"I was expecting you, my dear son," he cried as soon as he saw Julien in the distance. "Be welcome.
This day's duty will be protracted and arduous.
Let us fortify ourselves by a first breakfast. We will have the second at ten o'clock during high mass."
"I do not wish, sir," said Julien to him gravely, "to be alone for a single instant.
Deign to observe," he added, showing him the clock over their heads, "that I have arrived at one minute to five."
"So those little rascals at the seminary frightened you.
It is very good of you to think of them," said the abbe.
"But is the road less beautiful because there are thorns in the hedges which border it.
Travellers go on their way, and leave the wicked thorns to wait in vain where they are.
And now to work my dear friend, to work."
The abbe Chas was right in saying that the task would be arduous.
There had been a great funeral ceremony at the cathedral the previous day. They had not been able to make any preparations.
They had consequently only one morning for dressing all the Gothic pillars which constitute the three naves with a kind of red damask cloth ascending to a height of thirty feet.
The Bishop had fetched by mail four decorators from Paris, but these gentry were not able to do everything, and far from giving any encouragement to the clumsiness of the Besancon colleagues, they made it twice as great by making fun of them.
Julien saw that he would have to climb the ladder himself. His agility served him in good stead.
He undertook the direction of the decorators from town.
The Abbe Chas was delighted as he watched him flit from ladder to ladder.
When all the pillars were dressed in damask, five enormous bouquets of feathers had to be placed on the great baldachin above the grand altar.
A rich coping of gilded wood was supported by eight big straight columns of Italian marble, but to reach the centre of the baldachin above the tabernacle involved walking over an old wooden cornice which was forty feet high and possibly worm-eaten. The sight of this difficult crossing had extinguished the gaiety of the Parisian decorators, which up till then had been so brilliant. They looked at it from down below, argued a great deal, but did not go up.
Julien seized hold of the bouquets of feathers and climbed the ladder at a run.
He placed it neatly on the crown-shaped ornament in the centre of the baldachin.
When he came down the ladder again, the abbe Chas-Bernard embraced him in his arms.
"Optime" exclaimed the good priest,
"I will tell this to Monseigneur."
Breakfast at ten o'clock was very gay.
The abbe Chas had never seen his church look so beautiful.
"Dear disciple," he said to Julien. "My mother used to let out chairs in this venerable building, so I have been brought up in this great edifice.
The Terror of Robespierre ruined us, but when I was eight years old, that was my age then, I used to serve masses in private houses, so you see I got my meals on mass-days.
Nobody could fold a chasuble better than I could, and I never cut the fringes.
After the re-establishment of public worship by Napoleon, I had the good fortune to direct everything in this venerable metropolis.
Five times a year do my eyes see it adorned with these fine ornaments.
But it has never been so resplendent, and the damask breadths have never been so well tied or so close to the pillars as they are to-day."
"So he is going to tell me his secret at last," said Julien.
"Now he is going to talk about himself. He is expanding."
But nothing imprudent was said by the man in spite of his evident exaltation.
"All the same he has worked a great deal," said Julien to himself. "He is happy.
What a man!
What an example for me!
He really takes the cake." (This was a vulgar phrase which he had learned from the old surgeon).
As the sanctus of high mass sounded, Julien wanted to take a surplice to follow the bishop in the superb procession.
"And the thieves, my friend! And the thieves," exclaimed the abbe Chas.
"Have you forgotten them?
The procession will go out, but we will watch, will you and I.
We shall be very lucky if we get off with the loss of a couple of ells of this fine lace which surrounds the base of the pillars.
It is a gift of Madame de Rubempre.
It comes from her great-grandfather the famous Count. It is made of real gold, my friend," added the abbe in a whisper, and with evident exaltation.
"And all genuine.
I entrust you with the watching of the north wing. Do not leave it.
I will keep the south wing and the great nave for myself.
Keep an eye on the confessional. It is there that the women accomplices of the thieves always spy. Look out for the moment when we turn our backs."