Every skull-cap may dream of the tiara.

The priest is nowadays the only man who can become a king in a regular manner; and what a king! the supreme king.

Then what a nursery of aspirations is a seminary! How many blushing choristers, how many youthful abbes bear on their heads Perrette's pot of milk! Who knows how easy it is for ambition to call itself vocation?
in good faith, perchance, and deceiving itself, devotee that it is.
Monseigneur Bienvenu, poor, humble, retiring, was not accounted among the big mitres.

This was plain from the complete absence of young priests about him.

We have seen that he "did not take" in Paris.