Les Misérables - Tome I - Fantine — Résumé 🇺🇸 English
Bishop Myriel moves into the magnificent episcopal palace of Digne, which features spacious apartments, grand salons, and a large dining room adorned with portraits of historical bishops. Just three days after arriving, Myriel visits the cramped, narrow local hospital and speaks with its director about the overcrowded conditions and the struggles of housing twenty-six sick patients in small rooms. Realizing the injustice of living in luxury while the sick suffer, Myriel abruptly declares that a mistake has been made regarding their lodgings. He insists that the hospital director take over the grand episcopal palace while he moves into the modest hospital building.
The following day, the twenty-six poor patients are comfortably installed in the bishop's palace, and Myriel moves into the hospital. Having been left without wealth after the revolution, Myriel receives an annual state salary of fifteen thousand francs as bishop. He meticulously writes out a budget allocating almost the entirety of this sum to various religious congregations, seminaries, prison charities, debt-relief funds for fathers, and six thousand francs directly for the poor, reserving only one thousand francs for his own personal living expenses. This arrangement is fully supported by his devoted sister, Mademoiselle Baptistine, though their servant, Madame Magloire, murmurs slightly at their extreme frugality.
Later, upon Madame Magloire reminding him that previous bishops claimed an allowance for urban carriage and pastoral tour expenses, Myriel applies for and is granted an additional annual sum of three thousand francs. This allocation outrages a local senator, who writes an angry, confidential letter to the minister of cults criticizing the clergy and accusing the bishop of hypocrisy and greed. Madame Magloire rejoices at the new funds, believing it will finally help their household finances, but Myriel immediately writes out another note dedicating the entire three thousand francs to hospital meat broths, maternal charity societies, foundlings, and orphans.
Operating as the ultimate treasurer of charity, Myriel collects fees from the rich only to immediately distribute them to the destitute who constantly knock at his door. Despite handling substantial sums of money, he refuses to add any superfluity to his modest life, always giving away funds before he even receives them. Because of his profound kindness and generosity, the local poor affectionately choose to call him Monseigneur Bienvenu, a title that the bishop openly welcomes because it corrects his formal title.