by the bells, by the
chanting of the offices heard through the windows of the church, by
the call of the jackdaws nesting in the belfries. The region is a
desert of stones, a solitude with a character of its own, an arid
spot, which could only be inhabited by beings who had either attained
to absolute nullity, or were gifted with some abnormal strength of
soul. The house in question had always been occupied by abbes, and it
belonged to an old maid named Mademoiselle Gamard. Though the property
had been bought from the national domain under the Reign of Terror by
the father of Mademoiselle Gamard, no one objected under the
Restoration to the old maid's retaining it, because she took priests
to board and was very devout; it may be that religious persons gave
her credit for the intention of leaving the property to the Chapter.

The Abbe Birotteau was making his way to this house, where he had
lived for the last two years. His apartment had been (as was now the
canonry) an object of envy and his "hoc erat in votis" for a dozen
years. To be Mademoiselle Gamard's boarder and to become a canon were
the two great desires of his life; in fact they do present accurately
the ambition of a priest, who, considering himself on the highroad to
eternity, can wish for nothing in this world but good lodging, good
food, clean garments, shoes with silver buckles, a sufficiency of
things for the needs of the animal, and a canonry to satisfy
self-love, that inexpressible sentiment which follows us, they say,
into the presence of God,--for there are grades among the saints. But
the covetous desire for the apartment which the Abbe Birotteau was now
inhabiting (a very harmless desire in the eyes of worldly people) had
been to the abbe nothing less than a passion, a passion full of
obstacles, and, like more guilty passions, full of hopes, pleasures,
and remorse.

The interior arrangements of the house did not allow Mademoiselle
Gamard to take more than two lodgers. Now, for about twelve years
before the day when Birotteau went to live with her she had undertaken
to keep in health and contentment two priests; namely, Monsieur l'Abbe
Troubert and Monsieur l'Abbe Chapeloud. The Abbe Troubert still lived.
The Abbe Chapeloud was dead; and Birotteau had stepped into his place.

The late Abbe Chapeloud, in life a canon of Saint-Gatien, had been an
intimate friend of the Abbe Birotteau. Every time that the latter paid
a visit to the canon he had cons