 This is a preface of Les Miserables by Victor Hugo, translated by Isabel F. Hapgood. 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 Ryan Trumbull. Preface. So long as there shall exist, by virtue of law and custom, decrees of damnation produced by society, artificially creating hills amid the civilization of earth, and adding the element of human fate to divine destiny, so long as the three great problems of the century, the degradation of man through poparism, the corruption of women through hunger, the crippling of children through lack of light are unsolved, so long as social asphyxia is possible in any part of the world, in other words, and with a still, wider significance, so long as ignorance and poverty exist on earth, books of the nature of Les Miserables cannot fail to be of use. From Victor Hugo, Hovey House, 1862. End of Preface. Book 1, Chapter 1 of Les Miserables, translated by Isabelle F. Hapgood. 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 Sarah Jennings. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. Book 1, Adjust Man. Chapter 1, Monsieur Muriel. In 1815, Monsieur Charles Francois Bienvenue Muriel was Bishop of Digné. He was an old man of about 75 years of age. He had occupied the Sea of Digné since 1806. Although this detail has no connection, whatever, with the real substance of what we are about to relate, it will not be superfluous, if merely for the sake of exactness in all points, to mention here the various rumors and remarks which had been in circulation about him from the very moment when he arrived in the diocese. True or false, that which is said of men often occupies as important a place in their lives and above all in their destinies, as that which they do. Monsieur Muriel was the son of a counsellor of the Parliament of Aces. Hence he belonged to the nobility of the bar. It was said that his father, destining him to be heir of his own post, had married him at a very early age, 18 or 20, in accordance with a custom which is rather widely prevalent in parliamentary families. In spite of this marriage, however, it was said that Charles Muriel created a great deal of talk. He was well-formed, though rather short in stature, elegant, graceful, intelligent. The whole of the first portion of his life had been devoted to the world and to gallantry. The revolution came. Events succeeded each other with precipitation. The parliamentary families, decimated, pursued, hunted down, were dispersed. Monsieur Charles Muriel emigrated to Italy at the very beginning of the revolution. There his wife died of a malady of the chest from which she had long suffered. He had no children. What took place next in the fate of Monsieur Muriel? The ruin of the French society of the olden days, the fall of his own family, the tragic spectacles of 93, which were perhaps even more alarming to the emigrants who viewed them from a distance with the magnifying powers of terror. Did these cause the ideas of renunciation and solitude to germinate in him? Was he, in the midst of these distractions, these affections which absorbed his life suddenly smitten with one of those mysterious and terrible blows which sometimes overwhelm by striking to his heart a man whom public catastrophes would not shake by striking at his existence and his fortune? No one could have told. All that was known was that when he returned from Italy, he was a priest. In 1804, Monsieur Muriel was the curé of Brinneau. He was already advanced in years and lived in a very retired manner. About the epoch of the coronation, some petty affair connected with his curacy, just what it is not precisely known, took him to Paris. Among other powerful persons to whom he went to solicit aid for his parishioners was Monsieur Le Cardinal Fich. One day, when the emperor had come to visit his uncle, the worthy curé, who was waiting in the anti-room, found himself present when his majesty passed. Napoleon, on finding himself observed with a certain curiosity by this old man, turned round and said abruptly, who is this good man who is staring at me? Sire, said Monsieur Muriel, you are looking at a good man, and I at a great man. Each of us can profit by it. That very evening, the emperor asked the cardinal the name of the curé, and some time afterwards, Monsieur Muriel was utterly astonished to learn that he had been appointed bishop of Digné. What truth was there, after all, in the stories which were invented as to the early portion of Monsieur Muriel's life? No one knew. Very few families had been acquainted with the Muriel family before the revolution. Monsieur Muriel had to undergo the fate of every newcomer in a little town where there are many males which talk and very few heads which think. He was obliged to undergo it, although he was a bishop, and because he was a bishop. But after all, the rumors with which his name was connected were rumors only. Noise, sayings, words, less than words. Palabre, as the energetic language of the self, expresses it. However that may be, after nine years of episcopal power and of resonance in Digné, all the stories and subjects of conversation which engrossed petty towns and petty people at the outset had fallen into profound oblivion. No one would have dared to mention them. No one would have dared to recall them. Monsieur Muriel had arrived at Digné accompanied by an elderly spinster, mademoiselle baptistine, who was his sister, and ten years his junior. Their only domestic was a female servant of the same age as mademoiselle baptistine, and named Madame Magloire, who, after having been the servant of Monsieur le curé, now assumed the double title of maid to mademoiselle and housekeeper to Monseigneur. Mademoiselle baptistine was a long, pale, thin, gentle creature. She realized the ideal expressed by the word respectable, for it seems that a woman must needs be a mother in order to be venerable. She had never been pretty. Her whole life, which had been nothing but a succession of holy deeds, had finally conferred upon her sort of pallor and transparency. And as she advanced in years, she had acquired what may be called the beauty of goodness. What had been leanness in her youth had become transparency in her maturity. And this diafinaeity allowed the angel to be seen. She was a soul rather than a virgin. Her person seemed made of a shadow. There was hardly sufficient body to provide for sex. A little matter enclosing a light, large eyes forever drooping, a mere pretext for a soul's remaining on the earth. Madame Megloire was a little, fat, white old woman, corpulent and bustling, always out of breath, in the first place because of her activity, and in the next because of her asthma. On his arrival, Monsieur Muriel was installed in the Episcopal palace with the honors required by the imperial decrees, which class a bishop immediately after a major general. The mayor and the president paid the first call on him, and he in turn paid the first call on the general and the prefect. The installation over, the town waited to see its bishop at work. End of Book 1, Chapter 1. Book 1, Chapter 2 of Les Miserables, translated by Isabelle F. Hapgood. 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 Kalinda. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. Book 1, Chapter 2. Monsieur Muriel becomes Monsieur Welcome. The Episcopal Palace of Dignia adjoins the hospital. The Episcopal Palace was a huge and beautiful house built of stone at the beginning of the last century by Monsieur Henri Pouget, the Doctor of Theology of the Faculty of Paris, Abe of Seymour, who had been Bishop of Dignia in 1712. This palace was a genuine, seniorial residence. Everything about it had a grand air, the apartments of the bishop, the drawing rooms, the chambers, the principal courtyard, which was very large, with walks encircling it under arcades in the old Florentine fashion, and gardens planted with magnificent trees. In the dining room, a long and superb gallery which was situated on the ground floor and opened on the gardens, Monsieur Henri Pouget had entertained in state on July 29, 1714, my lord's Charles Brullard de Jogni, Archbishop, Prince D'Ambrune, Antoine de Mescreny, the Capuchin, Bishop of Grasse, Philippe de Vendome, Grand-Prior of France, Abe of Seymour honoré de Lérin, François de Berton de Crayon, Bishop, Baron de Vence, César de Sabrein de Fort Calquié, Bishop, Seigneur of Glandeve, and Jean Soannin, Priest of the Oratory, Preacher in Ordinary to the King, Bishop, Seigneur of Cénaise. The portraits of these seven reverent personages decorated this apartment, and this memorable date, the 29th of July, 1714, was there engraved in letters of gold on a table of white marble. The hospital was a low and narrow building of a single story with a small garden. Three days after his arrival, the bishop visited the hospital. The visit ended. He had the doctor requested to be so good as to come to his house. Monsieur, the director of the hospital, said he to him, How many sick people have you at the present moment? Twenty-six, Monsignor. That was the number which I counted, said the bishop. The beds, pursued the doctor, are very much crowded against each other. That is what I observed. The halls are nothing but rooms, and it is with difficulty that the air can be changed in them. So it seems to me. And then, when there is a ray of sun, the garden is very small for the condolences. That was what I said to myself. In case of epidemics, we have had the typhus fever this year. We had the sweating sickness two years ago and a hundred patients at times. We know not what to do. This is the thought which occurred to me. What would you have, Monsignor? said the director. One must resign oneself. This conversation took place in the gallery dining-room on the ground floor. The bishop remained silent for a moment, then he turned abruptly to the director of the hospital. Monsieur, said he, How many beds do you think this hall alone would hold? Monsignor's dining-room exclaimed the stupefied director. The bishop cast a glance around the apartment and seemed to be taking measures and calculations with his eyes. It would hold full twenty beds, said he, as though speaking to himself. Then, raising his voice, Hold, Monsieur, the director of the hospital. I will tell you something. There is evidently a mistake here. There are thirty-six of you in five or six small rooms. There are three of us here and we have room for sixty. There is some mistake, I tell you. You have my house and I have yours. Give me back my house. You are at home here. On the following day, the thirty-six patients were installed in the bishop's palace and the bishop was settled in the hospital. Monsieur Muriel had no property, his family having been ruined by the revolution. His sister was in receipt of a yearly income of five hundred francs, which sufficed for her personal wants at the vicarage. Monsieur Muriel received from the state in his quality of bishop a salary of fifteen thousand francs. On the very day when he took up his abode in the hospital, Monsieur Muriel settled on the disposition of this sum once for all in the following manner. We transcribe here a note made by his own hand. Note on the regulation of my household expenses. For the little seminary, one thousand five hundred livres. Society of the mission, one hundred livres. For the Lazarists of Mont-Diedier, one hundred livres. Seminary for foreign missions in Paris, two hundred livres. Congregation of the Holy Spirit, one hundred fifty livres. Religious establishments of the Holy Land, one hundred livres. Charitable maternity societies, three hundred livres. Extra for that of Arles, fifty livres. Work for the amelioration of prisons, four hundred livres. Work for the relief and delivery of prisoners, five hundred livres. To liberate fathers of families incarcerated for debt, one thousand livres. Addition to the salary of the poor teachers of the dioceses, two thousand livres. Public granary of the Haut Alpes, one hundred livres. Congregation of the Ladies of Dignes of Manosque and of Cisteron for the gratuitous instruction of poor girls, one thousand five hundred livres. For the poor, six thousand livres. My personal expenses, one thousand livres. Total, fifteen thousand livres. Monsieur Marielle made no change in this arrangement during the entire period that he occupied the Sea of Dignes. As has been seen, he called it regulating his household expenses. This arrangement was accepted with absolute submission by Mme. Mousselle Baptisteen. This holy woman regarded Monseigneur of Dignes as at one and the same time her brother and her bishop, her friend according to the flesh and her superior according to the church. She simply loved and venerated him. When he spoke, she bowed. When he acted, she yielded her adherence. Their only servant, Mme. Magloire, grumbled a little. It will be observed that Monsieur the bishop had reserved for himself only one thousand livres, which, added to the pension of Mme. Mousselle Baptisteen, made fifteen hundred francs a year. On these fifteen hundred francs, these two old women and the old man subsisted. And when a village curate came to Dignes, the bishop still found means to entertain him thanks to the severe economy of Mme. Magloire and to the intelligent administration of Mme. Mousselle Baptisteen. One day, after he had been in Dignes about three months, the bishop said, and still I am quite cramped with it all. I should think so, exclaimed Mme. Magloire. Monseigneur has not even claimed the allowance which the department owes him for the expense of his carriage in town and for his journeys about the diocese. It was customary for bishops in the former days. Holt, cried the bishop, you are quite right, Mme. Magloire, and he made his demand. Sometime afterwards the general council took this demand under consideration and voted him an annual sum of three thousand francs under this heading, allowance to Monseigneur the bishop for expenses of carriage, expenses of posting, and expenses of pastoral visits. This provoked a great outcry among the local burgesses and a senator of the empire, a former member of the council and of the 500 which favoured the 18 Brumaire and who was provided with a magnificent senatorial office in the vicinity of the town of Dignes wrote to M. Bijaud de Prémenu, the Minister of Public Worship, a very angry and confidential note on the subject from which we extract these authentic lines. Expenses of carriage? What can be done with it in a town of less than four thousand inhabitants? Expenses of journeys? What is the use of these trips in the first place? Next, how can the posting be accomplished in these mountainous parts? There are no roads. No one travels otherwise than on horseback. Even the bridge between Durance and Chateau-Arnoux can barely support ox-teams. These priests are all thus, greedy and avaricious. This man played the good priest when he first came. Now he does like the rest. He must have a carriage and a posting-shez. He must have luxuries like the bishops of the olden days. Oh, all this priesthood! Things will not go well, M. Leconte, until the Emperor has freed us from these black-capped rascals, down with the Pope. Matters were getting embroiled with Rome. For my part, I am for Caesar alone, etc., etc. On the other hand, this affair afforded great delight to M. Magloire. Good, said she to M. Moseau-Baptisteen. Monseigneur began with other people, but he has had to wind up with himself after all. He has regulated all his charities. Now here are three thousand francs for us at last. That same evening, the bishop rode out and handed to his sister a memorandum conceived in the following terms. Expenses of carriage and circuit. For furnishing meat soup to the patients in the hospital, one thousand five hundred livres. For the maternity charitable society of Ix, two hundred fifty livres. For the maternity charitable society of Drogignan, two hundred fifty livres. For foundlings, five hundred livres. For orphans, five hundred livres. Total, three thousand livres. Such was M. Meirier's budget. As for the chance of Episcopal perquisites, the fees for marriage bands, dispensations, private baptisms, sermons, benedictions of churches or chapels, marriages, etc. The bishop levied them on the wealthy with all the more asperity since he bestowed them on the needy. After a time, offerings of money flowed in. Those who had, and those who lacked, knocked at M. Meirier's door. The latter, in search of the alms which the former came to deposit. In less than a year, the bishop had become the treasurer of all benevolence and the cashier of all those in distress. Considerable sums of money passed through his hands, but nothing could induce him to make any change whatever in his mode of life, or add anything superfluous to his bare necessities, far from it. As there is always more wretchedness below than there is brotherhood above, all was given away, so to speak, before it was received. It was like water on dry soil. No matter how much money he received, he never had any. Then he stripped himself. The usage being that bishops shall announce their baptismal names at the head of their charges and their pastoral letters, the poor people of the countryside had selected with a sort of affectionate instinct among the names and pre-namens of their bishop, that which had a meaning for them, and they never called him anything except Monseigneur Bienvenue. Welcome. We will follow their example, and will also call him thus when we have occasion to name him. Moreover, this appellation pleased him. I like that name, said he. Bienvenue makes up for the Monseigneur. We do not claim that the portrait herewith presented is probable. We confine ourselves to stating that it resembles the original. End of Book 1, Chapter 2, Recording by Kalinda, in Raymond, New Hampshire, on November 20, 2007. Book 1, Chapter 3 of Les Miserables, translated by Isabelle F. Hapgood. 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 Heather B. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. Book 1, Adjust Man, Chapter 3, A Hard Bishop Brick for a Good Bishop. The bishop did not omit his pastoral visits, because he had converted his carriage into alms. The diocese of Digny is a fatiguing one. There are very few plains and a great many mountains, hardly any roads, as we have just seen, thirty-two curacies, forty-one vicar ships, and two hundred and eighty-five auxiliary chapels. To visit all these is quite a task. The bishop managed to do it. He went on foot when it was in the neighborhood, in a tilted spring cart when it was on the plain, and on a donkey in the mountains. The two old women accompanied him. When the trip was too hard for them, he went alone. One day he arrived at Senez, which is an ancient Episcopal city. He was mounted on an ass. His purse, which was very dry at the moment, did not permit him any other equipage. The mayor of the town came to receive him at the gate of the town and watched him dismount from his ass with scandalized eyes. Some of the citizens were laughing around him. Mishir the mayor, said the bishop, and Mishir citizens, I perceive that I shock you. You think it very arrogant in a poor priest to ride an animal which was used by Jesus Christ. I have done so from necessity, I assure you, and not from vanity. In the course of these trips he was kind and indulgent, and talked rather than preached. He never went far in search of his arguments and his examples. He quoted to the inhabitants of one district the example of a neighbouring district. In the cantons, where they were harsh to the poor, he said, Look at the people of Briancon. They have conferred on the poor, on widows, and orphans the right to have their meadows mown three days in advance of every one else. They rebelled their houses for them gratuitously when they are ruined. Therefore it is a country which is blessed by God. For a whole century there has not been a single murderer among them. In the villages which were greedy for profit and harvest he said, Look at the people of Embrun. If at the harvest season the father of the family has his son away on service in the army and his daughters at service in the town, and if he is ill and incapacitated the curate recommends him to the prayers of the congregation, and on Sunday after the mass all the inhabitants of the village, men, women, and children go to the poor man's field and do his harvesting for him, and carry his straw and his grain to his grainery. To families divided by questions of money and inheritance he said, Look at the mountaineers of Devolny, a country so wild that the nightingale is not heard there once in fifty years. Well, when the father of the family dies, the boys go off to seek their fortunes, leaving the property to the girls, so that they may find husbands. To the cantons which had a taste for lawsuits, and where the farmers ruined themselves and stamped paper he said, Look at those good peasants in the valley of Cares. There are three thousand souls of them. Mondeau, it is like a little republic. Neither Judge nor Bailiff is known there. The mayor does everything. He lots the imposts, taxes each person conscientiously, judges quarrels for nothing, divides inheritances without charge, sends his sentences gratuitously, and he is obeyed, because he is a just man among simple men. To villages where he found no schoolmaster he quoted once more the people of Cares. Do you know how they manage, he said? Since a little country of a dozen or fifteen hearths cannot always support a teacher, they have schoolmasters who are paid by the whole valley, who make the round of the villages spending a week in one, ten days in that, and instruct them, these teachers go to the fairs. I have seen them there. They are to be recognized by the quill pens which they wear in the cord of their hat. Those who teach reading only have one pen. Those who teach reading and reckoning have two pens. Those who teach reading, reckoning, and Latin have three pens. But what a disgrace to be ignorant! Do you like the people of Cares? Thus he discoursed gravely and paternally. In default of examples he invented parables going directly to the point, with few phrases and many images which characteristic form the real eloquence of Jesus Christ, and, being convinced himself, he was persuasive. End of Book 1, Chapter 3, Recording by Heather B. Book 1, Chapter 4 of Les Miserables, translated by Isabelle F. Haffkeut. 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 Melissa. Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo. Book 1, A Just Bam, Chapter 4, Works Corresponding to Words. His conversation was gay and affable. He put himself on a level with the two old women who had passed to their lives beside him. When he laughed it was the laugh of a schoolboy. Madame Magliore used to call him Your Grace. One day he rose from his armchair and went to his library in search of a book. This book was on one of the upper shelves. As the bishop was rather short of stature he could not reach it. Madame Magliore said he, Fetch me a chair. My greatness does not reach as far as that shelf. One of his distant relatives, Madame Dacotas de Lowe, rarely allowed an opportunity to escape of enumerating in his presence what she designated as the expectations of her three sons. She had numerous relatives who were very old and near to death, and of whom her sons were the natural heirs. The youngest of the three was to receive from a great aunt a good hundred thousand levers of income. The second was the heir by entail to the title of the Duke, his uncle. The eldest was to succeed to the peerage of his grandfather. The bishop was accustomed to listen in silence to these innocent and pardonable maternal boasts. On one occasion, however, he appeared to be more thoughtful than usual, while Madame de Lowe was relating once again the details of all these inheritances and all these expectations. She interrupted herself impatiently. Monde Dieu cousin, what are you thinking about? I am thinking, replied the bishop, of a singular remark which is to be found I believe in St. Augustine. Place your hopes in the man from whom you do not inherit. Another time on receiving a notification of the decease of a gentleman of the countryside, wherein not only the dignities of the dead man, but also the feudal and noble qualifications of all his relatives, spread over an entire page. What a stout back-death has he exclaimed! What a strange burden of titles this cherub fully imposed on him! And how much wit must men have, in order thus to press the tomb into the service of vanity? He was gifted on occasion with a gentle railway which almost always concealed a serious meaning. In the course of one lint a youthful vicar came to D. and preached in the cathedral. He was tolerably eloquent. The subject of his sermon was charity. He urged the rich to give to the poor in order to avoid hell, which he depicted in the most frightful manner of which he was capable, and to win paradise which he represented as charming and desirable. Among the audience there was a wealthy retired merchant, who was somewhat of a usurer, named M. Gebberand, who had amassed two millions in the manufacturer of coarse cloth, surges, and woolen galoons. Never in his whole life had M. Gebberand bestowed alms on any poor wretch. After the delivery of that sermon it was observed that he gave a zoo every Sunday to the poor old beggar women at the door of the cathedral. There were six of them to share it. One day the bishop caught sight of him in the act of bestowing this charity and said to his sister with a smile, There is M. Gebberand purchasing paradise for a zoo. When it was a question of charity he was not to be rebuffed even by refusal, and on such occasions he gave utterance to remarks which induced reflection. Once he was begging for the poor in a drawing-room of the town. There was present the Marquis de Chantal Terciet, a wealthy and avaricious old man, who contrived to be, at one and the same time, an ultra-royalist and an ultra-vulterian. This variety of man has actually existed. When the bishop came to him he touched his arm. You must give me something, M. Le Marquis. The Marquis turned round and answered dryly, I have poor people of my own, M. Gebberand. Give them to me, replied the bishop. One day he preached the following sermon in the cathedral. My very dear brethren, my good friends, there are thirteen hundred and twenty thousand peasant dwellings in France which have but three openings, eighteen hundred and seventeen thousand hovels which have but two openings, the door and one window, and three hundred and forty-six thousand cabins besides which have but one opening, the door. And this arises from a thing which is called the tax on doors and windows. First put, poor families, old women and little children in those buildings, and behold the fevers and maladies which result. Alas! God gives air to men, though law sells it to them. I do not blame the law, but I bless God. In the department of the Isaire, in the Vare, in the due departments of the Alps, the Oat and the Basse, the peasants do not have even will-barrows. They transport their manure on the backs of men. They have no candles, and they burn resinous sticks and bits of rope dipped in pitch. This is the state of affairs throughout the whole of the hilly country of Dauphine. They make bread for six months at one time. They bake it with dried cow dung. In the winter they break the spread up with an ax, and they soak it for twenty-four hours in order to render it eatable. My brethren, have pity! Behold the suffering on all sides of you! In a provincial, he easily familiarized himself with the dialect of the south. He said, En bé, moussoussage, as in lower Longadouc, en té an arras passat, as in bas-saupe, Pouerte en bonune moto en bé en bonune formage gras, as in upper Dauphine. This pleased the people extremely, and contributed not a little to win him access to all spirits. He was perfectly at home in the thatched cottage and in the mountains. He understood how to say the grandest things in the most vulgar idioms. As he spoke all tongues, he entered into all hearts. Moreover, he was the same towards people of the world and towards the lower classes. He condemned nothing in haste and without taking circumstances into account. He said, Examine the road over which the fault has passed. Being as he described himself with a smile, an ex-sinner, he had none of the asperities of austerity, and he professed, with a good deal of distinctness, and without the frown of the ferociously virtuous, a doctrine which may be summed up as follows. Man has upon him his flesh, which is at once his burden and his temptation. He drags it with him and yields to it. He must watch it, cheek it, repress it, and obey it only at the last extremity. There may be some fault, even in this obedience, but the fault thus committed is venial. It is a fall, but a fall on the knees which may terminate in prayer. To be a saint is the exception. To be an upright man is the rule. Air, fall, sin, if you will, but be upright. The least possible sin is the law of man. No sin at all is the dream of the angel. All which is terrestrial is subject to sin. Sin is a gravitation. We saw everyone exclaiming very loudly and growing angry very quickly. Oh, oh! he said with a smile. To all appearance this is a great crime which all the world commits. These are hypocrisies which have taken fright and are in haste to make protest and put themselves under shelter. He was indulgent towards women and poor people, on whom the burden of human society rests. He said, the faults of women, of children, of the feeble, the indigent, and the ignorant, are the faults of the husbands, the fathers, the masters, the strong, the rich, and the wise. He said, moreover, teach those who are ignorant as many things as possible. Society is culpable in that it does not afford instruction gratis. It is responsible for the night which it produces. This soul is full of shadow. Sin is therein committed. The guilty one is not the person who has committed the sin, but the person who has created the shadow. It will be perceived that he had a peculiar manner of his own of judging things. I suspect that he obtained it from the gospel. One day he heard a criminal case which was in preparation and on the point of trial, discussed in a drawing-room. A wretched man, being at the end of his resources, had coined counterfeit money out of love for a woman and for the child which he had had by her. Counterfeiting was still punishable with death at that epoch. The woman had been arrested in the act of passing the first false peace made by the man. She was held, but there were no proofs except against her. She alone could accuse her lover and destroy him by her confession. She denied. They insisted. She persisted in her denial. Thereupon an idea occurred to the attorney of the crowd. He invented an infidelity on the part of the lover and succeeded by means of fragments of letters cunningly represented in persuading the unfortunate woman that she had a rival and that the man was deceiving her. Thereupon, exasperated by jealousy, she denounced her lover, confessed all, proved all. The man was ruined. He was shortly to be tried at aches with his accomplice. They were relating the matter, and each one was expressing enthusiasm over the cleverness of the magistrate. By bringing jealousy into play he had caused the truth to burst forth in wrath. He had adduced the justice of revenge. He was implicit to all of this in silence. When they had finished, he inquired, Where are this man and woman to be tried? At the court of a seas. He went on. And where will the advocate of the crown be tried? A tragic event occurred at D. A man was condemned to death for murder. He was a wretched fellow, not exactly educated, not exactly ignorant, who had been a mount a bank at fares and a writer for the public. The town took a great interest in the trial. On the eve of the day fixed for the execution of the condemned man, the chaplain of the prison fell ill. A priest was needed to attend to the criminal in his last moments. They sent for the curate. It seems that he refused to come, saying, This is no affair of mine. I have nothing to do with that unpleasant task, and with that mount a bank. I too am ill, and besides, it is not my place. This reply was reported to the bishop who said, Monsieur le curat is right. It is not his place. It is mine. He went instantly to the prison, descended to the cell of the mount a bank, called him by name, took him by the hand, and spoke to him. He passed the entire day with him, forgetful of food and sleep, praying to God for the soul of the condemned man, and praying the condemned man for his own. He told him the best truths which were also the most simple. He was father, brother, friend. He was bishop only to bless. He taught him everything, encouraged and consoled him. The man was on the point of dying in despair. Death was an abyss to him. As he stood trembling on its mournful brink, he recoiled with horror. He was not sufficiently ignorant to be absolutely indifferent. His condemnation, which had been a profound shock, had, in a manner broken through here and there, that wall which separates us from the mystery of things and which we call life. He gazed incessantly beyond this world through these fatal breeches and beheld only darkness. The bishop made him see light. On the following day when they came to fetch the unhappy wretch, the bishop was still there. He followed him, and exhibited himself to the eyes of the crowd, in his purple Camel, and in his episcopal cross upon his neck, side by side with the criminal bound with cords. He mounted the tumbrel with him. He mounted the scaffold with him. The sufferer, who had been so gloomy and cast down on the preceding day, was radiant. He felt that his soul was reconciled, and he hoped in God. The bishop embraced him, and at the moment when the knife was about to fall, he said to him, God raises from the dead him whom man slays. He whom his brothers have rejected finds his father once more. Pray, believe, enter into life, the father is there. When he descended from the scaffold there was something in his look which made the people draw aside to let him pass. They did not know which was most worthy of admiration, his pallor or his serenity. On his return to the humble dwelling which he designated with a smile as his palace, he said to his sister, I have just officiated pontifically. Since the most sublime things are often those which are the least understood, there were people in the town who said when commenting on this conduct of the bishop, it is affectation. This however was a remark which was confined to the drawing rooms. The populace which perceives no jest in holy deeds was touched, and admired him. As for the bishop, it was a shock to him to have beheld the guillotine, and it was a long time before he recovered from it. In fact, when the scaffold is there, all erected and prepared, it has something about it which produces hallucination. One may feel a certain indifference to the death penalty. One may refrain from pronouncing upon it, from saying yes or no, so long as one has not seen a guillotine with one's own eyes. But if one encounters one of them, the shock is violent. One is a force to decide and to take part for or against it. Some admire it, like Demaistra. Others execrate it, like Bacaria. The guillotine is the consecration of the law. It is called vindict. It is not neutral, and it does not permit you to remain neutral. He who sees it shivers with the most mysterious of shivers. All social problems erect their interrogation point around this chopping knife. The scaffold is a vision. The scaffold is not a piece of carpentry. The scaffold is not a machine. The scaffold is not an inert piece of mechanism constructed of wood, iron, and quartz. It seems as though it were a being, possessed of I know not what somber initiative. One would say that this piece of carpenters' work saw. But this machine heard, that this mechanism understood, that this wood, this iron, and these quartz were possessed of will. In the frightful meditation into which its presence casts the soul, the scaffold appears in terrible guise, and is though taking part in what is going on. The scaffold is the accomplice of the executioner. It devours. It eats flesh. It drinks blood. The scaffold is a sort of monster fabricated by the judge and the carpenter. A specter which seems to live with a horrible vitality composed of all the death which it has inflicted. Therefore the impression was terrible and profound. On the day following the execution and on many succeeding days the bishop appeared to be crushed. The most violent serenity of the funerial moment had disappeared. The phantom of social justice tormented him. He, who generally returned from all his deeds with a radiant satisfaction, seemed to be reproaching himself. At times he talked to himself and stammered lugubrious monologues in a low voice. This is one which his sister overheard one evening and it preserved. I did not think that it was so monstrous. It is wrong to become absorbed in the divine law to such a degree as not to perceive human law. Death belongs to God alone. By what right do men touch that unknown thing? In course of time these impressions weakened and probably vanished. Nevertheless it was observed that the bishop thenceforth avoided passing the place of execution. Monsieur Mariel could be summoned at any hour to the bedside of the sick and dying. He did not ignore the fact that therein lay his greatest duty and his greatest labor. Widow and orphaned families had no need to summon him. He came of his own accord. He understood how to sit down and hold his peace for long hours beside the man who had lost the wife of his love, of the mother who had lost her child. As he knew the moment for silence he also knew the moment for speech. Oh, admirable consolar! He sought not to efface sorrow by forgetfulness, but to magnify and dignify it by hope. He said, Have not a care of the manner in which you turn towards the dead. Think not of that which perishes. Gaze steadily. You will perceive the living light of your well-beloved dead in the depths of heaven. He knew that faith is wholesome. He sought to counsel and calm the despairing man by pointing out to him the resigned man, and to transform the grief which gazes upon a grave by showing him the grief which fixes its gaze upon a star. OF BOOK 1, CHAPTER 4, RECORDING BY MALISSA IN MISERABLA BY VICTOR HUGO, BOOK 1, A JUST MAN, CHAPTER 5 MR. BEAVENU MADE HIS CAST SIX LAST TOO LONG. The private life of Mr. Marielle was filled with the same thoughts as his public life. The voluntary poverty in which the Bishop of Denia lived would have been a solemn and charming sight for anyone who could have viewed it close at hand. Like all old men and like the majority of thinkers he slept little. This brief slumber was profound. In the morning he meditated for an hour. Then he set his mass, either at the cathedral or in his own house. His mass said he broke his fast on rye bread dipped in the milk of his own cows. Then he set to work. A bishop is a very busy man. He must every day receive the secretary of the bishopric, who is generally a canon, and nearly every day his vicar's general. He has congregations to reprove, privileges to grant, a whole ecclesiastical library to examine, prayer books, diocesan catechisms, book of hours, etc. Charges to write, sermons to authorize, curies and mares to reconcile, a clerical correspondence, an administrative correspondence, on one side the state, on the other the holy sea, and a thousand manners of business. The time was left to him after these thousand details of business in his offices and his brevery. He bestowed first on the necessitous, the sick and the afflicted. The time which was left to him from the afflicted, the sick and the necessitous he devoted to work. Sometimes he dug in his garden. Again he read or wrote. He had but one word for both these kinds of toil. He called them gardening. The mind is a garden, he said. Since midday, when the weather was fine, he went forth and took a stroll in the country or in town, often entering lowly dwellings. He was seen walking alone, buried in his own thoughts, his eyes cast down, supporting himself on his long cane, clad in his wadded purple garment of silk, which was very warm, wearing purple stockings inside his coarse shoes, and surmounted by a flat hat which allowed three golden tassels of large bullion to drop from its three points. It was a perfect festival wherever he appeared. One would have said that his presence had something warming and luminous about it. The children and the old people came out to the doorsteps for the bishop as for the son. He bestowed his blessing and they blessed him. They pointed out his house to anyone who was in need of anything. Here and there he halted, a cost of the little boys and girls and smiled upon the mothers. He visited the poor so long as he had any money. When he no longer had any, he visited the rich. As he made his cassocks last a long while and did not wish to have it noticed, he never went out in the town without his wadded purple cloak. This inconvenienced him somewhat in summer. On his return he dined. The dinner resembled his breakfast. At half-past eight in the evening he supped with his sister. Madame Magliore standing behind them and serving them at table. Nothing could be more frugal than this repast. If, however, the bishop had one of his curies to supper, Madame Magliore took advantage of the opportunity to serve Monsignor with some excellent fish from the lake or with some fine game from the mountains. Every curée furnished the pretext for a good meal. The bishop did not interfere. With that exception his ordinary diet consisted only of vegetables boiled in water and oil soup. Thus it was said in the town, when the bishop does not indulge in the cheer of the curée, he indulges in the cheer of a trappist. After supper he conversed for half an hour with Mademoiselle Baptisteen and Madame Magliore. Then he retired to his own room and set to writing. Sometimes on loose sheets and again on the margin of some folio. He was a man of letters and rather learned. He left behind him five or six very curious manuscripts. Among them a dissertation on this verse in Genesis. In the beginning the spirit of God floated upon the waters. With this verse he compares three texts. The Arabic verse which says, the winds of God blew. Flavius Josephus who says, a wind from above was precipitated upon the earth. And finally the Chaldeic paraphrase of Vonkelos which renders it, a wind coming from God blew upon the face of the waters. In another dissertation he examines the theological works of Hugo, Bishop of Ptolemy, great-grand-uncle to the writer of this book, establishes the fact that to this bishop must be attributed the diverse little works published during the last century under the pseudonym of Barley Court. Sometimes in the midst of his reading, no matter what the book might be, which he had in his hand, he would suddenly fall into a profound meditation, whence he only emerged to write a few lines on the pages of the volume itself. These lines have often no connection whatever with the book which contains them. We now have under our eyes a note written by him on the margin of a quattro entitled, Correspondence of Lord Dermain with Generals Clinton, Cornwallis and the Advils of the American Station. Versailles, Poincot Bookseller, and Paris, Piso Bookseller, Caïdé-Augostin. Here is the note. Oh, you who are! Ecclesiastes calls you the all-powerful, the Maccabees call you the creator, the Epistles to the Ephesians calls you liberty, Baruch calls you immensity, the Psalms call you wisdom and truth, John calls you light, the book of kings call you lord, Exodus calls you providence, Leviticus sanctity, estrus justice, the creation calls you god, man calls you father, but Solomon calls you compassion, and that is the most beautiful of all your names. To our nine o'clock in the evening the two women retired and betook themselves to their chambers on the first floor, leaving him alone until morning on the ground floor. It is necessary that we should, in this place, give an exact idea of the dwelling of the Bishop of Denia. End of Book 1, Chapter 5, Recording, by Melissa. Book 1, Chapter 6, of Les Miserables, translated by Isabelle F. Hapgood. 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 Melissa. Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo. Book 1, A Just Man. Chapter 6, Who Guarded His House for Him. The house in which he lived consisted, as we have said, of a ground floor and one story above, three rooms on the ground floor, three chambers on the first, and an attic above. Behind the house was a garden, a quarter of an acre and extent. The two women occupied the first floor. The bishop was lodged below. The first room, opening on the street, served him as a dining room. The second was his bedroom, and the third his oratory. There was no exit possible from this oratory except by passing through the bedroom, nor from the bedroom without passing through the dining room. At the end of the suite, in the oratory, there was a detached alcove with a bed, for use in cases of hospitality. The bishop offered this bed to county curate, whom business or the requirements of their parishes brought to Dena. The pharmacy of the hospital, a small building which had been added to the house and abutted to the garden, had been transformed into a kitchen and cellar. In addition to this, there was in the garden a stable, which had formerly been the kitchen of the hospital, and in which the bishop kept two cows. No matter what the quantity of milk they gave, he invariably sent half of it every morning to the sick people in the hospital. I am paying my tithes, he said. His bedroom was tolerably large and rather difficult to warm in bad weather. As wood is extremely dear in Dena, he'd hit upon the idea of having a compartment of boards constructed in the cowshed. Here he passed his evenings during seasons of severe cold. He called it his winter salon. In this winter salon, as in the dining room, there was no other furniture than a square table in white wood and four straw-seated chairs. In addition to this, the dining room was ornamented with an antique sideboard painted pink in watercolors. Out of a similar sideboard, properly draped with white nappery and invitation lace, the bishop had constructed the altar which decorated his oratory. His wealthy penitents and the sainted women of Dena had more than once assessed themselves to raise the money for a new altar from Monsignor's oratory. On each occasion he had taken the money and had given it to the poor. The most beautiful of alters, he said, is the soul of an unhappy creature consoled and thanking God. In his oratory there were two straw-predue. There was an armchair, also in straw, in his bedroom. When by chance he received seven or eight persons at one time, the pre-effect of the general, or the staff of the regimen in Garrison, were several pupils from the little seminary. The chairs had to be fetched from the winter salon in the stable, the pre-dia from the oratory, and the armchair from the bedroom. In this way as many as eleven chairs could be collected for the visitors. A room was dismantled for each new guest. It sometimes happened that there were twelve in the party. The bishop then relieved the embarrassment of the situation by standing in front of the chimney if it were winter or by strolling in the garden if it were summer. There was still another chair in the detached alcove, but the straw was half gone from it, and it had but three legs, so that it was of service only when propped against the wall. Mademoiselle Baptisteen had also in her own room a very large, easy chair of wood, which had formerly been gilded and which was covered with flowered pecan, but they had been obliged to hoist this beijer up to the first storey through the window as the staircase was too narrow. It could not, therefore, be reckoned among the possibilities in the way of furniture. Mademoiselle Baptisteen's ambition had been to be able to purchase a set of drawing-room furniture in yellow-utricked velvet, stamped with a rose pattern, and with mahogany in Swan's next style with a sofa. But this would have cost five hundred fronks at least, and in view of the fact that she had only been able to lay by forty-two francs and tin-sous for this purpose in the course of five years, she had ended by renouncing the idea. However, who is there who has attained his ideal? Nothing is more easy to present to the imagination than the Bishop's bed-chamber. A glazed door opened on the garden. Opposite this was the bed, a hospital bed of iron, but a canopy of green surge. In the shadow of the bed, behind a curtain, with the utensils of the toilet, which still betrayed the elegant habits of the man of the world, there were two doors, one near the chimney, opening into the oratory, the other near the bookcase opening into the dining-room. The bookcase was a large cupboard with glass doors filled with books. The chimney was of wood, painted to represent marble, and habitually without a fire. In the chimney stood a pair of fire-dogs of iron, ornamented above with two garlanded vases and flutings which had formerly been silvered with silver leaf, which was a sort of episcopal luxury. Above the chimney-piece hung a crucifix of copper, with the silver worn-off, fixed on the background of thad-bear velvet in a wooden frame from which the gilding had fallen. Near the glass door a large table with an ink-stand, loaded with a confusion of papers and with huge volumes, before the door and armchair of straw, in front of the bed a pretiae borrowed from the oratory. Two portraits and oval frames were fastened to the wall on each side of the bed. Small guilt inscriptions on the plain surface of the cloth at the side of these figures indicated that the portraits represented, one, the Abbey of Shiloh, Bishop of St. Claude, the other, Abbey-Tortot, Vicar-General of Agde, Abbey of Grand Chant, Border of Sitot, Diocese of Chartres. When the bishop succeeded to this apartment after the hospital patients he had found these portraits there and had left them. They were priests, and probably donors, two reasons for respecting them. All that he knew about these two persons was that they had been appointed by the king, the one to his bishopric, the other to his benefits. On the same day, the twenty-seventh of April, seventeen eighty-five. Madame Megliore, having taken the pictures down to dust, the bishop had discovered these particulars written in white ashenk on a little square of paper, yellowed by time, and attached to the back of the portrait of the Abbey of Grand Chant, with four wafers. At his window he had an antique curtain of a coarse woolen scarf, which finally became so old that in order to avoid the expense of a new one Madame Megliore was forced to take a large seam in the very middle of it. This seam took the form of a cross. The bishop often called attention to it. How delightful that is, he said! All the rooms in the house, without exception, those on the ground floor as well as those on the first floor, were whitewashed, which is a fashion in barracks and hospitals. However, in their latter years Madame Megliore had discovered beneath the paper, which had been washed over, paintings ornamenting the apartment of Mademoiselle Baptisteen, as we shall see further on. Before becoming a hospital, this house had been the ancient Parliament House of the Bourgeois, hence this decoration. The chambers were paved in red bricks, which were washed every week, with straw mats in front of all the beds. All together the swelling, which was attended to by the two women, was exquisitely cleaned from top to bottom. This was the sole luxury which the bishop permitted. He said, that takes nothing from the poor. It must be confessed, however, that he still retained from his former possessions six silver knives and forks and a soup ladle, which Madame Megliore contemplated every day with delight, as they glistened spillendedly upon the corselin and cloth. And since we are now painting the Bishop of Dena as he was in reality, we must add that he had said more than I find it difficult to renounce eating from silver dishes. To this silverware must be added two large candlesticks of massive silver, which he had inherited from a great aunt. These candlesticks held two wax candles and usually figured on the bishop's chimney-piece. When he had anyone to dinner, Madame Megliore lighted the two candles and set the candlesticks on the table. In the bishop's own chamber, at the head of his bed, there was a small cupboard in which Madame Megliore locked up the six silver knives and forks and the big spoon every night. But it is necessary to add that the key was never removed. The garden, which has been rather spoiled by the ugly buildings which we have mentioned, was composed of four alleys in cross form radiating from a tank. Another wall made the circuit of the garden and skirted the white wall which enclosed it. These alleys left behind them four square plots rimmed with box. In three of these Madame Megliore cultivated vegetables. In the fourth, the bishop had planted some flowers. Here and there stood a few fruit trees. Madame Megliore had once remarked with a sort of gentle malice, well, senior, you who turn everything to account have nevertheless one useless plot. It would be better to grow salads there than bouquets. Madame Megliore retorted the bishop, you are mistaken. The beautiful is as useful as the useful. He added after a pause, more so perhaps. This bet plot, consisting of three or four beds, occupied the bishop almost as much as did his books. He liked to pass an hour or two there, trimming, hoeing, and making holes here and there in the earth, into which he dropped seeds. He was not as hostile to insects as a garden could have wished to see him. Moreover, he made no pretensions to botany. He ignored groups and consistency. He made not the slightest effort to decide between torn foe and the natural method. He took part in either with the buds against the Kotelidens, nor with Jusio against Linnaeus. He did not study plants. He loved flowers. He respected learned and been greatly. He respected the ignorant still more. And without ever failing in these two respects, he watered his flower beds every summer evening with a tanned watering pot painted green. The house had not a single door which could be locked. The door of the dining room, which as we have said, opened directly on the cathedral square, had formally been ornamented with locks and bolts like the door of a prison. The bishop had had all this ironwork removed, and this door was never fastened either by night or by day with anything except the latch. All that the first passer-by had to do at any hour was to give it a push. At first the two women had been very much tried by the store, which was never fastened, but most of your dedenia had said to them, have bolts put on your rooms if that will please you. They had ended by sharing his confidence, or by at least acting as though they shared it. Madame Magliore alone had frights from time to time. As for the bishop, his thought can be found explained, or at least indicated, in the three lines which he wrote on the margin of a Bible. This is the shade of difference. The door of the physician should never be shut. The door of the priest should always be open. On another book, entitled Philosophy of the Medical Science, he had written this other note, him not I a physician like them, I also have my patients, and then too I have some who I call my unfortunates. Again he wrote, do not inquire the name of him who seeks the shelter of you, the very man who is embarrassed by his name is the one who needs shelter. A chance that a worthy curé, I know not whether it was the curé of Chou Lebrou or the curé of Pompierre, took it into his head to ask him one day, probably at the instigation of Madame Agliori, whether Monsieur was sure that he was not committing an indiscretion, to a certain extent, in leaving his door unfastened day or night, at the mercy of anyone who should choose to enter, and whether, in short, he did not fear lest some misfortune might occur in a house so little guarded. The bishop touched his shoulder with gentle gravity and said to him, n'est-ce domineuse, costaire dierte, domum, in vanum vigilante, qui costaire diante, iam, unless the Lord guard the house, in vain, do they watch who guard it? Then he spoke of something else. He was fond of saying, there is a bravery of the priest as well as the bravery of a kernel of jagoons. Only he added, ours must be tranquil. CHAPTER 6 BOOK ONE, A JUST MAN CHAPTER 7, CROVAT It is here that a fact falls naturally into place, which we must not admit, because it is one of the sort which show us best what sort of a man the bishop of Dignia was. After the destruction of the band of Gaspar Bess, who had infested the gorges of Olioune, one of his lieutenants, Crovat, took refuge in the mountains. He concealed himself for some time with his bandits, the remnant of Gaspar Bess's troop, in the country of Nice. Then he made his way to Piedmont, and suddenly reappeared in France in the vicinity of Barcelonnette. He was first seen at Josier, then at Tuile. He hid himself in the caverns of the jug de l'Aigle, and then he descended towards the hamlets and villages through the ravines of Oubeille and Oubeillette. He even pushed as far as un brun, entered the cathedral one night, and despoiled the sacristy. His highway robberies laid waste the countryside. The gendarmes were set on his track, but in vain. He always escaped. Sometimes he resisted by main force. He was a bold wretch. In the midst of all this terror, the bishop arrived. He was making his circuit to Chastelard. The mayor came to him, and urged him to retrace his steps. Crovat was in possession of the mountains as far as Arche and beyond. There was danger even with an escort. It merely exposed three or four unfortunate gendarmes to no purpose. Therefore, said the bishop, I intend to go without escort. You do not really mean that, Monsignor, exclaimed the mayor. I do mean it so thoroughly that I absolutely refuse any gendarmes, and shall set out in an hour. Set out? Set out. Alone? Alone. Monsignor, you will not do that. There exists yonder in the mountains, said the bishop, a tiny community no bigger than that, which I have not seen for three years. They are my good friends, those gentle and honest shepherds. They own one goat out of every thirty that they tend. They make very pretty woolen cords of various colors, and they play the mountain airs on little flutes with six holes. They need to be told of the good God now and then. What would they say to a bishop who was afraid? What would they say if I did not go? Let the brigand, Monsignor. Hold, said the bishop, I must think of that. You are right. I may meet them. They too need to be told of the good God. But Monsignor, there is a band of them, a flock of wolves. Monsieur le maire, it may be that it is of this very flock of wolves that Jesus has constituted me the shepherd. Who knows the ways of Providence? They will rob you, Monsignor. I have nothing. They will kill you. An old good man of a priest who passes along mumbling his prayers? Bah! To what purpose? Oh, mon Dieu, what if you should meet them? I should beg alms of them for my poor. Do not go, Monsignor. In the name of heaven you are risking your life. Monsieur le maire, said the bishop, is that really all? I am not in the world to guard my own life, but to guard souls. They had to allow him to do as he pleased. He set out, accompanied only by a child who offered to serve as a guide. His obstinacy was brooded about the countryside and caused great consternation. He would take neither his sister, nor Madame Madloire. He traversed the mountain on muleback, encountered no one, and arrived safe and sound at the residence of his good friends, the shepherds. He remained there for a fortnight, preaching, administering the sacrament, teaching, exhorting. In the time of his departure approached, he resolved to chant a thé d'aim pontifically. He mentioned it to the cure. But what was to be done? There were no episcopal ornaments. They could only place at his disposal a wretched village sacristy, with a few ancient chastables of threadbare damask adorned with imitation lace. Bah! said the bishop. Let us announce our thé d'aim from the pulpit, nevertheless, Monsieur le Cure. Things will arrange themselves. They instituted a search in the churches of the neighborhood. All the magnificence of these humble parishes combined would not have sufficed to clothe the chorister of a cathedral properly. While they were thus embarrassed, a large chest was brought and deposited in the presbyteria for the bishop by two unknown horsemen, who departed on the instant. The chest was opened. It contained a cope of cloth of gold, a mitre ornamented with diamonds, an archbishop's cross, a magnificent crozier, all the pontifical vestments which had been stolen a month previously from the treasury of Notre-Dame d'Ambrin. In the chest was a paper, on which these words were written. From cravate to Monseigneur bienvenue. Did not I say that things would come right of themselves, said the bishop? Then he added with a smile. To him who contents himself with the surplus of a curate, God sends the cope of an archbishop. Monseigneur! murmured the cure, throwing back his head with a smile, God, or the devil. The bishop looked steadily at the cure and repeated with authority, God. When he returned to Chastelard, the people came out to stare at him as out of curiosity, all along the road. At the priest's house in Chastelard, he rejoined mademoiselle Baptisteine and madame Magloire, who were waiting for him, and he said to his sister, well, was I in the right? The poor priest went to his poor mountaineers with empty hands, and he returns from them with his hands full. I set out, bearing only my faith in God. I have brought back the treasure of a cathedral. That evening, before he went to bed, he said again, Let us never fear robbers nor murderers. Those are dangers from without, petty dangers. Let us fear ourselves. Prejudices are the real robbers, vices are the real murderers. The great dangers lie within ourselves. What matters at what threatens our head or our purse? Let us think only of that which threatens our soul. Then, turning to his sister, Sister, never a precaution on the part of the priest against his fellow man. That which his fellow does, God permits. Let us confine ourselves to prayer, when we think that a danger is approaching us. Let us pray not for ourselves, but that our brother may not fall into sin on our account. However, such incidents were rare in his life. We relate those of which we know, but generally he passed his life in doing the same things at the same moment. One month of his year resembled one hour of his day. As to what became of the treasure of the cathedral of Ambran, we should be embarrassed by any inquiry in that direction. It consisted of very handsome things, very tempting things, and things which were very well adapted to be stolen for the benefit of the unfortunate. Stolen they had already been elsewhere. Half of the adventure was completed, it only remained to impart a new direction to the theft, and to cause it to take a short trip in the direction of the poor. However, we make no assertions on this point. Only a rather obscure note was found among the bishop's papers, which may bear some relation to this matter, and which is couched in these terms. The question is to decide whether this should be turned over to the cathedral or to the hospital. End of Book 1, Chapter 7, Recording by Colinda in Raymond, New Hampshire on November 30, 2007. Book 1, Chapter 8 of Les Miserables, translated by Isabelle F. Hapgood. 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 Colinda. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. Book 1. Philosophy after drinking. The senator above mentioned was a clever man, who had made his own way, heedless of those things which present obstacles in which are called conscience, sworn faith, justice, duty. He had marched straight to his goal, without once flinching in the line of his advancement and his interest. He was an old attorney, softened by success. Not a bad man, by any means, who rendered all the small services and his power to his sons, his sons-in-law, his relations, and even to his friends, having wisely seized upon in life, good sides, good opportunities, good windfalls. Everything else seemed to him very stupid. He was intelligent and just sufficiently educated to think himself a disciple of Epicurus, while he was, in reality, only a product of Pigeaux-Lébrun. He laughed willingly and pleasantly over infinite and eternal things, and at the crotchets of that good old fellow the bishop. He even sometimes laughed at him with an amiable authority in the presence of Mr. Muriel himself who listened to him. On some semi-official occasion or other I do not recollect what. Count Blanc, the senator, and Mr. Muriel were to dine with the prefect. At dessert the senator, who was slightly exhilarated, though still perfectly dignified, exclaimed, "'Eat, gad-bishop! Let's have a discussion. It is hard for a senator and a bishop to look at each other without winking. We are two augurs. I am going to make a confession to you. I have a philosophy of my own.'" "'And you are right,' replied the bishop, as one makes one's philosophy, so one lies on it. You are on the bed of purple, senator.' The senator was encouraged and went on. "'Let us be good fellows.' "'Good devils even,' said the bishop. "'I declare to you,' continued the senator, that the Marquis d'Argent, Pyrrhen, Hobbes, and Monsieur Neigeont are no rascals. I have all the philosophers in my library gilded on the edges. Like yourself, count,' interposed the bishop. The senator resumed, "'I hate Diderot. He is an ideologist, a declaimer, and a revolutionist, a believer in God at bottom, and more bigoted than Voltaire. Voltaire made sport of Needham, and he was wrong, for Needham's eels prove that God is useless. A drop of vinegar in a spoonful of flour paste supplies the fiat luxe. Suppose the drop to be larger, and the spoonful bigger, you have the world. Man is the eel. Then what is the good of the Eternal Father? The Jehovah hypothesis tires me, bishop. It is good for nothing but to produce shallow people whose reasoning is hollow. Down with that great all which torments me. Harrah for zero which leaves me in peace. Between you and me, and in order to empty my sack, and make confession to my pastor, as it behooves me to do, I will admit to you that I have good sense. I am not enthusiastic over your Jesus, who preaches renunciation and sacrifice to the last extremity. It is the counsel of an avaricious man to beggars. Renunciation? Why? Sacrifice? To what end? I do not see one wolf immolating himself for the happiness of another wolf. Let us stick to nature, then. We are at the top. Let us have a superior philosophy. What is the advantage of being at the top, if one sees no further than the end of other people's noses? Let us live merrily. Life is all. Man has another future elsewhere, on high, below, anywhere. I don't believe. Not one single word of it. Ah, sacrifice and renunciation are recommended to me. I must take heed to everything I do. I must cuddle my brains over good and evil, over the just and unjust, over the fa and the nifa. Why? Because I shall have to render an account of my actions. When? After death. What a fine dream. After my death, it will be a very clever person who can catch me. Have a handful of dust seized by a shadow hand, if you can. Let us tell the truth, we who were initiated, and who have raised the veil of Isis. There is no such thing as either good or evil. There is vegetation. Let us seek the real. Let us get to the bottom of it. Let us go into it thoroughly. What the deuce? Let us go to the bottom of it. We must sent out the truth, dig in the earth for it, and seize it. Then it gives you exquisite joys. Then you grow strong, and you laugh. I am square on the bottom, I am. Immortality bishop is a chance, a waiting for dead men's shoes. Ah! What a charming promise. Trust to it, if you like. What a fine lot Adam has. We are souls, and we shall be angels with blue wings on our shoulder blades. Do come to my assistance. Is it not Tertullian who says that the blessed shall travel from star to star? Very well. We shall be the grasshoppers of the stars. And then, besides, we shall see God. Ta, ta, ta. Twaddle all these paradises are. God is a nonsensical monster. I would not say that in the Moniteur, Igad, but I may whisper it among friends. Interpocula. To sacrifice the world to paradise is to let slip the prey for the shadow. Be the dupe of the infinite. I am not such a fool. I am a knot. I call myself Monsieur le Conte-not, Senator. Did I exist before my birth? No. Shall I exist after death? No. What am I? A little dust collected in an organism. What am I to do on this earth? The choice rests with me. Suffer or enjoy. Wither will suffering lead me to nothingness, but I shall have suffered. Wither will enjoyment lead me to nothingness, but I shall have enjoyed myself. My choice is made. One must eat or be eaten. I shall eat. It is better to be the tooth than the grass, such as my wisdom. After which, go whither I push thee, the grave-digger is there, the pantheon for some of us, all falls into the great hole. End. Finis. Total liquidation. This is the vanishing point. Death is death, believe me. I laugh at the idea of there being anyone who has anything to tell me on that subject. Fables of nurses, bugaboo for children, Jehovah for men. No. Our tomorrow is the night. On the tomb there is nothing but equal nothingness. You have been Sardinapolis, and you have been Vincent de Paul. It makes no difference. That is the truth. Then live your life above all things. Make use of your eye while you have it. In truth, Bishop, I tell you that I have a philosophy of my own, and I have my philosophers. I don't let myself be taken in with that nonsense. Of course, there must be something for those who are down, for the barefooted beggars, knife-grinders, and miserable wretches. Legends, chimeras, the soul, immortality, paradise, the stars are provided for them to swallow. They gobble it down. They spread it on their dry bread. He who has nothing else has the good. God. That is the least he can have. I oppose no objection to that, but I reserve Monsieur Najion for myself. The good God is good for the populace. The bishop clapped his hands. That's talking, he exclaimed. What an excellent and really marvelous thing is this materialism. Not everyone who wants it can have it. Ah, when one does have it, one is no longer a dupe. One does not stupidly allow oneself to be exiled like Cato, nor stoned like Stephen, nor burned alive like Jean d'Arc. Those who have succeeded in procuring this admirable materialism have the joy of feeling themselves irresponsible and of thinking that they can devour everything without uneasiness, cases, sinicures, dignities, power, whether well or ill-acquired, lucrative recantations, useful treacheries, savory capitulations of conscience, and that they shall enter the tomb with their digestion accomplished. How agreeable that is. I do not say that with reference to you, Senator. Nevertheless, it is impossible for me to refrain from congratulating you. You great lords have, so you say, a philosophy of your own, and for yourselves, which is exquisite, refined, accessible to the rich alone, good for all sauces, and which seasons the voluptuousness of life admirably. This philosophy has been extracted from the depths, and unearthed by special seekers. But you are good-natured princes, and you do not think it a bad thing that belief in the good God should constitute the philosophy of the people. Very much as the goose stuffed with chestnuts is the truffled turkey of the poor. CHAPTER VIII. CHAPTER IX. CHAPTER IX. CHAPTER VII. childhood. This letter is in our possession. December 16, 18, Blankety Blank. My good madam, not a day passes without our speaking of you. It is our established custom, but there is another reason besides. Just imagine, while washing and dusting the ceilings and walls, Madame Magluarch has made some discoveries. Now our two chambers hung with antique paper whitewashed over, would not discredit a chateau in the style of yours. Madame Magluarch has pulled off all the paper, there were things beneath. My drawing-room, which contains no furniture and which we use for spreading out the linen after washing, is fifteen feet in height, eighteen square, with a ceiling which was formerly painted and gilded and with beams as in yours. This was covered with a cloth while this was the hospital, and the woodwork was of the era of our grandmothers. But my room is the one you ought to see. Madame Magluarch has discovered, under at least ten thicknesses of paper pasted on top, some paintings, which without being good are very tolerable. The subject is Telemachus being knighted by Minerva in some gardens, the name of which escapes me. In short, where the Roman ladies repaired on one single night. What shall I say to you? I have Romans and Roman ladies. Here occurs an illegible word. And the whole train. Madame Magluarch has cleaned it all off. This summer she is going to have some small injuries repaired, and the whole re-varnished, and my chamber will be a regular museum. She has also found, in a corner of the attic, two wooden pier tables of ancient fashion. They asked us two crowns of six francs each to regild them, but it is much better to give the money to the poor, and they are very ugly besides, and I should much prefer a round table of mahogany. I am always very happy. My brother is so good. He gives all he has to the poor and sick. We are very much cramped. The country is trying in the winter, and we really must do something for those who are in need. We are almost comfortably lighted and warmed. You see that these are great treats. My brother has ways of his own. When he talks, he says that a bishop ought to be so. Just imagine, the door of our house is never fastened. Whoever chooses to enter finds himself at once in my brother's room. He fears nothing, even at night. This is his sort of bravery, he says. He does not wish me or Madame Magloire feel any fear for him. He exposes himself to all sorts of dangers, and he does not like to have us even seem to notice it. One must know how to understand him. He goes out in the rain. He walks in the water. He travels in winter. He fears neither suspicious roads nor dangerous encounters nor night. Last year he went quite alone into a country of robbers. He would not take us. He was absent for a fortnight. On his return nothing had happened to him. He was thought to be dead, but was perfectly well, and said, This is the way I have been robbed. And then he opened a trunk full of jewels, and all the jewels of the Cathedral of Amprin, which the thieves had given him. When he returned on that occasion I could not refrain from scolding him a little, taking care, however, not to speak except when the carriage was making a noise so that no one might hear me. At first I used to say to myself, There are no dangers which will stop him. He is terrible. Now I have ended by getting used to it. I make a sign to Madame Magloire that she is not to oppose him. He risks himself as he sees fit. I carry off Madame Magloire. I enter my chamber. I pray for him, and I fall asleep. I am at ease, because I know that if anything were to happen to him it would be the end of me. I should go to the good God with my brother and my bishop. It has cost Madame Magloire more trouble than it did me to accustom herself to what she terms his imprudences. But now the habit has been acquired. We pray together, we tremble together, and we fall asleep. If the devil were to enter this house he would be allowed to do so. After all, what is there for us to fear in this house? There is always someone with us who is stronger than me. The devil may pass through it, but the good God dwells here. This suffices me. My brother has no longer any need of saying a word to me. I understand him without his speaking, and we abandon ourselves to the care of Providence. That is the way one has to do with a man who possesses grandeur of soul. I have interrogated my brother with regard to the information which he desired on the subject of the full family. You are aware that he knows everything, and that he has memories, because he is still a very good royalist. They really are a very ancient Norman family of the generalship of Caen. Five hundred years ago, there was a Raoul de Faul, a Jean de Faul, and a Thomas de Faul, who were gentlemen, and one of whom was a Seigneur de Rochefort. The last was Guy Etienne Alexandre, and was commander of a regiment, and something in the light horse of Bretagne. His daughter, Marie-Louise, married Atrien Charles de Grameau, son of the Duc Louis de Grameau, peer of France, colonel of the French Guards and Lieutenant General of the Army. It is written Faul, Faul, and Faul. Good madam, recommend us to the prayers of your sainted relative, Monsieur the Cardinal. As for your dear Sylvanie, she has done well in not wasting the few moments which she passes with you in writing to me. She, as well, works as you would wish, and loves me. That is all that I desire. The souvenir which she sent through you reached me safely, and it makes me very happy. My health is not so very bad, and yet I grow thinner every day. Farewell, my paper is at an end, and this forces me to leave you. A thousand good wishes. P.S., your grand-nephew is charming. Do you know that he will soon be five years old? Yesterday he saw someone riding by on horseback who had on kneecaps, and he said, What has he got on his knees? He is a charming child. His little brother is dragging an old broom about the room, like a carriage, and saying, Hoo! As will be perceived from this letter, these two women understood how to mold themselves to the bishop's ways, with that special feminine genius which comprehends the man better than he comprehends himself. The bishop of Dignia, in spite of his gentle and candid air which never deserted him, sometimes did things that were grand, bold, and magnificent, without seeming to have even a suspicion of the fact. They trembled, but they let him alone. Sometimes Madame Maguire essayed a remonstrance in advance, but never at the time nor afterwards. They never interfered with him by so much as a word or sign, in any action, one centred upon. At certain moments without his having occasion to mention it, when he was not even conscious of it himself in all probability, so perfect was his simplicity. They vaguely felt that he was acting as a bishop. Then they were nothing more than two shadows in the house. They served him passively, and if obedience consisted in disappearing, they disappeared. They understood, with an admirable delicacy of instinct, that certain cares may be put under constraint. Thus, even when believing him to be in peril, they understood, I will not say his thought, but his nature, to such a degree that they no longer watched over him. They confided him to God. However, Baptisteen said, as we have just read, that her brother's end would prove her own. Madame Maguire did not say this, but she knew it. End of Book 1, Chapter 9, Recording by Colinda in Raymond, New Hampshire on November 30, 2007