Page 96 - les-miserables

Why not mention these almost divinely childish sayings
of kindness? Puerile they may be; but these sublime puer-
ilities were peculiar to Saint Francis d’Assisi and of Marcus
Aurelius. One day he sprained his ankle in his effort to avoid
stepping on an ant. Thus lived this just man. Sometimes he
fell asleep in his garden, and then there was nothing more
venerable possible.
Monseigneur Bienvenu had formerly been, if the stories
anent his youth, and even in regard to his manhood, were to
be believed, a passionate, and, possibly, a violent man. His
universal suavity was less an instinct of nature than the re-
sult of a grand conviction which had filtered into his heart
through the medium of life, and had trickled there slowly,
thought by thought; for, in a character, as in a rock, there
may exist apertures made by drops of water. These hollows
are uneffaceable; these formations are indestructible.
In 1815, as we think we have already said, he reached his
seventy-fifth birthday, but he did not appear to be more than
sixty. He was not tall; he was rather plump; and, in order to
combat this tendency, he was fond of taking long strolls on
foot; his step was firm, and his form was but slightly bent,
a detail from which we do not pretend to draw any conclu-
sion. Gregory XVI., at the age of eighty, held himself erect
and smiling, which did not prevent him from being a bad
bishop. Monseigneur Welcome had what the people term
a ‘fine head,’ but so amiable was he that they forgot that it
was fine.
When he conversed with that infantile gayety which was
one of his charms, and of which we have already spoken,

96 Les Miserables