Chapter 14 Twelfth Bishop Bienvenu's reception in the cold

Around a general there is often a crowd of young officers, and around a bishop almost always a crowd of clerics.Such are the "white priests," as the lovely St. Francis Xavier somewhere calls them.People who have pursuits in any career follow the successful ones.There is no power without minions, nor honor without servants.People who count on a great future run around the current dignitaries.Every bishop's office has its staff.Every influential bishop has his group of angelic little monks patrolling, taking care of, and guarding the bishop's courtyard in order to win the favor of the bishop.Gaining the bishop's appreciation is equivalent to a lucky star shining brightly, and having the hope of becoming a fifth-rank cultivator.It is human nature to seek progress, and the apostle of God will not treat his subordinates badly.

There are tall hats elsewhere, and tall miters in churches as well.This kind of people are those bishops. They are powerful, rich, earn annual interest, flexible, favored by the upper class, good at asking people, and of course good at making people. They ordered the entire diocese to visit them in person. Acting as a bridge between the church and the diplomatic world, they were more priests than priests, deacons but not bishops.Rejoice all who approach them!Those who are well-placed, with fat parishes, layman's alimony, vicarage, chaplaincy, errands in the Catholic Church, the courtesies that rain down on them to please them, excel at To curry favor with their youths, in order to add the bishop's dignity in the future.Ascending themselves, they are also advancing with satellites; that is the whole solar system in motion.Their radiance turned purple to those who followed them.One of them succeeds, and everyone is blessed and promoted.The wider the boss's diocese, the bigger the favored territory, and there is still Rome.The bishop, the archbishop, and the cardinal can promote you to the cardinal's entourage. When you enter the Inquisition, you will get a white cloth ribbon embroidered with a black cross, and you will become a jury, and then go to the inner court. Confidential secretary, and then a bishop, and only one more step to be promoted from a bishop to a cardinal, and the relationship between the cardinal and the pope is just a vain election.Anyone who wears a priest's cap can dream of the pope's tiara.The priest is the only one who rises to the throne today in an orderly manner, and what a throne it is!The supreme throne.At the same time, what a breeding ground for ambition is the priesthood!How many shy choir-boys, how many young priests have put Berrett's milk-jug on top!A man who harbors ambition boasts that he can be devout, and thinks it is an easy task. Maybe he is so sincere, who knows?I have been addicted for a long time, and I am a little baffled.

Bishop Bienvenu was humble, aloof, and indifferent, and he was not included among those noble bishops.That can be seen from the complete absence of young priests around him.We already know that he "achieved nothing" in Paris.No young man is willing to entrust his future to such a lonely old man.Not one ambitious young plant has the foolish thought of growing green under his shade.His priests and coadjutors were all quiet old men, like him, some common people, who were stranded with him in that parish that was not blessed to produce a cardinal, and they were like their bishop, different. The only thing is: they are done, and he is done.Everyone felt that there was no possibility of success with Bishop Bienvenu, so that young people who had just come out of the priesthood, after he was appointed priest, turned to the Archbishop of Aix or Hauch. left him.Because, we say it again, mortals would love to be promoted.A sage who is too self-denying is a partner who can get you into trouble, he can get you into a dead end, make your joints stiff, immobilized, in short, make you practice that kind of humility that you don't want to accept way.That's why everyone shuns that scabrous virtue.This is why Bishop Bienvenu's reception was so cold.We live in a dark society, climbing up is a kind of chronic corrosion education from top to bottom.

By the way, success is a rather ugly thing.It seems to be genuine, but in fact it is false.The average person often thinks that success and superiority are almost the same thing.Success is a semblance of talent, and it is history that is fooled by it.Only Juvenal and Tacitus expressed indignation in this regard.In our time there is a theory that is almost accepted as the orthodox of philosophy, which has become the servant of success, which it flaunts and does its slavery to.You try to succeed, that's how it works.Wealth equals talent.If you hit the jackpot, you are an outstanding talent.Whoever gains power is respected by others.As long as your horoscope is good, everything is promising.As long as you're lucky, the rest is within your grasp.As long as you can do everything right, people think you are great.With five or six prominent exceptions that have shaken the century, the admiration of our time is all short-sighted.Gold paint is real gold.It doesn't matter whether it's a cat or a dog. The key is success.The worldly things, like the old Narcissus who looks at himself with pity, can appreciate the worldly things very much.As long as anyone achieves his goal in any aspect, everyone will applaud in unison, boasting that he is a genius and supernatural power, saying that he is comparable to Moses, Aeschylus, Dante, Michelangelo or Napoleon.Whether it is a clerk who became a member of parliament, a fake Corneille who wrote a book of "Dilidates", a eunuch who disrupted the palace, a paper tiger in military uniform won an epoch-making battle by luck, a pharmacist invented Paper soles were pretended to be leather, and they were supplied to Sambre and Meuse military districts and received an annual interest of 400,000 livres. A department store dealer took advantage of huge profits and accumulated seven or eight million ill-gotten wealth. A bishop, a steward of a distinguished family became rich when he retired, and was promoted to finance minister, and all these things are called geniuses, just as they admire the beauty of Mousqueton and Claudius. The panache is the same as the instrument.They confuse the starlight in the sky with the footprints of duck feet in the mud.