The Vicar of Tours | Page 4

of
Saint-Gatien, which have their base in the narrow little garden of the
house, leaving it doubtful whether the cathedral was built before or
after this venerable dwelling. An archaeologist examining the
arabesques, the shape of the windows, the arch of the door, the whole
exterior of the house, now mellow with age, would see at once that it
had always been a part of the magnificent edifice with which it is
blended.
An antiquary (had there been one at Tours,--one of the least literary
towns in all France) would even discover, where the narrow street
enters the Cloister, several vestiges of an old arcade, which formerly
made a portico to these ecclesiastical dwellings, and was, no doubt,
harmonious in style with the general character of the architecture.

The house of which we speak, standing on the north side of the
cathedral, was always in the shadow thrown by that vast edifice, on
which time had cast its dingy mantle, marked its furrows, and shed its
chill humidity, its lichen, mosses, and rank herbs. The darkened
dwelling was wrapped in silence, broken only by the bells, by the
chanting of the offices heard through the windows of the church, by the
call of the jackdaws nesting in the belfries. The region is a desert of
stones, a solitude with a character of its own, an arid spot, which could
only be inhabited by beings who had either attained to absolute nullity,
or were gifted with some abnormal strength of soul. The house in
question had always been occupied by abbes, and it belonged to an old
maid named Mademoiselle Gamard. Though the property had been
bought from the national domain under the Reign of Terror by the
father of Mademoiselle Gamard, no one objected under the Restoration
to the old maid's retaining it, because she took priests to board and was
very devout; it may be that religious persons gave her credit for the
intention of leaving the property to the Chapter.
The Abbe Birotteau was making his way to this house, where he had
lived for the last two years. His apartment had been (as was now the
canonry) an object of envy and his "hoc erat in votis" for a dozen years.
To be Mademoiselle Gamard's boarder and to become a canon were the
two great desires of his life; in fact they do present accurately the
ambition of a priest, who, considering himself on the highroad to
eternity, can wish for nothing in this world but good lodging, good food,
clean garments, shoes with silver buckles, a sufficiency of things for
the needs of the animal, and a canonry to satisfy self- love, that
inexpressible sentiment which follows us, they say, into the presence of
God,--for there are grades among the saints. But the covetous desire for
the apartment which the Abbe Birotteau was now inhabiting (a very
harmless desire in the eyes of worldly people) had been to the abbe
nothing less than a passion, a passion full of obstacles, and, like more
guilty passions, full of hopes, pleasures, and remorse.
The interior arrangements of the house did not allow Mademoiselle
Gamard to take more than two lodgers. Now, for about twelve years
before the day when Birotteau went to live with her she had undertaken
to keep in health and contentment two priests; namely, Monsieur
l'Abbe Troubert and Monsieur l'Abbe Chapeloud. The Abbe Troubert

still lived. The Abbe Chapeloud was dead; and Birotteau had stepped
into his place.
The late Abbe Chapeloud, in life a canon of Saint-Gatien, had been an
intimate friend of the Abbe Birotteau. Every time that the latter paid a
visit to the canon he had constantly admired the apartment, the
furniture and the library. Out of this admiration grew the desire to
possess these beautiful things. It had been impossible for the Abbe
Birotteau to stifle this desire; though it often made him suffer terribly
when he reflected that the death of his best friend could alone satisfy
his secret covetousness, which increased as time went on. The Abbe
Chapeloud and his friend Birotteau were not rich. Both were sons of
peasants; and their slender savings had been spent in the mere costs of
living during the disastrous years of the Revolution. When Napoleon
restored the Catholic worship the Abbe Chapeloud was appointed
canon of the cathedral and Birotteau was made vicar of it. Chapeloud
then went to board with Mademoiselle Gamard. When Birotteau first
came to visit his friend, he thought the arrangement of the rooms
excellent, but he noticed nothing more. The outset of this
concupiscence of chattels was very like that of a true passion, which
often begins, in a young man, with cold admiration for a woman whom
he ends in loving forever.
The apartment, reached by a