I observed.

The halls are nothing but rooms, and it is with difficulty that the air can be changed in them.

So it seems to me.

And then, when there is a ray of sun, the garden is very small for the convalescents.

That was what I said to myself.

In case of epidemics, we have had the typhus fever this year.

We had this sweating sickness two years ago, and 100 patients.

At times we know not what to do.

That is the thought which occurred to me.

What would you have, Monseigneur?

Said the director.

One must resign oneself.

This conversation took place in the gallery dining room on the ground floor.

The bishop remained silent for a moment, then he turned abruptly to the director of the hospital.

Monsieur, said he, how many beds do you think this hall alone would hold, monseigneurs dining room.

Exclaimed the stupefied director.

The bishop cast a glance around the apartment and seemed to be taking measures and calculations with his eyes.

It would hold 20 full beds, said he, as though speaking to himself, then raising his voice, hold, monseigneur, the director of the hospital.

I will tell you something.

There is evidently a mistake here.

There are 36 of you in five or six small rooms.

There are three of us here, and we have room for 60.

There is some mistake, I tell you.

You have my house and I have yours.

Give me back my house.

You were at home here.

On the following day, the 36 patients were installed in the bishops palace, and the bishop was settled in the hospital.

Monsieur Muriel had no property, his family having been ruined by the revolution.

His sister was in receipt of a yearly income of 500 francs, which sufficed for her personal wants at the vicarage.

Monsieur Muriel received from the state in his quality of bishop a salary of 15,000 francs.

On the very day when he took up his abode in the hospital, Monsieur Muriel settled on the disposition of this sum once and 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, 1500, 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, charitable maternity societies 300 extra for that of Arlis, 50, work for the melioration of prisons, 400, work for the relief and delivery of prisoners 500, to liberate fathers of families incarcerated for debt, addition to the salary of the poor teachers of the diocese, 2000, public granary of the Hartford, 100, congregation of the Ladies of D.

Of Menisky and of Sisteron, for the gratuitous instruction of poor girls, 1500 for the poor, 6000.

My personal expenses, 1000.

Total, 15,000.

Monsieur Mariel made no change in this arrangement during the entire period that he occupied the c of D, as has been seen, he called it regulating his household expenses.

This arrangement was accepted with absolute submission by Mademoiselle Baptistine.

This holy woman regarded Monsignor of D.

As at one and the same time her brother and her bishop, her friend according to the flesh, and her superior according to the church.

She simply loved and venerated him.

When he spoke, she bowed.

When he acted, she yielded his adherents their only servant.

Madame Magloire, grumbled a little.

It will be observed that Monsieur the bishop had reserved for himself only 1000 livres, which, added to the pension of Mademoiselle Baptistine, made 1500 francs a year.

On these 1500 francs, these two old women and the old man subsisted.

And when a village curate came to D, the bishop still found means to entertain him.

Thanks to the severe economy of Madame Magloire and to the intelligent administration of Mademoiselle Baptistine.

One day, after he had been in d about three months, the bishop said, and still I am quite cramped with it all.

I should think so, exclaimed Madame Magloire.

Monseigneur has not even claimed the allowance which the department owes him for the expense of his carriage in town and his journeys about the diocese.

It was customary for bishops in former days.

Hold.

Cried the bishop.

You are quite right, Madame Magloire.

And he made his demand.

Sometime afterwards, the general council took this demand under consideration and voted him an annual sum of 3000 francs.

Under this heading, allowance to Monsieur the bishop for expenses of carriage, expenses of posting, and expenses of pastoral visits.

This provoked a great outcry among the local burgesses and a senator of the empire, a former member of the council of the 500 which favored the 18 brumaire, and who was provided with a magnificent senatorial office in the vicinity of the town of D, wrote to Monsieur Bigot permineur, the minister of public worship, a very angry and confidential note on the subject from which we extract these authentic lines.

Expenses of carriage.

What can be done with it in a town of less than 4000 inhabitants?

Expenses of journeys.

What is the use of these trips in the first place?

Next, how can the posting be accomplished in these mountainous parts?

There are no roads.

No one travels otherwise than on horseback.

Even the bridge between Durance and Chateau Arnault can barely support ox teams.

These priests are all thus greedy and avaricious.

This man played the good priest when he first came, but now he does like the rest.

He must have a carriage and a posting chaise.

He must have luxuries like the bishops of the olden days.

Oh, all this priesthood.

Things will not go well, Monsieur le Count, until the emperor has freed us from these black capped rascals.

Down with the pope.

Matters were getting embroiled with Rome.

For my part, I am for Caesar alone.

Etcetera, etcetera.

On the other hand, this affair afforded great delight to Madame Magloire.

Good, said she to Mademoiselle Baptistine.

Monsieur began with other people, but he has had to wind up with himself.

After all, he has regulated all his charities.

Now here are 3000 francs for us.

At last.

That same evening, the bishop wrote out and handed to his sister a memorandum conceived in the following expenses of carriage and circuit for furnishing meat soup to the patients in the hospital, 1500 livres for the maternity Charitable Society of Aix.

For the maternity Charitable Society of Dragonian, 250.

For foundlings, 500.

For orphans, 500.

Total 3000.

Such was Monsieur Muriels budget.

As for the chance episcopal perquisites, the fees for marriage, bans, dispensations, private baptisms, sermons, benedictions of churches or chapels, marriages, etcetera.

The bishop levied them on the wealthy with all the more asperity since he bestowed them on the needy.

After a time, offerings of money flowed in those who had and those who lacked knocked at Monsieur Marios door, the latter in search of the alms which the former came to deposit.

In less than a year, the bishop had become the treasurer of all benevolence and the cashier of all those in distress.

Considerable sums of money passed through his hands, but nothing could induce him to make any change whatever in his mode of life.

Or add anything superfluous to his bare necessities.

Far from it, as there is always more wretchedness below than there is brotherhood above.

All was given away, so to speak, before it was received.

It was like water on dry soil.

No matter how much money he received, he never had any.

Then he stripped himself, the usage being that bishops shall announce their baptismal names at the head of their charges in their pastoral letters.

The poor people of the countryside had selected, with a sort of affectionate instinct among the names and prenimins of their bishop that which had a meaning for them, and they never called him anything except Monsignor Benvenue.

Welcome.

We will follow their example, and we will also call him thus when we have occasion to name him.

Moreover, this appellation pleased him.

I like that name, said he.

Mine Avenue makes up for the monseigneur.

We do not claim that the portrait herewith presented as probable.

We confine ourselves to stating that it resembles the original.

Thank you for joining bite at a time books today while we read a bite of one of your favorite classics.

Again, my name is Brie Carlisle, and I hope you come back tomorrow for the next bite of Le Miserable.

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