M. Myriel had no property, his family having been ruined by the Revolution. His sister was in receipt of a yearly income of five hundred francs, which sufficed for her personal wants at the vicarage. M. Myriel received from the State, in his quality of bishop, a salary of fifteen thousand francs. On the very day when he took up his abode in the hospital, M. Myriel settled on the disposition of this sum once for all, in the following manner. We transcribe here a note made by his own hand:—
Note on the regulation of my household expenses For the little seminary 1,500 livres Society of the mission 100 livres For the Lazarists of Montdidier 100 livres Seminary for foreign missions in Paris 200 livres Congregation of the Holy Spirit 150 livres Religious establishments of the Holy Land 100 livres Charitable maternity societies 300 livres Extra, for that of Arles 50 livres Work for the amelioration of prisons 400 livres Work for the relief and delivery of prisoners 500 livres To liberate fathers of families incarcerated for debt 1,000 livres Addition to the salary of the poor teachers of the diocese 2,000 livres Public granary of the Hautes-Alpes 100 livres Congregation of the ladies of Digne, of Manosque, and of Sisteron, for the gratuitous instruction of poor girls 1,500 livres For the poor 6,000 livres My personal expenses 1,000 livres Total 15,000 livres
M. Myriel made no change in this arrangement during the entire period that he occupied the see of Digne. As has been seen, he called it “regulating his household expenses.”
This arrangement was accepted with absolute submission by Mademoiselle Baptistine. This holy woman regarded Monseigneur of Digne as at one and the same time her brother and her bishop, her friend