Page 49 - les-miserables

village sacristy, with a few ancient chasubles of threadbare
damask adorned with imitation lace.
‘Bah!’ said the Bishop. ‘Let us announce our Te Deum
from the pulpit, nevertheless, Monsieur le Cure. Things will
arrange themselves.’
They instituted a search in the churches of the neigh-
borhood. All the magnificence of these humble parishes
combined would not have sufficed to clothe the chorister of
a cathedral properly.
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 them-
selves?’ 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 cure, throwing back his
head with a smile. ‘God—or the Devil.’
The Bishop looked steadily at the cure, 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

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