Les Misérables
preparing the sketch, to some extent with Monsieur’s approval, of what
was to become later on “The Conspiracy of the Bord de l’Eau”—of the
waterside. L’Épingle Noire was already plotting in his own quarter.
Delaverderie was conferring with Trogoff. M. Decazes, who was liberal
to a degree, reigned. Chateaubriand stood every morning at his window
at No. 27 Rue Saint-Dominique, clad in footed trousers, and slippers,
with a madras kerchief knotted over his gray hair, with his eyes fixed
on a mirror, a complete set of dentist’s instruments spread out before
him, cleaning his teeth, which were charming, while he dictated _The
Monarchy according to the Charter_ to M. Pilorge, his secretary.
Criticism, assuming an authoritative tone, preferred Lafon to Talma. M.
de Féletez signed himself A.; M. Hoffmann signed himself Z. Charles
Nodier wrote _Thérèse Aubert_. Divorce was abolished. Lyceums called
themselves colleges. The collegians, decorated on the collar with a
golden fleur-de-lys, fought each other _apropos_ of the King of Rome.
The counter-police of the château had denounced to her Royal Highness
Madame, the portrait, everywhere exhibited, of M. the Duc d’Orléans,
who made a better appearance in his uniform of a colonel-general of
hussars than M. the Duc de Berri, in his uniform of colonel-general of
dragoons—a serious inconvenience. The city of Paris was having the dome
of the Invalides regilded at its own expense. Serious men asked
themselves what M. de Trinquelague would do on such or such an
occasion; M. Clausel de Montals differed on divers points from M.
Clausel de Coussergues; M. de Salaberry was not satisfied. The comedian
Picard, who belonged to the Academy, which the comedian Molière had not
been able to do, had _The Two Philiberts_ played at the Odéon, upon
whose pediment the removal of the letters still allowed THEATRE OF THE
EMPRESS to be plainly read. People took part for or against Cugnet de
Montarlot. Fabvier was factious; Bavoux was revolutionary. The Liberal,
Pélicier, published an edition of Voltaire, with the following title:
_Works of Voltaire_, of the French Academy. “That will attract
purchasers,” said the ingenious editor. The general opinion was that M.
Charles Loyson would be the genius of the century; envy was beginning
to gnaw at him—a sign of glory; and this verse was composed on him:—
“Even when Loyson steals, one feels that he has paws.”
As Cardinal Fesch refused to resign, M. de Pins, Archbishop of Amasie,
administered the diocese of Lyons. The quarrel over the valley of
Dappes was begun between Switzerland and France by a memoir from
Captain, afterwards General Dufour. Saint-Simon, ignored, was erecting
his sublime dream. There was a celebrated Fourier at the Academy of
Science, whom posterity has forgotten; and in some garret an obscure
Fourier, whom the future will recall. Lord Byron was beginning to make
his mark; a note to a poem by Millevoye introduced him to France in
these terms: _a certain Lord Baron_. David d’Angers was trying to work
in marble. The Abbé Caron was speaking, in terms of praise, to a
private gathering of seminarists in the blind alley of Feuillantines,
of an unknown priest, named Félicité-Robert, who, at a latter date,
became Lamennais. A thing which smoked and clattered on the Seine with
the noise of a swimming dog went and came beneath the windows of the
Tuileries, from the Pont Royal to the Pont Louis XV.; it was a piece of
mechanism which was not good for much; a sort of plaything, the idle
dream of a dream-ridden inventor; an utopia—a steamboat. The Parisians
stared indifferently at this useless thing. M. de Vaublanc, the
reformer of the Institute by a coup d’état, the distinguished author of
numerous academicians, ordinances, and batches of members, after having
created them, could not succeed in becoming one himself. The Faubourg
Saint-Germain and the pavilion de Marsan wished to have M. Delaveau for
prefect of police, on account of his piety. Dupuytren and Récamier
entered into a quarrel in the amphitheatre of the School of Medicine,
and threatened each other with their fists on the subject of the
divinity of Jesus Christ. Cuvier, with one eye on Genesis and the other
on nature, tried to please bigoted reaction by reconciling fossils with
texts and by making mastodons flatter Moses.
M. François de Neufchâteau, the praiseworthy cultivator of the memory
of Parmentier, made a thousand efforts to have _pomme de terre_
[potato] pronounced _parmentière_, and succeeded therein not at all.
The Abbé Grégoire, ex-bishop, ex-conventionary, ex-senator, had passed,
in the royalist polemics, to the state of “Infamous Grégoire.” The
locution of which we have made use—_passed to the state of_—has been
condemned as a neologism by M. Royer Collard. Under the third arch of
the Pont de Jéna, the new stone with which, the two years previously,
the mining aperture made by Blücher to blow up the bridge had been
stopped up, was still recognizable on account of its whiteness. Justice
summoned to its bar a man who, on seeing the Comte d’Artois enter Notre
Dame, had said aloud: _“Sapristi! I regret the time when I saw
Bonaparte and Talma enter the Bel Sauvage, arm in arm.”_ A seditious
utterance. Six months in prison. Traitors showed themselves unbuttoned;
men who had gone over to the enemy on the eve of battle made no secret
of their recompense, and strutted immodestly in the light of day, in
the cynicism of riches and dignities; deserters from Ligny and
Quatre-Bras, in the brazenness of their well-paid turpitude, exhibited
their devotion to the monarchy in the most barefaced manner.
This is what floats up confusedly, pell-mell, for the year 1817, and is
now forgotten. History neglects nearly all these particulars, and
cannot do otherwise; the infinity would overwhelm it. Nevertheless,
these details, which are wrongly called trivial,—there are no trivial
facts in humanity, nor little leaves in vegetation,—are useful. It is
of the physiognomy of the years that the physiognomy of the centuries
is composed. In this year of 1817 four young Parisians arranged “a fine
farce.”
CHAPTER II—A DOUBLE QUARTETTE
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
Paris is to be born in Paris.
These young men were insignificant; every one has seen such faces; four
specimens of humanity taken at random; neither good nor bad, neither
wise nor ignorant, neither geniuses nor fools; handsome, with that
charming April which is called twenty years. They were four Oscars;
for, at that epoch, Arthurs did not yet exist. _Burn for him the
perfumes of Araby!_ exclaimed romance. _Oscar advances. Oscar, I shall
behold him!_ People had just emerged from Ossian; elegance was
Scandinavian and Caledonian; the pure English style was only to prevail
later, and the first of the Arthurs, Wellington, had but just won the
battle of Waterloo.
These Oscars bore the names, one of Félix Tholomyès, of Toulouse; the
second, Listolier, of Cahors; the next, Fameuil, of Limoges; the last,
Blachevelle, of Montauban. Naturally, each of them had his mistress.
Blachevelle loved Favourite, so named because she had been in England;
Listolier adored Dahlia, who had taken for her nickname the name of a
flower; Fameuil idolized Zéphine, an abridgment of Joséphine; Tholomyès
had Fantine, called the Blonde, because of her beautiful, sunny hair.
Favourite, Dahlia, Zéphine, and Fantine were four ravishing young
women, perfumed and radiant, still a little like working-women, and not
yet entirely divorced from their needles; somewhat disturbed by
intrigues, but still retaining on their faces something of the serenity
of toil, and in their souls that flower of honesty which survives the
first fall in woman. One of the four was called the young, because she
was the youngest of them, and one was called the old; the old one was
twenty-three. Not to conceal anything, the three first were more
experienced, more heedless, and more emancipated into the tumult of
life than Fantine the Blonde, who was still in her first illusions.
Dahlia, Zéphine, and especially Favourite, could not have said as much.
There had already been more than one episode in their romance, though
hardly begun; and the lover who had borne the name of Adolph in the
first chapter had turned out to be Alphonse in the second, and Gustave
in the third. Poverty and coquetry are two fatal counsellors; one
scolds and the other flatters, and the beautiful daughters of the
people have both of them whispering in their ear, each on its own side.
These badly guarded souls listen. Hence the falls which they
accomplish, and the stones which are thrown at them. They are
overwhelmed with splendor of all that is immaculate and inaccessible.
Alas! what if the Jungfrau were hungry?
Favourite having been in England, was admired by Dahlia and Zéphine.
She had had an establishment of her own very early in life. Her father
was an old unmarried professor of mathematics, a brutal man and a
braggart, who went out to give lessons in spite of his age. This
professor, when he was a young man, had one day seen a chambermaid’s
gown catch on a fender; he had fallen in love in consequence of this
accident. The result had been Favourite. She met her father from time
to time, and he bowed to her. One morning an old woman with the air of
a devotee, had entered her apartments, and had said to her, “You do not
know me, Mamemoiselle?” “No.” “I am your mother.” Then the old woman
opened the sideboard, and ate and drank, had a mattress which she owned
brought in, and installed herself. This cross and pious old mother
never spoke to Favourite, remained hours without uttering a word,
breakfasted, dined, and supped for four, and went down to the porter’s
quarters for company, where she spoke ill of her daughter.
It was having rosy nails that were too pretty which had drawn Dahlia to
Listolier, to others perhaps, to idleness. How could she make such
nails work? She who wishes to remain virtuous must not have pity on her
hands. As for Zéphine, she had conquered Fameuil by her roguish and
caressing little way of saying “Yes, sir.”
The young men were comrades; the young girls were friends. Such loves
are always accompanied by such friendships.
Goodness and philosophy are two distinct things; the proof of this is
that, after making all due allowances for these little irregular
households, Favourite, Zéphine, and Dahlia were philosophical young
women, while Fantine was a good girl.
Good! some one will exclaim; and Tholomyès? Solomon would reply that
love forms a part of wisdom. We will confine ourselves to saying that
the love of Fantine was a first love, a sole love, a faithful love.
She alone, of all the four, was not called “thou” by a single one of
them.
Fantine was one of those beings who blossom, so to speak, from the
dregs of the people. Though she had emerged from the most unfathomable
depths of social shadow, she bore on her brow the sign of the anonymous
and the unknown. She was born at M. sur M. Of what parents? Who can
say? She had never known father or mother. She was called Fantine. Why
Fantine? She had never borne any other name. At the epoch of her birth
the Directory still existed. She had no family name; she had no family;
no baptismal name; the Church no longer existed. She bore the name
which pleased the first random passer-by, who had encountered her, when
a very small child, running bare-legged in the street. She received the
name as she received the water from the clouds upon her brow when it
rained. She was called little Fantine. No one knew more than that. This