own, Monseigneur." "Give them
to me," replied the Bishop.

One day he preached the following sermon in the cathedral:--

"My very dear brethren, my good friends, there are thirteen hundred
and twenty thousand peasants' dwellings in France which have but three
openings; eighteen hundred and seventeen thousand hovels which have but
two openings, the door and one window; and three hundred and forty-six
thousand cabins besides which have but one opening, the door. And this
arises from a thing which is called the tax on doors and windows. Just
put poor families, old women and little children, in those buildings,
and behold the fevers and maladies which result! Alas! God gives air to
men; the law sells it to them. I do not blame the law, but I bless God.
In the department of the Isere, in the Var, in the two departments
of the Alpes, the Hautes, and the Basses, the peasants have not even
wheelbarrows; they transport their manure on the backs of men; they have
no candles, and they burn resinous sticks, and bits of rope dipped in
pitch. That is the state of affairs throughout the whole of the hilly
country of Dauphine. They make bread for six months at one time; they
bake it with dried cow-dung. In the winter they break this bread up with
an axe, and they soak it for twenty-four hours, in order to render it
eatable. My brethren, have pity! behold the suffering on all sides of
you!"

Born a Provencal, he easily familiarized himself with the dialect of the
south. He said, "En be! moussu, ses sage?" as in lower Languedoc; "Onte
anaras passa?" as in the Basses-Alpes; "Puerte un bouen moutu embe un
bouen fromage grase," as in upper Dauphine. This pleased the people
extremely, and contributed not a little to win him access to all
spirits. He was perfectly at home in the thatched cottage and in the
mountains. He understood how to say the grandest things in the most
vulgar of idioms. As he spoke all tongues, he entered into all hearts.

Moreover, he was the same towards people of the world and towards
the lower classes. He condemned nothing in haste and without taking
circumstances into account. He said, "Examine the road over which the
fault has passed."

Being, as he described himself with a smile, an ex-sinner, he had none
of the asperities of austerity, and he professed, with a good deal
of distinctness, and without the frown of the ferociously virtuous, a
doctrine which may be summed up as follows:--

"Man has upon him h