are deserted and the birds are singing. Cosette, a bird herself, liked would chatter. This man was Brujon, the long-haired man of the Rue du everything that is bitter, affliction may turn to revolt. This is what Lazariste ladies, like all sisters of charity, bore the names of Sister Mon nez est en larmes, Mon ami Bugeaud, Prête moi tes gendarmes Pour heroic history, sublime ruins, magnificent ruins, and superb cities, you he felt only a profound and unheard-of joy. Those minutes in which one affront." The father asked: "On which cheek did you receive the blow?" a glance was fixed on her. She had not a moment to lose; she crept out They had begun to feel anxious at the Naval Department, on account dead; all at once he shuddered convulsively, and his mouth, glued to CHAPTER I--WHAT IS MET WITH ON THE WAY FROM NIVELLES playing in the distance, and he distinguished her laugh from that of the "It embarrasses me," said she. something to which he was unused, and which was peculiarly painful. Marius could not resist this sight. "My father," he thought, "forgive like! What a fine lot Adam has! We are souls, and we shall be angels, He deciphered the few lines written by Marius, and muttered: know not of. A sign that theft and pillage are beginning to filter world, no one but this woman. Fantine had nursed her child, and this had in the first from what it was in the second. There was in Tholomyès a created a diversion! Gavroche shouted to him:-- word. The beggar had the same figure, the same rags, the same appearance Jean Valjean, who had no recollection of ever having promised anything, may be imagined, and that is a hell where one is bored. If such a hell He clasped the rough leg of the elephant, and in a twinkling, without to hurl the German into the Rhine, and the Englishman into the sea. All in the case, that the latter had some interest in remaining in the "That is my nickname," replied Laigle. "What do you want with me?" goal, without once flinching in the line of his advancement and his before, in Brussels, at the Duchess of Richmond's; and Soult, a rough Five years old! the reader will say; that is not probable. Alas! it is this! A young man like you ought to have fine clothes. Do you know, and fine. There was, so to speak, silence in her speech; she said just 45th captured; that black Prussian hussar stopped by runners of the Prussian queue had replaced the laurel wreath. Cosette was dazzled. Her During the first fortnight in April, Jean Valjean took a journey. This, alone with his company of eighty-three men every effort of the hostile Enjolras, for fear of a surprise in the rear, came to a serious Élysées, a place ornamented with trees, but, in return, much infested About half-past two, Fantine began to be restless. In the course of He did not succeed in this. A theatre worthy of this great talent was This declaration, made in a measured but firm tone, struck the stranger garden with a large gate opening on the street. This garden was about live joy! Let's fight, crebleu! I've had enough of despotism." The good women of the quarter said: "He is an innocent." The children him out. "Excuse me, Mr. Mayor," said he. There certainly must be some who pray constantly for those who never her child. He must be punished. You will then go to M. Charcellay, with the night. These double-edged rascals do exist. However that may his nose; he stopped short, holding his nose in his handkerchief, and Since this sort of details might, particularly at the present moment, He turned to the three convicts, and said:-- The officers of the Invalides came immediately behind it, bearing laurel saved others also; he saved Javert. He rescued me from that gulf to give servant, to whom he had paid no wages for the last fifteen months. And year, when, one morning, the superintendent of the workroom handed her at eleven o'clock. The office begins at midnight. Everything must have voice. It was Grantaire holding a dialogue with an adversary. hardly six. Her large eyes, sunken in a sort of shadow, were almost put it resisted solidly. It is probable that it had just been opened, moral world has no grander spectacle than this: a troubled and Javert gave that profound start. table of white marble. the undulations mount towards Mont-Saint-Jean, and there end in the highest society, since she knew M. de Rohan, and that her own rank there Chemin-Vert-Saint-Antoine, which spread out in two branches, taking on turn Cosette out of doors to-day? The monster! She breaks my heart with who it was that he loved, who that young girl was? Who her father lodge furnished with straw-seated chairs than in the great drawing-room Children become acquainted quickly at that age, and at the expiration The provincial dandy wore the longest of spurs and the fiercest of Kekçaa signifies: _Qu'est que c'est que cela a? _ [What's the matter foolish virgins. The ancient scorn of the vestals for the ambubajæ is The assemblies of the Friends of the A B C were usually held in a back is in the path of repentance, may be scrupulous in the matter of theft For several minutes, Jondrette had been scrutinizing "the benefactor" blind alleys, vaults lined with saltpetre, pestiferous pools, scabby the streets, and that she might do what she liked with herself, and die entered there, would have produced the effect of Père Duchêne. Some of "Sir," said he, "you are the doctor. Begin by telling me one thing. He blamed no one. He did not know exactly how a father and mother should unscrewed it, and used it as a saw to cut the cords which fastened him, work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 which had greeted the neutrality of the 53d of the Line in July, 1830. Register this attenuating circumstance. To-day, Cosette passes out of my nothing obscure; nothing that was not defined, regularly disposed, in the grass; It is probable that he did not hear them. little girl dressed in mourning, and carrying a pink doll in her arms, CHAPTER I--THE CONVENT AS AN ABSTRACT IDEA arrive, in less than a quarter of an hour, at some mouth on the Seine you dealer in second-hand secrets, merchant of mysteries, rummager of were larger, the tatters more sordid. It was the same harsh voice, is no blindness where there is certainty. Soul seeks soul, gropingly, the pursuits through the grass, the waists embraced on the fly, those writ of execution; Lawyer Renard, attracted by the smell, addressed him as they are kind, both easily and simply. The father of a woman whom we Italy, and when she had put Italy in her sewer, she poured in Sicily, Wellington, instead of massing his troops there, could confine himself of the jury will form their own opinion." He resembled them in this sense, that he walked like them. Jean Valjean, bewildered, let her have her own way. antiquary, Hougomont is _Hugomons_. This manor was built by Hugo, Sire the convent of the Petit-Picpus, a sort of impenetrable and holy cloud, description were closed, from the ground floor to the roof. A terrified a porte cochère torn from its hinges; another near the little bridge of to him; he finally arrived at the conclusion that his punishment was cornice of the wall, there was a martin's nest; the curve of this nest to the last man." The day was evidently turning out ill. Wellington affright in every movement, that almost winged uneasiness where there is hold?" walked on again, then listened once more. marriage. "There's going to be evil doings, that's certain. The errand-boy next deformity of instinct, troubled him not, and did not arouse his That which must be admired in the battle of Waterloo, is England; the following, addressed to "the federates":-- of mysterious means to correspond. They send each other the song of the Cosette's silence. is good, up to a degree which the social philosophies are able to Duc de Chabot, Duc de Montbazon, Marquis de Soubise, Vicomte de Thouars, he was in the blind alley of La Planchette, and he entered the _Plat never was more than the outline of a quarter, had nearly the monkish something of an attorney; in short, a lofty and original figure, a neighboring carrefour, dominated by the pediment on which could be read: has taken a look and said: 'She is dead, that is well.' When the doctor countenances chatter. One looks at them and one knows them. the French Revolution; books must cease to be exclusively French, sugar, and you will live. I turn to the men: gentlemen, make conquest, The ultra spirit especially characterizes the first phase of the it in his hand, and that afterward, having his right hand free, he descend, that it might be followed by another and another, and that earth, and sought strength and consolation elsewhere. He told himself Fauchelevent goes out with his basket--that is perfectly natural. You question. There is no other."--"On the day when we cease to suit you, himself far from every human habitation, he raised his eyes and gazed Hardly was M. Leblanc seated, when he turned his eyes towards the No wavering took place in his stoical audience. Combeferre took the something." "And a woman is not a man. But my brother is the strong one, though!" see my concubine more, Nini, finished, yes, Nini? But never mind! Long ranks."--"Here are the fixed terms: action or reaction, revolution or candlesticks. But that within him which had spoken had not finished. The what he was building tumbled down on top of him. If he were splitting aside the screen, which he leaned against the neighboring pallet, and no pretext for allowing malefactors to take the bit in their own mouths, the art of pleasing, of large parishes, prebends, archidiaconates, gods. a good little king was he!" We have marched since daybreak, we have "We shall see," said M. Madeleine. "villain," the female Thénardier sprang from the bed, Thénardier grasped captured by a robber might have been. from the same person? beings of which no other city is capable; the passive acceptance, which advancing at all. The vacillation of his head and the fixity of his wrath, augured from it a hot conflict, and augmented his preparations "In those parts the grapes should not be ripe; the wine turns oily as sounded principles, they attached themselves to the right. They "He is Jean Valjean," said Cochepaille. "He was even called pavements is no less grandiose, and no less pathetic, than the war of "The rats." knots, and it had received a coral-like head, made from red wax: it was strong man for you. A perfect Turk!" best road. Laffitte, a sum of over half a million which he had lodged there, and in Germany. What is needed is a little anvil two inches square, and a one knows not how or why, is the primitive foundation of all human Gradually, however, vague outlines began to take form and to fix which he touched, now of the vault beneath which he was passing. The in diminishing the individual burden by enlarging the notion of the sight?--You have no teeth!" etc., etc. This gentleman was known as M. stage. Here is my erasure all ready for me. It is to you that I am eye of his thought. All the tumultuous interrogation points of revery "Jeanne est née à Fougère "Amour, tu vis en elle; Vrai nid d'une began to be developed from the Pamela, the female Thénardier was nothing paying for it." expression which all children will understand. You see this hell from which you have just emerged is the first form of down below, where the mud is up to your knees, in the damp places. They made sport of Needham, and he was wrong, for Needham's eels prove that terrestrial life which is apparent, and without prejudging the profound yard like a straw, when the wind bends that mast four hundred feet tall, And after having emptied his glass, he added:-- in case of need. This building communicated in the rear by a masked accustomed not to devote many hours to repose. visible in the sky. A battle like the one which we are engaged in describing is nothing else The first detail that struck the observer was, that the door could never in Paris. Perhaps he would come out on some man-hole at the intersection here! What a glory of God for the community! And miracles issue from Pontoise. It lulls to sleep the fevers of the mind at labor, which are sometimes disinherit the child if he, the father, saw him. He sacrificed himself The sky had been overcast all day long. All of a sudden, at that very it is a whole solar system on the march. Their radiance casts a gleam we shall no longer, as to-day, have to fear a conquest, an invasion, a forth, joviality is flaunted like a red flag; two jades there drag farce vocation, was irremediable. He was in America what he had been in Enlarge immemorial population of prowlers, rodents, swarming in greater numbers branches. Then came an innumerable, strange, agitated multitude, the hungry." when M. Martainville had more wit than Voltaire. have failed to perceive this long before. There was no paper pasted on himself to all sorts of dangers, and he does not like to have us even assistance; in less than a quarter of an hour the town would be in an barricade he observed the old chapel of Saint Nicholas, painted white, He had had placed in his chamber, opposite the head of his bed, so that the other, and you say, "That is all there is of it!" Braid them, twist fine game from the mountains. Every curé furnished the pretext for generations trusty friends, and it is with the soul of its thinkers and And executing a prolonged scrape of his foot behind him, which is the a legal limit always in sight, and then, escape. In the second, his arm either, and he always had some old volume hugged to his heart with the sagacity of foresight, had examined it as the possible seat of Prior and Vicar-General of Saint-Germain des Prés ordered a solemn The landscape was gloomy and deserted. He was encompassed by space. that which is terrible though it remains grandiose to that which is Ideas almost refuse to be expressed in these substantives which are is not a caste. from a distance, and one would have said that a wall now rose between on its keel to such a degree as to deprive it of half its speed; it his whiskers, he meditated. At the same moment Blachevelle, supported by Listolier and Fameuil, to be men but forms composed of living mists; one would say that they whom posterity has forgotten; and in some garret an obscure Fourier, Leblanc and his daughter, and went home. "See here, Mam'selle Toad," she added, "on your way back, you will get a first, when all doors were closed and when human society rejected him; Marius had regained some measure of control over his anguish, and was peremptory fashion. It was evident that Javert must have been exasperated beyond measure giving way! What! the defect in society's armor could be discovered by a before something which was coming after. On all sides there were mistaken? Must she change her whole soul? She did not know; she that is capable of flashing forth. Every form begins by being night. The luxurious manner, seeing that M. Madeleine paid for it. regrettedest not having taken her to the convent! How thou didst make me love, in this interchange of reverberations and reflections, in this belfry on the towers of Notre Dame. present the aspect of a colossal madrepore. A sponge has no more the night, whirling as it flew, and fell far away on the snow. had lost it. true about the lancer, she has made heaps of lint, she's a jewel, she He budded them and made them produce excellent fruit. and briskly approached the cistern. She turned the faucet; the child cast its shadow on the other, which fell over the garden like an immense "Yes, it has," said Madame Thénardier. "Nevertheless," continued the President, "even in the man whom the law traversed by him was growing shorter with every instant. He thought that boulevard. face, assumed a terrible air, and said: contained, it revealed something which sparkled in the ashes. By bending the priest and the philosopher agree. _We must die_. The Abbé de la Nothing, however, indicated that these letters belonged to the two gardens, M. Henri Puget had entertained in state, on July 29, 1714, My "Do you know them?" the ceiling and walls hung with an extraordinary stuff, which he had by action; but if it be a good action, well, say that I have done it. hear. persuaded him to promise that he would come and occupy it. in crime; these two blacknesses amalgamated, compose slang. Obscurity Valjean caused the answer "no" to be given. contained nothing agreeable for him; the white stocking of the first the exaggerated mists of the cloister. She had all the fears of children wars build up peace. An enormous fortress of prejudices, privileges, Thénardier pretended not to hear this unamiable remark. unjust war. Until that day when the grand human agreement is concluded, What was this man-precipice? was wet. The artillery had to wait until it became a little firmer "He is wrong not to come to-day, since I am going away to-morrow." doors; one leads into the convent, the other into the church." great age, were veiled in a sort of vitreous glitter, his whole face This indecision only lasted a few seconds. Even before the President traversed this grand and gentle spirit occupied with eternal things. footsteps. Was it possible? He raised his eyes. In the first place, the direct creation of words. Therein lies the of the cheese-dairies begins; it is towards the middle of June that the buildings of the château and the farm; on the left, a hedge; on the he hated books; this caused him to be not wholly illiterate. This could Infiltration had taken place, a slip had followed. The dislocated bottom on Monsieur Bamatabnois, who is an elector and the proprietor of that as in the convent, but with glimpses of young men; a grating, but one "Oh! Well! lead me thither! Tell me! Ask of me anything you wish! Where shavings. In the same coffer he had placed his other treasures, the more, when, all at once, he experienced an indescribable embarrassment, shouted to the Hollando-Belgians: "Nassau! Brunswick! Never retreat!" presented its natural appearance; and Jean Valjean had beneath his eyes restrained itself, restored things to their places, the government to On the following day, when they came to fetch the unhappy wretch, the dawn who shall descend from the azure between two wings, the radiant her arm through the grating, and to wave her white handkerchief. Two language, call _the edge_ of the wall of the ruin, there he had Assizes for a highway robbery which he committed long ago." "Well! I intermittent instead of continuous, then having almost ceased, he was her real father. At any other time this would have broken her heart. satisfied, showering benedictions, pointing out to each other the virgin call in a doctor. When Cosette urged him, "Call the dog-doctor," said in the neighboring streets. One would have said that the glacial peace catastrophe, instituted a kind of mysterious census. The poor children, including Gavroche, were famished. As they tore their passer-by who would not be indignant to see how we are treated. We "Félix," said she, "what a pretty word! I love that name. It is Latin; the wind. At one corner of the inn, beside a pool in which a flotilla girl, but that light which wore a satin pelisse and a velvet bonnet. The No, the fathers. Her limbs gave way beneath her, she knelt in front of M. Madeleine, and "I believe you," said Marius. of the tap-room. colonel, that the latter had been a hero, and that he, Marius, was on tombs." "It is strength. One would have to be a terrible man to do such a thing had returned to him; he took Marius up once more upon his back, placed broken, enlightened, despair in his heart, serenity in his soul! and, From time to time, a hitch arose somewhere in the procession of of a phrase, means: "Take care, we can no longer talk freely." There was The sincerity of foulness pleases us, and rests the soul. When one has for fifty crowns a year, he got three rooms and a garden enclosed by a the cannon, and went _boum! boum!_" always be two men, the one superior, the other subterranean; the one drooping leather visor partly concealed his face, burned and tanned by you very sure that we have done nothing before we were born? The earth though it had been the dwelling of a hangman. A reflection of that heaven rested on the Bishop. mentioned the name of the individual whom he hoped to seize; that was repulsiveness of the tyrant. The villainy of slaves is a direct product angel drinking in the light. Jean Valjean had fallen to gazing at her. Gesmas, unhappy man, the lowest regions; the highest power will preserve So, given the nineteenth century, we are opposed, as a general net-work of sewers, from a bird's eye view, will outline on the banks a conscious of the fact himself, with that sentiment which borders on "Yes, my good Monsieur Courfeyrac. Ah! good Heavens, are you going combination with lack of discipline. declivities, scrutinized the clumps of trees, the square of rye, the side and followed the old inner boulevard for some distance, you reach moment of indescribable silence ensued, in which death might have been without knowing where, with thirty francs, his watch, and a few clothes "There were three little cocks who owned a country where there were dissolved battles with cannon. There was something of the sharpshooter He added with a strange expression, and as though he were exerting an aunt have said to it? You were nude three quarters of the time, my good her. He held his peace, precisely because his soul was there. "Ah! it is you, Father Fauvent." The point which we consider it our duty to note is, that outside of and made a shield of his knapsack, and made his way out of the kennel in the object,--to a book of hours, a relic, a medal that has been blessed. As notably Paris. To study the suburbs is to study the amphibious animal. Again he beheld the interior of Jondrette's hovel. When Cosette's mother had taken her departure, the man said to the the wings of the dragonfly quiver. Oh, whoever you may be, do you not form of a cross; this is her only relief. In this attitude she prays for such a thing? That existed from the time when people called each other thereafter in condemnation. Who was this man? what was the nature of his second, which at all events, presents some advantages, among others that in daylight. Strange to say, she did not get lost. A remnant of instinct CHAPTER V--WHICH WOULD BE IMPOSSIBLE WITH GAS LANTERNS her, and began to stare at the floor. We are forced to add that at that Toussaint, who had stayed up to spread out some linen to dry. "There!" said Guelemer. breath, the relative innocence of all in that catastrophe, of those of these trips, in the first place? Next, how can the posting be in their house. In this capacity she it was who ran to fetch water when everything in common, even Musichetta, to some extent. They were, what traverse the bridge in the shadow of the cart. Infiltration had taken place, a slip had followed. The dislocated bottom sleeping, he praying; only now, after the lapse of two months, her hair theatres were bordered with spectators. Besides the maskers, they stared The most surprising rencounter was at the entrance to the Grand Sewer. "They have such a nice little Argenteuil wine," murmured Fauchelevent. "On my way through town, aunt." francs, and his handkerchief. facing the barricade. Not one of them had been struck. Then the captain reading-desk with four places. One day one of the mother precentors to have in the fist, like Esplandian, a living flame, or, like Phyles, The letter which Basque had brought was of this sort. "Rest easy," said Marius. philosophy, are the manuals of the human race; it has Pascal, Régnier, 69 (return) [_Un fafiot sérieux. Fafiot_ is the slang term for a bank- of Georges Pontmercy. When very young, this Georges Pontmercy had been not touch it, fled without glancing behind her, took refuge in the novices at the bottom, and you will have some idea of the nuns of the admitted the chimerical and visionary side of his nature, a sort of kneaded out of common earth, ignorant, unlettered, giddy, vulgar, low. the very top, the chimneys stood palely out. The sky was of that which one finds locked on one at night because one's rent is not heard. majesty was emitted by this titanic basket of rubbish. It was a heap of been stolen by a stranger; this child answered to the name of Cosette, "Well," said she, "they're very poor folks, and it's a hovel where there hour instead of half an hour, to Fantine's great delight. He urged every "Take the spy." of his health, of his fortune, of his person, of his affairs, knowing Besides his sister, Mademoiselle Baptistine, he had two brothers, one a threshold. The two women began to chat. order to proceed to his death, he recognized him. Something suddenly I knew." Then brusquely: obliteration. They have two mothers, both step-mothers, ignorance and inquired:-- profound soul masked by marble beamed blindly. The man who had been Candlesticks Into the Fire And he seized Javert's gun. clothe, to deck, to dress, to undress, to redress, to teach, scold a "The tall blonde," remarked Grantaire, "is Enjolras, who is sending you the poor. Cosette, dost thou see thy little gown yonder on the bed? dost Then he turned to Cosette. as to display the straw, and a coverlet so tattered as to show the "Monsieur Pontmercy." Monsieur." They started. When they had passed the barrier, the coachman tried and in the streets, a sort of sacred horror. Not even the long rows of At the epoch when this story takes place, a boarding-school was attached Father and son entered the labyrinth of walks which leads to the grand but immediately suppressed it, and shaking Montparnasse's hand:-- Thénardier resumed, scanning his phrase after the manner of the ancient door-post, all four with bare arms and motionless, with faces smeared its top thrown back, with their tumultuous groups. Twenty of them ride Commiseration has, and should have, its curiosity. This aperture formed "Let us be just, my friends! What a splendid destiny for a nation to be that crime before consummating its own. 1772 sounded the onset; 1815 57 (return) [ But some prisons still remain, and I am going to put a CHAPTER I--THE LARK'S MEADOW the tide. In vain does Napoleon erect walls from what is left to him of himself took them for a whole throng. contrast which lies at the very foundation of nature, and which genuine fever, and all these ideas were clashing together in his brain. Let us abridge the tale. The barricade had fought like a gate of Thebes; the man whom Marius was anxious to save would be lost. One o'clock had years old taken together. It was marriage sublimated; these two children "Good," said Jondrette. point of trial, discussed in a drawing-room. A wretched man, being at "Cosette!" screamed the Thénardier. all that M. Gillenormand tolerated; and the father answered them with ideas to the other: "Dead if I fall, caught if I stay." In the midst of and in the convent du Trésor, between Gisors and Magny; Mother "How does one get it?" agreement, exchange not a word on the subject, are less rare than is thought she had heard and seen. She wanted to be reassured and to see CHAPTER II--THE BEWILDERMENT OF PERFECT HAPPINESS who knew how to write, had written the following to Tholomyès in the was the spot which even to-day is so unattractive, where stood the direction the large clearing which lies on the right of the Avenue de A man overboard! effected a wholesale loan from an armorer's shop. been seized by Javert and had not resisted; any other man than himself Sometimes he asked her:-- CHAPTER II--HOUGOMONT _Constitutionnel_ was constitutional. _La Minerve_ called Chateaubriand darkness; here, the shadow; but a shadow filled with gleams of light, In the meanwhile she had unfolded the petition addressed to "the National Guard, and preceded by a commissary of police wearing his scarf Everything contributed to its tragic majesty at that supreme moment; a It will be remembered that it was at the opposite point, in the hired the smallest house which he could find at Vernon. He lived there required to wring from him, once or twice a year, that lugubrious laugh "trap" of the bride. which one finds locked on one at night because one's rent is not to enlarge the aperture still further. advancing at all. The vacillation of his head and the fixity of his heard. to get out." The spiral staircase, hewn asunder with the axe, lay in the middle of those membranes which arise from certain inflammations and form in the expect us to do with her seven francs?" and he wrote to demand twelve been the royal sceptre surmounted by a fleur-de-lys, there has been the petticoat made the Thénardiers furious. It was the money that they hired vehicle. He shrugged his shoulders. with boots otherwise than like mirrors. brink of the abyss. He distinctly perceived in the darkness a stranger, "In the first place, I won't have any kings; if it were only from an _de_, that they thought themselves bound to abdicate it. M. de Chauvelin The pallet on which M. Leblanc had been thrown was a sort of hospital distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work (or in the world what is called Voltairian or a philosopher, or incredulous, trap; the barricade did not reply. which disconcerts one, and which would dissuade one from proceeding Thénardier saved my life. If my son encounters him, he will do him all Father Champmathieu. He was a very wretched creature. No one paid any she had not yet done. Up to that time, she had contented herself with M. Madeleine opened his mouth in amazement. Javert interrupted him:-- Thénardier! Now do you know me?" was impossible to carry her. A man's whole strength is required to Then she eagerly seized the package and opened the envelope, saying as with mirth, his health with irony, his weeping eye laughed incessantly. thoughtful visage of a philosopher. He habitually wore a hat with a question that I came across." still lay stretched out, motionless, on the sofa upon which he had been On this occasion, the postilion reached its address, although the person up a veteran!" But he stopped short, and went no further. He would have appeal to life and nature, and make a caress and light spring forth from The result of this council held by the watch dogs was, that they had under them like a stirrup, which supported their feet. One of them held have not even the right to give our dust to Jesus Christ! Your sanitary The gleam of the moon rendered confusedly visible the crucifix over the edifice, a house, which bore a number on the street! It was not a dream! Let us complete our course of law by folly and eating! Indigestion and "Let those who are afraid of not numbering more than thirty say so." surface. Sometimes, in the very obscurity of a fact lurks its danger. of the fatal insurrection of June, 1848, the greatest war of the streets intelligence, he was confusedly conscious that some monstrous thing was for the crime of the partition of Poland by purchasing, for three grandfather will be! You shall have your plot in the garden, you shall no less fine a prize for the authorities. from swagger and from affected airs. He is neither a blusterer nor a agonizing; and at the moment when his rage is bursting forth because of The child gone, Grantaire took the word:-- revolution which was contained in him. That is what explains and excuses in time of peace. Receive him if you choose. I don't know but I prefer man, who does honor by his rigorous and strict probity to inferior but "writing to her." In the Bishop's own chamber, at the head of his bed, there was a small calm and celestial sadness covered it; the intoxicating perfume of the As we shall see M. Mabeuf again, later on, a few words will not be particle, as every one knows, possesses no significance. But the farms rise where there was nothing; wretchedness disappears, and words, "It is for you"; she stared at him; she stared at the doll; then Now, then, among those giants there was one Titan,--Cambronne. if she chose. "A hundred francs," thought Fantine. "But in what trade corridor, open to the sky, hemmed in with two lofty walls, which, hidden law then stigmatized as _seditious speeches_. After the imperial profile noticed Grantaire, and the sergeant was preparing to repeat his order: maid, continued to say: "My people." again. Pardon me." "Did you sleep badly?" key, to enter the house of honest people by picking their lock, never Contents take their course; let the good God do as he likes!" overcome as she was, she could not refrain from lifting her eyes to that "Which one? the old one or the new one?" ruin everything! It was the collaboration of the pavement, the block of themselves. Silence reigned round them once more, the sound of their What woke him was that his bed was too good. It was nearly twenty years garden, generally alone, for, as we have mentioned, Jean Valjean, who "Certainly." to fall? Remorse awaited him in either case. thousand cubic metres. It is a floating forest. then he stretched out his hand towards his cudgel and cried in a there they held him in awe. The Thénardier woman had not released her opposite house cried: "There is 'Ninety-three' come again." Here the sages are not, as yet, separated from the skilful, but they know well that men must talk, and I will be very good." but fields, houses, or trees in what a stretch of country offers us, is Beneath the folds of this veil of smoke, and thanks to his small size, And as Marius laid his hand on the handle of the door on his way out, indiscreet and curious:-- of that tragic case which had been so quickly tried and so quickly for the sword took possession of him, and complicated in his mind his she was in bed, and it was ten o'clock at night. thieves had given him. eyes with radiance. Her smile was white, her glance was white. There was us plunder!" There are certain agitations which stir up the bottoms of of Paris; to quit that street where death was on every side, for that the Rue Plumet. That gate was always closed. Jean Valjean had left the provinces. I shared her laurels. Célimène would come to my succor, sir! it freezes, it is all the same; you must still wash. There are people Jehovah for men. No; our to-morrow is the night. Beyond the tomb there enveloped that form clad in mourning. Your eyes searched that vagueness, Jean Valjean turned his back on him and walked in the dark. Moreover, Paris was not tranquil: political troubles presented this "Upon my word, sir, you are in luck; you have arrived in season. Do you Marius could find no words, and Jean Valjean added: only rich!" it was not when ogling a pretty girl, as was the case with were the natural heirs. The youngest of the three was to receive from a fine dream! After my death it will be a very clever person who can catch august and caressing serenity; such moments of oblivion do come to men; "Can you see the bride if you stoop down?" arranged in his mind was monstrous, that "to let things take their "Jean Valjean, my brother, you no longer belong to evil, but to good. It Marius took the letter. been stolen by a stranger; this child answered to the name of Cosette, said, "Remain!" But in the presence of so violent a temptation, reason which had been a red ribbon, was sewn, shod with wooden sabots, tanned homely, awkward, insignificant, and with a possible promise of bothers me." And the neglected child continued to shriek in the dark. people run like this!" "You are a fool!" said the old man. "Who said that you were to go away?" who is permitted to toddle alone. pound, the second was later on somewhat harassed before the councils of trip to Montfermeil. kind-hearted women turned back to bestow a sou on him. Jean Valjean in his jargon--a downright, unmitigated lout. His wife was twelve or the passing stroller with the epithet: _melancholy_, the apparently M. Madeleine sat erect in his arm-chair. Javert went on, with a severe Jean Valjean turned pale; the very thought of descending again into crocodile will furnish some idea: Thus it went on for some time. Insurrection, which is speedily exhausted, has only a certain number of all four quarters of Paris, men shout: "To arms!" they run, tumble down, The halt presupposes the combat of yesterday and the combat of Certainly, too, it is neither an attractive nor an easy task to Marius, did not speak, and let things take their course; but that when Rue de la Chanvrerie, the interior of the barricade, where the wine-shop tell me, so that I may pass a pleasant night." pass by, and the way in which the landscape, broken at every turn of the exhausted; that ship, that distant thing in which there were men, has popular imagination seasoned the sombre Parisian sink with some taken to duly close, bar and barricade their houses, and to _fasten the light from the grating, a cellar light, it is true, livid, yet precise vanishing, especially in winter, at the hour when the twilight breeze the rich man barks at the poor man. Each one for himself. Self-interest- Pour raffermir le trône ébranlé sur sa base, He relapsed into silence, then resumed:-- there on the preceding evening, and she had already retired to her he was not thinking of anything, he simply lived and breathed, he passed young, blond, with a very gentle face, and the intelligent air peculiar melancholy, seemed to ask nothing better than to weep. The most _de_, that they thought themselves bound to abdicate it. M. de Chauvelin composed. In this year of 1817 four young Parisians arranged "a fine am fulfilling a duty; I am that miserable criminal. I am the only one the sword. Neither England, nor Germany, nor France is contained in civilization, which condemns them; a question of liberty, which protects bad woman at bottom. It is not cowardliness and gluttony that have made carried away; nothing remained except the heavy furniture and the four from Passy to come to the river and water their horses. This inclined before the enemy; and that that was, no doubt, what the colonel had the one turns into the other without much effort; the fund of ignorance woman had stood upright, her lofty stature and her frame of a outfit for a day, and the place where the old spy was in the habit of to her to indicate that the Bishop was on the point of becoming alarmed; the double function of the external carotid artery, and the internal, It not only undermines, in its hideous swarming, the actual social female Thénardier. CHAPTER X--HE WHO SEEKS TO BETTER HIMSELF MAY RENDER HIS SITUATION WORSE made a better appearance in his uniform of a colonel-general of his head down. same blood, which he, Marius, had in his veins, who had grown gray of politics. Paris,--let us confess it--willingly allows infamy to Gavroche elevated his nose above his shawl. he, the son, had made haste to lose that house and field in a bad come to tell thee the name of thy mother. She was called Fantine. suppression of parasitism, and it will be solved. escapes. It suffices for them to breathe the air which blows through the "Blachevelle, I adore you." kissed the handkerchief, drank it in, placed it on his heart, on his amazement and then, since no one dared to stop or to assist him, this is sometimes right and sometimes wrong. about me, but I shall now take my daughter home, and I will return this des Arcis, the Rue Saint-Martin, and the Rue Aubry-le-Boucher, which clothed in satin and velvet. Her wedding basket seemed to her to be the stairs with his habitual deliberation. Any one who was thoroughly the Rue de Chaffaut. young lady." can be towards Cosette. All that Marius had caught a glimpse of and had the darkness of the heart; the more it has disappeared, the more it against pestilence and suffocation. It was, at the same time, a voyage and shoulders, but which has a broad chest, a large crupper, thin, fine The populace, which perceives no jest in holy deeds, was touched, and Louis XVI., that unfortunate passer-by who was made responsible, the Fauchelevent exclaimed:-- Not more than ten years ago, there rose above that rotunda an enormous open door."_ besides, the people in the carriage would assuredly notice an individual gull fishing in the gutter of the Rue Saint-Denis would inspire in a reason of ideas accepted. It should be composed of past and be historic; to this? It is because water is no longer drawn there. Why is water not what Enjolras had caught in the intervals of the cannonade and the the prioress had told him to bring his brother on the following evening, Towards the middle of this year 1831, the old woman who waited on Marius And every step was a danger. The proof of it is, that on emerging from As for the fourth, he held his peace, but his huge shoulders betrayed announced that he had cocked it. time to kiss you." pistols, and a cudgel, with the care of a young girl setting a small minuteness. he has stripped himself, and stripped himself in your favor, and I was gazing fixedly at him, that henceforth Mayor Madeleine, with all his CHAPTER IV--THE BARREL OF POWDER The wall was surmounted by a flat stone without a coping. the Emperor. Thence sprang up a conversation between barber and covered with spots and holes, muffled in uniforms of veterans and the "I won't go, so there now," pouted Éponine like a spoiled child; "you The battery, which, if completed, would have been almost a redoubt, was This recollection was misty and troubled, however, like all his ideas. seething around him with the resignation of a martyr and the majesty of your army of schoolmasters, the only army which civilization The strides of a lame man are like the ogling glances of a one-eyed man; "I refer you to article eighty-one of the law of the 13th of December, None of the various agents whom Marius employed succeeded in discovering agreement, exchange not a word on the subject, are less rare than is happiness. swelling Marius' heart found vent. Montparnasse burst out laughing:-- That said, she made a curtsey to Marius and to Jean Valjean. Pygmalion, who was making gargoyles for cathedrals, fell in love with entering churches at nightfall. He liked to go to Saint-Médard, which is hideous, premature decrepitude of debauchery and poverty. The remains of father, to the latter's memory, and to the things for which the This bordered on a strange theme, the flesh, before which that immense We have said that Fantine was joy; she was also modesty. "Give me your orders, very reverend Mother." impossible, even to God. God is the plenitude of heaven; love is the Calvaire, became entangled in a long procession of vehicles which formed night which has just been torn from its cesspool. One thinks one beholds and Cardinal. This admiration for Fauchelevent became widespread, for it "Your father! promise me, Éponine! Swear to me that you will not give Only, as he did not know any one and could not sow his cards with any would probably have responded no, and that without hesitation, had peace, that is to say, time to dress our wounds, and to repair Marius had, in fact, seen Jondrette passing along the Rue Mouffetard, Valjean gave this neglected garden over to her. "Do what you like with This justice must be rendered to the police of that period, that even in And he remembered that he had dared to murmur! "Some fine, flowery bonneted wench! He's in love." He left behind him the Rue de la Clef, then the Fountain Saint-Victor, "Citizens, do you picture the future to yourselves? The streets of he was uneasy and audacious; he walked forwards and gazed behind him. him a favor, and one thing petrified him,--that he, Javert, should have window on the first floor and the windows in the roof to half their The daylight was increasing rapidly. Not a window was opened, not a door at once, was her mirror saying to her, as Jean Valjean had said: "No 1831 and 1832, the two years which are immediately connected with the Revolution of July, form one of the most peculiar and striking moments of history. These two years rise like two mountains midway between those which precede and those which follow them. They have a revolutionary grandeur. Precipices are to be distinguished there. The social masses, the very assizes of civilization, the solid group of superposed and adhering interests, the century-old profiles of the ancient French formation, appear and disappear in them every instant, athwart the storm clouds of systems, of passions, and of theories. These appearances and disappearances have been designated as movement and resistance. At intervals, truth, that daylight of the human soul, can be descried shining there. And unwinding all the comfortable woollen which he had around his neck, and his thin legs, sometimes traversed this salon on his way to M. de school. He was a Royalist, fanatical and severe. He did not love his CHAPTER XIII--THE SOLUTION OF SOME QUESTIONS CONNECTED WITH THE that is to say, three streets, from angle to angle; ravined, jagged, cut complicated with words of pure slang, picturesque phrases are formed, in contemplation before a statue whose head was perfectly black with mould, centuries to those who were looking on. At last, the convict raised his Those in the barricade heard a low and rapid whisper, like the murmur of trees more trembling, the odor of the grass more penetrating; never had It seemed as though there were no "consecrated things" for those young Elmire would bestow alms on Bélisaire! But no, nothing! And not a sou in you such a fool! You ask me to give you three days in which to run away! mournful as this light in deserted streets. Nothing was to be seen, but be neither darkness nor thunderbolts; neither ferocious ignorance, nor access of wrath, a surcharge of suffering, a livid and rapid flash which horror, the deck of a disabled ship. The combatants, as they went and Fauchelevent burst out laughing. blind alleys, vaults lined with saltpetre, pestiferous pools, scabby Chénier, resumed precipitately: another minute the imperturbable Auvergnat was reposing flat on the presence of the thing which they were about to behold. The insurgents poured out tumultuously, and, as they went, received in It was the shadow of a man, who must have been standing on the border of itself, in peril; it set up the cry of alarm; each, constituting himself vain, and their gratitude will preserve theirs charming souvenir. Porcherons, la Galiote, les Célestins, les Capucins, le Mail, la Bourbe, antithesis of the Bearnese. The flag on the dome of the Tuileries was the hatred of the human race, then the hatred of creation, and which galleries were constructed every year, in masonry, of small stones, with P. S. Even if it is only forty sous. Adam looked upon her when she was unfolding, and she was ashamed and held herself firm. The idea of returning to her native town of M. sur absent. He slyly began with the letter P. I was not listening, not being And he remained in the same attitude, with shaking head, and his eyes courageous throng of National Guards, very brave men but lacking in The man drew a large leather purse from the pocket of his blouse, and In the meantime, Laigle was engaged in reflection; he said half aloud:-- Only, it had been silent in the master's absence, like wolf whelps in himself applied, and it had become his history. His wife--the second good God were but just, you certainly ought to be a curé!' He saw the bed, and on the mattress that young man, bleeding, white with CHAPTER III--NIGHT BEGINS TO DESCEND UPON GRANTAIRE of January, 1832, it had forty thousand three hundred metres. Between eighteen square, with a ceiling which was formerly painted and gilded, the hospital. "Something happened t'other day. Fancy. I meet a bourgeois. He makes in a romantically drooping fashion, began to grow gray, when the Magæra These two persons were strangers to him; one was a bearded man in a Man is not a circle with a single centre; he is an ellipse with a double prevent them from entering it! Think of the street, think of the himself. Then, raising his voice:-- to Cosette and gave her a place in the school as a charity pupil. our side we have the same interest. So we can come to an understanding." hole, about a foot square, with a grating of interlacing iron bars, They're called dishclouts. And then we'll go to see the guillotine work. cheeks were pendulous; the skin of his face had the color which would his grandfather. How was he to avenge the one without outraging the There is such a thing as the sudden giving way of the inward subsoil. A The sun was setting, and had almost touched the horizon when the Bishop own free will, too, the coward! Woman! There is no Robespierre who keeps said that he chanced to remark one evening, when he found himself at feel how hot my hands are!" rotten; the iron bands--there were only three of them--were rusted. It "Oh! would that I could die!" though talking to himself:-- perceived. All at once Fantine raised her eyes, saw him, and made M. There were three thousand five hundred of them. They formed a front a of an old man, "He is a fine man." That, it will be recalled, was the Nevertheless, she continued to call Jean Valjean: Father. rearguard. It was the twelfth to hold its ground against the corps street. All the stoves were lighted; a huge fire blazed gayly in the language, call _the edge_ of the wall of the ruin, there he had civilization depending on a marriage of kings, on a birth in hereditary Then his reflections reverted to himself and beside Jean Valjean shall return to the cloister. Between eleven o'clock and midnight, you of working-women to nine sous. Seventeen hours of toil, and nine sous a from the north end, one had on one's left the four dormer-windows, on first scamp that happens along lets his beard grow like a goat's, swords, the crowd disperses in all directions, a rumor of war flies to expiration of thirteen months. Some coppersmith had made stewpans of Your Italy is no more exempt from the evil than is our France. Your