replace the old clothes
with new ones after he went to sleep, and the abbe did not always find
out the difference. He ate his food off pewter with iron forks and
spoons. When he received his assistants and sub-curates on days of high
solemnity (an expense obligatory on the heads of parishes) he borrowed
linen and silver from his friend the atheist.

"My silver is his salvation," the doctor would say.

These noble deeds, always accompanied by spiritual encouragement, were
done with a beautiful naivete. Such a life was all the more meritorious
because the abbe was possessed of an erudition that was vast and varied,
and of great and precious faculties. Delicacy and grace, the inseparable
accompaniments of simplicity, lent charm to an elocution that was worthy
of a prelate. His manners, his character, and his habits gave to his
intercourse with others the most exquisite savor of all that is most
spiritual, most sincere in the human mind. A lover of gayety, he was
never priest in a salon. Until Doctor Minoret's arrival, the good man
kept his light under a bushel without regret. Owning a rather fine
library and an income of two thousand francs when he came to Nemours,
he now possessed, in 1829, nothing at all, except his stipend as parish
priest, nearly the whole of which he gave away during the year. The
giver of excellent counsel in delicate matters or in great misfortunes,
many persons who never went to church to obtain consolation went to the
parsonage to get advice. One little anecdote will suffice to complete
his portrait. Sometimes the peasants,--rarely, it is true, but
occasionally,--unprincipled men, would tell him they were sued for debt,
or would get themselves threatened fictitiously to stimulate the abbe's
benevolence. They would even deceive their wives, who, believing their
chattels were threatened with an execution and their cows seized,
deceived in their turn the poor priest with their innocent tears. He
would then manage with great difficulty to provide the seven or eight
hundred francs demanded of him--with which the peasant bought himself
a morsel of land. When pious persons and vestrymen denounced the fraud,
begging the abbe to consult them in future before lending himself to
such cupidity, he would say:--

"But suppose they had done something wrong to obtain their bit of land?
Isn't it doing good when we prevent evil?"

Some persons may wish for a sketch of this figure, remarkable for the
fact that