At half-past eight in the evening he supped
with his sister, Madame Magloire standing behind them and serving them at
table. Nothing could be more frugal than this repast.
If, however,
the Bishop had one of his cures to supper, Madame Magloire took advantage of
the opportunity to serve Monseigneur with some excellent fish from the lake, or
with some fine game from the mountains.
Every cure
furnished the pretext for a good meal:
the Bishop
did not interfere. With that exception, his ordinary diet consisted only of
vegetables boiled in water, and oil soup.
Thus it was
said in the town, when the Bishop does not indulge in the cheer of a cure, he
indulges in the cheer of a trappist.
After supper
he conversed for half an hour with Mademoiselle Baptistine and Madame Magloire;
then he retired to his own room and set to writing, sometimes on loose sheets,
and again on the margin of some folio. He was a man of letters and rather
learned.
He left
behind him five or six very curious manuscripts; among others, a dissertation
on this verse in Genesis, In the beginning, the spirit of God floated upon the
waters.
With this
verse he compares three texts: the Arabic verse which says, The winds of God
blew; Flavius Josephus who says, A wind from above was precipitated upon the
earth; and finally, the Chaldaic paraphrase of Onkelos, which renders it, A
wind coming from God blew upon the face of the waters. In another dissertation,
he examines the theological works of Hugo, Bishop of Ptolemais,
great-grand-uncle to the writer of this book, and establishes the fact, that to
this bishop must be attributed the divers little works published during the
last century, under the pseudonym of Barleycourt.
Sometimes,
in the midst of his reading, no matter what the book might be which he had in
his hand, he would suddenly fall into a profound meditation, whence he only
emerged to write a few lines on the pages of the volume itself.
These lines
have often no connection whatever with the book which contains them.
We now have
under our eyes a note written by him on the margin of a quarto entitled
Correspondence of Lord Germain with Generals Clinton, Cornwallis, and the
Admirals on the American station.
Here is the
note:--
"Oh, you who are!
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