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Les Misérables - Sums deposited with Laffitte

1. M. Myriel

2. M. Myriel becomes M. Welcome

3. A Hard Bishopric for a Good Bishop

4. Works corresponding to Words

5. Monseigneur Bienvenu made his Cassocks last too long

6. Who guarded his House for him

7. Cravatte

8. Philosophy after Drinking

9. The Brother as depicted by the Sister

10. The Bishop in the Presence of an Unknown Light

11. A Restriction

12. The Solitude of Monseigneur Welcome

13. What he believed

14. What he thought

15. The Evening of a Day of Walking

16. Prudence counselled to Wisdom

17. The Heroism of Passive Obedience

18. Details concerning the Cheese-Dairies of Pontarlier

19. Tranquillity

20. Jean Valjean

21. The Interior of Despair

22. Billows and Shadows

23. New Troubles

24. The Man aroused

25. What he does

26. The Bishop works

27. Little Gervais

28. The Year 1817

29. A Double Quartette

30. Four and Four

31. Tholomyes is so Merry that he sings a Spanish Ditty

32. At Bombardas

33. A Chapter in which they adore Each Other

34. The Wisdom of Tholomyes

35. The Death of a Horse

36. A Merry End to Mirth

37. One Mother meets Another Mother

38. First Sketch of Two Unprepossessing Figures

39. The Lark

40. The History of a Progress in Black Glass Trinkets

41. Madeleine

42. Sums deposited with Laffitte

43. M. Madeleine in Mourning

44. Vague Flashes on the Horizon

45. Father Fauchelevent

46. Fauchelevent becomes a Gardener in Paris

47. Madame Victurnien expends Thirty Francs on Morality

48. Madame Victurnien's Success

49. Result of the Success

50. Christus nos Liberavit

51. M. Bamatabois's Inactivity

52. The Solution of Some Questions connected with the Municipal Police

53. The Beginning of Repose

54. How Jean may become Champ

55. Sister Simplice

56. The Perspicacity of Master Scaufflaire

57. A Tempest in a Skull

58. Forms assumed by Suffering during Sleep

59. Hindrances

60. Sister Simplice put to the Proof

61. The Traveller on his Arrival takes Precautions for Departure

62. An Entrance by Favor

63. A Place where Convictions are in Process of Formation

64. The System of Denials

65. Champmathieu more and more Astonished

66. In what Mirror M. Madeleine contemplates his Hair

67. Fantine Happy

68. Javert Satisfied

69. Authority reasserts its Rights

70. A Suitable Tomb

71. What is met with on the Way from Nivelles

72. Hougomont

73. The Eighteenth of June, 1815

74. A

75. The Quid Obscurum of Battles

76. Four o'clock in the Afternoon

77. Napoleon in a Good Humor

78. The Emperor puts a Question to the Guide Lacoste

79. The Unexpected

80. The Plateau of Mont-Saint-Jean

81. A Bad Guide to Napoleon; a Good Guide to Bulow

82. The Guard

83. The Catastrophe

84. The Last Square

85. Cambronne

86. Quot Libras in Duce?

87. Is Waterloo to be considered Good?

88. A Recrudescence of Divine Right

89. The Battle-Field at Night

90. Number 24,601 becomes Number 9,430

91. In which the reader will peruse Two Verses which are of the Devil's Composition possibly

92. The Ankle-Chain must have undergone a Certain Preparatory Manipulation to be thus broken with a Blow from a Hammer

93. The Water Question at Montfermeil

94. Two Complete Portraits

95. Men must have Wine, and Horses must have Water

96. Entrance on the Scene of a Doll

97. The Little One All Alone

98. Which possibly proves Boulatruelle's Intelligence

99. Cosette Side by Side with the Stranger in the Dark

100. The Unpleasantness of receiving into One's House a Poor Man who may be a Rich Man

101. Thenardier at his Manoeuvres

102. He who seeks to better himself may render his Situation Worse

103. Number 9,430 reappears, and Cosette wins it in the Lottery

104. Master Gorbeau

105. A Nest for Owl and a Warbler

106. Two Misfortunes Make One Piece of Good Fortune

107. The Remarks of the Principal Tenant

108. A Five-Franc Piece Falls on the Ground and Produces a Tumult

109. The Zigzags of Strategy

110. It Is Lucky That the Pont D'Austerlitz Bears Carriages

111. To Wit, the Plan of Paris in 1727

112. The Gropings of Flight

113. Which Would be Impossible With Gas Lanterns

114. The Beginning of an Enigma

115. Continuation of the Enigma

116. The Enigma Becomes Doubly Mysterious

117. The Man with the Bell

118. Which Explains How Javert Got on the Scent

119. Number 62 Rue Petit-Picpus

120. The Obedience of Martin Verga

121. Austerities

122. Gayeties

123. Distractions

124. The Little Convent

125. Some Silhouettes of this Darkness

126. Post Corda Lapides

127. A Century under a Guimpe

128. Origin of the Perpetual Adoration

129. End of the Petit-Picpus

130. The Convent as an Abstract Idea

131. The Convent as an Historical Fact

132. On What Conditions One can respect the Past

133. The Convent from the Point of View of Principles

134. Prayer

135. The Absolute Goodness of Prayer

136. Precautions to be observed in Blame

137. Faith, Law

138. Which treats of the Manner of entering a Convent

139. Fauchelevent in the Presence of a Difficulty

140. Mother Innocente

141. In which Jean Valjean has quite the Air of having read Austin Castillejo

142. It is not Necessary to be Drunk in order to be Immortal

143. Between Four Planks

144. In which will be found the Origin of the Saying: Don't lose the Card

145. A Successful Interrogatory

146. Cloistered







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 with
a wide brim, and a long coat of coarse cloth, buttoned to the chin.
He fulfilled his duties as mayor; but, with that exception, he lived
in solitude. He spoke to but few people. He avoided polite attentions;
he escaped quickly; he smiled to relieve himself of the necessity
of talking; he gave, in order to get rid of the necessity for smiling,
The women said of him, "What a good-natured bear!" His pleasure
consisted in strolling in the fields.

He always took his meals alone, with an open book before him,
which he read. He had a well-selected little library. He loved books;
books are cold but safe friends. In proportion as leisure came
to him with fortune, he seemed to take advantage of it to cultivate
his mind. It had been observed that, ever since his arrival
at M. sur M.. his language had grown more polished, more choice,
and more gentle with every passing year. He liked to carry
a gun with him on his strolls, but he rarely made use of it.
When he did happen to do so, his shooting was something so infallible
as to inspire terror. He never killed an inoffensive animal.
He never shot at a little bird.

Although he was no longer young, it was thought that he was still
prodigiously strong. He offered his assistance to any one who was
in need of it, lifted a horse, released a wheel clogged in the mud,
or stopped a runaway bull by the horns. He always had his pockets
full of money when he went out; but they were empty on his return.
When he passed through a village, the ragged brats ran joyously
after him, and surrounded him like a swarm of gnats.

It was thought that he must, in the past, have lived a country life,
since he knew all sorts of useful secrets, which he taught
to the peasants. He taught them how to destroy scurf on wheat,
by sprinkling it and the granary and inundating the cracks in
the floor with a solution of common salt; and how to chase away
weevils by hanging up orviot in bloom everywhere, on the walls
and the ceilings, among the grass and in the houses.

He had "recipes" for exterminating from a field, blight, tares,
foxtail, and all parasitic growths which destroy the wheat.
He defended a rabbit warren against rats, simply by the odor
of a guinea-pig which he placed in it.

One day he saw some country people busily engaged in pulling up nettles;
he examined the plants, which were uprooted and already dried,
and said: "They are dead. Nevertheless, it would be a good thing
to know how to make use of them. When the nettle is young, the leaf
makes an excellent vegetable; when it is older, it has filaments and
fibres like hemp and flax. Nettle cloth is as good as linen cloth.
Chopped up, nettles are good for poultry; pounded, they are good
for horned cattle. The seed of the nettle, mixed with fodder,
gives gloss to the hair of animals; the root, mixed with salt,
produces a beautiful yellow coloring-matter. Moreover, it is an
excellent hay, which can be cut twice. And what is required for
the nettle? A little soil, no care, no culture. Only the seed falls
as it is ripe, and it is difficult to collect it. That is all.
With the exercise of a little care, the nettle could be made useful;
it is neglected and it becomes hurtful. It is exterminated. How many
men resemble the nettle!" He added, after a pause: "Remember this,
my friends: there are no such things as bad plants or bad men.
There are only bad cultivators."

The children loved him because he knew how to make charming little
trifles of straw and cocoanuts.

When he saw the door of a church hung in black, he entered:
he sought out funerals as other men seek christenings. Widowhood and
the grief of others attracted him, because of his great gentleness;
he mingled with the friends clad in mourning, with families
dressed in black, with the priests groaning around a coffin.
He seemed to like to give to his thoughts for text these funereal
psalmodies filled with the vision of the other world. With his eyes
fixed on heaven, he listened with a sort of aspiration towards
all the mysteries of the infinite, those sad voices which sing
on the verge of the obscure abyss of death.

He performed a multitude of good actions, concealing his agency in them
as a man conceals himself because of evil actions. He penetrated
houses privately, at night; he ascended staircases furtively.
A poor wretch on returning to his attic would find that his door
had been opened, sometimes even forced, during his absence.
The poor man made a clamor over it: some malefactor had been there!
He entered, and the first thing he beheld was a piece of gold lying
forgotten on some piece of furniture. The "malefactor" who had been
there was Father Madeleine.

He was affable and sad. The people said: "There is a rich man who has
not a haughty air. There is a happy man who has not a contented air."

Some people maintained that he was a mysterious person, and that no
one ever entered his chamber, which was a regular anchorite's cell,
furnished with winged hour-glasses and enlivened by cross-bones
and skulls of dead men! This was much talked of, so that one
of the elegant and malicious young women of M. sur M. came to him
one day, and asked: "Monsieur le Maire, pray show us your chamber.
It is said to be a grotto." He smiled, and introduced them instantly
into this "grotto." They were well punished for their curiosity.
The room was very simply furnished in mahogany, which was rather ugly,
like all furniture of that sort, and hung with paper worth twelve sous.
They could see nothing remarkable about it, except two candlesticks
of antique pattern which stood on the chimney-piece and appeared
to be silver, "for they were hall-marked," an observation full
of the type of wit of petty towns.

Nevertheless, people continued to say that no one ever got into
the room, and that it was a hermit's cave, a mysterious retreat,
a hole, a tomb.

It was also whispered about that he had "immense" sums deposited
with Laffitte, with this peculiar feature, that they were always
at his immediate disposal, so that, it was added, M. Madeleine could
make his appearance at Laffitte's any morning, sign a receipt,
and carry off his two or three millions in ten minutes. In reality,
"these two or three millions" were reducible, as we have said,
to six hundred and thirty or forty thousand francs.




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