Only a few events interrupt his saintly daily routine. On one occasion, he consoles a convict during his last night on earth and attends his execution. The experience leaves him with a lingering impression of horror and doubts about the social order.
The bishop's pastoral duties involve him in another experience that illustrates his unflinching zeal. Eager to visit an isolated parish village, he ventures alone into the mountains where the bandit Cravatte has his hideout. At the village, he wants to sing a Te Deum but finds the parish too poor to provide the necessary episcopal ornaments for the service. Help comes from an unexpected source: the thief Cravatte sends him a trunk filled with the treasures he has stolen from another church, Notre Dame of Embrun. The bishop uses them for his service, but we are left in suspense as to whether he then returns them to Embrun or sells them and gives the funds to the hospital.
Humble with the underprivileged, M. Bienvenu (as his parishioners call him because of his kindness to them) can be cutting with the complacently wealthy. He refutes the amoral materialism of a senator with a sarcastic sermon, an ironic compliment.
His irony is reserved exclusively for the selfish, however, and he treats honorable opponents with consideration and courtesy. When he hears of the serious illness of C., a member of the Convention of 1793 that sent so many to the guillotine, he feels compelled to pay him a pastoral visit, and in a long conversation marked by mutual respect, the two argue the value of the Revolution. With uncommon understanding, the bishop acknowledges its merits and, in a reversal of roles, concludes by asking the conventionist's blessing.
