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LES MISERABLES

FANTINE

VOL. 1

Presented to the

LIBRARY of the

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO

by

K. G. Morden

Jean Valjean at Bishop Myriel's Bedside

After Etching by Leopold Flameng. — From a. Painting by Francois Flameng.

Cbition be Huxe

THE WORKS

O F

VICTOR HUGO

VOLUME II

LES MISERABLES

BOOK 1-2

Zi)t f Effergon tresis;

EDITION DE LUXE

One Thousand copies of this edition have been printed for

SALE IN AMERIOA, OF WHICH THIS IS

Mo.

i9oO

o 'X

CRITICAL NOTE

BY

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

We look in vain in Les Miser ahles for the blemishes ap- pearing in Ninety Three. Here, on the other hand, there is perhaps the nearest approach to literary restraint that Hugo has ever made: there is here certainly the ripest and most easy development of his powers. It is the moral in- tention of this great novel to awaken us a little, if it may be — for such awakenings are unpleasant — to the great cost of this society that we enjoy and profit by, to the labor and sweat of those who support the litter, civilization, in which we ourselves are so smoothly carried forward. Peo- ple are all glad to shut their eyes; and it gives them a very simple pleasure when they can forget that our laws commit a million individual injustices, to be once roughly just in the general ; that the bread that we eat, and the quiet of the family, and all that embellishes life and makes it worth having, have to be purchased by death — by the deaths of animals, and the deaths of men wearied out with labor, and the deaths of those criminals called tyrants and revolution- aries, and the deaths of those revolutionaries called criminals. It is to something of all this that Victor Hugo wishes to open men's eyes in Les Miser ahles; and this moral lesson is worked out in masterly coincidence with the artistic effect. The deadly weight of civilization to those who are below presses sensibly on our shoulders as we read. A sort of mocking indignation grows upon us as we find Society re- jecting, again and again, the services of the most serviceable ; setting Jean Valjean to pick oakum, casting Galileo into

iii

iv CRITICAL NOTE

prison, even crucifying Christ. There is a haunting and horrible sense of insecurity about the book. The terror we thus feel is a terror for the machinery of law, that we can hear tearing, in the dark, good and bad between its formida- ble wheels with the iron stolidity of all machinery, human or divine. This terror incarnates itself sometimes and leaps horribly out upon us ; as when the crouching mendicant looks up, and Jean Valjean, in the light of the street lamp, rec- ognizes the face of the detective ; as when the lantern of the patrol flashes suddenly through the darkness of the sewer ; or as when the fugitive comes forth at last at evening, by the quiet riverside, and finds the police there also, waiting stolidly for vice and stolidly satisfied to take virtue instead. The whole book is full of oppression, and full of prejudice, which is the great cause of oppression. We have the preju- dices of M. Gillenormand, the prejudices of Marius, the prejudices in revolt that defend the barricade, and the throned prejudices that carry it by storm. And then we have the admirable but ill-written character of Javert, the man who had made a religion of the police, and would not survive the moment when he learned that there was another truth outside the truth of laws ; a just creation over which the reader will do well to ponder.

With so gloomy a design this great work is still full of life and light and love. The portrait of the good Bishop is one of the most agreeable things in modern literature. The whole scene at Montfermeil is full of the charm that Hugo knows so well how to throw about children. Who can forget the passage where Cosette, sent out at night to draw water, stands in admiration before the illuminated booth, and the huckster behind " lui faisait un peu I'effet d'etre le Pere eternel? " The pathos of the forlorn sabot laid trustingly by the chimney in expectation of the Santa Claus that was not, takes us fairly by the throat ; there is nothing in Shake- speare that touches the heart more nearly. The loves of Cosette and Marius are very pure and pleasant, and we cannot refuse our affection to Gavroche, although we may

CRITICAL NOTE v

make a mental reservation of our profound disbelief in his existence. Take it for all in all, there are few books in the world that can be compared with it. There is as much calm and serenity as Hugo has ever attained to ; the melodramatic coarsenesses that disfigured Notre Dame are no longer present. There is certainly much that is painfully improbable ; and again, the story itself is a little too well constructed ; it pro- duces on us the effect of a puzzle, and we grow incredulous as we find that every character fits again and again into the plot, and is, like the child's cube, serviceable on six faces ; things are not so well arranged in life as all that comes to. Some of the digressions, also, seem out of place, and do noth- ing but interrupt and irritate. But when all is said, the book remains of masterly conception and of masterly devel- opment, full of pathos, full of truth, full of a high elo- quence.

PREFACE

So long as there shall exist, by virtue of law and custom, a social damnation artificially creating hells in the midst of civilization, and complicating the destiny which is divine with a fatality which is human ; so long as the three problems of the age — the degradation of man through poverty, the ruin of woman through hunger, the crippling of children through ignorance — are not solved ; so long as in certain regions social asphyxia is possible, — in other words, and from a still wider point of view, so long as ignorance and wretchedness exist on the earth, books like this cannot be use- less.

Victor Hugo.

Hauteville House.

vu

CONTENTS

Vol. I. ^

FANTINE BOOK I.— A JUST MAN.

CHAPTER rA6K

I, M. Mtbiel 1

II. M. Myeiel becomes Monseigneur Bienvenu ♦

III. A GOOD Bishop, a hard Bishopric 9

IV. Works besemblikg Words 11

V. Monseigneur makes his Cassocks last too lokg .... 18

VI. By whom the House was guarded 21

VII. Cravette 86

VIII. Philosophy after Drinking 30

IX. The Brother described by the Sister 34

X. The Bishop faces a strange Light 37

XI. A Restriction *9

XII. MONSEIGNEUR BlENVENU's SOLITUDE 53

XIII. What he believed 56

XIV. What he thought 60

BOOK II.— THE FALL.

I, The Close op a Day's March 64

II. Prudence counselled to Wisdom 76

III. The Heroism of passive Obedience 80

IV. Details of Cheese-making at Pontahleeb ...... 85

V. Tranquillity 89

VI. Jean Valjean 90

VII. A desperate Man's Heart 96

VIII. The Wave and the Shadow 103

IX. New Wrongs 105

X. The Mak aboused 107

•

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAOK

XI. What he does " 110

XII. The Bishop at Work 113

XIII. Little Gervais 117

BOOK III.— IN THE YEAR 1817.

I. The Year 1817 126

II. A Double Quartet 132

III. Four and Four 136

IV. Tholomyes is so Merry as to sing a Spanish Song . . . 140 V. At Bombarda's 143

VI. Mutual Adoration 145

VII. The Wisdom of Tholomyes 147

VIII. The Death of a Horse 152

IX. The joyous End of Joy 16S

BOOK IV.— TO CONFIDE IS SOMETIMES TO ABAN- DON.

I. Two Mothers meet 158

II. The first Sketch of two ugly Figures 167

III. The Lark 169

BOOK v.— THE DESCENT.

I. Progress in Black Bead Making 173

II. Madeleine 174

III. Sums lodged at Lafitte's 178

IV. M. Madeleine goes into Mourning 181

V. Vague Flashes on the Horizon 183

VI. Father Fauchelevent 189

VII. Fauchelevent becomes a Gardener at Paris 192

VIII. Madame Victurnien spends Thirty Francs on Morality

193

IX. Success of Madame Victurnien 196

X. Result of her Success 198

XI. Christus nos liberavit 204

XII. M. Bamatabois' Leisure 205

XIII. The Police Office , , 207

CONTENTS xi

BOOK VI.— JAVERT.

CHAPTEB PAGE

I. The Beginning of Rest 218

II. How " Jean " may become " Champ " 222

BOOK VII.— THE CHAMPMATHIEU AFFAIR.

I. Sister Simplicity 231

II. Master Scaufflaike's Perspicacity 234

III. A Tempest in a Brain 239

IV. The Forms that Suffering takes in Sleep 258

V. Obstacles 269

VI. Sister Simplicity is sorely tried 272

VII. The Traveller on his arrival takes Precautions foe his

Return 279

VIII. Inside the Court 283

IX. The Trial 287

X. The System of Denials 294

XI. Champmathieu more and more astounded 301

BOOK VIII.— THE COUNTERSTROKE.

I. In what Mirror M. Madeleine looks at his Haib . . . 306

II. Fantine is happy 309

III. Javert is satisfied 313

IV. Authority resumes its Rights 316

V. A fitting Tomb 320

FANTINE

BOOK I

!A JUST MAN

CHAPTER I

M. MYRIEL

IN 1815, M. Charles Fran9ois Bienvenu Myriel was bishop of D . He was a man of about seventy-five years

of age, and had held the see of D since 1806. Al-

though this detail in no way affects our narrative, it may not be useless, if merely for the sake of exactness, to quote the rumours that were current when he came to the diocese; for what is said of men, whether it be true or false, often occupies as important a place in their life, and especially in their destiny, as what they do. M. Myriel was the son of a councillor of the Parliament of Aix. It was said that his father, who intended that he should be his successor, mar- ried him at a very early age, eighteen or twenty, according to a not uncommon custom in parliamentary families.

Charles Myriel, in spite of this marriage (so people said), had been the cause of much tattle. He was well built, though of short stature, elegant, graceful, and witty ; and the earlier part of his life was devoted to the world and to gallantry. The Revolution came, events hurried on, and

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the parliamentary families, decimated. and hunted down, be- came dispersed. M. Charles Myriel emigrated to Italy in the early part of the Revolution, and his wife, who had been long suffering from a chest complaint, died there, leaving no chil- dren. What next took place in M. Myriel's destiny? Did the overthrow of the old French society, the fall of his own family, and the tragic spectacles of '93, more frightful, per- haps, to the emigrants, who saw them from a distance with the magnifying power of terror, cause ideas of renunciation and solitude to germinate in him.? Was he, in the midst of one of the distractions and affections which occupied his life, suddenly assailed by one of those mysterious and terrible blows which often prostrate, by striking at his heart, a man whom public catastrophes could not shake by attacking his existence, and his fortune.'' No one could answer these ques- tions ; all that was known was that when he returned from Italy he was a priest.

In 1804, M. Myriel was the priest of B (Brig-

nolles). He was already aged, and lived in great retirement. Toward the period of the coronation a small matter con- nected with his curacy, no one remembers what, took him to Paris. Among other powerful persons he applied to Cardinal Fesch on behalf of his parishioners. One day, when the Emperor was paying a visit to his uncle, the worthy priest, who was waiting in the anteroom, saw his Majesty pass. Napoleon, seeing that the old man viewed him with some curiosity, turned and asked sharply : —

" Who is this goodman who is staring at me.'' "

*' Sire," said M. Myriel, " you are looking at a good man and I at a great man. We may both profit by it."

The Emperor, on the same evening, asked the cardinal the priest's name, and some time after M. Myriel, to his great

surprise, learned that he had been made bishop of D .

What truth, by the way, was there in the stories about M. Myriel's early life.'' No one knew, for few persons were acquainted with his family before the Revolution. M. Myriel was fated to endure the lot of every new-comer in a

FANTINE 3

little town, where there are many mouths that talk, and but few heads that think. He was obliged to endure it, al- though he was bishop, and because he was bishop. But, after all, the stories with which his name was connected were only stories, rumours, words, remarks, less than words, mere pala- ver, to use a term borrowed from the energetic language of the South. However that might be, after ten years of Epis- copal residence at D , all this gossip, which at the outset

affords matter of conversation for small towns and small peo- ple, had fallen into deep oblivion. No one would have dared to mention it, no one have dared to recall it.

M. Myriel came to D , accompanied by an elderly

lady, Mile, Baptistine, who was his sister, and ten years younger than himself. Their only servant was a woman of the same age as Mile. Baptistine, Madame Magloire, who, having been the priest's servant, now assumed the double title of waiting-woman to his sister, and housekeeper to Mon- seigneur. Mile. Baptistine was a tall, pale, slim, gentle per- son ; she realized the ideal expressed by the word " respect- able," for it seems necessary for a woman to be a mother in order to be venerable. She had never been pretty, but her whole life, which had been but a succession of pious works, had at last endowed her with a sort of transparent pallor; and in growing older she had acquired what may be called the beauty of goodness. What had been thinness in her youth, became in her maturity transparency ; and through this di- aphanous veil the angel could be seen. She seemed to be a shadow, — there was hardly enough body for a sex to exist ; she was a small quantity of matter containing a spark of light ; large eyes always downcast, — an excuse for a soul to remain upon the earth. Madame Magloire was a fair, plump, busy little body, always short of breath, — in the first place, through her activity, and, secondly, in consequence of asthma.

On his arrival, M. Myriel was installed in his Episcopal paiace with all the honours required by the imperial decrees, which class a bishop immediately after a major-general. Tnt

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mayor and the president paid him the first visit; and he on his side paid the first visit to the general and the prefect. When the installation was ended, the town waited to see its bishop at work.

CHAPTER II

M. MYEEEL BECOMES MONSEIGNEUR BIENVENU

THE Episcopal palace of D adjoined the hospital. It was a vast and elegant mansion, built at the begin- ning of the last century by Monseigneur Henri Puget, Doc- tor of Theology of the Faculty of Paris, and priest of

Simore, who was bishop of D in 1712. This palace

was a true seigneurial residence ; everything about it had a noble air, — the bishop's apartments, the parlours, the bed- rooms, the courtyard, which was very vast, with arcades after the old Florentine fashion, and the gardens plapted with magnificent trees. In the dining-room, a long and superb gallery on the ground-floor, Monseigneur Henri Puget gave a state dinner on July 29, 1714, to Messeigneurs Charles Brulart de Genlis, archbishop and prince of Embrun, Antoine de Mesgrigny, Capuchin and bishop of Grasse, Philip de Vendome, grand prior of France and priest of St. Honore de Lerins, Fran9ois de Berton de Grillon, baron and bishop of Vence, Caesar de Sabran de Forcalquier, bishop, lord of Glan- deve, and Jean Soanen, priest of the Oratory, preacher in ordinary to the king, and lord bishop of Senez. The por- traits of these seven reverend personages decorated the din- ing-room, and the memorable date, July 29, 1714, was en- graved in letters of gold on a white marble tablet.

The hospital was a small, single-storied house with a little garden. Three days after his arrival the bishop visited it; and when his visit was over, he asked the superintendent to be kind enough to come to his house.

FANTINE 5

"How many patients have you now?" he asked.

" Twenty-six, Monseigneur."

" The number I counted," said the bishop,

" The beds are very close together," the superintendent added.

" So I noticed."

" The wards are only bedrooms, and difficult to ventilate."

" I thought so."

" And then, when the sun shines, the garden is very small for the convalescents."

" So I said to myself."

" During epidemics, — and we had typhus fever this year, and the sweating sickness two years ago, — we have as many as one hundred patients, and do not know what to do with them."

" Just what I thought."

" What would you have, Monseigneur ! " said the superin- tendent ; " we must put up with it."

This conversation had taken place in the dining-room on the ground-floor. The bishop was silent for a moment, and then turned abruptly to the superintendent.

" How many ' cds," he asked, " do you think that this room alone would hold? "

" Monseir ur': dining-room? " asked the amazed director.

The bishop " ^ked round the room, and seemed to be meas- ing it with his eye and judging its capacity.

" It would hold at least twenty beds," he said, as if speak- ing to himself ; -hen, raising his voice, he added : —

" Come, I ^rill tell you what it is. There is evidently a mistake. You have twenty-six persons in five or six small rooms. Here there are ( nly three of us, and we have room for fifty. There is a mistake, I repeat ; you have my house, and I have yours. Restore me mine ; this is yours."

Next day the tM'enty-six poor patients were installed in the bishop's palace, and the bishop was in the hospital. ]M. Myriel had no property, as his family had been ruined by the Revolution. His ^^ister had an annuity of five hundred

6 FANTINE

francs, which sufficed for personal expenses. M. Myrlel, as bishop, received from the State fifteen thousand francs a year. On the same day that he removed to the hospital, he settled the employment of that sum, once for all, in the following way. We copy a note in his own handwriting.

THE EEGCTLATION- OF MY HOUSEHOLD EXPEKSES.

For the little Seminary 1500 frcs.

Congregation of the Mission 100 "

The Lazarists of Montdidier 100 "

Seminary of Foreign Missions at Paris .... 200 "

Congregation of the Holy Ghost 150 "

Religious establishments in the Holy Land . . . 100 "

Societies of Maternal Charity 300 "

Additional for the one at Aries 50 "

Works for improvement of prisons 400 "

Relief and deliverance of prisoners 500 "

For liberation of fathers imprisoned for debt . . 1000 " Addition to the salary of poor school-masters in the

diocese 2000 "

Distribution of grain in the Upper Alps . . . 100 " Ladies' Society for gratuitous instruction of poor

girls at D , Manosque, and Sisteron . . . 1500 "

For the poor . 6000 "

Personal expenses 1000 "

Total 15,000 "

During the whole time that he held the see of D , M.

jMyriel made no change in this arrangement. He called this, as we see, regulating his household expenses. The arrange- ment was accepted with a smile by Mile. Baptistine ; for that sainted woman regarded INI. Myriel at once as her brother and her bishop, — her friend according to nature, her su- perior according to the Church. She loved and venerated him in the simplest way. When he spoke she bowed, when he acted she assented. The servant alone, Madame Ma- gloire, murmured a little. The bishop, it will be noticed, only reserved one thousand francs for himself, and on this sum, with Mile. Eapt^stine's pension, these two old women and the old man lived. And when a village priest came to D , the bishop managed to entertain him, thanks to the

FANTINE 7

strict economy of Madame Magloire and the sensible man- agement of Mile. Baptistine. One day, when he had been at D about three months, the bishop said : —

" For all that, I am dreadfully hard put to it."

" I should think so," exclaimed Madame Magloire. *' Monseigneur has not even claimed the income which the department owes him for his carriage in town and for his visitations. That was the custom Avith bishops in other times."

" True," said the bishop, " you are right, ^Madame Ma- gloire." He made his claim, and shortly after, the council- general, taking the demand into consideration, voted him the annual sum of three thousand francs, under the heading, " Allowance to the bishop for maintenance of carriage, post- ing charges, and outlay in visitations."

This caused an uproar among the townspeople, and a sen- ator of the empire, ex-member of the Council of the Five Hundred, favourable to the 18th Brumaire, and holding a

magnificent appointment near D , wrote to the minister

of public worship. Bigot de Preameneu, a short, angry, and confidential letter, from which we quote these authentic lines : —

"... Maintenance of carriage! what can he want one for in a town of less than four thousand inhabitants? Visitation charges! In the first place, what is the good of visitations at all? and, secondly, how can he travel post in this mountainous country, where there are no roads, and people must journey on horseback? The very bridge over the Durance at Chateau Arnoux can hardly bear the weight of an ox- cart. These priests are all the same, greedy and avaricious! Tiiis one played tlie good apostle when he arrived, but now he is like the rest, and nmst have his carriage and post-chaise. He wishes to be as lux- urious as the old bishops. Oh, these priests! My lord, matters will never go on well tiU the Emperor has delivered us from the skullcaps. Down with the Pope! [There was a quarrel at the time with Rome.J As for me, I am for Caesar and Caesar alone; etc., etc., etc."

The affair, on the other hand, greatly gladdened Madame Magloire. " Come," she said to Mile. Baptistine, " Mon- seigneur began with others, but he was obliged to end with

8 lANTINE

himself after all. He has regulated all his charities, and here are three thousand francs for us at last ! "

That same evening the bishop wrote, and gave his sister, a note conceived thus : —

CARRIAGE AND TRAVELLING EXPENSES.

To provide the hospital patients with broth . . . 1500 frcs. The Society of Maternal Charity at Aix .... 250 "

Ditto at Draguignan 250 "

For foundlings 500 "

For orphans 500 "

Total 3,000

«

Such was M. Myriel's budget. As for any accidental re- ceipts, such as fees for bans, dispensations, consecrating churches or chapels, marriages, etc., the bishop collected them from the rich with so much the more eagerness because he distributed them to the poor. In a short time offerings of money flowed in. Those who had and those who wanted tapped at M. Myriel's door, the latter coming for the alms which the former had just deposited. In less than a year the bishop became the treasurer of all charity and the cashier of all distress. Considerable sums passed through his hands, but nothing could induce him to make any change in his mode of life or to add the slightest superfluity to his bare necessities.

Far from it. As there is always more wretchedness below than brotherhood above, all was given, so to speak, before being received ; it was like water on dry ground : however much he might receive, he never had a farthing. At such times he stripped himself. It being the custom for bishops to place their Christian names at the head of their mandates and pastoral letters, the poor people of the country with a kind of affectionate instinct, selected the one among their bishop's names which conveyed a meaning to them, and called him Monseigneur (Bicnvenu) Welcome. We will do like them, and call him so when occasion serves. Moreover, the

FANTINE 9

name pleased him. " I like that name," he would say. " The ' Welcome ' makes up for the ' My Lord.' "

We do not claim that the portrait we have drawn is prob- able ; we merely say that it is a likeness.

CHAPTER III

A GOOD BISHOP ; A HARD BISHOPRIC

THE bishop, though he had converted his coach into alms, made his visitations none the less. The diocese of D is a fatiguing one ; there are few plains, many moun- tains, and hardly any roads, as we saw just now; twenty- two curacies, forty-one vicarages, and two hundred and eighty-five chapels of ease. It was a task to visit all these, but the bishop managed to do it. He went on foot when the place was near, in a cart when it was in the plain, and on muleback when it was in the mountains. The two old women generally accompanied him, but when the journey was too hard for them he went alone.

One day he arrived at Senez, which is an old Episcopal town, mounted on a donkey ; his purse, which was very light at the time, had not allowed him any other equipage. The mayor of the city met him at the door of the bishop's pahice, and watched him dismount with scandalized eyes. A few townspeople were laughing around him. " Mr. Mayor and gentlemen," said the bishop, " I see what it is that shocks you. You consider it great pride for a poor priest to ride an animal which our Saviour once rode. I did so from neces- sity, I assure you, and not from vanity."

On his travels the bishop was kind and indulgent, and preached less than he conversed. His arguments and exam- ples were never far-fetched, and to the inhabitants of one district he quoted the example of an adjacent district. In

10 FANTINE

those regions where people were harsh to the poor he would say, " Look at the people of Brian9on. They have given the poor, the widows, and orphans the right to have their fields mowed three days before all the rest. They rebuild their houses for them gratuitously when they are in ruins. Hence it is a country blessed of God. For one hundred years not a single murder has been committed there." To those eager for gain and good crops, he said, " Look at the people of Embrun. If a father of a family at harvest-time has his sons in the army, his daughters serving in the town, or if he be ill or unable to work, the priest recommends hira in his sermon ; and on Sunday, after mass, all the villagers, men, wqmen, and children, go into his field and cut and carry home his crop." To families divided by questions of money or inheritance, he said, " Look at the mountaineers of De- volny, a country so wild that the nightingale is not heard there once in fifty years. Well, when the father of a family dies there, the boys go off to seek their fortune, and leave the property to the girls, so that they may find husbands." In those parts where the farmers were fond of lawsuits, and ruined themselves in writs, he v.'ould sa}'^, " Look at those good peasants of the valley of Queyras. There are three thousand souls there. Why, it is like a little republic. Neither judge nor bailiff is known there, and the mayor does everything. He divides the imposts, taxes everybody conscientiously, settles quarrels gratis, divides inheritances without fees, gives sentences without costs, and is obeyed be- cause he is a just man among simple men." In villages where there was no school-master, he again quoted the people of Queyras. "Do you know what they do? As a small place containing only twelve or fifteen families cannot al- ways support a master, they have school-masters paid by the whole valley, who go from village to village, spending a week in one, ten days in another, and teaching. These mas- ters go to the fairs, where I have seen them. They can be recognized by the pens that they wear in their hat-bands. Those who only teach reading have but one pen ; those who

FANTINE 11

teach reading and arithmetic have two ; those who teach read- ing, arithmetic, and Latin have three. But what a disgrace it is to be ignorant ! Do like the people of Queyras."

He spoke thus, gravely and paternally. When examples failed him he invented parables, going straight to the point, with few phrases and a good deal of imagery. His was the eloquence of the Apostles, convincing and persuading.

CHAPTER IV

WORKS RESEMBLING WORDS

THE bishop's conversation was affable and lively. He condescended to the level of the two old women who spent their life beside him, and when he laughed it was a school-boy's laugh. Madame Magloire was fond of calling him " your Eminence." One day he rose from his easy- chair and went to fetch a book from his library. As it was on one of the top shelves, and as the bishop was short, he could not reach it. " Madame Magloire," he said, " bring me a chair, for my Eminence docs not reach to that shelf."

One of his distant relatives, the Countess de L6, rarely let an opportunity slip to enumerate in his presence what she called the " expectations " of her three sons. She had sev- eral relatives who were very old and close to death's door, of whom her sons were the natural heirs. The youngest of the three would inherit one hvindred thousand francs a year from a great-aunt ; the second would succeed to his uncle's dukedom, the third to his grandfather's peerage. The bishop generally listened in silence to this innocent and pardonable maternal display. Once, however, he seemed more dreamy than usual, while Madame de L6 was repeating all the details of their successions and " expectations." She broke off some- what impatiently. " Good gracious, cousin," said she,

12 FANTINE

" what are you thinking about? " " I am thinking," said the bishop, " of something odd, which, if my memory serves me, is in Saint Augustine. ' Place your hopes in him to whom no one succeeds.' "

On another occasion, receiving a letter announcing the death of a country gentleman, in which, in addition to the dignities of the defunct, all the feudal and noble titles of all his relatives were recorded, — " What a pair of shoulders death has ! What a fine load of titles he is made lightly to bear," he exclaimed, " and what sense men must possess thus to employ the tomb in satisfying their vanity." At times he was gifted with a gentle raillery, which nearly always con- tained a serious meaning. During one Lent a young vicar

came to D and preached at the cathedral. He was

rather eloquent, and the subject of his sermon was charity. He invited the rich to give to the poor in order to escape hell, which he painted in the most frightful way he could, and to gain paradise, which he made desirable and charming. There was among the congregation a rich, retired merchant, somewhat of a miser, who had made $400,000 by manufactur- ing coarse cloths, serges, and woollen galloons. Never in his whole life had M. Geborand given alms to a beggar, but after this sermon it was remarked that he gave a cent every Sunday to the old beggar women at the cathedral door. There were six of them to share it. One day the bishop saw him bestowing his charity, and said to his sister, with a smile, " Look at M. Geborand buying a cent's worth of paradise."

When it was a question of charity, he would not let him- self be rebuffed even by a refusal, and at such times made remarks which caused people to reflect. Once he was beg- ging for the poor in a drawing-room of the town. The Mar- quis de Champtercier was present, a rich, avaricious, old man, who contrived to be at once ultra-Royalist and ultra- Voltair- ian. This variety has existed. When the bishop came to him he touched his arm, " Marquis, you must give me some- thing." The marquis turned and answered drily : " I have

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my own poor, my lord." " Give them to mc," said the bishop. One day he delivered the following sermon at the cathedral : —

" My very dear brethren, my good friends, there are in France thir- teen hundred and twenty thousand peasants' houses which have only three openings; eighteen hundred and seventeen thousand whicli have only two openings, — the door and the window ; and, lastly, three hun- dred and forty-six thousand hovels wliich have only one opening, — the door. All this comes from a thing called the door-and-window tax. Just place poor families, aged women, and little children, in these houses, and then see the fevers and sickness ! Alas ! God gives men fresh air, and the law sells it to them. I do not blame the law, but I bless God. In Isere, in Var, in the two Alps, Upper and Lower, the peasants have not even wheelbarrows, but carry manure on their backs; they have no candles, but burn resinous logs and pieces of rope dipped in pitch. It is the same through all the hilly part of Dauphiny. They make bread for six months, and bake it with dried cow-dung. In winter they break this bread with an axe and steep it in water for four and twenty hours before they can eat it. Brethren, have pity; see how people suffer around you!"

A Proven9al by birth, he soon became familiar with all the dialects of the South. He said Eh be monssu ses sage, as in Lower Languedoc ; Onte anaras passa, as in the Lower Alps ; Puerte un bouen mouton embe un bouen fromage grase, as in Upper Dauphiny. This greatly pleased the people, and did no little to secure him admission to all minds. He was at home in the hut and on the mountain. He could say the grandest things in the most vulgar idiom, and as he spoke all languages he entered all hearts. However, he was the same to people of fashion as to the lower classes.

He never condemned anything hastily or without taking the circumstances into account. He would say, " Let us look at the road by which the fault has come." Being, as he called himself with a smile, an ex-sinner, he had none of the asperities of the Puritan ; and careless of the frowns of the unco' good, he professed loudly a doctrine which might be summed up as follows : " Man has upon him the flesh which is at once his burden and his temptation. He carries it with him and yields to it. He must watch, restrain, end repress it, and only obey it in the last extremity. In this

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obedience there may still be a fault ; but the fault thus com- mitted is venial. It is a fall, but a fall on the knees, which may end in prayer. To be a saint is the exception ; to be a just man is the rule. Err, fail, sin, but be just. The least possible amount of sin is the law of man ; no sin at all is the dream of angels. All that is earthly is subject to sin, for sin is a gravitation."

When people cried out and grew indignant he would say with a smile, "Oh, ho! it seems as if this is a great crime which all the world is committing. Look at the startled hypo- crites, hastening to protest and place themselves under cover."

He was indulgent to women and poor people, on whom the burden of human society presses. He would say, " The faults of women, children, servants, the weak, the poor, and the ignorant are the fault of husbands, fathers, masters, the strong, the rich, and the learned." He also said, " Teach the ignorant as much as you possibly can; society is to blame for not giving instruction freely, and is responsible for the night it produces. A soul is full of darkness, and sin is committed ; but the guilty person is not the man who commits the sin, but he who produces the darkness."

As we see, he had a strange manner, peculiarly his own, of judging things. I suspect that he obtained it from the Gospel. One day he heard in a drawing-room the story of a trial which was shortly to take place. A wretched man, through love of a woman and a child he had by her, having exhausted his resources, coined false money, which at that period was an offence punished by death. The woman was arrested while passing the first false piece made by the man. She was held, but there was no proof against her. She alone could establish the charge against her lover and ruin him by confessing. She denied. They pressed her, but she per- sisted in her denial. Upon this, the prosecuting lawyer had an idea: he invented an infidelity on the part of the lover, and contrived, by cleverly presenting the woman with frag- ments of letters, to persuade her that she had a rival, and that the man was deceiving her. Then, exasperated by jeal-

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ousy, she denounced her lover, confessed everything, proved everything. The man was ruined, and would shortly be tried with his accomplice at Aix. The story was told, and everybody was delighted with the lawyer's cleverness. By bringing jealousy into play, he brought out the truth through passion, and obtained justice through revenge. The bishop listened to all this in silence, and when they ended he asked : " Where will this man and woman be tried ? " " At the assizes." Then he continued, " And where will the prose- cuting attorney be tried? "

A tragic event occurred at D . A man was con- demned to death for murder. He was a wretched fellow, not exactly educated, not exactly ignorant, who had been a mountebank at fairs and a public letter-writer. The trial attracted the attention of the townspeople. On the eve of the day of the execution the chaplain of the prison was taken ill, and a priest was wanted to attend the sufferer in his last moments. The priest was sent for, and it seems that he re- fused, saying, " It is no business of mine, I have nothing to do with the mountebank. I am ill too ; and besides, it is not my place." This answer was reported to the bishop, who said, " He is right, it is not his place ; it is mine." He went instantly to the prison, entered the mounte- bank's cell, called him by name, took his hand, and spoke to him. He spent the whole day with him, forgetting to sleep or to eat while praying to God for the soul of the condemned man. He told him the best truths, which are the most sim- ple. He was father, brother, friend, — bishop only to bless. He taught him everything, while reassuring and consoling him. This man was about to die in despair; death was to him like an abyss, and he shuddered as he stood on its mourn- ful brink. He was not ignorant enough to be completely indifferent, and his sentence, which was a profound shock, had broken through that wall which divides us from the mystery of things, and which we call life. He peered incessantly out of this world through these fatal breaches, and only saW darkness ; but the bishop showed him a light.

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On the morrow, when they came to fetch the wretched man, the bishop was with him. He followed him, and showed himself to the mob in his purple cassock, with the episcopal cross round his neck, side by side with this rope-bound wretch. He entered the cart with him ; he mounted the scaffold with him. The victim, so gloomy and so cast down on the previ- ous day, was radiant ; he felt that his soul was reconciled, and he hoped for heaven. The bishop embraced him, and as the knife was about to fall, said : " The man whom his fellow-men kill, God raises from the dead. He whom his brothers reject, finds his Father once more. Pray, believe, enter into life ! The Father is there ! " When he came down from the scaffold, there was something in his look which made the people make way for him ;