Page:Novels of Honoré de Balzac Volume 23.djvu/65

 pleased to turn them to account. Though when he came to Nemours he was rich in the possession of a fairly fine library and an income of two thousand francs, in 1829 the curé owned nothing more than the revenue from his cure, almost entirely distributed every year. An excellent counselor in delicate affairs or in troubles, many a person, who never went to church for consolation used to go to the presbytery to seek advice. One small anecdote will suffice to complete this moral picture. Some of the peasants, rarely, it is true, and after all dishonest people, said they were being sued, in order to rouse the benevolence of the Abbé Chaperon. They deceived their wives, who, seeing their home threatened with dispossession and their cows seized, deceived the poor curé with their innocent tears, so that he could then find them the necessary seven or eight hundred francs, with which the peasant would buy a plot of ground. When religious persons, churchwardens, explained the fraud to the Abbé Chaperon whilst begging him to consult them to avoid being made the victim of cupidity, he said:

“Perhaps these people would have committed some crime to get their acre of earth, is it not at least doing good to prevent evil?”

Readers may be pleased to here find the sketch of this figure, remarkable in that science and literature had passed through this heart and vigorous mind while leaving them uncorrupted.

At sixty, the Abbé Chaperon had entirely white hair, so keenly did he feel the misfortune of others,