He was already advanced in years, and lived in a very retired manner.
About the epoch of the coronation, some petty affair connected with his curacy--just what, is not precisely known--took him to Paris.
Among other powerful persons to whom he went to solicit aid for his parishioners was M.le Cardinal Fesch.

One day, when the Emperor had come to visit his uncle, the worthy Cure, who was waiting in the anteroom, found himself present when His Majesty passed.

Napoleon, on finding himself observed with a certain curiosity by this old man, turned round and said abruptly:-- "Who is this good man who is staring at me ?" "Sire," said M.Myriel, "you are looking at a good man, and I at a great man.

Each of us can profit by it." That very evening, the Emperor asked the Cardinal the name of the Cure, and some time afterwards M.Myriel was utterly astonished to learn that he had been appointed Bishop of D---- What truth was there, after all, in the stories which were invented as to the early portion of M.Myriel's life?
No one knew.

Very few families had been acquainted with the Myriel family before the Revolution.
M.Myriel had to undergo the fate of every newcomer in a little town, where there are many mouths which talk, and very few heads which think.
He was obliged to undergo it although he was a bishop, and because he was a bishop.