Bishop Bienvenu (or M. Myriel)

Back Story:

"M. Myriel was the son of a councillor of the Parliament of Aix... . It was said that his father, destining him to be the heir of his own post, had married him at a very early age, eighteen or twenty, in accordance with a custom which is rather widely prevalent in parliamentary families. In spite of this marriage, however, it was said that Charles Myriel created a great deal of talk. He was well formed, though rather short in stature, elegant, graceful, intelligent; the whole of the first portion of his life had been devoted to the world and to gallantry.

The Revolution came; events succeeded each other with precipitation; the parliamentary families, decimated, pursued, hunted down, were dispersed. M. Charles Myriel emigrated to Italy at the very beginning of the Revolution. There his wife died of a malady of the chest, from which she had long suffered. He had no children. What took place next in the fate of M. Myriel? ...Was he, in the midst of these distractions... , suddenly smitten with one of those mysterious and terrible blows which sometimes overwhelm, by striking to his heart...? No one could have told: all that was known was, that when he returned from Italy he was a priest." (pg.s 1-2)

M. Myriel started out as a cure, but one day in 1804, he happened to meet the Emperor Napoleon in Paris. Napoleon liked the old man, and made him a Bishop: the Bishop of Digne.

He brought his sister, Mad. Baptistine, and his housekeeper, Madame Magloire.

Stories of his Kindness:

When he first moved into his spacious house, he invited the director of the hospital over. The hospital was a small 5 roomed house that cramped 25-100 people in it's walls. Bishop Bienvenu saw the solution to their problem. He would move into the plain, small hospital, and the patients would move into the beautiful, spacious mansion.

In a record of his funds, out of 15,000 francs, he keeps 1,000 for himself. The rest he gives to build up the gospel and to help the poor. Madame Magloire (his servant) felt they should have more money to live on, so she encouraged him to apply for the carriage and traveling expenses that he was entitled to. The Bishop did. People of the county judged him to be greedy and miserly when they recieved his application, but they sent him the funds. Bishop Bienvenu used all of the money for helping orphans and sponsoring charities.

His part in Les Miserables (the part in the musical :)):

tbc...