Since there is always more misery in the depths than compassion in the heights, everything was given, so to speak, before it was received. It was like water on parched land. However fast the money flowed in he never had enough; and then he robbed himself.

It being customary for bishops to preface their pastoral letters and orders with the full list of their baptismal names, the people of the region, from instinctive affection, elected to call him by the name which for them had the most meaning, Monseigneur Bienvenu. We shall follow their example and use this name when occasion arises. In any event, it pleased him. Bienvenu – or ‘welcome’. ‘It counteracts the Monseigneur,’ he said.

We do not claim that the portrait we are making is the whole truth, only that it is a resemblance.

III
A hard office for a good bishop

Although he had converted his carriage into alms, the bishop did not on this account neglect his pastoral duties. Digne was a rugged diocese, with very little flat land, many mountains and, as we have seen, very few roads. It contained thirty-two curacies, forty-one vicarages, and two hundred and eighty-five chapels-of-ease and sub-curacies. To visit them all was a large undertaking, but the bishop accomplished it. He went on foot to near-by places, by carrier’s cart to places on the plain, and by pack-mule into the hills. As a rule the two women accompanied him, but when the journey was too difficult he went alone.

He arrived one day at Senez, a former episcopal city, riding a donkey, his means at that moment being so scanty that he could afford no other conveyance. The mayor, welcoming him at the gates of the residence, watched with shocked eyes while he dismounted, and laughter arose from a few citizens who were standing by.

‘Gentlemen,’ said the bishop, ‘I know what has outraged you. You find it arrogant in a simple priest that he should be mounted like Jesus Christ. Let me assure you that I do it from necessity, not from vanity.’

He was gentle and indulgent on these tours of office, preaching less than he talked. He treated no virtue as though it were beyond ordinary reach, nor did he use far-fetched reasoning and examples. To the people of a district which dealt harshly with its poor he would quote the example of their neighbours. ‘Take the people of Briançon. They allow the needy, the widows and orphans, to cut their hay three days earlier than the rest. When their homes are in ruins they repair them for nothing. And so that is a region blessed by God. In the past hundred years they have not had a single murder.’

To villages over-intent upon yield and profit he said: ‘Take the people of Embrun. If at harvest-time the father of a family is left single-handed, with his sons in the army and his daughters in service in the town, or if he is sick or disabled, the priest mentions the fact in his sermon; and on Sunday, after Mass, all the people of the village, men, women, and children, go to help him with his harvesting and carry the straw and grain into his barn.’ To families at odds over questions of money and inheritance he said: ‘Take the hill-people of Devoluy, a region so bleak that the nightingale is not heard there once in fifty years. When the father dies the sons go elsewhere to seek their fortune, leaving the property to the daughters so that they may find husbands.’ In districts much given to litigation, where the farmers wasted their substance on official documents, he said: ‘Take the peasants in the Queyras valley, three thousand souls. I tell you, it is like a little republic. They have no judge or bailiff. The mayor does everything. He apportions the taxes, from each according to his means; he resolves quarrels, divides patrimonies, delivers judgement, all without charge. He is obeyed because he is a just man among simple people.’ And he also cited the example of Queyras in villages where there was no schoolmaster: ‘Do you know what they do? Since a hamlet often or fifteen dwellings cannot afford a schoolmaster they have teachers paid by the valley as a whole who go from village to village, spending a week here and ten days there. These teachers also visit the fairs, as I myself have seen.