In 1815, Mr. Charles-François-Bienvenu Myriel was Bishop of Digne. He was an old man of about seventy-five years of age, and had occupied the see of Digne since 1806.

Although this detail has no bearing on the actual substance of what we have to tell, it may not be useless, if only to be exact in every particular, to indicate here the rumors and talk that had circulated about him at the time of his arrival in the diocese. True or false, what is said about men often holds as much place in their lives, and especially in their destiny, as what they do. Mr. Myriel was the son of a councilor to the parliament of Aix; nobility of the robe. It was told of him that his father, wishing him to inherit his office, had married him off early, at eighteen or twenty years of age, following a custom quite widespread in parliamentary families. Charles Myriel, despite this marriage, had, it was said, given people much to talk about. He was well-proportioned, rather short, but elegant, gracious, witty; the entire beginning of his life had been given over to the world and to gallantry. The Revolution had broken out, events had hurried on, parliamentary families, decimated, driven out, hunted down, had dispersed. Mr. Charles Myriel, from the very first days of the Revolution, had emigrated to Italy. His wife had died there of a chest ailment from which she had suffered for a long time. They had no children. What had happened subsequently in Mr. Myriel's destiny? Had the collapse of the old society, the fall of his own family, the tragic spectacles of '93, even more frightening for the émigrés who viewed them from afar with the magnification of terror, given birth in him to ideas of renunciation and solitude? Had he been, amidst those distractions and affections that occupied his life, suddenly struck by one of those mysterious and terrible blows that sometimes bring down a man whom public catastrophes would not shake, by striking him at the heart in his fortune or in his affections? No one could have said; all that was known was that upon his return from Italy he was a priest. In 1804, Mr. Myriel was parish priest of B. (Brignolles?). He was already old, and lived in profound retirement. Around the time of the coronation, a matter concerning his parish, the details of which he did not know very well, had brought him to Paris. Among other powerful personages, he had solicited Cardinal Fesch, the emperor's uncle, on behalf of his parishioners. One day, the emperor, passing by to see his uncle, the worthy priest, who was waiting in the antechamber, found himself in His Majesty's path. Napoleon, seeing himself looked at with a certain curiosity by this old man, turned his head and said abruptly: — Who is this good man looking at me? — Sire, said Mr. Myriel, you are looking at a good man, and I am looking at a great man. Each of us may profit. The emperor, that very evening, asked the cardinal for the name of this priest, and some time later, Mr. Myriel learned with stupefaction that he had been appointed Bishop of Digne. What, moreover, was true in the accounts told about the early years of Mr. Myriel's life? No one knew. Mr. Myriel's family was very small; it had been devoured by the Revolution. Mr. Myriel had been a man of letters before becoming a man of the church; he had translated into French the Works of Saint John Chrysostom; he had also written a few ascetic works, among others a commentary on the Lord's Prayer and a Treatise on the Virtues and Duties of Bishops. He had, moreover, a reputation as a preacher. He was credited with great eloquence. He had used his entire salary to adorn and beautify his cathedral. He had given the bishop's palace to the hospital. He himself inhabited a small house on Rue de la Préfecture, and received there all those who had need of him.