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 ...

In 1815, M. Charles-François-Bienvenu Myriel was Bishop of Digne. He was an old man of about seventy-five years of age; he had occupied the see of Digne since 1806. Although this detail has no connect...

In 1815, M. Charles-François-Bienvenu Myriel was Bishop of Digne. He was an old man of about seventy-five years of age; he had occupied the see of Digne since 1806. Although this detail has no connect...

In 1815, M. Charles-François-Bienvenu Myriel was Bishop of Digne. He was an old man of about seventy-five years of age; he had occupied the see of Digne since 1806. Although this detail has no connect...

The episcopal palace of Digne adjoins the hospital. The episcopal palace was a huge and beautiful house, built of stone at the beginning of the last century by M. Henri Puget, Doctor of Theology of th...

The Bishop did not omit his pastoral visits because he had converted his carriage into alms. The diocese of Digne is a fatiguing one. There are very few plains and a great many mountains; hardly any r...

His conversation was gay and affable. He put himself on a level with the two old women who had passed their lives beside him. When he laughed, it was the laugh of a schoolboy. Madame Magloire liked to...

The private life of M. Myriel was filled with the same thoughts as his public life. The voluntary poverty in which the Bishop of Digne lived, would have been a solemn and charming sight for anyone who...

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...

It is here that a fact falls naturally into place, which we must not omit, because it is one of the sort which show us best what sort of a man the Bishop of Digne was. After the destruction of the ban...

The senator above mentioned was a clever man, who had made his own way, heedless of those things which present obstacles, and which are called conscience, sworn faith, justice, duty: he had marched st...

In order to furnish an idea of the private establishment of the Bishop of Digne, and of the manner in which those two sainted women subordinated their actions, their thoughts, their feminine instincts...

At an epoch a little later than the date of the letter cited in the preceding pages, he did a thing which, if the whole town was to be believed, was even more hazardous than his trip across the mounta...

We should incur a great risk of deceiving ourselves, were we to conclude from this that Monseigneur Welcome was “a philosophical bishop,” or a “patriotic curé.” His meeting, which may almost be design...

A bishop is almost always surrounded by a full squadron of little abbés, just as a general is by a covey of young officers. This is what that charming Saint François de Sales calls somewhere “les prêt...

We are not obliged to sound the Bishop of Digne on the score of orthodoxy. In the presence of such a soul we feel ourselves in no mood but respect. The conscience of the just man should be accepted on...

One last word. Since this sort of details might, particularly at the present moment, and to use an expression now in fashion, give to the Bishop of Digne a certain “pantheistical” physiognomy, and ind...

Early in the month of October, 1815, about an hour before sunset, a man who was travelling on foot entered the little town of Digne. The few inhabitants who were at their windows or on their threshold...

Early in the month of October, 1815, about an hour before sunset, a man who was travelling on foot entered the little town of Digne. The few inhabitants who were at their windows or on their threshold...

That evening, the Bishop of Digne, after his promenade through the town, remained shut up rather late in his room. He was busy over a great work on Duties, which was never completed, unfortunately. He...

The door opened. It opened wide with a rapid movement, as though someone had given it an energetic and resolute push. A man entered. We already know the man. It was the wayfarer whom we have seen wand...

Now, in order to convey an idea of what passed at that table, we cannot do better than to transcribe here a passage from one of Mademoiselle Baptistine’s letters to Madame Boischevron, wherein the con...

After bidding his sister good night, Monseigneur Bienvenu took one of the two silver candlesticks from the table, handed the other to his guest, and said to him⁠— “Monsieur, I will conduct you to your...

Towards the middle of the night Jean Valjean woke. Jean Valjean came from a poor peasant family of Brie. He had not learned to read in his childhood. When he reached man’s estate, he became a tree-pru...

Let us try to say it. It is necessary that society should look at these things, because it is itself which creates them. He was, as we have said, an ignorant man, but he was not a fool. The light of n...

A man overboard! What matters it? The vessel does not halt. The wind blows. That sombre ship has a path which it is forced to pursue. It passes on. The man disappears, then reappears; he plunges, he r...

When the hour came for him to take his departure from the galleys, when Jean Valjean heard in his ear the strange words, “Thou art free!” the moment seemed improbable and unprecedented; a ray of vivid...

As the cathedral clock struck two in the morning, Jean Valjean awoke. What woke him was that his bed was too good. It was nearly twenty years since he had slept in a bed, and, although he had not undr...

Jean Valjean listened. Not a sound. He gave the door a push. He pushed it gently with the tip of his finger, lightly, with the furtive and uneasy gentleness of a cat which is desirous of entering. The...

The next morning at sunrise Monseigneur Bienvenu was strolling in his garden. Madame Magloire ran up to him in utter consternation. “Monseigneur, Monseigneur!” she exclaimed, “does your Grace know whe...

Jean Valjean left the town as though he were fleeing from it. He set out at a very hasty pace through the fields, taking whatever roads and paths presented themselves to him, without perceiving that h...

1817 is the year which Louis XVIII, with a certain royal assurance which was not wanting in pride, entitled the twenty-second of his reign. It is the year in which M. Bruguière de Sorsum was celebrate...

1817 is the year which Louis XVIII, with a certain royal assurance which was not wanting in pride, entitled the twenty-second of his reign. It is the year in which M. Bruguière de Sorsum was celebrate...

These Parisians came, one from Toulouse, another from Limoges, the third from Cahors, and the fourth from Montauban; but they were students; and when one says student, one says Parisian: to study in P...

It is hard nowadays to picture to one’s self what a pleasure-trip of students and grisettes to the country was like, forty-five years ago. The suburbs of Paris are no longer the same; the physiognomy ...

That day was composed of dawn, from one end to the other. All nature seemed to be having a holiday, and to be laughing. The flowerbeds of Saint-Cloud perfumed the air; the breath of the Seine rustled ...

The Russian mountains having been exhausted, they began to think about dinner; and the radiant party of eight, somewhat weary at last, became stranded in Bombarda’s public house, a branch establishmen...

Chat at table, the chat of love; it is as impossible to reproduce one as the other; the chat of love is a cloud; the chat at table is smoke. Fameuil and Dahlia were humming. Tholomyès was drinking. Zé...

In the meantime, while some sang, the rest talked together tumultuously all at once; it was no longer anything but noise. Tholomyès intervened. “Let us not talk at random nor too fast,” he exclaimed. ...

“The dinners are better at Édon’s than at Bombarda’s,” exclaimed Zéphine. “I prefer Bombarda to Édon,” declared Blachevelle. “There is more luxury. It is more Asiatic. Look at the room downstairs; the...

When the young girls were left alone, they leaned two by two on the windowsills, chatting, craning out their heads, and talking from one window to the other. They saw the young men emerge from the Caf...

There was, at Montfermeil, near Paris, during the first quarter of this century, a sort of cook-shop which no longer exists. This cook-shop was kept by some people named Thénardier, husband and wife. ...

There was, at Montfermeil, near Paris, during the first quarter of this century, a sort of cook-shop which no longer exists. This cook-shop was kept by some people named Thénardier, husband and wife. ...

The mouse which had been caught was a pitiful specimen; but the cat rejoices even over a lean mouse. Who were these Thénardiers? Let us say a word or two of them now. We will complete the sketch later...

It is not all in all sufficient to be wicked in order to prosper. The cook-shop was in a bad way. Thanks to the traveller’s fifty-seven francs, Thénardier had been able to avoid a protest and to honor...

And in the meantime, what had become of that mother who according to the people at Montfermeil, seemed to have abandoned her child? Where was she? What was she doing? After leaving her little Cosette ...

And in the meantime, what had become of that mother who according to the people at Montfermeil, seemed to have abandoned her child? Where was she? What was she doing? After leaving her little Cosette ...

He was a man about fifty years of age, who had a preoccupied air, and who was good. That was all that could be said about him. Thanks to the rapid progress of the industry which he had so admirably re...

On the other hand, he remained as simple as on the first day. He had gray hair, a serious eye, the sunburned complexion of a laborer, the thoughtful visage of a philosopher. He habitually wore a hat w...

At the beginning of 1820 the newspapers announced the death of M. Myriel, Bishop of Digne, surnamed “Monseigneur Bienvenu,” who had died in the odor of sanctity at the age of eighty-two. The Bishop of...

Little by little, and in the course of time, all this opposition subsided. There had at first been exercised against M. Madeleine, in virtue of a sort of law which all those who rise must submit to, b...

One morning M. Madeleine was passing through an unpaved alley of Montreuil-sur-Mer; he heard a noise, and saw a group some distance away. He approached. An old man named Father Fauchelevent had just f...

Fauchelevent had dislocated his kneepan in his fall. Father Madeleine had him conveyed to an infirmary which he had established for his workmen in the factory building itself, and which was served by ...

When Fantine saw that she was making her living, she felt joyful for a moment. To live honestly by her own labor, what mercy from heaven! The taste for work had really returned to her. She bought a lo...

So the monk’s widow was good for something. But M. Madeleine had heard nothing of all this. Life is full of just such combinations of events. M. Madeleine was in the habit of almost never entering the...

She had been dismissed towards the end of the winter; the summer passed, but winter came again. Short days, less work. Winter: no warmth, no light, no noonday, the evening joining on to the morning, f...

What is this history of Fantine? It is society purchasing a slave. From whom? From misery. From hunger, cold, isolation, destitution. A dolorous bargain. A soul for a morsel of bread. Misery offers; s...

There is in all small towns, and there was at Montreuil-sur-Mer in particular, a class of young men who nibble away an income of fifteen hundred francs with the same air with which their prototypes de...

Javert thrust aside the spectators, broke the circle, and set out with long strides towards the police station, which is situated at the extremity of the square, dragging the wretched woman after him....

M. Madeleine had Fantine removed to that infirmary which he had established in his own house. He confided her to the sisters, who put her to bed. A burning fever had come on. She passed a part of the ...

M. Madeleine had Fantine removed to that infirmary which he had established in his own house. He confided her to the sisters, who put her to bed. A burning fever had come on. She passed a part of the ...

One morning M. Madeleine was in his study, occupied in arranging in advance some pressing matters connected with the mayor’s office, in case he should decide to take the trip to Montfermeil, when he w...

The incidents the reader is about to peruse were not all known at Montreuil-sur-Mer. But the small portion of them which became known left such a memory in that town that a serious gap would exist in ...

The incidents the reader is about to peruse were not all known at Montreuil-sur-Mer. But the small portion of them which became known left such a memory in that town that a serious gap would exist in ...

From the town-hall he betook himself to the extremity of the town, to a Fleming named Master Scaufflaer, French Scaufflaire, who let out “horses and cabriolets as desired.” In order to reach this Scau...

The reader has, no doubt, already divined that M. Madeleine is no other than Jean Valjean. We have already gazed into the depths of this conscience; the moment has now come when we must take another l...

Three o’clock in the morning had just struck, and he had been walking thus for five hours, almost uninterruptedly, when he at length allowed himself to drop into his chair. There he fell asleep and ha...

The posting service from Arras to Montreuil-sur-Mer was still operated at this period by small mail-wagons of the time of the Empire. These mail-wagons were two-wheeled cabriolets, upholstered inside ...

But at that moment Fantine was joyous. She had passed a very bad night; her cough was frightful; her fever had doubled in intensity; she had had dreams: in the morning, when the doctor paid his visit,...

It was nearly eight o’clock in the evening when the cart, which we left on the road, entered the porte-cochère of the Hotel de la Poste in Arras; the man whom we have been following up to this moment ...

Although he did not suspect the fact, the mayor of Montreuil-sur-Mer enjoyed a sort of celebrity. For the space of seven years his reputation for virtue had filled the whole of Bas Boulonnais; it had ...

He advanced a pace, closed the door mechanically behind him, and remained standing, contemplating what he saw. It was a vast and badly lighted apartment, now full of uproar, now full of silence, where...

The moment for closing the debate had arrived. The President had the accused stand up, and addressed to him the customary question, “Have you anything to add to your defence?” The man did not appear t...

It was he, in fact. The clerk’s lamp illumined his countenance. He held his hat in his hand; there was no disorder in his clothing; his coat was carefully buttoned; he was very pale, and he trembled s...

The day had begun to dawn. Fantine had passed a sleepless and feverish night, filled with happy visions; at daybreak she fell asleep. Sister Simplice, who had been watching with her, availed herself o...

The day had begun to dawn. Fantine had passed a sleepless and feverish night, filled with happy visions; at daybreak she fell asleep. Sister Simplice, who had been watching with her, availed herself o...

She made no movement of either surprise or of joy; she was joy itself. That simple question, “And Cosette?” was put with so profound a faith, with so much certainty, with such a complete absence of di...

This is what had taken place. The half-hour after midnight had just struck when M. Madeleine quitted the Hall of Assizes in Arras. He regained his inn just in time to set out again by the mail-wagon, ...

Fantine had not seen Javert since the day on which the mayor had torn her from the man. Her ailing brain comprehended nothing, but the only thing which she did not doubt was that he had come to get he...

Javert deposited Jean Valjean in the city prison. The arrest of M. Madeleine occasioned a sensation, or rather, an extraordinary commotion in Montreuil-sur-Mer. We are sorry that we cannot conceal the...

Last year (1861), on a beautiful May morning, a traveller, the person who is telling this story, was coming from Nivelles, and directing his course towards La Hulpe. He was on foot. He was pursuing a ...

Last year (1861), on a beautiful May morning, a traveller, the person who is telling this story, was coming from Nivelles, and directing his course towards La Hulpe. He was on foot. He was pursuing a ...

Last year (1861), on a beautiful May morning, a traveller, the person who is telling this story, was coming from Nivelles, and directing his course towards La Hulpe. He was on foot. He was pursuing a ...

Hougomont⁠—this was a funereal spot, the beginning of the obstacle, the first resistance, which that great woodcutter of Europe, called Napoleon, encountered at Waterloo, the first knot under the blow...

Let us turn back⁠—that is one of the storyteller’s rights⁠—and put ourselves once more in the year 1815, and even a little earlier than the epoch when the action narrated in the first part of this boo...

Those persons who wish to gain a clear idea of the battle of Waterloo have only to place, mentally, on the ground, a capital A. The left limb of the A is the road to Nivelles, the right limb is the ro...

Everyone is acquainted with the first phase of this battle; a beginning which was troubled, uncertain, hesitating, menacing to both armies, but still more so for the English than for the French. It ha...

Towards four o’clock the condition of the English army was serious. The Prince of Orange was in command of the centre, Hill of the right wing, Picton of the left wing. The Prince of Orange, desperate ...

The Emperor, though ill and discommoded on horseback by a local trouble, had never been in a better humor than on that day. His impenetrability had been smiling ever since the morning. On the 18th of ...

So, on the morning of Waterloo, Napoleon was content. He was right; the plan of battle conceived by him was, as we have seen, really admirable. The battle once begun, its very various changes⁠—the res...

There were three thousand five hundred of them. They formed a front a quarter of a league in extent. They were giant men, on colossal horses. There were six and twenty squadrons of them; and they had ...

The battery was unmasked at the same moment with the ravine. Sixty cannons and the thirteen squares darted lightning point-blank on the cuirassiers. The intrepid General Delort made the military salut...

The painful surprise of Napoleon is well known. Grouchy hoped for, Blücher arriving. Death instead of life. Fate has these turns; the throne of the world was expected; it was Saint Helena that was see...

Everyone knows the rest⁠—the irruption of a third army; the battle broken to pieces; eighty-six mouths of fire thundering simultaneously; Pirch the first coming up with Bülow; Zieten’s cavalry led by ...

The rout behind the Guard was melancholy. The army yielded suddenly on all sides at once⁠—Hougomont, La Haie-Sainte, Papelotte, Plancenoit. The cry “Treachery!” was followed by a cry of “Save yourselv...

Several squares of the Guard, motionless amid this stream of the defeat, as rocks in running water, held their own until night. Night came, death also; they awaited that double shadow, and, invincible...

If any French reader object to having his susceptibilities offended, one would have to refrain from repeating in his presence what is perhaps the finest reply that a Frenchman ever made. This would en...

The battle of Waterloo is an enigma. It is as obscure to those who won it as to those who lost it. For Napoleon it was a panic;22 Blücher sees nothing in it but fire; Wellington understands nothing in...

There exists a very respectable liberal school which does not hate Waterloo. We do not belong to it. To us, Waterloo is but the stupefied date of liberty. That such an eagle should emerge from such an...

End of the dictatorship. A whole European system crumbled away. The Empire sank into a gloom which resembled that of the Roman world as it expired. Again we behold the abyss, as in the days of the bar...

Let us return⁠—it is a necessity in this book⁠—to that fatal battlefield. On the 18th of June the moon was full. Its light favored Blücher’s ferocious pursuit, betrayed the traces of the fugitives, de...

Jean Valjean had been recaptured. The reader will be grateful to us if we pass rapidly over the sad details. We will confine ourselves to transcribing two paragraphs published by the journals of that ...

Jean Valjean had been recaptured. The reader will be grateful to us if we pass rapidly over the sad details. We will confine ourselves to transcribing two paragraphs published by the journals of that ...

Before proceeding further, it will be to the purpose to narrate in some detail, a singular occurrence which took place at about the same epoch, in Montfermeil, and which is not lacking in coincidence ...

Towards the end of October, in that same year, 1823, the inhabitants of Toulon beheld the entry into their port, after heavy weather, and for the purpose of repairing some damages, of the ship Orion, ...

Montfermeil is situated between Livry and Chelles, on the southern edge of that lofty tableland which separates the Ourcq from the Marne. At the present day it is a tolerably large town, ornamented al...

Montfermeil is situated between Livry and Chelles, on the southern edge of that lofty tableland which separates the Ourcq from the Marne. At the present day it is a tolerably large town, ornamented al...

So far in this book the Thénardiers have been viewed only in profile; the moment has arrived for making the circuit of this couple, and considering it under all its aspects. Thénardier had just passed...

Four new travellers had arrived. Cosette was meditating sadly; for, although she was only eight years old, she had already suffered so much that she reflected with the lugubrious air of an old woman. ...

The line of open-air booths starting at the church, extended, as the reader will remember, as far as the hostelry of the Thénardiers. These booths were all illuminated, because the citizens would soon...

As the Thénardier hostelry was in that part of the village which is near the church, it was to the spring in the forest in the direction of Chelles that Cosette was obliged to go for her water. She di...

On the afternoon of that same Christmas Day, 1823, a man had walked for rather a long time in the most deserted part of the Boulevard de l’Hôpital in Paris. This man had the air of a person who is see...

Cosette, as we have said, was not frightened. The man accosted her. He spoke in a voice that was grave and almost bass. “My child, what you are carrying is very heavy for you.” Cosette raised her head...

Cosette could not refrain from casting a sidelong glance at the big doll, which was still displayed at the toy-merchant’s; then she knocked. The door opened. The Thénardier appeared with a candle in h...

On the following morning, two hours at least before daybreak, Thénardier, seated beside a candle in the public room of the tavern, pen in hand, was making out the bill for the traveller with the yello...

Madame Thénardier had allowed her husband to have his own way, as was her wont. She had expected great results. When the man and Cosette had taken their departure, Thénardier allowed a full quarter of...

Jean Valjean was not dead. When he fell into the sea, or rather, when he threw himself into it, he was not ironed, as we have seen. He swam under water until he reached a vessel at anchor, to which a ...

Forty years ago, a rambler who had ventured into that unknown country of the Salpêtrière, and who had mounted to the Barrière d’Italie by way of the boulevard, reached a point where it might be said t...

Forty years ago, a rambler who had ventured into that unknown country of the Salpêtrière, and who had mounted to the Barrière d’Italie by way of the boulevard, reached a point where it might be said t...

It was in front of this Gorbeau house that Jean Valjean halted. Like wild birds, he had chosen this desert place to construct his nest. He fumbled in his waistcoat pocket, drew out a sort of a passkey...

On the following morning, at daybreak, Jean Valjean was still by Cosette’s bedside; he watched there motionless, waiting for her to wake. Some new thing had come into his soul. Jean Valjean had never ...

Jean Valjean was prudent enough never to go out by day. Every evening, at twilight, he walked for an hour or two, sometimes alone, often with Cosette, seeking the most deserted side alleys of the boul...

Near Saint-Médard’s church there was a poor man who was in the habit of crouching on the brink of a public well which had been condemned, and on whom Jean Valjean was fond of bestowing charity. He nev...

An observation here becomes necessary, in view of the pages which the reader is about to peruse, and of others which will be met with further on. The author of this book, who regrets the necessity of ...

An observation here becomes necessary, in view of the pages which the reader is about to peruse, and of others which will be met with further on. The author of this book, who regrets the necessity of ...

Uncertainty was at an end for Jean Valjean: fortunately it still lasted for the men. He took advantage of their hesitation. It was time lost for them, but gained for him. He slipped from under the gat...

Three hundred paces further on, he arrived at a point where the street forked. It separated into two streets, which ran in a slanting line, one to the right, and the other to the left. Jean Valjean ha...

In order to understand what follows, it is requisite to form an exact idea of the Droit-Mur lane, and, in particular, of the angle which one leaves on the left when one emerges from the Rue Polonceau ...

At that moment a heavy and measured sound began to be audible at some distance. Jean Valjean risked a glance round the corner of the street. Seven or eight soldiers, drawn up in a platoon, had just de...

Jean Valjean found himself in a sort of garden which was very vast and of singular aspect; one of those melancholy gardens which seem made to be looked at in winter and at night. This garden was oblon...

The night wind had risen, which indicated that it must be between one and two o’clock in the morning. Poor Cosette said nothing. As she had seated herself beside him and leaned her head against him, J...

The child had laid her head on a stone and fallen asleep. He sat down beside her and began to think. Little by little, as he gazed at her, he grew calm and regained possession of his freedom of mind. ...

He walked straight up to the man whom he saw in the garden. He had taken in his hand the roll of silver which was in the pocket of his waistcoat. The man’s head was bent down, and he did not see him a...

The events of which we have just beheld the reverse side, so to speak, had come about in the simplest possible manner. When Jean Valjean, on the evening of the very day when Javert had arrested him be...

Nothing, half a century ago, more resembled every other carriage gate than the carriage gate of Number 62 Rue Petit-Picpus. This entrance, which usually stood ajar in the most inviting fashion, permit...

Nothing, half a century ago, more resembled every other carriage gate than the carriage gate of Number 62 Rue Petit-Picpus. This entrance, which usually stood ajar in the most inviting fashion, permit...

This convent, which in 1824 had already existed for many a long year in the Rue Petit-Picpus, was a community of Bernardines of the obedience of Martin Verga. These Bernardines were attached, in conse...

One is a postulant for two years at least, often for four; a novice for four. It is rare that the definitive vows can be pronounced earlier than the age of twenty-three or twenty-four years. The Berna...

Nonetheless, these young girls filled this grave house with charming souvenirs. At certain hours childhood sparkled in that cloister. The recreation hour struck. A door swung on its hinges. The birds ...

Above the door of the refectory this prayer, which was called the “white Paternoster,” and which possessed the property of bearing people straight to paradise, was inscribed in large black letters:⁠— ...

In this enclosure of the Petit-Picpus there were three perfectly distinct buildings⁠—the Great Convent, inhabited by the nuns, the Boarding-school, where the scholars were lodged; and lastly, what was...

During the six years which separate 1819 from 1825, the prioress of the Petit-Picpus was Mademoiselle de Blemeur, whose name, in religion, was Mother Innocente. She came of the family of Marguerite de...

After having sketched its moral face, it will not prove unprofitable to point out, in a few words, its material configuration. The reader already has some idea of it. The convent of the Petit-Picpus-S...

Since we are engaged in giving details as to what the convent of the Petit-Picpus was in former times, and since we have ventured to open a window on that discreet retreat, the reader will permit us o...

However, this almost sepulchral parlor, of which we have sought to convey an idea, is a purely local trait which is not reproduced with the same severity in other convents. At the convent of the Rue d...

At the beginning of the Restoration, the convent of the Petit-Picpus was in its decay; this forms a part of the general death of the order, which, after the eighteenth century, has been disappearing l...

This book is a drama, whose leading personage is the Infinite. Man is the second. Such being the case, and a convent having happened to be on our road, it has been our duty to enter it. Why? Because t...

This book is a drama, whose leading personage is the Infinite. Man is the second. Such being the case, and a convent having happened to be on our road, it has been our duty to enter it. Why? Because t...

From the point of view of history, of reason, and of truth, monasticism is condemned. Monasteries, when they abound in a nation, are clogs in its circulation, cumbrous establishments, centres of idlen...

Monasticism, such as it existed in Spain, and such as it still exists in Tibet, is a sort of phthisis for civilization. It stops life short. It simply depopulates. Claustration, castration. It has bee...

Men unite themselves and dwell in communities. By virtue of what right? By virtue of the right of association. They shut themselves up at home. By virtue of what right? By virtue of the right which ev...

They pray. To whom? To God. To pray to God⁠—what is the meaning of these words? Is there an infinite beyond us? Is that infinite there, inherent, permanent; necessarily substantial, since it is infini...

With regard to the modes of prayer, all are good, provided that they are sincere. Turn your book upside down and be in the infinite. There is, as we know, a philosophy which denies the infinite. There...

History and philosophy have eternal duties, which are, at the same time, simple duties; to combat Caiphas the High-priest, Draco the Lawgiver, Trimalcion the Legislator, Tiberius the Emperor; this is ...

A few words more. We blame the church when she is saturated with intrigues, we despise the spiritual which is harsh toward the temporal; but we everywhere honor the thoughtful man. We salute the man w...

It was into this house that Jean Valjean had, as Fauchelevent expressed it, “fallen from the sky.” He had scaled the wall of the garden which formed the angle of the Rue Polonceau. That hymn of the an...

It was into this house that Jean Valjean had, as Fauchelevent expressed it, “fallen from the sky.” He had scaled the wall of the garden which formed the angle of the Rue Polonceau. That hymn of the an...

It is the peculiarity of certain persons and certain professions, notably priests and nuns, to wear a grave and agitated air on critical occasions. At the moment when Fauchelevent entered, this double...

About a quarter of an hour elapsed. The prioress returned and seated herself once more on her chair. The two interlocutors seemed preoccupied. We will present a stenographic report of the dialogue whi...

The strides of a lame man are like the ogling glances of a one-eyed man; they do not reach their goal very promptly. Moreover, Fauchelevent was in a dilemma. He took nearly a quarter of an hour to ret...

On the following day, as the sun was declining, the very rare passersby on the Boulevard du Maine pulled off their hats to an old-fashioned hearse, ornamented with skulls, crossbones, and tears. This ...

Who was in the coffin? The reader knows. Jean Valjean. Jean Valjean had arranged things so that he could exist there, and he could almost breathe. It is a strange thing to what a degree security of co...

This is what had taken place above the coffin in which lay Jean Valjean. When the hearse had driven off, when the priest and the choir boy had entered the carriage again and taken their departure, Fau...

An hour later, in the darkness of night, two men and a child presented themselves at No. 62 Rue Petit-Picpus. The elder of the men lifted the knocker and rapped. They were Fauchelevent, Jean Valjean, ...

Cosette continued to hold her tongue in the convent. It was quite natural that Cosette should think herself Jean Valjean’s daughter. Moreover, as she knew nothing, she could say nothing, and then, she...

Paris has a child, and the forest has a bird; the bird is called the sparrow; the child is called the gamin. Couple these two ideas which contain, the one all the furnace, the other all the dawn; stri...

Paris has a child, and the forest has a bird; the bird is called the sparrow; the child is called the gamin. Couple these two ideas which contain, the one all the furnace, the other all the dawn; stri...

Paris has a child, and the forest has a bird; the bird is called the sparrow; the child is called the gamin. Couple these two ideas which contain, the one all the furnace, the other all the dawn; stri...

The gamin⁠—the street arab⁠—of Paris is the dwarf of the giant. Let us not exaggerate, this cherub of the gutter sometimes has a shirt, but, in that case, he owns but one; he sometimes has shoes, but ...

In the evening, thanks to a few sous, which he always finds means to procure, the homuncio enters a theatre. On crossing that magic threshold, he becomes transfigured; he was the street arab, he becom...

Paris begins with the lounger and ends with the street arab, two beings of which no other city is capable; the passive acceptance, which contents itself with gazing, and the inexhaustible initiative; ...

The gamin loves the city, he also loves solitude, since he has something of the sage in him. Urbis amator, like Fuscus; ruris amator, like Flaccus. To roam thoughtfully about, that is to say, to loung...

At the epoch, nearly contemporary by the way, when the action of this book takes place, there was not, as there is today, a policeman at the corner of every street (a benefit which there is no time to...

The body of street arabs in Paris almost constitutes a caste. One might almost say: Not everyone who wishes to belong to it can do so. This word gamin was printed for the first time, and reached popul...

In summer, he metamorphoses himself into a frog; and in the evening, when night is falling, in front of the bridges of Austerlitz and Jéna, from the tops of coal wagons, and the washerwomen’s boats, h...

There was something of that boy in Poquelin, the son of the fish-market; Beaumarchais had something of it. Gaminerie is a shade of the Gallic spirit. Mingled with good sense, it sometimes adds force t...

To sum it all up once more, the Paris gamin of today, like the graeculus of Rome in days gone by, is the infant populace with the wrinkle of the old world on his brow. The gamin is a grace to the nati...

There is no limit to Paris. No city has had that domination which sometimes derides those whom it subjugates. To please you, O Athenians! exclaimed Alexander. Paris makes more than the law, it makes t...

As for the Parisian populace, even when a man grown, it is always the street arab; to paint the child is to paint the city; and it is for that reason that we have studied this eagle in this arrant spa...

Eight or nine years after the events narrated in the second part of this story, people noticed on the Boulevard du Temple, and in the regions of the Château-d’Eau, a little boy eleven or twelve years ...

In the Rue Boucherat, Rue de Normandie and the Rue de Saintonge there still exist a few ancient inhabitants who have preserved the memory of a worthy man named M. Gillenormand, and who mention him wit...

In the Rue Boucherat, Rue de Normandie and the Rue de Saintonge there still exist a few ancient inhabitants who have preserved the memory of a worthy man named M. Gillenormand, and who mention him wit...

He lived in the Marais, Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire, No. 6. He owned the house. This house has since been demolished and rebuilt, and the number has probably been changed in those revolutions of numera...

At the age of sixteen, one evening at the opera, he had had the honor to be stared at through opera-glasses by two beauties at the same time⁠—ripe and celebrated beauties then, and sung by Voltaire, t...

He had taken prizes in his boyhood at the College of Moulins, where he was born, and he had been crowned by the hand of the Duc de Nivernais, whom he called the Duc de Nevers. Neither the Convention, ...

He had theories. Here is one of them: “When a man is passionately fond of women, and when he has himself a wife for whom he cares but little, who is homely, cross, legitimate, with plenty of rights, p...

With M. Gillenormand, sorrow was converted into wrath; he was furious at being in despair. He had all sorts of prejudices and took all sorts of liberties. One of the facts of which his exterior relief...

Such was M. Luc-Esprit Gillenormand, who had not lost his hair⁠—which was gray rather than white⁠—and which was always dressed in “dog’s ears.” To sum up, he was venerable in spite of all this. He had...

We have just spoken of M. Gillenormand’s two daughters. They had come into the world ten years apart. In their youth they had borne very little resemblance to each other, either in character or counte...

When M. Gillenormand lived in the Rue Servandoni, he had frequented many very good and very aristocratic salons. Although a bourgeois, M. Gillenormand was received in society. As he had a double measu...

When M. Gillenormand lived in the Rue Servandoni, he had frequented many very good and very aristocratic salons. Although a bourgeois, M. Gillenormand was received in society. As he had a double measu...

Anyone who had chanced to pass through the little town of Vernon at this epoch, and who had happened to walk across that fine monumental bridge, which will soon be succeeded, let us hope, by some hide...

Madame de T.’s salon was all that Marius Pontmercy knew of the world. It was the only opening through which he could get a glimpse of life. This opening was sombre, and more cold than warmth, more nig...

The conclusion of Marius’ classical studies coincided with M. Gillenormand’s departure from society. The old man bade farewell to the Faubourg Saint-Germain and to Madame de T.’s salon, and establishe...

Marius had preserved the religious habits of his childhood. One Sunday, when he went to hear mass at Saint-Sulpice, at that same chapel of the Virgin whither his aunt had led him when a small lad, he ...

Where it was that Marius went will be disclosed a little further on. Marius was absent for three days, then he returned to Paris, went straight to the library of the law-school and asked for the files...

We have mentioned a lancer. He was a great-grand-nephew of M. Gillenormand, on the paternal side, who led a garrison life, outside the family and far from the domestic hearth. Lieutenant Théodule Gill...

It was hither that Marius had come on the first occasion of his absenting himself from Paris. It was hither that he had come every time that M. Gillenormand had said: “He is sleeping out.” Lieutenant ...

At that epoch, which was, to all appearances indifferent, a certain revolutionary quiver was vaguely current. Breaths which had started forth from the depths of ’89 and ’93 were in the air. Youth was ...

At that epoch, which was, to all appearances indifferent, a certain revolutionary quiver was vaguely current. Breaths which had started forth from the depths of ’89 and ’93 were in the air. Youth was ...

On a certain afternoon, which had, as will be seen hereafter, some coincidence with the events heretofore related, Laigle de Meaux was to be seen leaning in a sensual manner against the doorpost of th...

In a few days, Marius had become Courfeyrac’s friend. Youth is the season for prompt welding and the rapid healing of scars. Marius breathed freely in Courfeyrac’s society, a decidedly new thing for h...

One of the conversations among the young men, at which Marius was present and in which he sometimes joined, was a veritable shock to his mind. This took place in the back room of the Café Musain. Near...

The shocks of youthful minds among themselves have this admirable property, that one can never foresee the spark, nor divine the lightning flash. What will dart out presently? No one knows. The burst ...

That evening left Marius profoundly shaken, and with a melancholy shadow in his soul. He felt what the earth may possibly feel, at the moment when it is torn open with the iron, in order that grain ma...

Life became hard for Marius. It was nothing to eat his clothes and his watch. He ate of that terrible, inexpressible thing that is called de la vache enragé; that is to say, he endured great hardships...

Life became hard for Marius. It was nothing to eat his clothes and his watch. He ate of that terrible, inexpressible thing that is called de la vache enragé; that is to say, he endured great hardships...

It is the same with wretchedness as with everything else. It ends by becoming bearable. It finally assumes a form, and adjusts itself. One vegetates, that is to say, one develops in a certain meagre f...

At this epoch, Marius was twenty years of age. It was three years since he had left his grandfather. Both parties had remained on the same terms, without attempting to approach each other, and without...

On the day when M. Mabeuf said to Marius: “Certainly I approve of political opinions,” he expressed the real state of his mind. All political opinions were matters of indifference to him, and he appro...

Marius liked this candid old man who saw himself gradually falling into the clutches of indigence, and who came to feel astonishment, little by little, without, however, being made melancholy by it. M...

It chanced that the regiment to which Lieutenant Théodule belonged came to perform garrison duty in Paris. This inspired Aunt Gillenormand with a second idea. She had, on the first occasion, hit upon ...

Marius was, at this epoch, a handsome young man, of medium stature, with thick and intensely black hair, a lofty and intelligent brow, well-opened and passionate nostrils, an air of calmness and since...

Marius was, at this epoch, a handsome young man, of medium stature, with thick and intensely black hair, a lofty and intelligent brow, well-opened and passionate nostrils, an air of calmness and since...

During the second year, precisely at the point in this history which the reader has now reached, it chanced that this habit of the Luxembourg was interrupted, without Marius himself being quite aware ...

One day, the air was warm, the Luxembourg was inundated with light and shade, the sky was as pure as though the angels had washed it that morning, the sparrows were giving vent to little twitters in t...

On the following day, at the accustomed hour, Marius drew from his wardrobe his new coat, his new trousers, his new hat, and his new boots; he clothed himself in this complete panoply, put on his glov...

On the following day, Ma’am Bougon, as Courfeyrac styled the old portress-principal-tenant, housekeeper of the Gorbeau hovel, Ma’am Bougon, whose name was, in reality, Madame Burgon, as we have found ...

On one of the last days of the second week, Marius was seated on his bench, as usual, holding in his hand an open book, of which he had not turned a page for the last two hours. All at once he started...

Isolation, detachment, from everything, pride, independence, the taste of nature, the absence of daily and material activity, the life within himself, the secret conflicts of chastity, a benevolent ec...

Since we have pronounced the word modesty, and since we conceal nothing, we ought to say that once, nevertheless, in spite of his ecstasies, “his Ursule” caused him very serious grief. It was on one o...

The reader has just seen how Marius discovered, or thought that he discovered, that She was named Ursule. Appetite grows with loving. To know that her name was Ursule was a great deal; it was very lit...

Human societies all have what is called in theatrical parlance, “a third lower floor.” The social soil is everywhere undermined, sometimes for good, sometimes for evil. These works are superposed one ...

Human societies all have what is called in theatrical parlance, “a third lower floor.” The social soil is everywhere undermined, sometimes for good, sometimes for evil. These works are superposed one ...

There disinterestedness vanishes. The demon is vaguely outlined; each one is for himself. The “I” in the eyes howls, seeks, fumbles, and gnaws. The social Ugolino is in this gulf. The wild spectres wh...

A quartet of ruffians, Claquesous, Gueulemer, Babet, and Montparnasse governed the third lower floor of Paris, from 1830 to 1835. Gueulemer was a Hercules of no defined position. For his lair he had t...

These four ruffians formed a sort of Proteus, winding like a serpent among the police, and striving to escape Vidocq’s indiscreet glances “under divers forms, tree, flame, fountain,” lending each othe...

Summer passed, then the autumn; winter came. Neither M. Leblanc nor the young girl had again set foot in the Luxembourg garden. Thenceforth, Marius had but one thought⁠—to gaze once more on that sweet...

Summer passed, then the autumn; winter came. Neither M. Leblanc nor the young girl had again set foot in the Luxembourg garden. Thenceforth, Marius had but one thought⁠—to gaze once more on that sweet...

Marius had not left the Gorbeau house. He paid no attention to anyone there. At that epoch, to tell the truth, there were no other inhabitants in the house, except himself and those Jondrettes whose r...

That evening, as he was undressing preparatory to going to bed, his hand came in contact, in the pocket of his coat, with the packet which he had picked up on the boulevard. He had forgotten it. He th...

A very young girl was standing in the half-open door. The dormer window of the garret, through which the light fell, was precisely opposite the door, and illuminated the figure with a wan light. She w...

Marius had lived for five years in poverty, in destitution, even in distress, but he now perceived that he had not known real misery. True misery he had but just had a view of. It was its spectre whic...

Cities, like forests, have their caverns in which all the most wicked and formidable creatures which they contain conceal themselves. Only, in cities, that which thus conceals itself is ferocious, unc...

Marius, with a load upon his breast, was on the point of descending from the species of observatory which he had improvised, when a sound attracted his attention and caused him to remain at his post. ...

The big girl approached and laid her hand in her father’s. “Feel how cold I am,” said she. “Bah!” replied the father, “I am much colder than that.” The mother exclaimed impetuously:⁠— “You always have...

The hovel was so dark, that people coming from without felt on entering it the effect produced on entering a cellar. The two newcomers advanced, therefore, with a certain hesitation, being hardly able...

Marius had lost nothing of this entire scene, and yet, in reality, had seen nothing. His eyes had remained fixed on the young girl, his heart had, so to speak, seized her and wholly enveloped her from...

Marius ascended the stairs of the hovel with slow steps; at the moment when he was about to reenter his cell, he caught sight of the elder Jondrette girl following him through the corridor. The very s...

Nothing in the aspect of the family was altered, except that the wife and daughters had levied on the package and put on woollen stockings and jackets. Two new blankets were thrown across the two beds...

Marius, dreamer as he was, was, as we have said, firm and energetic by nature. His habits of solitary meditation, while they had developed in him sympathy and compassion, had, perhaps, diminished the ...

On arriving at No. 14, Rue de Pontoise, he ascended to the first floor and inquired for the commissary of police. “The commissary of police is not here,” said a clerk; “but there is an inspector who t...

A few moments later, about three o’clock, Courfeyrac chanced to be passing along the Rue Mouffetard in company with Bossuet. The snow had redoubled in violence, and filled the air. Bossuet was just sa...

Marius seated himself on his bed. It might have been half-past five o’clock. Only half an hour separated him from what was about to happen. He heard the beating of his arteries as one hears the tickin...

Marius decided that the moment had now arrived when he must resume his post at his observatory. In a twinkling, and with the agility of his age, he had reached the hole in the partition. He looked. Th...

Suddenly, the distant and melancholy vibration of a clock shook the panes. Six o’clock was striking from Saint-Médard. Jondrette marked off each stroke with a toss of his head. When the sixth had stru...

Hardly was M. Leblanc seated, when he turned his eyes towards the pallets, which were empty. “How is the poor little wounded girl?” he inquired. “Bad,” replied Jondrette with a heartbroken and gratefu...

The door of the garret had just opened abruptly, and allowed a view of three men clad in blue linen blouses, and masked with masks of black paper. The first was thin, and had a long, iron-tipped cudge...

At nightfall, Javert had posted his men and had gone into ambush himself between the trees of the Rue de la Barrière-des-Gobelins which faced the Gorbeau house, on the other side of the boulevard. He ...

On the day following that on which these events took place in the house on the Boulevard de l’Hôpital, a child, who seemed to be coming from the direction of the bridge of Austerlitz, was ascending th...

1831 and 1832, the two years which are immediately connected with the Revolution of July, form one of the most peculiar and striking moments of history. These two years rise like two mountains midway ...

1831 and 1832, the two years which are immediately connected with the Revolution of July, form one of the most peculiar and striking moments of history. These two years rise like two mountains midway ...

1831 and 1832, the two years which are immediately connected with the Revolution of July, form one of the most peculiar and striking moments of history. These two years rise like two mountains midway ...

But the task of sages is one thing, the task of clever men is another. The Revolution of 1830 came to a sudden halt. As soon as a revolution has made the coast, the skilful make haste to prepare the s...

Revolutions have a terrible arm and a happy hand, they strike firmly and choose well. Even incomplete, even debased and abused and reduced to the state of a junior revolution like the Revolution of 18...

At the moment when the drama which we are narrating is on the point of penetrating into the depths of one of the tragic clouds which envelop the beginning of Louis Philippe’s reign, it was necessary t...

Towards the end of April, everything had become aggravated. The fermentation entered the boiling state. Ever since 1830, petty partial revolts had been going on here and there, which were quickly supp...

It was about this epoch that Enjolras, in view of a possible catastrophe, instituted a kind of mysterious census. All were present at a secret meeting at the Café Musain. Enjolras said, mixing his wor...

Marius had witnessed the unexpected termination of the ambush upon whose track he had set Javert; but Javert had no sooner quitted the building, bearing off his prisoners in three hackney-coaches, tha...

Marius had witnessed the unexpected termination of the ambush upon whose track he had set Javert; but Javert had no sooner quitted the building, bearing off his prisoners in three hackney-coaches, tha...

Javert’s triumph in the Gorbeau hovel seemed complete, but had not been so. In the first place, and this constituted the principal anxiety, Javert had not taken the prisoner prisoner. The assassinated...

Marius no longer went to see anyone, but he sometimes encountered Father Mabeuf by chance. While Marius was slowly descending those melancholy steps which may be called the cellar stairs, and which le...

Some days after this visit of a “spirit” to Farmer Mabeuf, one morning⁠—it was on a Monday, the day when Marius borrowed the hundred-sou piece from Courfeyrac for Thénardier⁠—Marius had put this coin ...

About the middle of the last century, a chief justice in the Parliament of Paris having a mistress and concealing the fact, for at that period the grand seignors displayed their mistresses, and the bo...

About the middle of the last century, a chief justice in the Parliament of Paris having a mistress and concealing the fact, for at that period the grand seignors displayed their mistresses, and the bo...

However, properly speaking, he lived in the Rue Plumet, and he had arranged his existence there in the following fashion:⁠— Cosette and the servant occupied the pavilion; she had the big sleeping-room...

The garden thus left to itself for more than half a century had become extraordinary and charming. The passersby of forty years ago halted to gaze at it, without a suspicion of the secrets which it hi...

It seemed that this garden, created in olden days to conceal wanton mysteries, had been transformed and become fitted to shelter chaste mysteries. There were no longer either arbors, or bowling greens...

One day, Cosette chanced to look at herself in her mirror, and she said to herself: “Really!” It seemed to her almost that she was pretty. This threw her in a singularly troubled state of mind. Up to ...

Cosette in her shadow, like Marius in his, was all ready to take fire. Destiny, with its mysterious and fatal patience, slowly drew together these two beings, all charged and all languishing with the ...

All situations have their instincts. Old and eternal Mother Nature warned Jean Valjean in a dim way of the presence of Marius. Jean Valjean shuddered to the very bottom of his soul. Jean Valjean saw n...

Jean Valjean was the more unhappy of the two. Youth, even in its sorrows, always possesses its own peculiar radiance. At times, Jean Valjean suffered so greatly that he became puerile. It is the prope...

Thus their life clouded over by degrees. But one diversion, which had formerly been a happiness, remained to them, which was to carry bread to those who were hungry, and clothing to those who were col...

Thus their life clouded over by degrees. But one diversion, which had formerly been a happiness, remained to them, which was to carry bread to those who were hungry, and clothing to those who were col...

One evening, little Gavroche had had nothing to eat; he remembered that he had not dined on the preceding day either; this was becoming tiresome. He resolved to make an effort to secure some supper. H...

Cosette’s grief, which had been so poignant and lively four or five months previously, had, without her being conscious of the fact, entered upon its convalescence. Nature, spring, youth, love for her...

Cosette’s grief, which had been so poignant and lively four or five months previously, had, without her being conscious of the fact, entered upon its convalescence. Nature, spring, youth, love for her...

During the first fortnight in April, Jean Valjean took a journey. This, as the reader knows, happened from time to time, at very long intervals. He remained absent a day or two days at the utmost. Whe...

In the garden, near the railing on the street, there was a stone bench, screened from the eyes of the curious by a plantation of yoke-elms, but which could, in case of necessity, be reached by an arm ...

The reduction of the universe to a single being, the expansion of a single being even to God, that is love. Love is the salutation of the angels to the stars. How sad is the soul, when it is sad throu...

As Cosette read, she gradually fell into thought. At the very moment when she raised her eyes from the last line of the notebook, the handsome officer passed triumphantly in front of the gate⁠—it was ...

When evening came, Jean Valjean went out; Cosette dressed herself. She arranged her hair in the most becoming manner, and she put on a dress whose bodice had received one snip of the scissors too much...

Since 1823, when the tavern of Montfermeil was on the way to shipwreck and was being gradually engulfed, not in the abyss of a bankruptcy, but in the cesspool of petty debts, the Thénardier pair had h...

Since 1823, when the tavern of Montfermeil was on the way to shipwreck and was being gradually engulfed, not in the abyss of a bankruptcy, but in the cesspool of petty debts, the Thénardier pair had h...

Spring in Paris is often traversed by harsh and piercing breezes which do not precisely chill but freeze one; these north winds which sadden the most beautiful days produce exactly the effect of those...

This is what had taken place that same night at the La Force:⁠— An escape had been planned between Babet, Brujon, Guelemer, and Thénardier, although Thénardier was in close confinement. Babet had arra...

Pigritia is a terrible word. It engenders a whole world, la pègre, for which read “theft,” and a hell, la pègrenne, for which read “hunger.” Thus, idleness is the mother. She has a son, theft, and a d...

Pigritia is a terrible word. It engenders a whole world, la pègre, for which read “theft,” and a hell, la pègrenne, for which read “hunger.” Thus, idleness is the mother. She has a son, theft, and a d...

Slang is the tongue of those who sit in darkness. Thought is moved in its most sombre depths, social philosophy is bidden to its most poignant meditations, in the presence of that enigmatic dialect at...

As the reader perceives, slang in its entirety, slang of four hundred years ago, like the slang of today, is permeated with that sombre, symbolical spirit which gives to all words a mien which is now ...

This being the case, is all social danger dispelled? Certainly not. There is no Jacquerie; society may rest assured on that point; blood will no longer rush to its head. But let society take heed to t...

The reader has probably understood that Éponine, having recognized through the gate, the inhabitant of that Rue Plumet whither Magnon had sent her, had begun by keeping the ruffians away from the Rue ...

The reader has probably understood that Éponine, having recognized through the gate, the inhabitant of that Rue Plumet whither Magnon had sent her, had begun by keeping the ruffians away from the Rue ...

They existed vaguely, frightened at their happiness. They did not notice the cholera which decimated Paris precisely during that very month. They had confided in each other as far as possible, but thi...

Jean Valjean suspected nothing. Cosette, who was rather less dreamy than Marius, was gay, and that sufficed for Jean Valjean’s happiness. The thoughts which Cosette cherished, her tender preoccupation...

The following day was the 3rd of June, 1832, a date which it is necessary to indicate on account of the grave events which at that epoch hung on the horizon of Paris in the state of lightning-charged ...

After the departure of the ruffians, the Rue Plumet resumed its tranquil, nocturnal aspect. That which had just taken place in this street would not have astonished a forest. The lofty trees, the cops...

While this sort of a dog with a human face was mounting guard over the gate, and while the six ruffians were yielding to a girl, Marius was by Cosette’s side. Never had the sky been more studded with ...

At that epoch, Father Gillenormand was well past his ninety-first birthday. He still lived with Mademoiselle Gillenormand in the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire, No. 6, in the old house which he owned. He ...

That same day, towards four o’clock in the afternoon, Jean Valjean was sitting alone on the back side of one of the most solitary slopes in the Champ-de-Mars. Either from prudence, or from a desire to...

That same day, towards four o’clock in the afternoon, Jean Valjean was sitting alone on the back side of one of the most solitary slopes in the Champ-de-Mars. Either from prudence, or from a desire to...

Marius had left M. Gillenormand in despair. He had entered the house with very little hope, and quitted it with immense despair. However, and those who have observed the depths of the human heart will...

Jean Valjean’s purse was of no use to M. Mabeuf. M. Mabeuf, in his venerable, infantile austerity, had not accepted the gift of the stars; he had not admitted that a star could coin itself into louis ...

Of what is revolt composed? Of nothing and of everything. Of an electricity disengaged, little by little, of a flame suddenly darting forth, of a wandering force, of a passing breath. This breath enco...

Of what is revolt composed? Of nothing and of everything. Of an electricity disengaged, little by little, of a flame suddenly darting forth, of a wandering force, of a passing breath. This breath enco...

There is such a thing as an uprising, and there is such a thing as insurrection; these are two separate phases of wrath; one is in the wrong, the other is in the right. In democratic states, the only ...

In the spring of 1832, although the cholera had been chilling all minds for the last three months and had cast over their agitation an indescribable and gloomy pacification, Paris had already long bee...

Nothing is more extraordinary than the first breaking out of a riot. Everything bursts forth everywhere at once. Was it foreseen? Yes. Was it prepared? No. Whence comes it? From the pavements. Whence ...

During the last two years, as we have said, Paris had witnessed more than one insurrection. Nothing is, generally, more singularly calm than the physiognomy of Paris during an uprising beyond the boun...

At the instant when the insurrection, arising from the shock of the populace and the military in front of the Arsenal, started a movement in advance and towards the rear in the multitude which was fol...

At the instant when the insurrection, arising from the shock of the populace and the military in front of the Arsenal, started a movement in advance and towards the rear in the multitude which was fol...

The brandishing of a triggerless pistol, grasped in one’s hand in the open street, is so much of a public function that Gavroche felt his fervor increasing with every moment. Amid the scraps of the Ma...

The worthy hairdresser who had chased from his shop the two little fellows to whom Gavroche had opened the paternal interior of the elephant was at that moment in his shop engaged in shaving an old so...

In the meantime, in the Marché Saint-Jean, where the post had already been disarmed, Gavroche had just “effected a junction” with a band led by Enjolras, Courfeyrac, Combeferre, and Feuilly. They were...

Let us recount what had taken place. Enjolras and his friends had been on the Boulevard Bourdon, near the public storehouses, at the moment when the dragoons had made their charge. Enjolras, Courfeyra...

The band augmented every moment. Near the Rue des Billettes, a man of lofty stature, whose hair was turning gray, and whose bold and daring mien was remarked by Courfeyrac, Enjolras, and Combeferre, b...

The Parisians who nowadays on entering on the Rue Rambuteau at the end near the Halles, notice on their right, opposite the Rue Mondétour, a basket-maker’s shop having for its sign a basket in the for...

The Parisians who nowadays on entering on the Rue Rambuteau at the end near the Halles, notice on their right, opposite the Rue Mondétour, a basket-maker’s shop having for its sign a basket in the for...

Laigle de Meaux, as the reader knows, lived more with Joly than elsewhere. He had a lodging, as a bird has one on a branch. The two friends lived together, ate together, slept together. They had every...

The spot was, in fact, admirably adapted, the entrance to the street widened out, the other extremity narrowed together into a pocket without exit. Corinthe created an obstacle, the Rue Mondétour was ...

Bahorel, in ecstasies over the barricade, shouted:⁠— “Here’s the street in its low-necked dress! How well it looks!” Courfeyrac, as he demolished the wine-shop to some extent, sought to console the wi...

The journals of the day which said that that “nearly impregnable structure,” of the barricade of the Rue de la Chanvrerie, as they call it, reached to the level of the first floor, were mistaken. The ...

During those hours of waiting, what did they do? We must needs tell, since this is a matter of history. While the men made bullets and the women lint, while a large saucepan of melted brass and lead, ...

Night was fully come, nothing made its appearance. All that they heard was confused noises, and at intervals, fusillades; but these were rare, badly sustained and distant. This respite, which was thus...

The tragic picture which we have undertaken would not be complete, the reader would not see those grand moments of social birth-pangs in a revolutionary birth, which contain convulsion mingled with ef...

The voice which had summoned Marius through the twilight to the barricade of the Rue de la Chanvrerie, had produced on him the effect of the voice of destiny. He wished to die; the opportunity present...

The voice which had summoned Marius through the twilight to the barricade of the Rue de la Chanvrerie, had produced on him the effect of the voice of destiny. He wished to die; the opportunity present...

A being who could have hovered over Paris that night with the wing of the bat or the owl would have had beneath his eyes a gloomy spectacle. All that old quarter of the Halles, which is like a city wi...

Marius had reached the Halles. There everything was still calmer, more obscure and more motionless than in the neighboring streets. One would have said that the glacial peace of the sepulchre had spru...

As yet, nothing had come. Ten o’clock had sounded from Saint-Merry. Enjolras and Combeferre had gone and seated themselves, carbines in hand, near the outlet of the grand barricade. They no longer add...

As yet, nothing had come. Ten o’clock had sounded from Saint-Merry. Enjolras and Combeferre had gone and seated themselves, carbines in hand, near the outlet of the grand barricade. They no longer add...

Since they had arrived at Corinthe, and had begun the construction of the barricade, no attention had been paid to Father Mabeuf. M. Mabeuf had not quitted the mob, however; he had entered the ground ...

They threw a long black shawl of Widow Hucheloup’s over Father Mabeuf. Six men made a litter of their guns; on this they laid the body, and bore it, with bared heads, with solemn slowness, to the larg...

Marius, still concealed in the turn of the Rue Mondétour, had witnessed, shuddering and irresolute, the first phase of the combat. But he had not long been able to resist that mysterious and sovereign...

All flocked around Marius. Courfeyrac flung himself on his neck. “Here you are!” “What luck!” said Combeferre. “You came in opportunely!” ejaculated Bossuet. “If it had not been for you, I should have...

A peculiarity of this species of war is, that the attack of the barricades is almost always made from the front, and that the assailants generally abstain from turning the position, either because the...

Marius kept his promise. He dropped a kiss on that livid brow, where the icy perspiration stood in beads. This was no infidelity to Cosette; it was a gentle and pensive farewell to an unhappy soul. It...

What are the convulsions of a city in comparison with the insurrections of the soul? Man is a depth still greater than the people. Jean Valjean at that very moment was the prey of a terrible upheaval....

What are the convulsions of a city in comparison with the insurrections of the soul? Man is a depth still greater than the people. Jean Valjean at that very moment was the prey of a terrible upheaval....

How long did he remain thus? What was the ebb and flow of this tragic meditation? Did he straighten up? Did he remain bowed? Had he been bent to breaking? Could he still rise and regain his footing in...

Jean Valjean went into the house with Marius’ letter. He groped his way up the stairs, as pleased with the darkness as an owl who grips his prey, opened and shut his door softly, listened to see wheth...

In the meantime, Gavroche had had an adventure. Gavroche, after having conscientiously stoned the lantern in the Rue du Chaume, entered the Rue des Vieilles-Haudriettes, and not seeing “even a cat” th...

The two most memorable barricades which the observer of social maladies can name do not belong to the period in which the action of this work is laid. These two barricades, both of them symbols, under...

The two most memorable barricades which the observer of social maladies can name do not belong to the period in which the action of this work is laid. These two barricades, both of them symbols, under...

The two most memorable barricades which the observer of social maladies can name do not belong to the period in which the action of this work is laid. These two barricades, both of them symbols, under...

Sixteen years count in the subterranean education of insurrection, and June, 1848, knew a great deal more about it than June, 1832. So the barricade of the Rue de la Chanvrerie was only an outline, an...

Enjolras had been to make a reconnaissance. He had made his way out through Mondétour lane, gliding along close to the houses. The insurgents, we will remark, were full of hope. The manner in which th...

After the man who decreed the “protest of corpses” had spoken, and had given this formula of their common soul, there issued from all mouths a strangely satisfied and terrible cry, funereal in sense a...

The situation of all in that fatal hour and that pitiless place, had as result and culminating point Enjolras’ supreme melancholy. Enjolras bore within him the plenitude of the revolution; he was inco...

Let us narrate what was passing in Marius’ thoughts. Let the reader recall the state of his soul. We have just recalled it, everything was a vision to him now. His judgment was disturbed. Marius, let ...

The daylight was increasing rapidly. Not a window was opened, not a door stood ajar; it was the dawn but not the awaking. The end of the Rue de la Chanvrerie, opposite the barricade, had been evacuate...

They flocked round Gavroche. But he had no time to tell anything. Marius drew him aside with a shudder. “What are you doing here?” “Hullo!” said the child, “what are you doing here yourself?” And he s...

Opinions were exchanged in the barricade. The firing from the gun was about to begin again. Against that grapeshot, they could not hold out a quarter of an hour longer. It was absolutely necessary to ...

At that moment, Cosette awoke. Her chamber was narrow, neat, unobtrusive, with a long sash-window, facing the East on the back courtyard of the house. Cosette knew nothing of what was going on in Pari...

The assailants’ fire continued. Musketry and grapeshot alternated, but without committing great ravages, to tell the truth. The top alone of the Corinthe façade suffered; the window on the first floor...

Bossuet muttered in Combeferre’s ear: “He did not answer my question.” “He is a man who does good by gunshots,” said Combeferre. Those who have preserved some memory of this already distant epoch know...

In the chaos of sentiments and passions which defend a barricade, there is a little of everything; there is bravery, there is youth, honor, enthusiasm, the ideal, conviction, the rage of the gambler, ...

Courfeyrac, seated on a paving-stone beside Enjolras, continued to insult the cannon, and each time that that gloomy cloud of projectiles which is called grapeshot passed overhead with its terrible so...

Courfeyrac suddenly caught sight of someone at the base of the barricade, outside in the street, amid the bullets. Gavroche had taken a bottle basket from the wine-shop, had made his way out through t...

At that same moment, in the garden of the Luxembourg⁠—for the gaze of the drama must be everywhere present⁠—two children were holding each other by the hand. One might have been seven years old, the o...

Marius dashed out of the barricade, Combeferre followed him. But he was too late. Gavroche was dead. Combeferre brought back the basket of cartridges; Marius bore the child. “Alas!” he thought, “that ...

We must insist upon one psychological fact peculiar to barricades. Nothing which is characteristic of that surprising war of the streets should be omitted. Whatever may have been the singular inward t...

When Jean Valjean was left alone with Javert, he untied the rope which fastened the prisoner across the middle of the body, and the knot of which was under the table. After this he made him a sign to ...

The death agony of the barricade was about to begin. Everything contributed to its tragic majesty at that supreme moment; a thousand mysterious crashes in the air, the breath of armed masses set in mo...

All at once, the drum beat the charge. The attack was a hurricane. On the evening before, in the darkness, the barricade had been approached silently, as by a boa. Now, in broad daylight, in that wide...

When there were no longer any of the leaders left alive, except Enjolras and Marius at the two extremities of the barricade, the centre, which had so long sustained Courfeyrac, Joly, Bossuet, Feuilly ...

At length, by dint of mounting on each other’s backs, aiding themselves with the skeleton of the staircase, climbing up the walls, clinging to the ceiling, slashing away at the very brink of the trapd...

Marius was, in fact, a prisoner. The hand which had seized him from behind and whose grasp he had felt at the moment of his fall and his loss of consciousness was that of Jean Valjean. Jean Valjean ha...

Paris casts twenty-five millions yearly into the water. And this without metaphor. How, and in what manner? Day and night. With what object? With no object. With what intention? With no intention. Why...

Paris casts twenty-five millions yearly into the water. And this without metaphor. How, and in what manner? Day and night. With what object? With no object. With what intention? With no intention. Why...

Let the reader imagine Paris lifted off like a cover, the subterranean network of sewers, from a bird’s-eye view, will outline on the banks a species of large branch grafted on the river. On the right...

The sewer of Paris in the Middle Ages was legendary. In the sixteenth century, Henri II attempted a bore, which failed. Not a hundred years ago, the cesspool, Mercier attests the fact, was abandoned t...

The visit took place. It was a formidable campaign; a nocturnal battle against pestilence and suffocation. It was, at the same time, a voyage of discovery. One of the survivors of this expedition, an ...

Today the sewer is clean, cold, straight, correct. It almost realizes the ideal of what is understood in England by the word “respectable.” It is proper and grayish; laid out by rule and line; one mig...

The excavation of the sewer of Paris has been no slight task. The last ten centuries have toiled at it without being able to bring it to a termination, any more than they have been able to finish Pari...

It was in the sewers of Paris that Jean Valjean found himself. Still another resemblance between Paris and the sea. As in the ocean, the diver may disappear there. The transition was an unheard-of one...

It was in the sewers of Paris that Jean Valjean found himself. Still another resemblance between Paris and the sea. As in the ocean, the diver may disappear there. The transition was an unheard-of one...

On the day of the sixth of June, a battue of the sewers had been ordered. It was feared that the vanquished might have taken to them for refuge, and Prefect Gisquet was to search occult Paris while Ge...

This justice must be rendered to the police of that period, that even in the most serious public junctures, it imperturbably fulfilled its duties connected with the sewers and surveillance. A revolt w...

Jean Valjean had resumed his march and had not again paused. This march became more and more laborious. The level of these vaults varies; the average height is about five feet, six inches, and has bee...

He felt that he was entering the water, and that he no longer had a pavement under his feet, but only mud. It sometimes happens, that on certain shores of Bretagne or Scotland a man, either a travelle...

Jean Valjean found himself in the presence of a fontis. This sort of quagmire was common at that period in the subsoil of the Champs-Élysées, difficult to handle in the hydraulic works and a bad prese...

He set out on his way once more. However, although he had not left his life in the fontis, he seemed to have left his strength behind him there. That supreme effort had exhausted him. His lassitude wa...

In the midst of this prostration, a hand was laid on his shoulder, and a low voice said to him: “Half shares.” Some person in that gloom? Nothing so closely resembles a dream as despair. Jean Valjean ...

He allowed Marius to slide down upon the shore. They were in the open air! The miasmas, darkness, horror lay behind him. The pure, healthful, living, joyous air that was easy to breathe inundated him....

At every jolt over the pavement, a drop of blood trickled from Marius’ hair. Night had fully closed in when the carriage arrived at No. 6, Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire. Javert was the first to alight; h...

They did not open their lips again during the whole space of their ride. What did Jean Valjean want? To finish what he had begun; to warn Cosette, to tell her where Marius was, to give her, possibly, ...

Basque and the porter had carried Marius into the drawing-room, as he still lay stretched out, motionless, on the sofa upon which he had been placed on his arrival. The doctor who had been sent for ha...

Javert passed slowly down the Rue de l’Homme Armé. He walked with drooping head for the first time in his life, and likewise, for the first time in his life, with his hands behind his back. Up to that...

Javert passed slowly down the Rue de l’Homme Armé. He walked with drooping head for the first time in his life, and likewise, for the first time in his life, with his hands behind his back. Up to that...

Some time after the events which we have just recorded, Sieur Boulatruelle experienced a lively emotion. Sieur Boulatruelle was that road-mender of Montfermeil whom the reader has already seen in the ...

Some time after the events which we have just recorded, Sieur Boulatruelle experienced a lively emotion. Sieur Boulatruelle was that road-mender of Montfermeil whom the reader has already seen in the ...

For a long time, Marius was neither dead nor alive. For many weeks he lay in a fever accompanied by delirium, and by tolerably grave cerebral symptoms, caused more by the shocks of the wounds on the h...

One day, M. Gillenormand, while his daughter was putting in order the phials and cups on the marble of the commode, bent over Marius and said to him in his tenderest accents: “Look here, my little Mar...

Cosette and Marius beheld each other once more. What that interview was like we decline to say. There are things which one must not attempt to depict; the sun is one of them. The entire family, includ...

The reader has, no doubt, understood, without necessitating a lengthy explanation, that Jean Valjean, after the Champmathieu affair, had been able, thanks to his first escape of a few days’ duration, ...

Everything was made ready for the wedding. The doctor, on being consulted, declared that it might take place in February. It was then December. A few ravishing weeks of perfect happiness passed. The g...

The lovers saw each other every day. Cosette came with M. Fauchelevent.⁠—“This is reversing things,” said Mademoiselle Gillenormand, “to have the bride come to the house to do the courting like this.”...

Marius’ enchantment, great as it was, could not efface from his mind other preoccupations. While the wedding was in preparation, and while awaiting the date fixed upon, he caused difficult and scrupul...

The night of the 16th to the 17th of February, 1833, was a blessed night. Above its shadows heaven stood open. It was the wedding night of Marius and Cosette. The day had been adorable. It had not bee...

The night of the 16th to the 17th of February, 1833, was a blessed night. Above its shadows heaven stood open. It was the wedding night of Marius and Cosette. The day had been adorable. It had not bee...

To realize one’s dream. To whom is this accorded? There must be elections for this in heaven; we are all candidates, unknown to ourselves; the angels vote. Cosette and Marius had been elected. Cosette...

What had become of Jean Valjean? Immediately after having laughed, at Cosette’s graceful command, when no one was paying any heed to him, Jean Valjean had risen and had gained the antechamber unpercei...

The old and formidable struggle, of which we have already witnessed so many phases, began once more. Jacob struggled with the angel but one night. Alas! how many times have we beheld Jean Valjean seiz...

The days that follow weddings are solitary. People respect the meditations of the happy pair. And also, their tardy slumbers, to some degree. The tumult of visits and congratulations only begins later...

The days that follow weddings are solitary. People respect the meditations of the happy pair. And also, their tardy slumbers, to some degree. The tumult of visits and congratulations only begins later...

Marius was quite upset. The sort of estrangement which he had always felt towards the man beside whom he had seen Cosette, was now explained to him. There was something enigmatic about that person, of...

On the following day, at nightfall, Jean Valjean knocked at the carriage gate of the Gillenormand house. It was Basque who received him. Basque was in the courtyard at the appointed hour, as though he...

On the following day, at nightfall, Jean Valjean knocked at the carriage gate of the Gillenormand house. It was Basque who received him. Basque was in the courtyard at the appointed hour, as though he...

On the following day, at the same hour, Jean Valjean came. Cosette asked him no questions, was no longer astonished, no longer exclaimed that she was cold, no longer spoke of the drawing-room, she avo...

This was the last time. After that last flash of light, complete extinction ensued. No more familiarity, no more good morning with a kiss, never more that word so profoundly sweet: “My father!” He was...

During the last months of spring and the first months of summer in 1833, the rare passersby in the Marais, the petty shopkeepers, the loungers on thresholds, noticed an old man neatly clad in black, w...

It is a terrible thing to be happy! How content one is! How all-sufficient one finds it! How, being in possession of the false object of life, happiness, one forgets the true object, duty! Let us say,...

It is a terrible thing to be happy! How content one is! How all-sufficient one finds it! How, being in possession of the false object of life, happiness, one forgets the true object, duty! Let us say,...

One day, Jean Valjean descended his staircase, took three steps in the street, seated himself on a post, on that same stone post where Gavroche had found him meditating on the night between the 5th an...

One evening Jean Valjean found difficulty in raising himself on his elbow; he felt of his wrist and could not find his pulse; his breath was short and halted at times; he recognized the fact that he w...

That same day, or to speak more accurately, that same evening, as Marius left the table, and was on the point of withdrawing to his study, having a case to look over, Basque handed him a letter saying...

Jean Valjean turned round at the knock which he heard on his door. “Come in,” he said feebly. The door opened. Cosette and Marius made their appearance. Cosette rushed into the room. Marius remained o...

In the cemetery of Père-Lachaise, in the vicinity of the common grave, far from the elegant quarter of that city of sepulchres, far from all the tombs of fancy which display in the presence of eternit...

Matters were getting embroiled with Rome. ↩ Welcome. ↩ Votre Grandeur. ↩ Grandeur. ↩ Patois of the French Alps: chat de maraude, rascally marauder. ↩ Pride. ↩ Fishmarket. ↩ Du Jardin du Roi. ↩ Potato....