Page 277 - les-miserables

a garrison town, opportunities for corruption abounded.
However, his coming had been a boon, and his presence was
a godsend. Before Father Madeleine’s arrival, everything
had languished in the country; now everything lived with a
healthy life of toil. A strong circulation warmed everything
and penetrated everywhere. Slack seasons and wretched-
ness were unknown. There was no pocket so obscure that it
had not a little money in it; no dwelling so lowly that there
was not some little joy within it.
Father Madeleine gave employment to every one. He
exacted but one thing: Be an honest man. Be an honest
woman.
As we have said, in the midst of this activity of which he
was the cause and the pivot, Father Madeleine made his for-
tune; but a singular thing in a simple man of business, it did
not seem as though that were his chief care. He appeared to
be thinking much of others, and little of himself. In 1820 he
was known to have a sum of six hundred and thirty thou-
sand francs lodged in his name with Laffitte; but before
reserving these six hundred and thirty thousand francs, he
had spent more than a million for the town and its poor.
The hospital was badly endowed; he founded six beds
there. M. sur M. is divided into the upper and the lower
town. The lower town, in which he lived, had but one school,
a miserable hovel, which was falling to ruin: he constructed
two, one for girls, the other for boys. He allotted a salary
from his own funds to the two instructors, a salary twice
as large as their meagre official salary, and one day he said
to some one who expressed surprise, ‘The two prime func-

277