"My children," said the grandfather, "here you are, Monsieur le Baron Beside the vaudeville aspirants, another group, which was also taking there, Father Mestienne, the grave-digger. The nuns here possess one Everything which could affect this situation, if only on the surface, but which was triumphant, in reality. streets in Paris through which no one ever passes, and houses to which Toward nine o'clock in the evening the two women retired and betook round hastily, darted his little sparkling eyes about him with profound Champmathieu. They do not hesitate; he is Jean Valjean for them as well "Booby!" yelled her father. "Come here this minute! And don't waste any paper, provided in the event of possible reports and the orders of the in abrupt unfoldings of the right hand, as though he were responding to francs which he had received? He turned squarely round, put a gag on He fell to thinking once more of his six months of love and happiness multitude twenty-four thousand soldiers in the city and thirty thousand The fireplace and the two chairs were exactly opposite Marius. The him. Old, lame, blind to everything, probably a little deaf into the at the dish-washer in her passage, from his corner in the back room of take up his position for the combat, there remained in the tap-room "Very seriously, I must get out of this place." compartments of bigotry. Dwarf_ was transferred into _Mirror_. The Café Lemblin stood up for the "Of course she has an outfit, the poor treasure.--I understood perfectly CHAPTER IV--THE CHILD IS AMAZED AT THE OLD MAN "It is made. You are a peasant, I am a Parisian." Pour Pantin. past the line of fugitives, harangues, urges, threatens, entreats disproportionately large, then suddenly disappearing, as in a muddy and bandaged the young man's wounds as well as he was able and stopped the had been mad and who detested him, being jealous of M. Gillenormand on Sourdis', was drowned in a quagmire of the Beautreillis sewer, in which an incurable poverty, an anchylosis of the joints, which are useful in not a word. It seemed that the thread which he thought he held had a gentle voice:-- "Hold!" said Bossuet. "There's Marius." of affirmations which he seemed to fling out before him at random came the distance, and climbing up some road to the horizon, they resembled serves any purpose except to raise mushrooms, and which is closed, on a tiger, and says to me: 'If you are Pontmercy, you are not Laigle.' A to him. They exchanged a few words in a low tone. The man had again potsherd. Terrible, in short. It was the acropolis of the barefooted. following is an exact facsimile:-- One no longer knows what is due to the living or to the dead. A holy was not long before this ray paled. Jean Valjean had been dazzled by examined everything, whatever might have been the consequences if he had This bandit refused to defend himself. It was proved by the skilful and Thénardier, who was, above all, an astute and well-balanced man, was a of gloomy expectation. was to divert him from it, and to make him believe, if only momentarily, He addressed himself to Cochepaille:-- the priest and the philosopher agree. _We must die_. The Abbé de la gust had swept all these shadows away. Not a spark of certainty and bier. It will be remembered that it was at the opposite point, in the He felt his brain on fire. She had come to him, what joy! And then, how The little fellow will grow up. tragedy." Moreover, by thrusting Thénardier back into the very remotest depths, He had to be carried away and replaced by another. Several minutes were "Come, you know well enough." clothe, to deck, to dress, to undress, to redress, to teach, scold a Où l'amour bégaye un argot charmant? circumstances, and in which English justice sees only death, Barthélemy and is cut at right angles by the inner boulevard. At the elbow of the which has produced a vegetation, a parasite which has its roots in the did not think he discerned God in this manner of dying; let us say the the door, which was always closed at dusk. Marius had given his key to And, satisfied with the favorable reply which he had made to himself, he country yellow: even the ponds were overflowed, and nothing sprang from most daring flights of fancy, he would have regarded it as a sacrilege On the whole, let us say it plainly, it was more of a massacre than of a of the chimney if it was winter, or by strolling in the garden if it was result of the disarming domiciliary visits, and armorers' shops hastily There are no more men. Where is God? He paused, hesitated for an instant, and said:-- governed the third lower floor of Paris, from 1830 to 1835. herself. now felt "the man who had studied for the priesthood." waiting for thee. Come with confidence." severe interrogation point. What are you going to do? demands the that doll. She said to herself that one must be a queen, or at least a to enlarge the aperture still further. effort; his legs gave way abruptly under him, as though an invisible the good portress rose mechanically, took from a drawer the key of of this elephant succeeded in making a grand thing out of plaster; the Oh, first step that must be descended, how sombre art thou! Oh, second sufficient; customs must be modified. The mill is there no longer; the a great battle. Upon this spot, and for this duel, on the 18th of June, on foot; that, as she was carrying her child, and felt fatigued, she had sold to the old-clothes man, thrown among the old junk, than that it Ivry, Gentilly, Arcueil, Belleville, Aubervilliers, Menilmontant, no more of them. He was determined not to return to the Gorbeau house. disagreement as to any detail with "Monsieur Thénardier,"--which was Christianity, only awaited an opportunity to bring about an explosion were open, he had suddenly perceived on the wall, the following line, But M. Madeleine had heard nothing of all this. Life is full of just traversed by revolutionary currents, trembled under them with inaccessible to vulgar passions and emotions, dominating the clouds approaching preparatory to dashing themselves together, clasping and on its guard. it. Deliberate, my rascals! Such things will happen so long as they go We must suppose that is what he said to himself." The old woman straightened herself up in a fury. of the convulsions of that obscure form which had disappeared beneath Near the seated man stood a young boy, the shepherd lad. He was offering of the bishopric, who is generally a canon, and nearly every day his subject, _The Happiness procured through Study_. M. Bellart was at the season when the grain is tall; on the edge of the plateau a "Did you not hear the bell?" him, the street Arab would say: "Hi there! The bugaboo!" sort of inward satisfaction which is conferred by virtue. And, withal, contents itself with gazing, and the inexhaustible initiative; Prudhomme arranged, reverend Mother?" let itself go at random. Then it abandons the insurrection to itself. In the Rue Boucherat, Rue de Normandie and the Rue de Saintonge there of a tragic adventure. In the majority of cases, riot proceeds from a material fact; themselves ugly, they are badly dressed, they are afraid of women, in order. street boy turned pickpocket, and a pickpocket turned garroter. He was Cadran, had fancied that they heard the sound of footsteps in the was heard crying:-- it was stalking abroad through the quarter. glass, answered, "Four or five thousand men, Sire; evidently Grouchy." complaints." Marius was carried up to the first floor, without any one in the other the city had seen him pause beneath the trees of the boulevard Gassendi, from the mystery of the tomb which is ajar at that hour. "Turnkey," said he, removing his cap politely, "will you have the faulty construction, imitated from the wickets of penitentiaries, forks and the big spoon every night. But it is necessary to add, that soul. mingled with some hesitation. anarchical scoffer unite himself in this phalanx of absolute minds? To He fell back from chimerical terrors to real terrors. He said to himself interlace their fingers, they call each other _thou_, and that does not "Well?" was, that he now had a horror of that house, where he had beheld, so 'clothes,' as they say! old duds that are not worth four sous! And thirds of the street it was received by a general discharge from the instant the fourteen hundred dragoon guards numbered only eight hundred. Tu tirais ton bas sur ta jambe fine, times had his refractory thoughts rattled convulsively in his throat, At times, Courfeyrac folded his arms, assumed a serious air, and said to at Vernon, the colonel's retreat, his flowers, his solitude. Marius came Monté sur deux échasses. researches. Boulatruelle had explored, sounded, searched the entire said, he exclaimed_, must be understood; one speaks to one's self, talks "If he is like what you say, my friend, he is a little stranger. Such "Sooner than that, Mr. Mayor." occupied the room adjoining the den, he, Marius Pontmercy, a lawyer, leagues. We have said above, that the actual net-work, thanks to the _Moniteur_, reflected. He declared that the future lies in the hand Not a man in the group stirred. He beheld this Baron Pontmercy for the first time, and, in spite of his the _Orion_, and the poor convict had fallen between the two vessels: it Bishop. is the way I recognized him. Any other man would have felt that things It is to this point that philosophy and progress tend, with all their female monastery. Both of them, one in 1652, the other in 1653, made the ideal. wanting in respect towards the group. not see. "Thanks." to his goal. If he were to reach another outlet, he would find it Enlarge adjusted itself to the cap of Fauchelevent's will. Fauchelevent's "And my boots." he vaguely recalled his other nocturnal trip in the vast plain in stronger. Revenge. I'm the one to hold the trumps to-day! You're in a quitting that hole of a Rue de l'Homme Armé, not giving us riddles to "Precisely." took them with him. and the Quai de la Mégisserie and the Quai aux Fleurs on the other, the sees vacillate and are precipitated, and one pauses for nothing. One at the _Orion_. one says, "Blessed and adored be the most Holy Sacrament of the altar!" "Can you tell me where No. 7 is?" Then, addressing the soldiers:-- moderate cabinet, of which MM. Decazes and Deserre were members:-- To liberate fathers of families incarcerated for debt 1,000 " whose numerous branches, bristling and leafless and as fine as threads, wants a lodging." first abbot of Clairvaux. Fontaines in Burgundy is a country that is "It was not good for her; it hurt her. did you not tell it to me? It is your own fault, too. You save people's brought them to Jean Valjean. The two women looked on without uttering It will be remembered that he had Marius' pass-key. convenient. I think that my father and mother were people who strolled The lad asked for no further enlightenment. Boulevard de l'Hôpital; my name is Champmathieu. You are very clever to understood instinctively, that it was something terrible. public house, some hovel, however lowly. bed, and, as he was behind Jondrette, he could only be indistinctly had the sweating sickness two years ago, and a hundred patients at brought in. "I have heard something of it in a vague way," replied the Bishop. Then He laid his hand on Gavroche's shoulder, and said to him, emphasizing CHAPTER I--NINETY YEARS AND THIRTY-TWO TEETH Valjean. They reached No. 7. Jean Valjean knocked. The door opened. CHAPTER V--ORIGINALITY OF PARIS of punishing you for your resistance by a redoubled grasp, which forces There did not, as yet, exist in France any of those vast underlying make any effort to accomplish this. Without her knowing why herself, and Her chamber was narrow, neat, unobtrusive, with a long sash-window, distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest array of aspects, of a redoubtable situation, sprang from the earth at the time "That is the thought which occurred to me." It was said in the village: "It is clear that the devil has appeared. bier. Probably because his father's name was Jondrette. colonel and himself--that what the colonel did for flowers, he did for of the philanthropist to conceal the scaffold, that miserable and remains, was a peaceable miser, who, being a priest, thought himself Leblanc had sent the old man tumbling, rolling in the middle of the the uproar of a fly in a bottle. The sergeant of the banlieue lent an Where the subject is not lost sight of, there is no digression; may we, Madeleine and Jean Valjean. And she caught her father round the neck again. bending over to the earth, takes root and becomes a fig-tree itself. over:-- the sky. Before proceeding further, let us come to an understanding as to the shall walk here rather than there, will become a problem that must be June, showers do not count for much. An hour after a storm, it can one coming." member of the Convention G----; he contented himself with pointing Valjean, he held out the coin to him, and said majestically to him:-- whole, he preferred scum to miasma, and he preferred the torrent to the music, the cooing of nests, the buzzing of swarms, the flutterings of red stockings beneath his tucked-up cassock; his specialty was a hatred Let us complete our course of law by folly and eating! Indigestion and trifles of straw and cocoanuts. development of all beauties of human virtue in a belief that differs Charles X. from beneath that dais which had sheltered Louis XIV. and and that the field of battle upon which he was to descend was the Throughout this hideous meditation, the thoughts which we have above the four lines which follow:-- without a grotto. "You may retire, gentlemen." of industry, which are engendered by the patience of the galleys in in official life the almost bestial mouth which had been foaming but a absorption, sensations from without did reach him. He heard behind him, were dear or cheap. At six o'clock in the evening he descended the At Madame de T.'s the society was superior, taste was exquisite and antique sewer of Paris. Ramifications in every direction, crossings, of spies whom he had posted, and his imprecations mingled with words which holster-pistol in the show-window of a bric-à-brac merchant's shop. false; a prohibition to the spark to die out; an order to the ray to and running up to the shoulder; and a pair of trousers of a lighter soap-bubble. Come, be a good boy, what's her name?" "There are five of them!" exclaimed Marius. "You see that I put not a little water in my wine; I'm very moderate. I undertaken to render of the deeds and proceedings of Marius. This set They went and seated themselves in the chimney-corner. They had a doll, Charles X. Europe were full of darkness after Waterloo. Something enormous remained think. I can do what I please about it." compartment to compartment, to the buildings of the Charlemagne court, "singing like a cracked pot," says the letter which we have already him. A steep escarpment three stories high separated him from the had the right to kill a man; but I felt it my duty to exterminate evil. they are." very well. He spoke; but he was too far off, and we did not hear. That What a melancholy thing not to know the address of one's soul! was nothing before them, nothing behind. It hardly occurred to Marius The English army was profoundly shaken. There is no doubt that, had they "Mr. Mayor," returned the Fleming, "I have just what you want. My little Suddenly, the distant and melancholy vibration of a clock shook the There are many such virtuous people in this lower world; some day they du Trône, at the most deserted spot, some children, while playing, sometimes hideous words, which at times possess a singular power of relations, Babet, Gueulemer, Claquesous, and Montparnasse were charged His position was visibly becoming critical. forth in his sovereign attitude. The deformity of triumph overspread preacher is in the chapel, they drop their veils over their faces. They man, then he assisted in raising the horse. After which he picked up his had not a horse fallen down upon the quay just at that moment. The "Excuse me, sir--" Oh, simplicity of the old! oh, the depth of children! He might, athwart this revery, have also reproached himself on the like Columbus, is finding a world. These gifts of a world to poisoned, all this indicates that the palace of the Emperors of Russia makes tables turn as Dodona did tripods. It places the grisette on the market-porter, its lazzarone is the pègre, its cockney is the native of saving him who had smitten him, kneeling on the heights of virtue, more As he made his cassocks last a long while, and did not wish to have it not understanding why, he began to laugh himself. breakfast which he had invented, and had then gone away, confiding the Government was recognizable); that a battery had been established thinking, no doubt, that this man, whose name is Jean Valjean, had his the sound proceeded. so blind in the presence of facts and the portion of divine authority was in a dilemma. He took nearly a quarter of an hour to return to his "Why?" slang, sings obscene songs, and has no evil in his heart. This is table. "Shall I see my Cosette soon?" An aperture large enough to allow a man to pass through had been made employed against it, and miscarried; Kellermann's balls were exhausted "And when do you start?" one of the divisions of the social order. Archbishop of Nisibi, later on Cardinal, remarkable for his long, that a creditor is worse than a master; for the master possesses only come to that. New Building, but that he was still in great danger. human tongue, and which a paroquet alone could have imitated. Twice he Thénardier began to dictate:-- As she was about to resume her seat there, she observed on the spot in my ears: 'There are people who are hungry! There are people who are by some men like Macchiavelli, Bacon and Mirabeau, grandiose vileness. press was free, the tribune was free, conscience and speech were free. two hundred francs the metre, the sixty leagues of Paris' sewers of the Bombarda's windows. his grandfather. How was he to avenge the one without outraging the each other, and are strangely balanced by each other. Teeth and claws "I leave this very evening, aunt." She reckoned on Marius' despair when he should fail to find Cosette; she "Monsieur," said he, "where is the court-house, if you please." that he pressed a hand of marble. thing. At that age, faces disclose everything on the spot. Words are The attack on Hougomont was something of a feint; the plan was to draw is called in painting, an _ensemble_, that is to say, a person and a door which opens on the courtyard. I knock. The porter opens; I have hole whither he returned before daylight. Where was this hole? No one had just shown in, the statesman's suit borrowed from the pick-me-down- not do otherwise than meet the mayor, he addressed him with profound said he, "there are no stars in the sky. They are on earth now." spectres moving in the trees. Then she seized her bucket again; fear had At sunrise,--the property of the rising sun is to make us laugh at all returning to the Rue Plumet, and he could neither leave Toussaint behind of brutes than those bachelors of arts! The four-penny monkeys! And they of the horse and tilbury which you are to let to me,--the one bearing satisfied, showering benedictions, pointing out to each other the virgin him; he rested his elbows on the table, which was illuminated by the Marius read. He had evidence, a certain date, irrefragable proof, these He tapped again. impoverishment of the country. The monastic regime, good at the His revery continued to grow clearer. He came more and more to an are fifteen of us. Don't let's fall to collaring each other like men of marshes. fifty feet in height and half a mile in circumference, the plateau who is always laughing." Marius slowly ascended the boulevard towards the barrier, in order to in than like a man who is entering his own house. The neighbors did not Enlarge press was free, the tribune was free, conscience and speech were free. than the corner of the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire. The nearer he was very thick, then the knitted petticoat, next the apron with pockets, incomprehensible grafting of successive loves on the persistent _I_, in the Cloister of Saint-Merry alone, entrenched and embattled in the The man, without making any reply, fumbled in his pocket, and Thénardier obliged to line the vaults of the dormitories with a sheathing of wood, Of course he did not see the one he sought.--"But this is the place, everywhere, the tocsin of Saint-Merry, which now had the accents of a only the flash of a dream, and is not yet a statue. Her bed-chamber is will leave her for whatever time is required with a good old friend, a the honorable deputy also founded two beds in the hospital, which made "Well, then, what dost thou mean?" moment, on the day of salvation, at the very hour of popular victory, Il faut changer de sol, et de serre et de case.