Page:Novels of Honoré de Balzac Volume 23.djvu/63

 each other’s character. If such contrasts and such sympathies are not the elements of private life, must one not despair of society, which, especially in France, requires some kind of antagonism? It is from collision of character, not from conflict of ideas, that antipathies arise. The Abbé Chaperon was then the doctor’s first friend in Nemours. This ecclesiastic, then sixty years old, had been curé of Nemours since the revival of Catholic worship. Out of love for his flock, he had refused the vicariate of the diocese. If those who were indifferent to religious matters were pleased with him, the faithful loved him even more. Thus respected by his flock and valued by the population, the curé did good without inquiring into the religious opinions of unfortunate people. His vicarage had hardly furniture sufficient for his needs and was as cold and bare as a miser’s house. Avarice and charity betray themselves in similar effects; does not charity lay up for itself the treasure in Heaven that the miser lays up on earth? The Abbé Chaperon disputed his expenditure with his servant with as much severity as Gobseck did with his, if however, this famous Jew ever had a servant. The good priest often sold the silver buckles from his shoes and breeches to give the value of them to the poor who caught him without a penny. When they saw him coming out of his church, with the ends of his breeches tied into the buttonholes, the devotees of the town then went to find the curé’s buckles at the watchmaker and jeweler’s of Nemours, and scolded their pastor when