Alas! yes, my benefactor! Take a look at that man! You see, sir! All the clothing that I have is my wife’s chemise! And all torn at that! In the depths of winter! I can’t go out for lack of a coat. If I had a coat of any sort, I would go and see Mademoiselle Mars, who knows me and is very fond of me. Does she not still reside in the Rue de la Tour-des-Dames? Do you know, sir? We played together in the provinces. I shared her laurels. Célimène would come to my succor, sir! Elmire would bestow alms on Bélisaire! But no, nothing! And not a sou in the house! My wife ill, and not a sou! My daughter dangerously injured, not a sou! My wife suffers from fits of suffocation. It comes from her age, and besides, her nervous system is affected. She ought to have assistance, and my daughter also! But the doctor! But the apothecary! How am I to pay them? I would kneel to a penny, sir! Such is the condition to which the arts are reduced. And do you know, my charming young lady, and you, my generous protector, do you know, you who breathe forth virtue and goodness, and who perfume that church where my daughter sees you every day when she says her prayers?—For I have brought up my children religiously, sir. I did not want them to take to the theatre. Ah! the hussies! If I catch them tripping! I do not jest, that I don’t! I read them lessons on honor, on morality, on virtue! Ask them! They have got to walk straight. They are none of your unhappy wretches who begin by having no family, and end by espousing the public. One is Mamselle Nobody, and one becomes Madame Everybody. Deuce take it! None of that in the Fabantou family! I mean to bring them up virtuously, and they shall be honest, and nice, and believe in God, by the sacred name! Well, sir, my worthy sir, do you know what is going to happen to-morrow? To-morrow is the fourth day of February, the fatal day, the last day of grace allowed me by my landlord; if by this evening I have not paid my rent, to-morrow my oldest daughter, my spouse with her fever, my child with her wound,—we shall all four be turned out of here and thrown into the street, on the boulevard, without shelter, in the rain, in the snow. There, sir. I owe for four quarters—a whole year! that is to say, sixty francs. The scoundrel! What does he think I can do with his five francs? That won’t pay me for my chair and pane of glass! That’s what comes of incurring expenses!


Monsieur Fabantou, these five francs are all that I have about me, but I shall now take my daughter home, and I will return this evening,—it is this evening that you must pay, is it not?


Yes, respected sir. At eight o’clock, I must be at my landlord’s.


I will be here at six, and I will fetch you the sixty francs.


My benefactor! Take a good look at him, wife!


Farewell until this evening, my friends!


Six o’clock?


Six o’clock precisely.


You are forgetting your coat, sir,


I have not forgotten it, I am leaving it.


O my protector! my august benefactor, I melt into tears! Permit me to accompany you to your carriage.


If you come out, put on this coat. It really is very cold.


By the hour? What is it?


Pay in advance,


How much?


Forty sous.


I will pay on my return.


who is there? Is it you? still you! What do you want with me? What do you want with me? Come now, will you answer?


Monsieur Marius, you look sad. What is the matter with you?


With me!


Yes, you.


There is nothing the matter with me.


Yes, there is! No. I tell you there is!


Let me alone!


Stop, you are in the wrong. Although you are not rich, you were kind this morning. Be so again now. You gave me something to eat, now tell me what ails you. You are grieved, that is plain. I do not want you to be grieved. What can be done for it? Can I be of any service? Employ me. I do not ask for your secrets, you need not tell them to me, but I may be of use, nevertheless. I may be able to help you, since I help my father. When it is necessary to carry letters, to go to houses, to inquire from door to door, to find out an address, to follow any one, I am of service. Well, you may assuredly tell me what is the matter with you, and I will go and speak to the persons; sometimes it is enough if some one speaks to the persons, that suffices to let them understand matters, and everything comes right. Make use of me.


Listen—


Oh yes, do call me thou! I like that better.


thou hast brought hither that old gentleman and his daughter!


Yes.


Dost thou know their address?


No.


Find it for me.


Is that what you want?


Do you know them?


That is to say, you do not know her, but you wish to know her.


Well, can you do it?


You shall have the beautiful lady’s address.


Never mind, after all, the address of the father and daughter. Their address, indeed!


What will you give me?


Anything you like.


Anything I like?


You shall have the address.


I tell you that I am sure of it, and that I recognized him.


What, really? You are sure?


Sure! Eight years have passed! But I recognize him! Ah! I recognize him. I knew him at once! What! Didn’t it force itself on you?


Pay attention! it is his figure, it is his face, only older,—there are people who do not grow old, I don’t know how they manage it,—it is the very sound of his voice. He is better dressed, that is all! Ah! you mysterious old devil, I’ve got you, that I have! Get out of here, you!—It’s queer that it didn’t strike you!


With her injured hand.


The air will do it good. Be off. You will be here at five o’clock precisely. Both of you. I shall need you. And would you like to have me tell you something? The young lady—


Well. Well, what?


the young lady?


It is she!


That one?


That very one,


It is not possible! When I think that my daughters are going barefoot, and have not a gown to their backs! What! A satin pelisse, a velvet bonnet, boots, and everything; more than two hundred francs’ worth of clothes! so that one would think she was a lady! No, you are mistaken! Why, in the first place, the other was hideous, and this one is not so bad-looking! She really is not bad-looking! It can’t be she!


I tell you that it is she. You will see.


What! that horrible, beautiful young lady, who gazed at my daughters with an air of pity,—she is that beggar brat! Oh! I should like to kick her stomach in for her!


And shall I tell you another thing?


What is it?


My fortune is made.


Is the person who is addressing me on the point of going mad?


Thunder! It was not so very long ago that I was a parishioner of the parish of die-of-hunger-if-you-have-a-fire,-die-of-cold-if-you-have-bread! I have had enough of misery! my share and other people’s share! I am not joking any longer, I don’t find it comic any more, I’ve had enough of puns, good God! no more farces, Eternal Father! I want to eat till I am full, I want to drink my fill! to gormandize! to sleep! to do nothing! I want to have my turn, so I do, come now! before I die! I want to be a bit of a millionnaire! Like other people.


What do you mean by that?


What do I mean by that? Listen!


Hush! not so loud! These are matters which must not be overheard.


Bah! Who’s here? Our neighbor? I saw him go out a little while ago. Besides, he doesn’t listen, the big booby. And I tell you that I saw him go out. Listen carefully. The Crœsus is caught, or as good as caught! That’s all settled already. Everything is arranged. I have seen some people. He will come here this evening at six o’clock. To bring sixty francs, the rascal! Did you notice how I played that game on him, my sixty francs, my landlord, my fourth of February? I don’t even owe for one quarter! Isn’t he a fool! So he will come at six o’clock! That’s the hour when our neighbor goes to his dinner. Mother Bougon is off washing dishes in the city. There’s not a soul in the house. The neighbor never comes home until eleven o’clock. The children shall stand on watch. You shall help us. He will give in.


And what if he does not give in?


We’ll fix him. Now. I’m going out. I have some more people that I must see. Good ones. You’ll see how well the whole thing will work. I shall be away as short a time as possible, it’s a fine stroke of business, do you look after the house. Do you know, it’s mighty lucky, by the way, that he didn’t recognize me! If he had recognized me on his side, he would not have come back again. He would have slipped through our fingers! It was my beard that saved us! my romantic beard! my pretty little romantic beard! What beastly weather! This rind is too large for me. Never mind, he did a devilish good thing in leaving it for me, the old scoundrel! If it hadn’t been for that, I couldn’t have gone out, and everything would have gone wrong! What small points things hang on, anyway! I came near forgetting. You are to have a brazier of charcoal ready.


A brazier of charcoal?


Yes.


How many bushels?


Two good ones.


That will come to thirty sous. With the rest I will buy something for dinner.


The devil, no.


Why?


Don’t go and spend the hundred-sou piece.


Because I shall have to buy something, too.


What?


Something.


How much shall you need?


Whereabouts in the neighborhood is there an ironmonger’s shop?


Rue Mouffetard.


Ah! yes, at the corner of a street; I can see the shop.


But tell me how much you will need for what you have to purchase?


Fifty sous—three francs.


There won’t be much left for dinner.


Eating is not the point to-day. There’s something better to be done.


That’s enough, my jewel.


These wretches must be stamped upon,


With the assistance of Patron-Minette, it can’t fail. Patron-Minette,


Do you think so?


It’s as good as a warrant for each one, of five hundred balls, and the worst that can happen is five years, six years, ten years at the most!


That’s a real thing. You can’t go against such things.


I tell you that the affair can’t go wrong,


Father What’s-his-name’s team will be already harnessed.


No.


The commissary of police is not here, but there is an inspector who takes his place. Would you like to speak to him? Are you in haste?


Yes,


What do you want?


Is this Monsieur le Commissaire de Police?


He is absent. I am here in his stead.


The matter is very private.


Then speak.


And great haste is required.


Then speak quick.


That a person with whom he was not acquainted otherwise than by sight, was to be inveigled into a trap that very evening; that, as he occupied the room adjoining the den, he, Marius Pontmercy, a lawyer, had heard the whole plot through the partition; that the wretch who had planned the trap was a certain Jondrette; that there would be accomplices, probably some prowlers of the barriers, among others a certain Panchaud, alias Printanier, alias Bigrenaille; that Jondrette’s daughters were to lie in wait; that there was no way of warning the threatened man, since he did not even know his name; and that, finally, all this was to be carried out at six o’clock that evening, at the most deserted point of the Boulevard de l’Hôpital, in house No. 50-52.


So it is in the room at the end of the corridor?


Precisely. Are you acquainted with that house?


Apparently. Patron-Minette must have had a hand in this.


Patron-Minette. I did hear that word pronounced, in fact.


The long-haired man must be Brujon, and the bearded one Demi-Liard, alias Deux-Milliards. As for Father What’s-his-name, I think I recognize him. Here, I’ve burned my coat. They always have too much fire in these cursed stoves. Number 50-52. Former property of Gorbeau. You saw only that bearded and that long-haired man?


And Panchaud.


You didn’t see a little imp of a dandy prowling about the premises?


No.


Nor a big lump of matter, resembling an elephant in the Jardin des Plantes?


Nor a scamp with the air of an old red tail?


As for the fourth, no one sees him, not even his adjutants, clerks, and employees. It is not surprising that you did not see him.


No. Who are all those persons?


Besides, this is not the time for them. 50-52. I know that barrack. Impossible to conceal ourselves inside it without the artists seeing us, and then they will get off simply by countermanding the vaudeville. They are so modest! An audience embarrasses them. None of that, none of that. I want to hear them sing and make them dance. Are you afraid?


Of what?


Of these men?


No more than yourself!


There, you speak like a brave man, and like an honest man. Courage does not fear crime, and honesty does not fear authority.


That is well, but what do you intend to do?


The lodgers have pass-keys with which to get in at night. You must have one.


Yes,


Have you it about you?


Yes.


Give it to me,


If you will take my advice, you will come in force. Take these. Go home. Hide in your chamber, so that you may be supposed to have gone out. They are loaded. Each one carries two balls. You will keep watch; there is a hole in the wall, as you have informed me. These men will come. Leave them to their own devices for a time. When you think matters have reached a crisis, and that it is time to put a stop to them, fire a shot. Not too soon. The rest concerns me. A shot into the ceiling, the air, no matter where. Above all things, not too soon. Wait until they begin to put their project into execution; you are a lawyer; you know the proper point. That makes a lump that can be seen. Put them in your trousers pocket. Now, there is not a minute more to be lost by any one. What time is it? Half-past two. Seven o’clock is the hour? Six o’clock. I have plenty of time, but no more than enough. Don’t forget anything that I have said to you. Bang. A pistol shot. Rest easy,


By the way, if you have occasion for my services between now and then, come or send here. You will ask for Inspector Javert.


One would say, to see all these snow-flakes fall, that there was a plague of white butterflies in heaven. Hold! There’s Marius.


I saw him. Don’t let’s speak to him.


Why?


He is busy.


With what?


Don’t you see his air?


What air?


He has the air of a man who is following some one.


That’s true,


Just see the eyes he is making!


But who the deuce is he following?


Some fine, flowery bonneted wench! He’s in love.


But. I don’t see any wench nor any flowery bonnet in the street. There’s not a woman round.


He’s following a man!


Who is that man?


He? he’s a poet. Poets are very fond of wearing the trousers of dealers in rabbit skins and the overcoats of peers of France.


Let’s see where Marius will go, let’s see where the man is going, let’s follow them, hey?


Bossuet! eagle of Meaux! You are a prodigious brute. Follow a man who is following another man, indeed!


It’s I,


Good evening, daddy,


Well?


All’s going first-rate, but my feet are beastly cold. Good! You have dressed up. You have done well! You must inspire confidence.


All ready to go out.


Don’t forget what I told you. You will do everything sure?


Rest easy.


Because— By the way, have you been eating here?


Yes. I got three large potatoes and some salt. I took advantage of the fire to cook them.


Good. To-morrow I will take you out to dine with me. We will have a duck and fixings. You shall dine like Charles the Tenth; all is going well! The mouse-trap is open. The cats are there. Put this in the fire. Have you greased the hinges of the door so that they will not squeak?


Yes,


What time is it?


Nearly six. The half-hour struck from Saint-Médard a while ago.


The devil! the children must go and watch. Come you, do you listen here. Has old Bougon left?


Are you sure that there is no one in our neighbor’s room?


He has not been in all day, and you know very well that this is his dinner hour.


You are sure?


Sure.


All the same, there’s no harm in going to see whether he is there. Here, my girl, take the candle and go there.


P’pa, he is not in here.


Did you go in?


No, but as his key is in the door, he must be out.


Go in, nevertheless.


Nos amours ont duré toute une semaine, Mais que du bonheur les instants sont courts! S’adorer huit jours, c’était bien la peine! Le temps des amours devrait durer toujours! Devrait durer toujours! devrait durer toujours! How ugly Paris is when it has put on a white chemise!


Well! what are you about there?


I am looking under the bed and the furniture, there’s no one here.


Booby! Come here this minute! And don’t waste any time about it!


Coming! Coming! One has no time for anything in this hovel! Vous me quittez pour aller à la gloire; Mon triste cœur suivra partout.


Pay strict heed! One on the side of the barrier, the other at the corner of the Rue du Petit-Banquier. Don’t lose sight for a moment of the door of this house, and the moment you see anything, rush here on the instant! as hard as you can go! You have a key to get in.


The idea of standing watch in the snow barefoot!


To-morrow you shall have some dainty little green silk boots!


By the way! Now that I think of it. In this weather, he will come in a carriage. Light the lantern, take it and go downstairs. You will stand behind the lower door. The very moment that you hear the carriage stop, you will open the door, instantly, he will come up, you will light the staircase and the corridor, and when he enters here, you will go downstairs again as speedily as possible, you will pay the coachman, and dismiss the fiacre.


And the money? What’s this?


That is the monarch which our neighbor gave us this morning. Do you know what? Two chairs will be needed here.


What for?


To sit on.


Pardieu! I’ll go and get one of our neighbor’s.


Take the candle,


No,


it would embarrass me, I have the two chairs to carry. There is moonlight.


Here are the two chairs. And here is the lantern. Go down as quick as you can.


Those are the utensils of an edge-tool maker,


What a fool I am! It’s the partition cracking! Provided only that he comes!


Enter, sir,


Enter, my benefactor,


Monsieur Fabantou, this is for your rent and your most pressing necessities. We will attend to the rest hereafter.


May God requite it to you, my generous benefactor! Dismiss the carriage!


’Tis done.


I shall be able to stop that wretch whenever I please,


How is the poor little wounded girl?


Bad, very bad, my worthy sir. Her elder sister has taken her to the Bourbe to have her hurt dressed. You will see them presently; they will be back immediately.


Madame Fabantou seems to me to be better,


She is dying. But what do you expect, sir! She has so much courage, that woman has! She’s not a woman, she’s an ox. You are always too good to me, Monsieur Jondrette!


Jondrette! I thought your name was Fabantou?


Fabantou, alias Jondrette! An artistic sobriquet! Ah! we have had a happy life together, this poor darling and I! What would there be left for us if we had not that? We are so wretched, my respectable sir! We have arms, but there is no work! We have the will, no work! I don’t know how the government arranges that, but, on my word of honor, sir, I am not Jacobin, sir, I am not a bousingot.30 I don’t wish them any evil, but if I were the ministers, on my most sacred word, things would be different. Here, for instance, I wanted to have my girls taught the trade of paper-box makers. You will say to me: ‘What! a trade?’ Yes! A trade! A simple trade! A bread-winner! What a fall, my benefactor! What a degradation, when one has been what we have been! Alas! There is nothing left to us of our days of prosperity! One thing only, a picture, of which I think a great deal, but which I am willing to part with, for I must live! Item, one must live!


Ah! I see! you are looking at your overcoat? It fits me! My faith, but it fits me!


Who is that man?


Him? he’s a neighbor of mine. Don’t pay any attention to him.


Excuse me; what were you saying, M. Fabantou?


I was telling you, sir, and dear protector. I was telling you, that I have a picture to sell. Don’t mind them, they are people who belong in the house. So I was saying, that there remains in my possession a valuable picture. But stop, sir, take a look at it.


What is that?


A painting by a master, a picture of great value, my benefactor! I am as much attached to it as I am to my two daughters; it recalls souvenirs to me! But I have told you, and I will not take it back, that I am so wretched that I will part with it.


They are friends. They are neighbors. Their faces are black because they work in charcoal. They are chimney-builders. Don’t trouble yourself about them, my benefactor, but buy my picture. Have pity on my misery. I will not ask you much for it. How much do you think it is worth?


Well, it is some signboard for a tavern, and is worth about three francs.


Have you your pocket-book with you? I should be satisfied with a thousand crowns.


If you do not buy my picture, my dear benefactor. I shall be left without resources; there will be nothing left for me but to throw myself into the river. When I think that I wanted to have my two girls taught the middle-class paper-box trade, the making of boxes for New Year’s gifts! Well! A table with a board at the end to keep the glasses from falling off is required, then a special stove is needed, a pot with three compartments for the different degrees of strength of the paste, according as it is to be used for wood, paper, or stuff, a paring-knife to cut the cardboard, a mould to adjust it, a hammer to nail the steels, pincers, how the devil do I know what all? And all that in order to earn four sous a day! And you have to work fourteen hours a day! And each box passes through the workwoman’s hands thirteen times! And you can’t wet the paper! And you mustn’t spot anything! And you must keep the paste hot. The devil, I tell you! Four sous a day! How do you suppose a man is to live?


Is this man an idiot?


There is nothing left for me but to throw myself into the river! I went down three steps at the side of the bridge of Austerlitz the other day for that purpose. That has nothing to do with the question! Do you know me?


Is everything ready?


Yes,


Where is Montparnasse?


The young principal actor stopped to chat with your girl.


Which?


The eldest.


Is there a carriage at the door?


Yes.


Is the team harnessed?


With two good horses?


Excellent.


Is it waiting where I ordered?


Good,


So you do not recognize me?


No.


My name is not Fabantou, my name is not Jondrette, my name is Thénardier. I am the inn-keeper of Montfermeil! Do you understand? Thénardier! Now do you know me?


No more than before.


My name is Thénardier. Thénardier, do you understand?


A certain Thénardier saved my life. If my son encounters him, he will do him all the good that lies in his power.


Succor Thénardier!


Done for! Smoked brown! Cooked! Spitchcocked! Ah! Ah! so I’ve found you again at last, Mister philanthropist! Mister threadbare millionnaire! Mister giver of dolls! you old ninny! Ah! so you don’t recognize me! No, it wasn’t you who came to Montfermeil, to my inn, eight years ago, on Christmas eve, 1823! It wasn’t you who carried off that Fantine’s child from me! The Lark! It wasn’t you who had a yellow great-coat! No! Nor a package of duds in your hand, as you had this morning here! Say, wife, it seems to be his mania to carry packets of woollen stockings into houses! Old charity monger, get out with you! Are you a hosier, Mister millionnaire? You give away your stock in trade to the poor, holy man! What bosh! merry Andrew! Ah! and you don’t recognize me? Well, I recognize you, that I do! I recognized you the very moment you poked your snout in here. Ah! you’ll find out presently, that it isn’t all roses to thrust yourself in that fashion into people’s houses, under the pretext that they are taverns, in wretched clothes, with the air of a poor man, to whom one would give a sou, to deceive persons, to play the generous, to take away their means of livelihood, and to make threats in the woods, and you can’t call things quits because afterwards, when people are ruined, you bring a coat that is too large, and two miserable hospital blankets, you old blackguard, you child-stealer! And with his goody-goody air! Parbleu! You made game of me in the past! You are the cause of all my misfortunes! For fifteen hundred francs you got a girl whom I had, and who certainly belonged to rich people, and who had already brought in a great deal of money, and from whom I might have extracted enough to live on all my life! A girl who would have made up to me for everything that I lost in that vile cook-shop, where there was nothing but one continual row, and where, like a fool, I ate up my last farthing! Oh! I wish all the wine folks drank in my house had been poison to those who drank it! Well, never mind! Say, now! You must have thought me ridiculous when you went off with the Lark! You had your cudgel in the forest. You were the stronger. Revenge. I’m the one to hold the trumps to-day! You’re in a sorry case, my good fellow! Oh, but I can laugh! Really, I laugh! Didn’t he fall into the trap! I told him that I was an actor, that my name was Fabantou, that I had played comedy with Mamselle Mars, with Mamselle Muche, that my landlord insisted on being paid tomorrow, the 4th of February, and he didn’t even notice that the 8th of January, and not the 4th of February is the time when the quarter runs out! Absurd idiot! And the four miserable Philippes which he has brought me! Scoundrel! He hadn’t the heart even to go as high as a hundred francs! And how he swallowed my platitudes! That did amuse me. I said to myself: ‘Blockhead! Come, I’ve got you! I lick your paws this morning, but I’ll gnaw your heart this evening!’


I do not know what you mean to say. You are mistaken in me. I am a very poor man, and anything but a millionnaire. I do not know you. You are mistaking me for some other person.


Ah! a pretty lie! You stick to that pleasantry, do you! You’re floundering, my old buck! Ah! You don’t remember! You don’t see who I am?


Excuse me, sir. I see that you are a villain!


Villain! Yes, I know that you call us that, you rich gentlemen! Stop! it’s true that I became bankrupt, that I am in hiding, that I have no bread, that I have not a single sou, that I am a villain! It’s three days since I have had anything to eat, so I’m a villain! Ah! you folks warm your feet, you have Sakoski boots, you have wadded great-coats, like archbishops, you lodge on the first floor in houses that have porters, you eat truffles, you eat asparagus at forty francs the bunch in the month of January, and green peas, you gorge yourselves, and when you want to know whether it is cold, you look in the papers to see what the engineer Chevalier’s thermometer says about it. We, it is we who are thermometers. We don’t need to go out and look on the quay at the corner of the Tour de l’Horologe, to find out the number of degrees of cold; we feel our blood congealing in our veins, and the ice forming round our hearts, and we say: ‘There is no God!’ And you come to our caverns, yes our caverns, for the purpose of calling us villains! But we’ll devour you! But we’ll devour you, poor little things! Just see here, Mister millionnaire: I have been a solid man, I have held a license, I have been an elector, I am a bourgeois, that I am! And it’s quite possible that you are not! When I think that he has dared to come here and talk to me like a cobbler! And listen to this also, Mister philanthropist! I’m not a suspicious character, not a bit of it! I’m not a man whose name nobody knows, and who comes and abducts children from houses! I’m an old French soldier, I ought to have been decorated! I was at Waterloo, so I was! And in the battle I saved a general called the Comte of I don’t know what. He told me his name, but his beastly voice was so weak that I didn’t hear. All I caught was Merci . I’d rather have had his name than his thanks. That would have helped me to find him again. The picture that you see here, and which was painted by David at Bruqueselles,—do you know what it represents? It represents me. David wished to immortalize that feat of prowess. I have that general on my back, and I am carrying him through the grape-shot. There’s the history of it! That general never did a single thing for me; he was no better than the rest! But nonetheless, I saved his life at the risk of my own, and I have the certificate of the fact in my pocket! I am a soldier of Waterloo, by all the furies! And now that I have had the goodness to tell you all this, let’s have an end of it. I want money, I want a deal of money, I must have an enormous lot of money, or I’ll exterminate you, by the thunder of the good God!


What have you to say before we put the handcuffs on you?


If there’s any wood to be split, I’m there!


Why have you taken off your mask?


For fun,


My father,


forgive me!


Don’t harm him!


Don’t hurt him!


Don’t you mix yourself up in this affair. You’ll tear your shawl. Now, search him, you other fellows! What! No pocket-book?


No, nor watch,


Never mind,


he’s a tough old fellow.


Tie him to the leg of the bed. Is Boulatruelle dead?


No, he’s drunk.


Sweep him into a corner. Babet, why did you bring so many; they were not needed.


What can you do?


they all wanted to be in it. This is a bad season. There’s no business going on.


Monsieur— Stand off a little, and let me have a talk with the gentleman. Monsieur, you did wrong to try to jump out of the window. You might have broken your leg. Now, if you will permit me, we will converse quietly. In the first place, I must communicate to you an observation which I have made which is, that you have not uttered the faintest cry. Mon Dieu! You might have shouted ‘stop thief’ a bit, and I should not have thought it improper. ‘Murder!’ That, too, is said occasionally, and, so far as I am concerned, I should not have taken it in bad part. It is very natural that you should make a little row when you find yourself with persons who don’t inspire you with sufficient confidence. You might have done that, and no one would have troubled you on that account. You would not even have been gagged. And I will tell you why. This room is very private. That’s its only recommendation, but it has that in its favor. You might fire off a mortar and it would produce about as much noise at the nearest police station as the snores of a drunken man. Here a cannon would make a boum, and the thunder would make a pouf. It’s a handy lodging. But, in short, you did not shout, and it is better so. I present you my compliments, and I will tell you the conclusion that I draw from that fact: My dear sir, when a man shouts, who comes? The police. And after the police? Justice. Well! You have not made an outcry; that is because you don’t care to have the police and the courts come in any more than we do. It is because,—I have long suspected it,—you have some interest in hiding something. On our side we have the same interest. So we can come to an understanding.


I continue. We can come to an understanding. Let us arrange this matter in an amicable way. I was wrong to lose my temper just now, I don’t know what I was thinking of, I went a great deal too far, I said extravagant things. For example, because you are a millionnaire, I told you that I exacted money, a lot of money, a deal of money. That would not be reasonable. Mon Dieu, in spite of your riches, you have expenses of your own—who has not? I don’t want to ruin you, I am not a greedy fellow, after all. I am not one of those people who, because they have the advantage of the position, profit by the fact to make themselves ridiculous. Why, I’m taking things into consideration and making a sacrifice on my side. I only want two hundred thousand francs. You see that I put not a little water in my wine; I’m very moderate. I don’t know the state of your fortune, but I do know that you don’t stick at money, and a benevolent man like yourself can certainly give two hundred thousand francs to the father of a family who is out of luck. Certainly, you are reasonable, too; you haven’t imagined that I should take all the trouble I have to-day and organized this affair this evening, which has been labor well bestowed, in the opinion of these gentlemen, merely to wind up by asking you for enough to go and drink red wine at fifteen sous and eat veal at Desnoyer’s. Two hundred thousand francs—it’s surely worth all that. This trifle once out of your pocket, I guarantee you that that’s the end of the matter, and that you have no further demands to fear. You will say to me: ‘But I haven’t two hundred thousand francs about me.’ Oh! I’m not extortionate. I don’t demand that. I only ask one thing of you. Have the goodness to write what I am about to dictate to you. I warn you that I shall not admit that you don’t know how to write. Write,


How do you expect me to write? I am bound.


That’s true, excuse me! you are quite right. Untie the gentleman’s right arm. Understand thoroughly, sir, that you are in our power, at our discretion, that no human power can get you out of this, and that we shall be really grieved if we are forced to proceed to disagreeable extremities. I know neither your name, nor your address, but I warn you, that you will remain bound until the person charged with carrying the letter which you are about to write shall have returned. Now, be so good as to write.


What?


I will dictate. My daughter— Put down ‘My dear daughter’— Come instantly— You address her as thou, do you not?


Who?


Parbleu! the little one, the Lark.


I do not know what you mean.


Go on, nevertheless. Come immediately, I am in absolute need of thee. The person who will deliver this note to thee is instructed to conduct thee to me. I am waiting for thee. Come with confidence. Ah! erase ‘come with confidence’; that might lead her to suppose that everything was not as it should be, and that distrust is possible. Now, sign it. What’s your name?


For whom is this letter?


You know well, for the little one I just told you so. Sign. What is your name?


Urbain Fabre,


U. F. That’s it. Urbain Fabre. Well, sign it U. F. As two hands are required to fold the letter, give it to me, I will fold it. Address it, ‘Mademoiselle Fabre,’ at your house. I know that you live a long distance from here, near Saint-Jacques-du-Haut-Pas, because you go to mass there every day, but I don’t know in what street. I see that you understand your situation. As you have not lied about your name, you will not lie about your address. Write it yourself.


Mademoiselle Fabre, at M. Urbain Fabre’s, Rue Saint-Dominique-D’Enfer, No. 17.


Wife! Here’s the letter. You know what you have to do. There is a carriage at the door. Set out at once, and return ditto. Since you have taken off your nose-screen, accompany the mistress. You will get up behind the fiacre. You know where you left the team?


Yes,


Above all things, don’t lose the letter! remember that you carry two hundred thousand francs with you!


Be easy. I have it in my bosom.


Good! They’re going at a fine pace. At such a gallop, the bourgeoise will be back inside three-quarters of an hour. My feet are cold!


In any case, if she is the Lark, I shall see her, for the Thénardier woman is to bring her hither. That will be the end, and then I will give my life and my blood if necessary, but I will deliver her! Nothing shall stop me.


By the way, Monsieur Fabre, I might as well say it to you at once. My wife will be back shortly, don’t get impatient. I think that the Lark really is your daughter, and it seems to me quite natural that you should keep her. Only, listen to me a bit. My wife will go and hunt her up with your letter. I told my wife to dress herself in the way she did, so that your young lady might make no difficulty about following her. They will both enter the carriage with my comrade behind. Somewhere, outside the barrier, there is a trap harnessed to two very good horses. Your young lady will be taken to it. She will alight from the fiacre. My comrade will enter the other vehicle with her, and my wife will come back here to tell us: ‘It’s done.’ As for the young lady, no harm will be done to her; the trap will conduct her to a place where she will be quiet, and just as soon as you have handed over to me those little two hundred thousand francs, she will be returned to you. If you have me arrested, my comrade will give a turn of his thumb to the Lark, that’s all. It’s very simple, as you see. There’ll be no harm done unless you wish that there should be harm done. I’m telling you how things stand. I warn you so that you may be prepared. As soon as my wife returns and says to me: ‘The Lark is on the way,’ we will release you, and you will be free to go and sleep at home. You see that our intentions are not evil.


False address! Nobody there! Rue Saint-Dominique, No. 17, no Monsieur Urbain Fabre! They know not what it means! Monsieur Thénardier! That old fellow has duped you! You are too good, you see! If it had been me, I’d have chopped the beast in four quarters to begin with! And if he had acted ugly, I’d have boiled him alive! He would have been obliged to speak, and say where the girl is, and where he keeps his shiners! That’s the way I should have managed matters! People are perfectly right when they say that men are a deal stupider than women! Nobody at No. 17. It’s nothing but a big carriage gate! No Monsieur Fabre in the Rue Saint-Dominique! And after all that racing and fee to the coachman and all! I spoke to both the porter and the portress, a fine, stout woman, and they know nothing about him!


A false address? What did you expect to gain by that?


To gain time!


Be easy. He still holds by one leg, and he can’t get away. I’ll answer for that. I tied that paw for him.


You are wretches, but my life is not worth the trouble of defending it. When you think that you can make me speak, that you can make me write what I do not choose to write, that you can make me say what I do not choose to say— See here.


Do what you please with me.


There is only one thing left to do.


Cut his throat.


That’s it.


Something is falling! What is it?


Where did this come from?


Pardie! where do you suppose it came from? Through the window, of course.


I saw it pass.


It’s in Éponine’s handwriting. The devil! Quick! The ladder! Let’s leave the bacon in the mousetrap and decamp!


Without cutting that man’s throat?


Through what?


Through the window. Since Ponine has thrown the stone through the window, it indicates that the house is not watched on that side.


Come! the bourgeoise first!


Not much, come now, you old dog, after us!


After us! You are children, we are losing time. The police are on our heels.


Would you like my hat?


Halt there. You shall not go out by the window, you shall go through the door. It’s less unhealthy. There are seven of you, there are fifteen of us. Don’t let’s fall to collaring each other like men of Auvergne.


It’s Javert. I don’t dare fire at that man. Do you dare?


Parbleu!


Well, then, fire.


Come now, don’t fire. You’ll miss fire. Didn’t I tell you so!


You’re the emperor of the fiends! I surrender.


And you?


So do we.


I only ask one thing, and that is, that I may not be denied tobacco while I am in confinement.


Granted. Come in now! Handcuff them all!


Come on!


Beware! The cowards! Don’t come near me, or I’ll crush you.


What a grenadier! you’ve got a beard like a man, mother, but I have claws like a woman.


The handcuffs!


My daughters!


They are in the jug,


Is it all over, Jondrette?


Yes. Keep on your masks. Good day, Bigrenaille! good day, Brujon! good day, Deuxmilliards! Good day, Gueulemer! Good day, Babet! Your health, Claquesous. Untie the gentleman! and let no one go out! Let the gentleman whom these gentlemen bound step forward. Well, where is he?


The devil! he must have been the most valuable of the lot.


Hello! And I took it for an enormous, enormous dog!


Nasty brat! If I hadn’t been bending over, I know well where I would have planted my foot on you.


Kisss! kisss! After that, I don’t think I was mistaken! Madame, does not possess that style of beauty which pleases me. Le roi Coupdesabot S’en allait à la chasse, À la chasse aux corbeaux—


What’s this? What’s this? Lord God! He’s battering the door down! He’s knocking the house down. Is that the way buildings are treated nowadays? What! so it’s that imp!


Why, it’s the old lady. Good day, Bougonmuche. I have come to see my ancestors.


There’s no one here.


Bah! where’s my father?


At La Force.


Come, now! And my mother?


At Saint-Lazare.


Well! And my sisters?


At the Madelonettes.


Ah!


Le roi Coupdesabot S’en allait à la chasse, À la chasse aux corbeaux, Monté sur deux échasses. Quand on passait dessous, On lui payait deux sous.


But the task of sages is one thing, the task of clever men is another.


The Revolution of 1830 came to a sudden halt.


As soon as a revolution has made the coast, the skilful make haste to prepare the shipwreck.


The skilful in our century have conferred on themselves the title of Statesmen; so that this word, statesmen, has ended by becoming somewhat of a slang word.


It must be borne in mind, in fact, that wherever there is nothing but skill, there is necessarily pettiness.


To say “the skilful” amounts to saying “the mediocre.”


In the same way, to say “statesmen” is sometimes equivalent to saying “traitors.”


If, then, we are to believe the skilful, revolutions like the Revolution of July are severed arteries; a prompt ligature is indispensable.


The right, too grandly proclaimed, is shaken.


Also, right once firmly fixed, the state must be strengthened.


Liberty once assured, attention must be directed to power.


Power, very good. But, in the first place, what is power? In the second, whence comes it?


The skilful do not seem to hear the murmured objection, and they continue their manœuvres.


According to the politicians, who are ingenious in putting the mask of necessity on profitable fictions, the first requirement of a people after a revolution, when this people forms part of a monarchical continent, is to procure for itself a dynasty.


In this way, say they, peace, that is to say, time to dress our wounds, and to repair the house, can be had after a revolution.


The dynasty conceals the scaffolding and covers the ambulance.


Now, it is not always easy to procure a dynasty.


If it is absolutely necessary, the first man of genius or even the first man of fortune who comes to hand suffices for the manufacturing of a king.


You have, in the first case, Napoleon; in the second, Iturbide.


But the first family that comes to hand does not suffice to make a dynasty.


There is necessarily required a certain modicum of antiquity in a race, and the wrinkle of the centuries cannot be improvised.


If we place ourselves at the point of view of the “statesmen,” after making all allowances, of course, after a revolution, what are the qualities of the king which result from it?


He may be and it is useful for him to be a revolutionary; that is to say, a participant in his own person in that revolution, that he should have lent a hand to it, that he should have either compromised or distinguished himself therein, that he should have touched the axe or wielded the sword in it.


What are the qualities of a dynasty?


It should be national; that is to say, revolutionary at a distance, not through acts committed, but by reason of ideas accepted.


It should be composed of past and be historic; be composed of future and be sympathetic.


All this explains why the early revolutions contented themselves with finding a man, Cromwell or Napoleon; and why the second absolutely insisted on finding a family, the House of Brunswick or the House of Orleans.


Royal houses resemble those Indian fig-trees, each branch of which, bending over to the earth, takes root and becomes a fig-tree itself.


Each branch may become a dynasty.


On the sole condition that it shall bend down to the people.


Such is the theory of the skilful.


Here, then, lies the great art: to make a little render to success the sound of a catastrophe in order that those who profit by it may tremble from it also, to season with fear every step that is taken, to augment the curve of the transition to the point of retarding progress, to dull that aurora, to denounce and retrench the harshness of enthusiasm, to cut all angles and nails, to wad triumph, to muffle up right, to envelop the giant-people in flannel, and to put it to bed very speedily, to impose a diet on that excess of health, to put Hercules on the treatment of a convalescent, to dilute the event with the expedient, to offer to spirits thirsting for the ideal that nectar thinned out with a potion, to take one’s precautions against too much success, to garnish the revolution with a shade.


1830 practised this theory, already applied to England by 1688.


1830 is a revolution arrested midway.


Half of progress, quasi-right.


Now, logic knows not the “almost,” absolutely as the sun knows not the candle.


Who arrests revolutions half-way?


The bourgeoisie?


Why?


Because the bourgeoisie is interest which has reached satisfaction.


Yesterday it was appetite, to-day it is plenitude, to-morrow it will be satiety.


The phenomenon of 1814 after Napoleon was reproduced in 1830 after Charles X.


The attempt has been made, and wrongly, to make a class of the bourgeoisie.


The bourgeoisie is simply the contented portion of the people.


The bourgeois is the man who now has time to sit down.


A chair is not a caste.


But through a desire to sit down too soon, one may arrest the very march of the human race.


This has often been the fault of the bourgeoisie.


One is not a class because one has committed a fault.


Selfishness is not one of the divisions of the social order.


Moreover, we must be just to selfishness.


The state to which that part of the nation which is called the bourgeoisie aspired after the shock of 1830 was not the inertia which is complicated with indifference and laziness, and which contains a little shame; it was not the slumber which presupposes a momentary forgetfulness accessible to dreams; it was the halt.


The halt is a word formed of a singular double and almost contradictory sense: a troop on the march, that is to say, movement; a stand, that is to say, repose.


The halt is the restoration of forces; it is repose armed and on the alert; it is the accomplished fact which posts sentinels and holds itself on its guard.


The halt presupposes the combat of yesterday and the combat of to-morrow.


It is the partition between 1830 and 1848.


What we here call combat may also be designated as progress.


The bourgeoisie then, as well as the statesmen, required a man who should express this word Halt.


An Although-Because.


A composite individuality, signifying revolution and signifying stability, in other terms, strengthening the present by the evident compatibility of the past with the future.


This man was “already found.”


His name was Louis Philippe d’Orleans.


The 221 made Louis Philippe King.


Lafayette undertook the coronation.


He called it the best of republics.


The town-hall of Paris took the place of the Cathedral of Rheims.


This substitution of a half-throne for a whole throne was “the work of 1830.”


When the skilful had finished, the immense vice of their solution became apparent.


All this had been accomplished outside the bounds of absolute right.


Absolute right cried: “I protest!”


then, terrible to say, it retired into the darkness.


Revolutions have a terrible arm and a happy hand, they strike firmly and choose well.


Even incomplete, even debased and abused and reduced to the state of a junior revolution like the Revolution of 1830, they nearly always retain sufficient providential lucidity to prevent them from falling amiss.


Their eclipse is never an abdication.


Nevertheless, let us not boast too loudly; revolutions also may be deceived, and grave errors have been seen.


Let us return to 1830.


1830, in its deviation, had good luck.


In the establishment which entitled itself order after the revolution had been cut short, the King amounted to more than royalty.


Louis Philippe was a rare man.


The son of a father to whom history will accord certain attenuating circumstances, but also as worthy of esteem as that father had been of blame; possessing all private virtues and many public virtues; careful of his health, of his fortune, of his person, of his affairs, knowing the value of a minute and not always the value of a year; sober, serene, peaceable, patient; a good man and a good prince; sleeping with his wife, and having in his palace lackeys charged with the duty of showing the conjugal bed to the bourgeois, an ostentation of the regular sleeping-apartment which had become useful after the former illegitimate displays of the elder branch; knowing all the languages of Europe, and, what is more rare, all the languages of all interests, and speaking them; an admirable representative of the “middle class,” but outstripping it, and in every way greater than it; possessing excellent sense, while appreciating the blood from which he had sprung, counting most of all on his intrinsic worth, and, on the question of his race, very particular, declaring himself Orleans and not Bourbon; thoroughly the first Prince of the Blood Royal while he was still only a Serene Highness, but a frank bourgeois from the day he became king; diffuse in public, concise in private; reputed, but not proved to be a miser; at bottom, one of those economists who are readily prodigal at their own fancy or duty; lettered, but not very sensitive to letters; a gentleman, but not a chevalier; simple, calm, and strong; adored by his family and his household; a fascinating talker, an undeceived statesman, inwardly cold, dominated by immediate interest, always governing at the shortest range, incapable of rancor and of gratitude, making use without mercy of superiority on mediocrity, clever in getting parliamentary majorities to put in the wrong those mysterious unanimities which mutter dully under thrones; unreserved, sometimes imprudent in his lack of reserve, but with marvellous address in that imprudence; fertile in expedients, in countenances, in masks; making France fear Europe and Europe France! Incontestably fond of his country, but preferring his family; assuming more domination than authority and more authority than dignity, a disposition which has this unfortunate property, that as it turns everything to success, it admits of ruse and does not absolutely repudiate baseness, but which has this valuable side, that it preserves politics from violent shocks, the state from fractures, and society from catastrophes; minute, correct, vigilant, attentive, sagacious, indefatigable; contradicting himself at times and giving himself the lie; bold against Austria at Ancona, obstinate against England in Spain, bombarding Antwerp, and paying off Pritchard; singing the Marseillaise with conviction, inaccessible to despondency, to lassitude, to the taste for the beautiful and the ideal, to daring generosity, to Utopia, to chimæras, to wrath, to vanity, to fear; possessing all the forms of personal intrepidity; a general at Valmy; a soldier at Jemappes; attacked eight times by regicides and always smiling.


Brave as a grenadier, courageous as a thinker; uneasy only in the face of the chances of a European shaking up, and unfitted for great political adventures; always ready to risk his life, never his work; disguising his will in influence, in order that he might be obeyed as an intelligence rather than as a king; endowed with observation and not with divination; not very attentive to minds, but knowing men, that is to say requiring to see in order to judge; prompt and penetrating good sense, practical wisdom, easy speech, prodigious memory; drawing incessantly on this memory, his only point of resemblance with Cæsar, Alexander, and Napoleon; knowing deeds, facts, details, dates, proper names, ignorant of tendencies, passions, the diverse geniuses of the crowd, the interior aspirations, the hidden and obscure uprisings of souls, in a word, all that can be designated as the invisible currents of consciences; accepted by the surface, but little in accord with France lower down; extricating himself by dint of tact; governing too much and not enough; his own first minister; excellent at creating out of the pettiness of realities an obstacle to the immensity of ideas; mingling a genuine creative faculty of civilization, of order and organization, an indescribable spirit of proceedings and chicanery, the founder and lawyer of a dynasty; having something of Charlemagne and something of an attorney; in short, a lofty and original figure, a prince who understood how to create authority in spite of the uneasiness of France, and power in spite of the jealousy of Europe.


Louis Philippe will be classed among the eminent men of his century, and would be ranked among the most illustrious governors of history had he loved glory but a little, and if he had had the sentiment of what is great to the same degree as the feeling for what is useful.


Louis Philippe had been handsome, and in his old age he remained graceful; not always approved by the nation, he always was so by the masses; he pleased.


He had that gift of charming.


He lacked majesty; he wore no crown, although a king, and no white hair, although an old man; his manners belonged to the old regime and his habits to the new; a mixture of the noble and the bourgeois which suited 1830; Louis Philippe was transition reigning; he had preserved the ancient pronunciation and the ancient orthography which he placed at the service of opinions modern; he loved Poland and Hungary, but he wrote les Polonois, and he pronounced les Hongrais.


He wore the uniform of the national guard, like Charles X., and the ribbon of the Legion of Honor, like Napoleon.


He went a little to chapel, not at all to the chase, never to the opera.


Incorruptible by sacristans, by whippers-in, by ballet-dancers; this made a part of his bourgeois popularity.


He had no heart.


He went out with his umbrella under his arm, and this umbrella long formed a part of his aureole.


He was a bit of a mason, a bit of a gardener, something of a doctor; he bled a postilion who had tumbled from his horse; Louis Philippe no more went about without his lancet, than did Henri IV. without his poniard.


The Royalists jeered at this ridiculous king, the first who had ever shed blood with the object of healing.


For the grievances against Louis Philippe, there is one deduction to be made; there is that which accuses royalty, that which accuses the reign, that which accuses the King; three columns which all give different totals.


Democratic right confiscated, progress becomes a matter of secondary interest, the protests of the street violently repressed, military execution of insurrections, the rising passed over by arms, the Rue Transnonain, the counsels of war, the absorption of the real country by the legal country, on half shares with three hundred thousand privileged persons,—these are the deeds of royalty; Belgium refused, Algeria too harshly conquered, and, as in the case of India by the English, with more barbarism than civilization, the breach of faith, to Abd-el-Kader, Blaye, Deutz bought, Pritchard paid,—these are the doings of the reign; the policy which was more domestic than national was the doing of the King.


As will be seen, the proper deduction having been made, the King’s charge is decreased.


This is his great fault; he was modest in the name of France.


Whence arises this fault?


We will state it.


Louis Philippe was rather too much of a paternal king; that incubation of a family with the object of founding a dynasty is afraid of everything and does not like to be disturbed; hence excessive timidity, which is displeasing to the people, who have the 14th of July in their civil and Austerlitz in their military tradition.


Moreover, if we deduct the public duties which require to be fulfilled first of all, that deep tenderness of Louis Philippe towards his family was deserved by the family.


That domestic group was worthy of admiration.


Virtues there dwelt side by side with talents.


One of Louis Philippe’s daughters, Marie d’Orleans, placed the name of her race among artists, as Charles d’Orleans had placed it among poets.


She made of her soul a marble which she named Jeanne d’Arc.


Two of Louis Philippe’s daughters elicited from Metternich this eulogium: “They are young people such as are rarely seen, and princes such as are never seen.”


This, without any dissimulation, and also without any exaggeration, is the truth about Louis Philippe.


To be Prince Equality, to bear in his own person the contradiction of the Restoration and the Revolution, to have that disquieting side of the revolutionary which becomes reassuring in governing power, therein lay the fortune of Louis Philippe in 1830; never was there a more complete adaptation of a man to an event; the one entered into the other, and the incarnation took place.


Louis Philippe is 1830 made man.


Moreover, he had in his favor that great recommendation to the throne, exile.


He had been proscribed, a wanderer, poor.


He had lived by his own labor.


In Switzerland, this heir to the richest princely domains in France had sold an old horse in order to obtain bread.


At Reichenau, he gave lessons in mathematics, while his sister Adelaide did wool work and sewed.


These souvenirs connected with a king rendered the bourgeoisie enthusiastic.


He had, with his own hands, demolished the iron cage of Mont-Saint-Michel, built by Louis XI., and used by Louis XV.


He was the companion of Dumouriez, he was the friend of Lafayette; he had belonged to the Jacobins’ club; Mirabeau had slapped him on the shoulder; Danton had said to him: “Young man!”


At the age of four and twenty, in ’93, being then M. de Chartres, he had witnessed, from the depth of a box, the trial of Louis XVI., so well named that poor tyrant.


The blind clairvoyance of the Revolution, breaking royalty in the King and the King with royalty, did so almost without noticing the man in the fierce crushing of the idea, the vast storm of the Assembly-Tribunal, the public wrath interrogating, Capet not knowing what to reply, the alarming, stupefied vacillation by that royal head beneath that sombre breath, the relative innocence of all in that catastrophe, of those who condemned as well as of the man condemned,—he had looked on those things, he had contemplated that giddiness; he had seen the centuries appear before the bar of the Assembly-Convention; he had beheld, behind Louis XVI., that unfortunate passer-by who was made responsible, the terrible culprit, the monarchy, rise through the shadows; and there had lingered in his soul the respectful fear of these immense justices of the populace, which are almost as impersonal as the justice of God.


The trace left in him by the Revolution was prodigious.


Its memory was like a living imprint of those great years, minute by minute.


One day, in the presence of a witness whom we are not permitted to doubt, he rectified from memory the whole of the letter A in the alphabetical list of the Constituent Assembly.


Louis Philippe was a king of the broad daylight.


While he reigned the press was free, the tribune was free, conscience and speech were free.


The laws of September are open to sight.


Although fully aware of the gnawing power of light on privileges, he left his throne exposed to the light.


History will do justice to him for this loyalty.


Louis Philippe, like all historical men who have passed from the scene, is to-day put on his trial by the human conscience. His case is, as yet, only in the lower court.


chatterers of the law I won seven last night.


What a pity that I was not wounded! Then I might have pardoned! His pardon is granted; it only remains for me to obtain it.


Revolution, why this king?


that they would fight without counting the number of the enemy.


You understand! You have sworn!


I don’t know the names of the leaders. We folks shall not know the day until two hours beforehand. There are three hundred of us, let each contribute ten sous, that will make one hundred and fifty francs with which to procure powder and shot.


I don’t ask for six months, I don’t ask for even two. In less than a fortnight we shall be parallel with the government. With twenty-five thousand men we can face them. I don’t sleep at night, because I make cartridges all night.


The plot is ripe, the matter is arranged.


We have no arms!


The soldiers have!


When they had anything of a more secret nature on hand, they did not communicate it to each other.


Wine-merchant, the revolution will pay what is due to you.


—Our doctrines are trammelled, our proclamations torn, our bill-stickers are spied upon and thrown into prison. The breakdown which has recently taken place in cottons has converted to us many mediums. The future of nations is being worked out in our obscure ranks. Here are the fixed terms: action or reaction, revolution or counter-revolution. For, at our epoch, we no longer believe either in inertia or in immobility. For the people against the people, that is the question. There is no other. On the day when we cease to suit you, break us, but up to that day, help us to march on.


I am a Babouvist!


Down with property! The opposition of the left is cowardly and treacherous. When it wants to be on the right side, it preaches revolution, it is democratic in order to escape being beaten, and royalist so that it may not have to fight. The republicans are beasts with feathers. Distrust the republicans, citizens of the laboring classes.


Silence, citizen spy!


Whither are you bound, citizen?


Sir. I have not the honor of your acquaintance.


I know you very well, however. Don’t be alarmed, I am an agent of the committee. You are suspected of not being quite faithful. You know that if you reveal anything, there is an eye fixed on you. We shall meet again soon.


Get yourself received very soon,


Why?


There is going to be a shot to fire.


Who governs us?


M. Philippe. No, it is the bourgeoisie.


We have a good plan of attack.


Everything possible will be done to prevent his walking about Paris any more.


Who was your leader?


I knew of none and I recognized none.


The committee must take measures to prevent recruiting in the sections for the different societies. We have learned that there are guns in the Rue du Faubourg-Poissonnière, No. 5 , to the number of five or six thousand, in the house of a gunsmith in that court. The section owns no arms.


Learn this list by heart. After so doing you will tear it up. The men admitted will do the same when you have transmitted their orders to them. Health and Fraternity, u og a’ fe L.


Where was this meeting held?


In the Rue de la Paix.


At whose house?


In the street.


What sections were there?


Only one.


Which?


The Manuel section.


Who was its leader?


I.


You are too young to have decided alone upon the bold course of attacking the government. Where did your instructions come from?


From the central committee.


It is proper that we should know where we stand and on whom we may count. If combatants are required, they must be provided. It can do no harm to have something with which to strike. Passers-by always have more chance of being gored when there are bulls on the road than when there are none. Let us, therefore, reckon a little on the herd. How many of us are there? There is no question of postponing this task until to-morrow. Revolutionists should always be hurried; progress has no time to lose. Let us mistrust the unexpected. Let us not be caught unprepared. We must go over all the seams that we have made and see whether they hold fast. This business ought to be concluded to-day. Courfeyrac, you will see the polytechnic students. It is their day to go out. To-day is Wednesday. Feuilly, you will see those of the Glacière, will you not? Combeferre has promised me to go to Picpus. There is a perfect swarm and an excellent one there. Bahorel will visit the Estrapade. Prouvaire, the masons are growing lukewarm; you will bring us news from the lodge of the Rue de Grenelle-Saint-Honoré. Joly will go to Dupuytren’s clinical lecture, and feel the pulse of the medical school. Bossuet will take a little turn in the court and talk with the young law licentiates. I will take charge of the Cougourde myself.


That arranges everything,


No.


What else is there?


A very important thing.


What is that?


The Barrière du Maine. At the Barrière du Maine there are marble-workers, painters, and journeymen in the studios of sculptors. They are an enthusiastic family, but liable to cool off. I don’t know what has been the matter with them for some time past. They are thinking of something else. They are becoming extinguished. They pass their time playing dominoes. There is urgent need that some one should go and talk with them a little, but with firmness. They meet at Richefeu’s. They are to be found there between twelve and one o’clock. Those ashes must be fanned into a glow. For that errand I had counted on that abstracted Marius, who is a good fellow on the whole, but he no longer comes to us. I need some one for the Barrière du Maine. I have no one. The Barrière du Maine.


What about me? Here am I. I.


You?


You indoctrinate republicans! you warm up hearts that have grown cold in the name of principle!


Why not?


Are you good for anything?


I have a vague ambition in that direction,


You do not believe in everything.


I believe in you.


Grantaire will you do me a service?


Anything. I’ll black your boots.


Well, don’t meddle with our affairs. Sleep yourself sober from your absinthe.


You are an ingrate, Enjolras.


You the man to go to the Barrière du Maine! You capable of it!


I am capable of descending the Rue de Grès, of crossing the Place Saint-Michel, of sloping through the Rue Monsieur-le-Prince, of taking the Rue de Vaugirard, of passing the Carmelites, of turning into the Rue d’Assas, of reaching the Rue du Cherche-Midi, of leaving behind me the Conseil de Guerre, of pacing the Rue des Vieilles-Tuileries, of striding across the boulevard, of following the Chaussée du Maine, of passing the barrier, and entering Richefeu’s. I am capable of that. My shoes are capable of that.


Do you know anything of those comrades who meet at Richefeu’s?


Not much. We only address each other as thou.


What will you say to them?


I will speak to them of Robespierre, pardi! Of Danton. Of principles.


You?


I. But I don’t receive justice. When I set about it, I am terrible. I have read Prudhomme, I know the Social Contract, I know my constitution of the year Two by heart. ‘The liberty of one citizen ends where the liberty of another citizen begins.’ Do you take me for a brute? I have an old bank-bill of the Republic in my drawer. The Rights of Man, the sovereignty of the people, sapristi! I am even a bit of a Hébertist. I can talk the most superb twaddle for six hours by the clock, watch in hand.


Be serious,


I am wild,


Grantaire. I consent to try you. You shall go to the Barrière du Maine.


Red. Be easy.


The sequel to-morrow!


Hold, the Barrière du Maine will not take me far out of my way. What if I were to go on as far as Richefeu’s? Let us have a look at what Grantaire is about, and see how he is getting on.


Double-six.


Fours.


The pig! I have no more.


You are dead. A two.


Six.


Three.


One.


It’s my move.


Four points.


Not much.


It’s your turn.


I have made an enormous mistake.


You are doing well.


Fifteen.


Seven more.


That makes me twenty-two. Twenty-two! You weren’t expecting that double-six. If I had placed it at the beginning, the whole play would have been changed.


A two again.


One! Well, five.


I haven’t any.


It was your play, I believe?


Yes.


Blank.


What luck he has! Ah! You are lucky! Two.


One.


Neither five nor one. That’s bad for you.


Domino.


Plague take it!


I have come to sleep with you.


There.


Moved away! Who would ever have said it? a young man like that, who had the air of a girl!


If I could but see her once again before I die!


It is her thoughts that are coming to me! Perhaps my thoughts reach her also.


What! shall I not see her again before then!


What is the name of this spot?


It is the Lark’s meadow. It was here that Ulbach killed the shepherdess of Ivry.


Stop, this is her meadow. I shall know where she lives now.


Babet. There is an affair in the Rue Plumet. A gate on a garden.


Well? the Rue P.?


Biscuit,


When I shall have made my balls of blueing, I shall be rich, I will withdraw my copperplates from the pawn-shop, I will put my Flora in vogue again with trickery, plenty of money and advertisements in the newspapers and I will buy, I know well where, a copy of Pierre de Médine’s Art de Naviguer, with wood-cuts, edition of 1655.


Stars everywhere! not the tiniest cloud! Not a drop of water! A tear of dew! A little pity!


Father Mabeuf, would you like to have me water your garden for you?


God will bless you, you are an angel since you take care of the flowers.


No. I am the devil, but that’s all the same to me.


What a pity that I am so unhappy and so poor, and that I can do nothing for you!


You can do something. What? Tell me where M. Marius lives.


What Monsieur Marius? A young man who used to come here.


Ah! yes— I know what you mean. Wait! Monsieur Marius—the Baron Marius Pontmercy, parbleu! He lives,—or rather, he no longer lives,—ah well, I don’t know. Hold, I know now. He very often passes along the boulevard, and goes in the direction of the Glacière, Rue Croulebarbe. The meadow of the Lark. Go there. It is not hard to meet him. Really, if my garden had not been watered, I should think that she was a spirit. In sooth, that greatly resembles what Rubaudière narrates of the goblins. Could it have been a goblin?


I shall go out. That will put me in spirits. I will not go out to-morrow. It prevents my working.


Come! Here he is!


So I have met you at last! Father Mabeuf was right, it was on this boulevard! How I have hunted for you! If you only knew! Do you know? I have been in the jug. A fortnight! They let me out! seeing that there was nothing against me, and that, moreover, I had not reached years of discretion. I lack two months of it. Oh! how I have hunted for you! These six weeks! So you don’t live down there any more?


No,


Ah! I understand. Because of that affair. Those take-downs are disagreeable. You cleared out. Come now! Why do you wear old hats like this! A young man like you ought to have fine clothes. Do you know, Monsieur Marius, Father Mabeuf calls you Baron Marius, I don’t know what. It isn’t true that you are a baron? Barons are old fellows, they go to the Luxembourg, in front of the château, where there is the most sun, and they read the Quotidienne for a sou. I once carried a letter to a baron of that sort. He was over a hundred years old. Say, where do you live now? Ah! you have a hole in your shirt. I must sew it up for you. You don’t seem glad to see me. But if I choose, nevertheless, I could force you to look glad!


What? What do you mean?


Ah! you used to call me thou,


Well, then, what dost thou mean?


So much the worse, I don’t care. You have a melancholy air, I want you to be pleased. Only promise me that you will smile. I want to see you smile and hear you say: ‘Ah, well, that’s good.’ Poor Mr. Marius! you know? You promised me that you would give me anything I like—


Yes! Only speak!


I have the address.


What address?


The address that you asked me to get! The address—you know very well!


Yes!


Of that young lady.


Oh! Well! lead me thither! Tell me! Ask of me anything you wish! Where is it?


Come with me. I don’t know the street or number very well; it is in quite the other direction from here, but I know the house well, I will take you to it. Oh! how glad you are!


Swear one thing to me!


Swear! what does that mean? Come! You want me to swear?


Your father! promise me, Éponine! Swear to me that you will not give this address to your father!


Éponine! How do you know that my name is Éponine?


Promise what I tell you!


That’s nice! You have called me Éponine!


But answer me, in the name of Heaven! pay attention to what I am saying to you, swear to me that you will not tell your father this address that you know!


My father! Ah yes, my father! Be at ease. He’s in close confinement. Besides, what do I care for my father!


But you do not promise me!


Let go of me! how you do shake me! Yes! Yes! I promise that! I swear that to you! What is that to me? I will not tell my father the address. There! Is that right? Is that it?


Nor to any one?


Nor to any one.


Now, take me there.


Immediately?


Immediately.


Come along. Ah! how pleased he is! You are following me too closely, Monsieur Marius. Let me go on ahead, and follow me so, without seeming to do it. A nice young man like you must not be seen with a woman like me. By the way, you know that you promised me something? I don’t want your money,


I am jealous of it.


It is the young lady who is the mistress of this house.


And you, monsieur?


I am a much better thing than the master, I am the father.


That’s a queer fish.


He’s a saint.


This garden belongs to me.


Nothing is small, in fact; any one who is subject to the profound and penetrating influence of nature knows this. Although no absolute satisfaction is given to philosophy, either to circumscribe the cause or to limit the effect, the contemplator falls into those unfathomable ecstasies caused by these decompositions of force terminating in unity. Everything toils at everything.


Algebra is applied to the clouds; the radiation of the star profits the rose; no thinker would venture to affirm that the perfume of the hawthorn is useless to the constellations. Who, then, can calculate the course of a molecule? How do we know that the creation of worlds is not determined by the fall of grains of sand? Who knows the reciprocal ebb and flow of the infinitely great and the infinitely little, the reverberations of causes in the precipices of being, and the avalanches of creation? The tiniest worm is of importance; the great is little, the little is great; everything is balanced in necessity; alarming vision for the mind. There are marvellous relations between beings and things; in that inexhaustible whole, from the sun to the grub, nothing despises the other; all have need of each other. The light does not bear away terrestrial perfumes into the azure depths, without knowing what it is doing; the night distributes stellar essences to the sleeping flowers. All birds that fly have round their leg the thread of the infinite. Germination is complicated with the bursting forth of a meteor and with the peck of a swallow cracking its egg, and it places on one level the birth of an earthworm and the advent of Socrates. Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two possesses the larger field of vision? Choose. A bit of mould is a pleiad of flowers; a nebula is an ant-hill of stars. The same promiscuousness, and yet more unprecedented, exists between the things of the intelligence and the facts of substance. Elements and principles mingle, combine, wed, multiply with each other, to such a point that the material and the moral world are brought eventually to the same clearness. The phenomenon is perpetually returning upon itself. In the vast cosmic exchanges the universal life goes and comes in unknown quantities, rolling entirely in the invisible mystery of effluvia, employing everything, not losing a single dream, not a single slumber, sowing an animalcule here, crumbling to bits a planet there, oscillating and winding, making of light a force and of thought an element, disseminated and invisible, dissolving all, except that geometrical point, the I; bringing everything back to the soul-atom; expanding everything in God, entangling all activity, from summit to base, in the obscurity of a dizzy mechanism, attaching the flight of an insect to the movement of the earth, subordinating, who knows? Were it only by the identity of the law, the evolution of the comet in the firmament to the whirling of the infusoria in the drop of water. A machine made of mind. Enormous gearing, the prime motor of which is the gnat, and whose final wheel is the zodiac.


Do what you like with it,


Ah! How I have run!


Do go to your own quarters! Leave me alone a little!


Father, I am very cold in your rooms; why don’t you have a carpet here and a stove?


Dear child, there are so many people who are better than I and who have not even a roof over their heads.


Then why is there a fire in my rooms, and everything that is needed?


Because you are a woman and a child.


Bah! must men be cold and feel uncomfortable?


Certain men.


That is good, I shall come here so often that you will be obliged to have a fire. Father, why do you eat horrible bread like that?


Because, my daughter.


Well, if you eat it, I will eat it too.


Perhaps this man is my mother.


Father, I saw my mother in a dream last night. She had two big wings. My mother must have been almost a saint during her life.


Through martyrdom,


Really!


No indeed! no indeed! No indeed!


What if I were pretty! How odd it would be if I were pretty! What! Am I to be like Mademoiselle So-and-So? Where did I get such an idea? no, I am ugly.


A pretty woman! but badly dressed.


Bah! he does not mean me. I am well dressed and ugly.


Do you notice how pretty Cosette is growing, sir?


Do you want anything better? No.


Do you desire heaven?


I should lose by it.


How beautiful she is! What is to become of me?


Decidedly I am beautiful! Pretty, but badly dressed,


Father, how do you like me in this guise?


Charming! Won’t you put on that other gown and bonnet again,—you know the ones I mean?


That disguise! Father, what do you want me to do with it? Oh no, the idea! I shall never put on those horrors again. With that machine on my head, I have the air of Madame Mad-dog. Father, I enjoy myself more here with you,


Father, let us stroll about a little in that direction.


You do not sleep? But that is forbidden! You do not eat? Why, that is very bad! You have oppressions and palpitations of the heart? That must not be! You blush and turn pale, when a certain being clad in black appears at the end of a certain green walk? But that is abominable!


What fault is there of mine in a matter in which I have no power and of which I know nothing?


What a delicious garden that Luxembourg is!


What a very pedantic air that young man has!


Why, no, he is charming. A pedant, and insufferable to the sight! You are right! That young man!


How stupid I am! She had not noticed him. It is I who have pointed him out to her.


That ninny is madly in love with Cosette, but Cosette does not even know that he exists.


What, already?


Hey! Why not?


Yes, that’s it! What is he in search of? An adventure! What does he want? A love affair! A love affair! And I? What! I have been first, the most wretched of men, and then the most unhappy, and I have traversed sixty years of life on my knees, I have suffered everything that man can suffer, I have grown old without having been young, I have lived without a family, without relatives, without friends, without life, without children, I have left my blood on every stone, on every bramble, on every mile-post, along every wall, I have been gentle, though others have been hard to me, and kind, although others have been malicious, I have become an honest man once more, in spite of everything, I have repented of the evil that I have done and have forgiven the evil that has been done to me, and at the moment when I receive my recompense, at the moment when it is all over, at the moment when I am just touching the goal, at the moment when I have what I desire, it is well, it is good, I have paid, I have earned it, all this is to take flight, all this will vanish, and I shall lose Cosette, and I shall lose my life, my joy, my soul, because it has pleased a great booby to come and lounge at the Luxembourg.


Monsieur, who is that curious young man who is asking for you?


Would you like to come to the Luxembourg?


Yes,


No.


What has Cosette in her mind?


What have I done?


What is the matter with you?


There is nothing the matter with me. And you, father—is there anything wrong with you?


With me? Nothing,


Father, I should think some one was coming yonder.


Rascal, let that be a warning to you!


Father! What are those men in those carts?


Convicts.


Whither are they going?


To the galleys.


Father, are they still men?


Sometimes,


It seems to me, that if I were to find one of those men in my pathway, oh, my God, I should die merely from the sight of him close at hand.


Father, what are the galleys like?


Call the dog-doctor. Oh! what a kindly wound! Oh! what a good misfortune!


I imagined all that. I am an old fool. Here they are in prison, and henceforth they will be incapacitated for doing any harm, but what a lamentable family in distress! You never go there; I want you to stroll in it.


As you like, father,


Oh! What a good wound!


Monsieur Mabeuf! Mabeuf!


that name is a perfect farce.


What is it, Mother Plutarque?


Mother Plutarque! another farcical name.


The landlord is not pleased.


Why?


We owe three quarters rent.


In three months, we shall owe him for four quarters.


He says that he will turn you out to sleep.


I will go.


The green-grocer insists on being paid. She will no longer leave her fagots. What will you warm yourself with this winter? We shall have no wood.


There is the sun.


The butcher refuses to give credit; he will not let us have any more meat.


That is quite right. I do not digest meat well. It is too heavy.


What shall we have for dinner?


Bread.


The baker demands a settlement, and says, ‘no money, no bread.’


That is well.


What will you eat?


We have apples in the apple-room.


But, Monsieur, we can’t live like that without money.


I have none.


Come, here’s a nook! There come two creatures,


Here’s a hearty veteran! Can he be dead!


Get up.


How old are you?


Nineteen.


You are strong and healthy. Why do you not work?


It bores me.


What is your trade?


An idler.


Speak seriously. Can anything be done for you? What would you like to be?


A thief.


My child, you are entering, through indolence, on one of the most laborious of lives. Ah! You declare yourself to be an idler! prepare to toil. There is a certain formidable machine, have you seen it? It is the rolling-mill. You must be on your guard against it, it is crafty and ferocious; if it catches hold of the skirt of your coat, you will be drawn in bodily. That machine is laziness. Stop while there is yet time, and save yourself! Otherwise, it is all over with you; in a short time you will be among the gearing. Once entangled, hope for nothing more. Toil, lazybones! there is no more repose for you! The iron hand of implacable toil has seized you. You do not wish to earn your living, to have a task, to fulfil a duty! It bores you to be like other men? Well! You will be different. Labor is the law; he who rejects it will find ennui his torment. You do not wish to be a workingman, you will be a slave. Toil lets go of you on one side only to grasp you again on the other. You do not desire to be its friend, you shall be its negro slave. Ah! You would have none of the honest weariness of men, you shall have the sweat of the damned. Where others sing, you will rattle in your throat. You will see afar off, from below, other men at work; it will seem to you that they are resting. The laborer, the harvester, the sailor, the blacksmith, will appear to you in glory like the blessed spirits in paradise. What radiance surrounds the forge! To guide the plough, to bind the sheaves, is joy. The bark at liberty in the wind, what delight! Do you, lazy idler, delve, drag on, roll, march! Drag your halter. You are a beast of burden in the team of hell! Ah! To do nothing is your object. Well, not a week, not a day, not an hour shall you have free from oppression. You will be able to lift nothing without anguish. Every minute that passes will make your muscles crack. What is a feather to others will be a rock to you. The simplest things will become steep acclivities. Life will become monstrous all about you. To go, to come, to breathe, will be just so many terrible labors. Your lungs will produce on you the effect of weighing a hundred pounds. Whether you shall walk here rather than there, will become a problem that must be solved. Any one who wants to go out simply gives his door a push, and there he is in the open air. If you wish to go out, you will be obliged to pierce your wall. What does every one who wants to step into the street do? He goes downstairs; you will tear up your sheets, little by little you will make of them a rope, then you will climb out of your window, and you will suspend yourself by that thread over an abyss, and it will be night, amid storm, rain, and the hurricane, and if the rope is too short, but one way of descending will remain to you, to fall. To drop hap-hazard into the gulf, from an unknown height, on what? On what is beneath, on the unknown. Or you will crawl up a chimney-flue, at the risk of burning; or you will creep through a sewer-pipe, at the risk of drowning; I do not speak of the holes that you will be obliged to mask, of the stones which you will have to take up and replace twenty times a day, of the plaster that you will have to hide in your straw pallet. A lock presents itself; the bourgeois has in his pocket a key made by a locksmith. If you wish to pass out, you will be condemned to execute a terrible work of art; you will take a large sou, you will cut it in two plates; with what tools? You will have to invent them. That is your business. Then you will hollow out the interior of these plates, taking great care of the outside, and you will make on the edges a thread, so that they can be adjusted one upon the other like a box and its cover. The top and bottom thus screwed together, nothing will be suspected. To the overseers it will be only a sou; to you it will be a box. What will you put in this box? A small bit of steel. A watch-spring, in which you will have cut teeth, and which will form a saw. With this saw, as long as a pin, and concealed in a sou, you will cut the bolt of the lock, you will sever bolts, the padlock of your chain, and the bar at your window, and the fetter on your leg. This masterpiece finished, this prodigy accomplished, all these miracles of art, address, skill, and patience executed, what will be your recompense if it becomes known that you are the author? The dungeon. There is your future. What precipices are idleness and pleasure! Do you know that to do nothing is a melancholy resolution? To live in idleness on the property of society! to be useless, that is to say, pernicious! This leads straight to the depth of wretchedness. Woe to the man who desires to be a parasite! He will become vermin! Ah! So it does not please you to work? Ah! You have but one thought, to drink well, to eat well, to sleep well. You will drink water, you will eat black bread, you will sleep on a plank with a fetter whose cold touch you will feel on your flesh all night long, riveted to your limbs. You will break those fetters, you will flee. That is well. You will crawl on your belly through the brushwood, and you will eat grass like the beasts of the forest. And you will be recaptured. And then you will pass years in a dungeon, riveted to a wall, groping for your jug that you may drink, gnawing at a horrible loaf of darkness which dogs would not touch, eating beans that the worms have eaten before you. You will be a wood-louse in a cellar. Ah! Have pity on yourself, you miserable young child, who were sucking at nurse less than twenty years ago, and who have, no doubt, a mother still alive! I conjure you, listen to me, I entreat you. You desire fine black cloth, varnished shoes, to have your hair curled and sweet-smelling oils on your locks, to please low women, to be handsome. You will be shaven clean, and you will wear a red blouse and wooden shoes. You want rings on your fingers, you will have an iron necklet on your neck. If you glance at a woman, you will receive a blow. And you will enter there at the age of twenty. And you will come out at fifty! You will enter young, rosy, fresh, with brilliant eyes, and all your white teeth, and your handsome, youthful hair; you will come out broken, bent, wrinkled, toothless, horrible, with white locks! Ah! my poor child, you are on the wrong road; idleness is counselling you badly; the hardest of all work is thieving. Believe me, do not undertake that painful profession of an idle man. It is not comfortable to become a rascal. It is less disagreeable to be an honest man. Now go, and ponder on what I have said to you. By the way, what did you want of me? My purse? Here it is.


The blockhead!


That has fallen from heaven,


Why! I no longer think of him.


See here! there’s a little creature there who is making eyes at you, look.


Have I the time, to look at all the girls who look at me?


If I could but see her before I die!


I shall return in three days.


Hunters astray in the wood!


It cannot be anything,


Cosette! I have waked you for the purpose of reassuring you, look, there is your shadow with the round hat.


Really, one needs wooden shoes for the garden at this hour. One takes cold.


Has my father returned yet?


Not yet, Mademoiselle.


Toussaint, are you careful to thoroughly barricade the shutters opening on the garden, at least with bars, in the evening, and to put the little iron things in the little rings that close them?


Oh! be easy on that score, Miss.


It is so solitary here.


So far as that concerned, it is true. We might be assassinated before we had time to say ouf! And Monsieur does not sleep in the house, to boot. But fear nothing, Miss, I fasten the shutters up like prisons. Lone women! That is enough to make one shudder, I believe you! Just imagine, what if you were to see men enter your chamber at night and say: ‘Hold your tongue!’ and begin to cut your throat. It’s not the dying so much; you die, for one must die, and that’s all right; it’s the abomination of feeling those people touch you. And then, their knives; they can’t be able to cut well with them! Ah, good gracious!


Be quiet. Fasten everything thoroughly.


What have I been thinking of? It is like the footsteps that I thought I heard a week or two ago in the garden at night! It is like the shadow of the chimney-pot! Am I becoming a coward? There was no more a stone on the bench than there was a man in a round hat in the garden; I dreamed about the stone, as I did all the rest. Bah! come, let us see what it is.


Does she still come to the Luxembourg?


No, sir.


This is the church where she attends mass, is it not?


She no longer comes here.


Does she still live in this house?


She has moved away.


Where has she gone to dwell?


She did not say.


Oh joy of the birds! It is because they have nests that they sing.


Love is a celestial respiration of the air of paradise.


Deep hearts, sage minds, take life as God has made it; it is a long trial, an incomprehensible preparation for an unknown destiny. This destiny, the true one, begins for a man with the first step inside the tomb. Then something appears to him, and he begins to distinguish the definitive. The definitive, meditate upon that word. The living perceive the infinite; the definitive permits itself to be seen only by the dead. In the meanwhile, love and suffer, hope and contemplate. Woe, alas! to him who shall have loved only bodies, forms, appearances! Death will deprive him of all. Try to love souls, you will find them again.


What a grand thing it is to be loved! What a far grander thing it is to love! The heart becomes heroic, by dint of passion. It is no longer composed of anything but what is pure; it no longer rests on anything that is not elevated and great. An unworthy thought can no more germinate in it, than a nettle on a glacier. The serene and lofty soul, inaccessible to vulgar passions and emotions, dominating the clouds and the shades of this world, its follies, its lies, its hatreds, its vanities, its miseries, inhabits the blue of heaven, and no longer feels anything but profound and subterranean shocks of destiny, as the crests of mountains feel the shocks of earthquake.


If there did not exist some one who loved, the sun would become extinct.


Oh yes! how perfectly I recognize all that! That is what I had already read in his eyes.


Is this reality? Oh yes! it is certainly he! This comes from him, and is for me!


a trifle indecent.


Pardon me, here I am. My heart is full. I could not live on as I was living, and I have come. Have you read what I placed there on the bench? Do you recognize me at all? Have no fear of me. It is a long time, you remember the day, since you looked at me at the Luxembourg, near the Gladiator. And the day when you passed before me? It was on the 16th of June and the 2d of July. It is nearly a year ago. I have not seen you for a long time. I inquired of the woman who let the chairs, and she told me that she no longer saw you. You lived in the Rue de l’Ouest, on the third floor, in the front apartments of a new house,—you see that I know! I followed you. What else was there for me to do? And then you disappeared. I thought I saw you pass once, while I was reading the newspapers under the arcade of the Odéon. I ran after you. But no. It was a person who had a bonnet like yours. At night I came hither. Do not be afraid, no one sees me. I come to gaze upon your windows near at hand. I walk very softly, so that you may not hear, for you might be alarmed. The other evening I was behind you, you turned round, I fled. Once, I heard you singing. I was happy. Did it affect you because I heard you singing through the shutters? That could not hurt you. No, it is not so? You see, you are my angel! Let me come sometimes; I think that I am going to die. If you only knew! I adore you. Forgive me, I speak to you, but I do not know what I am saying; I may have displeased you; have I displeased you?


Oh! my mother!


You love me, then?


Hush! Thou knowest it!


What is your name?


My name is Marius. And yours?


My name is Cosette.


I have no need of a litter of squalling brats,


Monsieur, how much they resemble you!


But this is abandoning our children!


Jean Jacques Rousseau did even better!


But what if the police were to annoy us? Tell me, Monsieur Thénardier, is what we have done permissible?


Everything is permissible. No one will see anything but true blue in it. Besides, no one has any interest in looking closely after children who have not a sou.


The father must give them some education.


You cannot live here any longer. Go there. It is nearby. The first street on the left. Ask your way from this paper.


Tuesday. It was not Tuesday. Was it Tuesday? Perhaps it was Tuesday. Yes, it was Tuesday.


The idea of coming in and freezing everybody for nothing!


What’s the matter with you, brats?


We don’t know where we are to sleep,


Is that all? A great matter, truly. The idea of bawling about that. They must be greenies! Come along with me, young ’uns!


Yes, sir,


That fellow has no heart, the whiting. He’s an Englishman. Good day, Mamselle Omnibus. I am making a mistake in the beast; he’s not a whiting, he’s a serpent. Barber, I’ll go and fetch a locksmith, and I’ll have a bell hung to your tail. Madam, so you are going out with your horse?


You scamp!


Is Monsieur complaining?


Of you!


The office is closed. I do not receive any more complaints. Poor girl! She hasn’t even trousers. Hold on, take this. Brrr! Ah, come now! what’s the meaning of this? It’s re-raining! Good Heavens, if it goes on like this, I shall stop my subscription. It’s all right, she’s got a famous peel. Caught! Ah, by the way, brats, have we dined?


Monsieur, we have had nothing to eat since this morning.


So you have neither father nor mother?


Excuse us, sir, we have a papa and a mamma, but we don’t know where they are.


Sometimes that’s better than knowing where they are,


We have been wandering about these two hours, we have hunted for things at the corners of the streets, but we have found nothing.


I know, it’s the dogs who eat everything. Ah! we have lost our authors. We don’t know what we have done with them. This should not be, gamins. It’s stupid to let old people stray off like that. Come now! we must have a snooze all the same.


It’s queer, all the same. Mamma told us that she would take us to get a blessed spray on Palm Sunday.


Bosh,


Mamma, is a lady who lives with Mamselle Miss.


Tanflûte! Let us be calm, young ’uns. Here’s supper for three. Boy! five centimes’ worth of bread. In three pieces, my boy! There are three of us. Keksekça?


Well! It’s bread, and very good bread of the second quality.


You mean larton brutal ! White bread, boy! white bread ! I’m standing treat. Come, now, baker’s boy! what are you taking our measure like that for? Grub away. Ah! hullo, that’s so! they don’t understand yet, they’re too small. Eat away. Ram that into your muzzle. Let’s go into the street again. Well, he is a very green ’un. All the same, if I had charge of the babes I’d lock ’em up better than that.


Hullo, is that you, Gavroche?


Hullo, is that you, Montparnasse? The bow-wows! you’ve got a hide the color of a linseed plaster, and blue specs like a doctor. You’re putting on style, ‘pon my word!


Hush! not so loud. Do you know where I’m going?


To the Abbey of Ascend-with-Regret,


Joker! I’m going to find Babet.


Ah! so her name is Babet.


Not she, he.


Ah! Babet.


Yes, Babet.


I thought he was buckled.


He has undone the buckle,


What a dentist!


Oh! That’s not all.


Ah! you have brought along your gendarme disguised as a bourgeois. The deuce! so you’re going to have a bout with the bobbies?


You can’t tell. It’s always a good thing to have a pin about one.


What are you up to to-night?


Things. By the way!


What?


Something happened t’other day. Fancy. I meet a bourgeois. He makes me a present of a sermon and his purse. I put it in my pocket. A minute later, I feel in my pocket. There’s nothing there.


Except the sermon,


But you, where are you bound for now?


I’m going to put these infants to bed.


Whereabouts is the bed?


At my house.


Where’s your house?


So you have a lodging?


Yes, I have.


And where is your lodging?


In the elephant,


In the elephant!


Well, yes, in the elephant! Kekçaa?


Of course, yes, the elephant. Is it comfortable there?


Very. It’s really bully there. There ain’t any draughts, as there are under the bridges.


How do you get in?


Oh, I get in.


So there is a hole?


Parbleu! I should say so. But you mustn’t tell. It’s between the fore legs. The bobbies haven’t seen it.


And you climb up? Yes, I understand.


A turn of the hand, cric, crac, and it’s all over, no one there. I shall have a ladder for these children.