They were three thousand five hundred in number, and formed a front a quarter of a league in length; they were gigantic men mounted on colossal horses. They formed twenty-six squadrons, and had behind them, as a support, Lefebvre Desnouette's division, composed of one hundred and six picked gendarmes, the chasseurs of the Guard, eleven hundred and ninety-seven sabres, and the lancers of the Guard, eight hundred and eighty lances. They wore a helmet without a plume, and a cuirass of wrought steel, and were armed with pistols and a straight sabre. In the morning the whole army had admired them when they came up, at nine o'clock, with bugles sounding, while all the bands played, "Veillons au salut de l'Empire," in close column with one battery on their flank, the others in their centre, and deployed in two ranks, and took their place in that powerful second line, so skilfully formed by Napoleon, which having at its extreme left Kellermann's cuirassiers, and on its extreme right Milhaud's cuirassiers, seemed to be endowed with two wings of steel.
The aide-de-camp Bernard carried to them the Emperor's order: Ney drew his sabre and placed himself at their head, and the mighty squadrons started. Then a formidable spectacle was seen: the whole of this cavalry, with raised sabres, with standards flying, and formed in columns of division, descended, with one movement and as one man, with the precision of a bronze battering-ram opening a breach, the hill of the Belle Alliance. They entered the formidable valley in which so many men had already fallen, disappeared in the smoke, and then, emerging from the gloom, reappeared on the other side of the valley, still in a close compact column, mounting at a trot, under a tremendous canister fire, the frightful muddy incline of the plateau of Mont St. Jean. They ascended it, stern, threatening, and imperturbable; between the breaks in the artillery and musketry fire the colossal tramp could be heard. As they formed two divisions, they were in two columns: Wathier's division was on the right, Delord's on the left. At a distance it appeared as if two immense steel snakes were crawling toward the crest of the plateau; they traversed the battle-field like a flash.
Nothing like it had been seen since the capture of the great redoubt of the Moskova by the heavy cavalry: Murat was missing, but Ney was there. It seemed as if this mass had become a monster, and had but one soul; each squadron undulated, and swelled like the rings of a polype. This could be seen through a vast smoke which was rent asunder at intervals; it was a pell-mell of helmets, shouts, and sabres, a stormy bounding of horses among cannon, and a disciplined and terrible array; while above it all flashed the cuirasses like the scales of the hydra. Such narratives seemed to belong to another age; something like this vision was doubtless traceable in the old Orphean epics describing the men-horses, the ancient hippanthropists, those Titans with human faces and equestrian chest whose gallop escaladed Olympus,—horrible, invulnerable, sublime; gods and brutes. It was a curious numerical coincidence that twenty-six battalions were preparing to receive the charge of these twenty-six squadrons. Behind the crest of the plateau, in the shadow of the masked battery, thirteen English squares, each of two battalions and formed two deep, with seven men in the first lines and six in the second, were waiting, calm, dumb, and motionless, with their muskets, for what was coming. They did not see the cuirassiers, and the cuirassiers did not see them: they merely heard this tide of men ascending. They heard the swelling sound of three thousand horses, the alternating and symmetrical sound of the hoof, the clang of the cuirasses, the clash of the sabres, and a species of great and formidable breathing. There was a long and terrible silence, and then a long file of raised arms, brandishing sabres, and helmets, and bugles, and standards, and three thousand heads with great moustaches, shouting, "Long live the Emperor!" appeared above the crest. The whole of this cavalry debouched on the plateau, and it was like the commencement of an earthquake.
All at once, terrible to relate, the head of the column of cuirassiers facing the English left reared with a fearful clamor. On reaching the culminating point of the crest, furious and eager to make their exterminating dash on the English squares and guns, the cuirassiers noticed between them and the English a trench, a grave. It was the sunken road of Ohain. It was a frightful moment,—the ravine was there, unexpected, yawning, almost precipitous, beneath the horses' feet, and with a depth of twelve feet between its two sides. The second rank thrust the first into the abyss; the horses reared, fell back, slipped with all four feet in the air, crushing and throwing their riders. There was no means of escaping; the entire column was one huge projectile. The force acquired to crush the English, crushed the French, and the inexorable ravine would not yield till it was filled up. Men and horses rolled into it pell-mell, crushing each other, and making one large charnel-house of the gulf, and when this grave was full of living men the rest passed over them. Nearly one-third of Dubois' brigade rolled into this abyss. This commenced the loss of the battle. A local tradition, which evidently exaggerates, says that two thousand horses and fifteen hundred men were buried in the sunken road of Ohain. These figures probably comprise the other corpses cast into the ravine on the day after the battle. It was this brigade of Dubois, so fatally tried, which an hour before, charging unsupported, had captured the flag of the Luxembourg battalion. Napoleon, before ordering this charge, had surveyed the ground, but had been unable to see this hollow way, which did not form even a ripple on the crest of the plateau. Warned, however, by the little white chapel which marks its juncture with the Nivelles road, he had asked Lacoste a question, probably as to whether there was any obstacle. The guide answered No, and we might almost say that Napoleon's catastrophe was brought about by a peasant's shake of the head.
Other fatalities were yet to arise. Was it possible for Napoleon to win the battle? We answer in the negative. Why? On account of Wellington, on account of Blücher? No; on account of God. Buonaparte, victor at Waterloo, did not harmonize with the law of the 19th century. Another series of facts was preparing, in which Napoleon had no longer a place: the ill will of events had been displayed long previously. It was time for this vast man to fall; his excessive weight in human destiny disturbed the balance. This individual alone was of more account than the universal group: such plethoras of human vitality concentrated in a single head—the world, mounting to one man's brain—would be mortal to civilization if they endured. The moment had arrived for the incorruptible supreme equity to reflect, and it is probable that the principles and elements on which the regular gravitations of the moral order as of the material order depend, complained. Streaming blood, over-crowded grave-yards, mothers in tears, are formidable pleaders. When the earth is suffering from an excessive burden, there are mysterious groans from the shadow, which the abyss hears. Napoleon had been denounced in infinitude, and his fall was decided. He had angered God. Waterloo is not a battle, but a transformation of the Universe.
The next morning, almost two hours before daybreak, Thénardier was seated, pen in hand, at a table in the tap-room, and making out the bill of the yellow-coated traveller. His wife, standing behind him, was watching him; they did not exchange a syllable; on one side there was a profound meditation, on the other that profound admiration with which people watch a marvel of the human mind expanding. A noise could be heard in the house; it was the Lark sweeping the stairs. At the end of a quarter of an hour and some erasures, Thénardier produced this masterpiece,—
"THE GENT IN NO. 1. Supper.... 3 francs. Bed....... 10 " Candles... 5 " Fire...... 4 " Service... 1 " __ Total 23 francs."
Service was written serviss.
"Twenty-three francs!" the wife exclaimed, with an admiration mingled with some hesitation.
Like all great artists, Thénardier was not satisfied, and said, "Pooh!" It was the accent of Castlereagh drawing up the little bill for France to pay at the Congress of Vienna.
"Monsieur Thénardier, you are right; he certainly owes it," the wife muttered, thinking of the doll given to Cosette in the presence of her children: "it is fair, but it is too much; he will not pay it."
Thénardier gave his cold laugh, and said, "He will pay it!"
This laugh was the supreme signification of certainty and authority; what was said in this way must be. The wife made no objection, but began arranging the tables, while her husband walked up and down the room; a moment after he added,—
"Why, I owe fifteen hundred francs."
He sat down in the ingle-nook, meditating with his feet in the warm ashes.
"By the bye," the wife continued, "you don't forget that I mean to bundle out Cosette to-day? The monster! she eats my heart with her doll; I would sooner marry Louis XVIII. than keep her a day longer in the house."
Thénardier lit his pipe, and said between two puffs,—"You will hand the man the bill."
Then he went out, and had scarce left the room ere the traveller entered; Thénardier at once appeared behind and stood in the half-open door, only visible to his wife. The yellow man carried his stick and bundle in his hand.
"Up so soon?" the landlady said. "Are you going to leave us already, sir?"
While speaking this, she turned the bill in her hands with an embarrassed air and made folds in it with her nails; her harsh face had an unusual look of timidity and scruple. It seemed to her difficult to present such a bill to a man who looked so thoroughly poor. The traveller seemed absent and preoccupied, as he replied,—
"Yes, Madame, I am going."
"Then you had no business to transact at Montfermeil, sir?" she continued.
"No; I am merely passing through, that is all. What do I owe you, Madame?"
The landlady, without replying, handed him the folded paper; he opened and looked at it, but his attention was visibly elsewhere.
"Do you do a good business here?" he asked.
"Tolerably well, sir," the landlady answered, stupefied at not seeing any other explosion; then she went on with an elegiac and lamentable accent,—
"Oh, sir, times are very bad! And then there are So few respectable people in these parts. It is lucky we have now and then generous and rich travellers like yourself, sir, for the expenses are so high. Why, that little girl costs us our eyes out of our head."
"What little girl?"
"Why, you know, Cosette, the Lark, as they call her hereabout."
"Oh!" said the man.
She continued,—
"What asses these peasants are with these nick-names! She looks more like a bat than a lark. You see, sir, we don't ask for charity, but we can't give it; our earnings are small and our expenses great,—the license, the door and window tax, and so on! You know, sir, that the Government claims a terrible deal of money. And then I have my own daughters, and do not care to support another person's child."
The man replied, in a voice which he strove to render careless, and in which there was a tremor,—
"And suppose you were freed of her?"
"Of whom,—of Cosette?"
The landlady's red and violent face was illumined by a hideous grin.
"Ah, sir, my good sir; take her, keep her, carry her off, sugar her, stuff her with truffles, eat her, drink her, and may all the Saints in Paradise bless you!"
"It is settled."
"You really will take her away at once?"
"At once. Call her."
"Cosette!" the landlady shouted.
"In the mean while," the man continued, "I will pay my score. How much is it?"
He took a glance at the bill, and could not restrain a start of surprise. Twenty-three francs! He looked at the landlady and repeated, "Twenty-three francs?" There was in his pronunciation of the two words the accent which separates the point of exclamation from the point of interrogation. Madame Thénardier had had time to prepare for the collision, and hence answered with assurance,—
"Yes, sir, twenty-three francs."
The stranger laid five five-franc pieces on the table.
"Go and fetch the girl," he said.
At this moment Thénardier walked into the middle of the room and said,—
"The gentleman owes twenty-six sous."
"Twenty-six sous!" the wife exclaimed.
"Twenty sous for the bed-room," Thénardier continued coldly, "and six for the supper. As for the girl, I must talk a little with the gentleman first. Leave us, wife."
The landlady had one of those bedazzlements which unforeseen flashes of talent produced; she felt that the great actor had come on the stage, made no answer, and went out. So soon as they were alone Thénardier offered the traveller a chair. He sat down; Thénardier remained standing, and his face assumed a singular expression of kindliness and simplicity.
"I must tell you," he said, "sir, that I adore the child."
The stranger looked at him fixedly.
"What child?"
Thénardier continued,—
"How strange it is, but you grow attached to them. What is the meaning of all that money? Put it back in your pocket; I adore the child."
"What child?" the stranger asked.
"Why, our little Cosette! Don't you wish to take her from us? Well, I speak frankly, and as true as you are an honest man, I cannot consent. I should miss the child, for I have known her since she was a baby: it is true that she costs us money, that she has her faults, that we are not rich, and that I paid more than upwards of four hundred francs for medicines alone in one of her illnesses. She has neither father nor mother, and I brought her up; and I have bread both for her and for me. Look you, I am fond of the child; affection grows on you; I am a good foolish fellow, and don't reason; I love the girl, and though my wife is quick, she loves her too. She is like our own child, and I want to hear her prattle in the house."
The stranger still looked at him fixedly, as he continued,—
"Excuse me, sir, but a child can't be given like that to the first passer-by. You will allow that I am right? I don't say that you are not rich and look like a very worthy man, and that it may be for her welfare; but I am bound to know. You understand that supposing I let her go and sacrificed myself, I should like to know where she is going, and not lose her out of sight; I should wish to know where she is, and go and see her now and then, to convince the child that her foster-father is watching over her. In short, there are some things which are not possible; I don't even know your name. I ought at least to see some scrap of paper, a passport, and so on."
The stranger, without ceasing to fix on him that look which pierces to the bottom of the conscience, said in a grave, firm voice,—
"Monsieur Thénardier, a man does not require a passport to go four leagues from Paris; and if I take Cosette away, I take her away, that is all. You will not know my name, my residence, or where she is; and it is my intention that she shall never see you again. I break the string which she has round her foot, and away she flies. Does that suit you? Yes or no!"
In the same way as demons and genii recognize, by certain signs, the presence of a superior deity, Thénardier understood that he had to do with a very strong man. It was a sort of intuition, and he comprehended with his distinct and sagacious promptitude. On the previous evening, while drinking, smoking, and singing, he had constantly looked at the stranger, watching him like a cat and studying him like a mathematician. He had both watched him on his own account, through pleasure and instinct, and played the spy on him as if paid to do so. Not a gesture or movement of the yellow-coated man escaped him, and even before the stranger so clearly manifested his interest in Cosette, Thénardier divined it. He surprised the profound glances of this old man which constantly reverted to the child. Why this interest? Who was this man? Why was his attire so wretched when his purse was so full? These questions he asked himself and could not answer, and they irritated him; he reflected on them the whole night. He could not be Cosette's father. Was he her grandfather? Then, why did he not make himself known at once? When a man has a claim, he proves it, and this man evidently had no claim on Cosette. In that case, what was it? Thénardier lost himself in suppositions; he caught a gleam of everything and saw nothing. However this might be, on beginning the conversation, feeling sure that there was a secret in all this, and that the man was interested in remaining in the shadow, he felt himself strong; but on hearing the stranger's firm and distinct answer, when he saw that this mysterious person was simply mysterious, he felt himself weak. He had not expected anything of this sort, and it routed his conjectures. He rallied his ideas, and weighed all this in a second. Thénardier was one of those men who judge of a situation at a glance, and considered that it was the moment to advance straight and rapidly. He behaved like great captains at that decisive instant which they alone can recognize, and suddenly unmasked his battery.
"Sir," he said, "I want one thousand five hundred francs."
The stranger drew from his side-pocket an old black leathern portfolio, and took from it three bank-notes which he laid on the table; then he placed his large thumb on the notes, and said to the landlord,—
"Bring Cosette here."
While this was taking place, what was Cosette about? On waking, she ran to her sabot and found the gold coin in it; it was not a napoleon, but one of those new twenty-franc pieces of the Restoration, on which the Prussian queue was substituted for the crown of laurels. Cosette was dazzled, and her destiny was beginning to intoxicate her; she knew not what a gold piece was, she had never seen one, and she hurriedly hid it in her pocket, as if she had stolen it. She felt it was really hers; she guessed whence the gift came, but she experienced a feeling of joy full of fear. She was happy, but she was more stupefied; these magnificent things did not seem to her real,—the doll frightened her, the gold coin frightened her, and she trembled vaguely at this magnificence. The stranger alone did not frighten her; on the contrary, he reassured her since the previous evening. Through her amazement and her sleep, she thought in her little childish mind of this man, who looked so old and poor and sad, and who was so rich and good. Ever since she met him in the wood all had changed for her, as it were. Cosette, less happy than the meanest swallow, had never yet known what it is to take refuge in the shadow and beneath the wing of her mother; for five years, that is to say, so far back as her thoughts went, the poor child had trembled and shuddered. She had always been exposed in her nudity to the bleak blast of misfortune, and she felt as if she were clothed; formerly her soul was cold, now it was warm. Cosette no longer felt afraid of her mistress, for she was no longer alone; she had some one by her side. She had set about her daily work very quickly, and the louis, which she had in the same pocket from which the fifteen-sous piece fell on the previous night, caused her thoughts to stray. She did not dare touch it, but she looked at it for five minutes at a time. While sweeping the stairs, she stood motionless, forgetting her broom and the whole world, engaged in watching this star sparkle in her pocket. It was during one of these contemplations that her mistress came to her; by her husband's order she had come to fetch the child, and, extraordinary to say, did not strike her, or even abuse her.
"Cosette," she said almost gently, "come directly."
A moment after, Cosette entered the tap-room. The stranger took his bundle and untied it; it contained a complete mourning dress for a child of seven years of age.
"My dear," the man said, "take these and go and dress yourself quickly."
Day was breaking, when those inhabitants of Montfermeil who were beginning to open their doors saw a poorly-clad man and a girl, holding a large doll, going along the Paris road toward Livry. It was our man and Cosette. No one knew the man, and few recognized Cosette in her new dress. Cosette was going away. With whom, she was ignorant. Where to, she did not know. All she understood was that she was leaving Thénardier's pot-house behind her; no one thought of saying good-by to her, or she to any one. She left the house, hated and hating. Poor gentle being, whose heart up to this hour had only been compressed!
Cosette walked gravely, opening her large eyes and looking at the sky; she had placed her louis in the pocket of her new apron, and from time to time stooped down and looked at it, and then at her companion.
Jean Valjean walked straight up to the man whom he saw in the garden, and while doing so took from his pocket the rouleau of silver. This man was looking down, and did not see him coming, and in a few strides Jean Valjean was by his side, and addressed him with the cry, "One hundred francs."
The man started and raised his eyes.
"One hundred francs to be gained," Jean Valjean continued, "if you will find me a shelter for this night."
The moon fully lit up Jean Valjean's alarmed face.
"Why, it is you, Father Madeleine!" the man said.
The name uttered thus in the darkness at this strange spot, by this strange man, made Jean Valjean recoil, for he expected everything save that. The man who addressed him was a stooping, lame old man, dressed nearly like a peasant, and wearing on his left leg a leathern knee-cap, from which hung a rather large bell. It was impossible to distinguish his face, which was in the shadow; still the man had doffed his bonnet, and said all in a tremor,—
"Oh, Lord, how did you get here, Father Madeleine? Which way did you come in? Why, you must have fallen from heaven. Well, if ever you do fall, it will be from there. And then, what a state you are in! You have no cravat, no hat, and no coat! Do you know that you would have frightened anybody who did not know you? No coat! Oh, my goodness, are the saints going mad at present? But how did you get in here?"
One word did not wait for the next, the old man spoke with a rustic volubility in which there was nothing alarming; and it was all said with a mixture of stupefaction and simple kindness.
"Who are you, and what is this house?" Jean Valjean asked.
"Oh, Lord, that is too strong!" the old man exclaimed. "Why, did you not get me the situation, and in this house too? What, don't you recognize me?"
"No," said Jean Valjean; "and how is it that you know me?"
"You saved my life," the man said.
He turned; a moonbeam played on his face, and Jean Valjean recognized old Fauchelevent.
"Ah!" he said, "it is you? Oh, now I recognize you."
"That is lucky," the old man said reproachfully.
"And what are you doing here?" Jean Valjean asked.
"Why, I am covering my melons!"
Old Fauchelevent really held in his hand at the moment when Jean Valjean accosted him a piece of matting, which he was engaged in spreading over the melon-frame. He had laid a good many pieces during the hour he had been in the garden, and it was this operation that produced the peculiar movements which Jean Valjean had noticed from the shed. He continued,—
"I said to myself, there is a bright moon and it is going to freeze, so I had better put these great-coats on my melons." And he added, as he looked at Jean Valjean with a grin, "You should have done the same. But how have you got here?"
Jean Valjean, feeling himself known by this man, at least under the name of Madeleine, only advanced cautiously. He multiplied his questions, and curiously enough they changed parts,—he, the intruder, became the questioner.
"And what is that bell you have on your knee?"
"That?" Fauchelevent said; "it is that they may avoid me."
"What on earth do you mean?"
Old Fauchelevent gave an inimitable wink.
"Oh, Lord, they are only women in this house, and lots of girls. It seems that I should be dangerous to meet, and so the bell warns them; when I come they go."
"What is this house?"
"Oh, nonsense, you know."
"Indeed I do not."
"Why, you got me the gardener's place here."
"Answer me as if I knew nothing."
"Well, it is the Convent of the Little Picpus, then."
Jean Valjean's recollections returned to him. Chance, that is to say, Providence, had brought him to the very convent in the Quartier St. Antoine where Fauchelevent after his accident had been engaged on his recommendation two years back. He repeated, as if speaking to himself,—
"'Little Picpus'!"
"But come, tell me," Fauchelevent continued, "how the deuce did you get in here, Father Madeleine? For though you are a saint, you are a man, and no men are admitted here."
"Why, you are!"
"Well, only I."
"And yet," Jean Valjean continued, "I must remain."
"Oh, Lord!" Fauchelevent exclaimed.
Jean Valjean walked up to the gardener and said in a grave voice,—
"Fauchelevent, I saved your life."
"I was the first to remember it," Fauchelevent answered.
"Well, you can do for me to-day what I did for you formerly."
Fauchelevent took Jean Valjean's muscular hands in his old wrinkled and trembling hands, and for some seconds seemed as if unable to speak; at length he exclaimed,—
"Oh, it would be a blessing from Heaven if I could repay you a slight portion! Save your life! M. Madeleine, you can dispose of an old man as you please."
An admirable joy had transfigured the aged gardener, and his face seemed radiant.
"What do you wish me to do?" he continued.
"I will explain. Have you a room?"
"I have a cottage behind the ruins of the old convent, in a corner which no one visits, with three rooms."
"Good," said Jean Valjean; "now I will ask two things of you."
"What are they, M. le Maire?"
"First, that you will tell nobody what you know about me; and secondly, that you will not try to learn anything further."
"As you please. I know that you can do nothing but what is honest, and that you have ever been a man after God's heart. And then, again, it was you who got me this situation, and I am at your service."
"Enough; now come with me, and we will go and fetch the child."
"Ah," said Fauchelevent,"there is a child!"
He did not add a word, but followed Jean Valjean as a dog follows its master. In less than half an hour, Cosette, who had become rosy again by the heat of a good fire, was asleep in the old gardener's bed. Jean Valjean had put on his cravat and coat again; the hat thrown over the wall had been found and picked up, and Fauchelevent took off his knee-cap and bell, which now adorned the wall by the side of a door. The two men were seated near the fire at a table on which Fauchelevent had placed a lump of cheese, biscuits, a bottle of wine, and two glasses, and the old man said to Jean Valjean as he laid his hand on his knee,—
"Ah, Father Madeleine! you did not recognize me at once; you save people's lives and forget them afterwards! Oh, that is wrong, for they remember you; you are an ungrateful man."
As we are giving details of what was formerly the Little Picpus convent, and have ventured to let in light upon this discreet asylum, the reader will perhaps permit us another slight digression, which has nothing to do with the story, but is characteristic and useful in so far as it proves that a convent can have its original people. There was in the little convent a centenarian, who came from the Abbey of Fontevrault, and before the Revolution she had even been in the world. She talked a good deal about M. de Miromesnil, keeper of the seals under Louis XVI., and the wife of a President Duplat, who had been a great friend of hers. It was her pleasure and vanity to drag in these two names on every possible occasion. She told marvels about the Abbey of Fontevrault, which was like a town, and there were streets in the convent. She spoke with a Picard accent which amused the boarders; every year she renewed her vows, and at the moment of taking the oath would say to the priest: "Monseigneur St. Francis took it to. Monseigneur St. Julien, Monseigneur St. Julien took it to Monseigneur St. Eusebius, Monseigneur St. Eusebius took it to Monseigneur St. Procopius, etc., etc., and thus I take it to you, father." And the boarders would laugh, not in their sleeves, but under their veils,—a charming little suppressed laugh, which made the vocal mothers frown.
At other times the centenarian told anecdotes. She said that in her youth the Bernardines took precedence of the Musqueteers; it was a century that spoke, but it was the 18th century. She described the Champenois and Burgundian custom of the four wines before the Revolution. When a great personage, a marshal of France, a prince, a duke and peer, passed through a town of Champagne or Burgundy, the authorities addressed and presented him with four silver cups filled with four different sorts of wine. On the first cup was the inscription "ape-wine," on the second "lion-wine," on the third "sheep-wine," and on the fourth "hog-wine." These four mottoes expressed the four stages of intoxication,—the first that enlivens, the second that irritates, the third that dulls, and the fourth that brutalizes.
She had a mysterious object, to which she was greatly attached, locked up in a cupboard, and the rule of Fontevrault did not prohibit this. She would not show it to anybody; she locked herself in, which her rule also permitted, and hid herself each time that a desire was expressed to see it. If she heard footsteps in the passage she closed the cupboard as hastily as she could with her aged hands. So soon as it was alluded to, she, who was so fond of talking, held her tongue; the most curious persons were foiled by her silence, and the most tenacious by her obstinacy. This was a subject of comment for all the idlers and gossips in the convent. What could this precious and hidden thing be which was the centenarian's treasure? Of course some pious book or unique rosary, or well-tried relic. On the poor woman's death they ran to the cupboard, more quickly perhaps than was befitting, and opened it. They found the object under three folds of linen; it was a Faenza plate representing Cupids flying away, and pursued by apothecaries' apprentices armed with enormous squirts. The pursuit is full of comical grimaces and postures; one of the charming little Cupids is already impaled; he writhes, flutters his wings, and strives to fly away, but the assassin laughs a Satanic laugh. Moral,—love conquered by a colic. This plate, which is very curious, and perhaps had the honor of furnishing Molière with an idea, still existed in September, 1845; it was for sale at a curiosity shop on the Boulevard Beaumarchais. This good old woman would not receive any visitors, "because," as she said, "the parlor is too melancholy."
Cosette in the convent continued to be silent. She naturally thought herself Valjean's daughter, but as she knew nothing, she could say nothing, and in any case would have said nothing, as we have remarked; for nothing trains children to silence like misfortune. Cosette had suffered so greatly that she feared everything, even to speak, even to breathe, for a word had so often brought down an avalanche upon her! She had scarce begun to grow reassured since she had belonged to Jean Valjean, but she grew very soon accustomed to the convent. The only thing she regretted was Catherine, but she did not dare say so. One day, however, she remarked to Valjean, "If I had known, I would have brought her with me."
Cosette, on becoming a boarder at the convent, was obliged to assume the garb of the pupils of the house. Jean Valjean begged, and obtained the old clothes she left off; the same mourning clothes he made her put on when he removed her from the Thénardiers', and they were not much worn. Jean Valjean placed these clothes and her shoes and stockings, with a quantity of camphor and other odorous drugs with which convents abound, in a small valise which he managed to procure. He placed this valise on a chair by his bed-side, and always had the key about him.
"Father," Cosette asked him one day, "what is that box which smells so nice?"
Father Fauchelevent, in addition to the glory we have described and of which he was ignorant, was rewarded for his good deed; in the first place, he was happy, and, in the second place, he had much less to do, owing to the division of labor. Lastly, as he was very fond of snuff, he had from M. Madeleine's presence the advantage that he took thrice as much as before, and in a far more voluptuous manner, because M. Madeleine paid for it.
The nuns did not adopt the name of Ultime; they called Jean Valjean "the other Fauvent." Had these holy women had any of Javert's temper about them, they must have noticed that when anything had to be procured from outside for the garden it was always the elder Fauvent, the cripple, who went out, and never the other; but either because eyes constantly fixed on God know not how to spy, or because they preferred to watch one another, they paid no attention to the fact. However, Jean Valjean did quite right in keeping shy and not stirring, for Javert watched the quarter for a whole month.
This convent was to Jean Valjean like an island surrounded by gulfs, and these four walls were henceforth the world for him; he saw enough of the sky there to be secure, and enough of Cosette to be happy. He lived with old Fauchelevent in the hovel at the end of the garden. This lath and plaster tenement, which still existed in 1825, was composed of three rooms which had only the bare walls. The largest room was surrendered by force, for Jean Valjean resisted in vain, by Father Fauchelevent to M. Madeleine. The wall of this room had for ornament, in addition to the two nails for hanging up the knee-cap and the basket, a Royalist note for ten livres, date '93, fastened above the mantel-piece. This Vendéan assignat had been nailed to the wall by the previous gardener, an ex-chouan, who died in the convent, and was succeeded by Fauchelevent.
Jean Valjean worked daily in the garden, and was very useful. As he had once been a pruner, he was glad to become a gardener. It will be remembered that he had a great number of receipts and secrets which he turned to a profit. Nearly all the trees in the orchard were wild stocks; but he grafted them, and made them produce excellent fruit.
Cosette had permission to spend an hour daily with him; and as the sisters were sad and he was kind, the child compared them and adored him. At the fixed hour she ran to the cottage, and when she entered it filled it with paradise. Jean Valjean expanded, and felt his own happiness grow with the happiness which he caused Cosette. The joy which we inspire has this charming thing about it, that far from being weakened, like ordinary reflections, it returns to us more radiant than before. Ia her hours of recreation Jean Valjean watched her from a distance, playing and running, and distinguished her laugh from that of the others, for Cosette now laughed. Her face had also changed to a certain extent; for laughter is the sun which drives winter from the human face. When Cosette returned to her studies Jean Valjean watched the windows of her school-room, and at night would rise to gaze at the windows of her dormitory.
God has His inscrutable designs; and the convent contributed, like Cosette, to maintain and complete the Bishop's work in Jean Valjean. It is certain that one of the sides of virtue leads to pride, and there is a bridge built there by the demon. Jean Valjean was perhaps unconsciously very near this bridge when Providence threw him into the convent of the Little Picpus. So long as he had only compared himself with the Bishop, he had found himself unworthy, and had been humble; but for some time past he had been beginning to compare himself with men, and pride was growing up. Who knows whether he might not have ended by gently returning to hatred?
The convent checked him on this slope; it was the second place of captivity which he had seen. In his youth, in what had been to him the commencement of life, and again very recently, he had seen another, a frightful spot, a terrible spot, whose severities had ever appeared to him to be the iniquity of justice and the crime of the law. At the present day, after the hulks he saw the convent, and reflecting that he had been a member of the galleys and was now, so to speak, a spectator of the convent, he anxiously confronted them in his thoughts.
At times he leaned on his spade, and fell into a profound reverie. He recalled his old comrades; how wretched they were! They rose at dawn and worked till night; they were scarce granted time to sleep; they lay down on camp-beds and were only allowed mattresses two inches thick; their rooms were only warmed in the severest months of the year; they were dressed in hideous red jackets; they were allowed, as an indulgence, canvas trousers in the great heat, and a woollen bandage on their back in the severe cold; they only ate meat and drank wine when they worked on fatigue parties; they lived without names, solely designated by numbers, lowering their eyes, lowering their voice, with shorn hair, under the stick, and in disgrace.
Then his thoughts turned to the beings whom he had before him. These beings also lived with cropped hair, downcast eyes, and a low voice, not in disgrace, but amid the mockery of the world; and if their backs were not bruised by a stick, their shoulders were lacerated by the discipline. Their names had vanished too among human beings, and they only existed under severe appellations. They never ate meat nor drank wine; they often remained without food till night; they were dressed, not in a red jacket, but in a black woollen pall, heavy in summer and light in winter, and were unable to reduce it or add to it at all; and they wore for six months in the year serge chemises, which caused them a fever. They slept not in rooms warmed merely in the severe cold, but in cells in which fires were never kindled; they slept not on mattresses two inches thick, but on straw; lastly, they were not even allowed to sleep,—every night, after a day of labor, they were compelled to get up, dress themselves, and go and pray in a freezing dark chapel, with their knees upon the stones. On certain days, moreover, each of these beings was obliged, in turn, to remain for twelve hours prostrate on the ground, with her arms extended like a cross.
The former were men; the latter were women. What had the men done? They had robbed, violated, plundered, killed, assassinated; they were bandits, forgers, poisoners, incendiaries, murderers, and parricides. What had these women done? Nothing. On one side, brigandage and fraud, cozening, violence, lubricity, homicide, every sort of sacrilege, every variety of crime; on the other, only one thing,—innocence, perfect innocence, which was still attached to the earth by virtue, and already attached to heaven by holiness. On one side, confessions of crimes made in a whisper; on the other, confessions of faults made aloud. And what crimes, and what faults! On one side miasmas, on the other an ineffable perfume; on one side a moral pestilence, closely guarded, held down by cannon, and slowly devouring its plague-sufferers; on the other, a chaste kindling of all the souls on the same hearth. There darkness, here shadow, but a shadow full of light, and light full of radiance.
They were two places of slavery; but in the former there was a possible deliverance, a constantly visible legal limit, and besides, escape; in the second, perpetuity, the only hope being that gleam of liberty which men call death, upon the extreme horizon. In the former, people were only held by chains, in the latter, by faith. What emerged from the former? An immense curse, gnashing of teeth, hatred, desperate wickedness, a cry of rage against human society, and sarcasms hurled at heaven. What issued from the latter? Blessings, love. And in these two places, which were so similar and yet so varying, these two so different species of beings accomplished the same work of expiation.
Jean Valjean perfectly understood the expiation of the former, as personal; but he did not understand the expiation of the others, of these creatures who were without reproach or stain, and he asked himself with trembling: Expiation for what? A voice answered in his conscience: The most divine proof of human generosity, expiation for others.
Here we lay aside any and every personal theory; we are only the narrator, we are standing in Jean Valjean's place, and transferring his impressions. He had before his eyes the sublime summit of abnegation, the highest pinnacle of possible virtue, that innocence which forgives men their faults, and expiates them in their place; servitude endured, torture accepted, punishment demanded by souls which have not sinned, that they may absolve souls which have erred; the love of humanity swallowed up in the love of God, but remaining distinct and suppliant in it; gentle, feeble beings who have the wretchedness of those who are punished and the smile of those who are rewarded.
And he remembered that he had dared to complain. He often rose in the middle of the night to listen to the grateful song of these innocent creatures, weighed down by severity; and his blood ran cold when he thought that men who were justly chastised only raised their voices to heaven to blaspheme, and that he, wretch as he was, had threatened God. It was a striking thing, which made him reflect deeply, and imagine it a warning of Providence, that all the things he had done to escape from the other place of expiation,—such as climbing walls, difficulties, dangerous adventures, and risks of death,—he had gone through again, in entering the present place. Was it a symbol of his destiny?
This house was a prison too, and bore a mournful likeness to the other abode from which he had fled, and yet he had never had such an idea here. He saw again the bars, bolts, and iron bars, to guard whom? Angels. The lofty walls which he had seen around tigers he saw again around lambs.
It was a place of expiation, and not of punishment, and yet it was even more austere, gloomy, and pitiless than the other. These virgins were more harshly bowed than the galley slaves. A rough cold wind, the wind which had chilled his youth, blew through the barred and padlocked cage of the vultures; but a sharper and more painful wind passed through the cotes of these doves.
Why was this?
When he thought of these things, all within him bowed down before this mystery of sublimity. In these meditations pride vanished: he felt himself insignificant, and wept many times: all that had entered his life during the past six months, led him back to the Bishop's holy injunctions,—Cosette by love, the convent by humility.
At times, in those hours of the night when the garden was deserted, he might have been seen kneeling in front of that window through which he had gazed on the night of his arrival, turned toward the spot where he knew that the sister who was making reparation was prostrated in prayer. He prayed thus, kneeling before this sister,—it seemed as if he dared not kneel directly to God.
All that surrounded him—this peaceful garden, these fragrant flowers, these children uttering merry cries, these grave and simple women, these silent cloisters;—slowly penetrated him and gradually his soul was composed of silence like this cloister, of perfume like these flowers, of peace like this garden, of simplicity like these women, and of joy like these children. And then he thought how two houses of God had in turn received him at the two critical moments of his life,—the first when all doors were closed and human society repulsed him, the second at the moment when human society was beginning to hunt him down again, and the hulks were yawning for him; and that, had it not been for the former, he would have fallen back into crime; and but for the latter, into punishment. All his heart melted into gratitude, and he loved more and more.
Several years passed thus, and Cosette grew.
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