nd the preachers, could not be taken seriously by any one.
Nevertheless, the poet, as he grew older, grew more and more attached
to this symbol of a Deity, indulgent before all else, but very real and
living, and in whom the poor and the suffering could put their trust.
What passed in the days preceding his death has been much discussed, and
many stories are told about it. He received, in fact, some visits from
the curate of the parish of Saint Elizabeth, in which he lived. This
curate had formerly officiated at Passy,--a little village near Paris,
where Beranger had resided,--and was already acquainted with the poet.
The conversations at these visits, according to the testimony of those
best informed, amounted to very little; and the last time the curate
came, just as he was going out, Beranger, already dying, said to
him, "Your profession gives you the right to bless me; I also bless
you;--pray for me, and for all the unfortunate!" The priest and the
old man exchanged blessings,--the benedictions of two honest men, and
nothing more.

Beranger had one rare quality, and it was fundamental with
him,--obligingness, readiness to perform kind offices, humanity carried
to the extent of Charity. He loved to busy himself for others. To some
one who said that time lay heavy on his hands, he answered, "Then you
have never occupied yourself about other people?" "Take more thought
of others than of yourself" was his maxim. And he did so occupy
himself,--not out of curiosity, but to aid, to succor with advice and
with deeds. His time belonged to everybody,--to the humblest, the
poorest, the first stranger who addressed him and told him his sorrows.
Out of a very small income (at most, four or five thousand francs a
year) he found means to give much. He loved, above all, to assist poor
artisans, men of the people, who appealed to him; and he did it always
without wounding the fibre of manhood in them. He loved everything that
wore a blouse. He had, even stronger than the love of liberty, the love
of equality, the great passion of the French.

He spent the last years of his life with an old friend of his youth by
the name of Madame Judith. This worthy person died a few months before
him, and he accompanied her remains to the church. He was seventy-seven
years old when he died.

Estimating and comparing chiefly literary and poetic merits, some
persons in France have been astonished that the obsequies of Beranger
should have been so