Digne, Bishop Myriel's residence is both the episcopal home of Bishop Myriel and the first town reached by Jean Valjean after his long walk in October 1815. The place joins two sharply different presences: an elderly bishop established in the town for years, and a weary traveler whose appearance makes its inhabitants uneasy.

The Episcopal Seat

In 1815, Bishop Myriel was about seventy-five and had occupied the see of Digne since 1806. His route to the position began elsewhere: in 1804 he was an elderly, secluded parish priest in Brignolles. A parish matter later took him to Paris to seek assistance for his parishioners. There he encountered Napoléon Ier and answered the emperor’s question about him with a contrast between an ordinary man and a great one. The emperor subsequently asked for the priest’s name, and Myriel was later surprised to learn that he had been appointed bishop of Digne.

The Bishop's Household

Bishop Myriel came to Digne with Mlle Baptistine, his sister, who was ten years younger than he was. Their only servant was Mme Magloire, who had served Myriel when he was a parish priest and now combined the duties of Mlle Baptistine’s attendant and the bishop’s housekeeper. The town is thus introduced not merely as the site of an office but as the home of a small household organized around the bishop and the two women who lived with him.

Jean Valjean's Arrival

In the first days of October 1815, about an hour before sunset, Jean Valjean entered the small town on foot. The few inhabitants at their windows or on their thresholds watched him uneasily. He was a robust man in his late forties, sunburned and sweating from the journey, with a shaved head, a long beard, and worn, patched clothes. A soldier’s pack, a large knotted staff, and heavy shoes on feet without stockings completed the image of a traveler whose poverty and exhaustion were visible before he had spoken. Digne is the setting for this first contrast between its established bishop and a passerby marked by hardship and suspicion.