It is often the case that the opening lines of a book set the keynote for the whole. Here, it is the Bishop of Digne who sets the spiritual keynote for Les Misérables.
A truly good man or woman is one of the most difficult characters for a writer to portray convincingly. Notice that in describing the bishop, Hugo does not simply tell us "This man is a saint." Instead, he introduces him to us gradually and lets us form our own conclusions. We learn first what people say about his past. Then we see him in action, giving away his palace and his income; and we hear him speak — simply and wisely to his parishioners, gaily to his sister, wittily to the great. In Chapters 5-9, we penetrate further into his private life and learn that he lives as unpretentiously in his bedroom as he does in public, and that his sister and servant love and revere him even more than his parishioners. To add more conviction still to this straightforward account, Hugo lets us read at firsthand the bishop's personal budget and his sister's letter to an old friend, and subjects him to two difficult tests: a test of courage with Cravatte, the thief, a test of charity with G., the conventionist. And when, finally, we are given a glimpse of his inner thoughts, we are not surprised at the radiance we find there.
