Les Misérables
_Quotidienne_, his daughter entered and said to him in her sweetest
voice; for the question concerned her favorite:—
“Father, Théodule is coming to present his respects to you this
morning.”
“Who’s Théodule?”
“Your grandnephew.”
“Ah!” said the grandfather.
Then he went back to his reading, thought no more of his grandnephew,
who was merely some Théodule or other, and soon flew into a rage, which
almost always happened when he read. The “sheet” which he held,
although Royalist, of course, announced for the following day, without
any softening phrases, one of these little events which were of daily
occurrence at that date in Paris: “That the students of the schools of
law and medicine were to assemble on the Place du Panthéon, at
midday,—to deliberate.” The discussion concerned one of the questions
of the moment, the artillery of the National Guard, and a conflict
between the Minister of War and “the citizen’s militia,” on the subject
of the cannon parked in the courtyard of the Louvre. The students were
to “deliberate” over this. It did not take much more than this to swell
M. Gillenormand’s rage.
He thought of Marius, who was a student, and who would probably go with
the rest, to “deliberate, at midday, on the Place du Panthéon.”
As he was indulging in this painful dream, Lieutenant Théodule entered
clad in plain clothes as a bourgeois, which was clever of him, and was
discreetly introduced by Mademoiselle Gillenormand. The lancer had
reasoned as follows: “The old druid has not sunk all his money in a
life pension. It is well to disguise one’s self as a civilian from time
to time.”
Mademoiselle Gillenormand said aloud to her father:—
“Théodule, your grandnephew.”
And in a low voice to the lieutenant:—
“Approve of everything.”
And she withdrew.
The lieutenant, who was but little accustomed to such venerable
encounters, stammered with some timidity: “Good day, uncle,”—and made a
salute composed of the involuntary and mechanical outline of the
military salute finished off as a bourgeois salute.
“Ah! so it’s you; that is well, sit down,” said the old gentleman.
That said, he totally forgot the lancer.
Théodule seated himself, and M. Gillenormand rose.
M. Gillenormand began to pace back and forth, his hands in his pockets,
talking aloud, and twitching, with his irritated old fingers, at the
two watches which he wore in his two fobs.
“That pack of brats! they convene on the Place du Panthéon! by my life!
urchins who were with their nurses but yesterday! If one were to
squeeze their noses, milk would burst out. And they deliberate
to-morrow, at midday. What are we coming to? What are we coming to? It
is clear that we are making for the abyss. That is what the
_descamisados_ have brought us to! To deliberate on the citizen
artillery! To go and jabber in the open air over the jibes of the
National Guard! And with whom are they to meet there? Just see whither
Jacobinism leads. I will bet anything you like, a million against a
counter, that there will be no one there but returned convicts and
released galley-slaves. The Republicans and the galley-slaves,—they
form but one nose and one handkerchief. Carnot used to say: ‘Where
would you have me go, traitor?’ Fouché replied: ‘Wherever you please,
imbecile!’ That’s what the Republicans are like.”
“That is true,” said Théodule.
M. Gillenormand half turned his head, saw Théodule, and went on:—
“When one reflects that that scoundrel was so vile as to turn
carbonaro! Why did you leave my house? To go and become a Republican!
Pssst! In the first place, the people want none of your republic, they
have common sense, they know well that there always have been kings,
and that there always will be; they know well that the people are only
the people, after all, they make sport of it, of your republic—do you
understand, idiot? Is it not a horrible caprice? To fall in love with
Père Duchesne, to make sheep’s-eyes at the guillotine, to sing
romances, and play on the guitar under the balcony of ’93—it’s enough
to make one spit on all these young fellows, such fools are they! They
are all alike. Not one escapes. It suffices for them to breathe the air
which blows through the street to lose their senses. The nineteenth
century is poison. The first scamp that happens along lets his beard
grow like a goat’s, thinks himself a real scoundrel, and abandons his
old relatives. He’s a Republican, he’s a romantic. What does that mean,
romantic? Do me the favor to tell me what it is. All possible follies.
A year ago, they ran to _Hernani_. Now, I just ask you, _Hernani!_
antitheses! abominations which are not even written in French! And
then, they have cannons in the courtyard of the Louvre. Such are the
rascalities of this age!”
“You are right, uncle,” said Théodule.
M. Gillenormand resumed:—
“Cannons in the courtyard of the Museum! For what purpose? Do you want
to fire grape-shot at the Apollo Belvedere? What have those cartridges
to do with the Venus de Medici? Oh! the young men of the present day
are all blackguards! What a pretty creature is their Benjamin Constant!
And those who are not rascals are simpletons! They do all they can to
make themselves ugly, they are badly dressed, they are afraid of women,
in the presence of petticoats they have a mendicant air which sets the
girls into fits of laughter; on my word of honor, one would say the
poor creatures were ashamed of love. They are deformed, and they
complete themselves by being stupid; they repeat the puns of Tiercelin
and Potier, they have sack coats, stablemen’s waistcoats, shirts of
coarse linen, trousers of coarse cloth, boots of coarse leather, and
their rigmarole resembles their plumage. One might make use of their
jargon to put new soles on their old shoes. And all this awkward batch
of brats has political opinions, if you please. Political opinions
should be strictly forbidden. They fabricate systems, they recast
society, they demolish the monarchy, they fling all laws to the earth,
they put the attic in the cellar’s place and my porter in the place of
the King, they turn Europe topsy-turvy, they reconstruct the world, and
all their love affairs consist in staring slily at the ankles of the
laundresses as these women climb into their carts. Ah! Marius! Ah! you
blackguard! to go and vociferate on the public place! to discuss, to
debate, to take measures! They call that measures, just God! Disorder
humbles itself and becomes silly. I have seen chaos, I now see a mess.
Students deliberating on the National Guard,—such a thing could not be
seen among the Ogibewas nor the Cadodaches! Savages who go naked, with
their noddles dressed like a shuttlecock, with a club in their paws,
are less of brutes than those bachelors of arts! The four-penny
monkeys! And they set up for judges! Those creatures deliberate and
ratiocinate! The end of the world is come! This is plainly the end of
this miserable terraqueous globe! A final hiccough was required, and
France has emitted it. Deliberate, my rascals! Such things will happen
so long as they go and read the newspapers under the arcades of the
Odéon. That costs them a sou, and their good sense, and their
intelligence, and their heart and their soul, and their wits. They
emerge thence, and decamp from their families. All newspapers are
pests; all, even the _Drapeau Blanc!_ At bottom, Martainville was a
Jacobin. Ah! just Heaven! you may boast of having driven your
grandfather to despair, that you may!”
“That is evident,” said Théodule.
And profiting by the fact that M. Gillenormand was taking breath, the
lancer added in a magisterial manner:—
“There should be no other newspaper than the _Moniteur_, and no other
book than the _Annuaire Militaire_.”
M. Gillenormand continued:—
“It is like their Sieyès! A regicide ending in a senator; for that is
the way they always end. They give themselves a scar with the address
of _thou_ as citizens, in order to get themselves called, eventually,
_Monsieur le Comte_. Monsieur le Comte as big as my arm, assassins of
September. The philosopher Sieyès! I will do myself the justice to say,
that I have never had any better opinion of the philosophies of all
those philosophers, than of the spectacles of the grimacer of Tivoli!
One day I saw the Senators cross the Quai Malplaquet in mantles of
violet velvet sown with bees, with hats à la Henri IV. They were
hideous. One would have pronounced them monkeys from the tiger’s court.
Citizens, I declare to you, that your progress is madness, that your
humanity is a dream, that your revolution is a crime, that your
republic is a monster, that your young and virgin France comes from the
brothel, and I maintain it against all, whoever you may be, whether
journalists, economists, legists, or even were you better judges of
liberty, of equality, and fraternity than the knife of the guillotine!
And that I announce to you, my fine fellows!”
“Parbleu!” cried the lieutenant, “that is wonderfully true.”
M. Gillenormand paused in a gesture which he had begun, wheeled round,
stared Lancer Théodule intently in the eyes, and said to him:—
“You are a fool.”
BOOK SIXTH—THE CONJUNCTION OF TWO STARS
CHAPTER I—THE SOBRIQUET: MODE OF FORMATION OF FAMILY NAMES
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 sincerity,
and with something indescribably proud, thoughtful, and innocent over
his whole countenance. His profile, all of whose lines were rounded,
without thereby losing their firmness, had a certain Germanic
sweetness, which has made its way into the French physiognomy by way of
Alsace and Lorraine, and that complete absence of angles which rendered
the Sicambres so easily recognizable among the Romans, and which
distinguishes the leonine from the aquiline race. He was at that period
of life when the mind of men who think is composed, in nearly equal
parts, of depth and ingenuousness. A grave situation being given, he
had all that is required to be stupid: one more turn of the key, and he
might be sublime. His manners were reserved, cold, polished, not very
genial. As his mouth was charming, his lips the reddest, and his teeth
the whitest in the world, his smile corrected the severity of his face,
as a whole. At certain moments, that pure brow and that voluptuous
smile presented a singular contrast. His eyes were small, but his
glance was large.
At the period of his most abject misery, he had observed that young
girls turned round when he passed by, and he fled or hid, with death in
his soul. He thought that they were staring at him because of his old
clothes, and that they were laughing at them; the fact is, that they
stared at him because of his grace, and that they dreamed of him.
This mute misunderstanding between him and the pretty passers-by had
made him shy. He chose none of them for the excellent reason that he
fled from all of them. He lived thus indefinitely,—stupidly, as
Courfeyrac said.
Courfeyrac also said to him: “Do not aspire to be venerable” [they
called each other _thou_; it is the tendency of youthful friendships to
slip into this mode of address]. “Let me give you a piece of advice, my
dear fellow. Don’t read so many books, and look a little more at the
lasses. The jades have some good points about them, O Marius! By dint
of fleeing and blushing, you will become brutalized.”
On other occasions, Courfeyrac encountered him and said:—“Good morning,
Monsieur l’Abbé!”
When Courfeyrac had addressed to him some remark of this nature, Marius
avoided women, both young and old, more than ever for a week to come,