CHAPTER I--THE HOUSE WITH A SECRET

  About the middle of the last century, a chief justice in the Parliamentof Paris having a mistress and concealing the fact, for at that periodthe grand seignors displayed their mistresses, and the bourgeoisconcealed them, had "a little house" built in the FaubourgSaint-Germain, in the deserted Rue Blomet, which is now called RuePlumet, not far from the spot which was then designated as _Combat desAnimaux_.

  This house was composed of a single-storied pavilion; two rooms on theground floor, two chambers on the first floor, a kitchen down stairs,a boudoir upstairs, an attic under the roof, the whole preceded by agarden with a large gate opening on the street. This garden was aboutan acre and a half in extent. This was all that could be seen bypassers-by; but behind the pavilion there was a narrow courtyard, andat the end of the courtyard a low building consisting of two rooms anda cellar, a sort of preparation destined to conceal a child and nursein case of need. This building communicated in the rear by a maskeddoor which opened by a secret spring, with a long, narrow, paved windingcorridor, open to the sky, hemmed in with two lofty walls, which, hiddenwith wonderful art, and lost as it were between garden enclosures andcultivated land, all of whose angles and detours it followed, ended inanother door, also with a secret lock which opened a quarter of a leagueaway, almost in another quarter, at the solitary extremity of the Rue duBabylone.

  Through this the chief justice entered, so that even those who werespying on him and following him would merely have observed that thejustice betook himself every day in a mysterious way somewhere, andwould never have suspected that to go to the Rue de Babylone was to goto the Rue Blomet. Thanks to clever purchasers of land, the magistratehad been able to make a secret, sewer-like passage on his own property,and consequently, without interference. Later on, he had sold in littleparcels, for gardens and market gardens, the lots of ground adjoiningthe corridor, and the proprietors of these lots on both sides thoughtthey had a party wall before their eyes, and did not even suspect thelong, paved ribbon winding between two walls amid their flower-beds andtheir orchards. Only the birds beheld this curiosity. It is probablethat the linnets and tomtits of the last century gossiped a great dealabout the chief justice.

  The pavilion, built of stone in the taste of Mansard, wainscoted andfurnished in the Watteau style, rocaille on the inside, old-fashionedon the outside, walled in with a triple hedge of flowers, had somethingdiscreet, coquettish, and solemn about it, as befits a caprice of loveand magistracy.

  This house and corridor, which have now disappeared, were in existencefifteen years ago. In '93 a coppersmith had purchased the house withthe idea of demolishing it, but had not been able to pay the price; thenation made him bankrupt. So that it was the house which demolished thecoppersmith. After that, the house remained uninhabited, and fell slowlyto ruin, as does every dwelling to which the presence of man does notcommunicate life. It had remained fitted with its old furniture, wasalways for sale or to let, and the ten or a dozen people who passedthrough the Rue Plumet were warned of the fact by a yellow and illegiblebit of writing which had hung on the garden wall since 1819.

  Towards the end of the Restoration, these same passers-by might havenoticed that the bill had disappeared, and even that the shutters on thefirst floor were open. The house was occupied, in fact. The windows hadshort curtains, a sign that there was a woman about.

  In the month of October, 1829, a man of a certain age had presentedhimself and had hired the house just as it stood, including, of course,the back building and the lane which ended in the Rue de Babylone. Hehad had the secret openings of the two doors to this passage repaired.The house, as we have just mentioned, was still very nearly furnishedwith the justice's old fitting; the new tenant had ordered somerepairs, had added what was lacking here and there, had replaced thepaving-stones in the yard, bricks in the floors, steps in the stairs,missing bits in the inlaid floors and the glass in the lattice windows,and had finally installed himself there with a young girl and an elderlymaid-servant, without commotion, rather like a person who is slippingin than like a man who is entering his own house. The neighbors did notgossip about him, for the reason that there were no neighbors.

  This unobtrusive tenant was Jean Valjean, the young girl was Cosette.The servant was a woman named Toussaint, whom Jean Valjean had savedfrom the hospital and from wretchedness, and who was elderly, astammerer, and from the provinces, three qualities which had decidedJean Valjean to take her with him. He had hired the house under the nameof M. Fauchelevent, independent gentleman. In all that has beenrelated heretofore, the reader has, doubtless, been no less prompt thanThénardier to recognize Jean Valjean.

  Why had Jean Valjean quitted the convent of the Petit-Picpus? What hadhappened?

  Nothing had happened.

  It will be remembered that Jean Valjean was happy in the convent, sohappy that his conscience finally took the alarm. He saw Cosette everyday, he felt paternity spring up and develop within him more and more,he brooded over the soul of that child, he said to himself that shewas his, that nothing could take her from him, that this would lastindefinitely, that she would certainly become a nun, being theretogently incited every day, that thus the convent was henceforth theuniverse for her as it was for him, that he should grow old there, andthat she would grow up there, that she would grow old there, and thathe should die there; that, in short, delightful hope, no separationwas possible. On reflecting upon this, he fell into perplexity. Heinterrogated himself. He asked himself if all that happiness werereally his, if it were not composed of the happiness of another, ofthe happiness of that child which he, an old man, was confiscating andstealing; if that were not theft? He said to himself, that this childhad a right to know life before renouncing it, that to deprive her inadvance, and in some sort without consulting her, of all joys, underthe pretext of saving her from all trials, to take advantage of herignorance of her isolation, in order to make an artificial vocationgerminate in her, was to rob a human creature of its nature and to lieto God. And who knows if, when she came to be aware of all this someday, and found herself a nun to her sorrow, Cosette would not come tohate him? A last, almost selfish thought, and less heroic than the rest,but which was intolerable to him. He resolved to quit the convent.

  He resolved on this; he recognized with anguish, the fact that it wasnecessary. As for objections, there were none. Five years' sojournbetween these four walls and of disappearance had necessarily destroyedor dispersed the elements of fear. He could return tranquilly among men.He had grown old, and all had undergone a change. Who would recognizehim now? And then, to face the worst, there was danger only for himself,and he had no right to condemn Cosette to the cloister for the reasonthat he had been condemned to the galleys. Besides, what is danger incomparison with the right? Finally, nothing prevented his being prudentand taking his precautions.

  As for Cosette's education, it was almost finished and complete.

  His determination once taken, he awaited an opportunity. It was not longin presenting itself. Old Fauchelevent died.

  Jean Valjean demanded an audience with the revered prioress and told herthat, having come into a little inheritance at the death of his brother,which permitted him henceforth to live without working, he should leavethe service of the convent and take his daughter with him; but that, asit was not just that Cosette, since she had not taken the vows, shouldhave received her education gratuitously, he humbly begged the ReverendPrioress to see fit that he should offer to the community, as indemnity,for the five years which Cosette had spent there, the sum of fivethousand francs.

  It was thus that Jean Valjean quitted the convent of the PerpetualAdoration.

  On leaving the convent, he took in his own arms the little valise thekey to which he still wore on his person, and would permit no porter totouch it. This puzzled Cosette, because of the odor of embalming whichproceeded from it.

  Let us state at once, that this trunk never quitted him more. He alwayshad it in his chamber. It was the first and only thing sometimes, thathe carried off in his moving when he moved about. Cosette laughed at it,and called this valise his _inseparable_, saying: "I am jealous of it."

  Nevertheless, Jean Valjean did not reappear in the open air withoutprofound anxiety.

  He discovered the house in the Rue Plumet, and hid himself fromsight there. Henceforth he was in the possession of the name:--UltimeFauchelevent.

  At the same time he hired two other apartments in Paris, in order thathe might attract less attention than if he were to remain always in thesame quarter, and so that he could, at need, take himself off at theslightest disquietude which should assail him, and in short, so thathe might not again be caught unprovided as on the night when he hadso miraculously escaped from Javert. These two apartments were verypitiable, poor in appearance, and in two quarters which were far remotefrom each other, the one in the Rue de l'Ouest, the other in the Rue del'Homme Armé.

  He went from time to time, now to the Rue de l'Homme Armé, now to theRue de l'Ouest, to pass a month or six weeks, without taking Toussaint.He had himself served by the porters, and gave himself out as agentleman from the suburbs, living on his funds, and having a littletemporary resting-place in town. This lofty virtue had three domicilesin Paris for the sake of escaping from the police.