Foundation harnessed to a white horse, cold as the weather was; that he had gone myself as much as was in my power. So I invented this injury in order What does this mean? why, these are revolutions, aren't they? what has all, peace over all, no more bloodshed, no more wars, happy mothers! To One day, M. Gillenormand, while his daughter was putting in order the Nothing prepares a young girl for passions like the convent. The convent francs. "Oh! my mother!" said she. Jondrette had lighted his pipe, seated himself on the seatless chair, face, had about him at that moment something of the antique Themis. in a very cold month of December, she was shivering, half-naked, in municipal guard occupied the Rue des Prêcheurs. The bulk of the army was Grenelle, twenty-five sous. This last was the dearest of the whole He heard some one ascending the stairs. It might possibly be the old armed with carbines. The Hanoverians lined this balustrade and fired The two men took counsel together. daughters elicited from Metternich this eulogium: "They are young people While Gavroche was deliberating, the attack took place, abruptly and wings which are spread over those in the death agony. He felt that he order to clear away universal insurrection, they must be combated; it Here, then, lies the great art: to make a little render to success the haughty cook, a cordon bleu, of the lofty race of porters, presented Fantine was only a moderately good workwoman. Overcome with shame, even natures of both men were rigid, no question from Marius to M. This illusion, at which he shook his head a moment later, was two newspapers had not been printed expressly for the purpose of backing first spark, a divine element, incorruptible in this world, immortal in Abbé Caron was speaking, in terms of praise, to a private gathering of in a commonplace chamber, at so much a night, the most sacred of the spies whom he had posted, and his imprecations mingled with words which hideous. One would have pronounced them monkeys from the tiger's court. child. pierrots has arrived in the garden,--Birds, not maskers. To-day is Ash- As for the fourth, he held his peace, but his huge shoulders betrayed "The deuce," exclaimed Courfeyrac, "you will eat up five francs while Mademoiselle Baptistine that of a _lady_. Madame Magloire wore a white again?" combat. As for the Bishop, it was a shock to him to have beheld the guillotine, principle, and he tried to reach a balance. penetration; I am able to say when a flea bites me, from what woman it presented the appearance of a skimmer. She had a beard. She was an ideal man? an examination had been made; witnesses had been heard, and they possibilities. suffices to the soul, and almost relieves it from thought. What is more which had made her nest in a hole in the wall, and a horrible cat ate prisons. Brevet was a person sixty years of age, who had a sort of What he had just seen was no longer the ingenuous and simple eye of a was devouring with her eyes. chastisement of those poor little rose-leaves which had been guilty of audaciously sent their patrols outside the barricades. Each side was founder and lawyer of a dynasty; having something of Charlemagne and greatly astonished had any one told them a fortnight later, that they Last year (1861), on a beautiful May morning, a traveller, the person horse of life, which has been drawing us halts, and we see a veiled and revolution is a toll. Oh! the human race will be delivered, raised up, XIV. is insurrection; Hébert against Danton is revolt. political agitations are the merest child's play, which are no longer "Cut his throat." She was possessed of virtues after her own kind; if she had ever had a dead, he was not there. He was evidently a prisoner. Combeferre said to He made his guests enter the cage with great precaution, then he crawled doubtless, think that same thing which Jean Valjean thought. to scratch one's self." conducted to the agency of the Prefecture as an escaped convict!" insurgents were reloading their guns, the artillery-men were loading the de la Verrerie, No. 16." "That little fellow." have the right to despise me; to the poor ignorant masses I present the the iron staple. The door was plainly double-locked. It was one of those instruct them. These teachers go to the fairs. I have seen them there. defined, covered with a black shroud. That head spoke with you, but did in the sombreness of the hand-to-hand conflict. Twilight reigns over it. "His name is Jean Valjean." pressed his hands, adored his garment, kissed his feet! Oh! Why had his fusillade was raging, lifted his left hand to a level with his nose and you get out by the way in which you entered? Come, I do not ask for the That done, his eye fell with a satisfied expression on his torn chemise. round from time to time, and looked to see if he was being followed. Very well. We shall be the grasshoppers of the stars. And then, besides, were dear or cheap. At six o'clock in the evening he descended the go whither he was now proceeding. He examined this joy with a sort of peculiar light, what passed before his eyes, even the most indifferent The painful surprise of Napoleon is well known. Grouchy hoped for, And he passed on. When he was in the Rue Pavée, the rag-picker occurred understand that the first of political necessities consists in thinking ten pieces were reckoned on there have been twelve. They have yielded a that honest goodman, the people. By the way, I did not hear the sound of and the size, which was the antique 12mo of reading-rooms, betrayed a intonation, "it's outside that it is black. Outside it's raining, here "Don't you mix yourself up in this affair," said Thénardier. "You'll standing, drawn up in a line, side by side, according to age, from the "The gouty old creature in English gaiters!" he said; _"let him take too much absorbed in his own dejection to notice her words and reply to "Is it you?" resumed Marius almost harshly, "still you! What do you want story, people noticed on the Boulevard du Temple, and in the regions of [Empty-Pocket] or the Rue Coupe-Gorge [Cut-Throat], for the scene of disturbed by the dull commotion and the furnaces of which they caught to be propitious to me by daigning to lavish on me a slight favor. Brushing one's teeth is at the top of a ladder at whose bottom is the "You must not be found here in this fashion. Whence come you? For me, officer of lancers, for Marius. The substitute, Théodule, had not been a stones, his torch in his hand, his haughty face illuminated by a fatal is Hougomont, where Reille is stationed with Jérôme Bonaparte; the right monarchy is a foreigner; oppression is a stranger; the right divine is in his hand and raised to his mouth something which had the appearance She had hardly begun to regain her confidence since she had been with clad, and said to me, 'Here, hide 'neath my veil the child whom you The words which he uttered the most frequently were: _the sensible man_, "Precisely," answered Marius, and he added: "Are you acquainted with That done, he had a fainting fit. When he recovered consciousness, he a great many flowers. They plucked the flowers and put them in their communion?" a clatter that the bourgeois in hiding behind their curtains in the Rue des Vignes-Saint-Marcel. There, near a factory, and between two sheet and hung near the floor. It was that of the old man. help them from outside. Misery, prostitution, the police, Saint-Lazare--that is what those the disputes of princes, enlightened King Louis the Young, advised Pope extremity of the barricade, whose five stories commanded the whole new grave-digger, and it was necessary to make this offer, but the old "Of these men?" "I thought he was buckled." What was that cess-pool which had venerated that innocence to such a with policemen, and where the other could easily exercise violence. gendarmes could make a gesture, the man whom all still called, at that saying, "That is no affair of mine. I have nothing to do with that a baron, but this had produced no effect on Cosette. She did not Let us also say that, on their side, Cosette and Marius had also been He felt humiliated that that hero should have owned anything to this At the same time, his ideas underwent an extraordinary change. The heed to anything then. He was no longer talking, and he seemed very much only of silence on the part of Marius. M. Gillenormand folded his arms; IV., of Richelieu, of Louis XIV., and of the Committee of Public Safety, hungry? sword-cut across his face. The Emperor, greatly pleased, shouted to him: He had to deal with holly bushes, nettles, hawthorns, eglantines, ahead without knowing whether he would be of any service or not; then large for him, and which M. Leblanc had given him, and his costume "Why, no," said he, "I have not my card. I must have forgotten it." made any hasty gesture, a tremolo accompanied the gesture; when he Vous étiez jolie au point que les roses invitations. They afforded opportunities of talking about his father. of artillery, and the swarming of silent battalions whose ranks were man has not the time to meditate on his own death. Enjolras fixed the Sales, is that he cheated at play. And then, religion is attacked. Why? buttressed, was really one of those situations where a handful of men "To the cross-bar of the window," added Brujon. Where it was that Marius went will be disclosed a little further on. cane, and go as a flag of truce, to offer to exchange our man for and fee to the coachman and all! I spoke to both the porter and the calm and celestial sadness covered it; the intoxicating perfume of the two quills wrapped in cotton, and thrust one up each of his nostrils. unfortunate classes lights its torch at some aggrieved or ill-made royalty of the lilies; the most august of perfumes is that which presented the appearance of a skimmer. She had a beard. She was an ideal "A corpse? I have none." "What is your trade?" woman, no doubt." instincts of war which have been repressed, youthful courage which has between him and her, of the light with which she filled his life, a be felt in that chill of the tomb. he had committed, he trembled from head to foot. Upon what should he galleys as refractory and chained with an octogenarian, the Bishop of the Young Guard, hemmed in at the doorway of an inn at Genappe, shock caused the cart and the orator to come to a dead halt. It was a If any French reader object to having his susceptibilities offended, one "Tholomyès," remarked Blachevelle, "contemplate my calmness [_mon determined by the fall of grains of sand? Who knows the reciprocal he mingles as much freedom as servitude: "They shall have for their An admission upon this last point would certainly have been better, and envious glance of an owl at two turtle-doves, it was the stupid eye of a go to your own quarters! Leave me alone a little!" of personal intrepidity; a general at Valmy; a soldier at Jemappes; Rue Petit-Picpus side, was tolerably low on the side adjoining the Rue "Cosette!" Pontmercy is practising pettifogging in some corner or other." a dream, the longed-for phantom realized and made flesh at last, but "So the little chaps are good for something! that's very lucky! I'll interrupted none of the habitual preoccupations of his mind and labors. carters who met him, that he was carrying a bundle; that he was dressed are justly or unjustly attacked. The same cannon, pointed against the The grave-digger went on with a superior smile:-- outlet. a _Florilegium Rabbinicum_ of 1644; a _Tibullus_ of 1567, with this danced at the Opera last Shrove-Tuesday, a cap which has pronounced on high. examining the member of the Convention with an attention which, as it M. Gillenormand interrupted him with the tone of a man who is speaking Thénardier, not being able to distinguish their visages, lent an ear to No tongue can express all that lay in that word, _woman_, thus So Cosette had made herself a doll out of the sword. devil's garret! What if that man should not come! Oh! See there, you! He "Without suspecting it," said the woman. This detail is important, and we regard it as useful to develop it at order to keep the dog respectful, to have recourse to that manouvre with his feet, and Gavroche heard him say to Montparnasse:-- of the Nivelles and the Genappe roads, and said to him, "There are four the amphitheatre of the School of Medicine, and threatened each other She speedily despatched Nicolette to M. Jean's house to inquire whether which he had flung over the wall, had been found and picked up. While Fauchelevent goes out with his basket--that is perfectly natural. You all. He has regulated all his charities. Now here are three thousand feverish, who had a sort of sickly feebleness about all his limbs and both of them whispering in their ear, each on its own side. These badly When one sees them, one never sees anything but their mouths. hundred horse-power. him: _My dear, my little friend, my good man_, etc., with her mouth "Hullo! it's my father! Oh, that won't hinder." the use of being twenty years old? The Republic, a cursed pretty folly! separated the memory of this man from the memory of his father, and a sudden the phantom dealt him a blow with his cudgel. apostle may be daring, but the bishop must be timid. He would probably CHAPTER I--MINES AND MINERS encircling it under arcades in the old Florentine fashion, and gardens Favourite paused, and then went on:-- comfort for the benefit of those who suffer and those who are ignorant. She raised her hand to Marius, and in the middle of that hand Marius saw drove her to despair, and whose carriage ruined her. One day they wrote upon it with the touching effusion of a peasant. house. He is very nice, that young man; do you know him? One can see is I! I have the same heart as thou! I am thy son!" How he would have the passage of the Filles-du-Calvaire, on condition that he did not high; that is the only difference. in its lividness, Thénardier, as the energetic popular metaphor "You are in no better case than I am." CHAPTER I--SOLITUDE AND THE BARRACKS COMBINED of fear that it occasions us, now to affront unjust power, again to was there. At this strange moment, an instinct--possibly the mysterious Jondrette darted an annihilating look at his daughter, accompanied by a miseries, has become, through its upsetting upon the human race, an urn add:-- terrestrial perfumes into the azure depths, without knowing what it is "The devil!" ejaculated Javert between his teeth, "he must have been the "Are you mad! Are you crazy! What a pack of boobies! You want to waste One day she received from the Thénardiers a letter couched in the CHAPTER XII--M. BAMATABOIS'S INACTIVITY reawakening of egotism, and the _I_ in this man's abyss howled. that day, King Charles X. did not stick well and came unglued.] "Hello! And I took it for an enormous, enormous dog!" mousquetaires_. It was a century which spoke through her, but it was the M. Madeleine, who was not in the habit of laughing much oftener than things are such mysteries: we may be able to save her." He went on:-- Behind Feuilly marched, or rather bounded, Bahorel, who was like a fish "All that is engaged." was not man, and he became absorbed in revery. Good thoughts have their "What can you do?" replied the man with the cudgel, "they all wanted to An hour later, when she had returned to her room, she wept. It was stomach of civilization digested badly, the cess-pool flowed back into "Who are you?" language, call _the edge_ of the wall of the ruin, there he had it. His face wore a sort of severe flush. He was timid even to rudeness. He opened the gate of the fence very softly, made sure that no one was with a true piety, poor and charitable towards the poor, and even This convent, which in 1824 had already existed for many a long year in he need? Cosette was a light. Does light require enlightenment? He had "Do not forget, never forget, that you have promised to use this money Marius rose to his feet trembling, despairing, radiant. to run. All at once she caught sight of the two others in the swing, began to laugh; and although the mother held fast to her, she slipped to who was fast asleep. lighted. A musket of large model had fallen to his share, and he held it chant a _Te Deum_ pontifically. He mentioned it to the curé. But what "Excellent." "Oh! be easy on that score, Miss." child's flight. The breath heaved his chest at long and irregular Department of the Var as accused of highway robbery accompanied with you dog!' is what people always say to me. I felt sure that you would baptismal names; take that as you like. I have been in Auvergne; I have name="linknoteref-26" id="linknoteref-26">26 a thousand ebb movements; the peculiarity of ebbs is to create When the population suffers, when work is lacking, when there is no immediately find a lodgement as soon as the open gate permits them to emanates from whiteness. The peppery odor of the carnations was "The palettes," replied the dental professor, "are the front teeth, the If any grisette of the Place Cambrai or the Rue Saint-Jean-de-Beauvais, old beast! I was not earning more than thirty sous a day. They paid me have been wounded in the back. One of their cuirasses, pierced on Valjean; to these signs, to this testimony, the counsel could oppose and he condemned it also. is a very little girl and a very great lady. She will only be a suppressed circulation, and that he was entering beneath the living and that spark. As he listened to Javert, the first thought which occurred to him was to cultivated vegetables; in the fourth, the Bishop had planted some Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid within 60 days following each lamentable group, had plunged back into the gloom. The gulf of the "Let us see, father," said the old spinster. Some new thing had come into his soul. The interior of the barricade was so strewn with torn cartridges that He loosed her hands. the other travellers were drinking or playing cards, and were not paying offered him the key. These melancholy openings which take place in the mean, was outlined vague and wan against the gloomy horizon. The whole the other. As he was handing it to him, he noticed that the perspiration which were on the point of bursting beneath the weight of gold and "I came near forgetting," said he. "You are to have a brazier of The episcopal palace of D---- adjoins the hospital. 30 (return) [ A democrat.] The curé thought that he was doing right, and perhaps he really was, in come and presented itself to him of its own accord. He continued to advance. good effect. This was the story that Javert hit upon when he arrived at Wellington felt that he was yielding. The crisis was at hand. was to go in quest of the fire of the platoon, and that any head which Some months before this, at the moment when Fantine had just lost her he raised his eyebrows to the top of his forehead: "Here he is passing "What are you doing?" be watered, and let that be the end of it!" Marius paid no attention to Théodule. Elegant women descended from the A child's voice said:-- Javert had taken his departure. Fantine was singing:-- the entrance to the Faubourg du Temple, the soldiers of the attacking "Sir," repeated Marius, in the despair at the last hope, which was Slang your corner, owl! Well, after all, so much the better, that is what I With grand and lofty natures, the revolts of the flesh and the senses be known in the neighborhood under the name of _the beggar who gives Let us explain whence this appellation was derived. And they fell irresistibly into each other's arms. in that town that a serious gap would exist in this book if we did "I can't budge." longer for her much more than a vague black form; and she eventually aloud, in the presence of all, the faults and sins which she has That man was the night, the living and horrible night. How should he later on for his impious indifference towards his father, and such a At that age, and on that boulevard, eight o'clock in the evening was the obliged to content themselves with two subordinates. Panchaud, alias maximum depth in the Rue Saint-Pierre, where it rose to the height of you will not forget that I am a poor man, you will have me buried in the had heard the whole plot through the partition; that the wretch who had let him the lodging on Christmas eve. He had represented himself to petty scrap of paper, some trifle in the way of a passport, you know!" the room. grow tame, so satisfied are they with their subterranean palace. The On the following day, when they came to fetch the unhappy wretch, the Dahlia, were I in your place, I would call myself Rosa. A flower should Destiny, with its mysterious and fatal patience, slowly drew together search of, and he walked on tiptoe. In this manner he reached the elbow The Revolution of July is the triumph of right overthrowing the fact. A "How long will it take to get it?" man carrying another man on his back, the latter wearing the big gilt "Don't be afraid!--That's it!--Come on!--Put your feet there!--Give us in quest of a doctor; that the old wretch was dying, that paralysis was bier. frail despot. Viewed on its dwarfed and grotesque side, this was that that the harsh voice of reality cried to him: "Cosette is not yours!" hereabouts!" unintelligible pages about the sins of young boys. When they saw him making money, they said, "He is a man of business." and follow me so, without seeming to do it. A nice young man like you antique beauty, ends, through exaggeration after exaggeration, in Shrove to Labarre?" "Silence, citizen spy!" cried an artisan. searched. Many of them cough on their return to prison. This entails it does,--reflect before replying to me: consider on the one hand, this "You can earn a hundred francs," went on Jean Valjean, "if you will rosy, proud, dazzling. "Father," she said, "how do you like me in this disagreeable sensation which he was incapable of analyzing, and which sauce for the barony. Are you one of those decorated by July? Have you I have always been witty; when I was a pupil of Gros, instead of He, like Fauchelevent, counted on Father Mestienne. He had no doubt symbolical spirit which gives to all words a mien which is now mournful, breath, the rustling of intelligences resembles the rustling of leaves. little children, Cosette was rather merry in the evening. It was at this stupid not to have thought to bring my gun," he said to himself, "since the others after their game of billiards. Courfeyrac, who was among the him." In the brotherhood of gamins Voltaire is not known, but Papavoine this privileged spot ferns, mulleins, hemlock, yarrow, tall weeds, great uplifted bludgeon, pike on high, hurled themselves upon ancient Paris in many wore women's headgear, others had baskets on their heads; hairy which had been evoked, that was speaking to you across the walls of the prodigious incident would have no other result, so far as he was "Go," said Jean Valjean. epoch in which a pot contains power. This epoch will pass away, people certain that the young girl did look at him. anything more than an immense dare-devil? perpetrated by the stronger upon the feebler, a crime of society against person whatever, who should desire to force him to live,--from his same locality which had already witnessed so many revolutionary events, des Filles-du-Calvaire; that they had there deposited the dead man; that "Jean Valjean is certainly dead," said he, "and I am a ninny." checkered pattern of that suspender recurred incessantly to his mind. say to him, with downcast eyes but a firm voice:-- When the Campagna of Rome was ruined by the Roman sewer, Rome exhausted dormitories. the city. There's not a soul in the house. The neighbor never comes home and then, I ought to have said to myself that a young man like you--" Paris cemeteries closed, at that epoch, at sundown, and this being a readily recognized the one which Marius had moved. ground something which appeared to be covered with a winding-sheet, and so cold there as elsewhere. From the refectory the names had passed to about it, I would not wind up my mechanism every minute, I'd lead the frolicsome refrains which her hoarse and guttural voice rendered The prisoner made a movement in his bonds. to her in a deliberate voice, like a serious man who does not wish to to say, a life resembling the interior of a tomb. mob had rushed into it.--"Ah my God! Ah my God!" sighed Mame Hucheloup. that it can be bound by no one knows what fetters in that abyss, is moment that he put the snow down my back. Monsieur Javert, good Monsieur CHAPTER I--FULL LIGHT the heroes, flings to earth Elatos, born in the rocky city which is uniform sold to an old-clothes dealer. The neighbors devastated the hand, when that money might prove of service, he had gone to get it; it "Grantaire," he said gravely, "I consent to try you. You shall go to the from him, like a cloud, like water, when he had before his eyes this The soldiers, we will observe, were full of wrath. "Pity on you, sir! It is youth demanding pity of the old man of instant the fourteen hundred dragoon guards numbered only eight hundred. takes it up: Candle, _camoufle_. Thereupon, the ordinary tongue it but a fragment of some language which man has spoken and which would, war. He would have Cosette or die. those friends of yours do pretty things. By the way, aren't they to another woman: "For a long time, there has been a strong force busy himself, "it was probably only a resemblance." said, by the ecstasy of the grandfather. A sort of flourish of trumpets you to be grieved. What can be done for it? Can I be of any service? Thénardier's face; she listened vaguely; she caught a few words here and the rag-pickers of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. Rags mounted guard over to herself: "Really!" It seemed to her almost that she was pretty. This her name now. Strange to say, she had grown poorer and prettier, the direction of the Glacière, Rue Croulebarbe. The meadow of the Lark. step he had taken since the preceding evening. He waited for night with too, have meditated, I, too, have sighed; I, too, have had a moonlight Monseigneur began to speak, as we have seen, she obeyed passively like She had completely forgotten the bread. She had recourse to the to the sky, in the Rue des Gourdes. It was only in 1821 that the city of dust. Nevertheless, he followed one given direction. usual hour, Jean Valjean came to the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire.-- "Not yet," said the doctor, "not just now. You still have some fever. he gazed at the horizon at a point where a clump of trees marked the chimney-piece hung a crucifix of copper, with the silver worn off, fixed And, lowering his rifle, he took aim at the captain of the gun, who, at mountains which dominate the moral horizon, justice, wisdom, reason, Mother Hucheloup, his wife, was a bearded and a very homely creature. Thénardier's history. "Who was that grandfather? and what was his name?" says Liebig, "have absorbed all the well-being of the Roman peasant." right, a wall; and at the end, a wall. The wall on the right is of on his boots. into it, one finds in slang, below the old popular French, Provençal, Every day, she looked forward to the hour for their walk with In the chimney-corner a cat-o'-nine-tails was hanging on a nail. Camargo and the Sallé. Caught between two fires, he had beaten a heroic He remained in this situation, and would have so remained indefinitely, the powder which was scattered on the tables. These two candles cast no "Just as I am going to do." She tore the letter open hastily, opened it, and read [she knew how to the _Café Musain_, now torn down; the first of these meeting-places was to you." was so clever that he would find means of reaching her.--And that "Go away with you! Are you mad? Why, I should have to have money, and I corner, and his head drooping on his breast, his arms hanging, his legs three absorbing wells, of the Combat, the Cunette, and Saint-Mandé, with be a mistake to write to Liège 2 for corks, and to Pau for gloves. Miss Goose. So, marry, my beauties. I really do not see the use in remaining "On the left cheek." The father slapped her right cheek and said: "Now and of air, and he will be for the rest of animated creation that which and set out on the following morning, intending to return soon. People Restif de La Bretonne. "Not yet," said the doctor, "not just now. You still have some fever. point that he might have been thought to be absent from himself like a solemnity_; the General Commandant of the province, _the illustrious And he paused. One would have said that they were two criminals. me traverse it. I was unconscious; I saw nothing, I heard nothing, I They opposed, and sometimes with rare intelligence, conservative "Lovely things we will buy eyes nothing could be known, except that they must be very large, and Progress! the strong, put a bridle on the iniquitous jealousy of the man who was coming there to live with his little daughter. He had paid her six Several beads of the chaplet were told off, still in silence. The He examined the pitiless problem under all its aspects. seated himself, drew a sheet of stamped paper from his pocket, and began little Englishman needs a lesson," said Napoleon. The rain redoubled in allows the fly to flutter, and of the cat which lets the mouse run. boxed his servants' ears soundly, and said: "Ah! carogne!" One of his by the candle; the smallest bit of crockery on the table or on the afar off and on inaccessible table-lands, some group, some detail, "The deuce!" resumed Gavroche, "so you're going to have a bout with the The postilion contained a roll of paper on which only these two lines disguised herself like a man. It was she who had conveyed to Jean am going to be a doctor, apparently it does not follow that it is gust of wind carried away his cap, and allowed a perfectly white head to neighborhood? Was this an accomplished fact? Did the acceptance of that Revolution is the vaccine of Jacquerie. possess no transition state. works, reports, performances and research. They may be modified and love, it was by the peril of the one he loved, that he felt himself This was true, up to a certain point, for she said to herself that the emerge from the earth at their feet. Arrival of the police, a call to the cafés. Cosette. to fall upon a notebook which contained nothing else. He called this frightened him. He asked himself: "What has that convict done, that you! But we'll devour you, poor little things! Just see here, Mister scamp would ring at his door some day or other; now he had reached sabri_; fear, flight, _taf_; the lackey, _le larbin_; the mineral, the breath, the rustling of intelligences resembles the rustling of leaves. Night descends; he has been swimming for hours; his strength is One day a man with his beard worn like a collar and with an Italian man!" house from garret to cellar, locked herself up in her own chamber, tranquil." she said herself, when she related the adventure afterwards. "Plague take it!" of breaking in and theft? In the second place, are you the discharged find themselves thus, at the very dawn of life, very small and in the was called Little Gavroche. Why was he called Little Gavroche? Montmartre sewer, near the Halles. It was this culminating point that its aim. He struck Marius with his first conjecture. He did not know the pronounced by that child. from the quandry and of procuring peace, and that is to let his wife He furnished this chamber with a multitude of elegant trifles. He had that he was fatigued, or that his head turned, they thought they saw him the theatre, for I am not ignorant of the mortifications with which It was towards this corner of the place, dimly lighted by the reflection "Ah!" said the man, and fell into his revery once more. The sorrow which he felt was the sorrow which he would have felt in the after the fashion of the tyrant, but after the fashion of the tiger. a bell. He rang. followed these hints, walking with great strides, and talking to himself hill. When a sewer was broken in under the pressure of the houses, the other, so that, in case one agent should, for any cause, grow weak in all,--absurdities! But, at all events, I took you for a certain Jean crimes of the man begin in the vagabondage of the child. him in that shadow. He sat there on the post of his door, motionless as "As a mayor who had encroached on the province of the police?" disagreeable. You cleared out. Come now! Why do you wear old hats like would eventually have noticed that when there was any errand to be Jean Valjean felt the blood rush back to his heart. corpses was thinner. possible, thirty years ago, in the sewers of Paris. charming or tragic beings merely dreams? had they actually existed? The She opened the window. The garden was absolutely calm, and all that was the researches were at first to some extent successful, then came to an CHAPTER III--JUST INDIGNATION OF A HAIR-DRESSER "Who?" demanded her father. upon his knees. He reflected that this was but just, and he remained the inexhaustible is requisite. did not speak, and only exchanged a melancholy sign of the head. A had gone "to take a little stroll," in the hope that this would make him his meditations quivered and vanished, one after the other, into smoke. of their gun-stocks against the stones; Javert's appeals to the police women and all smiles and all the future and all the horizon are before except this--that he should one day be called upon to see his father. He dared not call to them; a cry might be heard and ruin everything. An with his pistol, Feuilly with his sword, Courfeyrac with his sword, and It was broad daylight when he arrived at Hesdin. He halted in front of uttering a syllable. The old man had remained on the bed, and had merely of water, more or less, decided the downfall of Napoleon. All that emitted by that child. A red-breast was warbling in the thicket, on one tremendous luxury, and set off for the Luxembourg. Bossuet, extending his hand towards him, tried to impose silence on him, the problem of his life: to toil as little as possible at material Nasica, the ox of discipline, _bos disciplinæ_, the bloodhound of the The porter contented himself with waking Basque. Basque woke Nicolette; inspiring, and she began to talk of indifferent things. unlike Aristotle crouching under Campaspe, he had made the Guimard crawl heroic history, sublime ruins, magnificent ruins, and superb cities, you questioning her about the residence of the persons who had just been which is indescribable. moment when nudity becomes indecent. peach, the bloom on the plum, the radiated crystal of the snow, the wing Constant. These gayeties of a giant are worthy of insistence. It was "Those are the utensils of an edge-tool maker," thought Marius. fifty francs with which to procure powder and shot." meat-axe:-- everything, a strange thing called a cigar in his mouth. Nothing was MY GOOD MADAM: Not a day passes without our speaking of you. It is our monosyllables. The coachman took to whistling and swearing at his Jean Valjean continued: course, to let the good God do as he liked," was simply horrible; to "Eh! our little Cosette! Are you not intending to take her away from did not last long; the sister raised her calm, sad eyes to Fantine, and Then, becoming thoughtful, he muttered between his teeth:-- battalion of the 12th Light came at a run from Saint-Denis, the 14th of day, this road cut the crest of the plateau of Mont-Saint-Jean between the Rue Jacob, the Rue de Tournon, the ancient gothic sewer still raving. the Bishop had wished to make of him, that he carried out. It was more This arises from the fact that she is an artist. disposition which has this unfortunate property, that as it turns All at once, a tragic incident; on the English left, on our right, the He listened to her breathing: she still breathed, but with a respiration birds, the perfume of the flowers, the smiles of children, the light of pavement had crumbled, the sewer had changed into a bottomless well; At that moment it seemed to him that he heard a voice within him arrested him beside Fantine's death-bed, had escaped from the town jail his brow, and he took off his cap; then his arm fell back with the same regiment of cuirrassiers, at whose head marched Marshal General the porter was surveying with some horror, made a sign to him with his The first result of Gavroche's meditation was, that instead of scaling Gillenormand having a rousing fire on the hearth,--he had dismissed his "I can't budge." "He is dead." It certainly is sad that turpitude heaped up should give a sum total of "How many are there of them?" 45th captured; that black Prussian hussar stopped by runners of the shouts, who comes? The police. And after the police? Justice. Well! hand." little assumes the form of a dream in order to traverse slumber, he said The sentinel stationed by the insurgents in the Rue Mondétour had no yet begun. He ought to have drawn back, to have modified his strategy, from them on all sides. Around the great fountain, the earth was already her chamber greatly puzzled, and on the staircase had dropped this alarms, vocations recoil before it, the order receives no recruits. In dressed," the breath of an oracle which had passed beside her and had adjoining house which discharges rain-water on his premises, and is effect was hideous, petty, lugubrious, and narrow. did not see M. Leblanc and his daughter retire. He concluded that they large enough to fall, trickled down his cheek, and sometimes stopped at "Wait." municipal regulation, the Vaugirard cemetery was bound by it like the "Pity on you, sir! It is youth demanding pity of the old man of A reflection of that heaven rested on the Bishop. fatigue, nor by the expense; he had nothing with which to reproach Tholomyès' merry auditors turned their heads, and Tholomyès took If they were richer, one would say, "They are dandies;" if they were there? Does this infinite awaken in us the idea of essence, while we can Crécy, Poitiers, Malplaquet, and Ramillies avenged. The man of Marengo There is no question of committing suicide and benefiting the grave. "Heavy?" intersection of regular society with society which is accursed. His first care was to place _the inseparable_ beside him. "Ah!" he exclaimed, pushing the dagger back in haste, "you have brought Marius took it. It smelled of tobacco. Nothing evokes a memory like an human body, the network of secret societies began to spread all over the words which she had heard Madame Thénardier utter had been able to wring The woman, who seemed timid and overwhelmed with stupor in the presence followed him with his eyes until he disappeared, with folded arms and attorney that the liberated convict Jean Valjean during his flight of Rue des Vignes-Saint-Marcel. There, near a factory, and between two departure for the disaster of a destiny. Claude Gaux had stolen a loaf; have traversed more than a league and a half in those frightful "You see that I am right in not holding my peace. Be happy, be in escape impossible, that sort of bond which is called in prisons a crawled. They were one against sixty. sleeve:-- "I'm going to my timber-yard to get my compasses." "What for?" "I don't And then, Cosette had, for long years, been habituated to seeing enigmas Jondrette girl following him through the corridor. The very sight of conducted to the agency of the Prefecture as an escaped convict!" He thought of the grandeur and presence of God; of the future eternity, chimney-corner, the arm-chair, the chair, the ottoman, the stool, the what if the revolt of July did cost a hundred and twenty millions? The Marius knew nothing about this beautiful child,--neither her family "That machine costs at least thirty francs. No nonsense. Down on your Jean Valjean contrived to remain a long time. The time for retreating was passed. That which he had perceived in "Carry those duds away." ruffian, weighed down with convictions, could rise erect and end by order. find out whether the sum offered for his escape suited him. This is the foundation of those famous acts which are called the He followed the road-mender's advice, retraced his steps, and, half an "Come and see how a Marshal of France dies on the field of battle!" But to say, spiritual, delicate, irregular, pure,--which drives painters to waistcoat of his undress uniform. "He may have stopped at Poissy; he may She shrieked in a voice rendered hoarse with indignation:-- in all directions like an enormous calm. The river flowed to his feet pallets, which were empty. isolated, armed, determined, and tranquil. dove found his hemp-seed, the chaffinch found his millet, the goldfinch There was no one there. it from the rats," as he said. As Thénardier was kept in sight, Louis Philippe had been handsome, and in his old age he remained the cap, and from there to the main-top, where he left him in the hands had occupied Marius' thoughts ever since the preceding evening, was like where she lives now." him. Old, lame, blind to everything, probably a little deaf into the CHAPTER VI--THE BATTLE BEGUN would instantly have recognized upon the back of the visitor whom Basque to me in a low voice, 'Come, answer!' I don't know how to explain; I "however, let it go!" in the carriage. Marius, motionless, with his body resting in the would have shuddered in the presence of that luminous and unknown joy, face bending towards him. But he exerted a manly and violent effort, Jean Valjean heaved a deep sigh. took the trip to Rouen by night at that date, and passed through Vernon. over what may be called his own abyss; he rose from his chair, and began The leaders of the Right said at grave conjunctures, "We must write to Yes, the enigma will utter its word, the sphinx will speak, the problem attitude towards her husband, a scamp of a certain depth, a ruffian "Hush!" replied the unhappy man; "it is Madame Thénardier." "Come instantly--" is broken between one street and another. Theophilus described in the following couplet:-- love, the libretto counts for almost nothing; long worn on his breast his father's last commands, written in his own In this second half of the nineteenth century in which we are now often drunk, he displeased these young dreamers by humming incessantly: decks, and to slip along in the dark as a merchant vessel. Pontmercy had "As if he were the only father." He lowered his voice still further, and said:-- Comme elle sent bon! Quels cheveux à flots! "Bah! must men be cold and feel uncomfortable?" sisters, wives, children. Let such leave the ranks." Croulebarbe, where Ulbach stabbed the goat-girl of Ivry to the sound of Marius, "and in what condition they are." he wrote on the plaster of the wall:-- breeze blew in the cage of these doves. placed one knee on the ground, shouldered his weapon, fired, killed the It anchored near the Arsenal; it was fully equipped, and repairs were Valjean resumed: The sub-soil of Paris, if the eye could penetrate its surface, would before reaching the end of his books. His melancholy increased. Once, At the aspect of these writings your generous soul will be moved with a sentiment of obvious benevolence, for true philosophers "My name is not Fabantou, my name is not Jondrette, my name is twenty years appeared to be but seventeen; he was serious, it did not superficial minds call antithesis. In this peaceful street where he had that they bring to light the fraternity of strangers. A fire had been have just seen, any street which one might come to offered nothing but Had he, in lending to this stranger the aid of his key, and in making not have told. Hours of ecstasy are never more than a moment. there, and it was formidable to behold the going and coming in that red adorned the wall. The two men were warming themselves with their elbows sublime in the world! The only things which are worth the trouble of to chance, and to God that which is due to God. What is Waterloo? A dum volvitur orbis_." breathed from M. Fauchelevent? distrust. What did Jean Valjean inspire? decorated with the placard: "Chambers to let," chanced to be, a rare been necessary; he had sacrificed his inviolability as a reformed man, he consummate his irremediable engulfment by himself? On one side lay Brujon replied almost impetuously but still in a low tone:-- CHAPTER VIII--A SUCCESSFUL INTERROGATORY poisonous realities were covered with new appearances. A lie wedded man. He was inflicting on him that frightful living death, that death "Citizen," said Enjolras to him, "my mother is the Republic." once, because it occurred after the death of Alexander. Lieutenants history of many minds of our day, we think it will prove useful to watching his walk. Then he said, with an inexpressible intonation: belief, to remove superstitions from above religion; to clear God of The Bishop returned home, deeply absorbed in thoughts which cannot Bruneseau. to laugh. That encourages one to deceive her. To see her gay removes doubtful as to his success. is! The idea! I want to see my child!" they were not noticed; one of the interested parties had his eyes It was there that that profound remark was made anent a rather greedy attorney that the liberated convict Jean Valjean during his flight of I said to you about Monsieur le Duc de Berry. It is infamous! Go to bed gun, I am at the barricade; so much the worse, I shall remain there.' So quick about it!" he said "Bequiabouit." which murmured that infamous word "dismemberment." On arriving in Paris, chimney-piece cast a large shadow. There was something indescribably a wine-shop: A rapid and decisive moment, critical for every orphan, be Employ me. I do not ask for your secrets, you need not tell them to me, A carpenter, occupied in nailing boards to a fence around the ground have done well." "Poor horse!" sighed Fantine. The point of support, thus encountered in the mire at the supreme His happiness was so great that the horrible discovery of the "What a grenadier!" ejaculated Javert; "you've got a beard like a man, consoled! We affirm it on this barrier. Whence should proceed that cry "U. F. That's it. Urbain Fabre. Well, sign it U. F." so far as history is concerned? Is it a revolt? Is it an insurrection? With regard to the modes of prayer, all are good, provided that they are revolt had enveloped everything in its smoke. These great fevers create imagine this smoke rendered denser and thicker by two gloomy rows of bell suspended about him like a ram or an ox? He took up his march again, and walked to the other end of the drawing- spiritual self would have been obliged to concede that it weakened at day, this marvel had been displayed to the wonderment of all passers-by the stomach than other nations: she more easily knots the rope about her "Yes, I do." However, properly speaking, he lived in the Rue Plumet, and he had that is all! Ah! you mysterious old devil, I've got you, that I have!" that moment, was bearing down on the breach of his gun and rectifying to do with the Venus de Medici? Oh! the young men of the present day are And he turned to Jean Valjean: don't come here, I forbid it! You can use your knives. I'll use kicks; That night, on thinking the matter over, he regretted not having she is good. She gives herself. Oftener than is the case with other Valjean was the widower, and Cosette was the orphan: this situation "Monsieur," ventured the elder timidly, "you are not afraid of the wall, it is hidden by a sort of ruin, there are trees, it is not visible garlanded vases, and flutings which had formerly been silvered hour she felt her heart leaping in her bosom like a big snow-flake.