![Light Novel -?=$public_r['add_site_name']?>](/static/content/img/logo.png){kind=logo}
Les Miserables Novel Chapters
List of most recent chapters published for the Les Miserables novel. A total of 300 chapters have been translated and the release date of the last chapter is Apr 02, 2024
Latest Release: Chapter 1 : Les Miserables.by Victor Hugo.VOLUME I.--FANTINE.PREFACE So long as there shall exist, b
Les Miserables.by Victor Hugo.VOLUME I.--FANTINE.PREFACE So long as there shall exist, by virtue of law and custom, decrees of d.a.m.nation p.r.o.nounced by society, artificially creating h.e.l.ls amid the civilization of earth, and adding the element of
- 101 So he took his resolve: to devote himself to M. Madeleine.We have just called him a poor peasant of Picardy. That description is just, but incomplete. At the point of this story which we have now reached, a little of Father Fauchelevent's physiology beco
- 102 Find some means of getting me out in a basket, under cover, like Cosette."Fauchelevent scratched the lobe of his ear with the middle finger of his left hand, a sign of serious embarra.s.sment.A third peal created a diversion."That is the dead-doctor tak
- 103 "Two or three times." "There is a stone to be raised." "Heavy?" "The slab of the pavement which is at the side of the altar." "The slab which closes the vault?" "Yes." "It would be a good thing to have two men for it." "Mother Ascension, wh
- 104 "The mothers have taken her to the dead-room, which opens on the church.""I know.""No other man than you can or must enter that chamber. See to that. A fine sight it would be, to see a man enter the dead-room!""More often!""Hey?""More often!"
- 105 "It is a continuation of her slumber.""So I shall have to nail up that coffin?""Yes.""And we are to reject the undertaker's coffin?""Precisely.""I am at the orders of the very reverend community.""The four Mother Precentors will a.s.sist you
- 106 "But she will hear.""She will not listen. Besides, what the cloister knows the world learns not."A pause ensued. The prioress went on:-- "You will remove your bell. It is not necessary that the sister at the post should perceive your presence.""Rev
- 107 "You will carry her out?""And she will hold her tongue?""I answer for that.""But you, Father Madeleine?"And, after a silence, fraught with anxiety, Fauchelevent exclaimed:-- "Why, get out as you came in!"Jean Valjean, as in the first instance, c
- 108 "What church?""The church in the street, the church which any one can enter.""Have you the keys to those two doors?""No; I have the key to the door which communicates with the convent; the porter has the key to the door which communicates with the
- 109 This cemetery, with its peculiarities outside the regulations, embarra.s.sed the symmetry of the administration. It was suppressed a little later than 1830. The cemetery of Mont-Parna.s.se, called the Eastern cemetery, succeeded to it, and inherited that
- 110 Fauchelevent repeated mechanically: "The good G.o.d--""The good G.o.d," said the man authoritatively. "According to the philosophers, the Eternal Father; according to the Jacobins, the Supreme Being.""Shall we not make each other's acquaintance?"
- 111 The child's voice responded:-- "Et lux perpetua luceat ei."He heard something like the gentle patter of several drops of rain on the plank which covered him. It was probably the holy water.He thought: "This will be over soon now. Patience for a little
- 112 "When we have put the child to bed," said the grave-digger.He flung in a third shovelful.Then he thrust his shovel into the earth and added:-- "It's cold to-night, you see, and the corpse would shriek out after us if we were to plant her there without
- 113 Fauchelevent, hardly able to draw his breath for trembling, seized his cold chisel and his hammer, and pried up the coffin lid.Jean Valjean's face appeared in the twilight; it was pale and his eyes were closed.Fauchelevent's hair rose upright on his hea
- 114 "Here it is," said Jean Valjean."There is no one in the street," said Fauchelevent. "Give me your mattock and wait a couple of minutes for me."Fauchelevent entered No. 87, ascended to the very top, guided by the instinct which always leads the poor
- 115 Fauchelevent replied:-- "Yes, reverend Mother.""You are her father?"Fauchelevent replied:-- "Her grandfather."The vocal mother said to the prioress in a low voice "He answers well."Jean Valjean had not uttered a single word.The prioress looked att
- 116 These beings also lived with shorn heads, with downcast eyes, with lowered voices, not in disgrace, but amid the scoffs of the world, not with their backs bruised with the cudgel, but with their shoulders lacerated with their discipline. Their names, also
- 117 If one were to ask that enormous city: "What is this?" she would reply: "It is my little one."CHAPTER II--SOME OF HIS PARTICULAR CHARACTERISTICS The gamin--the street Arab--of Paris is the dwarf of the giant.Let us not exaggerate, this cherub of the g
- 118 CHAPTER VII--THE GAMIN SHOULD HAVE HIS PLACE IN THE CLa.s.sIFICATIONS OF INDIA The body of street Arabs in Paris almost const.i.tutes a caste. One might almost say: Not every one who wishes to belong to it can do so.This word gamin was printed for the fir
- 119 Such is Paris. The smoke of its roofs forms the ideas of the universe. A heap of mud and stone, if you will, but, above all, a moral being. It is more than great, it is immense. Why? Because it is daring.To dare; that is the price of progress.All sublime
- 120 that would be a farce. Well! They are so stupid that it would pa.s.s"; he merrily called everything by its name, whether decent or indecent, and did not restrain himself in the least before ladies. He uttered coa.r.s.e speeches, obscenities, and filth wi
- 121 Le bout d' chemis' qui vous pend.Qu'on n' dis' pas qu' les patriotes Ont arbore l' drapeau blanc?There they amused themselves with puns which were considered terrible, with innocent plays upon words which they supposed to be venomous, with quatrain
- 122 At Madame de T.'s the society was superior, taste was exquisite and haughty, under the cover of a great show of politeness. Manners there admitted of all sorts of involuntary refinements which were the old regime itself, buried but still alive. Some of t
- 123 "He no longer expects you," said the woman.Then he perceived that she was weeping.She pointed to the door of a room on the ground-floor; he entered.In that room, which was lighted by a tallow candle standing on the chimney-piece, there were three men, o
- 124 At the same time, his ideas underwent an extraordinary change. The phases of this change were numerous and successive. As this is the history of many minds of our day, we think it will prove useful to follow these phases step by step and to indicate them
- 125 "My heart says 'yes,' but my orders say 'no.' The matter is simple.They are changing our garrison; we have been at Melun, we are being transferred to Gaillon. It is necessary to pa.s.s through Paris in order to get from the old post to the new one. I
- 126 "Do us a favor. Follow Marius a little. He does not know you, it will be easy. Since a la.s.s there is, try to get a sight of her. You must write us the tale. It will amuse his grandfather."Theodule had no excessive taste for this sort of spying; but he
- 127 The feelings of father and daughter cannot be described. They felt chilled as by the breath of a death's-head. They did not exchange a word.Only, M. Gillenormand said in a low voice and as though speaking to himself:-- "It is the slasher's handwriting.
- 128 The a.s.semblies of the Friends of the A B C were usually held in a back room of the Cafe Musain.This hall, which was tolerably remote from the cafe, with which it was connected by an extremely long corridor, had two windows and an exit with a private sta
- 129 Grantaire, Enjolras' true satellite, inhabited this circle of young men; he lived there, he took no pleasure anywhere but there; he followed them everywhere. His joy was to see these forms go and come through the fumes of wine. They tolerated him on acco
- 130 "I have paid this rent for the last two hours, and I aspire to get rid of it; but there is a sort of history attached to it, and I don't know where to go.""Come to my place, sir," said Courfeyrac."I have the priority," observed Laigle, "but I have
- 131 Near Grantaire, an almost silent table, a sheet of paper, an inkstand and a pen between two gla.s.ses of brandy, announced that a vaudeville was being sketched out.This great affair was being discussed in a low voice, and the two heads at work touched eac
- 132 He rose, walked slowly to the map of France spread out on the wall, and at whose base an island was visible in a separate compartment, laid his finger on this compartment and said:-- "Corsica, a little island which has rendered France very great."This w
- 133 "That is good.""No; it is not good. What will you do after that?""Whatever is necessary. Anything honest, that is to say.""Do you know English?""No.""Do you know German?""No.""So much the worse.""Why?""Because one of my friends, a publi
- 134 Marius always had two complete suits of clothes, the one old, "for every day"; the other, brand new for special occasions. Both were black. He had but three s.h.i.+rts, one on his person, the second in the commode, and the third in the washerwoman's ha
- 135 Marius' pleasure consisted in taking long walks alone on the outer boulevards, or in the Champs-de-Mars, or in the least frequented alleys of the Luxembourg. He often spent half a day in gazing at a market garden, the beds of lettuce, the chickens on the
- 136 "There should be no other newspaper than the Moniteur, and no other book than the Annuaire Militaire."M. Gillenormand continued:-- "It is like their Sieyes! A regicide ending in a senator; for that is the way they always end. They give themselves a sca
- 137 That first gaze of a soul which does not, as yet, know itself, is like the dawn in the sky. It is the awakening of something radiant and strange. Nothing can give any idea of the dangerous charm of that unexpected gleam, which flashes suddenly and vaguely
- 138 A glance had wrought all this.When the mine is charged, when the conflagration is ready, nothing is more simple. A glance is a spark.It was all over with him. Marius loved a woman. His fate was entering the unknown.The glance of women resembles certain co
- 139 "Good," thought he, "I know that her name is Ursule, that she is the daughter of a gentleman who lives on his income, and that she lives there, on the third floor, in the Rue de l'Ouest."On the following day, M. Leblanc and his daughter made only a v
- 140 The moment has now come when we must take a look at other depths, hideous depths. There exists beneath society, we insist upon this point, and there will exist, until that day when ignorance shall be dissipated, the great cavern of evil.This cavern is bel
- 141 We pa.s.s over some, and not the worst of them. These names have faces attached. They do not express merely beings, but species. Each one of these names corresponds to a variety of those misshapen fungi from the under side of civilization.Those beings, wh
- 142 They bore addresses.All four exhaled a horrible odor of tobacco.The first was addressed: "To Madame, Madame la Marquise de Grucheray, the place opposite the Chamber of Deputies, No.--"Marius said to himself, that he should probably find in it the inform
- 143 That face was not wholly unknown to Marius. He thought he remembered having seen it somewhere."What do you wish, Mademoiselle?" he asked.The young girl replied in her voice of a drunken convict:-- "Here is a letter for you, Monsieur Marius."She called
- 144 "Do you know, Mr. Marius, that you are a very handsome fellow?"And at the same moment the same idea occurred to them both, and made her smile and him blush. She stepped up to him, and laid her hand on his shoulder: "You pay no heed to me, but I know yo
- 145 One thing which added still more to the horrors of this garret was, that it was large. It had projections and angles and black holes, the lower sides of roofs, bays, and promontories. Hence horrible, unfathomable nooks where it seemed as though spiders as
- 146 "He is coming in a fiacre.""In a fiacre. He is Rothschild."The father rose."How are you sure? If he is coming in a fiacre, how is it that you arrive before him? You gave him our address at least? Did you tell him that it was the last door at the end
- 147 "Peace!" replied the father, "I suppress the liberty of the press."Then tearing the woman's chemise which he was wearing, he made a strip of cloth with which he hastily swathed the little girl's bleeding wrist.That done, his eye fell with a satisfie
- 148 "Fabantou," replied Jondrette quickly."Monsieur Fabantou, yes, that is it. I remember.""Dramatic artist, sir, and one who has had some success."Here Jondrette evidently judged the moment propitious for capturing the "philanthropist." He exclaimed
- 149 CHAPTER X--TARIFF OF LICENSED CABS: TWO FRANCS AN HOUR 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
- 150 "Oh yes, do call me thou! I like that better.""Well," he resumed, "thou hast brought hither that old gentleman and his daughter!""Yes.""Dost thou know their address?""No.""Find it for me."The Jondrette's dull eyes had grown joyous, and they
- 151 Marius redoubled his attention.On being left alone with his wife, Jondrette began to pace the room again, and made the tour of it two or three times in silence. Then he spent several minutes in tucking the lower part of the woman's chemise which he wore
- 152 "This rind is too large for me. Never mind," he added, "he did a devilish good thing in leaving it for me, the old scoundrel! If it hadn't been for that, I couldn't have gone out, and everything would have gone wrong! What small points things hang on
- 153 The other replied with some hesitation, and s.h.i.+vering beneath his fez:-- "That's a real thing. You can't go against such things.""I tell you that the affair can't go wrong," resumed the long-haired man. "Father What's-his-name's team will be
- 154 "No.""As for the fourth, no one sees him, not even his adjutants, clerks, and employees. It is not surprising that you did not see him.""No. Who are all those persons?" asked Marius.The inspector answered:-- "Besides, this is not the time for them.
- 155 "Some fine, flowery bonneted wench! He's in love.""But," observed Bossuet, "I don't see any wench nor any flowery bonnet in the street. There's not a woman round."Courfeyrac took a survey, and exclaimed:-- "He's following a man!"A man, in fact
- 156 "Yes," replied the mother."What time is it?""Nearly six. The half-hour struck from Saint-Medard a while ago.""The devil!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Jondrette; "the children must go and watch. Come you, do you listen here."A whispering ensued.Jondrette
- 157 He looked.The interior of the Jondrette apartment presented a curious aspect, and Marius found an explanation of the singular light which he had noticed.A candle was burning in a candlestick covered with verdigris, but that was not what really lighted the
- 158 Suddenly, the distant and melancholy vibration of a clock shook the panes. Six o'clock was striking from Saint-Medard.Jondrette marked off each stroke with a toss of his head. When the sixth had struck, he snuffed the candle with his fingers.Then he bega
- 159 Although this man had, literally, glided into the room, he had not been able to prevent M. Leblanc catching sight of him."Don't mind them," said Jondrette, "they are people who belong in the house. So I was saying, that there remains in my possession
- 160 An almost imperceptible flush crossed M. Leblanc's brow, and he replied with a voice which neither trembled nor rose above its ordinary level, with his accustomed placidity:-- "No more than before."Marius did not hear this reply. Any one who had seen h
- 161 One of the "chimney-builders," whose smirched face was lighted up by the candle, and in whom Marius recognized, in spite of his daubing, Panchaud, alias Printanier, alias Bigrenaille, lifted above M. Leblanc's head a sort of bludgeon made of two b.a.l.
- 162 But whoever he was, bound with ropes, surrounded with executioners, half plunged, so to speak, in a grave which was closing in upon him to the extent of a degree with every moment that pa.s.sed, in the presence of Thenardier's wrath, as in the presence o
- 163 He went on:-- "Sign. What is your name?""Urbain Fabre," said the prisoner.Thenardier, with the movement of a cat, dashed his hand into his pocket and drew out the handkerchief which had been seized on M. Leblanc. He looked for the mark on it, and held
- 164 It was clear that it was she. Marius felt his heart stop beating.What was he to do? Discharge the pistol? Place all those scoundrels in the hands of justice? But the horrible man with the meat-axe would, none the less, be out of reach with the young girl,
- 165 It was the husband and wife taking counsel together.Thenardier walked slowly towards the table, opened the drawer, and took out the knife. Marius fretted with the handle of his pistol.Unprecedented perplexity! For the last hour he had had two voices in hi
- 166 "Halt there," said he. "You shall not go out by the window, you shall go through the door. It's less unhealthy. There are seven of you, there are fifteen of us. Don't let's fall to collaring each other like men of Auvergne."Bigrenaille drew out a p
- 167 "Good day, Bigrenaille! good day, Brujon! good day, Deuxmilliards!"Then turning to the three masked men, he said to the man with the meat-axe:-- "Good day, Gueulemer!"And to the man with the cudgel:-- "Good day, Babet!"And to the ventriloquist:-- "
- 168 "Bah!" retorted the boy, "where's my father?""At La Force.""Come, now! And my mother?""At Saint-Lazare.""Well! And my sisters?""At the Madelonettes."The lad scratched his head behind his ear, stared at Ma'am Bougon, and said:-- "Ah!"Then
- 169 The Revolution of July is the triumph of right overthrowing the fact. A thing which is full of splendor.Right overthrowing the fact. Hence the brilliancy of the Revolution of 1830, hence, also, its mildness. Right triumphant has no need of being violent.R
- 170 The son of a father to whom history will accord certain attenuating circ.u.mstances, but also as worthy of esteem as that father had been of blame; possessing all private virtues and many public virtues; careful of his health, of his fortune, of his perso
- 171 All the problems that the socialists proposed to themselves, cosmogonic visions, revery and mysticism being cast aside, can be reduced to two princ.i.p.al problems.First problem: To produce wealth.Second problem: To share it.The first problem contains the
- 172 Other deeds, more audacious still, were suspicious in the eyes of the people by reason of their very audacity. On the 4th of April, 1832, a pa.s.ser-by mounted the post on the corner which forms the angle of the Rue Sainte-Marguerite and shouted: "I am a
- 173 Water ... ... ... . . 2 ounces.The report of the seizure stated that the drawer exhaled a strong smell of powder.A mason returning from his day's work, left behind him a little package on a bench near the bridge of Austerlitz. This package was taken to t
- 174 Feuilly, you will see those of the Glaciere, will you not? Combeferre has promised me to go to Picpus. There is a perfect swarm and an excellent one there. Bah.o.r.el will visit the Estrapade. Prouvaire, the masons are growing lukewarm; you will bring us
- 175 "The pig! I have no more.""You are dead. A two.""Six.""Three.""One.""It's my move.""Four points.""Not much.""It's your turn.""I have made an enormous mistake.""You are doing well.""Fifteen.""Seven more.""That makes me twenty-t
- 176 Excess of revery breeds men like Escousse and Lebras.Marius was descending this declivity at a slow pace, with his eyes fixed on the girl whom he no longer saw. What we have just written seems strange, and yet it is true. The memory of an absent being kin
- 177 "Well?" asked Brujon, "the Rue P.?""Biscuit," replied Babet. Thus did the foetus of crime engendered by Brujon in La Force miscarry.This miscarriage had its consequences, however, which were perfectly distinct from Brujon's programme. The reader wi
- 178 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 Thenardier--Marius had put this coin in his pocket, and before carrying it to the clerk'
- 179 "Your father! promise me, Eponine! Swear to me that you will not give this address to your father!"She turned to him with a stupefied air."Eponine! How do you know that my name is Eponine?""Promise what I tell you!"But she did not seem to hear him.
- 180 Nevertheless, Jean Valjean did not reappear in the open air without profound anxiety.He discovered the house in the Rue Plumet, and hid himself from sight there. Henceforth he was in the possession of the name:--Ultime Fauchelevent.At the same time he hir
- 181 "Dear child, there are so many people who are better than I and who have not even a roof over their heads.""Then why is there a fire in my rooms, and everything that is needed?""Because you are a woman and a child.""Bah! must men be cold and feel u
- 182 The first day that Cosette went out in her black damask gown and mantle, and her white c.r.a.pe bonnet, she took Jean Valjean's arm, gay, radiant, rosy, proud, dazzling. "Father," she said, "how do you like me in this guise?" Jean Valjean replied in
- 183 I have been first, the most wretched of men, and then the most unhappy, and I have traversed sixty years of life on my knees, I have suffered everything that man can suffer, I have grown old without having been young, I have lived without a family, withou
- 184 The men ma.s.sed upon the drays allowed themselves to be jolted along in silence. They were livid with the chill of morning. They all wore linen trousers, and their bare feet were thrust into wooden shoes. The rest of their costume was a fantasy of wretch
- 185 It is a mistake to suppose that a person can stroll alone in that fas.h.i.+on in the uninhabited regions of Paris without meeting with some adventure.CHAPTER II--MOTHER PLUTARQUE FINDS NO DIFFICULTY IN EXPLAINING A PHENOMENON One evening, little Gavroche
- 186 While Gavroche was deliberating, the attack took place, abruptly and hideously. The attack of the tiger on the wild a.s.s, the attack of the spider on the fly. Montparna.s.se suddenly tossed away his rose, bounded upon the old man, seized him by the colla
- 187 The officer's comrades perceived that there was, in that "badly kept"garden, behind that malicious rococo fence, a very pretty creature, who was almost always there when the handsome lieutenant,--who is not unknown to the reader, and whose name was The
- 188 Cosette joined in his laughter, all her lugubrious suppositions were allayed, and the next morning, as she was at breakfast with her father, she made merry over the sinister garden haunted by the shadows of iron chimney-pots.Jean Valjean became quite tran
- 189 Certain thoughts are prayers. There are moments when, whatever the att.i.tude of the body may be, the soul is on its knees.Parted lovers beguile absence by a thousand chimerical devices, which possess, however, a reality of their own. They are prevented f
- 190 Now, from whom could these pages come? Who could have penned them?Cosette did not hesitate a moment. One man only.He!Day had dawned once more in her spirit; all had reappeared. She felt an unheard-of joy, and a profound anguish. It was he! he who had writ
- 191 When they had finished, when they had told each other everything, she laid her head on his shoulder and asked him:-- "What is your name?""My name is Marius," said he. "And yours?""My name is Cosette."BOOK SIXTH.--LITTLE GAVROCHE CHAPTER I--THE MAL
- 192 As Gavroche walked along, he cast an indignant backward glance at the barber's shop."That fellow has no heart, the whiting,"[35] he muttered. "He's an Englishman."A woman who caught sight of these three marching in a file, with Gavroche at their hea
- 193 And he added with dignity:-- "There are three of us."And seeing that the baker, after scrutinizing the three customers, had taken down a black loaf, he thrust his finger far up his nose with an inhalation as imperious as though he had had a pinch of the
- 194 Gavroche expressed his admiration for this skill."What a dentist!" he cried.Montparna.s.se added a few details as to Babet's flight, and ended with:-- "Oh! That's not all."Gavroche, as he listened, had seized a cane that Montparna.s.se held in his h
- 195 He took from his pocket two small objects which were nothing more than two quills wrapped in cotton, and thrust one up each of his nostrils.This gave him a different nose."That changes you," remarked Gavroche, "you are less homely so, you ought to keep
- 196 Gavroche was at home, in fact.Oh, unforeseen utility of the useless! Charity of great things! Goodness of giants! This huge monument, which had embodied an idea of the Emperor's, had become the box of a street urchin. The brat had been accepted and shelt
- 197 "Ah, yes!" replied the elder, gazing at Gavroche with the expression of a saved angel.The two poor little children who had been soaked through, began to grow warm once more."Ah, by the way," continued Gavroche, "what were you bawling about?"And poin
- 198 "Who was it that was eaten?""The cat.""And who ate the cat?""The rats.""The mice?""Yes, the rats."The child, in consternation, dismayed at the thought of mice which ate cats, pursued:-- "Sir, would those mice eat us?""Wouldn't they just!"
- 199 An abyss six feet broad and eighty feet deep separated them from the surrounding wall. At the bottom of this abyss, they could see the musket of a sentinel gleaming through the gloom. They fastened one end of the rope which Brujon had spun in his dungeon
- 200 "Yes.""Knot the two pieces together, we'll fling him the rope, he can fasten it to the wall, and he'll have enough of it to get down with."Thenardier ran the risk, and spoke:-- "I am paralyzed with cold.""We'll warm you up.""I can't budge."