Les Misérables, v. 2/5: Cosette

Cosette could not refrain from taking a side glance at the large doll which was still displayed at the toy-shop, and then tapped at the door; it opened, and Madame Thénardier ap...

About a quarter of an hour passed ere the prioress came in again and sat down on her chair. The two speakers appeared preoccupied. We will do our best to record their conversati...

The events of which we have just seen the back, so to speak, had occurred under the simplest conditions. When Jean Valjean, on the night of the day on which Javert arrested him...

Toward the close of October, in the same year, 1823, the inhabitants of Toulon saw a vessel enter their port which had sustained some damage in a heavy storm. It was the "Orion,...

It was into this house that Jean Valjean had fallen from heaven, as Fauchelevent said. He had climbed the garden-wall which formed the angle of the Rue Polonceau; the hymn of an...

Hougomont was a mournful spot, the beginning of the obstacle, the first resistance which that great woodman of Europe, called Napoleon, encountered at Waterloo; the first knot u...

The next morning, almost two hours before daybreak, Thénardier was seated, pen in hand, at a table in the tap-room, and making out the bill of the yellow-coated traveller. His w...

This convent, which had existed for many years prior to 1824 in the Rue Picpus, was a community of Bernardines belonging to the obedience of Martin Verga. These Bernardines, con...

Cosette in the convent continued to be silent. She naturally thought herself Valjean's daughter, but as she knew nothing, she could say nothing, and in any case would have said...

This is what took place above the coffin which contained Jean Valjean. When the hearse had gone away, when the priest and the chorister had driven off in the coach, Fauchelevent...

We must return, for it is a necessity of the story, to the fatal battle-field of June 18, 1815. The moon shone brightly, and this favored Blücher's ferocious pursuit, pointed ou...

Forty years ago the solitary walker who ventured into the lost districts of the Salpêtrière, and went up the boulevard as far as the Barrière d'Italie, reached a quarter where i...

Above the refectory door was painted in large black letters the following prayer, which was called the "White Paternoster," and which had the virtue of leading persons straight...

As Thénardier's inn was in that part of the village near the church, Cosette had to fetch the water from the spring in the forest on the Chelles side. She did not look at anothe...

The Emperor, although ill, and though a local pain made riding uncomfortable, had never been so good-tempered as on this day. From the morning his impenetrability had been smili...

The strides of halting men are like the glances of squinters, they do not reach their point very rapidly. Fauchelevent was perplexed, and he spent upwards of a quarter of an hou...

The next day, as the son was setting, the few passers-by on the Boulevard de Maine took off their hats to an old-fashioned hearse, ornamented with death's-head, thigh-bones, and...

Up to the present, only a side-view of the Thénardiers has been offered the reader of this book; but the moment has now arrived to walk round the couple and regard them on all s...

The Battle of Waterloo is an enigma as obscure for those who gained it as for him who lost it. To Napoleon it is a panic; Blücher sees nothing in it but fire; Wellington does no...

On the afternoon of this same Christmas day, 1823, a man walked for a long time about the most desolate part of the Boulevard de l'Hôpital, at Paris. He seemed to be looking for...

The battery was unmasked simultaneously with the ravine,--sixty guns and the thirteen squares thundered at the cuirassiers at point-blank range. The intrepid General Delort gave...

Before going further we will enter into some details about a strange fact that occurred at about the same period at Montfermeil, and which may possibly possess some coincidence...

Madame Thénardier, according to her habit, had left her husband to act, and anticipated grand results. When the man and Cosette had left, Thénardier let a good quarter of an hou...

The next morning at daybreak Jean Valjean was again standing by Cosette's bedside; he was motionless and waiting for her to awake: something new was entering his soul. Jean Valj...

Half a century ago nothing more resembled any ordinary porte-cochère than that of No. 62, Petite Rue Picpus. This door, generally half open in the most inviting manner, allowed...

An observation is necessary here about the present pages and others which will follow. It is now many years that the author of this work--forced, he regrets to say, to allude to...

They were three thousand five hundred in number, and formed a front a quarter of a league in length; they were gigantic men mounted on colossal horses. They formed twenty-six sq...

Montfermeil is situated between Livry and Chelles, on the southern slope of the lofty plateau which separates the Ourque from the Marne. At the present day it is a rather large...

Jean Valjean walked straight up to the man whom he saw in the garden, and while doing so took from his pocket the rouleau of silver. This man was looking down, and did not see h...

At this moment a hollow, cadenced sound began to grow audible a short distance off, and Jean Valjean ventured to take a peep round the corner of the street. Seven or eight soldi...

There was near S. Médard's church a poor man who usually sat on the edge of a condemned well, to whom Jean Valjean liked to give alms. He never passed him without giving him a t...

For all this, though, the young ladies filled this grave house with delightful reminiscences. At certain hours childhood sparkled in this cloister. The bell for recreation was r...

Monasteries when they abound in a nation are tourniquets applied to circulation, oppressive fixtures, centres of idleness where centres of activity are needed. Monastic communit...

After going three hundred yards he came to a spot where the road formed two forks, and Jean Valjean had before him, as it were, the two branches of a Y. Which should he choose?...

An hour later two men and a child presented themselves in the darkness of night at No. 69, Little Rue Picpus. The elder of the two men raised the knocker and rapped.

At about four o'clock P.M. the situation of the English army was serious. The Prince of Orange commanded the centre, Hill the right, and Picton the left. The Prince of Orange, w...

All the world knows the first phase of this battle; a troubled, uncertain, hesitating opening, dangerous for both armies, but more so for the English than the French. It had rai...

With the fall of the Dictatorship, an entire European system crumbled away, and the Empire vanished in a shadow which resembled that of the expiring Roman world. Nations escaped...

Jean Valjean was recaptured. As our readers will probably thank us for passing rapidly over painful details, we confine ourselves to the quotation of two paragraphs published by...

There were within the walls of Little Picpus three perfectly distinct buildings,--the great convent inhabited by the nuns, the schoolhouse in which the boarders were lodged, and...

On the morning of Waterloo, then, Napoleon was cheerful, and had reason to be so,--for the plan he had drawn up was admirable. Once the battle had begun, its various incidents,-...

The rout in the rear of the guard was mournful; the army suddenly gave way on all sides simultaneously,--at Hougomont, La Haye Sainte, Papelotte, and Plancenoit. The cry of "Tre...

In order to understand the following, the reader must form an exact idea of the Droit-mur lane, and in particular of the angle which the visitor left on his left when he turned...

The monastic system, as it existed in Spain, and as it exists now at Thibet, is to civilization a sort of consumption. It stops life short. It depopulates, nothing more nor less...

To speak out this word and then die, what could be more sublime than this! For to be ready to die is to die, and it was no fault of his if amid a storm of grape-shot he still li...

Let us go back, for that is one of the privileges of the narrator, and place ourselves once again in the year 1815, a little prior to the period when the matters related in the...

Jean Valjean found himself in a large garden of most singular appearance, one of those gloomy gardens that appear made to be looked at in winter, and by night. This garden was o...

The strange part of it lies in the lofty, superior, and pitying airs which this groping philosophy takes on in the presence of the philosophy which sees God. You fancy you hear...

The man stopped, put the bucket on the ground, and laid his two hands on her shoulders, making an effort to see her face in the darkness. Cosette's thin sallow countenance was v...

A few words more. We blame the Church when it is steeped in intrigues. We scorn the spiritual when it is not in accord with the temporal; but we honor the thoughtful man whereve...

To have an agitated and serious air is peculiar, on Critical occasions, to certain characters and professions, and notably to priests and monks. At the moment when Fauchelevent...

Four new travellers arrived. Cosette was sorrowfully reflecting; for though only eight years of age she had already suffered so much that she thought with the mournful air of an...

During the six years between 1819 and 1825 the prioress of Little Picpus was Mademoiselle de Blémeur, called in religion Mother Innocent. She belonged to the family of that Marg...

Those who wish to form a distinct idea of the battle of Waterloo, need only imagine a capital A laid on the ground. The left leg of the A is the Nivelles road, the right one the...

Jean Valjean was so prudent as never to go out by day; every evening he walked out for an hour or two, sometimes alone, but generally with Cosette in the most retired streets, a...

The night breeze had risen, which proved that it must be between one and two in the morning. Cosette said nothing, and as she was leaning her head against him, Jean Valjean fanc...

As we are giving details of what was formerly the Little Picpus convent, and have ventured to let in light upon this discreet asylum, the reader will perhaps permit us another s...

The child had rested her head on a stone and fallen asleep. Jean Valjean sat down by her side and began gazing at her; gradually, as he looked, he grew calm and regained possess...

Toward the beginning of the Restoration, Little Picpus began to pine away; it shared in the general death of the order, which after the eighteenth century began to decay, like a...

There exists a highly respectable liberal school, which does not detest Waterloo, but we do not belong to it. For us Waterloo is only the stupefied date of liberty; for such an...

On a fine May morning last year (1861) a wayfarer, the person who is telling this story, was coming from Nivelles, and was proceeding toward La Hulpe. He was on foot and followi...

The convent of the Little Picpus occupied a large trapeze, formed by the four streets to which we have so frequently alluded, and which surrounded it like a moat. The convent wa...

Who was in the coffin? It was, as we know, Jean Valjean, who had so contrived as to be able to live in it, and could almost breathe. It is a strange thing to what an extent secu...

Any one desirous of joining the community of Martin Verga must be at least two years a postulant, sometimes four, and four years a novice. It is rare for the final vows to be ta...

This parlor, almost sepulchral, which we have described is a thoroughly local fact, which is not reproduced with the same severity in other convents. In the convent of the Rue d...

The rest is known,--the irruption of a third army; the battle dislocated; eighty-six cannon thundering simultaneously; Pirch I. coming up with Bülow; Ziethen's cavalry led by Bl...

Uncertainty ceased for Jean Valjean; but fortunately it still lasted with the men. He took advantage of their hesitation, for it was time lost by them and gained by him. He left...

Everybody knows Napoleon's awful mistake; Grouchy expected, Blücher coming up, death instead of life. Destiny has such turnings as this: men anticipate the throne of the world,...

When he fell into the sea, or rather when he threw himself into it, he was, as we have seen, without irons. He swam in the trough of the sea alongside a vessel at anchor, to whi...

They speak in low tones; they lower their eyes; they work. They renounce the world, cities, sensual joys, pleasures, vanity, pride, interest. They are clad in coarse wool, or co...

Jean Valjean stopped before No. 50-52. Like the dull bird, he had selected this deserted spot in which to build his nest. He felt in his pocket, took out a latch-key, opened and...

The file of open-air shops, it will be remembered, ran as far as Thénardier's inn. These stalls, owing to the approaching passage of persons going to midnight mass, were all lit...

Is there an infinite power outside of us? Is this infinite power a unity, immanent and enduring,--necessarily material, because it is infinite, and if it lacked matter, in so fa...

A few squares of the Guard, standing motionless in the swash of the rout, like rocks in running water, held out till night. They awaited the double shadow of night and death, an...

History and philosophy have eternal duties which are at the same time simple duties. To oppose Caiaphas as a high priest, Draco as a judge, Trimalcion as a law-giver, Tiberius a...

Under these circumstances, as a convent happens to lie on our road, we ought to enter it. Why? Because the convent, which belongs as much to the East as to the West, to antiquit...

I. ON THE NIVELLES ROAD II. HOUGOMONT III. JUNE 18, 1815 IV. A V. THE QUID OBSCURUM OF BATTLES VI. FOUR O'CLOCK IN THE AFTERNOON VII. NAPOLEON IN GOOD HUMOR VIII. THE EMPEROR AS...

I. THE WATER QUESTION AT MONTFERMEIL II. TWO FULL-LENGTH PORTRAITS III. MEN WANT WINE AND HORSES WATER IV. A DOLL COMES ON THE STAGE V. THE LITTLE ONE ALONE VI. BOULATRUELLE MAY...

I. HOW TO GET INTO A CONVENT II. FAUCHELEVENT FACES THE DIFFICULTY III. MOTHER INNOCENT IV. A PLAN OF ESCAPE V. A DRUNKARD IS NOT IMMORTAL VI. BETWEEN FOUR PLANKS VII. FAUCHELEV...

I. STRATEGIC ZIGZAGS II. IT IS FORTUNATE THAT THE BRIDGE OF AUSTERLITZ WILL CARRY WAGONS III. CONSULT THE PLAN OF PARIS IN 1727 IV. ATTEMPTS TO ESCAPE V. A THING IMPOSSIBLE IN G...

I. NO. 62, RUE PICPUS II. THE OBEDIENCE OF MARTIN VERGA III. SEVERITIES IV. GAYETIES V. AMUSEMENTS VI. THE LITTLE CONVENT VII. A FEW PROFILES FROM THE SHADOW VIII. POST CORDA LA...

I. THE CONVENT AS AN ABSTRACT IDEA II. THE CONVENT AS AN HISTORICAL FACT III. ON WHAT TERMS THE PAST IS VENERABLE IV. THE CONVENT FROM THE MORAL STANDPOINT V. PRAYER VI. ABSOLUT...

I. MASTER GORBEAU II. THE NEST OF AN OWL AND A LINNET III. TWO EVILS MAKE A GOOD IV. THE REMARKS OF THE CHIEF LODGER V. NOISE MADE BY A FALLING FIVE-FRANC PIECE