such sacrifices if not offered in secret, partake more of the spirit of
Pharisaism than of the gospel. This humility, notwithstanding, he was
unable to guard against the pardonable curiosity of his servants. One of
them, quite a young man, who was his personal attendant during the first
years of his residence at Belley, observing that he wore round his neck the
key of a large cupboard, and being very anxious to know what it contained,
managed in some way to possess himself of this key for a few moments, when
his master had laid it aside, and was not in the room.

Unlocking the cupboard he found it full of the vine shoots on which he was
accustomed to sleep. The bed which everyone saw in his apartment was the
Bishop's; the one which he hid away was the penitent's. The one was for
appearance, the other for piety. He used to put into disorder the coverings
of the bed, so as to give the impression of having slept in it, while he
really slept, or at least took such repose as was necessary to keep him
alive, on the penitential laths he had hidden.

Having discovered that through his valet the rumour of his austerity had
got abroad, he dismissed the young man from his service, giving him a
handsome present, and warning him to be less curious in future. But for
his failing, however, we should have lost a great example of the Bishop's
mortification and humility.

The latter virtue John Peter Camus cultivated most carefully, and how well
he succeeded in this matter is proved by the composure, and even gaiety and
joyousness, with which he met the raillery heaped upon his sermons, and
writings.

Camus, like the holy Bishop of Geneva, had throughout his life a special
devotion to the Blessed Virgin, and never failed in his daily recital of