 Chapter 1 of Book 1 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 Anna Joy. Les Miserables, Volume 4 by Victor Hugo. Translated by Isabel Florin Tapgut. Book 1, a few pages of history. Chapter 1, Well Cut. 1831 and 1832, the two years which are immediately connected with the Revolution of July, form one of the most peculiar and striking moments of history. These two years rise like two mountains midway between those which precede and those which follow them. They have a revolutionary grandeur. Precipices are to be distinguished there. Social masses, the very sizes of civilization, the solid group of super-posed and adhering interests, century-old profiles of the ancient French formation appear and disappear in them every instant, a thwart the storm clouds of systems of passions and of theories. These appearances and disappearances have been designated as movement and resistance. At intervals, truth, that daylight of the human soul can be described shining there. This remarkable epic is decidedly circumscribed and is beginning to be sufficiently distant from us to allow of our grasping the principal lines even of the present day. We shall make the attempt. The restoration had been one of those intermediate phases hard to define in which there is fatigue, buzzing, murmur, sleep, tummelt, and which are nothing else than the arrival of a great nation at a halting place. These epics are peculiar and mislead the politicians who desire to convert them to profit. In the beginning, the nation asks nothing but repose. It thirsts for but one thing, peace. It has but one ambition to be small, which is the translation of remaining tranquil. Of great events, great hazards, great adventures, great men, thank God we have seen enough. We have them heaped higher than our heads. We would exchange Caesar for Prusias and Napoleon for the king of Ithato. What a good little king was he. We have marched since daybreak. We have reached the evening of a long and toilsome day. We have made our first change with Mirabeau, the second with Robespierre, the third with Bonaparte, we are worn out. Each one demands a bed. Devotion which is weary, heroism which has grown old, ambitions which are stated, ambitions which are made, seek, demand, implore, solicit, want, a shelter. They have it. They take possession of peace, of tranquility, of leisure. Behold, they are content. But at the same time certain facts arise, compel recognition and knock at the door in their turn. These facts are the products of revolutions and wars. They are, they exist, they have the right to install themselves in society, and they do install themselves therein. And most of the time facts are the stewards of the household and forayes who do nothing but prepare lodging for principles. This, then, is what appears to philosophical politician. At the same time that weary men demand repose, accomplished facts demand guarantees. Guarantees are the same to facts that repose as to man. This is what England demanded of the stewards after the protector. This is what France demanded of the bourbons after the empire. These guarantees are a necessity of the time. They must be accorded. Princes grant them, but in reality it is the force of things which gives them. A profound truth and one useful to know, which the stewards did not suspect in 1662 and which the bourbons did not even obtain a glimpse of in 1814. The predestined family, which returned to France when Napoleon fell, had the fatal simplicity to believe that it was itself which bestowed, and that what it had bestowed it could take back again. The House of Bourbon possessed the right divine that France possessed nothing, and that the political right conceited in the Charter of Louis XVIII with merely a branch of the right divine was detached by the House of Bourbon and graciously given to the people until such day as it should please the king to re-assume it. Still the House of Bourbon should have felt, this pleasure created by the gift that it did not come from it. This House was cheerless to the nineteenth century. It put on an ill-tempered look at every development of the nation. To make use of a trivial word, that is to say, of a popular and true word, it looked glum, the people sawed it. It thought it possessed strength because the empire had been carried away before it like a theatrical stage setting. It did not perceive that it had itself been brought in in the same fashion, it did not perceive that it also lay in that hand which had removed Napoleon. It thought that it had roots because it was the path. It was mistaken. It formed a part of the path, but the whole path was brand. The roots of French society were not fixed in the Bourbon, but in the nation. These obscure and lively roots constituted not the right of a family, but the history of a people. They were everywhere except under the throne. The House of Bourbon was to France illustrious and bleeding not in her history, but was no longer the principal element of her destiny and the necessary base of her politics. She could get along without the Bourbons. She had done without them for two and twenty years. There had been a break of continuity. They did not suspect the path. And how should they have suspected it? They who fancied that Louis XVII reigned on the ninth of Thermidor and that Louis XVIII was reigning at the Battle of Marengo. Never since the origin of history had princes been so blind in the presence of facts in the portion of divine authority which facts contain and promulgate. Never had that pretension here below which is called the right of kings denied to such a point the rights are on high. A capital error which led this family to lay its hand once more on the guarantees granted in 1814 on the concessions as it termed them. Sad, a sad thing what it had termed its concessions were our conquest. What it termed our encroachments were our right. When the hour seemed to itch to have come the restoration supposing itself victorious over bone apart and well rooted in the country that is to say believing itself to be strong and deep abruptly decided on its plan of action and risked its stroke. One morning it drew itself up before the face of France and elevating its voice it contested the collective title of the individual right of the nation to sovereignty of the citizen to liberty. In other words it denied to the nation that which made it a nation and to the citizen that which made him a citizen. This is the foundation of those famous acts which are called the ordinances of July. The restoration fell. It fell justly but we admit it had not been absolutely hostile to all forms of progress. Great things had been accomplished with it alongside. Under the restoration the nation had grown accustomed to calm discussion which had been lacking under the Republic and to grandeur in peace which had been wanting under the Empire. France free and strong had offered an encouraging spectacle to the other peoples of Europe. The revolution had had the word under rovis pierre the canon had had the word under bone apart it was under Louis the 18th and Charles the 10th that it was the turn of intelligence to have the word. The wind ceased and the torch was lighted once more. On a lofty height the pure light of mind could be seen flickering. A magnificent useful and charming spectacle. For a space of 15 years those great principles which are so old for the thinker so new for the statesman could be seen at work in perfect peace on the public square. Equality before the law liberty of conscience, liberty of speech, liberty of the press the accessibility of all aptitudes to all function. Thus it proceeded until 1830. The Bourbons were an instrument of civilization which broke in the hands of Providence. The fall of the Bourbons was full of grandeur not on their side but on the side of the nation. They quitted the throne with gravity but without authority. Their descent into the night was not one of those solemn disappearances which leave a somber emotion in history was neither the spectral calm of Charles the 1st nor the eagle scream of Napoleon. They departed that is all. They laid down the crown and retained no oriole. They were worthy but they were not august. They last in a certain measure the majesty of their misfortune. Charles the 10th during the voyage from Cherbourg causing a round table to be cut over into a square cable appeared to be more anxious about imperiled etiquette than about the crumbling monarchy. This diminution saddened devoted men who loved their persons and serious men who honored their rape. The populace was admirable. The nation attacked one morning with weapons by a sort of royal insurrection felt itself in the possession of so much force that it did not go into a raid. It defended itself, restrained itself, restored things to their places, the government to law, the Bourbons to exile, alas, and then halted. It took the old king Charles the 10th from beneath that dais which had sheltered Louis the 14th and set him gently on the ground. It touched the royal personages only with sadness and precaution. Who was not one man, who was not a few men, it was France, France and Tyre, France victorious and intoxicated with her victory who seemed to be coming to herself and who put into practice before the eyes of the whole world the grave words of Guillaume du Verre after the day of the barricade. It is easy for those who are accustomed skim the favors of the great and to spring like a bird from bow to bow from an afflicted fortune to a flourishing one to show themselves harsh towards their prince and his adversity but as for me the fortune of my king and especially of my afflicted kings will always be venerable to me. The Bourbons carried away with them respect but not regret. As we have just stated their misfortune was greater than they were. They faded out in the horizon. The revolution of July instantly had friends and enemies throughout the entire world. The first rushed towards her with joy and enthusiasm the others turned away each according to his nature. At the first blush the princes of Europe the owls of this dawn shut their eyes wounded and stupefied and only opened them to threaten. A fright which can be comprehended a wrath which can be pardoned. This strange revolution had hardly produced a shock. It had not even paid to vanquished royalty the honor of treating it as an enemy and of shedding of blood. In the eyes of despotic governments who are always interested in having liberty culminate itself the revolution of July committed the fault of being formidable and of remaining gentle. Nothing however was attempted or plotted against it. The most discontented the most irritated the most trembling saluted it. Whatever our egotism and our ranker may be a mysterious respect springs from events in which we are sensible of the collaboration of someone who is working above man. The revolution of July is the triumph of right overthrowing the fact a thing which is full of splendor. Right overthrowing the fact hence the brilliancy of the revolution of 1830 hence also its mildness right triumphant has no need of being violent. Right is the just and the true. The property of right is to remain eternally beautiful and pure the fact even when most necessary to all appearances most thoroughly accepted by contemporary if it exists only the fact and if it contains only too little of right or none at all is infallibly destined to become in the course of time deformed impure perhaps even monstrous. If one desires to learn at one blow to what degree of hideousness the fact can attain viewed at the distance of centuries let him look at Machiavelli. Machiavelli is not an evil genius nor a demon nor a miserable and cowardly writer he is nothing but the fact and he is not only the Italian fact he is the European fact the fact of the 16th century he seems hideous and so he is in the presence of the moral idea of the 90s. This conflict of right and fact has been going on ever since the origin of society to terminate this dual to amalgamate the pure idea with the humane reality to cause right to penetrate specifically into the fact and the fact into the right. That is the task of sages. End of Book 1 Chapter 1 Chapter 2 of Book 1 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 Emma Joy Les Miserables Volume 4 by Victor Hugo Translated by Isabel Florence Hapgood Book 1 A few pages of history Chapter 2 Badly sewed But the task of sages is one thing The task of clever men is another The revolution of 1830 came to a sudden halt. As soon as the revolution has made the coast the skillful make haste to prepare the shipwreck. The skillful in our century have conferred on themselves the title of statesman the word statesman has ended by becoming somewhat of a slang word that must be borne in mind in fact that wherever there is nothing but skill there is necessarily pettiness to say the skillful amounts to saying the mediocre in the same way to say statesman is sometimes equivalent to saying traitors. If then we are to believe the skillful revolutions like the revolution of July are severed arteries, a prompt ligatures indispensable, the right to grandly proclaimed is shaken also right once firmly fixed the state must be strengthened liberty once assured attention must be directed to power here the sages are not as yet separated from the skillful but they begin to be distrustful power very good but in the first place what is power in the second whence comes it the skillful do not seem to hear the murmured objection and they continue their maneuvers according to the politicians who are ingenious in putting the mask of necessity on profitable fiction the first requirement of a people after a revolution when this people forms part of a monarchical continent is to procure for itself a dynasty in this way they say peace that is to say time to dress our wounds and to repair the house can be had after a revolution the dynasty concealed the scaffolding and covers the ambulance now it is not always easy to procure a dynasty if it is absolutely necessary the first man of genius or even the first man of fortune who comes to hand suffices for the manufacturing of a king you have in the first place Napoleon in the second itorbede but the first family that comes to hand does not suffice to make a dynasty there is necessarily required a certain modicum of antiquity in a race and the wrinkle of the centuries cannot be improvised if we place ourselves at the point of a statesman after making all allowances of course after a revolution what are the qualities of a king which result from it he may be and it is useful for him to be a revolutionary that is to say a participant in his own person in that revolution that he should have led to hand to it that he should have either compromised or distinguished himself therein that he should have touched the axe or wielded the sword in it what are the qualities of a dynasty that are necessary at a distance not through acts committed but by reason of ideas accepted it should be composed of past and be historic be composed of future and be sympathetic all this explains why the early revolutions contented themselves with finding a man, Cromwell or Napoleon and why the second absolutely insisted on finding a family the house of Brunswick or the house of Orleans royal houses resemble those Indian fig trees each branch to the earth takes root from becomes a fig tree itself each branch may become a dynasty on the sole condition that it shall bend down to the people such is the theory of the skillful here then lies the great art to make a little render to success sound of a catastrophe in order that those who profit by it may tremble from it also to season with fear every step that is taken to augment the curve of the transition to the point of retarding progress to announce and retrench the harshness of enthusiasm to cut all angles and nails to wad triumph to muffle up right to envelop the giant people in flannel and to put it to bed very speedily to impose a diet on that excess of health to put Hercules on the treatment of a convalescent to dilute the event with the expedient to offer to spirits thirsting for the ideal that nectar thinned out with the potion to take one's precaution against too much success to garnish the revolution with a shade that is already practiced this theory already applied to england by 1688 1830 is a revolution arrested midway half of progress quasi-right now logic knows not the almost absolutely as the sun knows not the candle who arrests revolutions half way the bourgeoisie why because the bourgeoisie is interest which has reached satisfaction yesterday it was appetite today it is plenitude the phenomenon of 1814 after Napoleon was reproduced in 1830 after Charles the Tenth the attempt has been made and wrongly to make a class of the bourgeoisie the bourgeoisie is simply the contented portion of the people the bourgeoisie is the man who now has time to sit down a chair is not a cast but through a desire to sit down too soon one may arrest the very march of the human race this is often been the faults of the bourgeoisie one is not a class because one is committed a fault selfishness is not one of the divisions of the social order moreover we must be just to selfishness the state to which that part of the nation which is called the bourgeoisie aspired after the shock of 1830 with not the inertia which is complicated with indifference and laziness and which contains a little shame it was not the slumber which presupposes a momentary forgetfulness accessible to dream it was the halt the halt is a word formed of a singular double and almost contradictory sense a troop on the march that is to say movement a stand that is to say repose the halt is the restoration of forces it is repose armed and on the alert it is the accomplished fact which posts sentinels and holds itself on its guard the halt presupposes the combat of yesterday and the combat of tomorrow it is the partition between 1830 and 1848 what we here call combat may also be designated as progress the bourgeoisie then as well as the statesmen required a man who should express this word halt and although because a composite individuality signifying revolution and signifying stability in other terms strengthening the present by the evident compatibility of the past with the future this man was already found his name was Louis Philippe de Orléans the 221 made Louis Philippe king Lafayette undertook the coronation who called it the best of republic the town hall of Paris took the place of the cathedral of Rhine this substitution of a half throne for a whole throne was the work of 1830 when the skillful had finished the immense vice of their solution became apparent all this had been accomplished outside the bounds of absolute right absolute right cried I protest then terrible to say it retired into the darkness end book 1 chapter 2 chapter 3 of book 1 of Les Miserables volume 4 by Victor Hugo this is a Librevox recording all Librevox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit Librevox.org recording by Rachel Weaver Les Miserables by Victor Hugo translated by Isabel Florence Hapgood book 1 a few pages of history chapter 3 Louis Philippe revolutions have a terrible arm and a happy hand they strike firmly and choose well even incomplete even debased and abused and reduced to their state of a junior revolution like the revolution of 1830 they nearly always retained sufficient providential lucidity to prevent them from falling amiss their eclipse is never an abdication nevertheless let us not boast too loudly revolutions also may be deceived and grave errors have been seen let us return to 1830 1830 in its deviation had good luck in the establishment which entitled itself order after the revolution had been cut short the king amounted to more than royalty Louis Philippe was a rare man the son of a father to whom history will accord certain attenuating circumstances but also as worthy of esteem as that father had been of blame possessing all private virtues and many public virtues careful of his health of his fortune of his person of his affairs knowing the value of a minute and not always the value of a year sober serene admirable patient a good man and a good prince sleeping with his wife and having in his palace lackeys charged with the duty of showing the conjugal bed to the bourgeois an ostentation of the regular sleeping apartment which had become useful after the former illegitimate displays of the elder branch knowing all the languages of Europe and what is more rare all the languages of all interests and speaking them an admirable representative of the middle class but outstripping it and in every way greater than it possessing excellent sense while appreciating the blood from which he had sprung counting most of all on his intrinsic worth and on the question of his race very particular declaring himself or leans and not bourbon thoroughly the first prince of the blood royal while he was still only a serene highness but a frank bourgeois from the day he became king diffuse in public concise in private reputed but not proved to be a miser at bottom one of those economists who are readily prodigal at their own fancy or duty lettered but not very sensitive to letters a gentleman but not a cheveler simple calm and strong adored by his family and his household a fascinating talker an undeceived statesman inwardly cold dominated by immediate interest always governing at the shortest range incapable of rancor and gratitude making use without mercy of superiority on mediocrity clever in getting parliamentary majorities to put in the wrong those mysterious unanimities which mattered duly under thrones unreserved sometimes imprudent in his lack of reserve but with marvelous atress in that imprudence fertile in expedience and countenances in masks making France fear Europe and Europe France incontestably fond of his country but preferring his family assuming more domination than authority and more authority than dignity a disposition which has this unfortunate property that as it turns everything into success it admits of ruse and does not absolutely repudiate baseness but which has this valuable side that it preserves politics from violent shocks the state from fractures and society from catastrophes minute correct vigilant attentive sagacious indefatigable and giving himself the lie bold against Austria and Encona obstinate against England in Spain bombarding Antwerp and paying off Pritchard signing the Marseille with conviction inaccessible to despondency to lecissitude to the taste for the beautiful and the ideal to daring generosity to utopia to chimeras to wrath to vanity to fear possessing all the forms of personal intrepidity a general at Valmais a soldier at J-Maps attacked eight times by regicide and always smiling brave as a grenadier courageous as a thinker uneasy only in the face of the chances of a European shaking up and unfitted for great political adventures always ready to risk his life never his work distinguishing his will and influence in order that he might be obeyed as an intelligence rather than as a king endowed with observation and not with divination not very attentive to minds but knowing men that is to say requiring to see in order to judge prompt and penetrating good sense practical wisdom easy speech prodigious memory drawing incessantly on this memory his only point of resemblance with Caesar, Alexander, and Napoleon knowing deeds facts details dates proper names ignorant of tendencies passions the diverse geniuses of the crowd the interior aspirations the hidden and obscure uprisings of souls in a word all that can be designated as the invisible currents of consciences accepted by the surface but little in accord with France lower down extricating himself by dint of tact governing too much and not enough his own first minister excellent at creating out of the pettiness of realities an obstacle to the immensity of ideas mingling a genuine creative faculty of civilization of order and organization an indescribable spirit of proceedings and chicanery the founder and lawyer of a dynasty having something of Charlemagne and something of an attorney in short, a lofty and original figure a prince who understood how to create authority in spite of the uneasiness of France and power in spite of the jealousy of Europe Louis Philippe will be classed among the eminent men of his century and would be ranked among the most illustrious governors of history had he loved glory but a little he had had the sentiment of what is great to the same degree as the feeling for what is useful Louis Philippe had been handsome and in his old age he remained graceful not always approved by the nation he always was so by the masses he pleased he had that gift of charming he lacked majesty he wore no crown although a king and no white hair although an old man his manners belonged to the old regime and his habits to the new a mixture of the noble and the bourgeois which suited 1830 Louis Philippe was transition reigning he had preserved the ancient pronunciation and the ancient orthography which he placed at the service of opinions modern he loved Poland in Hungary but he wrote Le Polonoi and he pronounced Le Ongre he wore the uniform of the National Guard like Charles X and the ribbon of the Legion of Honor like Napoleon he went a little to chapel not at all to the chase never to the opera incorruptible by sacrestans by worshipers in by ballet dancers this made a part of his bourgeois popularity he had no heart he went out with his umbrella under his arm his umbrella long formed a part of his oral he was a bit of a mason a bit of a gardener something of a doctor he bled a postillian who had tumbled from his horse Louis Philippe no more went about without his lancet than did Henry IV without his poignard the royalists jeered at this ridiculous king the first who had ever shed blood without the object of healing for the grievances against Louis Philippe there is one deduction to be made there is that which accuses the royalty that which accuses the reign that which accuses the king three columns which all give different totals democratic right confiscated progress becomes a matter of secondary interest the protests of the street violently repressed military execution of insurrections the rising passed over by arms none the councils of war the absorption of the real country by the legal country on half shares with 300,000 privileged persons these are the deeds of royalty Belgium refused Algeria too harshly conquered and as in the case of India by the English with more barbarism than civilization the breach of faith to Abdel Qader Blaye, Deutsch bought Pritchard paid these are the doings of the reign the policy which was more domestic than national was the doing of the king as will be seen the proper deduction having been made the king's charge is decreased this is his great fault he was modest in the name of France whence arises this fault we will state it Louis Philippe was rather too much of a paternal king that incubation of a family with the objection of founding a dynasty is afraid of everything and does not like to be disturbed hence excessive timidity which is displeasing to the people who have the 14th of July in their civil and ousterlets in their military traditions moreover if we deduct the public duties which require to be fulfilled first of all that deep tenderness of Louis Philippe family was deserved by the family that domestic group was worthy of admiration virtues there dwelt side by side with talents one of Louis Philippe's daughters Marie de Orleans placed the name of her race among artists as Charles de Orleans had placed it among poets she made of her soul a marble which she named Jean de Arc two of Louis Philippe's daughters elicited from Metternich this eulogium they are young people such as are rarely seen and princes such as are never seen this without any dissimulation and also without any exaggeration is the truth about Louis Philippe to be prince equality to bear in his own person the contradiction of the restoration and the revolution to have that disquieting side of the revolutionary which becomes reassuring in governing power therein lay the fortune of Louis Philippe in 1830 never was there a more complete adaptation of a man to an event the one entered into the other and the incarnation took place Louis Philippe is 1830 made man moreover he had in his favor that great recommendation to the throne exile he had been proscribed a wanderer poor he had lived by his own labor in Switzerland this heir to the richest princely domains in France had sold an old horse in order to obtain bread at Richonneau he gave lessons in mathematics while his sister Adelaide did wool work and sewed these souvenirs connected with a king he had with his own hands demolished the iron cage of Mount Saint Maquille built by Louis XI and used by Louis XV he was the companion of Dumouriez he was the friend of Lafayette he had belonged to the Jacobean's club Marabou had slapped him on the shoulder downtown had said to him young man at the age of 4 and 20 in 93 being then Manjeure des Chartres he had witnessed from the depth of a box the trial of Louis XVI so well named that poor tyrant the blind clairvoyance of the revolution breaking royalty in the king and the king with royalty did so almost without noticing the man in the fierce crushing of the idea the vast storm of the assembly tribunal the public wrath interrogating Carpe to reply the alarming stupefied vacillation by the royal head beneath that somber breath the relative innocence of all in that catastrophe of those who condemned as well as of the man condemned he had looked on those things he had contemplated that giddiness he had seen the centuries appear before the bar of the assembly convention he had beheld behind that unfortunate passer-by who is made responsible the terrible culprit rise through the shadows and there had lingered in his soul the respectful fear of these immense justices of the populace which are almost as impersonal as the justice of God the trace left in him by the revolution was prodigious its memory was like a living imprint of those great years minute by minute one day in the presence of a witness whom we are not permitted to doubt he rectified from memory the whole of the letter A in the alphabetical list of the constituent assembly Louis Philippe was a king of the broad daylight while he reigned the press was free the tribune was free conscience and speech were free the laws of September are open to sight although fully aware of the gnawing power of light on privileges he left his throne exposed to the light history will do justice to him for this loyalty Louis Philippe like all historical men who have passed from the scene is today put on trial by the human conscience his case is as yet only in the lower court the hour when history speaks with its free and venerable accent has not yet sounded for him the moment has not come to announce a definite judgment on this king the austere and illustrious historian Louis Blanc has himself recently softened his first verdict Louis Philippe was elected by those two almosts which are called the 221 and 1830 that is to say by a half parliament and a half revolution and in any case from the superior point of view where philosophy must place itself I cannot judge him here as the reader has seen above except with certain reservations in the name of the absolute democratic principle in the eyes of the absolute outside these two rights the right of man in the first place and the right of the people in the second all is usurpation but what we can say even at the present day that after making these reserves is that to sum up the whole in whatever manner he is considered Louis Philippe taken in himself and from the point of view of human goodness will remain to use the antique language of ancient history one of the best princes who ever sat on a throne what is there against him that throne take away Louis Philippe the king there remains the man and the man is good he is good at times even to the point of being admirable often in the midst of his greatest souvenirs after a day of conflict with the whole diplomacy of the continent he returned that night to his apartments and there exhausted with fatigue overwhelmed with sleep what did he do he took a death sentence and passed the night in revising a criminal suit considering it something to hold his own against Europe but that it was still greater matter to rescue a man from the executioner he obstinately maintained his opinion against his keeper of the seals he disputed the ground with the guillotine foot by foot against the crown attorneys those chatterers of the law as he called them sometimes the pile of sentences covered his table he examined them all it was anguished to him to abandon these miserable condemned heads one day he said to the same witness to whom we have recently referred I won seven last night during the early years of his reign the death penalty was as good as abolished and the erection of a scaffold was a violence committed against the king the grief having disappeared with the elder branch a bourgeois place of execution was instituted under the name of the Barrière Saint-Jacques practical men felt the necessity of a quasi-legitimate guillotine and this was one of the victories of Casimir Perrier who represented the narrow sides of the bourgeoisie over Louis Philippe who represented its liberal sides Louis Philippe annotated Becariah with his own hand after the feiski machine he exclaimed what a pity that I was not wounded then I might have pardoned on another occasion the resistance offered by his ministry he wrote in connection with a political criminal who is one of the most generous figures of our day his pardon is granted it only remains for me to obtain it Louis Philippe was as gentle as Louis IX and as kindly as Henry IV now to our mind in history where kindness is the rarest of pearls the man who is kindly almost takes precedence of the man who is great Louis Philippe having been severely judged by some harshly perhaps by others it is quite natural that a man himself a phantom at the present day who knew that king should come and testify in his favor before history this deposition whatever else it may be is evidently and above all things entirely disinterested an epitaph penned by a dead man is sincere one shade may console another shade the sharing of the same shadows confers the right to praise it it is not greatly to be feared that it will ever be said of two tombs in exile this one flattered the other end of book one chapter three recording by Rachel Weaver Boston, Massachusetts chapter four of book one book one chapter four 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 recording by Rachel Weaver Les Misérabes volume four by Victor Hugo translated by Isabel Florence Hapgood book one a few pages of history chapter four cracks beneath the foundation at the moment when the drama which we are narrating is on the point of penetrating into the depths of one of the tragic clouds which envelop the beginning of Louis-Philippe's reign it was necessary that there should be no equivoc and it became requisite that this book should offer some explanation with regard to this king Louis-Philippe had entered into possession of his royal authority without violence and any direct action on his part by virtue of a revolutionary change evidently quite distinct from the real aim of the evolution but in which he, the Duke de Orleans exercised no personal initiative he had been born a prince and he believed himself to have been elected king he had not served this mandate on himself he had not taken it it had been offered to him and he had accepted it convinced wrongly to be sure but convinced nevertheless that the offer was in accordance with right and that the acceptance of it was in accordance with duty hence his possession was in good faith now we say it in good conscience Louis-Philippe being in possession in perfect good faith and the democracy being in good faith in its attack the amount of terror discharged by the social conflicts weighs neither on the king nor on the democracy the principles resembles a clash of elements the ocean defends the water the hurricane defends the air the king defends royalty the democracy defends the people the relative which is the monarchy resists the absolute which is the republic society bleeds in this conflict but that which constitutes its suffering today will constitute its safety later on and in any case those who combat are not to be blamed the right party is evidently mistaken the right is not like the Colossus of Rhodes on two shores at once with one foot on the republic and one in the royalty it is indivisible and all on one side but those who are in error are so sincerely a blind man is no more a criminal than a vendian as a ruffian let us then impute to the fatality of things alone these formidable collusions the nature of these tempests may be human irresponsibility is mingled with them let us complete this exposition the government of 1840 led a hard life immediately born yesterday it was obliged to fight today hardly installed it was already everywhere conscious of vague movements of traction on the apparatus of July so recently laid and so lacking in solidity resistance was born on the morrow even it was born on the proceeding evening from month to month the hostility increased and from being concealed it became patent the revolution of July which gained but little acceptance outside of France by kings had been diversely interpreted in France as we have said God delivers over to himen his visible will in events an obscure text written in a mysterious tongue men immediately make translations of it translations hasty, incorrect full of errors of gaps and of nonsense very few minds comprehend the divine language the most sagacious, the calmest the most profound to cipher slowly and when they arrive with their texts the task has long been completed there are already 20 translations on the public place from each remaining springs a party and from each misinterpretation a faction and each party thinks that it alone has the true text and each faction that it possesses the light power itself is often a faction there are in revolutions swimmers who go against the current they are the old parties for the old parties who clung to heredity by the grace of God think that revolutions having sprung from the right to revolt one has the right to revolt against them for in these revolutions the one who revolts is not the people it is the king revolution is precisely contrary of revolt every revolution being a normal outcome contains within itself its legitimacy which false revolutionists sometimes dishonor but which remains even when soiled which survives even when stained with blood revolutions spring not from an accident but from necessity a revolution is a return from the fictitious to the real it is because it must be that it is nonetheless did the old legitimate parties assail the revolution of 1830 with all the vehemence which arises from false reasoning errors make excellent projectiles they strike it cleverly in its vulnerable spot in default of a queer ass in its lack of logic they attacked this revolution in its royalty they shouted to it revolution why this king factions are blind men who aim correctly this cry was uttered equally by the republicans but coming from them this cry was logical what was blindness in the legitimists was clearness of vision in the democrats 1830 had bankrupted the people the enraged democracy reproached it with this between the attack of the past and the attack of the future the establishment of july struggled it represented the minute at loggerheads on the one hand with the monarchy of centuries on the other hand with eternal right in addition and besides all this it was no longer revolution and had become a monarchy 1830 was obliged to take precedence of all europe to keep the peace was an increase of complication a harmony established contrary to sense is often more onerous than a war from this secret conflict always muzzled but always growing was born armed peace that ruinous expedience of civilization which in the harness of the european cabinets is suspicious in itself the royalty of july reared up in spite of the fact that it caught it in the harness of european cabinets metternich would gladly have put it in kicking straps pushed on in france by progress it pushed on the monarchies those loiterers in europe after having been towed it undertook to tow meanwhile within her pauperism the proletariat salary education penal servitude prostitution the fate of the woman wealth misery production consumption division exchange coin credit the rights of capital the rights of labor all these questions were multiplied above society a terrible slope outside of political parties properly so called another movement became manifest philosophical fermentation reply to democratic fermentation the elect felt troubled as well as the masses in another manner but quite as much thinkers meditated while the soil that is to say the people traversed by revolutionary currents trembled under them with indescribably vague epileptic shocks these dreamers some isolated others united in families and almost in communion turned over social questions in a pacific but profound manner in passive minors who tranquilly pushed their galleries into the depths of a volcano hardly disturbed by the dull commotion and the furnaces of which they caught glimpses this tranquility was not the least beautiful spectacle of this agitated epoch these men left to political parties the question of rights they occupied themselves with the question of happiness the well-being of man that was what they wanted to extract from society they raised material questions questions of agriculture of industry of commerce almost to the dignity of a religion in civilization such as it has formed itself a little by the command of God a great deal by the agency of man interests combine unite an amalgamate and a manner to form a veritable hard rock in accordance with a dynamic law patiently studied by economists those geologists of politics these men who grouped themselves under different appellations but who may all be designated by the generic title of socialists endeavored to pierce that rock and to cause it to spout forth the living waters of human felicity from the question of the scaffold to the question of war their works embraced everything to the rights of man as proclaimed by the revolution they added the rights of woman the rights of the child the reader will not be surprised if for various reasons we do not here treat in a thorough manner from the theoretical point of view the questions raised by socialism we can find ourselves to indicating them all the problems that the socialist proposed to themselves cosmogonic visions reverie and mysticism being cast aside can be reduced to two principal problems first problem produced wealth second problem to share it the first problem contains the question of work the second contains a question of salary in the first problem the employment of forces is in question in the second the distribution of enjoyment from the proper employment of forces results public power from a good distribution of enjoyments results individual happiness by a good distribution not an equal but an equitable distribution must be understood from these two things combined the public power without individual happiness within results social prosperity social prosperity means the man happy the citizen free the nation great England solves the first of these two problems she creates wealth admirably she divides it badly this solution which is complete on one side only leads her fatally to two extremes monstrous opulence monstrous richness all enjoyments for some all privations for the rest that is to say for the people privilege exception monopoly feudalism born from toil itself a false and dangerous situation which states public power or private misery which sets the roots of the state in the sufferings of the individual a badly constituted grandeur in which are combined all the material elements and into which no moral element enters communism and agrarian law think that they solve the second problem they are mistaken their division kills production equal partition which is emulation and consequently labor it is a partition made by the butcher which kills that which it divides it is therefore impossible to pause over these pretended solutions slaying wealth is not the same thing as dividing it the two problems require to be solved together to be well solved the two problems must be combined and made but one solve only the first of the two problems you will be venus you will be england you will have like venus an artificial power or like england a material power you will be the wicked rich man you will die by an act of violence as venus did or by bankruptcy as england will fall and the world will allow to die and fall all that is merely selfishness all that does not represent for the human race either a virtue or an idea it is well understood here that by the words venus in england we designate not the peoples but social structures the oligarchies superposed on nations and not the nations themselves the nations always have our respect and our sympathy venus as a people will live again england the aristocracy will fall but england the nation is immortal and that said we continue solve the two problems encourage the wealthy and protect the poor suppress misery put an end to the unjust farming out of the feeble by the strong put a bridle on the iniquitous jealousy of the man who is making his way against the man who has reached the goal adjust mathematically and fraternally salary to labor mingle gratuitous and compulsory education growth of childhood and make of science the base of manliness develop minds while keeping arms busy be at one and the same time a powerful people and a family of happy men render poverty democratic not by abolishing it but by making it universal so that every citizen without exception may be a proprietor an easier matter than is generally supposed in two words learn how to produce wealth and how to distribute it and you will have at once moral and material greatness and you will be worthy to call yourself France this is what socialism said outside and above a few sex which have gone astray this is what it sought in facts that is what it sketched out in minds efforts worthy of admiration sacred attempts these doctrines these theories the unforeseen necessity for the statesman to take philosophers into account confused evidences of which we catch a glimpse a new system of politics to be created which shall be in accord with the old world without too much discord with the new revolutionary ideal a situation in which it became necessary to use Lafayette to defend Paulina the institution of progress transparent beneath the revolt the chambers and streets the competitions to be brought into equilibrium around him his faith in the revolution perhaps an eventual indefinable resignation born of the vague acceptance of a superior definitive right his desire to remain of his race his domestic spirit his sincere respect for the people his own honesty preoccupied Louis Philippe almost painfully and there were moments when strong and courageous as he was he was overwhelmed by the difficulties of being a king he felt under his feet a formidable disaggregation which was not nevertheless a reduction to dust France being more France than ever piles of shadows covered the horizon a strange shade gradually drawing nearer extended little by little over men things over ideas a shade which came from raths and systems everything which had been hastily stifled was moving and fermenting at times the conscience of the honest man resumed its breathing so great was the discomfort of the air in which sofasms were intermingled with truths spirits trembled in the social anxiety like leaves at the approach of a storm the electric tension was such that at certain instance the first-comer a stranger brought light then the twilight obscurity closed in again at intervals deep and dull mutterings allowed a judgment to be formed as to the quantity of thunder contained by the cloud twenty months had barely elapsed since the revolution of july the year 1832 had opened with an aspect of something impending and threatening the dress of the people the laborers without bread the last prince decaned engulfed in the shadows brussels expelling the Nassau as Paris did the bourbons Belgium offering herself to a French prince and giving herself to an English prince the Russian hatred of Nicholas behind us the demons of the south Ferdinand in Spain Miguel in Portugal the earth quaking in Italy extending his hand over Bologna France treating Austria sharply at Encona at the north no one knew what sinister sound of the hammer nailing up Poland in her coffin irritated glances watching France narrowly all over Europe England a suspected ally ready to give a push to that which was tottering and to hurl herself onto that which should fall the peerage sheltering itself behind to refuse foreheads to the law the flirty lease erased from the king's carriage the cross torn from Notre Dame Lafayette lessened Lafitte ruined Benjamin Constant dead in indignance Casimir Perrier dead in the exhaustion of his power political and social malady breaking out simultaneously in the two capitals of the kingdom the one in the city of thought the one in the city of toil at Paris Civil War at Lyons Servile War in the two cities the same glare of the furnace a crater like crimson on the brow of the people the south rendered fanatic the west troubled the Duchess de Berry in Lavendee plots conspiracies risings cholera added the somber roar of events to the somber roar of ideas End of Book 1, Chapter 4 Recording by Rachel Weaver Boston, Massachusetts Chapter 5 of Book 1 of Volume 4 of Les Miserables 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 Isabelle Florence Hapgood Book 1 A Few Pages of History Chapter 5 Facts whence history springs and which history ignores Towards the end of April everything had become aggravated the fermentation entered the boiling state Ever since 1830 petty partial revolts had been going on here and there which were quickly suppressed but ever bursting forth afresh the sign of a vast underlying conflagration Something terrible was in preparation. Glimpses could be caught of the features still indistinct and imperfectly of a possible revolution. France kept an eye on Paris Paris kept an eye on the Foubert-Saint-Antoine The Foubert-Saint-Antoine which was in a dull glow was beginning its evolution. The wine shops of the Rue de Charon were although the union of the two epithets seems singular when applied to wine shops grave and stormy was their purely and simply called in question Their people publicly discussed the question of fighting or of keeping quiet. There were back shops where working men were made to swear that they would hasten into the street at the first cry of alarm and that they would fight without counting the number of the enemy. This engagement once entered into a man seated in the corner of the wine shop, assumed and said, You understand. You have sworn. Sometimes they went upstairs to a private room on the first floor and their scenes that were almost Masonic were enacted. They made the initiated take oaths to render service to himself as well as to the fathers of families. That was the formula. In the taprooms subversive pamphlets were read. They treated the government with contempt says a secret report of that time. Words like the following could be heard there. I don't know the names of the leaders. We folks shall not know the day until two hours beforehand. One workman said, There are three hundred of us. Let each contributed ten sews that will make one hundred and fifty francs with which to procure powder and shot. Another said, I don't ask for six months. I don't even know. In less than a fortnight we shall be paralleled with the government. With twenty-five thousand men we can face them. Another said, I don't sleep at night because I make cartridges all night. From time to time men of bourgeois appearance and in good coats came and caused embarrassment. And with the air of command shook hands with the most important and then went away. It stayed more than ten minutes. Significant remarks were exchanged in a low tone. The plot is ripe. The matter is arranged. It was murmured by all who were there to borrow the very expression of one of those who were present. The exaltation was such that one day a working man exclaimed before the whole wine shop, We have no arms! one of his comrades replied, The soldiers have. Thus parodying aware of the fact of Bonaparte's proclamation to the army in Italy. When they had anything of a more secret nature on hand, adds one report, they did not communicate it to each other. It is not easy to understand what they could conceal after what they said. These reunions were sometimes periodical. At certain ones of them there were never more than eight or ten persons only one entered who wished and the room was so full that they were forced to stand. Some went thither through enthusiasm and passion, others because it was on their way to their work. As during the Revolution there were patriotic women in some of these wine shops who embraced newcomers. Other expressive facts came to light. A man would enter a shop, drink, and go his way with the remark, Wine merchant will pay what is due to you. Revolutionary agents were appointed in a wine shop facing the Rue de Charon. The balloting was carried on in their caps. Working men met at the houses of a fencing master who gave lessons in the Rue de Côte. There there was a trophy of arms formed of wooden broadswords, canes, clubs, and foils. One day the buttons were removed from the foils. The workmen said, there are twenty-five of us, but they don't count on me because I am looked upon as a machine. Later on that machine became quinisette. The indefinite things which were brewing gradually acquired a strange and indescribable notoriety. A woman, sweeping off her doorstep, said to another woman, for a long time there has been a strong force busy making the cartridges. In the open street proclamation could be seen addressed to the National Guard in the departments. One of these proclamations was signed Berto, wine merchant. One day a man with his beard worn like a collar and with an Italian accent mounted a stone post at the door of the liquor cellar in the Marche de Noire and read aloud a singular document which seemed to emanate from the occult power. Groups formed around him and applauded. The passages which touched the crowd most deeply were collected and noted down. Our doctrines are trampled, our proclamations torn, our bill stickers are spied upon and thrown into prison. The breakdown which has recently taken place in cottons has converted the future of nations is being worked out in our obscure ranks. Here are the fixed terms action or reaction, revolution or counter-revolution for, at our epoch, we no longer believe either in inertia or in immobility. For the people against the people, that is the question, there is no other. On the day when we cease to break us, but up to that day help us to march on. All this in broad daylight. Other deeds, more audacious still, were suspicious in the ives of the people by reason of their very audacity. On the 4th of April, 1832, a passer-by mounted the post on the corner which forms the angle of the Roussin Margarite and shouted, I am a Babouvest, but beneath the people centered Giske. Among other things this man said, down with property, the opposition of the left is cowardly and treacherous. When it wants to be on the right side it preaches revolution. It is democratic in order to escape being beaten and royalist so that it may not have to fight. The Republicans are beasts with feathers. Distrust the Republicans, citizens of the laboring classes. Silence, citizen spy, cried an artisan. This shall put an end to the discourse. Mysterious incidents occurred. At nightfall a working man encountered near the canal a very well-dressed man who said to him, whither are you bound, citizen? Sir, replied the working man, I have not the honour of your acquaintance. I know you very well, however. And the man added, don't be alarmed. I am an agent of the committee. You are suspected of not being quite faithful. You know that if you reveal anything there is an eye fixed on you. Then he shook hands with the working man and went away saying, we shall meet again soon. The police who were on the alert collected singular dialogues but in the street. Get yourself received very soon, said a weaver to a cabinet-maker. Why? There is going to be a shot to fire. Two ragged pedestrians exchanged these remarkable replies fraught with evident jacquerie. Who governs us? Monsieur Philippe? No, it is the bourgeoisie. The reader is mistaken if he thinks that we take the word in a bad sense. The jaquets were the poor. On another occasion, two men were heard to say to each other as they passed by, we have a good plan of attack. Only the following was caught of a private conversation between four men who were crouching in a ditch of the circle of the Beppier de Trône. Everything possible will be done to prevent his walking about Paris any more. The he. Menacing obscurity. The principal leaders, as they said in the Foubourge, held themselves apart. It was supposed that they met for consultation in a wine-shop near the point Saint-Eustisse. A certain Auge, chief of the society, aid for tailors, Rue Monditour, had the reputation of serving as intermediary central between the leaders and the Foubourge one. Nevertheless, there was always a great deal of mystery about these leaders, and no certain fact can invalidate the singular arrogance of this reply made later on by a man accused before the court of peers. Who was your leader? I knew of none and I recognized none. There was nothing but words transparent but vague, sometimes idle reports, rumors, hearsay, other indications cropped up. A carpenter, occupied enailing boards to offence around the ground on which a house was in process of construction in the Rue de Rueil, found on that plot the torn fragment of a letter, on which were still legible the following lines. The committee must take measures to prevent recruiting in the sections for the different societies. And as a postscript, we have learned that there are guns in the Foubourge Poisonnier n°5 to the number of five or six thousand in the house of a gunsmith in that court. The section owns no arms. What excited the carpenter and caused him to show this thing to his neighbors was the fact that a few paces further on he picked up another paper, torn like the first and still more significant, of which we reproduce a facsimile because of the historical interest attached to these strange documents. The document is in the form of a table headed with the letters Q, C, D, E. Followed by the instructions, learn this list by heart. After so doing you will tear it up. The men admitted will do the same when you have transmitted their orders to them. Health and fraternity. U, O, G, A, F, E, L. It was only later on that the persons who were in the secret of this find at the time learned the significance of those four capital letters. Quinterians, Centurians, Decurians, Eclaireurs, Scouts, and the sense of the letters U, O, G, A, F, E, which was a date and meant April 15th, 1832. Under each capital letter were inscribed names followed by very characteristic notes, thus Q, Banerelle, 8 guns, 83 cartridges, a safe man, C, Boubier, 1 pistol, 40 cartridges, D, Roulet, 1 foil, 1 pistol, 1 pound of powder, E, Tessier, 1 sword, 1 cartridge box, exact, Terrier, 8 guns, brave, etc. Finally this carpenter found still in the same enclosure a third paper, on which was written in pencil, but very legibly, this sort of enigmatic list. Unite, Blancherd, Arbre, Sec, 6, Barat, Soise, Salocompte, Cosciusco, Obris, the Butcher, J, R, Caesgrasius, right of revision, Dufon, 4, Fall of the Girondiste, De Brac, Moboui, Washington, Pinson, 1 pistol, 86 cartridges, Marseillais, Savrenty of the People, Michel, Quinquembois, Sword, Hoche, Marceau, Plato, Arbre Sec, Warsaw, Tilly, Cryer of the Populaire. The honest bourgeois into whose hands this list fell knew its significance. It appears that this list was the complete nomenclature of the sections of the Fourth arrondissement of the Society of the Rights of Man with the names and dwellings of the Chiefs of Sections. Today, when all these facts which were obscure are nothing more than history, we may publish them. It should be added that the foundation of the Society of the Rights of Man seems to have been posterior to the date when this paper was found. Perhaps this was only a rough draft. Still, according to all the remarks and the words, according to written notes, material facts begin to make their appearance. In the Rue Popin Coeur, in the House of a Dealer in Brickabrack, there were seized seven sheets of gray paper all folded alike lengthwise and in four. These sheets enclosed twenty-six squares of the same gray paper folded in the form of a cartridge and a card on which was written the following. Salt Peter, twelve ounces. Sulfur, two ounces. Charcoal, two ounces and a half. Water, two ounces. The report of the seizure stated that the drawer exhaled a strong smell of powder. A mason, returning from his day's work, left behind him a little package on a bench near the bridge at Osterlitz. This package was taken to the police station. It was opened, and in it were found two printed dialogues signed Lohotier, a song entitled Workmen Band Together and a tin box full of cartridges. One artisan drinking with a comrade made the latter feel him to see how warm he was. The other man felt a pistol under his waistcoat. In a ditch on the boulevard between Père-la-chaise and the Berrière-de-Tonne at the most deserted spot some children, while playing, discovered beneath a mass of shavings and refuse bits of wood a bag containing a bullet mold, a wooden punch for the preparation of cartridges, a wooden bowl in which grains of haunting powder and a little cast-iron pot whose interior presented evident traces of melted lead. Police agents, making their way suddenly and unexpectedly at five o'clock in the morning into the dwelling of a certain pardon, who was afterwards a member of the barricade-merie section and got himself killed in the insurrection of April, 1834, found him standing near his bed and holding in his hand some cartridges which he was in the act of preparing. Towards the hour when working men repose two men were seen to meet between the Berrière-pique-pousse and the Berrière-charon-tonne in a little lane between two walls near a wine-shop in front of which there was a jeu de scie-am. One drew a pistol from beneath his blouse and handed it to the other. As he was handing it to him he noticed that the perspiration of his chest had made the powder damp. He primed the pistol and added more powder to what was already in the pan. Then the two men parted. A certain galet afterwards killed in the rubble-borg in the affair of April, boasted of having in his house seven hundred cartridges and twenty-four flints. The government one day received a warning that arms and two hundred thousand cartridges had just been distributed in the foe-borg. On the following week thirty thousand cartridges were distributed. The remarkable point about it was that the police were not able to seize a single one. An intercepted letter read, the day is not far distant when within four hours by the clock eighty thousand patriots will be under arms. All this fermentation was public. One might almost say tranquil. The approaching insurrection was preparing its storm calmly in the face of the government. No singularity was lacking to this still subterranean crisis which was already perceptible. The bourgeoisie talked peacefully to the working classes of what was in preparation. They said, how is the rising coming along? In the same tone in which they would have said, how is your wife? A furniture dealer in the Rue Morot inquired, well, when are you going to make the attack? Another shopkeeper said, the attack will be made soon. I know it. A month ago there were fifteen thousand of you, now there are twenty-five thousand. He offered his gun and a neighbor offered a small pistol which he was willing to sell for seven francs. Moreover, the revolutionary fever was growing. Not a point in Paris nor in France was exempt from it. The artery was beating everywhere, like those membranes which arise from certain inflammations and form in the human body, the network of secret societies began to spread all over the country. From the associations of the friends of the people, which was at the same time public and secret, sprang the Society of the Rights of Man, which also dated from one of the Orders of the Day, Plouvoise year forty of the Republican era, which was destined to survive even the mandate of the Court of Assizes, which pronounced its dissolution and which did not hesitate to bestow on its sections significant names like the following, Pikes, Toxin, Signal Cannon, Virgin Cap, January 21, the Beggars, the Vagabonds, Forward March, Robespierre, Level, Saïra, the Society of the Rights of Man engendered the Society of Action. These were impatient individuals who broke away and hastened ahead. Other associations sought to recruit themselves from the great mother societies. The members of sections complained that they were torn asunder, thus the Gallic Society and the Committee of Organization of the Municipalities, thus the associations for the liberty of the press, for individual liberty, for the instruction of the people against indirect taxes, then the Society of Equal Working Men, which was divided into three fractions, the levelers, the communists, the reformers, then the Army of the Bastilles, a sort of cohort organized on a military footing, four men commanded by a corporal, ten by a sergeant, twenty by a sub-lieutenant, forty by a lieutenant. There were never more than five men who knew each other, creation where precaution is combined with audacity, and which seems stamped with a genius of Venus. The Central Committee, which was at the head, had two arms, the Society of Action and the Army of the Bastilles, a legitimate association, the ways of fidelity, stirred about among these the Republican affiliations. It was denounced and repudiated there. The Parisian societies had ramifications in the principal cities, Lyon, Nint, Lille, Marseille, and each had its Society of the Rights of Man, the Charbonnière, and the Free Men. All had a revolutionary society which was called the Cougourde. We have already mentioned this word. In Paris, the Faux-Bourges Saint-Antoine kept up an equal buzzing with the Faux-Bourges Saint-Antoine, and the schools were no less moved than the Faux-Bourges. A café in the Rue Saint-Hiassinth and the wine-shop of the Seven Billiards, Rue des Matherines Saint-Jacques served as rallying points for the discussions of the ABC affiliated to the mutualists of Angères, and to the Cougourde of Aix, met, as we have seen, in the Café Moussain. The same young men assembled also, as we have stated already, in a restaurant wine-shop of the Rue Mont-de-Tour, which was called Corinth. These meetings were secret. Others were as public as possible from the boldness from these fragments of an interrogatory undergone in one of the ulterior prosecutions. Where was this meeting held? In the Rue de la Paix. At whose house? In the street. What sections were there? Only one. Which? The manual section. Who was its leader? I. But you are too young to stand alone upon the bold course of attacking the government. Where did your instructions come from? From the Central Committee. The army was mined at the same time as the population, as was proved subsequently by the operations of Beifford, Luneville, and Epinard. They counted on the 52nd Regiment, on the 5th, on the 8th, on the 37th, and on the 20th Light Cavalry. In Burgundy and in the southern towns they planted the Liberty Tree, that is to say, a pole surmounted by a red cap. Such was the situation. The Faux-Borgs Sant Antoine, more than any other group of the population, as we have stated in the beginning, accentuated this situation and made it felt. That was the sore point. This old Faux-Borgs peopled like an anthill, laborious, courageous, and angry as a hive of bees, was quivering with expectation and with the desire for a tumult. Everything was in a state of agitation there, without any interruption, however, of the regular work. It is impossible to convey an idea of this lively, yet somber physiognomy. In this Faux-Borgs exists poignant distress and under attic roofs. There also exist rare and ardent minds. It is particularly in the matter of distress and intelligence that it is dangerous to have extremes meet. The Faux-Borgs Sant Antoine had also other causes to tremble, for it received the counter-shock of commercial crises, of failures, strikes, slack seasons, all inherent to great political disturbances. In times of revolution misery is both cause and effect. The blow which it deals rebounds upon it. This population full of proud virtue, capable of the highest degree of latent heat, always ready to fly to arms, prompt to explode, irritated, deep, undermined, seem to be only awaiting the fall of a spark. Whenever certain sparks float on the horizon chased by the wind of events, it is impossible not to think of the Faux-Borgs Sant Antoine and of the formidable chance which has placed at the very gates of Paris that powder house of suffering and ideas. The wine shops of the Faux-Borgs Antoine, which have been more than once drawn in the sketches which the reader has just perused, possess historical notoriety. In troublous times people grow intoxicated there more on words than on wine. A sort of prophetic spirit and an afflatus of the future circulates there, swelling hearts and enlarging souls. The cabarets of the Faux-Borgs Sant Antoine resemble those taverns of Mont-Aventine erected on the cave of the Sibyl and communicating with the profound and sacred breath of the taverns where the tables were almost tripods and where was drunk what Ineos calls the Sibyline wine. The Faux-Borgs Sant Antoine is a reservoir of people. Revolutionary agitations create fissures there through which trickles the popular sovereignty. This sovereignty may do evil. It can be mistaken like any other, but even when led astray it remains great. We may say a bit as of the blind cyclops in gents. In ninety-three according as the idea which was floated about was good or evil according as it was the day of fanaticism or of enthusiasm there leaped forth from the Faux-Borgs Sant Antoine now savage legions, now heroic bands. Savage. Explain this word. When these bristling men who in the early days of the revolutionary chaos tattered, howling, wild with uplifted bludgeon pike on high hurled themselves upon ancient Paris in an uproar what did they want? They wanted an end to oppression an end to tyranny an end to the sword work for men instruction for the child social sweetness for the woman liberty, equality fraternity bread for all the idea for all the Edenizing of the world progress and that holy, sweet and good thing progress they claimed in terrible wise driven by extremities as they were half naked, club in fist or in their mouths they were savages, yes but the savages of civilization they proclaimed right furiously they were desirous if only with fear and trembling to force the human race to paradise they seemed barbarians and they were saviors they demanded light with a mask of night facing these men they were ferocious we admit and terrifying, but ferocious and terrifying for good ends there are other men smiling, embroidered gilded, bereaved, starred in silk stockings in white plumes in yellow gloves, in varnished boots who, with their elbows on a velvet table beside a marble chimney-piece insist gently on demeanor and the preservation of the past of the middle ages of divine right, of fanaticism of innocence of slavery of the death penalty of war glorifying in low tones and with politeness the sword, the stake and the scaffold for our part if we were forced to make a choice between the barbarians of civilization and the civilized men of barbarism we should choose the barbarians but, thank heavens still another choice is possible no perpendicular fall is necessary in front any more than in the rear neither despotism nor terrorism we desire progress with a gentle slope God takes care of that God's whole policy consists in rendering slopes less steep and, of book one chapter five chapter six of book one of volume four of Les Miserables 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 four by Victor Hugo translated by Isabel Florence Hapgood book one a few pages of history chapter six Angel Raz and his lieutenants it was about this epoch when Angel Raz in view of a possible catastrophe instituted a kind of mysterious census all were present at a secret meeting at the cafe Moussain Angel Raz said mixing his words with a few half enigmatic but significant metaphors it is proper that we should know where we stand and on whom we may count if combatants are required they must be provided it can do no harm to have something with which to strike passersby always have more chance of being gored when there are bulls on the road than when there are none and therefore reckon a little on the herd how many of us are there there is no question of postponing this task until tomorrow revolutionists should always be hurried progress has no time to lose let us mistrust the unexpected let us not be caught unprepared we must go over all the seams that we have made and see whether they hold fast business ought to be concluded today you will see the polytechnic students it is their day to go out today is Wednesday for ye, you will see those of the Glacier will you not Combi Faire has promised me to go to Picbous there is a perfect swarm and an excellent one there Bahorelle will visit the estrapade prouver the masons are growing lukewarm they are giving us news from the lodge of the Rue de Granville Saint-Honoré Jolie will go to the Dupré-Trens clinical lecture and feel the pulse of the medical school boss we will take a little turn in the court and talk with the young law licenciates I will take charge of the cougour de myself that arranges everything said Cours Faire what else is there a very important thing what is that the Barrier Domain replied Angelras Angelras remained for a moment as though absorbed in reflection then he resumed at the Barrier Domain there are marble workers painters and journeymen in the studios of sculptors they are an enthusiastic family but liable to cool off I don't know what has been the matter with them for some time pass they are thinking of something else they are becoming extinguished they pass their time playing dominoes there is urgent need that someone should go and talk with them a little but with firmness they meet at Richfures they are to be found there between twelve and one o'clock those ashes must be fanned into a glow for that errand I had counted on that abstracted Marius who is a good fellow on the whole but he no longer comes to us I need someone for the Barrier Domain I have no one what about me said Grantair here am I you you indoctrinate republicans you warm up hearts that have grown cold in the name of principle why not are you good for anything I have a vague ambition in that direction said Grantair you do not believe in everything I believe in you Grantair will do me a service anything I'll black your boots well don't meddle with our affairs sleep yourself sober from your absinthe you are an ingrate your razz you the man to go to the Barrier Domain you capable of it I am capable of descending the Rude Gris of crossing the Place Saint Michel of sloping through the Rue Monsieur Le Prince of taking the Rude Vos Gerard of passing the Carmelites of turning into the Rue Dassas of reaching the Rude Cherche-Midi of leaving behind me the Concierge de Guerre of pacing the Rude Veyre Twilliers of striding across the Boulevard of following the Chausie Domain of passing the Barrier and entering Richefers I am capable of that my shoes are capable of that do you know anything of those comrades who meet at Richefers not much we only address each other as thou what will you say to them I will speak to them of Robespierre Pardis of Danton of Principles you I but I don't receive justice when I said about it I am terrible I have read Proudhon I know the social contract I know my constitution of the year too by heart the liberty of one citizen ends do you take me for a brute I have an old bank-bill of the Republic in my drawer the rights of man the sovereignty of the people I am even a bit of a hebertist I can talk the most superb twaddle for six hours by the clock watch in hand be serious said Angelras I am wild replied Grandeur Angelras meditated for a few moments I suggest you're of a man who has taken a resolution Grandeur he said gravely I consent to try you you shall go to the barrier domain Grandeur lived in furnished lodgings very near the café Moussain he went out and five minutes later he returned he had gone home to put on a Robespierre waistcoat red said he as he entered and he looked intently at Angelras then with the palm of his energetic hand he laid the two scarlet points of the waistcoat across his breast and stepping up to Angelras he whispered in his ear be easy he jammed his hat on resolutely and departed a quarter of an hour later the back room of the café Moussain was deserted all the friends of the ABC were gone each in his own direction each to his own task Angelras who had reserved the Cougoud of Aix for himself was the last to leave those members of the Cougoud of Aix who were in Paris then met on the plain of Issy in one of the abandoned quarries which are so numerous in that side of Paris as Angelras walked toward this place he passed the whole situation in review in his own mind the gravity of events was self-evident when facts the premonitory symptoms of latent social malady move heavily the slightest complication stops and entangles them a phenomenon whence rises ruin and new births Angelras decried a luminous uplifting beneath the gloomy skirts of the future who knows perhaps the moment was at hand of right and what a fine spectacle the revolution was again majestically taking possession of France and saying to the world the sequel to tomorrow Angelras was content the furnace was being heated he had at that moment a powder train of friends scattered all over Paris he composed in his own mind with Combi Freyre's philosophical and penetrating eloquence cosmopolitan enthusiasm Courferet's dash Bahaurel's smile Jean-Prouvert's melancholy Jolie's science Boussé's sarcasms a sort of electric spark which took fire nearly everywhere it wants all hands to work surely the result would answer to the effort this was well this made him think hold, said he to himself the barrier domain will not take me far out of my way what if I were to go on as far as Richefers let us have a look at what Granterre is about and see how he is getting on one o'clock was striking at the Beaujirard steeple when Angelras reached the Richefers smoking-room he pushed open the door entered, folded his arms letting the door fall to and strike his shoulders and gazed at that room filled with tables, men, and smoke a voice broke forth from the mist of smoke interrupted by another voice it was Granterre holding a dialogue with an adversary Granterre was sitting opposite another figure at a marble Saint-Iron table strewn with grains of bran and dotted with dominoes table with his fist and this is what Angelras heard double six fours the pig I have no more you are dead a two six, three, one it's my move, four points not much it's your turn I've made an enormous mistake you are doing well fifteen, seven more that makes me twenty-two twenty-two you weren't expecting that double six if I had placed it at the beginning the whole play would have been changed a two again one well, five haven't any it was your play, I believe yes, blank what lucky has you are lucky two neither five nor one now that's bad for you domino, plague take it end of chapter six of book one chapter one Marius had witnessed the unexpected termination of the ambush upon whose track he had set Giver but Giver had no sooner quitted the building bearing off his prisoners in three hackney coaches then Marius also glided out of the house it was only nine o'clock in the evening Marius betook himself to Corferac Corferac was no longer the imperturbable inhabitant of the Latin Quarter he had gone to live in the Rue de la Videri for political reasons this quarter was one where at that epoch insurrection liked to install itself Marius said to Corferac I have come to sleep with you Corferac dragged a mattress off his bed which was furnished with two spread it out on the floor and said there at seven o'clock on the following morning Marius returned to the hovel paid the quarters rent which he owed to Mambougon had his books, his bed his table, his commode and his two chairs loaded on a hand-card and went off without leaving his address so that when Giver returned in the course of the morning for the purpose of questioning Marius as to the events of the preceding evening he found only Mambougon who answered moved away Mambougon was convinced that Marius was to some extent an accomplice of the robbers who had been seized the night before who would ever have said it she exclaimed to the portresses of the quarter a young man like that who had the air of a girl Marius had two reasons for this prompt change of residence the first was that he now had a horror of that house where he had beheld so close at hand and in its most repulsive and most ferocious development a social deformity which is perhaps even more terrible than the wicked rich man the wicked poor man the second was that he did not wish to figure in the lawsuit which would ensue in all probability brought in to testify against the nadiel Giver thought that the young man whose name he had forgotten was afraid and had fled or perhaps had not even returned home at the time of the ambush he made some efforts to find him however but without success a month passed then another Marius was still with Corferac he had learned from a young licentiate in law an habitual frequenter of the cause that the nadiel was in close confinement every Monday Marius had five francs handed in to the clerks office of Laforte for the nadiel as Marius had no longer any money he borrowed the five francs from Corferac it was the first time in his life that he had ever borrowed money these periodical five francs were a double riddle to Corferac who lent and to the nadiel who received them to whom can they go? thought Corferac whence can this come to me? the nadiel asked himself moreover Marius was heartbroken everything had plunged through a trap door once more he no longer saw anything before him his life was again buried in mystery where he wandered fumblingly he had for a moment beheld very close at hand in that obscurity the young girl whom he loved the old man who seemed to be her father those unknown beings who were his only interest and his only hope in this world and at the very moment when he thought himself on the point of grasping them a gust had swept all these shadows away not a spark of certainty and truth had been emitted even in the most terrible of collisions no conjecture was possible he no longer knew even the name that he thought he knew it certainly was not Ursul and the lark was a nickname and what was he to think of the old man was he actually in hiding from the police? the white-haired workman whom Marius had encountered in the vicinity of the Invalides recurred to his mind it now seemed probable that the working man and Monsieur Leblanc were one and the same person so he disguised himself that man had his heroic and his equivocal sides why had he not called for help? why had he fled? was he or was he not the father of the young girl? was he in short the man whom Thanadierre thought that he recognized? Thanadierre might have been mistaken these formed so many insoluble problems all this it is true detracted nothing from the angelic charms of the young girl of the Luxembourg heart-rending distress Marius bore a passion in his heart and night over his eyes he was thrust onward he was drawn and he could not stir all had vanished save love of love itself he had lost the instincts and the sudden illuminations ordinarily this flame which burns us also a little and casts some useful gleams without but Marius no longer even heard these mute councils of passion he never said to himself what if I were to go to such a place what if I were to try such and such a thing the girl whom he could no longer call Ursule was evidently somewhere nothing warned Marius in what direction he should seek her his whole life was now summed up in many words absolute uncertainty within an impenetrable fog to see her once again he still aspired to this but he no longer expected it to crown all his poverty had returned he felt that icy breath close to him on his heels in the midst of his torments and long before this he had discontinued his work and nothing is more dangerous it is a habit which vanishes a habit which is easy to get rid of and difficult to take up again a certain amount of dreaming is good like a narcotic in discreet doses it lulls to sleep the fevers of the mind at labour which is sometimes severe and produces in the spirit a soft and fresh vapour which corrects the overharsh contours of pure thought fills in gaps here and there together and rounds off the angles of the ideas but too much dreaming sinks and drowns woe to the brain worker who allows himself to fall entirely from thought into reverie he thinks that he can reassent with equal ease and he tells himself that after all it is the same thing error thought is the toil of the intelligence reverie its voluptuousness to replace thought with reverie is to confound a poison with a food marias had begun in that way as the reader will remember passion had supervened and had finished the work of precipitating him into shimmerers without object or bottom one no longer emerges from oneself except for the purpose of going off to dream idle production tumultuous and stagnant gulf and in proportion the labour diminishes needs increase this is a law man in a state of reverie is generally prodigal and slack the unstrung mind cannot hold life within close bounds there is in that mode of life good mingled with evil for if innovation is baleful generosity is good and healthful but the poor man who is generous and noble and who does not work resources are exhausted needs crop up fatal declivity down which the most honest and the firmest as well as the most feeble and most vicious are drawn and which ends in one of two holds suicide or crime by dint of going outdoors to think the day comes when one goes out to throw oneself in the water excess of reverie breeds men like ecuse and lebrar marius was descending this declivity at a slow pace with his eyes fixed on the girl whom he no longer saw what we have just written seems strange and yet it is true the memory of an absent being kindles in the darkness of the heart the more it has disappeared the more it beams the gloomy and despairing soul sees this light on its horizon the star of the inner night she that was marius's whole thought he meditated of nothing else he was confusedly conscious that his old coat was becoming an impossible coat that his new coat was growing old that his shirts were wearing out that his hat was wearing out that his boots were giving out and he said to himself if I could but see her once again before I die one sweet idea alone was left to him that she had loved him and that her glance had told him so that she did not know his name but that she did know his soul and that wherever she was however mysterious the place she still loved him perhaps who knows whether she were not thinking of him as he was thinking of her sometimes in those inexplicable hours such as are experienced by every heart that loves though he had no reasons for anything but sadness and yet felt an obscure quiver of joy he said to himself it is her thoughts that are coming to me then he added perhaps my thoughts reach her also this illusion at which he shook his head a moment later was sufficient nevertheless to throw beams which at times resembled hope into his soul time to time especially at that evening hour which is the most depressing to even the dreamy he allowed the purist the most impersonal the most ideal of the reveries which filled his brain to fall upon a notebook which contained nothing else he called this writing to her it must not be supposed that his reason was deranged quite the contrary he had lost the faculty of working and of moving firmly towards any fixed goal but he was endowed with more clear sightedness and rectitude than ever Marius surveyed by a calm and real although peculiar light what passed before his eyes even the most indifferent deeds and men he pronounced just criticism on everything with a sort of honest dejection and candid disinterestedness his judgment which was almost wholly disassociated from hope held itself aloof and soared on high in this state of mind nothing escaped him nothing deceived him and every moment he was discovering the foundation of life of humanity and of destiny happy even in the midst of anguish is he to whom God has given a soul worthy of love and of unhappiness he who has not viewed the things of this world and the heart of man the noble light has seen nothing and knows nothing of the true the soul which loves and suffers is in a state of sublimity however day followed day and nothing new presented itself it merely seemed to him that the somber space which still remained to be traversed by him was growing shorter with every instant he thought that he already distinctly perceived the brink of the bottomless abyss what he repeated to himself shall I not see her again before then when you have ascended the Rue Saint-Jacques left the barrier on one side and followed the old inner boulevard for some distance you reach the Rue de la Sante then the Glacierre and a little while before arriving at the little river of the Gobelons you come to a sort of field which is the only spot in the long and monotonous chain of the boulevards of Paris where Rue d'Ierre would be tempted to sit down there is something indescribable there which exhales grace a green meadow traversed by tightly stretched lines from which flutter rags drying in the wind and an old market gardener's house built in the time of Louis XIII with its great roof oddly pierced with dormer windows dilapidated palisades a little water amid poplar trees women, voices, laughter on the horizon the pantheon the pole of the deaf mutes the Val de Grasse black, squat, fantastic amusing, magnificent and in the background the severe square crests of the towers of Notre-Dame as the place is worth looking at no one goes thither hardly one cart or wagoner passes in a quarter of an hour it chants that Marius's solitary strolls led him to this plot of ground near the water that day there was a rarity on the boulevard a passer-by Marius vaguely impressed with the almost savage beauty of the place asked his passer-by what is the name of this spot it is the lark's meadow and he added it was here that Ulbach killed the shepters of Ivry but after the word lark Marius heard nothing more these sudden congealments in the state of reverie which a single word suffices to evoke do occur the entire thought is abruptly condensed around an idea and it is no longer capable of perceiving anything else the lark was the appellation which had replaced Ursul in the depths of Marius's melancholy stop said he with a sort of unreasoning stupor peculiar to these mysterious asides this is her meadow I shall know where she lives now it was absurd but irresistible and every day he returned to that meadow of the lark end of book two chapter one