In point of fact there ought to be hot-air pipes all over the place, and it will never be done for lack of money." "But at any rate Monseigneur might have stoves put into the rooms, here and there." "He!" cried the Abbe, laughing, "but he has no private means whatever.
He draws a stipend of ten thousand francs a year and not another penny; for there is no endowment at Chartres, and the revenue from the fees on the ecclesiastical Acts is nothing.

In this rich, but irreligious town he can hope for no assistance; the gardener and porter are paid by him; he is obliged for economy's sake to employ Sisters from a convent as cook and linen-keeper.

Add to that his inability to keep a carriage, so that he has to hire a conveyance for his pastoral rounds.

And how much then do you suppose he has left to live on, if you deduct his charities?
Why, he is poorer than you or I!" "But then Chartres is the fag end of Church preferment, a mere raft for the shipwrecked and starving." "Thou hast said! Bishop, canons, priests, everybody here is poverty-stricken." The bell rang, and Madame Bavoil showed in the Abbe Plomb.

Durtal recognized him.