Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only €10,99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Les Misérables
    Les Misérables
    Les Misérables
    Ebook509 pages7 hours

    Les Misérables

    By Victor Hugo and Paul Bailey

    4.5/5

    ()

    Switch to audiobook
    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Les Misérables is a magnificent, sweeping story of revolution, love and the will to survive amidst the poverty-stricken streets of nineteeth-century Paris.

    Part of the Macmillan Collector’s Library, a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket sized classics with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. This edition features an introduction by Paul Bailey.

    Escaped convict Jean Valjean turns his back on a criminal past to build his fortunes as an honest man. He takes in abandoned orphan Cosette and raises her as his own daughter. But Jean Valjean is unable to free himself from his previous life and is pursued to the end by ruthless policeman Javert. As Cosette grows up, young idealist Marius catches a glimpse of her and falls desperately in love. The fates of all the characters await them during the violent turmoil of the June Rebellion in 1832.

    This abridged version of Victor Hugo's masterpiece was published in 1915 with the aim to provide 'a unified story of the life and soul-struggles of Jean Valjean'.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPan Macmillan
    Release dateSep 8, 2016
    ISBN9781509845187
    Author

    Victor Hugo

    Victor Hugo (1802–1885), born in Besançon, France, is widely considered one of the greatest French writers and influencers in the romantic literary movement. He rose to fame at a young age, having published his first collection of poetry at just twenty years old. As an avid activist against capital punishment, Hugo used his novels to reveal the injustices and hardships facing Parisians. He became active in politics and was elected the French Parliament, where he advocated against the death penalty. When Louis-Napoléon gained power over France in 1851, Hugo was deemed a traitor, and he fled to Brussels in exile. During this time, he wrote his most thought-provoking and searing works, many of which have been adapted into award-winning films and musicals, such as Les Misérables and The Hunchback of Notre Dame.  

    Read more from Victor Hugo

    Related to Les Misérables

    Titles in the series (100)

    View More
    View More

    Related ebooks

    Classics For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Books

      Jul 18, 2022

      Books
      6 min read

    • Article

      The City Of Dusk

      Mar 23, 2022

      RELEASED OUT NOW! 576 pages | Hardback/ebook/audiobook Author Tara Sim Publisher Hodder & Stoughton City Of Dusk is deceptive; it starts off relatively fluffy and ends elbows-deep in blood. It’s told from the perspectives of a number of characters, t

      1 min read

    • Article

      From Fact To Fiction

      Aug 5, 2021

      Claire Heywood on her new retelling of the Trojan War myth What inspired you to tell a story based in the world of Greek myth? I have loved myths since I was a child, but as I grew older and came to study them at university I realised that the women

      1 min read

    • Article

      Book Reviews

      Nov 28, 2019

      Book Reviews
      4 min read

    • Article

      The Rules Of Magic

      Dec 7, 2023

      The Rules Of Magic
      5 min read

    • Article

      Love That Journey For Me

      Aug 27, 2021

      Love That Journey For Me
      4 min read

    • Article

      Wow Women

      May 19, 2020

      I was thrilled to see that you opened The Fix pages of the April issue with a paragraph about fierce mythological women. It is fabulous to see strong women celebrated in mythology, when in our culture we typically read fairy tales in which women and

      1 min read

    • Article

      From Our Archives: A 1981 Interview With Toni Morrison

      Aug 7, 2019

      The award-winning author Toni Morrison died Aug. 5, 2019. We're reposting this 1981 interview conducted shortly after her fourth novel, "Tar Baby," was published.

      11 min read

    • Article

      Resistance, Rebellion, And Rage: Japan's Opposition To The Tokyo Olympics

      May 22, 2021

      As Japan continues to struggle with a new wave of COVID-19 infections, opposition to the upcoming Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games continues to build.

      4 min read

    • Article

      The WORDSMITH

      Dec 5, 2024

      The WORDSMITH
      5 min read

    • Article

      Armed Cavalier

      Jun 5, 2023

      The end of autumn lowers its leaves in the wealthy residential neighborhoods. Paintings in galleries and private foundations hold some short-lived way of seeing into misery or love. Those artists believed in power. I should, too. Strangers unman me i

      1 min read

    • Article

      Three Poems

      Dec 5, 2023

      I fell asleep with an idea, but when I woke up, I’d lost it,as when, approaching the rabbit on the trail,it took off into the brush.I followed, clearing the warblers,fixing their gaze.Ruining something felt like a reason to proceed.Looking out at the

      2 min read

    • Article

      Humans Of The Anthropocene

      Jan 29, 2019

      Humans Of The Anthropocene
      4 min read

    • Article

      Creative reading (PART 1)

      Apr 6, 2023

      Creative reading (PART 1)
      6 min read

    • Article

      (Re)Telling Tales

      Jun 2, 2022

      (Re)Telling Tales
      6 min read

    • Article

      Great Expectations

      Mar 3, 2024

      Flick through the fashion end of TikTok, and you’ll inevitably come across a clip by Blake Sutherland involving the Sydney model and creative carrying out daily tasks, channelling looks from a cult fashion show. One video, titled “Taking out the tras

      8 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Les Misérables

    4.5/5

    4,934 ratings68 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      I decided it was high time to read this reknowned and beloved classic finally. My expectations were high. But it turned out this was a hard back for me to get through. I stuck with it and finally completed it, but only through a stubborn persistence. It dragged on, and on, and on until I felt that it would never end. There are many places throughout the book where the author digresses in what I would term rambling. These soliliquoys were the author's opinion on sundry subjects from recounting battles to many social issues of the time and even including lengthy discourses on the city of Paris' sewer system leading up to a section of the story that transpires there. Victor Hugo certainly had vociferous opinions, but I tended to disagree with his analyses on many occasions, particularly having to do with social issues. In fact this tendency to have multiple chapters of these ramblings seemed to divide the book into two separate tomes. Or perhaps it should have been divided up thusly. Each time it would take off on one of these diversions, it took away from the story for me.

      Of course, throughout the book, we do pick up the famous, beloved story of Fontine, Cosette and Jean Valjean; which is naturally why I was reading this book. And though it was like pulling teeth, eventually, and bit by excruciating bit, it came out piece by piece. In the ending chapters particularly the story became way too melodramatic for my liking. Only after I finally finished the book, could I appreciate the greatness of this classic and finally embrace and fully sympathize with the main characters. I always believe so much is lost in translation when reading a book outside of its original language. So many nuances and little plays on words have to be lost, just by virtue of the differences in languages. So I realize that likely had a big effect on my impression of this novel.
    • 1/5
      I know this is a classic, but I just couldn't get into it. I found it terribly boring, and I gave it a good try--about ten chapters. I simply couldn't make myself care. Major blah.




      Added a "gave-up-on" shelf to put this book on.
    • 4/5
      Summary: A massive book by a French patriot about people, humanity society and philosophy.
      He uses an epic story of one mans redemption to illustrate and navigate a lot of these ideas.

      Things I liked:

      Characters:

      I loved the characters like Val Jean and Gav Roche. Fantine and Javert and many other besides.

      While they may have been a little unrealistic at times (extreme people in extreme circumstances certainly not like anyone I really know or have met); they ooze poetry (extreme ideas counter pointed within themselves or against each other). Just thinking about the contrast of Val Jean and Javert right now gives me goose bumps.

      I also really liked the way he would introduce a small-ish character into the story, use them and let them go again.

      Scope:


      Hugo will set up a character hundreds of pages earlier for a beautiful payoff later on (for example the Sister Simplice who never lies (not even to spare Fantine the pain not having her daughter,
      who then lies twice to Javert to protect Val Jean. Other characters like this include the horticulturist who dies waving the flag at the barricade and Thenadier who weaves his way through the entire story .

      Things I thought could be improved:

      Informational Sections:

      I'm a bit in two minds, but basically I think a lot of the 'non-fiction' sections could have potentially been moved to an appendix at the back. It seems you'd just be getting to a really good bit of the plot and then STOP !!! I'd be treated to 140 pages on Waterloo or the sewersof Paris (their historical antecedents etc). It's been pointed out to me and I agree that this information does add to the plot, but I still think a bit of editing could have tightened things up a bit.

      Name dropping:

      I get the impression Victor Hugo had read very widely and learnt about a lot of things and events because he must have mentioned just about everyone of them in this book. I got probably about 30% of them and found all the classical references a bit over the top sometimes.

      Highlight:

      For me the section when Javert confronts Val Jean by Fantine's bedside gave me goosebumps.


      Jean Valjean, armed with his bar of iron, walked slowly up to Fantine's couch. When he arrived there he turned and said to Javert, in a voice that was barely audible:-

      "I advise you not to disturb me at this moment."

      One thing is certain, and that is that Javert trembled.
    • 5/5
      A bit of slogging in the middle, but still a great story full of characters so vividly drawn that you feel as if you've met them in person.
    • 5/5
      Les Miserables was a wonderful novel. The novel seemed to me to become a full circle in the end from when Jean Valjean was a convict to being a beloved hero who granted the love of his life, his daughter, what she previously had only shown him-love. It was a very passionate, real life story that touched millions including myself.
    • 5/5
      Awasome book! This is one of the few books that actually made me cry.
    • 5/5
      Les Miserables is the type of work that I never get tired of reading, even if there's been years since I've read it. I'm also a big fan of the play, which I got a chance to see years ago.
    • 5/5
      Well this is nothing but the French War and Peace, is what this is. And if it doesn't quite plumb the psychological depths of the human individual like Tolstoy's work does, it contains more, far more, of the real, common human life that we share. "Man is a depth still more profound than the people", says Jean Valjean, but that good old man is wrong, and this book is 1463 pages of passionate refutation.
    • 3/5
      I have never read the book but I did paticipate in a musical about it and I highly recamend that you either read the book or the musical.
    • 4/5
      Long, but worth reading.
    • 5/5
      i flew to london lately to had the DVD,i think this novel is master piece
    • 5/5
      The book I'd take with me to a desert island. A story of redemption, forgiveness and grace. No other translation compares to this.
    • 1/5
      I know this is a classic, but I just couldn't get into it. I found it terribly boring, and I gave it a good try--about ten chapters. I simply couldn't make myself care. Major blah.




      Added a "gave-up-on" shelf to put this book on.
    • 5/5
      The book, the play, the film, the story can't be beat. HOwever, Hugo's original version, which I read in college French was a handful. 
    • 5/5
      I confess I read this after the musical become popular, but better late than never. Jean Valjean and his friends were well worth tackling the unedited version. As much as I am passionately in love with the musical, Hugo's account of his characters are better.
    • 3/5
      Um Cosette + Marius are annoying/boring. Javert and Valjean are interesting. The many chapters of history and background got on my nerves and weren’t good reads. The plot got meh later, esp given the over-focus on boring romance. A good adaptation could actually be better than the book. Though there aren’t especially strong female roles.
    • 4/5
      Beautifully written, long-winded but informative. I read the Denny translation and listened to the Hopwood translation read by Homewood. Jean Valjean forever!
    • 5/5
      Despite an intimidating length and the author's (delightful) tendancy to wander off onto political/philosophical tangents, this book retains its power today for two principle reasons. Firstly it is immensely readable even in transation - an archetypal "page-turner". Secondly its simple themes of redemption, true love and human nature still call to the soul, although they could be criticised for being simplistic.
    • 5/5
      Triumph of the human spirit!
    • 5/5
      Great book, but man it was long.
    • 5/5
      This is a much needed condensed version of the classic novel. Adapted by Jim Reimann for modern audiences
    • 5/5
      Amazing. A passionate tale, full of nostalgia for days gone by. A tale of redemption, of a convict with a conscience, of the great arc of life told through fully-fleshed out characters. As much social commentary as it is a fictional piece, in Les Miserables the genius of Victor Hugo is on full display.
    • 2/5
      I love the musical and I love the over all story of Les Mis, but I found the book really difficult to get through. I started it a year ago, and just managed to get through it now. The characters and the plot about the characters was beautiful, but all the back story and history of France was rather dull and long for my liking. I am not taking away from the story itself, as I know it's a classic, and I adore the musical. This was just very hard for me to read.
    • 5/5
      Les Miserables has everything. With the multiple plot lines and characters that everyone can relate to this book really appeals to everyone. It took me a LONG time to read this book, but it was worth every minute!
    • 5/5
      Does anyone know who's the translator of this excellent version? Appears to be a reproduction of an early British or American edition - how annoying that the publisher tells us nothing!
    • 5/5
      I'm not a fan of Hugo's long tangents, but it's still a worthwhile book.
    • 5/5
      It exceeded my expectations. :))
    • 3/5
      Interesting premise . . . laboriously long.
    • 5/5
      Am currently re-reading with my wife because we both loved it so much; Truly the best written novel of all time; Characters; story lines; heart ache; triumph and the use of the written word are beyond anything you can find from ANT writer today; truly the masterpiece by which all other writing should be measured against
    • 5/5
      Les Misérables was one of the first full-length (very full length!) books I managed to read in French. I can still remember the Friday afternoon, all those years ago, when I began to read it. I didn't look up from its pages until the following Sunday evening. A truly magnificent book.

    Book preview

    Les Misérables - Victor Hugo

    Contents

    Introduction

    Book One

    FANTINE

    Part First: The Bishop

    I. Monsieur Myriel

    II. The Bishop At Work

    III. The Bishop In The Presence Of An Unknown Light

    IV. The Night Of A Day’s Tramp

    V. The Bishop At Home

    VI. Jean Valjean

    VII. The Man Awakes

    VIII. Petit Gervais

    Part Second: Madeleine

    I. Double Four

    II. To Entrust Is Sometimes To Abandon

    III. Madeleine

    IV. The Descent

    V. Christus Nos Liberavit

    Part Three: Javert

    I. The Beginning Of The Rest

    II. Sister Simplice

    III. The Night Battle

    IV. At Arras

    V. The Return To Montreuil-Sur-Mer

    VI. At Night

    Book Two

    COSETTE

    Part First: The Promise Fulfilled

    I. The Ship Orion

    II. The Sergeant Of Waterloo

    III. In The Meantime

    IV. The Stranger At The Inn

    V. The Next Morning

    Part Second: In Paris

    I. The Gorbeau House

    II. The Flight

    III. In The Garden

    IV. A Man In A Convent

    V. Mother Innocent

    VI. The Empty Coffin

    VII. Spadesful Of Earth

    VIII. Fauchelevent’s Wits To The Test

    IX. Back To The Convent

    X. Peace

    Book Three

    MARIUS

    Part First: The Grandfather And The Grandson

    I. Little Gavroche

    II. The Grand Bourgeois

    III. One Of The Red Spectres Of That Time

    IV. The Only Visit

    V. The Utility Of Going To Mass To Become Revolutionary

    VI. Some Petticoat

    VII. Marble Against Granite

    Part Second: The Friendship Of The A B C

    I. A Group Which Almost Became Historic

    II. The Astonishments Of Marius

    III. Res Angusta

    Part Third: The Conjunction Of Two Stars

    I. A Man And A Girl

    II. Commencement Of A Great Distemper

    III. The Packet

    IV. The Judas Of Providence

    V. Strategy And Tactics

    VI. Offers Of Service By Misery To Grief

    VII. Marius Acts

    VIII. Preparations

    IX. What Took Place In The Den

    X. The Little Boy

    Book Four

    SAINT DENIS

    Part First: Eponine

    I. The Field Of The Lark

    II. The Idyll Of The Rue Plumet

    III. The Spectre

    IV. Aid From Below May Be Aid From Above

    V. The End Of Which Is Unlike The Beginning

    VI. The Forces Of Evil

    VII. The Old Heart And Young Heart In The Presence Of Each Other

    Part Second: Where Are They Going?

    I. How They Move

    II. A Burial: Opportunity For Rebirth

    III. Corinth

    IV. On The Barricade

    V. The Grandeur Of Despair

    VI. Morituri Te Salutamus

    VII. From The Rue De L’homme Armé To The Barricade

    VIII. Services And Rewards

    IX. The Heroes

    Book Five

    JEAN VALJEAN

    Part First: Ad Astra Per Aspera

    I. Through The Dark

    II. Javert Off The Track

    III. The Grandfather

    Part Second: The Last Drop In The Chalice

    I. The White Night

    II. The Seventh Circle And The Eighth Heaven

    III. The Basement-Room

    IV. The Twilight Wane

    V. Thénardier Goes Out

    VI. Supreme Shadow, Supreme Dawn

    VII. Grass Hides And Rain Blots Out

    ALSO BY VICTOR HUGO

    ABOUT THE AUTHOR

    Introduction

    PAUL BAILEY

    Victor Hugo would have relished the huge, worldwide success of the musical based on his longest, and most intricate, novel, Les Misérables. This great nineteenth-century writer, who concerned himself with the plight of the impoverished and the dispossessed, was never indifferent to the size of his royalties. He knew his worth, both as an artist and as a financial proposition. He enjoyed being a famous public figure, ready to voice his opinions, often contradictory, on the pressing issues of the day. He was, by turns, a fiercely Catholic monarchist and a radical left-wing revolutionary. There were two matters, however, on which his views didn’t waver – his steadfast belief in his own genius and his lifelong conviction that capital punishment is an abomination.

    By way of accounting for Victor’s ‘sublime muse’, Major Hugo liked to tell everyone that his son was conceived on ‘one of the highest peaks in the Vosges’ in 1801. He was born the following year and could be said to have lived the rest of his long life ‘almost in mid-air’. His early childhood was spent in military bases in Spain and Italy, until his mother Sophie persuaded Joseph-Léopold-Sigisbert to allow her to settle in Paris with their three sons. The major, who worshipped Napoléon, was in perpetual conflict with his wife because of their differing views on religion and politics. Victor’s youthful poems are expressive of Sophie’s influence, written with a fervour and conviction that established him almost instantly as a major talent. It is as a poet that he remains most revered in France and its former colonies to this day, for although his vast output of poetry frequently changed course, as he did, it is always alert to the myriad cadences of the French language. That sonority can be heard in his fiction, too, especially when he takes his leave of the narrative and indulges himself, and his friendlier readers, in one of his many exquisitely phrased digressions.

    He achieved fame as a dramatist, too, though his highly romantic epic dramas – set down as a challenge to what he believed was the sterile classicism of Racine and Corneille – are virtually unactable now. He declared himself a Romantic in his twenties, and that is what he remained until his death in 1885, at the age of 83. Romanticism is at the core of everything he wrote. It’s there in his political attachments as well, however misguided some of them were. Very few writers could boast that they had fought at the barricades, as he did, in the February Revolution in Paris in 1848. In the two decades of his voluntary exile – to Brussels, then Jersey, and finally Guernsey – he somehow retained his status as the most celebrated living Frenchman. His genius, in all its manifestations, encompassed and embraced the illiterate.

    The composition of Les Misérables occupied Hugo for seventeen years, the majority of them spent in Hauteville House, the palatial home he made for himself in St Peter Port in Guernsey. (It is now a much-visited museum.) During that time, he continued to rail against the corrupt regime of Louis-Napoléon, who had seized power in a coup d’état in 1851. His private life, if he could have been said to have had anything so commonplace, was tragic and difficult by turns. He was still married to his first love Adèle (née Foucher) and still attached to his long-term mistress Juliette Drouet, who moved to the Channel Islands to be near to him. The death of his beloved daughter Léopoldine, along with her young husband in a boating accident on the Seine in 1843, was a cause of lasting sorrow, and poetic inspiration, for him. He was to outlive his two sons, and his other daughter, named Adèle after her mother, went seriously insane. (Her curious romantic adventures are the subject of François Truffaut’s film Adèle H.) Such a constant onslaught of immediate domestic misery would have left the average family man defeated and dispirited. Hugo suffered and endured bouts of acute depression, but these did not deflect him from his purpose. Les Misérables is, essentially, a testament to the will to survive, to battle against the darkest odds and end up conquering them – even if that battle and those odds sometimes strain credulity. The book often takes on the quality of a fairy tale or, more potently, a medieval morality play, with Jean Valjean representing to perfection the strengths and weaknesses of Everyman.

    The novel is composed of several different, but ultimately interrelated, stories. It opens in 1815 in the provincial town of Digne, with the peasant Jean Valjean being turned away by innkeepers because the yellow passport he shows them marks him out as a former convict. He has just been released after serving nineteen years’ imprisonment in the galleys – five for stealing a loaf of bread for his starving sister and her family, and the remaining fourteen for his numerous failed attempts to escape. When the reader first meets him, Jean is an outcast from a society he has not been part of for a generation, and everyone he encounters treats him as a misfit. The exception is Myriel, the Bishop of Digne, who offers him food and drink and a comfortable bed for the night. Jean betrays his trust, and steals the bishop’s silverware in the early morning. He is quickly arrested and brought back to the bishop’s residence by the police. Myriel pretends to be startled by the police’s allegations, telling them that the missing silverware isn’t missing at all. It is, rather, his gift to the unfortunate man, adding two silver candlesticks to the surprised Valjean. These opening scenes are as important as they are vivid, for they establish the major concerns of Misérables from the outset: that crime and deprivation go together, and that disinterested goodness is both a rarity and yet a constant in human behaviour.

    Hugo’s confidence as a storyteller is astounding as he shifts the narrative from countryside to city, introduces new characters and keeps his complicated plots unfolding. We are in the company of a general one minute, and a prostitute the next. Hugo’s fondness for ‘fallen women’, to use that condescending term so beloved of Victorian philanthropists and puritans alike, is akin to that of Dickens and Dostoevsky. Hugo’s Fantine falls about as low as it is possible to fall, after being cynically abandoned by her ‘gentleman lover’ Félix Tholomyès, who has made her pregnant. The child of that wretched liaison will be Cosette, one of those characters who has taken on a life independent of the book in which she was meant to be contained. The French speak of her as we speak of Miss Havisham, say, or Elizabeth Bennett, or Jane Eyre. She is the archetypal waif, the damaged and beaten Cinderella who will find her Prince Charming in the form of the young revolutionary Marius Pontmercy, who might just be mistaken for Hugo’s idealisation of himself. All these people, and many others besides, come into crucial contact with Jean Valjean in his various disguises – Monsieur Madeleine; M. Leblanc; Ultime Fauchelevent; Urbain Fabre. In the grand nineteenth-century masterpieces of fiction, there is always a small world functioning inside the larger one. In a small world, coincidence is the norm, and Hugo is one of the most daring manipulators of the necessary coincidental meeting that will keep the plot in motion.

    Hugo was a man of the theatre, in every sense. He loved big scenes, and Les Misérables is overflowing with them. The villainous hotelier Thénardier and his Lady Macbeth-like wife give off the genuine whiff of melodrama, especially when they remove to Paris, calling themselves M. and Mme Jondrette. There are confrontations galore between Jean Valjean and his dedicated pursuer, the ruthless Inspector Javert, who is a complex, as well as a sinister, presence. Javert is addicted to the edict of Justice, which is practically the only thing that makes sense to him. He lives by the law, and if the law is lacking in tolerance and mercy, then so be it, the law is the law. In this work of High Romance, Javert stands alone as the embodiment of a certain type of reasonable man. He has duties to fulfil, and if he allows himself a passionate feeling it only manifests itself when the fulfilment of a particular duty is frustrated. He is resistant to kindness and charity, so entrenched is he in his solitary mission to bring wrongdoers to heel. It is Hugo’s brilliant achievement to have created a missionary unlike no other – a soulless zealot, as wretched a misérable in his peculiar way as any of the impoverished criminals he is duty-bound to bring to Justice.

    This edition is an abridgement of the original. It dispenses with Hugo’s reflections on the history of his beloved country, the architectural redesigning of Paris, the futility of the monarchical system, convents, sewers, religion and politics. What remains constitutes a deeply satisfying and rewarding novel. In this form, the characters and the events they are involved in take precedence. Here, it is possible to follow the adventures, spiritual and otherwise, of Valjean and Javert, of Fantine, Cosette and Marius, of Marius’s father, a hero at Waterloo, of the delightful Gavroche, who might have been thought up by Dickens, and so many more. These recognisable people have their own stories to recount, and they do so convincingly, even if Jean’s superhuman powers are a shade too powerful on occasions. They survive any amount of didacticism on their author’s part.

    Hugo’s is a profligate genius. ‘Take away excess from Hugo and the genius vanishes,’ V.S.Pritchett observed in a review of André Maurois’s biography. For once, I have to disagree with the critic I revere above all others. His genius does survive without the rhetorical embellishments of which he was so inordinately enamoured, and this cunningly shortened version is here to prove it. The teller should have put more trust in the tale.

    In 1862, the year of publication, Victor Hugo wrote to his Italian publisher:

    I do not know whether it will be read by everyone, but it is meant for everyone. It addresses England as well as Spain, Italy as well as France, Germany as well as Ireland, the republics that harbour slaves as well as empires that have serfs. Social problems go beyond frontiers. Humankind’s wounds, those huge scores that litter the world, do not stop at the blue and red lines drawn on maps. Wherever men go in ignorance or despair, wherever women sell themselves for bread, wherever children lack a book to learn from or a warm hearth, Les Misérables knocks at the door and says: ‘Open up, I am here for you.’

    Heartfelt words, but bombast nevertheless. Any number of well-meaning, liberal-minded novelists might have written it. Books that are inspired by the notion of changing the world rarely achieve that dubious ambition. Hugo writes of purity and chastity while temporarily unaware of his own insatiable sexual appetite, a subject on which he was totally humourless. He enjoyed himself with literally hundreds of women who sold themselves for gateaux, if not bread. It’s the hypocrite in Hugo, lastingly ignorant of his manifold failings, that makes him a formidable writer of fiction. That pious, self-admiring drivel he penned for the Italian publisher is the stuff of Nobel Prize-winning acceptance speeches, and should be treated with derision. It’s the Hugo who brings to life the people of the streets and the stately apartments and mansions who demands lasting admiration, the Hugo shorn of bombast and often facile indignation.

    BOOK ONE

    FANTINE

    PART FIRST: THE BISHOP

    I. MONSIEUR MYRIEL

    In 1815, Monsieur Charles François-Bienvenu Myriel was Bishop of Digne. He was a man of seventy-five and had occupied the bishopric of Digne since 1806.

    His father, a parliamentary counsellor, intended him to inherit his position and so had contracted a marriage for him at the early age of eighteen or twenty, according to a widespread custom among parliamentary families. Notwithstanding this marriage, it was said that Charles Myriel had been an object of much attention. His person was admirably moulded; although of slight figure, he was elegant and graceful; the earlier part of his life had been entirely devoted to the world and to its pleasures. On the first outbreak of the Revolution, he emigrated to Italy. His wife died there of a lung complaint with which she had long been threatened. They had no children. What followed in the fate of Monsieur Myriel? The decay of the old French society, the fall of his own family, the tragic sights of ’93, still more fearful, perhaps, to the exiles who beheld them from afar, magnified by fright—did these arouse in him ideas of renunciation and of solitude? Was he, in the midst of one of the reveries or emotions which then consumed his life, suddenly attacked by one of those mysterious and terrible blows which sometimes overwhelm, by smiting to the heart, the man whom public disasters could not shake, by aiming at life or fortune? No one could have answered; all that was known was that when I returned from Italy he was a priest. In 1804, Monsieur Myriel was curé of Brignolles. He was then an old man, and lived in the deepest seclusion.

    Near the time of the coronation, a trifling matter of business belonging to his curacy—what it was is not now known precisely—took him to Paris. Among other personages of authority he went to Cardinal Fesch on behalf of his parishioners. One day, when the emperor had come to visit his uncle, the worthy curé, who was waiting in the ante-room, happened to be in the way of his Majesty. Napoleon, noticing that the old man looked at him with a certain curiosity, turned around and said brusquely:

    Who is this good man who looks at me?

    Sire, said Monsieur Myriel, you behold a good man, and I a great man. Each of us may profit by it.

    That evening the emperor asked the cardinal the name of the curé, and some time afterwards Monsieur Myriel was overwhelmed with surprise on learning that he had been appointed Bishop of Digne. Beyond this, no one knew how much truth there was in the stories which circulated concerning the first portion of Monsieur Myriel’s life.

    When Monsieur Myriel came to Digne he was accompanied by an old lady, Mademoiselle Baptistine, who was his sister, ten years younger than himself. Their only domestic was a woman of about the same age as Mademoiselle Baptistine, named Madame Magloire, and who, having been the servant of Monsieur le curé, now took on the double title of maid of mademoiselle and housekeeper of monseigneur.

    Mademoiselle Baptistine was a tall, pale, thin, sweet person. She had never been pretty; her whole life, which had been but a succession of pious works, had traced upon her a kind of transparent whiteness, and in growing old she had acquired what may be called the beauty of goodness. What had been thinness in her youth had become in maturity transparency, and this etherealness revealed gleams of the angel within. She was more a spirit than a virgin mortal. Her form was shadow-like—a little earth containing a spark—large eyes, always cast down; a pretext for a soul to remain on earth.

    Madame Magloire was a little, white, fat, jolly, bustling old woman, always out of breath, caused primarily by her activity, but also by her asthma.

    Upon his arrival, Monsieur Myriel was installed in his episcopal palace with the honours ordained by imperial decrees. The installation being completed, the town was curious to see its bishop at work.

    The bishop’s palace at Digne was contiguous to the hospital. The palace was a spacious and beautiful edifice, built of stone; there was an air of grandeur about everything, the bishop’s apartments, the chambers, the court of honour, which was very large, with arched walks, and a garden planted with magnificent trees. The hospital was a low, narrow, two-storey building with a small garden.

    Three days after the bishop’s arrival he visited the hospital; when the visit was ended, he invited the director to oblige him by coming to the palace.

    Monsieur, he said to the director of the hospital, how many patients have you?

    Twenty-six, monseigneur.

    That is as I thought, said the bishop.

    The beds, continued the director, are very close together.

    As I observed.

    The wards are but small rooms and are not easily ventilated.

    It seems so to me.

    And then, when the sun does shine, the garden is very small for the convalescents.

    That was what I was thinking.

    What can we do, monseigneur? said the director. We must resign ourselves to it.

    This conversation took place in the dining gallery on the ground floor. The bishop was silent a few moments: then he turned suddenly towards the director.

    Monsieur, he said, how many beds do you think this hall alone would contain?

    The dining-hall of monseigneur! exclaimed the director, stupefied.

    The bishop ran his eyes over the hall, seemingly taking measure and making calculations. It will hold twenty beds, he said to himself; then raising his voice, he said:

    Listen, Monsieur Director, to what I have to say. There is evidently a mistake here. There are twenty-six of you in five or six small rooms: there are only three of us, and space for sixty. There is a mistake, I tell you. You have my house, and I have yours. Restore mine to me; you are at home.

    Next day the twenty-six poor invalids were installed in the bishop’s palace, and the bishop moved to the hospital.

    Monsieur Myriel had no property, but he received from the government as bishop a salary of fifteen thousand francs. The day on which he took up his residence in the hospital building, he resolved to donate this sum once and for all to charity, keeping for himself only one thousand francs.

    Mademoiselle Baptistine accepted this arrangement with complete equanimity: Monsieur Myriel was to her at once her brother and her bishop, her companion by ties of blood and her superior by ecclesiastical authority. She loved and venerated him unaffectedly: when he spoke, she listened; when he acted, she fully co-operated. Madame Magloire, their servant, grumbled a little. Thanks, however, to the strict economy of Madame Magloire, and the excellent management of Mademoiselle Baptistine, whenever a curate came to Digne, the bishop found means to extend to him his hospitality.

    It was the custom that all bishops should put their baptismal names at the head of their official communications and pastoral letters. The poor people of the district had chosen, by a sort of affectionate instinct, the name that was most expressive to them, and they always called him Monseigneur Bienvenu. We shall follow their example and shall call him thus; besides, this pleased him. I like this name, he said; Bienvenu counterbalances monseigneur.

    The bishop regularly made his round of visits, and in the diocese of Digne this was a wearisome task. There was very little flat terrain, a good deal of mountain, and hardly any roads; but the bishop went through with it.

    During his visits he was indulgent and gentle, and preached less than he talked. He never used far-fetched reasons or examples. But he would talk, gravely and paternally; in default of examples he would invent parables, going straight to his object, with few phrases and many images, which was the very eloquence of Jesus Christ, convincing and persuasive.

    II. THE BISHOP AT WORK

    A tragic event occurred at Digne. A man had been condemned to death for murder. The unfortunate prisoner was a poorly educated but not entirely ignorant man, who had been a juggler at fairs and a public letter-writer. The people were greatly interested in the trial. The evening before the day fixed for the execution of the condemned, the chaplain of the prison fell ill. A priest was needed to attend the prisoner in his last moments. The curé was sent for, but he refused to go, saying, That does not concern me. I have nothing to do with such drudgery, or with that mountebank; besides, I am sick myself; and moreover it is not my place. When this reply was reported to the bishop, he said, The curé is right. It is not his place, it is mine.

    He went, on the instant, to the prison, went down into the dungeon of the mountebank, called him by name, took him by the hand, and talked with him. He passed the whole day with him, forgetful of food and sleep, praying to God for the soul of the condemned, and exhorting the condemned to join with him. He spoke to him the best truths, which are the simplest. He was father, brother, friend; bishop for blessing only. He taught him everything by encouraging and consoling him. This man would have died in despair. Death, for him, was like an abyss. Standing shivering upon the dreadful brink, he recoiled with horror. He was not ignorant enough to be indifferent. The terrible shock of his condemnation had in some sort broken here and there that wall which separates us from the mystery of things beyond, and which we call life. Through these fatal breaches, he was constantly looking beyond this world, and he could see nothing but darkness; the bishop showed him the light.

    On the morrow when they came for the poor man, the bishop was with him. He followed him, and showed himself to the eyes of the crowd in his violet hood, with his bishop’s cross about his neck, side by side with the miserable being who was bound with cords.

    He mounted the cart and ascended the scaffold with him. The sufferer, so gloomy and so horror-stricken in the evening, was now radiant with hope. He felt that his soul was reconciled, and he trusted in God. The bishop embraced him and at the moment when the axe was about to fall, he said to him, Whom man kills, him God restoreth to life; whom his brethren put away, he findeth the Father. Pray, believe, enter into life! The Father is there.

    When he descended from the scaffold, something in his look made the people fall back. It would be hard to say which was the more wonderful, his paleness or his serenity. As he entered the humble dwelling which he smilingly called his palace, he said to his sister, I have been officiating pontifically.

    But the impression of the scaffold was horrible and deep; on the morrow of the execution, and for many days, the bishop appeared to be overwhelmed. He, who ordinarily looked back upon all his actions with a satisfaction so radiant, now seemed to be a subject of self-reproach. At times he would talk to himself, and in an undertone mutter dismal monologues. One evening his sister overheard and remembered the following: I did not believe that it could be so monstrous. It is wrong to be so absorbed in the divine law as not to perceive the human law. Death belongs to God alone. By what right do men touch that unknown thing?

    With the lapse of time these impressions faded away, and were probably effaced. Nevertheless it was remarked that the bishop ever after avoided passing by the place of execution.

    Monsieur Myriel could be called at all hours to the bedside of the sick and the dying. He well knew that there was his highest duty and his greatest work. Widowed or orphan families had no need to send for him; he came of his own accord. He would sit silent for long hours by the side of a man who had lost the wife he loved, or of a mother who had lost her child. Just as he knew the time for silence, he knew also the time for speech. Oh, admirable consoler! He did not seek to drown grief in oblivion but to exalt and to dignify it by hope. He would say, Be careful of the way in which you think of the dead. Think not of what might have been. Look steadfastly and you shall see the living glory of your well-beloved dead in the depths of heaven. He believed that faith is healthful. He sought to counsel and to calm the despairing man by pointing out to him the man of resignation, and to transform the grief which looks down into the grave by showing it the grief which looks up to the stars.

    The house which he occupied consisted of a ground floor and a second storey; three rooms on the ground floor, three on the second storey, and an attic above. Behind the house was a garden of about a quarter of an acre. The two women occupied the upper floor; the bishop lived below. The first room, which opened onto the street, was his dining-room, the second was his bedroom, and the third his oratory. You could not leave the oratory without passing through the bedroom, and to leave the bedroom you must pass through the dining-room. At one end of the oratory there was an alcove closed in, with a bed for occasions of hospitality. The bishop kept this bed for the country curés when business or the wants of their parish brought them to Digne.

    Nothing could be plainer in its arrangements than the bishop’s bed-chamber. A window, which was also a door, opened onto the garden; facing this was the bed; there were two doors, one near the chimney, which led into the oratory, the other, near the bookcase, opening into the dining-room. The book-case, with glass doors, was filled with books. Above the fireplace was a copper crucifix, from which the silver was worn off, fixed upon a piece of threadbare black velvet in a wooden frame whose gilding had almost gone; near the window stood a large table with an inkstand, covered with muddled papers and heavy volumes. In front of the table was the straw-bottomed arm-chair, and before the bed, a prie-dieu from the oratory.

    We must confess that he still retained, of what he had formerly, six silver dishes and a silver soup ladle which Madame Magloire contemplated every day with new joy as they shone on the coarse, white linen tablecloth. And as we are drawing the portrait of the Bishop of Digne just as he was, we must add that he had said, more than once, It would be difficult for me to give up eating from silver.

    With this silverware should be counted two large, massive silver candlesticks which he inherited from a great-aunt. These candlesticks held two wax candles, and their place was upon the bishop’s mantel. When he had anyone to dinner, Madame Magloire lit the two candles and placed the two candlesticks upon the table.

    There was a small cupboard in the bishop’s bedchamber in which Madame Magloire placed the six silver dishes and the great ladle every evening. But the key was never removed.

    Not a door in the house had a lock. The door of the dining-room, which opened into the cathedral grounds, was formerly armed with bars and bolts like the door of a prison. The bishop had had all this iron-work taken off, and the door, by night as well as by day, was closed only with a latch. The passer-by, at whatever hour, could open it with a simple push. At first the two women had been very much troubled at the door being never locked; but Monseigneur de Digne said to them: Have bolts on your own doors, if you like. They shared his confidence at last, or at least acted as if they shared it. Madame Magloire alone had occasional attacks of fear. As to the bishop, the reason for his attitude is explained, or at least pointed at, in the three lines he wrote on the margin of a Bible: This is the shade of meaning; the door of a physician should never be closed; the door of a priest should always be open.

    III. THE BISHOP IN THE PRESENCE OF AN UNKNOWN LIGHT

    In the country near Digne, there was a man who lived alone. To state the facts baldly without preamble, the man had been a member of the National Convention. His name was G——.

    The little circle of Digne spoke of the Conventionist with a certain horror. This man came very near being a monster; he had not exactly voted for the execution of the king, but almost; he was half a regicide, and had been a terrible creature altogether. Besides, he was an atheist, as all those people are.

    He lived about an hour’s walk from the town, far from any hamlet or road, in a secluded ravine in a very wild valley. It was said he had a sort of resting-place there, a hole, a den. There were no neighbours or even passers-by. Since he had lived there the path which led to the place had become overgrown, and people spoke of it as of the house of a hangman.

    From time to time, however, the bishop reflectingly gazed upon the horizon at the spot where a clump of trees indicated the ravine of the aged Conventionist, and he would say: There lives a soul which is alone. And in the depths of his thought he would add, I owe him a visit.

    But this idea, though it appeared natural at first, after a few moments’ reflection seemed strange, impracticable, and almost repulsive. For at heart he shared the general impression, and the Conventionist inspired aversion in him, he knew not how.

    However, the shepherd should not recoil from the diseased sheep. Ah! But what a sheep! The good bishop was perplexed: sometimes he walked in that direction, but he returned.

    At last, one day the news was circulated in the town that the young herdsboy who served the Conventionist G——in his retreat had come for a doctor; that the old wretch was dying, that he was motionless, and could not live through the night. Thank God! added many.

    The bishop took his walking stick, put on his overcoat because the night wind was evidently gathering force, and set out. The sun was setting; it had nearly touched the horizon when the bishop reached the accursed spot. He felt a certain quickening of the pulse as he drew near the den. He jumped over a ditch, cleared a hedge, made his way through a brush fence, found himself in a dilapidated garden, and after a bold advance across the open ground suddenly, behind some high brushwood, discovered the retreat.

    It was a low, poverty-stricken hut, small and clean, with a little vine nailed up in front. Before the door, in an old chair on rollers, there sat a man with white hair, looking with smiling gaze upon the setting sun. The young herdsboy stood near him, handing him a bowl of milk. While the bishop was looking, the old man raised his voice.

    Thank you, he said, I shall need nothing more; and his smile changed from the sun to rest upon the boy.

    The bishop stepped forward. At the sound of his footsteps the old man turned his head, and his face expressed as much surprise as one can feel after a long life.

    This is the first time since I have lived here, he said, that I have had a visitor. Who are you, monsieur?

    My name is Bienvenu-Myriel, the bishop replied.

    Bienvenu-Myriel? I have heard that name before. Are you he whom the people call Monseigneur Bienvenu?

    I am.

    The old man continued, half-smiling, Then you are my bishop?

    Possibly.

    Come in, monsieur.

    The Conventionist extended his hand to the bishop, but the bishop did not take it. He only said: I am glad to find that I have been misinformed. You do not appear very ill to me.

    Monsieur, replied the old man, I shall soon be better.

    Then he paused and said: I shall be dead in three hours.

    He continued: I am something of a physician; I know the steps by which death approaches; yesterday only my feet were cold; today the cold has crept to my knees, now it has reached the waist; when it touches the heart, all will be over. The sunset is lovely, is it not? I had myself wheeled out to get a final look at nature. You can speak to me; that will not tire me. You do well to come to see a man who is dying. It is good that these moments should have witnesses. Everyone has his fancy; I should like to live until the dawn, but I know I have scarcely life for three hours. It will be night, but what matters it: to finish is a very simple thing. One does not need morning for that. Be it so: I shall die in the starlight.

    The old man turned towards the herdsboy: Young one, go to bed; you kept watch the other night, you are weary.

    The child went into the hut. The old man followed him with his eyes, and added, as if speaking to himself: While he is sleeping, I shall die: the two slumbers keep fit company.

    The bishop was not as much affected as he might have been: it was not his idea of a godly death. This Conventionist after all, this representative of the people, had been a power on the earth; and perhaps for the first time in his life the bishop felt himself in a mood to be severe.

    G——, with his self-possessed manner, erect figure, and vibrating voice, was one of those noble marvels the Revolution produced. There was freedom in his agony; only his legs were paralysed; his feet were cold and dead, but his head lived in full power of life and light. The bishop seated himself upon a stone nearby. The beginning of their conversation was abrupt:

    I congratulate you, he said, in a tone of reprimand. At least you did not vote for the execution of the king.

    Do not congratulate me too much, monsieur; I did vote for the destruction of the tyrant.

    What do you mean? asked the bishop.

    I mean that in man there is a tyrant—Ignorance. I voted for the abolition of that tyrant, which begot royalty, an authority springing from the False, while science is authority springing from the True. Man should be governed by science.

    And conscience, added the bishop.

    The same thing: conscience is innate knowledge. As to Louis XVI, I said no. I do not believe that I have the right to kill a man, but I feel it a duty to exterminate evil. I voted for the downfall of the tyrant; that is to say, for the abolition of prostitution for women, of slavery for men, of night for the child. In voting for the republic I voted for that.

    You have demolished, said the bishop. To demolish may be useful, but I distrust a demolition effected in anger!

    "Justice has its anger, Monsieur Bishop, and the wrath of

    Enjoying the preview?
    Page 1 of 1