1.F.1.12. THE SOLITUDE OF MONSEIGNEUR WELCOME
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.