Condensed Novels Part 25

She was only sixteen, this sharp-witted little girl, and a beautiful blonde. She thought everything of me.

Fantine was one of those women who do wrong in the most virtuous and touching manner. This is a peculiarity of French grisettes.

You are an Englishman, and you don't understand. Learn, my friend, learn. Come to Paris and improve your morals.

Fantine was the soul of modesty. She always wore high-neck dresses.

High-neck dresses are a sign of modesty.

Fantine loved Tholmoyes. Why? My G.o.d! What are you to do? It was the fault of her parents, and she hadn't any. How shall you teach her?

You must teach the parent if you wish to educate the child. How would you become virtuous?

Teach your grandmother!

V.

When Tholmoyes ran away from Fantine,--which was done in a charming, gentlemanly manner,--Fantine became convinced that a rigid sense of propriety might look upon her conduct as immoral. She was a creature of sensitiveness,--and her eyes were opened.

She was virtuous still, and resolved to break off the liaison at once.

So she put up her wardrobe and baby in a bundle. Child as she was, she loved them both. Then left Paris.

VI.

Fantine's native place had changed.

M. Madeline--an angel, and inventor of jet work--had been teaching the villagers how to make spurious jet.

This is a progressive age. Those Americans,--children of the West,--they make nutmegs out of wood.

I, myself, have seen hams made of pine, in the wigwams of those children of the forest.

But civilization has acquired deception too. Society is made up of deception. Even the best French society.

Still there was one sincere episode.

Eh?

The French Revolution!

VII.

M. Madeline was, if anything, better than Myriel.

M. Myriel was a saint. M. Madeline a good man.

M. Myriel was dead. M. Madeline was living.

That made all the difference.

M. Madeline made virtue profitable. I have seen it written:--

"Be virtuous and you will be happy."

Where did I see this written? In the modern Bible? No. In the Koran?

No. In Rousseau? No. Diderot? No. Where then?

In a copy-book.

VIII.

M. Madeline was M. le Maire.

This is how it came about.

For a long time he refused the honor. One day an old woman, standing on the steps, said:--

"Bah, a good mayor is a good thing.

"You are a good thing.

"Be a good mayor."

This woman was a rhetorician. She understood inductive ratiocination.

IX.

When this good M. Madeline, whom the reader will perceive must have been a former convict, and a very bad man, gave himself up to justice as the real Jean Valjean, about this same time, Fantine was turned away from the manufactory, and met with a number of losses from society.

Society attacked her, and this is what she lost:--

First her lover.

Then her child.

Then her place.

Then her hair.

Then her teeth.