"Who was your chief?"

"I did not know any, and I did not recognize any."

As yet they were but words, transparent but vague, at times mere rumors and hearsays, but other signs arrived ere long. A carpenter, engaged in the Rue de Rueilly in nailing up a fence round a block of ground on which a house was being built, found on the ground a piece of a torn letter, on which the following lines were still legible: "... The Committee must take measures to prevent recruiting in the sections for the different societies;" and as a postscript, "We have learned that there are guns at No. 5, Rue du Faubourg, Poissonnière, to the number of five or six thousand, at a gunmaker's in the yard. The Section possesses no arms." What startled the carpenter, and induced him to show the thing to his neighbors, was that a few paces farther on he found another paper, also torn, and even more significant, of which we reproduce the shape, owing to the historic interest of these strange documents.

Persons at that time on the scent of this discovery did not learn till a later date the meaning of the four capitals,—Quinturions, Centurions, Décurions, and Éclaireurs, or the sense of the letters u og a¹ fe, which were a date, and indicated "this 15th April, 1832." Under each capital letter were written names followed by very characteristic remarks. Thus, "Q. Bannerel, 8 guns, 83 cartridges. A safe man.—C. Boubière, 1 pistol, 40 cartridges.—D. Rollet, 1 foil, 1 pistol, 1 lb. gunpowder.—E. Tessin, 1 sabre, 1 cartouche-box. Punctual.—Terreur, 8 guns. Brave," etc. Lastly, this carpenter found in the same enclosure a third paper, on which was written in pencil, but very legibly, this enigmatical list.

Unité. Blanchard: Arbre sec. 6.

Barra. Sixteen. Sall au Comte.

Kosciusko. Aubry the butcher?

J. J. R.

Caius Graccus.

Right of revision. Dufond. Four.

Downfall of the Girondists. Derbac. Maubuée.

Washington. Pinson. 1 pist. 86 cart.

Marseillaise.

Sovereignty of the people. Michel. Quincampoix. Sabre.

Hoche.

Marceau. Plato. Arbre Sec.

Warsaw, Tilly, crier of the Populaire.

The honest citizen in whose hands this list remained learned its purport. It seems that the list was the complete nomenclature of the sections of the fourth arrondissement of the Society of the Rights of Man, with the names and addresses of the chiefs of sections. At the present day, when these obscure facts have become historic, they may be published. We may add that the foundation of the Society of the Rights of Man seems to have been posterior to the date on which this paper was found, and so it was possibly only a sketch. After propositions and words and written information, material facts began to pierce through. In the Rue Popincourt, at the shop of a broker, seven pieces of paper, all folded alike, were found in a drawer; these papers contained twenty-six squares of the same gray paper, folded in the shape of cartridges, and a card on which was written:—

The report of the seizure showed that there was a strong smell of gunpowder in the drawer.

A mason, returning home after his day's work, left a small parcel on the bench near the bridge of Austerlitz. It was carried to the guard-house and opened, and from it were taken two printed dialogues signed "Lahautière," a song called "Workmen, combine!" and a tin box full of cartridges. A workman drinking with his comrade bade him feel how hot he was; and the other noticed a pistol under his jacket. In a ditch on the boulevard between Père Lachaise and the Barrière du Trône, some children, playing at the most deserted spot, discovered under a heap of rubbish a bag containing a bullet mould, a mandrel for making cartridges, a pouch in which there were some grains of gunpowder, and an iron ladle on which were evident signs of melted lead. Some police agents suddenly entering at five A.M. the room of one Pardon, who was at a later date a sectionist belonging to the Barricade Merry section, found him sitting on his bed with cartridges in his hand, which he was in the act of making. At the hour when workmen are generally resting, two men were noticed to meet between the Picpus and Charenton barrières, in a lane running between two walls. One took a pistol from under his blouse, which he handed to the other; as he gave it him he noticed that the perspiration on his chest had dampened the gunpowder, he therefore filled the pan afresh, and the two men thereupon parted. A man of the name of Gallas, afterwards killed in the April affair in the Rue Beaubourg, used to boast that he had at home seven hundred cartridges and twenty-four gun flints. One day the Government received information that arms and two hundred thousand cartridges had just been distributed in the faubourg, and the next week thirty thousand more cartridges were given out. The remarkable thing was that the police could not seize any of them; but an intercepted letter stated: "The day is not far distant when eighty thousand patriots will be under arms in four hours."

All this fermentation was public, we might almost say calm, and the impending insurrection prepared its storm quietly in the face of the Government. No singularity was lacking in this crisis, which was still subterranean, but already perceptible. The citizens spoke peacefully to the workmen of what was preparing. They said, "How is the revolt going on?" in the same tone as they could have said, "How is your wife?" A furniture broker in the Rue Moreau asked, "Well, when do you attack?" and another shop-keeper said, "They will attack soon, I know it. A month ago there were fifteen thousand of you, and now there are twenty-five thousand." He offered his gun, and a neighbor offered a pocket pistol which was marked for sale at seven francs. The revolutionary fever spread, and no point of Paris or of France escaped it. The artery throbbed everywhere, and the network of secret societies began spreading over the country like the membranes which spring up from certain inflammations, and are formed in the human body. From the Association of the Friends of the People, which was at the same time public and secret, sprang the Society of the Rights of Man, which dated one of its orders of the day, "Pluviose, year 40 of the republican era," which was destined even to survive the decrees of the Court of Assizes pronouncing its dissolution, and did not hesitate to give to its sections significant titles like the following: "Pikes. The Tocsin. The Alarm Gun. The Phrygian Cap. January 21. The Beggars. The Vagrants. March forward. Robespierre. The Level. Ça ira."

The Society of the Rights of Man engendered the Society of Action, composed of impatient men who detached themselves and hurried forward. Other associations tried to recruit themselves in the great mother societies: and the sectionists complained of being tormented. Such were the "Gaulish Society" and the "Organizing Committee of the Municipalities;" such the associations for the "Liberty of the Press," for "Individual Liberty," for the "Instruction of the People," and "Against Indirect Taxes." Next we have the Society of Equalitarian Workmen divided into three fractions,—the Equalitarians, the Communists, and the Reformers. Then, again, the Army of the Bastilles, a cohort possessing military organization, four men being commanded by a corporal, ten by a sergeant, twenty by a sub-lieutenant, and forty by a lieutenant; there were never more than five men who knew each other. This is a creation where precaution is combined with audacity, and which seems to be stamped with the genius of Venice. The central committee which formed the head, had two arms,—the Society of Action and the Army of the Bastilles. A legitimist association, the "Knights of Fidelity," agitated among these republican affiliations, but was denounced and repudiated. The Parisian societies ramified through the principal cities. Lyons, Nantes, Lille, and Marseilles, had their Society of the Rights of Man, The Charbonnière, and the Free Men. Aix had a revolutionary society called the Cougourde. We have already mentioned that name.

At Paris the Faubourg Marceau buzzed no less than the Faubourg St. Antoine, and the schools were quite as excited as the faubourgs. A coffee-shop in the Rue Saint Hyacinthe, and the Estaminet des Sept Billards in the Rue des Mathurins St. Jacques, served as the gathering-place for the students. The Society of the Friends of the A. B. C. affiliated with the Mutualists of Angers, and the Cougourde of Aix assembled, as we have seen, at the Café Musain. The same young men met, as we have also said, at a wine-shop and eating-house near the Rue Montdétour, called Corinthe. These meetings were secret, but others were as public as possible, and we may judge of their boldness by this fragment from an examination that was held in one of the ulterior trials. "Where was the meeting held?" "In the Rue de la Paix." "At whose house?" "In the street." "What sections were there?" "Only one." "Which one?" "The Manuel section." "Who was the chief?" "Myself." "You are too young to have yourself formed this serious resolve of attacking the Government. Whence came your instructions?" "From the central committee." The army was undermined at the same time as the population, as was proved at a later date by the movements of Béford, Luneville, and Épinal. Hopes were built on the 52d, 5th, 8th, and 37th regiments, and on the 20th light infantry. In Burgundy and the southern towns the tree of liberty was planted, that is to say, a mast surmounted by a red cap.

Such was the situation.

This situation, as we said at the commencement, the Faubourg St. Antoine rendered keen and marked more than any other group of the population. This was the stitch in the side. This old faubourg, peopled like an ant-heap, laborious, courageous, and passionate as a hive of bees, quivered in expectation and the desire of a commotion. All was agitation there, but labor was not suspended on that account. Nothing could give an idea of these sharp and sombre faces; there were in this faubourg crushing distress hidden under the roofs of houses, and also ardent and rare minds. It is especially in the case of distress and intelligence that it is dangerous for extremes to meet. The Faubourg St. Antoine had other causes for excitement, as it received the counter-stroke of commercial crisis, bankruptcies, stoppages, and cessation of work, which are inherent in all political convulsions. In revolutionary times misery is at once the cause and the effect, and the blow which it deals falls upon itself again. This population, full of haughty virtue, capable of the highest amount of latent caloric, ever ready to take up arms, prompt to explode, irritated, profound, and undermined, seemed to be only waiting for the fall of a spark. Whenever certain sparks float about the horizon, driven by the wind of events, we cannot help thinking of the Faubourg St. Antoine and the formidable chance which has placed at the gates of Paris this powder-magazine of sufferings and ideas.

The wine-shops of the Antoine suburb, which have been more than once referred to in this sketch, possess an historic notoriety. In times of trouble people grow intoxicated in them more on words than wine; and a species of prophetic spirit and an effluvium of the future circulates there, swelling hearts and ennobling minds. These wine-shops resemble the taverns on the Mons Aventinus, built over the Sibyl's cave and communicating with the sacred blasts of the depths,—taverns in which the tables were almost tripods, and people drank what Ennius calls the Sibylline wine. The Faubourg St. Antoine is a reservoir of the people, in which the revolutionary earthquake makes fissures, through which the sovereignty of the people flows. This sovereignty can act badly, it deceives itself like other things, but even when led astray it remains grand. We may say of it, as of the blind Cyclops, "Ingens." In '93, according as the idea that floated was good or bad, or according as it was the day of fanaticism or enthusiasm, savage legions or heroic bands issued from this faubourg. Savage,—let us explain that word. What did these bristling men want, who, in the Genesis of the revolutionary chaos, rushed upon old overthrown Paris in rags, yelling and ferocious, with uplifted clubs and raised pikes? They wanted the end of oppression, the end of tyranny, the end of the sword, work for the man, instruction for the child, social gentleness for the woman, liberty, equality, fraternity, bread for all, the idea for all, the Edenization of the world, and progress; and this holy, good, and sweet thing called progress, they, driven to exasperation, claimed terribly with upraised weapons and curses. They were savages, we grant, but the savages of civilization. They proclaimed the right furiously, and wished to force the human race into Paradise, even were it through trembling and horror. They seemed barbarians, and were saviors; they demanded light while wearing the mask of night. Opposite these men,—stern and frightful we admit, but stern and frightful for good,—there are other men, smiling, embroidered, gilded, be-ribboned, in silk stockings, with white feathers, yellow gloves, and kid shoes, who, leaning upon a velvet-covered table near a marble chimney-piece, gently insist on the maintenance and preservation of the past, of the middle ages; of divine right, of fanaticism, of ignorance, of slavery, of the punishment of death, and of war; and who glorify in a low voice and with great politeness the sabre, the pyre, and the scaffold. For our part, were we compelled to make a choice between the barbarians of civilization and the civilized of barbarism, we would choose the barbarians. But, thanks be to Heaven, another choice is possible; no fall down an abyss is required, either in front or behind, neither despotism nor terrorism. We wish for progress on a gentle incline, and God provides for this. Reducing inclines is the whole policy of God.

CHAPTER VI.

ENJOLRAS AND HIS LIEUTENANTS.

Shortly after this period, Enjolras made a sort of mysterious census, as if in the view of a possible event. All were assembled in council at the Café Musain. Enjolras spoke, mingling a few half-enigmatical but significant metaphors with his words:

"It behooves us to know where we are, and on whom we can count. If we want combatants we must make them; and there is no harm in having weapons to strike with. Passers-by always run a greater chance of being gored when there are bulls in the road than when there are none. So, suppose we count the herd. How many are there of us? This task must not be deferred till to-morrow, for revolutionists must always be in a hurry, as progress has no time to lose. Let us distrust the unexpected, and not allow ourselves to be taken unawares; we have to go over all the seams which we have sewn, and see whether they hold; and the job must be done to-day. Courfeyrac, you will see the Polytechnic students, for this is their day for going out. Feuilly, you will see those of La Glacière, and Combeferre has promised to go to the Picpus. Bahorel will visit the Estrapade. Prouvaire, the masons are growing lukewarm, so you will obtain us news from the lodge in the Rue de Grenelle St. Honoré. Joly will go to Dupuytren's clinical lecture, and feel the pulse of the medical scholars, while Bossuet will stroll round the courts and talk with the law students. I take the Cougourde myself."

"That is all settled," said Courfeyrac.

"No. There is another very important matter."

"What is it?" Combeferre asked

"The Barrière du Maine."

Enjolras was absorbed in thought for a moment, and then continued,—

"At the Barrière du Maine are stone-cutters and painters, an enthusiastic body, but subject to chills. I do not know what has been the matter with them for some time past, but they are thinking of other things. They are dying out, and they spend their time in playing at dominoes. It is urgent to go and talk to them rather seriously, and they meet at Richefeu's, where they may be found between twelve and one o'clock. Those ashes must be blown up, and I had intended to intrust the task to that absent fellow Marius, who is all right, but no longer comes here. I need some one for the Barrière du Maine, and have no one left."

"Why, I am here," said Grantaire.

"You?"

"I."

"You indoctrinate republicans? you warm up chilled hearts in the name of principles?"

"Why not?"

"Can you possibly be fit for anything?"

"Well, I have a vague ambition to be so."

"You believe in nothing."

"I believe in you."

"Grantaire, will you do a service?"

"Any one; clean your boots."

"Well, do not meddle in our affairs, sleep off your absinthe."

"You are an ungrateful fellow, Enjolras!"

"You be the man capable of going to the Barrière du Maine!"

"I am capable of going down the Rue des Grès, crossing St. Michael's Square, cutting through the Rue Monsieur le Prince, taking the Rue de Vaugirard, passing the Carmelites, turning into the Rue d'Assas, arriving at the Rue Cherche Midi, leaving behind me the Council of War, stepping across the Rue des Vieilles-Tuileries, following the main road, going through the gate and entering Richefeu's. I am capable of all that, and so are my shoes."

"Do you know the men at Richefeu's?"

"Not much."

"What will you say to them?"

"Talk to them about Robespierre, Danton, and principles."

"You!"

"I. You really do not do me justice, for when I make up my mind to it I am terrible. I have read Prudhomme, I know the social contract, and have by heart my constitution of the year II. 'The liberty of the citizen ends where the liberty of another citizen begins.' Do you take me for a brute? I have an old assignat in my draw,—The Rights of Man, the sovereignty of the people, sapristi! I am a bit of a Hébertist myself. I can discourse splendid things for six hours at a stretch, watch in hand."

"Be serious," said Enjolras.

"I am stern," Grantaire answered.

Enjolras reflected for a few seconds, and then seemed to have made up his mind.

"Grantaire," he said gravely, "I consent to try you. You shall go to the Barrière du Maine.".

Grantaire lodged in a furnished room close to the Café Musain. He went away and returned five minutes after—he had been home to put on a waistcoat of the Robespierre cut.

"Red," he said on entering, and looked intently at Enjolras.

Then he energetically turned back on his chest the two scarlet points of the waistcoat, and, walking up to Enjolras, whispered in his ear, "Never fear!" He boldly cocked his hat, and went out. A quarter of an hour after, the back-room of the Café Musain was deserted, and all the Friends of the A. B. C. were going in various directions about their business. Enjolras, who had reserved the Cougourde for himself, was the last to leave. The Members of the Aix Cougourde who were in Paris assembled at that period on the plain of Issy, in one of the abandoned quarries so numerous on that side of Paris.

Enjolras, while walking toward the meeting-place, took a mental review of the situation. The gravity of the events was visible, for when the facts which are the forerunners of latent social disease move heavily, the slightest complication checks and impedes their action. It is a phenomenon from which collapse and regeneration issue. Enjolras caught a glimpse of a luminous upheaving behind the dark clouds of the future. Who knew whether the moment might not be at hand when the people would seize their rights once again? What a splendid spectacle! the revolution majestically taking possession of France once more, and saying to the world, "To be continued to-morrow!" Enjolras was satisfied, for the furnace was aglow, and he had at that self-same moment a gunpowder train of friends scattered over Paris. He mentally compared Combeferre's philosophic and penetrating eloquence, Feuilly's cosmopolitan enthusiasm, Courfeyrac's humor, Bahorel's laugh, Jean Prouvaire's melancholy, Joly's learning, and Bossuet's sarcasms, to a species of electrical flash, which produced fire everywhere simultaneously. All were at work, and most certainly the result would respond to the effort. That was good, and it made him think of Grantaire. "Ah," he said to himself, "the Barrière du Maine is hardly at all out of my way, so suppose I go on to Richefeu's and see what Grantaire is doing, and how far he has got."

It was striking one by the Vaugirard church when Enjolras reached Richefeu's. He pushed open the door, went in, folded his arms, and looked about the room, which was full of tables, men, and tobacco smoke. A voice was audible in this fog, sharply interrupted by another voice,—it was Grantaire talking with some opponent of his. Grantaire was seated opposite another man, at a marble table covered with sawdust and studded with dominoes. He smote the marble with his fist, and this is what Enjolras heard:—

"Double six."

"A four."

"The pig! I haven't any left."

"You are dead. A two."

"A six."

"A three."

"An ace."

"My set."

"Four points."

"With difficulty."

"It is yours."

"I made an enormous mistake."

"You are getting on all right."

"Fifteen."

"Seven more."

"That makes me twenty-two [pensively]. Twenty-two!"

"You did not expect the double six. Had I played it at first it would have changed the whole game."

"Double two."

"An ace."

"An ace! well, a five!"

"I haven't one."

"You played first, I believe?"

"Yes."

"A blank."

"What luck he has! Ah! you have luck; [a long reverie] a two."

"An ace."

"I've neither a five nor an ace. It is stupid for you."

"Domino!"

"Oh, the deuce!"

BOOK II.

ÉPONINE.

CHAPTER I.

THE LARK'S FIELD.

Marius witnessed the unexpected dénouement of the snare upon whose track he had placed Javert, but the Inspector had scarce left the house, taking his prisoners with him in three hackney coaches, ere Marius stepped out of the house in his turn. It was only nine in the evening, and Marius went to call on Courfeyrac, who was no longer the imperturbable inhabitant of the Pays Latin. He had gone to live in the Rue de la Verrière, "for political reasons;" and this district was one of those in which insurrectionists of the day were fond of installing themselves. Marius said to Courfeyrac, "I am going to sleep here," and Courfeyrac pulled off one of his two mattresses, laid it on the ground, and said, "There you are!" At seven o'clock the next morning Marius returned to No. 50-52, paid his quarter's rent, and what he owed to Mame Bougon, had his books, bed, table, chest-of-drawers, and two chairs, placed on a truck, and went away without leaving his address; so that, when Javert returned in the morning to question Marius about the events of the previous evening, he only found Mame Bougon, who said to him, "Gone away." Mame Bougon was convinced that Marius was in some way an accomplice of the robbers arrested the previous evening. "Who would have thought it!" she exclaimed to the portresses of the quarter, "a young man whom you might have taken for a girl!"

Marius had two reasons for moving so promptly, the first was that he now felt a horror of this house, in which he had seen so closely, and in all its most repulsive and ferocious development, a social ugliness more frightful still, perhaps, than the wicked rich man,—the wicked poor man. The second was that he did not wish to figure at the trial,—which would in all probability ensue,—and be obliged to give evidence against Thénardier. Javert believed that the young man, whose name he forgot, had been frightened and had run away, or else had not even returned home; he made some efforts, however, to find him, which were unsuccessful. A month elapsed, then another. Marius was still living with Courfeyrac, and had learned from a young barrister, an habitual walker of the Salle des Pas Perdus, that Thénardier was in solitary confinement, and every Monday he left a five-franc piece for him at the wicket of La Force. Marius, having no money left, borrowed the five francs of Courfeyrac; it was the first time in his life that he borrowed money. These periodical five francs were a double enigma for Courfeyrac who gave them, and for Thénardier who received them. "Where can they go to?" Courfeyrac thought. "Where can they come from?" Thénardier asked himself.

Marius, however, was heart-broken, for everything had disappeared again through a trap-door. He saw nothing ahead of him, and his life was once more plunged into the mystery in which he had been groping. He had seen again momentarily and very closely the girl whom he loved, the old man who appeared her father,—the strange beings who were his only interest and sole hope in this world,—and at the moment when he fancied that he should grasp them, a breath had carried off all these shadows. Not a spark of certainty and truth had flashed even from that most terrific collision, and no conjecture was possible. He no longer knew the name of which he had felt so certain, and it certainly was not Ursule, and the Lark was a nickname; and then, what must he think of the old man? Did he really hide himself from the police? The white-haired workman whom Marius had met in the vicinity of the Invalides reverted to his mind, and it now became probable that this workman and M. Leblanc were one and the same. He disguised himself then, and this man had his heroic side and his equivocal side. Why did he not call for help? why did he fly? was he, yes or no, the father of the girl? and, lastly, was he really the man whom Thénardier fancied he recognized? Thénardier might have been mistaken. These were all so many insoluble problems. All this, it is true, in no way lessened the angelic charm of the maiden of the Luxembourg. Poignant distress,—Marius had a passion in his heart, and night over his eyes. He was impelled, he was attracted, and he could not stir; all had vanished, except love, and he had lost the sudden instincts and illuminations of even that love. Usually, this flame which burns us enlightens us a little, and casts some useful light without, but Marius no longer even heard the dumb counsel of passion. He never said to himself, Suppose I were to go there, or try this thing or the other? She whom he could no longer call Ursule was evidently somewhere, but nothing advised Marius in what direction he should seek her. All his life was now summed up in two words,—absolute uncertainty, in an impenetrable fog,—and though he still longed to see her, he no longer hoped it. As a climax, want returned, and he felt its icy breath close to him and behind him. In all these torments, and for a long time, he had discontinued his work, and nothing is more dangerous than discontinued work; for it is a habit which a man loses,—a habit easy to give up, but difficult to re-acquire.

A certain amount of reverie is good, like a narcotic taken in discreet doses. It lulls to sleep the at times harsh fevers of the working brain, and produces in the mind a soft and fresh vapor which correct the too sharp outlines of pure thought, fills up gaps and spaces here and there, and rounds the angles of ideas. But excess of reverie submerges and drowns, and woe to the mental workman who allows himself to fall entirely from thinking into reverie! He believes that he can easily rise again, and says that, after all, it is the same thing. Error! Thought is the labor of the intellect, and reverie its voluptuousness; substituting reverie for thought is like confounding a person with his nutriment. Marius, it will be remembered, began with that; passion arrived, and finished by hurling him into objectless and bottomless chimeras. In such a state a man only leaves his home to go and dream, and it is an indolent childishness, a tumultuous and stagnant gulf, and in proportion as work diminishes, necessities increase. This is a law; man in a dreamy state is naturally lavish and easily moved, and the relaxed mind can no longer endure the contracted life. There is, in this mode of existence, good mingled with evil, for if the softening be mournful, the generosity is healthy and good. But the poor, generous, and noble-minded man who does not work is ruined; the resources dry up, and necessity arises. This is a fatal incline, on which the most honest and the strongest men are dragged down like the weakest and the most vicious, and which leads to one of two holes,—suicide or crime. Through going out to dream, a day arrives when a man goes out to throw himself into the water. Excess of dreaminess produces such men as Escousse and Libras. Marius went down this incline slowly, with his eyes fixed upon her whom he no longer saw. What we have just written seems strange, and yet it is true,—the recollection of an absent being is illumined in the gloom of the heart; the more it disappears the more radiant it appears, and the despairing and obscure soul sees this light on its horizon, the star of its inner night. She was Marius's entire thought, he dreamed of nothing else. He felt confusedly that his old coat was becoming an outrageous coat, and that his new coat was growing an old coat, that his boots were wearing out, that his hat was wearing out, that his shirts were wearing out,—that is to say, that his life was wearing out; and he said to himself, Could I but see her again before I die!

One sole sweet idea was left him, and it was that she had loved him, that her glance had told him so; and that she did not know his name but that she knew his soul, and that however mysterious the spot might be where she now was, she loved him still. Might she not be dreaming of him as he was dreaming of her? At times in those inexplicable hours which every loving heart knows, as he had only reason to be sad, and yet felt within him a certain quivering of joy, he said to himself, "Her thoughts are visiting me," and then added, "Perhaps my thoughts also go to her." This illusion, at which he shook his head a moment after, sometimes, however, contrived to cast rays which resembled hope into his soul at intervals. Now and then, especially at that evening hour which most saddens dreamers, he poured out upon virgin paper the pure, impersonal, and ideal reveries with which love filled his brain. He called this "writing to her." We must not suppose, however, that his reason was in disorder, quite the contrary. He had lost the faculty of working and going firmly toward a determined object, but he retained clear-sightedness and rectitude more fully than ever. Marius saw by a calm and real, though singular, light, all that was taking place before him, even the most indifferent men and facts, and spoke correctly of everything with a sort of honest weariness and candid disinterestedness. His judgment, almost detached from hope, soared far above him. In this state of mind nothing escaped him, nothing deceived him, and he discovered at each moment the bases of life,—humanity and destiny. Happy, even in agony, is the man to whom God has granted a soul worthy of love and misfortune! He who has not seen the things of this world and the heart of man in this double light has seen nothing of the truth and knows nothing.

The soul that loves and suffers is in a sublime state.

Days succeeded each other, and nothing new occurred; it really seemed to him that the gloomy space which he still had to traverse was becoming daily reduced. He fancied that he could already see distinctly the brink of the bottomless abyss.

"What!" he repeated to himself, "shall I not see her again before that takes place?"

After going up the Rue St. Jacques, leaving the barrière on one side, and following for some distance the old inner boulevard, you reach the Rue de la Santé, then the Glacière, and just before coming to the small stream of the Gobelins, you notice a sort of field, the only spot on the long and monotonous belt of Parisian boulevards, where Ruysdael would be tempted to sit down. I know not whence the picturesque aspect is obtained, for you merely see a green field crossed by ropes, on which rags hang to dry; an old house built in the time of Louis XIII., with its high-pitched roof quaintly pierced with garret-windows; broken-down grating; a little water between poplar trees; women's laughter and voices; on the horizon you see the Pantheon, the tree of the Sourds-Muets, the Val de Grâce, black, stunted, fantastic, amusing, and magnificent, and far in the background the stern square towers of Notre Dame. As the place is worth the trouble of visiting, no one goes there; scarce a cart or a wagon passes in a quarter of an hour. It once happened that Marius's solitary rambles led him to this field, and on that day there was a rarity on the boulevard, a passer-by. Marius, really struck by the almost savage grace of the field, asked him: "What is the name of this spot?"

The passer-by answered, "It is the Lark's field;" and added, "It was here that Ulbach killed the shepherdess of Ivry."

But, after the words "the Lark," Marius heard no more, for a word at times suffices to produce a congelation in a man's dreamy condition: the whole thought is condensed round an idea, and is no longer capable of any other perception. The Lark, that was the appellation which had taken the place of Ursule in the depths of Marius's melancholy. "Stay," he said, with that sort of unreasoning stupor peculiar to such mysterious asides, "this is her field, I shall learn here where she lives." This was absurd but irresistible, and he came daily to this Lark's field.

CHAPTER II.

CRIMES IN EMBRYO INCUBATED IN PRISONS.

Javert's triumph at the Maison Gorbeau had seemed complete, but was not so. In the first place, and that was his chief anxiety. Javert had not been able to make a prisoner of the prisoner; the assassinated man who escapes is more suspicious than the assassin, and it was probable that this personage, such a precious capture for the bandits, might be an equally good prize for the authorities. Next, Montparnasse slipped out of Javert's clutches, and he must wait for another opportunity to lay hands on that "cursed dandy." Montparnasse, in fact, having met Éponine on the boulevard, keeping watch, went off with her, preferring to play the Nemorino with the daughter rather than Schinderhannes with the father, and it was lucky for him that he did so, as he was now free. As for Éponine, Javert "nailed" her, but it was a poor consolation, and sent her to join Azelma at the Madelonnettes. Lastly, in the drive from No. 50-52 to La Force, one of the chief men arrested, Claquesous, had disappeared. No one knew how he did it, and the sergeants and agents did not at all understand it; he had turned into vapor, slipped through the handcuffs, and passed through a crack in the coach; but no one could say anything except that on reaching the prison there was no Claquesous. There was in this either enchantment or a police trick. Had Claquesous melted away in the darkness like a snow-flake in the water? Was there an unavowed connivance on the part of the agents? Did this man belong to the double enigma of disorder and order? Had this Sphynx its front paws in crimes, and its hind paws in the police? Javert did not accept these combinations, and struggled against such compromises; but his squad contained other inspectors besides himself, and though his subordinates, perhaps more thoroughly initiated in the secrets of the Préfecture, and Claquesous was such a villain that he might be a very excellent agent. To be on such intimate juggling relations with the night is excellent for plunder and admirable for the police, and there are double-edged rogues of the sort. However this might be, Claquesous was lost and could not be found, and Javert seemed more irritated than surprised. As for Marius, "that scrub of a lawyer who was probably frightened," and whose name he had forgotten, Javert did not trouble himself much about him, and besides, a lawyer can always be found. But, was he only a lawyer?

The examination began, and the magistrate thought it advisable not to put one of the members of the Patron Minette band in solitary confinement, as it was hoped he might chatter. This was Brujon, the hairy man of the Rue du Petit Banquier; he was turned into the Charlemagne Court, and the eyes of the spies were kept upon him. This name of Brujon is one of the recollections of La Force. In the hideous yard called the Bâtiment Neuf,—which the governor named the Court of St. Bernard, and the robbers christened the Lion's Den,—and on the wall covered with scars and leprosy, that rose on the left to the height of the roof, and close to a rusty old iron gate which led to the old chapel of the ducal house of La Force, converted into a sleeping-ward for prisoners, there might have been seen, twelve years ago, a species of Bastille, clumsily engraved with a nail in the stone, and beneath it this signature,—

BRUJON, 1811.

The Brujon of 1811 was the father of the Brujon of 1832. The latter, of whom we could only catch a glimpse in the Gorbeau trap, was a very crafty and artful young fellow, with a downcast and plaintive air. It was in consequence of this air that the magistrate turned him loose, believing him more useful in the Charlemagne yard than in a secret cell. Robbers do not interrupt their labors because they are in the hands of justice, and do not trouble themselves about such a trifle. Being in prison for one crime does not prevent another being commenced. There are artists who have a picture in the Exhibition, but for all that work at a new one in their studio. Brujon seemed stupefied by prison; he might be seen standing for hours in the yard near the canteen man's stall, contemplating like an idiot the mean tariff of prices of the canteen which began with "garlic, fifty-two centimes," and ended with "cigar, five centimes." Or else he passed his time in trembling, shaking his teeth, declaring he had the fever, and inquiring whether one of the twenty-six beds in the Infirmary were vacant.

All at once, toward the second half of February, 1832, it was discovered that Brujon, the sleepy-looking man, had had three messages delivered, not in his own name, but in those of his comrades, by the prison porters. These messages had cost him fifty sous altogether, an exorbitant sum, which attracted the sergeant's attention. After making inquiries and consulting the tariff of messages hung up in the prisoners' visiting room, this authority found out that the fifty sous were thus divided,—one message to the Panthéon, ten sous; one to Val de Grâce, fifteen sous; and one to the Barrière de Grenelle, twenty-five sous, the latter being the dearest in the whole list. Now at these very places resided these very dangerous prowlers at the barrière, Kruideniers alias Bizarro, Glorious an ex-convict, and Stop-the-coach, and the attention of the police was directed to these through this incident. It was assumed that these men belonged to Patron Minette, of which band two chiefs, Babet and Gueulemer, were locked up. It was supposed that Brujon's messages, which were not delivered at the houses, but to persons waiting in the street, contained information about some meditated crime. The three ruffians were arrested, and the police believed they had scented some machination of Brujon's.

A week after these measures had been taken, a night watchman who was inspecting the ground-floor sleeping ward of the Bâtiment Neuf, was just placing his chestnut in the box (this was the method employed to make sure that the watchmen did their duty properly; every hour a chestnut must be dropped into all the boxes nailed on the doors of the sleeping wards), when he saw through the peep-hole Brujon sitting up in bed and writing something. The watchman went in, Brujon was placed in solitary confinement for a month, but what he had written could not be found. Hence the police were just as wise as before. One thing is certain, that on the next day a "postilion" was thrown from Charlemagne into the Lion's Den over the five-storied building that separated the two yards. Prisoners give the name of "postilion" to a ball of artistically moulded bread, which is sent to "Ireland," that is to say, thrown from one yard into another. This ball falls into the yard, the man who picks it up opens it and finds in it a note addressed to some prisoner in the yard. If it be a prisoner who finds the note he delivers it to the right address; if it be a guard, or one of those secretly-bought prisoners, called "sheep" in prisons, and "foxes" at the galleys, the note is carried to the wicket and delivered to the police. This time the postilion reached its address, although the man for whom it was intended was at the time in a separate cell. This person was no other than Babet, one of the four heads of Patron Minette. It contained a rolled-up paper, on which only two lines were written.

"Babet, there's a job to be done in the Rue Plumet, a gate opening on the garden."

It was what Brujon had written during the night. In spite of male and female searchers, Babet contrived to send the note from La Force to the Salpêtrière to a "lady friend" of his locked up there. She in her turn handed the note to a girl she knew, of the name of Magnon, whom the police were actively seeking, but had not yet arrested. This Magnon, of whose name the reader has already caught a glimpse, was closely connected with the Thénardiers, as we shall show presently, and by going to see Éponine was able to serve as a bridge between the Salpêtrière and the Madelonnettes. At this very period Éponine and Azelma were discharged for want of evidence, and when Éponine went out, Magnon, who was watching for her at the gate of the Madelonnettes, handed her the note from Brujon to Babet, with instructions to look into the affair. Éponine went to the Rue Plumet, recognized the grating and the garden, observed the house, watched for some days, and then carried to Magnon a biscuit, which the latter sent to Babet's mistress at the Salpêtrière. A biscuit, in the dark language of prisons, means, "Nothing to be done."

In less than a week from this, Babet and Brujon happened to meet, as one was going before the magistrate, the other returning. "Well," Brujon asked, "the Rue P.?" "Biscuit," Babet answered. Thus the fœtus of crime engendered by Brujon at La Force became abortive; but this abortion had consequences, for all that, perfectly foreign to Brujon's plans, as will be seen. In fancying we are tying one thread we often tie another.

CHAPTER III.

FATHER MABŒUF HAS AN APPARITION.

Marius no longer called on any one, but at times he came across Father Mabœuf. While Marius was slowly descending the mournful steps which might be called the cellar stairs, and lead to places without light, on which you hear the footsteps of the prosperous above your head, M. Mabœuf was also descending. The Flora of Cauteretz did not sell at all now, and the indigo experiments had not been successful in the little garden of Austerlitz, which was badly situated. M. Mabœuf could only cultivate in it a few rare plants which are fond of moisture and shade. For all that, though, he was not discouraged; he had obtained a strip of ground at the Jardin des Plantes in a good situation, for making "at his own charge" experiments on indigo. To do this he pledged the plates of his Flora, and he reduced his breakfast to two eggs, of which he left one for his old servant, whose wages he had not paid for fifteen months past. And very frequently his breakfast was his sole meal. He no longer laughed with his childish laugh, he had grown morose, and declined to receive visitors, and Marius did well not to call on him. At times, at the hour when M. Mabœuf proceeded to the Jardin des Plantes, the old man and the young man passed each other on the Boulevard de l'Hôpital; they did not speak, and merely shook their heads sorrowfully. It is a sad thing that there comes a moment when misery unknots friendships. There were two friends: there are two passers-by!

Royol the publisher was dead, and now M. Mabœuf knew nothing but his books, his garden, and his indigo; these were the three shapes which happiness, pleasure, and hope had assumed for him. They were sufficient to live for, and he would say to himself: "When I have made my blue-balls, I shall be rich; I will redeem my plates from the Mont de Piété, bring my Flora into fashion again with charlatanism, the big drum, and advertisements in the papers, and buy, I know where, a copy of Pierre de Medine's "Art of Navigation," with woodcuts, edition 1539." In the mean while, he toiled all day at his indigo patch, and at night went home to water his garden and read his books. M. Mabœuf at this period was close on eighty years of age.

One evening he had a strange apparition. He had returned home while it was still daylight, and found that Mother Plutarch, whose health was not so good as it might be, had gone to bed. He dined upon a bone on which a little meat remained and a lump of bread which he had found on the kitchen table, and was seated on a stone post which acted as a bench in his garden. Near this bench there was, after the fashion of old kitchen-gardens, a sort of tall building of planks in a very rickety condition, a hutch on the ground-floor, and a store-room on the first floor. There were no rabbits in the hutch, but there were a few apples, the remnant of the winter stock, in the store-room. M. Mabœuf was reading, with the help of his spectacles, two books which interested him greatly, and also, a thing more serious at his age, preoccupied him. His natural timidity rendered him prone to accept superstitions. The first of these books was the celebrated treatise of President Delancre, "On the Inconstancy of Spirits," and the other was the quarto work of Mutor de la Rubaudière, "On the Devils of Vauvert and the Goblins of la Bièvre." The latter book interested him the more, because his garden had been in olden times one of the places haunted by the goblins. Twilight was beginning to whiten what is above and blacken what is below. While reading, M. Mabœuf looked over the book which he held in his hand at his plants, and among others at a magnificent rhododendron which was one of his consolations. Four days of wind and sun had passed without a drop of rain, the stems were bending, the buds drooping, the leaves falling, and they all required watering; this rhododendron especially looked in a very sad way. M. Mabœuf was one of those men for whom plants have souls; he had been at work all day in his indigo patch, and was worn out with fatigue, but for all that he rose, laid his books on the bench, and walked in a bent posture and with tottering steps, up to the well. But when he seized the chain he had not sufficient strength to unhook it; he then turned and took a glance of agony at the sky, which was glittering with stars. The evening had that serenity which crushes human sorrow under a lugubrious and eternal joy. The night promised to be as dry as the day had been.

"Stars everywhere!" the old man thought, "not the smallest cloud! not a drop of water!"

And his head, which had been raised a moment before, fell again on his chest, then he looked once more at the sky, murmuring,—

"A little dew! a little pity!"

He tried once again to unhook the well-chain, but could not succeed; at this moment he heard a voice, saying,—

"Father Mabœuf, shall I water the garden for you?" At the same time a sound like that of a wild beast breaking through was heard in the hedge, and he saw a tall thin girl emerge, who stood before him, looking at him boldly. She looked less like a human being than some form engendered of the darkness. Before Father Mabœuf, whom, as we said, a trifle terrified, found time to answer a syllable, this creature, whose movements had in the gloom a sort of strange suddenness, had unhooked the chain, let down and drawn up the bucket, and filled the watering-pot; and the old gentleman saw this apparition, which was barefooted and wore a ragged skirt, running along the flower-beds and distributing life around her. The sound of the water pattering on the leaves filled M. Mabœuf's soul with ravishment, and the rhododendron now seemed to him to be happy. The first bucket emptied, the girl drew a second, then a third, and watered the whole garden. To see her moving thus along the walks in which her outline appeared quite black, and waving on her long thin arms her ragged shawl, she bore a striking resemblance to a bat. When she had finished, Father Mabœuf went up to her with tears in his eyes, and laid his hand on her forehead.

"God will bless you," he said, "you are an angel, since you take care of flowers."

"No," she replied, "I am the Devil, but I don't care."

The old man continued, without waiting for or hearing the reply,—

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

"You can do something," she said.

"What is it!"

"Tell me where M. Marius lives."

The old man did not understand.

"What Monsieur Marius?"

He raised his glassy eyes and seemed seeking something which had vanished.

"A young man who used to come here."

"Ah, yes!" he exclaimed, "I know whom you mean. Wait a minute! Monsieur Marius, Baron Marius Pontmercy, pardieu! lives, or rather he does not live—well, I do not know."

While speaking, he had stooped to straighten a rhododendron branch, and continued,—

"Ah yes, I remember now. He passes very frequently along the boulevard, and goes in the direction of the Lark's field in the Rue Croulebarbe. Look for him there, he will not be difficult to find."

When M. Mabœuf raised his head again, he was alone, and the girl had disappeared. He was decidedly a little frightened.

"Really," he thought, "if my garden were not watered, I should fancy that it was a ghost."

An hour after, when he was in bed, this idea returned to him, and while falling asleep, he said to himself confusedly at the disturbed moment when thought gradually assumes the form of dream in order to pass through sleep, like the fabulous bird which metamorphoses itself into a fish to cross the sea,—

"Really now, this affair greatly resembles what La Rubaudière records about the goblins. Could it have been a ghost?"

CHAPTER IV.

MARIUS HAS AN APPARITION.

A few days after this visit of a ghost to Father Mabœuf,—it was on a Monday, the day of the five-franc piece which Marius borrowed of Courfeyrac for Thénardier,—Marius placed the coin in his pocket, and before carrying it to the prison, resolved to "take a little walk," hoping that on his return this would make him work. It was, however, eternally thus. As soon as he rose, he sat down before a book and paper to set about some translation, and his work at this time was the translation into French of a celebrated German quarrel, the controversy between Gans and Savigny. He took up Gans, he took up Savigny, read four pages, tried to write one but could not, saw a star between his paper and himself, and got up from his chair, saying, "I will go out, that will put me in the humor," and he proceeded to the Lark's field, where he saw the star more than ever, and Gans and Savigny less. He went home, tried to resume his task, and did not succeed; he could not join a single one of the threads broken in his brain, and so said to himself, "I will not go out to-morrow, for it prevents me from working." But he went out every day.

He lived in the Lark's field more than at Courfeyrac's lodging, and his right address was Boulevard de la Santé, at the seventh tree past the Rue Croulebarbe. On this morning he had left the seventh tree and was seated on the parapet of the bridge over the little stream. The merry sunbeams were flashing through the expanded and luminous leaves. He thought of "Her," and his reverie, becoming a reproach, fell back on himself; he thought bitterly of the indolence and mental paralysis which were gaining on him, and of the night which constantly grew denser before him, so that he could no longer even see the sun. Still, through this painful evolution of indistinct ideas which was not even a soliloquy, as action was so weak in him, and he had no longer the strength to try to feel sad; through this melancholy absorption, we say, sensations from without reached him. He heard behind, below, and on both sides of him, the washerwomen of the Gobelins beating their linen, and above him the birds twittering and singing in the elms. On one side the sound of liberty, happy carelessness, and winged leisure, on the other the sound of labor. Two joyous sounds made him think deeply and almost reflect. All at once he heard amid his depressed ecstasy a voice he knew, that said,—

"Ah, here he is!"

He raised his eyes and recognized the unhappy girl who had come to him one morning, Éponine, the elder of Thénardier's daughters; he now knew what her name was. Strange to say, she had grown poorer and more beautiful, two things which he had not thought possible. She had accomplished a double progress, toward light and toward distress. Her feet were bare and her clothes torn, as on the day when she so boldly entered his room, but the tatters were two months older, the holes larger, and the rags filthier. She had the same hoarse voice, the same forehead wrinkled and bronzed by exposure, the same free, absent, and wandering look, but she had, in addition, on her countenance, something startled and lamentable, which passing through prisons adds to misery. She had pieces of straw and hay in her hair, not that, like Ophelia, she had gone mad through contagion with Hamlet's lunacy, but because she had slept in some stable-loft.

And with all that she was beautiful. What a star thou art, O youth!

She had stopped in front of Marius with a little joy on her livid face, and something like a smile, and it was some minutes ere she could speak.

"I have found you!" she said at last. "Father Mabœuf was right, it was in this boulevard! How I have sought you, if you only knew! Do you know that I have been in quod for a fortnight? They let me go as there was no charge against me, and besides I had not attained years of discretion by two months. Oh, how I have looked for you the last six weeks! So you no longer live down there?"

"No," said Marius.

"Ah, I understand, on account of that thing; well, such disturbances are unpleasant, and you moved. Hilloh, why do you wear an old hat like that? A young man like you ought to be handsomely dressed. Do you know, Monsieur Marius, that M. Mabœuf calls you Baron Marius,—I forget what, but you are not a Baron, are you? Barons are old swells, who walk in front of the Luxembourg Palace, where there is the most sun, and read the Quotidienne for a sou. I went once with a letter for a Baron who was like that, and more than a hundred years of age. Tell me, where do you live now?"

Marius did not answer.

"Ah," she added, "you have a hole in your shirt-front, I must mend it for you."

Then she continued with an expression which gradually grew gloomier,—

"You do not seem pleased to see me?"

Marius held his tongue. She was also silent for a moment, and then exclaimed,—

"If I liked, I could compel you to look pleased."

"What do you mean?" Marius asked.

She bit her lip, and apparently hesitated, as if suffering from some internal struggle. At length she seemed to make up her mind.

"All the worse, but no matter, you look sad and I wish you to be pleased, only promise me, though, that you will laugh, for I want to see you laugh and hear you say, 'Ah! that is famous!' Poor Monsieur Marius! you know you promised you would give me all I wanted."

"Yes, but speak, can't you?"

She looked at Marius intently and said, "I have the address."

Marius turned pale, and all his blood flowed to his heart.

"What address?"

"The address which you asked me for;" and she added, as if with a great effort, "the address,—you surely understand?"

"Yes," stammered Marius.

"The young lady's."

These words uttered, she heaved a deep sigh. Marius leaped from the parapet on which he was sitting, and wildly seized her hand.

"Oh, lead me to it! Tell me! Ask of me what you please! Where is it?"

"Come with me," she answered; "I don't exactly know the street or the number, and it is quite on the other side of town; but I know the house well, and will take you to it."

She withdrew her hand, and continued in a tone which would have made an observer's heart bleed, but did not at all affect the intoxicated and transported lover,—

"Oh, how pleased you are!"

A cloud passed over Marius's forehead, and he clutched Éponine's arm.

"Swear one thing."

"Swear?" she said. "What do you mean by that? Indeed, you want me to swear?"

And she burst into a laugh.

"Your father! Promise me, Éponine,—swear to me that you will never tell your father that address."

She turned to him with an air of stupefaction. "Éponine! how do you know that is my name?"

"Promise me what I ask you."

But she did not seem to hear him.

"That is nice! You called me Éponine!"

Marius seized both her arms.

"Answer me in Heaven's name! Pay attention to what I am saying,—swear to me that you will not tell your father the address which you know."

"My father?" she remarked, "oh, yes, my father. He's all right in a secret cell. Besides, what do I care for my father?"

"But you have not promised!" Marius exclaimed.

"Let me go!" she said, as she burst into a laugh; "how you are shaking me! Yes, yes, I promise it; I swear it! How does it concern me? I will not tell my father the address. There, does that suit you; is that it?"

"And no one else?" said Marius.

"And no one else."

"Now," Marius continued, "lead me there."

"At once?"

"Yes."

"Come on! Oh, how glad he is!" she said.

A few yards farther on she stopped.

"You are following me too closely, Monsieur Marius; let me go on in front and do you follow me, as if you were not doing so. A respectable young man like you must not be seen with such a woman as I am."

No language could render all that was contained in the word "woman," thus pronounced by this child. She went a dozen paces and stopped again. Marius rejoined her, and she said to him aside without turning to him,—

"By the bye, you know that you promised me something?"

Marius felt in his pocket; he had nothing in the world but the five-franc piece destined for Father Thénardier, but he laid the coin in Éponine's hand. She let it slip through her fingers on the ground, and looking at him frowningly said,—

"I do not want your money."

BOOK III.

THE HOUSE OF THE RUE PLUMET.

CHAPTER I.

CHAPTER II.

JEAN VALJEAN A NATIONAL GUARD.

Properly speaking, however, Jean Valjean's house was at the Rue Plumet, and he had arranged his existence there in the following fashion: Cosette and the servant occupied the pavilion, she had the best bedroom, with the painted press, the boudoir with the gilt beading, the president's drawing-room with its hangings and vast easy chairs, and the garden. Jean Valjean placed in Cosette's room a bed with a canopy of old damask in three colors, and an old and handsome Persian carpet, purchased at Mother Gaucher's in the Rue Figuier St. Paul; while, to correct the sternness of these old splendors, he added all the light gay furniture of girls, an étagère, bookshelves with gilt books, a desk and blotting-case, a work-table inlaid with mother-of-pearl, a silver dressing-case, and toilet articles of Japanese porcelain. Long damask curtains of three colors, like those on the bed, festooned the first-floor windows, while on the ground-floor they were of tapestry. All through the winter Cosette's small house was warmed from top to bottom, while Jean Valjean himself lived in the sort of porter's lodge at the end of the back yard, which was furnished with a mattress and common bedstead, a deal table, two straw-bottomed chairs, an earthenware water-jug, a few books on a plank, and his dear valise in a corner, but he never had any fire. He dined with Cosette, and black bread was put on the table for him; and he had said to Toussaint, when she came, "This young lady is mistress of the house." "And you, sir?" Toussaint replied, quite stupefied. "Oh! I am much better than the master,—I am the father."

Cosette had been taught house-keeping in the convent, and checked the expenses, which were very small. Daily Jean Valjean took Cosette for a walk, leading to the most sequestered path of the Luxembourg, and every Sunday they attended Mass at the Church of St. Jacques du Haut-pas, because it was a long distance off. As it is a very poor district, he gave away a considerable amount of alms, and the wretched flocked around him in the church, which produced the letter from Thénardier, "To the Benevolent Gentleman of the Church of St. Jacques du Haut-pas." He was fond of taking Cosette to visit the indigent and the sick, but no stranger ever entered the house in the Rue Plumet. Toussaint bought the provision, and Jean Valjean himself fetched the water from a fountain close by, on the boulevard. The wood and wine were kept in a semi-subterranean building covered with rock-work, near the door in the Rue de Babylone, which had formerly served the president as a grotto, for in the age of Follies and Petites Maisons, love was not possible without a grotto. In the door opening on the Rue de Babylone there was a letter-box, but, as the inhabitants of the house in the Rue Plumet received no letters, this box, once on a time the go-between in amourettes, and the confidant of a love-sick lawyer, was now only of service to receive the tax-papers and the guard-notices. For M. Fauchelevent, annuitant, belonged to the National Guard, and had been unable to escape the close meshes of the census of 1831. The municipal inquiries made at that period extended even to the convent of the Little Picpus, whence Jean Valjean emerged venerable in the eyes of the mayoralty, and consequently worthy of mounting guard. Three or four times a year Jean Valjean donned his uniform and went on duty, and did so readily enough, for it was a disguise which enabled him to mix with everybody, while himself remaining solitary. Jean Valjean had attained his sixtieth year, or the age of legal exemption; but he did not look more than fifty; besides, he had no wish to escape his sergeant-major and cheat Count Lobau. He had no civil status, hid his name, his identity, his age, everything, and, as we just said, he was a willing National Guard,—all his ambition was to resemble the first-comer who pays taxes. The ideal of this man was internally an angel, externally a bourgeois.