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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Les Misérables, by Victor Hugo

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Title: Les Misérables
Complete in Five Volumes

Author: Victor Hugo

Translator: Isabel F. Hapgood

Release Date: May, 1994 [eBook #135]
[Most recently updated: July 20, 2021]

Language: English

Character set encoding: UTF-8

Produced by: Judith Boss and David Widger

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LES MISÉRABLES ***




LES MISÉRABLES

By Victor Hugo


Translated by Isabel F. Hapgood


Thomas Y. Crowell & Co.
 No. 13, Astor Place

New York
Copyright 1887



[Illustration: Bookshelf  spines]

[Illustration: Bookcover]

[Illustration: Frontpapers]

[Illustration: Frontispiece]

[Illustration: Titlepage Volume One]

[Illustration: Titlepage Verso]




Contents

 LES MISÉRABLES

 PREFACE


 VOLUME I—FANTINE


 BOOK FIRST—A JUST MAN

 CHAPTER I—M. MYRIEL

 CHAPTER II—M. MYRIEL BECOMES M. WELCOME

 CHAPTER III—A HARD BISHOPRIC FOR A GOOD BISHOP

 CHAPTER IV—WORKS CORRESPONDING TO WORDS

 CHAPTER V—MONSEIGNEUR BIENVENU MADE HIS CASSOCKS LAST TOO LONG

 CHAPTER VI—WHO GUARDED HIS HOUSE FOR HIM

 CHAPTER VII—CRAVATTE

 CHAPTER VIII—PHILOSOPHY AFTER DRINKING

 CHAPTER IX—THE BROTHER AS DEPICTED BY THE SISTER

 CHAPTER X—THE BISHOP IN THE PRESENCE OF AN UNKNOWN LIGHT

 CHAPTER XI—A RESTRICTION

 CHAPTER XII—THE SOLITUDE OF MONSEIGNEUR WELCOME

 CHAPTER XIII—WHAT HE BELIEVED

 CHAPTER XIV—WHAT HE THOUGHT


 BOOK SECOND—THE FALL

 CHAPTER I—THE EVENING OF A DAY OF WALKING

 CHAPTER II—PRUDENCE COUNSELLED TO WISDOM

 CHAPTER III—THE HEROISM OF PASSIVE OBEDIENCE

 CHAPTER IV—DETAILS CONCERNING THE CHEESE-DAIRIES OF PONTARLIER

 CHAPTER V—TRANQUILLITY

 CHAPTER VI—JEAN VALJEAN

 CHAPTER VII—THE INTERIOR OF DESPAIR

 CHAPTER VIII—BILLOWS AND SHADOWS

 CHAPTER IX—NEW TROUBLES

 CHAPTER X—THE MAN AROUSED

 CHAPTER XI—WHAT HE DOES

 CHAPTER XII—THE BISHOP WORKS

 CHAPTER XIII—LITTLE GERVAIS


 BOOK THIRD—IN THE YEAR 1817

 CHAPTER I—THE YEAR 1817

 CHAPTER II—A DOUBLE QUARTETTE

 CHAPTER III—FOUR AND FOUR

 CHAPTER IV—THOLOMYÈS IS SO MERRY THAT HE SINGS A SPANISH DITTY

 CHAPTER V—AT BOMBARDA’S

 CHAPTER VI—A CHAPTER IN WHICH THEY ADORE EACH OTHER

 CHAPTER VII—THE WISDOM OF THOLOMYÈS

 CHAPTER VIII—THE DEATH OF A HORSE

 CHAPTER IX—A MERRY END TO MIRTH


 BOOK FOURTH—TO CONFIDE IS SOMETIMES TO DELIVER INTO A PERSON’S POWER

 CHAPTER I—ONE MOTHER MEETS ANOTHER MOTHER

 CHAPTER II—FIRST SKETCH OF TWO UNPREPOSSESSING FIGURES

 CHAPTER III—THE LARK


 BOOK FIFTH—THE DESCENT

 CHAPTER I—THE HISTORY OF A PROGRESS IN BLACK GLASS TRINKETS

 CHAPTER II—MADELEINE

 CHAPTER III—SUMS DEPOSITED WITH LAFFITTE

 CHAPTER IV—M. MADELEINE IN MOURNING

 CHAPTER V—VAGUE FLASHES ON THE HORIZON

 CHAPTER VI—FATHER FAUCHELEVENT

 CHAPTER VII—FAUCHELEVENT BECOMES A GARDENER IN PARIS

 CHAPTER VIII—MADAME VICTURNIEN EXPENDS THIRTY FRANCS ON MORALITY

 CHAPTER IX—MADAME VICTURNIEN’S SUCCESS

 CHAPTER X—RESULT OF THE SUCCESS

 CHAPTER XI—CHRISTUS NOS LIBERAVIT

 CHAPTER XII—M. BAMATABOIS’S INACTIVITY

 CHAPTER XIII—THE SOLUTION OF SOME QUESTIONS CONNECTED WITH THE
 MUNICIPAL POLICE


 BOOK SIXTH—JAVERT

 CHAPTER I—THE BEGINNING OF REPOSE

 CHAPTER II—HOW JEAN MAY BECOME CHAMP


 BOOK SEVENTH—THE CHAMPMATHIEU AFFAIR

 CHAPTER I—SISTER SIMPLICE

 CHAPTER II—THE PERSPICACITY OF MASTER SCAUFFLAIRE

 CHAPTER III—A TEMPEST IN A SKULL

 CHAPTER IV—FORMS ASSUMED BY SUFFERING DURING SLEEP

 CHAPTER V—HINDRANCES

 CHAPTER VI—SISTER SIMPLICE PUT TO THE PROOF

 CHAPTER VII—THE TRAVELLER ON HIS ARRIVAL TAKES PRECAUTIONS FOR
 DEPARTURE

 CHAPTER VIII—AN ENTRANCE BY FAVOR

 CHAPTER IX—A PLACE WHERE CONVICTIONS ARE IN PROCESS OF FORMATION

 CHAPTER X—THE SYSTEM OF DENIALS

 CHAPTER XI—CHAMPMATHIEU MORE AND MORE ASTONISHED


 BOOK EIGHTH—A COUNTER-BLOW

 CHAPTER I—IN WHAT MIRROR M. MADELEINE CONTEMPLATES HIS HAIR

 CHAPTER II—FANTINE HAPPY

 CHAPTER III—JAVERT SATISFIED

 CHAPTER IV—AUTHORITY REASSERTS ITS RIGHTS

 CHAPTER V—A SUITABLE TOMB



 VOLUME II—COSETTE

 BOOK FIRST—WATERLOO

 CHAPTER I—WHAT IS MET WITH ON THE WAY FROM NIVELLES

 CHAPTER II—HOUGOMONT

 CHAPTER III—THE EIGHTEENTH OF JUNE, 1815

 CHAPTER IV—A

 CHAPTER V—THE QUID OBSCURUM OF BATTLES

 CHAPTER VI—FOUR O’CLOCK IN THE AFTERNOON

 CHAPTER VII—NAPOLEON IN A GOOD HUMOR

 CHAPTER VIII—THE EMPEROR PUTS A QUESTION TO THE GUIDE LACOSTE

 CHAPTER IX—THE UNEXPECTED

 CHAPTER X—THE PLATEAU OF MONT-SAINT-JEAN

 CHAPTER XI—A BAD GUIDE TO NAPOLEON; A GOOD GUIDE TO BÜLOW

 CHAPTER XII—THE GUARD

 CHAPTER XIII—THE CATASTROPHE

 CHAPTER XIV—THE LAST SQUARE

 CHAPTER XV—CAMBRONNE

 CHAPTER XVI—QUOT LIBRAS IN DUCE?

 CHAPTER XVII—IS WATERLOO TO BE CONSIDERED GOOD?

 CHAPTER XVIII—A RECRUDESCENCE OF DIVINE RIGHT

 CHAPTER XIX—THE BATTLE-FIELD AT NIGHT


 BOOK SECOND—THE SHIP ORION

 CHAPTER I—NUMBER 24,601 BECOMES NUMBER 9,430

 CHAPTER II—IN WHICH THE READER WILL PERUSE TWO VERSES, WHICH ARE OF
 THE DEVIL’S COMPOSITION, POSSIBLY

 CHAPTER III—THE ANKLE-CHAIN MUST HAVE UNDERGONE A CERTAIN PREPARATORY
 MANIPULATION TO BE THUS BROKEN WITH A BLOW FROM A HAMMER


 BOOK THIRD—ACCOMPLISHMENT OF THE PROMISE MADE TO THE DEAD WOMAN

 CHAPTER I—THE WATER QUESTION AT MONTFERMEIL

 CHAPTER II—TWO COMPLETE PORTRAITS

 CHAPTER III—MEN MUST HAVE WINE, AND HORSES MUST HAVE WATER

 CHAPTER IV—ENTRANCE ON THE SCENE OF A DOLL

 CHAPTER V—THE LITTLE ONE ALL ALONE

 CHAPTER VI—WHICH POSSIBLY PROVES BOULATRUELLE’S INTELLIGENCE

 CHAPTER VII—COSETTE SIDE BY SIDE WITH THE STRANGER IN THE DARK

 CHAPTER VIII—THE UNPLEASANTNESS OF RECEIVING INTO ONE’S HOUSE A POOR
 MAN WHO MAY BE A RICH MAN

 CHAPTER IX—THÉNARDIER AND HIS MANŒUVRES

 CHAPTER X—HE WHO SEEKS TO BETTER HIMSELF MAY RENDER HIS SITUATION
 WORSE

 CHAPTER XI—NUMBER 9,430 REAPPEARS, AND COSETTE WINS IT IN THE LOTTERY


 BOOK FOURTH—THE GORBEAU HOVEL

 CHAPTER I—MASTER GORBEAU

 CHAPTER II—A NEST FOR OWL AND A WARBLER

 CHAPTER III—TWO MISFORTUNES MAKE ONE PIECE OF GOOD FORTUNE

 CHAPTER IV—THE REMARKS OF THE PRINCIPAL TENANT

 CHAPTER V—A FIVE-FRANC PIECE FALLS ON THE GROUND AND PRODUCES A TUMULT


 BOOK FIFTH—FOR A BLACK HUNT, A MUTE PACK

 CHAPTER I—THE ZIGZAGS OF STRATEGY

 CHAPTER II—IT IS LUCKY THAT THE PONT D’AUSTERLITZ BEARS CARRIAGES

 CHAPTER III—TO WIT, THE PLAN OF PARIS IN 1727

 CHAPTER IV—THE GROPINGS OF FLIGHT

 CHAPTER V—WHICH WOULD BE IMPOSSIBLE WITH GAS LANTERNS

 CHAPTER VI—THE BEGINNING OF AN ENIGMA

 CHAPTER VII—CONTINUATION OF THE ENIGMA

 CHAPTER VIII—THE ENIGMA BECOMES DOUBLY MYSTERIOUS

 CHAPTER IX—THE MAN WITH THE BELL

 CHAPTER X—WHICH EXPLAINS HOW JAVERT GOT ON THE SCENT


 BOOK SIXTH—LE PETIT-PICPUS

 CHAPTER I—NUMBER 62 RUE PETIT-PICPUS

 CHAPTER II—THE OBEDIENCE OF MARTIN VERGA

 CHAPTER III—AUSTERITIES

 CHAPTER IV—GAYETIES

 CHAPTER V—DISTRACTIONS

 CHAPTER VI—THE LITTLE CONVENT

 CHAPTER VII—SOME SILHOUETTES OF THIS DARKNESS

 CHAPTER VIII—POST CORDA LAPIDES

 CHAPTER IX—A CENTURY UNDER A GUIMPE

 CHAPTER X—ORIGIN OF THE PERPETUAL ADORATION

 CHAPTER XI—END OF THE PETIT-PICPUS


 BOOK SEVENTH—PARENTHESIS

 CHAPTER I—THE CONVENT AS AN ABSTRACT IDEA

 CHAPTER II—THE CONVENT AS AN HISTORICAL FACT

 CHAPTER III—ON WHAT CONDITIONS ONE CAN RESPECT THE PAST

 CHAPTER IV—THE CONVENT FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF PRINCIPLES

 CHAPTER V—PRAYER

 CHAPTER VI—THE ABSOLUTE GOODNESS OF PRAYER

 CHAPTER VII—PRECAUTIONS TO BE OBSERVED IN BLAME

 CHAPTER VIII—FAITH, LAW


 BOOK EIGHTH—CEMETERIES TAKE THAT WHICH IS COMMITTED THEM

 CHAPTER I—WHICH TREATS OF THE MANNER OF ENTERING A CONVENT

 CHAPTER II—FAUCHELEVENT IN THE PRESENCE OF A DIFFICULTY

 CHAPTER III—MOTHER INNOCENTE

 CHAPTER IV—IN WHICH JEAN VALJEAN HAS QUITE THE AIR OF HAVING READ
 AUSTIN CASTILLEJO

 CHAPTER V—IT IS NOT NECESSARY TO BE DRUNK IN ORDER TO BE IMMORTAL

 CHAPTER VI—BETWEEN FOUR PLANKS

 CHAPTER VII—IN WHICH WILL BE FOUND THE ORIGIN OF THE SAYING: DON’T
 LOSE THE CARD

 CHAPTER VIII—A SUCCESSFUL INTERROGATORY

 CHAPTER IX—CLOISTERED



 VOLUME III—MARIUS

 BOOK FIRST—PARIS STUDIED IN ITS ATOM

 CHAPTER I—PARVULUS

 CHAPTER II—SOME OF HIS PARTICULAR CHARACTERISTICS

 CHAPTER III—HE IS AGREEABLE

 CHAPTER IV—HE MAY BE OF USE

 CHAPTER V—HIS FRONTIERS

 CHAPTER VI—A BIT OF HISTORY

 CHAPTER VII—THE GAMIN SHOULD HAVE HIS PLACE IN THE CLASSIFICATIONS OF
 INDIA

 CHAPTER VIII—IN WHICH THE READER WILL FIND A CHARMING SAYING OF THE
 LAST KING

 CHAPTER IX—THE OLD SOUL OF GAUL

 CHAPTER X—ECCE PARIS, ECCE HOMO

 CHAPTER XI—TO SCOFF, TO REIGN

 CHAPTER XII—THE FUTURE LATENT IN THE PEOPLE

 CHAPTER XIII—LITTLE GAVROCHE


 BOOK SECOND—THE GREAT BOURGEOIS

 CHAPTER I—NINETY YEARS AND THIRTY-TWO TEETH

 CHAPTER II—LIKE MASTER, LIKE HOUSE

 CHAPTER III—LUC-ESPRIT

 CHAPTER IV—A CENTENARIAN ASPIRANT

 CHAPTER V—BASQUE AND NICOLETTE

 CHAPTER VI—IN WHICH MAGNON AND HER TWO CHILDREN ARE SEEN

 CHAPTER VII—RULE: RECEIVE NO ONE EXCEPT IN THE EVENING

 CHAPTER VIII—TWO DO NOT MAKE A PAIR


 BOOK THIRD—THE GRANDFATHER AND THE GRANDSON

 CHAPTER I—AN ANCIENT SALON

 CHAPTER II—ONE OF THE RED SPECTRES OF THAT EPOCH

 CHAPTER III—REQUIESCANT

 CHAPTER IV—END OF THE BRIGAND

 CHAPTER V—THE UTILITY OF GOING TO MASS, IN ORDER TO BECOME A
 REVOLUTIONIST

 CHAPTER VI—THE CONSEQUENCES OF HAVING MET A WARDEN

 CHAPTER VII—SOME PETTICOAT

 CHAPTER VIII—MARBLE AGAINST GRANITE


 BOOK FOURTH—THE FRIENDS OF THE A B C

 CHAPTER I—A GROUP WHICH BARELY MISSED BECOMING HISTORIC

 CHAPTER II—BLONDEAU’S FUNERAL ORATION BY BOSSUET

 CHAPTER III—MARIUS’ ASTONISHMENTS

 CHAPTER IV—THE BACK ROOM OF THE CAFÉ MUSAIN

 CHAPTER V—ENLARGEMENT OF HORIZON

 CHAPTER VI—RES ANGUSTA


 BOOK FIFTH—THE EXCELLENCE OF MISFORTUNE

 CHAPTER I—MARIUS INDIGENT

 CHAPTER II—MARIUS POOR

 CHAPTER III—MARIUS GROWN UP

 CHAPTER IV—M. MABEUF

 CHAPTER V—POVERTY A GOOD NEIGHBOR FOR MISERY

 CHAPTER VI—THE SUBSTITUTE


 BOOK SIXTH—THE CONJUNCTION OF TWO STARS

 CHAPTER I—THE SOBRIQUET: MODE OF FORMATION OF FAMILY NAMES

 CHAPTER II—LUX FACTA EST

 CHAPTER III—EFFECT OF THE SPRING

 CHAPTER IV—BEGINNING OF A GREAT MALADY

 CHAPTER V—DIVERS CLAPS OF THUNDER FALL ON MA’AM BOUGON

 CHAPTER VI—TAKEN PRISONER

 CHAPTER VII—ADVENTURES OF THE LETTER U DELIVERED OVER TO CONJECTURES

 CHAPTER VIII—THE VETERANS THEMSELVES CAN BE HAPPY

 CHAPTER IX—ECLIPSE


 BOOK SEVENTH—PATRON MINETTE

 CHAPTER I—MINES AND MINERS

 CHAPTER II—THE LOWEST DEPTHS

 CHAPTER III—BABET, GUEULEMER, CLAQUESOUS, AND MONTPARNASSE

 CHAPTER IV—COMPOSITION OF THE TROUPE


 BOOK EIGHTH—THE WICKED POOR MAN

 CHAPTER I—MARIUS, WHILE SEEKING A GIRL IN A BONNET, ENCOUNTERS A MAN
 IN A CAP

 CHAPTER II—TREASURE TROVE

 CHAPTER III—QUADRIFRONS

 CHAPTER IV—A ROSE IN MISERY

 CHAPTER V—A PROVIDENTIAL PEEP-HOLE

 CHAPTER VI—THE WILD MAN IN HIS LAIR

 CHAPTER VII—STRATEGY AND TACTICS

 CHAPTER VIII—THE RAY OF LIGHT IN THE HOVEL

 CHAPTER IX—JONDRETTE COMES NEAR WEEPING

 CHAPTER X—TARIFF OF LICENSED CABS: TWO FRANCS AN HOUR

 CHAPTER XI—OFFERS OF SERVICE FROM MISERY TO WRETCHEDNESS

 CHAPTER XII—THE USE MADE OF M. LEBLANC’S FIVE-FRANC PIECE

 CHAPTER XIII—SOLUS CUM SOLO, IN LOCO REMOTO, NON COGITABUNTUR ORARE
 PATER NOSTER

 CHAPTER XIV—IN WHICH A POLICE AGENT BESTOWS TWO FISTFULS ON A LAWYER

 CHAPTER XV—JONDRETTE MAKES HIS PURCHASES

 CHAPTER XVI—IN WHICH WILL BE FOUND THE WORDS TO AN ENGLISH AIR WHICH
 WAS IN FASHION IN 1832

 CHAPTER XVII—THE USE MADE OF MARIUS’ FIVE-FRANC PIECE

 CHAPTER XVIII—MARIUS’ TWO CHAIRS FORM A VIS-A-VIS

 CHAPTER XIX—OCCUPYING ONE’S SELF WITH OBSCURE DEPTHS

 CHAPTER XX—THE TRAP

 CHAPTER XXI—ONE SHOULD ALWAYS BEGIN BY ARRESTING THE VICTIMS

 CHAPTER XXII—THE LITTLE ONE WHO WAS CRYING IN VOLUME TWO



 VOLUME IV—SAINT-DENIS

 BOOK FIRST—A FEW PAGES OF HISTORY

 CHAPTER I—WELL CUT

 CHAPTER II—BADLY SEWED

 CHAPTER III—LOUIS PHILIPPE

 CHAPTER IV—CRACKS BENEATH THE FOUNDATION

 CHAPTER V—FACTS WHENCE HISTORY SPRINGS AND WHICH HISTORY IGNORES

 CHAPTER VI—ENJOLRAS AND HIS LIEUTENANTS


 BOOK SECOND—ÉPONINE

 CHAPTER I—THE LARK’S MEADOW

 CHAPTER II—EMBRYONIC FORMATION OF CRIMES IN THE INCUBATION OF PRISONS

 CHAPTER III—APPARITION TO FATHER MABEUF

 CHAPTER IV—AN APPARITION TO MARIUS


 BOOK THIRD—THE HOUSE IN THE RUE PLUMET

 CHAPTER I—THE HOUSE WITH A SECRET

 CHAPTER II—JEAN VALJEAN AS A NATIONAL GUARD

 CHAPTER III—FOLIIS AC FRONDIBUS

 CHAPTER IV—CHANGE OF GATE

 CHAPTER V—THE ROSE PERCEIVES THAT IT IS AN ENGINE OF WAR

 CHAPTER VI—THE BATTLE BEGUN

 CHAPTER VII—TO ONE SADNESS OPPOSE A SADNESS AND A HALF

 CHAPTER VIII—THE CHAIN-GANG


 BOOK FOURTH—SUCCOR FROM BELOW MAY TURN OUT TO BE SUCCOR FROM ON HIGH

 CHAPTER I—A WOUND WITHOUT, HEALING WITHIN

 CHAPTER II—MOTHER PLUTARQUE FINDS NO DIFFICULTY IN EXPLAINING A
 PHENOMENON


 BOOK FIFTH—THE END OF WHICH DOES NOT RESEMBLE THE BEGINNING

 CHAPTER I—SOLITUDE AND THE BARRACKS COMBINED

 CHAPTER II—COSETTE’S APPREHENSIONS

 CHAPTER III—ENRICHED WITH COMMENTARIES BY TOUSSAINT

 CHAPTER IV—A HEART BENEATH A STONE

 CHAPTER V—COSETTE AFTER THE LETTER

 CHAPTER VI—OLD PEOPLE ARE MADE TO GO OUT OPPORTUNELY


 BOOK SIXTH—LITTLE GAVROCHE

 CHAPTER I—THE MALICIOUS PLAYFULNESS OF THE WIND

 CHAPTER II—IN WHICH LITTLE GAVROCHE EXTRACTS PROFIT FROM NAPOLEON THE
 GREAT

 CHAPTER III—THE VICISSITUDES OF FLIGHT


 BOOK SEVENTH—SLANG

 CHAPTER I—ORIGIN

 CHAPTER II—ROOTS

 CHAPTER III—SLANG WHICH WEEPS AND SLANG WHICH LAUGHS

 CHAPTER IV—THE TWO DUTIES: TO WATCH AND TO HOPE


 BOOK EIGHTH—ENCHANTMENTS AND DESOLATIONS

 CHAPTER I—FULL LIGHT

 CHAPTER II—THE BEWILDERMENT OF PERFECT HAPPINESS

 CHAPTER III—THE BEGINNING OF SHADOW

 CHAPTER IV—A CAB RUNS IN ENGLISH AND BARKS IN SLANG

 CHAPTER V—THINGS OF THE NIGHT

 CHAPTER VI—MARIUS BECOMES PRACTICAL ONCE MORE TO THE EXTENT OF GIVING
 COSETTE HIS ADDRESS

 CHAPTER VII—THE OLD HEART AND THE YOUNG HEART IN THE PRESENCE OF EACH
 OTHER


 BOOK NINTH—WHITHER ARE THEY GOING?

 CHAPTER I—JEAN VALJEAN

 CHAPTER II—MARIUS

 CHAPTER III—M. MABEUF


 BOOK TENTH—THE 5TH OF JUNE, 1832

 CHAPTER I—THE SURFACE OF THE QUESTION

 CHAPTER II—THE ROOT OF THE MATTER

 CHAPTER III—A BURIAL; AN OCCASION TO BE BORN AGAIN

 CHAPTER IV—THE EBULLITIONS OF FORMER DAYS

 CHAPTER V—ORIGINALITY OF PARIS


 BOOK ELEVENTH—THE ATOM FRATERNIZES WITH THE HURRICANE

 CHAPTER I—SOME EXPLANATIONS WITH REGARD TO THE ORIGIN OF GAVROCHE’S
 POETRY.

 CHAPTER II—GAVROCHE ON THE MARCH

 CHAPTER III—JUST INDIGNATION OF A HAIR-DRESSER

 CHAPTER IV—THE CHILD IS AMAZED AT THE OLD MAN

 CHAPTER V—THE OLD MAN

 CHAPTER VI—RECRUITS


 BOOK TWELFTH—CORINTHE

 CHAPTER I—HISTORY OF CORINTHE FROM ITS FOUNDATION

 CHAPTER II—PRELIMINARY GAYETIES

 CHAPTER III—NIGHT BEGINS TO DESCEND UPON GRANTAIRE

 CHAPTER IV—AN ATTEMPT TO CONSOLE THE WIDOW HUCHELOUP

 CHAPTER V—PREPARATIONS

 CHAPTER VI—WAITING

 CHAPTER VII—THE MAN RECRUITED IN THE RUE DES BILLETTES

 CHAPTER VIII—MANY INTERROGATION POINTS WITH REGARD TO A CERTAIN LE
 CABUC


 BOOK THIRTEENTH—MARIUS ENTERS THE SHADOW

 CHAPTER I—FROM THE RUE PLUMET TO THE QUARTIER SAINT-DENIS

 CHAPTER II—AN OWL’S VIEW OF PARIS

 CHAPTER III—THE EXTREME EDGE


 BOOK FOURTEENTH—THE GRANDEURS OF DESPAIR

 CHAPTER I—THE FLAG: ACT FIRST

 CHAPTER II—THE FLAG: ACT SECOND

 CHAPTER III—GAVROCHE WOULD HAVE DONE BETTER TO ACCEPT ENJOLRAS’
 CARBINE

 CHAPTER IV—THE BARREL OF POWDER

 CHAPTER V—END OF THE VERSES OF JEAN PROUVAIRE

 CHAPTER VI—THE AGONY OF DEATH AFTER THE AGONY OF LIFE

 CHAPTER VII—GAVROCHE AS A PROFOUND CALCULATOR OF DISTANCES


 BOOK FIFTEENTH—THE RUE DE L’HOMME ARMÉ

 CHAPTER I—A DRINKER IS A BABBLER

 CHAPTER II—THE STREET URCHIN AN ENEMY OF LIGHT

 CHAPTER III—WHILE COSETTE AND TOUSSAINT ARE ASLEEP

 CHAPTER IV—GAVROCHE’S EXCESS OF ZEAL



 VOLUME V—JEAN VALJEAN

 BOOK FIRST—THE WAR BETWEEN FOUR WALLS

 CHAPTER I—THE CHARYBDIS OF THE FAUBOURG SAINT ANTOINE AND THE SCYLLA

 CHAPTER II—WHAT IS TO BE DONE IN THE ABYSS IF ONE DOES NOT CONVERSE

 CHAPTER III—LIGHT AND SHADOW

 CHAPTER IV—MINUS FIVE, PLUS ONE

 CHAPTER V—THE HORIZON WHICH ONE BEHOLDS FROM THE SUMMIT OF A BARRICADE

 CHAPTER VI—MARIUS HAGGARD, JAVERT LACONIC

 CHAPTER VII—THE SITUATION BECOMES AGGRAVATED

 CHAPTER VIII—THE ARTILLERY-MEN COMPEL PEOPLE TO TAKE THEM SERIOUSLY

 CHAPTER IX—EMPLOYMENT OF THE OLD TALENTS OF A POACHER AND THAT
 INFALLIBLE MARKSMANSHIP WHICH INFLUENCED THE CONDEMNATION OF 1796

 CHAPTER X—DAWN

 CHAPTER XI—THE SHOT WHICH MISSES NOTHING AND KILLS NO ONE

 CHAPTER XII—DISORDER A PARTISAN OF ORDER

 CHAPTER XIII—PASSING GLEAMS

 CHAPTER XIV—WHEREIN WILL APPEAR THE NAME OF ENJOLRAS’ MISTRESS

 CHAPTER XV—GAVROCHE OUTSIDE

 CHAPTER XVI—HOW FROM A BROTHER ONE BECOMES A FATHER

 CHAPTER XVII—MORTUUS PATER FILIUM MORITURUM EXPECTAT

 CHAPTER XVIII—THE VULTURE BECOME PREY

 CHAPTER XIX—JEAN VALJEAN TAKES HIS REVENGE

 CHAPTER XX—THE DEAD ARE IN THE RIGHT AND THE LIVING ARE NOT IN THE
 WRONG

 CHAPTER XXI—THE HEROES

 CHAPTER XXII—FOOT TO FOOT

 CHAPTER XXIII—ORESTES FASTING AND PYLADES DRUNK

 CHAPTER XXIV—PRISONER


 BOOK SECOND—THE INTESTINE OF THE LEVIATHAN

 CHAPTER I—THE LAND IMPOVERISHED BY THE SEA

 CHAPTER II—ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE SEWER

 CHAPTER III—BRUNESEAU

 CHAPTER IV

 CHAPTER V—PRESENT PROGRESS

 CHAPTER VI—FUTURE PROGRESS


 BOOK THIRD—MUD BUT THE SOUL

 CHAPTER I—THE SEWER AND ITS SURPRISES

 CHAPTER II—EXPLANATION

 CHAPTER III—THE “SPUN” MAN

 CHAPTER IV—HE ALSO BEARS HIS CROSS

 CHAPTER V—IN THE CASE OF SAND AS IN THAT OF WOMAN, THERE IS A FINENESS
 WHICH IS TREACHEROUS

 CHAPTER VI—THE FONTIS

 CHAPTER VII—ONE SOMETIMES RUNS AGROUND WHEN ONE FANCIES THAT ONE IS
 DISEMBARKING

 CHAPTER VIII—THE TORN COAT-TAIL

 CHAPTER IX—MARIUS PRODUCES ON SOME ONE WHO IS A JUDGE OF THE MATTER,
 THE EFFECT OF BEING DEAD

 CHAPTER X—RETURN OF THE SON WHO WAS PRODIGAL OF HIS LIFE

 CHAPTER XI—CONCUSSION IN THE ABSOLUTE

 CHAPTER XII—THE GRANDFATHER


 BOOK FOURTH—JAVERT DERAILED

 CHAPTER I


 BOOK FIFTH—GRANDSON AND GRANDFATHER

 CHAPTER I—IN WHICH THE TREE WITH THE ZINC PLASTER APPEARS AGAIN

 CHAPTER II—MARIUS, EMERGING FROM CIVIL WAR, MAKES READY FOR DOMESTIC
 WAR

 CHAPTER III—MARIUS ATTACKED

 CHAPTER IV—MADEMOISELLE GILLENORMAND ENDS BY NO LONGER THINKING IT A
 BAD THING THAT M. FAUCHELEVENT SHOULD HAVE ENTERED WITH SOMETHING
 UNDER HIS ARM

 CHAPTER V—DEPOSIT YOUR MONEY IN A FOREST RATHER THAN WITH A NOTARY

 CHAPTER VI—THE TWO OLD MEN DO EVERYTHING, EACH ONE AFTER HIS OWN
 FASHION, TO RENDER COSETTE HAPPY

 CHAPTER VII—THE EFFECTS OF DREAMS MINGLED WITH HAPPINESS

 CHAPTER VIII—TWO MEN IMPOSSIBLE TO FIND


 BOOK SIXTH—THE SLEEPLESS NIGHT

 CHAPTER I—THE 16TH OF FEBRUARY, 1833

 CHAPTER II—JEAN VALJEAN STILL WEARS HIS ARM IN A SLING

 CHAPTER III—THE INSEPARABLE

 CHAPTER IV—THE IMMORTAL LIVER


 BOOK SEVENTH—THE LAST DRAUGHT FROM THE CUP

 CHAPTER I—THE SEVENTH CIRCLE AND THE EIGHTH HEAVEN

 CHAPTER II—THE OBSCURITIES WHICH A REVELATION CAN CONTAIN


 BOOK EIGHTH—FADING AWAY OF THE TWILIGHT

 CHAPTER I—THE LOWER CHAMBER

 CHAPTER II—ANOTHER STEP BACKWARDS

 CHAPTER III—THEY RECALL THE GARDEN OF THE RUE PLUMET

 CHAPTER IV—ATTRACTION AND EXTINCTION


 BOOK NINTH—SUPREME SHADOW, SUPREME DAWN

 CHAPTER I—PITY FOR THE UNHAPPY, BUT INDULGENCE FOR THE HAPPY

 CHAPTER II—LAST FLICKERINGS OF A LAMP WITHOUT OIL

 CHAPTER III—A PEN IS HEAVY TO THE MAN WHO LIFTED THE FAUCHELEVENT’S
 CART

 CHAPTER IV—A BOTTLE OF INK WHICH ONLY SUCCEEDED IN WHITENING

 CHAPTER V—A NIGHT BEHIND WHICH THERE IS DAY

 CHAPTER VI—THE GRASS COVERS AND THE RAIN EFFACES


 LETTER TO M. DAELLI

 FOOTNOTES:




List of Illustrations


 Bookshelf

 Bookcover

 Frontpapers

 Frontispiece Volume One

 Titlepage Volume One

 Titlepage Verso

 The Comforter

 The Fall

 Awakened

 Cossette Sweeping

 Candlesticks Into the Fire

 Father Champmathieu on Trial

 Frontispiece Volume Two

 Titlepage Volume Two

 The Ship Orion, an Accident

 The Gorbeau Hovel

 The Black Hunt

 Javert on the Hunt

 The Resurrection

 Royalist Bank-note

 Frontispiece Volume Three

 Titlepage Volume Three

 Little Gavroche

 Friends of the A B C

 Excellence of Misfortune

 Rose in Misery

 Red Hot Chisel

 Snatched up a Paving Stone

 Frontispiece Volume Four

 Titlepage Volume Four

 A Street Orator

 Code Table

 Succor from Below

 Cosette With Letter

 Slang

 The Grandeurs of Despair

 Frontispiece Volume Five

 Titlepage Volume Five

 Last Drop from the Cup

 The Twilight Decline

 Darkness



LES MISÉRABLES




PREFACE


So long as there shall exist, by virtue of law and custom, decrees of
damnation pronounced by society, artificially creating hells amid the
civilization of earth, and adding the element of human fate to divine
destiny; so long as the three great problems of the century—the
degradation of man through pauperism, the corruption of woman through
hunger, the crippling of children through lack of light—are unsolved;
so long as social asphyxia is possible in any part of the world;—in
other words, and with a still wider significance, so long as ignorance
and poverty exist on earth, books of the nature of Les Misérables
cannot fail to be of use.

HAUTEVILLE HOUSE, 1862.




VOLUME I
FANTINE




BOOK FIRST—A JUST MAN



CHAPTER I—M. MYRIEL


In 1815, M. Charles-François-Bienvenu Myriel was Bishop of D—— He was
an old man of about seventy-five years of age; he had occupied the see
of D—— since 1806.

Although this detail has no connection whatever with the real substance
of what we are about to relate, it will not be superfluous, if merely
for the sake of exactness in all points, to mention here the various
rumors and remarks which had been in circulation about him from the
very moment when he arrived in the diocese. True or false, that which
is said of men often occupies as important a place in their lives, and
above all in their destinies, as that which they do. M. Myriel was the
son of a councillor of the Parliament of Aix; hence he belonged to the
nobility of the bar. It was said that his father, destining him to be
the heir of his own post, had married him at a very early age, eighteen
or twenty, in accordance with a custom which is rather widely prevalent
in parliamentary families. In spite of this marriage, however, it was
said that Charles Myriel created a great deal of talk. He was well
formed, though rather short in stature, elegant, graceful, intelligent;
the whole of the first portion of his life had been devoted to the
world and to gallantry.

The Revolution came; events succeeded each other with precipitation;
the parliamentary families, decimated, pursued, hunted down, were
dispersed. M. Charles Myriel emigrated to Italy at the very beginning
of the Revolution. There his wife died of a malady of the chest, from
which she had long suffered. He had no children. What took place next
in the fate of M. Myriel? The ruin of the French society of the olden
days, the fall of his own family, the tragic spectacles of ’93, which
were, perhaps, even more alarming to the emigrants who viewed them from
a distance, with the magnifying powers of terror,—did these cause the
ideas of renunciation and solitude to germinate in him? Was he, in the
midst of these distractions, these affections which absorbed his life,
suddenly smitten with one of those mysterious and terrible blows which
sometimes overwhelm, by striking to his heart, a man whom public
catastrophes would not shake, by striking at his existence and his
fortune? No one could have told: all that was known was, that when he
returned from Italy he was a priest.

In 1804, M. Myriel was the Curé of B—— [Brignolles]. 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 Curé, 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 Curé,
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. But after all, the rumors with which his name was
connected were rumors only,—noise, sayings, words; less than
words—_palabres_, as the energetic language of the South expresses it.

However that may be, after nine years of episcopal power and of
residence in D——, all the stories and subjects of conversation which
engross petty towns and petty people at the outset had fallen into
profound oblivion. No one would have dared to mention them; no one
would have dared to recall them.

M. Myriel had arrived at D—— accompanied by an elderly spinster,
Mademoiselle Baptistine, who was his sister, and ten years his junior.

Their only domestic was a female servant of the same age as
Mademoiselle Baptistine, and named Madame Magloire, who, after having
been _the servant of M. le Curé_, now assumed the double title of maid
to Mademoiselle and housekeeper to Monseigneur.

Mademoiselle Baptistine was a long, pale, thin, gentle creature; she
realized the ideal expressed by the word “respectable”; for it seems
that a woman must needs be a mother in order to be venerable. She had
never been pretty; her whole life, which had been nothing but a
succession of holy deeds, had finally conferred upon her a sort of
pallor and transparency; and as she advanced in years she had acquired
what may be called the beauty of goodness. What had been leanness in
her youth had become transparency in her maturity; and this diaphaneity
allowed the angel to be seen. She was a soul rather than a virgin. Her
person seemed made of a shadow; there was hardly sufficient body to
provide for sex; a little matter enclosing a light; large eyes forever
drooping;—a mere pretext for a soul’s remaining on the earth.

Madame Magloire was a little, fat, white old woman, corpulent and
bustling; always out of breath,—in the first place, because of her
activity, and in the next, because of her asthma.

On his arrival, M. Myriel was installed in the episcopal palace with
the honors required by the Imperial decrees, which class a bishop
immediately after a major-general. The mayor and the president paid the
first call on him, and he, in turn, paid the first call on the general
and the prefect.

The installation over, the town waited to see its bishop at work.



CHAPTER II—M. MYRIEL BECOMES M. WELCOME


The episcopal palace of D—— adjoins the hospital.

The episcopal palace was a huge and beautiful house, built of stone at
the beginning of the last century by M. Henri Puget, Doctor of Theology
of the Faculty of Paris, Abbé of Simore, who had been Bishop of D—— in
1712. This palace was a genuine seignorial residence. Everything about
it had a grand air,—the apartments of the Bishop, the drawing-rooms,
the chambers, the principal courtyard, which was very large, with walks
encircling it under arcades in the old Florentine fashion, and gardens
planted with magnificent trees. In the dining-room, a long and superb
gallery which was situated on the ground floor and opened on the
gardens, M. Henri Puget had entertained in state, on July 29, 1714, My
Lords Charles Brûlart de Genlis, archbishop; Prince d’Embrun; Antoine
de Mesgrigny, the capuchin, Bishop of Grasse; Philippe de Vendôme,
Grand Prior of France, Abbé of Saint Honoré de Lérins; François de
Berton de Crillon, bishop, Baron de Vence; César de Sabran de
Forcalquier, bishop, Seignor of Glandève; and Jean Soanen, Priest of
the Oratory, preacher in ordinary to the king, bishop, Seignor of
Senez. The portraits of these seven reverend personages decorated this
apartment; and this memorable date, the 29th of July, 1714, was there
engraved in letters of gold on a table of white marble.

The hospital was a low and narrow building of a single story, with a
small garden.

Three days after his arrival, the Bishop visited the hospital. The
visit ended, he had the director requested to be so good as to come to
his house.

“Monsieur the director of the hospital,” said he to him, “how many sick
people have you at the present moment?”


“Twenty-six, Monseigneur.”


“That was the number which I counted,” said the Bishop.

“The beds,” pursued the director, “are very much crowded against each
other.”


“That is what I observed.”


“The halls are nothing but rooms, and it is with difficulty that the
air can be changed in them.”


“So it seems to me.”


“And then, when there is a ray of sun, the garden is very small for the
convalescents.”


“That was what I said to myself.”


“In case of epidemics,—we have had the typhus fever this year; we had
the sweating sickness two years ago, and a hundred patients at
times,—we know not what to do.”


“That is the thought which occurred to me.”


“What would you have, Monseigneur?” said the director. “One must resign
one’s self.”


This conversation took place in the gallery dining-room on the ground
floor.

The Bishop remained silent for a moment; then he turned abruptly to the
director of the hospital.

“Monsieur,” said he, “how many beds do you think this hall alone would
hold?”


“Monseigneur’s dining-room?” exclaimed the stupefied director.

The Bishop cast a glance round the apartment, and seemed to be taking
measures and calculations with his eyes.

“It would hold full twenty beds,” said he, as though speaking to
himself. Then, raising his voice:—

“Hold, Monsieur the director of the hospital, I will tell you
something. There is evidently a mistake here. There are thirty-six of
you, in five or six small rooms. There are three of us here, and we
have room for sixty. There is some mistake, I tell you; you have my
house, and I have yours. Give me back my house; you are at home here.”


On the following day the thirty-six patients were installed in the
Bishop’s palace, and the Bishop was settled in the hospital.

M. Myriel had no property, his family having been ruined by the
Revolution. His sister was in receipt of a yearly income of five
hundred francs, which sufficed for her personal wants at the vicarage.
M. Myriel received from the State, in his quality of bishop, a salary
of fifteen thousand francs. On the very day when he took up his abode
in the hospital, M. Myriel settled on the disposition of this sum once
for all, in the following manner. We transcribe here a note made by his
own hand:—

NOTE ON THE REGULATION OF MY HOUSEHOLD EXPENSES.

For the little seminary . . . . . . . . . . . . . .    1,500 livres
Society of the  mission . . . . . . . . . . . . . .      100   ”
 For the Lazarists of Montdidier . . . . . . . . . .      100   ”
 Seminary for foreign missions in Paris  . . . . . .      200   ”
 Congregation of the Holy Spirit . . . . . . . . . .      150   ”
 Religious establishments of the Holy Land . . . . .      100   ”
 Charitable maternity societies  . . . . . . . . . .      300   ”
 Extra, for that of Arles  . . . . . . . . . . . . .       50   ”
 Work for the amelioration of prisons  . . . . . . .      400   ”
 Work for the relief and delivery of prisoners . . .      500   ”
 To liberate fathers of families incarcerated for debt  1,000   ”
 Addition to the salary of the poor teachers of the
diocese  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .    2,000   ”
 Public granary of the Hautes-Alpes  . . . . . . . .      100   ”
 Congregation of the ladies of D——, of Manosque, and of
Sisteron, for the gratuitous instruction of poor
girls  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .    1,500   ”
 For the poor  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .    6,000   ”
 My personal expenses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .    1,000   ”
 ———
Total  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   15,000   ”


M. Myriel made no change in this arrangement during the entire period
that he occupied the see of D—— As has been seen, he called it
_regulating his household expenses_.

This arrangement was accepted with absolute submission by Mademoiselle
Baptistine. This holy woman regarded Monseigneur of D—— as at one and
the same time her brother and her bishop, her friend according to the
flesh and her superior according to the Church. She simply loved and
venerated him. When he spoke, she bowed; when he acted, she yielded her
adherence. Their only servant, Madame Magloire, grumbled a little. It
will be observed that Monsieur the Bishop had reserved for himself only
one thousand livres, which, added to the pension of Mademoiselle
Baptistine, made fifteen hundred francs a year. On these fifteen
hundred francs these two old women and the old man subsisted.

And when a village curate came to D——, the Bishop still found means to
entertain him, thanks to the severe economy of Madame Magloire, and to
the intelligent administration of Mademoiselle Baptistine.

One day, after he had been in D—— about three months, the Bishop said:—

“And still I am quite cramped with it all!”


“I should think so!” exclaimed Madame Magloire. “Monseigneur has not
even claimed the allowance which the department owes him for the
expense of his carriage in town, and for his journeys about the
diocese. It was customary for bishops in former days.”


“Hold!” cried the Bishop, “you are quite right, Madame Magloire.”


And he made his demand.

Some time afterwards the General Council took this demand under
consideration, and voted him an annual sum of three thousand francs,
under this heading: _Allowance to M. the Bishop for expenses of
carriage, expenses of posting, and expenses of pastoral visits._

This provoked a great outcry among the local burgesses; and a senator
of the Empire, a former member of the Council of the Five Hundred which
favored the 18 Brumaire, and who was provided with a magnificent
senatorial office in the vicinity of the town of D——, wrote to M. Bigot
de Préameneu, the minister of public worship, a very angry and
confidential note on the subject, from which we extract these authentic
lines:—

“Expenses of carriage? What can be done with it in a town of less than
four thousand inhabitants? Expenses of journeys? What is the use of
these trips, in the first place? Next, how can the posting be
accomplished in these mountainous parts? There are no roads. No one
travels otherwise than on horseback. Even the bridge between Durance
and Château-Arnoux can barely support ox-teams. These priests are all
thus, greedy and avaricious. This man played the good priest when he
first came. Now he does like the rest; he must have a carriage and a
posting-chaise, he must have luxuries, like the bishops of the olden
days. Oh, all this priesthood! Things will not go well, M. le Comte,
until the Emperor has freed us from these black-capped rascals. Down
with the Pope! [Matters were getting embroiled with Rome.] For my part,
I am for Cæsar alone.” Etc., etc.

On the other hand, this affair afforded great delight to Madame
Magloire. “Good,” said she to Mademoiselle Baptistine; “Monseigneur
began with other people, but he has had to wind up with himself, after
all. He has regulated all his charities. Now here are three thousand
francs for us! At last!”


That same evening the Bishop wrote out and handed to his sister a
memorandum conceived in the following terms:—

EXPENSES OF CARRIAGE AND CIRCUIT.

For furnishing meat soup to the patients in the hospital. 1,500 livres
For the maternity charitable society of Aix . . . . . . .   250   ”
 For the maternity charitable society of Draguignan  . . .   250   ”
 For foundlings  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   500   ”
 For orphans   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   500   ”
 ——-
Total  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3,000   ”


Such was M. Myriel’s budget.

As for the chance episcopal perquisites, the fees for marriage bans,
dispensations, private baptisms, sermons, benedictions, of churches or
chapels, marriages, etc., the Bishop levied them on the wealthy with
all the more asperity, since he bestowed them on the needy.

After a time, offerings of money flowed in. Those who had and those who
lacked knocked at M. Myriel’s door,—the latter in search of the alms
which the former came to deposit. In less than a year the Bishop had
become the treasurer of all benevolence and the cashier of all those in
distress. Considerable sums of money passed through his hands, but
nothing could induce him to make any change whatever in his mode of
life, or add anything superfluous to his bare necessities.

Far from it. As there is always more wretchedness below than there is
brotherhood above, all was given away, so to speak, before it was
received. It was like water on dry soil; no matter how much money he
received, he never had any. Then he stripped himself.

The usage being that bishops shall announce their baptismal names at
the head of their charges and their pastoral letters, the poor people
of the country-side had selected, with a sort of affectionate instinct,
among the names and prenomens of their bishop, that which had a meaning
for them; and they never called him anything except Monseigneur
Bienvenu [Welcome]. We will follow their example, and will also call
him thus when we have occasion to name him. Moreover, this appellation
pleased him.

“I like that name,” said he. “Bienvenu makes up for the Monseigneur.”


We do not claim that the portrait herewith presented is probable; we
confine ourselves to stating that it resembles the original.




CHAPTER III—A HARD BISHOPRIC FOR A GOOD BISHOP


The Bishop did not omit his pastoral visits because he had converted
his carriage into alms. The diocese of D—— is a fatiguing one. There
are very few plains and a great many mountains; hardly any roads, as we
have just seen; thirty-two curacies, forty-one vicarships, and two
hundred and eighty-five auxiliary chapels. To visit all these is quite
a task.

The Bishop managed to do it. He went on foot when it was in the
neighborhood, in a tilted spring-cart when it was on the plain, and on
a donkey in the mountains. The two old women accompanied him. When the
trip was too hard for them, he went alone.

One day he arrived at Senez, which is an ancient episcopal city. He was
mounted on an ass. His purse, which was very dry at that moment, did
not permit him any other equipage. The mayor of the town came to
receive him at the gate of the town, and watched him dismount from his
ass, with scandalized eyes. Some of the citizens were laughing around
him. “Monsieur the Mayor,” said the Bishop, “and Messieurs Citizens, I
perceive that I shock you. You think it very arrogant in a poor priest
to ride an animal which was used by Jesus Christ. I have done so from
necessity, I assure you, and not from vanity.”


In the course of these trips he was kind and indulgent, and talked
rather than preached. He never went far in search of his arguments and
his examples. He quoted to the inhabitants of one district the example
of a neighboring district. In the cantons where they were harsh to the
poor, he said: “Look at the people of Briançon! They have conferred on
the poor, on widows and orphans, the right to have their meadows mown
three days in advance of every one else. They rebuild their houses for
them gratuitously when they are ruined. Therefore it is a country which
is blessed by God. For a whole century, there has not been a single
murderer among them.”


In villages which were greedy for profit and harvest, he said: “Look at
the people of Embrun! If, at the harvest season, the father of a family
has his son away on service in the army, and his daughters at service
in the town, and if he is ill and incapacitated, the curé recommends
him to the prayers of the congregation; and on Sunday, after the mass,
all the inhabitants of the village—men, women, and children—go to the
poor man’s field and do his harvesting for him, and carry his straw and
his grain to his granary.” To families divided by questions of money
and inheritance he said: “Look at the mountaineers of Devolny, a
country so wild that the nightingale is not heard there once in fifty
years. Well, when the father of a family dies, the boys go off to seek
their fortunes, leaving the property to the girls, so that they may
find husbands.” To the cantons which had a taste for lawsuits, and
where the farmers ruined themselves in stamped paper, he said: “Look at
those good peasants in the valley of Queyras! There are three thousand
souls of them. Mon Dieu! it is like a little republic. Neither judge
nor bailiff is known there. The mayor does everything. He allots the
imposts, taxes each person conscientiously, judges quarrels for
nothing, divides inheritances without charge, pronounces sentences
gratuitously; and he is obeyed, because he is a just man among simple
men.” To villages where he found no schoolmaster, he quoted once more
the people of Queyras: “Do you know how they manage?” he said. “Since a
little country of a dozen or fifteen hearths cannot always support a
teacher, they have schoolmasters who are paid by the whole valley, who
make the round of the villages, spending a week in this one, ten days
in that, and instruct them. These teachers go to the fairs. I have seen
them there. They are to be recognized by the quill pens which they wear
in the cord of their hat. Those who teach reading only have one pen;
those who teach reading and reckoning have two pens; those who teach
reading, reckoning, and Latin have three pens. But what a disgrace to
be ignorant! Do like the people of Queyras!”


Thus he discoursed gravely and paternally; in default of examples, he
invented parables, going directly to the point, with few phrases and
many images, which characteristic formed the real eloquence of Jesus
Christ. And being convinced himself, he was persuasive.




CHAPTER IV—WORKS CORRESPONDING TO WORDS


His conversation was gay and affable. He put himself on a level with
the two old women who had passed their lives beside him. When he
laughed, it was the laugh of a schoolboy. Madame Magloire liked to call
him Your Grace [_Votre Grandeur_]. One day he rose from his armchair,
and went to his library in search of a book. This book was on one of
the upper shelves. As the bishop was rather short of stature, he could
not reach it. “Madame Magloire,” said he, “fetch me a chair. My
greatness [_grandeur_] does not reach as far as that shelf.”


One of his distant relatives, Madame la Comtesse de Lô, rarely allowed
an opportunity to escape of enumerating, in his presence, what she
designated as “the expectations” of her three sons. She had numerous
relatives, who were very old and near to death, and of whom her sons
were the natural heirs. The youngest of the three was to receive from a
grandaunt a good hundred thousand livres of income; the second was the
heir by entail to the title of the Duke, his uncle; the eldest was to
succeed to the peerage of his grandfather. The Bishop was accustomed to
listen in silence to these innocent and pardonable maternal boasts. On
one occasion, however, he appeared to be more thoughtful than usual,
while Madame de Lô was relating once again the details of all these
inheritances and all these “expectations.” She interrupted herself
impatiently: “Mon Dieu, cousin! What are you thinking about?” “I am
thinking,” replied the Bishop, “of a singular remark, which is to be
found, I believe, in St. Augustine,—‘Place your hopes in the man from
whom you do not inherit.’”


At another time, on receiving a notification of the decease of a
gentleman of the country-side, wherein not only the dignities of the
dead man, but also the feudal and noble qualifications of all his
relatives, spread over an entire page: “What a stout back Death has!”
he exclaimed. “What a strange burden of titles is cheerfully imposed on
him, and how much wit must men have, in order thus to press the tomb
into the service of vanity!”


He was gifted, on occasion, with a gentle raillery, which almost always
concealed a serious meaning. In the course of one Lent, a youthful
vicar came to D——, and preached in the cathedral. He was tolerably
eloquent. The subject of his sermon was charity. He urged the rich to
give to the poor, in order to avoid hell, which he depicted in the most
frightful manner of which he was capable, and to win paradise, which he
represented as charming and desirable. Among the audience there was a
wealthy retired merchant, who was somewhat of a usurer, named M.
Géborand, who had amassed two millions in the manufacture of coarse
cloth, serges, and woollen galloons. Never in his whole life had M.
Géborand bestowed alms on any poor wretch. After the delivery of that
sermon, it was observed that he gave a sou every Sunday to the poor old
beggar-women at the door of the cathedral. There were six of them to
share it. One day the Bishop caught sight of him in the act of
bestowing this charity, and said to his sister, with a smile, “There is
M. Géborand purchasing paradise for a sou.”


When it was a question of charity, he was not to be rebuffed even by a
refusal, and on such occasions he gave utterance to remarks which
induced reflection. Once he was begging for the poor in a drawing-room
of the town; there was present the Marquis de Champtercier, a wealthy
and avaricious old man, who contrived to be, at one and the same time,
an ultra-royalist and an ultra-Voltairian. This variety of man has
actually existed. When the Bishop came to him, he touched his arm,
_“You must give me something, M. le Marquis.”_ The Marquis turned round
and answered dryly, _“I have poor people of my own, Monseigneur.” “Give
them to me,”_ replied the Bishop.

One day he preached the following sermon in the cathedral:—

“My very dear brethren, my good friends, there are thirteen hundred and
twenty thousand peasants’ dwellings in France which have but three
openings; eighteen hundred and seventeen thousand hovels which have but
two openings, the door and one window; and three hundred and forty-six
thousand cabins besides which have but one opening, the door. And this
arises from a thing which is called the tax on doors and windows. Just
put poor families, old women and little children, in those buildings,
and behold the fevers and maladies which result! Alas! God gives air to
men; the law sells it to them. I do not blame the law, but I bless God.
In the department of the Isère, in the Var, in the two departments of
the Alpes, the Hautes, and the Basses, the peasants have not even
wheelbarrows; they transport their manure on the backs of men; they
have no candles, and they burn resinous sticks, and bits of rope dipped
in pitch. That is the state of affairs throughout the whole of the
hilly country of Dauphiné. They make bread for six months at one time;
they bake it with dried cow-dung. In the winter they break this bread
up with an axe, and they soak it for twenty-four hours, in order to
render it eatable. My brethren, have pity! behold the suffering on all
sides of you!”


Born a Provençal, he easily familiarized himself with the dialect of
the south. He said, _“En bé! moussu, sés sagé?”_ as in lower Languedoc;
_“Onté anaras passa?”_ as in the Basses-Alpes; _“Puerte un bouen moutu
embe un bouen fromage grase,”_ as in upper Dauphiné. This pleased the
people extremely, and contributed not a little to win him access to all
spirits. He was perfectly at home in the thatched cottage and in the
mountains. He understood how to say the grandest things in the most
vulgar of idioms. As he spoke all tongues, he entered into all hearts.

Moreover, he was the same towards people of the world and towards the
lower classes. He condemned nothing in haste and without taking
circumstances into account. He said, “Examine the road over which the
fault has passed.”


Being, as he described himself with a smile, an _ex-sinner_, he had
none of the asperities of austerity, and he professed, with a good deal
of distinctness, and without the frown of the ferociously virtuous, a
doctrine which may be summed up as follows:—

“Man has upon him his flesh, which is at once his burden and his
temptation. He drags it with him and yields to it. He must watch it,
check it, repress it, and obey it only at the last extremity. There may
be some fault even in this obedience; but the fault thus committed is
venial; it is a fall, but a fall on the knees which may terminate in
prayer.

“To be a saint is the exception; to be an upright man is the rule. Err,
fall, sin if you will, but be upright.

“The least possible sin is the law of man. No sin at all is the dream
of the angel. All which is terrestrial is subject to sin. Sin is a
gravitation.”


When he saw everyone exclaiming very loudly, and growing angry very
quickly, “Oh! oh!” he said, with a smile; “to all appearance, this is a
great crime which all the world commits. These are hypocrisies which
have taken fright, and are in haste to make protest and to put
themselves under shelter.”


He was indulgent towards women and poor people, on whom the burden of
human society rest. He said, “The faults of women, of children, of the
feeble, the indigent, and the ignorant, are the fault of the husbands,
the fathers, the masters, the strong, the rich, and the wise.”


He said, moreover, “Teach those who are ignorant as many things as
possible; society is culpable, in that it does not afford instruction
gratis; it is responsible for the night which it produces. This soul is
full of shadow; sin is therein committed. The guilty one is not the
person who has committed the sin, but the person who has created the
shadow.”


It will be perceived that he had a peculiar manner of his own of
judging things: I suspect that he obtained it from the Gospel.

One day he heard a criminal case, which was in preparation and on the
point of trial, discussed in a drawing-room. A wretched man, being at
the end of his resources, had coined counterfeit money, out of love for
a woman, and for the child which he had had by her. Counterfeiting was
still punishable with death at that epoch. The woman had been arrested
in the act of passing the first false piece made by the man. She was
held, but there were no proofs except against her. She alone could
accuse her lover, and destroy him by her confession. She denied; they
insisted. She persisted in her denial. Thereupon an idea occurred to
the attorney for the crown. He invented an infidelity on the part of
the lover, and succeeded, by means of fragments of letters cunningly
presented, in persuading the unfortunate woman that she had a rival,
and that the man was deceiving her. Thereupon, exasperated by jealousy,
she denounced her lover, confessed all, proved all.

The man was ruined. He was shortly to be tried at Aix with his
accomplice. They were relating the matter, and each one was expressing
enthusiasm over the cleverness of the magistrate. By bringing jealousy
into play, he had caused the truth to burst forth in wrath, he had
educed the justice of revenge. The Bishop listened to all this in
silence. When they had finished, he inquired,—

“Where are this man and woman to be tried?”


“At the Court of Assizes.”


He went on, “And where will the advocate of the crown be tried?”


A tragic event occurred at D—— A man was condemned to death for murder.
He was a wretched fellow, not exactly educated, not exactly ignorant,
who had been a mountebank at fairs, and a writer for the public. The
town took a great interest in the trial. On the eve of the day fixed
for the execution of the condemned man, the chaplain of the prison fell
ill. A priest was needed to attend the criminal in his last moments.
They sent for the curé. It seems that he refused to come, saying, “That
is no affair of mine. I have nothing to do with that unpleasant task,
and with that mountebank: I, too, am ill; and besides, it is not my
place.” This reply was reported to the Bishop, who said, _“Monsieur le
Curé is right: it is not his place; it is mine.”_

He went instantly to the prison, descended to the cell of the
“mountebank,” called him by name, took him by the hand, and spoke to
him. He passed the entire day with him, forgetful of food and sleep,
praying to God for the soul of the condemned man, and praying the
condemned man for his own. He told him the best truths, which are also
the most simple. He was father, brother, friend; he was bishop only to
bless. He taught him everything, encouraged and consoled him. The man
was on the point of dying in despair. Death was an abyss to him. As he
stood trembling on its mournful brink, he recoiled with horror. He was
not sufficiently ignorant to be absolutely indifferent. His
condemnation, which had been a profound shock, had, in a manner, broken
through, here and there, that wall which separates us from the mystery
of things, and which we call life. He gazed incessantly beyond this
world through these fatal breaches, and beheld only darkness. The
Bishop made him see light.

On the following day, when they came to fetch the unhappy wretch, the
Bishop was still there. He followed him, and exhibited himself to the
eyes of the crowd in his purple camail and with his episcopal cross
upon his neck, side by side with the criminal bound with cords.

He mounted the tumbril with him, he mounted the scaffold with him. The
sufferer, who had been so gloomy and cast down on the preceding day,
was radiant. He felt that his soul was reconciled, and he hoped in God.
The Bishop embraced him, and at the moment when the knife was about to
fall, he said to him: “God raises from the dead him whom man slays; he
whom his brothers have rejected finds his Father once more. Pray,
believe, enter into life: the Father is there.” When he descended from
the scaffold, there was something in his look which made the people
draw aside to let him pass. They did not know which was most worthy of
admiration, his pallor or his serenity. On his return to the humble
dwelling, which he designated, with a smile, as _his palace_, he said
to his sister, _“I have just officiated pontifically.”_

Since the most sublime things are often those which are the least
understood, there were people in the town who said, when commenting on
this conduct of the Bishop, _“It is affectation.”_

This, however, was a remark which was confined to the drawing-rooms.
The populace, which perceives no jest in holy deeds, was touched, and
admired him.

As for the Bishop, it was a shock to him to have beheld the guillotine,
and it was a long time before he recovered from it.

In fact, when the scaffold is there, all erected and prepared, it has
something about it which produces hallucination. One may feel a certain
indifference to the death penalty, one may refrain from pronouncing
upon it, from saying yes or no, so long as one has not seen a
guillotine with one’s own eyes: but if one encounters one of them, the
shock is violent; one is forced to decide, and to take part for or
against. Some admire it, like de Maistre; others execrate it, like
Beccaria. The guillotine is the concretion of the law; it is called
_vindicate_; it is not neutral, and it does not permit you to remain
neutral. He who sees it shivers with the most mysterious of shivers.
All social problems erect their interrogation point around this
chopping-knife. The scaffold is a vision. The scaffold is not a piece
of carpentry; the scaffold is not a machine; the scaffold is not an
inert bit of mechanism constructed of wood, iron and cords.

It seems as though it were a being, possessed of I know not what sombre
initiative; one would say that this piece of carpenter’s work saw, that
this machine heard, that this mechanism understood, that this wood,
this iron, and these cords were possessed of will. In the frightful
meditation into which its presence casts the soul the scaffold appears
in terrible guise, and as though taking part in what is going on. The
scaffold is the accomplice of the executioner; it devours, it eats
flesh, it drinks blood; the scaffold is a sort of monster fabricated by
the judge and the carpenter, a spectre which seems to live with a
horrible vitality composed of all the death which it has inflicted.

Therefore, the impression was terrible and profound; on the day
following the execution, and on many succeeding days, the Bishop
appeared to be crushed. The almost violent serenity of the funereal
moment had disappeared; the phantom of social justice tormented him.
He, who generally returned from all his deeds with a radiant
satisfaction, seemed to be reproaching himself. At times he talked to
himself, and stammered lugubrious monologues in a low voice. This is
one which his sister overheard one evening and preserved: “I did not
think that it was so monstrous. It is wrong to become absorbed in the
divine law to such a degree as not to perceive human law. Death belongs
to God alone. By what right do men touch that unknown thing?”


In course of time these impressions weakened and probably vanished.
Nevertheless, it was observed that the Bishop thenceforth avoided
passing the place of execution.

M. Myriel could be summoned at any hour to the bedside of the sick and
dying. He did not ignore the fact that therein lay his greatest duty
and his greatest labor. Widowed and orphaned families had no need to
summon him; he came of his own accord. He understood how to sit down
and hold his peace for long hours beside the man who had lost the wife
of his love, of the mother who had lost her child. As he knew the
moment for silence he knew also the moment for speech. Oh, admirable
consoler! He sought not to efface sorrow by forgetfulness, but to
magnify and dignify it by hope. He said:—

“Have a care of the manner in which you turn towards the dead. Think
not of that which perishes. Gaze steadily. You will perceive the living
light of your well-beloved dead in the depths of heaven.” He knew that
faith is wholesome. He sought to counsel and calm the despairing man,
by pointing out to him the resigned man, and to transform the grief
which gazes upon a grave by showing him the grief which fixes its gaze
upon a star.




CHAPTER V—MONSEIGNEUR BIENVENU MADE HIS CASSOCKS LAST TOO LONG


The private life of M. Myriel was filled with the same thoughts as his
public life. The voluntary poverty in which the Bishop of D—— lived,
would have been a solemn and charming sight for any one who could have
viewed it close at hand.

Like all old men, and like the majority of thinkers, he slept little.
This brief slumber was profound. In the morning he meditated for an
hour, then he said his mass, either at the cathedral or in his own
house. His mass said, he broke his fast on rye bread dipped in the milk
of his own cows. Then he set to work.

A Bishop is a very busy man: he must every day receive the secretary of
the bishopric, who is generally a canon, and nearly every day his
vicars-general. He has congregations to reprove, privileges to grant, a
whole ecclesiastical library to examine,—prayer-books, diocesan
catechisms, books of hours, etc.,—charges to write, sermons to
authorize, curés and mayors to reconcile, a clerical correspondence, an
administrative correspondence; on one side the State, on the other the
Holy See; and a thousand matters of business.

What time was left to him, after these thousand details of business,
and his offices and his breviary, he bestowed first on the necessitous,
the sick, and the afflicted; the time which was left to him from the
afflicted, the sick, and the necessitous, he devoted to work. Sometimes
he dug in his garden; again, he read or wrote. He had but one word for
both these kinds of toil; he called them _gardening_. “The mind is a
garden,” said he.

Towards midday, when the weather was fine, he went forth and took a
stroll in the country or in town, often entering lowly dwellings. He
was seen walking alone, buried in his own thoughts, his eyes cast down,
supporting himself on his long cane, clad in his wadded purple garment
of silk, which was very warm, wearing purple stockings inside his
coarse shoes, and surmounted by a flat hat which allowed three golden
tassels of large bullion to droop from its three points.

It was a perfect festival wherever he appeared. One would have said
that his presence had something warming and luminous about it. The
children and the old people came out to the doorsteps for the Bishop as
for the sun. He bestowed his blessing, and they blessed him. They
pointed out his house to any one who was in need of anything.

[Illustration: The Comforter]

Here and there he halted, accosted the little boys and girls, and
smiled upon the mothers. He visited the poor so long as he had any
money; when he no longer had any, he visited the rich.

As he made his cassocks last a long while, and did not wish to have it
noticed, he never went out in the town without his wadded purple cloak.
This inconvenienced him somewhat in summer.

On his return, he dined. The dinner resembled his breakfast.

At half-past eight in the evening he supped with his sister, Madame
Magloire standing behind them and serving them at table. Nothing could
be more frugal than this repast. If, however, the Bishop had one of his
curés to supper, Madame Magloire took advantage of the opportunity to
serve Monseigneur with some excellent fish from the lake, or with some
fine game from the mountains. Every curé furnished the pretext for a
good meal: the Bishop did not interfere. With that exception, his
ordinary diet consisted only of vegetables boiled in water, and oil
soup. Thus it was said in the town, _when the Bishop does not indulge
in the cheer of a curé, he indulges in the cheer of a trappist_.

After supper he conversed for half an hour with Mademoiselle Baptistine
and Madame Magloire; then he retired to his own room and set to
writing, sometimes on loose sheets, and again on the margin of some
folio. He was a man of letters and rather learned. He left behind him
five or six very curious manuscripts; among others, a dissertation on
this verse in Genesis, _In the beginning, the spirit of God floated
upon the waters_. With this verse he compares three texts: the Arabic
verse which says, _The winds of God blew;_ Flavius Josephus who says,
_A wind from above was precipitated upon the earth;_ and finally, the
Chaldaic paraphrase of Onkelos, which renders it, _A wind coming from
God blew upon the face of the waters_. In another dissertation, he
examines the theological works of Hugo, Bishop of Ptolemaïs,
great-grand-uncle to the writer of this book, and establishes the fact,
that to this bishop must be attributed the divers little works
published during the last century, under the pseudonym of Barleycourt.

Sometimes, in the midst of his reading, no matter what the book might
be which he had in his hand, he would suddenly fall into a profound
meditation, whence he only emerged to write a few lines on the pages of
the volume itself. These lines have often no connection whatever with
the book which contains them. We now have under our eyes a note written
by him on the margin of a quarto entitled _Correspondence of Lord
Germain with Generals Clinton, Cornwallis, and the Admirals on the
American station. Versailles, Poinçot, book-seller; and Paris, Pissot,
bookseller, Quai des Augustins._

Here is the note:—

“Oh, you who are!

“Ecclesiastes calls you the All-powerful; the Maccabees call you the
Creator; the Epistle to the Ephesians calls you liberty; Baruch calls
you Immensity; the Psalms call you Wisdom and Truth; John calls you
Light; the Books of Kings call you Lord; Exodus calls you Providence;
Leviticus, Sanctity; Esdras, Justice; the creation calls you God; man
calls you Father; but Solomon calls you Compassion, and that is the
most beautiful of all your names.”


Toward nine o’clock in the evening the two women retired and betook
themselves to their chambers on the first floor, leaving him alone
until morning on the ground floor.

It is necessary that we should, in this place, give an exact idea of
the dwelling of the Bishop of D——




CHAPTER VI—WHO GUARDED HIS HOUSE FOR HIM


The house in which he lived consisted, as we have said, of a ground
floor, and one story above; three rooms on the ground floor, three
chambers on the first, and an attic above. Behind the house was a
garden, a quarter of an acre in extent. The two women occupied the
first floor; the Bishop was lodged below. The first room, opening on
the street, served him as dining-room, the second was his bedroom, and
the third his oratory. There was no exit possible from this oratory,
except by passing through the bedroom, nor from the bedroom, without
passing through the dining-room. At the end of the suite, in the
oratory, there was a detached alcove with a bed, for use in cases of
hospitality. The Bishop offered this bed to country curates whom
business or the requirements of their parishes brought to D——

The pharmacy of the hospital, a small building which had been added to
the house, and abutted on the garden, had been transformed into a
kitchen and cellar. In addition to this, there was in the garden a
stable, which had formerly been the kitchen of the hospital, and in
which the Bishop kept two cows. No matter what the quantity of milk
they gave, he invariably sent half of it every morning to the sick
people in the hospital.

_“I am paying my tithes,”_ he said.

His bedroom was tolerably large, and rather difficult to warm in bad
weather. As wood is extremely dear at D——, he hit upon the idea of
having a compartment of boards constructed in the cow-shed. Here he
passed his evenings during seasons of severe cold: he called it his
_winter salon_.

In this winter salon, as in the dining-room, there was no other
furniture than a square table in white wood, and four straw-seated
chairs. In addition to this the dining-room was ornamented with an
antique sideboard, painted pink, in water colors. Out of a similar
sideboard, properly draped with white napery and imitation lace, the
Bishop had constructed the altar which decorated his oratory.

His wealthy penitents and the sainted women of D—— had more than once
assessed themselves to raise the money for a new altar for
Monseigneur’s oratory; on each occasion he had taken the money and had
given it to the poor. “The most beautiful of altars,” he said, “is the
soul of an unhappy creature consoled and thanking God.”


In his oratory there were two straw prie-Dieu, and there was an
armchair, also in straw, in his bedroom. When, by chance, he received
seven or eight persons at one time, the prefect, or the general, or the
staff of the regiment in garrison, or several pupils from the little
seminary, the chairs had to be fetched from the winter salon in the
stable, the prie-Dieu from the oratory, and the armchair from the
bedroom: in this way as many as eleven chairs could be collected for
the visitors. A room was dismantled for each new guest.

It sometimes happened that there were twelve in the party; the Bishop
then relieved the embarrassment of the situation by standing in front
of the chimney if it was winter, or by strolling in the garden if it
was summer.

There was still another chair in the detached alcove, but the straw was
half gone from it, and it had but three legs, so that it was of service
only when propped against the wall. Mademoiselle Baptistine had also in
her own room a very large easy-chair of wood, which had formerly been
gilded, and which was covered with flowered pekin; but they had been
obliged to hoist this bergère up to the first story through the window,
as the staircase was too narrow; it could not, therefore, be reckoned
among the possibilities in the way of furniture.

Mademoiselle Baptistine’s ambition had been to be able to purchase a
set of drawing-room furniture in yellow Utrecht velvet, stamped with a
rose pattern, and with mahogany in swan’s neck style, with a sofa. But
this would have cost five hundred francs at least, and in view of the
fact that she had only been able to lay by forty-two francs and ten
sous for this purpose in the course of five years, she had ended by
renouncing the idea. However, who is there who has attained his ideal?

Nothing is more easy to present to the imagination than the Bishop’s
bedchamber. A glazed door opened on the garden; opposite this was the
bed,—a hospital bed of iron, with a canopy of green serge; in the
shadow of the bed, behind a curtain, were the utensils of the toilet,
which still betrayed the elegant habits of the man of the world: there
were two doors, one near the chimney, opening into the oratory; the
other near the bookcase, opening into the dining-room. The bookcase was
a large cupboard with glass doors filled with books; the chimney was of
wood painted to represent marble, and habitually without fire. In the
chimney stood a pair of firedogs of iron, ornamented above with two
garlanded vases, and flutings which had formerly been silvered with
silver leaf, which was a sort of episcopal luxury; above the
chimney-piece hung a crucifix of copper, with the silver worn off,
fixed on a background of threadbare velvet in a wooden frame from which
the gilding had fallen; near the glass door a large table with an
inkstand, loaded with a confusion of papers and with huge volumes;
before the table an armchair of straw; in front of the bed a prie-Dieu,
borrowed from the oratory.

Two portraits in oval frames were fastened to the wall on each side of
the bed. Small gilt inscriptions on the plain surface of the cloth at
the side of these figures indicated that the portraits represented, one
the Abbé of Chaliot, bishop of Saint Claude; the other, the Abbé
Tourteau, vicar-general of Agde, abbé of Grand-Champ, order of Cîteaux,
diocese of Chartres. When the Bishop succeeded to this apartment, after
the hospital patients, he had found these portraits there, and had left
them. They were priests, and probably donors—two reasons for respecting
them. All that he knew about these two persons was, that they had been
appointed by the king, the one to his bishopric, the other to his
benefice, on the same day, the 27th of April, 1785. Madame Magloire
having taken the pictures down to dust, the Bishop had discovered these
particulars written in whitish ink on a little square of paper,
yellowed by time, and attached to the back of the portrait of the Abbé
of Grand-Champ with four wafers.

At his window he had an antique curtain of a coarse woollen stuff,
which finally became so old, that, in order to avoid the expense of a
new one, Madame Magloire was forced to take a large seam in the very
middle of it. This seam took the form of a cross. The Bishop often
called attention to it: “How delightful that is!” he said.

All the rooms in the house, without exception, those on the ground
floor as well as those on the first floor, were white-washed, which is
a fashion in barracks and hospitals.

However, in their latter years, Madame Magloire discovered beneath the
paper which had been washed over, paintings, ornamenting the apartment
of Mademoiselle Baptistine, as we shall see further on. Before becoming
a hospital, this house had been the ancient parliament house of the
Bourgeois. Hence this decoration. The chambers were paved in red
bricks, which were washed every week, with straw mats in front of all
the beds. Altogether, this dwelling, which was attended to by the two
women, was exquisitely clean from top to bottom. This was the sole
luxury which the Bishop permitted. He said, _“That takes nothing from
the poor.”_

It must be confessed, however, that he still retained from his former
possessions six silver knives and forks and a soup-ladle, which Madame
Magloire contemplated every day with delight, as they glistened
splendidly upon the coarse linen cloth. And since we are now painting
the Bishop of D—— as he was in reality, we must add that he had said
more than once, “I find it difficult to renounce eating from silver
dishes.”


To this silverware must be added two large candlesticks of massive
silver, which he had inherited from a great-aunt. These candlesticks
held two wax candles, and usually figured on the Bishop’s
chimney-piece. When he had any one to dinner, Madame Magloire lighted
the two candles and set the candlesticks on the table.

In the Bishop’s own chamber, at the head of his bed, there was a small
cupboard, in which Madame Magloire locked up the six silver knives and
forks and the big spoon every night. But it is necessary to add, that
the key was never removed.

The garden, which had been rather spoiled by the ugly buildings which
we have mentioned, was composed of four alleys in cross-form, radiating
from a tank. Another walk made the circuit of the garden, and skirted
the white wall which enclosed it. These alleys left behind them four
square plots rimmed with box. In three of these, Madame Magloire
cultivated vegetables; in the fourth, the Bishop had planted some
flowers; here and there stood a few fruit-trees. Madame Magloire had
once remarked, with a sort of gentle malice: “Monseigneur, you who turn
everything to account, have, nevertheless, one useless plot. It would
be better to grow salads there than bouquets.” “Madame Magloire,”
retorted the Bishop, “you are mistaken. The beautiful is as useful as
the useful.” He added after a pause, “More so, perhaps.”


This plot, consisting of three or four beds, occupied the Bishop almost
as much as did his books. He liked to pass an hour or two there,
trimming, hoeing, and making holes here and there in the earth, into
which he dropped seeds. He was not as hostile to insects as a gardener
could have wished to see him. Moreover, he made no pretensions to
botany; he ignored groups and consistency; he made not the slightest
effort to decide between Tournefort and the natural method; he took
part neither with the buds against the cotyledons, nor with Jussieu
against Linnæus. He did not study plants; he loved flowers. He
respected learned men greatly; he respected the ignorant still more;
and, without ever failing in these two respects, he watered his
flower-beds every summer evening with a tin watering-pot painted green.

The house had not a single door which could be locked. The door of the
dining-room, which, as we have said, opened directly on the cathedral
square, had formerly been ornamented with locks and bolts like the door
of a prison. The Bishop had had all this ironwork removed, and this
door was never fastened, either by night or by day, with anything
except the latch. All that the first passer-by had to do at any hour,
was to give it a push. At first, the two women had been very much tried
by this door, which was never fastened, but Monsieur de D—— had said to
them, “Have bolts put on your rooms, if that will please you.” They had
ended by sharing his confidence, or by at least acting as though they
shared it. Madame Magloire alone had frights from time to time. As for
the Bishop, his thought can be found explained, or at least indicated,
in the three lines which he wrote on the margin of a Bible, “This is
the shade of difference: the door of the physician should never be
shut, the door of the priest should always be open.”


On another book, entitled _Philosophy of the Medical Science_, he had
written this other note: “Am not I a physician like them? I also have
my patients, and then, too, I have some whom I call my unfortunates.”


Again he wrote: “Do not inquire the name of him who asks a shelter of
you. The very man who is embarrassed by his name is the one who needs
shelter.”


It chanced that a worthy curé, I know not whether it was the curé of
Couloubroux or the curé of Pompierry, took it into his head to ask him
one day, probably at the instigation of Madame Magloire, whether
Monsieur was sure that he was not committing an indiscretion, to a
certain extent, in leaving his door unfastened day and night, at the
mercy of any one who should choose to enter, and whether, in short, he
did not fear lest some misfortune might occur in a house so little
guarded. The Bishop touched his shoulder, with gentle gravity, and said
to him, _“Nisi Dominus custodierit domum, in vanum vigilant qui
custodiunt eam,” Unless the Lord guard the house, in vain do they watch
who guard it._

Then he spoke of something else.

He was fond of saying, “There is a bravery of the priest as well as the
bravery of a colonel of dragoons,—only,” he added, “ours must be
tranquil.”





CHAPTER VII—CRAVATTE


It is here that a fact falls naturally into place, which we must not
omit, because it is one of the sort which show us best what sort of a
man the Bishop of D—— was.

After the destruction of the band of Gaspard Bès, who had infested the
gorges of Ollioules, one of his lieutenants, Cravatte, took refuge in
the mountains. He concealed himself for some time with his bandits, the
remnant of Gaspard Bès’s troop, in the county of Nice; then he made his
way to Piédmont, and suddenly reappeared in France, in the vicinity of
Barcelonette. He was first seen at Jauziers, then at Tuiles. He hid
himself in the caverns of the Joug-de-l’Aigle, and thence he descended
towards the hamlets and villages through the ravines of Ubaye and
Ubayette.

He even pushed as far as Embrun, entered the cathedral one night, and
despoiled the sacristy. His highway robberies laid waste the
country-side. The gendarmes were set on his track, but in vain. He
always escaped; sometimes he resisted by main force. He was a bold
wretch. In the midst of all this terror the Bishop arrived. He was
making his circuit to Chastelar. The mayor came to meet him, and urged
him to retrace his steps. Cravatte was in possession of the mountains
as far as Arche, and beyond; there was danger even with an escort; it
merely exposed three or four unfortunate gendarmes to no purpose.

“Therefore,” said the Bishop, “I intend to go without escort.”


“You do not really mean that, Monseigneur!” exclaimed the mayor.

“I do mean it so thoroughly that I absolutely refuse any gendarmes, and
shall set out in an hour.”


“Set out?”


“Set out.”


“Alone?”


“Alone.”


“Monseigneur, you will not do that!”


“There exists yonder in the mountains,” said the Bishop, “a tiny
community no bigger than that, which I have not seen for three years.
They are my good friends, those gentle and honest shepherds. They own
one goat out of every thirty that they tend. They make very pretty
woollen cords of various colors, and they play the mountain airs on
little flutes with six holes. They need to be told of the good God now
and then. What would they say to a bishop who was afraid? What would
they say if I did not go?”


“But the brigands, Monseigneur?”


“Hold,” said the Bishop, “I must think of that. You are right. I may
meet them. They, too, need to be told of the good God.”


“But, Monseigneur, there is a band of them! A flock of wolves!”


“Monsieur le maire, it may be that it is of this very flock of wolves
that Jesus has constituted me the shepherd. Who knows the ways of
Providence?”


“They will rob you, Monseigneur.”


“I have nothing.”


“They will kill you.”


“An old goodman of a priest, who passes along mumbling his prayers?
Bah! To what purpose?”


“Oh, mon Dieu! what if you should meet them!”


“I should beg alms of them for my poor.”


“Do not go, Monseigneur. In the name of Heaven! You are risking your
life!”


“Monsieur le maire,” said the Bishop, “is that really all? I am not in
the world to guard my own life, but to guard souls.”


They had to allow him to do as he pleased. He set out, accompanied only
by a child who offered to serve as a guide. His obstinacy was bruited
about the country-side, and caused great consternation.

He would take neither his sister nor Madame Magloire. He traversed the
mountain on mule-back, encountered no one, and arrived safe and sound
at the residence of his “good friends,” the shepherds. He remained
there for a fortnight, preaching, administering the sacrament,
teaching, exhorting. When the time of his departure approached, he
resolved to chant a _Te Deum_ pontifically. He mentioned it to the
curé. But what was to be done? There were no episcopal ornaments. They
could only place at his disposal a wretched village sacristy, with a
few ancient chasubles of threadbare damask adorned with imitation lace.

“Bah!” said the Bishop. “Let us announce our _Te Deum_ from the pulpit,
nevertheless, Monsieur le Curé. Things will arrange themselves.”


They instituted a search in the churches of the neighborhood. All the
magnificence of these humble parishes combined would not have sufficed
to clothe the chorister of a cathedral properly.

While they were thus embarrassed, a large chest was brought and
deposited in the presbytery for the Bishop, by two unknown horsemen,
who departed on the instant. The chest was opened; it contained a cope
of cloth of gold, a mitre ornamented with diamonds, an archbishop’s
cross, a magnificent crosier,—all the pontifical vestments which had
been stolen a month previously from the treasury of Notre Dame
d’Embrun. In the chest was a paper, on which these words were written,
_“From Cravatte to Monseigneur Bienvenu.”_

“Did not I say that things would come right of themselves?” said the
Bishop. Then he added, with a smile, “To him who contents himself with
the surplice of a curate, God sends the cope of an archbishop.”


“Monseigneur,” murmured the curé, throwing back his head with a smile.
“God—or the Devil.”


The Bishop looked steadily at the curé, and repeated with authority,
“God!”


When he returned to Chastelar, the people came out to stare at him as
at a curiosity, all along the road. At the priest’s house in Chastelar
he rejoined Mademoiselle Baptistine and Madame Magloire, who were
waiting for him, and he said to his sister: “Well! was I in the right?
The poor priest went to his poor mountaineers with empty hands, and he
returns from them with his hands full. I set out bearing only my faith
in God; I have brought back the treasure of a cathedral.”


That evening, before he went to bed, he said again: “Let us never fear
robbers nor murderers. Those are dangers from without, petty dangers.
Let us fear ourselves. Prejudices are the real robbers; vices are the
real murderers. The great dangers lie within ourselves. What matters it
what threatens our head or our purse! Let us think only of that which
threatens our soul.”


Then, turning to his sister: “Sister, never a precaution on the part of
the priest, against his fellow-man. That which his fellow does, God
permits. Let us confine ourselves to prayer, when we think that a
danger is approaching us. Let us pray, not for ourselves, but that our
brother may not fall into sin on our account.”


However, such incidents were rare in his life. We relate those of which
we know; but generally he passed his life in doing the same things at
the same moment. One month of his year resembled one hour of his day.

As to what became of “the treasure” of the cathedral of Embrun, we
should be embarrassed by any inquiry in that direction. It consisted of
very handsome things, very tempting things, and things which were very
well adapted to be stolen for the benefit of the unfortunate. Stolen
they had already been elsewhere. Half of the adventure was completed;
it only remained to impart a new direction to the theft, and to cause
it to take a short trip in the direction of the poor. However, we make
no assertions on this point. Only, a rather obscure note was found
among the Bishop’s papers, which may bear some relation to this matter,
and which is couched in these terms, _“The question is, to decide
whether this should be turned over to the cathedral or to the
hospital.”_




CHAPTER VIII—PHILOSOPHY AFTER DRINKING


The senator above mentioned was a clever man, who had made his own way,
heedless of those things which present obstacles, and which are called
conscience, sworn faith, justice, duty: he had marched straight to his
goal, without once flinching in the line of his advancement and his
interest. He was an old attorney, softened by success; not a bad man by
any means, who rendered all the small services in his power to his
sons, his sons-in-law, his relations, and even to his friends, having
wisely seized upon, in life, good sides, good opportunities, good
windfalls. Everything else seemed to him very stupid. He was
intelligent, and just sufficiently educated to think himself a disciple
of Epicurus; while he was, in reality, only a product of
Pigault-Lebrun. He laughed willingly and pleasantly over infinite and
eternal things, and at the “crotchets of that good old fellow the
Bishop.” He even sometimes laughed at him with an amiable authority in
the presence of M. Myriel himself, who listened to him.

On some semi-official occasion or other, I do not recollect what,
Count*** [this senator] and M. Myriel were to dine with the prefect. At
dessert, the senator, who was slightly exhilarated, though still
perfectly dignified, exclaimed:—

“Egad, Bishop, let’s have a discussion. It is hard for a senator and a
bishop to look at each other without winking. We are two augurs. I am
going to make a confession to you. I have a philosophy of my own.”


“And you are right,” replied the Bishop. “As one makes one’s
philosophy, so one lies on it. You are on the bed of purple, senator.”


The senator was encouraged, and went on:—

“Let us be good fellows.”


“Good devils even,” said the Bishop.

“I declare to you,” continued the senator, “that the Marquis d’Argens,
Pyrrhon, Hobbes, and M. Naigeon are no rascals. I have all the
philosophers in my library gilded on the edges.”


“Like yourself, Count,” interposed the Bishop.

The senator resumed:—

“I hate Diderot; he is an ideologist, a declaimer, and a revolutionist,
a believer in God at bottom, and more bigoted than Voltaire. Voltaire
made sport of Needham, and he was wrong, for Needham’s eels prove that
God is useless. A drop of vinegar in a spoonful of flour paste supplies
the _fiat lux_. Suppose the drop to be larger and the spoonful bigger;
you have the world. Man is the eel. Then what is the good of the
Eternal Father? The Jehovah hypothesis tires me, Bishop. It is good for
nothing but to produce shallow people, whose reasoning is hollow. Down
with that great All, which torments me! Hurrah for Zero which leaves me
in peace! Between you and me, and in order to empty my sack, and make
confession to my pastor, as it behooves me to do, I will admit to you
that I have good sense. I am not enthusiastic over your Jesus, who
preaches renunciation and sacrifice to the last extremity. ’Tis the
counsel of an avaricious man to beggars. Renunciation; why? Sacrifice;
to what end? I do not see one wolf immolating himself for the happiness
of another wolf. Let us stick to nature, then. We are at the top; let
us have a superior philosophy. What is the advantage of being at the
top, if one sees no further than the end of other people’s noses? Let
us live merrily. Life is all. That man has another future elsewhere, on
high, below, anywhere, I don’t believe; not one single word of it. Ah!
sacrifice and renunciation are recommended to me; I must take heed to
everything I do; I must cudgel my brains over good and evil, over the
just and the unjust, over the _fas_ and the _nefas_. Why? Because I
shall have to render an account of my actions. When? After death. What
a fine dream! After my death it will be a very clever person who can
catch me. Have a handful of dust seized by a shadow-hand, if you can.
Let us tell the truth, we who are initiated, and who have raised the
veil of Isis: there is no such thing as either good or evil; there is
vegetation. Let us seek the real. Let us get to the bottom of it. Let
us go into it thoroughly. What the deuce! let us go to the bottom of
it! We must scent out the truth; dig in the earth for it, and seize it.
Then it gives you exquisite joys. Then you grow strong, and you laugh.
I am square on the bottom, I am. Immortality, Bishop, is a chance, a
waiting for dead men’s shoes. Ah! what a charming promise! trust to it,
if you like! What a fine lot Adam has! We are souls, and we shall be
angels, with blue wings on our shoulder-blades. Do come to my
assistance: is it not Tertullian who says that the blessed shall travel
from star to star? Very well. We shall be the grasshoppers of the
stars. And then, besides, we shall see God. Ta, ta, ta! What twaddle
all these paradises are! God is a nonsensical monster. I would not say
that in the _Moniteur_, egad! but I may whisper it among friends.
_Inter pocula_. To sacrifice the world to paradise is to let slip the
prey for the shadow. Be the dupe of the infinite! I’m not such a fool.
I am a nought. I call myself Monsieur le Comte Nought, senator. Did I
exist before my birth? No. Shall I exist after death? No. What am I? A
little dust collected in an organism. What am I to do on this earth?
The choice rests with me: suffer or enjoy. Whither will suffering lead
me? To nothingness; but I shall have suffered. Whither will enjoyment
lead me? To nothingness; but I shall have enjoyed myself. My choice is
made. One must eat or be eaten. I shall eat. It is better to be the
tooth than the grass. Such is my wisdom. After which, go whither I push
thee, the grave-digger is there; the Pantheon for some of us: all falls
into the great hole. End. _Finis_. Total liquidation. This is the
vanishing-point. Death is death, believe me. I laugh at the idea of
there being any one who has anything to tell me on that subject. Fables
of nurses; bugaboo for children; Jehovah for men. No; our to-morrow is
the night. Beyond the tomb there is nothing but equal nothingness. You
have been Sardanapalus, you have been Vincent de Paul—it makes no
difference. That is the truth. Then live your life, above all things.
Make use of your _I_ while you have it. In truth, Bishop, I tell you
that I have a philosophy of my own, and I have my philosophers. I don’t
let myself be taken in with that nonsense. Of course, there must be
something for those who are down,—for the barefooted beggars,
knife-grinders, and miserable wretches. Legends, chimæras, the soul,
immortality, paradise, the stars, are provided for them to swallow.
They gobble it down. They spread it on their dry bread. He who has
nothing else has the good God. That is the least he can have. I oppose
no objection to that; but I reserve Monsieur Naigeon for myself. The
good God is good for the populace.”


The Bishop clapped his hands.

“That’s talking!” he exclaimed. “What an excellent and really
marvellous thing is this materialism! Not every one who wants it can
have it. Ah! when one does have it, one is no longer a dupe, one does
not stupidly allow one’s self to be exiled like Cato, nor stoned like
Stephen, nor burned alive like Jeanne d’Arc. Those who have succeeded
in procuring this admirable materialism have the joy of feeling
themselves irresponsible, and of thinking that they can devour
everything without uneasiness,—places, sinecures, dignities, power,
whether well or ill acquired, lucrative recantations, useful
treacheries, savory capitulations of conscience,—and that they shall
enter the tomb with their digestion accomplished. How agreeable that
is! I do not say that with reference to you, senator. Nevertheless, it
is impossible for me to refrain from congratulating you. You great
lords have, so you say, a philosophy of your own, and for yourselves,
which is exquisite, refined, accessible to the rich alone, good for all
sauces, and which seasons the voluptuousness of life admirably. This
philosophy has been extracted from the depths, and unearthed by special
seekers. But you are good-natured princes, and you do not think it a
bad thing that belief in the good God should constitute the philosophy
of the people, very much as the goose stuffed with chestnuts is the
truffled turkey of the poor.”





CHAPTER IX—THE BROTHER AS DEPICTED BY THE SISTER


In order to furnish an idea of the private establishment of the Bishop
of D——, and of the manner in which those two sainted women subordinated
their actions, their thoughts, their feminine instincts even, which are
easily alarmed, to the habits and purposes of the Bishop, without his
even taking the trouble of speaking in order to explain them, we cannot
do better than transcribe in this place a letter from Mademoiselle
Baptistine to Madame the Vicomtess de Boischevron, the friend of her
childhood. This letter is in our possession.

D——, Dec. 16, 18—. MY GOOD MADAM: Not a day passes without our speaking
of you. It is our established custom; but there is another reason
besides. Just imagine, while washing and dusting the ceilings and
walls, Madam Magloire has made some discoveries; now our two chambers
hung with antique paper whitewashed over, would not discredit a château
in the style of yours. Madam Magloire has pulled off all the paper.
There were things beneath. My drawing-room, which contains no
furniture, and which we use for spreading out the linen after washing,
is fifteen feet in height, eighteen square, with a ceiling which was
formerly painted and gilded, and with beams, as in yours. This was
covered with a cloth while this was the hospital. And the woodwork was
of the era of our grandmothers. But my room is the one you ought to
see. Madam Magloire has discovered, under at least ten thicknesses of
paper pasted on top, some paintings, which without being good are very
tolerable. The subject is Telemachus being knighted by Minerva in some
gardens, the name of which escapes me. In short, where the Roman ladies
repaired on one single night. What shall I say to you? I have Romans,
and Roman ladies [here occurs an illegible word], and the whole train.
Madam Magloire has cleaned it all off; this summer she is going to have
some small injuries repaired, and the whole revarnished, and my chamber
will be a regular museum. She has also found in a corner of the attic
two wooden pier-tables of ancient fashion. They asked us two crowns of
six francs each to regild them, but it is much better to give the money
to the poor; and they are very ugly besides, and I should much prefer a
round table of mahogany.

I am always very happy. My brother is so good. He gives all he has to
the poor and sick. We are very much cramped. The country is trying in
the winter, and we really must do something for those who are in need.
We are almost comfortably lighted and warmed. You see that these are
great treats.

My brother has ways of his own. When he talks, he says that a bishop
ought to be so. Just imagine! the door of our house is never fastened.
Whoever chooses to enter finds himself at once in my brother’s room. He
fears nothing, even at night. That is his sort of bravery, he says.

He does not wish me or Madame Magloire feel any fear for him. He
exposes himself to all sorts of dangers, and he does not like to have
us even seem to notice it. One must know how to understand him.

He goes out in the rain, he walks in the water, he travels in winter.
He fears neither suspicious roads nor dangerous encounters, nor night.

Last year he went quite alone into a country of robbers. He would not
take us. He was absent for a fortnight. On his return nothing had
happened to him; he was thought to be dead, but was perfectly well, and
said, “This is the way I have been robbed!” And then he opened a trunk
full of jewels, all the jewels of the cathedral of Embrun, which the
thieves had given him.

When he returned on that occasion, I could not refrain from scolding
him a little, taking care, however, not to speak except when the
carriage was making a noise, so that no one might hear me.

At first I used to say to myself, “There are no dangers which will stop
him; he is terrible.” Now I have ended by getting used to it. I make a
sign to Madam Magloire that she is not to oppose him. He risks himself
as he sees fit. I carry off Madam Magloire, I enter my chamber, I pray
for him and fall asleep. I am at ease, because I know that if anything
were to happen to him, it would be the end of me. I should go to the
good God with my brother and my bishop. It has cost Madam Magloire more
trouble than it did me to accustom herself to what she terms his
imprudences. But now the habit has been acquired. We pray together, we
tremble together, and we fall asleep. If the devil were to enter this
house, he would be allowed to do so. After all, what is there for us to
fear in this house? There is always some one with us who is stronger
than we. The devil may pass through it, but the good God dwells here.

This suffices me. My brother has no longer any need of saying a word to
me. I understand him without his speaking, and we abandon ourselves to
the care of Providence. That is the way one has to do with a man who
possesses grandeur of soul.

I have interrogated my brother with regard to the information which you
desire on the subject of the Faux family. You are aware that he knows
everything, and that he has memories, because he is still a very good
royalist. They really are a very ancient Norman family of the
generalship of Caen. Five hundred years ago there was a Raoul de Faux,
a Jean de Faux, and a Thomas de Faux, who were gentlemen, and one of
whom was a seigneur de Rochefort. The last was Guy-Étienne-Alexandre,
and was commander of a regiment, and something in the light horse of
Bretagne. His daughter, Marie-Louise, married Adrien-Charles de
Gramont, son of the Duke Louis de Gramont, peer of France, colonel of
the French guards, and lieutenant-general of the army. It is written
Faux, Fauq, and Faoucq.

Good Madame, recommend us to the prayers of your sainted relative,
Monsieur the Cardinal. As for your dear Sylvanie, she has done well in
not wasting the few moments which she passes with you in writing to me.
She is well, works as you would wish, and loves me.

That is all that I desire. The souvenir which she sent through you
reached me safely, and it makes me very happy. My health is not so very
bad, and yet I grow thinner every day. Farewell; my paper is at an end,
and this forces me to leave you. A thousand good wishes.

BAPTISTINE.

P.S. Your grand nephew is charming. Do you know that he will soon be
five years old? Yesterday he saw some one riding by on horseback who
had on knee-caps, and he said, “What has he got on his knees?” He is a
charming child! His little brother is dragging an old broom about the
room, like a carriage, and saying, “Hu!”


As will be perceived from this letter, these two women understood how
to mould themselves to the Bishop’s ways with that special feminine
genius which comprehends the man better than he comprehends himself.
The Bishop of D——, in spite of the gentle and candid air which never
deserted him, sometimes did things that were grand, bold, and
magnificent, without seeming to have even a suspicion of the fact. They
trembled, but they let him alone. Sometimes Madame Magloire essayed a
remonstrance in advance, but never at the time, nor afterwards. They
never interfered with him by so much as a word or sign, in any action
once entered upon. At certain moments, without his having occasion to
mention it, when he was not even conscious of it himself in all
probability, so perfect was his simplicity, they vaguely felt that he
was acting as a bishop; then they were nothing more than two shadows in
the house. They served him passively; and if obedience consisted in
disappearing, they disappeared. They understood, with an admirable
delicacy of instinct, that certain cares may be put under constraint.
Thus, even when believing him to be in peril, they understood, I will
not say his thought, but his nature, to such a degree that they no
longer watched over him. They confided him to God.

Moreover, Baptistine said, as we have just read, that her brother’s end
would prove her own. Madame Magloire did not say this, but she knew it.




CHAPTER X—THE BISHOP IN THE PRESENCE OF AN UNKNOWN LIGHT


At an epoch a little later than the date of the letter cited in the
preceding pages, he did a thing which, if the whole town was to be
believed, was even more hazardous than his trip across the mountains
infested with bandits.

In the country near D—— a man lived quite alone. This man, we will
state at once, was a former member of the Convention. His name was G——

Member of the Convention, G—— was mentioned with a sort of horror in
the little world of D—— A member of the Convention—can you imagine such
a thing? That existed from the time when people called each other
_thou_, and when they said “citizen.” This man was almost a monster. He
had not voted for the death of the king, but almost. He was a
quasi-regicide. He had been a terrible man. How did it happen that such
a man had not been brought before a provost’s court, on the return of
the legitimate princes? They need not have cut off his head, if you
please; clemency must be exercised, agreed; but a good banishment for
life. An example, in short, etc. Besides, he was an atheist, like all
the rest of those people. Gossip of the geese about the vulture.

Was G—— a vulture after all? Yes; if he were to be judged by the
element of ferocity in this solitude of his. As he had not voted for
the death of the king, he had not been included in the decrees of
exile, and had been able to remain in France.

He dwelt at a distance of three-quarters of an hour from the city, far
from any hamlet, far from any road, in some hidden turn of a very wild
valley, no one knew exactly where. He had there, it was said, a sort of
field, a hole, a lair. There were no neighbors, not even passers-by.
Since he had dwelt in that valley, the path which led thither had
disappeared under a growth of grass. The locality was spoken of as
though it had been the dwelling of a hangman.

Nevertheless, the Bishop meditated on the subject, and from time to
time he gazed at the horizon at a point where a clump of trees marked
the valley of the former member of the Convention, and he said, “There
is a soul yonder which is lonely.”


And he added, deep in his own mind, “I owe him a visit.”


But, let us avow it, this idea, which seemed natural at the first
blush, appeared to him after a moment’s reflection, as strange,
impossible, and almost repulsive. For, at bottom, he shared the general
impression, and the old member of the Convention inspired him, without
his being clearly conscious of the fact himself, with that sentiment
which borders on hate, and which is so well expressed by the word
estrangement.

Still, should the scab of the sheep cause the shepherd to recoil? No.
But what a sheep!

The good Bishop was perplexed. Sometimes he set out in that direction;
then he returned.

Finally, the rumor one day spread through the town that a sort of young
shepherd, who served the member of the Convention in his hovel, had
come in quest of a doctor; that the old wretch was dying, that
paralysis was gaining on him, and that he would not live over
night.—“Thank God!” some added.

The Bishop took his staff, put on his cloak, on account of his too
threadbare cassock, as we have mentioned, and because of the evening
breeze which was sure to rise soon, and set out.

The sun was setting, and had almost touched the horizon when the Bishop
arrived at the excommunicated spot. With a certain beating of the
heart, he recognized the fact that he was near the lair. He strode over
a ditch, leaped a hedge, made his way through a fence of dead boughs,
entered a neglected paddock, took a few steps with a good deal of
boldness, and suddenly, at the extremity of the waste land, and behind
lofty brambles, he caught sight of the cavern.

It was a very low hut, poor, small, and clean, with a vine nailed
against the outside.

Near the door, in an old wheel-chair, the armchair of the peasants,
there was a white-haired man, smiling at the sun.

Near the seated man stood a young boy, the shepherd lad. He was
offering the old man a jar of milk.

While the Bishop was watching him, the old man spoke: “Thank you,” he
said, “I need nothing.” And his smile quitted the sun to rest upon the
child.

The Bishop stepped forward. At the sound which he made in walking, the
old man turned his head, and his face expressed the sum total of the
surprise which a man can still feel after a long life.

“This is the first time since I have been here,” said he, “that any one
has entered here. Who are you, sir?”


The Bishop answered:—

“My name is Bienvenu Myriel.”


“Bienvenu Myriel? I have heard that name. Are you the man whom the
people call Monseigneur Welcome?”


“I am.”


The old man resumed with a half-smile

“In that case, you are my bishop?”


“Something of that sort.”


“Enter, sir.”


The member of the Convention extended his hand to the Bishop, but the
Bishop did not take it. The Bishop confined himself to the remark:—

“I am pleased to see that I have been misinformed. You certainly do not
seem to me to be ill.”


“Monsieur,” replied the old man, “I am going to recover.”


He paused, and then said:—

“I shall die three hours hence.”


Then he continued:—

“I am something of a doctor; I know in what fashion the last hour draws
on. Yesterday, only my feet were cold; to-day, the chill has ascended
to my knees; now I feel it mounting to my waist; when it reaches the
heart, I shall stop. The sun is beautiful, is it not? I had myself
wheeled out here to take a last look at things. You can talk to me; it
does not fatigue me. You have done well to come and look at a man who
is on the point of death. It is well that there should be witnesses at
that moment. One has one’s caprices; I should have liked to last until
the dawn, but I know that I shall hardly live three hours. It will be
night then. What does it matter, after all? Dying is a simple affair.
One has no need of the light for that. So be it. I shall die by
starlight.”


The old man turned to the shepherd lad:—

“Go to thy bed; thou wert awake all last night; thou art tired.”


The child entered the hut.

The old man followed him with his eyes, and added, as though speaking
to himself:—

“I shall die while he sleeps. The two slumbers may be good neighbors.”


The Bishop was not touched as it seems that he should have been. He did
not think he discerned God in this manner of dying; let us say the
whole, for these petty contradictions of great hearts must be indicated
like the rest: he, who on occasion, was so fond of laughing at “His
Grace,” was rather shocked at not being addressed as Monseigneur, and
he was almost tempted to retort “citizen.” He was assailed by a fancy
for peevish familiarity, common enough to doctors and priests, but
which was not habitual with him. This man, after all, this member of
the Convention, this representative of the people, had been one of the
powerful ones of the earth; for the first time in his life, probably,
the Bishop felt in a mood to be severe.

Meanwhile, the member of the Convention had been surveying him with a
modest cordiality, in which one could have distinguished, possibly,
that humility which is so fitting when one is on the verge of returning
to dust.

The Bishop, on his side, although he generally restrained his
curiosity, which, in his opinion, bordered on a fault, could not
refrain from examining the member of the Convention with an attention
which, as it did not have its course in sympathy, would have served his
conscience as a matter of reproach, in connection with any other man. A
member of the Convention produced on him somewhat the effect of being
outside the pale of the law, even of the law of charity. G——, calm, his
body almost upright, his voice vibrating, was one of those
octogenarians who form the subject of astonishment to the physiologist.
The Revolution had many of these men, proportioned to the epoch. In
this old man one was conscious of a man put to the proof. Though so
near to his end, he preserved all the gestures of health. In his clear
glance, in his firm tone, in the robust movement of his shoulders,
there was something calculated to disconcert death. Azrael, the
Mohammedan angel of the sepulchre, would have turned back, and thought
that he had mistaken the door. G—— seemed to be dying because he willed
it so. There was freedom in his agony. His legs alone were motionless.
It was there that the shadows held him fast. His feet were cold and
dead, but his head survived with all the power of life, and seemed full
of light. G——, at this solemn moment, resembled the king in that tale
of the Orient who was flesh above and marble below.

There was a stone there. The Bishop sat down. The exordium was abrupt.

“I congratulate you,” said he, in the tone which one uses for a
reprimand. “You did not vote for the death of the king, after all.”


The old member of the Convention did not appear to notice the bitter
meaning underlying the words “after all.” He replied. The smile had
quite disappeared from his face.

“Do not congratulate me too much, sir. I did vote for the death of the
tyrant.”


It was the tone of austerity answering the tone of severity.

“What do you mean to say?” resumed the Bishop.

“I mean to say that man has a tyrant,—ignorance. I voted for the death
of that tyrant. That tyrant engendered royalty, which is authority
falsely understood, while science is authority rightly understood. Man
should be governed only by science.”


“And conscience,” added the Bishop.

“It is the same thing. Conscience is the quantity of innate science
which we have within us.”


Monseigneur Bienvenu listened in some astonishment to this language,
which was very new to him.

The member of the Convention resumed:—

“So far as Louis XVI. was concerned, I said ‘no.’ I did not think that
I had the right to kill a man; but I felt it my duty to exterminate
evil. I voted the end of the tyrant, that is to say, the end of
prostitution for woman, the end of slavery for man, the end of night
for the child. In voting for the Republic, I voted for that. I voted
for fraternity, concord, the dawn. I have aided in the overthrow of
prejudices and errors. The crumbling away of prejudices and errors
causes light. We have caused the fall of the old world, and the old
world, that vase of miseries, has become, through its upsetting upon
the human race, an urn of joy.”


“Mixed joy,” said the Bishop.

“You may say troubled joy, and to-day, after that fatal return of the
past, which is called 1814, joy which has disappeared! Alas! The work
was incomplete, I admit: we demolished the ancient regime in deeds; we
were not able to suppress it entirely in ideas. To destroy abuses is
not sufficient; customs must be modified. The mill is there no longer;
the wind is still there.”


“You have demolished. It may be of use to demolish, but I distrust a
demolition complicated with wrath.”


“Right has its wrath, Bishop; and the wrath of right is an element of
progress. In any case, and in spite of whatever may be said, the French
Revolution is the most important step of the human race since the
advent of Christ. Incomplete, it may be, but sublime. It set free all
the unknown social quantities; it softened spirits, it calmed,
appeased, enlightened; it caused the waves of civilization to flow over
the earth. It was a good thing. The French Revolution is the
consecration of humanity.”


The Bishop could not refrain from murmuring:—

“Yes? ’93!”


The member of the Convention straightened himself up in his chair with
an almost lugubrious solemnity, and exclaimed, so far as a dying man is
capable of exclamation:—

“Ah, there you go; ’93! I was expecting that word. A cloud had been
forming for the space of fifteen hundred years; at the end of fifteen
hundred years it burst. You are putting the thunderbolt on its trial.”


The Bishop felt, without, perhaps, confessing it, that something within
him had suffered extinction. Nevertheless, he put a good face on the
matter. He replied:—

“The judge speaks in the name of justice; the priest speaks in the name
of pity, which is nothing but a more lofty justice. A thunderbolt
should commit no error.” And he added, regarding the member of the
Convention steadily the while, “Louis XVII.?”


The conventionary stretched forth his hand and grasped the Bishop’s
arm.

“Louis XVII.! let us see. For whom do you mourn? is it for the innocent
child? very good; in that case I mourn with you. Is it for the royal
child? I demand time for reflection. To me, the brother of Cartouche,
an innocent child who was hung up by the armpits in the Place de Grève,
until death ensued, for the sole crime of having been the brother of
Cartouche, is no less painful than the grandson of Louis XV., an
innocent child, martyred in the tower of the Temple, for the sole crime
of having been grandson of Louis XV.”


“Monsieur,” said the Bishop, “I like not this conjunction of names.”


“Cartouche? Louis XV.? To which of the two do you object?”


A momentary silence ensued. The Bishop almost regretted having come,
and yet he felt vaguely and strangely shaken.

The conventionary resumed:—

“Ah, Monsieur Priest, you love not the crudities of the true. Christ
loved them. He seized a rod and cleared out the Temple. His scourge,
full of lightnings, was a harsh speaker of truths. When he cried,
_‘Sinite parvulos,’_ he made no distinction between the little
children. It would not have embarrassed him to bring together the
Dauphin of Barabbas and the Dauphin of Herod. Innocence, Monsieur, is
its own crown. Innocence has no need to be a highness. It is as august
in rags as in fleurs de lys.”


“That is true,” said the Bishop in a low voice.

“I persist,” continued the conventionary G—— “You have mentioned Louis
XVII. to me. Let us come to an understanding. Shall we weep for all the
innocent, all martyrs, all children, the lowly as well as the exalted?
I agree to that. But in that case, as I have told you, we must go back
further than ’93, and our tears must begin before Louis XVII. I will
weep with you over the children of kings, provided that you will weep
with me over the children of the people.”


“I weep for all,” said the Bishop.

“Equally!” exclaimed conventionary G——; “and if the balance must
incline, let it be on the side of the people. They have been suffering
longer.”


Another silence ensued. The conventionary was the first to break it. He
raised himself on one elbow, took a bit of his cheek between his thumb
and his forefinger, as one does mechanically when one interrogates and
judges, and appealed to the Bishop with a gaze full of all the forces
of the death agony. It was almost an explosion.

“Yes, sir, the people have been suffering a long while. And hold! that
is not all, either; why have you just questioned me and talked to me
about Louis XVII.? I know you not. Ever since I have been in these
parts I have dwelt in this enclosure alone, never setting foot outside,
and seeing no one but that child who helps me. Your name has reached me
in a confused manner, it is true, and very badly pronounced, I must
admit; but that signifies nothing: clever men have so many ways of
imposing on that honest goodman, the people. By the way, I did not hear
the sound of your carriage; you have left it yonder, behind the coppice
at the fork of the roads, no doubt. I do not know you, I tell you. You
have told me that you are the Bishop; but that affords me no
information as to your moral personality. In short, I repeat my
question. Who are you? You are a bishop; that is to say, a prince of
the church, one of those gilded men with heraldic bearings and
revenues, who have vast prebends,—the bishopric of D—— fifteen thousand
francs settled income, ten thousand in perquisites; total, twenty-five
thousand francs,—who have kitchens, who have liveries, who make good
cheer, who eat moor-hens on Friday, who strut about, a lackey before, a
lackey behind, in a gala coach, and who have palaces, and who roll in
their carriages in the name of Jesus Christ who went barefoot! You are
a prelate,—revenues, palace, horses, servants, good table, all the
sensualities of life; you have this like the rest, and like the rest,
you enjoy it; it is well; but this says either too much or too little;
this does not enlighten me upon the intrinsic and essential value of
the man who comes with the probable intention of bringing wisdom to me.
To whom do I speak? Who are you?”


The Bishop hung his head and replied, _“Vermis sum_—I am a worm.”


“A worm of the earth in a carriage?” growled the conventionary.

It was the conventionary’s turn to be arrogant, and the Bishop’s to be
humble.

The Bishop resumed mildly:—

“So be it, sir. But explain to me how my carriage, which is a few paces
off behind the trees yonder, how my good table and the moor-hens which
I eat on Friday, how my twenty-five thousand francs income, how my
palace and my lackeys prove that clemency is not a duty, and that ’93
was not inexorable.”


The conventionary passed his hand across his brow, as though to sweep
away a cloud.

“Before replying to you,” he said, “I beseech you to pardon me. I have
just committed a wrong, sir. You are at my house, you are my guest, I
owe you courtesy. You discuss my ideas, and it becomes me to confine
myself to combating your arguments. Your riches and your pleasures are
advantages which I hold over you in the debate; but good taste dictates
that I shall not make use of them. I promise you to make no use of them
in the future.”


“I thank you,” said the Bishop.

G—— resumed.

“Let us return to the explanation which you have asked of me. Where
were we? What were you saying to me? That ’93 was inexorable?”


“Inexorable; yes,” said the Bishop. “What think you of Marat clapping
his hands at the guillotine?”


“What think you of Bossuet chanting the _Te Deum_ over the
dragonnades?”


The retort was a harsh one, but it attained its mark with the
directness of a point of steel. The Bishop quivered under it; no reply
occurred to him; but he was offended by this mode of alluding to
Bossuet. The best of minds will have their fetiches, and they sometimes
feel vaguely wounded by the want of respect of logic.

The conventionary began to pant; the asthma of the agony which is
mingled with the last breaths interrupted his voice; still, there was a
perfect lucidity of soul in his eyes. He went on:—

“Let me say a few words more in this and that direction; I am willing.
Apart from the Revolution, which, taken as a whole, is an immense human
affirmation, ’93 is, alas! a rejoinder. You think it inexorable, sir;
but what of the whole monarchy, sir? Carrier is a bandit; but what name
do you give to Montrevel? Fouquier-Tainville is a rascal; but what is
your opinion as to Lamoignon-Bâville? Maillard is terrible; but
Saulx-Tavannes, if you please? Duchêne senior is ferocious; but what
epithet will you allow me for the elder Letellier? Jourdan-Coupe-Tetê
is a monster; but not so great a one as M. the Marquis de Louvois. Sir,
sir, I am sorry for Marie Antoinette, archduchess and queen; but I am
also sorry for that poor Huguenot woman, who, in 1685, under Louis the
Great, sir, while with a nursing infant, was bound, naked to the waist,
to a stake, and the child kept at a distance; her breast swelled with
milk and her heart with anguish; the little one, hungry and pale,
beheld that breast and cried and agonized; the executioner said to the
woman, a mother and a nurse, ‘Abjure!’ giving her her choice between
the death of her infant and the death of her conscience. What say you
to that torture of Tantalus as applied to a mother? Bear this well in
mind sir: the French Revolution had its reasons for existence; its
wrath will be absolved by the future; its result is the world made
better. From its most terrible blows there comes forth a caress for the
human race. I abridge, I stop, I have too much the advantage; moreover,
I am dying.”


And ceasing to gaze at the Bishop, the conventionary concluded his
thoughts in these tranquil words:—

“Yes, the brutalities of progress are called revolutions. When they are
over, this fact is recognized,—that the human race has been treated
harshly, but that it has progressed.”


The conventionary doubted not that he had successively conquered all
the inmost intrenchments of the Bishop. One remained, however, and from
this intrenchment, the last resource of Monseigneur Bienvenu’s
resistance, came forth this reply, wherein appeared nearly all the
harshness of the beginning:—

“Progress should believe in God. Good cannot have an impious servitor.
He who is an atheist is but a bad leader for the human race.”


The former representative of the people made no reply. He was seized
with a fit of trembling. He looked towards heaven, and in his glance a
tear gathered slowly. When the eyelid was full, the tear trickled down
his livid cheek, and he said, almost in a stammer, quite low, and to
himself, while his eyes were plunged in the depths:—

“O thou! O ideal! Thou alone existest!”


The Bishop experienced an indescribable shock.

After a pause, the old man raised a finger heavenward and said:—

“The infinite is. He is there. If the infinite had no person, person
would be without limit; it would not be infinite; in other words, it
would not exist. There is, then, an _I_. That _I_ of the infinite is
God.”


The dying man had pronounced these last words in a loud voice, and with
the shiver of ecstasy, as though he beheld some one. When he had
spoken, his eyes closed. The effort had exhausted him. It was evident
that he had just lived through in a moment the few hours which had been
left to him. That which he had said brought him nearer to him who is in
death. The supreme moment was approaching.

The Bishop understood this; time pressed; it was as a priest that he
had come: from extreme coldness he had passed by degrees to extreme
emotion; he gazed at those closed eyes, he took that wrinkled, aged and
ice-cold hand in his, and bent over the dying man.

“This hour is the hour of God. Do you not think that it would be
regrettable if we had met in vain?”


The conventionary opened his eyes again. A gravity mingled with gloom
was imprinted on his countenance.

“Bishop,” said he, with a slowness which probably arose more from his
dignity of soul than from the failing of his strength, “I have passed
my life in meditation, study, and contemplation. I was sixty years of
age when my country called me and commanded me to concern myself with
its affairs. I obeyed. Abuses existed, I combated them; tyrannies
existed, I destroyed them; rights and principles existed, I proclaimed
and confessed them. Our territory was invaded, I defended it; France
was menaced, I offered my breast. I was not rich; I am poor. I have
been one of the masters of the state; the vaults of the treasury were
encumbered with specie to such a degree that we were forced to shore up
the walls, which were on the point of bursting beneath the weight of
gold and silver; I dined in Dead Tree Street, at twenty-two sous. I
have succored the oppressed, I have comforted the suffering. I tore the
cloth from the altar, it is true; but it was to bind up the wounds of
my country. I have always upheld the march forward of the human race,
forward towards the light, and I have sometimes resisted progress
without pity. I have, when the occasion offered, protected my own
adversaries, men of your profession. And there is at Peteghem, in
Flanders, at the very spot where the Merovingian kings had their summer
palace, a convent of Urbanists, the Abbey of Sainte Claire en Beaulieu,
which I saved in 1793. I have done my duty according to my powers, and
all the good that I was able. After which, I was hunted down, pursued,
persecuted, blackened, jeered at, scorned, cursed, proscribed. For many
years past, I with my white hair have been conscious that many people
think they have the right to despise me; to the poor ignorant masses I
present the visage of one damned. And I accept this isolation of
hatred, without hating any one myself. Now I am eighty-six years old; I
am on the point of death. What is it that you have come to ask of me?”


_“Your blessing,”_ said the Bishop.

And he knelt down.

When the Bishop raised his head again, the face of the conventionary
had become august. He had just expired.

The Bishop returned home, deeply absorbed in thoughts which cannot be
known to us. He passed the whole night in prayer. On the following
morning some bold and curious persons attempted to speak to him about
member of the Convention G——; he contented himself with pointing
heavenward.

From that moment he redoubled his tenderness and brotherly feeling
towards all children and sufferers.

Any allusion to “that old wretch of a G——” caused him to fall into a
singular preoccupation. No one could say that the passage of that soul
before his, and the reflection of that grand conscience upon his, did
not count for something in his approach to perfection.

This “pastoral visit” naturally furnished an occasion for a murmur of
comment in all the little local coteries.

“Was the bedside of such a dying man as that the proper place for a
bishop? There was evidently no conversion to be expected. All those
revolutionists are backsliders. Then why go there? What was there to be
seen there? He must have been very curious indeed to see a soul carried
off by the devil.”


One day a dowager of the impertinent variety who thinks herself
spiritual, addressed this sally to him, “Monseigneur, people are
inquiring when Your Greatness will receive the red cap!”—“Oh! oh!
that’s a coarse color,” replied the Bishop. “It is lucky that those who
despise it in a cap revere it in a hat.”





CHAPTER XI—A RESTRICTION


We should incur a great risk of deceiving ourselves, were we to
conclude from this that Monseigneur Welcome was “a philosophical
bishop,” or a “patriotic curé.” His meeting, which may almost be
designated as his union, with conventionary G——, left behind it in his
mind a sort of astonishment, which rendered him still more gentle. That
is all.

Although Monseigneur Bienvenu was far from being a politician, this is,
perhaps, the place to indicate very briefly what his attitude was in
the events of that epoch, supposing that Monseigneur Bienvenu ever
dreamed of having an attitude.

Let us, then, go back a few years.

Some time after the elevation of M. Myriel to the episcopate, the
Emperor had made him a baron of the Empire, in company with many other
bishops. The arrest of the Pope took place, as every one knows, on the
night of the 5th to the 6th of July, 1809; on this occasion, M. Myriel
was summoned by Napoleon to the synod of the bishops of France and
Italy convened at Paris. This synod was held at Notre-Dame, and
assembled for the first time on the 15th of June, 1811, under the
presidency of Cardinal Fesch. M. Myriel was one of the ninety-five
bishops who attended it. But he was present only at one sitting and at
three or four private conferences. Bishop of a mountain diocese, living
so very close to nature, in rusticity and deprivation, it appeared that
he imported among these eminent personages, ideas which altered the
temperature of the assembly. He very soon returned to D—— He was
interrogated as to this speedy return, and he replied: _“I embarrassed
them. The outside air penetrated to them through me. I produced on them
the effect of an open door.”_

On another occasion he said, _“What would you have? Those gentlemen are
princes. I am only a poor peasant bishop.”_

The fact is that he displeased them. Among other strange things, it is
said that he chanced to remark one evening, when he found himself at
the house of one of his most notable colleagues: “What beautiful
clocks! What beautiful carpets! What beautiful liveries! They must be a
great trouble. I would not have all those superfluities, crying
incessantly in my ears: ‘There are people who are hungry! There are
people who are cold! There are poor people! There are poor people!’”


Let us remark, by the way, that the hatred of luxury is not an
intelligent hatred. This hatred would involve the hatred of the arts.
Nevertheless, in churchmen, luxury is wrong, except in connection with
representations and ceremonies. It seems to reveal habits which have
very little that is charitable about them. An opulent priest is a
contradiction. The priest must keep close to the poor. Now, can one
come in contact incessantly night and day with all this distress, all
these misfortunes, and this poverty, without having about one’s own
person a little of that misery, like the dust of labor? Is it possible
to imagine a man near a brazier who is not warm? Can one imagine a
workman who is working near a furnace, and who has neither a singed
hair, nor blackened nails, nor a drop of sweat, nor a speck of ashes on
his face? The first proof of charity in the priest, in the bishop
especially, is poverty.

This is, no doubt, what the Bishop of D—— thought.

It must not be supposed, however, that he shared what we call the
“ideas of the century” on certain delicate points. He took very little
part in the theological quarrels of the moment, and maintained silence
on questions in which Church and State were implicated; but if he had
been strongly pressed, it seems that he would have been found to be an
ultramontane rather than a gallican. Since we are making a portrait,
and since we do not wish to conceal anything, we are forced to add that
he was glacial towards Napoleon in his decline. Beginning with 1813, he
gave in his adherence to or applauded all hostile manifestations. He
refused to see him, as he passed through on his return from the island
of Elba, and he abstained from ordering public prayers for the Emperor
in his diocese during the Hundred Days.

Besides his sister, Mademoiselle Baptistine, he had two brothers, one a
general, the other a prefect. He wrote to both with tolerable
frequency. He was harsh for a time towards the former, because, holding
a command in Provence at the epoch of the disembarkation at Cannes, the
general had put himself at the head of twelve hundred men and had
pursued the Emperor as though the latter had been a person whom one is
desirous of allowing to escape. His correspondence with the other
brother, the ex-prefect, a fine, worthy man who lived in retirement at
Paris, Rue Cassette, remained more affectionate.

Thus Monseigneur Bienvenu also had his hour of party spirit, his hour
of bitterness, his cloud. The shadow of the passions of the moment
traversed this grand and gentle spirit occupied with eternal things.
Certainly, such a man would have done well not to entertain any
political opinions. Let there be no mistake as to our meaning: we are
not confounding what is called “political opinions” with the grand
aspiration for progress, with the sublime faith, patriotic, democratic,
humane, which in our day should be the very foundation of every
generous intellect. Without going deeply into questions which are only
indirectly connected with the subject of this book, we will simply say
this: It would have been well if Monseigneur Bienvenu had not been a
Royalist, and if his glance had never been, for a single instant,
turned away from that serene contemplation in which is distinctly
discernible, above the fictions and the hatreds of this world, above
the stormy vicissitudes of human things, the beaming of those three
pure radiances, truth, justice, and charity.

While admitting that it was not for a political office that God created
Monseigneur Welcome, we should have understood and admired his protest
in the name of right and liberty, his proud opposition, his just but
perilous resistance to the all-powerful Napoleon. But that which
pleases us in people who are rising pleases us less in the case of
people who are falling. We only love the fray so long as there is
danger, and in any case, the combatants of the first hour have alone
the right to be the exterminators of the last. He who has not been a
stubborn accuser in prosperity should hold his peace in the face of
ruin. The denunciator of success is the only legitimate executioner of
the fall. As for us, when Providence intervenes and strikes, we let it
work. 1812 commenced to disarm us. In 1813 the cowardly breach of
silence of that taciturn legislative body, emboldened by catastrophe,
possessed only traits which aroused indignation. And it was a crime to
applaud, in 1814, in the presence of those marshals who betrayed; in
the presence of that senate which passed from one dunghill to another,
insulting after having deified; in the presence of that idolatry which
was loosing its footing and spitting on its idol,—it was a duty to turn
aside the head. In 1815, when the supreme disasters filled the air,
when France was seized with a shiver at their sinister approach, when
Waterloo could be dimly discerned opening before Napoleon, the mournful
acclamation of the army and the people to the condemned of destiny had
nothing laughable in it, and, after making all allowance for the
despot, a heart like that of the Bishop of D——, ought not perhaps to
have failed to recognize the august and touching features presented by
the embrace of a great nation and a great man on the brink of the
abyss.

With this exception, he was in all things just, true, equitable,
intelligent, humble and dignified, beneficent and kindly, which is only
another sort of benevolence. He was a priest, a sage, and a man. It
must be admitted, that even in the political views with which we have
just reproached him, and which we are disposed to judge almost with
severity, he was tolerant and easy, more so, perhaps, than we who are
speaking here. The porter of the town-hall had been placed there by the
Emperor. He was an old non-commissioned officer of the old guard, a
member of the Legion of Honor at Austerlitz, as much of a Bonapartist
as the eagle. This poor fellow occasionally let slip inconsiderate
remarks, which the law then stigmatized as _seditious speeches_. After
the imperial profile disappeared from the Legion of Honor, he never
dressed himself in his regimentals, as he said, so that he should not
be obliged to wear his cross. He had himself devoutly removed the
imperial effigy from the cross which Napoleon had given him; this made
a hole, and he would not put anything in its place. _“I will die,”_ he
said, _“rather than wear the three frogs upon my heart!”_ He liked to
scoff aloud at Louis XVIII. “The gouty old creature in English
gaiters!” he said; _“let him take himself off to Prussia with that
queue of his.”_ He was happy to combine in the same imprecation the two
things which he most detested, Prussia and England. He did it so often
that he lost his place. There he was, turned out of the house, with his
wife and children, and without bread. The Bishop sent for him, reproved
him gently, and appointed him beadle in the cathedral.

In the course of nine years Monseigneur Bienvenu had, by dint of holy
deeds and gentle manners, filled the town of D——with a sort of tender
and filial reverence. Even his conduct towards Napoleon had been
accepted and tacitly pardoned, as it were, by the people, the good and
weakly flock who adored their emperor, but loved their bishop.




CHAPTER XII—THE SOLITUDE OF MONSEIGNEUR WELCOME


A bishop is almost always surrounded by a full squadron of little
abbés, just as a general is by a covey of young officers. This is what
that charming Saint François de Sales calls somewhere “les prêtres
blancs-becs,” callow priests. Every career has its aspirants, who form
a train for those who have attained eminence in it. There is no power
which has not its dependents. There is no fortune which has not its
court. The seekers of the future eddy around the splendid present.
Every metropolis has its staff of officials. Every bishop who possesses
the least influence has about him his patrol of cherubim from the
seminary, which goes the round, and maintains good order in the
episcopal palace, and mounts guard over monseigneur’s smile. To please
a bishop is equivalent to getting one’s foot in the stirrup for a
sub-diaconate. It is necessary to walk one’s path discreetly; the
apostleship does not disdain the canonship.

Just as there are bigwigs elsewhere, there are big mitres in the
Church. These are the bishops who stand well at Court, who are rich,
well endowed, skilful, accepted by the world, who know how to pray, no
doubt, but who know also how to beg, who feel little scruple at making
a whole diocese dance attendance in their person, who are connecting
links between the sacristy and diplomacy, who are abbés rather than
priests, prelates rather than bishops. Happy those who approach them!
Being persons of influence, they create a shower about them, upon the
assiduous and the favored, and upon all the young men who understand
the art of pleasing, of large parishes, prebends, archidiaconates,
chaplaincies, and cathedral posts, while awaiting episcopal honors. As
they advance themselves, they cause their satellites to progress also;
it is a whole solar system on the march. Their radiance casts a gleam
of purple over their suite. Their prosperity is crumbled up behind the
scenes, into nice little promotions. The larger the diocese of the
patron, the fatter the curacy for the favorite. And then, there is
Rome. A bishop who understands how to become an archbishop, an
archbishop who knows how to become a cardinal, carries you with him as
conclavist; you enter a court of papal jurisdiction, you receive the
pallium, and behold! you are an auditor, then a papal chamberlain, then
monsignor, and from a Grace to an Eminence is only a step, and between
the Eminence and the Holiness there is but the smoke of a ballot. Every
skull-cap may dream of the tiara. The priest is nowadays the only man
who can become a king in a regular manner; and what a king! the supreme
king. Then what a nursery of aspirations is a seminary! How many
blushing choristers, how many youthful abbés bear on their heads
Perrette’s pot of milk! Who knows how easy it is for ambition to call
itself vocation? in good faith, perchance, and deceiving itself,
devotee that it is.

Monseigneur Bienvenu, poor, humble, retiring, was not accounted among
the big mitres. This was plain from the complete absence of young
priests about him. We have seen that he “did not take” in Paris. Not a
single future dreamed of engrafting itself on this solitary old man.
Not a single sprouting ambition committed the folly of putting forth
its foliage in his shadow. His canons and grand-vicars were good old
men, rather vulgar like himself, walled up like him in this diocese,
without exit to a cardinalship, and who resembled their bishop, with
this difference, that they were finished and he was completed. The
impossibility of growing great under Monseigneur Bienvenu was so well
understood, that no sooner had the young men whom he ordained left the
seminary than they got themselves recommended to the archbishops of Aix
or of Auch, and went off in a great hurry. For, in short, we repeat it,
men wish to be pushed. A saint who dwells in a paroxysm of abnegation
is a dangerous neighbor; he might communicate to you, by contagion, an
incurable poverty, an anchylosis of the joints, which are useful in
advancement, and in short, more renunciation than you desire; and this
infectious virtue is avoided. Hence the isolation of Monseigneur
Bienvenu. We live in the midst of a gloomy society. Success; that is
the lesson which falls drop by drop from the slope of corruption.

Be it said in passing, that success is a very hideous thing. Its false
resemblance to merit deceives men. For the masses, success has almost
the same profile as supremacy. Success, that Menæchmus of talent, has
one dupe,—history. Juvenal and Tacitus alone grumble at it. In our day,
a philosophy which is almost official has entered into its service,
wears the livery of success, and performs the service of its
antechamber. Succeed: theory. Prosperity argues capacity. Win in the
lottery, and behold! you are a clever man. He who triumphs is
venerated. Be born with a silver spoon in your mouth! everything lies
in that. Be lucky, and you will have all the rest; be happy, and people
will think you great. Outside of five or six immense exceptions, which
compose the splendor of a century, contemporary admiration is nothing
but short-sightedness. Gilding is gold. It does no harm to be the first
arrival by pure chance, so long as you do arrive. The common herd is an
old Narcissus who adores himself, and who applauds the vulgar herd.
That enormous ability by virtue of which one is Moses, Æschylus, Dante,
Michael Angelo, or Napoleon, the multitude awards on the spot, and by
acclamation, to whomsoever attains his object, in whatsoever it may
consist. Let a notary transfigure himself into a deputy: let a false
Corneille compose _Tiridate;_ let a eunuch come to possess a harem; let
a military Prudhomme accidentally win the decisive battle of an epoch;
let an apothecary invent cardboard shoe-soles for the army of the
Sambre-and-Meuse, and construct for himself, out of this cardboard,
sold as leather, four hundred thousand francs of income; let a
pork-packer espouse usury, and cause it to bring forth seven or eight
millions, of which he is the father and of which it is the mother; let
a preacher become a bishop by force of his nasal drawl; let the steward
of a fine family be so rich on retiring from service that he is made
minister of finances,—and men call that Genius, just as they call the
face of Mousqueton _Beauty_, and the mien of Claude _Majesty_. With the
constellations of space they confound the stars of the abyss which are
made in the soft mire of the puddle by the feet of ducks.




CHAPTER XIII—WHAT HE BELIEVED


We are not obliged to sound the Bishop of D—— on the score of
orthodoxy. In the presence of such a soul we feel ourselves in no mood
but respect. The conscience of the just man should be accepted on his
word. Moreover, certain natures being given, we admit the possible
development of all beauties of human virtue in a belief that differs
from our own.

What did he think of this dogma, or of that mystery? These secrets of
the inner tribunal of the conscience are known only to the tomb, where
souls enter naked. The point on which we are certain is, that the
difficulties of faith never resolved themselves into hypocrisy in his
case. No decay is possible to the diamond. He believed to the extent of
his powers. _“Credo in Patrem,”_ he often exclaimed. Moreover, he drew
from good works that amount of satisfaction which suffices to the
conscience, and which whispers to a man, “Thou art with God!”


The point which we consider it our duty to note is, that outside of and
beyond his faith, as it were, the Bishop possessed an excess of love.
It was in that quarter, _quia multum amavit_,—because he loved
much—that he was regarded as vulnerable by “serious men,” “grave
persons” and “reasonable people”; favorite locutions of our sad world
where egotism takes its word of command from pedantry. What was this
excess of love? It was a serene benevolence which overflowed men, as we
have already pointed out, and which, on occasion, extended even to
things. He lived without disdain. He was indulgent towards God’s
creation. Every man, even the best, has within him a thoughtless
harshness which he reserves for animals. The Bishop of D—— had none of
that harshness, which is peculiar to many priests, nevertheless. He did
not go as far as the Brahmin, but he seemed to have weighed this saying
of Ecclesiastes: “Who knoweth whither the soul of the animal goeth?”
Hideousness of aspect, deformity of instinct, troubled him not, and did
not arouse his indignation. He was touched, almost softened by them. It
seemed as though he went thoughtfully away to seek beyond the bounds of
life which is apparent, the cause, the explanation, or the excuse for
them. He seemed at times to be asking God to commute these penalties.
He examined without wrath, and with the eye of a linguist who is
deciphering a palimpsest, that portion of chaos which still exists in
nature. This reverie sometimes caused him to utter odd sayings. One
morning he was in his garden, and thought himself alone, but his sister
was walking behind him, unseen by him: suddenly he paused and gazed at
something on the ground; it was a large, black, hairy, frightful
spider. His sister heard him say:—

“Poor beast! It is not its fault!”


Why not mention these almost divinely childish sayings of kindness?
Puerile they may be; but these sublime puerilities were peculiar to
Saint Francis d’Assisi and of Marcus Aurelius. One day he sprained his
ankle in his effort to avoid stepping on an ant. Thus lived this just
man. Sometimes he fell asleep in his garden, and then there was nothing
more venerable possible.

Monseigneur Bienvenu had formerly been, if the stories anent his youth,
and even in regard to his manhood, were to be believed, a passionate,
and, possibly, a violent man. His universal suavity was less an
instinct of nature than the result of a grand conviction which had
filtered into his heart through the medium of life, and had trickled
there slowly, thought by thought; for, in a character, as in a rock,
there may exist apertures made by drops of water. These hollows are
uneffaceable; these formations are indestructible.

In 1815, as we think we have already said, he reached his seventy-fifth
birthday, but he did not appear to be more than sixty. He was not tall;
he was rather plump; and, in order to combat this tendency, he was fond
of taking long strolls on foot; his step was firm, and his form was but
slightly bent, a detail from which we do not pretend to draw any
conclusion. Gregory XVI., at the age of eighty, held himself erect and
smiling, which did not prevent him from being a bad bishop. Monseigneur
Welcome had what the people term a “fine head,” but so amiable was he
that they forgot that it was fine.

When he conversed with that infantile gayety which was one of his
charms, and of which we have already spoken, people felt at their ease
with him, and joy seemed to radiate from his whole person. His fresh
and ruddy complexion, his very white teeth, all of which he had
preserved, and which were displayed by his smile, gave him that open
and easy air which cause the remark to be made of a man, “He’s a good
fellow”; and of an old man, “He is a fine man.” That, it will be
recalled, was the effect which he produced upon Napoleon. On the first
encounter, and to one who saw him for the first time, he was nothing,
in fact, but a fine man. But if one remained near him for a few hours,
and beheld him in the least degree pensive, the fine man became
gradually transfigured, and took on some imposing quality, I know not
what; his broad and serious brow, rendered august by his white locks,
became august also by virtue of meditation; majesty radiated from his
goodness, though his goodness ceased not to be radiant; one experienced
something of the emotion which one would feel on beholding a smiling
angel slowly unfold his wings, without ceasing to smile. Respect, an
unutterable respect, penetrated you by degrees and mounted to your
heart, and one felt that one had before him one of those strong,
thoroughly tried, and indulgent souls where thought is so grand that it
can no longer be anything but gentle.

As we have seen, prayer, the celebration of the offices of religion,
alms-giving, the consolation of the afflicted, the cultivation of a bit
of land, fraternity, frugality, hospitality, renunciation, confidence,
study, work, filled every day of his life. _Filled_ is exactly the
word; certainly the Bishop’s day was quite full to the brim, of good
words and good deeds. Nevertheless, it was not complete if cold or
rainy weather prevented his passing an hour or two in his garden before
going to bed, and after the two women had retired. It seemed to be a
sort of rite with him, to prepare himself for slumber by meditation in
the presence of the grand spectacles of the nocturnal heavens.
Sometimes, if the two old women were not asleep, they heard him pacing
slowly along the walks at a very advanced hour of the night. He was
there alone, communing with himself, peaceful, adoring, comparing the
serenity of his heart with the serenity of the ether, moved amid the
darkness by the visible splendor of the constellations and the
invisible splendor of God, opening his heart to the thoughts which fall
from the Unknown. At such moments, while he offered his heart at the
hour when nocturnal flowers offer their perfume, illuminated like a
lamp amid the starry night, as he poured himself out in ecstasy in the
midst of the universal radiance of creation, he could not have told
himself, probably, what was passing in his spirit; he felt something
take its flight from him, and something descend into him. Mysterious
exchange of the abysses of the soul with the abysses of the universe!

He thought of the grandeur and presence of God; of the future eternity,
that strange mystery; of the eternity past, a mystery still more
strange; of all the infinities, which pierced their way into all his
senses, beneath his eyes; and, without seeking to comprehend the
incomprehensible, he gazed upon it. He did not study God; he was
dazzled by him. He considered those magnificent conjunctions of atoms,
which communicate aspects to matter, reveal forces by verifying them,
create individualities in unity, proportions in extent, the innumerable
in the infinite, and, through light, produce beauty. These conjunctions
are formed and dissolved incessantly; hence life and death.

He seated himself on a wooden bench, with his back against a decrepit
vine; he gazed at the stars, past the puny and stunted silhouettes of
his fruit-trees. This quarter of an acre, so poorly planted, so
encumbered with mean buildings and sheds, was dear to him, and
satisfied his wants.

What more was needed by this old man, who divided the leisure of his
life, where there was so little leisure, between gardening in the
daytime and contemplation at night? Was not this narrow enclosure, with
the heavens for a ceiling, sufficient to enable him to adore God in his
most divine works, in turn? Does not this comprehend all, in fact? and
what is there left to desire beyond it? A little garden in which to
walk, and immensity in which to dream. At one’s feet that which can be
cultivated and plucked; over head that which one can study and meditate
upon: some flowers on earth, and all the stars in the sky.




CHAPTER XIV—WHAT HE THOUGHT


One last word.

Since this sort of details might, particularly at the present moment,
and to use an expression now in fashion, give to the Bishop of D—— a
certain “pantheistical” physiognomy, and induce the belief, either to
his credit or discredit, that he entertained one of those personal
philosophies which are peculiar to our century, which sometimes spring
up in solitary spirits, and there take on a form and grow until they
usurp the place of religion, we insist upon it, that not one of those
persons who knew Monseigneur Welcome would have thought himself
authorized to think anything of the sort. That which enlightened this
man was his heart. His wisdom was made of the light which comes from
there.

No systems; many works. Abstruse speculations contain vertigo; no,
there is nothing to indicate that he risked his mind in apocalypses.
The apostle may be daring, but the bishop must be timid. He would
probably have felt a scruple at sounding too far in advance certain
problems which are, in a manner, reserved for terrible great minds.
There is a sacred horror beneath the porches of the enigma; those
gloomy openings stand yawning there, but something tells you, you, a
passer-by in life, that you must not enter. Woe to him who penetrates
thither!

Geniuses in the impenetrable depths of abstraction and pure
speculation, situated, so to speak, above all dogmas, propose their
ideas to God. Their prayer audaciously offers discussion. Their
adoration interrogates. This is direct religion, which is full of
anxiety and responsibility for him who attempts its steep cliffs.

Human meditation has no limits. At his own risk and peril, it analyzes
and digs deep into its own bedazzlement. One might almost say, that by
a sort of splendid reaction, it with it dazzles nature; the mysterious
world which surrounds us renders back what it has received; it is
probable that the contemplators are contemplated. However that may be,
there are on earth men who—are they men?—perceive distinctly at the
verge of the horizons of reverie the heights of the absolute, and who
have the terrible vision of the infinite mountain. Monseigneur Welcome
was one of these men; Monseigneur Welcome was not a genius. He would
have feared those sublimities whence some very great men even, like
Swedenborg and Pascal, have slipped into insanity. Certainly, these
powerful reveries have their moral utility, and by these arduous paths
one approaches to ideal perfection. As for him, he took the path which
shortens,—the Gospel’s.

He did not attempt to impart to his chasuble the folds of Elijah’s
mantle; he projected no ray of future upon the dark groundswell of
events; he did not see to condense in flame the light of things; he had
nothing of the prophet and nothing of the magician about him. This
humble soul loved, and that was all.

That he carried prayer to the pitch of a superhuman aspiration is
probable: but one can no more pray too much than one can love too much;
and if it is a heresy to pray beyond the texts, Saint Theresa and Saint
Jerome would be heretics.

He inclined towards all that groans and all that expiates. The universe
appeared to him like an immense malady; everywhere he felt fever,
everywhere he heard the sound of suffering, and, without seeking to
solve the enigma, he strove to dress the wound. The terrible spectacle
of created things developed tenderness in him; he was occupied only in
finding for himself, and in inspiring others with the best way to
compassionate and relieve. That which exists was for this good and rare
priest a permanent subject of sadness which sought consolation.

There are men who toil at extracting gold; he toiled at the extraction
of pity. Universal misery was his mine. The sadness which reigned
everywhere was but an excuse for unfailing kindness. _Love each other;_
he declared this to be complete, desired nothing further, and that was
the whole of his doctrine. One day, that man who believed himself to be
a “philosopher,” the senator who has already been alluded to, said to
the Bishop: “Just survey the spectacle of the world: all war against
all; the strongest has the most wit. Your _love each other_ is
nonsense.”—_“Well,”_ replied Monseigneur Welcome, without contesting
the point, _“if it is nonsense, the soul should shut itself up in it,
as the pearl in the oyster.”_ Thus he shut himself up, he lived there,
he was absolutely satisfied with it, leaving on one side the prodigious
questions which attract and terrify, the fathomless perspectives of
abstraction, the precipices of metaphysics—all those profundities which
converge, for the apostle in God, for the atheist in nothingness;
destiny, good and evil, the way of being against being, the conscience
of man, the thoughtful somnambulism of the animal, the transformation
in death, the recapitulation of existences which the tomb contains, the
incomprehensible grafting of successive loves on the persistent _I_,
the essence, the substance, the Nile, and the Ens, the soul, nature,
liberty, necessity; perpendicular problems, sinister obscurities, where
lean the gigantic archangels of the human mind; formidable abysses,
which Lucretius, Manou, Saint Paul, Dante, contemplate with eyes
flashing lightning, which seems by its steady gaze on the infinite to
cause stars to blaze forth there.

Monseigneur Bienvenu was simply a man who took note of the exterior of
mysterious questions without scrutinizing them, and without troubling
his own mind with them, and who cherished in his own soul a grave
respect for darkness.




BOOK SECOND—THE FALL




CHAPTER I—THE EVENING OF A DAY OF WALKING


Early in the month of October, 1815, about an hour before sunset, a man
who was travelling on foot entered the little town of D—— The few
inhabitants who were at their windows or on their thresholds at the
moment stared at this traveller with a sort of uneasiness. It was
difficult to encounter a wayfarer of more wretched appearance. He was a
man of medium stature, thickset and robust, in the prime of life. He
might have been forty-six or forty-eight years old. A cap with a
drooping leather visor partly concealed his face, burned and tanned by
sun and wind, and dripping with perspiration. His shirt of coarse
yellow linen, fastened at the neck by a small silver anchor, permitted
a view of his hairy breast: he had a cravat twisted into a string;
trousers of blue drilling, worn and threadbare, white on one knee and
torn on the other; an old gray, tattered blouse, patched on one of the
elbows with a bit of green cloth sewed on with twine; a tightly packed
soldier knapsack, well buckled and perfectly new, on his back; an
enormous, knotty stick in his hand; iron-shod shoes on his stockingless
feet; a shaved head and a long beard.

The sweat, the heat, the journey on foot, the dust, added I know not
what sordid quality to this dilapidated whole. His hair was closely
cut, yet bristling, for it had begun to grow a little, and did not seem
to have been cut for some time.

No one knew him. He was evidently only a chance passer-by. Whence came
he? From the south; from the seashore, perhaps, for he made his
entrance into D—— by the same street which, seven months previously,
had witnessed the passage of the Emperor Napoleon on his way from
Cannes to Paris. This man must have been walking all day. He seemed
very much fatigued. Some women of the ancient market town which is
situated below the city had seen him pause beneath the trees of the
boulevard Gassendi, and drink at the fountain which stands at the end
of the promenade. He must have been very thirsty: for the children who
followed him saw him stop again for a drink, two hundred paces further
on, at the fountain in the market-place.

On arriving at the corner of the Rue Poichevert, he turned to the left,
and directed his steps toward the town-hall. He entered, then came out
a quarter of an hour later. A gendarme was seated near the door, on the
stone bench which General Drouot had mounted on the 4th of March to
read to the frightened throng of the inhabitants of D—— the
proclamation of the Gulf Juan. The man pulled off his cap and humbly
saluted the gendarme.

The gendarme, without replying to his salute, stared attentively at
him, followed him for a while with his eyes, and then entered the
town-hall.

There then existed at D—— a fine inn at the sign of the _Cross of
Colbas_. This inn had for a landlord a certain Jacquin Labarre, a man
of consideration in the town on account of his relationship to another
Labarre, who kept the inn of the _Three Dauphins_ in Grenoble, and had
served in the Guides. At the time of the Emperor’s landing, many rumors
had circulated throughout the country with regard to this inn of the
_Three Dauphins_. It was said that General Bertrand, disguised as a
carter, had made frequent trips thither in the month of January, and
that he had distributed crosses of honor to the soldiers and handfuls
of gold to the citizens. The truth is, that when the Emperor entered
Grenoble he had refused to install himself at the hotel of the
prefecture; he had thanked the mayor, saying, _“I am going to the house
of a brave man of my acquaintance”;_ and he had betaken himself to the
_Three Dauphins_. This glory of the Labarre of the _Three Dauphins_ was
reflected upon the Labarre of the _Cross of Colbas_, at a distance of
five and twenty leagues. It was said of him in the town, _“That is the
cousin of the man of Grenoble.”_

The man bent his steps towards this inn, which was the best in the
country-side. He entered the kitchen, which opened on a level with the
street. All the stoves were lighted; a huge fire blazed gayly in the
fireplace. The host, who was also the chief cook, was going from one
stew-pan to another, very busily superintending an excellent dinner
designed for the wagoners, whose loud talking, conversation, and
laughter were audible from an adjoining apartment. Any one who has
travelled knows that there is no one who indulges in better cheer than
wagoners. A fat marmot, flanked by white partridges and heather-cocks,
was turning on a long spit before the fire; on the stove, two huge
carps from Lake Lauzet and a trout from Lake Alloz were cooking.

The host, hearing the door open and seeing a newcomer enter, said,
without raising his eyes from his stoves:—

“What do you wish, sir?”


“Food and lodging,” said the man.

“Nothing easier,” replied the host. At that moment he turned his head,
took in the traveller’s appearance with a single glance, and added, “By
paying for it.”


The man drew a large leather purse from the pocket of his blouse, and
answered, “I have money.”


“In that case, we are at your service,” said the host.

The man put his purse back in his pocket, removed his knapsack from his
back, put it on the ground near the door, retained his stick in his
hand, and seated himself on a low stool close to the fire. D—— is in
the mountains. The evenings are cold there in October.

But as the host went back and forth, he scrutinized the traveller.

“Will dinner be ready soon?” said the man.

“Immediately,” replied the landlord.

While the newcomer was warming himself before the fire, with his back
turned, the worthy host, Jacquin Labarre, drew a pencil from his
pocket, then tore off the corner of an old newspaper which was lying on
a small table near the window. On the white margin he wrote a line or
two, folded it without sealing, and then intrusted this scrap of paper
to a child who seemed to serve him in the capacity both of scullion and
lackey. The landlord whispered a word in the scullion’s ear, and the
child set off on a run in the direction of the town-hall.

The traveller saw nothing of all this.

Once more he inquired, “Will dinner be ready soon?”


“Immediately,” responded the host.

The child returned. He brought back the paper. The host unfolded it
eagerly, like a person who is expecting a reply. He seemed to read it
attentively, then tossed his head, and remained thoughtful for a
moment. Then he took a step in the direction of the traveller, who
appeared to be immersed in reflections which were not very serene.

“I cannot receive you, sir,” said he.

The man half rose.

“What! Are you afraid that I will not pay you? Do you want me to pay
you in advance? I have money, I tell you.”


“It is not that.”


“What then?”


“You have money—”


“Yes,” said the man.

“And I,” said the host, “have no room.”


The man resumed tranquilly, “Put me in the stable.”


“I cannot.”


“Why?”


“The horses take up all the space.”


“Very well!” retorted the man; “a corner of the loft then, a truss of
straw. We will see about that after dinner.”


“I cannot give you any dinner.”


This declaration, made in a measured but firm tone, struck the stranger
as grave. He rose.

“Ah! bah! But I am dying of hunger. I have been walking since sunrise.
I have travelled twelve leagues. I pay. I wish to eat.”


“I have nothing,” said the landlord.

The man burst out laughing, and turned towards the fireplace and the
stoves: “Nothing! and all that?”


“All that is engaged.”


“By whom?”


“By messieurs the wagoners.”


“How many are there of them?”


“Twelve.”


“There is enough food there for twenty.”


“They have engaged the whole of it and paid for it in advance.”


The man seated himself again, and said, without raising his voice, “I
am at an inn; I am hungry, and I shall remain.”


Then the host bent down to his ear, and said in a tone which made him
start, “Go away!”


At that moment the traveller was bending forward and thrusting some
brands into the fire with the iron-shod tip of his staff; he turned
quickly round, and as he opened his mouth to reply, the host gazed
steadily at him and added, still in a low voice: “Stop! there’s enough
of that sort of talk. Do you want me to tell you your name? Your name
is Jean Valjean. Now do you want me to tell you who you are? When I saw
you come in I suspected something; I sent to the town-hall, and this
was the reply that was sent to me. Can you read?”


So saying, he held out to the stranger, fully unfolded, the paper which
had just travelled from the inn to the town-hall, and from the
town-hall to the inn. The man cast a glance upon it. The landlord
resumed after a pause.

“I am in the habit of being polite to every one. Go away!”


The man dropped his head, picked up the knapsack which he had deposited
on the ground, and took his departure.

He chose the principal street. He walked straight on at a venture,
keeping close to the houses like a sad and humiliated man. He did not
turn round a single time. Had he done so, he would have seen the host
of the _Cross of Colbas_ standing on his threshold, surrounded by all
the guests of his inn, and all the passers-by in the street, talking
vivaciously, and pointing him out with his finger; and, from the
glances of terror and distrust cast by the group, he might have divined
that his arrival would speedily become an event for the whole town.

He saw nothing of all this. People who are crushed do not look behind
them. They know but too well the evil fate which follows them.

Thus he proceeded for some time, walking on without ceasing, traversing
at random streets of which he knew nothing, forgetful of his fatigue,
as is often the case when a man is sad. All at once he felt the pangs
of hunger sharply. Night was drawing near. He glanced about him, to see
whether he could not discover some shelter.

The fine hostelry was closed to him; he was seeking some very humble
public house, some hovel, however lowly.

Just then a light flashed up at the end of the streets; a pine branch
suspended from a cross-beam of iron was outlined against the white sky
of the twilight. He proceeded thither.

It proved to be, in fact, a public house. The public house which is in
the Rue de Chaffaut.

The wayfarer halted for a moment, and peeped through the window into
the interior of the low-studded room of the public house, illuminated
by a small lamp on a table and by a large fire on the hearth. Some men
were engaged in drinking there. The landlord was warming himself. An
iron pot, suspended from a crane, bubbled over the flame.

The entrance to this public house, which is also a sort of an inn, is
by two doors. One opens on the street, the other upon a small yard
filled with manure. The traveller dare not enter by the street door. He
slipped into the yard, halted again, then raised the latch timidly and
opened the door.

“Who goes there?” said the master.

“Some one who wants supper and bed.”


“Good. We furnish supper and bed here.”


He entered. All the men who were drinking turned round. The lamp
illuminated him on one side, the firelight on the other. They examined
him for some time while he was taking off his knapsack.

The host said to him, “There is the fire. The supper is cooking in the
pot. Come and warm yourself, comrade.”


He approached and seated himself near the hearth. He stretched out his
feet, which were exhausted with fatigue, to the fire; a fine odor was
emitted by the pot. All that could be distinguished of his face,
beneath his cap, which was well pulled down, assumed a vague appearance
of comfort, mingled with that other poignant aspect which habitual
suffering bestows.

It was, moreover, a firm, energetic, and melancholy profile. This
physiognomy was strangely composed; it began by seeming humble, and
ended by seeming severe. The eye shone beneath its lashes like a fire
beneath brushwood.

One of the men seated at the table, however, was a fishmonger who,
before entering the public house of the Rue de Chaffaut, had been to
stable his horse at Labarre’s. It chanced that he had that very morning
encountered this unprepossessing stranger on the road between Bras
d’Asse and—I have forgotten the name. I think it was Escoublon. Now,
when he met him, the man, who then seemed already extremely weary, had
requested him to take him on his crupper; to which the fishmonger had
made no reply except by redoubling his gait. This fishmonger had been a
member half an hour previously of the group which surrounded Jacquin
Labarre, and had himself related his disagreeable encounter of the
morning to the people at the _Cross of Colbas_. From where he sat he
made an imperceptible sign to the tavern-keeper. The tavern-keeper went
to him. They exchanged a few words in a low tone. The man had again
become absorbed in his reflections.

The tavern-keeper returned to the fireplace, laid his hand abruptly on
the shoulder of the man, and said to him:—

“You are going to get out of here.”


The stranger turned round and replied gently, “Ah! You know?—”


“Yes.”


“I was sent away from the other inn.”


“And you are to be turned out of this one.”


“Where would you have me go?”


“Elsewhere.”


The man took his stick and his knapsack and departed.

As he went out, some children who had followed him from the _Cross of
Colbas_, and who seemed to be lying in wait for him, threw stones at
him. He retraced his steps in anger, and threatened them with his
stick: the children dispersed like a flock of birds.

He passed before the prison. At the door hung an iron chain attached to
a bell. He rang.

The wicket opened.

“Turnkey,” said he, removing his cap politely, “will you have the
kindness to admit me, and give me a lodging for the night?”


A voice replied:—

“The prison is not an inn. Get yourself arrested, and you will be
admitted.”


The wicket closed again.

He entered a little street in which there were many gardens. Some of
them are enclosed only by hedges, which lends a cheerful aspect to the
street. In the midst of these gardens and hedges he caught sight of a
small house of a single story, the window of which was lighted up. He
peered through the pane as he had done at the public house. Within was
a large whitewashed room, with a bed draped in printed cotton stuff,
and a cradle in one corner, a few wooden chairs, and a double-barrelled
gun hanging on the wall. A table was spread in the centre of the room.
A copper lamp illuminated the tablecloth of coarse white linen, the
pewter jug shining like silver, and filled with wine, and the brown,
smoking soup-tureen. At this table sat a man of about forty, with a
merry and open countenance, who was dandling a little child on his
knees. Close by a very young woman was nursing another child. The
father was laughing, the child was laughing, the mother was smiling.

The stranger paused a moment in reverie before this tender and calming
spectacle. What was taking place within him? He alone could have told.
It is probable that he thought that this joyous house would be
hospitable, and that, in a place where he beheld so much happiness, he
would find perhaps a little pity.

He tapped on the pane with a very small and feeble knock.

They did not hear him.

He tapped again.

He heard the woman say, “It seems to me, husband, that some one is
knocking.”


“No,” replied the husband.

He tapped a third time.

The husband rose, took the lamp, and went to the door, which he opened.

He was a man of lofty stature, half peasant, half artisan. He wore a
huge leather apron, which reached to his left shoulder, and which a
hammer, a red handkerchief, a powder-horn, and all sorts of objects
which were upheld by the girdle, as in a pocket, caused to bulge out.
He carried his head thrown backwards; his shirt, widely opened and
turned back, displayed his bull neck, white and bare. He had thick
eyelashes, enormous black whiskers, prominent eyes, the lower part of
his face like a snout; and besides all this, that air of being on his
own ground, which is indescribable.

“Pardon me, sir,” said the wayfarer, “Could you, in consideration of
payment, give me a plate of soup and a corner of that shed yonder in
the garden, in which to sleep? Tell me; can you? For money?”


“Who are you?” demanded the master of the house.

The man replied: “I have just come from Puy-Moisson. I have walked all
day long. I have travelled twelve leagues. Can you?—if I pay?”


“I would not refuse,” said the peasant, “to lodge any respectable man
who would pay me. But why do you not go to the inn?”


“There is no room.”


“Bah! Impossible. This is neither a fair nor a market day. Have you
been to Labarre?”


“Yes.”


“Well?”


The traveller replied with embarrassment: “I do not know. He did not
receive me.”


“Have you been to What’s-his-name’s, in the Rue Chaffaut?”


The stranger’s embarrassment increased; he stammered, “He did not
receive me either.”


The peasant’s countenance assumed an expression of distrust; he
surveyed the newcomer from head to feet, and suddenly exclaimed, with a
sort of shudder:—

“Are you the man?—”


He cast a fresh glance upon the stranger, took three steps backwards,
placed the lamp on the table, and took his gun down from the wall.

Meanwhile, at the words, _Are you the man?_ the woman had risen, had
clasped her two children in her arms, and had taken refuge
precipitately behind her husband, staring in terror at the stranger,
with her bosom uncovered, and with frightened eyes, as she murmured in
a low tone, _“Tso-maraude.”_1

All this took place in less time than it requires to picture it to
one’s self. After having scrutinized the man for several moments, as
one scrutinizes a viper, the master of the house returned to the door
and said:—

“Clear out!”


“For pity’s sake, a glass of water,” said the man.

“A shot from my gun!” said the peasant.

Then he closed the door violently, and the man heard him shoot two
large bolts. A moment later, the window-shutter was closed, and the
sound of a bar of iron which was placed against it was audible outside.

Night continued to fall. A cold wind from the Alps was blowing. By the
light of the expiring day the stranger perceived, in one of the gardens
which bordered the street, a sort of hut, which seemed to him to be
built of sods. He climbed over the wooden fence resolutely, and found
himself in the garden. He approached the hut; its door consisted of a
very low and narrow aperture, and it resembled those buildings which
road-laborers construct for themselves along the roads. He thought
without doubt, that it was, in fact, the dwelling of a road-laborer; he
was suffering from cold and hunger, but this was, at least, a shelter
from the cold. This sort of dwelling is not usually occupied at night.
He threw himself flat on his face, and crawled into the hut. It was
warm there, and he found a tolerably good bed of straw. He lay, for a
moment, stretched out on this bed, without the power to make a
movement, so fatigued was he. Then, as the knapsack on his back was in
his way, and as it furnished, moreover, a pillow ready to his hand, he
set about unbuckling one of the straps. At that moment, a ferocious
growl became audible. He raised his eyes. The head of an enormous dog
was outlined in the darkness at the entrance of the hut.

It was a dog’s kennel.

He was himself vigorous and formidable; he armed himself with his
staff, made a shield of his knapsack, and made his way out of the
kennel in the best way he could, not without enlarging the rents in his
rags.

He left the garden in the same manner, but backwards, being obliged, in
order to keep the dog respectful, to have recourse to that manœuvre
with his stick which masters in that sort of fencing designate as _la
rose couverte_.

When he had, not without difficulty, repassed the fence, and found
himself once more in the street, alone, without refuge, without
shelter, without a roof over his head, chased even from that bed of
straw and from that miserable kennel, he dropped rather than seated
himself on a stone, and it appears that a passer-by heard him exclaim,
“I am not even a dog!”


He soon rose again and resumed his march. He went out of the town,
hoping to find some tree or haystack in the fields which would afford
him shelter.

He walked thus for some time, with his head still drooping. When he
felt himself far from every human habitation, he raised his eyes and
gazed searchingly about him. He was in a field. Before him was one of
those low hills covered with close-cut stubble, which, after the
harvest, resemble shaved heads.

The horizon was perfectly black. This was not alone the obscurity of
night; it was caused by very low-hanging clouds which seemed to rest
upon the hill itself, and which were mounting and filling the whole
sky. Meanwhile, as the moon was about to rise, and as there was still
floating in the zenith a remnant of the brightness of twilight, these
clouds formed at the summit of the sky a sort of whitish arch, whence a
gleam of light fell upon the earth.

The earth was thus better lighted than the sky, which produces a
particularly sinister effect, and the hill, whose contour was poor and
mean, was outlined vague and wan against the gloomy horizon. The whole
effect was hideous, petty, lugubrious, and narrow.

There was nothing in the field or on the hill except a deformed tree,
which writhed and shivered a few paces distant from the wayfarer.

This man was evidently very far from having those delicate habits of
intelligence and spirit which render one sensible to the mysterious
aspects of things; nevertheless, there was something in that sky, in
that hill, in that plain, in that tree, which was so profoundly
desolate, that after a moment of immobility and reverie he turned back
abruptly. There are instants when nature seems hostile.

He retraced his steps; the gates of D—— were closed. D——, which had
sustained sieges during the wars of religion, was still surrounded in
1815 by ancient walls flanked by square towers which have been
demolished since. He passed through a breach and entered the town
again.

It might have been eight o’clock in the evening. As he was not
acquainted with the streets, he recommenced his walk at random.

In this way he came to the prefecture, then to the seminary. As he
passed through the Cathedral Square, he shook his fist at the church.

At the corner of this square there is a printing establishment. It is
there that the proclamations of the Emperor and of the Imperial Guard
to the army, brought from the Island of Elba and dictated by Napoleon
himself, were printed for the first time.

Worn out with fatigue, and no longer entertaining any hope, he lay down
on a stone bench which stands at the doorway of this printing office.

At that moment an old woman came out of the church. She saw the man
stretched out in the shadow. “What are you doing there, my friend?”
said she.

He answered harshly and angrily: “As you see, my good woman, I am
sleeping.” The good woman, who was well worthy the name, in fact, was
the Marquise de R——

“On this bench?” she went on.

“I have had a mattress of wood for nineteen years,” said the man;
“to-day I have a mattress of stone.”


“You have been a soldier?”


“Yes, my good woman, a soldier.”


“Why do you not go to the inn?”


“Because I have no money.”


“Alas!” said Madame de R——, “I have only four sous in my purse.”


“Give it to me all the same.”


The man took the four sous. Madame de R—— continued: “You cannot obtain
lodgings in an inn for so small a sum. But have you tried? It is
impossible for you to pass the night thus. You are cold and hungry, no
doubt. Some one might have given you a lodging out of charity.”


“I have knocked at all doors.”


“Well?”


“I have been driven away everywhere.”


The “good woman” touched the man’s arm, and pointed out to him on the
other side of the street a small, low house, which stood beside the
Bishop’s palace.

“You have knocked at all doors?”


“Yes.”


“Have you knocked at that one?”


“No.”


“Knock there.”





CHAPTER II—PRUDENCE COUNSELLED TO WISDOM.


That evening, the Bishop of D——, after his promenade through the town,
remained shut up rather late in his room. He was busy over a great work
on _Duties_, which was never completed, unfortunately. He was carefully
compiling everything that the Fathers and the doctors have said on this
important subject. His book was divided into two parts: firstly, the
duties of all; secondly, the duties of each individual, according to
the class to which he belongs. The duties of all are the great duties.
There are four of these. Saint Matthew points them out: duties towards
God (_Matt._ vi.); duties towards one’s self (_Matt._ v. 29, 30);
duties towards one’s neighbor (_Matt._ vii. 12); duties towards animals
(_Matt._ vi. 20, 25). As for the other duties the Bishop found them
pointed out and prescribed elsewhere: to sovereigns and subjects, in
the Epistle to the Romans; to magistrates, to wives, to mothers, to
young men, by Saint Peter; to husbands, fathers, children and servants,
in the Epistle to the Ephesians; to the faithful, in the Epistle to the
Hebrews; to virgins, in the Epistle to the Corinthians. Out of these
precepts he was laboriously constructing a harmonious whole, which he
desired to present to souls.

At eight o’clock he was still at work, writing with a good deal of
inconvenience upon little squares of paper, with a big book open on his
knees, when Madame Magloire entered, according to her wont, to get the
silver-ware from the cupboard near his bed. A moment later, the Bishop,
knowing that the table was set, and that his sister was probably
waiting for him, shut his book, rose from his table, and entered the
dining-room.

The dining-room was an oblong apartment, with a fireplace, which had a
door opening on the street (as we have said), and a window opening on
the garden.

Madame Magloire was, in fact, just putting the last touches to the
table.

As she performed this service, she was conversing with Mademoiselle
Baptistine.

A lamp stood on the table; the table was near the fireplace. A wood
fire was burning there.

One can easily picture to one’s self these two women, both of whom were
over sixty years of age. Madame Magloire small, plump, vivacious;
Mademoiselle Baptistine gentle, slender, frail, somewhat taller than
her brother, dressed in a gown of puce-colored silk, of the fashion of
1806, which she had purchased at that date in Paris, and which had
lasted ever since. To borrow vulgar phrases, which possess the merit of
giving utterance in a single word to an idea which a whole page would
hardly suffice to express, Madame Magloire had the air of a _peasant_,
and Mademoiselle Baptistine that of a _lady_. Madame Magloire wore a
white quilted cap, a gold Jeannette cross on a velvet ribbon upon her
neck, the only bit of feminine jewelry that there was in the house, a
very white fichu puffing out from a gown of coarse black woollen stuff,
with large, short sleeves, an apron of cotton cloth in red and green
checks, knotted round the waist with a green ribbon, with a stomacher
of the same attached by two pins at the upper corners, coarse shoes on
her feet, and yellow stockings, like the women of Marseilles.
Mademoiselle Baptistine’s gown was cut on the patterns of 1806, with a
short waist, a narrow, sheath-like skirt, puffed sleeves, with flaps
and buttons. She concealed her gray hair under a frizzed wig known as
the _baby_ wig. Madame Magloire had an intelligent, vivacious, and
kindly air; the two corners of her mouth unequally raised, and her
upper lip, which was larger than the lower, imparted to her a rather
crabbed and imperious look. So long as Monseigneur held his peace, she
talked to him resolutely with a mixture of respect and freedom; but as
soon as Monseigneur began to speak, as we have seen, she obeyed
passively like her mistress. Mademoiselle Baptistine did not even
speak. She confined herself to obeying and pleasing him. She had never
been pretty, even when she was young; she had large, blue, prominent
eyes, and a long arched nose; but her whole visage, her whole person,
breathed forth an ineffable goodness, as we stated in the beginning.
She had always been predestined to gentleness; but faith, charity,
hope, those three virtues which mildly warm the soul, had gradually
elevated that gentleness to sanctity. Nature had made her a lamb,
religion had made her an angel. Poor sainted virgin! Sweet memory which
has vanished!

Mademoiselle Baptistine has so often narrated what passed at the
episcopal residence that evening, that there are many people now living
who still recall the most minute details.

At the moment when the Bishop entered, Madame Magloire was talking with
considerable vivacity. She was haranguing Mademoiselle Baptistine on a
subject which was familiar to her and to which the Bishop was also
accustomed. The question concerned the lock upon the entrance door.

It appears that while procuring some provisions for supper, Madame
Magloire had heard things in divers places. People had spoken of a
prowler of evil appearance; a suspicious vagabond had arrived who must
be somewhere about the town, and those who should take it into their
heads to return home late that night might be subjected to unpleasant
encounters. The police was very badly organized, moreover, because
there was no love lost between the Prefect and the Mayor, who sought to
injure each other by making things happen. It behooved wise people to
play the part of their own police, and to guard themselves well, and
care must be taken to duly close, bar and barricade their houses, and
to _fasten the doors well_.

Madame Magloire emphasized these last words; but the Bishop had just
come from his room, where it was rather cold. He seated himself in
front of the fire, and warmed himself, and then fell to thinking of
other things. He did not take up the remark dropped with design by
Madame Magloire. She repeated it. Then Mademoiselle Baptistine,
desirous of satisfying Madame Magloire without displeasing her brother,
ventured to say timidly:—

“Did you hear what Madame Magloire is saying, brother?”


“I have heard something of it in a vague way,” replied the Bishop. Then
half-turning in his chair, placing his hands on his knees, and raising
towards the old servant woman his cordial face, which so easily grew
joyous, and which was illuminated from below by the firelight,—“Come,
what is the matter? What is the matter? Are we in any great danger?”


Then Madame Magloire began the whole story afresh, exaggerating it a
little without being aware of the fact. It appeared that a Bohemian, a
bare-footed vagabond, a sort of dangerous mendicant, was at that moment
in the town. He had presented himself at Jacquin Labarre’s to obtain
lodgings, but the latter had not been willing to take him in. He had
been seen to arrive by the way of the boulevard Gassendi and roam about
the streets in the gloaming. A gallows-bird with a terrible face.

“Really!” said the Bishop.

This willingness to interrogate encouraged Madame Magloire; it seemed
to her to indicate that the Bishop was on the point of becoming
alarmed; she pursued triumphantly:—

“Yes, Monseigneur. That is how it is. There will be some sort of
catastrophe in this town to-night. Every one says so. And withal, the
police is so badly regulated” (a useful repetition). “The idea of
living in a mountainous country, and not even having lights in the
streets at night! One goes out. Black as ovens, indeed! And I say,
Monseigneur, and Mademoiselle there says with me—”


“I,” interrupted his sister, “say nothing. What my brother does is well
done.”


Madame Magloire continued as though there had been no protest:—

“We say that this house is not safe at all; that if Monseigneur will
permit, I will go and tell Paulin Musebois, the locksmith, to come and
replace the ancient locks on the doors; we have them, and it is only
the work of a moment; for I say that nothing is more terrible than a
door which can be opened from the outside with a latch by the first
passer-by; and I say that we need bolts, Monseigneur, if only for this
night; moreover, Monseigneur has the habit of always saying ‘come in’;
and besides, even in the middle of the night, O mon Dieu! there is no
need to ask permission.”


At that moment there came a tolerably violent knock on the door.

“Come in,” said the Bishop.




CHAPTER III—THE HEROISM OF PASSIVE OBEDIENCE.


The door opened.

It opened wide with a rapid movement, as though some one had given it
an energetic and resolute push.

A man entered.

We already know the man. It was the wayfarer whom we have seen
wandering about in search of shelter.

He entered, advanced a step, and halted, leaving the door open behind
him. He had his knapsack on his shoulders, his cudgel in his hand, a
rough, audacious, weary, and violent expression in his eyes. The fire
on the hearth lighted him up. He was hideous. It was a sinister
apparition.

Madame Magloire had not even the strength to utter a cry. She trembled,
and stood with her mouth wide open.

Mademoiselle Baptistine turned round, beheld the man entering, and half
started up in terror; then, turning her head by degrees towards the
fireplace again, she began to observe her brother, and her face became
once more profoundly calm and serene.

The Bishop fixed a tranquil eye on the man.

As he opened his mouth, doubtless to ask the newcomer what he desired,
the man rested both hands on his staff, directed his gaze at the old
man and the two women, and without waiting for the Bishop to speak, he
said, in a loud voice:—

“See here. My name is Jean Valjean. I am a convict from the galleys. I
have passed nineteen years in the galleys. I was liberated four days
ago, and am on my way to Pontarlier, which is my destination. I have
been walking for four days since I left Toulon. I have travelled a
dozen leagues to-day on foot. This evening, when I arrived in these
parts, I went to an inn, and they turned me out, because of my yellow
passport, which I had shown at the town-hall. I had to do it. I went to
an inn. They said to me, ‘Be off,’ at both places. No one would take
me. I went to the prison; the jailer would not admit me. I went into a
dog’s kennel; the dog bit me and chased me off, as though he had been a
man. One would have said that he knew who I was. I went into the
fields, intending to sleep in the open air, beneath the stars. There
were no stars. I thought it was going to rain, and I re-entered the
town, to seek the recess of a doorway. Yonder, in the square, I meant
to sleep on a stone bench. A good woman pointed out your house to me,
and said to me, ‘Knock there!’ I have knocked. What is this place? Do
you keep an inn? I have money—savings. One hundred and nine francs
fifteen sous, which I earned in the galleys by my labor, in the course
of nineteen years. I will pay. What is that to me? I have money. I am
very weary; twelve leagues on foot; I am very hungry. Are you willing
that I should remain?”


“Madame Magloire,” said the Bishop, “you will set another place.”


The man advanced three paces, and approached the lamp which was on the
table. “Stop,” he resumed, as though he had not quite understood;
“that’s not it. Did you hear? I am a galley-slave; a convict. I come
from the galleys.” He drew from his pocket a large sheet of yellow
paper, which he unfolded. “Here’s my passport. Yellow, as you see. This
serves to expel me from every place where I go. Will you read it? I
know how to read. I learned in the galleys. There is a school there for
those who choose to learn. Hold, this is what they put on this
passport: ‘Jean Valjean, discharged convict, native of’—that is nothing
to you—‘has been nineteen years in the galleys: five years for
house-breaking and burglary; fourteen years for having attempted to
escape on four occasions. He is a very dangerous man.’ There! Every one
has cast me out. Are you willing to receive me? Is this an inn? Will
you give me something to eat and a bed? Have you a stable?”


“Madame Magloire,” said the Bishop, “you will put white sheets on the
bed in the alcove.” We have already explained the character of the two
women’s obedience.

Madame Magloire retired to execute these orders.

The Bishop turned to the man.

“Sit down, sir, and warm yourself. We are going to sup in a few
moments, and your bed will be prepared while you are supping.”


At this point the man suddenly comprehended. The expression of his
face, up to that time sombre and harsh, bore the imprint of
stupefaction, of doubt, of joy, and became extraordinary. He began
stammering like a crazy man:—

“Really? What! You will keep me? You do not drive me forth? A convict!
You call me _sir!_ You do not address me as _thou?_ ‘Get out of here,
you dog!’ is what people always say to me. I felt sure that you would
expel me, so I told you at once who I am. Oh, what a good woman that
was who directed me hither! I am going to sup! A bed with a mattress
and sheets, like the rest of the world! a bed! It is nineteen years
since I have slept in a bed! You actually do not want me to go! You are
good people. Besides, I have money. I will pay well. Pardon me,
monsieur the inn-keeper, but what is your name? I will pay anything you
ask. You are a fine man. You are an inn-keeper, are you not?”


“I am,” replied the Bishop, “a priest who lives here.”


“A priest!” said the man. “Oh, what a fine priest! Then you are not
going to demand any money of me? You are the curé, are you not? the
curé of this big church? Well! I am a fool, truly! I had not perceived
your skull-cap.”


As he spoke, he deposited his knapsack and his cudgel in a corner,
replaced his passport in his pocket, and seated himself. Mademoiselle
Baptistine gazed mildly at him. He continued:

“You are humane, Monsieur le Curé; you have not scorned me. A good
priest is a very good thing. Then you do not require me to pay?”


“No,” said the Bishop; “keep your money. How much have you? Did you not
tell me one hundred and nine francs?”


“And fifteen sous,” added the man.

“One hundred and nine francs fifteen sous. And how long did it take you
to earn that?”


“Nineteen years.”


“Nineteen years!”


The Bishop sighed deeply.

The man continued: “I have still the whole of my money. In four days I
have spent only twenty-five sous, which I earned by helping unload some
wagons at Grasse. Since you are an abbé, I will tell you that we had a
chaplain in the galleys. And one day I saw a bishop there. Monseigneur
is what they call him. He was the Bishop of Majore at Marseilles. He is
the curé who rules over the other curés, you understand. Pardon me, I
say that very badly; but it is such a far-off thing to me! You
understand what we are! He said mass in the middle of the galleys, on
an altar. He had a pointed thing, made of gold, on his head; it
glittered in the bright light of midday. We were all ranged in lines on
the three sides, with cannons with lighted matches facing us. We could
not see very well. He spoke; but he was too far off, and we did not
hear. That is what a bishop is like.”


While he was speaking, the Bishop had gone and shut the door, which had
remained wide open.

Madame Magloire returned. She brought a silver fork and spoon, which
she placed on the table.

“Madame Magloire,” said the Bishop, “place those things as near the
fire as possible.” And turning to his guest: “The night wind is harsh
on the Alps. You must be cold, sir.”


Each time that he uttered the word _sir_, in his voice which was so
gently grave and polished, the man’s face lighted up. _Monsieur_ to a
convict is like a glass of water to one of the shipwrecked of the
_Medusa_. Ignominy thirsts for consideration.

“This lamp gives a very bad light,” said the Bishop.

Madame Magloire understood him, and went to get the two silver
candlesticks from the chimney-piece in Monseigneur’s bed-chamber, and
placed them, lighted, on the table.

“Monsieur le Curé,” said the man, “you are good; you do not despise me.
You receive me into your house. You light your candles for me. Yet I
have not concealed from you whence I come and that I am an unfortunate
man.”


The Bishop, who was sitting close to him, gently touched his hand. “You
could not help telling me who you were. This is not my house; it is the
house of Jesus Christ. This door does not demand of him who enters
whether he has a name, but whether he has a grief. You suffer, you are
hungry and thirsty; you are welcome. And do not thank me; do not say
that I receive you in my house. No one is at home here, except the man
who needs a refuge. I say to you, who are passing by, that you are much
more at home here than I am myself. Everything here is yours. What need
have I to know your name? Besides, before you told me you had one which
I knew.”


The man opened his eyes in astonishment.

“Really? You knew what I was called?”


“Yes,” replied the Bishop, “you are called my brother.”


“Stop, Monsieur le Curé,” exclaimed the man. “I was very hungry when I
entered here; but you are so good, that I no longer know what has
happened to me.”


The Bishop looked at him, and said,—

“You have suffered much?”


“Oh, the red coat, the ball on the ankle, a plank to sleep on, heat,
cold, toil, the convicts, the thrashings, the double chain for nothing,
the cell for one word; even sick and in bed, still the chain! Dogs,
dogs are happier! Nineteen years! I am forty-six. Now there is the
yellow passport. That is what it is like.”


“Yes,” resumed the Bishop, “you have come from a very sad place.
Listen. There will be more joy in heaven over the tear-bathed face of a
repentant sinner than over the white robes of a hundred just men. If
you emerge from that sad place with thoughts of hatred and of wrath
against mankind, you are deserving of pity; if you emerge with thoughts
of good-will and of peace, you are more worthy than any one of us.”


In the meantime, Madame Magloire had served supper: soup, made with
water, oil, bread, and salt; a little bacon, a bit of mutton, figs, a
fresh cheese, and a large loaf of rye bread. She had, of her own
accord, added to the Bishop’s ordinary fare a bottle of his old Mauves
wine.

The Bishop’s face at once assumed that expression of gayety which is
peculiar to hospitable natures. “To table!” he cried vivaciously. As
was his custom when a stranger supped with him, he made the man sit on
his right. Mademoiselle Baptistine, perfectly peaceable and natural,
took her seat at his left.

The Bishop asked a blessing; then helped the soup himself, according to
his custom. The man began to eat with avidity.

All at once the Bishop said: “It strikes me there is something missing
on this table.”


Madame Magloire had, in fact, only placed the three sets of forks and
spoons which were absolutely necessary. Now, it was the usage of the
house, when the Bishop had any one to supper, to lay out the whole six
sets of silver on the table-cloth—an innocent ostentation. This
graceful semblance of luxury was a kind of child’s play, which was full
of charm in that gentle and severe household, which raised poverty into
dignity.

Madame Magloire understood the remark, went out without saying a word,
and a moment later the three sets of silver forks and spoons demanded
by the Bishop were glittering upon the cloth, symmetrically arranged
before the three persons seated at the table.




CHAPTER IV—DETAILS CONCERNING THE CHEESE-DAIRIES OF PONTARLIER.


Now, in order to convey an idea of what passed at that table, we cannot
do better than to transcribe here a passage from one of Mademoiselle
Baptistine’s letters to Madame Boischevron, wherein the conversation
between the convict and the Bishop is described with ingenious
minuteness.

“. . . This man paid no attention to any one. He ate with the voracity
of a starving man. However, after supper he said:

“‘Monsieur le Curé of the good God, all this is far too good for me;
but I must say that the carters who would not allow me to eat with them
keep a better table than you do.’

“Between ourselves, the remark rather shocked me. My brother replied:—

“‘They are more fatigued than I.’

“‘No,’ returned the man, ‘they have more money. You are poor; I see
that plainly. You cannot be even a curate. Are you really a curé? Ah,
if the good God were but just, you certainly ought to be a curé!’

“‘The good God is more than just,’ said my brother.

“A moment later he added:—

“‘Monsieur Jean Valjean, is it to Pontarlier that you are going?’

“‘With my road marked out for me.’

“I think that is what the man said. Then he went on:—

“‘I must be on my way by daybreak to-morrow. Travelling is hard. If the
nights are cold, the days are hot.’

“‘You are going to a good country,’ said my brother. ‘During the
Revolution my family was ruined. I took refuge in Franche-Comté at
first, and there I lived for some time by the toil of my hands. My will
was good. I found plenty to occupy me. One has only to choose. There
are paper mills, tanneries, distilleries, oil factories, watch
factories on a large scale, steel mills, copper works, twenty iron
foundries at least, four of which, situated at Lods, at Châtillon, at
Audincourt, and at Beure, are tolerably large.’

“I think I am not mistaken in saying that those are the names which my
brother mentioned. Then he interrupted himself and addressed me:—

“‘Have we not some relatives in those parts, my dear sister?’

“I replied,—

“‘We did have some; among others, M. de Lucenet, who was captain of the
gates at Pontarlier under the old régime.’

“‘Yes,’ resumed my brother; ‘but in ’93, one had no longer any
relatives, one had only one’s arms. I worked. They have, in the country
of Pontarlier, whither you are going, Monsieur Valjean, a truly
patriarchal and truly charming industry, my sister. It is their
cheese-dairies, which they call _fruitières_.’

“Then my brother, while urging the man to eat, explained to him, with
great minuteness, what these _fruitières_ of Pontarlier were; that they
were divided into two classes: the _big barns_ which belong to the
rich, and where there are forty or fifty cows which produce from seven
to eight thousand cheeses each summer, and the _associated fruitières_,
which belong to the poor; these are the peasants of mid-mountain, who
hold their cows in common, and share the proceeds. ‘They engage the
services of a cheese-maker, whom they call the _grurin_; the _grurin_
receives the milk of the associates three times a day, and marks the
quantity on a double tally. It is towards the end of April that the
work of the cheese-dairies begins; it is towards the middle of June
that the cheese-makers drive their cows to the mountains.’

“The man recovered his animation as he ate. My brother made him drink
that good Mauves wine, which he does not drink himself, because he says
that wine is expensive. My brother imparted all these details with that
easy gayety of his with which you are acquainted, interspersing his
words with graceful attentions to me. He recurred frequently to that
comfortable trade of _grurin_, as though he wished the man to
understand, without advising him directly and harshly, that this would
afford him a refuge. One thing struck me. This man was what I have told
you. Well, neither during supper, nor during the entire evening, did my
brother utter a single word, with the exception of a few words about
Jesus when he entered, which could remind the man of what he was, nor
of what my brother was. To all appearances, it was an occasion for
preaching him a little sermon, and of impressing the Bishop on the
convict, so that a mark of the passage might remain behind. This might
have appeared to any one else who had this, unfortunate man in his
hands to afford a chance to nourish his soul as well as his body, and
to bestow upon him some reproach, seasoned with moralizing and advice,
or a little commiseration, with an exhortation to conduct himself
better in the future. My brother did not even ask him from what country
he came, nor what was his history. For in his history there is a fault,
and my brother seemed to avoid everything which could remind him of it.
To such a point did he carry it, that at one time, when my brother was
speaking of the mountaineers of Pontarlier, _who exercise a gentle
labor near heaven, and who_, he added, _are happy because they are
innocent_, he stopped short, fearing lest in this remark there might
have escaped him something which might wound the man. By dint of
reflection, I think I have comprehended what was passing in my
brother’s heart. He was thinking, no doubt, that this man, whose name
is Jean Valjean, had his misfortune only too vividly present in his
mind; that the best thing was to divert him from it, and to make him
believe, if only momentarily, that he was a person like any other, by
treating him just in his ordinary way. Is not this indeed, to
understand charity well? Is there not, dear Madame, something truly
evangelical in this delicacy which abstains from sermon, from
moralizing, from allusions? and is not the truest pity, when a man has
a sore point, not to touch it at all? It has seemed to me that this
might have been my brother’s private thought. In any case, what I can
say is that, if he entertained all these ideas, he gave no sign of
them; from beginning to end, even to me he was the same as he is every
evening, and he supped with this Jean Valjean with the same air and in
the same manner in which he would have supped with M. Gédéon le
Prévost, or with the curate of the parish.

“Towards the end, when he had reached the figs, there came a knock at
the door. It was Mother Gerbaud, with her little one in her arms. My
brother kissed the child on the brow, and borrowed fifteen sous which I
had about me to give to Mother Gerbaud. The man was not paying much
heed to anything then. He was no longer talking, and he seemed very
much fatigued. After poor old Gerbaud had taken her departure, my
brother said grace; then he turned to the man and said to him, ‘You
must be in great need of your bed.’ Madame Magloire cleared the table
very promptly. I understood that we must retire, in order to allow this
traveller to go to sleep, and we both went upstairs. Nevertheless, I
sent Madame Magloire down a moment later, to carry to the man’s bed a
goat skin from the Black Forest, which was in my room. The nights are
frigid, and that keeps one warm. It is a pity that this skin is old;
all the hair is falling out. My brother bought it while he was in
Germany, at Tottlingen, near the sources of the Danube, as well as the
little ivory-handled knife which I use at table.

“Madame Magloire returned immediately. We said our prayers in the
drawing-room, where we hang up the linen, and then we each retired to
our own chambers, without saying a word to each other.”





CHAPTER V—TRANQUILLITY


After bidding his sister good night, Monseigneur Bienvenu took one of
the two silver candlesticks from the table, handed the other to his
guest, and said to him,—

“Monsieur, I will conduct you to your room.”


The man followed him.

As might have been observed from what has been said above, the house
was so arranged that in order to pass into the oratory where the alcove
was situated, or to get out of it, it was necessary to traverse the
Bishop’s bedroom.

At the moment when he was crossing this apartment, Madame Magloire was
putting away the silverware in the cupboard near the head of the bed.
This was her last care every evening before she went to bed.

The Bishop installed his guest in the alcove. A fresh white bed had
been prepared there. The man set the candle down on a small table.

“Well,” said the Bishop, “may you pass a good night. To-morrow morning,
before you set out, you shall drink a cup of warm milk from our cows.”


“Thanks, Monsieur l’Abbé,” said the man.

Hardly had he pronounced these words full of peace, when all of a
sudden, and without transition, he made a strange movement, which would
have frozen the two sainted women with horror, had they witnessed it.
Even at this day it is difficult for us to explain what inspired him at
that moment. Did he intend to convey a warning or to throw out a
menace? Was he simply obeying a sort of instinctive impulse which was
obscure even to himself? He turned abruptly to the old man, folded his
arms, and bending upon his host a savage gaze, he exclaimed in a hoarse
voice:—

“Ah! really! You lodge me in your house, close to yourself like this?”


He broke off, and added with a laugh in which there lurked something
monstrous:—

“Have you really reflected well? How do you know that I have not been
an assassin?”


The Bishop replied:—

“That is the concern of the good God.”


Then gravely, and moving his lips like one who is praying or talking to
himself, he raised two fingers of his right hand and bestowed his
benediction on the man, who did not bow, and without turning his head
or looking behind him, he returned to his bedroom.

When the alcove was in use, a large serge curtain drawn from wall to
wall concealed the altar. The Bishop knelt before this curtain as he
passed and said a brief prayer. A moment later he was in his garden,
walking, meditating, contemplating, his heart and soul wholly absorbed
in those grand and mysterious things which God shows at night to the
eyes which remain open.

As for the man, he was actually so fatigued that he did not even profit
by the nice white sheets. Snuffing out his candle with his nostrils
after the manner of convicts, he dropped, all dressed as he was, upon
the bed, where he immediately fell into a profound sleep.

Midnight struck as the Bishop returned from his garden to his
apartment.

A few minutes later all were asleep in the little house.




CHAPTER VI—JEAN VALJEAN


Towards the middle of the night Jean Valjean woke.

Jean Valjean came from a poor peasant family of Brie. He had not
learned to read in his childhood. When he reached man’s estate, he
became a tree-pruner at Faverolles. His mother was named Jeanne
Mathieu; his father was called Jean Valjean or Vlajean, probably a
sobriquet, and a contraction of _voilà_ Jean, “here’s Jean.”


Jean Valjean was of that thoughtful but not gloomy disposition which
constitutes the peculiarity of affectionate natures. On the whole,
however, there was something decidedly sluggish and insignificant about
Jean Valjean in appearance, at least. He had lost his father and mother
at a very early age. His mother had died of a milk fever, which had not
been properly attended to. His father, a tree-pruner, like himself, had
been killed by a fall from a tree. All that remained to Jean Valjean
was a sister older than himself,—a widow with seven children, boys and
girls. This sister had brought up Jean Valjean, and so long as she had
a husband she lodged and fed her young brother.

The husband died. The eldest of the seven children was eight years old.
The youngest, one.

Jean Valjean had just attained his twenty-fifth year. He took the
father’s place, and, in his turn, supported the sister who had brought
him up. This was done simply as a duty and even a little churlishly on
the part of Jean Valjean. Thus his youth had been spent in rude and
ill-paid toil. He had never known a “kind woman friend” in his native
parts. He had not had the time to fall in love.

He returned at night weary, and ate his broth without uttering a word.
His sister, mother Jeanne, often took the best part of his repast from
his bowl while he was eating,—a bit of meat, a slice of bacon, the
heart of the cabbage,—to give to one of her children. As he went on
eating, with his head bent over the table and almost into his soup, his
long hair falling about his bowl and concealing his eyes, he had the
air of perceiving nothing and allowing it. There was at Faverolles, not
far from the Valjean thatched cottage, on the other side of the lane, a
farmer’s wife named Marie-Claude; the Valjean children, habitually
famished, sometimes went to borrow from Marie-Claude a pint of milk, in
their mother’s name, which they drank behind a hedge or in some alley
corner, snatching the jug from each other so hastily that the little
girls spilled it on their aprons and down their necks. If their mother
had known of this marauding, she would have punished the delinquents
severely. Jean Valjean gruffly and grumblingly paid Marie-Claude for
the pint of milk behind their mother’s back, and the children were not
punished.

In pruning season he earned eighteen sous a day; then he hired out as a
hay-maker, as laborer, as neat-herd on a farm, as a drudge. He did
whatever he could. His sister worked also but what could she do with
seven little children? It was a sad group enveloped in misery, which
was being gradually annihilated. A very hard winter came. Jean had no
work. The family had no bread. No bread literally. Seven children!

One Sunday evening, Maubert Isabeau, the baker on the Church Square at
Faverolles, was preparing to go to bed, when he heard a violent blow on
the grated front of his shop. He arrived in time to see an arm passed
through a hole made by a blow from a fist, through the grating and the
glass. The arm seized a loaf of bread and carried it off. Isabeau ran
out in haste; the robber fled at the full speed of his legs. Isabeau
ran after him and stopped him. The thief had flung away the loaf, but
his arm was still bleeding. It was Jean Valjean.

This took place in 1795. Jean Valjean was taken before the tribunals of
the time for theft and breaking and entering an inhabited house at
night. He had a gun which he used better than any one else in the
world, he was a bit of a poacher, and this injured his case. There
exists a legitimate prejudice against poachers. The poacher, like the
smuggler, smacks too strongly of the brigand. Nevertheless, we will
remark cursorily, there is still an abyss between these races of men
and the hideous assassin of the towns. The poacher lives in the forest,
the smuggler lives in the mountains or on the sea. The cities make
ferocious men because they make corrupt men. The mountain, the sea, the
forest, make savage men; they develop the fierce side, but often
without destroying the humane side.

Jean Valjean was pronounced guilty. The terms of the Code were
explicit. There occur formidable hours in our civilization; there are
moments when the penal laws decree a shipwreck. What an ominous minute
is that in which society draws back and consummates the irreparable
abandonment of a sentient being! Jean Valjean was condemned to five
years in the galleys.

On the 22d of April, 1796, the victory of Montenotte, won by the
general-in-chief of the army of Italy, whom the message of the
Directory to the Five Hundred, of the 2d of Floréal, year IV., calls
Buona-Parte, was announced in Paris; on that same day a great gang of
galley-slaves was put in chains at Bicêtre. Jean Valjean formed a part
of that gang. An old turnkey of the prison, who is now nearly eighty
years old, still recalls perfectly that unfortunate wretch who was
chained to the end of the fourth line, in the north angle of the
courtyard. He was seated on the ground like the others. He did not seem
to comprehend his position, except that it was horrible. It is probable
that he, also, was disentangling from amid the vague ideas of a poor
man, ignorant of everything, something excessive. While the bolt of his
iron collar was being riveted behind his head with heavy blows from the
hammer, he wept, his tears stifled him, they impeded his speech; he
only managed to say from time to time, “I was a tree-pruner at
Faverolles.” Then still sobbing, he raised his right hand and lowered
it gradually seven times, as though he were touching in succession
seven heads of unequal heights, and from this gesture it was divined
that the thing which he had done, whatever it was, he had done for the
sake of clothing and nourishing seven little children.

He set out for Toulon. He arrived there, after a journey of
twenty-seven days, on a cart, with a chain on his neck. At Toulon he
was clothed in the red cassock. All that had constituted his life, even
to his name, was effaced; he was no longer even Jean Valjean; he was
number 24,601. What became of his sister? What became of the seven
children? Who troubled himself about that? What becomes of the handful
of leaves from the young tree which is sawed off at the root?

It is always the same story. These poor living beings, these creatures
of God, henceforth without support, without guide, without refuge,
wandered away at random,—who even knows?—each in his own direction
perhaps, and little by little buried themselves in that cold mist which
engulfs solitary destinies; gloomy shades, into which disappear in
succession so many unlucky heads, in the sombre march of the human
race. They quitted the country. The clock-tower of what had been their
village forgot them; the boundary line of what had been their field
forgot them; after a few years’ residence in the galleys, Jean Valjean
himself forgot them. In that heart, where there had been a wound, there
was a scar. That is all. Only once, during all the time which he spent
at Toulon, did he hear his sister mentioned. This happened, I think,
towards the end of the fourth year of his captivity. I know not through
what channels the news reached him. Some one who had known them in
their own country had seen his sister. She was in Paris. She lived in a
poor street near Saint-Sulpice, in the Rue du Gindre. She had with her
only one child, a little boy, the youngest. Where were the other six?
Perhaps she did not know herself. Every morning she went to a printing
office, No. 3 Rue du Sabot, where she was a folder and stitcher. She
was obliged to be there at six o’clock in the morning—long before
daylight in winter. In the same building with the printing office there
was a school, and to this school she took her little boy, who was seven
years old. But as she entered the printing office at six, and the
school only opened at seven, the child had to wait in the courtyard,
for the school to open, for an hour—one hour of a winter night in the
open air! They would not allow the child to come into the printing
office, because he was in the way, they said. When the workmen passed
in the morning, they beheld this poor little being seated on the
pavement, overcome with drowsiness, and often fast asleep in the
shadow, crouched down and doubled up over his basket. When it rained,
an old woman, the portress, took pity on him; she took him into her
den, where there was a pallet, a spinning-wheel, and two wooden chairs,
and the little one slumbered in a corner, pressing himself close to the
cat that he might suffer less from cold. At seven o’clock the school
opened, and he entered. That is what was told to Jean Valjean.

They talked to him about it for one day; it was a moment, a flash, as
though a window had suddenly been opened upon the destiny of those
things whom he had loved; then all closed again. He heard nothing more
forever. Nothing from them ever reached him again; he never beheld
them; he never met them again; and in the continuation of this mournful
history they will not be met with any more.

Towards the end of this fourth year Jean Valjean’s turn to escape
arrived. His comrades assisted him, as is the custom in that sad place.
He escaped. He wandered for two days in the fields at liberty, if being
at liberty is to be hunted, to turn the head every instant, to quake at
the slightest noise, to be afraid of everything,—of a smoking roof, of
a passing man, of a barking dog, of a galloping horse, of a striking
clock, of the day because one can see, of the night because one cannot
see, of the highway, of the path, of a bush, of sleep. On the evening
of the second day he was captured. He had neither eaten nor slept for
thirty-six hours. The maritime tribunal condemned him, for this crime,
to a prolongation of his term for three years, which made eight years.
In the sixth year his turn to escape occurred again; he availed himself
of it, but could not accomplish his flight fully. He was missing at
roll-call. The cannon were fired, and at night the patrol found him
hidden under the keel of a vessel in process of construction; he
resisted the galley guards who seized him. Escape and rebellion. This
case, provided for by a special code, was punished by an addition of
five years, two of them in the double chain. Thirteen years. In the
tenth year his turn came round again; he again profited by it; he
succeeded no better. Three years for this fresh attempt. Sixteen years.
Finally, I think it was during his thirteenth year, he made a last
attempt, and only succeeded in getting retaken at the end of four hours
of absence. Three years for those four hours. Nineteen years. In
October, 1815, he was released; he had entered there in 1796, for
having broken a pane of glass and taken a loaf of bread.

Room for a brief parenthesis. This is the second time, during his
studies on the penal question and damnation by law, that the author of
this book has come across the theft of a loaf of bread as the point of
departure for the disaster of a destiny. Claude Gaux had stolen a loaf;
Jean Valjean had stolen a loaf. English statistics prove the fact that
four thefts out of five in London have hunger for their immediate
cause.

Jean Valjean had entered the galleys sobbing and shuddering; he emerged
impassive. He had entered in despair; he emerged gloomy.

What had taken place in that soul?




CHAPTER VII—THE INTERIOR OF DESPAIR


Let us try to say it.

It is necessary that society should look at these things, because it is
itself which creates them.

He was, as we have said, an ignorant man, but he was not a fool. The
light of nature was ignited in him. Unhappiness, which also possesses a
clearness of vision of its own, augmented the small amount of daylight
which existed in this mind. Beneath the cudgel, beneath the chain, in
the cell, in hardship, beneath the burning sun of the galleys, upon the
plank bed of the convict, he withdrew into his own consciousness and
meditated.

He constituted himself the tribunal.

He began by putting himself on trial.

He recognized the fact that he was not an innocent man unjustly
punished. He admitted that he had committed an extreme and blameworthy
act; that that loaf of bread would probably not have been refused to
him had he asked for it; that, in any case, it would have been better
to wait until he could get it through compassion or through work; that
it is not an unanswerable argument to say, “Can one wait when one is
hungry?” That, in the first place, it is very rare for any one to die
of hunger, literally; and next, that, fortunately or unfortunately, man
is so constituted that he can suffer long and much, both morally and
physically, without dying; that it is therefore necessary to have
patience; that that would even have been better for those poor little
children; that it had been an act of madness for him, a miserable,
unfortunate wretch, to take society at large violently by the collar,
and to imagine that one can escape from misery through theft; that that
is in any case a poor door through which to escape from misery through
which infamy enters; in short, that he was in the wrong.

Then he asked himself:—

Whether he had been the only one in fault in his fatal history. Whether
it was not a serious thing, that he, a laborer, out of work, that he,
an industrious man, should have lacked bread. And whether, the fault
once committed and confessed, the chastisement had not been ferocious
and disproportioned. Whether there had not been more abuse on the part
of the law, in respect to the penalty, than there had been on the part
of the culprit in respect to his fault. Whether there had not been an
excess of weights in one balance of the scale, in the one which
contains expiation. Whether the over-weight of the penalty was not
equivalent to the annihilation of the crime, and did not result in
reversing the situation, of replacing the fault of the delinquent by
the fault of the repression, of converting the guilty man into the
victim, and the debtor into the creditor, and of ranging the law
definitely on the side of the man who had violated it.

Whether this penalty, complicated by successive aggravations for
attempts at escape, had not ended in becoming a sort of outrage
perpetrated by the stronger upon the feebler, a crime of society
against the individual, a crime which was being committed afresh every
day, a crime which had lasted nineteen years.

He asked himself whether human society could have the right to force
its members to suffer equally in one case for its own unreasonable lack
of foresight, and in the other case for its pitiless foresight; and to
seize a poor man forever between a defect and an excess, a default of
work and an excess of punishment.

Whether it was not outrageous for society to treat thus precisely those
of its members who were the least well endowed in the division of goods
made by chance, and consequently the most deserving of consideration.

These questions put and answered, he judged society and condemned it.

He condemned it to his hatred.

He made it responsible for the fate which he was suffering, and he said
to himself that it might be that one day he should not hesitate to call
it to account. He declared to himself that there was no equilibrium
between the harm which he had caused and the harm which was being done
to him; he finally arrived at the conclusion that his punishment was
not, in truth, unjust, but that it most assuredly was iniquitous.

Anger may be both foolish and absurd; one can be irritated wrongfully;
one is exasperated only when there is some show of right on one’s side
at bottom. Jean Valjean felt himself exasperated.

And besides, human society had done him nothing but harm; he had never
seen anything of it save that angry face which it calls Justice, and
which it shows to those whom it strikes. Men had only touched him to
bruise him. Every contact with them had been a blow. Never, since his
infancy, since the days of his mother, of his sister, had he ever
encountered a friendly word and a kindly glance. From suffering to
suffering, he had gradually arrived at the conviction that life is a
war; and that in this war he was the conquered. He had no other weapon
than his hate. He resolved to whet it in the galleys and to bear it
away with him when he departed.

There was at Toulon a school for the convicts, kept by the Ignorantin
friars, where the most necessary branches were taught to those of the
unfortunate men who had a mind for them. He was of the number who had a
mind. He went to school at the age of forty, and learned to read, to
write, to cipher. He felt that to fortify his intelligence was to
fortify his hate. In certain cases, education and enlightenment can
serve to eke out evil.

This is a sad thing to say; after having judged society, which had
caused his unhappiness, he judged Providence, which had made society,
and he condemned it also.

Thus during nineteen years of torture and slavery, this soul mounted
and at the same time fell. Light entered it on one side, and darkness
on the other.

Jean Valjean had not, as we have seen, an evil nature. He was still
good when he arrived at the galleys. He there condemned society, and
felt that he was becoming wicked; he there condemned Providence, and
was conscious that he was becoming impious.

It is difficult not to indulge in meditation at this point.

Does human nature thus change utterly and from top to bottom? Can the
man created good by God be rendered wicked by man? Can the soul be
completely made over by fate, and become evil, fate being evil? Can the
heart become misshapen and contract incurable deformities and
infirmities under the oppression of a disproportionate unhappiness, as
the vertebral column beneath too low a vault? Is there not in every
human soul, was there not in the soul of Jean Valjean in particular, a
first spark, a divine element, incorruptible in this world, immortal in
the other, which good can develop, fan, ignite, and make to glow with
splendor, and which evil can never wholly extinguish?

Grave and obscure questions, to the last of which every physiologist
would probably have responded no, and that without hesitation, had he
beheld at Toulon, during the hours of repose, which were for Jean
Valjean hours of reverie, this gloomy galley-slave, seated with folded
arms upon the bar of some capstan, with the end of his chain thrust
into his pocket to prevent its dragging, serious, silent, and
thoughtful, a pariah of the laws which regarded the man with wrath,
condemned by civilization, and regarding heaven with severity.

Certainly,—and we make no attempt to dissimulate the fact,—the
observing physiologist would have beheld an irremediable misery; he
would, perchance, have pitied this sick man, of the law’s making; but
he would not have even essayed any treatment; he would have turned
aside his gaze from the caverns of which he would have caught a glimpse
within this soul, and, like Dante at the portals of hell, he would have
effaced from this existence the word which the finger of God has,
nevertheless, inscribed upon the brow of every man,—hope.

Was this state of his soul, which we have attempted to analyze, as
perfectly clear to Jean Valjean as we have tried to render it for those
who read us? Did Jean Valjean distinctly perceive, after their
formation, and had he seen distinctly during the process of their
formation, all the elements of which his moral misery was composed? Had
this rough and unlettered man gathered a perfectly clear perception of
the succession of ideas through which he had, by degrees, mounted and
descended to the lugubrious aspects which had, for so many years,
formed the inner horizon of his spirit? Was he conscious of all that
passed within him, and of all that was working there? That is something
which we do not presume to state; it is something which we do not even
believe. There was too much ignorance in Jean Valjean, even after his
misfortune, to prevent much vagueness from still lingering there. At
times he did not rightly know himself what he felt. Jean Valjean was in
the shadows; he suffered in the shadows; he hated in the shadows; one
might have said that he hated in advance of himself. He dwelt
habitually in this shadow, feeling his way like a blind man and a
dreamer. Only, at intervals, there suddenly came to him, from without
and from within, an access of wrath, a surcharge of suffering, a livid
and rapid flash which illuminated his whole soul, and caused to appear
abruptly all around him, in front, behind, amid the gleams of a
frightful light, the hideous precipices and the sombre perspective of
his destiny.

The flash passed, the night closed in again; and where was he? He no
longer knew. The peculiarity of pains of this nature, in which that
which is pitiless—that is to say, that which is
brutalizing—predominates, is to transform a man, little by little, by a
sort of stupid transfiguration, into a wild beast; sometimes into a
ferocious beast.

Jean Valjean’s successive and obstinate attempts at escape would alone
suffice to prove this strange working of the law upon the human soul.
Jean Valjean would have renewed these attempts, utterly useless and
foolish as they were, as often as the opportunity had presented itself,
without reflecting for an instant on the result, nor on the experiences
which he had already gone through. He escaped impetuously, like the
wolf who finds his cage open. Instinct said to him, “Flee!” Reason
would have said, “Remain!” But in the presence of so violent a
temptation, reason vanished; nothing remained but instinct. The beast
alone acted. When he was recaptured, the fresh severities inflicted on
him only served to render him still more wild.

One detail, which we must not omit, is that he possessed a physical
strength which was not approached by a single one of the denizens of
the galleys. At work, at paying out a cable or winding up a capstan,
Jean Valjean was worth four men. He sometimes lifted and sustained
enormous weights on his back; and when the occasion demanded it, he
replaced that implement which is called a jack-screw, and was formerly
called _orgueil_ [pride], whence, we may remark in passing, is derived
the name of the Rue Montorgueil, near the Halles [Fishmarket] in Paris.
His comrades had nicknamed him Jean the Jack-screw. Once, when they
were repairing the balcony of the town-hall at Toulon, one of those
admirable caryatids of Puget, which support the balcony, became
loosened, and was on the point of falling. Jean Valjean, who was
present, supported the caryatid with his shoulder, and gave the workmen
time to arrive.

His suppleness even exceeded his strength. Certain convicts who were
forever dreaming of escape, ended by making a veritable science of
force and skill combined. It is the science of muscles. An entire
system of mysterious statics is daily practised by prisoners, men who
are forever envious of the flies and birds. To climb a vertical
surface, and to find points of support where hardly a projection was
visible, was play to Jean Valjean. An angle of the wall being given,
with the tension of his back and legs, with his elbows and his heels
fitted into the unevenness of the stone, he raised himself as if by
magic to the third story. He sometimes mounted thus even to the roof of
the galley prison.

He spoke but little. He laughed not at all. An excessive emotion was
required to wring from him, once or twice a year, that lugubrious laugh
of the convict, which is like the echo of the laugh of a demon. To all
appearance, he seemed to be occupied in the constant contemplation of
something terrible.

He was absorbed, in fact.

Athwart the unhealthy perceptions of an incomplete nature and a crushed
intelligence, he was confusedly conscious that some monstrous thing was
resting on him. In that obscure and wan shadow within which he crawled,
each time that he turned his neck and essayed to raise his glance, he
perceived with terror, mingled with rage, a sort of frightful
accumulation of things, collecting and mounting above him, beyond the
range of his vision,—laws, prejudices, men, and deeds,—whose outlines
escaped him, whose mass terrified him, and which was nothing else than
that prodigious pyramid which we call civilization. He distinguished,
here and there in that swarming and formless mass, now near him, now
afar off and on inaccessible table-lands, some group, some detail,
vividly illuminated; here the galley-sergeant and his cudgel; there the
gendarme and his sword; yonder the mitred archbishop; away at the top,
like a sort of sun, the Emperor, crowned and dazzling. It seemed to him
that these distant splendors, far from dissipating his night, rendered
it more funereal and more black. All this—laws, prejudices, deeds, men,
things—went and came above him, over his head, in accordance with the
complicated and mysterious movement which God imparts to civilization,
walking over him and crushing him with I know not what peacefulness in
its cruelty and inexorability in its indifference. Souls which have
fallen to the bottom of all possible misfortune, unhappy men lost in
the lowest of those limbos at which no one any longer looks, the
reproved of the law, feel the whole weight of this human society, so
formidable for him who is without, so frightful for him who is beneath,
resting upon their heads.

In this situation Jean Valjean meditated; and what could be the nature
of his meditation?

If the grain of millet beneath the millstone had thoughts, it would,
doubtless, think that same thing which Jean Valjean thought.

All these things, realities full of spectres, phantasmagories full of
realities, had eventually created for him a sort of interior state
which is almost indescribable.

At times, amid his convict toil, he paused. He fell to thinking. His
reason, at one and the same time riper and more troubled than of yore,
rose in revolt. Everything which had happened to him seemed to him
absurd; everything that surrounded him seemed to him impossible. He
said to himself, “It is a dream.” He gazed at the galley-sergeant
standing a few paces from him; the galley-sergeant seemed a phantom to
him. All of a sudden the phantom dealt him a blow with his cudgel.

Visible nature hardly existed for him. It would almost be true to say
that there existed for Jean Valjean neither sun, nor fine summer days,
nor radiant sky, nor fresh April dawns. I know not what vent-hole
daylight habitually illumined his soul.

To sum up, in conclusion, that which can be summed up and translated
into positive results in all that we have just pointed out, we will
confine ourselves to the statement that, in the course of nineteen
years, Jean Valjean, the inoffensive tree-pruner of Faverolles, the
formidable convict of Toulon, had become capable, thanks to the manner
in which the galleys had moulded him, of two sorts of evil action:
firstly, of evil action which was rapid, unpremeditated, dashing,
entirely instinctive, in the nature of reprisals for the evil which he
had undergone; secondly, of evil action which was serious, grave,
consciously argued out and premeditated, with the false ideas which
such a misfortune can furnish. His deliberate deeds passed through
three successive phases, which natures of a certain stamp can alone
traverse,—reasoning, will, perseverance. He had for moving causes his
habitual wrath, bitterness of soul, a profound sense of indignities
suffered, the reaction even against the good, the innocent, and the
just, if there are any such. The point of departure, like the point of
arrival, for all his thoughts, was hatred of human law; that hatred
which, if it be not arrested in its development by some providential
incident, becomes, within a given time, the hatred of society, then the
hatred of the human race, then the hatred of creation, and which
manifests itself by a vague, incessant, and brutal desire to do harm to
some living being, no matter whom. It will be perceived that it was not
without reason that Jean Valjean’s passport described him as _a very
dangerous man_.

From year to year this soul had dried away slowly, but with fatal
sureness. When the heart is dry, the eye is dry. On his departure from
the galleys it had been nineteen years since he had shed a tear.




CHAPTER VIII—BILLOWS AND SHADOWS


A man overboard!

What matters it? The vessel does not halt. The wind blows. That sombre
ship has a path which it is forced to pursue. It passes on.

The man disappears, then reappears; he plunges, he rises again to the
surface; he calls, he stretches out his arms; he is not heard. The
vessel, trembling under the hurricane, is wholly absorbed in its own
workings; the passengers and sailors do not even see the drowning man;
his miserable head is but a speck amid the immensity of the waves. He
gives vent to desperate cries from out of the depths. What a spectre is
that retreating sail! He gazes and gazes at it frantically. It
retreats, it grows dim, it diminishes in size. He was there but just
now, he was one of the crew, he went and came along the deck with the
rest, he had his part of breath and of sunlight, he was a living man.
Now, what has taken place? He has slipped, he has fallen; all is at an
end.

He is in the tremendous sea. Under foot he has nothing but what flees
and crumbles. The billows, torn and lashed by the wind, encompass him
hideously; the tossings of the abyss bear him away; all the tongues of
water dash over his head; a populace of waves spits upon him; confused
openings half devour him; every time that he sinks, he catches glimpses
of precipices filled with night; frightful and unknown vegetations
seize him, knot about his feet, draw him to them; he is conscious that
he is becoming an abyss, that he forms part of the foam; the waves toss
him from one to another; he drinks in the bitterness; the cowardly
ocean attacks him furiously, to drown him; the enormity plays with his
agony. It seems as though all that water were hate.

Nevertheless, he struggles.

He tries to defend himself; he tries to sustain himself; he makes an
effort; he swims. He, his petty strength all exhausted instantly,
combats the inexhaustible.

Where, then, is the ship? Yonder. Barely visible in the pale shadows of
the horizon.

The wind blows in gusts; all the foam overwhelms him. He raises his
eyes and beholds only the lividness of the clouds. He witnesses, amid
his death-pangs, the immense madness of the sea. He is tortured by this
madness; he hears noises strange to man, which seem to come from beyond
the limits of the earth, and from one knows not what frightful region
beyond.

There are birds in the clouds, just as there are angels above human
distresses; but what can they do for him? They sing and fly and float,
and he, he rattles in the death agony.

He feels himself buried in those two infinities, the ocean and the sky,
at one and the same time: the one is a tomb; the other is a shroud.

Night descends; he has been swimming for hours; his strength is
exhausted; that ship, that distant thing in which there were men, has
vanished; he is alone in the formidable twilight gulf; he sinks, he
stiffens himself, he twists himself; he feels under him the monstrous
billows of the invisible; he shouts.

There are no more men. Where is God?

He shouts. Help! Help! He still shouts on.

Nothing on the horizon; nothing in heaven.

He implores the expanse, the waves, the seaweed, the reef; they are
deaf. He beseeches the tempest; the imperturbable tempest obeys only
the infinite.

Around him darkness, fog, solitude, the stormy and nonsentient tumult,
the undefined curling of those wild waters. In him horror and fatigue.
Beneath him the depths. Not a point of support. He thinks of the gloomy
adventures of the corpse in the limitless shadow. The bottomless cold
paralyzes him. His hands contract convulsively; they close, and grasp
nothingness. Winds, clouds, whirlwinds, gusts, useless stars! What is
to be done? The desperate man gives up; he is weary, he chooses the
alternative of death; he resists not; he lets himself go; he abandons
his grip; and then he tosses forevermore in the lugubrious dreary
depths of engulfment.

Oh, implacable march of human societies! Oh, losses of men and of souls
on the way! Ocean into which falls all that the law lets slip!
Disastrous absence of help! Oh, moral death!

The sea is the inexorable social night into which the penal laws fling
their condemned. The sea is the immensity of wretchedness.

The soul, going downstream in this gulf, may become a corpse. Who shall
resuscitate it?




CHAPTER IX—NEW TROUBLES


When the hour came for him to take his departure from the galleys, when
Jean Valjean heard in his ear the strange words, _Thou art free!_ the
moment seemed improbable and unprecedented; a ray of vivid light, a ray
of the true light of the living, suddenly penetrated within him. But it
was not long before this ray paled. Jean Valjean had been dazzled by
the idea of liberty. He had believed in a new life. He very speedily
perceived what sort of liberty it is to which a yellow passport is
provided.

And this was encompassed with much bitterness. He had calculated that
his earnings, during his sojourn in the galleys, ought to amount to a
hundred and seventy-one francs. It is but just to add that he had
forgotten to include in his calculations the forced repose of Sundays
and festival days during nineteen years, which entailed a diminution of
about eighty francs. At all events, his hoard had been reduced by
various local levies to the sum of one hundred and nine francs fifteen
sous, which had been counted out to him on his departure. He had
understood nothing of this, and had thought himself wronged. Let us say
the word—robbed.

On the day following his liberation, he saw, at Grasse, in front of an
orange-flower distillery, some men engaged in unloading bales. He
offered his services. Business was pressing; they were accepted. He set
to work. He was intelligent, robust, adroit; he did his best; the
master seemed pleased. While he was at work, a gendarme passed,
observed him, and demanded his papers. It was necessary to show him the
yellow passport. That done, Jean Valjean resumed his labor. A little
while before he had questioned one of the workmen as to the amount
which they earned each day at this occupation; he had been told _thirty
sous_. When evening arrived, as he was forced to set out again on the
following day, he presented himself to the owner of the distillery and
requested to be paid. The owner did not utter a word, but handed him
fifteen sous. He objected. He was told, _“That is enough for thee.”_ He
persisted. The master looked him straight between the eyes, and said to
him _“Beware of the prison.”_

There, again, he considered that he had been robbed.

Society, the State, by diminishing his hoard, had robbed him wholesale.
Now it was the individual who was robbing him at retail.

Liberation is not deliverance. One gets free from the galleys, but not
from the sentence.

That is what happened to him at Grasse. We have seen in what manner he
was received at D——




CHAPTER X—THE MAN AROUSED


As the Cathedral clock struck two in the morning, Jean Valjean awoke.

What woke him was that his bed was too good. It was nearly twenty years
since he had slept in a bed, and, although he had not undressed, the
sensation was too novel not to disturb his slumbers.

He had slept more than four hours. His fatigue had passed away. He was
accustomed not to devote many hours to repose.

He opened his eyes and stared into the gloom which surrounded him; then
he closed them again, with the intention of going to sleep once more.

When many varied sensations have agitated the day, when various matters
preoccupy the mind, one falls asleep once, but not a second time. Sleep
comes more easily than it returns. This is what happened to Jean
Valjean. He could not get to sleep again, and he fell to thinking.

He was at one of those moments when the thoughts which one has in one’s
mind are troubled. There was a sort of dark confusion in his brain. His
memories of the olden time and of the immediate present floated there
pell-mell and mingled confusedly, losing their proper forms, becoming
disproportionately large, then suddenly disappearing, as in a muddy and
perturbed pool. Many thoughts occurred to him; but there was one which
kept constantly presenting itself afresh, and which drove away all
others. We will mention this thought at once: he had observed the six
sets of silver forks and spoons and the ladle which Madame Magloire had
placed on the table.

Those six sets of silver haunted him.—They were there.—A few paces
distant.—Just as he was traversing the adjoining room to reach the one
in which he then was, the old servant-woman had been in the act of
placing them in a little cupboard near the head of the bed.—He had
taken careful note of this cupboard.—On the right, as you entered from
the dining-room.—They were solid.—And old silver.—From the ladle one
could get at least two hundred francs.—Double what he had earned in
nineteen years.—It is true that he would have earned more if “the
_administration_ had not _robbed him_.”


His mind wavered for a whole hour in fluctuations with which there was
certainly mingled some struggle. Three o’clock struck. He opened his
eyes again, drew himself up abruptly into a sitting posture, stretched
out his arm and felt of his knapsack, which he had thrown down on a
corner of the alcove; then he hung his legs over the edge of the bed,
and placed his feet on the floor, and thus found himself, almost
without knowing it, seated on his bed.

He remained for a time thoughtfully in this attitude, which would have
been suggestive of something sinister for any one who had seen him thus
in the dark, the only person awake in that house where all were
sleeping. All of a sudden he stooped down, removed his shoes and placed
them softly on the mat beside the bed; then he resumed his thoughtful
attitude, and became motionless once more.

Throughout this hideous meditation, the thoughts which we have above
indicated moved incessantly through his brain; entered, withdrew,
re-entered, and in a manner oppressed him; and then he thought, also,
without knowing why, and with the mechanical persistence of reverie, of
a convict named Brevet, whom he had known in the galleys, and whose
trousers had been upheld by a single suspender of knitted cotton. The
checkered pattern of that suspender recurred incessantly to his mind.

He remained in this situation, and would have so remained indefinitely,
even until daybreak, had not the clock struck one—the half or quarter
hour. It seemed to him that that stroke said to him, “Come on!”


He rose to his feet, hesitated still another moment, and listened; all
was quiet in the house; then he walked straight ahead, with short
steps, to the window, of which he caught a glimpse. The night was not
very dark; there was a full moon, across which coursed large clouds
driven by the wind. This created, outdoors, alternate shadow and gleams
of light, eclipses, then bright openings of the clouds; and indoors a
sort of twilight. This twilight, sufficient to enable a person to see
his way, intermittent on account of the clouds, resembled the sort of
livid light which falls through an air-hole in a cellar, before which
the passers-by come and go. On arriving at the window, Jean Valjean
examined it. It had no grating; it opened in the garden and was
fastened, according to the fashion of the country, only by a small pin.
He opened it; but as a rush of cold and piercing air penetrated the
room abruptly, he closed it again immediately. He scrutinized the
garden with that attentive gaze which studies rather than looks. The
garden was enclosed by a tolerably low white wall, easy to climb. Far
away, at the extremity, he perceived tops of trees, spaced at regular
intervals, which indicated that the wall separated the garden from an
avenue or lane planted with trees.

Having taken this survey, he executed a movement like that of a man who
has made up his mind, strode to his alcove, grasped his knapsack,
opened it, fumbled in it, pulled out of it something which he placed on
the bed, put his shoes into one of his pockets, shut the whole thing up
again, threw the knapsack on his shoulders, put on his cap, drew the
visor down over his eyes, felt for his cudgel, went and placed it in
the angle of the window; then returned to the bed, and resolutely
seized the object which he had deposited there. It resembled a short
bar of iron, pointed like a pike at one end. It would have been
difficult to distinguish in that darkness for what employment that bit
of iron could have been designed. Perhaps it was a lever; possibly it
was a club.

In the daytime it would have been possible to recognize it as nothing
more than a miner’s candlestick. Convicts were, at that period,
sometimes employed in quarrying stone from the lofty hills which
environ Toulon, and it was not rare for them to have miners’ tools at
their command. These miners’ candlesticks are of massive iron,
terminated at the lower extremity by a point, by means of which they
are stuck into the rock.

He took the candlestick in his right hand; holding his breath and
trying to deaden the sound of his tread, he directed his steps to the
door of the adjoining room, occupied by the Bishop, as we already know.

On arriving at this door, he found it ajar. The Bishop had not closed
it.




CHAPTER XI—WHAT HE DOES


Jean Valjean listened. Not a sound.

He gave the door a push.

He pushed it gently with the tip of his finger, lightly, with the
furtive and uneasy gentleness of a cat which is desirous of entering.

The door yielded to this pressure, and made an imperceptible and silent
movement, which enlarged the opening a little.

He waited a moment; then gave the door a second and a bolder push.

It continued to yield in silence. The opening was now large enough to
allow him to pass. But near the door there stood a little table, which
formed an embarrassing angle with it, and barred the entrance.

Jean Valjean recognized the difficulty. It was necessary, at any cost,
to enlarge the aperture still further.

He decided on his course of action, and gave the door a third push,
more energetic than the two preceding. This time a badly oiled hinge
suddenly emitted amid the silence a hoarse and prolonged cry.

Jean Valjean shuddered. The noise of the hinge rang in his ears with
something of the piercing and formidable sound of the trump of the Day
of Judgment.

In the fantastic exaggerations of the first moment he almost imagined
that that hinge had just become animated, and had suddenly assumed a
terrible life, and that it was barking like a dog to arouse every one,
and warn and to wake those who were asleep. He halted, shuddering,
bewildered, and fell back from the tips of his toes upon his heels. He
heard the arteries in his temples beating like two forge hammers, and
it seemed to him that his breath issued from his breast with the roar
of the wind issuing from a cavern. It seemed impossible to him that the
horrible clamor of that irritated hinge should not have disturbed the
entire household, like the shock of an earthquake; the door, pushed by
him, had taken the alarm, and had shouted; the old man would rise at
once; the two old women would shriek out; people would come to their
assistance; in less than a quarter of an hour the town would be in an
uproar, and the gendarmerie on hand. For a moment he thought himself
lost.

He remained where he was, petrified like the statue of salt, not daring
to make a movement. Several minutes elapsed. The door had fallen wide
open. He ventured to peep into the next room. Nothing had stirred
there. He lent an ear. Nothing was moving in the house. The noise made
by the rusty hinge had not awakened any one.

This first danger was past; but there still reigned a frightful tumult
within him. Nevertheless, he did not retreat. Even when he had thought
himself lost, he had not drawn back. His only thought now was to finish
as soon as possible. He took a step and entered the room.

This room was in a state of perfect calm. Here and there vague and
confused forms were distinguishable, which in the daylight were papers
scattered on a table, open folios, volumes piled upon a stool, an
armchair heaped with clothing, a prie-Dieu, and which at that hour were
only shadowy corners and whitish spots. Jean Valjean advanced with
precaution, taking care not to knock against the furniture. He could
hear, at the extremity of the room, the even and tranquil breathing of
the sleeping Bishop.

He suddenly came to a halt. He was near the bed. He had arrived there
sooner than he had thought for.

Nature sometimes mingles her effects and her spectacles with our
actions with sombre and intelligent appropriateness, as though she
desired to make us reflect. For the last half-hour a large cloud had
covered the heavens. At the moment when Jean Valjean paused in front of
the bed, this cloud parted, as though on purpose, and a ray of light,
traversing the long window, suddenly illuminated the Bishop’s pale
face. He was sleeping peacefully. He lay in his bed almost completely
dressed, on account of the cold of the Basses-Alps, in a garment of
brown wool, which covered his arms to the wrists. His head was thrown
back on the pillow, in the careless attitude of repose; his hand,
adorned with the pastoral ring, and whence had fallen so many good
deeds and so many holy actions, was hanging over the edge of the bed.
His whole face was illumined with a vague expression of satisfaction,
of hope, and of felicity. It was more than a smile, and almost a
radiance. He bore upon his brow the indescribable reflection of a light
which was invisible. The soul of the just contemplates in sleep a
mysterious heaven.

A reflection of that heaven rested on the Bishop.

It was, at the same time, a luminous transparency, for that heaven was
within him. That heaven was his conscience.

[Illustration: The Fall]

At the moment when the ray of moonlight superposed itself, so to speak,
upon that inward radiance, the sleeping Bishop seemed as in a glory. It
remained, however, gentle and veiled in an ineffable half-light. That
moon in the sky, that slumbering nature, that garden without a quiver,
that house which was so calm, the hour, the moment, the silence, added
some solemn and unspeakable quality to the venerable repose of this
man, and enveloped in a sort of serene and majestic aureole that white
hair, those closed eyes, that face in which all was hope and all was
confidence, that head of an old man, and that slumber of an infant.

There was something almost divine in this man, who was thus august,
without being himself aware of it.

Jean Valjean was in the shadow, and stood motionless, with his iron
candlestick in his hand, frightened by this luminous old man. Never had
he beheld anything like this. This confidence terrified him. The moral
world has no grander spectacle than this: a troubled and uneasy
conscience, which has arrived on the brink of an evil action,
contemplating the slumber of the just.

That slumber in that isolation, and with a neighbor like himself, had
about it something sublime, of which he was vaguely but imperiously
conscious.

No one could have told what was passing within him, not even himself.
In order to attempt to form an idea of it, it is necessary to think of
the most violent of things in the presence of the most gentle. Even on
his visage it would have been impossible to distinguish anything with
certainty. It was a sort of haggard astonishment. He gazed at it, and
that was all. But what was his thought? It would have been impossible
to divine it. What was evident was, that he was touched and astounded.
But what was the nature of this emotion?

His eye never quitted the old man. The only thing which was clearly to
be inferred from his attitude and his physiognomy was a strange
indecision. One would have said that he was hesitating between the two
abysses,—the one in which one loses one’s self and that in which one
saves one’s self. He seemed prepared to crush that skull or to kiss
that hand.

At the expiration of a few minutes his left arm rose slowly towards his
brow, and he took off his cap; then his arm fell back with the same
deliberation, and Jean Valjean fell to meditating once more, his cap in
his left hand, his club in his right hand, his hair bristling all over
his savage head.

The Bishop continued to sleep in profound peace beneath that terrifying
gaze.

The gleam of the moon rendered confusedly visible the crucifix over the
chimney-piece, which seemed to be extending its arms to both of them,
with a benediction for one and pardon for the other.

Suddenly Jean Valjean replaced his cap on his brow; then stepped
rapidly past the bed, without glancing at the Bishop, straight to the
cupboard, which he saw near the head; he raised his iron candlestick as
though to force the lock; the key was there; he opened it; the first
thing which presented itself to him was the basket of silverware; he
seized it, traversed the chamber with long strides, without taking any
precautions and without troubling himself about the noise, gained the
door, re-entered the oratory, opened the window, seized his cudgel,
bestrode the window-sill of the ground floor, put the silver into his
knapsack, threw away the basket, crossed the garden, leaped over the
wall like a tiger, and fled.




CHAPTER XII—THE BISHOP WORKS


The next morning at sunrise Monseigneur Bienvenu was strolling in his
garden. Madame Magloire ran up to him in utter consternation.

“Monseigneur, Monseigneur!” she exclaimed, “does your Grace know where
the basket of silver is?”


“Yes,” replied the Bishop.

“Jesus the Lord be blessed!” she resumed; “I did not know what had
become of it.”


The Bishop had just picked up the basket in a flower-bed. He presented
it to Madame Magloire.

“Here it is.”


“Well!” said she. “Nothing in it! And the silver?”


“Ah,” returned the Bishop, “so it is the silver which troubles you? I
don’t know where it is.”


“Great, good God! It is stolen! That man who was here last night has
stolen it.”


In a twinkling, with all the vivacity of an alert old woman, Madame
Magloire had rushed to the oratory, entered the alcove, and returned to
the Bishop. The Bishop had just bent down, and was sighing as he
examined a plant of cochlearia des Guillons, which the basket had
broken as it fell across the bed. He rose up at Madame Magloire’s cry.

“Monseigneur, the man is gone! The silver has been stolen!”


As she uttered this exclamation, her eyes fell upon a corner of the
garden, where traces of the wall having been scaled were visible. The
coping of the wall had been torn away.

“Stay! yonder is the way he went. He jumped over into Cochefilet Lane.
Ah, the abomination! He has stolen our silver!”


The Bishop remained silent for a moment; then he raised his grave eyes,
and said gently to Madame Magloire:—

“And, in the first place, was that silver ours?”


Madame Magloire was speechless. Another silence ensued; then the Bishop
went on:—

“Madame Magloire, I have for a long time detained that silver
wrongfully. It belonged to the poor. Who was that man? A poor man,
evidently.”


“Alas! Jesus!” returned Madame Magloire. “It is not for my sake, nor
for Mademoiselle’s. It makes no difference to us. But it is for the
sake of Monseigneur. What is Monseigneur to eat with now?”


The Bishop gazed at her with an air of amazement.

“Ah, come! Are there no such things as pewter forks and spoons?”


Madame Magloire shrugged her shoulders.

“Pewter has an odor.”


“Iron forks and spoons, then.”


Madame Magloire made an expressive grimace.

“Iron has a taste.”


“Very well,” said the Bishop; “wooden ones then.”


A few moments later he was breakfasting at the very table at which Jean
Valjean had sat on the previous evening. As he ate his breakfast,
Monseigneur Welcome remarked gayly to his sister, who said nothing, and
to Madame Magloire, who was grumbling under her breath, that one really
does not need either fork or spoon, even of wood, in order to dip a bit
of bread in a cup of milk.

“A pretty idea, truly,” said Madame Magloire to herself, as she went
and came, “to take in a man like that! and to lodge him close to one’s
self! And how fortunate that he did nothing but steal! Ah, mon Dieu! it
makes one shudder to think of it!”


As the brother and sister were about to rise from the table, there came
a knock at the door.

“Come in,” said the Bishop.

The door opened. A singular and violent group made its appearance on
the threshold. Three men were holding a fourth man by the collar. The
three men were gendarmes; the other was Jean Valjean.

A brigadier of gendarmes, who seemed to be in command of the group, was
standing near the door. He entered and advanced to the Bishop, making a
military salute.

“Monseigneur—” said he.

At this word, Jean Valjean, who was dejected and seemed overwhelmed,
raised his head with an air of stupefaction.

“Monseigneur!” he murmured. “So he is not the curé?”


“Silence!” said the gendarme. “He is Monseigneur the Bishop.”


In the meantime, Monseigneur Bienvenu had advanced as quickly as his
great age permitted.

“Ah! here you are!” he exclaimed, looking at Jean Valjean. “I am glad
to see you. Well, but how is this? I gave you the candlesticks too,
which are of silver like the rest, and for which you can certainly get
two hundred francs. Why did you not carry them away with your forks and
spoons?”


Jean Valjean opened his eyes wide, and stared at the venerable Bishop
with an expression which no human tongue can render any account of.

“Monseigneur,” said the brigadier of gendarmes, “so what this man said
is true, then? We came across him. He was walking like a man who is
running away. We stopped him to look into the matter. He had this
silver—”


“And he told you,” interposed the Bishop with a smile, “that it had
been given to him by a kind old fellow of a priest with whom he had
passed the night? I see how the matter stands. And you have brought him
back here? It is a mistake.”


“In that case,” replied the brigadier, “we can let him go?”


“Certainly,” replied the Bishop.

The gendarmes released Jean Valjean, who recoiled.

“Is it true that I am to be released?” he said, in an almost
inarticulate voice, and as though he were talking in his sleep.

“Yes, thou art released; dost thou not understand?” said one of the
gendarmes.

“My friend,” resumed the Bishop, “before you go, here are your
candlesticks. Take them.”


He stepped to the chimney-piece, took the two silver candlesticks, and
brought them to Jean Valjean. The two women looked on without uttering
a word, without a gesture, without a look which could disconcert the
Bishop.

Jean Valjean was trembling in every limb. He took the two candlesticks
mechanically, and with a bewildered air.

“Now,” said the Bishop, “go in peace. By the way, when you return, my
friend, it is not necessary to pass through the garden. You can always
enter and depart through the street door. It is never fastened with
anything but a latch, either by day or by night.”


Then, turning to the gendarmes:—

“You may retire, gentlemen.”


The gendarmes retired.

Jean Valjean was like a man on the point of fainting.

The Bishop drew near to him, and said in a low voice:—

“Do not forget, never forget, that you have promised to use this money
in becoming an honest man.”


Jean Valjean, who had no recollection of ever having promised anything,
remained speechless. The Bishop had emphasized the words when he
uttered them. He resumed with solemnity:—

“Jean Valjean, my brother, you no longer belong to evil, but to good.
It is your soul that I buy from you; I withdraw it from black thoughts
and the spirit of perdition, and I give it to God.”





CHAPTER XIII—LITTLE GERVAIS


Jean Valjean left the town as though he were fleeing from it. He set
out at a very hasty pace through the fields, taking whatever roads and
paths presented themselves to him, without perceiving that he was
incessantly retracing his steps. He wandered thus the whole morning,
without having eaten anything and without feeling hungry. He was the
prey of a throng of novel sensations. He was conscious of a sort of
rage; he did not know against whom it was directed. He could not have
told whether he was touched or humiliated. There came over him at
moments a strange emotion which he resisted and to which he opposed the
hardness acquired during the last twenty years of his life. This state
of mind fatigued him. He perceived with dismay that the sort of
frightful calm which the injustice of his misfortune had conferred upon
him was giving way within him. He asked himself what would replace
this. At times he would have actually preferred to be in prison with
the gendarmes, and that things should not have happened in this way; it
would have agitated him less. Although the season was tolerably far
advanced, there were still a few late flowers in the hedge-rows here
and there, whose odor as he passed through them in his march recalled
to him memories of his childhood. These memories were almost
intolerable to him, it was so long since they had recurred to him.

Unutterable thoughts assembled within him in this manner all day long.

As the sun declined to its setting, casting long shadows athwart the
soil from every pebble, Jean Valjean sat down behind a bush upon a
large ruddy plain, which was absolutely deserted. There was nothing on
the horizon except the Alps. Not even the spire of a distant village.
Jean Valjean might have been three leagues distant from D—— A path
which intersected the plain passed a few paces from the bush.

In the middle of this meditation, which would have contributed not a
little to render his rags terrifying to any one who might have
encountered him, a joyous sound became audible.

He turned his head and saw a little Savoyard, about ten years of age,
coming up the path and singing, his hurdy-gurdy on his hip, and his
marmot-box on his back.

One of those gay and gentle children, who go from land to land
affording a view of their knees through the holes in their trousers.

Without stopping his song, the lad halted in his march from time to
time, and played at knuckle-bones with some coins which he had in his
hand—his whole fortune, probably.

Among this money there was one forty-sou piece.

The child halted beside the bush, without perceiving Jean Valjean, and
tossed up his handful of sous, which, up to that time, he had caught
with a good deal of adroitness on the back of his hand.

This time the forty-sou piece escaped him, and went rolling towards the
brushwood until it reached Jean Valjean.

Jean Valjean set his foot upon it.

In the meantime, the child had looked after his coin and had caught
sight of him.

He showed no astonishment, but walked straight up to the man.

The spot was absolutely solitary. As far as the eye could see there was
not a person on the plain or on the path. The only sound was the tiny,
feeble cries of a flock of birds of passage, which was traversing the
heavens at an immense height. The child was standing with his back to
the sun, which cast threads of gold in his hair and empurpled with its
blood-red gleam the savage face of Jean Valjean.

“Sir,” said the little Savoyard, with that childish confidence which is
composed of ignorance and innocence, “my money.”


“What is your name?” said Jean Valjean.

“Little Gervais, sir.”


“Go away,” said Jean Valjean.

“Sir,” resumed the child, “give me back my money.”


Jean Valjean dropped his head, and made no reply.

The child began again, “My money, sir.”


Jean Valjean’s eyes remained fixed on the earth.

“My piece of money!” cried the child, “my white piece! my silver!”


It seemed as though Jean Valjean did not hear him. The child grasped
him by the collar of his blouse and shook him. At the same time he made
an effort to displace the big iron-shod shoe which rested on his
treasure.

“I want my piece of money! my piece of forty sous!”


The child wept. Jean Valjean raised his head. He still remained seated.
His eyes were troubled. He gazed at the child, in a sort of amazement,
then he stretched out his hand towards his cudgel and cried in a
terrible voice, “Who’s there?”


“I, sir,” replied the child. “Little Gervais! I! Give me back my forty
sous, if you please! Take your foot away, sir, if you please!”


Then irritated, though he was so small, and becoming almost menacing:—

“Come now, will you take your foot away? Take your foot away, or we’ll
see!”


“Ah! It’s still you!” said Jean Valjean, and rising abruptly to his
feet, his foot still resting on the silver piece, he added:—

“Will you take yourself off!”


The frightened child looked at him, then began to tremble from head to
foot, and after a few moments of stupor he set out, running at the top
of his speed, without daring to turn his neck or to utter a cry.

Nevertheless, lack of breath forced him to halt after a certain
distance, and Jean Valjean heard him sobbing, in the midst of his own
reverie.

At the end of a few moments the child had disappeared.

The sun had set.

The shadows were descending around Jean Valjean. He had eaten nothing
all day; it is probable that he was feverish.

He had remained standing and had not changed his attitude after the
child’s flight. The breath heaved his chest at long and irregular
intervals. His gaze, fixed ten or twelve paces in front of him, seemed
to be scrutinizing with profound attention the shape of an ancient
fragment of blue earthenware which had fallen in the grass. All at once
he shivered; he had just begun to feel the chill of evening.

He settled his cap more firmly on his brow, sought mechanically to
cross and button his blouse, advanced a step and stopped to pick up his
cudgel.

At that moment he caught sight of the forty-sou piece, which his foot
had half ground into the earth, and which was shining among the
pebbles. It was as though he had received a galvanic shock. “What is
this?” he muttered between his teeth. He recoiled three paces, then
halted, without being able to detach his gaze from the spot which his
foot had trodden but an instant before, as though the thing which lay
glittering there in the gloom had been an open eye riveted upon him.

At the expiration of a few moments he darted convulsively towards the
silver coin, seized it, and straightened himself up again and began to
gaze afar off over the plain, at the same time casting his eyes towards
all points of the horizon, as he stood there erect and shivering, like
a terrified wild animal which is seeking refuge.

He saw nothing. Night was falling, the plain was cold and vague, great
banks of violet haze were rising in the gleam of the twilight.

He said, “Ah!” and set out rapidly in the direction in which the child
had disappeared. After about thirty paces he paused, looked about him
and saw nothing.

Then he shouted with all his might:—

“Little Gervais! Little Gervais!”


He paused and waited.

There was no reply.

The landscape was gloomy and deserted. He was encompassed by space.
There was nothing around him but an obscurity in which his gaze was
lost, and a silence which engulfed his voice.

An icy north wind was blowing, and imparted to things around him a sort
of lugubrious life. The bushes shook their thin little arms with
incredible fury. One would have said that they were threatening and
pursuing some one.

He set out on his march again, then he began to run; and from time to
time he halted and shouted into that solitude, with a voice which was
the most formidable and the most disconsolate that it was possible to
hear, “Little Gervais! Little Gervais!”


Assuredly, if the child had heard him, he would have been alarmed and
would have taken good care not to show himself. But the child was no
doubt already far away.

He encountered a priest on horseback. He stepped up to him and said:—

“Monsieur le Curé, have you seen a child pass?”


“No,” said the priest.

“One named Little Gervais?”


“I have seen no one.”


He drew two five-franc pieces from his money-bag and handed them to the
priest.

“Monsieur le Curé, this is for your poor people. Monsieur le Curé, he
was a little lad, about ten years old, with a marmot, I think, and a
hurdy-gurdy. One of those Savoyards, you know?”


“I have not seen him.”


“Little Gervais? There are no villages here? Can you tell me?”


“If he is like what you say, my friend, he is a little stranger. Such
persons pass through these parts. We know nothing of them.”


Jean Valjean seized two more coins of five francs each with violence,
and gave them to the priest.

“For your poor,” he said.

Then he added, wildly:—

“Monsieur l’Abbé, have me arrested. I am a thief.”


The priest put spurs to his horse and fled in haste, much alarmed.

Jean Valjean set out on a run, in the direction which he had first
taken.

In this way he traversed a tolerably long distance, gazing, calling,
shouting, but he met no one. Two or three times he ran across the plain
towards something which conveyed to him the effect of a human being
reclining or crouching down; it turned out to be nothing but brushwood
or rocks nearly on a level with the earth. At length, at a spot where
three paths intersected each other, he stopped. The moon had risen. He
sent his gaze into the distance and shouted for the last time, “Little
Gervais! Little Gervais! Little Gervais!” His shout died away in the
mist, without even awakening an echo. He murmured yet once more,
“Little Gervais!” but in a feeble and almost inarticulate voice. It was
his last effort; his legs gave way abruptly under him, as though an
invisible power had suddenly overwhelmed him with the weight of his
evil conscience; he fell exhausted, on a large stone, his fists
clenched in his hair and his face on his knees, and he cried, “I am a
wretch!”


Then his heart burst, and he began to cry. It was the first time that
he had wept in nineteen years.

When Jean Valjean left the Bishop’s house, he was, as we have seen,
quite thrown out of everything that had been his thought hitherto. He
could not yield to the evidence of what was going on within him. He
hardened himself against the angelic action and the gentle words of the
old man. “You have promised me to become an honest man. I buy your
soul. I take it away from the spirit of perversity; I give it to the
good God.”


This recurred to his mind unceasingly. To this celestial kindness he
opposed pride, which is the fortress of evil within us. He was
indistinctly conscious that the pardon of this priest was the greatest
assault and the most formidable attack which had moved him yet; that
his obduracy was finally settled if he resisted this clemency; that if
he yielded, he should be obliged to renounce that hatred with which the
actions of other men had filled his soul through so many years, and
which pleased him; that this time it was necessary to conquer or to be
conquered; and that a struggle, a colossal and final struggle, had been
begun between his viciousness and the goodness of that man.

In the presence of these lights, he proceeded like a man who is
intoxicated. As he walked thus with haggard eyes, did he have a
distinct perception of what might result to him from his adventure at
D——? Did he understand all those mysterious murmurs which warn or
importune the spirit at certain moments of life? Did a voice whisper in
his ear that he had just passed the solemn hour of his destiny; that
there no longer remained a middle course for him; that if he were not
henceforth the best of men, he would be the worst; that it behooved him
now, so to speak, to mount higher than the Bishop, or fall lower than
the convict; that if he wished to become good he must become an angel;
that if he wished to remain evil, he must become a monster?

Here, again, some questions must be put, which we have already put to
ourselves elsewhere: did he catch some shadow of all this in his
thought, in a confused way? Misfortune certainly, as we have said, does
form the education of the intelligence; nevertheless, it is doubtful
whether Jean Valjean was in a condition to disentangle all that we have
here indicated. If these ideas occurred to him, he but caught glimpses
of, rather than saw them, and they only succeeded in throwing him into
an unutterable and almost painful state of emotion. On emerging from
that black and deformed thing which is called the galleys, the Bishop
had hurt his soul, as too vivid a light would have hurt his eyes on
emerging from the dark. The future life, the possible life which
offered itself to him henceforth, all pure and radiant, filled him with
tremors and anxiety. He no longer knew where he really was. Like an
owl, who should suddenly see the sun rise, the convict had been dazzled
and blinded, as it were, by virtue.

That which was certain, that which he did not doubt, was that he was no
longer the same man, that everything about him was changed, that it was
no longer in his power to make it as though the Bishop had not spoken
to him and had not touched him.

In this state of mind he had encountered little Gervais, and had robbed
him of his forty sous. Why? He certainly could not have explained it;
was this the last effect and the supreme effort, as it were, of the
evil thoughts which he had brought away from the galleys,—a remnant of
impulse, a result of what is called in statics, _acquired force?_ It
was that, and it was also, perhaps, even less than that. Let us say it
simply, it was not he who stole; it was not the man; it was the beast,
who, by habit and instinct, had simply placed his foot upon that money,
while the intelligence was struggling amid so many novel and hitherto
unheard-of thoughts besetting it.

When intelligence reawakened and beheld that action of the brute, Jean
Valjean recoiled with anguish and uttered a cry of terror.

[Illustration: Awakened]

It was because,—strange phenomenon, and one which was possible only in
the situation in which he found himself,—in stealing the money from
that child, he had done a thing of which he was no longer capable.

However that may be, this last evil action had a decisive effect on
him; it abruptly traversed that chaos which he bore in his mind, and
dispersed it, placed on one side the thick obscurity, and on the other
the light, and acted on his soul, in the state in which it then was, as
certain chemical reagents act upon a troubled mixture by precipitating
one element and clarifying the other.

First of all, even before examining himself and reflecting, all
bewildered, like one who seeks to save himself, he tried to find the
child in order to return his money to him; then, when he recognized the
fact that this was impossible, he halted in despair. At the moment when
he exclaimed “I am a wretch!” he had just perceived what he was, and he
was already separated from himself to such a degree, that he seemed to
himself to be no longer anything more than a phantom, and as if he had,
there before him, in flesh and blood, the hideous galley-convict, Jean
Valjean, cudgel in hand, his blouse on his hips, his knapsack filled
with stolen objects on his back, with his resolute and gloomy visage,
with his thoughts filled with abominable projects.

Excess of unhappiness had, as we have remarked, made him in some sort a
visionary. This, then, was in the nature of a vision. He actually saw
that Jean Valjean, that sinister face, before him. He had almost
reached the point of asking himself who that man was, and he was
horrified by him.

His brain was going through one of those violent and yet perfectly calm
moments in which reverie is so profound that it absorbs reality. One no
longer beholds the object which one has before one, and one sees, as
though apart from one’s self, the figures which one has in one’s own
mind.

Thus he contemplated himself, so to speak, face to face, and at the
same time, athwart this hallucination, he perceived in a mysterious
depth a sort of light which he at first took for a torch. On
scrutinizing this light which appeared to his conscience with more
attention, he recognized the fact that it possessed a human form and
that this torch was the Bishop.

His conscience weighed in turn these two men thus placed before it,—the
Bishop and Jean Valjean. Nothing less than the first was required to
soften the second. By one of those singular effects, which are peculiar
to this sort of ecstasies, in proportion as his reverie continued, as
the Bishop grew great and resplendent in his eyes, so did Jean Valjean
grow less and vanish. After a certain time he was no longer anything
more than a shade. All at once he disappeared. The Bishop alone
remained; he filled the whole soul of this wretched man with a
magnificent radiance.

Jean Valjean wept for a long time. He wept burning tears, he sobbed
with more weakness than a woman, with more fright than a child.

As he wept, daylight penetrated more and more clearly into his soul; an
extraordinary light; a light at once ravishing and terrible. His past
life, his first fault, his long expiation, his external brutishness,
his internal hardness, his dismissal to liberty, rejoicing in manifold
plans of vengeance, what had happened to him at the Bishop’s, the last
thing that he had done, that theft of forty sous from a child, a crime
all the more cowardly, and all the more monstrous since it had come
after the Bishop’s pardon,—all this recurred to his mind and appeared
clearly to him, but with a clearness which he had never hitherto
witnessed. He examined his life, and it seemed horrible to him; his
soul, and it seemed frightful to him. In the meantime a gentle light
rested over this life and this soul. It seemed to him that he beheld
Satan by the light of Paradise.

How many hours did he weep thus? What did he do after he had wept?
Whither did he go! No one ever knew. The only thing which seems to be
authenticated is that that same night the carrier who served Grenoble
at that epoch, and who arrived at D—— about three o’clock in the
morning, saw, as he traversed the street in which the Bishop’s
residence was situated, a man in the attitude of prayer, kneeling on
the pavement in the shadow, in front of the door of Monseigneur
Welcome.




BOOK THIRD—IN THE YEAR 1817




CHAPTER I—THE YEAR 1817


1817 is the year which Louis XVIII., with a certain royal assurance
which was not wanting in pride, entitled the twenty-second of his
reign. It is the year in which M. Bruguière de Sorsum was celebrated.
All the hairdressers’ shops, hoping for powder and the return of the
royal bird, were besmeared with azure and decked with fleurs-de-lys. It
was the candid time at which Count Lynch sat every Sunday as
church-warden in the church-warden’s pew of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, in
his costume of a peer of France, with his red ribbon and his long nose
and the majesty of profile peculiar to a man who has performed a
brilliant action. The brilliant action performed by M. Lynch was this:
being mayor of Bordeaux, on the 12th of March, 1814, he had surrendered
the city a little too promptly to M. the Duke d’Angoulême. Hence his
peerage. In 1817 fashion swallowed up little boys of from four to six
years of age in vast caps of morocco leather with ear-tabs resembling
Esquimaux mitres. The French army was dressed in white, after the mode
of the Austrian; the regiments were called legions; instead of numbers
they bore the names of departments; Napoleon was at St. Helena; and
since England refused him green cloth, he was having his old coats
turned. In 1817 Pelligrini sang; Mademoiselle Bigottini danced; Potier
reigned; Odry did not yet exist. Madame Saqui had succeeded to Forioso.
There were still Prussians in France. M. Delalot was a personage.
Legitimacy had just asserted itself by cutting off the hand, then the
head, of Pleignier, of Carbonneau, and of Tolleron. The Prince de
Talleyrand, grand chamberlain, and the Abbé Louis, appointed minister
of finance, laughed as they looked at each other, with the laugh of the
two augurs; both of them had celebrated, on the 14th of July, 1790, the
mass of federation in the Champ de Mars; Talleyrand had said it as
bishop, Louis had served it in the capacity of deacon. In 1817, in the
side-alleys of this same Champ de Mars, two great cylinders of wood
might have been seen lying in the rain, rotting amid the grass, painted
blue, with traces of eagles and bees, from which the gilding was
falling. These were the columns which two years before had upheld the
Emperor’s platform in the Champ de Mai. They were blackened here and
there with the scorches of the bivouac of Austrians encamped near
Gros-Caillou. Two or three of these columns had disappeared in these
bivouac fires, and had warmed the large hands of the Imperial troops.
The Field of May had this remarkable point: that it had been held in
the month of June and in the Field of March (Mars). In this year, 1817,
two things were popular: the Voltaire-Touquet and the snuff-box _à la
Charter_. The most recent Parisian sensation was the crime of Dautun,
who had thrown his brother’s head into the fountain of the
Flower-Market.

They had begun to feel anxious at the Naval Department, on account of
the lack of news from that fatal frigate, _The Medusa_, which was
destined to cover Chaumareix with infamy and Géricault with glory.
Colonel Selves was going to Egypt to become Soliman-Pasha. The palace
of Thermes, in the Rue de La Harpe, served as a shop for a cooper. On
the platform of the octagonal tower of the Hotel de Cluny, the little
shed of boards, which had served as an observatory to Messier, the
naval astronomer under Louis XVI., was still to be seen. The Duchesse
de Duras read to three or four friends her unpublished _Ourika_, in her
boudoir furnished by X. in sky-blue satin. The N’s were scratched off
the Louvre. The bridge of Austerlitz had abdicated, and was entitled
the bridge of the King’s Garden [du Jardin du Roi], a double enigma,
which disguised the bridge of Austerlitz and the Jardin des Plantes at
one stroke. Louis XVIII., much preoccupied while annotating Horace with
the corner of his finger-nail, heroes who have become emperors, and
makers of wooden shoes who have become dauphins, had two
anxieties,—Napoleon and Mathurin Bruneau. The French Academy had given
for its prize subject, _The Happiness procured through Study_. M.
Bellart was officially eloquent. In his shadow could be seen
germinating that future advocate-general of Broë, dedicated to the
sarcasms of Paul-Louis Courier. There was a false Chateaubriand, named
Marchangy, in the interim, until there should be a false Marchangy,
named d’Arlincourt. _Claire d’Albe_ and _Malek-Adel_ were masterpieces;
Madame Cottin was proclaimed the chief writer of the epoch. The
Institute had the academician, Napoleon Bonaparte, stricken from its
list of members. A royal ordinance erected Angoulême into a naval
school; for the Duc d’Angoulême, being lord high admiral, it was
evident that the city of Angoulême had all the qualities of a seaport;
otherwise the monarchical principle would have received a wound. In the
Council of Ministers the question was agitated whether vignettes
representing slack-rope performances, which adorned Franconi’s
advertising posters, and which attracted throngs of street urchins,
should be tolerated. M. Paër, the author of _Agnese_, a good sort of
fellow, with a square face and a wart on his cheek, directed the little
private concerts of the Marquise de Sasenaye in the Rue Ville l’Évêque.
All the young girls were singing the _Hermit of Saint-Avelle_, with
words by Edmond Géraud. _The Yellow Dwarf_ was transferred into
_Mirror_. The Café Lemblin stood up for the Emperor, against the Café
Valois, which upheld the Bourbons. The Duc de Berri, already surveyed
from the shadow by Louvel, had just been married to a princess of
Sicily. Madame de Staël had died a year previously. The body-guard
hissed Mademoiselle Mars. The grand newspapers were all very small.
Their form was restricted, but their liberty was great. The
_Constitutionnel_ was constitutional. _La Minerve_ called Chateaubriand
_Chateaubriant_. That _t_ made the good middle-class people laugh
heartily at the expense of the great writer. In journals which sold
themselves, prostituted journalists, insulted the exiles of 1815. David
had no longer any talent, Arnault had no longer any wit, Carnot was no
longer honest, Soult had won no battles; it is true that Napoleon had
no longer any genius. No one is ignorant of the fact that letters sent
to an exile by post very rarely reached him, as the police made it
their religious duty to intercept them. This is no new fact; Descartes
complained of it in his exile. Now David, having, in a Belgian
publication, shown some displeasure at not receiving letters which had
been written to him, it struck the royalist journals as amusing; and
they derided the prescribed man well on this occasion. What separated
two men more than an abyss was to say, the _regicides_, or to say the
_voters_; to say the _enemies_, or to say the _allies_; to say
_Napoleon_, or to say _Buonaparte_. All sensible people were agreed
that the era of revolution had been closed forever by King Louis
XVIII., surnamed “The Immortal Author of the Charter.” On the platform
of the Pont-Neuf, the word _Redivivus_ was carved on the pedestal that
awaited the statue of Henry IV. M. Piet, in the Rue Thérèse, No. 4, was
making the rough draft of his privy assembly to consolidate the
monarchy. The leaders of the Right said at grave conjunctures, “We must
write to Bacot.” MM. Canuel, O’Mahoney, and De Chappedelaine were
preparing the sketch, to some extent with Monsieur’s approval, of what
was to become later on “The Conspiracy of the Bord de l’Eau”—of the
waterside. L’Épingle Noire was already plotting in his own quarter.
Delaverderie was conferring with Trogoff. M. Decazes, who was liberal
to a degree, reigned. Chateaubriand stood every morning at his window
at No. 27 Rue Saint-Dominique, clad in footed trousers, and slippers,
with a madras kerchief knotted over his gray hair, with his eyes fixed
on a mirror, a complete set of dentist’s instruments spread out before
him, cleaning his teeth, which were charming, while he dictated _The
Monarchy according to the Charter_ to M. Pilorge, his secretary.
Criticism, assuming an authoritative tone, preferred Lafon to Talma. M.
de Féletez signed himself A.; M. Hoffmann signed himself Z. Charles
Nodier wrote _Thérèse Aubert_. Divorce was abolished. Lyceums called
themselves colleges. The collegians, decorated on the collar with a
golden fleur-de-lys, fought each other _apropos_ of the King of Rome.
The counter-police of the château had denounced to her Royal Highness
Madame, the portrait, everywhere exhibited, of M. the Duc d’Orléans,
who made a better appearance in his uniform of a colonel-general of
hussars than M. the Duc de Berri, in his uniform of colonel-general of
dragoons—a serious inconvenience. The city of Paris was having the dome
of the Invalides regilded at its own expense. Serious men asked
themselves what M. de Trinquelague would do on such or such an
occasion; M. Clausel de Montals differed on divers points from M.
Clausel de Coussergues; M. de Salaberry was not satisfied. The comedian
Picard, who belonged to the Academy, which the comedian Molière had not
been able to do, had _The Two Philiberts_ played at the Odéon, upon
whose pediment the removal of the letters still allowed THEATRE OF THE
EMPRESS to be plainly read. People took part for or against Cugnet de
Montarlot. Fabvier was factious; Bavoux was revolutionary. The Liberal,
Pélicier, published an edition of Voltaire, with the following title:
_Works of Voltaire_, of the French Academy. “That will attract
purchasers,” said the ingenious editor. The general opinion was that M.
Charles Loyson would be the genius of the century; envy was beginning
to gnaw at him—a sign of glory; and this verse was composed on him:—

“Even when Loyson steals, one feels that he has paws.”


As Cardinal Fesch refused to resign, M. de Pins, Archbishop of Amasie,
administered the diocese of Lyons. The quarrel over the valley of
Dappes was begun between Switzerland and France by a memoir from
Captain, afterwards General Dufour. Saint-Simon, ignored, was erecting
his sublime dream. There was a celebrated Fourier at the Academy of
Science, whom posterity has forgotten; and in some garret an obscure
Fourier, whom the future will recall. Lord Byron was beginning to make
his mark; a note to a poem by Millevoye introduced him to France in
these terms: _a certain Lord Baron_. David d’Angers was trying to work
in marble. The Abbé Caron was speaking, in terms of praise, to a
private gathering of seminarists in the blind alley of Feuillantines,
of an unknown priest, named Félicité-Robert, who, at a latter date,
became Lamennais. A thing which smoked and clattered on the Seine with
the noise of a swimming dog went and came beneath the windows of the
Tuileries, from the Pont Royal to the Pont Louis XV.; it was a piece of
mechanism which was not good for much; a sort of plaything, the idle
dream of a dream-ridden inventor; an utopia—a steamboat. The Parisians
stared indifferently at this useless thing. M. de Vaublanc, the
reformer of the Institute by a coup d’état, the distinguished author of
numerous academicians, ordinances, and batches of members, after having
created them, could not succeed in becoming one himself. The Faubourg
Saint-Germain and the pavilion de Marsan wished to have M. Delaveau for
prefect of police, on account of his piety. Dupuytren and Récamier
entered into a quarrel in the amphitheatre of the School of Medicine,
and threatened each other with their fists on the subject of the
divinity of Jesus Christ. Cuvier, with one eye on Genesis and the other
on nature, tried to please bigoted reaction by reconciling fossils with
texts and by making mastodons flatter Moses.

M. François de Neufchâteau, the praiseworthy cultivator of the memory
of Parmentier, made a thousand efforts to have _pomme de terre_
[potato] pronounced _parmentière_, and succeeded therein not at all.
The Abbé Grégoire, ex-bishop, ex-conventionary, ex-senator, had passed,
in the royalist polemics, to the state of “Infamous Grégoire.” The
locution of which we have made use—_passed to the state of_—has been
condemned as a neologism by M. Royer Collard. Under the third arch of
the Pont de Jéna, the new stone with which, the two years previously,
the mining aperture made by Blücher to blow up the bridge had been
stopped up, was still recognizable on account of its whiteness. Justice
summoned to its bar a man who, on seeing the Comte d’Artois enter Notre
Dame, had said aloud: _“Sapristi! I regret the time when I saw
Bonaparte and Talma enter the Bel Sauvage, arm in arm.”_ A seditious
utterance. Six months in prison. Traitors showed themselves unbuttoned;
men who had gone over to the enemy on the eve of battle made no secret
of their recompense, and strutted immodestly in the light of day, in
the cynicism of riches and dignities; deserters from Ligny and
Quatre-Bras, in the brazenness of their well-paid turpitude, exhibited
their devotion to the monarchy in the most barefaced manner.

This is what floats up confusedly, pell-mell, for the year 1817, and is
now forgotten. History neglects nearly all these particulars, and
cannot do otherwise; the infinity would overwhelm it. Nevertheless,
these details, which are wrongly called trivial,—there are no trivial
facts in humanity, nor little leaves in vegetation,—are useful. It is
of the physiognomy of the years that the physiognomy of the centuries
is composed. In this year of 1817 four young Parisians arranged “a fine
farce.”





CHAPTER II—A DOUBLE QUARTETTE


These Parisians came, one from Toulouse, another from Limoges, the
third from Cahors, and the fourth from Montauban; but they were
students; and when one says student, one says Parisian: to study in
Paris is to be born in Paris.

These young men were insignificant; every one has seen such faces; four
specimens of humanity taken at random; neither good nor bad, neither
wise nor ignorant, neither geniuses nor fools; handsome, with that
charming April which is called twenty years. They were four Oscars;
for, at that epoch, Arthurs did not yet exist. _Burn for him the
perfumes of Araby!_ exclaimed romance. _Oscar advances. Oscar, I shall
behold him!_ People had just emerged from Ossian; elegance was
Scandinavian and Caledonian; the pure English style was only to prevail
later, and the first of the Arthurs, Wellington, had but just won the
battle of Waterloo.

These Oscars bore the names, one of Félix Tholomyès, of Toulouse; the
second, Listolier, of Cahors; the next, Fameuil, of Limoges; the last,
Blachevelle, of Montauban. Naturally, each of them had his mistress.
Blachevelle loved Favourite, so named because she had been in England;
Listolier adored Dahlia, who had taken for her nickname the name of a
flower; Fameuil idolized Zéphine, an abridgment of Joséphine; Tholomyès
had Fantine, called the Blonde, because of her beautiful, sunny hair.

Favourite, Dahlia, Zéphine, and Fantine were four ravishing young
women, perfumed and radiant, still a little like working-women, and not
yet entirely divorced from their needles; somewhat disturbed by
intrigues, but still retaining on their faces something of the serenity
of toil, and in their souls that flower of honesty which survives the
first fall in woman. One of the four was called the young, because she
was the youngest of them, and one was called the old; the old one was
twenty-three. Not to conceal anything, the three first were more
experienced, more heedless, and more emancipated into the tumult of
life than Fantine the Blonde, who was still in her first illusions.

Dahlia, Zéphine, and especially Favourite, could not have said as much.
There had already been more than one episode in their romance, though
hardly begun; and the lover who had borne the name of Adolph in the
first chapter had turned out to be Alphonse in the second, and Gustave
in the third. Poverty and coquetry are two fatal counsellors; one
scolds and the other flatters, and the beautiful daughters of the
people have both of them whispering in their ear, each on its own side.
These badly guarded souls listen. Hence the falls which they
accomplish, and the stones which are thrown at them. They are
overwhelmed with splendor of all that is immaculate and inaccessible.
Alas! what if the Jungfrau were hungry?

Favourite having been in England, was admired by Dahlia and Zéphine.
She had had an establishment of her own very early in life. Her father
was an old unmarried professor of mathematics, a brutal man and a
braggart, who went out to give lessons in spite of his age. This
professor, when he was a young man, had one day seen a chambermaid’s
gown catch on a fender; he had fallen in love in consequence of this
accident. The result had been Favourite. She met her father from time
to time, and he bowed to her. One morning an old woman with the air of
a devotee, had entered her apartments, and had said to her, “You do not
know me, Mamemoiselle?” “No.” “I am your mother.” Then the old woman
opened the sideboard, and ate and drank, had a mattress which she owned
brought in, and installed herself. This cross and pious old mother
never spoke to Favourite, remained hours without uttering a word,
breakfasted, dined, and supped for four, and went down to the porter’s
quarters for company, where she spoke ill of her daughter.

It was having rosy nails that were too pretty which had drawn Dahlia to
Listolier, to others perhaps, to idleness. How could she make such
nails work? She who wishes to remain virtuous must not have pity on her
hands. As for Zéphine, she had conquered Fameuil by her roguish and
caressing little way of saying “Yes, sir.”


The young men were comrades; the young girls were friends. Such loves
are always accompanied by such friendships.

Goodness and philosophy are two distinct things; the proof of this is
that, after making all due allowances for these little irregular
households, Favourite, Zéphine, and Dahlia were philosophical young
women, while Fantine was a good girl.

Good! some one will exclaim; and Tholomyès? Solomon would reply that
love forms a part of wisdom. We will confine ourselves to saying that
the love of Fantine was a first love, a sole love, a faithful love.

She alone, of all the four, was not called “thou” by a single one of
them.

Fantine was one of those beings who blossom, so to speak, from the
dregs of the people. Though she had emerged from the most unfathomable
depths of social shadow, she bore on her brow the sign of the anonymous
and the unknown. She was born at M. sur M. Of what parents? Who can
say? She had never known father or mother. She was called Fantine. Why
Fantine? She had never borne any other name. At the epoch of her birth
the Directory still existed. She had no family name; she had no family;
no baptismal name; the Church no longer existed. She bore the name
which pleased the first random passer-by, who had encountered her, when
a very small child, running bare-legged in the street. She received the
name as she received the water from the clouds upon her brow when it
rained. She was called little Fantine. No one knew more than that. This
human creature had entered life in just this way. At the age of ten,
Fantine quitted the town and went to service with some farmers in the
neighborhood. At fifteen she came to Paris “to seek her fortune.”
Fantine was beautiful, and remained pure as long as she could. She was
a lovely blonde, with fine teeth. She had gold and pearls for her
dowry; but her gold was on her head, and her pearls were in her mouth.

She worked for her living; then, still for the sake of her living,—for
the heart, also, has its hunger,—she loved.

She loved Tholomyès.

An amour for him; passion for her. The streets of the Latin quarter,
filled with throngs of students and grisettes, saw the beginning of
their dream. Fantine had long evaded Tholomyès in the mazes of the hill
of the Pantheon, where so many adventurers twine and untwine, but in
such a way as constantly to encounter him again. There is a way of
avoiding which resembles seeking. In short, the eclogue took place.

Blachevelle, Listolier, and Fameuil formed a sort of group of which
Tholomyès was the head. It was he who possessed the wit.

Tholomyès was the antique old student; he was rich; he had an income of
four thousand francs; four thousand francs! a splendid scandal on Mount
Sainte-Geneviève. Tholomyès was a fast man of thirty, and badly
preserved. He was wrinkled and toothless, and he had the beginning of a
bald spot, of which he himself said with sadness, _the skull at thirty,
the knee at forty_. His digestion was mediocre, and he had been
attacked by a watering in one eye. But in proportion as his youth
disappeared, gayety was kindled; he replaced his teeth with
buffooneries, his hair with mirth, his health with irony, his weeping
eye laughed incessantly. He was dilapidated but still in flower. His
youth, which was packing up for departure long before its time, beat a
retreat in good order, bursting with laughter, and no one saw anything
but fire. He had had a piece rejected at the Vaudeville. He made a few
verses now and then. In addition to this he doubted everything to the
last degree, which is a vast force in the eyes of the weak. Being thus
ironical and bald, he was the leader. _Iron_ is an English word. Is it
possible that irony is derived from it?

One day Tholomyès took the three others aside, with the gesture of an
oracle, and said to them:—

“Fantine, Dahlia, Zéphine, and Favourite have been teasing us for
nearly a year to give them a surprise. We have promised them solemnly
that we would. They are forever talking about it to us, to me in
particular, just as the old women in Naples cry to Saint Januarius,
‘_Faccia gialluta, fa o miracolo_, Yellow face, perform thy miracle,’
so our beauties say to me incessantly, ‘Tholomyès, when will you bring
forth your surprise?’ At the same time our parents keep writing to us.
Pressure on both sides. The moment has arrived, it seems to me; let us
discuss the question.”


Thereupon, Tholomyès lowered his voice and articulated something so
mirthful, that a vast and enthusiastic grin broke out upon the four
mouths simultaneously, and Blachevelle exclaimed, “That is an idea.”


A smoky tap-room presented itself; they entered, and the remainder of
their confidential colloquy was lost in shadow.

The result of these shades was a dazzling pleasure party which took
place on the following Sunday, the four young men inviting the four
young girls.




CHAPTER III—FOUR AND FOUR


It is hard nowadays to picture to one’s self what a pleasure-trip of
students and grisettes to the country was like, forty-five years ago.
The suburbs of Paris are no longer the same; the physiognomy of what
may be called circumparisian life has changed completely in the last
half-century; where there was the cuckoo, there is the railway car;
where there was a tender-boat, there is now the steamboat; people speak
of Fécamp nowadays as they spoke of Saint-Cloud in those days. The
Paris of 1862 is a city which has France for its outskirts.

The four couples conscientiously went through with all the country
follies possible at that time. The vacation was beginning, and it was a
warm, bright, summer day. On the preceding day, Favourite, the only one
who knew how to write, had written the following to Tholomyès in the
name of the four: “It is a good hour to emerge from happiness.” That is
why they rose at five o’clock in the morning. Then they went to
Saint-Cloud by the coach, looked at the dry cascade and exclaimed,
“This must be very beautiful when there is water!” They breakfasted at
the _Tête-Noir_, where Castaing had not yet been; they treated
themselves to a game of ring-throwing under the quincunx of trees of
the grand fountain; they ascended Diogenes’ lantern, they gambled for
macaroons at the roulette establishment of the Pont de Sèvres, picked
bouquets at Pateaux, bought reed-pipes at Neuilly, ate apple tarts
everywhere, and were perfectly happy.

The young girls rustled and chatted like warblers escaped from their
cage. It was a perfect delirium. From time to time they bestowed little
taps on the young men. Matutinal intoxication of life! adorable years!
the wings of the dragonfly quiver. Oh, whoever you may be, do you not
remember? Have you rambled through the brushwood, holding aside the
branches, on account of the charming head which is coming on behind
you? Have you slid, laughing, down a slope all wet with rain, with a
beloved woman holding your hand, and crying, “Ah, my new boots! what a
state they are in!”


Let us say at once that that merry obstacle, a shower, was lacking in
the case of this good-humored party, although Favourite had said as
they set out, with a magisterial and maternal tone, _“The slugs are
crawling in the paths,—a sign of rain, children.”_

All four were madly pretty. A good old classic poet, then famous, a
good fellow who had an Éléonore, M. le Chevalier de Labouisse, as he
strolled that day beneath the chestnut-trees of Saint-Cloud, saw them
pass about ten o’clock in the morning, and exclaimed, “There is one too
many of them,” as he thought of the Graces. Favourite, Blachevelle’s
friend, the one aged three and twenty, the old one, ran on in front
under the great green boughs, jumped the ditches, stalked distractedly
over bushes, and presided over this merry-making with the spirit of a
young female faun. Zéphine and Dahlia, whom chance had made beautiful
in such a way that they set each off when they were together, and
completed each other, never left each other, more from an instinct of
coquetry than from friendship, and clinging to each other, they assumed
English poses; the first _keepsakes_ had just made their appearance,
melancholy was dawning for women, as later on, Byronism dawned for men;
and the hair of the tender sex began to droop dolefully. Zéphine and
Dahlia had their hair dressed in rolls. Listolier and Fameuil, who were
engaged in discussing their professors, explained to Fantine the
difference that existed between M. Delvincourt and M. Blondeau.

Blachevelle seemed to have been created expressly to carry Favourite’s
single-bordered, imitation India shawl of Ternaux’s manufacture, on his
arm on Sundays.

Tholomyès followed, dominating the group. He was very gay, but one felt
the force of government in him; there was dictation in his joviality;
his principal ornament was a pair of trousers of elephant-leg pattern
of nankeen, with straps of braided copper wire; he carried a stout
rattan worth two hundred francs in his hand, and, as he treated himself
to everything, a strange thing called a cigar in his mouth. Nothing was
sacred to him; he smoked.

“That Tholomyès is astounding!” said the others, with veneration. “What
trousers! What energy!”


As for Fantine, she was a joy to behold. Her splendid teeth had
evidently received an office from God,—laughter. She preferred to carry
her little hat of sewed straw, with its long white strings, in her hand
rather than on her head. Her thick blond hair, which was inclined to
wave, and which easily uncoiled, and which it was necessary to fasten
up incessantly, seemed made for the flight of Galatea under the
willows. Her rosy lips babbled enchantingly. The corners of her mouth
voluptuously turned up, as in the antique masks of Erigone, had an air
of encouraging the audacious; but her long, shadowy lashes drooped
discreetly over the jollity of the lower part of the face as though to
call a halt. There was something indescribably harmonious and striking
about her entire dress. She wore a gown of mauve barège, little reddish
brown buskins, whose ribbons traced an X on her fine, white,
open-worked stockings, and that sort of muslin spencer, a Marseilles
invention, whose name, _canezou_, a corruption of the words _quinze
août_, pronounced after the fashion of the Canebière, signifies fine
weather, heat, and midday. The three others, less timid, as we have
already said, wore low-necked dresses without disguise, which in
summer, beneath flower-adorned hats, are very graceful and enticing;
but by the side of these audacious outfits, blond Fantine’s _canezou_,
with its transparencies, its indiscretion, and its reticence,
concealing and displaying at one and the same time, seemed an alluring
godsend of decency, and the famous Court of Love, presided over by the
Vicomtesse de Cette, with the sea-green eyes, would, perhaps, have
awarded the prize for coquetry to this _canezou_, in the contest for
the prize of modesty. The most ingenious is, at times, the wisest. This
does happen.

Brilliant of face, delicate of profile, with eyes of a deep blue, heavy
lids, feet arched and small, wrists and ankles admirably formed, a
white skin which, here and there allowed the azure branching of the
veins to be seen, joy, a cheek that was young and fresh, the robust
throat of the Juno of Ægina, a strong and supple nape of the neck,
shoulders modelled as though by Coustou, with a voluptuous dimple in
the middle, visible through the muslin; a gayety cooled by dreaminess;
sculptural and exquisite—such was Fantine; and beneath these feminine
adornments and these ribbons one could divine a statue, and in that
statue a soul.

Fantine was beautiful, without being too conscious of it. Those rare
dreamers, mysterious priests of the beautiful who silently confront
everything with perfection, would have caught a glimpse in this little
working-woman, through the transparency of her Parisian grace, of the
ancient sacred euphony. This daughter of the shadows was thoroughbred.
She was beautiful in the two ways—style and rhythm. Style is the form
of the ideal; rhythm is its movement.

We have said that Fantine was joy; she was also modesty.

To an observer who studied her attentively, that which breathed from
her athwart all the intoxication of her age, the season, and her love
affair, was an invincible expression of reserve and modesty. She
remained a little astonished. This chaste astonishment is the shade of
difference which separates Psyche from Venus. Fantine had the long,
white, fine fingers of the vestal virgin who stirs the ashes of the
sacred fire with a golden pin. Although she would have refused nothing
to Tholomyès, as we shall have more than ample opportunity to see, her
face in repose was supremely virginal; a sort of serious and almost
austere dignity suddenly overwhelmed her at certain times, and there
was nothing more singular and disturbing than to see gayety become so
suddenly extinct there, and meditation succeed to cheerfulness without
any transition state. This sudden and sometimes severely accentuated
gravity resembled the disdain of a goddess. Her brow, her nose, her
chin, presented that equilibrium of outline which is quite distinct
from equilibrium of proportion, and from which harmony of countenance
results; in the very characteristic interval which separates the base
of the nose from the upper lip, she had that imperceptible and charming
fold, a mysterious sign of chastity, which makes Barberousse fall in
love with a Diana found in the treasures of Iconia.

Love is a fault; so be it. Fantine was innocence floating high over
fault.




CHAPTER IV—THOLOMYÈS IS SO MERRY THAT HE SINGS A SPANISH DITTY


That day was composed of dawn, from one end to the other. All nature
seemed to be having a holiday, and to be laughing. The flower-beds of
Saint-Cloud perfumed the air; the breath of the Seine rustled the
leaves vaguely; the branches gesticulated in the wind, bees pillaged
the jasmines; a whole bohemia of butterflies swooped down upon the
yarrow, the clover, and the sterile oats; in the august park of the
King of France there was a pack of vagabonds, the birds.

The four merry couples, mingled with the sun, the fields, the flowers,
the trees, were resplendent.

And in this community of Paradise, talking, singing, running, dancing,
chasing butterflies, plucking convolvulus, wetting their pink,
open-work stockings in the tall grass, fresh, wild, without malice, all
received, to some extent, the kisses of all, with the exception of
Fantine, who was hedged about with that vague resistance of hers
composed of dreaminess and wildness, and who was in love. “You always
have a queer look about you,” said Favourite to her.

Such things are joys. These passages of happy couples are a profound
appeal to life and nature, and make a caress and light spring forth
from everything. There was once a fairy who created the fields and
forests expressly for those in love,—in that eternal hedge-school of
lovers, which is forever beginning anew, and which will last as long as
there are hedges and scholars. Hence the popularity of spring among
thinkers. The patrician and the knife-grinder, the duke and the peer,
the limb of the law, the courtiers and townspeople, as they used to say
in olden times, all are subjects of this fairy. They laugh and hunt,
and there is in the air the brilliance of an apotheosis—what a
transfiguration effected by love! Notaries’ clerks are gods. And the
little cries, the pursuits through the grass, the waists embraced on
the fly, those jargons which are melodies, those adorations which burst
forth in the manner of pronouncing a syllable, those cherries torn from
one mouth by another,—all this blazes forth and takes its place among
the celestial glories. Beautiful women waste themselves sweetly. They
think that this will never come to an end. Philosophers, poets,
painters, observe these ecstasies and know not what to make of it, so
greatly are they dazzled by it. The departure for Cythera! exclaims
Watteau; Lancret, the painter of plebeians, contemplates his bourgeois,
who have flitted away into the azure sky; Diderot stretches out his
arms to all these love idyls, and d’Urfé mingles druids with them.

After breakfast the four couples went to what was then called the
King’s Square to see a newly arrived plant from India, whose name
escapes our memory at this moment, and which, at that epoch, was
attracting all Paris to Saint-Cloud. It was an odd and charming shrub
with a long stem, whose numerous branches, bristling and leafless and
as fine as threads, were covered with a million tiny white rosettes;
this gave the shrub the air of a head of hair studded with flowers.
There was always an admiring crowd about it.

After viewing the shrub, Tholomyès exclaimed, “I offer you asses!” and
having agreed upon a price with the owner of the asses, they returned
by way of Vanvres and Issy. At Issy an incident occurred. The truly
national park, at that time owned by Bourguin the contractor, happened
to be wide open. They passed the gates, visited the manikin anchorite
in his grotto, tried the mysterious little effects of the famous
cabinet of mirrors, the wanton trap worthy of a satyr become a
millionaire or of Turcaret metamorphosed into a Priapus. They had
stoutly shaken the swing attached to the two chestnut-trees celebrated
by the Abbé de Bernis. As he swung these beauties, one after the other,
producing folds in the fluttering skirts which Greuze would have found
to his taste, amid peals of laughter, the Toulousan Tholomyès, who was
somewhat of a Spaniard, Toulouse being the cousin of Tolosa, sang, to a
melancholy chant, the old ballad _gallega_, probably inspired by some
lovely maid dashing in full flight upon a rope between two trees:—

“Soy de Badajoz,
Amor me llama,
Toda mi alma,
Es en mi ojos,
Porque enseñas,
A tuas piernas.

“Badajoz is my home,
And Love is my name;
To my eyes in flame,
All my soul doth come;
For instruction meet
I receive at thy feet”


Fantine alone refused to swing.

“I don’t like to have people put on airs like that,” muttered
Favourite, with a good deal of acrimony.

After leaving the asses there was a fresh delight; they crossed the
Seine in a boat, and proceeding from Passy on foot they reached the
barrier of l’Étoile. They had been up since five o’clock that morning,
as the reader will remember; but _bah! there is no such thing as
fatigue on Sunday_, said Favourite; _on Sunday fatigue does not work_.

About three o’clock the four couples, frightened at their happiness,
were sliding down the Russian mountains, a singular edifice which then
occupied the heights of Beaujon, and whose undulating line was visible
above the trees of the Champs-Élysées.

From time to time Favourite exclaimed:—

“And the surprise? I claim the surprise.”


“Patience,” replied Tholomyès.




CHAPTER V—AT BOMBARDA’S


The Russian mountains having been exhausted, they began to think about
dinner; and the radiant party of eight, somewhat weary at last, became
stranded in Bombarda’s public house, a branch establishment which had
been set up in the Champs-Élysées by that famous restaurant-keeper,
Bombarda, whose sign could then be seen in the Rue de Rivoli, near
Delorme Alley.

A large but ugly room, with an alcove and a bed at the end (they had
been obliged to put up with this accommodation in view of the Sunday
crowd); two windows whence they could survey beyond the elms, the quay
and the river; a magnificent August sunlight lightly touching the
panes; two tables; upon one of them a triumphant mountain of bouquets,
mingled with the hats of men and women; at the other the four couples
seated round a merry confusion of platters, dishes, glasses, and
bottles; jugs of beer mingled with flasks of wine; very little order on
the table, some disorder beneath it;

“They made beneath the table
A noise, a clatter of the feet that was abominable,”


says Molière.

This was the state which the shepherd idyl, begun at five o’clock in
the morning, had reached at half-past four in the afternoon. The sun
was setting; their appetites were satisfied.

The Champs-Élysées, filled with sunshine and with people, were nothing
but light and dust, the two things of which glory is composed. The
horses of Marly, those neighing marbles, were prancing in a cloud of
gold. Carriages were going and coming. A squadron of magnificent
body-guards, with their clarions at their head, were descending the
Avenue de Neuilly; the white flag, showing faintly rosy in the setting
sun, floated over the dome of the Tuileries. The Place de la Concorde,
which had become the Place Louis XV. once more, was choked with happy
promenaders. Many wore the silver fleur-de-lys suspended from the
white-watered ribbon, which had not yet wholly disappeared from
button-holes in the year 1817. Here and there choruses of little girls
threw to the winds, amid the passers-by, who formed into circles and
applauded, the then celebrated Bourbon air, which was destined to
strike the Hundred Days with lightning, and which had for its refrain:—

“Rendez-nous notre père de Gand,
Rendez-nous notre père.”

“Give us back our father from Ghent,
Give us back our father.”


Groups of dwellers in the suburbs, in Sunday array, sometimes even
decorated with the fleur-de-lys, like the bourgeois, scattered over the
large square and the Marigny square, were playing at rings and
revolving on the wooden horses; others were engaged in drinking; some
journeyman printers had on paper caps; their laughter was audible.
Everything was radiant. It was a time of undisputed peace and profound
royalist security; it was the epoch when a special and private report
of Chief of Police Anglès to the King, on the subject of the suburbs of
Paris, terminated with these lines:—

“Taking all things into consideration, Sire, there is nothing to be
feared from these people. They are as heedless and as indolent as cats.
The populace is restless in the provinces; it is not in Paris. These
are very pretty men, Sire. It would take all of two of them to make one
of your grenadiers. There is nothing to be feared on the part of the
populace of Paris the capital. It is remarkable that the stature of
this population should have diminished in the last fifty years; and the
populace of the suburbs is still more puny than at the time of the
Revolution. It is not dangerous. In short, it is an amiable rabble.”


Prefects of the police do not deem it possible that a cat can transform
itself into a lion; that does happen, however, and in that lies the
miracle wrought by the populace of Paris. Moreover, the cat so despised
by Count Anglès possessed the esteem of the republics of old. In their
eyes it was liberty incarnate; and as though to serve as pendant to the
Minerva Aptera of the Piræus, there stood on the public square in
Corinth the colossal bronze figure of a cat. The ingenuous police of
the Restoration beheld the populace of Paris in too “rose-colored” a
light; it is not so much of “an amiable rabble” as it is thought. The
Parisian is to the Frenchman what the Athenian was to the Greek: no one
sleeps more soundly than he, no one is more frankly frivolous and lazy
than he, no one can better assume the air of forgetfulness; let him not
be trusted nevertheless; he is ready for any sort of cool deed; but
when there is glory at the end of it, he is worthy of admiration in
every sort of fury. Give him a pike, he will produce the 10th of
August; give him a gun, you will have Austerlitz. He is Napoleon’s stay
and Danton’s resource. Is it a question of country, he enlists; is it a
question of liberty, he tears up the pavements. Beware! his hair filled
with wrath, is epic; his blouse drapes itself like the folds of a
chlamys. Take care! he will make of the first Rue Grenétat which comes
to hand Caudine Forks. When the hour strikes, this man of the faubourgs
will grow in stature; this little man will arise, and his gaze will be
terrible, and his breath will become a tempest, and there will issue
forth from that slender chest enough wind to disarrange the folds of
the Alps. It is, thanks to the suburban man of Paris, that the
Revolution, mixed with arms, conquers Europe. He sings; it is his
delight. Proportion his song to his nature, and you will see! As long
as he has for refrain nothing but _la Carmagnole_, he only overthrows
Louis XVI.; make him sing the _Marseillaise_, and he will free the
world.

This note jotted down on the margin of Anglès’ report, we will return
to our four couples. The dinner, as we have said, was drawing to its
close.




CHAPTER VI—A CHAPTER IN WHICH THEY ADORE EACH OTHER


Chat at table, the chat of love; it is as impossible to reproduce one
as the other; the chat of love is a cloud; the chat at table is smoke.

Fameuil and Dahlia were humming. Tholomyès was drinking. Zéphine was
laughing, Fantine smiling, Listolier blowing a wooden trumpet which he
had purchased at Saint-Cloud.

Favourite gazed tenderly at Blachevelle and said:—

“Blachevelle, I adore you.”


This called forth a question from Blachevelle:—

“What would you do, Favourite, if I were to cease to love you?”


“I!” cried Favourite. “Ah! Do not say that even in jest! If you were to
cease to love me, I would spring after you, I would scratch you, I
should rend you, I would throw you into the water, I would have you
arrested.”


Blachevelle smiled with the voluptuous self-conceit of a man who is
tickled in his self-love. Favourite resumed:—

“Yes, I would scream to the police! Ah! I should not restrain myself,
not at all! Rabble!”


Blachevelle threw himself back in his chair, in an ecstasy, and closed
both eyes proudly.

Dahlia, as she ate, said in a low voice to Favourite, amid the uproar:—

“So you really idolize him deeply, that Blachevelle of yours?”


“I? I detest him,” replied Favourite in the same tone, seizing her fork
again. “He is avaricious. I love the little fellow opposite me in my
house. He is very nice, that young man; do you know him? One can see
that he is an actor by profession. I love actors. As soon as he comes
in, his mother says to him: ‘Ah! mon Dieu! my peace of mind is gone.
There he goes with his shouting. But, my dear, you are splitting my
head!’ So he goes up to rat-ridden garrets, to black holes, as high as
he can mount, and there he sets to singing, declaiming, how do I know
what? so that he can be heard downstairs! He earns twenty sous a day at
an attorney’s by penning quibbles. He is the son of a former precentor
of Saint-Jacques-du-Haut-Pas. Ah! he is very nice. He idolizes me so,
that one day when he saw me making batter for some pancakes, he said to
me: _‘Mamselle, make your gloves into fritters, and I will eat them.’_
It is only artists who can say such things as that. Ah! he is very
nice. I am in a fair way to go out of my head over that little fellow.
Never mind; I tell Blachevelle that I adore him—how I lie! Hey! How I
do lie!”


Favourite paused, and then went on:—

“I am sad, you see, Dahlia. It has done nothing but rain all summer;
the wind irritates me; the wind does not abate. Blachevelle is very
stingy; there are hardly any green peas in the market; one does not
know what to eat. I have the spleen, as the English say, butter is so
dear! and then you see it is horrible, here we are dining in a room
with a bed in it, and that disgusts me with life.”





CHAPTER VII—THE WISDOM OF THOLOMYÈS


In the meantime, while some sang, the rest talked together tumultuously
all at once; it was no longer anything but noise. Tholomyès intervened.

“Let us not talk at random nor too fast,” he exclaimed. “Let us
reflect, if we wish to be brilliant. Too much improvisation empties the
mind in a stupid way. Running beer gathers no froth. No haste,
gentlemen. Let us mingle majesty with the feast. Let us eat with
meditation; let us make haste slowly. Let us not hurry. Consider the
springtime; if it makes haste, it is done for; that is to say, it gets
frozen. Excess of zeal ruins peach-trees and apricot-trees. Excess of
zeal kills the grace and the mirth of good dinners. No zeal, gentlemen!
Grimod de la Reynière agrees with Talleyrand.”


A hollow sound of rebellion rumbled through the group.

“Leave us in peace, Tholomyès,” said Blachevelle.

“Down with the tyrant!” said Fameuil.

“Bombarda, Bombance, and Bambochel!” cried Listolier.

“Sunday exists,” resumed Fameuil.

“We are sober,” added Listolier.

“Tholomyès,” remarked Blachevelle, “contemplate my calmness [_mon
calme_].”


“You are the Marquis of that,” retorted Tholomyès.

This mediocre play upon words produced the effect of a stone in a pool.
The Marquis de Montcalm was at that time a celebrated royalist. All the
frogs held their peace.

“Friends,” cried Tholomyès, with the accent of a man who had recovered
his empire, “Come to yourselves. This pun which has fallen from the
skies must not be received with too much stupor. Everything which falls
in that way is not necessarily worthy of enthusiasm and respect. The
pun is the dung of the mind which soars. The jest falls, no matter
where; and the mind after producing a piece of stupidity plunges into
the azure depths. A whitish speck flattened against the rock does not
prevent the condor from soaring aloft. Far be it from me to insult the
pun! I honor it in proportion to its merits; nothing more. All the most
august, the most sublime, the most charming of humanity, and perhaps
outside of humanity, have made puns. Jesus Christ made a pun on St.
Peter, Moses on Isaac, Æschylus on Polynices, Cleopatra on Octavius.
And observe that Cleopatra’s pun preceded the battle of Actium, and
that had it not been for it, no one would have remembered the city of
Toryne, a Greek name which signifies a ladle. That once conceded, I
return to my exhortation. I repeat, brothers, I repeat, no zeal, no
hubbub, no excess; even in witticisms, gayety, jollities, or plays on
words. Listen to me. I have the prudence of Amphiaraüs and the baldness
of Cæsar. There must be a limit, even to rebuses. _Est modus in rebus_.

“There must be a limit, even to dinners. You are fond of apple
turnovers, ladies; do not indulge in them to excess. Even in the matter
of turnovers, good sense and art are requisite. Gluttony chastises the
glutton, _Gula punit Gulax_. Indigestion is charged by the good God
with preaching morality to stomachs. And remember this: each one of our
passions, even love, has a stomach which must not be filled too full.
In all things the word _finis_ must be written in good season;
self-control must be exercised when the matter becomes urgent; the bolt
must be drawn on appetite; one must set one’s own fantasy to the
violin, and carry one’s self to the post. The sage is the man who knows
how, at a given moment, to effect his own arrest. Have some confidence
in me, for I have succeeded to some extent in my study of the law,
according to the verdict of my examinations, for I know the difference
between the question put and the question pending, for I have sustained
a thesis in Latin upon the manner in which torture was administered at
Rome at the epoch when Munatius Demens was quæstor of the Parricide;
because I am going to be a doctor, apparently it does not follow that
it is absolutely necessary that I should be an imbecile. I recommend
you to moderation in your desires. It is true that my name is Félix
Tholomyès; I speak well. Happy is he who, when the hour strikes, takes
a heroic resolve, and abdicates like Sylla or Origenes.”


Favourite listened with profound attention.

“Félix,” said she, “what a pretty word! I love that name. It is Latin;
it means prosper.”


Tholomyès went on:—

“Quirites, gentlemen, caballeros, my friends. Do you wish never to feel
the prick, to do without the nuptial bed, and to brave love? Nothing
more simple. Here is the receipt: lemonade, excessive exercise, hard
labor; work yourself to death, drag blocks, sleep not, hold vigil,
gorge yourself with nitrous beverages, and potions of nymphæas; drink
emulsions of poppies and agnus castus; season this with a strict diet,
starve yourself, and add thereto cold baths, girdles of herbs, the
application of a plate of lead, lotions made with the subacetate of
lead, and fomentations of oxycrat.”


“I prefer a woman,” said Listolier.

“Woman,” resumed Tholomyès; “distrust her. Woe to him who yields
himself to the unstable heart of woman! Woman is perfidious and
disingenuous. She detests the serpent from professional jealousy. The
serpent is the shop over the way.”


“Tholomyès!” cried Blachevelle, “you are drunk!”


“Pardieu,” said Tholomyès.

“Then be gay,” resumed Blachevelle.

“I agree to that,” responded Tholomyès.

And, refilling his glass, he rose.

“Glory to wine! _Nunc te, Bacche, canam!_ Pardon me ladies; that is
Spanish. And the proof of it, señoras, is this: like people, like cask.
The arrobe of Castille contains sixteen litres; the cantaro of
Alicante, twelve; the almude of the Canaries, twenty-five; the cuartin
of the Balearic Isles, twenty-six; the boot of Tzar Peter, thirty. Long
live that Tzar who was great, and long live his boot, which was still
greater! Ladies, take the advice of a friend; make a mistake in your
neighbor if you see fit. The property of love is to err. A love affair
is not made to crouch down and brutalize itself like an English
serving-maid who has callouses on her knees from scrubbing. It is not
made for that; it errs gayly, our gentle love. It has been said, error
is human; I say, error is love. Ladies, I idolize you all. O Zéphine, O
Joséphine, face more than irregular, you would be charming were you not
all askew. You have the air of a pretty face upon which some one has
sat down by mistake. As for Favourite, O nymphs and muses! one day when
Blachevelle was crossing the gutter in the Rue Guérin-Boisseau, he
espied a beautiful girl with white stockings well drawn up, which
displayed her legs. This prologue pleased him, and Blachevelle fell in
love. The one he loved was Favourite. O Favourite, thou hast Ionian
lips. There was a Greek painter named Euphorion, who was surnamed the
painter of the lips. That Greek alone would have been worthy to paint
thy mouth. Listen! before thee, there was never a creature worthy of
the name. Thou wert made to receive the apple like Venus, or to eat it
like Eve; beauty begins with thee. I have just referred to Eve; it is
thou who hast created her. Thou deservest the letters-patent of the
beautiful woman. O Favourite, I cease to address you as ‘thou,’ because
I pass from poetry to prose. You were speaking of my name a little
while ago. That touched me; but let us, whoever we may be, distrust
names. They may delude us. I am called Félix, and I am not happy. Words
are liars. Let us not blindly accept the indications which they afford
us. It would be a mistake to write to Liège 2 for corks, and to Pau for
gloves. Miss Dahlia, were I in your place, I would call myself Rosa. A
flower should smell sweet, and woman should have wit. I say nothing of
Fantine; she is a dreamer, a musing, thoughtful, pensive person; she is
a phantom possessed of the form of a nymph and the modesty of a nun,
who has strayed into the life of a grisette, but who takes refuge in
illusions, and who sings and prays and gazes into the azure without
very well knowing what she sees or what she is doing, and who, with her
eyes fixed on heaven, wanders in a garden where there are more birds
than are in existence. O Fantine, know this: I, Tholomyès, I am an
illusion; but she does not even hear me, that blond maid of Chimeras!
as for the rest, everything about her is freshness, suavity, youth,
sweet morning light. O Fantine, maid worthy of being called Marguerite
or Pearl, you are a woman from the beauteous Orient. Ladies, a second
piece of advice: do not marry; marriage is a graft; it takes well or
ill; avoid that risk. But bah! what am I saying? I am wasting my words.
Girls are incurable on the subject of marriage, and all that we wise
men can say will not prevent the waistcoat-makers and the
shoe-stitchers from dreaming of husbands studded with diamonds. Well,
so be it; but, my beauties, remember this, you eat too much sugar. You
have but one fault, O woman, and that is nibbling sugar. O nibbling
sex, your pretty little white teeth adore sugar. Now, heed me well,
sugar is a salt. All salts are withering. Sugar is the most desiccating
of all salts; it sucks the liquids of the blood through the veins;
hence the coagulation, and then the solidification of the blood; hence
tubercles in the lungs, hence death. That is why diabetes borders on
consumption. Then, do not crunch sugar, and you will live. I turn to
the men: gentlemen, make conquest, rob each other of your well-beloved
without remorse. Chassez across. In love there are no friends.
Everywhere where there is a pretty woman hostility is open. No quarter,
war to the death! a pretty woman is a _casus belli_; a pretty woman is
flagrant misdemeanor. All the invasions of history have been determined
by petticoats. Woman is man’s right. Romulus carried off the Sabines;
William carried off the Saxon women; Cæsar carried off the Roman women.
The man who is not loved soars like a vulture over the mistresses of
other men; and for my own part, to all those unfortunate men who are
widowers, I throw the sublime proclamation of Bonaparte to the army of
Italy: “Soldiers, you are in need of everything; the enemy has it.”


Tholomyès paused.

“Take breath, Tholomyès,” said Blachevelle.

At the same moment Blachevelle, supported by Listolier and Fameuil,
struck up to a plaintive air, one of those studio songs composed of the
first words which come to hand, rhymed richly and not at all, as
destitute of sense as the gesture of the tree and the sound of the
wind, which have their birth in the vapor of pipes, and are dissipated
and take their flight with them. This is the couplet by which the group
replied to Tholomyès’ harangue:—

“The father turkey-cocks so grave
Some money to an agent gave,
That master good Clermont-Tonnerre
Might be made pope on Saint Johns’ day fair.
But this good Clermont could not be
Made pope, because no priest was he;
And then their agent, whose wrath burned,
With all their money back returned.”


This was not calculated to calm Tholomyès’ improvisation; he emptied
his glass, filled, refilled it, and began again:—

“Down with wisdom! Forget all that I have said. Let us be neither
prudes nor prudent men nor prudhommes. I propose a toast to mirth; be
merry. Let us complete our course of law by folly and eating!
Indigestion and the digest. Let Justinian be the male, and Feasting,
the female! Joy in the depths! Live, O creation! The world is a great
diamond. I am happy. The birds are astonishing. What a festival
everywhere! The nightingale is a gratuitous Elleviou. Summer, I salute
thee! O Luxembourg! O Georgics of the Rue Madame, and of the Allée de
l’Observatoire! O pensive infantry soldiers! O all those charming
nurses who, while they guard the children, amuse themselves! The pampas
of America would please me if I had not the arcades of the Odéon. My
soul flits away into the virgin forests and to the savannas. All is
beautiful. The flies buzz in the sun. The sun has sneezed out the
humming bird. Embrace me, Fantine!”


He made a mistake and embraced Favourite.




CHAPTER VIII—THE DEATH OF A HORSE


“The dinners are better at Édon’s than at Bombarda’s,” exclaimed
Zéphine.

“I prefer Bombarda to Édon,” declared Blachevelle. “There is more
luxury. It is more Asiatic. Look at the room downstairs; there are
mirrors [_glaces_] on the walls.”


“I prefer them [_glaces_, ices] on my plate,” said Favourite.

Blachevelle persisted:—

“Look at the knives. The handles are of silver at Bombarda’s and of
bone at Édon’s. Now, silver is more valuable than bone.”


“Except for those who have a silver chin,” observed Tholomyès.

He was looking at the dome of the Invalides, which was visible from
Bombarda’s windows.

A pause ensued.

“Tholomyès,” exclaimed Fameuil, “Listolier and I were having a
discussion just now.”


“A discussion is a good thing,” replied Tholomyès; “a quarrel is
better.”


“We were disputing about philosophy.”


“Well?”


“Which do you prefer, Descartes or Spinoza?”


“Désaugiers,” said Tholomyès.

This decree pronounced, he took a drink, and went on:—

“I consent to live. All is not at an end on earth since we can still
talk nonsense. For that I return thanks to the immortal gods. We lie.
One lies, but one laughs. One affirms, but one doubts. The unexpected
bursts forth from the syllogism. That is fine. There are still human
beings here below who know how to open and close the surprise box of
the paradox merrily. This, ladies, which you are drinking with so
tranquil an air is Madeira wine, you must know, from the vineyard of
Coural das Freiras, which is three hundred and seventeen fathoms above
the level of the sea. Attention while you drink! three hundred and
seventeen fathoms! and Monsieur Bombarda, the magnificent eating-house
keeper, gives you those three hundred and seventeen fathoms for four
francs and fifty centimes.”


Again Fameuil interrupted him:—

“Tholomyès, your opinions fix the law. Who is your favorite author?”


“Ber—”


“Quin?”


“No; Choux.”


And Tholomyès continued:—

“Honor to Bombarda! He would equal Munophis of Elephanta if he could
but get me an Indian dancing-girl, and Thygelion of Chæronea if he
could bring me a Greek courtesan; for, oh, ladies! there were Bombardas
in Greece and in Egypt. Apuleius tells us of them. Alas! always the
same, and nothing new; nothing more unpublished by the creator in
creation! _Nil sub sole novum_, says Solomon; _amor omnibus idem_, says
Virgil; and Carabine mounts with Carabin into the bark at Saint-Cloud,
as Aspasia embarked with Pericles upon the fleet at Samos. One last
word. Do you know what Aspasia was, ladies? Although she lived at an
epoch when women had, as yet, no soul, she was a soul; a soul of a rosy
and purple hue, more ardent hued than fire, fresher than the dawn.
Aspasia was a creature in whom two extremes of womanhood met; she was
the goddess prostitute; Socrates plus Manon Lescaut. Aspasia was
created in case a mistress should be needed for Prometheus.”


Tholomyès, once started, would have found some difficulty in stopping,
had not a horse fallen down upon the quay just at that moment. The
shock caused the cart and the orator to come to a dead halt. It was a
Beauceron mare, old and thin, and one fit for the knacker, which was
dragging a very heavy cart. On arriving in front of Bombarda’s, the
worn-out, exhausted beast had refused to proceed any further. This
incident attracted a crowd. Hardly had the cursing and indignant carter
had time to utter with proper energy the sacramental word, _Mâtin_ (the
jade), backed up with a pitiless cut of the whip, when the jade fell,
never to rise again. On hearing the hubbub made by the passers-by,
Tholomyès’ merry auditors turned their heads, and Tholomyès took
advantage of the opportunity to bring his allocution to a close with
this melancholy strophe:—

“Elle était de ce monde ou coucous et carrosses
Ont le même destin;
Et, rosse, elle a vécu ce que vivant les rosses,
L’espace d’un mâtin!” 3

“Poor horse!” sighed Fantine.

And Dahlia exclaimed:—

“There is Fantine on the point of crying over horses. How can one be
such a pitiful fool as that!”


At that moment Favourite, folding her arms and throwing her head back,
looked resolutely at Tholomyès and said:—

“Come, now! the surprise?”


“Exactly. The moment has arrived,” replied Tholomyès. “Gentlemen, the
hour for giving these ladies a surprise has struck. Wait for us a
moment, ladies.”


“It begins with a kiss,” said Blachevelle.

“On the brow,” added Tholomyès.

Each gravely bestowed a kiss on his mistress’s brow; then all four
filed out through the door, with their fingers on their lips.

Favourite clapped her hands on their departure.

“It is beginning to be amusing already,” said she.

“Don’t be too long,” murmured Fantine; “we are waiting for you.”





CHAPTER IX—A MERRY END TO MIRTH


When the young girls were left alone, they leaned two by two on the
window-sills, chatting, craning out their heads, and talking from one
window to the other.

They saw the young men emerge from the Café Bombarda arm in arm. The
latter turned round, made signs to them, smiled, and disappeared in
that dusty Sunday throng which makes a weekly invasion into the
Champs-Élysées.

“Don’t be long!” cried Fantine.

“What are they going to bring us?” said Zéphine.

“It will certainly be something pretty,” said Dahlia.

“For my part,” said Favourite, “I want it to be of gold.”


Their attention was soon distracted by the movements on the shore of
the lake, which they could see through the branches of the large trees,
and which diverted them greatly.

It was the hour for the departure of the mail-coaches and diligences.
Nearly all the stage-coaches for the south and west passed through the
Champs-Élysées. The majority followed the quay and went through the
Passy Barrier. From moment to moment, some huge vehicle, painted yellow
and black, heavily loaded, noisily harnessed, rendered shapeless by
trunks, tarpaulins, and valises, full of heads which immediately
disappeared, rushed through the crowd with all the sparks of a forge,
with dust for smoke, and an air of fury, grinding the pavements,
changing all the paving-stones into steels. This uproar delighted the
young girls. Favourite exclaimed:—

“What a row! One would say that it was a pile of chains flying away.”


It chanced that one of these vehicles, which they could only see with
difficulty through the thick elms, halted for a moment, then set out
again at a gallop. This surprised Fantine.

“That’s odd!” said she. “I thought the diligence never stopped.”


Favourite shrugged her shoulders.

“This Fantine is surprising. I am coming to take a look at her out of
curiosity. She is dazzled by the simplest things. Suppose a case: I am
a traveller; I say to the diligence, ‘I will go on in advance; you
shall pick me up on the quay as you pass.’ The diligence passes, sees
me, halts, and takes me. That is done every day. You do not know life,
my dear.”


In this manner a certain time elapsed. All at once Favourite made a
movement, like a person who is just waking up.

“Well,” said she, “and the surprise?”


“Yes, by the way,” joined in Dahlia, “the famous surprise?”


“They are a very long time about it!” said Fantine.

As Fantine concluded this sigh, the waiter who had served them at
dinner entered. He held in his hand something which resembled a letter.

“What is that?” demanded Favourite.

The waiter replied:—

“It is a paper that those gentlemen left for these ladies.”


“Why did you not bring it at once?”


“Because,” said the waiter, “the gentlemen ordered me not to deliver it
to the ladies for an hour.”


Favourite snatched the paper from the waiter’s hand. It was, in fact, a
letter.

“Stop!” said she; “there is no address; but this is what is written on
it—”


“THIS IS THE SURPRISE.”


She tore the letter open hastily, opened it, and read [she knew how to
read]:—

“OUR BELOVED:—

“You must know that we have parents. Parents—you do not know much about
such things. They are called fathers and mothers by the civil code,
which is puerile and honest. Now, these parents groan, these old folks
implore us, these good men and these good women call us prodigal sons;
they desire our return, and offer to kill calves for us. Being
virtuous, we obey them. At the hour when you read this, five fiery
horses will be bearing us to our papas and mammas. We are pulling up
our stakes, as Bossuet says. We are going; we are gone. We flee in the
arms of Laffitte and on the wings of Caillard. The Toulouse diligence
tears us from the abyss, and the abyss is you, O our little beauties!
We return to society, to duty, to respectability, at full trot, at the
rate of three leagues an hour. It is necessary for the good of the
country that we should be, like the rest of the world, prefects,
fathers of families, rural police, and councillors of state. Venerate
us. We are sacrificing ourselves. Mourn for us in haste, and replace us
with speed. If this letter lacerates you, do the same by it. Adieu.

“For the space of nearly two years we have made you happy. We bear you
no grudge for that.                                 “Signed:
BLACHEVELLE.
FAMUEIL.
LISTOLIER.
FÉLIX THOLOMYÈS.


“_Postscriptum_. The dinner is paid for.”


The four young women looked at each other.

Favourite was the first to break the silence.

“Well!” she exclaimed, “it’s a very pretty farce, all the same.”


“It is very droll,” said Zéphine.

“That must have been Blachevelle’s idea,” resumed Favourite. “It makes
me in love with him. No sooner is he gone than he is loved. This is an
adventure, indeed.”


“No,” said Dahlia; “it was one of Tholomyès’ ideas. That is evident.

“In that case,” retorted Favourite, “death to Blachevelle, and long
live Tholomyès!”


“Long live Tholomyès!” exclaimed Dahlia and Zéphine.

And they burst out laughing.

Fantine laughed with the rest.

An hour later, when she had returned to her room, she wept. It was her
first love affair, as we have said; she had given herself to this
Tholomyès as to a husband, and the poor girl had a child.




BOOK FOURTH—TO CONFIDE IS SOMETIMES TO DELIVER INTO A PERSON’S POWER




CHAPTER I—ONE MOTHER MEETS ANOTHER MOTHER


There was, at Montfermeil, near Paris, during the first quarter of this
century, a sort of cook-shop which no longer exists. This cook-shop was
kept by some people named Thénardier, husband and wife. It was situated
in Boulanger Lane. Over the door there was a board nailed flat against
the wall. Upon this board was painted something which resembled a man
carrying another man on his back, the latter wearing the big gilt
epaulettes of a general, with large silver stars; red spots represented
blood; the rest of the picture consisted of smoke, and probably
represented a battle. Below ran this inscription: AT THE SIGN OF
SERGEANT OF WATERLOO (_Au Sargent de Waterloo_).

Nothing is more common than a cart or a truck at the door of a
hostelry. Nevertheless, the vehicle, or, to speak more accurately, the
fragment of a vehicle, which encumbered the street in front of the
cook-shop of the _Sergeant of Waterloo_, one evening in the spring of
1818, would certainly have attracted, by its mass, the attention of any
painter who had passed that way.

It was the fore-carriage of one of those trucks which are used in
wooded tracts of country, and which serve to transport thick planks and
the trunks of trees. This fore-carriage was composed of a massive iron
axle-tree with a pivot, into which was fitted a heavy shaft, and which
was supported by two huge wheels. The whole thing was compact,
overwhelming, and misshapen. It seemed like the gun-carriage of an
enormous cannon. The ruts of the road had bestowed on the wheels, the
fellies, the hub, the axle, and the shaft, a layer of mud, a hideous
yellowish daubing hue, tolerably like that with which people are fond
of ornamenting cathedrals. The wood was disappearing under mud, and the
iron beneath rust. Under the axle-tree hung, like drapery, a huge
chain, worthy of some Goliath of a convict. This chain suggested, not
the beams, which it was its office to transport, but the mastodons and
mammoths which it might have served to harness; it had the air of the
galleys, but of cyclopean and superhuman galleys, and it seemed to have
been detached from some monster. Homer would have bound Polyphemus with
it, and Shakespeare, Caliban.

Why was that fore-carriage of a truck in that place in the street? In
the first place, to encumber the street; next, in order that it might
finish the process of rusting. There is a throng of institutions in the
old social order, which one comes across in this fashion as one walks
about outdoors, and which have no other reasons for existence than the
above.

The centre of the chain swung very near the ground in the middle, and
in the loop, as in the rope of a swing, there were seated and grouped,
on that particular evening, in exquisite interlacement, two little
girls; one about two years and a half old, the other, eighteen months;
the younger in the arms of the other. A handkerchief, cleverly knotted
about them, prevented their falling out. A mother had caught sight of
that frightful chain, and had said, “Come! there’s a plaything for my
children.”


The two children, who were dressed prettily and with some elegance,
were radiant with pleasure; one would have said that they were two
roses amid old iron; their eyes were a triumph; their fresh cheeks were
full of laughter. One had chestnut hair; the other, brown. Their
innocent faces were two delighted surprises; a blossoming shrub which
grew near wafted to the passers-by perfumes which seemed to emanate
from them; the child of eighteen months displayed her pretty little
bare stomach with the chaste indecency of childhood. Above and around
these two delicate heads, all made of happiness and steeped in light,
the gigantic fore-carriage, black with rust, almost terrible, all
entangled in curves and wild angles, rose in a vault, like the entrance
of a cavern. A few paces apart, crouching down upon the threshold of
the hostelry, the mother, not a very prepossessing woman, by the way,
though touching at that moment, was swinging the two children by means
of a long cord, watching them carefully, for fear of accidents, with
that animal and celestial expression which is peculiar to maternity. At
every backward and forward swing the hideous links emitted a strident
sound, which resembled a cry of rage; the little girls were in
ecstasies; the setting sun mingled in this joy, and nothing could be
more charming than this caprice of chance which had made of a chain of
Titans the swing of cherubim.

As she rocked her little ones, the mother hummed in a discordant voice
a romance then celebrated:—

“It must be, said a warrior.”


Her song, and the contemplation of her daughters, prevented her hearing
and seeing what was going on in the street.

In the meantime, some one had approached her, as she was beginning the
first couplet of the romance, and suddenly she heard a voice saying
very near her ear:—

“You have two beautiful children there, Madame.”


“To the fair and tender Imogene—”


replied the mother, continuing her romance; then she turned her head.

A woman stood before her, a few paces distant. This woman also had a
child, which she carried in her arms.

She was carrying, in addition, a large carpet-bag, which seemed very
heavy.

This woman’s child was one of the most divine creatures that it is
possible to behold. It was a girl, two or three years of age. She could
have entered into competition with the two other little ones, so far as
the coquetry of her dress was concerned; she wore a cap of fine linen,
ribbons on her bodice, and Valenciennes lace on her cap. The folds of
her skirt were raised so as to permit a view of her white, firm, and
dimpled leg. She was admirably rosy and healthy. The little beauty
inspired a desire to take a bite from the apples of her cheeks. Of her
eyes nothing could be known, except that they must be very large, and
that they had magnificent lashes. She was asleep.

She slept with that slumber of absolute confidence peculiar to her age.
The arms of mothers are made of tenderness; in them children sleep
profoundly.

As for the mother, her appearance was sad and poverty-stricken. She was
dressed like a working-woman who is inclined to turn into a peasant
again. She was young. Was she handsome? Perhaps; but in that attire it
was not apparent. Her hair, a golden lock of which had escaped, seemed
very thick, but was severely concealed beneath an ugly, tight, close,
nun-like cap, tied under the chin. A smile displays beautiful teeth
when one has them; but she did not smile. Her eyes did not seem to have
been dry for a very long time. She was pale; she had a very weary and
rather sickly appearance. She gazed upon her daughter asleep in her
arms with the air peculiar to a mother who has nursed her own child. A
large blue handkerchief, such as the Invalides use, was folded into a
fichu, and concealed her figure clumsily. Her hands were sunburnt and
all dotted with freckles, her forefinger was hardened and lacerated
with the needle; she wore a cloak of coarse brown woollen stuff, a
linen gown, and coarse shoes. It was Fantine.

It was Fantine, but difficult to recognize. Nevertheless, on
scrutinizing her attentively, it was evident that she still retained
her beauty. A melancholy fold, which resembled the beginning of irony,
wrinkled her right cheek. As for her toilette, that aerial toilette of
muslin and ribbons, which seemed made of mirth, of folly, and of music,
full of bells, and perfumed with lilacs had vanished like that
beautiful and dazzling hoar-frost which is mistaken for diamonds in the
sunlight; it melts and leaves the branch quite black.

Ten months had elapsed since the “pretty farce.”


What had taken place during those ten months? It can be divined.

After abandonment, straightened circumstances. Fantine had immediately
lost sight of Favourite, Zéphine and Dahlia; the bond once broken on
the side of the men, it was loosed between the women; they would have
been greatly astonished had any one told them a fortnight later, that
they had been friends; there no longer existed any reason for such a
thing. Fantine had remained alone. The father of her child gone,—alas!
such ruptures are irrevocable,—she found herself absolutely isolated,
minus the habit of work and plus the taste for pleasure. Drawn away by
her _liaison_ with Tholomyès to disdain the pretty trade which she
knew, she had neglected to keep her market open; it was now closed to
her. She had no resource. Fantine barely knew how to read, and did not
know how to write; in her childhood she had only been taught to sign
her name; she had a public letter-writer indite an epistle to
Tholomyès, then a second, then a third. Tholomyès replied to none of
them. Fantine heard the gossips say, as they looked at her child: “Who
takes those children seriously! One only shrugs one’s shoulders over
such children!” Then she thought of Tholomyès, who had shrugged his
shoulders over his child, and who did not take that innocent being
seriously; and her heart grew gloomy toward that man. But what was she
to do? She no longer knew to whom to apply. She had committed a fault,
but the foundation of her nature, as will be remembered, was modesty
and virtue. She was vaguely conscious that she was on the verge of
falling into distress, and of gliding into a worse state. Courage was
necessary; she possessed it, and held herself firm. The idea of
returning to her native town of M. sur M. occurred to her. There, some
one might possibly know her and give her work; yes, but it would be
necessary to conceal her fault. In a confused way she perceived the
necessity of a separation which would be more painful than the first
one. Her heart contracted, but she took her resolution. Fantine, as we
shall see, had the fierce bravery of life. She had already valiantly
renounced finery, had dressed herself in linen, and had put all her
silks, all her ornaments, all her ribbons, and all her laces on her
daughter, the only vanity which was left to her, and a holy one it was.
She sold all that she had, which produced for her two hundred francs;
her little debts paid, she had only about eighty francs left. At the
age of twenty-two, on a beautiful spring morning, she quitted Paris,
bearing her child on her back. Any one who had seen these two pass
would have had pity on them. This woman had, in all the world, nothing
but her child, and the child had, in all the world, no one but this
woman. Fantine had nursed her child, and this had tired her chest, and
she coughed a little.

We shall have no further occasion to speak of M. Félix Tholomyès. Let
us confine ourselves to saying, that, twenty years later, under King
Louis Philippe, he was a great provincial lawyer, wealthy and
influential, a wise elector, and a very severe juryman; he was still a
man of pleasure.

Towards the middle of the day, after having, from time to time, for the
sake of resting herself, travelled, for three or four sous a league, in
what was then known as the _Petites Voitures des Environs de Paris_,
the “little suburban coach service,” Fantine found herself at
Montfermeil, in the alley Boulanger.

As she passed the Thénardier hostelry, the two little girls, blissful
in the monster swing, had dazzled her in a manner, and she had halted
in front of that vision of joy.

Charms exist. These two little girls were a charm to this mother.

She gazed at them in much emotion. The presence of angels is an
announcement of Paradise. She thought that, above this inn, she beheld
the mysterious HERE of Providence. These two little creatures were
evidently happy. She gazed at them, she admired them, in such emotion
that at the moment when their mother was recovering her breath between
two couplets of her song, she could not refrain from addressing to her
the remark which we have just read:—

“You have two pretty children, Madame.”


The most ferocious creatures are disarmed by caresses bestowed on their
young.

The mother raised her head and thanked her, and bade the wayfarer sit
down on the bench at the door, she herself being seated on the
threshold. The two women began to chat.

“My name is Madame Thénardier,” said the mother of the two little
girls. “We keep this inn.”


Then, her mind still running on her romance, she resumed humming
between her teeth:—

“It must be so; I am a knight,
And I am off to Palestine.”


This Madame Thénardier was a sandy-complexioned woman, thin and
angular—the type of the soldier’s wife in all its unpleasantness; and
what was odd, with a languishing air, which she owed to her perusal of
romances. She was a simpering, but masculine creature. Old romances
produce that effect when rubbed against the imagination of cook-shop
woman. She was still young; she was barely thirty. If this crouching
woman had stood upright, her lofty stature and her frame of a
perambulating colossus suitable for fairs, might have frightened the
traveller at the outset, troubled her confidence, and disturbed what
caused what we have to relate to vanish. A person who is seated instead
of standing erect—destinies hang upon such a thing as that.

The traveller told her story, with slight modifications.

That she was a working-woman; that her husband was dead; that her work
in Paris had failed her, and that she was on her way to seek it
elsewhere, in her own native parts; that she had left Paris that
morning on foot; that, as she was carrying her child, and felt
fatigued, she had got into the Villemomble coach when she met it; that
from Villemomble she had come to Montfermeil on foot; that the little
one had walked a little, but not much, because she was so young, and
that she had been obliged to take her up, and the jewel had fallen
asleep.

At this word she bestowed on her daughter a passionate kiss, which woke
her. The child opened her eyes, great blue eyes like her mother’s, and
looked at—what? Nothing; with that serious and sometimes severe air of
little children, which is a mystery of their luminous innocence in the
presence of our twilight of virtue. One would say that they feel
themselves to be angels, and that they know us to be men. Then the
child began to laugh; and although the mother held fast to her, she
slipped to the ground with the unconquerable energy of a little being
which wished to run. All at once she caught sight of the two others in
the swing, stopped short, and put out her tongue, in sign of
admiration.

Mother Thénardier released her daughters, made them descend from the
swing, and said:—

“Now amuse yourselves, all three of you.”


Children become acquainted quickly at that age, and at the expiration
of a minute the little Thénardiers were playing with the newcomer at
making holes in the ground, which was an immense pleasure.

The newcomer was very gay; the goodness of the mother is written in the
gayety of the child; she had seized a scrap of wood which served her
for a shovel, and energetically dug a cavity big enough for a fly. The
grave-digger’s business becomes a subject for laughter when performed
by a child.

The two women pursued their chat.

“What is your little one’s name?”


“Cosette.”


For Cosette, read Euphrasie. The child’s name was Euphrasie. But out of
Euphrasie the mother had made Cosette by that sweet and graceful
instinct of mothers and of the populace which changes Josepha into
Pepita, and Françoise into Sillette. It is a sort of derivative which
disarranges and disconcerts the whole science of etymologists. We have
known a grandmother who succeeded in turning Theodore into Gnon.

“How old is she?”


“She is going on three.”


“That is the age of my eldest.”


In the meantime, the three little girls were grouped in an attitude of
profound anxiety and blissfulness; an event had happened; a big worm
had emerged from the ground, and they were afraid; and they were in
ecstasies over it.

Their radiant brows touched each other; one would have said that there
were three heads in one aureole.

“How easily children get acquainted at once!” exclaimed Mother
Thénardier; “one would swear that they were three sisters!”


This remark was probably the spark which the other mother had been
waiting for. She seized the Thénardier’s hand, looked at her fixedly,
and said:—

“Will you keep my child for me?”


The Thénardier made one of those movements of surprise which signify
neither assent nor refusal.

Cosette’s mother continued:—

“You see, I cannot take my daughter to the country. My work will not
permit it. With a child one can find no situation. People are
ridiculous in the country. It was the good God who caused me to pass
your inn. When I caught sight of your little ones, so pretty, so clean,
and so happy, it overwhelmed me. I said: ‘Here is a good mother. That
is just the thing; that will make three sisters.’ And then, it will not
be long before I return. Will you keep my child for me?”


“I must see about it,” replied the Thénardier.

“I will give you six francs a month.”


Here a man’s voice called from the depths of the cook-shop:—

“Not for less than seven francs. And six months paid in advance.”


“Six times seven makes forty-two,” said the Thénardier.

“I will give it,” said the mother.

“And fifteen francs in addition for preliminary expenses,” added the
man’s voice.

“Total, fifty-seven francs,” said Madame Thénardier. And she hummed
vaguely, with these figures:—

“It must be, said a warrior.”


“I will pay it,” said the mother. “I have eighty francs. I shall have
enough left to reach the country, by travelling on foot. I shall earn
money there, and as soon as I have a little I will return for my
darling.”


The man’s voice resumed:—

“The little one has an outfit?”


“That is my husband,” said the Thénardier.

“Of course she has an outfit, the poor treasure.—I understood perfectly
that it was your husband.—And a beautiful outfit, too! a senseless
outfit, everything by the dozen, and silk gowns like a lady. It is
here, in my carpet-bag.”


“You must hand it over,” struck in the man’s voice again.

“Of course I shall give it to you,” said the mother. “It would be very
queer if I were to leave my daughter quite naked!”


The master’s face appeared.

“That’s good,” said he.

The bargain was concluded. The mother passed the night at the inn, gave
up her money and left her child, fastened her carpet-bag once more, now
reduced in volume by the removal of the outfit, and light henceforth
and set out on the following morning, intending to return soon. People
arrange such departures tranquilly; but they are despairs!

A neighbor of the Thénardiers met this mother as she was setting out,
and came back with the remark:—

“I have just seen a woman crying in the street so that it was enough to
rend your heart.”


When Cosette’s mother had taken her departure, the man said to the
woman:—

“That will serve to pay my note for one hundred and ten francs which
falls due to-morrow; I lacked fifty francs. Do you know that I should
have had a bailiff and a protest after me? You played the mouse-trap
nicely with your young ones.”


“Without suspecting it,” said the woman.




CHAPTER II—FIRST SKETCH OF TWO UNPREPOSSESSING FIGURES


The mouse which had been caught was a pitiful specimen; but the cat
rejoices even over a lean mouse.

Who were these Thénardiers?

Let us say a word or two of them now. We will complete the sketch later
on.

These beings belonged to that bastard class composed of coarse people
who have been successful, and of intelligent people who have descended
in the scale, which is between the class called “middle” and the class
denominated as “inferior,” and which combines some of the defects of
the second with nearly all the vices of the first, without possessing
the generous impulse of the workingman nor the honest order of the
bourgeois.

They were of those dwarfed natures which, if a dull fire chances to
warm them up, easily become monstrous. There was in the woman a
substratum of the brute, and in the man the material for a blackguard.
Both were susceptible, in the highest degree, of the sort of hideous
progress which is accomplished in the direction of evil. There exist
crab-like souls which are continually retreating towards the darkness,
retrograding in life rather than advancing, employing experience to
augment their deformity, growing incessantly worse, and becoming more
and more impregnated with an ever-augmenting blackness. This man and
woman possessed such souls.

Thénardier, in particular, was troublesome for a physiognomist. One can
only look at some men to distrust them; for one feels that they are
dark in both directions. They are uneasy in the rear and threatening in
front. There is something of the unknown about them. One can no more
answer for what they have done than for what they will do. The shadow
which they bear in their glance denounces them. From merely hearing
them utter a word or seeing them make a gesture, one obtains a glimpse
of sombre secrets in their past and of sombre mysteries in their
future.

This Thénardier, if he himself was to be believed, had been a soldier—a
sergeant, he said. He had probably been through the campaign of 1815,
and had even conducted himself with tolerable valor, it would seem. We
shall see later on how much truth there was in this. The sign of his
hostelry was in allusion to one of his feats of arms. He had painted it
himself; for he knew how to do a little of everything, and badly.

It was at the epoch when the ancient classical romance which, after
having been _Clélie_, was no longer anything but _Lodoïska_, still
noble, but ever more and more vulgar, having fallen from Mademoiselle
de Scudéri to Madame Bournon-Malarme, and from Madame de Lafayette to
Madame Barthélemy-Hadot, was setting the loving hearts of the
portresses of Paris aflame, and even ravaging the suburbs to some
extent. Madame Thénardier was just intelligent enough to read this sort
of books. She lived on them. In them she drowned what brains she
possessed. This had given her, when very young, and even a little
later, a sort of pensive attitude towards her husband, a scamp of a
certain depth, a ruffian lettered to the extent of the grammar, coarse
and fine at one and the same time, but, so far as sentimentalism was
concerned, given to the perusal of Pigault-Lebrun, and “in what
concerns the sex,” as he said in his jargon—a downright, unmitigated
lout. His wife was twelve or fifteen years younger than he was. Later
on, when her hair, arranged in a romantically drooping fashion, began
to grow gray, when the Megæra began to be developed from the Pamela,
the female Thénardier was nothing but a coarse, vicious woman, who had
dabbled in stupid romances. Now, one cannot read nonsense with
impunity. The result was that her eldest daughter was named Éponine; as
for the younger, the poor little thing came near being called Gulnare;
I know not to what diversion, effected by a romance of Ducray-Dumenil,
she owed the fact that she merely bore the name of Azelma.

However, we will remark by the way, everything was not ridiculous and
superficial in that curious epoch to which we are alluding, and which
may be designated as the anarchy of baptismal names. By the side of
this romantic element which we have just indicated there is the social
symptom. It is not rare for the neatherd’s boy nowadays to bear the
name of Arthur, Alfred, or Alphonse, and for the vicomte—if there are
still any vicomtes—to be called Thomas, Pierre, or Jacques. This
displacement, which places the “elegant” name on the plebeian and the
rustic name on the aristocrat, is nothing else than an eddy of
equality. The irresistible penetration of the new inspiration is there
as everywhere else. Beneath this apparent discord there is a great and
a profound thing,—the French Revolution.




CHAPTER III—THE LARK


It is not all in all sufficient to be wicked in order to prosper. The
cook-shop was in a bad way.

Thanks to the traveller’s fifty-seven francs, Thénardier had been able
to avoid a protest and to honor his signature. On the following month
they were again in need of money. The woman took Cosette’s outfit to
Paris, and pawned it at the pawnbroker’s for sixty francs. As soon as
that sum was spent, the Thénardiers grew accustomed to look on the
little girl merely as a child whom they were caring for out of charity;
and they treated her accordingly. As she had no longer any clothes,
they dressed her in the cast-off petticoats and chemises of the
Thénardier brats; that is to say, in rags. They fed her on what all the
rest had left—a little better than the dog, a little worse than the
cat. Moreover, the cat and the dog were her habitual table-companions;
Cosette ate with them under the table, from a wooden bowl similar to
theirs.

The mother, who had established herself, as we shall see later on, at
M. sur M., wrote, or, more correctly, caused to be written, a letter
every month, that she might have news of her child. The Thénardiers
replied invariably, “Cosette is doing wonderfully well.”


At the expiration of the first six months the mother sent seven francs
for the seventh month, and continued her remittances with tolerable
regularity from month to month. The year was not completed when
Thénardier said: “A fine favor she is doing us, in sooth! What does she
expect us to do with her seven francs?” and he wrote to demand twelve
francs. The mother, whom they had persuaded into the belief that her
child was happy, “and was coming on well,” submitted, and forwarded the
twelve francs.

Certain natures cannot love on the one hand without hating on the
other. Mother Thénardier loved her two daughters passionately, which
caused her to hate the stranger.

It is sad to think that the love of a mother can possess villainous
aspects. Little as was the space occupied by Cosette, it seemed to her
as though it were taken from her own, and that that little child
diminished the air which her daughters breathed. This woman, like many
women of her sort, had a load of caresses and a burden of blows and
injuries to dispense each day. If she had not had Cosette, it is
certain that her daughters, idolized as they were, would have received
the whole of it; but the stranger did them the service to divert the
blows to herself. Her daughters received nothing but caresses. Cosette
could not make a motion which did not draw down upon her head a heavy
shower of violent blows and unmerited chastisement. The sweet, feeble
being, who should not have understood anything of this world or of God,
incessantly punished, scolded, ill-used, beaten, and seeing beside her
two little creatures like herself, who lived in a ray of dawn!

Madame Thénardier was vicious with Cosette. Éponine and Azelma were
vicious. Children at that age are only copies of their mother. The size
is smaller; that is all.

A year passed; then another.

People in the village said:—

“Those Thénardiers are good people. They are not rich, and yet they are
bringing up a poor child who was abandoned on their hands!”


They thought that Cosette’s mother had forgotten her.

In the meanwhile, Thénardier, having learned, it is impossible to say
by what obscure means, that the child was probably a bastard, and that
the mother could not acknowledge it, exacted fifteen francs a month,
saying that “the creature” was growing and “eating,” and threatening to
send her away. “Let her not bother me,” he exclaimed, “or I’ll fire her
brat right into the middle of her secrets. I must have an increase.”
The mother paid the fifteen francs.

From year to year the child grew, and so did her wretchedness.

As long as Cosette was little, she was the scape-goat of the two other
children; as soon as she began to develop a little, that is to say,
before she was even five years old, she became the servant of the
household.

Five years old! the reader will say; that is not probable. Alas! it is
true. Social suffering begins at all ages. Have we not recently seen
the trial of a man named Dumollard, an orphan turned bandit, who, from
the age of five, as the official documents state, being alone in the
world, “worked for his living and stole”?

Cosette was made to run on errands, to sweep the rooms, the courtyard,
the street, to wash the dishes, to even carry burdens. The Thénardiers
considered themselves all the more authorized to behave in this manner,
since the mother, who was still at M. sur M., had become irregular in
her payments. Some months she was in arrears.

If this mother had returned to Montfermeil at the end of these three
years, she would not have recognized her child. Cosette, so pretty and
rosy on her arrival in that house, was now thin and pale. She had an
indescribably uneasy look. “The sly creature,” said the Thénardiers.

Injustice had made her peevish, and misery had made her ugly. Nothing
remained to her except her beautiful eyes, which inspired pain,
because, large as they were, it seemed as though one beheld in them a
still larger amount of sadness.

It was a heart-breaking thing to see this poor child, not yet six years
old, shivering in the winter in her old rags of linen, full of holes,
sweeping the street before daylight, with an enormous broom in her tiny
red hands, and a tear in her great eyes.

[Illustration: Cossette Sweeping]

She was called the _Lark_ in the neighborhood. The populace, who are
fond of these figures of speech, had taken a fancy to bestow this name
on this trembling, frightened, and shivering little creature, no bigger
than a bird, who was awake every morning before any one else in the
house or the village, and was always in the street or the fields before
daybreak.

Only the little lark never sang.




BOOK FIFTH—THE DESCENT




CHAPTER I—THE HISTORY OF A PROGRESS IN BLACK GLASS TRINKETS


And in the meantime, what had become of that mother who according to
the people at Montfermeil, seemed to have abandoned her child? Where
was she? What was she doing?

After leaving her little Cosette with the Thénardiers, she had
continued her journey, and had reached M. sur M.

This, it will be remembered, was in 1818.

Fantine had quitted her province ten years before. M. sur M. had
changed its aspect. While Fantine had been slowly descending from
wretchedness to wretchedness, her native town had prospered.

About two years previously one of those industrial facts which are the
grand events of small districts had taken place.

This detail is important, and we regard it as useful to develop it at
length; we should almost say, to underline it.

From time immemorial, M. sur M. had had for its special industry the
imitation of English jet and the black glass trinkets of Germany. This
industry had always vegetated, on account of the high price of the raw
material, which reacted on the manufacture. At the moment when Fantine
returned to M. sur M., an unheard-of transformation had taken place in
the production of “black goods.” Towards the close of 1815 a man, a
stranger, had established himself in the town, and had been inspired
with the idea of substituting, in this manufacture, gum-lac for resin,
and, for bracelets in particular, slides of sheet-iron simply laid
together, for slides of soldered sheet-iron.

This very small change had effected a revolution.

This very small change had, in fact, prodigiously reduced the cost of
the raw material, which had rendered it possible in the first place, to
raise the price of manufacture, a benefit to the country; in the second
place, to improve the workmanship, an advantage to the consumer; in the
third place, to sell at a lower price, while trebling the profit, which
was a benefit to the manufacturer.

Thus three results ensued from one idea.

In less than three years the inventor of this process had become rich,
which is good, and had made every one about him rich, which is better.
He was a stranger in the Department. Of his origin, nothing was known;
of the beginning of his career, very little. It was rumored that he had
come to town with very little money, a few hundred francs at the most.

It was from this slender capital, enlisted in the service of an
ingenious idea, developed by method and thought, that he had drawn his
own fortune, and the fortune of the whole countryside.

On his arrival at M. sur M. he had only the garments, the appearance,
and the language of a workingman.

It appears that on the very day when he made his obscure entry into the
little town of M. sur M., just at nightfall, on a December evening,
knapsack on back and thorn club in hand, a large fire had broken out in
the town-hall. This man had rushed into the flames and saved, at the
risk of his own life, two children who belonged to the captain of the
gendarmerie; this is why they had forgotten to ask him for his
passport. Afterwards they had learned his name. He was called Father
Madeleine.




CHAPTER II—MADELEINE


He was a man about fifty years of age, who had a preoccupied air, and
who was good. That was all that could be said about him.

Thanks to the rapid progress of the industry which he had so admirably
reconstructed, M. sur M. had become a rather important centre of trade.
Spain, which consumes a good deal of black jet, made enormous purchases
there each year. M. sur M. almost rivalled London and Berlin in this
branch of commerce. Father Madeleine’s profits were such, that at the
end of the second year he was able to erect a large factory, in which
there were two vast workrooms, one for the men, and the other for
women. Any one who was hungry could present himself there, and was sure
of finding employment and bread. Father Madeleine required of the men
good will, of the women pure morals, and of all, probity. He had
separated the work-rooms in order to separate the sexes, and so that
the women and girls might remain discreet. On this point he was
inflexible. It was the only thing in which he was in a manner
intolerant. He was all the more firmly set on this severity, since M.
sur M., being a garrison town, opportunities for corruption abounded.
However, his coming had been a boon, and his presence was a godsend.
Before Father Madeleine’s arrival, everything had languished in the
country; now everything lived with a healthy life of toil. A strong
circulation warmed everything and penetrated everywhere. Slack seasons
and wretchedness were unknown. There was no pocket so obscure that it
had not a little money in it; no dwelling so lowly that there was not
some little joy within it.

Father Madeleine gave employment to every one. He exacted but one
thing: Be an honest man. Be an honest woman.

As we have said, in the midst of this activity of which he was the
cause and the pivot, Father Madeleine made his fortune; but a singular
thing in a simple man of business, it did not seem as though that were
his chief care. He appeared to be thinking much of others, and little
of himself. In 1820 he was known to have a sum of six hundred and
thirty thousand francs lodged in his name with Laffitte; but before
reserving these six hundred and thirty thousand francs, he had spent
more than a million for the town and its poor.

The hospital was badly endowed; he founded six beds there. M. sur M. is
divided into the upper and the lower town. The lower town, in which he
lived, had but one school, a miserable hovel, which was falling to
ruin: he constructed two, one for girls, the other for boys. He
allotted a salary from his own funds to the two instructors, a salary
twice as large as their meagre official salary, and one day he said to
some one who expressed surprise, “The two prime functionaries of the
state are the nurse and the schoolmaster.” He created at his own
expense an infant school, a thing then almost unknown in France, and a
fund for aiding old and infirm workmen. As his factory was a centre, a
new quarter, in which there were a good many indigent families, rose
rapidly around him; he established there a free dispensary.

At first, when they watched his beginnings, the good souls said, “He’s
a jolly fellow who means to get rich.” When they saw him enriching the
country before he enriched himself, the good souls said, “He is an
ambitious man.” This seemed all the more probable since the man was
religious, and even practised his religion to a certain degree, a thing
which was very favorably viewed at that epoch. He went regularly to low
mass every Sunday. The local deputy, who nosed out all rivalry
everywhere, soon began to grow uneasy over this religion. This deputy
had been a member of the legislative body of the Empire, and shared the
religious ideas of a father of the Oratoire, known under the name of
Fouché, Duc d’Otrante, whose creature and friend he had been. He
indulged in gentle raillery at God with closed doors. But when he
beheld the wealthy manufacturer Madeleine going to low mass at seven
o’clock, he perceived in him a possible candidate, and resolved to
outdo him; he took a Jesuit confessor, and went to high mass and to
vespers. Ambition was at that time, in the direct acceptation of the
word, a race to the steeple. The poor profited by this terror as well
as the good God, for the honorable deputy also founded two beds in the
hospital, which made twelve.

Nevertheless, in 1819 a rumor one morning circulated through the town
to the effect that, on the representations of the prefect and in
consideration of the services rendered by him to the country, Father
Madeleine was to be appointed by the King, mayor of M. sur M. Those who
had pronounced this newcomer to be “an ambitious fellow,” seized with
delight on this opportunity which all men desire, to exclaim, “There!
what did we say!” All M. sur M. was in an uproar. The rumor was well
founded. Several days later the appointment appeared in the _Moniteur_.
On the following day Father Madeleine refused.

In this same year of 1819 the products of the new process invented by
Madeleine figured in the industrial exhibition; when the jury made
their report, the King appointed the inventor a chevalier of the Legion
of Honor. A fresh excitement in the little town. Well, so it was the
cross that he wanted! Father Madeleine refused the cross.

Decidedly this man was an enigma. The good souls got out of their
predicament by saying, “After all, he is some sort of an adventurer.”


We have seen that the country owed much to him; the poor owed him
everything; he was so useful and he was so gentle that people had been
obliged to honor and respect him. His workmen, in particular, adored
him, and he endured this adoration with a sort of melancholy gravity.
When he was known to be rich, “people in society” bowed to him, and he
received invitations in the town; he was called, in town, Monsieur
Madeleine; his workmen and the children continued to call him Father
Madeleine, and that was what was most adapted to make him smile. In
proportion as he mounted, throve, invitations rained down upon him.
“Society” claimed him for its own. The prim little drawing-rooms on M.
sur M., which, of course, had at first been closed to the artisan,
opened both leaves of their folding-doors to the millionnaire. They
made a thousand advances to him. He refused.

This time the good gossips had no trouble. “He is an ignorant man, of
no education. No one knows where he came from. He would not know how to
behave in society. It has not been absolutely proved that he knows how
to read.”


When they saw him making money, they said, “He is a man of business.”
When they saw him scattering his money about, they said, “He is an
ambitious man.” When he was seen to decline honors, they said, “He is
an adventurer.” When they saw him repulse society, they said, “He is a
brute.”


In 1820, five years after his arrival in M. sur M., the services which
he had rendered to the district were so dazzling, the opinion of the
whole country round about was so unanimous, that the King again
appointed him mayor of the town. He again declined; but the prefect
resisted his refusal, all the notabilities of the place came to implore
him, the people in the street besought him; the urging was so vigorous
that he ended by accepting. It was noticed that the thing which seemed
chiefly to bring him to a decision was the almost irritated apostrophe
addressed to him by an old woman of the people, who called to him from
her threshold, in an angry way: _“A good mayor is a useful thing. Is he
drawing back before the good which he can do?”_

This was the third phase of his ascent. Father Madeleine had become
Monsieur Madeleine. Monsieur Madeleine became Monsieur le Maire.




CHAPTER III—SUMS DEPOSITED WITH LAFFITTE


On the other hand, he remained as simple as on the first day. He had
gray hair, a serious eye, the sunburned complexion of a laborer, the
thoughtful visage of a philosopher. He habitually wore a hat with a
wide brim, and a long coat of coarse cloth, buttoned to the chin. He
fulfilled his duties as mayor; but, with that exception, he lived in
solitude. He spoke to but few people. He avoided polite attentions; he
escaped quickly; he smiled to relieve himself of the necessity of
talking; he gave, in order to get rid of the necessity for smiling. The
women said of him, “What a good-natured bear!” His pleasure consisted
in strolling in the fields.

He always took his meals alone, with an open book before him, which he
read. He had a well-selected little library. He loved books; books are
cold but safe friends. In proportion as leisure came to him with
fortune, he seemed to take advantage of it to cultivate his mind. It
had been observed that, ever since his arrival at M. sur M., his
language had grown more polished, more choice, and more gentle with
every passing year. He liked to carry a gun with him on his strolls,
but he rarely made use of it. When he did happen to do so, his shooting
was something so infallible as to inspire terror. He never killed an
inoffensive animal. He never shot at a little bird.

Although he was no longer young, it was thought that he was still
prodigiously strong. He offered his assistance to any one who was in
need of it, lifted a horse, released a wheel clogged in the mud, or
stopped a runaway bull by the horns. He always had his pockets full of
money when he went out; but they were empty on his return. When he
passed through a village, the ragged brats ran joyously after him, and
surrounded him like a swarm of gnats.

It was thought that he must, in the past, have lived a country life,
since he knew all sorts of useful secrets, which he taught to the
peasants. He taught them how to destroy scurf on wheat, by sprinkling
it and the granary and inundating the cracks in the floor with a
solution of common salt; and how to chase away weevils by hanging up
orviot in bloom everywhere, on the walls and the ceilings, among the
grass and in the houses.

He had “recipes” for exterminating from a field, blight, tares,
foxtail, and all parasitic growths which destroy the wheat. He defended
a rabbit warren against rats, simply by the odor of a guinea-pig which
he placed in it.

One day he saw some country people busily engaged in pulling up
nettles; he examined the plants, which were uprooted and already dried,
and said: “They are dead. Nevertheless, it would be a good thing to
know how to make use of them. When the nettle is young, the leaf makes
an excellent vegetable; when it is older, it has filaments and fibres
like hemp and flax. Nettle cloth is as good as linen cloth. Chopped up,
nettles are good for poultry; pounded, they are good for horned cattle.
The seed of the nettle, mixed with fodder, gives gloss to the hair of
animals; the root, mixed with salt, produces a beautiful yellow
coloring-matter. Moreover, it is an excellent hay, which can be cut
twice. And what is required for the nettle? A little soil, no care, no
culture. Only the seed falls as it is ripe, and it is difficult to
collect it. That is all. With the exercise of a little care, the nettle
could be made useful; it is neglected and it becomes hurtful. It is
exterminated. How many men resemble the nettle!” He added, after a
pause: “Remember this, my friends: there are no such things as bad
plants or bad men. There are only bad cultivators.”


The children loved him because he knew how to make charming little
trifles of straw and cocoanuts.

When he saw the door of a church hung in black, he entered: he sought
out funerals as other men seek christenings. Widowhood and the grief of
others attracted him, because of his great gentleness; he mingled with
the friends clad in mourning, with families dressed in black, with the
priests groaning around a coffin. He seemed to like to give to his
thoughts for text these funereal psalmodies filled with the vision of
the other world. With his eyes fixed on heaven, he listened with a sort
of aspiration towards all the mysteries of the infinite, those sad
voices which sing on the verge of the obscure abyss of death.

He performed a multitude of good actions, concealing his agency in them
as a man conceals himself because of evil actions. He penetrated houses
privately, at night; he ascended staircases furtively. A poor wretch on
returning to his attic would find that his door had been opened,
sometimes even forced, during his absence. The poor man made a clamor
over it: some malefactor had been there! He entered, and the first
thing he beheld was a piece of gold lying forgotten on some piece of
furniture. The “malefactor” who had been there was Father Madeleine.

He was affable and sad. The people said: “There is a rich man who has
not a haughty air. There is a happy man who has not a contented air.”


Some people maintained that he was a mysterious person, and that no one
ever entered his chamber, which was a regular anchorite’s cell,
furnished with winged hour-glasses and enlivened by cross-bones and
skulls of dead men! This was much talked of, so that one of the elegant
and malicious young women of M. sur M. came to him one day, and asked:
“Monsieur le Maire, pray show us your chamber. It is said to be a
grotto.” He smiled, and introduced them instantly into this “grotto.”
They were well punished for their curiosity. The room was very simply
furnished in mahogany, which was rather ugly, like all furniture of
that sort, and hung with paper worth twelve sous. They could see
nothing remarkable about it, except two candlesticks of antique pattern
which stood on the chimney-piece and appeared to be silver, “for they
were hall-marked,” an observation full of the type of wit of petty
towns.

Nevertheless, people continued to say that no one ever got into the
room, and that it was a hermit’s cave, a mysterious retreat, a hole, a
tomb.

It was also whispered about that he had “immense” sums deposited with
Laffitte, with this peculiar feature, that they were always at his
immediate disposal, so that, it was added, M. Madeleine could make his
appearance at Laffitte’s any morning, sign a receipt, and carry off his
two or three millions in ten minutes. In reality, “these two or three
millions” were reducible, as we have said, to six hundred and thirty or
forty thousand francs.




CHAPTER IV—M. MADELEINE IN MOURNING


At the beginning of 1820 the newspapers announced the death of M.
Myriel, Bishop of D——, surnamed “Monseigneur Bienvenu,” who had died in
the odor of sanctity at the age of eighty-two.

The Bishop of D—— to supply here a detail which the papers omitted—had
been blind for many years before his death, and content to be blind, as
his sister was beside him.

Let us remark by the way, that to be blind and to be loved, is, in
fact, one of the most strangely exquisite forms of happiness upon this
earth, where nothing is complete. To have continually at one’s side a
woman, a daughter, a sister, a charming being, who is there because you
need her and because she cannot do without you; to know that we are
indispensable to a person who is necessary to us; to be able to
incessantly measure one’s affection by the amount of her presence which
she bestows on us, and to say to ourselves, “Since she consecrates the
whole of her time to me, it is because I possess the whole of her
heart”; to behold her thought in lieu of her face; to be able to verify
the fidelity of one being amid the eclipse of the world; to regard the
rustle of a gown as the sound of wings; to hear her come and go,
retire, speak, return, sing, and to think that one is the centre of
these steps, of this speech; to manifest at each instant one’s personal
attraction; to feel one’s self all the more powerful because of one’s
infirmity; to become in one’s obscurity, and through one’s obscurity,
the star around which this angel gravitates,—few felicities equal this.
The supreme happiness of life consists in the conviction that one is
loved; loved for one’s own sake—let us say rather, loved in spite of
one’s self; this conviction the blind man possesses. To be served in
distress is to be caressed. Does he lack anything? No. One does not
lose the sight when one has love. And what love! A love wholly
constituted of virtue! There is no blindness where there is certainty.
Soul seeks soul, gropingly, and finds it. And this soul, found and
tested, is a woman. A hand sustains you; it is hers: a mouth lightly
touches your brow; it is her mouth: you hear a breath very near you; it
is hers. To have everything of her, from her worship to her pity, never
to be left, to have that sweet weakness aiding you, to lean upon that
immovable reed, to touch Providence with one’s hands, and to be able to
take it in one’s arms,—God made tangible,—what bliss! The heart, that
obscure, celestial flower, undergoes a mysterious blossoming. One would
not exchange that shadow for all brightness! The angel soul is there,
uninterruptedly there; if she departs, it is but to return again; she
vanishes like a dream, and reappears like reality. One feels warmth
approaching, and behold! she is there. One overflows with serenity,
with gayety, with ecstasy; one is a radiance amid the night. And there
are a thousand little cares. Nothings, which are enormous in that void.
The most ineffable accents of the feminine voice employed to lull you,
and supplying the vanished universe to you. One is caressed with the
soul. One sees nothing, but one feels that one is adored. It is a
paradise of shadows.

It was from this paradise that Monseigneur Welcome had passed to the
other.

The announcement of his death was reprinted by the local journal of M.
sur M. On the following day, M. Madeleine appeared clad wholly in
black, and with crape on his hat.

This mourning was noticed in the town, and commented on. It seemed to
throw a light on M. Madeleine’s origin. It was concluded that some
relationship existed between him and the venerable Bishop. _“He has
gone into mourning for the Bishop of D——”_ said the drawing-rooms; this
raised M. Madeleine’s credit greatly, and procured for him, instantly
and at one blow, a certain consideration in the noble world of M. sur
M. The microscopic Faubourg Saint-Germain of the place meditated
raising the quarantine against M. Madeleine, the probable relative of a
bishop. M. Madeleine perceived the advancement which he had obtained,
by the more numerous courtesies of the old women and the more plentiful
smiles of the young ones. One evening, a ruler in that petty great
world, who was curious by right of seniority, ventured to ask him, “M.
le Maire is doubtless a cousin of the late Bishop of D——?”


He said, “No, Madame.”


“But,” resumed the dowager, “you are wearing mourning for him.”


He replied, “It is because I was a servant in his family in my youth.”


Another thing which was remarked, was, that every time that he
encountered in the town a young Savoyard who was roaming about the
country and seeking chimneys to sweep, the mayor had him summoned,
inquired his name, and gave him money. The little Savoyards told each
other about it: a great many of them passed that way.




CHAPTER V—VAGUE FLASHES ON THE HORIZON


Little by little, and in the course of time, all this opposition
subsided. There had at first been exercised against M. Madeleine, in
virtue of a sort of law which all those who rise must submit to,
blackening and calumnies; then they grew to be nothing more than
ill-nature, then merely malicious remarks, then even this entirely
disappeared; respect became complete, unanimous, cordial, and towards
1821 the moment arrived when the word “Monsieur le Maire” was
pronounced at M. sur M. with almost the same accent as “Monseigneur the
Bishop” had been pronounced in D—— in 1815. People came from a distance
of ten leagues around to consult M. Madeleine. He put an end to
differences, he prevented lawsuits, he reconciled enemies. Every one
took him for the judge, and with good reason. It seemed as though he
had for a soul the book of the natural law. It was like an epidemic of
veneration, which in the course of six or seven years gradually took
possession of the whole district.

One single man in the town, in the arrondissement, absolutely escaped
this contagion, and, whatever Father Madeleine did, remained his
opponent as though a sort of incorruptible and imperturbable instinct
kept him on the alert and uneasy. It seems, in fact, as though there
existed in certain men a veritable bestial instinct, though pure and
upright, like all instincts, which creates antipathies and sympathies,
which fatally separates one nature from another nature, which does not
hesitate, which feels no disquiet, which does not hold its peace, and
which never belies itself, clear in its obscurity, infallible,
imperious, intractable, stubborn to all counsels of the intelligence
and to all the dissolvents of reason, and which, in whatever manner
destinies are arranged, secretly warns the man-dog of the presence of
the man-cat, and the man-fox of the presence of the man-lion.

It frequently happened that when M. Madeleine was passing along a
street, calm, affectionate, surrounded by the blessings of all, a man
of lofty stature, clad in an iron-gray frock-coat, armed with a heavy
cane, and wearing a battered hat, turned round abruptly behind him, and
followed him with his eyes until he disappeared, with folded arms and a
slow shake of the head, and his upper lip raised in company with his
lower to his nose, a sort of significant grimace which might be
translated by: “What is that man, after all? I certainly have seen him
somewhere. In any case, I am not his dupe.”


This person, grave with a gravity which was almost menacing, was one of
those men who, even when only seen by a rapid glimpse, arrest the
spectator’s attention.

His name was Javert, and he belonged to the police.

At M. sur M. he exercised the unpleasant but useful functions of an
inspector. He had not seen Madeleine’s beginnings. Javert owed the post
which he occupied to the protection of M. Chabouillet, the secretary of
the Minister of State, Comte Anglès, then prefect of police at Paris.
When Javert arrived at M. sur M. the fortune of the great manufacturer
was already made, and Father Madeleine had become Monsieur Madeleine.

Certain police officers have a peculiar physiognomy, which is
complicated with an air of baseness mingled with an air of authority.
Javert possessed this physiognomy minus the baseness.

It is our conviction that if souls were visible to the eyes, we should
be able to see distinctly that strange thing that each one individual
of the human race corresponds to some one of the species of the animal
creation; and we could easily recognize this truth, hardly perceived by
the thinker, that from the oyster to the eagle, from the pig to the
tiger, all animals exist in man, and that each one of them is in a man.
Sometimes even several of them at a time.

Animals are nothing else than the figures of our virtues and our vices,
straying before our eyes, the visible phantoms of our souls. God shows
them to us in order to induce us to reflect. Only since animals are
mere shadows, God has not made them capable of education in the full
sense of the word; what is the use? On the contrary, our souls being
realities and having a goal which is appropriate to them, God has
bestowed on them intelligence; that is to say, the possibility of
education. Social education, when well done, can always draw from a
soul, of whatever sort it may be, the utility which it contains.

This, be it said, is of course from the restricted point of view of the
terrestrial life which is apparent, and without prejudging the profound
question of the anterior or ulterior personality of the beings which
are not man. The visible _I_ in nowise authorizes the thinker to deny
the latent _I_. Having made this reservation, let us pass on.

Now, if the reader will admit, for a moment, with us, that in every man
there is one of the animal species of creation, it will be easy for us
to say what there was in Police Officer Javert.

The peasants of Asturias are convinced that in every litter of wolves
there is one dog, which is killed by the mother because, otherwise, as
he grew up, he would devour the other little ones.

Give to this dog-son of a wolf a human face, and the result will be
Javert.

Javert had been born in prison, of a fortune-teller, whose husband was
in the galleys. As he grew up, he thought that he was outside the pale
of society, and he despaired of ever re-entering it. He observed that
society unpardoningly excludes two classes of men,—those who attack it
and those who guard it; he had no choice except between these two
classes; at the same time, he was conscious of an indescribable
foundation of rigidity, regularity, and probity, complicated with an
inexpressible hatred for the race of bohemians whence he was sprung. He
entered the police; he succeeded there. At forty years of age he was an
inspector.

During his youth he had been employed in the convict establishments of
the South.

Before proceeding further, let us come to an understanding as to the
words, “human face,” which we have just applied to Javert.

The human face of Javert consisted of a flat nose, with two deep
nostrils, towards which enormous whiskers ascended on his cheeks. One
felt ill at ease when he saw these two forests and these two caverns
for the first time. When Javert laughed,—and his laugh was rare and
terrible,—his thin lips parted and revealed to view not only his teeth,
but his gums, and around his nose there formed a flattened and savage
fold, as on the muzzle of a wild beast. Javert, serious, was a
watchdog; when he laughed, he was a tiger. As for the rest, he had very
little skull and a great deal of jaw; his hair concealed his forehead
and fell over his eyebrows; between his eyes there was a permanent,
central frown, like an imprint of wrath; his gaze was obscure; his
mouth pursed up and terrible; his air that of ferocious command.

This man was composed of two very simple and two very good sentiments,
comparatively; but he rendered them almost bad, by dint of exaggerating
them,—respect for authority, hatred of rebellion; and in his eyes,
murder, robbery, all crimes, are only forms of rebellion. He enveloped
in a blind and profound faith every one who had a function in the
state, from the prime minister to the rural policeman. He covered with
scorn, aversion, and disgust every one who had once crossed the legal
threshold of evil. He was absolute, and admitted no exceptions. On the
one hand, he said, “The functionary can make no mistake; the magistrate
is never the wrong.” On the other hand, he said, “These men are
irremediably lost. Nothing good can come from them.” He fully shared
the opinion of those extreme minds which attribute to human law I know
not what power of making, or, if the reader will have it so, of
authenticating, demons, and who place a Styx at the base of society. He
was stoical, serious, austere; a melancholy dreamer, humble and
haughty, like fanatics. His glance was like a gimlet, cold and
piercing. His whole life hung on these two words: watchfulness and
supervision. He had introduced a straight line into what is the most
crooked thing in the world; he possessed the conscience of his
usefulness, the religion of his functions, and he was a spy as other
men are priests. Woe to the man who fell into his hands! He would have
arrested his own father, if the latter had escaped from the galleys,
and would have denounced his mother, if she had broken her ban. And he
would have done it with that sort of inward satisfaction which is
conferred by virtue. And, withal, a life of privation, isolation,
abnegation, chastity, with never a diversion. It was implacable duty;
the police understood, as the Spartans understood Sparta, a pitiless
lying in wait, a ferocious honesty, a marble informer, Brutus in
Vidocq.

Javert’s whole person was expressive of the man who spies and who
withdraws himself from observation. The mystical school of Joseph de
Maistre, which at that epoch seasoned with lofty cosmogony those things
which were called the ultra newspapers, would not have failed to
declare that Javert was a symbol. His brow was not visible; it
disappeared beneath his hat: his eyes were not visible, since they were
lost under his eyebrows: his chin was not visible, for it was plunged
in his cravat: his hands were not visible; they were drawn up in his
sleeves: and his cane was not visible; he carried it under his coat.
But when the occasion presented itself, there was suddenly seen to
emerge from all this shadow, as from an ambuscade, a narrow and angular
forehead, a baleful glance, a threatening chin, enormous hands, and a
monstrous cudgel.

In his leisure moments, which were far from frequent, he read, although
he hated books; this caused him to be not wholly illiterate. This could
be recognized by some emphasis in his speech.

As we have said, he had no vices. When he was pleased with himself, he
permitted himself a pinch of snuff. Therein lay his connection with
humanity.

The reader will have no difficulty in understanding that Javert was the
terror of that whole class which the annual statistics of the Ministry
of Justice designates under the rubric, Vagrants. The name of Javert
routed them by its mere utterance; the face of Javert petrified them at
sight.

Such was this formidable man.

Javert was like an eye constantly fixed on M. Madeleine. An eye full of
suspicion and conjecture. M. Madeleine had finally perceived the fact;
but it seemed to be of no importance to him. He did not even put a
question to Javert; he neither sought nor avoided him; he bore that
embarrassing and almost oppressive gaze without appearing to notice it.
He treated Javert with ease and courtesy, as he did all the rest of the
world.

It was divined, from some words which escaped Javert, that he had
secretly investigated, with that curiosity which belongs to the race,
and into which there enters as much instinct as will, all the anterior
traces which Father Madeleine might have left elsewhere. He seemed to
know, and he sometimes said in covert words, that some one had gleaned
certain information in a certain district about a family which had
disappeared. Once he chanced to say, as he was talking to himself, “I
think I have him!” Then he remained pensive for three days, and uttered
not a word. It seemed that the thread which he thought he held had
broken.

Moreover, and this furnishes the necessary corrective for the too
absolute sense which certain words might present, there can be nothing
really infallible in a human creature, and the peculiarity of instinct
is that it can become confused, thrown off the track, and defeated.
Otherwise, it would be superior to intelligence, and the beast would be
found to be provided with a better light than man.

Javert was evidently somewhat disconcerted by the perfect naturalness
and tranquillity of M. Madeleine.

One day, nevertheless, his strange manner appeared to produce an
impression on M. Madeleine. It was on the following occasion.




CHAPTER VI—FATHER FAUCHELEVENT


One morning M. Madeleine was passing through an unpaved alley of M. sur
M.; he heard a noise, and saw a group some distance away. He
approached. An old man named Father Fauchelevent had just fallen
beneath his cart, his horse having tumbled down.

This Fauchelevent was one of the few enemies whom M. Madeleine had at
that time. When Madeleine arrived in the neighborhood, Fauchelevent, an
ex-notary and a peasant who was almost educated, had a business which
was beginning to be in a bad way. Fauchelevent had seen this simple
workman grow rich, while he, a lawyer, was being ruined. This had
filled him with jealousy, and he had done all he could, on every
occasion, to injure Madeleine. Then bankruptcy had come; and as the old
man had nothing left but a cart and a horse, and neither family nor
children, he had turned carter.

The horse had two broken legs and could not rise. The old man was
caught in the wheels. The fall had been so unlucky that the whole
weight of the vehicle rested on his breast. The cart was quite heavily
laden. Father Fauchelevent was rattling in the throat in the most
lamentable manner. They had tried, but in vain, to drag him out. An
unmethodical effort, aid awkwardly given, a wrong shake, might kill
him. It was impossible to disengage him otherwise than by lifting the
vehicle off of him. Javert, who had come up at the moment of the
accident, had sent for a jack-screw.

M. Madeleine arrived. People stood aside respectfully.

“Help!” cried old Fauchelevent. “Who will be good and save the old
man?”


M. Madeleine turned towards those present:—

“Is there a jack-screw to be had?”


“One has been sent for,” answered the peasant.

“How long will it take to get it?”


“They have gone for the nearest, to Flachot’s place, where there is a
farrier; but it makes no difference; it will take a good quarter of an
hour.”


“A quarter of an hour!” exclaimed Madeleine.

It had rained on the preceding night; the soil was soaked.

The cart was sinking deeper into the earth every moment, and crushing
the old carter’s breast more and more. It was evident that his ribs
would be broken in five minutes more.

“It is impossible to wait another quarter of an hour,” said Madeleine
to the peasants, who were staring at him.

“We must!”


“But it will be too late then! Don’t you see that the cart is sinking?”


“Well!”


“Listen,” resumed Madeleine; “there is still room enough under the cart
to allow a man to crawl beneath it and raise it with his back. Only
half a minute, and the poor man can be taken out. Is there any one here
who has stout loins and heart? There are five louis d’or to be earned!”


Not a man in the group stirred.

“Ten louis,” said Madeleine.

The persons present dropped their eyes. One of them muttered: “A man
would need to be devilish strong. And then he runs the risk of getting
crushed!”


“Come,” began Madeleine again, “twenty louis.”


The same silence.

“It is not the will which is lacking,” said a voice.

M. Madeleine turned round, and recognized Javert. He had not noticed
him on his arrival.

Javert went on:—

“It is strength. One would have to be a terrible man to do such a thing
as lift a cart like that on his back.”


Then, gazing fixedly at M. Madeleine, he went on, emphasizing every
word that he uttered:—

“Monsieur Madeleine, I have never known but one man capable of doing
what you ask.”


Madeleine shuddered.

Javert added, with an air of indifference, but without removing his
eyes from Madeleine:—

“He was a convict.”


“Ah!” said Madeleine.

“In the galleys at Toulon.”


Madeleine turned pale.

Meanwhile, the cart continued to sink slowly. Father Fauchelevent
rattled in the throat, and shrieked:—

“I am strangling! My ribs are breaking! a screw! something! Ah!”


Madeleine glanced about him.

“Is there, then, no one who wishes to earn twenty louis and save the
life of this poor old man?”


No one stirred. Javert resumed:—

“I have never known but one man who could take the place of a screw,
and he was that convict.”


“Ah! It is crushing me!” cried the old man.

Madeleine raised his head, met Javert’s falcon eye still fixed upon
him, looked at the motionless peasants, and smiled sadly. Then, without
saying a word, he fell on his knees, and before the crowd had even had
time to utter a cry, he was underneath the vehicle.

A terrible moment of expectation and silence ensued.

They beheld Madeleine, almost flat on his stomach beneath that terrible
weight, make two vain efforts to bring his knees and his elbows
together. They shouted to him, “Father Madeleine, come out!” Old
Fauchelevent himself said to him, “Monsieur Madeleine, go away! You see
that I am fated to die! Leave me! You will get yourself crushed also!”
Madeleine made no reply.

All the spectators were panting. The wheels had continued to sink, and
it had become almost impossible for Madeleine to make his way from
under the vehicle.

Suddenly the enormous mass was seen to quiver, the cart rose slowly,
the wheels half emerged from the ruts. They heard a stifled voice
crying, “Make haste! Help!” It was Madeleine, who had just made a final
effort.

They rushed forwards. The devotion of a single man had given force and
courage to all. The cart was raised by twenty arms. Old Fauchelevent
was saved.

Madeleine rose. He was pale, though dripping with perspiration. His
clothes were torn and covered with mud. All wept. The old man kissed
his knees and called him the good God. As for him, he bore upon his
countenance an indescribable expression of happy and celestial
suffering, and he fixed his tranquil eye on Javert, who was still
staring at him.




CHAPTER VII—FAUCHELEVENT BECOMES A GARDENER IN PARIS


Fauchelevent had dislocated his kneepan in his fall. Father Madeleine
had him conveyed to an infirmary which he had established for his
workmen in the factory building itself, and which was served by two
sisters of charity. On the following morning the old man found a
thousand-franc bank-note on his night-stand, with these words in Father
Madeleine’s writing: _“I purchase your horse and cart.”_ The cart was
broken, and the horse was dead. Fauchelevent recovered, but his knee
remained stiff. M. Madeleine, on the recommendation of the sisters of
charity and of his priest, got the good man a place as gardener in a
female convent in the Rue Saint-Antoine in Paris.

Some time afterwards, M. Madeleine was appointed mayor. The first time
that Javert beheld M. Madeleine clothed in the scarf which gave him
authority over the town, he felt the sort of shudder which a watch-dog
might experience on smelling a wolf in his master’s clothes. From that
time forth he avoided him as much as he possibly could. When the
requirements of the service imperatively demanded it, and he could not
do otherwise than meet the mayor, he addressed him with profound
respect.

This prosperity created at M. sur M. by Father Madeleine had, besides
the visible signs which we have mentioned, another symptom which was
nonetheless significant for not being visible. This never deceives.
When the population suffers, when work is lacking, when there is no
commerce, the tax-payer resists imposts through penury, he exhausts and
oversteps his respite, and the state expends a great deal of money in
the charges for compelling and collection. When work is abundant, when
the country is rich and happy, the taxes are paid easily and cost the
state nothing. It may be said, that there is one infallible thermometer
of the public misery and riches,—the cost of collecting the taxes. In
the course of seven years the expense of collecting the taxes had
diminished three-fourths in the arrondissement of M. sur M., and this
led to this arrondissement being frequently cited from all the rest by
M. de Villèle, then Minister of Finance.

Such was the condition of the country when Fantine returned thither. No
one remembered her. Fortunately, the door of M. Madeleine’s factory was
like the face of a friend. She presented herself there, and was
admitted to the women’s workroom. The trade was entirely new to
Fantine; she could not be very skilful at it, and she therefore earned
but little by her day’s work; but it was sufficient; the problem was
solved; she was earning her living.




CHAPTER VIII—MADAME VICTURNIEN EXPENDS THIRTY FRANCS ON MORALITY


When Fantine saw that she was making her living, she felt joyful for a
moment. To live honestly by her own labor, what mercy from heaven! The
taste for work had really returned to her. She bought a looking-glass,
took pleasure in surveying in it her youth, her beautiful hair, her
fine teeth; she forgot many things; she thought only of Cosette and of
the possible future, and was almost happy. She hired a little room and
furnished on credit on the strength of her future work—a lingering
trace of her improvident ways. As she was not able to say that she was
married she took good care, as we have seen, not to mention her little
girl.

At first, as the reader has seen, she paid the Thénardiers promptly. As
she only knew how to sign her name, she was obliged to write through a
public letter-writer.

She wrote often, and this was noticed. It began to be said in an
undertone, in the women’s workroom, that Fantine “wrote letters” and
that “she had ways about her.”


There is no one for spying on people’s actions like those who are not
concerned in them. Why does that gentleman never come except at
nightfall? Why does Mr. So-and-So never hang his key on its nail on
Tuesday? Why does he always take the narrow streets? Why does Madame
always descend from her hackney-coach before reaching her house? Why
does she send out to purchase six sheets of note paper, when she has a
“whole stationer’s shop full of it?” etc. There exist beings who, for
the sake of obtaining the key to these enigmas, which are, moreover, of
no consequence whatever to them, spend more money, waste more time,
take more trouble, than would be required for ten good actions, and
that gratuitously, for their own pleasure, without receiving any other
payment for their curiosity than curiosity. They will follow up such
and such a man or woman for whole days; they will do sentry duty for
hours at a time on the corners of the streets, under alley-way doors at
night, in cold and rain; they will bribe errand-porters, they will make
the drivers of hackney-coaches and lackeys tipsy, buy a waiting-maid,
suborn a porter. Why? For no reason. A pure passion for seeing,
knowing, and penetrating into things. A pure itch for talking. And
often these secrets once known, these mysteries made public, these
enigmas illuminated by the light of day, bring on catastrophies, duels,
failures, the ruin of families, and broken lives, to the great joy of
those who have “found out everything,” without any interest in the
matter, and by pure instinct. A sad thing.

Certain persons are malicious solely through a necessity for talking.
Their conversation, the chat of the drawing-room, gossip of the
anteroom, is like those chimneys which consume wood rapidly; they need
a great amount of combustibles; and their combustibles are furnished by
their neighbors.

So Fantine was watched.

In addition, many a one was jealous of her golden hair and of her white
teeth.

It was remarked that in the workroom she often turned aside, in the
midst of the rest, to wipe away a tear. These were the moments when she
was thinking of her child; perhaps, also, of the man whom she had
loved.

Breaking the gloomy bonds of the past is a mournful task.

It was observed that she wrote twice a month at least, and that she
paid the carriage on the letter. They managed to obtain the address:
_Monsieur, Monsieur Thénardier, inn-keeper at Montfermeil_. The public
writer, a good old man who could not fill his stomach with red wine
without emptying his pocket of secrets, was made to talk in the
wine-shop. In short, it was discovered that Fantine had a child. “She
must be a pretty sort of a woman.” An old gossip was found, who made
the trip to Montfermeil, talked to the Thénardiers, and said on her
return: “For my five and thirty francs I have freed my mind. I have
seen the child.”


The gossip who did this thing was a gorgon named Madame Victurnien, the
guardian and door-keeper of every one’s virtue. Madame Victurnien was
fifty-six, and re-enforced the mask of ugliness with the mask of age. A
quavering voice, a whimsical mind. This old dame had once been
young—astonishing fact! In her youth, in ’93, she had married a monk
who had fled from his cloister in a red cap, and passed from the
Bernardines to the Jacobins. She was dry, rough, peevish, sharp,
captious, almost venomous; all this in memory of her monk, whose widow
she was, and who had ruled over her masterfully and bent her to his
will. She was a nettle in which the rustle of the cassock was visible.
At the Restoration she had turned bigot, and that with so much energy
that the priests had forgiven her her monk. She had a small property,
which she bequeathed with much ostentation to a religious community.
She was in high favor at the episcopal palace of Arras. So this Madame
Victurnien went to Montfermeil, and returned with the remark, “I have
seen the child.”


All this took time. Fantine had been at the factory for more than a
year, when, one morning, the superintendent of the workroom handed her
fifty francs from the mayor, told her that she was no longer employed
in the shop, and requested her, in the mayor’s name, to leave the
neighborhood.

This was the very month when the Thénardiers, after having demanded
twelve francs instead of six, had just exacted fifteen francs instead
of twelve.

Fantine was overwhelmed. She could not leave the neighborhood; she was
in debt for her rent and furniture. Fifty francs was not sufficient to
cancel this debt. She stammered a few supplicating words. The
superintendent ordered her to leave the shop on the instant. Besides,
Fantine was only a moderately good workwoman. Overcome with shame, even
more than with despair, she quitted the shop, and returned to her room.
So her fault was now known to every one.

She no longer felt strong enough to say a word. She was advised to see
the mayor; she did not dare. The mayor had given her fifty francs
because he was good, and had dismissed her because he was just. She
bowed before the decision.




CHAPTER IX—MADAME VICTURNIEN’S SUCCESS


So the monk’s widow was good for something.

But M. Madeleine had heard nothing of all this. Life is full of just
such combinations of events. M. Madeleine was in the habit of almost
never entering the women’s workroom.

At the head of this room he had placed an elderly spinster, whom the
priest had provided for him, and he had full confidence in this
superintendent,—a truly respectable person, firm, equitable, upright,
full of the charity which consists in giving, but not having in the
same degree that charity which consists in understanding and in
forgiving. M. Madeleine relied wholly on her. The best men are often
obliged to delegate their authority. It was with this full power, and
the conviction that she was doing right, that the superintendent had
instituted the suit, judged, condemned, and executed Fantine.

As regards the fifty francs, she had given them from a fund which M.
Madeleine had intrusted to her for charitable purposes, and for giving
assistance to the workwomen, and of which she rendered no account.

Fantine tried to obtain a situation as a servant in the neighborhood;
she went from house to house. No one would have her. She could not
leave town. The second-hand dealer, to whom she was in debt for her
furniture—and what furniture!—said to her, “If you leave, I will have
you arrested as a thief.” The householder, whom she owed for her rent,
said to her, “You are young and pretty; you can pay.” She divided the
fifty francs between the landlord and the furniture-dealer, returned to
the latter three-quarters of his goods, kept only necessaries, and
found herself without work, without a trade, with nothing but her bed,
and still about fifty francs in debt.

She began to make coarse shirts for soldiers of the garrison, and
earned twelve sous a day. Her daughter cost her ten. It was at this
point that she began to pay the Thénardiers irregularly.

However, the old woman who lighted her candle for her when she returned
at night, taught her the art of living in misery. Back of living on
little, there is the living on nothing. These are the two chambers; the
first is dark, the second is black.

Fantine learned how to live without fire entirely in the winter; how to
give up a bird which eats a half a farthing’s worth of millet every two
days; how to make a coverlet of one’s petticoat, and a petticoat of
one’s coverlet; how to save one’s candle, by taking one’s meals by the
light of the opposite window. No one knows all that certain feeble
creatures, who have grown old in privation and honesty, can get out of
a sou. It ends by being a talent. Fantine acquired this sublime talent,
and regained a little courage.

At this epoch she said to a neighbor, “Bah! I say to myself, by only
sleeping five hours, and working all the rest of the time at my sewing,
I shall always manage to nearly earn my bread. And, then, when one is
sad, one eats less. Well, sufferings, uneasiness, a little bread on one
hand, trouble on the other,—all this will support me.”


It would have been a great happiness to have her little girl with her
in this distress. She thought of having her come. But what then! Make
her share her own destitution! And then, she was in debt to the
Thénardiers! How could she pay them? And the journey! How pay for that?

The old woman who had given her lessons in what may be called the life
of indigence, was a sainted spinster named Marguerite, who was pious
with a true piety, poor and charitable towards the poor, and even
towards the rich, knowing how to write just sufficiently to sign
herself Marguerite, and believing in God, which is science.

There are many such virtuous people in this lower world; some day they
will be in the world above. This life has a morrow.

At first, Fantine had been so ashamed that she had not dared to go out.

When she was in the street, she divined that people turned round behind
her, and pointed at her; every one stared at her and no one greeted
her; the cold and bitter scorn of the passers-by penetrated her very
flesh and soul like a north wind.

It seems as though an unfortunate woman were utterly bare beneath the
sarcasm and the curiosity of all in small towns. In Paris, at least, no
one knows you, and this obscurity is a garment. Oh! how she would have
liked to betake herself to Paris! Impossible!

She was obliged to accustom herself to disrepute, as she had accustomed
herself to indigence. Gradually she decided on her course. At the
expiration of two or three months she shook off her shame, and began to
go about as though there were nothing the matter. “It is all the same
to me,” she said.

She went and came, bearing her head well up, with a bitter smile, and
was conscious that she was becoming brazen-faced.

Madame Victurnien sometimes saw her passing, from her window, noticed
the distress of “that creature” who, “thanks to her,” had been “put
back in her proper place,” and congratulated herself. The happiness of
the evil-minded is black.

Excess of toil wore out Fantine, and the little dry cough which
troubled her increased. She sometimes said to her neighbor, Marguerite,
“Just feel how hot my hands are!”


Nevertheless, when she combed her beautiful hair in the morning with an
old broken comb, and it flowed about her like floss silk, she
experienced a moment of happy coquetry.




CHAPTER X—RESULT OF THE SUCCESS


She had been dismissed towards the end of the winter; the summer
passed, but winter came again. Short days, less work. Winter: no
warmth, no light, no noonday, the evening joining on to the morning,
fogs, twilight; the window is gray; it is impossible to see clearly at
it. The sky is but a vent-hole. The whole day is a cavern. The sun has
the air of a beggar. A frightful season! Winter changes the water of
heaven and the heart of man into a stone. Her creditors harrassed her.

Fantine earned too little. Her debts had increased. The Thénardiers,
who were not promptly paid, wrote to her constantly letters whose
contents drove her to despair, and whose carriage ruined her. One day
they wrote to her that her little Cosette was entirely naked in that
cold weather, that she needed a woollen skirt, and that her mother must
send at least ten francs for this. She received the letter, and crushed
it in her hands all day long. That evening she went into a barber’s
shop at the corner of the street, and pulled out her comb. Her
admirable golden hair fell to her knees.

“What splendid hair!” exclaimed the barber.

“How much will you give me for it?” said she.

“Ten francs.”


“Cut it off.”


She purchased a knitted petticoat and sent it to the Thénardiers. This
petticoat made the Thénardiers furious. It was the money that they
wanted. They gave the petticoat to Éponine. The poor Lark continued to
shiver.

Fantine thought: “My child is no longer cold. I have clothed her with
my hair.” She put on little round caps which concealed her shorn head,
and in which she was still pretty.

Dark thoughts held possession of Fantine’s heart.

When she saw that she could no longer dress her hair, she began to hate
every one about her. She had long shared the universal veneration for
Father Madeleine; yet, by dint of repeating to herself that it was he
who had discharged her, that he was the cause of her unhappiness, she
came to hate him also, and most of all. When she passed the factory in
working hours, when the workpeople were at the door, she affected to
laugh and sing.

An old workwoman who once saw her laughing and singing in this fashion
said, “There’s a girl who will come to a bad end.”


She took a lover, the first who offered, a man whom she did not love,
out of bravado and with rage in her heart. He was a miserable scamp, a
sort of mendicant musician, a lazy beggar, who beat her, and who
abandoned her as she had taken him, in disgust.

She adored her child.

The lower she descended, the darker everything grew about her, the more
radiant shone that little angel at the bottom of her heart. She said,
“When I get rich, I will have my Cosette with me;” and she laughed. Her
cough did not leave her, and she had sweats on her back.

One day she received from the Thénardiers a letter couched in the
following terms: “Cosette is ill with a malady which is going the
rounds of the neighborhood. A miliary fever, they call it. Expensive
drugs are required. This is ruining us, and we can no longer pay for
them. If you do not send us forty francs before the week is out, the
little one will be dead.”


She burst out laughing, and said to her old neighbor: “Ah! they are
good! Forty francs! the idea! That makes two napoleons! Where do they
think I am to get them? These peasants are stupid, truly.”


Nevertheless she went to a dormer window in the staircase and read the
letter once more. Then she descended the stairs and emerged, running
and leaping and still laughing.

Some one met her and said to her, “What makes you so gay?”


She replied: “A fine piece of stupidity that some country people have
written to me. They demand forty francs of me. So much for you, you
peasants!”


As she crossed the square, she saw a great many people collected around
a carriage of eccentric shape, upon the top of which stood a man
dressed in red, who was holding forth. He was a quack dentist on his
rounds, who was offering to the public full sets of teeth, opiates,
powders and elixirs.

Fantine mingled in the group, and began to laugh with the rest at the
harangue, which contained slang for the populace and jargon for
respectable people. The tooth-puller espied the lovely, laughing girl,
and suddenly exclaimed: “You have beautiful teeth, you girl there, who
are laughing; if you want to sell me your palettes, I will give you a
gold napoleon apiece for them.”


“What are my palettes?” asked Fantine.

“The palettes,” replied the dental professor, “are the front teeth, the
two upper ones.”


“How horrible!” exclaimed Fantine.

“Two napoleons!” grumbled a toothless old woman who was present.
“Here’s a lucky girl!”


Fantine fled and stopped her ears that she might not hear the hoarse
voice of the man shouting to her: “Reflect, my beauty! two napoleons;
they may prove of service. If your heart bids you, come this evening to
the inn of the _Tillac d’Argent_; you will find me there.”


Fantine returned home. She was furious, and related the occurrence to
her good neighbor Marguerite: “Can you understand such a thing? Is he
not an abominable man? How can they allow such people to go about the
country! Pull out my two front teeth! Why, I should be horrible! My
hair will grow again, but my teeth! Ah! what a monster of a man! I
should prefer to throw myself head first on the pavement from the fifth
story! He told me that he should be at the _Tillac d’Argent_ this
evening.”


“And what did he offer?” asked Marguerite.

“Two napoleons.”


“That makes forty francs.”


“Yes,” said Fantine; “that makes forty francs.”


She remained thoughtful, and began her work. At the expiration of a
quarter of an hour she left her sewing and went to read the
Thénardiers’ letter once more on the staircase.

On her return, she said to Marguerite, who was at work beside her:—

“What is a miliary fever? Do you know?”


“Yes,” answered the old spinster; “it is a disease.”


“Does it require many drugs?”


“Oh! terrible drugs.”


“How does one get it?”


“It is a malady that one gets without knowing how.”


“Then it attacks children?”


“Children in particular.”


“Do people die of it?”


“They may,” said Marguerite.

Fantine left the room and went to read her letter once more on the
staircase.

That evening she went out, and was seen to turn her steps in the
direction of the Rue de Paris, where the inns are situated.

The next morning, when Marguerite entered Fantine’s room before
daylight,—for they always worked together, and in this manner used only
one candle for the two,—she found Fantine seated on her bed, pale and
frozen. She had not lain down. Her cap had fallen on her knees. Her
candle had burned all night, and was almost entirely consumed.
Marguerite halted on the threshold, petrified at this tremendous
wastefulness, and exclaimed:—

“Lord! the candle is all burned out! Something has happened.”


Then she looked at Fantine, who turned toward her her head bereft of
its hair.

Fantine had grown ten years older since the preceding night.

“Jesus!” said Marguerite, “what is the matter with you, Fantine?”


“Nothing,” replied Fantine. “Quite the contrary. My child will not die
of that frightful malady, for lack of succor. I am content.”


So saying, she pointed out to the spinster two napoleons which were
glittering on the table.

“Ah! Jesus God!” cried Marguerite. “Why, it is a fortune! Where did you
get those louis d’or?”


“I got them,” replied Fantine.

At the same time she smiled. The candle illuminated her countenance. It
was a bloody smile. A reddish saliva soiled the corners of her lips,
and she had a black hole in her mouth.

The two teeth had been extracted.

She sent the forty francs to Montfermeil.

After all it was a ruse of the Thénardiers to obtain money. Cosette was
not ill.

Fantine threw her mirror out of the window. She had long since quitted
her cell on the second floor for an attic with only a latch to fasten
it, next the roof; one of those attics whose extremity forms an angle
with the floor, and knocks you on the head every instant. The poor
occupant can reach the end of his chamber as he can the end of his
destiny, only by bending over more and more.

She had no longer a bed; a rag which she called her coverlet, a
mattress on the floor, and a seatless chair still remained. A little
rosebush which she had, had dried up, forgotten, in one corner. In the
other corner was a butter-pot to hold water, which froze in winter, and
in which the various levels of the water remained long marked by these
circles of ice. She had lost her shame; she lost her coquetry. A final
sign. She went out, with dirty caps. Whether from lack of time or from
indifference, she no longer mended her linen. As the heels wore out,
she dragged her stockings down into her shoes. This was evident from
the perpendicular wrinkles. She patched her bodice, which was old and
worn out, with scraps of calico which tore at the slightest movement.
The people to whom she was indebted made “scenes” and gave her no
peace. She found them in the street, she found them again on her
staircase. She passed many a night weeping and thinking. Her eyes were
very bright, and she felt a steady pain in her shoulder towards the top
of the left shoulder-blade. She coughed a great deal. She deeply hated
Father Madeleine, but made no complaint. She sewed seventeen hours a
day; but a contractor for the work of prisons, who made the prisoners
work at a discount, suddenly made prices fall, which reduced the daily
earnings of working-women to nine sous. Seventeen hours of toil, and
nine sous a day! Her creditors were more pitiless than ever. The
second-hand dealer, who had taken back nearly all his furniture, said
to her incessantly, “When will you pay me, you hussy?” What did they
want of her, good God! She felt that she was being hunted, and
something of the wild beast developed in her. About the same time,
Thénardier wrote to her that he had waited with decidedly too much
amiability and that he must have a hundred francs at once; otherwise he
would turn little Cosette out of doors, convalescent as she was from
her heavy illness, into the cold and the streets, and that she might do
what she liked with herself, and die if she chose. “A hundred francs,”
thought Fantine. “But in what trade can one earn a hundred sous a day?”


“Come!” said she, “let us sell what is left.”


The unfortunate girl became a woman of the town.




CHAPTER XI—CHRISTUS NOS LIBERAVIT


What is this history of Fantine? It is society purchasing a slave.

From whom? From misery.

From hunger, cold, isolation, destitution. A dolorous bargain. A soul
for a morsel of bread. Misery offers; society accepts.

The sacred law of Jesus Christ governs our civilization, but it does
not, as yet, permeate it; it is said that slavery has disappeared from
European civilization. This is a mistake. It still exists; but it
weighs only upon the woman, and it is called prostitution.

It weighs upon the woman, that is to say, upon grace, weakness, beauty,
maternity. This is not one of the least of man’s disgraces.

At the point in this melancholy drama which we have now reached,
nothing is left to Fantine of that which she had formerly been.

She has become marble in becoming mire. Whoever touches her feels cold.
She passes; she endures you; she ignores you; she is the severe and
dishonored figure. Life and the social order have said their last word
for her. All has happened to her that will happen to her. She has felt
everything, borne everything, experienced everything, suffered
everything, lost everything, mourned everything. She is resigned, with
that resignation which resembles indifference, as death resembles
sleep. She no longer avoids anything. Let all the clouds fall upon her,
and all the ocean sweep over her! What matters it to her? She is a
sponge that is soaked.

At least, she believes it to be so; but it is an error to imagine that
fate can be exhausted, and that one has reached the bottom of anything
whatever.

Alas! What are all these fates, driven on pell-mell? Whither are they
going? Why are they thus?

He who knows that sees the whole of the shadow.

He is alone. His name is God.




CHAPTER XII—M. BAMATABOIS’S INACTIVITY


There is in all small towns, and there was at M. sur M. in particular,
a class of young men who nibble away an income of fifteen hundred
francs with the same air with which their prototypes devour two hundred
thousand francs a year in Paris. These are beings of the great neuter
species: impotent men, parasites, cyphers, who have a little land, a
little folly, a little wit; who would be rustics in a drawing-room, and
who think themselves gentlemen in the dram-shop; who say, “My fields,
my peasants, my woods”; who hiss actresses at the theatre to prove that
they are persons of taste; quarrel with the officers of the garrison to
prove that they are men of war; hunt, smoke, yawn, drink, smell of
tobacco, play billiards, stare at travellers as they descend from the
diligence, live at the café, dine at the inn, have a dog which eats the
bones under the table, and a mistress who eats the dishes on the table;
who stick at a sou, exaggerate the fashions, admire tragedy, despise
women, wear out their old boots, copy London through Paris, and Paris
through the medium of Pont-à-Mousson, grow old as dullards, never work,
serve no use, and do no great harm.

M. Félix Tholomyès, had he remained in his own province and never
beheld Paris, would have been one of these men.

If they were richer, one would say, “They are dandies;” if they were
poorer, one would say, “They are idlers.” They are simply men without
employment. Among these unemployed there are bores, the bored,
dreamers, and some knaves.

At that period a dandy was composed of a tall collar, a big cravat, a
watch with trinkets, three vests of different colors, worn one on top
of the other—the red and blue inside; of a short-waisted olive coat,
with a codfish tail, a double row of silver buttons set close to each
other and running up to the shoulder; and a pair of trousers of a
lighter shade of olive, ornamented on the two seams with an indefinite,
but always uneven, number of lines, varying from one to eleven—a limit
which was never exceeded. Add to this, high shoes with little irons on
the heels, a tall hat with a narrow brim, hair worn in a tuft, an
enormous cane, and conversation set off by puns of Potier. Over all,
spurs and a moustache. At that epoch moustaches indicated the
bourgeois, and spurs the pedestrian.

The provincial dandy wore the longest of spurs and the fiercest of
moustaches.

It was the period of the conflict of the republics of South America
with the King of Spain, of Bolivar against Morillo. Narrow-brimmed hats
were royalist, and were called _morillos_; liberals wore hats with wide
brims, which were called _bolivars_.

Eight or ten months, then, after that which is related in the preceding
pages, towards the first of January, 1823, on a snowy evening, one of
these dandies, one of these unemployed, a “right thinker,” for he wore
a morillo, and was, moreover, warmly enveloped in one of those large
cloaks which completed the fashionable costume in cold weather, was
amusing himself by tormenting a creature who was prowling about in a
ball-dress, with neck uncovered and flowers in her hair, in front of
the officers’ café. This dandy was smoking, for he was decidedly
fashionable.

Each time that the woman passed in front of him, he bestowed on her,
together with a puff from his cigar, some apostrophe which he
considered witty and mirthful, such as, “How ugly you are!—Will you get
out of my sight?—You have no teeth!” etc., etc. This gentleman was
known as M. Bamatabois. The woman, a melancholy, decorated spectre
which went and came through the snow, made him no reply, did not even
glance at him, and nevertheless continued her promenade in silence, and
with a sombre regularity, which brought her every five minutes within
reach of this sarcasm, like the condemned soldier who returns under the
rods. The small effect which he produced no doubt piqued the lounger;
and taking advantage of a moment when her back was turned, he crept up
behind her with the gait of a wolf, and stifling his laugh, bent down,
picked up a handful of snow from the pavement, and thrust it abruptly
into her back, between her bare shoulders. The woman uttered a roar,
whirled round, gave a leap like a panther, and hurled herself upon the
man, burying her nails in his face, with the most frightful words which
could fall from the guard-room into the gutter. These insults, poured
forth in a voice roughened by brandy, did, indeed, proceed in hideous
wise from a mouth which lacked its two front teeth. It was Fantine.

At the noise thus produced, the officers ran out in throngs from the
café, passers-by collected, and a large and merry circle, hooting and
applauding, was formed around this whirlwind composed of two beings,
whom there was some difficulty in recognizing as a man and a woman: the
man struggling, his hat on the ground; the woman striking out with feet
and fists, bareheaded, howling, minus hair and teeth, livid with wrath,
horrible.

Suddenly a man of lofty stature emerged vivaciously from the crowd,
seized the woman by her satin bodice, which was covered with mud, and
said to her, “Follow me!”


The woman raised her head; her furious voice suddenly died away. Her
eyes were glassy; she turned pale instead of livid, and she trembled
with a quiver of terror. She had recognized Javert.

The dandy took advantage of the incident to make his escape.




CHAPTER XIII—THE SOLUTION OF SOME QUESTIONS CONNECTED WITH THE
MUNICIPAL POLICE


Javert thrust aside the spectators, broke the circle, and set out with
long strides towards the police station, which is situated at the
extremity of the square, dragging the wretched woman after him. She
yielded mechanically. Neither he nor she uttered a word. The cloud of
spectators followed, jesting, in a paroxysm of delight. Supreme misery
an occasion for obscenity.

On arriving at the police station, which was a low room, warmed by a
stove, with a glazed and grated door opening on the street, and guarded
by a detachment, Javert opened the door, entered with Fantine, and shut
the door behind him, to the great disappointment of the curious, who
raised themselves on tiptoe, and craned their necks in front of the
thick glass of the station-house, in their effort to see. Curiosity is
a sort of gluttony. To see is to devour.

On entering, Fantine fell down in a corner, motionless and mute,
crouching down like a terrified dog.

The sergeant of the guard brought a lighted candle to the table. Javert
seated himself, drew a sheet of stamped paper from his pocket, and
began to write.

This class of women is consigned by our laws entirely to the discretion
of the police. The latter do what they please, punish them, as seems
good to them, and confiscate at their will those two sorry things which
they entitle their industry and their liberty. Javert was impassive;
his grave face betrayed no emotion whatever. Nevertheless, he was
seriously and deeply preoccupied. It was one of those moments when he
was exercising without control, but subject to all the scruples of a
severe conscience, his redoubtable discretionary power. At that moment
he was conscious that his police agent’s stool was a tribunal. He was
entering judgment. He judged and condemned. He summoned all the ideas
which could possibly exist in his mind, around the great thing which he
was doing. The more he examined the deed of this woman, the more
shocked he felt. It was evident that he had just witnessed the
commission of a crime. He had just beheld, yonder, in the street,
society, in the person of a freeholder and an elector, insulted and
attacked by a creature who was outside all pales. A prostitute had made
an attempt on the life of a citizen. He had seen that, he, Javert. He
wrote in silence.

When he had finished he signed the paper, folded it, and said to the
sergeant of the guard, as he handed it to him, “Take three men and
conduct this creature to jail.”


Then, turning to Fantine, “You are to have six months of it.” The
unhappy woman shuddered.

“Six months! six months of prison!” she exclaimed. “Six months in which
to earn seven sous a day! But what will become of Cosette? My daughter!
my daughter! But I still owe the Thénardiers over a hundred francs; do
you know that, Monsieur Inspector?”


She dragged herself across the damp floor, among the muddy boots of all
those men, without rising, with clasped hands, and taking great strides
on her knees.

“Monsieur Javert,” said she, “I beseech your mercy. I assure you that I
was not in the wrong. If you had seen the beginning, you would have
seen. I swear to you by the good God that I was not to blame! That
gentleman, the bourgeois, whom I do not know, put snow in my back. Has
any one the right to put snow down our backs when we are walking along
peaceably, and doing no harm to any one? I am rather ill, as you see.
And then, he had been saying impertinent things to me for a long time:
‘You are ugly! you have no teeth!’ I know well that I have no longer
those teeth. I did nothing; I said to myself, ‘The gentleman is amusing
himself.’ I was honest with him; I did not speak to him. It was at that
moment that he put the snow down my back. Monsieur Javert, good
Monsieur Inspector! is there not some person here who saw it and can
tell you that this is quite true? Perhaps I did wrong to get angry. You
know that one is not master of one’s self at the first moment. One
gives way to vivacity; and then, when some one puts something cold down
your back just when you are not expecting it! I did wrong to spoil that
gentleman’s hat. Why did he go away? I would ask his pardon. Oh, my
God! It makes no difference to me whether I ask his pardon. Do me the
favor to-day, for this once, Monsieur Javert. Hold! you do not know
that in prison one can earn only seven sous a day; it is not the
government’s fault, but seven sous is one’s earnings; and just fancy, I
must pay one hundred francs, or my little girl will be sent to me. Oh,
my God! I cannot have her with me. What I do is so vile! Oh, my
Cosette! Oh, my little angel of the Holy Virgin! what will become of
her, poor creature? I will tell you: it is the Thénardiers,
inn-keepers, peasants; and such people are unreasonable. They want
money. Don’t put me in prison! You see, there is a little girl who will
be turned out into the street to get along as best she may, in the very
heart of the winter; and you must have pity on such a being, my good
Monsieur Javert. If she were older, she might earn her living; but it
cannot be done at that age. I am not a bad woman at bottom. It is not
cowardliness and gluttony that have made me what I am. If I have drunk
brandy, it was out of misery. I do not love it; but it benumbs the
senses. When I was happy, it was only necessary to glance into my
closets, and it would have been evident that I was not a coquettish and
untidy woman. I had linen, a great deal of linen. Have pity on me,
Monsieur Javert!”


She spoke thus, rent in twain, shaken with sobs, blinded with tears,
her neck bare, wringing her hands, and coughing with a dry, short
cough, stammering softly with a voice of agony. Great sorrow is a
divine and terrible ray, which transfigures the unhappy. At that moment
Fantine had become beautiful once more. From time to time she paused,
and tenderly kissed the police agent’s coat. She would have softened a
heart of granite; but a heart of wood cannot be softened.

“Come!” said Javert, “I have heard you out. Have you entirely finished?
You will get six months. Now march! The Eternal Father in person could
do nothing more.”


At these solemn words, _“the Eternal Father in person could do nothing
more,”_ she understood that her fate was sealed. She sank down,
murmuring, “Mercy!”


Javert turned his back.

The soldiers seized her by the arms.

A few moments earlier a man had entered, but no one had paid any heed
to him. He shut the door, leaned his back against it, and listened to
Fantine’s despairing supplications.

At the instant when the soldiers laid their hands upon the unfortunate
woman, who would not rise, he emerged from the shadow, and said:—

“One moment, if you please.”


Javert raised his eyes and recognized M. Madeleine. He removed his hat,
and, saluting him with a sort of aggrieved awkwardness:—

“Excuse me, Mr. Mayor—”


The words “Mr. Mayor” produced a curious effect upon Fantine. She rose
to her feet with one bound, like a spectre springing from the earth,
thrust aside the soldiers with both arms, walked straight up to M.
Madeleine before any one could prevent her, and gazing intently at him,
with a bewildered air, she cried:—

“Ah! so it is you who are M. le Maire!”


Then she burst into a laugh, and spit in his face.

M. Madeleine wiped his face, and said:—

“Inspector Javert, set this woman at liberty.”


Javert felt that he was on the verge of going mad. He experienced at
that moment, blow upon blow and almost simultaneously, the most violent
emotions which he had ever undergone in all his life. To see a woman of
the town spit in the mayor’s face was a thing so monstrous that, in his
most daring flights of fancy, he would have regarded it as a sacrilege
to believe it possible. On the other hand, at the very bottom of his
thought, he made a hideous comparison as to what this woman was, and as
to what this mayor might be; and then he, with horror, caught a glimpse
of I know not what simple explanation of this prodigious attack. But
when he beheld that mayor, that magistrate, calmly wipe his face and
say, _“Set this woman at liberty,”_ he underwent a sort of intoxication
of amazement; thought and word failed him equally; the sum total of
possible astonishment had been exceeded in his case. He remained mute.

The words had produced no less strange an effect on Fantine. She raised
her bare arm, and clung to the damper of the stove, like a person who
is reeling. Nevertheless, she glanced about her, and began to speak in
a low voice, as though talking to herself:—

“At liberty! I am to be allowed to go! I am not to go to prison for six
months! Who said that? It is not possible that any one could have said
that. I did not hear aright. It cannot have been that monster of a
mayor! Was it you, my good Monsieur Javert, who said that I was to be
set free? Oh, see here! I will tell you about it, and you will let me
go. That monster of a mayor, that old blackguard of a mayor, is the
cause of all. Just imagine, Monsieur Javert, he turned me out! all
because of a pack of rascally women, who gossip in the workroom. If
that is not a horror, what is? To dismiss a poor girl who is doing her
work honestly! Then I could no longer earn enough, and all this misery
followed. In the first place, there is one improvement which these
gentlemen of the police ought to make, and that is, to prevent prison
contractors from wronging poor people. I will explain it to you, you
see: you are earning twelve sous at shirt-making, the price falls to
nine sous; and it is not enough to live on. Then one has to become
whatever one can. As for me, I had my little Cosette, and I was
actually forced to become a bad woman. Now you understand how it is
that that blackguard of a mayor caused all the mischief. After that I
stamped on that gentleman’s hat in front of the officers’ café; but he
had spoiled my whole dress with snow. We women have but one silk dress
for evening wear. You see that I did not do wrong deliberately—truly,
Monsieur Javert; and everywhere I behold women who are far more wicked
than I, and who are much happier. O Monsieur Javert! it was you who
gave orders that I am to be set free, was it not? Make inquiries, speak
to my landlord; I am paying my rent now; they will tell you that I am
perfectly honest. Ah! my God! I beg your pardon; I have unintentionally
touched the damper of the stove, and it has made it smoke.”


M. Madeleine listened to her with profound attention. While she was
speaking, he fumbled in his waistcoat, drew out his purse and opened
it. It was empty. He put it back in his pocket. He said to Fantine,
“How much did you say that you owed?”


Fantine, who was looking at Javert only, turned towards him:—

“Was I speaking to you?”


Then, addressing the soldiers:—

“Say, you fellows, did you see how I spit in his face? Ah! you old
wretch of a mayor, you came here to frighten me, but I’m not afraid of
you. I am afraid of Monsieur Javert. I am afraid of my good Monsieur
Javert!”


So saying, she turned to the inspector again:—

“And yet, you see, Mr. Inspector, it is necessary to be just. I
understand that you are just, Mr. Inspector; in fact, it is perfectly
simple: a man amuses himself by putting snow down a woman’s back, and
that makes the officers laugh; one must divert themselves in some way;
and we—well, we are here for them to amuse themselves with, of course!
And then, you, you come; you are certainly obliged to preserve order,
you lead off the woman who is in the wrong; but on reflection, since
you are a good man, you say that I am to be set at liberty; it is for
the sake of the little one, for six months in prison would prevent my
supporting my child. ‘Only, don’t do it again, you hussy!’ Oh! I won’t
do it again, Monsieur Javert! They may do whatever they please to me
now; I will not stir. But to-day, you see, I cried because it hurt me.
I was not expecting that snow from the gentleman at all; and then as I
told you, I am not well; I have a cough; I seem to have a burning ball
in my stomach, and the doctor tells me, ‘Take care of yourself.’ Here,
feel, give me your hand; don’t be afraid—it is here.”


She no longer wept, her voice was caressing; she placed Javert’s coarse
hand on her delicate, white throat and looked smilingly at him.

All at once she rapidly adjusted her disordered garments, dropped the
folds of her skirt, which had been pushed up as she dragged herself
along, almost to the height of her knee, and stepped towards the door,
saying to the soldiers in a low voice, and with a friendly nod:—

“Children, Monsieur l’Inspecteur has said that I am to be released, and
I am going.”


She laid her hand on the latch of the door. One step more and she would
be in the street.

Javert up to that moment had remained erect, motionless, with his eyes
fixed on the ground, cast athwart this scene like some displaced
statue, which is waiting to be put away somewhere.

The sound of the latch roused him. He raised his head with an
expression of sovereign authority, an expression all the more alarming
in proportion as the authority rests on a low level, ferocious in the
wild beast, atrocious in the man of no estate.

“Sergeant!” he cried, “don’t you see that that jade is walking off! Who
bade you let her go?”


“I,” said Madeleine.

Fantine trembled at the sound of Javert’s voice, and let go of the
latch as a thief relinquishes the article which he has stolen. At the
sound of Madeleine’s voice she turned around, and from that moment
forth she uttered no word, nor dared so much as to breathe freely, but
her glance strayed from Madeleine to Javert, and from Javert to
Madeleine in turn, according to which was speaking.

It was evident that Javert must have been exasperated beyond measure
before he would permit himself to apostrophize the sergeant as he had
done, after the mayor’s suggestion that Fantine should be set at
liberty. Had he reached the point of forgetting the mayor’s presence?
Had he finally declared to himself that it was impossible that any
“authority” should have given such an order, and that the mayor must
certainly have said one thing by mistake for another, without intending
it? Or, in view of the enormities of which he had been a witness for
the past two hours, did he say to himself, that it was necessary to
recur to supreme resolutions, that it was indispensable that the small
should be made great, that the police spy should transform himself into
a magistrate, that the policeman should become a dispenser of justice,
and that, in this prodigious extremity, order, law, morality,
government, society in its entirety, was personified in him, Javert?

However that may be, when M. Madeleine uttered that word, _I_, as we
have just heard, Police Inspector Javert was seen to turn toward the
mayor, pale, cold, with blue lips, and a look of despair, his whole
body agitated by an imperceptible quiver and an unprecedented
occurrence, and say to him, with downcast eyes but a firm voice:—

“Mr. Mayor, that cannot be.”


“Why not?” said M. Madeleine.

“This miserable woman has insulted a citizen.”


“Inspector Javert,” replied the mayor, in a calm and conciliating tone,
“listen. You are an honest man, and I feel no hesitation in explaining
matters to you. Here is the true state of the case: I was passing
through the square just as you were leading this woman away; there were
still groups of people standing about, and I made inquiries and learned
everything; it was the townsman who was in the wrong and who should
have been arrested by properly conducted police.”


Javert retorted:—

“This wretch has just insulted Monsieur le Maire.”


“That concerns me,” said M. Madeleine. “My own insult belongs to me, I
think. I can do what I please about it.”


“I beg Monsieur le Maire’s pardon. The insult is not to him but to the
law.”


“Inspector Javert,” replied M. Madeleine, “the highest law is
conscience. I have heard this woman; I know what I am doing.”


“And I, Mr. Mayor, do not know what I see.”


“Then content yourself with obeying.”


“I am obeying my duty. My duty demands that this woman shall serve six
months in prison.”


M. Madeleine replied gently:—

“Heed this well; she will not serve a single day.”


At this decisive word, Javert ventured to fix a searching look on the
mayor and to say, but in a tone of voice that was still profoundly
respectful:—

“I am sorry to oppose Monsieur le Maire; it is for the first time in my
life, but he will permit me to remark that I am within the bounds of my
authority. I confine myself, since Monsieur le Maire desires it, to the
question of the gentleman. I was present. This woman flung herself on
Monsieur Bamatabois, who is an elector and the proprietor of that
handsome house with a balcony, which forms the corner of the esplanade,
three stories high and entirely of cut stone. Such things as there are
in the world! In any case, Monsieur le Maire, this is a question of
police regulations in the streets, and concerns me, and I shall detain
this woman Fantine.”


Then M. Madeleine folded his arms, and said in a severe voice which no
one in the town had heard hitherto:—

“The matter to which you refer is one connected with the municipal
police. According to the terms of articles nine, eleven, fifteen, and
sixty-six of the code of criminal examination, I am the judge. I order
that this woman shall be set at liberty.”


Javert ventured to make a final effort.

“But, Mr. Mayor—”


“I refer you to article eighty-one of the law of the 13th of December,
1799, in regard to arbitrary detention.”


“Monsieur le Maire, permit me—”


“Not another word.”


“But—”


“Leave the room,” said M. Madeleine.

Javert received the blow erect, full in the face, in his breast, like a
Russian soldier. He bowed to the very earth before the mayor and left
the room.

Fantine stood aside from the door and stared at him in amazement as he
passed.

Nevertheless, she also was the prey to a strange confusion. She had
just seen herself a subject of dispute between two opposing powers. She
had seen two men who held in their hands her liberty, her life, her
soul, her child, in combat before her very eyes; one of these men was
drawing her towards darkness, the other was leading her back towards
the light. In this conflict, viewed through the exaggerations of
terror, these two men had appeared to her like two giants; the one
spoke like her demon, the other like her good angel. The angel had
conquered the demon, and, strange to say, that which made her shudder
from head to foot was the fact that this angel, this liberator, was the
very man whom she abhorred, that mayor whom she had so long regarded as
the author of all her woes, that Madeleine! And at the very moment when
she had insulted him in so hideous a fashion, he had saved her! Had
she, then, been mistaken? Must she change her whole soul? She did not
know; she trembled. She listened in bewilderment, she looked on in
affright, and at every word uttered by M. Madeleine she felt the
frightful shades of hatred crumble and melt within her, and something
warm and ineffable, indescribable, which was both joy, confidence and
love, dawn in her heart.

When Javert had taken his departure, M. Madeleine turned to her and
said to her in a deliberate voice, like a serious man who does not wish
to weep and who finds some difficulty in speaking:—

“I have heard you. I knew nothing about what you have mentioned. I
believe that it is true, and I feel that it is true. I was even
ignorant of the fact that you had left my shop. Why did you not apply
to me? But here; I will pay your debts, I will send for your child, or
you shall go to her. You shall live here, in Paris, or where you
please. I undertake the care of your child and yourself. You shall not
work any longer if you do not like. I will give all the money you
require. You shall be honest and happy once more. And listen! I declare
to you that if all is as you say,—and I do not doubt it,—you have never
ceased to be virtuous and holy in the sight of God. Oh! poor woman.”


This was more than Fantine could bear. To have Cosette! To leave this
life of infamy. To live free, rich, happy, respectable with Cosette; to
see all these realities of paradise blossom of a sudden in the midst of
her misery. She stared stupidly at this man who was talking to her, and
could only give vent to two or three sobs, “Oh! Oh! Oh!”


Her limbs gave way beneath her, she knelt in front of M. Madeleine, and
before he could prevent her he felt her grasp his hand and press her
lips to it.

Then she fainted.




BOOK SIXTH—JAVERT




CHAPTER I—THE BEGINNING OF REPOSE


M. Madeleine had Fantine removed to that infirmary which he had
established in his own house. He confided her to the sisters, who put
her to bed. A burning fever had come on. She passed a part of the night
in delirium and raving. At length, however, she fell asleep.

On the morrow, towards midday, Fantine awoke. She heard some one
breathing close to her bed; she drew aside the curtain and saw M.
Madeleine standing there and looking at something over her head. His
gaze was full of pity, anguish, and supplication. She followed its
direction, and saw that it was fixed on a crucifix which was nailed to
the wall.

Thenceforth, M. Madeleine was transfigured in Fantine’s eyes. He seemed
to her to be clothed in light. He was absorbed in a sort of prayer. She
gazed at him for a long time without daring to interrupt him. At last
she said timidly:—

“What are you doing?”


M. Madeleine had been there for an hour. He had been waiting for
Fantine to awake. He took her hand, felt of her pulse, and replied:—

“How do you feel?”


“Well, I have slept,” she replied; “I think that I am better. It is
nothing.”


He answered, responding to the first question which she had put to him
as though he had just heard it:—

“I was praying to the martyr there on high.”


And he added in his own mind, “For the martyr here below.”


M. Madeleine had passed the night and the morning in making inquiries.
He knew all now. He knew Fantine’s history in all its heart-rending
details. He went on:—

“You have suffered much, poor mother. Oh! do not complain; you now have
the dowry of the elect. It is thus that men are transformed into
angels. It is not their fault they do not know how to go to work
otherwise. You see this hell from which you have just emerged is the
first form of heaven. It was necessary to begin there.”


He sighed deeply. But she smiled on him with that sublime smile in
which two teeth were lacking.

That same night, Javert wrote a letter. The next morning be posted it
himself at the office of M. sur M. It was addressed to Paris, and the
superscription ran: _To Monsieur Chabouillet, Secretary of Monsieur le
Préfet of Police_. As the affair in the station-house had been bruited
about, the post-mistress and some other persons who saw the letter
before it was sent off, and who recognized Javert’s handwriting on the
cover, thought that he was sending in his resignation.

M. Madeleine made haste to write to the Thénardiers. Fantine owed them
one hundred and twenty francs. He sent them three hundred francs,
telling them to pay themselves from that sum, and to fetch the child
instantly to M. sur M., where her sick mother required her presence.

This dazzled Thénardier. “The devil!” said the man to his wife; “don’t
let’s allow the child to go. This lark is going to turn into a milch
cow. I see through it. Some ninny has taken a fancy to the mother.”


He replied with a very well drawn-up bill for five hundred and some odd
francs. In this memorandum two indisputable items figured up over three
hundred francs,—one for the doctor, the other for the apothecary who
had attended and physicked Éponine and Azelma through two long
illnesses. Cosette, as we have already said, had not been ill. It was
only a question of a trifling substitution of names. At the foot of the
memorandum Thénardier wrote, _Received on account, three hundred
francs_.

M. Madeleine immediately sent three hundred francs more, and wrote,
“Make haste to bring Cosette.”


“Christi!” said Thénardier, “let’s not give up the child.”


In the meantime, Fantine did not recover. She still remained in the
infirmary.

The sisters had at first only received and nursed “that woman” with
repugnance. Those who have seen the bas-reliefs of Rheims will recall
the inflation of the lower lip of the wise virgins as they survey the
foolish virgins. The ancient scorn of the vestals for the ambubajæ is
one of the most profound instincts of feminine dignity; the sisters
felt it with the double force contributed by religion. But in a few
days Fantine disarmed them. She said all kinds of humble and gentle
things, and the mother in her provoked tenderness. One day the sisters
heard her say amid her fever: “I have been a sinner; but when I have my
child beside me, it will be a sign that God has pardoned me. While I
was leading a bad life, I should not have liked to have my Cosette with
me; I could not have borne her sad, astonished eyes. It was for her
sake that I did evil, and that is why God pardons me. I shall feel the
benediction of the good God when Cosette is here. I shall gaze at her;
it will do me good to see that innocent creature. She knows nothing at
all. She is an angel, you see, my sisters. At that age the wings have
not fallen off.”


M. Madeleine went to see her twice a day, and each time she asked him:—

“Shall I see my Cosette soon?”


He answered:—

“To-morrow, perhaps. She may arrive at any moment. I am expecting her.”


And the mother’s pale face grew radiant.

“Oh!” she said, “how happy I am going to be!”


We have just said that she did not recover her health. On the contrary,
her condition seemed to become more grave from week to week. That
handful of snow applied to her bare skin between her shoulder-blades
had brought about a sudden suppression of perspiration, as a
consequence of which the malady which had been smouldering within her
for many years was violently developed at last. At that time people
were beginning to follow the fine Laënnec’s fine suggestions in the
study and treatment of chest maladies. The doctor sounded Fantine’s
chest and shook his head.

M. Madeleine said to the doctor:—

“Well?”


“Has she not a child which she desires to see?” said the doctor.

“Yes.”


“Well! Make haste and get it here!”


M. Madeleine shuddered.

Fantine inquired:—

“What did the doctor say?”


M. Madeleine forced himself to smile.

“He said that your child was to be brought speedily. That that would
restore your health.”


“Oh!” she rejoined, “he is right! But what do those Thénardiers mean by
keeping my Cosette from me! Oh! she is coming. At last I behold
happiness close beside me!”


In the meantime Thénardier did not “let go of the child,” and gave a
hundred insufficient reasons for it. Cosette was not quite well enough
to take a journey in the winter. And then, there still remained some
petty but pressing debts in the neighborhood, and they were collecting
the bills for them, etc., etc.

“I shall send some one to fetch Cosette!” said Father Madeleine. “If
necessary, I will go myself.”


He wrote the following letter to Fantine’s dictation, and made her sign
it:—

“MONSIEUR THÉNARDIER:—
You will deliver Cosette to this person.
You will be paid for all the little things.
I have the honor to salute you with respect.
“FANTINE.”


In the meantime a serious incident occurred. Carve as we will the
mysterious block of which our life is made, the black vein of destiny
constantly reappears in it.




CHAPTER II—HOW JEAN MAY BECOME CHAMP


One morning M. Madeleine was in his study, occupied in arranging in
advance some pressing matters connected with the mayor’s office, in
case he should decide to take the trip to Montfermeil, when he was
informed that Police Inspector Javert was desirous of speaking with
him. Madeleine could not refrain from a disagreeable impression on
hearing this name. Javert had avoided him more than ever since the
affair of the police-station, and M. Madeleine had not seen him.

“Admit him,” he said.

Javert entered.

M. Madeleine had retained his seat near the fire, pen in hand, his eyes
fixed on the docket which he was turning over and annotating, and which
contained the trials of the commission on highways for the infraction
of police regulations. He did not disturb himself on Javert’s account.
He could not help thinking of poor Fantine, and it suited him to be
glacial in his manner.

Javert bestowed a respectful salute on the mayor, whose back was turned
to him. The mayor did not look at him, but went on annotating this
docket.

Javert advanced two or three paces into the study, and halted, without
breaking the silence.

If any physiognomist who had been familiar with Javert, and who had
made a lengthy study of this savage in the service of civilization,
this singular composite of the Roman, the Spartan, the monk, and the
corporal, this spy who was incapable of a lie, this unspotted police
agent—if any physiognomist had known his secret and long-cherished
aversion for M. Madeleine, his conflict with the mayor on the subject
of Fantine, and had examined Javert at that moment, he would have said
to himself, “What has taken place?” It was evident to any one
acquainted with that clear, upright, sincere, honest, austere, and
ferocious conscience, that Javert had but just gone through some great
interior struggle. Javert had nothing in his soul which he had not also
in his countenance. Like violent people in general, he was subject to
abrupt changes of opinion. His physiognomy had never been more peculiar
and startling. On entering he bowed to M. Madeleine with a look in
which there was neither rancor, anger, nor distrust; he halted a few
paces in the rear of the mayor’s armchair, and there he stood,
perfectly erect, in an attitude almost of discipline, with the cold,
ingenuous roughness of a man who has never been gentle and who has
always been patient; he waited without uttering a word, without making
a movement, in genuine humility and tranquil resignation, calm,
serious, hat in hand, with eyes cast down, and an expression which was
half-way between that of a soldier in the presence of his officer and a
criminal in the presence of his judge, until it should please the mayor
to turn round. All the sentiments as well as all the memories which one
might have attributed to him had disappeared. That face, as
impenetrable and simple as granite, no longer bore any trace of
anything but a melancholy depression. His whole person breathed
lowliness and firmness and an indescribable courageous despondency.

At last the mayor laid down his pen and turned half round.

“Well! What is it? What is the matter, Javert?”


Javert remained silent for an instant as though collecting his ideas,
then raised his voice with a sort of sad solemnity, which did not,
however, preclude simplicity.

“This is the matter, Mr. Mayor; a culpable act has been committed.”


“What act?”


“An inferior agent of the authorities has failed in respect, and in the
gravest manner, towards a magistrate. I have come to bring the fact to
your knowledge, as it is my duty to do.”


“Who is the agent?” asked M. Madeleine.

“I,” said Javert.

“You?”


“I.”


“And who is the magistrate who has reason to complain of the agent?”


“You, Mr. Mayor.”


M. Madeleine sat erect in his armchair. Javert went on, with a severe
air and his eyes still cast down.

“Mr. Mayor, I have come to request you to instigate the authorities to
dismiss me.”


M. Madeleine opened his mouth in amazement. Javert interrupted him:—

“You will say that I might have handed in my resignation, but that does
not suffice. Handing in one’s resignation is honorable. I have failed
in my duty; I ought to be punished; I must be turned out.”


And after a pause he added:—

“Mr. Mayor, you were severe with me the other day, and unjustly. Be so
to-day, with justice.”


“Come, now! Why?” exclaimed M. Madeleine. “What nonsense is this? What
is the meaning of this? What culpable act have you been guilty of
towards me? What have you done to me? What are your wrongs with regard
to me? You accuse yourself; you wish to be superseded—”


“Turned out,” said Javert.

“Turned out; so it be, then. That is well. I do not understand.”


“You shall understand, Mr. Mayor.”


Javert sighed from the very bottom of his chest, and resumed, still
coldly and sadly:—

“Mr. Mayor, six weeks ago, in consequence of the scene over that woman,
I was furious, and I informed against you.”


“Informed against me!”


“At the Prefecture of Police in Paris.”


M. Madeleine, who was not in the habit of laughing much oftener than
Javert himself, burst out laughing now:—

“As a mayor who had encroached on the province of the police?”


“As an ex-convict.”


The mayor turned livid.

Javert, who had not raised his eyes, went on:—

“I thought it was so. I had had an idea for a long time; a resemblance;
inquiries which you had caused to be made at Faverolles; the strength
of your loins; the adventure with old Fauchelevant; your skill in
marksmanship; your leg, which you drag a little;—I hardly know what
all,—absurdities! But, at all events, I took you for a certain Jean
Valjean.”


“A certain—What did you say the name was?”


“Jean Valjean. He was a convict whom I was in the habit of seeing
twenty years ago, when I was adjutant-guard of convicts at Toulon. On
leaving the galleys, this Jean Valjean, as it appears, robbed a bishop;
then he committed another theft, accompanied with violence, on a public
highway on the person of a little Savoyard. He disappeared eight years
ago, no one knows how, and he has been sought, I fancied. In short, I
did this thing! Wrath impelled me; I denounced you at the Prefecture!”


M. Madeleine, who had taken up the docket again several moments before
this, resumed with an air of perfect indifference:—

“And what reply did you receive?”


“That I was mad.”


“Well?”


“Well, they were right.”


“It is lucky that you recognize the fact.”


“I am forced to do so, since the real Jean Valjean has been found.”


The sheet of paper which M. Madeleine was holding dropped from his
hand; he raised his head, gazed fixedly at Javert, and said with his
indescribable accent:—

“Ah!”


Javert continued:—

“This is the way it is, Mr. Mayor. It seems that there was in the
neighborhood near Ailly-le-Haut-Clocher an old fellow who was called
Father Champmathieu. He was a very wretched creature. No one paid any
attention to him. No one knows what such people subsist on. Lately,
last autumn, Father Champmathieu was arrested for the theft of some
cider apples from—Well, no matter, a theft had been committed, a wall
scaled, branches of trees broken. My Champmathieu was arrested. He
still had the branch of apple-tree in his hand. The scamp is locked up.
Up to this point it was merely an affair of a misdemeanor. But here is
where Providence intervened.

“The jail being in a bad condition, the examining magistrate finds it
convenient to transfer Champmathieu to Arras, where the departmental
prison is situated. In this prison at Arras there is an ex-convict
named Brevet, who is detained for I know not what, and who has been
appointed turnkey of the house, because of good behavior. Mr. Mayor, no
sooner had Champmathieu arrived than Brevet exclaims: ‘Eh! Why, I know
that man! He is a _fagot!_4 Take a good look at me, my good man! You
are Jean Valjean!’ ‘Jean Valjean! who’s Jean Valjean?’ Champmathieu
feigns astonishment. ‘Don’t play the innocent dodge,’ says Brevet. ‘You
are Jean Valjean! You have been in the galleys of Toulon; it was twenty
years ago; we were there together.’ Champmathieu denies it. Parbleu!
You understand. The case is investigated. The thing was well ventilated
for me. This is what they discovered: This Champmathieu had been,
thirty years ago, a pruner of trees in various localities, notably at
Faverolles. There all trace of him was lost. A long time afterwards he
was seen again in Auvergne; then in Paris, where he is said to have
been a wheelwright, and to have had a daughter, who was a laundress;
but that has not been proved. Now, before going to the galleys for
theft, what was Jean Valjean? A pruner of trees. Where? At Faverolles.
Another fact. This Valjean’s Christian name was Jean, and his mother’s
surname was Mathieu. What more natural to suppose than that, on
emerging from the galleys, he should have taken his mother’s name for
the purpose of concealing himself, and have called himself Jean
Mathieu? He goes to Auvergne. The local pronunciation turns _Jean_ into
_Chan_—he is called Chan Mathieu. Our man offers no opposition, and
behold him transformed into Champmathieu. You follow me, do you not?
Inquiries were made at Faverolles. The family of Jean Valjean is no
longer there. It is not known where they have gone. You know that among
those classes a family often disappears. Search was made, and nothing
was found. When such people are not mud, they are dust. And then, as
the beginning of the story dates thirty years back, there is no longer
any one at Faverolles who knew Jean Valjean. Inquiries were made at
Toulon. Besides Brevet, there are only two convicts in existence who
have seen Jean Valjean; they are Cochepaille and Chenildieu, and are
sentenced for life. They are taken from the galleys and confronted with
the pretended Champmathieu. They do not hesitate; he is Jean Valjean
for them as well as for Brevet. The same age,—he is fifty-four,—the
same height, the same air, the same man; in short, it is he. It was
precisely at this moment that I forwarded my denunciation to the
Prefecture in Paris. I was told that I had lost my reason, and that
Jean Valjean is at Arras, in the power of the authorities. You can
imagine whether this surprised me, when I thought that I had that same
Jean Valjean here. I write to the examining judge; he sends for me;
Champmathieu is conducted to me—”


“Well?” interposed M. Madeleine.

Javert replied, his face incorruptible, and as melancholy as ever:—

“Mr. Mayor, the truth is the truth. I am sorry; but that man is Jean
Valjean. I recognized him also.”


M. Madeleine resumed in, a very low voice:—

“You are sure?”


Javert began to laugh, with that mournful laugh which comes from
profound conviction.

“O! Sure!”


He stood there thoughtfully for a moment, mechanically taking pinches
of powdered wood for blotting ink from the wooden bowl which stood on
the table, and he added:—

“And even now that I have seen the real Jean Valjean, I do not see how
I could have thought otherwise. I beg your pardon, Mr. Mayor.”


Javert, as he addressed these grave and supplicating words to the man,
who six weeks before had humiliated him in the presence of the whole
station-house, and bade him “leave the room,”—Javert, that haughty man,
was unconsciously full of simplicity and dignity,—M. Madeleine made no
other reply to his prayer than the abrupt question:—

“And what does this man say?”


“Ah! Indeed, Mr. Mayor, it’s a bad business. If he is Jean Valjean, he
has his previous conviction against him. To climb a wall, to break a
branch, to purloin apples, is a mischievous trick in a child; for a man
it is a misdemeanor; for a convict it is a crime. Robbing and
housebreaking—it is all there. It is no longer a question of
correctional police; it is a matter for the Court of Assizes. It is no
longer a matter of a few days in prison; it is the galleys for life.
And then, there is the affair with the little Savoyard, who will
return, I hope. The deuce! there is plenty to dispute in the matter, is
there not? Yes, for any one but Jean Valjean. But Jean Valjean is a sly
dog. That is the way I recognized him. Any other man would have felt
that things were getting hot for him; he would struggle, he would cry
out—the kettle sings before the fire; he would not be Jean Valjean, _et
cetera_. But he has not the appearance of understanding; he says, ‘I am
Champmathieu, and I won’t depart from that!’ He has an astonished air,
he pretends to be stupid; it is far better. Oh! the rogue is clever!
But it makes no difference. The proofs are there. He has been
recognized by four persons; the old scamp will be condemned. The case
has been taken to the Assizes at Arras. I shall go there to give my
testimony. I have been summoned.”


M. Madeleine had turned to his desk again, and taken up his docket, and
was turning over the leaves tranquilly, reading and writing by turns,
like a busy man. He turned to Javert:—

“That will do, Javert. In truth, all these details interest me but
little. We are wasting our time, and we have pressing business on hand.
Javert, you will betake yourself at once to the house of the woman
Buseaupied, who sells herbs at the corner of the Rue Saint-Saulve. You
will tell her that she must enter her complaint against carter Pierre
Chesnelong. The man is a brute, who came near crushing this woman and
her child. He must be punished. You will then go to M. Charcellay, Rue
Montre-de-Champigny. He complained that there is a gutter on the
adjoining house which discharges rain-water on his premises, and is
undermining the foundations of his house. After that, you will verify
the infractions of police regulations which have been reported to me in
the Rue Guibourg, at Widow Doris’s, and Rue du Garraud-Blanc, at Madame
Renée le Bossé’s, and you will prepare documents. But I am giving you a
great deal of work. Are you not to be absent? Did you not tell me that
you were going to Arras on that matter in a week or ten days?”


“Sooner than that, Mr. Mayor.”


“On what day, then?”


“Why, I thought that I had said to Monsieur le Maire that the case was
to be tried to-morrow, and that I am to set out by diligence to-night.”


M. Madeleine made an imperceptible movement.

“And how long will the case last?”


“One day, at the most. The judgment will be pronounced to-morrow
evening at latest. But I shall not wait for the sentence, which is
certain; I shall return here as soon as my deposition has been taken.”


“That is well,” said M. Madeleine.

And he dismissed Javert with a wave of the hand.

Javert did not withdraw.

“Excuse me, Mr. Mayor,” said he.

“What is it now?” demanded M. Madeleine.

“Mr. Mayor, there is still something of which I must remind you.”


“What is it?”


“That I must be dismissed.”


M. Madeleine rose.

“Javert, you are a man of honor, and I esteem you. You exaggerate your
fault. Moreover, this is an offence which concerns me. Javert, you
deserve promotion instead of degradation. I wish you to retain your
post.”


Javert gazed at M. Madeleine with his candid eyes, in whose depths his
not very enlightened but pure and rigid conscience seemed visible, and
said in a tranquil voice:—

“Mr. Mayor, I cannot grant you that.”


“I repeat,” replied M. Madeleine, “that the matter concerns me.”


But Javert, heeding his own thought only, continued:—

“So far as exaggeration is concerned, I am not exaggerating. This is
the way I reason: I have suspected you unjustly. That is nothing. It is
our right to cherish suspicion, although suspicion directed above
ourselves is an abuse. But without proofs, in a fit of rage, with the
object of wreaking my vengeance, I have denounced you as a convict,
you, a respectable man, a mayor, a magistrate! That is serious, very
serious. I have insulted authority in your person, I, an agent of the
authorities! If one of my subordinates had done what I have done, I
should have declared him unworthy of the service, and have expelled
him. Well? Stop, Mr. Mayor; one word more. I have often been severe in
the course of my life towards others. That is just. I have done well.
Now, if I were not severe towards myself, all the justice that I have
done would become injustice. Ought I to spare myself more than others?
No! What! I should be good for nothing but to chastise others, and not
myself! Why, I should be a blackguard! Those who say, ‘That blackguard
of a Javert!’ would be in the right. Mr. Mayor, I do not desire that
you should treat me kindly; your kindness roused sufficient bad blood
in me when it was directed to others. I want none of it for myself. The
kindness which consists in upholding a woman of the town against a
citizen, the police agent against the mayor, the man who is down
against the man who is up in the world, is what I call false kindness.
That is the sort of kindness which disorganizes society. Good God! it
is very easy to be kind; the difficulty lies in being just. Come! if
you had been what I thought you, I should not have been kind to you,
not I! You would have seen! Mr. Mayor, I must treat myself as I would
treat any other man. When I have subdued malefactors, when I have
proceeded with vigor against rascals, I have often said to myself, ‘If
you flinch, if I ever catch you in fault, you may rest at your ease!’ I
have flinched, I have caught myself in a fault. So much the worse!
Come, discharged, cashiered, expelled! That is well. I have arms. I
will till the soil; it makes no difference to me. Mr. Mayor, the good
of the service demands an example. I simply require the discharge of
Inspector Javert.”


All this was uttered in a proud, humble, despairing, yet convinced
tone, which lent indescribable grandeur to this singular, honest man.

“We shall see,” said M. Madeleine.

And he offered him his hand.

Javert recoiled, and said in a wild voice:—

“Excuse me, Mr. Mayor, but this must not be. A mayor does not offer his
hand to a police spy.”


He added between his teeth:—

“A police spy, yes; from the moment when I have misused the police. I
am no more than a police spy.”


Then he bowed profoundly, and directed his steps towards the door.

There he wheeled round, and with eyes still downcast:—

“Mr. Mayor,” he said, “I shall continue to serve until I am
superseded.”


He withdrew. M. Madeleine remained thoughtfully listening to the firm,
sure step, which died away on the pavement of the corridor.




BOOK SEVENTH—THE CHAMPMATHIEU AFFAIR




CHAPTER I—SISTER SIMPLICE


The incidents the reader is about to peruse were not all known at M.
sur M. But the small portion of them which became known left such a
memory in that town that a serious gap would exist in this book if we
did not narrate them in their most minute details. Among these details
the reader will encounter two or three improbable circumstances, which
we preserve out of respect for the truth.

On the afternoon following the visit of Javert, M. Madeleine went to
see Fantine according to his wont.

Before entering Fantine’s room, he had Sister Simplice summoned.

The two nuns who performed the services of nurse in the infirmary,
Lazariste ladies, like all sisters of charity, bore the names of Sister
Perpétue and Sister Simplice.

Sister Perpétue was an ordinary villager, a sister of charity in a
coarse style, who had entered the service of God as one enters any
other service. She was a nun as other women are cooks. This type is not
so very rare. The monastic orders gladly accept this heavy peasant
earthenware, which is easily fashioned into a Capuchin or an Ursuline.
These rustics are utilized for the rough work of devotion. The
transition from a drover to a Carmelite is not in the least violent;
the one turns into the other without much effort; the fund of ignorance
common to the village and the cloister is a preparation ready at hand,
and places the boor at once on the same footing as the monk: a little
more amplitude in the smock, and it becomes a frock. Sister Perpétue
was a robust nun from Marines near Pontoise, who chattered her patois,
droned, grumbled, sugared the potion according to the bigotry or the
hypocrisy of the invalid, treated her patients abruptly, roughly, was
crabbed with the dying, almost flung God in their faces, stoned their
death agony with prayers mumbled in a rage; was bold, honest, and
ruddy.

Sister Simplice was white, with a waxen pallor. Beside Sister Perpétue,
she was the taper beside the candle. Vincent de Paul has divinely
traced the features of the Sister of Charity in these admirable words,
in which he mingles as much freedom as servitude: “They shall have for
their convent only the house of the sick; for cell only a hired room;
for chapel only their parish church; for cloister only the streets of
the town and the wards of the hospitals; for enclosure only obedience;
for gratings only the fear of God; for veil only modesty.” This ideal
was realized in the living person of Sister Simplice: she had never
been young, and it seemed as though she would never grow old. No one
could have told Sister Simplice’s age. She was a person—we dare not say
a woman—who was gentle, austere, well-bred, cold, and who had never
lied. She was so gentle that she appeared fragile; but she was more
solid than granite. She touched the unhappy with fingers that were
charmingly pure and fine. There was, so to speak, silence in her
speech; she said just what was necessary, and she possessed a tone of
voice which would have equally edified a confessional or enchanted a
drawing-room. This delicacy accommodated itself to the serge gown,
finding in this harsh contact a continual reminder of heaven and of
God. Let us emphasize one detail. Never to have lied, never to have
said, for any interest whatever, even in indifference, any single thing
which was not the truth, the sacred truth, was Sister Simplice’s
distinctive trait; it was the accent of her virtue. She was almost
renowned in the congregation for this imperturbable veracity. The Abbé
Sicard speaks of Sister Simplice in a letter to the deaf-mute Massieu.
However pure and sincere we may be, we all bear upon our candor the
crack of the little, innocent lie. She did not. Little lie, innocent
lie—does such a thing exist? To lie is the absolute form of evil. To
lie a little is not possible: he who lies, lies the whole lie. To lie
is the very face of the demon. Satan has two names; he is called Satan
and Lying. That is what she thought; and as she thought, so she did.
The result was the whiteness which we have mentioned—a whiteness which
covered even her lips and her eyes with radiance. Her smile was white,
her glance was white. There was not a single spider’s web, not a grain
of dust, on the glass window of that conscience. On entering the order
of Saint Vincent de Paul, she had taken the name of Simplice by special
choice. Simplice of Sicily, as we know, is the saint who preferred to
allow both her breasts to be torn off rather than to say that she had
been born at Segesta when she had been born at Syracuse—a lie which
would have saved her. This patron saint suited this soul.

Sister Simplice, on her entrance into the order, had had two faults
which she had gradually corrected: she had a taste for dainties, and
she liked to receive letters. She never read anything but a book of
prayers printed in Latin, in coarse type. She did not understand Latin,
but she understood the book.

This pious woman had conceived an affection for Fantine, probably
feeling a latent virtue there, and she had devoted herself almost
exclusively to her care.

M. Madeleine took Sister Simplice apart and recommended Fantine to her
in a singular tone, which the sister recalled later on.

On leaving the sister, he approached Fantine.

Fantine awaited M. Madeleine’s appearance every day as one awaits a ray
of warmth and joy. She said to the sisters, “I only live when Monsieur
le Maire is here.”


She had a great deal of fever that day. As soon as she saw M. Madeleine
she asked him:—

“And Cosette?”


He replied with a smile:—

“Soon.”


M. Madeleine was the same as usual with Fantine. Only he remained an
hour instead of half an hour, to Fantine’s great delight. He urged
every one repeatedly not to allow the invalid to want for anything. It
was noticed that there was a moment when his countenance became very
sombre. But this was explained when it became known that the doctor had
bent down to his ear and said to him, “She is losing ground fast.”


Then he returned to the town-hall, and the clerk observed him
attentively examining a road map of France which hung in his study. He
wrote a few figures on a bit of paper with a pencil.




CHAPTER II—THE PERSPICACITY OF MASTER SCAUFFLAIRE


From the town-hall he betook himself to the extremity of the town, to a
Fleming named Master Scaufflaer, French Scaufflaire, who let out
“horses and cabriolets as desired.”


In order to reach this Scaufflaire, the shortest way was to take the
little-frequented street in which was situated the parsonage of the
parish in which M. Madeleine resided. The curé was, it was said, a
worthy, respectable, and sensible man. At the moment when M. Madeleine
arrived in front of the parsonage there was but one passer-by in the
street, and this person noticed this: After the mayor had passed the
priest’s house he halted, stood motionless, then turned about, and
retraced his steps to the door of the parsonage, which had an iron
knocker. He laid his hand quickly on the knocker and lifted it; then he
paused again and stopped short, as though in thought, and after the
lapse of a few seconds, instead of allowing the knocker to fall
abruptly, he placed it gently, and resumed his way with a sort of haste
which had not been apparent previously.

M. Madeleine found Master Scaufflaire at home, engaged in stitching a
harness over.

“Master Scaufflaire,” he inquired, “have you a good horse?”


“Mr. Mayor,” said the Fleming, “all my horses are good. What do you
mean by a good horse?”


“I mean a horse which can travel twenty leagues in a day.”


“The deuce!” said the Fleming. “Twenty leagues!”


“Yes.”


“Hitched to a cabriolet?”


“Yes.”


“And how long can he rest at the end of his journey?”


“He must be able to set out again on the next day if necessary.”


“To traverse the same road?”


“Yes.”


“The deuce! the deuce! And it is twenty leagues?”


M. Madeleine drew from his pocket the paper on which he had pencilled
some figures. He showed it to the Fleming. The figures were 5, 6, 8½.

“You see,” he said, “total, nineteen and a half; as well say twenty
leagues.”


“Mr. Mayor,” returned the Fleming, “I have just what you want. My
little white horse—you may have seen him pass occasionally; he is a
small beast from Lower Boulonnais. He is full of fire. They wanted to
make a saddle-horse of him at first. Bah! He reared, he kicked, he laid
everybody flat on the ground. He was thought to be vicious, and no one
knew what to do with him. I bought him. I harnessed him to a carriage.
That is what he wanted, sir; he is as gentle as a girl; he goes like
the wind. Ah! indeed he must not be mounted. It does not suit his ideas
to be a saddle-horse. Every one has his ambition. ‘Draw? Yes. Carry?
No.’ We must suppose that is what he said to himself.”


“And he will accomplish the trip?”


“Your twenty leagues all at a full trot, and in less than eight hours.
But here are the conditions.”


“State them.”


“In the first place, you will give him half an hour’s breathing spell
midway of the road; he will eat; and some one must be by while he is
eating to prevent the stable boy of the inn from stealing his oats; for
I have noticed that in inns the oats are more often drunk by the stable
men than eaten by the horses.”


“Some one will be by.”


“In the second place—is the cabriolet for Monsieur le Maire?”


“Yes.”


“Does Monsieur le Maire know how to drive?”


“Yes.”


“Well, Monsieur le Maire will travel alone and without baggage, in
order not to overload the horse?”


“Agreed.”


“But as Monsieur le Maire will have no one with him, he will be obliged
to take the trouble himself of seeing that the oats are not stolen.”


“That is understood.”


“I am to have thirty francs a day. The days of rest to be paid for
also—not a farthing less; and the beast’s food to be at Monsieur le
Maire’s expense.”


M. Madeleine drew three napoleons from his purse and laid them on the
table.

“Here is the pay for two days in advance.”


“Fourthly, for such a journey a cabriolet would be too heavy, and would
fatigue the horse. Monsieur le Maire must consent to travel in a little
tilbury that I own.”


“I consent to that.”


“It is light, but it has no cover.”


“That makes no difference to me.”


“Has Monsieur le Maire reflected that we are in the middle of winter?”


M. Madeleine did not reply. The Fleming resumed:—

“That it is very cold?”


M. Madeleine preserved silence.

Master Scaufflaire continued:—

“That it may rain?”


M. Madeleine raised his head and said:—

“The tilbury and the horse will be in front of my door to-morrow
morning at half-past four o’clock.”


“Of course, Monsieur le Maire,” replied Scaufflaire; then, scratching a
speck in the wood of the table with his thumb-nail, he resumed with
that careless air which the Flemings understand so well how to mingle
with their shrewdness:—

“But this is what I am thinking of now: Monsieur le Maire has not told
me where he is going. Where is Monsieur le Maire going?”


He had been thinking of nothing else since the beginning of the
conversation, but he did not know why he had not dared to put the
question.

“Are your horse’s forelegs good?” said M. Madeleine.

“Yes, Monsieur le Maire. You must hold him in a little when going down
hill. Are there many descends between here and the place whither you
are going?”


“Do not forget to be at my door at precisely half-past four o’clock
to-morrow morning,” replied M. Madeleine; and he took his departure.

The Fleming remained “utterly stupid,” as he himself said some time
afterwards.

The mayor had been gone two or three minutes when the door opened
again; it was the mayor once more.

He still wore the same impassive and preoccupied air.

“Monsieur Scaufflaire,” said he, “at what sum do you estimate the value
of the horse and tilbury which you are to let to me,—the one bearing
the other?”


“The one dragging the other, Monsieur le Maire,” said the Fleming, with
a broad smile.

“So be it. Well?”


“Does Monsieur le Maire wish to purchase them or me?”


“No; but I wish to guarantee you in any case. You shall give me back
the sum at my return. At what value do you estimate your horse and
cabriolet?”


“Five hundred francs, Monsieur le Maire.”


“Here it is.”


M. Madeleine laid a bank-bill on the table, then left the room; and
this time he did not return.

Master Scaufflaire experienced a frightful regret that he had not said
a thousand francs. Besides the horse and tilbury together were worth
but a hundred crowns.

The Fleming called his wife, and related the affair to her. “Where the
devil could Monsieur le Maire be going?” They held counsel together.
“He is going to Paris,” said the wife. “I don’t believe it,” said the
husband.

M. Madeleine had forgotten the paper with the figures on it, and it lay
on the chimney-piece. The Fleming picked it up and studied it. “Five,
six, eight and a half? That must designate the posting relays.” He
turned to his wife:—

“I have found out.”


“What?”


“It is five leagues from here to Hesdin, six from Hesdin to Saint-Pol,
eight and a half from Saint-Pol to Arras. He is going to Arras.”


Meanwhile, M. Madeleine had returned home. He had taken the longest way
to return from Master Scaufflaire’s, as though the parsonage door had
been a temptation for him, and he had wished to avoid it. He ascended
to his room, and there he shut himself up, which was a very simple act,
since he liked to go to bed early. Nevertheless, the portress of the
factory, who was, at the same time, M. Madeleine’s only servant,
noticed that the latter’s light was extinguished at half-past eight,
and she mentioned it to the cashier when he came home, adding:—

“Is Monsieur le Maire ill? I thought he had a rather singular air.”


This cashier occupied a room situated directly under M. Madeleine’s
chamber. He paid no heed to the portress’s words, but went to bed and
to sleep. Towards midnight he woke up with a start; in his sleep he had
heard a noise above his head. He listened; it was a footstep pacing
back and forth, as though some one were walking in the room above him.
He listened more attentively, and recognized M. Madeleine’s step. This
struck him as strange; usually, there was no noise in M. Madeleine’s
chamber until he rose in the morning. A moment later the cashier heard
a noise which resembled that of a cupboard being opened, and then shut
again; then a piece of furniture was disarranged; then a pause ensued;
then the step began again. The cashier sat up in bed, quite awake now,
and staring; and through his window-panes he saw the reddish gleam of a
lighted window reflected on the opposite wall; from the direction of
the rays, it could only come from the window of M. Madeleine’s chamber.
The reflection wavered, as though it came rather from a fire which had
been lighted than from a candle. The shadow of the window-frame was not
shown, which indicated that the window was wide open. The fact that
this window was open in such cold weather was surprising. The cashier
fell asleep again. An hour or two later he waked again. The same step
was still passing slowly and regularly back and forth overhead.

The reflection was still visible on the wall, but now it was pale and
peaceful, like the reflection of a lamp or of a candle. The window was
still open.

This is what had taken place in M. Madeleine’s room.




CHAPTER III—A TEMPEST IN A SKULL


The reader has, no doubt, already divined that M. Madeleine is no other
than Jean Valjean.

We have already gazed into the depths of this conscience; the moment
has now come when we must take another look into it. We do so not
without emotion and trepidation. There is nothing more terrible in
existence than this sort of contemplation. The eye of the spirit can
nowhere find more dazzling brilliance and more shadow than in man; it
can fix itself on no other thing which is more formidable, more
complicated, more mysterious, and more infinite. There is a spectacle
more grand than the sea; it is heaven: there is a spectacle more grand
than heaven; it is the inmost recesses of the soul.

To make the poem of the human conscience, were it only with reference
to a single man, were it only in connection with the basest of men,
would be to blend all epics into one superior and definitive epic.
Conscience is the chaos of chimæras, of lusts, and of temptations; the
furnace of dreams; the lair of ideas of which we are ashamed; it is the
pandemonium of sophisms; it is the battlefield of the passions.
Penetrate, at certain hours, past the livid face of a human being who
is engaged in reflection, and look behind, gaze into that soul, gaze
into that obscurity. There, beneath that external silence, battles of
giants, like those recorded in Homer, are in progress; skirmishes of
dragons and hydras and swarms of phantoms, as in Milton; visionary
circles, as in Dante. What a solemn thing is this infinity which every
man bears within him, and which he measures with despair against the
caprices of his brain and the actions of his life!

Alighieri one day met with a sinister-looking door, before which he
hesitated. Here is one before us, upon whose threshold we hesitate. Let
us enter, nevertheless.

We have but little to add to what the reader already knows of what had
happened to Jean Valjean after the adventure with Little Gervais. From
that moment forth he was, as we have seen, a totally different man.
What the Bishop had wished to make of him, that he carried out. It was
more than a transformation; it was a transfiguration.

He succeeded in disappearing, sold the Bishop’s silver, reserving only
the candlesticks as a souvenir, crept from town to town, traversed
France, came to M. sur M., conceived the idea which we have mentioned,
accomplished what we have related, succeeded in rendering himself safe
from seizure and inaccessible, and, thenceforth, established at M. sur
M., happy in feeling his conscience saddened by the past and the first
half of his existence belied by the last, he lived in peace, reassured
and hopeful, having henceforth only two thoughts,—to conceal his name
and to sanctify his life; to escape men and to return to God.

These two thoughts were so closely intertwined in his mind that they
formed but a single one there; both were equally absorbing and
imperative and ruled his slightest actions. In general, they conspired
to regulate the conduct of his life; they turned him towards the gloom;
they rendered him kindly and simple; they counselled him to the same
things. Sometimes, however, they conflicted. In that case, as the
reader will remember, the man whom all the country of M. sur M. called
M. Madeleine did not hesitate to sacrifice the first to the second—his
security to his virtue. Thus, in spite of all his reserve and all his
prudence, he had preserved the Bishop’s candlesticks, worn mourning for
him, summoned and interrogated all the little Savoyards who passed that
way, collected information regarding the families at Faverolles, and
saved old Fauchelevent’s life, despite the disquieting insinuations of
Javert. It seemed, as we have already remarked, as though he thought,
following the example of all those who have been wise, holy, and just,
that his first duty was not towards himself.

At the same time, it must be confessed, nothing just like this had yet
presented itself.

Never had the two ideas which governed the unhappy man whose sufferings
we are narrating, engaged in so serious a struggle. He understood this
confusedly but profoundly at the very first words pronounced by Javert,
when the latter entered his study. At the moment when that name, which
he had buried beneath so many layers, was so strangely articulated, he
was struck with stupor, and as though intoxicated with the sinister
eccentricity of his destiny; and through this stupor he felt that
shudder which precedes great shocks. He bent like an oak at the
approach of a storm, like a soldier at the approach of an assault. He
felt shadows filled with thunders and lightnings descending upon his
head. As he listened to Javert, the first thought which occurred to him
was to go, to run and denounce himself, to take that Champmathieu out
of prison and place himself there; this was as painful and as poignant
as an incision in the living flesh. Then it passed away, and he said to
himself, “We will see! We will see!” He repressed this first, generous
instinct, and recoiled before heroism.

It would be beautiful, no doubt, after the Bishop’s holy words, after
so many years of repentance and abnegation, in the midst of a penitence
admirably begun, if this man had not flinched for an instant, even in
the presence of so terrible a conjecture, but had continued to walk
with the same step towards this yawning precipice, at the bottom of
which lay heaven; that would have been beautiful; but it was not thus.
We must render an account of the things which went on in this soul, and
we can only tell what there was there. He was carried away, at first,
by the instinct of self-preservation; he rallied all his ideas in
haste, stifled his emotions, took into consideration Javert’s presence,
that great danger, postponed all decision with the firmness of terror,
shook off thought as to what he had to do, and resumed his calmness as
a warrior picks up his buckler.

He remained in this state during the rest of the day, a whirlwind
within, a profound tranquillity without. He took no “preservative
measures,” as they may be called. Everything was still confused, and
jostling together in his brain. His trouble was so great that he could
not perceive the form of a single idea distinctly, and he could have
told nothing about himself, except that he had received a great blow.

He repaired to Fantine’s bed of suffering, as usual, and prolonged his
visit, through a kindly instinct, telling himself that he must behave
thus, and recommend her well to the sisters, in case he should be
obliged to be absent himself. He had a vague feeling that he might be
obliged to go to Arras; and without having the least in the world made
up his mind to this trip, he said to himself that being, as he was,
beyond the shadow of any suspicion, there could be nothing out of the
way in being a witness to what was to take place, and he engaged the
tilbury from Scaufflaire in order to be prepared in any event.

He dined with a good deal of appetite.

On returning to his room, he communed with himself.

He examined the situation, and found it unprecedented; so unprecedented
that in the midst of his reverie he rose from his chair, moved by some
inexplicable impulse of anxiety, and bolted his door. He feared lest
something more should enter. He was barricading himself against
possibilities.

A moment later he extinguished his light; it embarrassed him.

It seemed to him as though he might be seen.

By whom?

Alas! That on which he desired to close the door had already entered;
that which he desired to blind was staring him in the face,—his
conscience.

His conscience; that is to say, God.

Nevertheless, he deluded himself at first; he had a feeling of security
and of solitude; the bolt once drawn, he thought himself impregnable;
the candle extinguished, he felt himself invisible. Then he took
possession of himself: he set his elbows on the table, leaned his head
on his hand, and began to meditate in the dark.

“Where do I stand? Am not I dreaming? What have I heard? Is it really
true that I have seen that Javert, and that he spoke to me in that
manner? Who can that Champmathieu be? So he resembles me! Is it
possible? When I reflect that yesterday I was so tranquil, and so far
from suspecting anything! What was I doing yesterday at this hour? What
is there in this incident? What will the end be? What is to be done?”


This was the torment in which he found himself. His brain had lost its
power of retaining ideas; they passed like waves, and he clutched his
brow in both hands to arrest them.

Nothing but anguish extricated itself from this tumult which
overwhelmed his will and his reason, and from which he sought to draw
proof and resolution.

His head was burning. He went to the window and threw it wide open.
There were no stars in the sky. He returned and seated himself at the
table.

The first hour passed in this manner.

Gradually, however, vague outlines began to take form and to fix
themselves in his meditation, and he was able to catch a glimpse with
precision of the reality,—not the whole situation, but some of the
details. He began by recognizing the fact that, critical and
extraordinary as was this situation, he was completely master of it.

This only caused an increase of his stupor.

Independently of the severe and religious aim which he had assigned to
his actions, all that he had made up to that day had been nothing but a
hole in which to bury his name. That which he had always feared most of
all in his hours of self-communion, during his sleepless nights, was to
ever hear that name pronounced; he had said to himself, that that would
be the end of all things for him; that on the day when that name made
its reappearance it would cause his new life to vanish from about him,
and—who knows?—perhaps even his new soul within him, also. He shuddered
at the very thought that this was possible. Assuredly, if any one had
said to him at such moments that the hour would come when that name
would ring in his ears, when the hideous words, Jean Valjean, would
suddenly emerge from the darkness and rise in front of him, when that
formidable light, capable of dissipating the mystery in which he had
enveloped himself, would suddenly blaze forth above his head, and that
that name would not menace him, that that light would but produce an
obscurity more dense, that this rent veil would but increase the
mystery, that this earthquake would solidify his edifice, that this
prodigious incident would have no other result, so far as he was
concerned, if so it seemed good to him, than that of rendering his
existence at once clearer and more impenetrable, and that, out of his
confrontation with the phantom of Jean Valjean, the good and worthy
citizen Monsieur Madeleine would emerge more honored, more peaceful,
and more respected than ever—if any one had told him that, he would
have tossed his head and regarded the words as those of a madman. Well,
all this was precisely what had just come to pass; all that
accumulation of impossibilities was a fact, and God had permitted these
wild fancies to become real things!

His reverie continued to grow clearer. He came more and more to an
understanding of his position.

It seemed to him that he had but just waked up from some inexplicable
dream, and that he found himself slipping down a declivity in the
middle of the night, erect, shivering, holding back all in vain, on the
very brink of the abyss. He distinctly perceived in the darkness a
stranger, a man unknown to him, whom destiny had mistaken for him, and
whom she was thrusting into the gulf in his stead; in order that the
gulf might close once more, it was necessary that some one, himself or
that other man, should fall into it: he had only let things take their
course.

The light became complete, and he acknowledged this to himself: That
his place was empty in the galleys; that do what he would, it was still
awaiting him; that the theft from little Gervais had led him back to
it; that this vacant place would await him, and draw him on until he
filled it; that this was inevitable and fatal; and then he said to
himself, “that, at this moment, he had a substitute; that it appeared
that a certain Champmathieu had that ill luck, and that, as regards
himself, being present in the galleys in the person of that
Champmathieu, present in society under the name of M. Madeleine, he had
nothing more to fear, provided that he did not prevent men from sealing
over the head of that Champmathieu this stone of infamy which, like the
stone of the sepulchre, falls once, never to rise again.”


All this was so strange and so violent, that there suddenly took place
in him that indescribable movement, which no man feels more than two or
three times in the course of his life, a sort of convulsion of the
conscience which stirs up all that there is doubtful in the heart,
which is composed of irony, of joy, and of despair, and which may be
called an outburst of inward laughter.

He hastily relighted his candle.

“Well, what then?” he said to himself; “what am I afraid of? What is
there in all that for me to think about? I am safe; all is over. I had
but one partly open door through which my past might invade my life,
and behold that door is walled up forever! That Javert, who has been
annoying me so long; that terrible instinct which seemed to have
divined me, which had divined me—good God! and which followed me
everywhere; that frightful hunting-dog, always making a point at me, is
thrown off the scent, engaged elsewhere, absolutely turned from the
trail: henceforth he is satisfied; he will leave me in peace; he has
his Jean Valjean. Who knows? it is even probable that he will wish to
leave town! And all this has been brought about without any aid from
me, and I count for nothing in it! Ah! but where is the misfortune in
this? Upon my honor, people would think, to see me, that some
catastrophe had happened to me! After all, if it does bring harm to
some one, that is not my fault in the least: it is Providence which has
done it all; it is because it wishes it so to be, evidently. Have I the
right to disarrange what it has arranged? What do I ask now? Why should
I meddle? It does not concern me; what! I am not satisfied: but what
more do I want? The goal to which I have aspired for so many years, the
dream of my nights, the object of my prayers to Heaven,—security,—I
have now attained; it is God who wills it; I can do nothing against the
will of God, and why does God will it? In order that I may continue
what I have begun, that I may do good, that I may one day be a grand
and encouraging example, that it may be said at last, that a little
happiness has been attached to the penance which I have undergone, and
to that virtue to which I have returned. Really, I do not understand
why I was afraid, a little while ago, to enter the house of that good
curé, and to ask his advice; this is evidently what he would have said
to me: It is settled; let things take their course; let the good God do
as he likes!”


Thus did he address himself in the depths of his own conscience,
bending over what may be called his own abyss; he rose from his chair,
and began to pace the room: “Come,” said he, “let us think no more
about it; my resolve is taken!” but he felt no joy.

Quite the reverse.

One can no more prevent thought from recurring to an idea than one can
the sea from returning to the shore: the sailor calls it the tide; the
guilty man calls it remorse; God upheaves the soul as he does the
ocean.

After the expiration of a few moments, do what he would, he resumed the
gloomy dialogue in which it was he who spoke and he who listened,
saying that which he would have preferred to ignore, and listened to
that which he would have preferred not to hear, yielding to that
mysterious power which said to him: “Think!” as it said to another
condemned man, two thousand years ago, “March on!”


Before proceeding further, and in order to make ourselves fully
understood, let us insist upon one necessary observation.

It is certain that people do talk to themselves; there is no living
being who has not done it. It may even be said that the word is never a
more magnificent mystery than when it goes from thought to conscience
within a man, and when it returns from conscience to thought; it is in
this sense only that the words so often employed in this chapter, _he
said, he exclaimed_, must be understood; one speaks to one’s self,
talks to one’s self, exclaims to one’s self without breaking the
external silence; there is a great tumult; everything about us talks
except the mouth. The realities of the soul are nonetheless realities
because they are not visible and palpable.

So he asked himself where he stood. He interrogated himself upon that
“settled resolve.” He confessed to himself that all that he had just
arranged in his mind was monstrous, that “to let things take their
course, to let the good God do as he liked,” was simply horrible; to
allow this error of fate and of men to be carried out, not to hinder
it, to lend himself to it through his silence, to do nothing, in short,
was to do everything! that this was hypocritical baseness in the last
degree! that it was a base, cowardly, sneaking, abject, hideous crime!

For the first time in eight years, the wretched man had just tasted the
bitter savor of an evil thought and of an evil action.

He spit it out with disgust.

He continued to question himself. He asked himself severely what he had
meant by this, “My object is attained!” He declared to himself that his
life really had an object; but what object? To conceal his name? To
deceive the police? Was it for so petty a thing that he had done all
that he had done? Had he not another and a grand object, which was the
true one—to save, not his person, but his soul; to become honest and
good once more; to be a just man? Was it not that above all, that
alone, which he had always desired, which the Bishop had enjoined upon
him—to shut the door on his past? But he was not shutting it! great
God! he was re-opening it by committing an infamous action! He was
becoming a thief once more, and the most odious of thieves! He was
robbing another of his existence, his life, his peace, his place in the
sunshine. He was becoming an assassin. He was murdering, morally
murdering, a wretched man. He was inflicting on him that frightful
living death, that death beneath the open sky, which is called the
galleys. On the other hand, to surrender himself to save that man,
struck down with so melancholy an error, to resume his own name, to
become once more, out of duty, the convict Jean Valjean, that was, in
truth, to achieve his resurrection, and to close forever that hell
whence he had just emerged; to fall back there in appearance was to
escape from it in reality. This must be done! He had done nothing if he
did not do all this; his whole life was useless; all his penitence was
wasted. There was no longer any need of saying, “What is the use?” He
felt that the Bishop was there, that the Bishop was present all the
more because he was dead, that the Bishop was gazing fixedly at him,
that henceforth Mayor Madeleine, with all his virtues, would be
abominable to him, and that the convict Jean Valjean would be pure and
admirable in his sight; that men beheld his mask, but that the Bishop
saw his face; that men saw his life, but that the Bishop beheld his
conscience. So he must go to Arras, deliver the false Jean Valjean, and
denounce the real one. Alas! that was the greatest of sacrifices, the
most poignant of victories, the last step to take; but it must be done.
Sad fate! he would enter into sanctity only in the eyes of God when he
returned to infamy in the eyes of men.

“Well,” said he, “let us decide upon this; let us do our duty; let us
save this man.” He uttered these words aloud, without perceiving that
he was speaking aloud.

He took his books, verified them, and put them in order. He flung in
the fire a bundle of bills which he had against petty and embarrassed
tradesmen. He wrote and sealed a letter, and on the envelope it might
have been read, had there been any one in his chamber at the moment,
_To Monsieur Laffitte, Banker, Rue d’Artois, Paris_. He drew from his
secretary a pocket-book which contained several bank-notes and the
passport of which he had made use that same year when he went to the
elections.

Any one who had seen him during the execution of these various acts,
into which there entered such grave thought, would have had no
suspicion of what was going on within him. Only occasionally did his
lips move; at other times he raised his head and fixed his gaze upon
some point of the wall, as though there existed at that point something
which he wished to elucidate or interrogate.

When he had finished the letter to M. Laffitte, he put it into his
pocket, together with the pocket-book, and began his walk once more.

His reverie had not swerved from its course. He continued to see his
duty clearly, written in luminous letters, which flamed before his eyes
and changed its place as he altered the direction of his glance:—

_“Go! Tell your name! Denounce yourself!”_

In the same way he beheld, as though they had passed before him in
visible forms, the two ideas which had, up to that time, formed the
double rule of his soul,—the concealment of his name, the
sanctification of his life. For the first time they appeared to him as
absolutely distinct, and he perceived the distance which separated
them. He recognized the fact that one of these ideas was, necessarily,
good, while the other might become bad; that the first was
self-devotion, and that the other was personality; that the one said,
_my neighbour_, and that the other said, _myself_; that one emanated
from the light, and the other from darkness.

They were antagonistic. He saw them in conflict. In proportion as he
meditated, they grew before the eyes of his spirit. They had now
attained colossal statures, and it seemed to him that he beheld within
himself, in that infinity of which we were recently speaking, in the
midst of the darkness and the lights, a goddess and a giant contending.

He was filled with terror; but it seemed to him that the good thought
was getting the upper hand.

He felt that he was on the brink of the second decisive crisis of his
conscience and of his destiny; that the Bishop had marked the first
phase of his new life, and that Champmathieu marked the second. After
the grand crisis, the grand test.

But the fever, allayed for an instant, gradually resumed possession of
him. A thousand thoughts traversed his mind, but they continued to
fortify him in his resolution.

One moment he said to himself that he was, perhaps, taking the matter
too keenly; that, after all, this Champmathieu was not interesting, and
that he had actually been guilty of theft.

He answered himself: “If this man has, indeed, stolen a few apples,
that means a month in prison. It is a long way from that to the
galleys. And who knows? Did he steal? Has it been proved? The name of
Jean Valjean overwhelms him, and seems to dispense with proofs. Do not
the attorneys for the Crown always proceed in this manner? He is
supposed to be a thief because he is known to be a convict.”


In another instant the thought had occurred to him that, when he
denounced himself, the heroism of his deed might, perhaps, be taken
into consideration, and his honest life for the last seven years, and
what he had done for the district, and that they would have mercy on
him.

But this supposition vanished very quickly, and he smiled bitterly as
he remembered that the theft of the forty sous from little Gervais put
him in the position of a man guilty of a second offence after
conviction, that this affair would certainly come up, and, according to
the precise terms of the law, would render him liable to penal
servitude for life.

He turned aside from all illusions, detached himself more and more from
earth, and sought strength and consolation elsewhere. He told himself
that he must do his duty; that perhaps he should not be more unhappy
after doing his duty than after having avoided it; that if he _allowed
things to take their own course_, if he remained at M. sur M., his
consideration, his good name, his good works, the deference and
veneration paid to him, his charity, his wealth, his popularity, his
virtue, would be seasoned with a crime. And what would be the taste of
all these holy things when bound up with this hideous thing? while, if
he accomplished his sacrifice, a celestial idea would be mingled with
the galleys, the post, the iron necklet, the green cap, unceasing toil,
and pitiless shame.

At length he told himself that it must be so, that his destiny was thus
allotted, that he had not authority to alter the arrangements made on
high, that, in any case, he must make his choice: virtue without and
abomination within, or holiness within and infamy without.

The stirring up of these lugubrious ideas did not cause his courage to
fail, but his brain grow weary. He began to think of other things, of
indifferent matters, in spite of himself.

The veins in his temples throbbed violently; he still paced to and fro;
midnight sounded first from the parish church, then from the town-hall;
he counted the twelve strokes of the two clocks, and compared the
sounds of the two bells; he recalled in this connection the fact that,
a few days previously, he had seen in an ironmonger’s shop an ancient
clock for sale, upon which was written the name, _Antoine-Albin de
Romainville_.

He was cold; he lighted a small fire; it did not occur to him to close
the window.

In the meantime he had relapsed into his stupor; he was obliged to make
a tolerably vigorous effort to recall what had been the subject of his
thoughts before midnight had struck; he finally succeeded in doing
this.

“Ah! yes,” he said to himself, “I had resolved to inform against
myself.”


And then, all of a sudden, he thought of Fantine.

“Hold!” said he, “and what about that poor woman?”


Here a fresh crisis declared itself.

Fantine, by appearing thus abruptly in his reverie, produced the effect
of an unexpected ray of light; it seemed to him as though everything
about him were undergoing a change of aspect: he exclaimed:—

“Ah! but I have hitherto considered no one but myself; it is proper for
me to hold my tongue or to denounce myself, to conceal my person or to
save my soul, to be a despicable and respected magistrate, or an
infamous and venerable convict; it is I, it is always I and nothing but
I: but, good God! all this is egotism; these are diverse forms of
egotism, but it is egotism all the same. What if I were to think a
little about others? The highest holiness is to think of others; come,
let us examine the matter. The _I_ excepted, the _I_ effaced, the _I_
forgotten, what would be the result of all this? What if I denounce
myself? I am arrested; this Champmathieu is released; I am put back in
the galleys; that is well—and what then? What is going on here? Ah!
here is a country, a town, here are factories, an industry, workers,
both men and women, aged grandsires, children, poor people! All this I
have created; all these I provide with their living; everywhere where
there is a smoking chimney, it is I who have placed the brand on the
hearth and meat in the pot; I have created ease, circulation, credit;
before me there was nothing; I have elevated, vivified, informed with
life, fecundated, stimulated, enriched the whole country-side; lacking
me, the soul is lacking; I take myself off, everything dies: and this
woman, who has suffered so much, who possesses so many merits in spite
of her fall; the cause of all whose misery I have unwittingly been! And
that child whom I meant to go in search of, whom I have promised to her
mother; do I not also owe something to this woman, in reparation for
the evil which I have done her? If I disappear, what happens? The
mother dies; the child becomes what it can; that is what will take
place, if I denounce myself. If I do not denounce myself? come, let us
see how it will be if I do not denounce myself.”


After putting this question to himself, he paused; he seemed to undergo
a momentary hesitation and trepidation; but it did not last long, and
he answered himself calmly:—

“Well, this man is going to the galleys; it is true, but what the
deuce! he has stolen! There is no use in my saying that he has not been
guilty of theft, for he has! I remain here; I go on: in ten years I
shall have made ten millions; I scatter them over the country; I have
nothing of my own; what is that to me? It is not for myself that I am
doing it; the prosperity of all goes on augmenting; industries are
aroused and animated; factories and shops are multiplied; families, a
hundred families, a thousand families, are happy; the district becomes
populated; villages spring up where there were only farms before; farms
rise where there was nothing; wretchedness disappears, and with
wretchedness debauchery, prostitution, theft, murder; all vices
disappear, all crimes: and this poor mother rears her child; and behold
a whole country rich and honest! Ah! I was a fool! I was absurd! what
was that I was saying about denouncing myself? I really must pay
attention and not be precipitate about anything. What! because it would
have pleased me to play the grand and generous; this is melodrama,
after all; because I should have thought of no one but myself, the
idea! for the sake of saving from a punishment, a trifle exaggerated,
perhaps, but just at bottom, no one knows whom, a thief, a
good-for-nothing, evidently, a whole country-side must perish! a poor
woman must die in the hospital! a poor little girl must die in the
street! like dogs; ah, this is abominable! And without the mother even
having seen her child once more, almost without the child’s having
known her mother; and all that for the sake of an old wretch of an
apple-thief who, most assuredly, has deserved the galleys for something
else, if not for that; fine scruples, indeed, which save a guilty man
and sacrifice the innocent, which save an old vagabond who has only a
few years to live at most, and who will not be more unhappy in the
galleys than in his hovel, and which sacrifice a whole population,
mothers, wives, children. This poor little Cosette who has no one in
the world but me, and who is, no doubt, blue with cold at this moment
in the den of those Thénardiers; those peoples are rascals; and I was
going to neglect my duty towards all these poor creatures; and I was
going off to denounce myself; and I was about to commit that
unspeakable folly! Let us put it at the worst: suppose that there is a
wrong action on my part in this, and that my conscience will reproach
me for it some day, to accept, for the good of others, these reproaches
which weigh only on myself; this evil action which compromises my soul
alone; in that lies self-sacrifice; in that alone there is virtue.”


He rose and resumed his march; this time, he seemed to be content.

Diamonds are found only in the dark places of the earth; truths are
found only in the depths of thought. It seemed to him, that, after
having descended into these depths, after having long groped among the
darkest of these shadows, he had at last found one of these diamonds,
one of these truths, and that he now held it in his hand, and he was
dazzled as he gazed upon it.

“Yes,” he thought, “this is right; I am on the right road; I have the
solution; I must end by holding fast to something; my resolve is taken;
let things take their course; let us no longer vacillate; let us no
longer hang back; this is for the interest of all, not for my own; I am
Madeleine, and Madeleine I remain. Woe to the man who is Jean Valjean!
I am no longer he; I do not know that man; I no longer know anything;
it turns out that some one is Jean Valjean at the present moment; let
him look out for himself; that does not concern me; it is a fatal name
which was floating abroad in the night; if it halts and descends on a
head, so much the worse for that head.”


He looked into the little mirror which hung above his chimney-piece,
and said:—

“Hold! it has relieved me to come to a decision; I am quite another man
now.”


He proceeded a few paces further, then he stopped short.

“Come!” he said, “I must not flinch before any of the consequences of
the resolution which I have once adopted; there are still threads which
attach me to that Jean Valjean; they must be broken; in this very room
there are objects which would betray me, dumb things which would bear
witness against me; it is settled; all these things must disappear.”


He fumbled in his pocket, drew out his purse, opened it, and took out a
small key; he inserted the key in a lock whose aperture could hardly be
seen, so hidden was it in the most sombre tones of the design which
covered the wall-paper; a secret receptacle opened, a sort of false
cupboard constructed in the angle between the wall and the
chimney-piece; in this hiding-place there were some rags—a blue linen
blouse, an old pair of trousers, an old knapsack, and a huge thorn
cudgel shod with iron at both ends. Those who had seen Jean Valjean at
the epoch when he passed through D—— in October, 1815, could easily
have recognized all the pieces of this miserable outfit.

He had preserved them as he had preserved the silver candlesticks, in
order to remind himself continually of his starting-point, but he had
concealed all that came from the galleys, and he had allowed the
candlesticks which came from the Bishop to be seen.

He cast a furtive glance towards the door, as though he feared that it
would open in spite of the bolt which fastened it; then, with a quick
and abrupt movement, he took the whole in his arms at once, without
bestowing so much as a glance on the things which he had so religiously
and so perilously preserved for so many years, and flung them all,
rags, cudgel, knapsack, into the fire.

[Illustration: Candlesticks Into the Fire]

He closed the false cupboard again, and with redoubled precautions,
henceforth unnecessary, since it was now empty, he concealed the door
behind a heavy piece of furniture, which he pushed in front of it.

After the lapse of a few seconds, the room and the opposite wall were
lighted up with a fierce, red, tremulous glow. Everything was on fire;
the thorn cudgel snapped and threw out sparks to the middle of the
chamber.

As the knapsack was consumed, together with the hideous rags which it
contained, it revealed something which sparkled in the ashes. By
bending over, one could have readily recognized a coin,—no doubt the
forty-sou piece stolen from the little Savoyard.

He did not look at the fire, but paced back and forth with the same
step.

All at once his eye fell on the two silver candlesticks, which shone
vaguely on the chimney-piece, through the glow.

“Hold!” he thought; “the whole of Jean Valjean is still in them. They
must be destroyed also.”


He seized the two candlesticks.

There was still fire enough to allow of their being put out of shape,
and converted into a sort of unrecognizable bar of metal.

He bent over the hearth and warmed himself for a moment. He felt a
sense of real comfort. “How good warmth is!” said he.

He stirred the live coals with one of the candlesticks.

A minute more, and they were both in the fire.

At that moment it seemed to him that he heard a voice within him
shouting: “Jean Valjean! Jean Valjean!”


His hair rose upright: he became like a man who is listening to some
terrible thing.

“Yes, that’s it! finish!” said the voice. “Complete what you are about!
Destroy these candlesticks! Annihilate this souvenir! Forget the
Bishop! Forget everything! Destroy this Champmathieu, do! That is
right! Applaud yourself! So it is settled, resolved, fixed, agreed:
here is an old man who does not know what is wanted of him, who has,
perhaps, done nothing, an innocent man, whose whole misfortune lies in
your name, upon whom your name weighs like a crime, who is about to be
taken for you, who will be condemned, who will finish his days in
abjectness and horror. That is good! Be an honest man yourself; remain
Monsieur le Maire; remain honorable and honored; enrich the town;
nourish the indigent; rear the orphan; live happy, virtuous, and
admired; and, during this time, while you are here in the midst of joy
and light, there will be a man who will wear your red blouse, who will
bear your name in ignominy, and who will drag your chain in the
galleys. Yes, it is well arranged thus. Ah, wretch!”


The perspiration streamed from his brow. He fixed a haggard eye on the
candlesticks. But that within him which had spoken had not finished.
The voice continued:—

“Jean Valjean, there will be around you many voices, which will make a
great noise, which will talk very loud, and which will bless you, and
only one which no one will hear, and which will curse you in the dark.
Well! listen, infamous man! All those benedictions will fall back
before they reach heaven, and only the malediction will ascend to God.”


This voice, feeble at first, and which had proceeded from the most
obscure depths of his conscience, had gradually become startling and
formidable, and he now heard it in his very ear. It seemed to him that
it had detached itself from him, and that it was now speaking outside
of him. He thought that he heard the last words so distinctly, that he
glanced around the room in a sort of terror.

“Is there any one here?” he demanded aloud, in utter bewilderment.

Then he resumed, with a laugh which resembled that of an idiot:—

“How stupid I am! There can be no one!”


There was some one; but the person who was there was of those whom the
human eye cannot see.

He placed the candlesticks on the chimney-piece.

Then he resumed his monotonous and lugubrious tramp, which troubled the
dreams of the sleeping man beneath him, and awoke him with a start.

This tramping to and fro soothed and at the same time intoxicated him.
It sometimes seems, on supreme occasions, as though people moved about
for the purpose of asking advice of everything that they may encounter
by change of place. After the lapse of a few minutes he no longer knew
his position.

He now recoiled in equal terror before both the resolutions at which he
had arrived in turn. The two ideas which counselled him appeared to him
equally fatal. What a fatality! What conjunction that that Champmathieu
should have been taken for him; to be overwhelmed by precisely the
means which Providence seemed to have employed, at first, to strengthen
his position!

There was a moment when he reflected on the future. Denounce himself,
great God! Deliver himself up! With immense despair he faced all that
he should be obliged to leave, all that he should be obliged to take up
once more. He should have to bid farewell to that existence which was
so good, so pure, so radiant, to the respect of all, to honor, to
liberty. He should never more stroll in the fields; he should never
more hear the birds sing in the month of May; he should never more
bestow alms on the little children; he should never more experience the
sweetness of having glances of gratitude and love fixed upon him; he
should quit that house which he had built, that little chamber!
Everything seemed charming to him at that moment. Never again should he
read those books; never more should he write on that little table of
white wood; his old portress, the only servant whom he kept, would
never more bring him his coffee in the morning. Great God! instead of
that, the convict gang, the iron necklet, the red waistcoat, the chain
on his ankle, fatigue, the cell, the camp bed all those horrors which
he knew so well! At his age, after having been what he was! If he were
only young again! but to be addressed in his old age as “thou” by any
one who pleased; to be searched by the convict-guard; to receive the
galley-sergeant’s cudgellings; to wear iron-bound shoes on his bare
feet; to have to stretch out his leg night and morning to the hammer of
the roundsman who visits the gang; to submit to the curiosity of
strangers, who would be told: “That man yonder is the famous Jean
Valjean, who was mayor of M. sur M.”; and at night, dripping with
perspiration, overwhelmed with lassitude, their green caps drawn over
their eyes, to remount, two by two, the ladder staircase of the galleys
beneath the sergeant’s whip. Oh, what misery! Can destiny, then, be as
malicious as an intelligent being, and become as monstrous as the human
heart?

And do what he would, he always fell back upon the heartrending dilemma
which lay at the foundation of his reverie: “Should he remain in
paradise and become a demon? Should he return to hell and become an
angel?”


What was to be done? Great God! what was to be done?

The torment from which he had escaped with so much difficulty was
unchained afresh within him. His ideas began to grow confused once
more; they assumed a kind of stupefied and mechanical quality which is
peculiar to despair. The name of Romainville recurred incessantly to
his mind, with the two verses of a song which he had heard in the past.
He thought that Romainville was a little grove near Paris, where young
lovers go to pluck lilacs in the month of April.

He wavered outwardly as well as inwardly. He walked like a little child
who is permitted to toddle alone.

At intervals, as he combated his lassitude, he made an effort to
recover the mastery of his mind. He tried to put to himself, for the
last time, and definitely, the problem over which he had, in a manner,
fallen prostrate with fatigue: Ought he to denounce himself? Ought he
to hold his peace? He could not manage to see anything distinctly. The
vague aspects of all the courses of reasoning which had been sketched
out by his meditations quivered and vanished, one after the other, into
smoke. He only felt that, to whatever course of action he made up his
mind, something in him must die, and that of necessity, and without his
being able to escape the fact; that he was entering a sepulchre on the
right hand as much as on the left; that he was passing through a death
agony,—the agony of his happiness, or the agony of his virtue.

Alas! all his resolution had again taken possession of him. He was no
further advanced than at the beginning.

Thus did this unhappy soul struggle in its anguish. Eighteen hundred
years before this unfortunate man, the mysterious Being in whom are
summed up all the sanctities and all the sufferings of humanity had
also long thrust aside with his hand, while the olive-trees quivered in
the wild wind of the infinite, the terrible cup which appeared to Him
dripping with darkness and overflowing with shadows in the depths all
studded with stars.




CHAPTER IV—FORMS ASSUMED BY SUFFERING DURING SLEEP


Three o’clock in the morning had just struck, and he had been walking
thus for five hours, almost uninterruptedly, when he at length allowed
himself to drop into his chair.

There he fell asleep and had a dream.

This dream, like the majority of dreams, bore no relation to the
situation, except by its painful and heart-rending character, but it
made an impression on him. This nightmare struck him so forcibly that
he wrote it down later on. It is one of the papers in his own
handwriting which he has bequeathed to us. We think that we have here
reproduced the thing in strict accordance with the text.

Of whatever nature this dream may be, the history of this night would
be incomplete if we were to omit it: it is the gloomy adventure of an
ailing soul.

Here it is. On the envelope we find this line inscribed, “The Dream I
had that Night.”


“I was in a plain; a vast, gloomy plain, where there was no grass. It
did not seem to me to be daylight nor yet night.

“I was walking with my brother, the brother of my childish years, the
brother of whom, I must say, I never think, and whom I now hardly
remember.

“We were conversing and we met some passers-by. We were talking of a
neighbor of ours in former days, who had always worked with her window
open from the time when she came to live on the street. As we talked we
felt cold because of that open window.

“There were no trees in the plain. We saw a man passing close to us. He
was entirely nude, of the hue of ashes, and mounted on a horse which
was earth color. The man had no hair; we could see his skull and the
veins on it. In his hand he held a switch which was as supple as a
vine-shoot and as heavy as iron. This horseman passed and said nothing
to us.

“My brother said to me, ‘Let us take to the hollow road.’

“There existed a hollow way wherein one saw neither a single shrub nor
a spear of moss. Everything was dirt-colored, even the sky. After
proceeding a few paces, I received no reply when I spoke: I perceived
that my brother was no longer with me.

“I entered a village which I espied. I reflected that it must be
Romainville. (Why Romainville?)5

“The first street that I entered was deserted. I entered a second
street. Behind the angle formed by the two streets, a man was standing
erect against the wall. I said to this man:—

“‘What country is this? Where am I?’ The man made no reply. I saw the
door of a house open, and I entered.

“The first chamber was deserted. I entered the second. Behind the door
of this chamber a man was standing erect against the wall. I inquired
of this man, ‘Whose house is this? Where am I?’ The man replied not.

“The house had a garden. I quitted the house and entered the garden.
The garden was deserted. Behind the first tree I found a man standing
upright. I said to this man, ‘What garden is this? Where am I?’ The man
did not answer.

“I strolled into the village, and perceived that it was a town. All the
streets were deserted, all the doors were open. Not a single living
being was passing in the streets, walking through the chambers or
strolling in the gardens. But behind each angle of the walls, behind
each door, behind each tree, stood a silent man. Only one was to be
seen at a time. These men watched me pass.

“I left the town and began to ramble about the fields.

“After the lapse of some time I turned back and saw a great crowd
coming up behind me. I recognized all the men whom I had seen in that
town. They had strange heads. They did not seem to be in a hurry, yet
they walked faster than I did. They made no noise as they walked. In an
instant this crowd had overtaken and surrounded me. The faces of these
men were earthen in hue.

“Then the first one whom I had seen and questioned on entering the town
said to me:—

“‘Whither are you going! Do you not know that you have been dead this
long time?’

“I opened my mouth to reply, and I perceived that there was no one near
me.”


He woke. He was icy cold. A wind which was chill like the breeze of
dawn was rattling the leaves of the window, which had been left open on
their hinges. The fire was out. The candle was nearing its end. It was
still black night.

He rose, he went to the window. There were no stars in the sky even
yet.

From his window the yard of the house and the street were visible. A
sharp, harsh noise, which made him drop his eyes, resounded from the
earth.

Below him he perceived two red stars, whose rays lengthened and
shortened in a singular manner through the darkness.

As his thoughts were still half immersed in the mists of sleep, “Hold!”
said he, “there are no stars in the sky. They are on earth now.”


But this confusion vanished; a second sound similar to the first roused
him thoroughly; he looked and recognized the fact that these two stars
were the lanterns of a carriage. By the light which they cast he was
able to distinguish the form of this vehicle. It was a tilbury
harnessed to a small white horse. The noise which he had heard was the
trampling of the horse’s hoofs on the pavement.

“What vehicle is this?” he said to himself. “Who is coming here so
early in the morning?”


At that moment there came a light tap on the door of his chamber.

He shuddered from head to foot, and cried in a terrible voice:—

“Who is there?”


Some one said:—

“I, Monsieur le Maire.”


He recognized the voice of the old woman who was his portress.

“Well!” he replied, “what is it?”


“Monsieur le Maire, it is just five o’clock in the morning.”


“What is that to me?”


“The cabriolet is here, Monsieur le Maire.”


“What cabriolet?”


“The tilbury.”


“What tilbury?”


“Did not Monsieur le Maire order a tilbury?”


“No,” said he.

“The coachman says that he has come for Monsieur le Maire.”


“What coachman?”


“M. Scaufflaire’s coachman.”


“M. Scaufflaire?”


That name sent a shudder over him, as though a flash of lightning had
passed in front of his face.

“Ah! yes,” he resumed; “M. Scaufflaire!”


If the old woman could have seen him at that moment, she would have
been frightened.

A tolerably long silence ensued. He examined the flame of the candle
with a stupid air, and from around the wick he took some of the burning
wax, which he rolled between his fingers. The old woman waited for him.
She even ventured to uplift her voice once more:—

“What am I to say, Monsieur le Maire?”


“Say that it is well, and that I am coming down.”





CHAPTER V—HINDRANCES


The posting service from Arras to M. sur M. was still operated at this
period by small mail-wagons of the time of the Empire. These
mail-wagons were two-wheeled cabriolets, upholstered inside with
fawn-colored leather, hung on springs, and having but two seats, one
for the postboy, the other for the traveller. The wheels were armed
with those long, offensive axles which keep other vehicles at a
distance, and which may still be seen on the road in Germany. The
despatch box, an immense oblong coffer, was placed behind the vehicle
and formed a part of it. This coffer was painted black, and the
cabriolet yellow.

These vehicles, which have no counterparts nowadays, had something
distorted and hunchbacked about them; and when one saw them passing in
the distance, and climbing up some road to the horizon, they resembled
the insects which are called, I think, termites, and which, though with
but little corselet, drag a great train behind them. But they travelled
at a very rapid rate. The post-wagon which set out from Arras at one
o’clock every night, after the mail from Paris had passed, arrived at
M. sur M. a little before five o’clock in the morning.

That night the wagon which was descending to M. sur M. by the Hesdin
road, collided at the corner of a street, just as it was entering the
town, with a little tilbury harnessed to a white horse, which was going
in the opposite direction, and in which there was but one person, a man
enveloped in a mantle. The wheel of the tilbury received quite a
violent shock. The postman shouted to the man to stop, but the
traveller paid no heed and pursued his road at full gallop.

“That man is in a devilish hurry!” said the postman.

The man thus hastening on was the one whom we have just seen struggling
in convulsions which are certainly deserving of pity.

Whither was he going? He could not have told. Why was he hastening? He
did not know. He was driving at random, straight ahead. Whither? To
Arras, no doubt; but he might have been going elsewhere as well. At
times he was conscious of it, and he shuddered. He plunged into the
night as into a gulf. Something urged him forward; something drew him
on. No one could have told what was taking place within him; every one
will understand it. What man is there who has not entered, at least
once in his life, into that obscure cavern of the unknown?

However, he had resolved on nothing, decided nothing, formed no plan,
done nothing. None of the actions of his conscience had been decisive.
He was, more than ever, as he had been at the first moment.

Why was he going to Arras?

He repeated what he had already said to himself when he had hired
Scaufflaire’s cabriolet: that, whatever the result was to be, there was
no reason why he should not see with his own eyes, and judge of matters
for himself; that this was even prudent; that he must know what took
place; that no decision could be arrived at without having observed and
scrutinized; that one made mountains out of everything from a distance;
that, at any rate, when he should have seen that Champmathieu, some
wretch, his conscience would probably be greatly relieved to allow him
to go to the galleys in his stead; that Javert would indeed be there;
and that Brevet, that Chenildieu, that Cochepaille, old convicts who
had known him; but they certainly would not recognize him;—bah! what an
idea! that Javert was a hundred leagues from suspecting the truth; that
all conjectures and all suppositions were fixed on Champmathieu, and
that there is nothing so headstrong as suppositions and conjectures;
that accordingly there was no danger.

That it was, no doubt, a dark moment, but that he should emerge from
it; that, after all, he held his destiny, however bad it might be, in
his own hand; that he was master of it. He clung to this thought.

At bottom, to tell the whole truth, he would have preferred not to go
to Arras.

Nevertheless, he was going thither.

As he meditated, he whipped up his horse, which was proceeding at that
fine, regular, and even trot which accomplishes two leagues and a half
an hour.

In proportion as the cabriolet advanced, he felt something within him
draw back.

At daybreak he was in the open country; the town of M. sur M. lay far
behind him. He watched the horizon grow white; he stared at all the
chilly figures of a winter’s dawn as they passed before his eyes, but
without seeing them. The morning has its spectres as well as the
evening. He did not see them; but without his being aware of it, and by
means of a sort of penetration which was almost physical, these black
silhouettes of trees and of hills added some gloomy and sinister
quality to the violent state of his soul.

Each time that he passed one of those isolated dwellings which
sometimes border on the highway, he said to himself, “And yet there are
people there within who are sleeping!”


The trot of the horse, the bells on the harness, the wheels on the
road, produced a gentle, monotonous noise. These things are charming
when one is joyous, and lugubrious when one is sad.

It was broad daylight when he arrived at Hesdin. He halted in front of
the inn, to allow the horse a breathing spell, and to have him given
some oats.

The horse belonged, as Scaufflaire had said, to that small race of the
Boulonnais, which has too much head, too much belly, and not enough
neck and shoulders, but which has a broad chest, a large crupper, thin,
fine legs, and solid hoofs—a homely, but a robust and healthy race. The
excellent beast had travelled five leagues in two hours, and had not a
drop of sweat on his loins.

He did not get out of the tilbury. The stableman who brought the oats
suddenly bent down and examined the left wheel.

“Are you going far in this condition?” said the man.

He replied, with an air of not having roused himself from his reverie:—

“Why?”


“Have you come from a great distance?” went on the man.

“Five leagues.”


“Ah!”


“Why do you say, ‘Ah?’”


The man bent down once more, was silent for a moment, with his eyes
fixed on the wheel; then he rose erect and said:—

“Because, though this wheel has travelled five leagues, it certainly
will not travel another quarter of a league.”


He sprang out of the tilbury.

“What is that you say, my friend?”


“I say that it is a miracle that you should have travelled five leagues
without you and your horse rolling into some ditch on the highway. Just
see here!”


The wheel really had suffered serious damage. The shock administered by
the mail-wagon had split two spokes and strained the hub, so that the
nut no longer held firm.

“My friend,” he said to the stableman, “is there a wheelwright here?”


“Certainly, sir.”


“Do me the service to go and fetch him.”


“He is only a step from here. Hey! Master Bourgaillard!”


Master Bourgaillard, the wheelwright, was standing on his own
threshold. He came, examined the wheel and made a grimace like a
surgeon when the latter thinks a limb is broken.

“Can you repair this wheel immediately?”


“Yes, sir.”


“When can I set out again?”


“To-morrow.”


“To-morrow!”


“There is a long day’s work on it. Are you in a hurry, sir?”


“In a very great hurry. I must set out again in an hour at the latest.”


“Impossible, sir.”


“I will pay whatever you ask.”


“Impossible.”


“Well, in two hours, then.”


“Impossible to-day. Two new spokes and a hub must be made. Monsieur
will not be able to start before to-morrow morning.”


“The matter cannot wait until to-morrow. What if you were to replace
this wheel instead of repairing it?”


“How so?”


“You are a wheelwright?”


“Certainly, sir.”


“Have you not a wheel that you can sell me? Then I could start again at
once.”


“A spare wheel?”


“Yes.”


“I have no wheel on hand that would fit your cabriolet. Two wheels make
a pair. Two wheels cannot be put together hap-hazard.”


“In that case, sell me a pair of wheels.”


“Not all wheels fit all axles, sir.”


“Try, nevertheless.”


“It is useless, sir. I have nothing to sell but cart-wheels. We are but
a poor country here.”


“Have you a cabriolet that you can let me have?”


The wheelwright had seen at the first glance that the tilbury was a
hired vehicle. He shrugged his shoulders.

“You treat the cabriolets that people let you so well! If I had one, I
would not let it to you!”


“Well, sell it to me, then.”


“I have none.”


“What! not even a spring-cart? I am not hard to please, as you see.”


“We live in a poor country. There is, in truth,” added the wheelwright,
“an old calash under the shed yonder, which belongs to a bourgeois of
the town, who gave it to me to take care of, and who only uses it on
the thirty-sixth of the month—never, that is to say. I might let that
to you, for what matters it to me? But the bourgeois must not see it
pass—and then, it is a calash; it would require two horses.”


“I will take two post-horses.”


“Where is Monsieur going?”


“To Arras.”


“And Monsieur wishes to reach there to-day?”


“Yes, of course.”


“By taking two post-horses?”


“Why not?”


“Does it make any difference whether Monsieur arrives at four o’clock
to-morrow morning?”


“Certainly not.”


“There is one thing to be said about that, you see, by taking
post-horses—Monsieur has his passport?”


“Yes.”


“Well, by taking post-horses, Monsieur cannot reach Arras before
to-morrow. We are on a crossroad. The relays are badly served, the
horses are in the fields. The season for ploughing is just beginning;
heavy teams are required, and horses are seized upon everywhere, from
the post as well as elsewhere. Monsieur will have to wait three or four
hours at the least at every relay. And, then, they drive at a walk.
There are many hills to ascend.”


“Come then, I will go on horseback. Unharness the cabriolet. Some one
can surely sell me a saddle in the neighborhood.”


“Without doubt. But will this horse bear the saddle?”


“That is true; you remind me of that; he will not bear it.”


“Then—”


“But I can surely hire a horse in the village?”


“A horse to travel to Arras at one stretch?”


“Yes.”


“That would require such a horse as does not exist in these parts. You
would have to buy it to begin with, because no one knows you. But you
will not find one for sale nor to let, for five hundred francs, or for
a thousand.”


“What am I to do?”


“The best thing is to let me repair the wheel like an honest man, and
set out on your journey to-morrow.”


“To-morrow will be too late.”


“The deuce!”


“Is there not a mail-wagon which runs to Arras? When will it pass?”


“To-night. Both the posts pass at night; the one going as well as the
one coming.”


“What! It will take you a day to mend this wheel?”


“A day, and a good long one.”


“If you set two men to work?”


“If I set ten men to work.”


“What if the spokes were to be tied together with ropes?”


“That could be done with the spokes, not with the hub; and the felly is
in a bad state, too.”


“Is there any one in this village who lets out teams?”


“No.”


“Is there another wheelwright?”


The stableman and the wheelwright replied in concert, with a toss of
the head.

“No.”


He felt an immense joy.

It was evident that Providence was intervening. That it was it who had
broken the wheel of the tilbury and who was stopping him on the road.
He had not yielded to this sort of first summons; he had just made
every possible effort to continue the journey; he had loyally and
scrupulously exhausted all means; he had been deterred neither by the
season, nor fatigue, nor by the expense; he had nothing with which to
reproach himself. If he went no further, that was no fault of his. It
did not concern him further. It was no longer his fault. It was not the
act of his own conscience, but the act of Providence.

He breathed again. He breathed freely and to the full extent of his
lungs for the first time since Javert’s visit. It seemed to him that
the hand of iron which had held his heart in its grasp for the last
twenty hours had just released him.

It seemed to him that God was for him now, and was manifesting Himself.

He said to himself that he had done all he could, and that now he had
nothing to do but retrace his steps quietly.

If his conversation with the wheelwright had taken place in a chamber
of the inn, it would have had no witnesses, no one would have heard
him, things would have rested there, and it is probable that we should
not have had to relate any of the occurrences which the reader is about
to peruse; but this conversation had taken place in the street. Any
colloquy in the street inevitably attracts a crowd. There are always
people who ask nothing better than to become spectators. While he was
questioning the wheelwright, some people who were passing back and
forth halted around them. After listening for a few minutes, a young
lad, to whom no one had paid any heed, detached himself from the group
and ran off.

At the moment when the traveller, after the inward deliberation which
we have just described, resolved to retrace his steps, this child
returned. He was accompanied by an old woman.

“Monsieur,” said the woman, “my boy tells me that you wish to hire a
cabriolet.”


These simple words uttered by an old woman led by a child made the
perspiration trickle down his limbs. He thought that he beheld the hand
which had relaxed its grasp reappear in the darkness behind him, ready
to seize him once more.

He answered:—

“Yes, my good woman; I am in search of a cabriolet which I can hire.”


And he hastened to add:—

“But there is none in the place.”


“Certainly there is,” said the old woman.

“Where?” interpolated the wheelwright.

“At my house,” replied the old woman.

He shuddered. The fatal hand had grasped him again.

The old woman really had in her shed a sort of basket spring-cart. The
wheelwright and the stable-man, in despair at the prospect of the
traveller escaping their clutches, interfered.

“It was a frightful old trap; it rests flat on the axle; it is an
actual fact that the seats were suspended inside it by leather thongs;
the rain came into it; the wheels were rusted and eaten with moisture;
it would not go much further than the tilbury; a regular ramshackle old
stage-wagon; the gentleman would make a great mistake if he trusted
himself to it,” etc., etc.

All this was true; but this trap, this ramshackle old vehicle, this
thing, whatever it was, ran on its two wheels and could go to Arras.

He paid what was asked, left the tilbury with the wheelwright to be
repaired, intending to reclaim it on his return, had the white horse
put to the cart, climbed into it, and resumed the road which he had
been travelling since morning.

At the moment when the cart moved off, he admitted that he had felt, a
moment previously, a certain joy in the thought that he should not go
whither he was now proceeding. He examined this joy with a sort of
wrath, and found it absurd. Why should he feel joy at turning back?
After all, he was taking this trip of his own free will. No one was
forcing him to it.

And assuredly nothing would happen except what he should choose.

As he left Hesdin, he heard a voice shouting to him: “Stop! Stop!” He
halted the cart with a vigorous movement which contained a feverish and
convulsive element resembling hope.

It was the old woman’s little boy.

“Monsieur,” said the latter, “it was I who got the cart for you.”


“Well?”


“You have not given me anything.”


He who gave to all so readily thought this demand exorbitant and almost
odious.

“Ah! it’s you, you scamp?” said he; “you shall have nothing.”


He whipped up his horse and set off at full speed.

He had lost a great deal of time at Hesdin. He wanted to make it good.
The little horse was courageous, and pulled for two; but it was the
month of February, there had been rain; the roads were bad. And then,
it was no longer the tilbury. The cart was very heavy, and in addition,
there were many ascents.

He took nearly four hours to go from Hesdin to Saint-Pol; four hours
for five leagues.

At Saint-Pol he had the horse unharnessed at the first inn he came to
and led to the stable; as he had promised Scaufflaire, he stood beside
the manger while the horse was eating; he thought of sad and confusing
things.

The inn-keeper’s wife came to the stable.

“Does not Monsieur wish to breakfast?”


“Come, that is true; I even have a good appetite.”


He followed the woman, who had a rosy, cheerful face; she led him to
the public room where there were tables covered with waxed cloth.

“Make haste!” said he; “I must start again; I am in a hurry.”


A big Flemish servant-maid placed his knife and fork in all haste; he
looked at the girl with a sensation of comfort.

“That is what ailed me,” he thought; “I had not breakfasted.”


His breakfast was served; he seized the bread, took a mouthful, and
then slowly replaced it on the table, and did not touch it again.

A carter was eating at another table; he said to this man:—

“Why is their bread so bitter here?”


The carter was a German and did not understand him.

He returned to the stable and remained near the horse.

An hour later he had quitted Saint-Pol and was directing his course
towards Tinques, which is only five leagues from Arras.

What did he do during this journey? Of what was he thinking? As in the
morning, he watched the trees, the thatched roofs, the tilled fields
pass by, and the way in which the landscape, broken at every turn of
the road, vanished; this is a sort of contemplation which sometimes
suffices to the soul, and almost relieves it from thought. What is more
melancholy and more profound than to see a thousand objects for the
first and the last time? To travel is to be born and to die at every
instant; perhaps, in the vaguest region of his mind, he did make
comparisons between the shifting horizon and our human existence: all
the things of life are perpetually fleeing before us; the dark and
bright intervals are intermingled; after a dazzling moment, an eclipse;
we look, we hasten, we stretch out our hands to grasp what is passing;
each event is a turn in the road, and, all at once, we are old; we feel
a shock; all is black; we distinguish an obscure door; the gloomy horse
of life, which has been drawing us halts, and we see a veiled and
unknown person unharnessing amid the shadows.

Twilight was falling when the children who were coming out of school
beheld this traveller enter Tinques; it is true that the days were
still short; he did not halt at Tinques; as he emerged from the
village, a laborer, who was mending the road with stones, raised his
head and said to him:—

“That horse is very much fatigued.”


The poor beast was, in fact, going at a walk.

“Are you going to Arras?” added the road-mender.

“Yes.”


“If you go on at that rate you will not arrive very early.”


He stopped his horse, and asked the laborer:—

“How far is it from here to Arras?”


“Nearly seven good leagues.”


“How is that? the posting guide only says five leagues and a quarter.”


“Ah!” returned the road-mender, “so you don’t know that the road is
under repair? You will find it barred a quarter of an hour further on;
there is no way to proceed further.”


“Really?”


“You will take the road on the left, leading to Carency; you will cross
the river; when you reach Camblin, you will turn to the right; that is
the road to Mont-Saint-Éloy which leads to Arras.”


“But it is night, and I shall lose my way.”


“You do not belong in these parts?”


“No.”


“And, besides, it is all crossroads; stop! sir,” resumed the
road-mender; “shall I give you a piece of advice? your horse is tired;
return to Tinques; there is a good inn there; sleep there; you can
reach Arras to-morrow.”


“I must be there this evening.”


“That is different; but go to the inn all the same, and get an extra
horse; the stable-boy will guide you through the crossroads.”


He followed the road-mender’s advice, retraced his steps, and, half an
hour later, he passed the same spot again, but this time at full speed,
with a good horse to aid; a stable-boy, who called himself a postilion,
was seated on the shaft of the cariole.

Still, he felt that he had lost time.

Night had fully come.

They turned into the crossroad; the way became frightfully bad; the
cart lurched from one rut to the other; he said to the postilion:—

“Keep at a trot, and you shall have a double fee.”


In one of the jolts, the whiffle-tree broke.

“There’s the whiffle-tree broken, sir,” said the postilion; “I don’t
know how to harness my horse now; this road is very bad at night; if
you wish to return and sleep at Tinques, we could be in Arras early
to-morrow morning.”


He replied, “Have you a bit of rope and a knife?”


“Yes, sir.”


He cut a branch from a tree and made a whiffle-tree of it.

This caused another loss of twenty minutes; but they set out again at a
gallop.

The plain was gloomy; low-hanging, black, crisp fogs crept over the
hills and wrenched themselves away like smoke: there were whitish
gleams in the clouds; a strong breeze which blew in from the sea
produced a sound in all quarters of the horizon, as of some one moving
furniture; everything that could be seen assumed attitudes of terror.
How many things shiver beneath these vast breaths of the night!

He was stiff with cold; he had eaten nothing since the night before; he
vaguely recalled his other nocturnal trip in the vast plain in the
neighborhood of D——, eight years previously, and it seemed but
yesterday.

The hour struck from a distant tower; he asked the boy:—

“What time is it?”


“Seven o’clock, sir; we shall reach Arras at eight; we have but three
leagues still to go.”


At that moment, he for the first time indulged in this reflection,
thinking it odd the while that it had not occurred to him sooner: that
all this trouble which he was taking was, perhaps, useless; that he did
not know so much as the hour of the trial; that he should, at least,
have informed himself of that; that he was foolish to go thus straight
ahead without knowing whether he would be of any service or not; then
he sketched out some calculations in his mind: that, ordinarily, the
sittings of the Court of Assizes began at nine o’clock in the morning;
that it could not be a long affair; that the theft of the apples would
be very brief; that there would then remain only a question of
identity, four or five depositions, and very little for the lawyers to
say; that he should arrive after all was over.

The postilion whipped up the horses; they had crossed the river and
left Mont-Saint-Éloy behind them.

The night grew more profound.




CHAPTER VI—SISTER SIMPLICE PUT TO THE PROOF


But at that moment Fantine was joyous.

She had passed a very bad night; her cough was frightful; her fever had
doubled in intensity; she had had dreams: in the morning, when the
doctor paid his visit, she was delirious; he assumed an alarmed look,
and ordered that he should be informed as soon as M. Madeleine arrived.

All the morning she was melancholy, said but little, and laid plaits in
her sheets, murmuring the while, in a low voice, calculations which
seemed to be calculations of distances. Her eyes were hollow and
staring. They seemed almost extinguished at intervals, then lighted up
again and shone like stars. It seems as though, at the approach of a
certain dark hour, the light of heaven fills those who are quitting the
light of earth.

Each time that Sister Simplice asked her how she felt, she replied
invariably, “Well. I should like to see M. Madeleine.”


Some months before this, at the moment when Fantine had just lost her
last modesty, her last shame, and her last joy, she was the shadow of
herself; now she was the spectre of herself. Physical suffering had
completed the work of moral suffering. This creature of five and twenty
had a wrinkled brow, flabby cheeks, pinched nostrils, teeth from which
the gums had receded, a leaden complexion, a bony neck, prominent
shoulder-blades, frail limbs, a clayey skin, and her golden hair was
growing out sprinkled with gray. Alas! how illness improvises old-age!

At midday the physician returned, gave some directions, inquired
whether the mayor had made his appearance at the infirmary, and shook
his head.

M. Madeleine usually came to see the invalid at three o’clock. As
exactness is kindness, he was exact.

About half-past two, Fantine began to be restless. In the course of
twenty minutes, she asked the nun more than ten times, “What time is
it, sister?”


Three o’clock struck. At the third stroke, Fantine sat up in bed; she
who could, in general, hardly turn over, joined her yellow, fleshless
hands in a sort of convulsive clasp, and the nun heard her utter one of
those profound sighs which seem to throw off dejection. Then Fantine
turned and looked at the door.

No one entered; the door did not open.

She remained thus for a quarter of an hour, her eyes riveted on the
door, motionless and apparently holding her breath. The sister dared
not speak to her. The clock struck a quarter past three. Fantine fell
back on her pillow.

She said nothing, but began to plait the sheets once more.

Half an hour passed, then an hour, no one came; every time the clock
struck, Fantine started up and looked towards the door, then fell back
again.

Her thought was clearly perceptible, but she uttered no name, she made
no complaint, she blamed no one. But she coughed in a melancholy way.
One would have said that something dark was descending upon her. She
was livid and her lips were blue. She smiled now and then.

Five o’clock struck. Then the sister heard her say, very low and
gently, “He is wrong not to come to-day, since I am going away
to-morrow.”


Sister Simplice herself was surprised at M. Madeleine’s delay.

In the meantime, Fantine was staring at the tester of her bed. She
seemed to be endeavoring to recall something. All at once she began to
sing in a voice as feeble as a breath. The nun listened. This is what
Fantine was singing:—

“Lovely things we will buy
As we stroll the faubourgs through.
Roses are pink, corn-flowers are blue,
I love my love, corn-flowers are blue.


“Yestere’en the Virgin Mary came near my stove, in a broidered mantle
clad, and said to me, ‘Here, hide ’neath my veil the child whom you one
day begged from me. Haste to the city, buy linen, buy a needle, buy
thread.’

“Lovely things we will buy
As we stroll the faubourgs through.


“Dear Holy Virgin, beside my stove I have set a cradle with ribbons
decked. God may give me his loveliest star; I prefer the child thou
hast granted me. ‘Madame, what shall I do with this linen fine?’—‘Make
of it clothes for thy new-born babe.’

“Roses are pink and corn-flowers are blue,
I love my love, and corn-flowers are blue.


“‘Wash this linen.’—‘Where?’—‘In the stream. Make of it, soiling not,
spoiling not, a petticoat fair with its bodice fine, which I will
embroider and fill with flowers.’—‘Madame, the child is no longer here;
what is to be done?’—‘Then make of it a winding-sheet in which to bury
me.’

“Lovely things we will buy
As we stroll the faubourgs through,
Roses are pink, corn-flowers are blue,
I love my love, corn-flowers are blue.”


This song was an old cradle romance with which she had, in former days,
lulled her little Cosette to sleep, and which had never recurred to her
mind in all the five years during which she had been parted from her
child. She sang it in so sad a voice, and to so sweet an air, that it
was enough to make any one, even a nun, weep. The sister, accustomed as
she was to austerities, felt a tear spring to her eyes.

The clock struck six. Fantine did not seem to hear it. She no longer
seemed to pay attention to anything about her.

Sister Simplice sent a serving-maid to inquire of the portress of the
factory, whether the mayor had returned, and if he would not come to
the infirmary soon. The girl returned in a few minutes.

Fantine was still motionless and seemed absorbed in her own thoughts.

The servant informed Sister Simplice in a very low tone, that the mayor
had set out that morning before six o’clock, in a little tilbury
harnessed to a white horse, cold as the weather was; that he had gone
alone, without even a driver; that no one knew what road he had taken;
that people said he had been seen to turn into the road to Arras; that
others asserted that they had met him on the road to Paris. That when
he went away he had been very gentle, as usual, and that he had merely
told the portress not to expect him that night.

While the two women were whispering together, with their backs turned
to Fantine’s bed, the sister interrogating, the servant conjecturing,
Fantine, with the feverish vivacity of certain organic maladies, which
unite the free movements of health with the frightful emaciation of
death, had raised herself to her knees in bed, with her shrivelled
hands resting on the bolster, and her head thrust through the opening
of the curtains, and was listening. All at once she cried:—

“You are speaking of M. Madeleine! Why are you talking so low? What is
he doing? Why does he not come?”


Her voice was so abrupt and hoarse that the two women thought they
heard the voice of a man; they wheeled round in affright.

“Answer me!” cried Fantine.

The servant stammered:—

“The portress told me that he could not come to-day.”


“Be calm, my child,” said the sister; “lie down again.”


Fantine, without changing her attitude, continued in a loud voice, and
with an accent that was both imperious and heart-rending:—

“He cannot come? Why not? You know the reason. You are whispering it to
each other there. I want to know it.”


The servant-maid hastened to say in the nun’s ear, “Say that he is busy
with the city council.”


Sister Simplice blushed faintly, for it was a lie that the maid had
proposed to her.

On the other hand, it seemed to her that the mere communication of the
truth to the invalid would, without doubt, deal her a terrible blow,
and that this was a serious matter in Fantine’s present state. Her
flush did not last long; the sister raised her calm, sad eyes to
Fantine, and said, “Monsieur le Maire has gone away.”


Fantine raised herself and crouched on her heels in the bed: her eyes
sparkled; indescribable joy beamed from that melancholy face.

“Gone!” she cried; “he has gone to get Cosette.”


Then she raised her arms to heaven, and her white face became
ineffable; her lips moved; she was praying in a low voice.

When her prayer was finished, “Sister,” she said, “I am willing to lie
down again; I will do anything you wish; I was naughty just now; I beg
your pardon for having spoken so loud; it is very wrong to talk loudly;
I know that well, my good sister, but, you see, I am very happy: the
good God is good; M. Madeleine is good; just think! he has gone to
Montfermeil to get my little Cosette.”


She lay down again, with the nun’s assistance, helped the nun to
arrange her pillow, and kissed the little silver cross which she wore
on her neck, and which Sister Simplice had given her.

“My child,” said the sister, “try to rest now, and do not talk any
more.”


Fantine took the sister’s hand in her moist hands, and the latter was
pained to feel that perspiration.

“He set out this morning for Paris; in fact, he need not even go
through Paris; Montfermeil is a little to the left as you come thence.
Do you remember how he said to me yesterday, when I spoke to him of
Cosette, _Soon, soon?_ He wants to give me a surprise, you know! he
made me sign a letter so that she could be taken from the Thénardiers;
they cannot say anything, can they? they will give back Cosette, for
they have been paid; the authorities will not allow them to keep the
child since they have received their pay. Do not make signs to me that
I must not talk, sister! I am extremely happy; I am doing well; I am
not ill at all any more; I am going to see Cosette again; I am even
quite hungry; it is nearly five years since I saw her last; you cannot
imagine how much attached one gets to children, and then, she will be
so pretty; you will see! If you only knew what pretty little rosy
fingers she had! In the first place, she will have very beautiful
hands; she had ridiculous hands when she was only a year old; like
this! she must be a big girl now; she is seven years old; she is quite
a young lady; I call her Cosette, but her name is really Euphrasie.
Stop! this morning I was looking at the dust on the chimney-piece, and
I had a sort of idea come across me, like that, that I should see
Cosette again soon. Mon Dieu! how wrong it is not to see one’s children
for years! One ought to reflect that life is not eternal. Oh, how good
M. le Maire is to go! it is very cold! it is true; he had on his cloak,
at least? he will be here to-morrow, will he not? to-morrow will be a
festival day; to-morrow morning, sister, you must remind me to put on
my little cap that has lace on it. What a place that Montfermeil is! I
took that journey on foot once; it was very long for me, but the
diligences go very quickly! he will be here to-morrow with Cosette: how
far is it from here to Montfermeil?”


The sister, who had no idea of distances, replied, “Oh, I think that he
will be here to-morrow.”


“To-morrow! to-morrow!” said Fantine, “I shall see Cosette to-morrow!
you see, good sister of the good God, that I am no longer ill; I am
mad; I could dance if any one wished it.”


A person who had seen her a quarter of an hour previously would not
have understood the change; she was all rosy now; she spoke in a lively
and natural voice; her whole face was one smile; now and then she
talked, she laughed softly; the joy of a mother is almost infantile.

“Well,” resumed the nun, “now that you are happy, mind me, and do not
talk any more.”


Fantine laid her head on her pillow and said in a low voice: “Yes, lie
down again; be good, for you are going to have your child; Sister
Simplice is right; every one here is right.”


And then, without stirring, without even moving her head, she began to
stare all about her with wide-open eyes and a joyous air, and she said
nothing more.

The sister drew the curtains together again, hoping that she would fall
into a doze. Between seven and eight o’clock the doctor came; not
hearing any sound, he thought Fantine was asleep, entered softly, and
approached the bed on tiptoe; he opened the curtains a little, and, by
the light of the taper, he saw Fantine’s big eyes gazing at him.

She said to him, “She will be allowed to sleep beside me in a little
bed, will she not, sir?”


The doctor thought that she was delirious. She added:—

“See! there is just room.”


The doctor took Sister Simplice aside, and she explained matters to
him; that M. Madeleine was absent for a day or two, and that in their
doubt they had not thought it well to undeceive the invalid, who
believed that the mayor had gone to Montfermeil; that it was possible,
after all, that her guess was correct: the doctor approved.

He returned to Fantine’s bed, and she went on:—

“You see, when she wakes up in the morning, I shall be able to say good
morning to her, poor kitten, and when I cannot sleep at night, I can
hear her asleep; her little gentle breathing will do me good.”


“Give me your hand,” said the doctor.

She stretched out her arm, and exclaimed with a laugh:—

“Ah, hold! in truth, you did not know it; I am cured; Cosette will
arrive to-morrow.”


The doctor was surprised; she was better; the pressure on her chest had
decreased; her pulse had regained its strength; a sort of life had
suddenly supervened and reanimated this poor, worn-out creature.

“Doctor,” she went on, “did the sister tell you that M. le Maire has
gone to get that mite of a child?”


The doctor recommended silence, and that all painful emotions should be
avoided; he prescribed an infusion of pure chinchona, and, in case the
fever should increase again during the night, a calming potion. As he
took his departure, he said to the sister:—

“She is doing better; if good luck willed that the mayor should
actually arrive to-morrow with the child, who knows? there are crises
so astounding; great joy has been known to arrest maladies; I know well
that this is an organic disease, and in an advanced state, but all
those things are such mysteries: we may be able to save her.”





CHAPTER VII—THE TRAVELLER ON HIS ARRIVAL TAKES PRECAUTIONS FOR
DEPARTURE


It was nearly eight o’clock in the evening when the cart, which we left
on the road, entered the porte-cochère of the Hotel de la Poste in
Arras; the man whom we have been following up to this moment alighted
from it, responded with an abstracted air to the attentions of the
people of the inn, sent back the extra horse, and with his own hands
led the little white horse to the stable; then he opened the door of a
billiard-room which was situated on the ground floor, sat down there,
and leaned his elbows on a table; he had taken fourteen hours for the
journey which he had counted on making in six; he did himself the
justice to acknowledge that it was not his fault, but at bottom, he was
not sorry.

The landlady of the hotel entered.

“Does Monsieur wish a bed? Does Monsieur require supper?”


He made a sign of the head in the negative.

“The stableman says that Monsieur’s horse is extremely fatigued.”


Here he broke his silence.

“Will not the horse be in a condition to set out again to-morrow
morning?”


“Oh, Monsieur! he must rest for two days at least.”


He inquired:—

“Is not the posting-station located here?”


“Yes, sir.”


The hostess conducted him to the office; he showed his passport, and
inquired whether there was any way of returning that same night to M.
sur M. by the mail-wagon; the seat beside the post-boy chanced to be
vacant; he engaged it and paid for it. “Monsieur,” said the clerk, “do
not fail to be here ready to start at precisely one o’clock in the
morning.”


This done, he left the hotel and began to wander about the town.

He was not acquainted with Arras; the streets were dark, and he walked
on at random; but he seemed bent upon not asking the way of the
passers-by. He crossed the little river Crinchon, and found himself in
a labyrinth of narrow alleys where he lost his way. A citizen was
passing along with a lantern. After some hesitation, he decided to
apply to this man, not without having first glanced behind and in front
of him, as though he feared lest some one should hear the question
which he was about to put.

“Monsieur,” said he, “where is the court-house, if you please.”


“You do not belong in town, sir?” replied the bourgeois, who was an
oldish man; “well, follow me. I happen to be going in the direction of
the court-house, that is to say, in the direction of the hotel of the
prefecture; for the court-house is undergoing repairs just at this
moment, and the courts are holding their sittings provisionally in the
prefecture.”


“Is it there that the Assizes are held?” he asked.

“Certainly, sir; you see, the prefecture of to-day was the bishop’s
palace before the Revolution. M. de Conzié, who was bishop in ’82,
built a grand hall there. It is in this grand hall that the court is
held.”


On the way, the bourgeois said to him:—

“If Monsieur desires to witness a case, it is rather late. The sittings
generally close at six o’clock.”


When they arrived on the grand square, however, the man pointed out to
him four long windows all lighted up, in the front of a vast and gloomy
building.

“Upon my word, sir, you are in luck; you have arrived in season. Do you
see those four windows? That is the Court of Assizes. There is light
there, so they are not through. The matter must have been greatly
protracted, and they are holding an evening session. Do you take an
interest in this affair? Is it a criminal case? Are you a witness?”


He replied:—

“I have not come on any business; I only wish to speak to one of the
lawyers.”


“That is different,” said the bourgeois. “Stop, sir; here is the door
where the sentry stands. You have only to ascend the grand staircase.”


He conformed to the bourgeois’s directions, and a few minutes later he
was in a hall containing many people, and where groups, intermingled
with lawyers in their gowns, were whispering together here and there.

It is always a heart-breaking thing to see these congregations of men
robed in black, murmuring together in low voices, on the threshold of
the halls of justice. It is rare that charity and pity are the outcome
of these words. Condemnations pronounced in advance are more likely to
be the result. All these groups seem to the passing and thoughtful
observer so many sombre hives where buzzing spirits construct in
concert all sorts of dark edifices.

This spacious hall, illuminated by a single lamp, was the old hall of
the episcopal palace, and served as the large hall of the palace of
justice. A double-leaved door, which was closed at that moment,
separated it from the large apartment where the court was sitting.

The obscurity was such that he did not fear to accost the first lawyer
whom he met.

“What stage have they reached, sir?” he asked.

“It is finished,” said the lawyer.

“Finished!”


This word was repeated in such accents that the lawyer turned round.

“Excuse me sir; perhaps you are a relative?”


“No; I know no one here. Has judgment been pronounced?”


“Of course. Nothing else was possible.”


“To penal servitude?”


“For life.”


He continued, in a voice so weak that it was barely audible:—

“Then his identity was established?”


“What identity?” replied the lawyer. “There was no identity to be
established. The matter was very simple. The woman had murdered her
child; the infanticide was proved; the jury threw out the question of
premeditation, and she was condemned for life.”


“So it was a woman?” said he.

“Why, certainly. The Limosin woman. Of what are you speaking?”


“Nothing. But since it is all over, how comes it that the hall is still
lighted?”


“For another case, which was begun about two hours ago.”


“What other case?”


“Oh! this one is a clear case also. It is about a sort of blackguard; a
man arrested for a second offence; a convict who has been guilty of
theft. I don’t know his name exactly. There’s a bandit’s phiz for you!
I’d send him to the galleys on the strength of his face alone.”


“Is there any way of getting into the court-room, sir?” said he.

“I really think that there is not. There is a great crowd. However, the
hearing has been suspended. Some people have gone out, and when the
hearing is resumed, you might make an effort.”


“Where is the entrance?”


“Through yonder large door.”


The lawyer left him. In the course of a few moments he had experienced,
almost simultaneously, almost intermingled with each other, all
possible emotions. The words of this indifferent spectator had, in
turn, pierced his heart like needles of ice and like blades of fire.
When he saw that nothing was settled, he breathed freely once more; but
he could not have told whether what he felt was pain or pleasure.

He drew near to many groups and listened to what they were saying. The
docket of the session was very heavy; the president had appointed for
the same day two short and simple cases. They had begun with the
infanticide, and now they had reached the convict, the old offender,
the “return horse.” This man had stolen apples, but that did not appear
to be entirely proved; what had been proved was, that he had already
been in the galleys at Toulon. It was that which lent a bad aspect to
his case. However, the man’s examination and the depositions of the
witnesses had been completed, but the lawyer’s plea, and the speech of
the public prosecutor were still to come; it could not be finished
before midnight. The man would probably be condemned; the
attorney-general was very clever, and never _missed_ his culprits; he
was a brilliant fellow who wrote verses.

An usher stood at the door communicating with the hall of the Assizes.
He inquired of this usher:—

“Will the door be opened soon, sir?”


“It will not be opened at all,” replied the usher.

“What! It will not be opened when the hearing is resumed? Is not the
hearing suspended?”


“The hearing has just been begun again,” replied the usher, “but the
door will not be opened again.”


“Why?”


“Because the hall is full.”


“What! There is not room for one more?”


“Not another one. The door is closed. No one can enter now.”


The usher added after a pause: “There are, to tell the truth, two or
three extra places behind Monsieur le Président, but Monsieur le
Président only admits public functionaries to them.”


So saying, the usher turned his back.

He retired with bowed head, traversed the antechamber, and slowly
descended the stairs, as though hesitating at every step. It is
probable that he was holding counsel with himself. The violent conflict
which had been going on within him since the preceding evening was not
yet ended; and every moment he encountered some new phase of it. On
reaching the landing-place, he leaned his back against the balusters
and folded his arms. All at once he opened his coat, drew out his
pocket-book, took from it a pencil, tore out a leaf, and upon that leaf
he wrote rapidly, by the light of the street lantern, this line: _M.
Madeleine, Mayor of M. sur M._; then he ascended the stairs once more
with great strides, made his way through the crowd, walked straight up
to the usher, handed him the paper, and said in an authoritative
manner:—

“Take this to Monsieur le Président.”


The usher took the paper, cast a glance upon it, and obeyed.




CHAPTER VIII—AN ENTRANCE BY FAVOR


Although he did not suspect the fact, the mayor of M. sur M. enjoyed a
sort of celebrity. For the space of seven years his reputation for
virtue had filled the whole of Bas Boulonnais; it had eventually passed
the confines of a small district and had been spread abroad through two
or three neighboring departments. Besides the service which he had
rendered to the chief town by resuscitating the black jet industry,
there was not one out of the hundred and forty communes of the
arrondissement of M. sur M. which was not indebted to him for some
benefit. He had even at need contrived to aid and multiply the
industries of other arrondissements. It was thus that he had, when
occasion offered, supported with his credit and his funds the linen
factory at Boulogne, the flax-spinning industry at Frévent, and the
hydraulic manufacture of cloth at Boubers-sur-Canche. Everywhere the
name of M. Madeleine was pronounced with veneration. Arras and Douai
envied the happy little town of M. sur M. its mayor.

The Councillor of the Royal Court of Douai, who was presiding over this
session of the Assizes at Arras, was acquainted, in common with the
rest of the world, with this name which was so profoundly and
universally honored. When the usher, discreetly opening the door which
connected the council-chamber with the court-room, bent over the back
of the President’s armchair and handed him the paper on which was
inscribed the line which we have just perused, adding: “The gentleman
desires to be present at the trial,” the President, with a quick and
deferential movement, seized a pen and wrote a few words at the bottom
of the paper and returned it to the usher, saying, “Admit him.”


The unhappy man whose history we are relating had remained near the
door of the hall, in the same place and the same attitude in which the
usher had left him. In the midst of his reverie he heard some one
saying to him, “Will Monsieur do me the honor to follow me?” It was the
same usher who had turned his back upon him but a moment previously,
and who was now bowing to the earth before him. At the same time, the
usher handed him the paper. He unfolded it, and as he chanced to be
near the light, he could read it.

“The President of the Court of Assizes presents his respects to M.
Madeleine.”


He crushed the paper in his hand as though those words contained for
him a strange and bitter aftertaste.

He followed the usher.

A few minutes later he found himself alone in a sort of wainscoted
cabinet of severe aspect, lighted by two wax candles, placed upon a
table with a green cloth. The last words of the usher who had just
quitted him still rang in his ears: “Monsieur, you are now in the
council-chamber; you have only to turn the copper handle of yonder
door, and you will find yourself in the court-room, behind the
President’s chair.” These words were mingled in his thoughts with a
vague memory of narrow corridors and dark staircases which he had
recently traversed.

The usher had left him alone. The supreme moment had arrived. He sought
to collect his faculties, but could not. It is chiefly at the moment
when there is the greatest need for attaching them to the painful
realities of life, that the threads of thought snap within the brain.
He was in the very place where the judges deliberated and condemned.
With stupid tranquillity he surveyed this peaceful and terrible
apartment, where so many lives had been broken, which was soon to ring
with his name, and which his fate was at that moment traversing. He
stared at the wall, then he looked at himself, wondering that it should
be that chamber and that it should be he.

He had eaten nothing for four and twenty hours; he was worn out by the
jolts of the cart, but he was not conscious of it. It seemed to him
that he felt nothing.

He approached a black frame which was suspended on the wall, and which
contained, under glass, an ancient autograph letter of Jean Nicolas
Pache, mayor of Paris and minister, and dated, through an error, no
doubt, the _9th of June_, of the year II., and in which Pache forwarded
to the commune the list of ministers and deputies held in arrest by
them. Any spectator who had chanced to see him at that moment, and who
had watched him, would have imagined, doubtless, that this letter
struck him as very curious, for he did not take his eyes from it, and
he read it two or three times. He read it without paying any attention
to it, and unconsciously. He was thinking of Fantine and Cosette.

As he dreamed, he turned round, and his eyes fell upon the brass knob
of the door which separated him from the Court of Assizes. He had
almost forgotten that door. His glance, calm at first, paused there,
remained fixed on that brass handle, then grew terrified, and little by
little became impregnated with fear. Beads of perspiration burst forth
among his hair and trickled down upon his temples.

At a certain moment he made that indescribable gesture of a sort of
authority mingled with rebellion, which is intended to convey, and
which does so well convey, _“Pardieu! who compels me to this?”_ Then he
wheeled briskly round, caught sight of the door through which he had
entered in front of him, went to it, opened it, and passed out. He was
no longer in that chamber; he was outside in a corridor, a long, narrow
corridor, broken by steps and gratings, making all sorts of angles,
lighted here and there by lanterns similar to the night taper of
invalids, the corridor through which he had approached. He breathed, he
listened; not a sound in front, not a sound behind him, and he fled as
though pursued.

When he had turned many angles in this corridor, he still listened. The
same silence reigned, and there was the same darkness around him. He
was out of breath; he staggered; he leaned against the wall. The stone
was cold; the perspiration lay ice-cold on his brow; he straightened
himself up with a shiver.

Then, there alone in the darkness, trembling with cold and with
something else, too, perchance, he meditated.

He had meditated all night long; he had meditated all the day: he heard
within him but one voice, which said, “Alas!”


A quarter of an hour passed thus. At length he bowed his head, sighed
with agony, dropped his arms, and retraced his steps. He walked slowly,
and as though crushed. It seemed as though some one had overtaken him
in his flight and was leading him back.

He re-entered the council-chamber. The first thing he caught sight of
was the knob of the door. This knob, which was round and of polished
brass, shone like a terrible star for him. He gazed at it as a lamb
might gaze into the eye of a tiger.

He could not take his eyes from it. From time to time he advanced a
step and approached the door.

Had he listened, he would have heard the sound of the adjoining hall
like a sort of confused murmur; but he did not listen, and he did not
hear.

Suddenly, without himself knowing how it happened, he found himself
near the door; he grasped the knob convulsively; the door opened.

He was in the court-room.




CHAPTER IX—A PLACE WHERE CONVICTIONS ARE IN PROCESS OF FORMATION


He advanced a pace, closed the door mechanically behind him, and
remained standing, contemplating what he saw.

It was a vast and badly lighted apartment, now full of uproar, now full
of silence, where all the apparatus of a criminal case, with its petty
and mournful gravity in the midst of the throng, was in process of
development.

At the one end of the hall, the one where he was, were judges, with
abstracted air, in threadbare robes, who were gnawing their nails or
closing their eyelids; at the other end, a ragged crowd; lawyers in all
sorts of attitudes; soldiers with hard but honest faces; ancient,
spotted woodwork, a dirty ceiling, tables covered with serge that was
yellow rather than green; doors blackened by handmarks; tap-room lamps
which emitted more smoke than light, suspended from nails in the
wainscot; on the tables candles in brass candlesticks; darkness,
ugliness, sadness; and from all this there was disengaged an austere
and august impression, for one there felt that grand human thing which
is called the law, and that grand divine thing which is called justice.

No one in all that throng paid any attention to him; all glances were
directed towards a single point, a wooden bench placed against a small
door, in the stretch of wall on the President’s left; on this bench,
illuminated by several candles, sat a man between two gendarmes.

This man was _the_ man.

He did not seek him; he saw him; his eyes went thither naturally, as
though they had known beforehand where that figure was.

He thought he was looking at himself, grown old; not absolutely the
same in face, of course, but exactly similar in attitude and aspect,
with his bristling hair, with that wild and uneasy eye, with that
blouse, just as it was on the day when he entered D——, full of hatred,
concealing his soul in that hideous mass of frightful thoughts which he
had spent nineteen years in collecting on the floor of the prison.

He said to himself with a shudder, “Good God! shall I become like that
again?”


This creature seemed to be at least sixty; there was something
indescribably coarse, stupid, and frightened about him.

At the sound made by the opening door, people had drawn aside to make
way for him; the President had turned his head, and, understanding that
the personage who had just entered was the mayor of M. sur M., he had
bowed to him; the attorney-general, who had seen M. Madeleine at M. sur
M., whither the duties of his office had called him more than once,
recognized him and saluted him also: he had hardly perceived it; he was
the victim of a sort of hallucination; he was watching.

Judges, clerks, gendarmes, a throng of cruelly curious heads, all these
he had already beheld once, in days gone by, twenty-seven years before;
he had encountered those fatal things once more; there they were; they
moved; they existed; it was no longer an effort of his memory, a mirage
of his thought; they were real gendarmes and real judges, a real crowd,
and real men of flesh and blood: it was all over; he beheld the
monstrous aspects of his past reappear and live once more around him,
with all that there is formidable in reality.

All this was yawning before him.

He was horrified by it; he shut his eyes, and exclaimed in the deepest
recesses of his soul, “Never!”


And by a tragic play of destiny which made all his ideas tremble, and
rendered him nearly mad, it was another self of his that was there! all
called that man who was being tried Jean Valjean.

Under his very eyes, unheard-of vision, he had a sort of representation
of the most horrible moment of his life, enacted by his spectre.

Everything was there; the apparatus was the same, the hour of the
night, the faces of the judges, of soldiers, and of spectators; all
were the same, only above the President’s head there hung a crucifix,
something which the courts had lacked at the time of his condemnation:
God had been absent when he had been judged.

There was a chair behind him; he dropped into it, terrified at the
thought that he might be seen; when he was seated, he took advantage of
a pile of cardboard boxes, which stood on the judge’s desk, to conceal
his face from the whole room; he could now see without being seen; he
had fully regained consciousness of the reality of things; gradually he
recovered; he attained that phase of composure where it is possible to
listen.

M. Bamatabois was one of the jurors.

He looked for Javert, but did not see him; the seat of the witnesses
was hidden from him by the clerk’s table, and then, as we have just
said, the hall was sparely lighted.

At the moment of this entrance, the defendant’s lawyer had just
finished his plea.

The attention of all was excited to the highest pitch; the affair had
lasted for three hours: for three hours that crowd had been watching a
strange man, a miserable specimen of humanity, either profoundly stupid
or profoundly subtle, gradually bending beneath the weight of a
terrible likeness. This man, as the reader already knows, was a
vagabond who had been found in a field carrying a branch laden with
ripe apples, broken in the orchard of a neighbor, called the Pierron
orchard. Who was this man? an examination had been made; witnesses had
been heard, and they were unanimous; light had abounded throughout the
entire debate; the accusation said: “We have in our grasp not only a
marauder, a stealer of fruit; we have here, in our hands, a bandit, an
old offender who has broken his ban, an ex-convict, a miscreant of the
most dangerous description, a malefactor named Jean Valjean, whom
justice has long been in search of, and who, eight years ago, on
emerging from the galleys at Toulon, committed a highway robbery,
accompanied by violence, on the person of a child, a Savoyard named
Little Gervais; a crime provided for by article 383 of the Penal Code,
the right to try him for which we reserve hereafter, when his identity
shall have been judicially established. He has just committed a fresh
theft; it is a case of a second offence; condemn him for the fresh
deed; later on he will be judged for the old crime.” In the face of
this accusation, in the face of the unanimity of the witnesses, the
accused appeared to be astonished more than anything else; he made
signs and gestures which were meant to convey No, or else he stared at
the ceiling: he spoke with difficulty, replied with embarrassment, but
his whole person, from head to foot, was a denial; he was an idiot in
the presence of all these minds ranged in order of battle around him,
and like a stranger in the midst of this society which was seizing fast
upon him; nevertheless, it was a question of the most menacing future
for him; the likeness increased every moment, and the entire crowd
surveyed, with more anxiety than he did himself, that sentence
freighted with calamity, which descended ever closer over his head;
there was even a glimpse of a possibility afforded; besides the
galleys, a possible death penalty, in case his identity were
established, and the affair of Little Gervais were to end thereafter in
condemnation. Who was this man? what was the nature of his apathy? was
it imbecility or craft? Did he understand too well, or did he not
understand at all? these were questions which divided the crowd, and
seemed to divide the jury; there was something both terrible and
puzzling in this case: the drama was not only melancholy; it was also
obscure.

The counsel for the defence had spoken tolerably well, in that
provincial tongue which has long constituted the eloquence of the bar,
and which was formerly employed by all advocates, at Paris as well as
at Romorantin or at Montbrison, and which to-day, having become
classic, is no longer spoken except by the official orators of
magistracy, to whom it is suited on account of its grave sonorousness
and its majestic stride; a tongue in which a husband is called _a
consort_, and a woman _a spouse_; Paris, _the centre of art and
civilization_; the king, _the monarch_; Monseigneur the Bishop, _a
sainted pontiff_; the district-attorney, _the eloquent interpreter of
public prosecution_; the arguments, _the accents which we have just
listened to_; the age of Louis XIV., _the grand age_; a theatre, _the
temple of Melpomene_; the reigning family, _the august blood of our
kings_; a concert, _a musical solemnity_; the General Commandant of the
province, _the illustrious warrior, who, etc._; the pupils in the
seminary, _these tender levities_; errors imputed to newspapers, _the
imposture which distills its venom through the columns of those
organs_; etc. The lawyer had, accordingly, begun with an explanation as
to the theft of the apples,—an awkward matter couched in fine style;
but Bénigne Bossuet himself was obliged to allude to a chicken in the
midst of a funeral oration, and he extricated himself from the
situation in stately fashion. The lawyer established the fact that the
theft of the apples had not been circumstantially proved. His client,
whom he, in his character of counsel, persisted in calling
Champmathieu, had not been seen scaling that wall nor breaking that
branch by any one. He had been taken with that branch (which the lawyer
preferred to call a _bough_) in his possession; but he said that he had
found it broken off and lying on the ground, and had picked it up.
Where was there any proof to the contrary? No doubt that branch had
been broken off and concealed after the scaling of the wall, then
thrown away by the alarmed marauder; there was no doubt that there had
been a thief in the case. But what proof was there that that thief had
been Champmathieu? One thing only. His character as an ex-convict. The
lawyer did not deny that that character appeared to be, unhappily, well
attested; the accused had resided at Faverolles; the accused had
exercised the calling of a tree-pruner there; the name of Champmathieu
might well have had its origin in Jean Mathieu; all that was true,—in
short, four witnesses recognize Champmathieu, positively and without
hesitation, as that convict, Jean Valjean; to these signs, to this
testimony, the counsel could oppose nothing but the denial of his
client, the denial of an interested party; but supposing that he was
the convict Jean Valjean, did that prove that he was the thief of the
apples? that was a presumption at the most, not a proof. The prisoner,
it was true, and his counsel, “in good faith,” was obliged to admit it,
had adopted “a bad system of defence.” He obstinately denied
everything, the theft and his character of convict. An admission upon
this last point would certainly have been better, and would have won
for him the indulgence of his judges; the counsel had advised him to do
this; but the accused had obstinately refused, thinking, no doubt, that
he would save everything by admitting nothing. It was an error; but
ought not the paucity of this intelligence to be taken into
consideration? This man was visibly stupid. Long-continued wretchedness
in the galleys, long misery outside the galleys, had brutalized him,
etc. He defended himself badly; was that a reason for condemning him?
As for the affair with Little Gervais, the counsel need not discuss it;
it did not enter into the case. The lawyer wound up by beseeching the
jury and the court, if the identity of Jean Valjean appeared to them to
be evident, to apply to him the police penalties which are provided for
a criminal who has broken his ban, and not the frightful chastisement
which descends upon the convict guilty of a second offence.

The district-attorney answered the counsel for the defence. He was
violent and florid, as district-attorneys usually are.

He congratulated the counsel for the defence on his “loyalty,” and
skilfully took advantage of this loyalty. He reached the accused
through all the concessions made by his lawyer. The advocate had seemed
to admit that the prisoner was Jean Valjean. He took note of this. So
this man was Jean Valjean. This point had been conceded to the
accusation and could no longer be disputed. Here, by means of a clever
autonomasia which went back to the sources and causes of crime, the
district-attorney thundered against the immorality of the romantic
school, then dawning under the name of _the Satanic school_, which had
been bestowed upon it by the critics of the _Quotidienne_ and the
_Oriflamme_; he attributed, not without some probability, to the
influence of this perverse literature the crime of Champmathieu, or
rather, to speak more correctly, of Jean Valjean. Having exhausted
these considerations, he passed on to Jean Valjean himself. Who was
this Jean Valjean? Description of Jean Valjean: a monster spewed forth,
etc. The model for this sort of description is contained in the tale of
Théramène, which is not useful to tragedy, but which every day renders
great services to judicial eloquence. The audience and the jury
“shuddered.” The description finished, the district-attorney resumed
with an oratorical turn calculated to raise the enthusiasm of the
journal of the prefecture to the highest pitch on the following day:
And it is such a man, etc., etc., etc., vagabond, beggar, without means
of existence, etc., etc., inured by his past life to culpable deeds,
and but little reformed by his sojourn in the galleys, as was proved by
the crime committed against Little Gervais, etc., etc.; it is such a
man, caught upon the highway in the very act of theft, a few paces from
a wall that had been scaled, still holding in his hand the object
stolen, who denies the crime, the theft, the climbing the wall; denies
everything; denies even his own identity! In addition to a hundred
other proofs, to which we will not recur, four witnesses recognize
him—Javert, the upright inspector of police; Javert, and three of his
former companions in infamy, the convicts Brevet, Chenildieu, and
Cochepaille. What does he offer in opposition to this overwhelming
unanimity? His denial. What obduracy! You will do justice, gentlemen of
the jury, etc., etc. While the district-attorney was speaking, the
accused listened to him open-mouthed, with a sort of amazement in which
some admiration was assuredly blended. He was evidently surprised that
a man could talk like that. From time to time, at those “energetic”
moments of the prosecutor’s speech, when eloquence which cannot contain
itself overflows in a flood of withering epithets and envelops the
accused like a storm, he moved his head slowly from right to left and
from left to right in the sort of mute and melancholy protest with
which he had contented himself since the beginning of the argument. Two
or three times the spectators who were nearest to him heard him say in
a low voice, “That is what comes of not having asked M. Baloup.” The
district-attorney directed the attention of the jury to this stupid
attitude, evidently deliberate, which denoted not imbecility, but
craft, skill, a habit of deceiving justice, and which set forth in all
its nakedness the “profound perversity” of this man. He ended by making
his reserves on the affair of Little Gervais and demanding a severe
sentence.

At that time, as the reader will remember, it was penal servitude for
life.

The counsel for the defence rose, began by complimenting Monsieur
l’Avocat-General on his “admirable speech,” then replied as best he
could; but he weakened; the ground was evidently slipping away from
under his feet.




CHAPTER X—THE SYSTEM OF DENIALS


The moment for closing the debate had arrived. The President had the
accused stand up, and addressed to him the customary question, “Have
you anything to add to your defence?”


The man did not appear to understand, as he stood there, twisting in
his hands a terrible cap which he had.

The President repeated the question.

This time the man heard it. He seemed to understand. He made a motion
like a man who is just waking up, cast his eyes about him, stared at
the audience, the gendarmes, his counsel, the jury, the court, laid his
monstrous fist on the rim of woodwork in front of his bench, took
another look, and all at once, fixing his glance upon the
district-attorney, he began to speak. It was like an eruption. It
seemed, from the manner in which the words escaped from his
mouth,—incoherent, impetuous, pell-mell, tumbling over each other,—as
though they were all pressing forward to issue forth at once. He said:—

“This is what I have to say. That I have been a wheelwright in Paris,
and that it was with Monsieur Baloup. It is a hard trade. In the
wheelwright’s trade one works always in the open air, in courtyards,
under sheds when the masters are good, never in closed workshops,
because space is required, you see. In winter one gets so cold that one
beats one’s arms together to warm one’s self; but the masters don’t
like it; they say it wastes time. Handling iron when there is ice
between the paving-stones is hard work. That wears a man out quickly.
One is old while he is still quite young in that trade. At forty a man
is done for. I was fifty-three. I was in a bad state. And then, workmen
are so mean! When a man is no longer young, they call him nothing but
an old bird, old beast! I was not earning more than thirty sous a day.
They paid me as little as possible. The masters took advantage of my
age—and then I had my daughter, who was a laundress at the river. She
earned a little also. It sufficed for us two. She had trouble, also;
all day long up to her waist in a tub, in rain, in snow. When the wind
cuts your face, when it freezes, it is all the same; you must still
wash. There are people who have not much linen, and wait until late; if
you do not wash, you lose your custom. The planks are badly joined, and
water drops on you from everywhere; you have your petticoats all damp
above and below. That penetrates. She has also worked at the laundry of
the Enfants-Rouges, where the water comes through faucets. You are not
in the tub there; you wash at the faucet in front of you, and rinse in
a basin behind you. As it is enclosed, you are not so cold; but there
is that hot steam, which is terrible, and which ruins your eyes. She
came home at seven o’clock in the evening, and went to bed at once, she
was so tired. Her husband beat her. She is dead. We have not been very
happy. She was a good girl, who did not go to the ball, and who was
very peaceable. I remember one Shrove-Tuesday when she went to bed at
eight o’clock. There, I am telling the truth; you have only to ask. Ah,
yes! how stupid I am! Paris is a gulf. Who knows Father Champmathieu
there? But M. Baloup does, I tell you. Go see at M. Baloup’s; and after
all, I don’t know what is wanted of me.”


The man ceased speaking, and remained standing. He had said these
things in a loud, rapid, hoarse voice, with a sort of irritated and
savage ingenuousness. Once he paused to salute some one in the crowd.
The sort of affirmations which he seemed to fling out before him at
random came like hiccoughs, and to each he added the gesture of a
wood-cutter who is splitting wood. When he had finished, the audience
burst into a laugh. He stared at the public, and, perceiving that they
were laughing, and not understanding why, he began to laugh himself.

It was inauspicious.

The President, an attentive and benevolent man, raised his voice.

He reminded “the gentlemen of the jury” that “the sieur Baloup,
formerly a master-wheelwright, with whom the accused stated that he had
served, had been summoned in vain. He had become bankrupt, and was not
to be found.” Then turning to the accused, he enjoined him to listen to
what he was about to say, and added: “You are in a position where
reflection is necessary. The gravest presumptions rest upon you, and
may induce vital results. Prisoner, in your own interests, I summon you
for the last time to explain yourself clearly on two points. In the
first place, did you or did you not climb the wall of the Pierron
orchard, break the branch, and steal the apples; that is to say, commit
the crime of breaking in and theft? In the second place, are you the
discharged convict, Jean Valjean—yes or no?”


The prisoner shook his head with a capable air, like a man who has
thoroughly understood, and who knows what answer he is going to make.
He opened his mouth, turned towards the President, and said:—

“In the first place—”


Then he stared at his cap, stared at the ceiling, and held his peace.

“Prisoner,” said the district-attorney, in a severe voice; “pay
attention. You are not answering anything that has been asked of you.
Your embarrassment condemns you. It is evident that your name is not
Champmathieu; that you are the convict, Jean Valjean, concealed first
under the name of Jean Mathieu, which was the name of his mother; that
you went to Auvergne; that you were born at Faverolles, where you were
a pruner of trees. It is evident that you have been guilty of entering,
and of the theft of ripe apples from the Pierron orchard. The gentlemen
of the jury will form their own opinion.”

[Illustration: Father Champmathieu on Trial]

The prisoner had finally resumed his seat; he arose abruptly when the
district-attorney had finished, and exclaimed:—

“You are very wicked; that you are! This what I wanted to say; I could
not find words for it at first. I have stolen nothing. I am a man who
does not have something to eat every day. I was coming from Ailly; I
was walking through the country after a shower, which had made the
whole country yellow: even the ponds were overflowed, and nothing
sprang from the sand any more but the little blades of grass at the
wayside. I found a broken branch with apples on the ground; I picked up
the branch without knowing that it would get me into trouble. I have
been in prison, and they have been dragging me about for the last three
months; more than that I cannot say; people talk against me, they tell
me, ‘Answer!’ The gendarme, who is a good fellow, nudges my elbow, and
says to me in a low voice, ‘Come, answer!’ I don’t know how to explain;
I have no education; I am a poor man; that is where they wrong me,
because they do not see this. I have not stolen; I picked up from the
ground things that were lying there. You say, Jean Valjean, Jean
Mathieu! I don’t know those persons; they are villagers. I worked for
M. Baloup, Boulevard de l’Hôpital; my name is Champmathieu. You are
very clever to tell me where I was born; I don’t know myself: it’s not
everybody who has a house in which to come into the world; that would
be too convenient. I think that my father and mother were people who
strolled along the highways; I know nothing different. When I was a
child, they called me _young fellow_; now they call me _old Fellow_;
those are my baptismal names; take that as you like. I have been in
Auvergne; I have been at Faverolles. Pardi. Well! can’t a man have been
in Auvergne, or at Faverolles, without having been in the galleys? I
tell you that I have not stolen, and that I am Father Champmathieu; I
have been with M. Baloup; I have had a settled residence. You worry me
with your nonsense, there! Why is everybody pursuing me so furiously?”


The district-attorney had remained standing; he addressed the
President:—

“Monsieur le Président, in view of the confused but exceedingly clever
denials of the prisoner, who would like to pass himself off as an
idiot, but who will not succeed in so doing,—we shall attend to
that,—we demand that it shall please you and that it shall please the
court to summon once more into this place the convicts Brevet,
Cochepaille, and Chenildieu, and Police-Inspector Javert, and question
them for the last time as to the identity of the prisoner with the
convict Jean Valjean.”


“I would remind the district-attorney,” said the President, “that
Police-Inspector Javert, recalled by his duties to the capital of a
neighboring arrondissement, left the court-room and the town as soon as
he had made his deposition; we have accorded him permission, with the
consent of the district-attorney and of the counsel for the prisoner.”


“That is true, Mr. President,” responded the district-attorney. “In the
absence of sieur Javert, I think it my duty to remind the gentlemen of
the jury of what he said here a few hours ago. Javert is an estimable
man, who does honor by his rigorous and strict probity to inferior but
important functions. These are the terms of his deposition: ‘I do not
even stand in need of circumstantial proofs and moral presumptions to
give the lie to the prisoner’s denial. I recognize him perfectly. The
name of this man is not Champmathieu; he is an ex-convict named Jean
Valjean, and is very vicious and much to be feared. It is only with
extreme regret that he was released at the expiration of his term. He
underwent nineteen years of penal servitude for theft. He made five or
six attempts to escape. Besides the theft from Little Gervais, and from
the Pierron orchard, I suspect him of a theft committed in the house of
His Grace the late Bishop of D—— I often saw him at the time when I was
adjutant of the galley-guard at the prison in Toulon. I repeat that I
recognize him perfectly.’”


This extremely precise statement appeared to produce a vivid impression
on the public and on the jury. The district-attorney concluded by
insisting, that in default of Javert, the three witnesses Brevet,
Chenildieu, and Cochepaille should be heard once more and solemnly
interrogated.

The President transmitted the order to an usher, and, a moment later,
the door of the witnesses’ room opened. The usher, accompanied by a
gendarme ready to lend him armed assistance, introduced the convict
Brevet. The audience was in suspense; and all breasts heaved as though
they had contained but one soul.

The ex-convict Brevet wore the black and gray waistcoat of the central
prisons. Brevet was a person sixty years of age, who had a sort of
business man’s face, and the air of a rascal. The two sometimes go
together. In prison, whither fresh misdeeds had led him, he had become
something in the nature of a turnkey. He was a man of whom his
superiors said, “He tries to make himself of use.” The chaplains bore
good testimony as to his religious habits. It must not be forgotten
that this passed under the Restoration.

“Brevet,” said the President, “you have undergone an ignominious
sentence, and you cannot take an oath.”


Brevet dropped his eyes.

“Nevertheless,” continued the President, “even in the man whom the law
has degraded, there may remain, when the divine mercy permits it, a
sentiment of honor and of equity. It is to this sentiment that I appeal
at this decisive hour. If it still exists in you,—and I hope it
does,—reflect before replying to me: consider on the one hand, this
man, whom a word from you may ruin; on the other hand, justice, which a
word from you may enlighten. The instant is solemn; there is still time
to retract if you think you have been mistaken. Rise, prisoner. Brevet,
take a good look at the accused, recall your souvenirs, and tell us on
your soul and conscience, if you persist in recognizing this man as
your former companion in the galleys, Jean Valjean?”


Brevet looked at the prisoner, then turned towards the court.

“Yes, Mr. President, I was the first to recognize him, and I stick to
it; that man is Jean Valjean, who entered at Toulon in 1796, and left
in 1815. I left a year later. He has the air of a brute now; but it
must be because age has brutalized him; he was sly at the galleys: I
recognize him positively.”


“Take your seat,” said the President. “Prisoner, remain standing.”


Chenildieu was brought in, a prisoner for life, as was indicated by his
red cassock and his green cap. He was serving out his sentence at the
galleys of Toulon, whence he had been brought for this case. He was a
small man of about fifty, brisk, wrinkled, frail, yellow, brazen-faced,
feverish, who had a sort of sickly feebleness about all his limbs and
his whole person, and an immense force in his glance. His companions in
the galleys had nicknamed him _I-deny-God_ (_Je-nie Dieu_, Chenildieu).

The President addressed him in nearly the same words which he had used
to Brevet. At the moment when he reminded him of his infamy which
deprived him of the right to take an oath, Chenildieu raised his head
and looked the crowd in the face. The President invited him to
reflection, and asked him as he had asked Brevet, if he persisted in
recognition of the prisoner.

Chenildieu burst out laughing.

“Pardieu, as if I didn’t recognize him! We were attached to the same
chain for five years. So you are sulking, old fellow?”


“Go take your seat,” said the President.

The usher brought in Cochepaille. He was another convict for life, who
had come from the galleys, and was dressed in red, like Chenildieu, was
a peasant from Lourdes, and a half-bear of the Pyrenees. He had guarded
the flocks among the mountains, and from a shepherd he had slipped into
a brigand. Cochepaille was no less savage and seemed even more stupid
than the prisoner. He was one of those wretched men whom nature has
sketched out for wild beasts, and on whom society puts the finishing
touches as convicts in the galleys.

The President tried to touch him with some grave and pathetic words,
and asked him, as he had asked the other two, if he persisted, without
hesitation or trouble, in recognizing the man who was standing before
him.

“He is Jean Valjean,” said Cochepaille. “He was even called
Jean-the-Screw, because he was so strong.”


Each of these affirmations from these three men, evidently sincere and
in good faith, had raised in the audience a murmur of bad augury for
the prisoner,—a murmur which increased and lasted longer each time that
a fresh declaration was added to the proceeding.

The prisoner had listened to them, with that astounded face which was,
according to the accusation, his principal means of defence; at the
first, the gendarmes, his neighbors, had heard him mutter between his
teeth: “Ah, well, he’s a nice one!” after the second, he said, a little
louder, with an air that was almost that of satisfaction, “Good!” at
the third, he cried, “Famous!”


The President addressed him:—

“Have you heard, prisoner? What have you to say?”


He replied:—

“I say, ‘Famous!’”


An uproar broke out among the audience, and was communicated to the
jury; it was evident that the man was lost.

“Ushers,” said the President, “enforce silence! I am going to sum up
the arguments.”


At that moment there was a movement just beside the President; a voice
was heard crying:—

“Brevet! Chenildieu! Cochepaille! look here!”


All who heard that voice were chilled, so lamentable and terrible was
it; all eyes were turned to the point whence it had proceeded. A man,
placed among the privileged spectators who were seated behind the
court, had just risen, had pushed open the half-door which separated
the tribunal from the audience, and was standing in the middle of the
hall; the President, the district-attorney, M. Bamatabois, twenty
persons, recognized him, and exclaimed in concert:—

“M. Madeleine!”





CHAPTER XI—CHAMPMATHIEU MORE AND MORE ASTONISHED


It was he, in fact. The clerk’s lamp illumined his countenance. He held
his hat in his hand; there was no disorder in his clothing; his coat
was carefully buttoned; he was very pale, and he trembled slightly; his
hair, which had still been gray on his arrival in Arras, was now
entirely white: it had turned white during the hour he had sat there.

All heads were raised: the sensation was indescribable; there was a
momentary hesitation in the audience, the voice had been so
heart-rending; the man who stood there appeared so calm that they did
not understand at first. They asked themselves whether he had indeed
uttered that cry; they could not believe that that tranquil man had
been the one to give that terrible outcry.

This indecision only lasted a few seconds. Even before the President
and the district-attorney could utter a word, before the ushers and the
gendarmes could make a gesture, the man whom all still called, at that
moment, M. Madeleine, had advanced towards the witnesses Cochepaille,
Brevet, and Chenildieu.

“Do you not recognize me?” said he.

All three remained speechless, and indicated by a sign of the head that
they did not know him. Cochepaille, who was intimidated, made a
military salute. M. Madeleine turned towards the jury and the court,
and said in a gentle voice:—

“Gentlemen of the jury, order the prisoner to be released! Mr.
President, have me arrested. He is not the man whom you are in search
of; it is I: I am Jean Valjean.”


Not a mouth breathed; the first commotion of astonishment had been
followed by a silence like that of the grave; those within the hall
experienced that sort of religious terror which seizes the masses when
something grand has been done.

In the meantime, the face of the President was stamped with sympathy
and sadness; he had exchanged a rapid sign with the district-attorney
and a few low-toned words with the assistant judges; he addressed the
public, and asked in accents which all understood:—

“Is there a physician present?”


The district-attorney took the word:—

“Gentlemen of the jury, the very strange and unexpected incident which
disturbs the audience inspires us, like yourselves, only with a
sentiment which it is unnecessary for us to express. You all know, by
reputation at least, the honorable M. Madeleine, mayor of M. sur M.; if
there is a physician in the audience, we join the President in
requesting him to attend to M. Madeleine, and to conduct him to his
home.”


M. Madeleine did not allow the district-attorney to finish; he
interrupted him in accents full of suavity and authority. These are the
words which he uttered; here they are literally, as they were written
down, immediately after the trial by one of the witnesses to this
scene, and as they now ring in the ears of those who heard them nearly
forty years ago:—

“I thank you, Mr. District-Attorney, but I am not mad; you shall see;
you were on the point of committing a great error; release this man! I
am fulfilling a duty; I am that miserable criminal. I am the only one
here who sees the matter clearly, and I am telling you the truth. God,
who is on high, looks down on what I am doing at this moment, and that
suffices. You can take me, for here I am: but I have done my best; I
concealed myself under another name; I have become rich; I have become
a mayor; I have tried to re-enter the ranks of the honest. It seems
that that is not to be done. In short, there are many things which I
cannot tell. I will not narrate the story of my life to you; you will
hear it one of these days. I robbed Monseigneur the Bishop, it is true;
it is true that I robbed Little Gervais; they were right in telling you
that Jean Valjean was a very vicious wretch. Perhaps it was not
altogether his fault. Listen, honorable judges! a man who has been so
greatly humbled as I have has neither any remonstrances to make to
Providence, nor any advice to give to society; but, you see, the infamy
from which I have tried to escape is an injurious thing; the galleys
make the convict what he is; reflect upon that, if you please. Before
going to the galleys, I was a poor peasant, with very little
intelligence, a sort of idiot; the galleys wrought a change in me. I
was stupid; I became vicious: I was a block of wood; I became a
firebrand. Later on, indulgence and kindness saved me, as severity had
ruined me. But, pardon me, you cannot understand what I am saying. You
will find at my house, among the ashes in the fireplace, the forty-sou
piece which I stole, seven years ago, from Little Gervais. I have
nothing farther to add; take me. Good God! the district-attorney shakes
his head; you say, ‘M. Madeleine has gone mad!’ you do not believe me!
that is distressing. Do not, at least, condemn this man! What! these
men do not recognize me! I wish Javert were here; he would recognize
me.”


Nothing can reproduce the sombre and kindly melancholy of tone which
accompanied these words.

He turned to the three convicts, and said:—

“Well, I recognize you; do you remember, Brevet?”


He paused, hesitated for an instant, and said:—

“Do you remember the knitted suspenders with a checked pattern which
you wore in the galleys?”


Brevet gave a start of surprise, and surveyed him from head to foot
with a frightened air. He continued:—

“Chenildieu, you who conferred on yourself the name of ‘Jenie-Dieu,’
your whole right shoulder bears a deep burn, because you one day laid
your shoulder against the chafing-dish full of coals, in order to
efface the three letters T. F. P., which are still visible,
nevertheless; answer, is this true?”


“It is true,” said Chenildieu.

He addressed himself to Cochepaille:—

“Cochepaille, you have, near the bend in your left arm, a date stamped
in blue letters with burnt powder; the date is that of the landing of
the Emperor at Cannes, March 1, 1815; pull up your sleeve!”


Cochepaille pushed up his sleeve; all eyes were focused on him and on
his bare arm.

A gendarme held a light close to it; there was the date.

The unhappy man turned to the spectators and the judges with a smile
which still rends the hearts of all who saw it whenever they think of
it. It was a smile of triumph; it was also a smile of despair.

“You see plainly,” he said, “that I am Jean Valjean.”


In that chamber there were no longer either judges, accusers, nor
gendarmes; there was nothing but staring eyes and sympathizing hearts.
No one recalled any longer the part that each might be called upon to
play; the district-attorney forgot he was there for the purpose of
prosecuting, the President that he was there to preside, the counsel
for the defence that he was there to defend. It was a striking
circumstance that no question was put, that no authority intervened.
The peculiarity of sublime spectacles is, that they capture all souls
and turn witnesses into spectators. No one, probably, could have
explained what he felt; no one, probably, said to himself that he was
witnessing the splendid outburst of a grand light: all felt themselves
inwardly dazzled.

It was evident that they had Jean Valjean before their eyes. That was
clear. The appearance of this man had sufficed to suffuse with light
that matter which had been so obscure but a moment previously, without
any further explanation: the whole crowd, as by a sort of electric
revelation, understood instantly and at a single glance the simple and
magnificent history of a man who was delivering himself up so that
another man might not be condemned in his stead. The details, the
hesitations, little possible oppositions, were swallowed up in that
vast and luminous fact.

It was an impression which vanished speedily, but which was
irresistible at the moment.

“I do not wish to disturb the court further,” resumed Jean Valjean. “I
shall withdraw, since you do not arrest me. I have many things to do.
The district-attorney knows who I am; he knows whither I am going; he
can have me arrested when he likes.”


He directed his steps towards the door. Not a voice was raised, not an
arm extended to hinder him. All stood aside. At that moment there was
about him that divine something which causes multitudes to stand aside
and make way for a man. He traversed the crowd slowly. It was never
known who opened the door, but it is certain that he found the door
open when he reached it. On arriving there he turned round and said:—

“I am at your command, Mr. District-Attorney.”


Then he addressed the audience:—

“All of you, all who are present—consider me worthy of pity, do you
not? Good God! When I think of what I was on the point of doing, I
consider that I am to be envied. Nevertheless, I should have preferred
not to have had this occur.”


He withdrew, and the door closed behind him as it had opened, for those
who do certain sovereign things are always sure of being served by some
one in the crowd.

Less than an hour after this, the verdict of the jury freed the said
Champmathieu from all accusations; and Champmathieu, being at once
released, went off in a state of stupefaction, thinking that all men
were fools, and comprehending nothing of this vision.




BOOK EIGHTH—A COUNTER-BLOW




CHAPTER I—IN WHAT MIRROR M. MADELEINE CONTEMPLATES HIS HAIR


The day had begun to dawn. Fantine had passed a sleepless and feverish
night, filled with happy visions; at daybreak she fell asleep. Sister
Simplice, who had been watching with her, availed herself of this
slumber to go and prepare a new potion of chinchona. The worthy sister
had been in the laboratory of the infirmary but a few moments, bending
over her drugs and phials, and scrutinizing things very closely, on
account of the dimness which the half-light of dawn spreads over all
objects. Suddenly she raised her head and uttered a faint shriek. M.
Madeleine stood before her; he had just entered silently.

“Is it you, Mr. Mayor?” she exclaimed.

He replied in a low voice:—

“How is that poor woman?”


“Not so bad just now; but we have been very uneasy.”


She explained to him what had passed: that Fantine had been very ill
the day before, and that she was better now, because she thought that
the mayor had gone to Montfermeil to get her child. The sister dared
not question the mayor; but she perceived plainly from his air that he
had not come from there.

“All that is good,” said he; “you were right not to undeceive her.”


“Yes,” responded the sister; “but now, Mr. Mayor, she will see you and
will not see her child. What shall we say to her?”


He reflected for a moment.

“God will inspire us,” said he.

“But we cannot tell a lie,” murmured the sister, half aloud.

It was broad daylight in the room. The light fell full on M.
Madeleine’s face. The sister chanced to raise her eyes to it.

“Good God, sir!” she exclaimed; “what has happened to you? Your hair is
perfectly white!”


“White!” said he.

Sister Simplice had no mirror. She rummaged in a drawer, and pulled out
the little glass which the doctor of the infirmary used to see whether
a patient was dead and whether he no longer breathed. M. Madeleine took
the mirror, looked at his hair, and said:—

“Well!”


He uttered the word indifferently, and as though his mind were on
something else.

The sister felt chilled by something strange of which she caught a
glimpse in all this.

He inquired:—

“Can I see her?”


“Is not Monsieur le Maire going to have her child brought back to her?”
said the sister, hardly venturing to put the question.

“Of course; but it will take two or three days at least.”


“If she were not to see Monsieur le Maire until that time,” went on the
sister, timidly, “she would not know that Monsieur le Maire had
returned, and it would be easy to inspire her with patience; and when
the child arrived, she would naturally think Monsieur le Maire had just
come with the child. We should not have to enact a lie.”


M. Madeleine seemed to reflect for a few moments; then he said with his
calm gravity:—

“No, sister, I must see her. I may, perhaps, be in haste.”


The nun did not appear to notice this word “perhaps,” which
communicated an obscure and singular sense to the words of the mayor’s
speech. She replied, lowering her eyes and her voice respectfully:—

“In that case, she is asleep; but Monsieur le Maire may enter.”


He made some remarks about a door which shut badly, and the noise of
which might awaken the sick woman; then he entered Fantine’s chamber,
approached the bed and drew aside the curtains. She was asleep. Her
breath issued from her breast with that tragic sound which is peculiar
to those maladies, and which breaks the hearts of mothers when they are
watching through the night beside their sleeping child who is condemned
to death. But this painful respiration hardly troubled a sort of
ineffable serenity which overspread her countenance, and which
transfigured her in her sleep. Her pallor had become whiteness; her
cheeks were crimson; her long golden lashes, the only beauty of her
youth and her virginity which remained to her, palpitated, though they
remained closed and drooping. Her whole person was trembling with an
indescribable unfolding of wings, all ready to open wide and bear her
away, which could be felt as they rustled, though they could not be
seen. To see her thus, one would never have dreamed that she was an
invalid whose life was almost despaired of. She resembled rather
something on the point of soaring away than something on the point of
dying.

The branch trembles when a hand approaches it to pluck a flower, and
seems to both withdraw and to offer itself at one and the same time.
The human body has something of this tremor when the instant arrives in
which the mysterious fingers of Death are about to pluck the soul.

M. Madeleine remained for some time motionless beside that bed, gazing
in turn upon the sick woman and the crucifix, as he had done two months
before, on the day when he had come for the first time to see her in
that asylum. They were both still there in the same attitude—she
sleeping, he praying; only now, after the lapse of two months, her hair
was gray and his was white.

The sister had not entered with him. He stood beside the bed, with his
finger on his lips, as though there were some one in the chamber whom
he must enjoin to silence.

She opened her eyes, saw him, and said quietly, with a smile:—

“And Cosette?”





CHAPTER II—FANTINE HAPPY


She made no movement of either surprise or of joy; she was joy itself.
That simple question, “And Cosette?” was put with so profound a faith,
with so much certainty, with such a complete absence of disquiet and of
doubt, that he found not a word of reply. She continued:—

“I knew that you were there. I was asleep, but I saw you. I have seen
you for a long, long time. I have been following you with my eyes all
night long. You were in a glory, and you had around you all sorts of
celestial forms.”


He raised his glance to the crucifix.

“But,” she resumed, “tell me where Cosette is. Why did not you place
her on my bed against the moment of my waking?”


He made some mechanical reply which he was never afterwards able to
recall.

Fortunately, the doctor had been warned, and he now made his
appearance. He came to the aid of M. Madeleine.

“Calm yourself, my child,” said the doctor; “your child is here.”


Fantine’s eyes beamed and filled her whole face with light. She clasped
her hands with an expression which contained all that is possible to
prayer in the way of violence and tenderness.

“Oh!” she exclaimed, “bring her to me!”


Touching illusion of a mother! Cosette was, for her, still the little
child who is carried.

“Not yet,” said the doctor, “not just now. You still have some fever.
The sight of your child would agitate you and do you harm. You must be
cured first.”


She interrupted him impetuously:—

“But I am cured! Oh, I tell you that I am cured! What an ass that
doctor is! The idea! I want to see my child!”


“You see,” said the doctor, “how excited you become. So long as you are
in this state I shall oppose your having your child. It is not enough
to see her; it is necessary that you should live for her. When you are
reasonable, I will bring her to you myself.”


The poor mother bowed her head.

“I beg your pardon, doctor, I really beg your pardon. Formerly I should
never have spoken as I have just done; so many misfortunes have
happened to me, that I sometimes do not know what I am saying. I
understand you; you fear the emotion. I will wait as long as you like,
but I swear to you that it would not have harmed me to see my daughter.
I have been seeing her; I have not taken my eyes from her since
yesterday evening. Do you know? If she were brought to me now, I should
talk to her very gently. That is all. Is it not quite natural that I
should desire to see my daughter, who has been brought to me expressly
from Montfermeil? I am not angry. I know well that I am about to be
happy. All night long I have seen white things, and persons who smiled
at me. When Monsieur le Docteur pleases, he shall bring me Cosette. I
have no longer any fever; I am well. I am perfectly conscious that
there is nothing the matter with me any more; but I am going to behave
as though I were ill, and not stir, to please these ladies here. When
it is seen that I am very calm, they will say, ‘She must have her
child.’”


M. Madeleine was sitting on a chair beside the bed. She turned towards
him; she was making a visible effort to be calm and “very good,” as she
expressed it in the feebleness of illness which resembles infancy, in
order that, seeing her so peaceable, they might make no difficulty
about bringing Cosette to her. But while she controlled herself she
could not refrain from questioning M. Madeleine.

“Did you have a pleasant trip, Monsieur le Maire? Oh! how good you were
to go and get her for me! Only tell me how she is. Did she stand the
journey well? Alas! she will not recognize me. She must have forgotten
me by this time, poor darling! Children have no memories. They are like
birds. A child sees one thing to-day and another thing to-morrow, and
thinks of nothing any longer. And did she have white linen? Did those
Thénardiers keep her clean? How have they fed her? Oh! if you only knew
how I have suffered, putting such questions as that to myself during
all the time of my wretchedness. Now, it is all past. I am happy. Oh,
how I should like to see her! Do you think her pretty, Monsieur le
Maire? Is not my daughter beautiful? You must have been very cold in
that diligence! Could she not be brought for just one little instant?
She might be taken away directly afterwards. Tell me; you are the
master; it could be so if you chose!”


He took her hand. “Cosette is beautiful,” he said, “Cosette is well.
You shall see her soon; but calm yourself; you are talking with too
much vivacity, and you are throwing your arms out from under the
clothes, and that makes you cough.”


In fact, fits of coughing interrupted Fantine at nearly every word.

Fantine did not murmur; she feared that she had injured by her too
passionate lamentations the confidence which she was desirous of
inspiring, and she began to talk of indifferent things.

“Montfermeil is quite pretty, is it not? People go there on pleasure
parties in summer. Are the Thénardiers prosperous? There are not many
travellers in their parts. That inn of theirs is a sort of a
cook-shop.”


M. Madeleine was still holding her hand, and gazing at her with
anxiety; it was evident that he had come to tell her things before
which his mind now hesitated. The doctor, having finished his visit,
retired. Sister Simplice remained alone with them.

But in the midst of this pause Fantine exclaimed:—

“I hear her! mon Dieu, I hear her!”


She stretched out her arm to enjoin silence about her, held her breath,
and began to listen with rapture.

There was a child playing in the yard—the child of the portress or of
some work-woman. It was one of those accidents which are always
occurring, and which seem to form a part of the mysterious
stage-setting of mournful scenes. The child—a little girl—was going and
coming, running to warm herself, laughing, singing at the top of her
voice. Alas! in what are the plays of children not intermingled. It was
this little girl whom Fantine heard singing.

“Oh!” she resumed, “it is my Cosette! I recognize her voice.”


The child retreated as it had come; the voice died away. Fantine
listened for a while longer, then her face clouded over, and M.
Madeleine heard her say, in a low voice: “How wicked that doctor is not
to allow me to see my daughter! That man has an evil countenance, that
he has.”


But the smiling background of her thoughts came to the front again. She
continued to talk to herself, with her head resting on the pillow: “How
happy we are going to be! We shall have a little garden the very first
thing; M. Madeleine has promised it to me. My daughter will play in the
garden. She must know her letters by this time. I will make her spell.
She will run over the grass after butterflies. I will watch her. Then
she will take her first communion. Ah! when will she take her first
communion?”


She began to reckon on her fingers.

“One, two, three, four—she is seven years old. In five years she will
have a white veil, and openwork stockings; she will look like a little
woman. O my good sister, you do not know how foolish I become when I
think of my daughter’s first communion!”


She began to laugh.

He had released Fantine’s hand. He listened to her words as one listens
to the sighing of the breeze, with his eyes on the ground, his mind
absorbed in reflection which had no bottom. All at once she ceased
speaking, and this caused him to raise his head mechanically. Fantine
had become terrible.

She no longer spoke, she no longer breathed; she had raised herself to
a sitting posture, her thin shoulder emerged from her chemise; her
face, which had been radiant but a moment before, was ghastly, and she
seemed to have fixed her eyes, rendered large with terror, on something
alarming at the other extremity of the room.

“Good God!” he exclaimed; “what ails you, Fantine?”


She made no reply; she did not remove her eyes from the object which
she seemed to see. She removed one hand from his arm, and with the
other made him a sign to look behind him.

He turned, and beheld Javert.




CHAPTER III—JAVERT SATISFIED


This is what had taken place.

The half-hour after midnight had just struck when M. Madeleine quitted
the Hall of Assizes in Arras. He regained his inn just in time to set
out again by the mail-wagon, in which he had engaged his place. A
little before six o’clock in the morning he had arrived at M. sur M.,
and his first care had been to post a letter to M. Laffitte, then to
enter the infirmary and see Fantine.

However, he had hardly quitted the audience hall of the Court of
Assizes, when the district-attorney, recovering from his first shock,
had taken the word to deplore the mad deed of the honorable mayor of M.
sur M., to declare that his convictions had not been in the least
modified by that curious incident, which would be explained thereafter,
and to demand, in the meantime, the condemnation of that Champmathieu,
who was evidently the real Jean Valjean. The district-attorney’s
persistence was visibly at variance with the sentiments of every one,
of the public, of the court, and of the jury. The counsel for the
defence had some difficulty in refuting this harangue and in
establishing that, in consequence of the revelations of M. Madeleine,
that is to say, of the real Jean Valjean, the aspect of the matter had
been thoroughly altered, and that the jury had before their eyes now
only an innocent man. Thence the lawyer had drawn some epiphonemas, not
very fresh, unfortunately, upon judicial errors, etc., etc.; the
President, in his summing up, had joined the counsel for the defence,
and in a few minutes the jury had thrown Champmathieu out of the case.

Nevertheless, the district-attorney was bent on having a Jean Valjean;
and as he had no longer Champmathieu, he took Madeleine.

Immediately after Champmathieu had been set at liberty, the
district-attorney shut himself up with the President. They conferred
“as to the necessity of seizing the person of M. le Maire of M. sur M.”
This phrase, in which there was a great deal of _of_, is the
district-attorney’s, written with his own hand, on the minutes of his
report to the attorney-general. His first emotion having passed off,
the President did not offer many objections. Justice must, after all,
take its course. And then, when all was said, although the President
was a kindly and a tolerably intelligent man, he was, at the same time,
a devoted and almost an ardent royalist, and he had been shocked to
hear the Mayor of M. sur M. say the _Emperor_, and not _Bonaparte_,
when alluding to the landing at Cannes.

The order for his arrest was accordingly despatched. The
district-attorney forwarded it to M. sur M. by a special messenger, at
full speed, and entrusted its execution to Police Inspector Javert.

The reader knows that Javert had returned to M. sur M. immediately
after having given his deposition.

Javert was just getting out of bed when the messenger handed him the
order of arrest and the command to produce the prisoner.

The messenger himself was a very clever member of the police, who, in
two words, informed Javert of what had taken place at Arras. The order
of arrest, signed by the district-attorney, was couched in these words:
“Inspector Javert will apprehend the body of the Sieur Madeleine, mayor
of M. sur M., who, in this day’s session of the court, was recognized
as the liberated convict, Jean Valjean.”


Any one who did not know Javert, and who had chanced to see him at the
moment when he penetrated the antechamber of the infirmary, could have
divined nothing of what had taken place, and would have thought his air
the most ordinary in the world. He was cool, calm, grave, his gray hair
was perfectly smooth upon his temples, and he had just mounted the
stairs with his habitual deliberation. Any one who was thoroughly
acquainted with him, and who had examined him attentively at the
moment, would have shuddered. The buckle of his leather stock was under
his left ear instead of at the nape of his neck. This betrayed unwonted
agitation.

Javert was a complete character, who never had a wrinkle in his duty or
in his uniform; methodical with malefactors, rigid with the buttons of
his coat.

That he should have set the buckle of his stock awry, it was
indispensable that there should have taken place in him one of those
emotions which may be designated as internal earthquakes.

He had come in a simple way, had made a requisition on the neighboring
post for a corporal and four soldiers, had left the soldiers in the
courtyard, had had Fantine’s room pointed out to him by the portress,
who was utterly unsuspicious, accustomed as she was to seeing armed men
inquiring for the mayor.

On arriving at Fantine’s chamber, Javert turned the handle, pushed the
door open with the gentleness of a sick-nurse or a police spy, and
entered.

Properly speaking, he did not enter. He stood erect in the half-open
door, his hat on his head and his left hand thrust into his coat, which
was buttoned up to the chin. In the bend of his elbow the leaden head
of his enormous cane, which was hidden behind him, could be seen.

Thus he remained for nearly a minute, without his presence being
perceived. All at once Fantine raised her eyes, saw him, and made M.
Madeleine turn round.

The instant that Madeleine’s glance encountered Javert’s glance,
Javert, without stirring, without moving from his post, without
approaching him, became terrible. No human sentiment can be as terrible
as joy.

It was the visage of a demon who has just found his damned soul.

The satisfaction of at last getting hold of Jean Valjean caused all
that was in his soul to appear in his countenance. The depths having
been stirred up, mounted to the surface. The humiliation of having, in
some slight degree, lost the scent, and of having indulged, for a few
moments, in an error with regard to Champmathieu, was effaced by pride
at having so well and accurately divined in the first place, and of
having for so long cherished a just instinct. Javert’s content shone
forth in his sovereign attitude. The deformity of triumph overspread
that narrow brow. All the demonstrations of horror which a satisfied
face can afford were there.

Javert was in heaven at that moment. Without putting the thing clearly
to himself, but with a confused intuition of the necessity of his
presence and of his success, he, Javert, personified justice, light,
and truth in their celestial function of crushing out evil. Behind him
and around him, at an infinite distance, he had authority, reason, the
case judged, the legal conscience, the public prosecution, all the
stars; he was protecting order, he was causing the law to yield up its
thunders, he was avenging society, he was lending a helping hand to the
absolute, he was standing erect in the midst of a glory. There existed
in his victory a remnant of defiance and of combat. Erect, haughty,
brilliant, he flaunted abroad in open day the superhuman bestiality of
a ferocious archangel. The terrible shadow of the action which he was
accomplishing caused the vague flash of the social sword to be visible
in his clenched fist; happy and indignant, he held his heel upon crime,
vice, rebellion, perdition, hell; he was radiant, he exterminated, he
smiled, and there was an incontestable grandeur in this monstrous Saint
Michael.

Javert, though frightful, had nothing ignoble about him.

Probity, sincerity, candor, conviction, the sense of duty, are things
which may become hideous when wrongly directed; but which, even when
hideous, remain grand: their majesty, the majesty peculiar to the human
conscience, clings to them in the midst of horror; they are virtues
which have one vice,—error. The honest, pitiless joy of a fanatic in
the full flood of his atrocity preserves a certain lugubriously
venerable radiance. Without himself suspecting the fact, Javert in his
formidable happiness was to be pitied, as is every ignorant man who
triumphs. Nothing could be so poignant and so terrible as this face,
wherein was displayed all that may be designated as the evil of the
good.




CHAPTER IV—AUTHORITY REASSERTS ITS RIGHTS


Fantine had not seen Javert since the day on which the mayor had torn
her from the man. Her ailing brain comprehended nothing, but the only
thing which she did not doubt was that he had come to get her. She
could not endure that terrible face; she felt her life quitting her;
she hid her face in both hands, and shrieked in her anguish:—

“Monsieur Madeleine, save me!”


Jean Valjean—we shall henceforth not speak of him otherwise—had risen.
He said to Fantine in the gentlest and calmest of voices:—

“Be at ease; it is not for you that he is come.”


Then he addressed Javert, and said:—

“I know what you want.”


Javert replied:—

“Be quick about it!”


There lay in the inflection of voice which accompanied these words
something indescribably fierce and frenzied. Javert did not say, “Be
quick about it!” he said “Bequiabouit.”


No orthography can do justice to the accent with which it was uttered:
it was no longer a human word: it was a roar.

He did not proceed according to his custom, he did not enter into the
matter, he exhibited no warrant of arrest. In his eyes, Jean Valjean
was a sort of mysterious combatant, who was not to be laid hands upon,
a wrestler in the dark whom he had had in his grasp for the last five
years, without being able to throw him. This arrest was not a
beginning, but an end. He confined himself to saying, “Be quick about
it!”


As he spoke thus, he did not advance a single step; he hurled at Jean
Valjean a glance which he threw out like a grappling-hook, and with
which he was accustomed to draw wretches violently to him.

It was this glance which Fantine had felt penetrating to the very
marrow of her bones two months previously.

At Javert’s exclamation, Fantine opened her eyes once more. But the
mayor was there; what had she to fear?

Javert advanced to the middle of the room, and cried:—

“See here now! Art thou coming?”


The unhappy woman glanced about her. No one was present excepting the
nun and the mayor. To whom could that abject use of “thou” be
addressed? To her only. She shuddered.

Then she beheld a most unprecedented thing, a thing so unprecedented
that nothing equal to it had appeared to her even in the blackest
deliriums of fever.

She beheld Javert, the police spy, seize the mayor by the collar; she
saw the mayor bow his head. It seemed to her that the world was coming
to an end.

Javert had, in fact, grasped Jean Valjean by the collar.

“Monsieur le Maire!” shrieked Fantine.

Javert burst out laughing with that frightful laugh which displayed all
his gums.

“There is no longer any Monsieur le Maire here!”


Jean Valjean made no attempt to disengage the hand which grasped the
collar of his coat. He said:—

“Javert—”


Javert interrupted him: “Call me Mr. Inspector.”


“Monsieur,” said Jean Valjean, “I should like to say a word to you in
private.”


“Aloud! Say it aloud!” replied Javert; “people are in the habit of
talking aloud to me.”


Jean Valjean went on in a lower tone:—

“I have a request to make of you—”


“I tell you to speak loud.”


“But you alone should hear it—”


“What difference does that make to me? I shall not listen.”


Jean Valjean turned towards him and said very rapidly and in a very low
voice:—

“Grant me three days’ grace! three days in which to go and fetch the
child of this unhappy woman. I will pay whatever is necessary. You
shall accompany me if you choose.”


“You are making sport of me!” cried Javert. “Come now, I did not think
you such a fool! You ask me to give you three days in which to run
away! You say that it is for the purpose of fetching that creature’s
child! Ah! Ah! That’s good! That’s really capital!”


Fantine was seized with a fit of trembling.

“My child!” she cried, “to go and fetch my child! She is not here,
then! Answer me, sister; where is Cosette? I want my child! Monsieur
Madeleine! Monsieur le Maire!”


Javert stamped his foot.

“And now there’s the other one! Will you hold your tongue, you hussy?
It’s a pretty sort of a place where convicts are magistrates, and where
women of the town are cared for like countesses! Ah! But we are going
to change all that; it is high time!”


He stared intently at Fantine, and added, once more taking into his
grasp Jean Valjean’s cravat, shirt and collar:—

“I tell you that there is no Monsieur Madeleine and that there is no
Monsieur le Maire. There is a thief, a brigand, a convict named Jean
Valjean! And I have him in my grasp! That’s what there is!”


Fantine raised herself in bed with a bound, supporting herself on her
stiffened arms and on both hands: she gazed at Jean Valjean, she gazed
at Javert, she gazed at the nun, she opened her mouth as though to
speak; a rattle proceeded from the depths of her throat, her teeth
chattered; she stretched out her arms in her agony, opening her hands
convulsively, and fumbling about her like a drowning person; then
suddenly fell back on her pillow.

Her head struck the head-board of the bed and fell forwards on her
breast, with gaping mouth and staring, sightless eyes.

She was dead.

Jean Valjean laid his hand upon the detaining hand of Javert, and
opened it as he would have opened the hand of a baby; then he said to
Javert:—

“You have murdered that woman.”


“Let’s have an end of this!” shouted Javert, in a fury; “I am not here
to listen to argument. Let us economize all that; the guard is below;
march on instantly, or you’ll get the thumb-screws!”


In the corner of the room stood an old iron bedstead, which was in a
decidedly decrepit state, and which served the sisters as a camp-bed
when they were watching with the sick. Jean Valjean stepped up to this
bed, in a twinkling wrenched off the head-piece, which was already in a
dilapidated condition, an easy matter to muscles like his, grasped the
principal rod like a bludgeon, and glanced at Javert. Javert retreated
towards the door. Jean Valjean, armed with his bar of iron, walked
slowly up to Fantine’s couch. When he arrived there he turned and said
to Javert, in a voice that was barely audible:—

“I advise you not to disturb me at this moment.”


One thing is certain, and that is, that Javert trembled.

It did occur to him to summon the guard, but Jean Valjean might avail
himself of that moment to effect his escape; so he remained, grasped
his cane by the small end, and leaned against the door-post, without
removing his eyes from Jean Valjean.

Jean Valjean rested his elbow on the knob at the head of the bed, and
his brow on his hand, and began to contemplate the motionless body of
Fantine, which lay extended there. He remained thus, mute, absorbed,
evidently with no further thought of anything connected with this life.
Upon his face and in his attitude there was nothing but inexpressible
pity. After a few moments of this meditation he bent towards Fantine,
and spoke to her in a low voice.

What did he say to her? What could this man, who was reproved, say to
that woman, who was dead? What words were those? No one on earth heard
them. Did the dead woman hear them? There are some touching illusions
which are, perhaps, sublime realities. The point as to which there
exists no doubt is, that Sister Simplice, the sole witness of the
incident, often said that at the moment that Jean Valjean whispered in
Fantine’s ear, she distinctly beheld an ineffable smile dawn on those
pale lips, and in those dim eyes, filled with the amazement of the
tomb.

Jean Valjean took Fantine’s head in both his hands, and arranged it on
the pillow as a mother might have done for her child; then he tied the
string of her chemise, and smoothed her hair back under her cap. That
done, he closed her eyes.

Fantine’s face seemed strangely illuminated at that moment.

Death, that signifies entrance into the great light.

Fantine’s hand was hanging over the side of the bed. Jean Valjean knelt
down before that hand, lifted it gently, and kissed it.

Then he rose, and turned to Javert.

“Now,” said he, “I am at your disposal.”





CHAPTER V—A SUITABLE TOMB


Javert deposited Jean Valjean in the city prison.

The arrest of M. Madeleine occasioned a sensation, or rather, an
extraordinary commotion in M. sur M. We are sorry that we cannot
conceal the fact, that at the single word, “He was a convict,” nearly
every one deserted him. In less than two hours all the good that he had
done had been forgotten, and he was nothing but a “convict from the
galleys.” It is just to add that the details of what had taken place at
Arras were not yet known. All day long conversations like the following
were to be heard in all quarters of the town:—

“You don’t know? He was a liberated convict!” “Who?” “The mayor.” “Bah!
M. Madeleine?” “Yes.” “Really?” “His name was not Madeleine at all; he
had a frightful name, Béjean, Bojean, Boujean.” “Ah! Good God!” “He has
been arrested.” “Arrested!” “In prison, in the city prison, while
waiting to be transferred.” “Until he is transferred!” “He is to be
transferred!” “Where is he to be taken?” “He will be tried at the
Assizes for a highway robbery which he committed long ago.” “Well! I
suspected as much. That man was too good, too perfect, too affected. He
refused the cross; he bestowed sous on all the little scamps he came
across. I always thought there was some evil history back of all that.”


The “drawing-rooms” particularly abounded in remarks of this nature.

One old lady, a subscriber to the _Drapeau Blanc_, made the following
remark, the depth of which it is impossible to fathom:—

“I am not sorry. It will be a lesson to the Bonapartists!”


It was thus that the phantom which had been called M. Madeleine
vanished from M. sur M. Only three or four persons in all the town
remained faithful to his memory. The old portress who had served him
was among the number.

On the evening of that day the worthy old woman was sitting in her
lodge, still in a thorough fright, and absorbed in sad reflections. The
factory had been closed all day, the carriage gate was bolted, the
street was deserted. There was no one in the house but the two nuns,
Sister Perpétue and Sister Simplice, who were watching beside the body
of Fantine.

Towards the hour when M. Madeleine was accustomed to return home, the
good portress rose mechanically, took from a drawer the key of M.
Madeleine’s chamber, and the flat candlestick which he used every
evening to go up to his quarters; then she hung the key on the nail
whence he was accustomed to take it, and set the candlestick on one
side, as though she was expecting him. Then she sat down again on her
chair, and became absorbed in thought once more. The poor, good old
woman had done all this without being conscious of it.

It was only at the expiration of two hours that she roused herself from
her reverie, and exclaimed, “Hold! My good God Jesus! And I hung his
key on the nail!”


At that moment the small window in the lodge opened, a hand passed
through, seized the key and the candlestick, and lighted the taper at
the candle which was burning there.

The portress raised her eyes, and stood there with gaping mouth, and a
shriek which she confined to her throat.

She knew that hand, that arm, the sleeve of that coat.

It was M. Madeleine.

It was several seconds before she could speak; she had a _seizure_, as
she said herself, when she related the adventure afterwards.

“Good God, Monsieur le Maire,” she cried at last, “I thought you were—”


She stopped; the conclusion of her sentence would have been lacking in
respect towards the beginning. Jean Valjean was still Monsieur le Maire
to her.

He finished her thought.

“In prison,” said he. “I was there; I broke a bar of one of the
windows; I let myself drop from the top of a roof, and here I am. I am
going up to my room; go and find Sister Simplice for me. She is with
that poor woman, no doubt.”


The old woman obeyed in all haste.

He gave her no orders; he was quite sure that she would guard him
better than he should guard himself.

No one ever found out how he had managed to get into the courtyard
without opening the big gates. He had, and always carried about him, a
pass-key which opened a little side-door; but he must have been
searched, and his latch-key must have been taken from him. This point
was never explained.

He ascended the staircase leading to his chamber. On arriving at the
top, he left his candle on the top step of his stairs, opened his door
with very little noise, went and closed his window and his shutters by
feeling, then returned for his candle and re-entered his room.

It was a useful precaution; it will be recollected that his window
could be seen from the street.

He cast a glance about him, at his table, at his chair, at his bed
which had not been disturbed for three days. No trace of the disorder
of the night before last remained. The portress had “done up” his room;
only she had picked out of the ashes and placed neatly on the table the
two iron ends of the cudgel and the forty-sou piece which had been
blackened by the fire.

He took a sheet of paper, on which he wrote: “These are the two tips of
my iron-shod cudgel and the forty-sou piece stolen from Little Gervais,
which I mentioned at the Court of Assizes,” and he arranged this piece
of paper, the bits of iron, and the coin in such a way that they were
the first things to be seen on entering the room. From a cupboard he
pulled out one of his old shirts, which he tore in pieces. In the
strips of linen thus prepared he wrapped the two silver candlesticks.
He betrayed neither haste nor agitation; and while he was wrapping up
the Bishop’s candlesticks, he nibbled at a piece of black bread. It was
probably the prison-bread which he had carried with him in his flight.

This was proved by the crumbs which were found on the floor of the room
when the authorities made an examination later on.

There came two taps at the door.

“Come in,” said he.

It was Sister Simplice.

She was pale; her eyes were red; the candle which she carried trembled
in her hand. The peculiar feature of the violences of destiny is, that
however polished or cool we may be, they wring human nature from our
very bowels, and force it to reappear on the surface. The emotions of
that day had turned the nun into a woman once more. She had wept, and
she was trembling.

Jean Valjean had just finished writing a few lines on a paper, which he
handed to the nun, saying, “Sister, you will give this to Monsieur le
Curé.”


The paper was not folded. She cast a glance upon it.

“You can read it,” said he.

She read:—

“I beg Monsieur le Curé to keep an eye on all that I leave behind me.
He will be so good as to pay out of it the expenses of my trial, and of
the funeral of the woman who died yesterday. The rest is for the poor.”


The sister tried to speak, but she only managed to stammer a few
inarticulate sounds. She succeeded in saying, however:—

“Does not Monsieur le Maire desire to take a last look at that poor,
unhappy woman?”


“No,” said he; “I am pursued; it would only end in their arresting me
in that room, and that would disturb her.”


He had hardly finished when a loud noise became audible on the
staircase. They heard a tumult of ascending footsteps, and the old
portress saying in her loudest and most piercing tones:—

“My good sir, I swear to you by the good God, that not a soul has
entered this house all day, nor all the evening, and that I have not
even left the door.”


A man responded:—

“But there is a light in that room, nevertheless.”


They recognized Javert’s voice.

The chamber was so arranged that the door in opening masked the corner
of the wall on the right. Jean Valjean blew out the light and placed
himself in this angle. Sister Simplice fell on her knees near the
table.

The door opened.

Javert entered.

The whispers of many men and the protestations of the portress were
audible in the corridor.

The nun did not raise her eyes. She was praying.

The candle was on the chimney-piece, and gave but very little light.

Javert caught sight of the nun and halted in amazement.

It will be remembered that the fundamental point in Javert, his
element, the very air he breathed, was veneration for all authority.
This was impregnable, and admitted of neither objection nor
restriction. In his eyes, of course, the ecclesiastical authority was
the chief of all; he was religious, superficial and correct on this
point as on all others. In his eyes, a priest was a mind, who never
makes a mistake; a nun was a creature who never sins; they were souls
walled in from this world, with a single door which never opened except
to allow the truth to pass through.

On perceiving the sister, his first movement was to retire.

But there was also another duty which bound him and impelled him
imperiously in the opposite direction. His second movement was to
remain and to venture on at least one question.

This was Sister Simplice, who had never told a lie in her life. Javert
knew it, and held her in special veneration in consequence.

“Sister,” said he, “are you alone in this room?”


A terrible moment ensued, during which the poor portress felt as though
she should faint.

The sister raised her eyes and answered:—

“Yes.”


“Then,” resumed Javert, “you will excuse me if I persist; it is my
duty; you have not seen a certain person—a man—this evening? He has
escaped; we are in search of him—that Jean Valjean; you have not seen
him?”


The sister replied:—

“No.”


She lied. She had lied twice in succession, one after the other,
without hesitation, promptly, as a person does when sacrificing
herself.

“Pardon me,” said Javert, and he retired with a deep bow.

O sainted maid! you left this world many years ago; you have rejoined
your sisters, the virgins, and your brothers, the angels, in the light;
may this lie be counted to your credit in paradise!

The sister’s affirmation was for Javert so decisive a thing that he did
not even observe the singularity of that candle which had but just been
extinguished, and which was still smoking on the table.

An hour later, a man, marching amid trees and mists, was rapidly
departing from M. sur M. in the direction of Paris. That man was Jean
Valjean. It has been established by the testimony of two or three
carters who met him, that he was carrying a bundle; that he was dressed
in a blouse. Where had he obtained that blouse? No one ever found out.
But an aged workman had died in the infirmary of the factory a few days
before, leaving behind him nothing but his blouse. Perhaps that was the
one.

One last word about Fantine.

We all have a mother,—the earth. Fantine was given back to that mother.

The curé thought that he was doing right, and perhaps he really was, in
reserving as much money as possible from what Jean Valjean had left for
the poor. Who was concerned, after all? A convict and a woman of the
town. That is why he had a very simple funeral for Fantine, and reduced
it to that strictly necessary form known as the pauper’s grave.

So Fantine was buried in the free corner of the cemetery which belongs
to anybody and everybody, and where the poor are lost. Fortunately, God
knows where to find the soul again. Fantine was laid in the shade,
among the first bones that came to hand; she was subjected to the
promiscuousness of ashes. She was thrown into the public grave. Her
grave resembled her bed.

[THE END OF VOLUME I “FANTINE”]

[Illustration: Frontispiece Volume Two]

[Illustration: Titlepage Volume Two]




VOLUME II
COSETTE




BOOK FIRST—WATERLOO




CHAPTER I—WHAT IS MET WITH ON THE WAY FROM NIVELLES


Last year (1861), on a beautiful May morning, a traveller, the person
who is telling this story, was coming from Nivelles, and directing his
course towards La Hulpe. He was on foot. He was pursuing a broad paved
road, which undulated between two rows of trees, over the hills which
succeed each other, raise the road and let it fall again, and produce
something in the nature of enormous waves.

He had passed Lillois and Bois-Seigneur-Isaac. In the west he perceived
the slate-roofed tower of Braine-l’Alleud, which has the form of a
reversed vase. He had just left behind a wood upon an eminence; and at
the angle of the crossroad, by the side of a sort of mouldy gibbet
bearing the inscription _Ancient Barrier No. 4_, a public house,
bearing on its front this sign: _At the Four Winds_ (Aux Quatre Vents).
_Échabeau, Private Café_.

A quarter of a league further on, he arrived at the bottom of a little
valley, where there is water which passes beneath an arch made through
the embankment of the road. The clump of sparsely planted but very
green trees, which fills the valley on one side of the road, is
dispersed over the meadows on the other, and disappears gracefully and
as in order in the direction of Braine-l’Alleud.

On the right, close to the road, was an inn, with a four-wheeled cart
at the door, a large bundle of hop-poles, a plough, a heap of dried
brushwood near a flourishing hedge, lime smoking in a square hole, and
a ladder suspended along an old penthouse with straw partitions. A
young girl was weeding in a field, where a huge yellow poster, probably
of some outside spectacle, such as a parish festival, was fluttering in
the wind. At one corner of the inn, beside a pool in which a flotilla
of ducks was navigating, a badly paved path plunged into the bushes.
The wayfarer struck into this.

After traversing a hundred paces, skirting a wall of the fifteenth
century, surmounted by a pointed gable, with bricks set in contrast, he
found himself before a large door of arched stone, with a rectilinear
impost, in the sombre style of Louis XIV., flanked by two flat
medallions. A severe façade rose above this door; a wall, perpendicular
to the façade, almost touched the door, and flanked it with an abrupt
right angle. In the meadow before the door lay three harrows, through
which, in disorder, grew all the flowers of May. The door was closed.
The two decrepit leaves which barred it were ornamented with an old
rusty knocker.

The sun was charming; the branches had that soft shivering of May,
which seems to proceed rather from the nests than from the wind. A
brave little bird, probably a lover, was carolling in a distracted
manner in a large tree.

The wayfarer bent over and examined a rather large circular excavation,
resembling the hollow of a sphere, in the stone on the left, at the
foot of the pier of the door.

At this moment the leaves of the door parted, and a peasant woman
emerged.

She saw the wayfarer, and perceived what he was looking at.

“It was a French cannon-ball which made that,” she said to him. And she
added:—

“That which you see there, higher up in the door, near a nail, is the
hole of a big iron bullet as large as an egg. The bullet did not pierce
the wood.”


“What is the name of this place?” inquired the wayfarer.

“Hougomont,” said the peasant woman.

The traveller straightened himself up. He walked on a few paces, and
went off to look over the tops of the hedges. On the horizon through
the trees, he perceived a sort of little elevation, and on this
elevation something which at that distance resembled a lion.

He was on the battle-field of Waterloo.




CHAPTER II—HOUGOMONT


Hougomont,—this was a funereal spot, the beginning of the obstacle, the
first resistance, which that great wood-cutter of Europe, called
Napoleon, encountered at Waterloo, the first knot under the blows of
his axe.

It was a château; it is no longer anything but a farm. For the
antiquary, Hougomont is _Hugomons_. This manor was built by Hugo, Sire
of Somerel, the same who endowed the sixth chaplaincy of the Abbey of
Villiers.

The traveller pushed open the door, elbowed an ancient calash under the
porch, and entered the courtyard.

The first thing which struck him in this paddock was a door of the
sixteenth century, which here simulates an arcade, everything else
having fallen prostrate around it. A monumental aspect often has its
birth in ruin. In a wall near the arcade opens another arched door, of
the time of Henry IV., permitting a glimpse of the trees of an orchard;
beside this door, a manure-hole, some pickaxes, some shovels, some
carts, an old well, with its flagstone and its iron reel, a chicken
jumping, and a turkey spreading its tail, a chapel surmounted by a
small bell-tower, a blossoming pear-tree trained in espalier against
the wall of the chapel—behold the court, the conquest of which was one
of Napoleon’s dreams. This corner of earth, could he but have seized
it, would, perhaps, have given him the world likewise. Chickens are
scattering its dust abroad with their beaks. A growl is audible; it is
a huge dog, who shows his teeth and replaces the English.

The English behaved admirably there. Cooke’s four companies of guards
there held out for seven hours against the fury of an army.

Hougomont viewed on the map, as a geometrical plan, comprising
buildings and enclosures, presents a sort of irregular rectangle, one
angle of which is nicked out. It is this angle which contains the
southern door, guarded by this wall, which commands it only a gun’s
length away. Hougomont has two doors,—the southern door, that of the
château; and the northern door, belonging to the farm. Napoleon sent
his brother Jérôme against Hougomont; the divisions of Foy,
Guilleminot, and Bachelu hurled themselves against it; nearly the
entire corps of Reille was employed against it, and miscarried;
Kellermann’s balls were exhausted on this heroic section of wall.
Bauduin’s brigade was not strong enough to force Hougomont on the
north, and the brigade of Soye could not do more than effect the
beginning of a breach on the south, but without taking it.

The farm buildings border the courtyard on the south. A bit of the
north door, broken by the French, hangs suspended to the wall. It
consists of four planks nailed to two cross-beams, on which the scars
of the attack are visible.

The northern door, which was beaten in by the French, and which has had
a piece applied to it to replace the panel suspended on the wall,
stands half-open at the bottom of the paddock; it is cut squarely in
the wall, built of stone below, of brick above which closes in the
courtyard on the north. It is a simple door for carts, such as exist in
all farms, with the two large leaves made of rustic planks: beyond lie
the meadows. The dispute over this entrance was furious. For a long
time, all sorts of imprints of bloody hands were visible on the
door-posts. It was there that Bauduin was killed.

The storm of the combat still lingers in this courtyard; its horror is
visible there; the confusion of the fray was petrified there; it lives
and it dies there; it was only yesterday. The walls are in the death
agony, the stones fall; the breaches cry aloud; the holes are wounds;
the drooping, quivering trees seem to be making an effort to flee.

This courtyard was more built up in 1815 than it is to-day. Buildings
which have since been pulled down then formed redans and angles.

The English barricaded themselves there; the French made their way in,
but could not stand their ground. Beside the chapel, one wing of the
château, the only ruin now remaining of the manor of Hougomont, rises
in a crumbling state,—disembowelled, one might say. The château served
for a dungeon, the chapel for a block-house. There men exterminated
each other. The French, fired on from every point,—from behind the
walls, from the summits of the garrets, from the depths of the cellars,
through all the casements, through all the air-holes, through every
crack in the stones,—fetched fagots and set fire to walls and men; the
reply to the grape-shot was a conflagration.

In the ruined wing, through windows garnished with bars of iron, the
dismantled chambers of the main building of brick are visible; the
English guards were in ambush in these rooms; the spiral of the
staircase, cracked from the ground floor to the very roof, appears like
the inside of a broken shell. The staircase has two stories; the
English, besieged on the staircase, and massed on its upper steps, had
cut off the lower steps. These consisted of large slabs of blue stone,
which form a heap among the nettles. Half a score of steps still cling
to the wall; on the first is cut the figure of a trident. These
inaccessible steps are solid in their niches. All the rest resembles a
jaw which has been denuded of its teeth. There are two old trees there:
one is dead; the other is wounded at its base, and is clothed with
verdure in April. Since 1815 it has taken to growing through the
staircase.

A massacre took place in the chapel. The interior, which has recovered
its calm, is singular. The mass has not been said there since the
carnage. Nevertheless, the altar has been left there—an altar of
unpolished wood, placed against a background of roughhewn stone. Four
whitewashed walls, a door opposite the altar, two small arched windows;
over the door a large wooden crucifix, below the crucifix a square
air-hole stopped up with a bundle of hay; on the ground, in one corner,
an old window-frame with the glass all broken to pieces—such is the
chapel. Near the altar there is nailed up a wooden statue of Saint
Anne, of the fifteenth century; the head of the infant Jesus has been
carried off by a large ball. The French, who were masters of the chapel
for a moment, and were then dislodged, set fire to it. The flames
filled this building; it was a perfect furnace; the door was burned,
the floor was burned, the wooden Christ was not burned. The fire preyed
upon his feet, of which only the blackened stumps are now to be seen;
then it stopped,—a miracle, according to the assertion of the people of
the neighborhood. The infant Jesus, decapitated, was less fortunate
than the Christ.

The walls are covered with inscriptions. Near the feet of Christ this
name is to be read: _Henquinez_. Then these others: _Conde de Rio Maior
Marques y Marquesa de Almagro (Habana)_. There are French names with
exclamation points,—a sign of wrath. The wall was freshly whitewashed
in 1849. The nations insulted each other there.

It was at the door of this chapel that the corpse was picked up which
held an axe in its hand; this corpse was Sub-Lieutenant Legros.

On emerging from the chapel, a well is visible on the left. There are
two in this courtyard. One inquires, Why is there no bucket and pulley
to this? It is because water is no longer drawn there. Why is water not
drawn there? Because it is full of skeletons.

The last person who drew water from the well was named Guillaume van
Kylsom. He was a peasant who lived at Hougomont, and was gardener
there. On the 18th of June, 1815, his family fled and concealed
themselves in the woods.

The forest surrounding the Abbey of Villiers sheltered these
unfortunate people who had been scattered abroad, for many days and
nights. There are at this day certain traces recognizable, such as old
boles of burned trees, which mark the site of these poor bivouacs
trembling in the depths of the thickets.

Guillaume van Kylsom remained at Hougomont, “to guard the château,” and
concealed himself in the cellar. The English discovered him there. They
tore him from his hiding-place, and the combatants forced this
frightened man to serve them, by administering blows with the flats of
their swords. They were thirsty; this Guillaume brought them water. It
was from this well that he drew it. Many drank there their last
draught. This well where drank so many of the dead was destined to die
itself.

After the engagement, they were in haste to bury the dead bodies. Death
has a fashion of harassing victory, and she causes the pest to follow
glory. The typhus is a concomitant of triumph. This well was deep, and
it was turned into a sepulchre. Three hundred dead bodies were cast
into it. With too much haste perhaps. Were they all dead? Legend says
they were not. It seems that on the night succeeding the interment,
feeble voices were heard calling from the well.

This well is isolated in the middle of the courtyard. Three walls, part
stone, part brick, and simulating a small, square tower, and folded
like the leaves of a screen, surround it on all sides. The fourth side
is open. It is there that the water was drawn. The wall at the bottom
has a sort of shapeless loophole, possibly the hole made by a shell.
This little tower had a platform, of which only the beams remain. The
iron supports of the well on the right form a cross. On leaning over,
the eye is lost in a deep cylinder of brick which is filled with a
heaped-up mass of shadows. The base of the walls all about the well is
concealed in a growth of nettles.

This well has not in front of it that large blue slab which forms the
table for all wells in Belgium. The slab has here been replaced by a
cross-beam, against which lean five or six shapeless fragments of
knotty and petrified wood which resemble huge bones. There is no longer
either pail, chain, or pulley; but there is still the stone basin which
served the overflow. The rain-water collects there, and from time to
time a bird of the neighboring forests comes thither to drink, and then
flies away. One house in this ruin, the farmhouse, is still inhabited.
The door of this house opens on the courtyard. Upon this door, beside a
pretty Gothic lock-plate, there is an iron handle with trefoils placed
slanting. At the moment when the Hanoverian lieutenant, Wilda, grasped
this handle in order to take refuge in the farm, a French sapper hewed
off his hand with an axe.

The family who occupy the house had for their grandfather Guillaume van
Kylsom, the old gardener, dead long since. A woman with gray hair said
to us: “I was there. I was three years old. My sister, who was older,
was terrified and wept. They carried us off to the woods. I went there
in my mother’s arms. We glued our ears to the earth to hear. I imitated
the cannon, and went _boum! boum!_”


A door opening from the courtyard on the left led into the orchard, so
we were told. The orchard is terrible.

It is in three parts; one might almost say, in three acts. The first
part is a garden, the second is an orchard, the third is a wood. These
three parts have a common enclosure: on the side of the entrance, the
buildings of the château and the farm; on the left, a hedge; on the
right, a wall; and at the end, a wall. The wall on the right is of
brick, the wall at the bottom is of stone. One enters the garden first.
It slopes downwards, is planted with gooseberry bushes, choked with a
wild growth of vegetation, and terminated by a monumental terrace of
cut stone, with balustrade with a double curve.

It was a seignorial garden in the first French style which preceded Le
Nôtre; to-day it is ruins and briars. The pilasters are surmounted by
globes which resemble cannon-balls of stone. Forty-three balusters can
still be counted on their sockets; the rest lie prostrate in the grass.
Almost all bear scratches of bullets. One broken baluster is placed on
the pediment like a fractured leg.

It was in this garden, further down than the orchard, that six
light-infantry men of the 1st, having made their way thither, and being
unable to escape, hunted down and caught like bears in their dens,
accepted the combat with two Hanoverian companies, one of which was
armed with carbines. The Hanoverians lined this balustrade and fired
from above. The infantry men, replying from below, six against two
hundred, intrepid and with no shelter save the currant-bushes, took a
quarter of an hour to die.

One mounts a few steps and passes from the garden into the orchard,
properly speaking. There, within the limits of those few square
fathoms, fifteen hundred men fell in less than an hour. The wall seems
ready to renew the combat. Thirty-eight loopholes, pierced by the
English at irregular heights, are there still. In front of the sixth
are placed two English tombs of granite. There are loopholes only in
the south wall, as the principal attack came from that quarter. The
wall is hidden on the outside by a tall hedge; the French came up,
thinking that they had to deal only with a hedge, crossed it, and found
the wall both an obstacle and an ambuscade, with the English guards
behind it, the thirty-eight loopholes firing at once a shower of
grape-shot and balls, and Soye’s brigade was broken against it. Thus
Waterloo began.

Nevertheless, the orchard was taken. As they had no ladders, the French
scaled it with their nails. They fought hand to hand amid the trees.
All this grass has been soaked in blood. A battalion of Nassau, seven
hundred strong, was overwhelmed there. The outside of the wall, against
which Kellermann’s two batteries were trained, is gnawed by grape-shot.

This orchard is sentient, like others, in the month of May. It has its
buttercups and its daisies; the grass is tall there; the cart-horses
browse there; cords of hair, on which linen is drying, traverse the
spaces between the trees and force the passer-by to bend his head; one
walks over this uncultivated land, and one’s foot dives into
mole-holes. In the middle of the grass one observes an uprooted
tree-bole which lies there all verdant. Major Blackmann leaned against
it to die. Beneath a great tree in the neighborhood fell the German
general, Duplat, descended from a French family which fled on the
revocation of the Edict of Nantes. An aged and falling apple-tree leans
far over to one side, its wound dressed with a bandage of straw and of
clayey loam. Nearly all the apple-trees are falling with age. There is
not one which has not had its bullet or its biscayan.6 The skeletons of
dead trees abound in this orchard. Crows fly through their branches,
and at the end of it is a wood full of violets.

Bauduin killed, Foy wounded, conflagration, massacre, carnage, a
rivulet formed of English blood, French blood, German blood mingled in
fury, a well crammed with corpses, the regiment of Nassau and the
regiment of Brunswick destroyed, Duplat killed, Blackmann killed, the
English Guards mutilated, twenty French battalions, besides the forty
from Reille’s corps, decimated, three thousand men in that hovel of
Hougomont alone cut down, slashed to pieces, shot, burned, with their
throats cut,—and all this so that a peasant can say to-day to the
traveller: _Monsieur, give me three francs, and if you like, I will
explain to you the affair of Waterloo!_




CHAPTER III—THE EIGHTEENTH OF JUNE, 1815


Let us turn back,—that is one of the story-teller’s rights,—and put
ourselves once more in the year 1815, and even a little earlier than
the epoch when the action narrated in the first part of this book took
place.

If it had not rained in the night between the 17th and the 18th of
June, 1815, the fate of Europe would have been different. A few drops
of water, more or less, decided the downfall of Napoleon. All that
Providence required in order to make Waterloo the end of Austerlitz was
a little more rain, and a cloud traversing the sky out of season
sufficed to make a world crumble.

The battle of Waterloo could not be begun until half-past eleven
o’clock, and that gave Blücher time to come up. Why? Because the ground
was wet. The artillery had to wait until it became a little firmer
before they could manœuvre.

Napoleon was an artillery officer, and felt the effects of this. The
foundation of this wonderful captain was the man who, in the report to
the Directory on Aboukir, said: _Such a one of our balls killed six
men_. All his plans of battle were arranged for projectiles. The key to
his victory was to make the artillery converge on one point. He treated
the strategy of the hostile general like a citadel, and made a breach
in it. He overwhelmed the weak point with grape-shot; he joined and
dissolved battles with cannon. There was something of the sharpshooter
in his genius. To beat in squares, to pulverize regiments, to break
lines, to crush and disperse masses,—for him everything lay in this, to
strike, strike, strike incessantly,—and he intrusted this task to the
cannon-ball. A redoubtable method, and one which, united with genius,
rendered this gloomy athlete of the pugilism of war invincible for the
space of fifteen years.

On the 18th of June, 1815, he relied all the more on his artillery,
because he had numbers on his side. Wellington had only one hundred and
fifty-nine mouths of fire; Napoleon had two hundred and forty.

Suppose the soil dry, and the artillery capable of moving, the action
would have begun at six o’clock in the morning. The battle would have
been won and ended at two o’clock, three hours before the change of
fortune in favor of the Prussians. What amount of blame attaches to
Napoleon for the loss of this battle? Is the shipwreck due to the
pilot?

Was it the evident physical decline of Napoleon that complicated this
epoch by an inward diminution of force? Had the twenty years of war
worn out the blade as it had worn the scabbard, the soul as well as the
body? Did the veteran make himself disastrously felt in the leader? In
a word, was this genius, as many historians of note have thought,
suffering from an eclipse? Did he go into a frenzy in order to disguise
his weakened powers from himself? Did he begin to waver under the
delusion of a breath of adventure? Had he become—a grave matter in a
general—unconscious of peril? Is there an age, in this class of
material great men, who may be called the giants of action, when genius
grows short-sighted? Old age has no hold on the geniuses of the ideal;
for the Dantes and Michael Angelos to grow old is to grow in greatness;
is it to grow less for the Hannibals and the Bonapartes? Had Napoleon
lost the direct sense of victory? Had he reached the point where he
could no longer recognize the reef, could no longer divine the snare,
no longer discern the crumbling brink of abysses? Had he lost his power
of scenting out catastrophes? He who had in former days known all the
roads to triumph, and who, from the summit of his chariot of lightning,
pointed them out with a sovereign finger, had he now reached that state
of sinister amazement when he could lead his tumultuous legions
harnessed to it, to the precipice? Was he seized at the age of
forty-six with a supreme madness? Was that titanic charioteer of
destiny no longer anything more than an immense dare-devil?

We do not think so.

His plan of battle was, by the confession of all, a masterpiece. To go
straight to the centre of the Allies’ line, to make a breach in the
enemy, to cut them in two, to drive the British half back on Hal, and
the Prussian half on Tongres, to make two shattered fragments of
Wellington and Blücher, to carry Mont-Saint-Jean, to seize Brussels, to
hurl the German into the Rhine, and the Englishman into the sea. All
this was contained in that battle, according to Napoleon. Afterwards
people would see.

Of course, we do not here pretend to furnish a history of the battle of
Waterloo; one of the scenes of the foundation of the story which we are
relating is connected with this battle, but this history is not our
subject; this history, moreover, has been finished, and finished in a
masterly manner, from one point of view by Napoleon, and from another
point of view by a whole pleiad of historians.7

As for us, we leave the historians at loggerheads; we are but a distant
witness, a passer-by on the plain, a seeker bending over that soil all
made of human flesh, taking appearances for realities, perchance; we
have no right to oppose, in the name of science, a collection of facts
which contain illusions, no doubt; we possess neither military practice
nor strategic ability which authorize a system; in our opinion, a chain
of accidents dominated the two leaders at Waterloo; and when it becomes
a question of destiny, that mysterious culprit, we judge like that
ingenious judge, the populace.




CHAPTER IV—A


Those persons who wish to gain a clear idea of the battle of Waterloo
have only to place, mentally, on the ground, a capital A. The left limb
of the A is the road to Nivelles, the right limb is the road to
Genappe, the tie of the A is the hollow road to Ohain from
Braine-l’Alleud. The top of the A is Mont-Saint-Jean, where Wellington
is; the lower left tip is Hougomont, where Reille is stationed with
Jérôme Bonaparte; the right tip is the Belle-Alliance, where Napoleon
was. At the centre of this chord is the precise point where the final
word of the battle was pronounced. It was there that the lion has been
placed, the involuntary symbol of the supreme heroism of the Imperial
Guard.

The triangle included in the top of the A, between the two limbs and
the tie, is the plateau of Mont-Saint-Jean. The dispute over this
plateau constituted the whole battle. The wings of the two armies
extended to the right and left of the two roads to Genappe and
Nivelles; d’Erlon facing Picton, Reille facing Hill.

Behind the tip of the A, behind the plateau of Mont-Saint-Jean, is the
forest of Soignes.

As for the plain itself, let the reader picture to himself a vast
undulating sweep of ground; each rise commands the next rise, and all
the undulations mount towards Mont-Saint-Jean, and there end in the
forest.

Two hostile troops on a field of battle are two wrestlers. It is a
question of seizing the opponent round the waist. The one seeks to trip
up the other. They clutch at everything: a bush is a point of support;
an angle of the wall offers them a rest to the shoulder; for the lack
of a hovel under whose cover they can draw up, a regiment yields its
ground; an unevenness in the ground, a chance turn in the landscape, a
cross-path encountered at the right moment, a grove, a ravine, can stay
the heel of that colossus which is called an army, and prevent its
retreat. He who quits the field is beaten; hence the necessity
devolving on the responsible leader, of examining the most
insignificant clump of trees, and of studying deeply the slightest
relief in the ground.

The two generals had attentively studied the plain of Mont-Saint-Jean,
now called the plain of Waterloo. In the preceding year, Wellington,
with the sagacity of foresight, had examined it as the possible seat of
a great battle. Upon this spot, and for this duel, on the 18th of June,
Wellington had the good post, Napoleon the bad post. The English army
was stationed above, the French army below.

It is almost superfluous here to sketch the appearance of Napoleon on
horseback, glass in hand, upon the heights of Rossomme, at daybreak, on
June 18, 1815. All the world has seen him before we can show him. That
calm profile under the little three-cornered hat of the school of
Brienne, that green uniform, the white revers concealing the star of
the Legion of Honor, his great coat hiding his epaulets, the corner of
red ribbon peeping from beneath his vest, his leather trousers, the
white horse with the saddle-cloth of purple velvet bearing on the
corners crowned N’s and eagles, Hessian boots over silk stockings,
silver spurs, the sword of Marengo,—that whole figure of the last of
the Cæsars is present to all imaginations, saluted with acclamations by
some, severely regarded by others.

That figure stood for a long time wholly in the light; this arose from
a certain legendary dimness evolved by the majority of heroes, and
which always veils the truth for a longer or shorter time; but to-day
history and daylight have arrived.

That light called history is pitiless; it possesses this peculiar and
divine quality, that, pure light as it is, and precisely because it is
wholly light, it often casts a shadow in places where people had
hitherto beheld rays; from the same man it constructs two different
phantoms, and the one attacks the other and executes justice on it, and
the shadows of the despot contend with the brilliancy of the leader.
Hence arises a truer measure in the definitive judgments of nations.
Babylon violated lessens Alexander, Rome enchained lessens Cæsar,
Jerusalem murdered lessens Titus, tyranny follows the tyrant. It is a
misfortune for a man to leave behind him the night which bears his
form.




CHAPTER V—THE QUID OBSCURUM OF BATTLES


Every one is acquainted with the first phase of this battle; a
beginning which was troubled, uncertain, hesitating, menacing to both
armies, but still more so for the English than for the French.

It had rained all night, the earth had been cut up by the downpour, the
water had accumulated here and there in the hollows of the plain as if
in casks; at some points the gear of the artillery carriages was buried
up to the axles, the circingles of the horses were dripping with liquid
mud. If the wheat and rye trampled down by this cohort of transports on
the march had not filled in the ruts and strewn a litter beneath the
wheels, all movement, particularly in the valleys, in the direction of
Papelotte would have been impossible.

The affair began late. Napoleon, as we have already explained, was in
the habit of keeping all his artillery well in hand, like a pistol,
aiming it now at one point, now at another, of the battle; and it had
been his wish to wait until the horse batteries could move and gallop
freely. In order to do that it was necessary that the sun should come
out and dry the soil. But the sun did not make its appearance. It was
no longer the rendezvous of Austerlitz. When the first cannon was
fired, the English general, Colville, looked at his watch, and noted
that it was thirty-five minutes past eleven.

The action was begun furiously, with more fury, perhaps, than the
Emperor would have wished, by the left wing of the French resting on
Hougomont. At the same time Napoleon attacked the centre by hurling
Quiot’s brigade on La Haie-Sainte, and Ney pushed forward the right
wing of the French against the left wing of the English, which rested
on Papelotte.

The attack on Hougomont was something of a feint; the plan was to draw
Wellington thither, and to make him swerve to the left. This plan would
have succeeded if the four companies of the English guards and the
brave Belgians of Perponcher’s division had not held the position
solidly, and Wellington, instead of massing his troops there, could
confine himself to despatching thither, as reinforcements, only four
more companies of guards and one battalion from Brunswick.

The attack of the right wing of the French on Papelotte was calculated,
in fact, to overthrow the English left, to cut off the road to
Brussels, to bar the passage against possible Prussians, to force
Mont-Saint-Jean, to turn Wellington back on Hougomont, thence on
Braine-l’Alleud, thence on Hal; nothing easier. With the exception of a
few incidents this attack succeeded. Papelotte was taken; La
Haie-Sainte was carried.

A detail to be noted. There was in the English infantry, particularly
in Kempt’s brigade, a great many raw recruits. These young soldiers
were valiant in the presence of our redoubtable infantry; their
inexperience extricated them intrepidly from the dilemma; they
performed particularly excellent service as skirmishers: the soldier
skirmisher, left somewhat to himself, becomes, so to speak, his own
general. These recruits displayed some of the French ingenuity and
fury. This novice of an infantry had dash. This displeased Wellington.

After the taking of La Haie-Sainte the battle wavered.

There is in this day an obscure interval, from midday to four o’clock;
the middle portion of this battle is almost indistinct, and
participates in the sombreness of the hand-to-hand conflict. Twilight
reigns over it. We perceive vast fluctuations in that fog, a dizzy
mirage, paraphernalia of war almost unknown to-day, pendant colbacks,
floating sabre-taches, cross-belts, cartridge-boxes for grenades,
hussar dolmans, red boots with a thousand wrinkles, heavy shakos
garlanded with torsades, the almost black infantry of Brunswick mingled
with the scarlet infantry of England, the English soldiers with great,
white circular pads on the slopes of their shoulders for epaulets, the
Hanoverian light-horse with their oblong casques of leather, with brass
hands and red horse-tails, the Scotch with their bare knees and plaids,
the great white gaiters of our grenadiers; pictures, not strategic
lines—what Salvator Rosa requires, not what is suited to the needs of
Gribeauval.

A certain amount of tempest is always mingled with a battle. _Quid
obscurum, quid divinum_. Each historian traces, to some extent, the
particular feature which pleases him amid this pell-mell. Whatever may
be the combinations of the generals, the shock of armed masses has an
incalculable ebb. During the action the plans of the two leaders enter
into each other and become mutually thrown out of shape. Such a point
of the field of battle devours more combatants than such another, just
as more or less spongy soils soak up more or less quickly the water
which is poured on them. It becomes necessary to pour out more soldiers
than one would like; a series of expenditures which are the unforeseen.
The line of battle waves and undulates like a thread, the trails of
blood gush illogically, the fronts of the armies waver, the regiments
form capes and gulfs as they enter and withdraw; all these reefs are
continually moving in front of each other. Where the infantry stood the
artillery arrives, the cavalry rushes in where the artillery was, the
battalions are like smoke. There was something there; seek it. It has
disappeared; the open spots change place, the sombre folds advance and
retreat, a sort of wind from the sepulchre pushes forward, hurls back,
distends, and disperses these tragic multitudes. What is a fray? an
oscillation? The immobility of a mathematical plan expresses a minute,
not a day. In order to depict a battle, there is required one of those
powerful painters who have chaos in their brushes. Rembrandt is better
than Vandermeulen; Vandermeulen, exact at noon, lies at three o’clock.
Geometry is deceptive; the hurricane alone is trustworthy. That is what
confers on Folard the right to contradict Polybius. Let us add, that
there is a certain instant when the battle degenerates into a combat,
becomes specialized, and disperses into innumerable detailed feats,
which, to borrow the expression of Napoleon himself, “belong rather to
the biography of the regiments than to the history of the army.” The
historian has, in this case, the evident right to sum up the whole. He
cannot do more than seize the principal outlines of the struggle, and
it is not given to any one narrator, however conscientious he may be,
to fix, absolutely, the form of that horrible cloud which is called a
battle.

This, which is true of all great armed encounters, is particularly
applicable to Waterloo.

Nevertheless, at a certain moment in the afternoon the battle came to a
point.




CHAPTER VI—FOUR O’CLOCK IN THE AFTERNOON


Towards four o’clock the condition of the English army was serious. The
Prince of Orange was in command of the centre, Hill of the right wing,
Picton of the left wing. The Prince of Orange, desperate and intrepid,
shouted to the Hollando-Belgians: “Nassau! Brunswick! Never retreat!”
Hill, having been weakened, had come up to the support of Wellington;
Picton was dead. At the very moment when the English had captured from
the French the flag of the 105th of the line, the French had killed the
English general, Picton, with a bullet through the head. The battle
had, for Wellington, two bases of action, Hougomont and La Haie-Sainte;
Hougomont still held out, but was on fire; La Haie-Sainte was taken. Of
the German battalion which defended it, only forty-two men survived;
all the officers, except five, were either dead or captured. Three
thousand combatants had been massacred in that barn. A sergeant of the
English Guards, the foremost boxer in England, reputed invulnerable by
his companions, had been killed there by a little French drummer-boy.
Baring had been dislodged, Alten put to the sword. Many flags had been
lost, one from Alten’s division, and one from the battalion of
Lunenburg, carried by a prince of the house of Deux-Ponts. The Scotch
Grays no longer existed; Ponsonby’s great dragoons had been hacked to
pieces. That valiant cavalry had bent beneath the lancers of Bro and
beneath the cuirassiers of Travers; out of twelve hundred horses, six
hundred remained; out of three lieutenant-colonels, two lay on the
earth,—Hamilton wounded, Mater slain. Ponsonby had fallen, riddled by
seven lance-thrusts. Gordon was dead. Marsh was dead. Two divisions,
the fifth and the sixth, had been annihilated.

Hougomont injured, La Haie-Sainte taken, there now existed but one
rallying-point, the centre. That point still held firm. Wellington
reinforced it. He summoned thither Hill, who was at Merle-Braine; he
summoned Chassé, who was at Braine-l’Alleud.

The centre of the English army, rather concave, very dense, and very
compact, was strongly posted. It occupied the plateau of
Mont-Saint-Jean, having behind it the village, and in front of it the
slope, which was tolerably steep then. It rested on that stout stone
dwelling which at that time belonged to the domain of Nivelles, and
which marks the intersection of the roads—a pile of the sixteenth
century, and so robust that the cannon-balls rebounded from it without
injuring it. All about the plateau the English had cut the hedges here
and there, made embrasures in the hawthorn-trees, thrust the throat of
a cannon between two branches, embattled the shrubs. There artillery
was ambushed in the brushwood. This punic labor, incontestably
authorized by war, which permits traps, was so well done, that Haxo,
who had been despatched by the Emperor at nine o’clock in the morning
to reconnoitre the enemy’s batteries, had discovered nothing of it, and
had returned and reported to Napoleon that there were no obstacles
except the two barricades which barred the road to Nivelles and to
Genappe. It was at the season when the grain is tall; on the edge of
the plateau a battalion of Kempt’s brigade, the 95th, armed with
carabines, was concealed in the tall wheat.

Thus assured and buttressed, the centre of the Anglo-Dutch army was
well posted. The peril of this position lay in the forest of Soignes,
then adjoining the field of battle, and intersected by the ponds of
Groenendael and Boitsfort. An army could not retreat thither without
dissolving; the regiments would have broken up immediately there. The
artillery would have been lost among the morasses. The retreat,
according to many a man versed in the art,—though it is disputed by
others,—would have been a disorganized flight.

To this centre, Wellington added one of Chassé’s brigades taken from
the right wing, and one of Wincke’s brigades taken from the left wing,
plus Clinton’s division. To his English, to the regiments of Halkett,
to the brigades of Mitchell, to the guards of Maitland, he gave as
reinforcements and aids, the infantry of Brunswick, Nassau’s
contingent, Kielmansegg’s Hanoverians, and Ompteda’s Germans. This
placed twenty-six battalions under his hand. _The right wing_, as
Charras says, _was thrown back on the centre_. An enormous battery was
masked by sacks of earth at the spot where there now stands what is
called the “Museum of Waterloo.” Besides this, Wellington had, behind a
rise in the ground, Somerset’s Dragoon Guards, fourteen hundred horse
strong. It was the remaining half of the justly celebrated English
cavalry. Ponsonby destroyed, Somerset remained.

The battery, which, if completed, would have been almost a redoubt, was
ranged behind a very low garden wall, backed up with a coating of bags
of sand and a large slope of earth. This work was not finished; there
had been no time to make a palisade for it.

Wellington, uneasy but impassive, was on horseback, and there remained
the whole day in the same attitude, a little in advance of the old mill
of Mont-Saint-Jean, which is still in existence, beneath an elm, which
an Englishman, an enthusiastic vandal, purchased later on for two
hundred francs, cut down, and carried off. Wellington was coldly
heroic. The bullets rained about him. His aide-de-camp, Gordon, fell at
his side. Lord Hill, pointing to a shell which had burst, said to him:
“My lord, what are your orders in case you are killed?” “To do like
me,” replied Wellington. To Clinton he said laconically, “To hold this
spot to the last man.” The day was evidently turning out ill.
Wellington shouted to his old companions of Talavera, of Vittoria, of
Salamanca: “Boys, can retreat be thought of? Think of old England!”


Towards four o’clock, the English line drew back. Suddenly nothing was
visible on the crest of the plateau except the artillery and the
sharpshooters; the rest had disappeared: the regiments, dislodged by
the shells and the French bullets, retreated into the bottom, now
intersected by the back road of the farm of Mont-Saint-Jean; a
retrograde movement took place, the English front hid itself,
Wellington drew back. “The beginning of retreat!” cried Napoleon.




CHAPTER VII—NAPOLEON IN A GOOD HUMOR


The Emperor, though ill and discommoded on horseback by a local
trouble, had never been in a better humor than on that day. His
impenetrability had been smiling ever since the morning. On the 18th of
June, that profound soul masked by marble beamed blindly. The man who
had been gloomy at Austerlitz was gay at Waterloo. The greatest
favorites of destiny make mistakes. Our joys are composed of shadow.
The supreme smile is God’s alone.

_Ridet Cæsar, Pompeius flebit_, said the legionaries of the Fulminatrix
Legion. Pompey was not destined to weep on that occasion, but it is
certain that Cæsar laughed. While exploring on horseback at one o’clock
on the preceding night, in storm and rain, in company with Bertrand,
the communes in the neighborhood of Rossomme, satisfied at the sight of
the long line of the English camp-fires illuminating the whole horizon
from Frischemont to Braine-l’Alleud, it had seemed to him that fate, to
whom he had assigned a day on the field of Waterloo, was exact to the
appointment; he stopped his horse, and remained for some time
motionless, gazing at the lightning and listening to the thunder; and
this fatalist was heard to cast into the darkness this mysterious
saying, “We are in accord.” Napoleon was mistaken. They were no longer
in accord.

He took not a moment for sleep; every instant of that night was marked
by a joy for him. He traversed the line of the principal outposts,
halting here and there to talk to the sentinels. At half-past two, near
the wood of Hougomont, he heard the tread of a column on the march; he
thought at the moment that it was a retreat on the part of Wellington.
He said: “It is the rear-guard of the English getting under way for the
purpose of decamping. I will take prisoners the six thousand English
who have just arrived at Ostend.” He conversed expansively; he regained
the animation which he had shown at his landing on the first of March,
when he pointed out to the Grand-Marshal the enthusiastic peasant of
the Gulf Juan, and cried, “Well, Bertrand, here is a reinforcement
already!” On the night of the 17th to the 18th of June he rallied
Wellington. “That little Englishman needs a lesson,” said Napoleon. The
rain redoubled in violence; the thunder rolled while the Emperor was
speaking.

At half-past three o’clock in the morning, he lost one illusion;
officers who had been despatched to reconnoitre announced to him that
the enemy was not making any movement. Nothing was stirring; not a
bivouac-fire had been extinguished; the English army was asleep. The
silence on earth was profound; the only noise was in the heavens. At
four o’clock, a peasant was brought in to him by the scouts; this
peasant had served as guide to a brigade of English cavalry, probably
Vivian’s brigade, which was on its way to take up a position in the
village of Ohain, at the extreme left. At five o’clock, two Belgian
deserters reported to him that they had just quitted their regiment,
and that the English army was ready for battle. “So much the better!”
exclaimed Napoleon. “I prefer to overthrow them rather than to drive
them back.”


In the morning he dismounted in the mud on the slope which forms an
angle with the Plancenoit road, had a kitchen table and a peasant’s
chair brought to him from the farm of Rossomme, seated himself, with a
truss of straw for a carpet, and spread out on the table the chart of
the battle-field, saying to Soult as he did so, “A pretty
checker-board.”


In consequence of the rains during the night, the transports of
provisions, embedded in the soft roads, had not been able to arrive by
morning; the soldiers had had no sleep; they were wet and fasting. This
did not prevent Napoleon from exclaiming cheerfully to Ney, “We have
ninety chances out of a hundred.” At eight o’clock the Emperor’s
breakfast was brought to him. He invited many generals to it. During
breakfast, it was said that Wellington had been to a ball two nights
before, in Brussels, at the Duchess of Richmond’s; and Soult, a rough
man of war, with a face of an archbishop, said, “The ball takes place
to-day.” The Emperor jested with Ney, who said, “Wellington will not be
so simple as to wait for Your Majesty.” That was his way, however. “He
was fond of jesting,” says Fleury de Chaboulon. “A merry humor was at
the foundation of his character,” says Gourgaud. “He abounded in
pleasantries, which were more peculiar than witty,” says Benjamin
Constant. These gayeties of a giant are worthy of insistence. It was he
who called his grenadiers “his grumblers”; he pinched their ears; he
pulled their moustaches. “The Emperor did nothing but play pranks on
us,” is the remark of one of them. During the mysterious trip from the
island of Elba to France, on the 27th of February, on the open sea, the
French brig of war, _Le Zéphyr_, having encountered the brig
_L’Inconstant_, on which Napoleon was concealed, and having asked the
news of Napoleon from _L’Inconstant_, the Emperor, who still wore in
his hat the white and amaranthine cockade sown with bees, which he had
adopted at the isle of Elba, laughingly seized the speaking-trumpet,
and answered for himself, “The Emperor is well.” A man who laughs like
that is on familiar terms with events. Napoleon indulged in many fits
of this laughter during the breakfast at Waterloo. After breakfast he
meditated for a quarter of an hour; then two generals seated themselves
on the truss of straw, pen in hand and their paper on their knees, and
the Emperor dictated to them the order of battle.

At nine o’clock, at the instant when the French army, ranged in
echelons and set in motion in five columns, had deployed—the divisions
in two lines, the artillery between the brigades, the music at their
head; as they beat the march, with rolls on the drums and the blasts of
trumpets, mighty, vast, joyous, a sea of casques, of sabres, and of
bayonets on the horizon, the Emperor was touched, and twice exclaimed,
“Magnificent! Magnificent!”


Between nine o’clock and half-past ten the whole army, incredible as it
may appear, had taken up its position and ranged itself in six lines,
forming, to repeat the Emperor’s expression, “the figure of six V’s.” A
few moments after the formation of the battle-array, in the midst of
that profound silence, like that which heralds the beginning of a
storm, which precedes engagements, the Emperor tapped Haxo on the
shoulder, as he beheld the three batteries of twelve-pounders, detached
by his orders from the corps of Erlon, Reille, and Lobau, and destined
to begin the action by taking Mont-Saint-Jean, which was situated at
the intersection of the Nivelles and the Genappe roads, and said to
him, “There are four and twenty handsome maids, General.”


Sure of the issue, he encouraged with a smile, as they passed before
him, the company of sappers of the first corps, which he had appointed
to barricade Mont-Saint-Jean as soon as the village should be carried.
All this serenity had been traversed by but a single word of haughty
pity; perceiving on his left, at a spot where there now stands a large
tomb, those admirable Scotch Grays, with their superb horses, massing
themselves, he said, “It is a pity.”


Then he mounted his horse, advanced beyond Rossomme, and selected for
his post of observation a contracted elevation of turf to the right of
the road from Genappe to Brussels, which was his second station during
the battle. The third station, the one adopted at seven o’clock in the
evening, between La Belle-Alliance and La Haie-Sainte, is formidable;
it is a rather elevated knoll, which still exists, and behind which the
guard was massed on a slope of the plain. Around this knoll the balls
rebounded from the pavements of the road, up to Napoleon himself. As at
Brienne, he had over his head the shriek of the bullets and of the
heavy artillery. Mouldy cannon-balls, old sword-blades, and shapeless
projectiles, eaten up with rust, were picked up at the spot where his
horse’s feet stood. _Scabra rubigine_. A few years ago, a shell of
sixty pounds, still charged, and with its fuse broken off level with
the bomb, was unearthed. It was at this last post that the Emperor said
to his guide, Lacoste, a hostile and terrified peasant, who was
attached to the saddle of a hussar, and who turned round at every
discharge of canister and tried to hide behind Napoleon: “Fool, it is
shameful! You’ll get yourself killed with a ball in the back.” He who
writes these lines has himself found, in the friable soil of this
knoll, on turning over the sand, the remains of the neck of a bomb,
disintegrated, by the oxidization of six and forty years, and old
fragments of iron which parted like elder-twigs between the fingers.

Every one is aware that the variously inclined undulations of the
plains, where the engagement between Napoleon and Wellington took
place, are no longer what they were on June 18, 1815. By taking from
this mournful field the wherewithal to make a monument to it, its real
relief has been taken away, and history, disconcerted, no longer finds
her bearings there. It has been disfigured for the sake of glorifying
it. Wellington, when he beheld Waterloo once more, two years later,
exclaimed, “They have altered my field of battle!” Where the great
pyramid of earth, surmounted by the lion, rises to-day, there was a
hillock which descended in an easy slope towards the Nivelles road, but
which was almost an escarpment on the side of the highway to Genappe.
The elevation of this escarpment can still be measured by the height of
the two knolls of the two great sepulchres which enclose the road from
Genappe to Brussels: one, the English tomb, is on the left; the other,
the German tomb, is on the right. There is no French tomb. The whole of
that plain is a sepulchre for France. Thanks to the thousands upon
thousands of cartloads of earth employed in the hillock one hundred and
fifty feet in height and half a mile in circumference, the plateau of
Mont-Saint-Jean is now accessible by an easy slope. On the day of
battle, particularly on the side of La Haie-Sainte, it was abrupt and
difficult of approach. The slope there is so steep that the English
cannon could not see the farm, situated in the bottom of the valley,
which was the centre of the combat. On the 18th of June, 1815, the
rains had still farther increased this acclivity, the mud complicated
the problem of the ascent, and the men not only slipped back, but stuck
fast in the mire. Along the crest of the plateau ran a sort of trench
whose presence it was impossible for the distant observer to divine.

What was this trench? Let us explain. Braine-l’Alleud is a Belgian
village; Ohain is another. These villages, both of them concealed in
curves of the landscape, are connected by a road about a league and a
half in length, which traverses the plain along its undulating level,
and often enters and buries itself in the hills like a furrow, which
makes a ravine of this road in some places. In 1815, as at the present
day, this road cut the crest of the plateau of Mont-Saint-Jean between
the two highways from Genappe and Nivelles; only, it is now on a level
with the plain; it was then a hollow way. Its two slopes have been
appropriated for the monumental hillock. This road was, and still is, a
trench throughout the greater portion of its course; a hollow trench,
sometimes a dozen feet in depth, and whose banks, being too steep,
crumbled away here and there, particularly in winter, under driving
rains. Accidents happened here. The road was so narrow at the
Braine-l’Alleud entrance that a passer-by was crushed by a cart, as is
proved by a stone cross which stands near the cemetery, and which gives
the name of the dead, _Monsieur Bernard Debrye, Merchant of Brussels_,
and the date of the accident, _February, 1637_.8 It was so deep on the
table-land of Mont-Saint-Jean that a peasant, Mathieu Nicaise, was
crushed there, in 1783, by a slide from the slope, as is stated on
another stone cross, the top of which has disappeared in the process of
clearing the ground, but whose overturned pedestal is still visible on
the grassy slope to the left of the highway between La Haie-Sainte and
the farm of Mont-Saint-Jean.

On the day of battle, this hollow road whose existence was in no way
indicated, bordering the crest of Mont-Saint-Jean, a trench at the
summit of the escarpment, a rut concealed in the soil, was invisible;
that is to say, terrible.




CHAPTER VIII—THE EMPEROR PUTS A QUESTION TO THE GUIDE LACOSTE


So, on the morning of Waterloo, Napoleon was content.

He was right; the plan of battle conceived by him was, as we have seen,
really admirable.

The battle once begun, its very various changes,—the resistance of
Hougomont; the tenacity of La Haie-Sainte; the killing of Bauduin; the
disabling of Foy; the unexpected wall against which Soye’s brigade was
shattered; Guilleminot’s fatal heedlessness when he had neither petard
nor powder sacks; the miring of the batteries; the fifteen unescorted
pieces overwhelmed in a hollow way by Uxbridge; the small effect of the
bombs falling in the English lines, and there embedding themselves in
the rain-soaked soil, and only succeeding in producing volcanoes of
mud, so that the canister was turned into a splash; the uselessness of
Piré’s demonstration on Braine-l’Alleud; all that cavalry, fifteen
squadrons, almost exterminated; the right wing of the English badly
alarmed, the left wing badly cut into; Ney’s strange mistake in
massing, instead of echelonning the four divisions of the first corps;
men delivered over to grape-shot, arranged in ranks twenty-seven deep
and with a frontage of two hundred; the frightful holes made in these
masses by the cannon-balls; attacking columns disorganized; the
side-battery suddenly unmasked on their flank; Bourgeois, Donzelot, and
Durutte compromised; Quiot repulsed; Lieutenant Vieux, that Hercules
graduated at the Polytechnic School, wounded at the moment when he was
beating in with an axe the door of La Haie-Sainte under the downright
fire of the English barricade which barred the angle of the road from
Genappe to Brussels; Marcognet’s division caught between the infantry
and the cavalry, shot down at the very muzzle of the guns amid the
grain by Best and Pack, put to the sword by Ponsonby; his battery of
seven pieces spiked; the Prince of Saxe-Weimar holding and guarding, in
spite of the Comte d’Erlon, both Frischemont and Smohain; the flag of
the 105th taken, the flag of the 45th captured; that black Prussian
hussar stopped by runners of the flying column of three hundred light
cavalry on the scout between Wavre and Plancenoit; the alarming things
that had been said by prisoners; Grouchy’s delay; fifteen hundred men
killed in the orchard of Hougomont in less than an hour; eighteen
hundred men overthrown in a still shorter time about La
Haie-Sainte,—all these stormy incidents passing like the clouds of
battle before Napoleon, had hardly troubled his gaze and had not
overshadowed that face of imperial certainty. Napoleon was accustomed
to gaze steadily at war; he never added up the heart-rending details,
cipher by cipher; ciphers mattered little to him, provided that they
furnished the total—victory; he was not alarmed if the beginnings did
go astray, since he thought himself the master and the possessor at the
end; he knew how to wait, supposing himself to be out of the question,
and he treated destiny as his equal: he seemed to say to fate, Thou
wilt not dare.

Composed half of light and half of shadow, Napoleon thought himself
protected in good and tolerated in evil. He had, or thought that he
had, a connivance, one might almost say a complicity, of events in his
favor, which was equivalent to the invulnerability of antiquity.

Nevertheless, when one has Bérésina, Leipzig, and Fontainebleau behind
one, it seems as though one might distrust Waterloo. A mysterious frown
becomes perceptible in the depths of the heavens.

At the moment when Wellington retreated, Napoleon shuddered. He
suddenly beheld the table-land of Mont-Saint-Jean cleared, and the van
of the English army disappear. It was rallying, but hiding itself. The
Emperor half rose in his stirrups. The lightning of victory flashed
from his eyes.

Wellington, driven into a corner at the forest of Soignes and
destroyed—that was the definitive conquest of England by France; it was
Crécy, Poitiers, Malplaquet, and Ramillies avenged. The man of Marengo
was wiping out Agincourt.

So the Emperor, meditating on this terrible turn of fortune, swept his
glass for the last time over all the points of the field of battle. His
guard, standing behind him with grounded arms, watched him from below
with a sort of religion. He pondered; he examined the slopes, noted the
declivities, scrutinized the clumps of trees, the square of rye, the
path; he seemed to be counting each bush. He gazed with some intentness
at the English barricades of the two highways,—two large abatis of
trees, that on the road to Genappe above La Haie-Sainte, armed with two
cannon, the only ones out of all the English artillery which commanded
the extremity of the field of battle, and that on the road to Nivelles
where gleamed the Dutch bayonets of Chassé’s brigade. Near this
barricade he observed the old chapel of Saint Nicholas, painted white,
which stands at the angle of the crossroad near Braine-l’Alleud; he
bent down and spoke in a low voice to the guide Lacoste. The guide made
a negative sign with his head, which was probably perfidious.

The Emperor straightened himself up and fell to thinking.

Wellington had drawn back.

All that remained to do was to complete this retreat by crushing him.

Napoleon turning round abruptly, despatched an express at full speed to
Paris to announce that the battle was won.

Napoleon was one of those geniuses from whom thunder darts.

He had just found his clap of thunder.

He gave orders to Milhaud’s cuirassiers to carry the table-land of
Mont-Saint-Jean.




CHAPTER IX—THE UNEXPECTED


There were three thousand five hundred of them. They formed a front a
quarter of a league in extent. They were giant men, on colossal horses.
There were six and twenty squadrons of them; and they had behind them
to support them Lefebvre-Desnouettes’s division,—the one hundred and
six picked gendarmes, the light cavalry of the Guard, eleven hundred
and ninety-seven men, and the lancers of the guard of eight hundred and
eighty lances. They wore casques without horse-tails, and cuirasses of
beaten iron, with horse-pistols in their holsters, and long
sabre-swords. That morning the whole army had admired them, when, at
nine o’clock, with braying of trumpets and all the music playing “Let
us watch o’er the Safety of the Empire,” they had come in a solid
column, with one of their batteries on their flank, another in their
centre, and deployed in two ranks between the roads to Genappe and
Frischemont, and taken up their position for battle in that powerful
second line, so cleverly arranged by Napoleon, which, having on its
extreme left Kellermann’s cuirassiers and on its extreme right
Milhaud’s cuirassiers, had, so to speak, two wings of iron.

Aide-de-camp Bernard carried them the Emperor’s orders. Ney drew his
sword and placed himself at their head. The enormous squadrons were set
in motion.

Then a formidable spectacle was seen.

All their cavalry, with upraised swords, standards and trumpets flung
to the breeze, formed in columns by divisions, descended, by a
simultaneous movement and like one man, with the precision of a brazen
battering-ram which is effecting a breach, the hill of La Belle
Alliance, plunged into the terrible depths in which so many men had
already fallen, disappeared there in the smoke, then emerging from that
shadow, reappeared on the other side of the valley, still compact and
in close ranks, mounting at a full trot, through a storm of grape-shot
which burst upon them, the terrible muddy slope of the table-land of
Mont-Saint-Jean. They ascended, grave, threatening, imperturbable; in
the intervals between the musketry and the artillery, their colossal
trampling was audible. Being two divisions, there were two columns of
them; Wathier’s division held the right, Delort’s division was on the
left. It seemed as though two immense adders of steel were to be seen
crawling towards the crest of the table-land. It traversed the battle
like a prodigy.

Nothing like it had been seen since the taking of the great redoubt of
the Muskowa by the heavy cavalry; Murat was lacking here, but Ney was
again present. It seemed as though that mass had become a monster and
had but one soul. Each column undulated and swelled like the ring of a
polyp. They could be seen through a vast cloud of smoke which was rent
here and there. A confusion of helmets, of cries, of sabres, a stormy
heaving of the cruppers of horses amid the cannons and the flourish of
trumpets, a terrible and disciplined tumult; over all, the cuirasses
like the scales on the hydra.

These narrations seemed to belong to another age. Something parallel to
this vision appeared, no doubt, in the ancient Orphic epics, which told
of the centaurs, the old hippanthropes, those Titans with human heads
and equestrian chests who scaled Olympus at a gallop, horrible,
invulnerable, sublime—gods and beasts.

Odd numerical coincidence,—twenty-six battalions rode to meet
twenty-six battalions. Behind the crest of the plateau, in the shadow
of the masked battery, the English infantry, formed into thirteen
squares, two battalions to the square, in two lines, with seven in the
first line, six in the second, the stocks of their guns to their
shoulders, taking aim at that which was on the point of appearing,
waited, calm, mute, motionless. They did not see the cuirassiers, and
the cuirassiers did not see them. They listened to the rise of this
flood of men. They heard the swelling noise of three thousand horse,
the alternate and symmetrical tramp of their hoofs at full trot, the
jingling of the cuirasses, the clang of the sabres and a sort of grand
and savage breathing. There ensued a most terrible silence; then, all
at once, a long file of uplifted arms, brandishing sabres, appeared
above the crest, and casques, trumpets, and standards, and three
thousand heads with gray moustaches, shouting, “Vive l’Empereur!” All
this cavalry debouched on the plateau, and it was like the appearance
of an earthquake.

All at once, a tragic incident; on the English left, on our right, the
head of the column of cuirassiers reared up with a frightful clamor. On
arriving at the culminating point of the crest, ungovernable, utterly
given over to fury and their course of extermination of the squares and
cannon, the cuirassiers had just caught sight of a trench,—a trench
between them and the English. It was the hollow road of Ohain.

It was a terrible moment. The ravine was there, unexpected, yawning,
directly under the horses’ feet, two fathoms deep between its double
slopes; the second file pushed the first into it, and the third pushed
on the second; the horses reared and fell backward, landed on their
haunches, slid down, all four feet in the air, crushing and
overwhelming the riders; and there being no means of retreat,—the whole
column being no longer anything more than a projectile,—the force which
had been acquired to crush the English crushed the French; the
inexorable ravine could only yield when filled; horses and riders
rolled there pell-mell, grinding each other, forming but one mass of
flesh in this gulf: when this trench was full of living men, the rest
marched over them and passed on. Almost a third of Dubois’s brigade
fell into that abyss.

This began the loss of the battle.

A local tradition, which evidently exaggerates matters, says that two
thousand horses and fifteen hundred men were buried in the hollow road
of Ohain. This figure probably comprises all the other corpses which
were flung into this ravine the day after the combat.

Let us note in passing that it was Dubois’s sorely tried brigade which,
an hour previously, making a charge to one side, had captured the flag
of the Lunenburg battalion.

Napoleon, before giving the order for this charge of Milhaud’s
cuirassiers, had scrutinized the ground, but had not been able to see
that hollow road, which did not even form a wrinkle on the surface of
the plateau. Warned, nevertheless, and put on the alert by the little
white chapel which marks its angle of junction with the Nivelles
highway, he had probably put a question as to the possibility of an
obstacle, to the guide Lacoste. The guide had answered No. We might
almost affirm that Napoleon’s catastrophe originated in that sign of a
peasant’s head.

Other fatalities were destined to arise.

Was it possible that Napoleon should have won that battle? We answer
No. Why? Because of Wellington? Because of Blücher? No. Because of God.

Bonaparte victor at Waterloo; that does not come within the law of the
nineteenth century. Another series of facts was in preparation, in
which there was no longer any room for Napoleon. The ill will of events
had declared itself long before.

It was time that this vast man should fall.

The excessive weight of this man in human destiny disturbed the
balance. This individual alone counted for more than a universal group.
These plethoras of all human vitality concentrated in a single head;
the world mounting to the brain of one man,—this would be mortal to
civilization were it to last. The moment had arrived for the
incorruptible and supreme equity to alter its plan. Probably the
principles and the elements, on which the regular gravitations of the
moral, as of the material, world depend, had complained. Smoking blood,
over-filled cemeteries, mothers in tears,—these are formidable
pleaders. When the earth is suffering from too heavy a burden, there
are mysterious groanings of the shades, to which the abyss lends an
ear.

Napoleon had been denounced in the infinite and his fall had been
decided on.

He embarrassed God.

Waterloo is not a battle; it is a change of front on the part of the
Universe.




CHAPTER X—THE PLATEAU OF MONT-SAINT-JEAN


The battery was unmasked at the same moment with the ravine.

Sixty cannons and the thirteen squares darted lightning point-blank on
the cuirassiers. The intrepid General Delort made the military salute
to the English battery.

The whole of the flying artillery of the English had re-entered the
squares at a gallop. The cuirassiers had not had even the time for a
halt. The disaster of the hollow road had decimated, but not
discouraged them. They belonged to that class of men who, when
diminished in number, increase in courage.

Wathier’s column alone had suffered in the disaster; Delort’s column,
which Ney had deflected to the left, as though he had a presentiment of
an ambush, had arrived whole.

The cuirassiers hurled themselves on the English squares.

At full speed, with bridles loose, swords in their teeth, pistols in
fist,—such was the attack.

There are moments in battles in which the soul hardens the man until
the soldier is changed into a statue, and when all this flesh turns
into granite. The English battalions, desperately assaulted, did not
stir.

Then it was terrible.

All the faces of the English squares were attacked at once. A frenzied
whirl enveloped them. That cold infantry remained impassive. The first
rank knelt and received the cuirassiers on their bayonets, the second
ranks shot them down; behind the second rank the cannoneers charged
their guns, the front of the square parted, permitted the passage of an
eruption of grape-shot, and closed again. The cuirassiers replied by
crushing them. Their great horses reared, strode across the ranks,
leaped over the bayonets and fell, gigantic, in the midst of these four
living wells. The cannon-balls ploughed furrows in these cuirassiers;
the cuirassiers made breaches in the squares. Files of men disappeared,
ground to dust under the horses. The bayonets plunged into the bellies
of these centaurs; hence a hideousness of wounds which has probably
never been seen anywhere else. The squares, wasted by this mad cavalry,
closed up their ranks without flinching. Inexhaustible in the matter of
grape-shot, they created explosions in their assailants’ midst. The
form of this combat was monstrous. These squares were no longer
battalions, they were craters; those cuirassiers were no longer
cavalry, they were a tempest. Each square was a volcano attacked by a
cloud; lava contended with lightning.

The square on the extreme right, the most exposed of all, being in the
air, was almost annihilated at the very first shock. lt was formed of
the 75th regiment of Highlanders. The bagpipe-player in the centre
dropped his melancholy eyes, filled with the reflections of the forests
and the lakes, in profound inattention, while men were being
exterminated around him, and seated on a drum, with his pibroch under
his arm, played the Highland airs. These Scotchmen died thinking of Ben
Lothian, as did the Greeks recalling Argos. The sword of a cuirassier,
which hewed down the bagpipes and the arm which bore it, put an end to
the song by killing the singer.

The cuirassiers, relatively few in number, and still further diminished
by the catastrophe of the ravine, had almost the whole English army
against them, but they multiplied themselves so that each man of them
was equal to ten. Nevertheless, some Hanoverian battalions yielded.
Wellington perceived it, and thought of his cavalry. Had Napoleon at
that same moment thought of his infantry, he would have won the battle.
This forgetfulness was his great and fatal mistake.

All at once, the cuirassiers, who had been the assailants, found
themselves assailed. The English cavalry was at their back. Before them
two squares, behind them Somerset; Somerset meant fourteen hundred
dragoons of the guard. On the right, Somerset had Dornberg with the
German light-horse, and on his left, Trip with the Belgian carabineers;
the cuirassiers attacked on the flank and in front, before and in the
rear, by infantry and cavalry, had to face all sides. What mattered it
to them? They were a whirlwind. Their valor was something
indescribable.

In addition to this, they had behind them the battery, which was still
thundering. It was necessary that it should be so, or they could never
have been wounded in the back. One of their cuirasses, pierced on the
shoulder by a ball from a biscayan,9 is in the collection of the
Waterloo Museum.

For such Frenchmen nothing less than such Englishmen was needed. It was
no longer a hand-to-hand conflict; it was a shadow, a fury, a dizzy
transport of souls and courage, a hurricane of lightning swords. In an
instant the fourteen hundred dragoon guards numbered only eight
hundred. Fuller, their lieutenant-colonel, fell dead. Ney rushed up
with the lancers and Lefebvre-Desnouettes’s light-horse. The plateau of
Mont-Saint-Jean was captured, recaptured, captured again. The
cuirassiers quitted the cavalry to return to the infantry; or, to put
it more exactly, the whole of that formidable rout collared each other
without releasing the other. The squares still held firm.

There were a dozen assaults. Ney had four horses killed under him. Half
the cuirassiers remained on the plateau. This conflict lasted two
hours.

The English army was profoundly shaken. There is no doubt that, had
they not been enfeebled in their first shock by the disaster of the
hollow road the cuirassiers would have overwhelmed the centre and
decided the victory. This extraordinary cavalry petrified Clinton, who
had seen Talavera and Badajoz. Wellington, three-quarters vanquished,
admired heroically. He said in an undertone, “Sublime!”


The cuirassiers annihilated seven squares out of thirteen, took or
spiked sixty pieces of ordnance, and captured from the English
regiments six flags, which three cuirassiers and three chasseurs of the
Guard bore to the Emperor, in front of the farm of La Belle Alliance.

Wellington’s situation had grown worse. This strange battle was like a
duel between two raging, wounded men, each of whom, still fighting and
still resisting, is expending all his blood.

Which of the two will be the first to fall?

The conflict on the plateau continued.

What had become of the cuirassiers? No one could have told. One thing
is certain, that on the day after the battle, a cuirassier and his
horse were found dead among the woodwork of the scales for vehicles at
Mont-Saint-Jean, at the very point where the four roads from Nivelles,
Genappe, La Hulpe, and Brussels meet and intersect each other. This
horseman had pierced the English lines. One of the men who picked up
the body still lives at Mont-Saint-Jean. His name is Dehaze. He was
eighteen years old at that time.

Wellington felt that he was yielding. The crisis was at hand.

The cuirassiers had not succeeded, since the centre was not broken
through. As every one was in possession of the plateau, no one held it,
and in fact it remained, to a great extent, with the English.
Wellington held the village and the culminating plain; Ney had only the
crest and the slope. They seemed rooted in that fatal soil on both
sides.

But the weakening of the English seemed irremediable. The bleeding of
that army was horrible. Kempt, on the left wing, demanded
reinforcements. “There are none,” replied Wellington; “he must let
himself be killed!” Almost at that same moment, a singular coincidence
which paints the exhaustion of the two armies, Ney demanded infantry
from Napoleon, and Napoleon exclaimed, “Infantry! Where does he expect
me to get it? Does he think I can make it?”


Nevertheless, the English army was in the worse case of the two. The
furious onsets of those great squadrons with cuirasses of iron and
breasts of steel had ground the infantry to nothing. A few men
clustered round a flag marked the post of a regiment; such and such a
battalion was commanded only by a captain or a lieutenant; Alten’s
division, already so roughly handled at La Haie-Sainte, was almost
destroyed; the intrepid Belgians of Van Kluze’s brigade strewed the
rye-fields all along the Nivelles road; hardly anything was left of
those Dutch grenadiers, who, intermingled with Spaniards in our ranks
in 1811, fought against Wellington; and who, in 1815, rallied to the
English standard, fought against Napoleon. The loss in officers was
considerable. Lord Uxbridge, who had his leg buried on the following
day, had his knee shattered. If, on the French side, in that tussle of
the cuirassiers, Delort, l’Héritier, Colbert, Dnop, Travers, and
Blancard were disabled, on the side of the English there was Alten
wounded, Barne wounded, Delancey killed, Van Meeren killed, Ompteda
killed, the whole of Wellington’s staff decimated, and England had the
worse of it in that bloody scale. The second regiment of foot-guards
had lost five lieutenant-colonels, four captains, and three ensigns;
the first battalion of the 30th infantry had lost 24 officers and 1,200
soldiers; the 79th Highlanders had lost 24 officers wounded, 18
officers killed, 450 soldiers killed. The Hanoverian hussars of
Cumberland, a whole regiment, with Colonel Hacke at its head, who was
destined to be tried later on and cashiered, had turned bridle in the
presence of the fray, and had fled to the forest of Soignes, sowing
defeat all the way to Brussels. The transports, ammunition-wagons, the
baggage-wagons, the wagons filled with wounded, on perceiving that the
French were gaining ground and approaching the forest, rushed headlong
thither. The Dutch, mowed down by the French cavalry, cried, “Alarm!”
From Vert-Coucou to Groenendael, for a distance of nearly two leagues
in the direction of Brussels, according to the testimony of
eye-witnesses who are still alive, the roads were encumbered with
fugitives. This panic was such that it attacked the Prince de Condé at
Mechlin, and Louis XVIII. at Ghent. With the exception of the feeble
reserve echelonned behind the ambulance established at the farm of
Mont-Saint-Jean, and of Vivian’s and Vandeleur’s brigades, which
flanked the left wing, Wellington had no cavalry left. A number of
batteries lay unhorsed. These facts are attested by Siborne; and
Pringle, exaggerating the disaster, goes so far as to say that the
Anglo-Dutch army was reduced to thirty-four thousand men. The Iron Duke
remained calm, but his lips blanched. Vincent, the Austrian
commissioner, Alava, the Spanish commissioner, who were present at the
battle in the English staff, thought the Duke lost. At five o’clock
Wellington drew out his watch, and he was heard to murmur these
sinister words, “Blücher, or night!”


It was at about that moment that a distant line of bayonets gleamed on
the heights in the direction of Frischemont.

Here comes the change of face in this giant drama.




CHAPTER XI—A BAD GUIDE TO NAPOLEON; A GOOD GUIDE TO BÜLOW


The painful surprise of Napoleon is well known. Grouchy hoped for,
Blücher arriving. Death instead of life.

Fate has these turns; the throne of the world was expected; it was
Saint Helena that was seen.

If the little shepherd who served as guide to Bülow, Blücher’s
lieutenant, had advised him to debouch from the forest above
Frischemont, instead of below Plancenoit, the form of the nineteenth
century might, perhaps, have been different. Napoleon would have won
the battle of Waterloo. By any other route than that below Plancenoit,
the Prussian army would have come out upon a ravine impassable for
artillery, and Bülow would not have arrived.

Now the Prussian general, Muffling, declares that one hour’s delay, and
Blücher would not have found Wellington on his feet. “The battle was
lost.”


It was time that Bülow should arrive, as will be seen. He had,
moreover, been very much delayed. He had bivouacked at Dion-le-Mont,
and had set out at daybreak; but the roads were impassable, and his
divisions stuck fast in the mire. The ruts were up to the hubs of the
cannons. Moreover, he had been obliged to pass the Dyle on the narrow
bridge of Wavre; the street leading to the bridge had been fired by the
French, so the caissons and ammunition-wagons could not pass between
two rows of burning houses, and had been obliged to wait until the
conflagration was extinguished. It was midday before Bülow’s vanguard
had been able to reach Chapelle-Saint-Lambert.

Had the action been begun two hours earlier, it would have been over at
four o’clock, and Blücher would have fallen on the battle won by
Napoleon. Such are these immense risks proportioned to an infinite
which we cannot comprehend.

The Emperor had been the first, as early as midday, to descry with his
field-glass, on the extreme horizon, something which had attracted his
attention. He had said, “I see yonder a cloud, which seems to me to be
troops.” Then he asked the Duc de Dalmatie, “Soult, what do you see in
the direction of Chapelle-Saint-Lambert?” The marshal, levelling his
glass, answered, “Four or five thousand men, Sire; evidently Grouchy.”
But it remained motionless in the mist. All the glasses of the staff
had studied “the cloud” pointed out by the Emperor. Some said: “It is
trees.” The truth is, that the cloud did not move. The Emperor detached
Domon’s division of light cavalry to reconnoitre in that quarter.

Bülow had not moved, in fact. His vanguard was very feeble, and could
accomplish nothing. He was obliged to wait for the body of the army
corps, and he had received orders to concentrate his forces before
entering into line; but at five o’clock, perceiving Wellington’s peril,
Blücher ordered Bülow to attack, and uttered these remarkable words:
“We must give air to the English army.”


A little later, the divisions of Losthin, Hiller, Hacke, and Ryssel
deployed before Lobau’s corps, the cavalry of Prince William of Prussia
debouched from the forest of Paris, Plancenoit was in flames, and the
Prussian cannon-balls began to rain even upon the ranks of the guard in
reserve behind Napoleon.




CHAPTER XII—THE GUARD


Every one knows the rest,—the irruption of a third army; the battle
broken to pieces; eighty-six mouths of fire thundering simultaneously;
Pirch the first coming up with Bülow; Zieten’s cavalry led by Blücher
in person, the French driven back; Marcognet swept from the plateau of
Ohain; Durutte dislodged from Papelotte; Donzelot and Quiot retreating;
Lobau caught on the flank; a fresh battle precipitating itself on our
dismantled regiments at nightfall; the whole English line resuming the
offensive and thrust forward; the gigantic breach made in the French
army; the English grape-shot and the Prussian grape-shot aiding each
other; the extermination; disaster in front; disaster on the flank; the
Guard entering the line in the midst of this terrible crumbling of all
things.

Conscious that they were about to die, they shouted, “Vive l’Empereur!”
History records nothing more touching than that agony bursting forth in
acclamations.

The sky had been overcast all day long. All of a sudden, at that very
moment,—it was eight o’clock in the evening—the clouds on the horizon
parted, and allowed the grand and sinister glow of the setting sun to
pass through, athwart the elms on the Nivelles road. They had seen it
rise at Austerlitz.

Each battalion of the Guard was commanded by a general for this final
catastrophe. Friant, Michel, Roguet, Harlet, Mallet, Poret de Morvan,
were there. When the tall caps of the grenadiers of the Guard, with
their large plaques bearing the eagle appeared, symmetrical, in line,
tranquil, in the midst of that combat, the enemy felt a respect for
France; they thought they beheld twenty victories entering the field of
battle, with wings outspread, and those who were the conquerors,
believing themselves to be vanquished, retreated; but Wellington
shouted, “Up, Guards, and aim straight!” The red regiment of English
guards, lying flat behind the hedges, sprang up, a cloud of grape-shot
riddled the tricolored flag and whistled round our eagles; all hurled
themselves forwards, and the final carnage began. In the darkness, the
Imperial Guard felt the army losing ground around it, and in the vast
shock of the rout it heard the desperate flight which had taken the
place of the “Vive l’Empereur!” and, with flight behind it, it
continued to advance, more crushed, losing more men at every step that
it took. There were none who hesitated, no timid men in its ranks. The
soldier in that troop was as much of a hero as the general. Not a man
was missing in that suicide.

Ney, bewildered, great with all the grandeur of accepted death, offered
himself to all blows in that tempest. He had his fifth horse killed
under him there. Perspiring, his eyes aflame, foaming at the mouth,
with uniform unbuttoned, one of his epaulets half cut off by a
sword-stroke from a horseguard, his plaque with the great eagle dented
by a bullet; bleeding, bemired, magnificent, a broken sword in his
hand, he said, “Come and see how a Marshal of France dies on the field
of battle!” But in vain; he did not die. He was haggard and angry. At
Drouet d’Erlon he hurled this question, “Are you not going to get
yourself killed?” In the midst of all that artillery engaged in
crushing a handful of men, he shouted: “So there is nothing for me! Oh!
I should like to have all these English bullets enter my bowels!”
Unhappy man, thou wert reserved for French bullets!




CHAPTER XIII—THE CATASTROPHE


The rout behind the Guard was melancholy.

The army yielded suddenly on all sides at once,—Hougomont, La
Haie-Sainte, Papelotte, Plancenoit. The cry “Treachery!” was followed
by a cry of “Save yourselves who can!” An army which is disbanding is
like a thaw. All yields, splits, cracks, floats, rolls, falls, jostles,
hastens, is precipitated. The disintegration is unprecedented. Ney
borrows a horse, leaps upon it, and without hat, cravat, or sword,
places himself across the Brussels road, stopping both English and
French. He strives to detain the army, he recalls it to its duty, he
insults it, he clings to the rout. He is overwhelmed. The soldiers fly
from him, shouting, “Long live Marshal Ney!” Two of Durutte’s regiments
go and come in affright as though tossed back and forth between the
swords of the Uhlans and the fusillade of the brigades of Kempt, Best,
Pack, and Rylandt; the worst of hand-to-hand conflicts is the defeat;
friends kill each other in order to escape; squadrons and battalions
break and disperse against each other, like the tremendous foam of
battle. Lobau at one extremity, and Reille at the other, are drawn into
the tide. In vain does Napoleon erect walls from what is left to him of
his Guard; in vain does he expend in a last effort his last serviceable
squadrons. Quiot retreats before Vivian, Kellermann before Vandeleur,
Lobau before Bülow, Morand before Pirch, Domon and Subervic before
Prince William of Prussia; Guyot, who led the Emperor’s squadrons to
the charge, falls beneath the feet of the English dragoons. Napoleon
gallops past the line of fugitives, harangues, urges, threatens,
entreats them. All the mouths which in the morning had shouted, “Long
live the Emperor!” remain gaping; they hardly recognize him. The
Prussian cavalry, newly arrived, dashes forwards, flies, hews, slashes,
kills, exterminates. Horses lash out, the cannons flee; the soldiers of
the artillery-train unharness the caissons and use the horses to make
their escape; transports overturned, with all four wheels in the air,
clog the road and occasion massacres. Men are crushed, trampled down,
others walk over the dead and the living. Arms are lost. A dizzy
multitude fills the roads, the paths, the bridges, the plains, the
hills, the valleys, the woods, encumbered by this invasion of forty
thousand men. Shouts despair, knapsacks and guns flung among the rye,
passages forced at the point of the sword, no more comrades, no more
officers, no more generals, an inexpressible terror. Zieten putting
France to the sword at its leisure. Lions converted into goats. Such
was the flight.

At Genappe, an effort was made to wheel about, to present a battle
front, to draw up in line. Lobau rallied three hundred men. The
entrance to the village was barricaded, but at the first volley of
Prussian canister, all took to flight again, and Lobau was taken. That
volley of grape-shot can be seen to-day imprinted on the ancient gable
of a brick building on the right of the road at a few minutes’ distance
before you enter Genappe. The Prussians threw themselves into Genappe,
furious, no doubt, that they were not more entirely the conquerors. The
pursuit was stupendous. Blücher ordered extermination. Roguet had set
the lugubrious example of threatening with death any French grenadier
who should bring him a Prussian prisoner. Blücher outdid Roguet.
Duhesme, the general of the Young Guard, hemmed in at the doorway of an
inn at Genappe, surrendered his sword to a huzzar of death, who took
the sword and slew the prisoner. The victory was completed by the
assassination of the vanquished. Let us inflict punishment, since we
are history: old Blücher disgraced himself. This ferocity put the
finishing touch to the disaster. The desperate route traversed Genappe,
traversed Quatre-Bras, traversed Gosselies, traversed Frasnes,
traversed Charleroi, traversed Thuin, and only halted at the frontier.
Alas! and who, then, was fleeing in that manner? The Grand Army.

This vertigo, this terror, this downfall into ruin of the loftiest
bravery which ever astounded history,—is that causeless? No. The shadow
of an enormous right is projected athwart Waterloo. It is the day of
destiny. The force which is mightier than man produced that day. Hence
the terrified wrinkle of those brows; hence all those great souls
surrendering their swords. Those who had conquered Europe have fallen
prone on the earth, with nothing left to say nor to do, feeling the
present shadow of a terrible presence. _Hoc erat in fatis_. That day
the perspective of the human race underwent a change. Waterloo is the
hinge of the nineteenth century. The disappearance of the great man was
necessary to the advent of the great century. Some one, a person to
whom one replies not, took the responsibility on himself. The panic of
heroes can be explained. In the battle of Waterloo there is something
more than a cloud, there is something of the meteor. God has passed by.

At nightfall, in a meadow near Genappe, Bernard and Bertrand seized by
the skirt of his coat and detained a man, haggard, pensive, sinister,
gloomy, who, dragged to that point by the current of the rout, had just
dismounted, had passed the bridle of his horse over his arm, and with
wild eye was returning alone to Waterloo. It was Napoleon, the immense
somnambulist of this dream which had crumbled, essaying once more to
advance.




CHAPTER XIV—THE LAST SQUARE


Several squares of the Guard, motionless amid this stream of the
defeat, as rocks in running water, held their own until night. Night
came, death also; they awaited that double shadow, and, invincible,
allowed themselves to be enveloped therein. Each regiment, isolated
from the rest, and having no bond with the army, now shattered in every
part, died alone. They had taken up position for this final action,
some on the heights of Rossomme, others on the plain of
Mont-Saint-Jean. There, abandoned, vanquished, terrible, those gloomy
squares endured their death-throes in formidable fashion. Ulm, Wagram,
Jena, Friedland, died with them.

At twilight, towards nine o’clock in the evening, one of them was left
at the foot of the plateau of Mont-Saint-Jean. In that fatal valley, at
the foot of that declivity which the cuirassiers had ascended, now
inundated by the masses of the English, under the converging fires of
the victorious hostile cavalry, under a frightful density of
projectiles, this square fought on. It was commanded by an obscure
officer named Cambronne. At each discharge, the square diminished and
replied. It replied to the grape-shot with a fusillade, continually
contracting its four walls. The fugitives pausing breathless for a
moment in the distance, listened in the darkness to that gloomy and
ever-decreasing thunder.

When this legion had been reduced to a handful, when nothing was left
of their flag but a rag, when their guns, the bullets all gone, were no
longer anything but clubs, when the heap of corpses was larger than the
group of survivors, there reigned among the conquerors, around those
men dying so sublimely, a sort of sacred terror, and the English
artillery, taking breath, became silent. This furnished a sort of
respite. These combatants had around them something in the nature of a
swarm of spectres, silhouettes of men on horseback, the black profiles
of cannon, the white sky viewed through wheels and gun-carriages, the
colossal death’s-head, which the heroes saw constantly through the
smoke, in the depths of the battle, advanced upon them and gazed at
them. Through the shades of twilight they could hear the pieces being
loaded; the matches all lighted, like the eyes of tigers at night,
formed a circle round their heads; all the lintstocks of the English
batteries approached the cannons, and then, with emotion, holding the
supreme moment suspended above these men, an English general, Colville
according to some, Maitland according to others, shouted to them,
“Surrender, brave Frenchmen!” Cambronne replied, “——.”


{EDITOR’S COMMENTARY: Another edition of this book has the word
“Merde!” in lieu of the —— above.}




CHAPTER XV—CAMBRONNE


If any French reader object to having his susceptibilities offended,
one would have to refrain from repeating in his presence what is
perhaps the finest reply that a Frenchman ever made. This would enjoin
us from consigning something sublime to History.

At our own risk and peril, let us violate this injunction.

Now, then, among those giants there was one Titan,—Cambronne.

To make that reply and then perish, what could be grander? For being
willing to die is the same as to die; and it was not this man’s fault
if he survived after he was shot.

The winner of the battle of Waterloo was not Napoleon, who was put to
flight; nor Wellington, giving way at four o’clock, in despair at five;
nor Blücher, who took no part in the engagement. The winner of Waterloo
was Cambronne.

To thunder forth such a reply at the lightning-flash that kills you is
to conquer!

Thus to answer the Catastrophe, thus to speak to Fate, to give this
pedestal to the future lion, to hurl such a challenge to the midnight
rainstorm, to the treacherous wall of Hougomont, to the sunken road of
Ohain, to Grouchy’s delay, to Blücher’s arrival, to be Irony itself in
the tomb, to act so as to stand upright though fallen, to drown in two
syllables the European coalition, to offer kings privies which the
Cæsars once knew, to make the lowest of words the most lofty by
entwining with it the glory of France, insolently to end Waterloo with
Mardigras, to finish Leonidas with Rabellais, to set the crown on this
victory by a word impossible to speak, to lose the field and preserve
history, to have the laugh on your side after such a carnage,—this is
immense!

It was an insult such as a thunder-cloud might hurl! It reaches the
grandeur of Æschylus!

Cambronne’s reply produces the effect of a violent break. ’Tis like the
breaking of a heart under a weight of scorn. ’Tis the overflow of agony
bursting forth. Who conquered? Wellington? No! Had it not been for
Blücher, he was lost. Was it Blücher? No! If Wellington had not begun,
Blücher could not have finished. This Cambronne, this man spending his
last hour, this unknown soldier, this infinitesimal of war, realizes
that here is a falsehood, a falsehood in a catastrophe, and so doubly
agonizing; and at the moment when his rage is bursting forth because of
it, he is offered this mockery,—life! How could he restrain himself?
Yonder are all the kings of Europe, the general’s flushed with victory,
the Jupiter’s darting thunderbolts; they have a hundred thousand
victorious soldiers, and back of the hundred thousand a million; their
cannon stand with yawning mouths, the match is lighted; they grind down
under their heels the Imperial guards, and the grand army; they have
just crushed Napoleon, and only Cambronne remains,—only this earthworm
is left to protest. He will protest. Then he seeks for the appropriate
word as one seeks for a sword. His mouth froths, and the froth is the
word. In face of this mean and mighty victory, in face of this victory
which counts none victorious, this desperate soldier stands erect. He
grants its overwhelming immensity, but he establishes its triviality;
and he does more than spit upon it. Borne down by numbers, by superior
force, by brute matter, he finds in his soul an expression:
_“Excrément!”_ We repeat it,—to use that word, to do thus, to invent
such an expression, is to be the conqueror!

The spirit of mighty days at that portentous moment made its descent on
that unknown man. Cambronne invents the word for Waterloo as Rouget
invents the “Marseillaise,” under the visitation of a breath from on
high. An emanation from the divine whirlwind leaps forth and comes
sweeping over these men, and they shake, and one of them sings the song
supreme, and the other utters the frightful cry.

This challenge of titanic scorn Cambronne hurls not only at Europe in
the name of the Empire,—that would be a trifle: he hurls it at the past
in the name of the Revolution. It is heard, and Cambronne is recognized
as possessed by the ancient spirit of the Titans. Danton seems to be
speaking! Kléber seems to be bellowing!

At that word from Cambronne, the English voice responded, “Fire!” The
batteries flamed, the hill trembled, from all those brazen mouths
belched a last terrible gush of grape-shot; a vast volume of smoke,
vaguely white in the light of the rising moon, rolled out, and when the
smoke dispersed, there was no longer anything there. That formidable
remnant had been annihilated; the Guard was dead. The four walls of the
living redoubt lay prone, and hardly was there discernible, here and
there, even a quiver in the bodies; it was thus that the French
legions, greater than the Roman legions, expired on Mont-Saint-Jean, on
the soil watered with rain and blood, amid the gloomy grain, on the
spot where nowadays Joseph, who drives the post-wagon from Nivelles,
passes whistling, and cheerfully whipping up his horse at four o’clock
in the morning.




CHAPTER XVI—QUOT LIBRAS IN DUCE?


The battle of Waterloo is an enigma. It is as obscure to those who won
it as to those who lost it. For Napoleon it was a panic;10 Blücher sees
nothing in it but fire; Wellington understands nothing in regard to it.
Look at the reports. The bulletins are confused, the commentaries
involved. Some stammer, others lisp. Jomini divides the battle of
Waterloo into four moments; Muffling cuts it up into three changes;
Charras alone, though we hold another judgment than his on some points,
seized with his haughty glance the characteristic outlines of that
catastrophe of human genius in conflict with divine chance. All the
other historians suffer from being somewhat dazzled, and in this
dazzled state they fumble about. It was a day of lightning brilliancy;
in fact, a crumbling of the military monarchy which, to the vast
stupefaction of kings, drew all the kingdoms after it—the fall of
force, the defeat of war.

In this event, stamped with superhuman necessity, the part played by
men amounts to nothing.

If we take Waterloo from Wellington and Blücher, do we thereby deprive
England and Germany of anything? No. Neither that illustrious England
nor that august Germany enter into the problem of Waterloo. Thank
Heaven, nations are great, independently of the lugubrious feats of the
sword. Neither England, nor Germany, nor France is contained in a
scabbard. At this epoch when Waterloo is only a clashing of swords,
above Blücher, Germany has Schiller; above Wellington, England has
Byron. A vast dawn of ideas is the peculiarity of our century, and in
that aurora England and Germany have a magnificent radiance. They are
majestic because they think. The elevation of level which they
contribute to civilization is intrinsic with them; it proceeds from
themselves and not from an accident. The aggrandizement which they have
brought to the nineteenth century has not Waterloo as its source. It is
only barbarous peoples who undergo rapid growth after a victory. That
is the temporary vanity of torrents swelled by a storm. Civilized
people, especially in our day, are neither elevated nor abased by the
good or bad fortune of a captain. Their specific gravity in the human
species results from something more than a combat. Their honor, thank
God! their dignity, their intelligence, their genius, are not numbers
which those gamblers, heroes and conquerors, can put in the lottery of
battles. Often a battle is lost and progress is conquered. There is
less glory and more liberty. The drum holds its peace; reason takes the
word. It is a game in which he who loses wins. Let us, therefore, speak
of Waterloo coldly from both sides. Let us render to chance that which
is due to chance, and to God that which is due to God. What is
Waterloo? A victory? No. The winning number in the lottery.

The quine 11 won by Europe, paid by France.

It was not worthwhile to place a lion there.

Waterloo, moreover, is the strangest encounter in history. Napoleon and
Wellington. They are not enemies; they are opposites. Never did God,
who is fond of antitheses, make a more striking contrast, a more
extraordinary comparison. On one side, precision, foresight, geometry,
prudence, an assured retreat, reserves spared, with an obstinate
coolness, an imperturbable method, strategy, which takes advantage of
the ground, tactics, which preserve the equilibrium of battalions,
carnage, executed according to rule, war regulated, watch in hand,
nothing voluntarily left to chance, the ancient classic courage,
absolute regularity; on the other, intuition, divination, military
oddity, superhuman instinct, a flaming glance, an indescribable
something which gazes like an eagle, and which strikes like the
lightning, a prodigious art in disdainful impetuosity, all the
mysteries of a profound soul, associated with destiny; the stream, the
plain, the forest, the hill, summoned, and in a manner, forced to obey,
the despot going even so far as to tyrannize over the field of battle;
faith in a star mingled with strategic science, elevating but
perturbing it. Wellington was the Barême of war; Napoleon was its
Michael Angelo; and on this occasion, genius was vanquished by
calculation. On both sides some one was awaited. It was the exact
calculator who succeeded. Napoleon was waiting for Grouchy; he did not
come. Wellington expected Blücher; he came.

Wellington is classic war taking its revenge. Bonaparte, at his
dawning, had encountered him in Italy, and beaten him superbly. The old
owl had fled before the young vulture. The old tactics had been not
only struck as by lightning, but disgraced. Who was that Corsican of
six and twenty? What signified that splendid ignoramus, who, with
everything against him, nothing in his favor, without provisions,
without ammunition, without cannon, without shoes, almost without an
army, with a mere handful of men against masses, hurled himself on
Europe combined, and absurdly won victories in the impossible? Whence
had issued that fulminating convict, who almost without taking breath,
and with the same set of combatants in hand, pulverized, one after the
other, the five armies of the emperor of Germany, upsetting Beaulieu on
Alvinzi, Wurmser on Beaulieu, Mélas on Wurmser, Mack on Mélas? Who was
this novice in war with the effrontery of a luminary? The academical
military school excommunicated him, and as it lost its footing; hence,
the implacable rancor of the old Cæsarism against the new; of the
regular sword against the flaming sword; and of the exchequer against
genius. On the 18th of June, 1815, that rancor had the last word, and
beneath Lodi, Montebello, Montenotte, Mantua, Arcola, it wrote:
Waterloo. A triumph of the mediocres which is sweet to the majority.
Destiny consented to this irony. In his decline, Napoleon found
Wurmser, the younger, again in front of him.

In fact, to get Wurmser, it sufficed to blanch the hair of Wellington.

Waterloo is a battle of the first order, won by a captain of the
second.

That which must be admired in the battle of Waterloo, is England; the
English firmness, the English resolution, the English blood; the superb
thing about England there, no offence to her, was herself. It was not
her captain; it was her army.

Wellington, oddly ungrateful, declares in a letter to Lord Bathurst,
that his army, the army which fought on the 18th of June, 1815, was a
“detestable army.” What does that sombre intermingling of bones buried
beneath the furrows of Waterloo think of that?

England has been too modest in the matter of Wellington. To make
Wellington so great is to belittle England. Wellington is nothing but a
hero like many another. Those Scotch Grays, those Horse Guards, those
regiments of Maitland and of Mitchell, that infantry of Pack and Kempt,
that cavalry of Ponsonby and Somerset, those Highlanders playing the
pibroch under the shower of grape-shot, those battalions of Rylandt,
those utterly raw recruits, who hardly knew how to handle a musket
holding their own against Essling’s and Rivoli’s old troops,—that is
what was grand. Wellington was tenacious; in that lay his merit, and we
are not seeking to lessen it: but the least of his foot-soldiers and of
his cavalry would have been as solid as he. The iron soldier is worth
as much as the Iron Duke. As for us, all our glorification goes to the
English soldier, to the English army, to the English people. If trophy
there be, it is to England that the trophy is due. The column of
Waterloo would be more just, if, instead of the figure of a man, it
bore on high the statue of a people.

But this great England will be angry at what we are saying here. She
still cherishes, after her own 1688 and our 1789, the feudal illusion.
She believes in heredity and hierarchy. This people, surpassed by none
in power and glory, regards itself as a nation, and not as a people.
And as a people, it willingly subordinates itself and takes a lord for
its head. As a workman, it allows itself to be disdained; as a soldier,
it allows itself to be flogged.

It will be remembered, that at the battle of Inkermann a sergeant who
had, it appears, saved the army, could not be mentioned by Lord Paglan,
as the English military hierarchy does not permit any hero below the
grade of an officer to be mentioned in the reports.

That which we admire above all, in an encounter of the nature of
Waterloo, is the marvellous cleverness of chance. A nocturnal rain, the
wall of Hougomont, the hollow road of Ohain, Grouchy deaf to the
cannon, Napoleon’s guide deceiving him, Bülow’s guide enlightening
him,—the whole of this cataclysm is wonderfully conducted.

On the whole, let us say it plainly, it was more of a massacre than of
a battle at Waterloo.

Of all pitched battles, Waterloo is the one which has the smallest
front for such a number of combatants. Napoleon three-quarters of a
league; Wellington, half a league; seventy-two thousand combatants on
each side. From this denseness the carnage arose.

The following calculation has been made, and the following proportion
established: Loss of men: at Austerlitz, French, fourteen per cent;
Russians, thirty per cent; Austrians, forty-four per cent. At Wagram,
French, thirteen per cent; Austrians, fourteen. At the Moskowa, French,
thirty-seven per cent; Russians, forty-four. At Bautzen, French,
thirteen per cent; Russians and Prussians, fourteen. At Waterloo,
French, fifty-six per cent; the Allies, thirty-one. Total for Waterloo,
forty-one per cent; one hundred and forty-four thousand combatants;
sixty thousand dead.

To-day the field of Waterloo has the calm which belongs to the earth,
the impassive support of man, and it resembles all plains.

At night, moreover, a sort of visionary mist arises from it; and if a
traveller strolls there, if he listens, if he watches, if he dreams
like Virgil in the fatal plains of Philippi, the hallucination of the
catastrophe takes possession of him. The frightful 18th of June lives
again; the false monumental hillock disappears, the lion vanishes in
air, the battle-field resumes its reality, lines of infantry undulate
over the plain, furious gallops traverse the horizon; the frightened
dreamer beholds the flash of sabres, the gleam of bayonets, the flare
of bombs, the tremendous interchange of thunders; he hears, as it were,
the death rattle in the depths of a tomb, the vague clamor of the
battle phantom; those shadows are grenadiers, those lights are
cuirassiers; that skeleton Napoleon, that other skeleton is Wellington;
all this no longer exists, and yet it clashes together and combats
still; and the ravines are empurpled, and the trees quiver, and there
is fury even in the clouds and in the shadows; all those terrible
heights, Hougomont, Mont-Saint-Jean, Frischemont, Papelotte,
Plancenoit, appear confusedly crowned with whirlwinds of spectres
engaged in exterminating each other.




CHAPTER XVII—IS WATERLOO TO BE CONSIDERED GOOD?


There exists a very respectable liberal school which does not hate
Waterloo. We do not belong to it. To us, Waterloo is but the stupefied
date of liberty. That such an eagle should emerge from such an egg is
certainly unexpected.

If one places one’s self at the culminating point of view of the
question, Waterloo is intentionally a counter-revolutionary victory. It
is Europe against France; it is Petersburg, Berlin, and Vienna against
Paris; it is the _statu quo_ against the initiative; it is the 14th of
July, 1789, attacked through the 20th of March, 1815; it is the
monarchies clearing the decks in opposition to the indomitable French
rioting. The final extinction of that vast people which had been in
eruption for twenty-six years—such was the dream. The solidarity of the
Brunswicks, the Nassaus, the Romanoffs, the Hohenzollerns, the
Hapsburgs with the Bourbons. Waterloo bears divine right on its
crupper. It is true, that the Empire having been despotic, the kingdom
by the natural reaction of things, was forced to be liberal, and that a
constitutional order was the unwilling result of Waterloo, to the great
regret of the conquerors. It is because revolution cannot be really
conquered, and that being providential and absolutely fatal, it is
always cropping up afresh: before Waterloo, in Bonaparte overthrowing
the old thrones; after Waterloo, in Louis XVIII. granting and
conforming to the charter. Bonaparte places a postilion on the throne
of Naples, and a sergeant on the throne of Sweden, employing inequality
to demonstrate equality; Louis XVIII. at Saint-Ouen countersigns the
declaration of the rights of man. If you wish to gain an idea of what
revolution is, call it Progress; and if you wish to acquire an idea of
the nature of progress, call it To-morrow. To-morrow fulfils its work
irresistibly, and it is already fulfilling it to-day. It always reaches
its goal strangely. It employs Wellington to make of Foy, who was only
a soldier, an orator. Foy falls at Hougomont and rises again in the
tribune. Thus does progress proceed. There is no such thing as a bad
tool for that workman. It does not become disconcerted, but adjusts to
its divine work the man who has bestridden the Alps, and the good old
tottering invalid of Father Élysée. It makes use of the gouty man as
well as of the conqueror; of the conqueror without, of the gouty man
within. Waterloo, by cutting short the demolition of European thrones
by the sword, had no other effect than to cause the revolutionary work
to be continued in another direction. The slashers have finished; it
was the turn of the thinkers. The century that Waterloo was intended to
arrest has pursued its march. That sinister victory was vanquished by
liberty.

In short, and incontestably, that which triumphed at Waterloo; that
which smiled in Wellington’s rear; that which brought him all the
marshals’ staffs of Europe, including, it is said, the staff of a
marshal of France; that which joyously trundled the barrows full of
bones to erect the knoll of the lion; that which triumphantly inscribed
on that pedestal the date “_June_ 18, 1815”; that which encouraged
Blücher, as he put the flying army to the sword; that which, from the
heights of the plateau of Mont-Saint-Jean, hovered over France as over
its prey, was the counter-revolution. It was the counter-revolution
which murmured that infamous word “dismemberment.” On arriving in
Paris, it beheld the crater close at hand; it felt those ashes which
scorched its feet, and it changed its mind; it returned to the stammer
of a charter.

Let us behold in Waterloo only that which is in Waterloo. Of
intentional liberty there is none. The counter-revolution was
involuntarily liberal, in the same manner as, by a corresponding
phenomenon, Napoleon was involuntarily revolutionary. On the 18th of
June, 1815, the mounted Robespierre was hurled from his saddle.




CHAPTER XVIII—A RECRUDESCENCE OF DIVINE RIGHT


End of the dictatorship. A whole European system crumbled away.

The Empire sank into a gloom which resembled that of the Roman world as
it expired. Again we behold the abyss, as in the days of the
barbarians; only the barbarism of 1815, which must be called by its pet
name of the counter-revolution, was not long breathed, soon fell to
panting, and halted short. The Empire was bewept,—let us acknowledge
the fact,—and bewept by heroic eyes. If glory lies in the sword
converted into a sceptre, the Empire had been glory in person. It had
diffused over the earth all the light which tyranny can give—a sombre
light. We will say more; an obscure light. Compared to the true
daylight, it is night. This disappearance of night produces the effect
of an eclipse.

Louis XVIII. re-entered Paris. The circling dances of the 8th of July
effaced the enthusiasms of the 20th of March. The Corsican became the
antithesis of the Bearnese. The flag on the dome of the Tuileries was
white. The exile reigned. Hartwell’s pine table took its place in front
of the fleur-de-lys-strewn throne of Louis XIV. Bouvines and Fontenoy
were mentioned as though they had taken place on the preceding day,
Austerlitz having become antiquated. The altar and the throne
fraternized majestically. One of the most undisputed forms of the
health of society in the nineteenth century was established over
France, and over the continent. Europe adopted the white cockade.
Trestaillon was celebrated. The device _non pluribus impar_ reappeared
on the stone rays representing a sun upon the front of the barracks on
the Quai d’Orsay. Where there had been an Imperial Guard, there was now
a red house. The Arc du Carrousel, all laden with badly borne
victories, thrown out of its element among these novelties, a little
ashamed, it may be, of Marengo and Arcola, extricated itself from its
predicament with the statue of the Duc d’Angoulême. The cemetery of the
Madeleine, a terrible pauper’s grave in 1793, was covered with jasper
and marble, since the bones of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette lay in
that dust.

In the moat of Vincennes a sepulchral shaft sprang from the earth,
recalling the fact that the Duc d’Enghien had perished in the very
month when Napoleon was crowned. Pope Pius VII., who had performed the
coronation very near this death, tranquilly bestowed his blessing on
the fall as he had bestowed it on the elevation. At Schoenbrunn there
was a little shadow, aged four, whom it was seditious to call the King
of Rome. And these things took place, and the kings resumed their
thrones, and the master of Europe was put in a cage, and the old regime
became the new regime, and all the shadows and all the light of the
earth changed place, because, on the afternoon of a certain summer’s
day, a shepherd said to a Prussian in the forest, “Go this way, and not
that!”


This 1815 was a sort of lugubrious April. Ancient unhealthy and
poisonous realities were covered with new appearances. A lie wedded
1789; the right divine was masked under a charter; fictions became
constitutional; prejudices, superstitions and mental reservations, with
Article 14 in the heart, were varnished over with liberalism. It was
the serpent’s change of skin.

Man had been rendered both greater and smaller by Napoleon. Under this
reign of splendid matter, the ideal had received the strange name of
ideology! It is a grave imprudence in a great man to turn the future
into derision. The populace, however, that food for cannon which is so
fond of the cannoneer, sought him with its glance. Where is he? What is
he doing? “Napoleon is dead,” said a passer-by to a veteran of Marengo
and Waterloo. “He dead!” cried the soldier; “you don’t know him.”
Imagination distrusted this man, even when overthrown. The depths of
Europe were full of darkness after Waterloo. Something enormous
remained long empty through Napoleon’s disappearance.

The kings placed themselves in this void. Ancient Europe profited by it
to undertake reforms. There was a Holy Alliance; _Belle-Alliance_,
Beautiful Alliance, the fatal field of Waterloo had said in advance.

In presence and in face of that antique Europe reconstructed, the
features of a new France were sketched out. The future, which the
Emperor had rallied, made its entry. On its brow it bore the star,
Liberty. The glowing eyes of all young generations were turned on it.
Singular fact! people were, at one and the same time, in love with the
future, Liberty, and the past, Napoleon. Defeat had rendered the
vanquished greater. Bonaparte fallen seemed more lofty than Napoleon
erect. Those who had triumphed were alarmed. England had him guarded by
Hudson Lowe, and France had him watched by Montchenu. His folded arms
became a source of uneasiness to thrones. Alexander called him “my
sleeplessness.” This terror was the result of the quantity of
revolution which was contained in him. That is what explains and
excuses Bonapartist liberalism. This phantom caused the old world to
tremble. The kings reigned, but ill at their ease, with the rock of
Saint Helena on the horizon.

While Napoleon was passing through the death struggle at Longwood, the
sixty thousand men who had fallen on the field of Waterloo were quietly
rotting, and something of their peace was shed abroad over the world.
The Congress of Vienna made the treaties in 1815, and Europe called
this the Restoration.

This is what Waterloo was.

But what matters it to the Infinite? all that tempest, all that cloud,
that war, then that peace? All that darkness did not trouble for a
moment the light of that immense Eye before which a grub skipping from
one blade of grass to another equals the eagle soaring from belfry to
belfry on the towers of Notre Dame.




CHAPTER XIX—THE BATTLE-FIELD AT NIGHT


Let us return—it is a necessity in this book—to that fatal
battle-field.

On the 18th of June the moon was full. Its light favored Blücher’s
ferocious pursuit, betrayed the traces of the fugitives, delivered up
that disastrous mass to the eager Prussian cavalry, and aided the
massacre. Such tragic favors of the night do occur sometimes during
catastrophes.

After the last cannon-shot had been fired, the plain of Mont-Saint-Jean
remained deserted.

The English occupied the encampment of the French; it is the usual sign
of victory to sleep in the bed of the vanquished. They established
their bivouac beyond Rossomme. The Prussians, let loose on the
retreating rout, pushed forward. Wellington went to the village of
Waterloo to draw up his report to Lord Bathurst.

If ever the _sic vos non vobis_ was applicable, it certainly is to that
village of Waterloo. Waterloo took no part, and lay half a league from
the scene of action. Mont-Saint-Jean was cannonaded, Hougomont was
burned, La Haie-Sainte was taken by assault, Papelotte was burned,
Plancenoit was burned, La Belle-Alliance beheld the embrace of the two
conquerors; these names are hardly known, and Waterloo, which worked
not in the battle, bears off all the honor.

We are not of the number of those who flatter war; when the occasion
presents itself, we tell the truth about it. War has frightful beauties
which we have not concealed; it has also, we acknowledge, some hideous
features. One of the most surprising is the prompt stripping of the
bodies of the dead after the victory. The dawn which follows a battle
always rises on naked corpses.

Who does this? Who thus soils the triumph? What hideous, furtive hand
is that which is slipped into the pocket of victory? What pickpockets
are they who ply their trade in the rear of glory? Some
philosophers—Voltaire among the number—affirm that it is precisely
those persons who have made the glory. It is the same men, they say;
there is no relief corps; those who are erect pillage those who are
prone on the earth. The hero of the day is the vampire of the night.
One has assuredly the right, after all, to strip a corpse a bit when
one is the author of that corpse. For our own part, we do not think so;
it seems to us impossible that the same hand should pluck laurels and
purloin the shoes from a dead man.

One thing is certain, which is, that generally after conquerors follow
thieves. But let us leave the soldier, especially the contemporary
soldier, out of the question.

Every army has a rear-guard, and it is that which must be blamed.
Bat-like creatures, half brigands and lackeys; all the sorts of
vespertillos that that twilight called war engenders; wearers of
uniforms, who take no part in the fighting; pretended invalids;
formidable limpers; interloping sutlers, trotting along in little
carts, sometimes accompanied by their wives, and stealing things which
they sell again; beggars offering themselves as guides to officers;
soldiers’ servants; marauders; armies on the march in days gone by,—we
are not speaking of the present,—dragged all this behind them, so that
in the special language they are called “stragglers.” No army, no
nation, was responsible for those beings; they spoke Italian and
followed the Germans, then spoke French and followed the English. It
was by one of these wretches, a Spanish straggler who spoke French,
that the Marquis of Fervacques, deceived by his Picard jargon, and
taking him for one of our own men, was traitorously slain and robbed on
the battle-field itself, in the course of the night which followed the
victory of Cerisoles. The rascal sprang from this marauding. The
detestable maxim, _Live on the enemy!_ produced this leprosy, which a
strict discipline alone could heal. There are reputations which are
deceptive; one does not always know why certain generals, great in
other directions, have been so popular. Turenne was adored by his
soldiers because he tolerated pillage; evil permitted constitutes part
of goodness. Turenne was so good that he allowed the Palatinate to be
delivered over to fire and blood. The marauders in the train of an army
were more or less in number, according as the chief was more or less
severe. Hoche and Marceau had no stragglers; Wellington had few, and we
do him the justice to mention it.

Nevertheless, on the night from the 18th to the 19th of June, the dead
were robbed. Wellington was rigid; he gave orders that any one caught
in the act should be shot; but rapine is tenacious. The marauders stole
in one corner of the battlefield while others were being shot in
another.

The moon was sinister over this plain.

Towards midnight, a man was prowling about, or rather, climbing in the
direction of the hollow road of Ohain. To all appearance he was one of
those whom we have just described,—neither English nor French, neither
peasant nor soldier, less a man than a ghoul attracted by the scent of
the dead bodies having theft for his victory, and come to rifle
Waterloo. He was clad in a blouse that was something like a great coat;
he was uneasy and audacious; he walked forwards and gazed behind him.
Who was this man? The night probably knew more of him than the day. He
had no sack, but evidently he had large pockets under his coat. From
time to time he halted, scrutinized the plain around him as though to
see whether he were observed, bent over abruptly, disturbed something
silent and motionless on the ground, then rose and fled. His sliding
motion, his attitudes, his mysterious and rapid gestures, caused him to
resemble those twilight larvæ which haunt ruins, and which ancient
Norman legends call the Alleurs.

Certain nocturnal wading birds produce these silhouettes among the
marshes.

A glance capable of piercing all that mist deeply would have perceived
at some distance a sort of little sutler’s wagon with a fluted wicker
hood, harnessed to a famished nag which was cropping the grass across
its bit as it halted, hidden, as it were, behind the hovel which
adjoins the highway to Nivelles, at the angle of the road from
Mont-Saint-Jean to Braine l’Alleud; and in the wagon, a sort of woman
seated on coffers and packages. Perhaps there was some connection
between that wagon and that prowler.

The darkness was serene. Not a cloud in the zenith. What matters it if
the earth be red! the moon remains white; these are the indifferences
of the sky. In the fields, branches of trees broken by grape-shot, but
not fallen, upheld by their bark, swayed gently in the breeze of night.
A breath, almost a respiration, moved the shrubbery. Quivers which
resembled the departure of souls ran through the grass.

In the distance the coming and going of patrols and the general rounds
of the English camp were audible.

Hougomont and La Haie-Sainte continued to burn, forming, one in the
west, the other in the east, two great flames which were joined by the
cordon of bivouac fires of the English, like a necklace of rubies with
two carbuncles at the extremities, as they extended in an immense
semicircle over the hills along the horizon.

We have described the catastrophe of the road of Ohain. The heart is
terrified at the thought of what that death must have been to so many
brave men.

If there is anything terrible, if there exists a reality which
surpasses dreams, it is this: to live, to see the sun; to be in full
possession of virile force; to possess health and joy; to laugh
valiantly; to rush towards a glory which one sees dazzling in front of
one; to feel in one’s breast lungs which breathe, a heart which beats,
a will which reasons; to speak, think, hope, love; to have a mother, to
have a wife, to have children; to have the light—and all at once, in
the space of a shout, in less than a minute, to sink into an abyss; to
fall, to roll, to crush, to be crushed; to see ears of wheat, flowers,
leaves, branches; not to be able to catch hold of anything; to feel
one’s sword useless, men beneath one, horses on top of one; to struggle
in vain, since one’s bones have been broken by some kick in the
darkness; to feel a heel which makes one’s eyes start from their
sockets; to bite horses’ shoes in one’s rage; to stifle, to yell, to
writhe; to be beneath, and to say to one’s self, “But just a little
while ago I was a living man!”


There, where that lamentable disaster had uttered its death-rattle, all
was silence now. The edges of the hollow road were encumbered with
horses and riders, inextricably heaped up. Terrible entanglement! There
was no longer any slope, for the corpses had levelled the road with the
plain, and reached the brim like a well-filled bushel of barley. A heap
of dead bodies in the upper part, a river of blood in the lower
part—such was that road on the evening of the 18th of June, 1815. The
blood ran even to the Nivelles highway, and there overflowed in a large
pool in front of the abatis of trees which barred the way, at a spot
which is still pointed out.

It will be remembered that it was at the opposite point, in the
direction of the Genappe road, that the destruction of the cuirassiers
had taken place. The thickness of the layer of bodies was proportioned
to the depth of the hollow road. Towards the middle, at the point where
it became level, where Delort’s division had passed, the layer of
corpses was thinner.

The nocturnal prowler whom we have just shown to the reader was going
in that direction. He was searching that vast tomb. He gazed about. He
passed the dead in some sort of hideous review. He walked with his feet
in the blood.

All at once he paused.

A few paces in front of him, in the hollow road, at the point where the
pile of dead came to an end, an open hand, illumined by the moon,
projected from beneath that heap of men. That hand had on its finger
something sparkling, which was a ring of gold.

The man bent over, remained in a crouching attitude for a moment, and
when he rose there was no longer a ring on the hand.

He did not precisely rise; he remained in a stooping and frightened
attitude, with his back turned to the heap of dead, scanning the
horizon on his knees, with the whole upper portion of his body
supported on his two forefingers, which rested on the earth, and his
head peering above the edge of the hollow road. The jackal’s four paws
suit some actions.

Then coming to a decision, he rose to his feet.

At that moment, he gave a terrible start. He felt some one clutch him
from behind.

He wheeled round; it was the open hand, which had closed, and had
seized the skirt of his coat.

An honest man would have been terrified; this man burst into a laugh.

“Come,” said he, “it’s only a dead body. I prefer a spook to a
gendarme.”


But the hand weakened and released him. Effort is quickly exhausted in
the grave.

“Well now,” said the prowler, “is that dead fellow alive? Let’s see.”


He bent down again, fumbled among the heap, pushed aside everything
that was in his way, seized the hand, grasped the arm, freed the head,
pulled out the body, and a few moments later he was dragging the
lifeless, or at least the unconscious, man, through the shadows of
hollow road. He was a cuirassier, an officer, and even an officer of
considerable rank; a large gold epaulette peeped from beneath the
cuirass; this officer no longer possessed a helmet. A furious sword-cut
had scarred his face, where nothing was discernible but blood.

However, he did not appear to have any broken limbs, and, by some happy
chance, if that word is permissible here, the dead had been vaulted
above him in such a manner as to preserve him from being crushed. His
eyes were still closed.

On his cuirass he wore the silver cross of the Legion of Honor.

The prowler tore off this cross, which disappeared into one of the
gulfs which he had beneath his great coat.

Then he felt of the officer’s fob, discovered a watch there, and took
possession of it. Next he searched his waistcoat, found a purse and
pocketed it.

When he had arrived at this stage of succor which he was administering
to this dying man, the officer opened his eyes.

“Thanks,” he said feebly.

The abruptness of the movements of the man who was manipulating him,
the freshness of the night, the air which he could inhale freely, had
roused him from his lethargy.

The prowler made no reply. He raised his head. A sound of footsteps was
audible in the plain; some patrol was probably approaching.

The officer murmured, for the death agony was still in his voice:—

“Who won the battle?”


“The English,” answered the prowler.

The officer went on:—

“Look in my pockets; you will find a watch and a purse. Take them.”


It was already done.

The prowler executed the required feint, and said:—

“There is nothing there.”


“I have been robbed,” said the officer; “I am sorry for that. You
should have had them.”


The steps of the patrol became more and more distinct.

“Some one is coming,” said the prowler, with the movement of a man who
is taking his departure.

The officer raised his arm feebly, and detained him.

“You have saved my life. Who are you?”


The prowler answered rapidly, and in a low voice:—

“Like yourself, I belonged to the French army. I must leave you. If
they were to catch me, they would shoot me. I have saved your life. Now
get out of the scrape yourself.”


“What is your rank?”


“Sergeant.”


“What is your name?”


“Thénardier.”


“I shall not forget that name,” said the officer; “and do you remember
mine. My name is Pontmercy.”





BOOK SECOND—THE SHIP ORION




CHAPTER I—NUMBER 24,601 BECOMES NUMBER 9,430


Jean Valjean had been recaptured.

The reader will be grateful to us if we pass rapidly over the sad
details. We will confine ourselves to transcribing two paragraphs
published by the journals of that day, a few months after the
surprising events which had taken place at M. sur M.

These articles are rather summary. It must be remembered, that at that
epoch the _Gazette des Tribunaux_ was not yet in existence.

We borrow the first from the _Drapeau Blanc_. It bears the date of July
25, 1823.

An arrondissement of the Pas de Calais has just been the theatre of an
event quite out of the ordinary course. A man, who was a stranger in
the Department, and who bore the name of M. Madeleine, had, thanks to
the new methods, resuscitated some years ago an ancient local industry,
the manufacture of jet and of black glass trinkets. He had made his
fortune in the business, and that of the arrondissement as well, we
will admit. He had been appointed mayor, in recognition of his
services. The police discovered that M. Madeleine was no other than an
ex-convict who had broken his ban, condemned in 1796 for theft, and
named Jean Valjean. Jean Valjean has been recommitted to prison. It
appears that previous to his arrest he had succeeded in withdrawing
from the hands of M. Laffitte, a sum of over half a million which he
had lodged there, and which he had, moreover, and by perfectly
legitimate means, acquired in his business. No one has been able to
discover where Jean Valjean has concealed this money since his return
to prison at Toulon.

The second article, which enters a little more into detail, is an
extract from the _Journal de Paris_, of the same date.

A former convict, who had been liberated, named Jean Valjean, has just
appeared before the Court of Assizes of the Var, under circumstances
calculated to attract attention. This wretch had succeeded in escaping
the vigilance of the police, he had changed his name, and had succeeded
in getting himself appointed mayor of one of our small northern towns;
in this town he had established a considerable commerce. He has at last
been unmasked and arrested, thanks to the indefatigable zeal of the
public prosecutor. He had for his concubine a woman of the town, who
died of a shock at the moment of his arrest. This scoundrel, who is
endowed with Herculean strength, found means to escape; but three or
four days after his flight the police laid their hands on him once
more, in Paris itself, at the very moment when he was entering one of
those little vehicles which run between the capital and the village of
Montfermeil (Seine-et-Oise). He is said to have profited by this
interval of three or four days of liberty, to withdraw a considerable
sum deposited by him with one of our leading bankers. This sum has been
estimated at six or seven hundred thousand francs. If the indictment is
to be trusted, he has hidden it in some place known to himself alone,
and it has not been possible to lay hands on it. However that may be,
the said Jean Valjean has just been brought before the Assizes of the
Department of the Var as accused of highway robbery accompanied with
violence, about eight years ago, on the person of one of those honest
children who, as the patriarch of Ferney has said, in immortal verse,

“. . . Arrive from Savoy every year,
And who, with gentle hands, do clear
Those long canals choked up with soot.”


This bandit refused to defend himself. It was proved by the skilful and
eloquent representative of the public prosecutor, that the theft was
committed in complicity with others, and that Jean Valjean was a member
of a band of robbers in the south. Jean Valjean was pronounced guilty
and was condemned to the death penalty in consequence. This criminal
refused to lodge an appeal. The king, in his inexhaustible clemency,
has deigned to commute his penalty to that of penal servitude for life.
Jean Valjean was immediately taken to the prison at Toulon.

The reader has not forgotten that Jean Valjean had religious habits at
M. sur M. Some papers, among others the _Constitutional_, presented
this commutation as a triumph of the priestly party.

Jean Valjean changed his number in the galleys. He was called 9,430.

However, and we will mention it at once in order that we may not be
obliged to recur to the subject, the prosperity of M. sur M. vanished
with M. Madeleine; all that he had foreseen during his night of fever
and hesitation was realized; lacking him, there actually was _a soul
lacking_. After this fall, there took place at M. sur M. that
egotistical division of great existences which have fallen, that fatal
dismemberment of flourishing things which is accomplished every day,
obscurely, in the human community, and which history has noted only
once, because it occurred after the death of Alexander. Lieutenants are
crowned kings; superintendents improvise manufacturers out of
themselves. Envious rivalries arose. M. Madeleine’s vast workshops were
shut; his buildings fell to ruin, his workmen were scattered. Some of
them quitted the country, others abandoned the trade. Thenceforth,
everything was done on a small scale, instead of on a grand scale; for
lucre instead of the general good. There was no longer a centre;
everywhere there was competition and animosity. M. Madeleine had
reigned over all and directed all. No sooner had he fallen, than each
pulled things to himself; the spirit of combat succeeded to the spirit
of organization, bitterness to cordiality, hatred of one another to the
benevolence of the founder towards all; the threads which M. Madeleine
had set were tangled and broken, the methods were adulterated, the
products were debased, confidence was killed; the market diminished,
for lack of orders; salaries were reduced, the workshops stood still,
bankruptcy arrived. And then there was nothing more for the poor. All
had vanished.

The state itself perceived that some one had been crushed somewhere.
Less than four years after the judgment of the Court of Assizes
establishing the identity of Jean Valjean and M. Madeleine, for the
benefit of the galleys, the cost of collecting taxes had doubled in the
arrondissement of M. sur M.; and M. de Villèle called attention to the
fact in the rostrum, in the month of February, 1827.




CHAPTER II—IN WHICH THE READER WILL PERUSE TWO VERSES, WHICH ARE OF THE
DEVIL’S COMPOSITION, POSSIBLY


Before proceeding further, it will be to the purpose to narrate in some
detail, a singular occurrence which took place at about the same epoch,
in Montfermeil, and which is not lacking in coincidence with certain
conjectures of the indictment.

There exists in the region of Montfermeil a very ancient superstition,
which is all the more curious and all the more precious, because a
popular superstition in the vicinity of Paris is like an aloe in
Siberia. We are among those who respect everything which is in the
nature of a rare plant. Here, then, is the superstition of Montfermeil:
it is thought that the devil, from time immemorial, has selected the
forest as a hiding-place for his treasures. Goodwives affirm that it is
no rarity to encounter at nightfall, in secluded nooks of the forest, a
black man with the air of a carter or a wood-chopper, wearing wooden
shoes, clad in trousers and a blouse of linen, and recognizable by the
fact, that, instead of a cap or hat, he has two immense horns on his
head. This ought, in fact, to render him recognizable. This man is
habitually engaged in digging a hole. There are three ways of profiting
by such an encounter. The first is to approach the man and speak to
him. Then it is seen that the man is simply a peasant, that he appears
black because it is nightfall; that he is not digging any hole
whatever, but is cutting grass for his cows, and that what had been
taken for horns is nothing but a dung-fork which he is carrying on his
back, and whose teeth, thanks to the perspective of evening, seemed to
spring from his head. The man returns home and dies within the week.
The second way is to watch him, to wait until he has dug his hole,
until he has filled it and has gone away; then to run with great speed
to the trench, to open it once more and to seize the “treasure” which
the black man has necessarily placed there. In this case one dies
within the month. Finally, the last method is not to speak to the black
man, not to look at him, and to flee at the best speed of one’s legs.
One then dies within the year.

As all three methods are attended with their special inconveniences,
the second, which at all events, presents some advantages, among others
that of possessing a treasure, if only for a month, is the one most
generally adopted. So bold men, who are tempted by every chance, have
quite frequently, as we are assured, opened the holes excavated by the
black man, and tried to rob the devil. The success of the operation
appears to be but moderate. At least, if the tradition is to be
believed, and in particular the two enigmatical lines in barbarous
Latin, which an evil Norman monk, a bit of a sorcerer, named Tryphon
has left on this subject. This Tryphon is buried at the Abbey of
Saint-Georges de Bocherville, near Rouen, and toads spawn on his grave.

Accordingly, enormous efforts are made. Such trenches are ordinarily
extremely deep; a man sweats, digs, toils all night—for it must be done
at night; he wets his shirt, burns out his candle, breaks his mattock,
and when he arrives at the bottom of the hole, when he lays his hand on
the “treasure,” what does he find? What is the devil’s treasure? A sou,
sometimes a crown-piece, a stone, a skeleton, a bleeding body,
sometimes a spectre folded in four like a sheet of paper in a
portfolio, sometimes nothing. This is what Tryphon’s verses seem to
announce to the indiscreet and curious:—

“Fodit, et in fossa thesauros condit opaca,
As, nummas, lapides, cadaver, simulacra, nihilque.”


It seems that in our day there is sometimes found a powder-horn with
bullets, sometimes an old pack of cards greasy and worn, which has
evidently served the devil. Tryphon does not record these two finds,
since Tryphon lived in the twelfth century, and since the devil does
not appear to have had the wit to invent powder before Roger Bacon’s
time, and cards before the time of Charles VI.

Moreover, if one plays at cards, one is sure to lose all that one
possesses! and as for the powder in the horn, it possesses the property
of making your gun burst in your face.

Now, a very short time after the epoch when it seemed to the
prosecuting attorney that the liberated convict Jean Valjean during his
flight of several days had been prowling around Montfermeil, it was
remarked in that village that a certain old road-laborer, named
Boulatruelle, had “peculiar ways” in the forest. People thereabouts
thought they knew that this Boulatruelle had been in the galleys. He
was subjected to certain police supervision, and, as he could find work
nowhere, the administration employed him at reduced rates as a
road-mender on the crossroad from Gagny to Lagny.

This Boulatruelle was a man who was viewed with disfavor by the
inhabitants of the district as too respectful, too humble, too prompt
in removing his cap to every one, and trembling and smiling in the
presence of the gendarmes,—probably affiliated to robber bands, they
said; suspected of lying in ambush at verge of copses at nightfall. The
only thing in his favor was that he was a drunkard.

This is what people thought they had noticed:—

Of late, Boulatruelle had taken to quitting his task of stone-breaking
and care of the road at a very early hour, and to betaking himself to
the forest with his pickaxe. He was encountered towards evening in the
most deserted clearings, in the wildest thickets; and he had the
appearance of being in search of something, and sometimes he was
digging holes. The goodwives who passed took him at first for
Beelzebub; then they recognized Boulatruelle, and were not in the least
reassured thereby. These encounters seemed to cause Boulatruelle a
lively displeasure. It was evident that he sought to hide, and that
there was some mystery in what he was doing.

It was said in the village: “It is clear that the devil has appeared.
Boulatruelle has seen him, and is on the search. In sooth, he is
cunning enough to pocket Lucifer’s hoard.”


The Voltairians added, “Will Boulatruelle catch the devil, or will the
devil catch Boulatruelle?” The old women made a great many signs of the
cross.

In the meantime, Boulatruelle’s manœuvres in the forest ceased; and he
resumed his regular occupation of roadmending; and people gossiped of
something else.

Some persons, however, were still curious, surmising that in all this
there was probably no fabulous treasure of the legends, but some fine
windfall of a more serious and palpable sort than the devil’s
bank-bills, and that the road-mender had half discovered the secret.
The most “puzzled” were the schoolmaster and Thénardier, the proprietor
of the tavern, who was everybody’s friend, and had not disdained to
ally himself with Boulatruelle.

“He has been in the galleys,” said Thénardier. “Eh! Good God! no one
knows who has been there or will be there.”


One evening the schoolmaster affirmed that in former times the law
would have instituted an inquiry as to what Boulatruelle did in the
forest, and that the latter would have been forced to speak, and that
he would have been put to the torture in case of need, and that
Boulatruelle would not have resisted the water test, for example. “Let
us put him to the wine test,” said Thénardier.

They made an effort, and got the old road-mender to drinking.
Boulatruelle drank an enormous amount, but said very little. He
combined with admirable art, and in masterly proportions, the thirst of
a gormandizer with the discretion of a judge. Nevertheless, by dint of
returning to the charge and of comparing and putting together the few
obscure words which he did allow to escape him, this is what Thénardier
and the schoolmaster imagined that they had made out:—

One morning, when Boulatruelle was on his way to his work, at daybreak,
he had been surprised to see, at a nook of the forest in the
underbrush, a shovel and a pickaxe, _concealed, as one might say_.

However, he might have supposed that they were probably the shovel and
pick of Father Six-Fours, the water-carrier, and would have thought no
more about it. But, on the evening of that day, he saw, without being
seen himself, as he was hidden by a large tree, “a person who did not
belong in those parts, and whom he, Boulatruelle, knew well,” directing
his steps towards the densest part of the wood. Translation by
Thénardier: _A comrade of the galleys_. Boulatruelle obstinately
refused to reveal his name. This person carried a package—something
square, like a large box or a small trunk. Surprise on the part of
Boulatruelle. However, it was only after the expiration of seven or
eight minutes that the idea of following that “person” had occurred to
him. But it was too late; the person was already in the thicket, night
had descended, and Boulatruelle had not been able to catch up with him.
Then he had adopted the course of watching for him at the edge of the
woods. “It was moonlight.” Two or three hours later, Boulatruelle had
seen this person emerge from the brushwood, carrying no longer the
coffer, but a shovel and pick. Boulatruelle had allowed the person to
pass, and had not dreamed of accosting him, because he said to himself
that the other man was three times as strong as he was, and armed with
a pickaxe, and that he would probably knock him over the head on
recognizing him, and on perceiving that he was recognized. Touching
effusion of two old comrades on meeting again. But the shovel and pick
had served as a ray of light to Boulatruelle; he had hastened to the
thicket in the morning, and had found neither shovel nor pick. From
this he had drawn the inference that this person, once in the forest,
had dug a hole with his pick, buried the coffer, and reclosed the hole
with his shovel. Now, the coffer was too small to contain a body;
therefore it contained money. Hence his researches. Boulatruelle had
explored, sounded, searched the entire forest and the thicket, and had
dug wherever the earth appeared to him to have been recently turned up.
In vain.

He had “ferreted out” nothing. No one in Montfermeil thought any more
about it. There were only a few brave gossips, who said, “You may be
certain that the mender on the Gagny road did not take all that trouble
for nothing; he was sure that the devil had come.”





CHAPTER III—THE ANKLE-CHAIN MUST HAVE UNDERGONE A CERTAIN PREPARATORY
MANIPULATION TO BE THUS BROKEN WITH A BLOW FROM A HAMMER


Towards the end of October, in that same year, 1823, the inhabitants of
Toulon beheld the entry into their port, after heavy weather, and for
the purpose of repairing some damages, of the ship _Orion_, which was
employed later at Brest as a school-ship, and which then formed a part
of the Mediterranean squadron.

This vessel, battered as it was,—for the sea had handled it
roughly,—produced a fine effect as it entered the roads. It flew some
colors which procured for it the regulation salute of eleven guns,
which it returned, shot for shot; total, twenty-two. It has been
calculated that what with salvos, royal and military politenesses,
courteous exchanges of uproar, signals of etiquette, formalities of
roadsteads and citadels, sunrises and sunsets, saluted every day by all
fortresses and all ships of war, openings and closings of ports, etc.,
the civilized world, discharged all over the earth, in the course of
four and twenty hours, one hundred and fifty thousand useless shots. At
six francs the shot, that comes to nine hundred thousand francs a day,
three hundred millions a year, which vanish in smoke. This is a mere
detail. All this time the poor were dying of hunger.

The year 1823 was what the Restoration called “the epoch of the Spanish
war.”


This war contained many events in one, and a quantity of peculiarities.
A grand family affair for the house of Bourbon; the branch of France
succoring and protecting the branch of Madrid, that is to say,
performing an act devolving on the elder; an apparent return to our
national traditions, complicated by servitude and by subjection to the
cabinets of the North; M. le Duc d’Angoulême, surnamed by the liberal
sheets _the hero of Andujar_, compressing in a triumphal attitude that
was somewhat contradicted by his peaceable air, the ancient and very
powerful terrorism of the Holy Office at variance with the chimerical
terrorism of the liberals; the _sansculottes_ resuscitated, to the
great terror of dowagers, under the name of _descamisados_; monarchy
opposing an obstacle to progress described as anarchy; the theories of
’89 roughly interrupted in the sap; a European halt, called to the
French idea, which was making the tour of the world; beside the son of
France as generalissimo, the Prince de Carignan, afterwards Charles
Albert, enrolling himself in that crusade of kings against people as a
volunteer, with grenadier epaulets of red worsted; the soldiers of the
Empire setting out on a fresh campaign, but aged, saddened, after eight
years of repose, and under the white cockade; the tricolored standard
waved abroad by a heroic handful of Frenchmen, as the white standard
had been thirty years earlier at Coblentz; monks mingled with our
troops; the spirit of liberty and of novelty brought to its senses by
bayonets; principles slaughtered by cannonades; France undoing by her
arms that which she had done by her mind; in addition to this, hostile
leaders sold, soldiers hesitating, cities besieged by millions; no
military perils, and yet possible explosions, as in every mine which is
surprised and invaded; but little bloodshed, little honor won, shame
for some, glory for no one. Such was this war, made by the princes
descended from Louis XIV., and conducted by generals who had been under
Napoleon. Its sad fate was to recall neither the grand war nor grand
politics.

Some feats of arms were serious; the taking of the Trocadéro, among
others, was a fine military action; but after all, we repeat, the
trumpets of this war give back a cracked sound, the whole effect was
suspicious; history approves of France for making a difficulty about
accepting this false triumph. It seemed evident that certain Spanish
officers charged with resistance yielded too easily; the idea of
corruption was connected with the victory; it appears as though
generals and not battles had been won, and the conquering soldier
returned humiliated. A debasing war, in short, in which the _Bank of
France_ could be read in the folds of the flag.

Soldiers of the war of 1808, on whom Saragossa had fallen in formidable
ruin, frowned in 1823 at the easy surrender of citadels, and began to
regret Palafox. It is the nature of France to prefer to have
Rostopchine rather than Ballesteros in front of her.

From a still more serious point of view, and one which it is also
proper to insist upon here, this war, which wounded the military spirit
of France, enraged the democratic spirit. It was an enterprise of
enthralment. In that campaign, the object of the French soldier, the
son of democracy, was the conquest of a yoke for others. A hideous
contradiction. France is made to arouse the soul of nations, not to
stifle it. All the revolutions of Europe since 1792 are the French
Revolution: liberty darts rays from France. That is a solar fact. Blind
is he who will not see! It was Bonaparte who said it.

The war of 1823, an outrage on the generous Spanish nation, was then,
at the same time, an outrage on the French Revolution. It was France
who committed this monstrous violence; by foul means, for, with the
exception of wars of liberation, everything that armies do is by foul
means. The words _passive obedience_ indicate this. An army is a
strange masterpiece of combination where force results from an enormous
sum of impotence. Thus is war, made by humanity against humanity,
despite humanity, explained.

As for the Bourbons, the war of 1823 was fatal to them. They took it
for a success. They did not perceive the danger that lies in having an
idea slain to order. They went astray, in their innocence, to such a
degree that they introduced the immense enfeeblement of a crime into
their establishment as an element of strength. The spirit of the ambush
entered into their politics. 1830 had its germ in 1823. The Spanish
campaign became in their counsels an argument for force and for
adventures by right Divine. France, having re-established _el rey
netto_ in Spain, might well have re-established the absolute king at
home. They fell into the alarming error of taking the obedience of the
soldier for the consent of the nation. Such confidence is the ruin of
thrones. It is not permitted to fall asleep, either in the shadow of a
machineel tree, nor in the shadow of an army.

Let us return to the ship _Orion_.

During the operations of the army commanded by the prince
generalissimo, a squadron had been cruising in the Mediterranean. We
have just stated that the _Orion_ belonged to this fleet, and that
accidents of the sea had brought it into port at Toulon.

The presence of a vessel of war in a port has something about it which
attracts and engages a crowd. It is because it is great, and the crowd
loves what is great.

A ship of the line is one of the most magnificent combinations of the
genius of man with the powers of nature.

A ship of the line is composed, at the same time, of the heaviest and
the lightest of possible matter, for it deals at one and the same time
with three forms of substance,—solid, liquid, and fluid,—and it must do
battle with all three. It has eleven claws of iron with which to seize
the granite on the bottom of the sea, and more wings and more antennæ
than winged insects, to catch the wind in the clouds. Its breath pours
out through its hundred and twenty cannons as through enormous
trumpets, and replies proudly to the thunder. The ocean seeks to lead
it astray in the alarming sameness of its billows, but the vessel has
its soul, its compass, which counsels it and always shows it the north.
In the blackest nights, its lanterns supply the place of the stars.
Thus, against the wind, it has its cordage and its canvas; against the
water, wood; against the rocks, its iron, brass, and lead; against the
shadows, its light; against immensity, a needle.

If one wishes to form an idea of all those gigantic proportions which,
taken as a whole, constitute the ship of the line, one has only to
enter one of the six-story covered construction stocks, in the ports of
Brest or Toulon. The vessels in process of construction are under a
bell-glass there, as it were. This colossal beam is a yard; that great
column of wood which stretches out on the earth as far as the eye can
reach is the main-mast. Taking it from its root in the stocks to its
tip in the clouds, it is sixty fathoms long, and its diameter at its
base is three feet. The English main-mast rises to a height of two
hundred and seventeen feet above the water-line. The navy of our
fathers employed cables, ours employs chains. The simple pile of chains
on a ship of a hundred guns is four feet high, twenty feet in breadth,
and eight feet in depth. And how much wood is required to make this
ship? Three thousand cubic metres. It is a floating forest.

And moreover, let this be borne in mind, it is only a question here of
the military vessel of forty years ago, of the simple sailing-vessel;
steam, then in its infancy, has since added new miracles to that
prodigy which is called a war vessel. At the present time, for example,
the mixed vessel with a screw is a surprising machine, propelled by
three thousand square metres of canvas and by an engine of two thousand
five hundred horse-power.

Not to mention these new marvels, the ancient vessel of Christopher
Columbus and of De Ruyter is one of the masterpieces of man. It is as
inexhaustible in force as is the Infinite in gales; it stores up the
wind in its sails, it is precise in the immense vagueness of the
billows, it floats, and it reigns.

There comes an hour, nevertheless, when the gale breaks that sixty-foot
yard like a straw, when the wind bends that mast four hundred feet
tall, when that anchor, which weighs tens of thousands, is twisted in
the jaws of the waves like a fisherman’s hook in the jaws of a pike,
when those monstrous cannons utter plaintive and futile roars, which
the hurricane bears forth into the void and into night, when all that
power and all that majesty are engulfed in a power and majesty which
are superior.

Every time that immense force is displayed to culminate in an immense
feebleness it affords men food for thought. Hence in the ports curious
people abound around these marvellous machines of war and of
navigation, without being able to explain perfectly to themselves why.
Every day, accordingly, from morning until night, the quays, sluices,
and the jetties of the port of Toulon were covered with a multitude of
idlers and loungers, as they say in Paris, whose business consisted in
staring at the _Orion_.

The _Orion_ was a ship that had been ailing for a long time; in the
course of its previous cruises thick layers of barnacles had collected
on its keel to such a degree as to deprive it of half its speed; it had
gone into the dry dock the year before this, in order to have the
barnacles scraped off, then it had put to sea again; but this cleaning
had affected the bolts of the keel: in the neighborhood of the Balearic
Isles the sides had been strained and had opened; and, as the plating
in those days was not of sheet iron, the vessel had sprung a leak. A
violent equinoctial gale had come up, which had first staved in a
grating and a porthole on the larboard side, and damaged the
foretop-gallant-shrouds; in consequence of these injuries, the _Orion_
had run back to Toulon.

It anchored near the Arsenal; it was fully equipped, and repairs were
begun. The hull had received no damage on the starboard, but some of
the planks had been unnailed here and there, according to custom, to
permit of air entering the hold.

One morning the crowd which was gazing at it witnessed an accident.

[Illustration: The Ship Orion, an Accident]

The crew was busy bending the sails; the topman, who had to take the
upper corner of the main-top-sail on the starboard, lost his balance;
he was seen to waver; the multitude thronging the Arsenal quay uttered
a cry; the man’s head overbalanced his body; the man fell around the
yard, with his hands outstretched towards the abyss; on his way he
seized the footrope, first with one hand, then with the other, and
remained hanging from it: the sea lay below him at a dizzy depth; the
shock of his fall had imparted to the foot-rope a violent swinging
motion; the man swayed back and forth at the end of that rope, like a
stone in a sling.

It was incurring a frightful risk to go to his assistance; not one of
the sailors, all fishermen of the coast, recently levied for the
service, dared to attempt it. In the meantime, the unfortunate topman
was losing his strength; his anguish could not be discerned on his
face, but his exhaustion was visible in every limb; his arms were
contracted in horrible twitchings; every effort which he made to
re-ascend served but to augment the oscillations of the foot-rope; he
did not shout, for fear of exhausting his strength. All were awaiting
the minute when he should release his hold on the rope, and, from
instant to instant, heads were turned aside that his fall might not be
seen. There are moments when a bit of rope, a pole, the branch of a
tree, is life itself, and it is a terrible thing to see a living being
detach himself from it and fall like a ripe fruit.

All at once a man was seen climbing into the rigging with the agility
of a tiger-cat; this man was dressed in red; he was a convict; he wore
a green cap; he was a life convict. On arriving on a level with the
top, a gust of wind carried away his cap, and allowed a perfectly white
head to be seen: he was not a young man.

A convict employed on board with a detachment from the galleys had, in
fact, at the very first instant, hastened to the officer of the watch,
and, in the midst of the consternation and the hesitation of the crew,
while all the sailors were trembling and drawing back, he had asked the
officer’s permission to risk his life to save the topman; at an
affirmative sign from the officer he had broken the chain riveted to
his ankle with one blow of a hammer, then he had caught up a rope, and
had dashed into the rigging: no one noticed, at the instant, with what
ease that chain had been broken; it was only later on that the incident
was recalled.

In a twinkling he was on the yard; he paused for a few seconds and
appeared to be measuring it with his eye; these seconds, during which
the breeze swayed the topman at the extremity of a thread, seemed
centuries to those who were looking on. At last, the convict raised his
eyes to heaven and advanced a step: the crowd drew a long breath. He
was seen to run out along the yard: on arriving at the point, he
fastened the rope which he had brought to it, and allowed the other end
to hang down, then he began to descend the rope, hand over hand, and
then,—and the anguish was indescribable,—instead of one man suspended
over the gulf, there were two.

One would have said it was a spider coming to seize a fly, only here
the spider brought life, not death. Ten thousand glances were fastened
on this group; not a cry, not a word; the same tremor contracted every
brow; all mouths held their breath as though they feared to add the
slightest puff to the wind which was swaying the two unfortunate men.

In the meantime, the convict had succeeded in lowering himself to a
position near the sailor. It was high time; one minute more, and the
exhausted and despairing man would have allowed himself to fall into
the abyss. The convict had moored him securely with the cord to which
he clung with one hand, while he was working with the other. At last,
he was seen to climb back on the yard, and to drag the sailor up after
him; he held him there a moment to allow him to recover his strength,
then he grasped him in his arms and carried him, walking on the yard
himself to the cap, and from there to the main-top, where he left him
in the hands of his comrades.

At that moment the crowd broke into applause: old convict-sergeants
among them wept, and women embraced each other on the quay, and all
voices were heard to cry with a sort of tender rage, “Pardon for that
man!”


He, in the meantime, had immediately begun to make his descent to
rejoin his detachment. In order to reach them the more speedily, he
dropped into the rigging, and ran along one of the lower yards; all
eyes were following him. At a certain moment fear assailed them;
whether it was that he was fatigued, or that his head turned, they
thought they saw him hesitate and stagger. All at once the crowd
uttered a loud shout: the convict had fallen into the sea.

The fall was perilous. The frigate _Algésiras_ was anchored alongside
the _Orion_, and the poor convict had fallen between the two vessels:
it was to be feared that he would slip under one or the other of them.
Four men flung themselves hastily into a boat; the crowd cheered them
on; anxiety again took possession of all souls; the man had not risen
to the surface; he had disappeared in the sea without leaving a ripple,
as though he had fallen into a cask of oil: they sounded, they dived.
In vain. The search was continued until the evening: they did not even
find the body.

On the following day the Toulon newspaper printed these lines:—

“Nov. 17, 1823. Yesterday, a convict belonging to the detachment on
board of the _Orion_, on his return from rendering assistance to a
sailor, fell into the sea and was drowned. The body has not yet been
found; it is supposed that it is entangled among the piles of the
Arsenal point: this man was committed under the number 9,430, and his
name was Jean Valjean.”





BOOK THIRD—ACCOMPLISHMENT OF THE PROMISE MADE TO THE DEAD WOMAN




CHAPTER I—THE WATER QUESTION AT MONTFERMEIL


Montfermeil is situated between Livry and Chelles, on the southern edge
of that lofty table-land which separates the Ourcq from the Marne. At
the present day it is a tolerably large town, ornamented all the year
through with plaster villas, and on Sundays with beaming bourgeois. In
1823 there were at Montfermeil neither so many white houses nor so many
well-satisfied citizens: it was only a village in the forest. Some
pleasure-houses of the last century were to be met with there, to be
sure, which were recognizable by their grand air, their balconies in
twisted iron, and their long windows, whose tiny panes cast all sorts
of varying shades of green on the white of the closed shutters; but
Montfermeil was nonetheless a village. Retired cloth-merchants and
rusticating attorneys had not discovered it as yet; it was a peaceful
and charming place, which was not on the road to anywhere: there people
lived, and cheaply, that peasant rustic life which is so bounteous and
so easy; only, water was rare there, on account of the elevation of the
plateau.

It was necessary to fetch it from a considerable distance; the end of
the village towards Gagny drew its water from the magnificent ponds
which exist in the woods there. The other end, which surrounds the
church and which lies in the direction of Chelles, found drinking-water
only at a little spring half-way down the slope, near the road to
Chelles, about a quarter of an hour from Montfermeil.

Thus each household found it hard work to keep supplied with water. The
large houses, the aristocracy, of which the Thénardier tavern formed a
part, paid half a farthing a bucketful to a man who made a business of
it, and who earned about eight sous a day in his enterprise of
supplying Montfermeil with water; but this good man only worked until
seven o’clock in the evening in summer, and five in winter; and night
once come and the shutters on the ground floor once closed, he who had
no water to drink went to fetch it for himself or did without it.

This constituted the terror of the poor creature whom the reader has
probably not forgotten,—little Cosette. It will be remembered that
Cosette was useful to the Thénardiers in two ways: they made the mother
pay them, and they made the child serve them. So when the mother ceased
to pay altogether, the reason for which we have read in preceding
chapters, the Thénardiers kept Cosette. She took the place of a servant
in their house. In this capacity she it was who ran to fetch water when
it was required. So the child, who was greatly terrified at the idea of
going to the spring at night, took great care that water should never
be lacking in the house.

Christmas of the year 1823 was particularly brilliant at Montfermeil.
The beginning of the winter had been mild; there had been neither snow
nor frost up to that time. Some mountebanks from Paris had obtained
permission of the mayor to erect their booths in the principal street
of the village, and a band of itinerant merchants, under protection of
the same tolerance, had constructed their stalls on the Church Square,
and even extended them into Boulanger Alley, where, as the reader will
perhaps remember, the Thénardiers’ hostelry was situated. These people
filled the inns and drinking-shops, and communicated to that tranquil
little district a noisy and joyous life. In order to play the part of a
faithful historian, we ought even to add that, among the curiosities
displayed in the square, there was a menagerie, in which frightful
clowns, clad in rags and coming no one knew whence, exhibited to the
peasants of Montfermeil in 1823 one of those horrible Brazilian
vultures, such as our Royal Museum did not possess until 1845, and
which have a tricolored cockade for an eye. I believe that naturalists
call this bird Caracara Polyborus; it belongs to the order of the
Apicides, and to the family of the vultures. Some good old Bonapartist
soldiers, who had retired to the village, went to see this creature
with great devotion. The mountebanks gave out that the tricolored
cockade was a unique phenomenon made by God expressly for their
menagerie.

On Christmas eve itself, a number of men, carters, and peddlers, were
seated at table, drinking and smoking around four or five candles in
the public room of Thénardier’s hostelry. This room resembled all
drinking-shop rooms,—tables, pewter jugs, bottles, drinkers, smokers;
but little light and a great deal of noise. The date of the year 1823
was indicated, nevertheless, by two objects which were then fashionable
in the bourgeois class: to wit, a kaleidoscope and a lamp of ribbed
tin. The female Thénardier was attending to the supper, which was
roasting in front of a clear fire; her husband was drinking with his
customers and talking politics.

Besides political conversations which had for their principal subjects
the Spanish war and M. le Duc d’Angoulême, strictly local parentheses,
like the following, were audible amid the uproar:—

“About Nanterre and Suresnes the vines have flourished greatly. When
ten pieces were reckoned on there have been twelve. They have yielded a
great deal of juice under the press.” “But the grapes cannot be ripe?”
“In those parts the grapes should not be ripe; the wine turns oily as
soon as spring comes.” “Then it is very thin wine?” “There are wines
poorer even than these. The grapes must be gathered while green.” Etc.

Or a miller would call out:—

“Are we responsible for what is in the sacks? We find in them a
quantity of small seed which we cannot sift out, and which we are
obliged to send through the mill-stones; there are tares, fennel,
vetches, hempseed, fox-tail, and a host of other weeds, not to mention
pebbles, which abound in certain wheat, especially in Breton wheat. I
am not fond of grinding Breton wheat, any more than long-sawyers like
to saw beams with nails in them. You can judge of the bad dust that
makes in grinding. And then people complain of the flour. They are in
the wrong. The flour is no fault of ours.”


In a space between two windows a mower, who was seated at table with a
landed proprietor who was fixing on a price for some meadow work to be
performed in the spring, was saying:—

“It does no harm to have the grass wet. It cuts better. Dew is a good
thing, sir. It makes no difference with that grass. Your grass is young
and very hard to cut still. It’s terribly tender. It yields before the
iron.” Etc.

Cosette was in her usual place, seated on the cross-bar of the kitchen
table near the chimney. She was in rags; her bare feet were thrust into
wooden shoes, and by the firelight she was engaged in knitting woollen
stockings destined for the young Thénardiers. A very young kitten was
playing about among the chairs. Laughter and chatter were audible in
the adjoining room, from two fresh children’s voices: it was Éponine
and Azelma.

In the chimney-corner a cat-o’-nine-tails was hanging on a nail.

At intervals the cry of a very young child, which was somewhere in the
house, rang through the noise of the dram-shop. It was a little boy who
had been born to the Thénardiers during one of the preceding
winters,—“she did not know why,” she said, “the result of the
cold,”—and who was a little more than three years old. The mother had
nursed him, but she did not love him. When the persistent clamor of the
brat became too annoying, “Your son is squalling,” Thénardier would
say; “do go and see what he wants.” “Bah!” the mother would reply, “he
bothers me.” And the neglected child continued to shriek in the dark.




CHAPTER II—TWO COMPLETE PORTRAITS


So far in this book the Thénardiers have been viewed only in profile;
the moment has arrived for making the circuit of this couple, and
considering it under all its aspects.

Thénardier had just passed his fiftieth birthday; Madame Thénardier was
approaching her forties, which is equivalent to fifty in a woman; so
that there existed a balance of age between husband and wife.

Our readers have possibly preserved some recollection of this
Thénardier woman, ever since her first appearance,—tall, blond, red,
fat, angular, square, enormous, and agile; she belonged, as we have
said, to the race of those colossal wild women, who contort themselves
at fairs with paving-stones hanging from their hair. She did everything
about the house,—made the beds, did the washing, the cooking, and
everything else. Cosette was her only servant; a mouse in the service
of an elephant. Everything trembled at the sound of her voice,—window
panes, furniture, and people. Her big face, dotted with red blotches,
presented the appearance of a skimmer. She had a beard. She was an
ideal market-porter dressed in woman’s clothes. She swore splendidly;
she boasted of being able to crack a nut with one blow of her fist.
Except for the romances which she had read, and which made the affected
lady peep through the ogress at times, in a very queer way, the idea
would never have occurred to any one to say of her, “That is a woman.”
This Thénardier female was like the product of a wench engrafted on a
fishwife. When one heard her speak, one said, “That is a gendarme”;
when one saw her drink, one said, “That is a carter”; when one saw her
handle Cosette, one said, “That is the hangman.” One of her teeth
projected when her face was in repose.

Thénardier was a small, thin, pale, angular, bony, feeble man, who had
a sickly air and who was wonderfully healthy. His cunning began here;
he smiled habitually, by way of precaution, and was almost polite to
everybody, even to the beggar to whom he refused half a farthing. He
had the glance of a pole-cat and the bearing of a man of letters. He
greatly resembled the portraits of the Abbé Delille. His coquetry
consisted in drinking with the carters. No one had ever succeeded in
rendering him drunk. He smoked a big pipe. He wore a blouse, and under
his blouse an old black coat. He made pretensions to literature and to
materialism. There were certain names which he often pronounced to
support whatever things he might be saying,—Voltaire, Raynal, Parny,
and, singularly enough, Saint Augustine. He declared that he had “a
system.” In addition, he was a great swindler. A _filousophe_
[philosophe], a scientific thief. The species does exist. It will be
remembered that he pretended to have served in the army; he was in the
habit of relating with exuberance, how, being a sergeant in the 6th or
the 9th light something or other, at Waterloo, he had alone, and in the
presence of a squadron of death-dealing hussars, covered with his body
and saved from death, in the midst of the grape-shot, “a general, who
had been dangerously wounded.” Thence arose for his wall the flaring
sign, and for his inn the name which it bore in the neighborhood, of
“the cabaret of the Sergeant of Waterloo.” He was a liberal, a classic,
and a Bonapartist. He had subscribed for the Champ d’Asile. It was said
in the village that he had studied for the priesthood.

We believe that he had simply studied in Holland for an inn-keeper.
This rascal of composite order was, in all probability, some Fleming
from Lille, in Flanders, a Frenchman in Paris, a Belgian at Brussels,
being comfortably astride of both frontiers. As for his prowess at
Waterloo, the reader is already acquainted with that. It will be
perceived that he exaggerated it a trifle. Ebb and flow, wandering,
adventure, was the leven of his existence; a tattered conscience
entails a fragmentary life, and, apparently at the stormy epoch of June
18, 1815, Thénardier belonged to that variety of marauding sutlers of
which we have spoken, beating about the country, selling to some,
stealing from others, and travelling like a family man, with wife and
children, in a rickety cart, in the rear of troops on the march, with
an instinct for always attaching himself to the victorious army. This
campaign ended, and having, as he said, “some quibus,” he had come to
Montfermeil and set up an inn there.

This _quibus_, composed of purses and watches, of gold rings and silver
crosses, gathered in harvest-time in furrows sown with corpses, did not
amount to a large total, and did not carry this sutler turned
eating-house-keeper very far.

Thénardier had that peculiar rectilinear something about his gestures
which, accompanied by an oath, recalls the barracks, and by a sign of
the cross, the seminary. He was a fine talker. He allowed it to be
thought that he was an educated man. Nevertheless, the schoolmaster had
noticed that he pronounced improperly.12

He composed the travellers’ tariff card in a superior manner, but
practised eyes sometimes spied out orthographical errors in it.
Thénardier was cunning, greedy, slothful, and clever. He did not
disdain his servants, which caused his wife to dispense with them. This
giantess was jealous. It seemed to her that that thin and yellow little
man must be an object coveted by all.

Thénardier, who was, above all, an astute and well-balanced man, was a
scamp of a temperate sort. This is the worst species; hypocrisy enters
into it.

It is not that Thénardier was not, on occasion, capable of wrath to
quite the same degree as his wife; but this was very rare, and at such
times, since he was enraged with the human race in general, as he bore
within him a deep furnace of hatred. And since he was one of those
people who are continually avenging their wrongs, who accuse everything
that passes before them of everything which has befallen them, and who
are always ready to cast upon the first person who comes to hand, as a
legitimate grievance, the sum total of the deceptions, the
bankruptcies, and the calamities of their lives,—when all this leaven
was stirred up in him and boiled forth from his mouth and eyes, he was
terrible. Woe to the person who came under his wrath at such a time!

In addition to his other qualities, Thénardier was attentive and
penetrating, silent or talkative, according to circumstances, and
always highly intelligent. He had something of the look of sailors, who
are accustomed to screw up their eyes to gaze through marine glasses.
Thénardier was a statesman.

Every newcomer who entered the tavern said, on catching sight of Madame
Thénardier, “There is the master of the house.” A mistake. She was not
even the mistress. The husband was both master and mistress. She
worked; he created. He directed everything by a sort of invisible and
constant magnetic action. A word was sufficient for him, sometimes a
sign; the mastodon obeyed. Thénardier was a sort of special and
sovereign being in Madame Thénardier’s eyes, though she did not
thoroughly realize it. She was possessed of virtues after her own kind;
if she had ever had a disagreement as to any detail with “Monsieur
Thénardier,”—which was an inadmissible hypothesis, by the way,—she
would not have blamed her husband in public on any subject whatever.
She would never have committed “before strangers” that mistake so often
committed by women, and which is called in parliamentary language,
“exposing the crown.” Although their concord had only evil as its
result, there was contemplation in Madame Thénardier’s submission to
her husband. That mountain of noise and of flesh moved under the little
finger of that frail despot. Viewed on its dwarfed and grotesque side,
this was that grand and universal thing, the adoration of mind by
matter; for certain ugly features have a cause in the very depths of
eternal beauty. There was an unknown quantity about Thénardier; hence
the absolute empire of the man over that woman. At certain moments she
beheld him like a lighted candle; at others she felt him like a claw.

This woman was a formidable creature who loved no one except her
children, and who did not fear any one except her husband. She was a
mother because she was mammiferous. But her maternity stopped short
with her daughters, and, as we shall see, did not extend to boys. The
man had but one thought,—how to enrich himself.

He did not succeed in this. A theatre worthy of this great talent was
lacking. Thénardier was ruining himself at Montfermeil, if ruin is
possible to zero; in Switzerland or in the Pyrenees this penniless
scamp would have become a millionaire; but an inn-keeper must browse
where fate has hitched him.

It will be understood that the word _inn-keeper_ is here employed in a
restricted sense, and does not extend to an entire class.

In this same year, 1823, Thénardier was burdened with about fifteen
hundred francs’ worth of petty debts, and this rendered him anxious.

Whatever may have been the obstinate injustice of destiny in this case,
Thénardier was one of those men who understand best, with the most
profundity and in the most modern fashion, that thing which is a virtue
among barbarous peoples and an object of merchandise among civilized
peoples,—hospitality. Besides, he was an admirable poacher, and quoted
for his skill in shooting. He had a certain cold and tranquil laugh,
which was particularly dangerous.

His theories as a landlord sometimes burst forth in lightning flashes.
He had professional aphorisms, which he inserted into his wife’s mind.
“The duty of the inn-keeper,” he said to her one day, violently, and in
a low voice, “is to sell to the first comer, stews, repose, light,
fire, dirty sheets, a servant, lice, and a smile; to stop passers-by,
to empty small purses, and to honestly lighten heavy ones; to shelter
travelling families respectfully: to shave the man, to pluck the woman,
to pick the child clean; to quote the window open, the window shut, the
chimney-corner, the armchair, the chair, the ottoman, the stool, the
feather-bed, the mattress and the truss of straw; to know how much the
shadow uses up the mirror, and to put a price on it; and, by five
hundred thousand devils, to make the traveller pay for everything, even
for the flies which his dog eats!”


This man and this woman were ruse and rage wedded—a hideous and
terrible team.

While the husband pondered and combined, Madame Thénardier thought not
of absent creditors, took no heed of yesterday nor of to-morrow, and
lived in a fit of anger, all in a minute.

Such were these two beings. Cosette was between them, subjected to
their double pressure, like a creature who is at the same time being
ground up in a mill and pulled to pieces with pincers. The man and the
woman each had a different method: Cosette was overwhelmed with
blows—this was the woman’s; she went barefooted in winter—that was the
man’s doing.

Cosette ran upstairs and down, washed, swept, rubbed, dusted, ran,
fluttered about, panted, moved heavy articles, and weak as she was, did
the coarse work. There was no mercy for her; a fierce mistress and
venomous master. The Thénardier hostelry was like a spider’s web, in
which Cosette had been caught, and where she lay trembling. The ideal
of oppression was realized by this sinister household. It was something
like the fly serving the spiders.

The poor child passively held her peace.

What takes place within these souls when they have but just quitted
God, find themselves thus, at the very dawn of life, very small and in
the midst of men all naked!




CHAPTER III—MEN MUST HAVE WINE, AND HORSES MUST HAVE WATER


Four new travellers had arrived.

Cosette was meditating sadly; for, although she was only eight years
old, she had already suffered so much that she reflected with the
lugubrious air of an old woman. Her eye was black in consequence of a
blow from Madame Thénardier’s fist, which caused the latter to remark
from time to time, “How ugly she is with her fist-blow on her eye!”


Cosette was thinking that it was dark, very dark, that the pitchers and
caraffes in the chambers of the travellers who had arrived must have
been filled and that there was no more water in the cistern.

She was somewhat reassured because no one in the Thénardier
establishment drank much water. Thirsty people were never lacking
there; but their thirst was of the sort which applies to the jug rather
than to the pitcher. Any one who had asked for a glass of water among
all those glasses of wine would have appeared a savage to all these
men. But there came a moment when the child trembled; Madame Thénardier
raised the cover of a stew-pan which was boiling on the stove, then
seized a glass and briskly approached the cistern. She turned the
faucet; the child had raised her head and was following all the woman’s
movements. A thin stream of water trickled from the faucet, and half
filled the glass. “Well,” said she, “there is no more water!” A
momentary silence ensued. The child did not breathe.

“Bah!” resumed Madame Thénardier, examining the half-filled glass,
“this will be enough.”


Cosette applied herself to her work once more, but for a quarter of an
hour she felt her heart leaping in her bosom like a big snow-flake.

She counted the minutes that passed in this manner, and wished it were
the next morning.

From time to time one of the drinkers looked into the street, and
exclaimed, “It’s as black as an oven!” or, “One must needs be a cat to
go about the streets without a lantern at this hour!” And Cosette
trembled.

All at once one of the pedlers who lodged in the hostelry entered, and
said in a harsh voice:—

“My horse has not been watered.”


“Yes, it has,” said Madame Thénardier.

“I tell you that it has not,” retorted the pedler.

Cosette had emerged from under the table.

“Oh, yes, sir!” said she, “the horse has had a drink; he drank out of a
bucket, a whole bucketful, and it was I who took the water to him, and
I spoke to him.”


It was not true; Cosette lied.

“There’s a brat as big as my fist who tells lies as big as the house,”
exclaimed the pedler. “I tell you that he has not been watered, you
little jade! He has a way of blowing when he has had no water, which I
know well.”


Cosette persisted, and added in a voice rendered hoarse with anguish,
and which was hardly audible:—

“And he drank heartily.”


“Come,” said the pedler, in a rage, “this won’t do at all, let my horse
be watered, and let that be the end of it!”


Cosette crept under the table again.

“In truth, that is fair!” said Madame Thénardier, “if the beast has not
been watered, it must be.”


Then glancing about her:—

“Well, now! Where’s that other beast?”


She bent down and discovered Cosette cowering at the other end of the
table, almost under the drinkers’ feet.

“Are you coming?” shrieked Madame Thénardier.

Cosette crawled out of the sort of hole in which she had hidden
herself. The Thénardier resumed:—

“Mademoiselle Dog-lack-name, go and water that horse.”


“But, Madame,” said Cosette, feebly, “there is no water.”


The Thénardier threw the street door wide open:—

“Well, go and get some, then!”


Cosette dropped her head, and went for an empty bucket which stood near
the chimney-corner.

This bucket was bigger than she was, and the child could have set down
in it at her ease.

The Thénardier returned to her stove, and tasted what was in the
stewpan, with a wooden spoon, grumbling the while:—

“There’s plenty in the spring. There never was such a malicious
creature as that. I think I should have done better to strain my
onions.”


Then she rummaged in a drawer which contained sous, pepper, and
shallots.

“See here, Mam’selle Toad,” she added, “on your way back, you will get
a big loaf from the baker. Here’s a fifteen-sou piece.”


Cosette had a little pocket on one side of her apron; she took the coin
without saying a word, and put it in that pocket.

Then she stood motionless, bucket in hand, the open door before her.
She seemed to be waiting for some one to come to her rescue.

“Get along with you!” screamed the Thénardier.

Cosette went out. The door closed behind her.




CHAPTER IV—ENTRANCE ON THE SCENE OF A DOLL


The line of open-air booths starting at the church, extended, as the
reader will remember, as far as the hostelry of the Thénardiers. These
booths were all illuminated, because the citizens would soon pass on
their way to the midnight mass, with candles burning in paper funnels,
which, as the schoolmaster, then seated at the table at the
Thénardiers’ observed, produced “a magical effect.” In compensation,
not a star was visible in the sky.

The last of these stalls, established precisely opposite the
Thénardiers’ door, was a toy-shop all glittering with tinsel, glass,
and magnificent objects of tin. In the first row, and far forwards, the
merchant had placed on a background of white napkins, an immense doll,
nearly two feet high, who was dressed in a robe of pink crepe, with
gold wheat-ears on her head, which had real hair and enamel eyes. All
that day, this marvel had been displayed to the wonderment of all
passers-by under ten years of age, without a mother being found in
Montfermeil sufficiently rich or sufficiently extravagant to give it to
her child. Éponine and Azelma had passed hours in contemplating it, and
Cosette herself had ventured to cast a glance at it, on the sly, it is
true.

At the moment when Cosette emerged, bucket in hand, melancholy and
overcome as she was, she could not refrain from lifting her eyes to
that wonderful doll, towards _the lady_, as she called it. The poor
child paused in amazement. She had not yet beheld that doll close to.
The whole shop seemed a palace to her: the doll was not a doll; it was
a vision. It was joy, splendor, riches, happiness, which appeared in a
sort of chimerical halo to that unhappy little being so profoundly
engulfed in gloomy and chilly misery. With the sad and innocent
sagacity of childhood, Cosette measured the abyss which separated her
from that doll. She said to herself that one must be a queen, or at
least a princess, to have a “thing” like that. She gazed at that
beautiful pink dress, that beautiful smooth hair, and she thought, “How
happy that doll must be!” She could not take her eyes from that
fantastic stall. The more she looked, the more dazzled she grew. She
thought she was gazing at paradise. There were other dolls behind the
large one, which seemed to her to be fairies and genii. The merchant,
who was pacing back and forth in front of his shop, produced on her
somewhat the effect of being the Eternal Father.

In this adoration she forgot everything, even the errand with which she
was charged.

All at once the Thénardier’s coarse voice recalled her to reality:
“What, you silly jade! you have not gone? Wait! I’ll give it to you! I
want to know what you are doing there! Get along, you little monster!”


The Thénardier had cast a glance into the street, and had caught sight
of Cosette in her ecstasy.

Cosette fled, dragging her pail, and taking the longest strides of
which she was capable.




CHAPTER V—THE LITTLE ONE ALL ALONE


As the Thénardier hostelry was in that part of the village which is
near the church, it was to the spring in the forest in the direction of
Chelles that Cosette was obliged to go for her water.

She did not glance at the display of a single other merchant. So long
as she was in Boulanger Lane and in the neighborhood of the church, the
lighted stalls illuminated the road; but soon the last light from the
last stall vanished. The poor child found herself in the dark. She
plunged into it. Only, as a certain emotion overcame her, she made as
much motion as possible with the handle of the bucket as she walked
along. This made a noise which afforded her company.

The further she went, the denser the darkness became. There was no one
in the streets. However, she did encounter a woman, who turned around
on seeing her, and stood still, muttering between her teeth: “Where can
that child be going? Is it a werewolf child?” Then the woman recognized
Cosette. “Well,” said she, “it’s the Lark!”


In this manner Cosette traversed the labyrinth of tortuous and deserted
streets which terminate in the village of Montfermeil on the side of
Chelles. So long as she had the houses or even the walls only on both
sides of her path, she proceeded with tolerable boldness. From time to
time she caught the flicker of a candle through the crack of a
shutter—this was light and life; there were people there, and it
reassured her. But in proportion as she advanced, her pace slackened
mechanically, as it were. When she had passed the corner of the last
house, Cosette paused. It had been hard to advance further than the
last stall; it became impossible to proceed further than the last
house. She set her bucket on the ground, thrust her hand into her hair,
and began slowly to scratch her head,—a gesture peculiar to children
when terrified and undecided what to do. It was no longer Montfermeil;
it was the open fields. Black and desert space was before her. She
gazed in despair at that darkness, where there was no longer any one,
where there were beasts, where there were spectres, possibly. She took
a good look, and heard the beasts walking on the grass, and she
distinctly saw spectres moving in the trees. Then she seized her bucket
again; fear had lent her audacity. “Bah!” said she; “I will tell him
that there was no more water!” And she resolutely re-entered
Montfermeil.

Hardly had she gone a hundred paces when she paused and began to
scratch her head again. Now it was the Thénardier who appeared to her,
with her hideous, hyena mouth, and wrath flashing in her eyes. The
child cast a melancholy glance before her and behind her. What was she
to do? What was to become of her? Where was she to go? In front of her
was the spectre of the Thénardier; behind her all the phantoms of the
night and of the forest. It was before the Thénardier that she
recoiled. She resumed her path to the spring, and began to run. She
emerged from the village, she entered the forest at a run, no longer
looking at or listening to anything. She only paused in her course when
her breath failed her; but she did not halt in her advance. She went
straight before her in desperation.

As she ran she felt like crying.

The nocturnal quivering of the forest surrounded her completely.

She no longer thought, she no longer saw. The immensity of night was
facing this tiny creature. On the one hand, all shadow; on the other,
an atom.

It was only seven or eight minutes’ walk from the edge of the woods to
the spring. Cosette knew the way, through having gone over it many
times in daylight. Strange to say, she did not get lost. A remnant of
instinct guided her vaguely. But she did not turn her eyes either to
right or to left, for fear of seeing things in the branches and in the
brushwood. In this manner she reached the spring.

It was a narrow, natural basin, hollowed out by the water in a clayey
soil, about two feet deep, surrounded with moss and with those tall,
crimped grasses which are called Henry IV.’s frills, and paved with
several large stones. A brook ran out of it, with a tranquil little
noise.

Cosette did not take time to breathe. It was very dark, but she was in
the habit of coming to this spring. She felt with her left hand in the
dark for a young oak which leaned over the spring, and which usually
served to support her, found one of its branches, clung to it, bent
down, and plunged the bucket in the water. She was in a state of such
violent excitement that her strength was trebled. While thus bent over,
she did not notice that the pocket of her apron had emptied itself into
the spring. The fifteen-sou piece fell into the water. Cosette neither
saw nor heard it fall. She drew out the bucket nearly full, and set it
on the grass.

That done, she perceived that she was worn out with fatigue. She would
have liked to set out again at once, but the effort required to fill
the bucket had been such that she found it impossible to take a step.
She was forced to sit down. She dropped on the grass, and remained
crouching there.

She shut her eyes; then she opened them again, without knowing why, but
because she could not do otherwise. The agitated water in the bucket
beside her was describing circles which resembled tin serpents.

Overhead the sky was covered with vast black clouds, which were like
masses of smoke. The tragic mask of shadow seemed to bend vaguely over
the child.

Jupiter was setting in the depths.

The child stared with bewildered eyes at this great star, with which
she was unfamiliar, and which terrified her. The planet was, in fact,
very near the horizon and was traversing a dense layer of mist which
imparted to it a horrible ruddy hue. The mist, gloomily empurpled,
magnified the star. One would have called it a luminous wound.

A cold wind was blowing from the plain. The forest was dark, not a leaf
was moving; there were none of the vague, fresh gleams of summertide.
Great boughs uplifted themselves in frightful wise. Slender and
misshapen bushes whistled in the clearings. The tall grasses undulated
like eels under the north wind. The nettles seemed to twist long arms
furnished with claws in search of prey. Some bits of dry heather,
tossed by the breeze, flew rapidly by, and had the air of fleeing in
terror before something which was coming after. On all sides there were
lugubrious stretches.

The darkness was bewildering. Man requires light. Whoever buries
himself in the opposite of day feels his heart contract. When the eye
sees black, the heart sees trouble. In an eclipse in the night, in the
sooty opacity, there is anxiety even for the stoutest of hearts. No one
walks alone in the forest at night without trembling. Shadows and
trees—two formidable densities. A chimerical reality appears in the
indistinct depths. The inconceivable is outlined a few paces distant
from you with a spectral clearness. One beholds floating, either in
space or in one’s own brain, one knows not what vague and intangible
thing, like the dreams of sleeping flowers. There are fierce attitudes
on the horizon. One inhales the effluvia of the great black void. One
is afraid to glance behind him, yet desirous of doing so. The cavities
of night, things grown haggard, taciturn profiles which vanish when one
advances, obscure dishevelments, irritated tufts, livid pools, the
lugubrious reflected in the funereal, the sepulchral immensity of
silence, unknown but possible beings, bendings of mysterious branches,
alarming torsos of trees, long handfuls of quivering plants,—against
all this one has no protection. There is no hardihood which does not
shudder and which does not feel the vicinity of anguish. One is
conscious of something hideous, as though one’s soul were becoming
amalgamated with the darkness. This penetration of the shadows is
indescribably sinister in the case of a child.

Forests are apocalypses, and the beating of the wings of a tiny soul
produces a sound of agony beneath their monstrous vault.

Without understanding her sensations, Cosette was conscious that she
was seized upon by that black enormity of nature; it was no longer
terror alone which was gaining possession of her; it was something more
terrible even than terror; she shivered. There are no words to express
the strangeness of that shiver which chilled her to the very bottom of
her heart; her eye grew wild; she thought she felt that she should not
be able to refrain from returning there at the same hour on the morrow.

Then, by a sort of instinct, she began to count aloud, one, two, three,
four, and so on up to ten, in order to escape from that singular state
which she did not understand, but which terrified her, and, when she
had finished, she began again; this restored her to a true perception
of the things about her. Her hands, which she had wet in drawing the
water, felt cold; she rose; her terror, a natural and unconquerable
terror, had returned: she had but one thought now,—to flee at full
speed through the forest, across the fields to the houses, to the
windows, to the lighted candles. Her glance fell upon the water which
stood before her; such was the fright which the Thénardier inspired in
her, that she dared not flee without that bucket of water: she seized
the handle with both hands; she could hardly lift the pail.

In this manner she advanced a dozen paces, but the bucket was full; it
was heavy; she was forced to set it on the ground once more. She took
breath for an instant, then lifted the handle of the bucket again, and
resumed her march, proceeding a little further this time, but again she
was obliged to pause. After some seconds of repose she set out again.
She walked bent forward, with drooping head, like an old woman; the
weight of the bucket strained and stiffened her thin arms. The iron
handle completed the benumbing and freezing of her wet and tiny hands;
she was forced to halt from time to time, and each time that she did
so, the cold water which splashed from the pail fell on her bare legs.
This took place in the depths of a forest, at night, in winter, far
from all human sight; she was a child of eight: no one but God saw that
sad thing at the moment.

And her mother, no doubt, alas!

For there are things that make the dead open their eyes in their
graves.

She panted with a sort of painful rattle; sobs contracted her throat,
but she dared not weep, so afraid was she of the Thénardier, even at a
distance: it was her custom to imagine the Thénardier always present.

However, she could not make much headway in that manner, and she went
on very slowly. In spite of diminishing the length of her stops, and of
walking as long as possible between them, she reflected with anguish
that it would take her more than an hour to return to Montfermeil in
this manner, and that the Thénardier would beat her. This anguish was
mingled with her terror at being alone in the woods at night; she was
worn out with fatigue, and had not yet emerged from the forest. On
arriving near an old chestnut-tree with which she was acquainted, made
a last halt, longer than the rest, in order that she might get well
rested; then she summoned up all her strength, picked up her bucket
again, and courageously resumed her march, but the poor little
desperate creature could not refrain from crying, “O my God! my God!”


At that moment she suddenly became conscious that her bucket no longer
weighed anything at all: a hand, which seemed to her enormous, had just
seized the handle, and lifted it vigorously. She raised her head. A
large black form, straight and erect, was walking beside her through
the darkness; it was a man who had come up behind her, and whose
approach she had not heard. This man, without uttering a word, had
seized the handle of the bucket which she was carrying.

There are instincts for all the encounters of life.

The child was not afraid.




CHAPTER VI—WHICH POSSIBLY PROVES BOULATRUELLE’S INTELLIGENCE


On the afternoon of that same Christmas Day, 1823, a man had walked for
rather a long time in the most deserted part of the Boulevard de
l’Hôpital in Paris. This man had the air of a person who is seeking
lodgings, and he seemed to halt, by preference, at the most modest
houses on that dilapidated border of the faubourg Saint-Marceau.

We shall see further on that this man had, in fact, hired a chamber in
that isolated quarter.

This man, in his attire, as in all his person, realized the type of
what may be called the well-bred mendicant,—extreme wretchedness
combined with extreme cleanliness. This is a very rare mixture which
inspires intelligent hearts with that double respect which one feels
for the man who is very poor, and for the man who is very worthy. He
wore a very old and very well brushed round hat; a coarse coat, worn
perfectly threadbare, of an ochre yellow, a color that was not in the
least eccentric at that epoch; a large waistcoat with pockets of a
venerable cut; black breeches, worn gray at the knee, stockings of
black worsted; and thick shoes with copper buckles. He would have been
pronounced a preceptor in some good family, returned from the
emigration. He would have been taken for more than sixty years of age,
from his perfectly white hair, his wrinkled brow, his livid lips, and
his countenance, where everything breathed depression and weariness of
life. Judging from his firm tread, from the singular vigor which
stamped all his movements, he would have hardly been thought fifty. The
wrinkles on his brow were well placed, and would have disposed in his
favor any one who observed him attentively. His lip contracted with a
strange fold which seemed severe, and which was humble. There was in
the depth of his glance an indescribable melancholy serenity. In his
left hand he carried a little bundle tied up in a handkerchief; in his
right he leaned on a sort of a cudgel, cut from some hedge. This stick
had been carefully trimmed, and had an air that was not too
threatening; the most had been made of its knots, and it had received a
coral-like head, made from red wax: it was a cudgel, and it seemed to
be a cane.

There are but few passers-by on that boulevard, particularly in the
winter. The man seemed to avoid them rather than to seek them, but this
without any affectation.

At that epoch, King Louis XVIII. went nearly every day to
Choisy-le-Roi: it was one of his favorite excursions. Towards two
o’clock, almost invariably, the royal carriage and cavalcade was seen
to pass at full speed along the Boulevard de l’Hôpital.

This served in lieu of a watch or clock to the poor women of the
quarter who said, “It is two o’clock; there he is returning to the
Tuileries.”


And some rushed forward, and others drew up in line, for a passing king
always creates a tumult; besides, the appearance and disappearance of
Louis XVIII. produced a certain effect in the streets of Paris. It was
rapid but majestic. This impotent king had a taste for a fast gallop;
as he was not able to walk, he wished to run: that cripple would gladly
have had himself drawn by the lightning. He passed, pacific and severe,
in the midst of naked swords. His massive couch, all covered with
gilding, with great branches of lilies painted on the panels, thundered
noisily along. There was hardly time to cast a glance upon it. In the
rear angle on the right there was visible on tufted cushions of white
satin a large, firm, and ruddy face, a brow freshly powdered _à
l’oiseau royal_, a proud, hard, crafty eye, the smile of an educated
man, two great epaulets with bullion fringe floating over a bourgeois
coat, the Golden Fleece, the cross of Saint Louis, the cross of the
Legion of Honor, the silver plaque of the Saint-Esprit, a huge belly,
and a wide blue ribbon: it was the king. Outside of Paris, he held his
hat decked with white ostrich plumes on his knees enwrapped in high
English gaiters; when he re-entered the city, he put on his hat and
saluted rarely; he stared coldly at the people, and they returned it in
kind. When he appeared for the first time in the Saint-Marceau quarter,
the whole success which he produced is contained in this remark of an
inhabitant of the faubourg to his comrade, “That big fellow yonder is
the government.”


This infallible passage of the king at the same hour was, therefore,
the daily event of the Boulevard de l’Hôpital.

The promenader in the yellow coat evidently did not belong in the
quarter, and probably did not belong in Paris, for he was ignorant as
to this detail. When, at two o’clock, the royal carriage, surrounded by
a squadron of the body-guard all covered with silver lace, debouched on
the boulevard, after having made the turn of the Salpêtrière, he
appeared surprised and almost alarmed. There was no one but himself in
this cross-lane. He drew up hastily behind the corner of the wall of an
enclosure, though this did not prevent M. le Duc de Havré from spying
him out.

M. le Duc de Havré, as captain of the guard on duty that day, was
seated in the carriage, opposite the king. He said to his Majesty,
“Yonder is an evil-looking man.” Members of the police, who were
clearing the king’s route, took equal note of him: one of them received
an order to follow him. But the man plunged into the deserted little
streets of the faubourg, and as twilight was beginning to fall, the
agent lost trace of him, as is stated in a report addressed that same
evening to M. le Comte d’Anglès, Minister of State, Prefect of Police.

When the man in the yellow coat had thrown the agent off his track, he
redoubled his pace, not without turning round many a time to assure
himself that he was not being followed. At a quarter-past four, that is
to say, when night was fully come, he passed in front of the theatre of
the Porte Saint-Martin, where _The Two Convicts_ was being played that
day. This poster, illuminated by the theatre lanterns, struck him; for,
although he was walking rapidly, he halted to read it. An instant later
he was in the blind alley of La Planchette, and he entered the _Plat
d’Etain_ [the Pewter Platter], where the office of the coach for Lagny
was then situated. This coach set out at half-past four. The horses
were harnessed, and the travellers, summoned by the coachman, were
hastily climbing the lofty iron ladder of the vehicle.

The man inquired:—

“Have you a place?”


“Only one—beside me on the box,” said the coachman.

“I will take it.”


“Climb up.”


Nevertheless, before setting out, the coachman cast a glance at the
traveller’s shabby dress, at the diminutive size of his bundle, and
made him pay his fare.

“Are you going as far as Lagny?” demanded the coachman.

“Yes,” said the man.

The traveller paid to Lagny.

They started. When they had passed the barrier, the coachman tried to
enter into conversation, but the traveller only replied in
monosyllables. The coachman took to whistling and swearing at his
horses.

The coachman wrapped himself up in his cloak. It was cold. The man did
not appear to be thinking of that. Thus they passed Gournay and
Neuilly-sur-Marne.

Towards six o’clock in the evening they reached Chelles. The coachman
drew up in front of the carters’ inn installed in the ancient buildings
of the Royal Abbey, to give his horses a breathing spell.

“I get down here,” said the man.

He took his bundle and his cudgel and jumped down from the vehicle.

An instant later he had disappeared.

He did not enter the inn.

When the coach set out for Lagny a few minutes later, it did not
encounter him in the principal street of Chelles.

The coachman turned to the inside travellers.

“There,” said he, “is a man who does not belong here, for I do not know
him. He had not the air of owning a sou, but he does not consider
money; he pays to Lagny, and he goes only as far as Chelles. It is
night; all the houses are shut; he does not enter the inn, and he is
not to be found. So he has dived through the earth.”


The man had not plunged into the earth, but he had gone with great
strides through the dark, down the principal street of Chelles, then he
had turned to the right before reaching the church, into the crossroad
leading to Montfermeil, like a person who was acquainted with the
country and had been there before.

He followed this road rapidly. At the spot where it is intersected by
the ancient tree-bordered road which runs from Gagny to Lagny, he heard
people coming. He concealed himself precipitately in a ditch, and there
waited until the passers-by were at a distance. The precaution was
nearly superfluous, however; for, as we have already said, it was a
very dark December night. Not more than two or three stars were visible
in the sky.

It is at this point that the ascent of the hill begins. The man did not
return to the road to Montfermeil; he struck across the fields to the
right, and entered the forest with long strides.

Once in the forest he slackened his pace, and began a careful
examination of all the trees, advancing, step by step, as though
seeking and following a mysterious road known to himself alone. There
came a moment when he appeared to lose himself, and he paused in
indecision. At last he arrived, by dint of feeling his way inch by
inch, at a clearing where there was a great heap of whitish stones. He
stepped up briskly to these stones, and examined them attentively
through the mists of night, as though he were passing them in review. A
large tree, covered with those excrescences which are the warts of
vegetation, stood a few paces distant from the pile of stones. He went
up to this tree and passed his hand over the bark of the trunk, as
though seeking to recognize and count all the warts.

Opposite this tree, which was an ash, there was a chestnut-tree,
suffering from a peeling of the bark, to which a band of zinc had been
nailed by way of dressing. He raised himself on tiptoe and touched this
band of zinc.

Then he trod about for awhile on the ground comprised in the space
between the tree and the heap of stones, like a person who is trying to
assure himself that the soil has not recently been disturbed.

That done, he took his bearings, and resumed his march through the
forest.

It was the man who had just met Cosette.

As he walked through the thicket in the direction of Montfermeil, he
had espied that tiny shadow moving with a groan, depositing a burden on
the ground, then taking it up and setting out again. He drew near, and
perceived that it was a very young child, laden with an enormous bucket
of water. Then he approached the child, and silently grasped the handle
of the bucket.




CHAPTER VII—COSETTE SIDE BY SIDE WITH THE STRANGER IN THE DARK


Cosette, as we have said, was not frightened.

The man accosted her. He spoke in a voice that was grave and almost
bass.

“My child, what you are carrying is very heavy for you.”


Cosette raised her head and replied:—

“Yes, sir.”


“Give it to me,” said the man; “I will carry it for you.”


Cosette let go of the bucket-handle. The man walked along beside her.

“It really is very heavy,” he muttered between his teeth. Then he
added:—

“How old are you, little one?”


“Eight, sir.”


“And have you come from far like this?”


“From the spring in the forest.”


“Are you going far?”


“A good quarter of an hour’s walk from here.”


The man said nothing for a moment; then he remarked abruptly:—

“So you have no mother.”


“I don’t know,” answered the child.

Before the man had time to speak again, she added:—

“I don’t think so. Other people have mothers. I have none.”


And after a silence she went on:—

“I think that I never had any.”


The man halted; he set the bucket on the ground, bent down and placed
both hands on the child’s shoulders, making an effort to look at her
and to see her face in the dark.

Cosette’s thin and sickly face was vaguely outlined by the livid light
in the sky.

“What is your name?” said the man.

“Cosette.”


The man seemed to have received an electric shock. He looked at her
once more; then he removed his hands from Cosette’s shoulders, seized
the bucket, and set out again.

After a moment he inquired:—

“Where do you live, little one?”


“At Montfermeil, if you know where that is.”


“That is where we are going?”


“Yes, sir.”


He paused; then began again:—

“Who sent you at such an hour to get water in the forest?”


“It was Madame Thénardier.”


The man resumed, in a voice which he strove to render indifferent, but
in which there was, nevertheless, a singular tremor:—

“What does your Madame Thénardier do?”


“She is my mistress,” said the child. “She keeps the inn.”


“The inn?” said the man. “Well, I am going to lodge there to-night.
Show me the way.”


“We are on the way there,” said the child.

The man walked tolerably fast. Cosette followed him without difficulty.
She no longer felt any fatigue. From time to time she raised her eyes
towards the man, with a sort of tranquillity and an indescribable
confidence. She had never been taught to turn to Providence and to
pray; nevertheless, she felt within her something which resembled hope
and joy, and which mounted towards heaven.

Several minutes elapsed. The man resumed:—

“Is there no servant in Madame Thénardier’s house?”


“No, sir.”


“Are you alone there?”


“Yes, sir.”


Another pause ensued. Cosette lifted up her voice:—

“That is to say, there are two little girls.”


“What little girls?”


“Ponine and Zelma.”


This was the way the child simplified the romantic names so dear to the
female Thénardier.

“Who are Ponine and Zelma?”


“They are Madame Thénardier’s young ladies; her daughters, as you would
say.”


“And what do those girls do?”


“Oh!” said the child, “they have beautiful dolls; things with gold in
them, all full of affairs. They play; they amuse themselves.”


“All day long?”


“Yes, sir.”


“And you?”


“I? I work.”


“All day long?”


The child raised her great eyes, in which hung a tear, which was not
visible because of the darkness, and replied gently:—

“Yes, sir.”


After an interval of silence she went on:—

“Sometimes, when I have finished my work and they let me, I amuse
myself, too.”


“How do you amuse yourself?”


“In the best way I can. They let me alone; but I have not many
playthings. Ponine and Zelma will not let me play with their dolls. I
have only a little lead sword, no longer than that.”


The child held up her tiny finger.

“And it will not cut?”


“Yes, sir,” said the child; “it cuts salad and the heads of flies.”


They reached the village. Cosette guided the stranger through the
streets. They passed the bakeshop, but Cosette did not think of the
bread which she had been ordered to fetch. The man had ceased to ply
her with questions, and now preserved a gloomy silence.

When they had left the church behind them, the man, on perceiving all
the open-air booths, asked Cosette:—

“So there is a fair going on here?”


“No, sir; it is Christmas.”


As they approached the tavern, Cosette timidly touched his arm:—

“Monsieur?”


“What, my child?”


“We are quite near the house.”


“Well?”


“Will you let me take my bucket now?”


“Why?”


“If Madame sees that some one has carried it for me, she will beat me.”


The man handed her the bucket. An instant later they were at the tavern
door.




CHAPTER VIII—THE UNPLEASANTNESS OF RECEIVING INTO ONE’S HOUSE A POOR
MAN WHO MAY BE A RICH MAN


Cosette could not refrain from casting a sidelong glance at the big
doll, which was still displayed at the toy-merchant’s; then she
knocked. The door opened. The Thénardier appeared with a candle in her
hand.

“Ah! so it’s you, you little wretch! good mercy, but you’ve taken your
time! The hussy has been amusing herself!”


“Madame,” said Cosette, trembling all over, “here’s a gentleman who
wants a lodging.”


The Thénardier speedily replaced her gruff air by her amiable grimace,
a change of aspect common to tavern-keepers, and eagerly sought the
newcomer with her eyes.

“This is the gentleman?” said she.

“Yes, Madame,” replied the man, raising his hand to his hat.

Wealthy travellers are not so polite. This gesture, and an inspection
of the stranger’s costume and baggage, which the Thénardier passed in
review with one glance, caused the amiable grimace to vanish, and the
gruff mien to reappear. She resumed dryly:—

“Enter, my good man.”


The “good man” entered. The Thénardier cast a second glance at him,
paid particular attention to his frock-coat, which was absolutely
threadbare, and to his hat, which was a little battered, and, tossing
her head, wrinkling her nose, and screwing up her eyes, she consulted
her husband, who was still drinking with the carters. The husband
replied by that imperceptible movement of the forefinger, which, backed
up by an inflation of the lips, signifies in such cases: A regular
beggar. Thereupon, the Thénardier exclaimed:—

“Ah! see here, my good man; I am very sorry, but I have no room left.”


“Put me where you like,” said the man; “in the attic, in the stable. I
will pay as though I occupied a room.”


“Forty sous.”


“Forty sous; agreed.”


“Very well, then!”


“Forty sous!” said a carter, in a low tone, to the Thénardier woman;
“why, the charge is only twenty sous!”


“It is forty in his case,” retorted the Thénardier, in the same tone.
“I don’t lodge poor folks for less.”


“That’s true,” added her husband, gently; “it ruins a house to have
such people in it.”


In the meantime, the man, laying his bundle and his cudgel on a bench,
had seated himself at a table, on which Cosette made haste to place a
bottle of wine and a glass. The merchant who had demanded the bucket of
water took it to his horse himself. Cosette resumed her place under the
kitchen table, and her knitting.

The man, who had barely moistened his lips in the wine which he had
poured out for himself, observed the child with peculiar attention.

Cosette was ugly. If she had been happy, she might have been pretty. We
have already given a sketch of that sombre little figure. Cosette was
thin and pale; she was nearly eight years old, but she seemed to be
hardly six. Her large eyes, sunken in a sort of shadow, were almost put
out with weeping. The corners of her mouth had that curve of habitual
anguish which is seen in condemned persons and desperately sick people.
Her hands were, as her mother had divined, “ruined with chilblains.”
The fire which illuminated her at that moment brought into relief all
the angles of her bones, and rendered her thinness frightfully
apparent. As she was always shivering, she had acquired the habit of
pressing her knees one against the other. Her entire clothing was but a
rag which would have inspired pity in summer, and which inspired horror
in winter. All she had on was hole-ridden linen, not a scrap of
woollen. Her skin was visible here and there and everywhere black and
blue spots could be descried, which marked the places where the
Thénardier woman had touched her. Her naked legs were thin and red. The
hollows in her neck were enough to make one weep. This child’s whole
person, her mien, her attitude, the sound of her voice, the intervals
which she allowed to elapse between one word and the next, her glance,
her silence, her slightest gesture, expressed and betrayed one sole
idea,—fear.

Fear was diffused all over her; she was covered with it, so to speak;
fear drew her elbows close to her hips, withdrew her heels under her
petticoat, made her occupy as little space as possible, allowed her
only the breath that was absolutely necessary, and had become what
might be called the habit of her body, admitting of no possible
variation except an increase. In the depths of her eyes there was an
astonished nook where terror lurked.

Her fear was such, that on her arrival, wet as she was, Cosette did not
dare to approach the fire and dry herself, but sat silently down to her
work again.

The expression in the glance of that child of eight years was
habitually so gloomy, and at times so tragic, that it seemed at certain
moments as though she were on the verge of becoming an idiot or a
demon.

As we have stated, she had never known what it is to pray; she had
never set foot in a church. “Have I the time?” said the Thénardier.

The man in the yellow coat never took his eyes from Cosette.

All at once, the Thénardier exclaimed:—

“By the way, where’s that bread?”


Cosette, according to her custom whenever the Thénardier uplifted her
voice, emerged with great haste from beneath the table.

She had completely forgotten the bread. She had recourse to the
expedient of children who live in a constant state of fear. She lied.

“Madame, the baker’s shop was shut.”


“You should have knocked.”


“I did knock, Madame.”


“Well?”


“He did not open the door.”


“I’ll find out to-morrow whether that is true,” said the Thénardier;
“and if you are telling me a lie, I’ll lead you a pretty dance. In the
meantime, give me back my fifteen-sou piece.”


Cosette plunged her hand into the pocket of her apron, and turned
green. The fifteen-sou piece was not there.

“Ah, come now,” said Madame Thénardier, “did you hear me?”


Cosette turned her pocket inside out; there was nothing in it. What
could have become of that money? The unhappy little creature could not
find a word to say. She was petrified.

“Have you lost that fifteen-sou piece?” screamed the Thénardier,
hoarsely, “or do you want to rob me of it?”


At the same time, she stretched out her arm towards t t