His linen, thick with darns, rubbed his skin like a hair shirt.

Madame de Portenduere, and other good souls, had an agreement with his housekeeper to replace the old clothes with new ones after he went to sleep, and the abbe did not always find out the difference.

He ate his food off pewter with iron forks and spoons.

When he received his assistants and sub-curates on days of high solemnity (an expense obligatory on the heads of parishes) he borrowed linen and silver from his friend the atheist.
"My silver is his salvation," the doctor would say.
These noble deeds, always accompanied by spiritual encouragement, were done with a beautiful naivete.

Such a life was all the more meritorious because the abbe was possessed of an erudition that was vast and varied, and of great and precious faculties.