 CHAPTER 7 THE OLD HEART AND THE YOUNG HEART In the presence of each other. At that epoch Father Gil-Normand was well past his ninety-first birthday. He still lived with Mademoiselle Gil-Normand in the Rude Fille de Calvaire, numeral cisse, in the old house which he owned. He was, as the reader will remember, one of those antique old men who await death perfectly erect, whom age bears down without bending, and whom even sorrow cannot curve. Still his daughter had been saying for some time, My father is sinking. He no longer boxed the maid's ears. He no longer thumped the landing-place so vigorously with his cane when Basque was slow in opening the door. The revolution of July had exasperated him for the space of barely six months. He had viewed, almost tranquilly, that coupling of words in the monitor, Monsieur Humboldt, Compte, Pire of France. The fact is that the old man was deeply dejected. He did not bend. He did not yield. This was no more a characteristic of his physical than of his moral nature. But he felt himself giving way internally. For four years he had been waiting for Marius, with his foot firmly planted, that is the exact word, in the conviction that that good-for-nothing young scamp would ring at his door some day or other. Now he had reached the point where, at certain gloomy hours, he said to himself that if Marius made him wait much longer it was not death that was insupportable to him. It was the idea that perhaps he should never see Marius again. The idea of never seeing Marius again had never entered his brain until that day. Now the thought began to recur to him and it chilled him. Absence, as is always the case in genuine and natural sentiments, had only served to augment the grandfather's love for the ungrateful child who had gone off like a flash. It is during December nights when the cold stands at ten degrees that one thinks oftenest of the sun. Mr. Gil-Norman was, or thought himself above all things, incapable of taking a single step, he, the grandfather, towards his grandson. I would die, rather, he said to himself. He did not consider himself as the least to blame. But he thought of Marius only with profound tenderness and the mute despair of an elderly kindly old man who is about to vanish in the dark. He began to lose his teeth, which added to his sadness. Mr. Gil-Norman, without, however, acknowledging it to himself, for it would have rendered him furious and ashamed, had never loved a mistress as he loved Marius. He had had placed in his chamber opposite the head of his bed so that it should be the first thing on which his eyes fell on waking an old portrait of his other daughter who was dead, Madame Pourmercy, a portrait which had been taken when she was eighteen. He gazed incessantly at that portrait. One day he happened to say as he gazed upon it, I think the likeness is strong. To my sister, inquired Mademoiselle Gil-Norman, Yes, certainly. The old man added, And to him also. Once as he sat with his knees pressed together and his eyes almost closed in a despondent attitude, his daughter ventured to say to him, Father, are you as angry with him as ever? She paused, not daring to proceed further. With home, he demanded. With that poor Marius. He raised his age at head, laid his withered and emaciated fist on the table, and exclaimed in his most irritated and vibrant tone. Poor Marius, to say. That gentleman is a knave, a wretched scoundrel, a vain little ingrate, a heartless, soulless, haughty and wicked man. And he turned away so that his daughter might not see the tear that stood in his eye. Three days later he broke a silence which had lasted four hours to say to his daughter point blank, I had the honour to ask Mademoiselle Gil-Norman never to mention him to me. Mademoiselle Gil-Norman renounced every effort and pronounced this acute diagnosis. My father never cared very much for my sister after her folly. It is clear that he detests Marius. After her folly meant after she had married the Colonel. However, as the reader has been able to conjecture, Mademoiselle Gil-Norman had failed in her attempt to substitute her favourite, the officer of Lancers, for Marius. The substitute, Theodore, had not been a success. Mr. Gil-Norman had not accepted the quid pro quo. A vacancy in the heart does not accommodate itself to a stop gap. Theodore, on his side, though he scented the inheritance, was disgusted at the task of pleasing. The good man bored the Lancer, and the Lancer shocked the good man. Lieutenant Theodore was gay, no doubt, but a chatterbox, frivolous, but vulgar, a high liver, but a frequenter of bad company. He had mistresses, it is true, and he had a great deal to say about them, it is true also, but he talked badly. All his good qualities had a defect. Lieutenant Gil-Norman was worn out with hearing him tell about the love affairs that he had in the vicinity of the barracks in the rude Babylon, and then Lieutenant Gil-Norman sometimes came in his uniform with the tri-coloured cockade. This rendered him downright intolerable. Finally, Father Gil-Norman had said to his daughter, I've had enough of that Theodore. I haven't much taste for warriors in time of peace. Receive him if you choose. I don't know, but I prefer slashes to fellows that drag their swords. The clash of blades in battle is less dismal, after all, than the clank of the scabbard on the pavement. And then, throwing out your chest like a bully and lacing yourself like a girl with stays under your cuirass is doubly ridiculous. When one is a veritable man, one holds equally aloof from swagger and from affected heirs. He is neither a blusterer nor a finicky-hearted man. Keep your Theodore for yourself. It was in vain that his daughter said to him, But he is your grand-nephew, nevertheless. It turned out that Monsieur Gil-Norman, who was a grandfather to the very fingertips, was not in the least a grand-uncle. In fact, as he had good sense, and as he had compared the two, Theodore had only served to make him regret Marius all the more. One evening, it was the twenty-fourth of June, which did not prevent Father Gil-Norman having a rousing fire on the hearth. He had dismissed his daughter, who was sewing in a neighboring apartment. He was alone in his chamber amidst its pastoral scenes, with his feet propped on the andions, half enveloped in his huge screen of cormorandel lacquer, with its nine leaves, with his elbow resting on a table where burned two candles under a green shade, engulfed in his tapestry armchair, and in his hand a book which he was not reading. He was dressed according to his warmth like an encoyable, and resembled an antique portrait by Garat. This would have made people run after him in the street had not his daughter covered him up whenever he went out, in a vast bishop's wadded cloak which concealed his attire. At home he never wore a dressing-gown, except when he rose and retired. It gives one a look of age, said he. Father Gil-Norman was thinking of Marius lovingly and bitterly, and as usual bitterness predominated. His tenderness once soured always ended by boiling and turning to indignation. He had reached the point where a man tries to make up his mind and to accept that which rends his heart. He was explaining to himself that there was no longer any reason why Marius should return, that if he intended to return he should have done it long ago, that he must renounce the idea. He was trying to accustom himself to the thought that all was over, that he should die without having beheld that gentleman again. But his whole nature revolted. His aged paternity would not consent to this. Well, said he, this was his doleful refrain, he will not return. His bald head had fallen upon his breast, and he fixed a melancholy and irritated gaze upon the ashes on his heart. In the very midst of his reverie, his old servant Basque entered and inquired, Can Monsieur receive Monsieur Marius? The old man sat up, erect, pallid, and like a corpse which rises under the influence of a galvanic shock all his blood had retreated to his heart. He stammered, Monsieur Marius, what? I don't know, replied Basque, intimidated and put out of countenance by his master's air. I have not seen him. Nicolette came in and said to me, there's a young man here. Say that it is Monsieur Marius. Father Gil-Norman stammered in a low voice, show him in. And he remained in the same attitude with shaking head and his eyes fixed on the door. It opened once more, a young man entered. It was Marius. Marius halted at the door, as though waiting to be bidden to enter. His almost squalid attire was not perceptible in the obscurity caused by the shade. Nothing could be seen but his calm, grave, and strangely sad face. It was several minutes before Father Gil-Norman, dulled with amazement and joy, could see anything except a brightness, as when one is in the presence of an apparition. He was on the point of swooning. He saw Marius through a dazzling light. It was certainly he. It certainly was Marius. At last, after the lapse of four years, he grasped him entire, so to speak, in a single glance. He found him noble, handsome, distinguished, well-grown, a complete man, with a suitable mean and a charming air. He felt a desire to open his arms, to call him, to fling himself forward, his heart melted with rapture. One at words swelled and overflowed his breast. At length all his tenderness came to the light and reached his lips, and by a contrast which constituted the very foundation of his nature, what came forth was harshness. He said abruptly, What have you come here for? Marius replied with embarrassment, Monsieur Gil-Norman would have like to have Marius throw himself into his arms. He was displeased with Marius, and with himself he was conscious that he was brusque, and that Marius was cold. It caused the good man unendurable and irritating anxiety to feel so tender and forlorn within, and only to be able to be hard outside. Bitterness returned. He interrupted Marius in a peevish tone. Then why did you come? But then signified, if you do not come to embrace me. Marius looked at his grandfather, whose pallor gave him a face of marble. Monsieur, have you come to beg my pardon? Do you acknowledge your faults? He thought he was putting Marius on the right road, and that the child would yield. Marius shivered. It was the denial of his father that was required of him. He dropped his eyes and replied, No, sir. Then exclaimed the old man impetuously, with a grief that was poignant and full of wrath, What do you want of me? Marius clasped his hands, advanced a step, and said in a feeble and trembling voice, Sir, have pity on me. These words touched Monsieur Gil-Norman. Uttered a little sooner, they would have rendered him tender, but they came too late. The grandfather rose. He supported himself with both hands on his cane. His lips were white, his brow wavered, but his lofty form towered above Marius, as he bowed. Pity on you, sir. It is youth demanding pity of the old man of ninety-one. You are entering into life, I am leaving it. You go to the play, to balls, to the cafe, to the billiard hall. You have wit. You please the women. You are a handsome fellow, as for me. I spit on my brands in the heart of summer. You are rich with the only riches that are really such. I possess all the poverty of age, infirmity, isolation. You have your thirty-two teeth, a good digestion, bright eyes, strength, appetite, health, gaiety, a forest of black hair. I have no longer even white hair. I have lost my teeth. I am losing my legs. I am losing my memory. There are three names of streets that I confound incessantly. The Rucharat, the Rudashom, and the Rusa Cloud. That is what I have come to. You have before you the whole future full of sunshine, and I am beginning to lose my sight. So far am I advanced into the night. You are in love. That is a matter of course. I am beloved by no one in all the world. And you ask pity of me, Pablo. Molière, forgot that. If that is the way you jest in the courthouse, messieurs the lawyers, I sincerely compliment you. You are droll. And the octogenarian went on in a grave and angry voice. Come now. What do you want of me? Sir, said Marius, I know that my presence is displeasing to you, but I have come merely to ask one thing of you, and then I shall go away immediately. You are a fool, said the old man, who said that you were to go away. This was the translation of the tender words which lay at the bottom of his heart. Ask my pardon. Throw yourself on my neck. Monsieur Gil-Norman felt that Marius would leave him in a few moments, that his harsh reception had repelled the lad, that his hardness was driving him away. He said all this to himself, and it augmented his grief, and as his grief was straightaway converted into wrath, it increased his harshness. He would have liked to have had Marius understand, and Marius did not understand which made the good man furious. He began again. What! You deserted me, your grandfather. You left my house to go. No one knows whether you drove your aunt to despair. You went off. It is easily guessed to lead a bachelor life. It's more convenient to play the dandy, to come in at all hours, to amuse yourself. You have given me no signs of life. You have contracted debts without even telling me to pay them. You have become a smasher of windows and a blusterer, and at the end of four years, you come to me, and that is all you have to say to me. This violent fashion of driving a grandson to tenderness was productive only of silence on the part of Marius. Mr. Gil-Norman folded his arms, a gesture which with him was peculiarly imperious, and apostrophes Marius bitterly. Let us make an end of this. You have come to ask something of me, you say? Well, what? What is it? Speak. Sir, said Marius, with a look of a man who feels that he is falling over a precipice. I have come to ask your permission to marry. Mr. Gil-Norman rang the bell. Bask opened the door halfway. Call my daughter! A second later the door was opened once more. Mademoiselle Gil-Norman did not enter, but showed herself. Marius was standing, mute, with pendant arms and a face of a criminal. Mr. Gil-Norman was pacing back and forth in the room. He turned to his daughter and said to her, Nothing! It is Mr. Marius. Say good-day to him. Mr. wishes to marry. That is all. Go away. The curt, hoarse sound of the old man's voice announced a strange degree of excitement. The aunt, gazed at Marius with a frightened air, hardly appeared to recognize him, did not allow a gesture or a syllable to escape her, and disappeared at her father's breath, more swiftly than a straw before the hurricane. In the meantime, Father Gil-Norman had returned and placed his back against the chimney-piece once more. You marry at one and twenty. You have arranged that. You have only a permission to ask a formality. Sit down, sir. Well, you have had a revolution since I had the honor to see you last. The Jacobins got the upper hand. You must have been delighted. Are you not a Republican since you are a baron? You can make that agree. The Republic makes a good sauce for the barony. Are you one of those decorated by July? Have you taken the Louvre at all, sir? Quite near here in the rue Saint-Antoine, opposite the rue des Normandières, there is a cannonball encrusted in the wall of the third story of a house, with this inscription, July 28, 1830. Go, take a look at that. It produces a good effect. Ah-ha, those friends of yours do pretty things. By the way, aren't they erecting a fountain in the place of the monument of M. Le Duc de Barry? So you want to marry whom? Can one inquire without indiscretion? He paused. And before Marius had time to answer, he added violently, Come now! You have a profession, a fortune-made. How much do you earn at your trade of lawyer? Nothing, said Marius, with a sort of firmness and resolution that was almost fierce. Nothing! Then all you have to live upon is the twelve hundred levers that I allow you. Marius did not reply. Monsieur Gil-Norman continued. Then I understand the girl is rich, as rich as I am. What, no dowry? No. Expectations! I think not. Utterly naked! What's the father? I don't know. And what's her name? Mademoiselle Fauchelle-Vente. Fauch what? Fauchelle-Vente. Pfft! Ejaculated the old gentleman. Sir, exclaimed Marius, Monsieur Gil-Norman interrupted him with the tone of a man who is speaking to himself. That's right, one and twenty years, no profession, twelve hundred levers a year, Madame la Baron de Pomercy will go and purchase of a couple of sous's worth of parsley from a fruitier. Sir, repeated Marius in the despair of the last hope, which was vanishing. I intrigue you. I conjure you in the name of heaven with clasped hands, sir. I throw myself at your feet. Permit me to marry her. The old man burst into a shout of strident and mournful laughter, coughing and laughing at the same time. Ha ha ha! You said to yourself, Ah Dean, I'll go hunt up that old blockhead, that absurd numbskull. What a shame that I'm not twenty-five. How I'd treat him to a nice, respectful summons. How nicely I'd get along without him. It's nothing to me, I'd say to him. You're only too happy to see me, you old idiot. I want to marry. I desire to wed Mamzelle, no matter whom. Daughter of Monsieur, no matter what. I have no shoes. She has no chemise. That just suits. I want to throw my career, my future, my youth, my life to the dogs. I wish to take a plunge into wretchedness with a woman around my neck. That's an idea, and you must consent to it. And the old fossil will consent. Go, my lad, do as you like. Attach your paving stone. Attach your poussé-livon. Your coupé-livon. Never, sir, never. Father, never. At the tone in which that never was uttered, Marius lost all hope. He traversed the chamber with slow steps, with bowed head, tottering, and more like a dying man, than like one merely taking his departure. Monsieur Gil-Norman followed him with his eyes, and at the moment when the door opened and Marius was on the point of going out, he advanced four paces with a senile vivacity of impetuous and spoiled old gentlemen. Seized Marius by the collar, brought him back energetically into the room, flung him into an armchair, and said to him, Tell me all about it. It was that single word, father, which had affected this revolution. Marius stared at him in bewilderment. Monsieur Gil-Norman's mobile face was no longer expressive of anything but rough and ineffable good nature. The grand sire had given way before the grand father. Come, see here, speak. Tell me about your love affairs. Jabber, tell me everything, surprise thee how stupid young folks are. Father, repeated Marius. The old man's entire countenance lighted up with indescribable radiance. Yes, that's right. Call me father and you'll see. There was now something so kind, so gentle, so open-hearted, and so paternal in this brusqueness that Marius, in the sudden transition from discouragement to hope, was stunned and intoxicated by it as it were. He was seated near the table. The light from the candles brought out the dilapidation of his costume, which Father Gil-Norman regarded with amazement. Well, father, said Marius. Ah, by the way, interrupted Monsieur Gil-Norman, you really have not a penny then? You are dressed like a pickpocket. He rummaged in a drawer, drew forth a purse, which he laid on the table. Here are a hundred Louis, buy yourself a hat. Father, pursued Marius, my good father, if you only knew I love her, you cannot imagine it. The first time I saw her was at the Luxembourg. She came there. In the beginning I did not pay much heed to her and then, I don't know how it came about, I fell in love with her. Ah, how unhappy that made me. Now at last I see her every day at her own home. Her father does not know it, just fancy. They are going away. It is in the garden that we meet, in the evening. Her father means to take her to England. Then I said to myself, I'll go and see my grandfather and tell him all about the affair. I should go mad first. I should die. I should fall ill. I should throw myself into the water. I absolutely must marry her, since I should go mad otherwise. This is the whole truth. And I do not think that I have omitted anything. She lives in a garden with an iron fence in the Rue Plumette. It is in the neighborhood of the Invalide. Father Gil-Norman had seated himself with a beaming countenance beside Marius. As he listened to him and drank in the sound of his voice, he enjoyed at the same time a protracted pinch of snuff. At the words Rue Plumette, he interrupted his inhalation and allowed the remainder of his snuff to fall upon his knees. The Rue Plumette. The Rue Plumette, did you say? Let us see. Are there not barracks in that vicinity? Well, yes. That's it. Your cousin Theodore has spoken to me about it. The Lancer, the officer. A gay girl. My good friend, a gay girl. Padre, yes. The Rue Plumette. It is what used to be called the Rue Plumette. It all comes back to me now. I have heard of that little girl of the iron railing in the Rue Plumette in a garden. Pamela, your taste is not bad. She is said to be a very tidy creature between ourselves. I think that simpleton of a Lancer has been courting her a bit. I don't know where he did it. However, that's not to the purpose. Besides, he is not to be believed. He blags, Marius. I think it quite proper that a young man like you should be in love. It's the right thing at your age. I like you better as a lover than a Jacobin. I like you better in love with a pedicot sapristi with 20 pedicots than with Monsieur de Robespierre. For my part, I will do myself the justice to say that in the line of Saint Scoulette, I have never loved anyone but women. Pretty girls are pretty girls, the deuce. There's no objection to that. As for the little one, she receives you without her father's knowledge. That's in the established order of things. I have had adventures of that same sort myself more than one. Do you know what is done then? One does not take the matter ferociously. One does not precipitate himself into the tragic. One does not make one's mind to marriage and Monsieur Le Maire with his scarf. One simply behaves like a fellow of spirit. One shows good sense. Slip along mortals. Don't marry. You come and look up your grandfather who is a good-natured fellow at bottom and who always has a few rolls of louis in an old drawer. You say to him, see here, grandfather and the grandfather says, that's a simple matter. Youth must amuse itself and old age must wear out. I have been young. You will be old. Come, my boy, you shall pass it on to your grandson. Here are 200 pistols. Amuse yourself. Do take it. Nothing better. That's the way the affair should be treated. You don't marry, but that does no harm. You understand me. Marius petrified an incapable of uttering a syllable and made a sign with his head that he did not. The old man burst out laughing winked his age at eye, gave him a slap on the knee, stared him full in the face with a mysterious and beaming air and said to him with a tendress of shrugs of the shoulder, Ha-ha-ha! Ah! Booby! Ha-ha-ha! Make her your mistress! Marius turned pale. He had understood nothing of what his grandfather had just said. This twaddle about the ruplamet, Pamela, the barracks, the Lancer had passed before Marius like a dissolving view. Nothing of all that could bear any reference to Cosette, who was a lily. The good man was wandering in his mind, but this wandering terminated in words which Marius did understand and which were a mortal insult to Cosette. Those words make her your mistress entered the heart of the strict young man like a sword. He rose, picked up his hat which lay on the floor and walked to the door with a firm assured step. There he turned round, bowed deeply to his grandfather, raised his head erect again and said, Five years ago you insulted my father. Today you have insulted my wife. I ask nothing more of you, sir. Farewell. Father Gil Normand, utterly confounded, opened his mouth, extended his arms, tried to rise and before he could utter a word, the door closed once more and Marius had disappeared. The old man remained for several minutes motionless and as though struck by lightning, without the power to speak or breathe, as though a clenched fist grasped his throat. At last he tore himself from his armchair, ran, so far as a man can run at ninety-one, to the door, opened it and cried, Help! Help! His daughter made her appearance. Then the domestics. He began again with a pitiful rattle. Run after him, bring him back. What have I done to him? He is mad, he is going away. Ah, my God, ah, my God. This time he will not come back. He went to the window which looked out on the street, threw it open with his aged and palsied hands, leaned out more than half way while Basque and Nicolette held him behind and shouted, Marius, Marius, Marius, Marius. But Marius could no longer hear him, for at that moment he was turning the corner of the rue Saint-Louis. The octogenarian raised his hands to his temples two or three times with an expression of anguish, recoiled tottering and fell back into the armchair, pulseless, voiceless, tearless, with quivering head and lips which moved with a stupid air, with nothing in his eyes and nothing any longer in his heart, except a gloomy and profound something which resembled night. Chapter 7 Chapters 1 to 3 of Book 9 of Les Miserables, Volume 4 by Victor Hugo. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Robert Kuiper. Les Miserables, Volume 4 by Victor Hugo, translated by Elizabeth Florence Hapgood, Book 9 Wither Are They Going. Chapters 1 to 3. Chapter 1. Jean-Valjean. That same day, towards four o'clock in the afternoon, Jean-Valjean was sitting alone on the back side of one of the most solitary slopes in the Champs-de-Malse, either from prudence or from a desire to meditate or simply in consequence of one of those insensible changes of habit which gradually introduced themselves into the existence of everyone, he now rarely went out with Cosette. He had on his workman's waistcoat and trousers of gray linen and his long visored cap concealed his countenance. He was calm and happy now beside Cosette. That which had, for a time, alarmed and troubled him had been dissipated. But for the last week or two anxieties of another nature had come up. One day, while walking on the boulevard, he had caught sight of the Nardier. Thanks to his disguise, the Nardier had not recognized him. But since that day, Jean-Valjean had seen him repeatedly and he was now certain that the Nardier was prowling about in their neighborhood. This had been sufficient to make him come to a decision. Moreover, Paris was not tranquil. Political troubles presented this inconvenient feature for anyone who had anything to conceal in his life that the police had grown very uneasy and very suspicious and that while seeking to ferret out a man like Pepin or Maury, they might very readily discover a man like Jean-Valjean. Jean-Valjean had made up his mind to quit Paris and even France and go over to England. He had warned Cosette. He wished to set out before the end of the week. He had seated himself on the slope in the Champs-de-Miles, turning over all sorts of thoughts in his mind, the Nardier, the police, the journey, and the difficulty of procuring a passport. He was troubled from all these points of view. Last of all, an inexplicable circumstance which had just attracted his attention and from which he had not yet recovered had added to his state of alarm. On the morning of that very day, when he alone of the household was stirring while strolling in the garden before Cosette's shutters were open, he had suddenly perceived on the wall the following line engraved probably with a nail. Sixteen roues de la berrière. This was perfectly fresh. The grooves in the ancient black mortar were white. A tuft of nettles at the foot of the wall appeared with a fine, fresh plaster. This had probably been written on the preceding night. What was this? A signal for others, a warning for himself? In any case, it was evident that the garden had been violated and that strangers had made their way into it. He recalled the odd incidents which had already alarmed the household. His mind was now filled with this canvas. He took good care not to speak to Cosette of the line written on the wall for fear of alarming her. In the midst of his preoccupations he perceived from a shadow cast by the sun that someone had halted on the crest of the slope immediately behind him. He was on the point of turning round when a paper folded in four fell upon his knees as though a hand had dropped it over his head. He took the paper, unfolded it, and read these words written in large characters with a pencil. Move away from your house. Jean Vergeant sprang hastily to his feet. There was no one on the slope. He gazed all around him and perceived a creature larger than a child, not so large as a man, clad in a gray blouse and trousers of dust-colored cotton velvet who was jumping over the parapet and who slipped into the moat of the Champs-de-Merles. Jean Vergeant returned home at once in a very thoughtful mood. Chapter 2 Marius Marius had left Monsieur Gil-Normand in despair. He had entered the house with very little hope and quitted it with immense despair. However, and those who have observed the depths of the human heart will understand this, the officer, the lancer, the nini, the cousin Theodore had left no trace in his mind, not the slightest. The dramatic poet might apparently expect some complications from this revelation made point blank by the grandfather to the grandson, but what the drama would gain thereby, truth would lose. Marius was at an age when one believes nothing in the line of evil. Later on comes the age when one believes everything. Suspicions are nothing else than wrinkles. Early youth has none of them. That which overwhelmed Otello glides innocuous over Candide. Suspect cosette? There are hosts of crimes which Marius could sooner have committed. He began to wander about the streets, the resource of those who suffer. He thought of nothing so far as he could afterwards remember. At two o'clock in the morning he returned to Courferet's quarters and flung himself without undressing on his mattress. The sun was shining brightly when he sank into that frightful, leaden slumber which permits ideas to go and come in the brain. When he awoke, he saw Courferet, Angel-Rase, Feuillet, and Combe-Faire standing in the room with their hats on and all ready to go out. Courferet said to him, Are you coming to General de Marc's funeral? It seemed to him that Courferet was speaking Chinese. He went out some time after them. He put in his pocket the pistols which Javert had given him at the time of the adventure on the 3rd of February and which had remained in his hands. These pistols were still loaded. It would be difficult to say what vague thought he had in his mind when he took them with him. All day long he prowled about without knowing where he was going. It rained at times. He did not perceive it. For his dinner he purchased a penny roll at a baker's, put it in his pocket, and forgot it. It appears that he took a bath in the Sain without being aware of it. There are moments when a man has a furnace within his skull. Marius was passing through one of those moments. He no longer hoped for anything but a step he had taken since the preceding evening. He waited for night with feverish impatience. He had but one idea clearly before his mind. This was that at nine o'clock he should see Cosette. This last happiness now constituted his whole future. After that, gloom. At intervals as he roamed through the most deserted boulevards it seemed to him that he heard strange noises in Paris. He thrust his head out of his reverie and said, Is there fighting on hand? At nightfall, at nine o'clock precisely, as he had promised Cosette, he was in the Rue Plumette. When he approached the grating he forgot everything. It was forty-eight hours since he had seen Cosette. He was about to behold her once more. Every other thought was evaced and he felt only a profound and unheard of joy. Those minutes in which one lives centuries always have this sovereign and wonderful property that at the moment when they are passing they fill the heart completely. Marius displaced the bar and rushed headlong into the garden. Cosette was not at the spot where she ordinarily waited for him. He traversed the thicket and approached the recess near the flight of steps. She is waiting for me there, said he. Cosette was not there. He raised his eyes and saw that the shutters of the house were closed. He made the tour of the garden. The garden was deserted. Then he returned to the house and rendered senseless by love, intoxicated, terrified, exasperated with grief and uneasiness. Like a master who returns home at an evil hour, he tapped on the shutters. He knocked and knocked again. At the risk of seeing the window open and her father's gloomy face make its appearance and demand, what do you want? This was nothing in comparison with what he dimly caught a glimpse of when he had rapped. He lifted up his voice and called Cosette. Cosette! He cried. Cosette! He repeated imperiously. There was no reply. All was over. No one in the garden. No one in the house. Marius fixed his despairing eyes on that dismal house, which was as black and silent as a tomb and far more empty. He gazed at the stone seat on which he had passed so many adorable hours with Cosette. Then he seated himself on the flight of steps, his heart filled with sweetness and resolution. He blessed his love in the depths of his thought, and he said to himself that since Cosette was gone all that there was left for him was to die. All at once he heard a voice which seemed to proceed from the street and which was calling to him through the trees. Mr. Marius! He started to his feet. Hey! said he. Mr. Marius, are you there? Yes. Mr. Marius went on the voice, your friends are waiting for you at the barricade of the Rue de la Chandrerie. This voice was not wholly unfamiliar to him. It resembled the horse's rough voice of Eponine. Marius hastened to the gate, thrust aside the movable bar, passed his head through the aperture, and saw someone who appeared to him to be a young man disappearing at the run into the gloom. Chapter 3 Mr. Marbeuf Jean Valjean's purse was of no use to Mr. Marbeuf. Mr. Marbeuf in his venerable infantile austerity had not accepted the gift of the stars. Marius admitted that a star could coin itself into Louis-d'Or. He had not divined that what had fallen from heaven had come from Gavros. He had taken the purse to the police commissioner of the Cartier. As a lost article placed by the finder at the disposal of claimants, the purse was actually lost. It is unnecessary to say that no one claimed it, and that it did not succour Mr. Marbeuf. Moreover, Mr. Marbeuf had continued his downward course. His experiments on indigo had been no more successful in the Jardin de Plante than in his garden at Austerlitz. The year before he had owed his housekeeper's wages, now, as we have seen, he owed three quarters of his rent. The pawnshop had sold the plates of his flora after the expiration of thirteen months. Some coppersmith had made stupans of them. His copper plates gone, and being unable to complete even the incomplete copies of his flora which were in his possession, he had disposed of the text at a miserable price, as waste paper, to a second-hand bookseller. Nothing now remained to him of his life's work. He set to work to eat up the money for these copies. When he saw that this wretched resource was becoming exhausted, he gave up his garden and allowed it to run to waste. Before this, a long time before, he had given up his two eggs and the morsel of beef which he ate from time to time. He dined on bread and potatoes. He had sold the last of his furniture, then all duplicates of his bedding, his clothing, and his blankets, then his herbariums and prints, but he still retained his most precious books, many of which were of the greatest rarity. Among others, the Quadrine Historique de la Bible, edition of 1560, La Concordance des Bibles by Pierre de Besse, les Marguerites de la Marguerite of Jean de la Hay, with a dedication to the Queen of Navarre, the Book de la Charge et Dignite de l'Ambarçadeur by Le Sur de Villiers-Hottmann, a Floriligum Rabbinicum of 1644, a Taiboulis of 1567 with this magnificent inscription, Venetus in Aedipus Manutianus, and lastly a Diogenes Leertius, printed at Lyon in 1644, which contained the famous variant of the manuscript 411, 13th century of the Vatican, and those of the two manuscripts of Venice, 393 and 394, consulted with such fruitful results by Henri Estienne, and all the passages in Doric dialect, which are only found in the celebrated manuscript of the 12th century belonging to the Naples Library. Monsieur Mbuff never had any fire in his chamber and went to bed at sundown in order not to consume any candles. It seemed as though he had no longer any neighbors, people avoided him when he went out. He perceived the fact. The wretchedness of a child interests a mother, the wretchedness of a young man interests a young girl, the wretchedness of an old man interests no one. It is of all distresses the coldest. Still, Father Mbuff had not entirely lost his child-like serenity. His eyes acquired some vivacity when they rested on his books, and he smiled when he gazed at the Diogenes Leertius, which was a unique copy. His bookcase with glass doors was the only piece of furniture which he has kept beyond what was strictly indispensable. One day Mother Plutarch said to him, I have no money to buy any dinner. What she called dinner was a loaf of bread and four or five potatoes. On credit! suggested Monsieur Mbuff. You know very well that people refuse me. Monsieur Mbuff opened his bookcase, took a long look at all his books one after another, as a father obliged to decimate his children would gaze upon them before making a choice, then seized one hastily, put it under his arm, and went out. He returned two hours later, without anything under his arm, laid thirty sous upon the table, and said, You will get something for dinner. From that moment forth Mother Plutarch saw a somber veil which was never more lifted, descend over the old man's candid face. On the following day, on the day after, and on the day after that it had to be done again. Monsieur Mbuff went out with a book and returned with a coin. As the second-hand dealers perceived that he was forced to sell, they purchased of him for twenty sous, that for which he had paid twenty francs, sometimes at those very shops. Volume by volume the whole library went the same road. He said at times, But I am eighty, as though he cherished some secret hope that he should arrive at the end of his days before reaching the end of his books. His melancholy increased. Once, however, he had a pleasure. He had gone out with a Robert Estienne, which he had sold for thirty-five sous under the Cay Malacase, and he returned with an Aldous, which he had bought for forty sous in the Rue des Grises. I owe five sous, he said, beaming on Mother Plutarch. That day he had no dinner. He belonged to the Horticultural Society. His destitution became known there. The President of the Society came to see him, promised to speak to the Minister of Agriculture and Commerce about him, and did so. Why, what! exclaimed the Minister. I should think so! An old savant, a botanist, an inoffensive man! Something must be done for him. On the following day Monsieur Maverfe received an invitation to dine with the Minister. Trembling with joy, he showed the letter to Mother Plutarch. We are saved, said he. On the day appointed, he went to the Minister's house. He perceived that his ragged cravat, his long square coat, and his waxed shoes astonished the ushers. No one spoke to him, not even the Minister. About ten o'clock in the evening while he was still waiting for a word, he heard the Minister's wife, a beautiful woman in a low-neck gown whom he had not ventured to approach, inquire, Who is that old gentleman? He returned home on foot at midnight in a driving rainstorm. He had sold an Elzevir to pay for a carriage in which to go thither. He had acquired the habit of reading a few pages in his Diogenes Laertius every night before he went to bed. He knew enough Greek to enjoy the peculiarities of the text which he owned. He had now no other enjoyment. Several weeks passed. All at once Mother Plutarch fell ill. There is one thing sadder than having no money with which to buy bread at the bakers, and that is having no money to purchase drugs at the apothecaries. One evening the doctor had ordered a very expensive potion and the malady was growing worse. A nurse was required. Monsieur Maverfe opened his bookcase. There was nothing there. The last volume had taken its departure. All that was left to him was Diogenes Laertius. He put this unique copy under his arm and went out. It was the 4th of June, 1832. He went to the Port Saint-Jacques to royal successor and returned with one hundred francs. He laid the pile of five franc pieces on the old serving woman's nightstand and returned to his chamber without saying a word. On the following morning at dawn he seated himself on the overturned post in his garden and he could be seen over the top of the hedge sitting the whole morning motionless with drooping head, his eyes vaguely fixed on the withered flower beds. It rained at intervals the old man did not seem to perceive the fact. In the afternoon extraordinary noises broke out in Paris. They resembled shots and the clamours of the multitude. Father Maverfe raised his head. He saw a gardener passing and inquired, What is it? The gardener spayed on back, replied in the most unconcerned tone, It's the riots. What riots? Yes, they are fighting. Why are they fighting? Ah! Good heavens! ejaculated the gardener. In what direction went on Monsieur Maverfe? In the neighbourhood of the Arsenal. Father Maverfe went to his room, took his hat mechanically, sought for a book to place under his arm, found none, said, Ah! Truly! and went off with a bewildered air. End of book nine, chapters one to three. Chapter one of book ten of Les Miserables, volume four by Victor Hugo. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. According by Kate McKenzie. Les Miserables, volume four by Victor Hugo. Translated by Isabel Florence Hapgood. Book ten, the fifth of June, 1832. Chapter one, the surface of the question. Of what is revolt composed? Of nothing and of everything. Of an electricity disengaged little by little. Of a flame suddenly darting forth. Of a wandering force of a passing breath. This breath encounters heads which speak, brains which dream, souls which suffer, passions which burn, wretchedness which howls and bears them away, wither and random. A thought the state, the laws, a thought prosperity and the insolence of others, irritated convictions, embittered enthusiasm, agitated indignations, instincts of war which have been repressed, youthful courage which has been exalted, generous blindness, curiosity, the taste for change, the thirst for the unexpected, the sentiment which causes one to take pleasure in reading the posters for the new play and love, the prompter's whistle at the theatre, the vague hatreds, rankers, disappointments, every vanity which thinks that destiny has bankrupted it, discomfort, empty dreams, ambitious that are hedged about, whoever hopes for a downfall, some outcome, ensured at the very bottom, the rabble, that mud which catches fire, such are the elements of revolt, that which is grandest and that which is basest. The beings who prowl outside of all bounds facing an occasion, behemians, vagrants, vagabonds of the crossroads, those who sleep at night in a desert of houses with no other roof than the cold clouds of heaven, those who each day demand their bread from chance and not from toil, the unknown of poverty and nothingness, the bare armed, the bare footed, belong to revolt. Whoever cherishes in his soul a secret revolt against any deed whatever on the part of the state, of life or a fate, is ripe for riot, and as soon as it makes its appearance he begins to quiver and to feel himself born away with the whirlwind. Revolt is a sort of water spout in the social atmosphere which forms suddenly in certain conditions of temperature and which, as it eddies about, mounts, descends, thunders, tears, raises, crushes, demolishes, uproots, bearing with it great natures and small, the strong man and the feeble mind, the tree trunk and the stalk of straw, woe to him as well as to him whom it strikes. It breaks the one against the other. It communicates to those whom it seizes an indescribable and extraordinary power. It fills the first comer with the force of events. It converts everything into projectiles. It makes a cannonball of a rough stone and a general of a porter. If we are to believe certain oracles of crafty political views, a little revolt is desirable from the point of view of power, system, revolt strengthened those governments which it does not overthrow. It puts the army to the test. It consecrates the bourgeoisie. It draws out the muscles of the police. It demonstrates the force of the social framework. It is an exercise in gymnastics. It is almost hygiene. Power is in better health after a revolt as a man is after a good rubbing down. Revolt, 30 years ago, was regarded from still other points of view. There is for everything a theory which proclaims itself good sense. Mediation offered between the false and the true. Explanation, admonition, rather haughty extenuation, which, because it is mingled with blame and excuse, thinks itself wisdom and is often only pedantry. A whole political school called the Golden Mean has become the outcome of this. As between cold water and hot water it is the lukewarm water party, the school with its false depth or on the surface which dissects effects without going back to the first causes, chides from its height of a demi-science, the agitation of the public square. If we listen to this school the riots which complicated the affair of 1830 deprived that great event of a portion of its purity. The revolution of July had been a fine popular gale abruptly followed by blue sky. They made the cloudy sky reappear. They caused that revolution a first so remarkable for its unanimity to degenerate into a quarrel in the revolution of July as in all progress accomplished by fits and starts there had been secret fractures these riots rendered them perceptible they might have been said ah, this is broken after the revolution of July one was sensible only of deliverance after the riots one was conscious of a catastrophe all revolt closed the shops depresses the funds through the exchange into consternation suspense, commerce, clubs, business precipitates failures no more money private fortunes rendered uneasy public credit shaken industry disconcerted capital withdrawing worker to discount fear everywhere counter shocks in every town hence golfs it has been calculated that the first day of a riot cost France 20 millions the second day 40, the third 60 a three days uprising cost 120 millions that is to say if only the financial result be taken into consideration it is equivalent to a a shipwreck or a lost battle a fleet of 60 ships of the line no doubt historically uprisings have their beauty the war of the pavements is no less grandiose and no less pathetic than the war of thickets in the one there is the soil of forests in the other the heart of cities the one has Jean Chouin the other has Jean revolts have illuminated with a red glare all the most original points of the Parisian character generosity, devotion, stormy gaiety, students proving that bravery forms part of intelligence the national guard invincible bivouacs of shopkeepers, fortresses of street urchins, contempt of death on the part of passes by schools and legions clashed together after all between the combatants there was only a difference of age the race is the same it is the same stoical man who died at the age of 20 for their ideas at 40 for their families the army always a sad thing in civil wars opposed prudence to audacity uprisings, while proving popular intrepidity also educated the courage of the bourgeois this is well but is all this worth a bloodshed and to the bloodshed add the future darkness progress compromised uneasiness among the best men honest liberals in despair foreign absolutism happy in these wounds dealt to revolution by its own hand the vanquished of 1830 triumphing in saying we told you so at Paris enlarged possibly but France most assuredly diminished ad for almost needs be told the massacres which have too often dishonoured the victory of order grown ferocious over liberty gone mad to sum up all uprisings have been disastrous thus speaks that approximation to wisdom with which the bourgeoisie that approximation to the people so willingly contents itself for our part we reject this word uprisings as too large and consequently as too convenient we make a distinction between one popular movement and another popular movement we do not inquire whether an uprising costs as much as a battle why a battle in the first place here the question of war comes up is war less of a scourge than an uprising is of a calamity and then are all uprisings calamities and what if the revolt of july did cost 120 millions the establishment to fill up the fifth in Spain cost France two millions even at the same price 14 july however we reject these figures which appear to be reasons and which are only words an uprising being given we examine it by itself in all that is said by the doctrine of objection above presented there is no question of anything but effect we seek the cause we will be explicit end of book 10 chapter 1 recording by Kate McKenzie this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain but for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Caitlin Tettmeyer Le Miserable volume 4 by Victor Hugo translated by Isabelle Florence Hapgood book 10 the 5th of June 1832 chapter 2 the root of the matter there is such a thing as an uprising and there is such a thing as insurrection these are two separate phases of wrath one is in the wrong the other is in the right in democratic states the only ones which are founded on justice it sometimes happens that the fraction usurps then the whole rises and the necessary claim of its rights may proceed as far as resort to arms in all questions which result from collective sovereignty the war of the whole against the fraction is insurrection the attack of the fraction against the whole is revolt according as the two lorries contain a king or the convention they are justly or unjustly attacked the same canon pointed against the populace is wrong on the 10th of August and right on the 14th of Vendemier alike in appearance fundamentally different in reality the Swiss defend the false bonaparte defends the true that which universal suffrage has effected in its liberty and in its sovereignty cannot be undone by the street it is the same in things pertaining purely to civilization the instinct of the masses clear-sighted today may be troubled tomorrow the same fury legitimate when directed against her a and absurd when directed against her go the destruction of machines the pillage of warehouses the breaking of rails the demolition of docks the false roots of multitudes the refusal by the people of justice to progress Ramus assassinated by students who so driven out of Switzerland and stoned that is revolt Israel against Moses Athens against Rome against Cicero that is an uprising Paris against the Bastille that is insurrection the soldiers against Alexander the sailors against Christopher Columbus this is the same revolt impious revolt why because Alexander is doing for Asia with the sword that which Christopher Columbus is doing for America with the compass Alexander like Columbus is finding a world these gifts of a world civilization are such augmentations of light that all resistance in that case is culpable sometimes the populace counterfeits fidelity to itself the masses are traitors to the people is there for example anything stranger than that long and bloody protest of dealers in contraband salt a legitimate chronic revolt which at the decisive moment on the day of salvation at the very hour of popular victory espouses the throne turns into charnery and from having been an insurrection against becomes an uprising for somber masterpieces of ignorance the contraband salt dealer escapes the royal gibbets and with a ropes end round his neck mounts the white cockade death to the salt duties brings forth long live the king the assassins of saint Bartholome the cutthroats of september the manslaughterers of avignon the assassins of colony the assassins of madame lambal the assassins of brun michelette verdez the companions of ji hu the chevaliers of brussard behold an uprising la vendi is a grand catholic uprising the sound of right in movement is recognizable it does not always proceed from the trembling of excited masses there are mad rages there are cracked bells all toxins do not give out the sound of bronze the brawl of passions and ignorances is quite another thing from the shock of progress show me in what direction you are going rise if you will but let it be that you may grow great there is no insurrection except in a forward direction any other sort of rising is bad every violent step towards the rear is a revolt to retreat is to commit a deed of violence against the human race insurrection is a fit of rage on the part of truth the pavements which the uprising disturbs give forth the spark of right these pavements bequeath to the uprising only their mud danthan against louis the 14th is insurrection a bear against danthan is revolt results that if insurrection in given cases may be as lafayette says the most holy of duties an uprising may be the most fatal of crimes there is also a difference in the intensity of heat insurrection is often a volcano revolt is often only a fire of straw revolt as we have said is sometimes found among those in power polignac is a rioter camille de moulin is one of the governing powers insurrection is sometimes resurrection the solution of everything by universal suffrage being an absolutely modern fact and all history anterior to this fact being for the space of four thousand years filled with violated right and the suffering of peoples each epoch of history brings with it that protest of which it is capable under the caesars there was no insurrection but there was juvenile the facet indignatio replaces the grachai under the caesars there is the exile to sayini there is also the man of the analysis we do not speak of the immense exile of patmos who on his part also overwhelms the real world with a protest in the name of the ideal world who makes of his vision an enormous satire and casts on Rome ninove on Rome Babylon on Rome Sodom the flaming reflection of the apocalypse John on his rock is the Sphinx on its pedestal we may understand him he is a Jew and it is Hebrew but the man who writes the analysis is of the Latin race let us rather say he is a Roman as the Nero's reign in a blackway they should be painted to match the work of the graving tool alone would be too pale there must be poured into the channel a concentrated prose which bites despots count for something in the question of philosophers a word that is chained is a terrible word the writer doubles and troubles his style when silence is imposed on a nation by its master from this silence there arises a certain mysterious plenitude which filters into thought and there congeals into bronze the compression of history produces righteousness in the historian the granite solidity of such and such a celebrated prose is nothing but the accumulation effected by the tyrant tyranny constrains the writer to conditions of diameter which are augmentations of force the Ciceronian period which hardly sufficed for Varys would be blunted on Caligula the less spread of sale in the phrase the more intensity in the blow Tacitus thinks with all his might the honesty of a great heart condensed injustice and truth overwhelms as with lightning be it remarked in passing the Tacitus is not historically superposed upon Caesar the Tibery were reserved for him Caesar and Tacitus are two successive phenomena a meeting between whom seems to be mysteriously avoided by the one who, when he sets the centuries on the stage, regulates the entrances and the exits Caesar is great Tacitus is great God spares these two greatnesses by not allowing them to clash with one another the guardian of justice in striking Caesar might strike too hard and be unjust God does not will it the great wards of Africa and Spain the pirates of Sicily destroyed civilization introduced into Gaul into Brittany into Germany all this glory covers the Rubicon there is here a sort of delicacy of the divine justice hesitating to let loose upon the illustrious usurper the formidable historian sparing Caesar Tacitus and according extenuating circumstances to genius certainly despotism remains despotism even under the despot of genius corruption under all illustrious tyrants but the moral pest is still more hideous under infamous tyrants in such reigns nothing veils the shame and those who make examples Tacitus as well as juvenile slap this ignominy which cannot reply in the face more usefully in the presence of all humanity Rome smells worse under Vitellius than under Scylla under Claudius and under Domitian there is a deformity of baseness corresponding to the repulsiveness of the tyrant the villainy of slaves is a direct product of the despot a miasma exhales from these cowering consciences wherein the master is reflected public powers are unclean hearts are small consciences are dull souls are like vermin thus it is under caracalla thus it is under Heliagabalus while from the Roman Senate under Caesar there comes nothing but the odor of the dung which is peculiar to the Aries of the eagles hence the advent apparently tardy of the Tacitus and the juveniles it is in the hour for evidence that the demonstrator makes his appearance but juvenile and Tacitus like Isaiah in Biblical times like Dante in the Middle Ages is man riot and insurrection are the multitude which is sometimes right and sometimes wrong in the majority of cases riot proceeds from a material fact insurrection is always a moral phenomenon riot is masaniello insurrection Spartacus insurrection borders on mind riot on the stomach gaster grows irritated is not always in the wrong in questions of famine riot for example holds a true pathetic and just point of departure nevertheless it remains a riot why? it is because right at bottom it was wrong in form shy although in the right violent although strong it struck at random it walked like a blind elephant it left behind it the corpses it wished the blood of inoffensive and innocent persons without knowing why the nourishment of the people is a good object to massacre them is a bad means all armed to protest even the most legitimate even that of the 10th of August even that of July 14th begin with the same troubles before the right gets set free there is foam and tumult in the beginning the insurrection is a riot just as a river is a torrent ordinarily it ends in that ocean revolution sometimes however coming from those lofty mountains which dominate the moral horizon justice wisdom reason right formed of the pure snow of the ideal after a long fall from rock to rock after having reflected the sky in its transparency and increased by 100 affluence in the majestic mean of triumph insurrection is suddenly lost in some quagmire as the Rhine is in a swamp all this is of the past the future is another thing universal suffrage has this admirable property that it dissolves riot in its inception and by giving the vote to insurrection it deprives it of its arms the disappearance of wars of street wars as well as of wars on the frontiers such is the inevitable progression whatever today may be tomorrow will be peace however insurrection, riot and points of difference between the former and the latter the bourgeois properly speaking knows nothing of such shades in his mind all is sedition rebellion pure and simple the revolt of the dog against his master an attempt to bite whom must be punished by the chain and the kennel barking until such day as the head of the dog suddenly enlarged is outlined vaguely in the gloom face to face with the lion then the bourgeois shouts long live the people this explanation given what does the movement of june 1832 signify so far as history is concerned is it a revolt, is it an insurrection it may happen to us in placing this formidable event on the stage to say revolt now and then but merely to distinguish superficial facts and always preserving the distinction between revolt, the form and insurrection, the foundation this movement of 1832 had in its rapid outbreak and in its melancholy extinction so much grandeur that even those who see in it only an uprising never refer to it otherwise than with respect for them it is like a relic of 1830 excited imaginations say they are not to be calmed in a day a revolution cannot be cut off short it must needs undergo some undulations before it returns to a state of rest like a mountain sinking into the plain there are no Alps without their Jura nor Pyrenees without the Asturias this pathetic crisis of contemporary history which the memory of Parisians calls the epoch of the riots a characteristic hour amid the stormy hours of this century a last word before we enter on the recital the facts which we are about to relate belong to that dramatic and living reality which the historian sometimes neglects for lack of time and space there nevertheless we insist upon it is life palpitation, human tremor petty details as we think we have already said are so to speak the foliage of great events and are lost in the distance of history the epoch, surnamed of the riots, abounds in details of this nature judicial inquiries have not revealed and perhaps have not sounded the depths for another reason than history we shall therefore bring to light among the known and published peculiarities things which have not here to fore been known about facts over which have passed the forgetfulness of some and the death of others the majority of the actors in these gigantic scenes have disappeared beginning with the very next day they held their peace but of what we shall relate we shall be able to say we have seen this we alter a few names for history relates and does not inform against but the deed which we shall paint will be genuine in accordance with the conditions of the book which we are now writing we shall show only one side and one episode and certainly the least known at that of the two days the fifth of June 1832 but we shall do it in such wise that the reader may catch a glimpse beneath the gloomy veil which we are about to lift of the real form of this frightful public adventure End of Book 10 Chapter 2 Recording by Katelyn Tepmeyer Emos Philippines www.caitlynisher.xanga.com Chapter 3 of Book 10 of Le Miserable Volume 4 by Victor Hugo This is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Robert Kuiper Le Miserable Volume 4 by Victor Hugo translated by Elizabeth Florence Hapgood Book 10 The Fifth of June 1832 Chapter 3 A Burial An Occasion to Be Born Again In the spring of 1832 although the cholera had been chilling all minds for the last three months and had cast over their agitation an indescribable and gloomy pacification Paris had already long been ripe for commotion As we have said the great city resembles a piece of artillery When it is loaded it suffices for a spark to fall and the shot is discharged In June 1832 the spark was the death of General Le Marque Le Marque was a man of renown and of action He had had in succession under the empire and under the restoration the sorts of bravery requisite for the two epochs the bravery of the battlefield and the bravery of the tribune He was as eloquent as he had been valiant A sword was discernible in his speech like Foy, his predecessor after upholding the command he upheld liberty He sat between the left and the extreme left beloved of the people because he accepted the chances of the future beloved of the populace because he had served the emperor well He was in company with Comte Girard and Rouet one of Napoleon's marshals in Petot The treaties of 1815 removed him as a personal offense He hated Wellington with a downright hatred which pleased the multitude and for seventeen years he majestically preserved the sadness of Waterloo paying hardly any attention to intervening events In his death agony his last hour he clasped to his breast a sword which had been presented to him by the officers of the hundred days Napoleon had died uttering the word army Lamarck uttering the word country His death which was expected was dreaded by the people as a loss and by the government as an occasion This death was an affliction like everything that is bitter may turn to revolt This is what took place On the preceding evening and on the morning of the 5th of June the day appointed for Lamarck's burial the faux-baire Saint-Antoine which the procession was to touch at assumed a formidable aspect This tumultuous network of streets was filled with rumours They armed themselves as best they might Joiners carried off door-weights of their establishments to break down doors One of them had made himself a dagger of a stocking-weavers' hook by breaking off the hook and sharpening the stump Another who was in a fever to attack slept wholly dressed for three days A carpenter named Lamarck met a comrade who asked him whither are you going Well, I have no weapons What then? I'm going to my timber-yard to get my compasses What for? I don't know, said Lambeer A certain Jacqueline, an expeditious man accosted some passing artisans Come here, you He treated them to ten sous-worth of wine and said Have you work? No Go to Fépierre between the Barrière Charonne and the Barrière Montréal and you will find work At Fépiers they found cartridges and arms Certain well-known leaders were going the rounds that is to say running from one house to another to collect their men At Bartholmes near the Barrière de Trône at Capels near the Petit Chapot the drinkers accosted each other with a grave air They were heard to say Have you your pistol? Under my blouse, and you? Under my shirt In the Rue Traversière in front of the Bland Workshop and in the yard of the Maison Brûlis in front of tool-makers bernières groups whispered together Among them was observed a certain Mavol who never remained more than a week in one shop as the masters always discharged him because they were obliged to dispute with him every day Mavol was killed the following day at the barricade of the Rue Menille Montagne Pritot, who was destined to perish also in the struggle and to the question, what is your object? he replied, insurrection Workmen assembled at the corner of the Rue de Bercy waited for a certain Le Marin the revolutionary agent for the Faubourg Saint-Merceau were exchanged almost publicly On the 5th of June, accordingly a day of mingled rain and sun General Le Marin's funeral procession traversed Paris with official military pomp somewhat augmented through precaution two battalions with draped drums and reversed arms ten thousand national guards with their swords at their sides escorted the coffin the hearse was drawn by young men the officers of the Invalides came immediately behind it bearing laurel branches then came an innumerable strange agitated multitude the sectionares of the friends of the people the law school the medical school refugees of all nationalities and Spanish, Italian German and Polish flags tricolored horizontal banners every possible sort of banner children waving green bows stone cutters and carpenters who were on strike at the moment printers who were recognizable by their paper caps marched two by two three by three uttering cries nearly all of them brandishing sticks some brandishing sabers without order and yet with a single soul now a tumultuous route again a column squads chose themselves leaders a man armed with a pair of pistols in full view seemed to pass the host in review and the files separated before him on the side alleys of the boulevards in the branches of the trees on balconies in windows on the roofs swarmed the heads of men women and children all eyes were filled with anxiety an armed throng was passing and a terrified throng looked on the government on its side was taking observations it observed with its hand on its sword four squadrons of carabiners could be seen at the Place Louis Kins in their saddles with their trumpets at their head cartridge boxes filled and muskets loaded all in readiness to march in the Latin country and in the Jardin des Plantes the municipal guard echelon from street to street at the Hall Auvin at the Grève half of the Twelfth Light Infantry the other half being at the Bastille the Sixth Dragoons at the Celestines and the courtyard of the Louvre full of artillery the remainder of the troops were confined to their barracks without reckoning the regiments of the environs of Paris power being uneasy held suspended over the menacing multitude twenty-four thousand soldiers in the city and in the banlieure divers reports were in circulation in the courtage legitimate tricks were hinted at they spoke of the Duke de Reichstad whom God had marked out for death at that very moment when the populace were designating him for the empire one personage whose name has remained unknown announced that at a given hour two overseers who had been won over would throw open the doors of arms to the people that which predominated on the uncovered brows of the majority of those present was enthusiasm mangled with dejection here and there also in that multitude given over to such violent but noble emotions there were visible genuine visages of criminals and ignoble mouths which said let us plunder there are certain agitations which stir up the bottoms of marshes and make clouds of mud rise through the water a phenomenon to which well-drilled policemen are no strangers the procession proceeded with feverish slowness from the house of the deceased by way of the boulevards as far as the Bastille it rained from time to time the rain mattered nothing to that throng many incidents stones thrown at the Duke de Fritz James who was seen on a balcony with his hat on his head the Gallic cock torn from a popular flag and dragged in the mire a policeman wounded with a blow from a sword at the Port Saint-Martine an officer of the 12th Light Infantry saying aloud I am a Republican the polytechnic school coming up unexpectedly against orders to remain at home the shouts of long live the polytechnic long live the republic marked the passage of the funeral train at the Bastille long lines of curious and formidable people who descended from the Faux-Basques Saint-Antoine affected a junction with a procession and a certain terrible seething began to agitate the throng one man was heard to say to another do you see that fellow with a red beard he's the one who will give the word when we are to fire it appears that this red beard was present at another riot the Queenissette Affair entrusted with this same function the hearse passed the Bastille traversed the small bridge and reached the esplanade of the bridge of Austerlitz there it halted the crowd, surveyed at that moment with a bird's eye view would have presented the aspect of a comet whose head was on the esplanade and whose tail spread out over the Caye-Berdon covered the Bastille and was prolonged on the boulevard as far as Port Saint-Martine a circle was traced around the hearse the vast route held its peace Lafayette spoke and bad Le Marc farewell this was a touching and august instant all heads uncovered all hearts beat high all at once a man on horseback clad in black made his appearance in the middle of the group with a red flag others say with a pike surmounted with a red liberty cap Lafayette turned his head Axelmans quitted the procession this red flag raised a storm and disappeared in the midst of it from the boulevard Bourdon to the bridge of Austerlitz one of those clamors which resembled billows stirred the multitude two prodigious shouts went up La Marc to the pantheon Lafayette to the town hall some young men amid the declamations of the throng harnessed themselves and began to drag La Marc in the hearse across the bridge of Austerlitz and Lafayette in a hackneyed coach along the Caye-Morland in the crowd which surrounded and cheered Lafayette it was noticed that a German showed himself named Ludwig Snyder who died a centenarian afterwards who had also been in the war of 1776 and who had fought at Trenton under Washington and at Brandywine under Lafayette in the meantime the municipal cavalry on the left bank had been set in motion and came to bar the bridge on the right bank the dragoons emerged from the selestine and deployed along the Caye-Morland the men who were dragging Lafayette suddenly caught sight of them at the corner of the Caye and shouted the dragoons the dragoons advanced at a walk in silence with their pistols in their holsters their swords in their scabbards their guns slung in their leather sockets with an air of gloomy expectation they halted 200 paces from the little bridge the carriage in which sat Lafayette advanced to them their ranks opened and allowed it to pass and then closed behind it at that moment the dragoons and the crowd touched the women fled in terror what took place during that fatal minute no one can say it is the dark moment when two clouds come together some declare that a blast of trumpets sounding the charge was heard in the direction of the arsenal others that a blow from a dagger was given by a child to a dragoon the fact is that three shots were suddenly discharged the first killed Cholet chief of the squadron the second killed an old deaf woman who was in the act of closing her window the third singed the shoulder of an officer a woman screamed they are beginning too soon and all at once a squadron of dragoons which had remained in the barracks up to this time was seen to débouche at a gallop with barred swords through the roues bassons pierre and the boulevard bourdon sweeping all before them then all is said the tempest is loosed stones rain down the fuselage breaks forth many precipitate themselves to the bottom of the bank and pass the small arm of the sen now filled in the timber yard of the Île Louvière that vast citadel ready to hand bristle with combatants stakes are torn up pistol shots fired a barricade begun the young men who are thrust back pass the Austelitz bridge with the hearse at a run and the municipal guard the dragoons ply their swords the crowd disperses in all directions a rumour of war flies to all four quarters of Paris men shout two arms! they run tumble down, flee, resist wrath spreads abroad the riot as wind spreads a fire end of book 10 chapter 3 chapters 4 and 5 of book 10 of Les Miserables, volume 4 by Victor Hugo this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Robert Kuiper Les Miserables, volume 4 by Victor Hugo translated by Elizabeth Florence Hapgood book 10 the 5th of June 1832 chapters 4 and 5 chapter 4 the ebullitions of former days nothing is more extraordinary than the first breaking out of a riot everything burst forth everywhere at once was it foreseen? yes was it prepared? no whence comes it from the pavements whence falls it from the clouds here insurrection assumes the character of a plot there of an improvisation the first comer seizes a current of the throng and leads it whither he wills a beginning full of terror in which is mungled a sort of formidable gaiety first come clamors the shops are closed the displays of the merchants disappear then come isolated shots people flee blows from gunstocks beat against Port Cocher servants can be heard laughing in the courtyards of houses and saying there's going to be a row row a quarter of an hour had not elapsed when this is what was taking place in twenty different spots in Paris at once in the roue Saint-Croix de la Bretonnaire twenty young men bearded and with long hair entered a dram shop and emerged a moment later carrying a horizontal tricolored flag covered with crepe and having at their head three men armed one with a sword, one with a gun covered with a pike in the roue de nonandière a very well-dressed bourgeois who had a prominent belly, a sonorous voice a bald head, a lofty brow a black beard and one of those stiff mustaches which will not lie flat offered cartridges publicly to passers-by in the roue Saint-Pierre Montmartre men with bare arms carried about a black flag on which could be read in white letters this inscription in the roue des genneurs roue de cadran roue de Montorgui roue Mandar groups appeared waving flags on which could be distinguished in gold letters the word section with a number one of these flags was red and blue with an almost imperceptible stripe of white between they pillaged a factory of small arms on the boulevard Saint-Martine and three armours shops the first in the roue Beaubourg the second in the roue Michel de Campt the other in the roue du temple in a few minutes the thousand hands of the crowd had seized and carried off 230 guns nearly all double-barrelled 64 swords and 83 pistols in order to provide more arms one man took the gun the other the bayonet opposite the Cadre la Grève young men armed with muskets installed themselves in the houses for the purpose of firing one of them had a flintlock they rang, entered and set about making cartridges one of these women relates I did not know what cartridges were it was my husband who told me one cluster broke into a curiosity shop in the roue de Beaudriette and seized Yategans and Turkish arms the body of a mason who had been killed by a gunshot lay in the roue de la Perle the right bank the left bank on the caves on the boulevards in the Latin country in the Cartier de Halles panting men, artisans, students members of sections read proclamations and shouted to arms broke street lanterns unharnessed carriages unpaved the street broke into doors of houses uprooted trees rummaged cellars and made barricades they forced the bourgeois to assist them in this they entered the dwellings of women they forced them to hand over the swords and guns of their absent husbands and they wrote on the door with writing the arms have been delivered some signed their names to receipts for the guns and swords and said send for them to-morrow at the mayor's office they disarmed isolated sentinels and national guardsmen in the streets on their way to the town hall they tore the epaulettes from officers in the Rue de Cimeterre Saint-Nocolas an officer of the national guard on being pursued by a crowd armed with clubs and foils took refuge with difficulty in a house whence he was only able to emerge at nightfall and in disguise in the Cartier Saint-Jacques the students swarmed out of their hotels and ascended the Rue Saint-Hyacinthe to the Café de Progresse or descended to the Café de Sepbillard in the Rue de Maturine there in front of the door young men mounted on the stone corner post distributed arms they plundered the Timbillard in the Rue Transnounian in order to obtain material for barricades on a single point the inhabitants resisted at the corner of the Rue Saint-Avois and the Rue Simon Le Franc where they destroyed the barricades on their way to the town hall where they destroyed the barricade with their own hands at a single point the insurgents yielded they abandoned a barricade begun in the Rue de Tample after having fired on a detachment of the National Guard and fled through the Rue de la Cordière the detachment picked up in the barricades a red flag, a package of cartridges and three hundred pistol balls the National Guardsmen tore up the flag and carried off its tattered remains at the points of their bayonets all that we are here relating slowly and successively took place simultaneously at all points in the city in the midst of a vast tumult like a mass of tongues of lightning in one clap of thunder in less than an hour twenty-seven barricades sprang out of the earth in the Cartier of the Halls alone in the center was that famous house Numero Saint-Ghante and her six hundred companions and which flanked on the one hand by the barricade at Saint-Marie and on the other by the barricade of the Rue-Maubeuse commanded three streets the Rue-Désarquis the Rue-Saint-Martin and the Rue-Aubrie-Le-Boucher which it faced the barricades at right angles fell back the one of the Rue Montorgie on the Grand Touranderie the Rue-Jafferie-Langevin on the Rue-Saint-Avoy without reckoning innumerable barricades in twenty other quarters of Paris in the Marais in the Mont-Saint-Jean-Aviève one in the Rue-Manille-Montagne where was visible a porte-cauchère torn from its hinges another near the little bridge of the Hotel-Dieu made with an écocée which had been unharnessed and overthrown three hundred paces from the Perfecture of Police at the barricade of the Rue des Menatrières a well-dressed man distributed money to the workmen at the barricade of the Rue-Grenetat a horseman made his appearance and handed to the one who seemed to be the commander of the barricade what had the appearance of a roll of silver here, said he this is to pay expenses wine, etc. a light-haired young man who, to cravat went from barricade to barricade carrying passwords another with a naked sword a blue police cap on his head placed sentinels in the interior beyond the barricades the wine shops and porters lodges were converted into guardhouses otherwise the riot was conducted after the most scientific military tactics the narrow, uneven, sinuous streets full of angles and turns were admirably chosen the neighborhood of the halls in particular a network of streets more intricate than a forest the society of the friends of the people had, it was said, undertaken to direct the insurrection in the Cartier-Saint-Avoy a man killed in the Rue de Ponceau who was searched had on his person a plan of Paris that which had really undertaken the direction of the uprising a strange impetuosity which was in the air the insurrection had abruptly built barricades with one hand and with the other seized nearly all the posts of the garrison in less than three hours like a train of powder catching fire the insurgents had invaded and occupied, on the right bank the arsenal, the mayoralty of the Place Royal the whole of the Marais the pop and court arms the filiate the château d'eau and all the streets near the halls on the left bank the barracks of the veterans Saint Pellagrie the Place Montbert the powder magazine of the Doumoilin and all the barriers at five o'clock in the evening they were masters of the Bastille of the Lingerie of the Blanc Montau their scouts had reached the Place des Victoires the post office a third of Paris was in the hands of the rioters the conflict had been begun on a gigantic scale at all points and as a result of the disarming domiciliary visits and the armory shops hastily invaded was that the combat which had begun with the throwing of stones was continued with gunshots about six o'clock in the evening the Passage du Somman became the field of battle the uprising was at one end the troops were at the other they fired from one gate to the other an observer a dreamer, the author of this book who had gone to get a near view of this volcano found himself in the passage between the two fires all that he had to protect him from the bullets was the swell of the two half columns which separate the shops he remained in this delicate situation for nearly half an hour meanwhile the call to arms was beaten the National Guard armed in haste the legions emerged from the mayortes the regiments from their barracks opposite the Passage de l'Incre a drummer received a blow from a dagger another, in the Rue de Signe was assailed by thirty young men who broke his instrument and took away his sword another was killed in the Rue Grenier Saint-les-Arts in the Rue Michel Compte three officers fell dead one in the Rue Grenier Saint-les-Arts three officers fell dead one after the other many of the municipal guards on being wounded in the Rue des Lombards retreated in front of the Courbatave a detachment of National Guards found a red flag bearing the following inscription Republican Revolution Numero 127 was this a revolution in fact the insurrection had made of the centre of Paris sort of inextricable torturous colossal citadel there was the hearth there evidently was the question all the rest was nothing but skirmishes the proof that all would be decided there lay in the fact that there was no fighting going on there as yet in some regiments the soldiers were uncertain which added to the fearful uncertainty of the crisis they recalled the popular ovation which had greeted the neutrality of the 53rd of the line in July 1830 two intrepid men tried in great wars the Marshal Lobau and General Bougot were in command Bougot under Lobau enormous patrols composed of battalions of the line enclosed in entire companies of the National Guard and preceded by a commissary of police carrying his scarf of office went to reconnoiter the streets in rebellion the insurgents on their side placed vedettes at the corners of all open spaces and audaciously sent their patrols outside the barricades each side was watching the other the government with an army in its hand hesitated the night was almost upon them and the St. Mary toxin began to make itself heard the minister of war at that time Marshal Solt who had seen Austerlitz regarded this with a gloomy air these old sailors accustomed to correct maneuvers and having as resource and guide only tactics that compass of battles are utterly disconcerted in the presence of that immense foam which is called public wrath the National Guards of the suburbs rushed up to the east in disorder a battalion of the 12th light came at a run from Saint-Denise the 14th of the line arrived from Coubevoir the batteries of the military school had taken up their positions on the carousel cannons were descending from Vincennes solitude was formed around the Tuileries Louis Philippe was perfectly serene End of Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Originality of Paris During the last two years as we have said Paris had witnessed more than one insurrection nothing is generally more singularly calm than the physiognomy of Paris during an uprising beyond the bounds of the rebellious quarters Paris very speedily accustomed herself to anything it is only a riot and Paris has so many affairs on hand that she does not put herself out for so small a matter these colossal cities alone can offer such spectacles these immense enclosures alone can contain at the same time civil war and an odd and indescribable tranquility ordinarily when an insurrection commences when the shopkeeper hears the drum, the call to arms the general alarm he contents himself with remark there appears to be a squabble in the Roussin Martin or in the Fulbeur Saint Antoine often he adds carelessly or somewhere in that direction later on when the heart-rending and mournful hubbub of musketry and firing by platoons becomes audible the shopkeeper says it's getting hot, hello it's getting hot a moment later the riot approaches and gains in force he shuts up his shop precipitously hastily dons his uniform that is to say he places his merchandise in safety and risks his own person men fire in a square in a passage in a blind alley they take and retake the barricade blood flows, the grape-shot riddles the fronts of houses the balls kill people in their beds corpses encumber the streets a few streets away the shock of billiard balls can be heard in the cafes the theatres open their doors and present vaudevilles the curious laugh and chat a couple of paces distant from these streets filled with war hackney carriages go their way passers-by are going to a dinner somewhere in town sometimes in the very quarter where the fighting is going on in 1831 a fuselad getting-party to pass at the time of the insurrection of 1839 in the Rousa-Martine a little infirm old man pushing a hand-cart surmounted by a tricolored rag in which he had carafs filled with some sort of liquid went and came from barricade to troops and from troops to the barricade offering his glasses of cocoa impartially now to the government now to anarchy something can be stranger and this is the peculiar character of uprisings in Paris which cannot be found in any other capital to this end two things are requisite the size of Paris and its gaiety the city of Voltaire and Napoleon is necessary on this occasion however in the resort to arms of June 25th 1832 the great city filled perhaps stronger than itself it was afraid closed doors windows and shutters were to be seen everywhere in the most distant and most disinterested quarters the courageous took to arms the paultrons hid the busy and heedless passers-by disappeared many streets were empty at four o'clock in the morning alarming details were hawked about fatal news was disseminated that they were masters of the bank that there were six hundred of them in the cloister of Saint-Marie alone entrenched and embattled in the church that the line was not to be depended on that Armand Carrel had been to see Marshal Closelle and that the Marshal had said get a regiment first that Lafayette was ill but that he had said to them nevertheless I am with you I will follow you wherever there is room for a chair that one must be on one's guard that at night there would be people pillaging isolated dwellings in the deserted corners of Paris there the imagination of the police that Anne Radcliffe mixed up with the government was recognizable that a battery had been established in the Rue-au-Bri-le-Boucher that Lobau and Bougot were putting their heads together and that at midnight or at daybreak at latest the church simultaneously on the center of the uprising the first coming from the Bastille the second from the Port Saint-Martine the third from the Grève the fourth from the Halls that perhaps also the troops would evacuate Paris and withdraw to the Champs-de-Mars that no one knew what would happen but that this time it certainly was serious people busied themselves over Marshal Closelle's hesitations did he not attack at once it is certain that he was profoundly absorbed the old lion seemed to sent an unknown monster in that gloom evening came the theaters did not open the patrol circulated with an air of irritation passers-by were searched suspicious persons were arrested by nine o'clock more than eight hundred persons had been arrested the prefecture of police was encumbered with them so was the conciergerie so was the force at the conciergerie in particular the long vault which is called the Rue de Paris was littered with trusses of straw upon which lay a heap of prisoners whom the man of Lyon La Grange harangued valiantly all that straw rustled by all these men produced the sound of a heavy shower elsewhere prisoners slept in the open air in the meadows piled on top of each other they rained everywhere and a certain tremor which was not habitual with Paris people barricaded themselves in their houses wives and mothers were uneasy nothing was to be heard but this oh my god he has not come home there was hardly even the distant rumble of a vehicle to be heard people listened on their thresholds to the rumours, the shouts, the tumult the dull and indistinct sounds to the things that were said it is the cavalry or the guns galloping to the trumpets, the drums, the firing and above all to that lamentable alarm-peel from Saint Marie they waited for the first cannon-shot men sprang up at the corners of the streets and disappeared shouting go home and people made haste to bolt their doors they said how will all this end from moment to moment in proportion as the darkness descended Paris seemed to take on a more mournful hue from the formidable flaming of the revolt End of book 10 chapters 4 and 5