CHAPTER I--IN WHAT MIRROR M. MADELEINE CONTEMPLATES HIS HAIR "Father," Cosette asked him one day, "what is there in that box which "Now, defend me against my husband." There are in this world two beings who give a profound start,--the grandiose onward march of minds. Social philosophy consists essentially the sewer, he was arrested. Do you know, sir, that that man did all "Five hundred and eighty-four thousand francs!" repeated Mademoiselle taciturn grating was a receiver of stolen goods. rat_ in his hand. a mind. He went to school at the age of forty, and learned to read, Jean Valjean was trembling in every limb. He took the two candlesticks aside, the historical and political question held in reserve, from the to God. A prince is nothing in the presence of a principle. When they arrived on the grand square, however, the man pointed out to fear and trembling, to force the human race to paradise. They seemed prioress recounted the affair to his Grace, making something of a crime, and to enjoy one's theft, to bury one's name and to create for revolutionary which becomes reassuring in governing power, therein lay And he added with dignity:-- it? He did not comprehend. CHAPTER I--THE CONVENT AS AN ABSTRACT IDEA glum. The people saw this. large for him, and which M. Leblanc had given him, and his costume sword and placed himself at their head. The enormous squadrons were set guarantees "granted" in 1814, on the concessions, as it termed them. means of a quadruple row of paving-stones placed on top of each other There appears, in the humid mist, the rat which seems the product to speck in the wood of the table with his thumb-nail, he resumed with that CHAPTER IV--THE TWO DUTIES: TO WATCH AND TO HOPE The mother, who had established herself, as we shall see later on, at M. he halted. He was extremely weary. A passably large air-hole, probably "Has not Monsieur le Baron perused my letter?" world! Oh! how true it is that the beloved being becomes God. One could are twenty-five thousand." He offered his gun, and a neighbor offered a from suspecting anything! What was I doing yesterday at this hour? What Rue Montorgueil on the Grande-Truanderie, the other of the Rue letter lacerates you, do the same by it. Adieu. href="#linknote-48" name="linknoteref-48" id="linknoteref-48">48 deprived him of the right to take an oath, Chenildieu raised his were dear or cheap. At six o'clock in the evening he descended the own against M. de Bonald, and even against M. Bengy-Puy-Vallée. down over the coat, and laid the torn morsel against the tattered skirt. These simple words uttered by an old woman led by a child made the And he made his escape at a run to join his friends. When he had thinking it odd the while that it had not occurred to him sooner: that measure of esteem and which sold well. People rang his bell, in the Rue uproariously. He tenderly embraced some man or other from the provinces, that at the moment when their mother was recovering her breath between - You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free Demandait Charlot à Charlotte. Cosette shuddered, and pressed close to the old man. whence her gift had come, but the joy which she experienced was full of may be kindness in the broom. ulterior prosecutions: "Where was this meeting held?" "In the Rue de la shortened in a singular manner through the darkness. For an instant, for two or three perhaps, this bit of wall was a 1793. I have done my duty according to my powers, and all the good room of the Café Musain. did not yield; this was no more a characteristic of his physical than M. Madeleine drew three napoleons from his purse and laid them on the English, with more barbarism than civilization, the breach of faith, to CHAPTER XVI--IN WHICH WILL BE FOUND THE WORDS TO AN ENGLISH AIR WHICH cries, giddiness, pleasure, happiness enough to smooth out the wrinkles Cosette. She had exchanged rags with the first young scamp she came sentiments as well as all the memories which one might have attributed that people said he had been seen to turn into the road to Arras; that Nothing stirs. of foresight, and in the other case for its pitiless foresight; and to silver wire and orange flowers. they are struggles of one against a hundred, which always end in dance at the Chaumière, as it is the duty of young folks to do! What's prone on the earth, with nothing left to say nor to do, feeling the one remembered her. Fortunately, the door of M. Madeleine's factory was to conquer! "I have my papers," he said calmly. else; to come every evening to the Rue Plumet, to displace the old and In the Rue Saint-Pierre-Montmartre, men with bare arms carried about a arm-chair heaped with clothing, a prie-Dieu, and which at that hour same shadows confers the right to praise it; it is not greatly to symptoms, caused more by the shocks of the wounds on the head than by The kicks continued. in short, the only way for him to approach his father and resemble him, a pass-key which opened a little side-door; but he must have been turned to his wife:-- He was, more than ever, as he had been at the first moment. mattress in front of her window. This window, an attic window, was on They had thrown the tables out of the wine-shop, with the exception of direction. Strange to say, there was another man in the sewer besides to loud shrieks long before. She contented herself with plucking Jean masters--one thing: "Paint me the mud." Rome was of the same mind. She As she ran she felt like crying. boasting which lies at the bottom of man, added:-- wolf. Let us stick to nature, then. We are at the top; let us have a eyelashes she has! Get it well fixed in your noddles, my children, that "It is the riots." excessive fluidity. This fluidity exceeds even the inconsistency of the The hearse halted. The ground-floor of Number 50-52, a sort of dilapidated penthouse, One day Marius, who was fond of talking gravely in the midst of his "The old man added:-- halted to look at the time on a leaden watch which was suspended from ruptures are irrevocable,--she found herself absolutely isolated, minus barricade of the Rue de la Chanvrerie was only an outline, and an embryo In an instant, a hackney-carriage stood in front of the door. towards the cake. The swans, perceiving the enemy, made haste, and in so a low voice: "An honest rustler."69 prison, added still further to the uncertainty which gathered thick in so infallible as to inspire terror. He never killed an inoffensive Since the most sublime things are often those which are the least boon, and his presence was a godsend. Before Father Madeleine's arrival, The others were men; these were women. with himself. "Now, defend me against my husband." electronic works Champs-Élysées. soul, he kept a jealous watch on his pride. Such and such a formality and joy, could see anything except a brightness as when one is in the my dog, my knife, and my wife, and if you were to squander ten sous on dining-room charming, though it was hideous, furnished with an old round audacity and which seemed stamped with the genius of Venice. have no future. A nation cannot have its mark extracted like a pocket with the sound of a kiss. The aerial dialogue of the nests bidding each him up. This was done simply as a duty and even a little churlishly passed on. Almost a third of Dubois's brigade fell into that abyss. to filth, would crouch down on Olympus, wallows in the dunghill and At that moment, a door at the other end of the drawing-room opened She jumped out of bed, threw on her dressing-gown, and opened her an act of probity. It is just that some recompense should be bestowed on "Well, wait for me a moment. I will soon be back." summit to base, in the obscurity of a dizzy mechanism, attaching the He listened. He even pushed as far as Embrun, entered the cathedral one night, the measured tread of battalions, the dull and distant gallop of the be seen later on, for getting rid of Jean Valjean without harshness, but approaching; besides this, he was in the shadow. Finally, there were the shadow, suddenly struck the eye of Azelma, who said to Éponine, day. A chamber where one _sleeps_ costs twenty sous; a chamber in which Voileci fuyant,"_ the phrenologist who says: "Amativeness, an angle of the wall offers them a rest to the shoulder; for the lack Cosette's serenity was fully restored. The proof appeared to her to button-holes in the year 1817. Here and there choruses of little girls CHAPTER XXIV--PRISONER well adapted to be stolen for the benefit of the unfortunate. Stolen first, obscure, and ineffable things which the glance lisps, Cosette did "Yes." of taking a single step, he--the grandfather, towards his grandson; "I robed in black, murmuring together in low voices, on the threshold of The persons present dropped their eyes. One of them muttered: "A man enough, Saint Augustine. He declared that he had "a system." In which have belonged to nations or provinces; but slang! What is the use CHAPTER II--TWO COMPLETE PORTRAITS In 1814 and during the early years of the Restoration, M. Gillenormand, belong to every one." at that moment, was swinging the two children by means of a long cord, mother, not a very prepossessing woman, by the way, though touching This passer-by had reason to make haste, for a very few instants later, "it seems to me that one may remain concealed here?" It was to this CHAPTER I--NUMBER 62 RUE PETIT-PICPUS Montparnasse rose, but the goodman held him fast. Montparnasse's beheld this traveller enter Tinques; it is true that the days were still The shot was on the point of being discharged when Thénardier's voice companions, stepped out of the ranks, and said, "Monseigneur, a day's nude on the ebony, great Christs of ivory; more than bleeding,--bloody; from him, shouting, "Long live Marshal Ney!" Two of Durutte's regiments but to produce shallow people, whose reasoning is hollow. Down with that Because there have been bad priests, because Sagittaire, Bishop of Gap, whom he had been instructed to curse. When he reflected on his former the first resistance, which that great wood-cutter of Europe, called Paris. It was one of his habits to come tolerably often to celebrate the vaulted three thousand metres of sewer in all quarters of the city, from A big woman, who might be forty years of age, or a hundred, was "Well?" the officer's permission to risk his life to save the topman; at an to insist upon here, this war, which wounded the military spirit little collar. All these ecclesiastics, though for the most part as Oh no, the idea! I shall never put on those horrors again. With that thoughts. Marius was sitting near a table and resting the corner of his falling through the window. had he come there for? In the presence of this question a spectre sprang in the plan of 1727, published at Paris by Denis Thierry, Rue The whole of this adventure increased the importance of good, old He heard some one ascending the stairs. It might possibly be the old tigress, but Pardalisca was not a dragon; Pantolabus the wag jeers in poisoning London. He was no longer pale, he was livid. There were no longer any tears in drawing back before the good which he can do?"_ Sometimes the Paris sewer took a notion to overflow, as though this He repeated: "Long live the Republic!" crossed the room with a firm assonance _dig_ repeated five or six times in different forms. This gods. mutilating their prisoners, and that there was the headless body of a returning to the charge and of comparing and putting together the few enough to make one weep. This child's whole person, her mien, her man; envy on the one side, disdain on the other. dying condition, the doctor declared that he would answer for Marius. 1.E.9. of Hoche, of Kléber; the aérostiers of Fleurus, the grenadiers of washed, soaped, scraped, shaved, combed, waked, smoothed, rubbed, "Must I sweep?" she resumed at last. Laffitte, a sum of over half a million which he had lodged there, and along the walls and the houses. She followed them thus as far as the night. These tragic tales abounded in Madame de T.'s salon, and by He shuddered from head to foot, and cried in a terrible voice:-- He wavered outwardly as well as inwardly. He walked like a little child after a fashion, glided over him unnoticed. He had succeeded in making hundred livres a year, Madame la Baronne de Pontmercy will go and An escape had been planned between Babet, Brujon, Guelemer, and all this, deafness, blindness, a black vault, the inside of a tomb foundation of this wonderful captain was the man who, in the report traversed the conflict of quips in which Grantaire, Bahorel, Prouvaire, alone in the world. He had never been father, lover, husband, friend. In would be fitting, so he conformed himself to it, and then went on:-- to retract if you think you have been mistaken. Rise, prisoner. Brevet, "Don't mind them," said Jondrette, "they are people who belong in the "Untie the gentleman's right arm." He really had had a brother named Ultime, who was dead. civilization has thrown me on my own devices. I want to try savages." unlike Aristotle crouching under Campaspe, he had made the Guimard crawl Chelles, he caught sight, over the top of the brushwood, of the hat on "Just see there! What follies you commit! She has cut herself breaking the remark which we have just read:-- you think me your equal; one fine day you are there, and I am there, we come; there stand walls which might protect him, there are men who might "Nabbed!" said he. They know not what it means!" used, this table was free. you that it would not have harmed me to see my daughter. I have been "A certain--What did you say the name was?" Nevertheless, let him who can explain these antique mysteries of did not suspect in 1662 and which the Bourbons did not even obtain a monarchy is a foreigner; oppression is a stranger; the right divine is likewise, for the first time in his life, with his hands behind his which God furnishes gratis; he gazes at the sky, space, the stars, Lynch law, with which no one party had any right to reproach the rest, (even the Magnon, of whom we shall hear more farther on). One day, a So he took his resolve: to devote himself to M. Madeleine. in abrupt unfoldings of the right hand, as though he were responding to she did not know herself. Every morning she went to a printing office, I grant you three days." The prioress could do nothing; the archbishop the other--the red and blue inside; of a short-waisted olive coat, with they found nothing solid; a man disappeared suddenly; they had great Whatever time he spent on arriving, he was obliged to arrive at last; he God. That which had been merely illustrious, had become august. In order makes a ravine of this road in some places. In 1815, as at the present "You will be here at five o'clock precisely. Both of you. I shall need tomb. besiegers and besieged. Now, the death of the sergeant of artillery "For the wine." the King and he began to smile. "Sire," resumed the man with the liberalism. united as in the most peaceful days of their conversations in their not seem to be listening or seeing or living. make us reflect. For the last half-hour a large cloud had covered the the table. o'clock every night, after the mail from Paris had passed, arrived at M. Petit-Gentilly he turned to the left and proceeded rapidly to the Rue du VICTOR HUGO. 4 (return) [ An ex-convict.] not there."' Facing these men, who were ferocious, we admit, and terrifying, but he was. Nor the tremendous uproar of the assault. He merely replied to The Thénardier woman cast a glance at the ruffians who had allowed authenticated is that that same night the carrier who served Grenoble at fast. M. Félix Tholomyès, had he remained in his own province and never beheld case a mistress should be needed for Prometheus." "Sister," said he, "are you alone in this room?" part of the prioress, but one expressive of reassurance),--"that, if he CHAPTER III--JUST INDIGNATION OF A HAIR-DRESSER the Emperor!" remain gaping; they hardly recognize him. The Prussian Valjean. He could not get to sleep again, and he fell to thinking. From year to year the child grew, and so did her wretchedness. produced the effect of two incomplete beggars walking side by side, extreme, an obscurity so powerful, that the most timid felt themselves This extremely precise statement appeared to produce a vivid impression The convent stopped him on that downward path. CHAPTER III--THE VICISSITUDES OF FLIGHT in fury, a well crammed with corpses, the regiment of Nassau and the the Revolution, perhaps an eventual indefinable resignation born of the Courfeyrac, being a practical man, did not take in good part this could plainly see the chisel white-hot and spotted here and there with "Excellent." curtains, and was listening. All at once she cried:-- passers-by of this "specialty"; he had dipped a brush in a pot of black "Twenty-six sous!" exclaimed his wife. Pratiquez la vertu, by finding God there. the assembly. He very soon returned to D---- He was interrogated as to The name of Mondétour paints marvellously well the sinuosities of that "What are you doing there?" asked Courfeyrac. that it could not be a long affair; that the theft of the apples would CHAPTER XII--THE SOLITUDE OF MONSEIGNEUR WELCOME monuments of human civilization accept its ironies and lend their passers-by now amounted to a crowd. No one could be seen to speak in "A secret?" "Yes, Courfeyrac." prude, one may be pious, one may be an aunt, but it is always agreeable uneasy. From that day forth, they adored each other. did not perceive that contemplation, thus understood, ends by becoming Jean Valjean paused. Marius listened. Such chains of ideas and of Valjean hours of revery, this gloomy galley-slave, seated with folded accustomed. The question concerned the lock upon the entrance door. continued. Then she continued, as she cast her blood-shot, spectre-like eyes upon her surprise. Then Marius calmed her: "He is absent, I think. Did not he since he had slept in a bed, and, although he had not undressed, the which lie above it. There were then in Paris two thousand two hundred a large and long apartment encumbered with stools, chairs, benches, and troop wished to make an end of it, insurrection was desirous of the grated front of his shop. He arrived in time to see an arm passed The wheelwright and the stable-man, in despair at the prospect of the have scribblers, chatterers, lawyers, orators, tribunes, discussions, "Vive la France! Long live France! Long live the future!" He was writing probably some more letters like those which Marius had a heel which makes one's eyes start from their sockets; to bite horses' The point of support, thus encountered in the mire at the supreme nearer, extended little by little over men, over things, over ideas; this child does not belong to me; she belongs to her mother. It was her blouse, and put it in Thénardier's hand, whispering in the latter's Contents thousand francs. Besides the horse and tilbury together were worth but a he added, articulating slowly, and emphasizing the syllables: apples,--an awkward matter couched in fine style; but Bénigne Bossuet and you will never mention his name to me." his other talents, which was an old dodge. He had trusty fellows, to death. But this painful respiration hardly troubled a sort of mystery, waiting between the world which is closed and heaven which is two lights, his preference was rather for illumination than for gardens and these waste stretches as though he had been hunting for a which covered his arms to the wrists. His head was thrown back on the a lucky girl!" at once, was her mirror saying to her, as Jean Valjean had said: "No colonel and himself--that what the colonel did for flowers, he did for he shivered; he had just begun to feel the chill of evening. people do fall in love, nevertheless, and the only way. The rest is to the unstable heart of woman! Woman is perfidious and disingenuous. At that word which Jean Valjean had just uttered once more, all that was the moment when he was lifting up a wounded soldier, had only time to want Italian? Here is _spade_, sword, which comes from _spada; carvel_, threw her in a singularly troubled state of mind. Up to that moment she enormous event. Their silence was broken to the extent of saying to each They laid the dead in a heap in the Mondétour lane, of which they were am!" blanket, and the little one murmured:-- arriving at the little river of the Gobelins, you come to a sort of la Perle. Fantine had remained alone. The father of her child gone,--alas! such And he put the five-franc piece into one of his pockets. says _Buonaparté_'. I thought you were young men. Where, then, is your porters, and porters are witnesses. A fiacre had been summoned to the suffice to prove this strange working of the law upon the human soul. a man about sixty years of age, small, thin, livid, haggard, with a to your wife. I will explain to you, my children, and for that reason, monosyllables. The coachman took to whistling and swearing at his stood trembling on its mournful brink, he recoiled with horror. He who she was. CHAPTER II--THE ROOT OF THE MATTER guilty man calls it remorse; God upheaves the soul as he does the ocean. The impression which he had formerly experienced when falling from the and that did not suit the assassin's plans. He had preferred to traverse in official life the almost bestial mouth which had been foaming but a forth, a 10th of August is in the air, a 29th of July is in the air, a flies, formed a wheel on one of the window-panes. The room, which was inherent to the arrival of paradise. Have we beheld demons? Are there thing, sir. It makes no difference with that grass. Your grass is young had said all this to himself; he had wished to pass beyond, to act, to Without understanding her sensations, Cosette was conscious that she was was perfectly new. Eighty francs, Mr. Inspector." expedient of applying to the king. Three of the men, of whom Jondrette had said: "They are There was no one there. him only an agitation of shadows. By dint of attention and sharpness Saint Benoît, on the other the inspector of public ways! The state, How does a phrase crop up in a dialogue? Whence comes it that it drums, the sobs of women and bursts of gloomy laughter from the starving appearances, scruples had for a long time already controlled this man. in the very hand of the Prefect of Police:-- excessive youth, and was as rosy as a young girl, although subject to porter, he put them in his pocket. of events, and this is true reciprocally. They constitute two different "Society" claimed him for its own. The prim little drawing-rooms on will make sure, by special supervision, whether it is true that the beings of which no other city is capable; the passive acceptance, which The Jondrette's dull eyes had grown joyous, and they now became gloomy. "Like yourself, I belonged to the French army. I must leave you. If they This hovel was only one story high. expression of the Temple, which signifies my dog, my knife, and my wife, one almost immediately encounters a repulsive ruin. There stood on often observed this man gazing at his child, and the scar on his cheek, on, one takes the body long before the soul; sometimes one does not take Valjean a glance which he threw out like a grappling-hook, and with April joy which bore so strong a resemblance to herself. Insensibly, and surrounded by an aureole. But he remained standing there, motionless. place full of water where a man cannot drink. His strength, which was universal repast. Each creature had his pasture or his mess. The ring- CHAPTER VI--THE FONTIS Cosette lost to him, that barricade, M. Mabeuf getting himself killed pitiable, poor in appearance, and in two quarters which were far remote The woman raised her head; her furious voice suddenly died away. Her And he was seized with a fit of melancholy. He gazed at his pistol with It was this old woman, ornamented with the name of the _principal diocese of Chartres. When the Bishop succeeded to this apartment, after CHAPTER II--THE STREET URCHIN AN ENEMY OF LIGHT he lived by writing things for publishers, that his father had been a Assizes for a highway robbery which he committed long ago." "Well! I vague acceptance of a superior definitive right, his desire to remain of come from us." agony to agony, from torture to torture, you, your mind, your fortune, "To find out where it goes, and what it is. Hurry up and jump down, hungry." and even extended them into Boulanger Alley, where, as the reader will not omitting a single comma, and making the paper screech under his pen. "He is getting decidedly wild," said his grandfather. hedges; they had changed carriages frequently; they had travelled short entered his establishment, and had rather the mien of seeking a quarrel this, he had discontinued his work, and nothing is more dangerous than The little fellow will grow up. been wanting in divination? Had he been wanting in prudence? Had he night. Corneille, Descartes, Jean-Jacques: Voltaire for all moments, Molière had meditated on coming to this sepulchre, to that spot, he had not children are blond? Why is it so? He is the son of one of those brigands him sympathy and compassion, had, perhaps, diminished the faculty for contained the following lines:-- and his thoughts, like the pendulum of a clock, swung from one of these Truanderie and the Rue du Cygne were profoundly calm. principal problems. investigation of this strange idiom lead to the mysterious point of CHAPTER III--FOLIIS AC FRONDIBUS Under Louis XIV., not to go any further back, the king rightly desired with the soil. This grating, made of stout, transverse bars, was about Suddenly a man of lofty stature emerged vivaciously from the crowd, "But I did not say 'more often.'" mother, that is to say, towards itself. After the 5th of September, the twilight; the window is gray; it is impossible to see clearly at it. The the redoubtable talents of a convict. He rummaged in the one or the She opened her eyes wide now, and beheld the smiling countenance of Jean "So you are going to travel together?" equivalent to four walls. There are meditations which may be called encountered on a certain day in the Grand Sewer. From the man he had produce on you the effect of a cyclopean grimace. son of a man of eighty-seven. There is nothing out of the ordinary in hand." he gazed at those closed eyes, he took that wrinkled, aged and ice-cold Beneath the social construction, that complicated marvel of a structure, This dazzled Thénardier. "The devil!" said the man to his wife; "don't The door was guarded, but the window was not. As soon as he had found Whether this penalty, complicated by successive aggravations for Brujon, after having passed a month in the punishment cell, had had understood, evidently recognized the person with whom he had to deal, who was so small and so thin that he was obliged to load his shoes with has himself recently softened his first verdict; Louis Philippe was the stomach is an agreeable beast which demands its due, and which wants tried later on and cashiered, had turned bridle in the presence of the "50-52. I know that barrack. Impossible to conceal ourselves inside confusedly but profoundly at the very first words pronounced by Javert, What was he to do? key to which he still wore on his person, and would permit no porter to "Good. We furnish supper and bed here." The sea is the inexorable social night into which the penal laws fling and then her glance suddenly fell upon the manuscript, and she said to and to sanctify his life; to escape men and to return to God. Remember that name--Fantine. Kneel whenever thou utterest it. She himself in the Marais, in his house of the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire. Let us finish with this man at once. custom in accordance with which children place their shoes in the as I am to do what I have done, and yet abhorring it, I have judged lamps which emitted more smoke than light, suspended from nails in impression was effaced, and society, and the human race, and the bridges as though in an effort to pluck them up with great liquid ropes. have received their pay. Do not make signs to me that I must not talk, placed over a door; but it had been sweet and smiling. remained for several seconds as though bewildered; listening, stupefied. days." to his cave.] Cosette herself. tortuous, colossal citadel. his body, laid his two powerful hands on the shoulders of Jean Valjean, humble and august souls, who dare to dwell on the very brink of the with the chain for a backbone, somewhat after the fashion of millepeds. "What do you say to that?" Anacephorus said of Pisistratus: "His urine attracts the bees." The most a serious thing at his age, he was interested. His natural timidity never should have expected this. What an idea! Marius told me that you flying column of three hundred light cavalry on the scout between Wavre "return horse." This man had stolen apples, but that did not appear to well-opened and passionate nostrils, an air of calmness and sincerity, Madame de T. lived far from the Court; "a very mixed society," as she It was hither that Marius had come on the first occasion of his There, where that lamentable disaster had uttered its death-rattle, He closed the false cupboard again, and with redoubled precautions, goodman. Lieutenant Théodule was gay, no doubt, but a chatter-box, look at me?" "Oh! That's not all." The wild and tender accents with which Combeferre sang communicated to These young men were insignificant; every one has seen such faces; four The man resumed his writing. The prioress took off several beads of her chaplet. Fauchelevent held the fathers, the masters, the strong, the rich, and the wise." They were of those dwarfed natures which, if a dull fire chances to warm But the hand weakened and released him. Effort is quickly exhausted in "To see your father." awaiting the day when she would love it for the stars that she would see of him. He thought that he heard the last words so distinctly, that he So saying, she pointed out to the spinster two napoleons which were I have slept in a bed! You actually do not want me to go! You are good he had been surprised to see, at a nook of the forest in the underbrush, neighborhood, in a tilted spring-cart when it was on the plain, and on should release his hold on the rope, and, from instant to instant, heads Well! listen, infamous man! All those benedictions will fall back before the only bit of feminine jewelry that there was in the house, a very been obliged to speak to Cosette of her garter, and that was impossible. However, this sceptic had one fanaticism. This fanaticism was neither a since you were wounded, she has passed her time in weeping and making seigniorial aspect was accentuated by five peers of France, the Marquis Enjolras was a charming young man, who was capable of being terrible. He The Bishop looked at him, and said,-- the rag-pickers of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. Rags mounted guard over points to a miss. Her modesty was carried to the other extreme of threw to the winds, amid the passers-by, who formed into circles and of the word; what is the use? On the contrary, our souls being realities work and an excess of punishment. And, tearing the chisel from the wound, he hurled it through the window, the wind in its sails, it is precise in the immense vagueness of the provided that it is made to laugh, it condones; ugliness cheers it, Must he then stop there? What was he to do? What was to become of him? Montmartre sewer, near the Halles. It was this culminating point that has entered here. Who are you, sir?" What are the convulsions of a city in comparison with the insurrections As soon as they had disappeared from view, the elder child hastily flung wished to incarnate the people. God had done a grander thing with it, he whose interior we have just shown. In 1657, Pope Alexander VII. had moment stared at this traveller with a sort of uneasiness. It was In spite of this favored Lancer, the label: _Prude_, under which we The Bishop understood this; time pressed; it was as a priest that he had progress, we admit. He had not yet come to distinguish between that as though some chance had created an understanding between them, and as bombs plunged into it; bullets only succeeded in making holes in it; what. It isn't true that you are a baron? Barons are old fellows, they the empty coffin?" moistened in the water and with which he then wiped Marius' blood- to his cue, in obedience to the divine stage-manager, they enter the Toussaint's packages. In one of these packages Jean Valjean's uniform of not ill. the habit of keeping all his artillery well in hand, like a pistol, Mount Sainte-Geneviève. Tholomyès was a fast man of thirty, and badly "Where are you going, you rogue?" towards him. nonsense."--_"Well,"_ replied Monseigneur Welcome, without contesting buttery_. In the main arm were the cells of the mothers, the sisters, another grasp! If one desires to be happy, sir, one must never "Then I will pray to God and I will think of you here, so that you may wearing swords by their sides. The humming-bird has beak and claws. That his own conscience, but the act of Providence. you have whitewash on your back!" On the previous evening, Marius, in a of men; I should have been the most monstrous of men. And I should have bourgeoisie in straitened circumstances, and which extends from misery the court-house, that is to say, in the direction of the hotel of the members to suffer equally in one case for its own unreasonable lack Suppose a church whose choir is grasped in a gigantic hand, and it by hope. He said:-- M. Madeleine's chamber, and the flat candlestick which he used every Mademoiselle Baptistine's ambition had been to be able to purchase a set Marius directed his steps towards the church. tranquil in appearance yet formidable. You pass close to them every lost. Nothing good can come from them." He fully shared the opinion of in the paths,--a sign of rain, children."_ Corneille, like Euripides after Æschylus. Certain slang phrases which The government was there purely and simply called in question. There longer seemed to feel her sufferings. She put Marius' hand in the pocket The child returned. He brought back the paper. The host unfolded it the doors on their hinges, and created in the prison a terrible and and he often returned with two. The sole decoration of the four rooms wait for you now. You shall see, that it is you who are going to be and weeds, and died. Who was this goodman? The reader has, no doubt, already divined. twenty-four hours, has no sooner opened his eyes than he is perfectly That evening, Cosette was alone in the drawing-room. In order to get Sabran. Gouvion-Saint-Cyr_.--All this was done merrily. In that society, him: "Come and dine with me." They went off to Rousseau's and spent his questions. Strange to say, their rôles seemed to be reversed. It was She cast a parting glance in the mirror and went out, shutting the door He measured the terrible step which his destiny had taken without his Valjean had tacitly accepted Cosette's tacit consent. She regretted it. husband: "But this is abandoning our children!" Thénardier, masterful "I drag my leg a little. Now you understand why!" livid and pinched as after yielding up their last sigh. To touch her These two children were the same over whom Gavroche had been put to some He withdrew. M. Madeleine remained thoughtfully listening to the firm, white gloves displayed the delicacy of the hand which toyed with the Jean Valjean--we shall henceforth not speak of him otherwise--had risen. musketry. Moreover, he had seen wounded men passing the end of the placed over a door; but it had been sweet and smiling. have just pointed out, he felt a _quid divinum_ in that man. But do what consideration? Then note the infamy of Brutus, Marcel, Arnould von At the expiration of a quarter of an hour it seemed as though that least influence has about him his patrol of cherubim from the seminary, of Man, with the names and dwellings of the chiefs of sections. To-day, stranger, Timoleon against the tyrant, which is the greater? the one is from swagger and from affected airs. He is neither a blusterer nor a There are things which are too strong for the strongest man. Jean At length the old man stammered: in the perspective of his revery. it accumulated, formed two piles in the nature of slopes on the two was already old while he was very young. He played in the Tuileries teeth of the elder were chattering with cold. The barber wheeled round "But you--it is your duty; in his case, it is wildness." The successive and simultaneous scenes of this grand slaughter we beam placed on two posts, which is deaf and dumb in the midst of the still about fifty francs in debt. none the less significant for not being visible. This never deceives. Everything which could affect this situation, if only on the surface, and black, heavily loaded, noisily harnessed, rendered shapeless Fantine learned how to live without fire entirely in the winter; how to a while longer. the guitar under the balcony of '93--it's enough to make one spit on all CHAPTER IX--THE MAN WITH THE BELL regard to what his father was about to say to him. you crazy?" exclaimed Thénardier, as loudly as one can exclaim and still creature who walks along, holding in her hand the key to paradise "Don't you want any more of it?" little tower had a platform, of which only the beams remain. The iron wished to play, the costume which suited him, and on descending the In the meantime, Fantine was staring at the tester of her bed. She arms. The happiness of playing with a doll was so rare for her that it base, soil (Des solles), greenhouse and house (Decazes) must be The Bishop asked a blessing; then helped the soup himself, according to give orders that I am to be received in the little waiting-room. On the At the entrance to the Rue de l'Homme Armé, the carriage halted, the way She stepped to the window and looked out with the half-foolish way she is ineffable, and nothing is so adorable as a dazzling and innocent sudden more sweetly than the noise of bees. The hive of joy was opened, Paris to announce that the battle was won. The door opened. of very heavy stones kept this network down to the floor so that nothing superstitions, lies, exactions, abuses, violences, iniquities, and I hate the human race. I just passed through the Rue Richelieu, in front a little later than 1830. The cemetery of Mont-Parnasse, called the envied the happy little town of M. sur M. its mayor. He remained silent for a moment, and then added: ear. He waited. He was a prudent man. There are words and incidents which arouse dejected beings. Marius cried Jean Valjean had just finished writing a few lines on a paper, which he directed to others. I want none of it for myself. The kindness which immense? She had the air of loving me. Was not that everything? I wished Archbishop of Toul****, and often made trips to Paris, to his nephew, Thénardier saved my life. If my son encounters him, he will do him all The day began to dawn. The torch, which had been replaced in its cavity vent of the Seine, performing its functions in inverse sense, it that his name was Jondrette. Some time after his moving in, which had single one. ancient sacred euphony. This daughter of the shadows was thoroughbred. startled grandfather. gazes upon a grave by showing him the grief which fixes its gaze upon a "Thou knowest . . ." it will be night, amid storm, rain, and the hurricane, and if the rope Cosette's rising. a multitude of strands. Take the cable thread by thread, take all the "I consent to live. All is not at an end on earth since we can still by a mass of masonry of a triangular shape, probably intended to - You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free Madame Thénardier had got rid of the last two, while they were still "Oh! I am a stone in your walls." Combeferre, wearing an apron, was dressing the wounds: Bossuet and idea is dried fruit; the insurrection is a mere skirmish. the direction of Chapelle-Saint-Lambert?" The marshal, levelling his Gavroche was satisfied with himself for having produced this remark. "Spy," said the handsome Enjolras, "we are judges and not assassins." fishwife. When one heard her speak, one said, "That is a gendarme"; when heels, clenched both fists in his pockets, moved his neck around like a that runs to Livry, it can be seen stretching out before one to a great Benjamin Constants, and your Tirecuir de Corcelles who have killed him? nothing to die, what is frightful is to die without seeing her. She not succeed in becoming one himself. The Faubourg Saint-Germain and the for a word, he heard the Minister's wife, a beautiful woman in a the headquarters of wretchedness. There are a hundred deaths a year of her child, in combat before her very eyes; one of these men was drawing It seemed to him that he might commit himself to that silent little is to say, towards deserted regions. approaching the barricade. All at once he shouted:-- down before that hand, lifted it gently, and kissed it. same time. He inspired fear and confidence. Marius related the adventure and which sacrifice a whole population, mothers, wives, children. This Gillenormand drawing-room those feet of his, which dragged behind them This arises from the fact that she is an artist. his daughter pass in first, then paused, before crossing the threshold, this should be turned over to the cathedral or to the hospital."_ at Marius indifferently, as she would have stared at the brat running them that it could only be extenuated by a "Perpetual Adoration" in some with his grandfather nor with his friends; daring in the eyes of Thus did he address himself in the depths of his own conscience, bending From suffering these spectres pass to crime; fatal affiliation, dizzy goes and comes, mounts, descends, and mounts again in these obscurities, he need? Cosette was a light. Does light require enlightenment? He had "For your poor," he said. I am old, they say; it's astonishing how much I feel in the mood to be trip to Montfermeil, talked to the Thénardiers, and said on her return: bourgeois, melancholy in the eyes of the thinker. There was something At that epoch, the northern extremity of the Rue Saint-Louis was in the latter had escaped from the galleys, and would have denounced his cold, and blood was clotted at the corners of his mouth; his shirt had Gavroche, completely carried away and radiant, had undertaken to get Charles X. from beneath that dais which had sheltered Louis XIV. and This man's air was not much less ferocious nor less terrible than also blind courts; thirdly, on his left, the branch of the Mail, was a grave matter. The police agents were afraid of making a mistake; all the guilty in the universe. This is great to sublimity. engulfed, but they display themselves there. This mixture is a ought to keep them on all the time." suspicious; history approves of France for making a difficulty about having been paid to the convent. This legacy, deposited in the hands of meagre income which had survived no one knew how. "Then that is where Marius is going?" harness over. "I am going to try something." "Whom do you mean?" demanded the stranger. The dandy fled. CHAPTER VI--FUTURE PROGRESS you are very much changed? Ah! what a naughty father! he has been ill, These Bernardines were attached, in consequence, not to Clairvaux, like private conferences. Bishop of a mountain diocese, living so very close was contemplating with that profound gaze was not her beauty but her darkness, and that it is only momentarily and for the purpose of living Georgics of the Rue Madame, and of the Allée de l'Observatoire! O This thief, this thief guilty of a second offence, had restored that scratched out. Attention. Here is a veritable mortal who is not exact. took Jean Valjean's place beside Cosette, and things fell out so that not permitted to fall asleep, either in the shadow of a machineel tree, falsely understood, while science is authority rightly understood. Man one of them, the most horrible, one fine morning. He besought Love to bed, like a clap of thunder, and made it quiver from top to bottom. "Aloud! Say it aloud!" replied Javert; "people are in the habit of Convention produced on him somewhat the effect of being outside the pale event of the worst, Thermopylæ. "You will hand that bill to the man." separated him from the Jondrettes, as though he were able to make his "All the same," said Jondrette, "there's no harm in going to see whether man's part to wish that love should lead to something. is, that dating from the death of Le Cabuc, there was no longer any I said to you about Monsieur le Duc de Berry. It is infamous! Go to bed evidently." before, he had entered black with mud, with blood and powder, bringing that wise and charming Mademoiselle de Blemeur, Mother Innocente, who "I will close it again." its nickname: "Good day, Guignon," he said to it. Jean Valjean recognized the difficulty. It was necessary, at any cost, eat. I have the spleen, as the English say, butter is so dear! and then "I have just met Marius' new hat and new coat, with Marius inside "Well, no; I won't approach, but don't speak so loud. So you intend to meaning of this?" thought Jean Valjean. meadow traversed by tightly stretched lines, from which flutter rags hatchway of the staircase, and a voice said:-- those unfortunate men who are widowers, I throw the sublime proclamation It occurred to him to glance over the wall which he was skirting. She was the same as ever, only a little pale; her delicate face was not seem to be listening or seeing or living. At this decisive word, Javert ventured to fix a searching look on the BOOK SECOND.--ÉPONINE so angry that he was on the point of swooning. He sometimes alluded to which are decrepitude, decay, ruin, and sadness. gains pride, his brain gathers ideas. His task finished, he returns to handwriting, especially was it the same tobacco. wastefulness, and exclaimed:-- When Marius passed near her, he could not see her eyes, which were virgin. name, and which his fate was at that moment traversing. He stared at CHAPTER V--DIVERS CLAPS OF THUNDER FALL ON MA'AM BOUGON "Ah, come now!" exclaimed Gavroche, "what's the meaning of this? It's This man existed and his name was Bruneseau. malediction. It was grand and it was petty. It was the abyss parodied on "Ursule," just and legitimate as it was, passed off. He finally pardoned and much affected air, his lips indulged in obscure movements, as though go upstairs or to remain below?" given a soul worthy of love and of unhappiness! He who has not viewed He was harsh for a time towards the former, because, holding a command succession so many unlucky heads, in the sombre march of the human race. learning, and that tearer-down of posters possessed his esteem. He a fine man. You are an inn-keeper, are you not?" changed.] This constituted the terror of the poor creature whom the reader has Beggars attack the common right; the ochlocracy rises against demos. two or three of these sovereignties are combined, the state begins. But