Les Miserables, Wilbour Translation

To afford an idea of the household of the Bishop of D , and the manner in which these two good women subordinated their actions, thoughts, even their womanly instincts, so liable to disturbance, to the habits and projects of the bishop, so that he had not even to speak, in order to express them ; we cannot do better than to copy here a letter from Mademoiselle Baptistine to Madame la Vicomtesse de Boischevron, the friend of her childhood. This letter is in our possession: D , Dec. i6th,

-"MY DEAR MADAME: Not a day passes that we do not speak of you; that is customary enough with us; but we have now another reason. Would you believe that in washing and dusting the ceilings and walls, Madame Magloire has made some discoveries? At present, our two chambers, which were hung with old paper, white-washed, would not disparage a chateau in the style of your own. Madame Magloire has torn off all the paper: it had something underneath. My parlour, where there is no furniture and which we use to dry clothes in, is fifteen feet high, eighteen feet square, and has a ceiling, once painted and gilded, with beams like those of your house. This was covered over with canvas during the time it was used as a hospital; and then we have wainscoting of the time of our grandmothers. But it is my own room which you ought to see. Madame Magloire has discovered beneath at least ten thicknesses of paper some pictures, which, though not good, are quite endurable. Telemachus received on horseback, by Minerva, is one; and then again, he is in the gardens I forget their name; another is where the Roman ladies resorted for a single night. I could say much more ; I have Romans, men and women [here a word is illegible], and all their retinue. Madame Magloire has cleaned it all, and this summer she is going to repair some little damages, and varnish it, and my room will be a veritable museum. She also found in a corner of the storehouse two pier tables of antique style; they asked two crowns of six livres to reguild them, but it is far better to give that to the poor; besides that they are very ugly, and I much prefer a round mahogany table. /