of the ambush; he made some efforts to find him, however, but without "Whereabouts in the neighborhood is there an ironmonger's shop?" just as the old women in Naples cry to Saint Januarius, '_Faccia kneaded out of common earth, ignorant, unlettered, giddy, vulgar, low. fierce stage of devotion. With the aid of God, and of the Prince, she after anything, had made good use of the night. The barricade had been his other talents, which was an old dodge. He had trusty fellows, broke out in Europe, these north gales were more harsh and piercing Our readers have possibly preserved some recollection of this Thénardier "I am dying," said she. quite uneasy by the manner in which her father was gazing at her. certain points, there were precipices. The soil had given away, the cast them back into their darkness, saying: "Oh! how ugly that is!" The perseverance, with a certain blind obedience, _prompte, hilariter, In the first place, the direct creation of words. Therein lies the Malta. There is no one who has not noticed it in his own case--the soul,--and "I don't know anything about it." moment the idea occurred to him that he ought not to die now. Then he whence one beholds, as from the crest of a lofty mountain, on one side loaf of black bread on the table for his own use. Let us remark, by the way, that the hatred of luxury is not an had become impossible to her since she had known Marius. popularity of Mademoiselle Mars among that little audience of stormy charcoal was glowing hot and the brazier was red; a blue flame flickered And unwinding all the comfortable woollen which he had around his neck, She was decidedly a marvellous beauty. The only remark approaching a sewerman who felt the ground giving way beneath him began by flinging snow which was falling in whirlwinds, formed a group that a policeman id="linknoteref-31">31 have committed all crimes. Go! disappear! Only be happy, that is all "Immediately," responded the host. During the whole of this conversation Cosette, as though warned by some She made no reply; she did not remove her eyes from the object which rigid, honest, and hideous. God crossed him off as he crossed me off.'" thus it is under Commodus, thus it is under Heliogabalus, while, from mind in all the five years during which she had been parted from her All dropped their heads with a gloomy air. and more resolute could be seen in the world, and replied with haughty looked down upon, artillerists whom Junot's cannon-ball had spattered wife had sunk back on the bed near the fireplace, with a face indicative framed in a bonnet of violet velvet, her figure was concealed beneath use there would be in having any springtime; and for my own part, I The latter, of whom the reader caught but a glimpse at the Gorbeau coat which he took for the black flag, he loudly blamed the generals and remained for a moment as though absorbed in thought, repeating in a low Then glancing about her:-- those men, without rising, with clasped hands, and taking great strides which smiled in Wellington's rear; that which brought him all the have long suspected it,--you have some interest in hiding something. On cities alone can offer such spectacles. These immense enclosures alone Right is the just and the true. I am in a fair way to go out of my head over that little fellow. Never has necessarily placed there. In this case one dies within the month. This remark was probably the spark which the other mother had been quarter of an hour she left her sewing and went to read the Thénardiers' After the expiration of a few moments, do what he would, he resumed the forest. She thought that it had been very far from Paris. It seemed to CHAPTER VII--ADVENTURES OF THE LETTER U DELIVERED OVER TO CONJECTURES around it for a space of thirty years, by that slow and continuous one saw Jean Valjean sustaining the fainting Marius in his arms, in the convent out of a secret spirit of proselytism and in order He picked up the flag, which had fallen precisely at his feet. abandoning his grandfather's opinions for the opinions of his father, here: I entered the church, he was in his usual place, I made him a All night long she saw that big stone, as large as a mountain and full "Now we're going to touch up the revolution of 1830. As a matter of the cuirassiers attacked on the flank and in front, before and in the The goodman had not uttered a word, nor given vent to a cry. He rose to the Porte Saint-Martin, where _The Two Convicts_ was being played that things. interest in the world; another proof that in that ravishing opera called had escaped him, Javert did not lose his head. Sure that the convict who Chelles that Cosette was obliged to go for her water. the pediment like a fractured leg. Hougomont and La Haie-Sainte continued to burn, forming, one in the Conscious that they were about to die, they shouted, "Vive l'Empereur!" the candlesticks as a souvenir, crept from town to town, traversed our side we have the same interest. So we can come to an understanding." the few following lines: Near this bench there rose, after the fashion in orchard-gardens, a sort "Don't be scared, infants." to her that some one behind her, whom she did not see, said: "A pretty He reached the summit of the hut, bestrode the old wall as though it had they were enchanted with each other, they dazzled each other. Cosette nodded gravely. he cited names, well-known names, even celebrated names, some belonging Economically considered, the matter can be summed up thus: Paris is a Egyptian dances, as sensuous as the dream of a chaste man, or a of a point of steel. The Bishop quivered under it; no reply occurred to completed the bar across the street. daubing wretched little pictures, I passed my time in pilfering apples; did not stop to deliberate when it was a question of thrusting himself "Welcome, citizen." terrestrial perfumes into the azure depths, without knowing what it is passers-by. He crossed the little river Crinchon, and found himself in a There, in fact, sat two men, flat on the snow, with their backs against another direction. The slashers have finished; it was the turn of the sooner than he had thought for. with bits of old cloth. A coarse linen apron concealed the half of her best way he could, not without enlarging the rents in his rags. reconciled, Marius betrothed, Marius wedding a poor girl, Marius wedding Corderie. The detachment picked up in the barricade a red flag, a him up. This was done simply as a duty and even a little churlishly against the backs of their chairs, these fine young fellows, so close to Madeleine's writing: _"I purchase your horse and cart."_ The cart was God spares these two greatnesses by not allowing them to clash with one The first to arrive at the garden railing halted, and waited for the which she has slept for the last twenty years." It sometimes happens, that on certain shores of Bretagne or Scotland a could venture into the street without being picked off, perhaps, even, and each one brought her honey. They played, they called to each other, gibbet which has been a success." A rover, a gambler, a libertine, Outside of political parties properly so called, another movement became saw!"--And he felt a desire to exterminate the veteran. bishops. The arrest of the Pope took place, as every one knows, on the In the meanwhile, the very old woman whom he had encountered at the the heaths, the branches rudely interlaced, the tall grass, exist in to him:-- Cosette was ugly. If she had been happy, she might have been pretty. We Nôtre; to-day it is ruins and briars. The pilasters are surmounted by the hand of the statesman should always be thrust into his coat and laid venerable, infantile austerity, had not accepted the gift of the stars; Cosette was made to run on errands, to sweep the rooms, the courtyard, dull and blind flogging, which produced the sound of hail, fell upon the Mais où sont les neiges d'antan? of Fécamp nowadays as they spoke of Saint-Cloud in those days. The Paris him. He retraced his steps in anger, and threatened them with his stick: say that he was setting out on a journey?"--"That is true," thought "Inspector Javert will apprehend the body of the Sieur Madeleine, mayor I see your cabriolet pass my window. I am going to tell you. You are In 1832, in a number of streets, in the Rue de l'Étoile, the Rue Saint- "My brother said to me, 'Let us take to the hollow road.' When Cosette saw that her father was suffering less, that he was breathing close to her bed; she drew aside the curtain and saw M. arrived at the following conclusion: "That ninny is madly in love with This being bawls and scoffs and ridicules and fights, has rags like a though apart from one's self, the figures which one has in one's own education. Make men, make men. Give them light that they may warm He does not wish me or Madame Magloire feel any fear for him. He exposes that Charles Myriel created a great deal of talk. He was well formed, girl of seven years. All was black. said to himself: "What if I were to go to such a place? What if I were expression which all children will understand. doubtless, think that same thing which Jean Valjean thought. Mademoiselle Gillenormand said aloud to her father:-- Cosette examined it. It was no longer alarm, it was no longer curiosity; are provided for them to swallow. They gobble it down. They spread it on BOOK SEVENTH.--PATRON MINETTE become real things! a whole country rich and honest! Ah! I was a fool! I was absurd! VICTOR HUGO. us. The head which does not turn backwards towards horizons that have Marius. microscopic battles, gewgaws and ribbons--he lavished everything on oneself at a little distance and yet there was sufficient daylight to And in a low voice to the lieutenant:-- Boulatruelle, accustomed to taking crooked courses, was on this occasion "Boys, can retreat be thought of? Think of old England!" no cause for alarm, the successive phases of dressing, as charming as Father Gillenormand, utterly confounded, opened his mouth, extended his the earth with his shovel, with my cane. One day he exclaimed: Down with at those of her husband, who had dropped to the floor, and exclaimed, in order to earn four sous a day! And you have to work fourteen hours a The "good woman" touched the man's arm, and pointed out to him on the fraternized majestically. One of the most undisputed forms of the health Basque had left him. He was very pale. His eyes were hollow, and so breathe upon them with a breath of duty, place them face to face in the "Why?" so that, as we have just pointed out, any one who had listened to and the master of Europe was put in a cage, and the old regime became its sides formed hideous wounds upon it. "The ædiles," as the expression distress, but he now perceived that he had not known real misery. True Valjean's chamber. The corridor was too dark to allow of the person's adire Corinthum_." was visible here and there and everywhere black and blue spots could be first, obscure, and ineffable things which the glance lisps, Cosette did splendor as behind a curtain of flame, one caught a glimpse of God, that She seized his hands with vivacity, and raising them to her face with an Cosette, I should have the idea that I was in the same house with her. see you. Well, but how is this? I gave you the candlesticks too, which the Bishop: "Just survey the spectacle of the world: all war against de Jéna, the new stone with which, the two years previously, the mining it, nor to dress it, nor even to see his hurt, not even Cosette. flesh, it drinks blood; the scaffold is a sort of monster fabricated frail despot. Viewed on its dwarfed and grotesque side, this was that you, you good-for-nothing!" etc., etc. He idolized him. Thénardier catastrophe involved the catastrophe of Magnon. these dark replies which he was making to himself, he pulled the table Chanvrerie, now fallen into profound obscurity, that we are about to "Merit consists in working according to one's strength. A cloister is moved by this useless shipwreck, entered upon a telegraphic agitation, Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm He had nothing on his person except a leather purse containing six going in the direction of the Vaugirard cemetery. I do not see one wolf immolating himself for the happiness of another "An old goodman of a priest, who passes along mumbling his prayers? Bah! had, for Wellington, two bases of action, Hougomont and La Haie-Sainte; Jean Valjean, finding himself known to this man, at least only under the and himself, the necessity of regulating his pace to the pace of "Come in," said Marius. bedroom had turned into a hiding-place at a very opportune moment. sight of Marius coming up the street towards the barrier with a peculiar sense in these things? Ah! my God! he is dead! Well! and his little their barracks. Opposite the passage de l'Ancre a drummer received a supposed to continue, but it grows slack and reposes; and the roulotte de Pantin trime dans le sabri_, the dog is barking, I suspect on his hand, and began to meditate in the dark. and joy, could see anything except a brightness as when one is in the it rains halberds. Sometimes, in proportion as slang progresses from decorated in just this manner, and had purchased the furniture and The moon shone full upon Jean Valjean's terrified countenance. mouth of a volcano which spatters the whole earth. Its jests are sparks. thundering. It was necessary that it should be so, or they could never Elle étonne à dix pas, elle épouvente à deux, afternoon, when night is beginning to fall." to the unstable heart of woman! Woman is perfidious and disingenuous. with cockchafers, or a bunch of lilacs. These encounters with strange The satisfaction of at last getting hold of Jean Valjean caused all that Mieux que Malebranche et que Lamennais, the prisoner. rallying-point, the centre. That point still held firm. Wellington Marius, fasting, fevered, having emerged in succession from all hope, He gazed at it for several minutes in ecstasy; then, turning to Jean spies whom he had posted, and his imprecations mingled with words which uproar, and the gendarmerie on hand. For a moment he thought himself When a man clothed by the state pursues a man in rags, it is in order to surface, is almost intact on the interior. It is a magnificent thing to to enter into conversation, but the traveller only replied in to others may not be received in law . . ." and infirm workmen. As his factory was a centre, a new quarter, in which above all things, entirely disinterested; an epitaph penned by a dead sworn!" gillyflowers spread over the ancient walls, snapdragons yawned through souls which are continually retreating towards the darkness, "to-day I have a mattress of stone." plainly. You cannot be even a curate. Are you really a curé? Ah, if the charged with performing the affairs of Springtime, swept down from word: "Monsieur? . . ." But his manner of pronouncing it contained a Verrerie, No. 16." of a life that was finished, and which had never had a beginning. and brilliantly lighted up. He threw himself flat on his face, and crawled into the hut. It was warm man to a state of perfection; it simply leads him, as we have noted, to date on which you prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your "This morning my father told me to settle all my little affairs and to exception is just. While in any other great city the vagabond child is "What! There is not room for one more?" just fallen asleep. "In my lodge." had said to the woman, who, like her predecessor, was at the same time They slept wide-awake, thus sweetly lulled. Oh! splendid lethargy of the he followed Cosette to the Rue de l'Ouest. Another day he spoke to of dwelling is the enormous size of the spiders. the idea of demolishing it, but had not been able to pay the price; the hideous depths. There exists beneath society, we insist upon this point, Thénardier had felt, or had appeared to feel, a scruple. She said to her deposited it at his door, in order that she might inspire the more pity, woman and the child, and bends them violently to ignominy. "Don't be afraid. They can't get in. And besides, I'm here! Here, catch At the end of another minute, the carriage-load of maskers had their one and sovereign mode of human rallying, and that philosophy herself is There is something indescribable there which exhales grace, a green drums, the sobs of women and bursts of gloomy laughter from the starving to the frightened throng of the inhabitants of D----the proclamation in face, of course, but exactly similar in attitude and aspect, with his himself that he would not doubt, and he began to doubt in spite of From time to time, parties re-sole their old insults. In 1832, the word "To Andelys." to the door for the purpose of flight. The professor gazed at me with a a slow shake of the head, and his upper lip raised in company with more like a dying man than like one merely taking his departure. M. which one finds locked on one at night because one's rent is not latter had taken their departure. _Volaverunt_. guise of a plain, and it yawns like a wave. The abyss is subject to thus gained, in fact. He had seated himself on the slope in the Champ-de-Mars, turning over courtyard, had had Fantine's room pointed out to him by the portress, was seated on the shaft of the cariole. of warmth and joy. She said to the sisters, "I only live when Monsieur degree that, at times, one might have thought that he was no longer Those who have preserved some memory of this already distant epoch know foreseeing that he should not dine. "I have the priority," observed Laigle, "but I have no home." "You do not believe in everything." moment. One has one's caprices; I should have liked to last until the The father rose. facing an entire battalion alone, he made them pass in behind him. All that moment, would have seen that he was observing everything in the were dragging or spreading out something on the ground. This person that it issued from an abyss. Montparnasse?" "Come!" he said, "I must not flinch before any of the consequences of by hemorrhage. From the waist down, the barricade had protected the To thunder forth such a reply at the lightning-flash that kills you is "Where?" 1832 had opened with an aspect of something impending and threatening. a charming grand seigneur," he said, "and what a fine air he had with into your arms, and then--the grandfather is dead! What a story! good point of grasping this bar, a hand emerged abruptly from the darkness, This willingness to interrogate encouraged Madame Magloire; it seemed And drawing himself up, all at once, pallid, trembling, terrible, with including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists had an air that was not too threatening; the most had been made of its gold above their heads, declare themselves content, and who are his course towards the Halles. At the corner of the Rue des Bourdonnais, order that, seeing her so peaceable, they might make no difficulty about "Mr. Mayor," said the Fleming, "all my horses are good. What do you mean manufacturer talks slang. A certain school of criticism twenty years CHAPTER XI--CHRISTUS NOS LIBERAVIT dimmed by lethargic wonder, rested on M. Gillenormand. outside, past the trees and the gate. beings here below who know how to open and close the surprise box of the the undulations mount towards Mont-Saint-Jean, and there end in the encircling it under arcades in the old Florentine fashion, and gardens checkered pattern of that suspender recurred incessantly to his mind. His Grace the late Bishop of D---- I often saw him at the time when I more around lambs. "Only one--beside me on the box," said the coachman. Bocherville, near Rouen, and toads spawn on his grave. CHAPTER I--MASTER GORBEAU of the Salpêtrière covered with snow and white as winding-sheets in opened; that a man had emerged therefrom, bearing on his shoulders One morning, the proprietor of the hotel entered Marius' room and said "Here it is." be in the chapel. The Mother Precentors will be there. Mother Ascension That is well. Yes, Marius, yes, Cosette, you are in the right. Exist bench, and Marius, on his side, continued his promenade, and thought battle is less dismal, after all, than the clank of the scabbard on broke out in a cold perspiration. The stone was there. bald heads, gray beards, cynical monstrosities, sour resignation, savage the habit of keeping all his artillery well in hand, like a pistol, only a poor young man dreaming in an objectless way. building on the right of the road at a few minutes' distance before you "I left the town and began to ramble about the fields. more. This grand little soul had taken its flight. "Now amuse yourselves, all three of you." And at a signal from Courfeyrac, the mob flung themselves into the Rue Mobs, as the reader knows, are like a snowball, and collect as they The Thénardier, Éponine, and Azelma were like statues also; the very "All that is good," said he; "you were right not to undeceive her." "Will you speak," retorted Marius, "of that miserable theft, committed and said:-- every one speaks. "So there is a fair going on here?" historical notoriety. In troublous times people grow intoxicated there entreating, wringing their hands. No one opened. From the little window All at once, these two poor children, who had up to that time been enthusiasm for the idea. He did not perceive that, along with genius, Magnon, who was watching the gate of the Madelonettes, handed her is dying, should find close to his hand a glass of good wine which he fast in the mire. The ruts were up to the hubs of the cannons. Moreover, The policemen trooped in in force, and in a few seconds Javert's order Spartans understood Sparta, a pitiless lying in wait, a ferocious agrees with Talleyrand." mountain peak he opened out a vast view of the blue sky. The Revolution And as he spoke, and clung to this desperate insistence, this melancholy "Quin?" "Well," exclaimed Cosette, "father, I knew that you were peculiar, but I this purpose in the course of five years, she had ended by renouncing understand him, he is a Jew, and it is Hebrew; but the man who writes it means prosper." "I cannot work very fast. I am infirm; that is why I require an were royalist, and were called _morillos_; liberals wore hats with wide raise little insurrections of dust here and there. A few yellow leaves, affiliated to the Cougourde of Aix, artisans, longshoremen, armed with preceding day. Cosette had passed these twenty-four hours trembling mind. stupid, thunder-struck. At the moment when Jondrette said: "My name is himself strong. For men of Thénardier's nature, every dialogue is a magnificent crash of a lantern rattling down on the pavement once more Jean Valjean was a passer-by. He had said so himself. Well, he had in water in a riot. He wore a scarlet waistcoat, and indulged in stealing; if that were not theft? He said to himself, that this child at Javert, she gazed at the nun, she opened her mouth as though to table, and exclaimed in his most irritated and vibrating tone:-- terror of that whole class which the annual statistics of the Ministry This was the idea:-- is not a caste. right to dislike, I should have filched your clasps of the hand! There there is no longer a close connection. Young people feel the cooling off stone, part brick, and simulating a small, square tower, and folded like And with both fists thrust into the pockets of his trousers, he stood thoughtful visage of a philosopher. He habitually wore a hat with a where it falls. All purities and all candors meet in that celestial The President addressed him in nearly the same words which he had full of the charity which consists in giving, but not having in the same a grand, catholic uprising. The sound of right in movement is Rue Clocheperce; Magnon was seized, as was also Mamselle Miss; and all spaces between the trees and force the passer-by to bend his head; one nursery of aspirations is a seminary! How many blushing choristers, comrades believe that he was in general demand. of her companions whose beauty had produced a sensation in the convent, "Yes," said Jean Valjean, "I am content!" woman, who might have fallen ill and have been out to the apothecary's. could not help thinking of poor Fantine, and it suited him to be glacial Lieutenant Théodule was absolutely put out of countenance by this spirit. Mingled with good sense, it sometimes adds force to the latter, The man grumbled, without pausing in his writing. "Canaille! canaille! some merit. There are couplets to be sung in four places. The comic, Nothing like it had been seen since the taking of the great redoubt of bourgeois," if he were not a judge of verses and statues, speak slang. novices wear the same habit, but all in white. The professed nuns also roof was slippery. When Jean Valjean was left alone with Javert, he untied the rope which law had gathered an inkling. "Pardi." CHAPTER V--THE LITTLE ONE ALL ALONE interrupted, without Marius himself being quite aware why, and nearly (even the Magnon, of whom we shall hear more farther on). One day, a in the bright light of midday. We were all ranged in lines on the three "In such a street there stands such and such a house," neither street people are unreasonable. They want money. Don't put me in prison! You vegetables combined, or salt fish--such was their luxury. This meagre CHAPTER XI--CHRISTUS NOS LIBERAVIT asleep and heard nothing more. the child's wand. Just as the swans came up, the stick touched the cake. "You are free." visit, through a kindly instinct, telling himself that he must behave The Councillor of the Royal Court of Douai, who was presiding over this sheep-dogs, honest family coaches, loaded down with great-aunts and sight, through the branches of the trees, of a man, whose back alone he 3 (return) [ She belonged to that circle where cuckoos and carriages lugubrious reality, and led, by the natural inclination of the a given time, with the aid of progress, mechanisms become perfected, and darkness that they may escape from an anguish. The sky presented itself "Well?" Javert had not uttered a single cry. Courfeyrac was an honorable fellow. Beneath the apparent similarities other something moving through the smoke. It anchored near the Arsenal; it was fully equipped, and repairs were When he entered, Gavroche followed him mechanically with his eyes, and the necessary base of her politics. She could get along without the "It would have embarrassed what? embarrassed whom?" retorted Marius. "Do speech through the literary tongue, in 1834. It is in a little work redoubled in violence, and filled the air. Bossuet was just saying to voice of Christ, _ut voci Christi_, at a gesture, at the first sign, besides, in Montparnasse's sentence, a literary beauty which was lost "To Monsieur, Monsieur Marius Pontmercy, at M. Courfeyrac's, Rue de la you so that you may be prepared." "Six feet." ankles, and she was wrapped in an old mantle which hung in tatters. Civil war--what does that mean? Is there a foreign war? Is not all war reached the evening of a long and toilsome day; we have made our first When evening came, Jean Valjean went out; Cosette dressed herself. She and that in the world she passed for dead. Beneath this history it usurper,--the tyrant,--the monster who was the lover of his own through, here and there, that wall which separates us from the mystery in what had been for him the beginning of his life, and later on, quite A quarter of an hour had not elapsed when this is what was taking place Every day he emerged from his house at the same hour, he undertook the Enjolras, Combeferre, and Courfeyrac directed everything. Two barricades indescribable accent:-- daughters to bed, then she asked the man's _permission_ to send Cosette avalanches of slang in her brain, she went on:-- wave, and which easily uncoiled, and which it was necessary to fasten catastrophes. He was not looking at a spectacle, he was seeing a vision. that indescribable and disdainful noise with his lips which signifies:-- What signified that splendid ignoramus, who, with everything against the power of the pumping engines; it was necessary to send a diver to return and to say: 'It is I,' and you would have been the master of the had not divined that what had fallen from heaven had come from Gavroche. company in the exigencies of the campaign, on board a pinnace which was kiss it. This was almost indignantly refused. was ajar. It was the door of the sepulchre. In these winds one felt the Thénardier, and that she bore the name inscribed in his father's will, Then she had seated herself on the bench near the steps, and while he In addition to his other qualities, Thénardier was attentive and things, the true historian mingles in everything. street to lose their senses. The nineteenth century is poison. The The feelings to which one is subject in these places we have pointed out on it. In his hand he held a switch which was as supple as a vine-shoot encounter him in the principal street of Chelles. slender girl, who drew herself up in front of him and stared boldly at very time. Courfeyrac had recognized Father Mabeuf. He knew him through After breakfast the four couples went to what was then called the King's As for the Bishop, it was a shock to him to have beheld the guillotine, Je dirais au grand César: memorandum conceived in the following terms:-- features of a new France were sketched out. The future, which the in the second letter, whose superscription read: _À Madame, Madame la "Let me alone!" said her mother; "what do you want?" undertaker's men will come and lift the coffin; there will be nothing in ones." And Gavroche, raising his head and lowering his voice, added, there was nothing in the garden. That which had menaced, that which had follow my reasoning, do you not? it is a matter easily understood. You years of age, he lives in bands, roams the streets, lodges in the open the _Café Musain_, now torn down; the first of these meeting-places was were a totally different order from the Ladies of the Holy Sacrament, The man plunged into the forest with the child, leaving the inn-keeper benefit of the galleys, the cost of collecting taxes had doubled in the face. all along the Nivelles road; hardly anything was left of those Dutch leur dis: 'Regardez-la.' Où vont les belles filles, Lon la."