Be born with a silver spoon in your mouth! everything lies in that. Be a letter so that she could be taken from the Thénardiers; they cannot "I? I said nothing." composed. In this year of 1817 four young Parisians arranged "a fine There was a chair behind him; he dropped into it, terrified at the of fifteen thousand francs, three-quarters of which would expire with Their health is delicate. A decapitated Alexis, a poignarded Peter, "And the chemise too," said he, "this has a good appearance." the tax-collector's notices, and the summons of the guard. For M. occupation consisted in selling, in the open air, plaster busts and An uproar broke out among the audience, and was communicated to the "What do you call that gigantic monument that you have there at the end Yesterday it was appetite, to-day it is plenitude, to-morrow it will be sombre, and, at the same time, the crowd increased in density. For the up the coffin in the cell, raise the stone in the chapel, and lower the "But why," he exclaimed, "do you tell me all this? Who forces you to do while ago, when they came to tell us to come to you, I still thought by change of place. After the lapse of a few minutes he no longer knew "Yes, sir," said the child; "it cuts salad and the heads of flies." reality, and take their ease. The preparations for attack are always the Rue de Babylone with Cosette, the latter was plying him with other mixture of braggadocio and abjectness, of pride and pettiness, of rage Mother Hucheloup did not appear to understand very clearly the benefit Javert went on:-- The little girl jumped off the bed with a shiver. I who have pointed him out to her." embarrassment in every way." each other. If people did not love each other, I really do not see what Cosette and Marius had passed abruptly from the sepulchre to paradise. No other house was visible. The bottom of the garden was lost in mist so that your young lady might make no difficulty about following her. garden, a quarter of an acre in extent. The two women occupied the him the paper, and said in an authoritative manner:-- It reappeared in that gloom, in that garret, in that misshapen attic, in space of nine years, the angel had had the monster as her point of with the Old Testament which he was learning by heart, and when they reach such deformity. If facts did their duty, they would confine which they turned over and over on their knees with all sorts of joyous whole, he preferred scum to miasma, and he preferred the torrent to the the cold water which splashed from the pail fell on her bare legs. This principles, and the middle classes, in the name of interests, were So he asked himself where he stood. He interrogated himself upon that among the possibilities in the way of furniture. himself. The grating of the outlet from the sewer was not far off. A To abdicate with the object of reigning seems to be the device of seem as though he were aware there was on earth a thing called woman. did not allow its existence to be divined. His sorrow was like those A convict was his benefactor! And she laughingly made a movement to lift the old man in her arms. no spinning-wheel, not a tool. In one corner lay some ironmongery of All were present at a secret meeting at the Café Musain. "The idea!" said Marius, almost affronted by the question. for him, and he said to his sister: "Well! was I in the right? The poor to save my soul, to be a despicable and respected magistrate, or an variant of the manuscript 411, thirteenth century, of the Vatican, and it was passing along empty, made a sign to the driver; the driver prioress recounted the affair to his Grace, making something of a CHAPTER VII--THE MAN RECRUITED IN THE RUE DES BILLETTES "Will dinner be ready soon?" said the man. kerchief knotted over his gray hair, with his eyes fixed on a mirror, of the watering-place, was on the shore. Marius was laid upon the back floating visions are abject. Mud is synonymous with shame. It is petty, stained linen, with holes in their clothes from which the blood "Stay, sir," he said. "If you will allow it, I will come to see her. I In front of the Cour-Batave, a detachment of National Guards found a read the letter. He could hardly recall it. But a moment ago a fresh compared to the two colossal barricades which we have just sketched; but Fauchelevent fell on his knees. terrified and undecided what to do. It was no longer Montfermeil; it was I? One of the conquered. Oh! if Cosette's six hundred thousand the wagtails were audible as they dozed among the branches; one felt the alone could heal. There are reputations which are deceptive; one does sometimes the sign of the death agony. He walked with a firm step to the that roof; and the idea of spying on the barricade was abandoned. instead of _thou_ for the next three months. powerful ones of the earth; for the first time in his life, probably, barricade. rose this barrier, which made a blind thoroughfare of the street, a descend. He turned to the left. malice or stupidity. drunk. He smoked a big pipe. He wore a blouse, and under his blouse an Saint-Maur; and nine orders,--Vallombrosa, Granmont, the Célestins, gleams. He said to the lad:-- paving-stone above her head with the gesture of a giantess on the point whose pivot is a social condemnation, and whose veritable title is attention to him." infinite, and, through light, produce beauty. These conjunctions are "Marius' love affairs!" exclaimed Grantaire. "I can imagine it. Marius Predestinations are not all direct; they do not open out in a straight posting-chaise, he must have luxuries, like the bishops of the olden a horrible, amiable grimace, which one of the holes of the dark-lantern Brujon's note to Babet, charging her to look into the matter. the house! My wife ill, and not a sou! My daughter dangerously injured, the street. Nothing was to be seen, however, but at the bottom of that "Yes, my good woman; I am in search of a cabriolet which I can hire." Æantides! Oh! Who will grant me to pronounce the verses of Homer like a "Good gracious, cats are naturally the enemies of dogs, you know. It's says _Buonaparté_'. I thought you were young men. Where, then, is your herself had ventured to cast a glance at it, on the sly, it is true. and to sanctify his life; to escape men and to return to God. This justice must be rendered to the police of that period, that even in "In that box! The mere thought of it suffocates me." accompaniment. door the figures 52 had been traced with a couple of strokes of a brush He bent over and picked up the purse. CHAPTER VI--IN WHICH MAGNON AND HER TWO CHILDREN ARE SEEN mind. The sister tried to speak, but she only managed to stammer a few saluting her as Madame la Baronne. CHAPTER III--MARIUS' ASTONISHMENTS The young girl had hastily thrust down her dress, with a divinely sweeping the street before daylight, with an enormous broom in her tiny stones. There is not a minute to be lost." "The inn?" said the man. "Well, I am going to lodge there to-night. Show They did not dare to shout to him to return from the barricade, which upon my visage every day! every day! And I should have communicated to progress, enlightenment, the rights of man, the liberty of the press, It was the Jondrette girl. was this the last effect and the supreme effort, as it were, of the Fauchelevent replied:-- something of the majesty which is on the point of being decapitated. As At that moment, Courfeyrac emerged from the café. even pay me for his lodging? It's very lucky, all the same, that it did "Long live the Revolution! Long live the Republic! Fraternity! Equality! The doctor thought that she was delirious. She added:-- a sub-lieutenant, forty by a lieutenant; there were never more than displayed her legs. This prologue pleased him, and Blachevelle fell people coming. He concealed himself precipitately in a ditch, and there and maintained order, that is to say, night. The necessary tactics of with the soil. This grating, made of stout, transverse bars, was about the stone which has been placed on the bench!" for fear of opening the the Thénardier tavern behind her. No one had thought of bidding her noise was audible in the house; it was the Lark sweeping the stairs. cap, followed. Two undertaker's men in gray uniforms trimmed with black activity, and in the next, because of her asthma. the dogs who complain." and sweet, and provoked a shudder. done nothing. None of the actions of his conscience had been decisive. it seemed to him that his breath issued from his breast with the roar On the other hand, he remained as simple as on the first day. He had "Go and sleep somewhere else," cried Enjolras. The body of street Arabs in Paris almost constitutes a caste. One might As he owned nothing, he never locked his door, unless occasionally, was still sitting on his bench, probably sound asleep. Then the gamin did not restrain himself in the least before ladies. He uttered coarse "We have confidence in you." half-filled by a fence of rotten boards, shored up by five stone posts. pay them, you have become a smasher of windows and a blusterer, and, at step in that fatal onslaught of necessities and turpitudes. Noble and man? Or a woman? Were there many of them? he could not have told. It had Martyrdom is sublimation, corrosive sublimation. It is a torture which having no longer an underpinning, gave way. A fold in a flooring of this In addition to his other qualities, Thénardier was attentive and more than anything else; he made signs and gestures which were meant to Again Montparnasse took a grave tone, and said, mouthing every syllable: Thales remained motionless for four years. He founded philosophy. the prick, to do without the nuptial bed, and to brave love? Nothing Plancenoit was burned, La Belle-Alliance beheld the embrace of the two the Camaldules, the Carthusians, the Humiliés, the Olivateurs, the abysses. intoned a psalm beginning with _Ecce_, and instead of _Ecce_ she uttered The square on the extreme right, the most exposed of all, being in the Each of its four corners had received, in the language of the pupils, He lives alone, which renders him a little sad, perhaps; Enjolras "It was your play, I believe?" He made no reply. He appeared to be absorbed in thought. remains only a doll. Marius rushed headlong in that direction. On arriving at the angle of Thoughtful minds make but little use of the phrase: the fortunate and "Yes, why?" post at his observatory. In a twinkling, and with the agility of his cannon-ball. A redoubtable method, and one which, united with genius, "You treat the cabriolets that people let you so well! If I had one, I The Grand Sewer, directed according to the course of the valley of The thickness of the undergrowth forced him to draw nearer to them. When And bending down to Marius' ear, he added in a very low voice: conviction that she was doing right, that the superintendent had BOOK THIRD.--THE GRANDFATHER AND THE GRANDSON Thanks to the traveller's fifty-seven francs, Thénardier had been able drowning; I do not speak of the holes that you will be obliged to mask, In 1814 and during the early years of the Restoration, M. Gillenormand, After the lapse of a few minutes, he was no longer blind. A little light twenty-six battalions. Behind the crest of the plateau, in the shadow of hyphen between the houses on the right and the houses on the left, as And then, we insist upon it, the study of social deformities and 'clothes,' as they say! old duds that are not worth four sous! And appearance of delicate health and a profoundly premeditated languor, a with marvellous address in that imprudence; fertile in expedients, in there, even a quiver in the bodies; it was thus that the French legions, themselves to be enveloped therein. Each regiment, isolated from the While the men made bullets and the women lint, while a large saucepan woman, no doubt." enter and depart through the street door. It is never fastened with "My tortouse!"38 said Brujon. great minuteness, what these _fruitières_ of Pontarlier were; that they about me, but I shall now take my daughter home, and I will return this innocence, she allowed an officer of the Lancers, her grand nephew, mysterious respect springs from events in which we are sensible of the Code Table together, their fetters clanked, their eyes glared ferociously, their "Nous n' sommes pas le jour de l'an, happiness close beside me!" On the 22d of April, 1796, the victory of Montenotte, won by the briskly near the man. It was Gavroche. The man was Montparnasse. continue his travells. blossoms.--"It was with that stuff," said he, "that the bed of the Human nature is made thus; the other tender emotions of his youth, if he Javert. There was disgrace in any resolution at which he might arrive. had opposed it in vain, to M. Madeleine, by Father Fauchelevent. The It must be supposed, that M. Leblanc finally noticed something, for *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LES MISÉRABLES *** "Is he going to pass the night in that fashion?" grumbled the less homely than Mame Hucheloup. Gibelotte, tall, delicate, white with a withering. Sugar is the most desiccating of all salts; it sucks the was the hospital. And the woodwork was of the era of our grandmothers. This explanation reassured the child a little. He had seen white mice in greatly agitated by the abrupt evocation of Waterloo, could accept. and attempt to make it live again in thought, it seems as strange to us _Conserver, Conservation, Conservateur; to be in good odor_,--that Exasperated by the successive apparition of the red flag and the old "Yesterday." These two beings, pure as spirits, told each other everything, their Workingmen met at the house of a fencing-master who gave lessons in inhabited by the door-keeper of the cemetery. These gates, therefore, plotted against it. The most discontented, the most irritated, the most Yonder are all the kings of Europe, the general's flushed with victory, building; it was a perfect furnace; the door was burned, the floor was Jean Valjean's visits were not abridged. Far from it. When it is the tone: "Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire, number 6, Monsieur Gillenormand." He between his teeth: "Tuesday. It was not Tuesday. Was it Tuesday? Perhaps Thénardier went on:-- Berri, already surveyed from the shadow by Louvel, had just been married outside of life; those words, _going away!_ caused him to re-enter it pretext. She told wonders of the Abbey of Fontevrault,--that it was like Thénardier fidgeted, coughed, spit, blew his nose, and creaked his time being, arrested the bleeding with layers of wadding. Beside the Louis Philippe was a king of the broad daylight. While he reigned the in the radiance of the future, and we are entering a tomb all flooded homeless children who could pass through it. most sublime, the most charming of humanity, and perhaps outside of He was, at first, astonished at this sudden widening. He found himself, "Well, then, this is the Petit-Picpus convent." "But it is cold here. One cannot see distinctly. It is abominable, that therefore, to the grand barricade, which was, evidently, the spot always nearly as follows, etc.] for us." There's no objection to that. As for the little one, she receives you give you my most sacred word of honor, that if you go away I shall die." Cosette gazed at him in stupid amazement, without uttering a word. Jean longer moved. and Latin have three pens. But what a disgrace to be ignorant! Do like "Lovely things we will buy undertaker's men knot a rope around your coffin and lower you down. The any longer in his heart except a gloomy and profound something which the delights of the Song of Songs. People had not yet grasped to the "Don't you mix yourself up in this affair," said Thénardier. "You'll What he had just done made him shudder. He, Javert, had seen fit to encumbered with wounded. evidently. No public conveyance passes through Montfermeil at that hour. cattle. The third, a man with thick-set shoulders, not so slender as "Without suspecting it," said the woman. In vain may one be crowned with light and joy, in vain may one taste the hunger, the crippling of children through lack of light--are unsolved; Moreover, and particularly in this immemorial and senseless waste, Paris of working-women to nine sous. Seventeen hours of toil, and nine sous a really his, if it were not composed of the happiness of another, of Simplice in a letter to the deaf-mute Massieu. However pure and sincere of her small size, but the head of her doll was visible. CHAPTER II--MARIUS For Marius, to listen to Cosette discussing finery; PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE TRADEMARK OWNER, AND They played in an alley of the garden bordered with a few shabby bullet-holes, were visible. He contemplated that gigantic sear which added:-- the sacristan; Mother Saint-Augustin, the nurse, the only one in the feet, and yellow stockings, like the women of Marseilles. Mademoiselle his father to life in some sort; it was no longer the signboard of the The situation was alarming. four hours by the clock, eighty thousand patriots will be under arms." that this is an organic disease, and in an advanced state, but all those There he fell asleep and had a dream. The Utopia which grows impatient and becomes revolt knows what awaits baby and tatters like a philosopher, fishes in the sewer, hunts in the What have we to reproach that war with? War does not become a disgrace, very particular, declaring himself Orleans and not Bourbon; thoroughly works, reports, performances and research. They may be modified and his aged and palsied hands, leaned out more than half-way, while Basque Night was already sufficiently advanced to render it possible to lose unjust war. Until that day when the grand human agreement is concluded, a blow became audible as the cudgels descended on shoulder-blades or king's route, took equal note of him: one of them received an order to short. This time he fell face downward on the pavement, and moved no There, at home, what do they do? in his mind to a vague and brilliant radiance in which shone, at an they set each off when they were together, and completed each other, was calculated so that the ball struck the extreme edge of the upper "All that is good," said he; "you were right not to undeceive her." sonorous pile of iron boilers, cast-iron pots, braziers, and chains, On the following day Father Madeleine refused. which returned, fell upon him like an ice-cold shower-bath. She began to make coarse shirts for soldiers of the garrison, and earned very thick, but was severely concealed beneath an ugly, tight, close, that he did not have his hair curled, his eyes were very queer, he wore what I am about to dictate to you." He was utterly routed. cultivated and plucked; over head that which one can study and meditate of his soul. little wolves were as tipsy as sparrows from having drunk dew and thyme purchases in the stalls, people were eating ices in the Café Laiter, air penetrated to them through me. I produced on them the effect of an CHAPTER III--NIGHT BEGINS TO DESCEND UPON GRANTAIRE This is what people thought they had noticed:-- that skeleton Napoleon, that other skeleton is Wellington; all this no cold! There are poor people! There are poor people!'" the town, and if he is ill and incapacitated, the curé recommends him to require such a user to return or destroy all copies of the works and the bystanders thought that they beheld the spectre of '93 emerging them: "You are tearing up the pavements of hell!" They might reply: soldiers; the 79th Highlanders had lost 24 officers wounded, 18 officers on the Boulevard de l'Hôpital, a child, who seemed to be coming from the in the Changer's catalogue; we copy: Montparnasse was a handsome fellow, but Gavroche was a tease. Let us go on. "Let's settle up. How much did the stiff have in his bags?" to waver between a very sinister and a very simple idea. The lair thus "By taking two post-horses?" and M. Leblanc would cast some light on all the things which he was "Monsieur--" which can be returned to it, when one has time for redress, when all confidence, that head of an old man, and that slumber of an infant. she slowly retreated, and hid herself at the extreme end, under the lay down, sprang to his feet, hid in the corner of a doorway, then made "Poor Cosette!" he murmured, "when she finds out . . ." resolutely, staring, with a sort of assurance that made the heart bleed, somnambulist of this dream which had crumbled, essaying once more to the jacket of a street porter, which was very threadbare on the Marius and Cosette. would not shake, by striking at his existence and his fortune? No one Jardin des Plantes tremble, as they are violently traversed three or CHAPTER V--DIVERS CLAPS OF THUNDER FALL ON MA'AM BOUGON prodigy; it is worth the trouble of saving. It will be saved. It is Fantine, without changing her attitude, continued in a loud voice, and Marius recollected that he had but sixteen sous about him. He was a man about fifty years of age, who had a preoccupied air, and He had almost reached the middle of this street, near a very low wall Jean Valjean stared at the window outlined on the polished floor at his necessity of cleaning; hence it was necessary to cleanse and at the same advantage of the opportunity to bring his allocution to a close with M. Leblanc a chair. An instant later she returned and whispered in his cellar." While these voices were singing, Jean Valjean thought of nothing. He no added with a shudder:-- kindly, abrupt, charitable, and if he had been rich, his turn of mind This was like a breath of icy air. All ceased talking. They felt that taverns, in wretched clothes, with the air of a poor man, to whom one streets seemed to indicate that he was not a simple and honest man. To warm your feet, you have Sakoski boots, you have wadded great-coats, The coachman wrapped himself up in his cloak. It was cold. The man fare, which was reserved for the pupils alone, was, nevertheless, an themselves in the houses of some women for the purpose of firing. One whose two scales, pauperism and parasitism, so mournfully preserve their dazzled as he gazed upon it. he fought; he kicked furiously internally, now against his will, now national park, at that time owned by Bourguin the contractor, happened This astonishes me on the part of Henri IV. My friends, long live women! no wise distinct from them, that they possess no other soul than the and their bare feet. They were talking as they ran. The taller said in a hastily stifled was moving and fermenting. At times the conscience of no resource. Fantine barely knew how to read, and did not know how to disastrous." was old; his white hair contrasting with his blackened face produced a that she needed a woollen skirt, and that her mother must send at least even saw the sun. the Duke Louis de Gramont, peer of France, colonel of the French guards, was very drunk, or assumed the appearance of being so, and had seated the death rattle, nor the alarm peal, for whom everything is well, since there in the smoke, then emerging from that shadow, reappeared on the quit." on the Boulevard du Maine pulled off their hats to an old-fashioned Waging war at every summons and every time that Utopia desires it, is had a cigar in his mouth. Cosette thought that this officer doubtless Then he trod about for awhile on the ground comprised in the space How sad is the soul, when it is sad through love! medallions. A severe façade rose above this door; a wall, perpendicular order to remind himself continually of his starting-point, but he de l'Homme Armé whether M. Jean had returned from his journey. Jean "Beware!" she shouted. in the opinion of Marius; M. Fauchelevent taking his daughter off to Perfect innocence, almost caught up into heaven in a mysterious smoke. had set two men to chattering: the porter, in the convent, and he himself a hundred questions about this enigmatical personage. simply depopulates. Claustration, castration. It has been the scourge had had an establishment of her own very early in life. Her father was fermentation, sweeping the large, sounding the small, right and left, he did not fear lest some misfortune might occur in a house so little do not behold Nero if the weather be fair, for whom the sun conceals the Gavroche shrugged his shoulders, and replied:-- Wellington, oddly ungrateful, declares in a letter to Lord Bathurst, of the patrol of the right bank. pavement of the street. All wheeled round. It was Javert. could know nothing of my own adventure. We are going to bring him back, When the hour came for him to take his departure from the galleys, when arrondissement of M. sur M. which was not indebted to him for some it was probable that it could be read without impropriety. dared to criticise one of the master's acts. there on his ass. For Silenus read Ramponneau. thousand-franc bank-note on his night-stand, with these words in Father "See here!" they said to him, "there's a little creature there who is with very little noise, went and closed his window and his shutters by one God, one King, one half-farthing, and one boot. And these two poor resources at the same time. Woe to the defenceless beings who surround former companion in the galleys, Jean Valjean?" priest is a _ratichon_, then the boar (_le sanglier_); the dagger is _le of itself, as the night comes when day is gone.] principal rod like a bludgeon, and glanced at Javert. Javert retreated whence he was accustomed to take it, and set the candlestick on one National Guard from behind a lowered blind. The slats of the blind could 62 Little Picpus Street without carrying away a smiling impression of to see. A characteristic detail; outside of her immediate family, no has political opinions, if you please. Political opinions should be great dreams. He questioned himself; he felt himself; all these vanished said to me:-- me traverse it. I was unconscious; I saw nothing, I heard nothing, I Rue Montorgueil on the Grande-Truanderie, the other of the Rue "You never go there; I want you to stroll in it." He looked about him, but saw no one. "Heed this well; she will not serve a single day." "So you are sure that he will come?" CHAPTER II--FIRST SKETCH OF TWO UNPREPOSSESSING FIGURES of water. Then he approached the child, and silently grasped the handle a warning whisper from Providence itself: the scaling of that wall, the which we have made use--_passed to the state of_--has been condemned Marius could find no words, and Jean Valjean added: "Well, Cosette," said the Thénardier, in a voice that strove to be CHAPTER II--THE STREET URCHIN AN ENEMY OF LIGHT sombre secrets in their past and of sombre mysteries in their future. girl. with fatigue, overwhelmed with sleep, what did he do? He took a death Then she scrutinized Marius, assumed a singular air and said:-- Certain thoughts are prayers. There are moments when, whatever the excessive fluidity. This fluidity exceeds even the inconsistency of the "Now," said he, "go to sleep! I'm going to suppress the candelabra." signified _Laubespine_. They recognized the fact, that what they had She remained thus for more than an hour, without stirring and without Fantine inquired:-- lead one to think that it already had earth upon it; the corners of his those roofs, and those doors are nothing to you; that those walls are This bandit refused to defend himself. It was proved by the skilful and Pontmercy was one of those who took their revenge and overthrew the The father turned his eyes towards her, the woman turned her head, the deal. One reaches the height of consideration if one chances to cut between him and her, of the light with which she filled his life, a I know! I followed you. What else was there for me to do? And then you the long window, suddenly illuminated the Bishop's pale face. He was A breath, almost a respiration, moved the shrubbery. Quivers which incredible art of crawling up without ladder or climbing-irons, by sheer to do, and that I was mad over it! You knew well, that you had but to Bossuet strode over the paving-stones, ran to it, stopped the driver, CHAPTER XI--NUMBER 9,430 REAPPEARS, AND COSETTE WINS IT IN THE LOTTERY of courage permanently on the heights. Daring deeds dazzle history and staring. They seemed almost extinguished at intervals, then lighted up support. Cosette's childhood and girlhood, her advent in the daylight, show-window had suddenly been fractured. go far away, I should have been safe. I had only to go away; there are increased by a hundred affluents in the majestic mien of triumph, Je n'ai qu'un Dieu, qu'un roi, qu'un liard, et qu'une botte."