Les Misérables

Victor Hugo

• Publisher: Youcanprint
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9788892683624
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Classics
• Index: Literature

Les Misérables (1862) is a novel by French author Victor Hugo, and among the best-known novels of the 19th century. It follows the lives and interactions of several French characters over a twenty year period in the early 19th century that starts in the year of Napoleon's final defeat. Principally focusing on the struggles of the protagonist—ex-convict Jean Valjean—who seeks to redeem himself, the novel also examines the impact of Valjean's actions for the sake of social commentary. It examines the nature of good, evil, and the law, in a sweeping story that expounds upon the history of France, architecture of Paris, politics, moral philosophy, law, justice, religion, and the types and nature of romantic and familial love. Les Misérables is known to many through its numerous stage and screen adaptations, of which the most famous is the stage musical of the same name, sometimes abbreviated "Les Mis" or "Les Miz".

VOLUME I.—FANTINE.

 

PREFACE

So long as there shall exist, by virtue of law and custom, decrees of damnation pronounced by society, artificially creating hells 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 pauperism, the corruption of woman 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 Misérables cannot fail to be of use.

HAUTEVILLE HOUSE, 1862.

FANTINE

 

BOOK FIRST—A JUST MAN

 

CHAPTER I—M. MYRIEL

In 1815, M. Charles-François-Bienvenu Myriel was Bishop ofD—— He was anold man of about seventy-five years ofage; he had occupied the see of D—— since 1806.

Although this detail has no connection whatever with the realsubstance of what we are about to relate, it will not besuperfluous, if merely for the sake of exactness in all points, tomention here the various rumors and remarks which had been incirculation about him from the very moment when he arrived in thediocese. True or false, that which is said of men often occupies asimportant a place in their lives, and aboveall in their destinies,as that which they do. M. Myriel was the son of a councillor of theParliament of Aix; hence he belonged to the nobility of the bar. Itwas said that his father, destining him to be the heir of his ownpost, had married him at a very early age, eighteen or twenty, inaccordance with a custom which is rather widely prevalent inparliamentary families. In spite of this marriage, however, it wassaid that Charles Myriel created a great deal of talk. He was wellformed, though rather short in stature, elegant, graceful,intelligent; the whole of the first portion of his life had beendevoted to the world and to gallantry.

The Revolution came; events succeeded each other withprecipitation; the parliamentary families, decimated,pursued,hunted down, were dispersed. M. Charles Myriel emigrated toItaly at the very beginning of the Revolution. There his wife diedof a malady of the chest, from which she had long suffered. He hadno children. What took place next in the fate of M. Myriel? Theruin of the French society of the olden days, the fall of his ownfamily, the tragic spectacles of ‘93, which were, perhaps,even more alarming to the emigrants who viewed them from adistance, with the magnifying powers of terror,—did thesecause the ideas of renunciation and solitude to germinate in him?Was he, in the midst of these distractions, these affections whichabsorbed his life, suddenly smitten with one of those mysteriousand terrible blows which sometimes overwhelm, by striking to hisheart, a man whom public catastrophes would not shake, by strikingat his existence and his fortune? No one could have told: all thatwas known was, that when he returned from Italy he was apriest.

In 1804, M. Myriel was the Curé of B——[Brignolles]. He was already advanced in years, and lived in a veryretired manner.

About the epoch of the coronation, some petty affair connectedwith his curacy—just what, is not precisely known—tookhim to Paris. Among other powerful persons to whom he went tosolicit aid forhis parishioners was M. le Cardinal Fesch. One day,when the Emperor had come to visit his uncle, the worthy Curé,who was waiting in the anteroom, found himself present when HisMajesty passed. Napoleon, on finding himself observed with acertain curiosity by this old man, turned round and saidabruptly:—

“Who is this good man who is staring at me?”

“Sire,” said M. Myriel, “you are looking at agood man, and I at a great man. Each of us can profit byit.”

That very evening, the Emperor asked the Cardinalthe name of theCuré, and some time afterwards M. Myriel was utterlyastonished to learn that he had been appointed Bishop ofD——

What truth was there, after all, in the stories which wereinvented as to the early portion of M. Myriel’s life? No oneknew.Very few families had been acquainted with the Myriel familybefore the Revolution.

M. Myriel had to undergo the fate of every newcomer in a littletown, where there are many mouths which talk, and very few headswhich think. He was obliged to undergo it although he was a bishop,and because he was a bishop. But after all, the rumors with whichhis name was connected were rumors only,—noise, sayings,words; less than words—palabres, as the energetic language ofthe South expresses it.

However that may be, after nine years of episcopal power and ofresidence in D——, all the stories and subjects ofconversation which engross petty towns and petty people at theoutset had fallen into profound oblivion. No one would have daredto mention them; no one would havedared to recall them.

M. Myriel had arrived at D—— accompanied by anelderly spinster, Mademoiselle Baptistine, who was his sister, andten years his junior.

Their only domestic was a female servant of the same age asMademoiselle Baptistine, and named Madame Magloire, who, afterhaving beenthe servant of M. le Curé, now assumed the doubletitle 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 bea mother in order to be venerable. She had never been pretty; herwhole life, which had been nothing but a succession of holy deeds,had finally conferred upon her a sort of pallor andtransparency;and as she advanced in years she had acquired what maybe called the beauty of goodness. What had been leanness in heryouth had become transparency in her maturity; and this diaphaneityallowed the angel to be seen. She was a soul rather than a virgin.Her person seemed made of a shadow; there was hardly sufficientbody to provide for sex; a little matter enclosing a light; largeeyes forever drooping;—a mere pretext for a soul’sremaining on the earth.

Madame Magloire was a little, fat, white old woman,corpulent andbustling; always out of breath,—in the first place, becauseof her activity, and in the next, because of her asthma.

On his arrival, M. Myriel was installed in the episcopal palacewith the honors required by the Imperial decrees, which classabishop immediately after a major-general. The mayor and thepresident paid the first call on him, and he, in turn, paid thefirst call on the general and the prefect.

The installation over, the town waited to see its bishop atwork.

CHAPTER II—M. MYRIEL BECOMES M. WELCOME

The episcopal palace of D—— adjoins thehospital.

The episcopal palace was a huge and beautiful house, built ofstone at the beginning of the last century by M. Henri Puget,Doctor of Theology of the Faculty of Paris, Abbé of Simore,who had been Bishop of D—— in 1712. This palace was agenuine seignorial residence. Everything about it had a grandair,—the apartments of the Bishop, the drawing-rooms, thechambers, the principal courtyard, which was very large, with walksencircling it under arcades in the old Florentine fashion, andgardens planted with magnificent trees. In the dining-room, a longand superb gallery which was situated on the ground floor andopened on the gardens, M. Henri Puget had entertained in state, onJuly29, 1714, My Lords Charles Brûlart de Genlis, archbishop;Prince d’Embrun; Antoine de Mesgrigny, the capuchin, Bishopof Grasse; Philippe de Vendôme, Grand Prior of France,Abbé of Saint Honoré de Lérins; François deBerton de Crillon, bishop, Baron de Vence; César de Sabran deForcalquier, bishop, Seignor of Glandève; and Jean Soanen,Priest of the Oratory, preacher in ordinary to the king, bishop,Seignor of Senez. The portraits of these seven reverend personagesdecorated this apartment; and this memorable date, the 29th ofJuly, 1714, was there engraved in letters of gold on a table ofwhite 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 visitended, he had the director requested to be so good as tocome to his house.

“Monsieur the director of the hospital,” said he tohim, “how many sick people have you at the presentmoment?”

“Twenty-six, Monseigneur.”

“That was the number which I counted,” said theBishop.

“The beds,” pursued the director, “are verymuch crowded against each other.”

“That is what I observed.”

“The halls are nothing but rooms, and it is withdifficulty 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 verysmall for the convalescents.”

“That was what I said to myself.”

“In case of epidemics,—we have had the typhus feverthis year; we had the sweating sickness two years ago, and ahundred patients at times,—we know notwhat to do.”

“That is the thought which occurred to me.”

“What would you have, Monseigneur?” said thedirector. “One must resign one’s self.”

This conversation took place in the gallery dining-room on theground floor.

The Bishop remained silent for a moment; then he turned abruptlyto the director of the hospital.

“Monsieur,” said he, “how many beds do youthink this hall alone would hold?”

“Monseigneur’s dining-room?” exclaimed thestupefied director.

The Bishop cast a glance round the apartment, andseemed to betaking measures and calculations with his eyes.

“It would hold full twenty beds,” said he, as thoughspeaking to himself. Then, raising his voice:—

“Hold, Monsieur the director of the hospital, I will tellyou something. There is evidently amistake here. There arethirty-six of you, in five or six small rooms. There are three ofus here, and we have room for sixty. There is some mistake, I tellyou; 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 inthe Bishop’s palace, and the Bishop was settled in thehospital.

M. Myriel had no property, his family having been ruined by theRevolution. His sister was in receipt of a yearly income of fivehundred francs, which sufficed for her personal wants at thevicarage. M. Myriel received from the State, in his quality ofbishop, a salary of fifteen thousand francs. On the very day whenhe took up his abode in the hospital, M. Myriel settled on thedisposition of this sum once for all, in the following manner. Wetranscribe here a note made by his own hand:—

NOTE ON THE REGULATION OF MY HOUSEHOLD EXPENSES.

For the little seminary . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 1,500 livresSociety of the mission . . .. . . . .. . . . . . 100 ”For the Lazarists of Montdidier . . . . . . . . .. 100 ”Seminary forforeign missions in Paris . . . . .. 200 ”Congregationof the Holy Spirit . . . . . . . . .. 150 ”Religiousestablishments of theHoly Land . . . .. 100 ”Charitablematernity societies . . . . . . . . .. 300 ”Extra, forthat of Arles . . . . . . . . . . . .. 50 ”Workfor the amelioration of prisons . . . . . .. 400 ”Work for therelief anddelivery of prisoners . . . 500 ”To liberate fathers of families incarceratedfor debt 1,000 ”Addition to the salary ofthe poor teachers of thediocese . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . 2,000 ”Public granaryof the Hautes-Alpes . . . . . . .. 100 ”Congregationof the ladies of D——, of Manosque, and ofSisteron, forthe gratuitous instruction of poorgirls . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . 1,500 ”Forthe poor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 6,000 ”My personalexpenses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,000 ”———Total . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15,000 ”

M. Myriel made no change in this arrangement during the entireperiod that he occupied the see of D—— As has beenseen,he called itregulating his household expenses.

This arrangement was accepted with absolute submission byMademoiselle Baptistine. This holy woman regarded Monseigneur ofD—— as at one and the same time her brother and herbishop, her friend according tothe flesh and her superior accordingto the Church. She simply loved and venerated him. When he spoke,she bowed; when he acted, she yielded her adherence. Their onlyservant, Madame Magloire, grumbled a little. It will be observedthat Monsieur the Bishophad reserved for himself only one thousandlivres, which, added to the pension of Mademoiselle Baptistine,made fifteen hundred francs a year. On these fifteen hundred francsthese two old women and the old man subsisted.

And when a village curate came toD——, the Bishopstill found means to entertain him, thanks to the severe economy ofMadame Magloire, and to the intelligent administration ofMademoiselle Baptistine.

One day, after he had been in D—— about threemonths, the Bishop said:—

“And still I amquite cramped with it all!”

“I should think so!” exclaimed Madame Magloire.“Monseigneur has not even claimed the allowance which thedepartment owes him for the expense of his carriage in town, andfor his journeys about the diocese. It was customary forbishops informer days.”

“Hold!” cried the Bishop, “you are quiteright, Madame Magloire.”

And he made his demand.

Some time afterwards the General Council took this demand underconsideration, and voted him an annual sum of three thousandfrancs, under this heading:Allowance to M. the Bishop for expensesof carriage, expenses of posting, and expenses of pastoralvisits.

This provoked a great outcry among the local burgesses; and asenator of the Empire, a former member of the Council of the FiveHundred which favored the 18 Brumaire, and who was provided with amagnificent senatorial office in the vicinity of the town ofD——, wrote to M. Bigot de Préameneu, the ministerof public worship, a very angry and confidential note on thesubject, from which we extract these authentic lines:—

“Expenses of carriage? What can be done with it in a townof less than four thousand inhabitants? Expenses of journeys? Whatis the use of these trips, in the first place? Next, how can theposting be accomplished in these mountainous parts? There are noroads. No one travels otherwise than on horseback. Even the bridgebetween Durance and Château-Arnoux can barely supportox-teams. These priests are all thus, greedy and avaricious. Thisman played the good priest when he firstcame. Now he does like therest; he must have a carriage and a posting-chaise, he must haveluxuries, like the bishops of the olden days. Oh, all thispriesthood! Things will not go well, M. le Comte, until the Emperorhas freed us from these black-cappedrascals. Down with the Pope![Matters were getting embroiled with Rome.] For my part, I am forCæsar alone.” Etc., etc.

On the other hand, this affair afforded great delight to MadameMagloire. “Good,” said she to Mademoiselle Baptistine;“Monseigneur began with other people, but he has had to windup wit...