#valjean being a father

[raisin-gran]

valjean is the type of dad to dawn his kitschy “kiss the cook” apron and play some groovy music while he sautés some leftover fries, peppers and eggs in oil to make a breakfast scramble for dinner. and he’s throwing some pillsbury cookies in the oven for cosette to eat later. and you better believe he’s opening a nice cold beer to enjoy alongside it.

[lesmisscraper]

The Ray of Light in the Hovel, Mlle. Ursule returns. Volume 3, Book 8, Chapter 8.

Clips from <Il cuore di Cosette>.

[sportygothic]

s1e6

[secretmellowblog]

The moment where Eponine prevents her father/his gang from breaking into Valjean and Cosette's house is so fascinating? Especially because the musical's portrayal of it is so different from the novel's. Within the musical, Eponine threatening to scream is this very straightforwardly heroic moment. In the novel, it's portrayed as more morally complicated? She plans to scream in order to draw the attention of the police; she does this while boasting about how she's suicidal and doesn't care if everyone here, including herself, ends up dead. It's framed in this very morally ambiguous way-- there are all these parallels drawn between Eponine and Javert, which is never a good sign; she's compared to a monster, a barking dog, and a ghoul. The fact that she plans to call the police, specifically, is also a big point in the book? Eponine isn't aware that Valjean is also a criminal, and that drawing the attention of the police might also put Valjean in danger. This makes the plot point far more like the "Patron Minette ambush" subplot earlier, the one where Marius was debating over whether or not to give the signal for the police to come in. Just like in that subplot, Eponine ends up being the one who gives the characters a "middle road." Just as Eponine's letter gives advanced warning to Patron-Minette (giving Valjean time to escape in the confusion), Eponine's threat of calling the police here outside Rue Plumet manages to prevent the robbery without the police coming in.

Within the novel she's being brave and heroic, but it's also framed as being deeply morally complex and self-destructive. And I'm never quite sure how to feel about it!

[do-you-ship-it-polls]

Which Toxic Yaoi is the best

Sequel to the toxic yuri poll. I deeply apologise if some of these are not toxic, i went off of the propaganda

Propaganda under the cut!

BbKaz (Big Boss/Kazuhira Miller)

they have multitudes.. you can ship it as something goofy and fluffy or as the most toxic yaoi of all time and theyre both pretty reasonable interpretations. they go on a date together and have sex in a cardboard box on a beach in canon and a bunch of other crazy shit. their relationship spans 20 years so they span from honeymooning to divorced to one trying to kill the other etc. "love loses" the ship they make me insane

Flash/Reverse Flash

"It was ME Barry, I jerked you off at supersonic speeds so it would seem like you nutted at just a woman's touch!"

Possibly the most toxic yaoi of all time

SuzaLuLu (Kururugi Suzaku/Lelouch Lamperougue)

TOXIC YAOI TOXIC YAOI

SaruMi (Saruhiko Fushimi/Misaki Yata)

Toxic yaoi, obsessive boy joins a gang with his best friend but then his best friend makes other friends in the gang so he joins up with an enemy gang instead. Normal behavior.

Valvert (Jean Valjean/Javert)

They’re so obsessed with each other (especially javert to valjean) it’s like half of the plot. Pinnacle of toxic old man yaoi. Produces the funniest plot point in the show: Valjean (escaped convict in disguise as a mayor and businessman) saves someone by lifting a cart he was trapped under and Javert (cop trying to catch Valjean) goes “Damn girl… you remind me of this guy…. He’s the only guy I’ve ever seen who’s as swole and jacked as you”

Lawlight (Light/L)

"L and Light are the founding fathers of toxic yaoi" is what people WANT you to believe but these poor men are being slandered... You see it's ackshually totally heterosexual to give your bestie (who's also your mortal enemy) a foot massage while he he makes soft little grunting noises and wipes the water droplets from your rain-soaked hair all while a soft melancholic piano track is accompanying this surprisingly tender moment between the two of you- IF it's a religious callback to Jesus and Judas. It's just a Bible reference bro. No homo. 🤓☝

Anyhow don't google the Japanese version of "Playing his Game" (which is called "Inside of him" in Japanese) from the Death Note Musical. I assure you there is absolutely nothing gay about those lyrics.

Wdym people love shipping two mortal enemies with an unhealthy obsessive murderous rivaly??? What is the world coming to... Besides Light is clearly heterosexual. His lack of interest in women is because he's a based sigma male obviously...

and additional reason here but this one is a spoiler

Foot washing scene. The musical. God, they're so obsessed with each other. When L dies Light loses his main drive, his passion- being Kira isn't fun anymore without L, he isn't having a good time even though he won their battle of wits. Light being L's first friend. L being... really, the first person to understand Light. Theyre insane I love them

[24601orwhatever]

I get the whole appeal behind the “JVJ despises Marius” thing, but in the context of the musical, their relationship being more tender is so SO good

Marius being so excited to have a father again, only to lose him immediately after … valjean saying goodbye to “the son [he] might have known” 🙅🏻‍♂️

[rubberbutton]

So, I have this wacky Javert & Cosette detective agency AU idea that I’ll probably never write…

Post-Seine Javert starts a private detective agency — reuniting loved ones, shutting down extortion rackets, stopping forced marriages, things like that. He doesn’t make any money because he fails to collect payment on the rare occasion he’s not working pro bono. [Very Angel Investigations, sans vampires … unless?] The work is both penance and its own reward.

Bored of social calls and society dinners, Cosette decides to help him in his work. Javert refuses her, but she keeps showing up. She proves herself useful, as no one ever suspects her of being a double agent, she’s clever, and she can cry on command — which is an incredibly effective distraction. Since Paris’s underworld is already familiar with him from his previous profession, Javert has had difficulty making progress on some of his cases. But Cosette is entirely unknown. Grudgingly, he allows her to help on his smallest, safest, most respectable cases. Which rapidly escalates into her running the place. He’s really not an ideas man.

There are capers! Escapades! Daring rescues! A heart-warming Christmas episode!

Valjean and Marius are given to believe that Cosette’s time is spent volunteering with ladies aid societies. When the truth comes out, Valjean is apoplectic, and it’s the first real risk to his relationship with Javert (well, post Seine, haha), especially when Javert makes it Cosette’s choice whether to continue. Marius’s anger burns out much quicker; that boy is nothing if not easily led.

Meanwhile, Montparnasse has filled the leadership vacuum left by Thénardier and has made great inroads in the Parisian organized crime scene. With Javert foiling many of his more lucrative business interests, Montparnasse decides it’s time to deal with with him more permanently...

Other odds and ends for this ‘verse:

Javert accidentally adopts some urchins when he attempts to cultivate them as informants, but they keep showing up like stray cats when they realize he’ll feed them. 

Having heard it in her tenderest years, Cosette quickly picks up the accent and argot of the street and becomes a mistress of disguise.

She also purchases an umbrella with a stiletto hidden in the handle, which she mostly uses to underline her better rhetorical flourishes.

Whilst Javert is not an easy man to like, Cosette appreciates his honesty. Granted, that honesty is couched in the most pessimistic, condescending and insulting way imaginable. But after her father and her husband gaslighting her for years, it’s a relief to not second guess the information someone gives her. 

They both appreciate having someone to commiserate about Jean Valjean’s idiosyncrasies with. “You know the way he clears his throat when he disapproves, but won’t say he disapproves — and if you ask him if he disapproves, he’ll deny it?” “I know it very well!” 

After Jean Valjean is finished being furious, he moves right on into being jealous. He wanted them to get along, but not quite this well. He of course would rather eat glass than admit it. 

Also, as many of les amis survive as I can reasonably get away with. Definitely Courfeyrac, because I like him. Probably Bahorel, in case they need some additional muscle when working a case. And Joly because they’d need someone with a medical background to identify the cause of death/provide medical aid. Also no one should die with a cold, talk about insult to injury. 

Anyhoo. Everybody lives happily ever after with a gentle ’90s TV glow. Fuck you, Victor-Marie Hugo.

[lilyslark]

so cosette is a pretty kickass character given the time period that she was written in, but her character has so much untapped potential. hugo unintentionally wrote such a tragic character. just imagine cosette with a slightly different mindset towards her “happy ending”:

- the constant feeling of repression, whether as a slave to the thénardiers, a schoolgirl at the convent, a lonely teen on rue plumet, or a wife in the gillenormand household

- pushing down her “bad feelings” because that was never something she and valjean learned how to talk about

- being unable to shake her passive nature that stem from an abusive childhood

- “sweet fifteen” for fuck’s sake, cosette is a child and marius is a grown man (yes I know it was a different time, but I still want her to run as fast as she can)

- being weirded out by marius following her home…like to the point that she and valjean are literally forced to move

- her outrage over marius blaming her for the wind lifting her skirt for half a second (which is canon anyway)

- escaping the isolation of rue plumet, only to wonder if being immediately married off at 17 was really the better option

- the religious guilt over not feeling like the pure and untouchable angel that everybody seems to think she is (like seriously hugo, we do not need paragraphs on how modest teenage cosette is even while getting dressed in the morning)

- never knowing about tholomyès’s abandonment and the likely half-siblings she has out there ??

- the rage towards marius and valjean for keeping her own past from her

- like this is HER father and HER husband. they should be consulting with HER, not teaming up to decide what’s “best” for her

- the betrayal of not even knowing fantine’s name until valjean’s very last moments (after she had spent years begging him for the tiniest scrap of information)

- the unbearable guilt about all of these feelings after her father’s death

- not being able to forgive marius for taking it upon himself to remove her father from her life (the same thing that his grandfather did to him ??)

- hating herself for letting him (the brick has a short chapter on cosette sensing marius’s “will” and not resisting)

- again. probably the result of her passive nature from a childhood of abuse and repression.

- little fragments of her childhood slowly coming back to her (more than just the vague images and nightmares that she has in canon)

- never knowing that she came face-to-face with her former abusers ?? and that they almost killed her father ?? and that they have close ties with her husband ?? and that they have been in their home ?? where she is supposed to feel safe ?? and nobody told her ??

- not knowing how to deal with any of this because nobody tells her anything

- never quite understanding who she is or what she’s suffered

in conclusion, cosette has a lot of healing to do.

[most-unhinged-les-mis-moment]

Round One: A1: Poll Four

Wacky Coffin Heist can be found in the Brick, at: Several chapters of 2.8 (Starts at 2.8.4)

Myriel getting his position by saying something smart to Napoleon can be found in the brick, at: 1.1.1

PROPAGANDA:

Wacky Coffin Heist: (Fun fact! This was BY FAR the most submitted moment!! :D)

Not only does Jean Valjean pull this wacky coffin heist escape, he’s EXCITED to do it. Like his buddy Fauchelevent keeps going “I don’t know sounds dangerous” while Jean Valjean keeps smiling and going “it will be fine! :D it will be wonderful! :D”. It’s one of the few times in the book we see the unbearably sad beast get genuinely happy about something that isn’t Cosette . It’s an unhinged heist but even more unhinged because it brings him this unexpected joy

He comes up with the plan himself, then almost dies because of it. King shit.

( @pontmercysamis (no propoganda, just wanted to be credited for being one of the people who submitted this one :) )

(Submitted by @blatherby ) Most relevant quotes, IMO 2.8.4: You can pick whichever translation you like best for the quotes. Here’s my favorite specific line: Jean Valjean eut un de ces rares sourires qui lui venaient comme une lueur dans un ciel d’hiver. (Hugo) Jean Valjean gave way to one of those rare smiles which lighted up his face like a flash from heaven in the winter. (Hapgood) This Unbearably Sad Beast who basically never smiles (especially not without it being described a sad smile) is now having his smile compared to: - the aurora in a winter sky (Wilbour) - a sunbeam in a wintry sky (Wraxall) - a flash from heaven in the winter (Hapgood) - sunshine breaking through a winter’s sky (Denny) - a sunrise in winter (FMA) - a ray of sunshine in a winter sky (Rose) - a gleam of sunlight in a winter sky (Donougher) … because he’s so ecstatic *over getting buried alive!* Something is Wrong with him (affectionate). Okay, to be fair, he doesn’t *actually* want to be buried alive (… at this point in the book), based on his reaction to the plan going awry later. But he’s having a blast with every aspect of this except for the actual suffocating to death part. His joy over this is so unhinged that—well, here’s Fauchelevent at the end of that chapter: “Agreed, father Fauchelevent. It will all be all right.” “Provided nothing goes wrong,” thought Fauchelevent. “What if it all goes horribly wrong?!” (Rose translation) And here’s Fauchelevent the next day, in the next chapter: Fauchelevent limped along behind the hearse, happy as can be. His two mysteries, his two twin plots, one in league with the nuns, the other with Monsieur Madeleine, one for the convent, the other against, had succeeded together, one after the other. Jean Valjean’s calmness was one of those powerful tranquilizers that are contagious. Fauchelevent was no longer worried about whether they would bring it off. […] Fauchelevent felt completely secure. As the convoy entered the avenue leading to the cemetery, Fauchelevent looked at the hearse, happy, and rubbed his big hands together, muttering to himself: “Not a bad joke!” (Rose) JVJ is so happy and calm over pretending to be dead that he’s literally acting as an anxiety medication. (I propose that we send JVJ on coffin heists and bottle his powerful calmness. Everyone wins!)

the entire coffin heist is so wacky but that bit specifically made me cackle. I dunno I like the juxtaposition

Myriel getting his position by saying something smart to Napoleon:

I don't remember which translation it was that had him say something like "You sir, are looking at a good man, but I am looking at a great man", but Myriel is such a fun character, I love him

[ueinra]

Victor Hugo's fathers and their adopted children:

Claude Frollo and Quasimodo:

[ Then it was that he approached the unhappy little creature, which was so hated and so menaced. That distress, that deformity, that abandonment, the thought of his young brother, the idea which suddenly occurred to him, that if he were to die, his dear little Jehan might also be flung miserably on the plank for foundlings,—all this had gone to his heart simultaneously; a great pity had moved in him, and he had carried off the child. When he removed the child from the sack, he found it greatly deformed, in very sooth. […] Claude’s compassion increased at the sight of this ugliness; and he made a vow in his heart to rear the child for the love of his brother, in order that, whatever might be the future faults of the little Jehan, he should have beside him that charity done for his sake. ]

Vol.I - Book.IV - Ch.I NOTRE-DAME DE PARIS (1831)

Jean Valjean and Cosette:

[ Jean Valjean had never loved anything; for twenty-five years he had been alone in the world. He had never been father, lover, husband, friend. […] When he saw Cosette, when he had taken possession of her, carried her off, and delivered her, he felt his heart moved within him. All the passion and affection within him awoke, and rushed towards that child. He approached the bed, where she lay sleeping, and trembled with joy. He suffered all the pangs of a mother, and he knew not what it meant; for that great and singular movement of a heart which begins to love is a very obscure and a very sweet thing. Poor old man, with a perfectly new heart! ]

Vol.II - Book.IV - Ch.III LES MISÉRABLES (1862)

Ursus with Gwynplaine and Dea:

[ "Well done, Homo. I shall be father, and you shall be uncle." ]

Vol.I - Book.III - Ch.VI L'HOMME QUI RIT (1869)

Cimourdain and Gauvain:

[ Cimourdain had conceived a passionate love for his pupil. Childhood is so ineffably charming, it absorbs all love. All the power of loving in Cimourdain's nature had, so to speak, concentrated itself upon that child; the heart, condemned to solitude, fed upon this sweet and innocent creature, which it loved with the combined tenderness of a father, a brother, a friend, and a creator. To him he was indeed a son,—not of the flesh, but of the soul; he was not his father, the author of his being, but he was his master, and this was his masterpiece. […] The only being on earth whom he loved was this pupil,—child and orphan as he was. ]

Vol.II - Book.I - Ch.III QUATREVINGT-TREIZE (1874)

[euphraisette]

i just am... thinking about the brick's portrayal of cosette and valjean's relationship and how i think it works so well with my neurodivergent cosette hc... because valjean loves and cares for her so deeply but he sees any kind of emotional spikes from her or things like overstimulation or stimming as something being wrong, not out of judgment but out of concern and love... and cosette loves her papa more than anything and hates seeing him distressed so she starts masking around him so he doesn’t worry about her... feeling like as much as her and her father love each other nobody will every really see all of her and accept all of her... and then she meets marius, who is equally as neurodivergent but always had to mask because of his grandfather... and together they learn to accept and love themselves in their entirely and stop masking... NEURODIVERGENT COSETTE/MARIUS IDC IDC IDC THIS IS MY TRUTH

[fluentisonus]

still chewing this one over so hopefully this makes sense but one very minor running thing I feel like we get w jean valjean is that without disliking women or even believing that they're in any way unequal to him he. hm. for the most part doesn't have much normal contact with adult women after his sister (and presumably none for the 19 years he was in prison) which means that. not that he doesn't understand women so much as i feel like idk. he makes the mistake of unconsciously assuming men-are-from-mars-women-are-from-venus style that he doesn't understand them (being aware of that lack of contact & under the impression women are fairly different to men), and because he's a guy who wants to understand things & is largely self taught (often from books) especially wrt social niceties, he ends up being very credulous, in that presumed lack of understanding, of commonly held beliefs & traditional, societally reinforced ideas of gender rolls & gender characteristics, and this sometimes ends up ultimately hurting women around him despite his genuine good intentions

like obviously firstly in montreuil-sur-mer where he wants the female workers to have "pure morals" and gives them a separate workroom to the men to "remain discreet" which I think he genuinely intended as a means of making it a good work environment for the workers -- women can have privacy & focus on work & nothing uncomfortable or untoward is being brought into the workplace etc -- but as we know this backfired horrendously because it essentially resulted in fantine being fired for having a child out of wedlock & everything she went through after. and given his reaction he doesn't seem to have ever considered this a potential effect of his rules -- like he doesn't seem to have understood how those sorts of rules end up ultimately punish the women involved more than anything

and the other main instance of course is with cosette and his assumption that essentially a woman has a father, & then she has a husband & having a husband no longer needs a father (this is strengthened a lot by his own feeling of his own taintedness -- it's not the main thing responsible for what happened by any means. but it's a part of it) & this assumption is incredibly hard on her!!! she obviously doesn't see it that way at all! but it never seems like it occurs to him not to think of it in that framework bc essentially society in general sees it that way

idk I guess what I find interesting abt this is that it's a big blind spot in a guy who's otherwise extremely willing to question social biases & generally likes to take people all on a level as just another sort of person like himself. again I think in his general behavior towards women interpersonally there's nothing bad & in fact there's a lot of genuine respect there & probably willingness to learn even (in fantine 's case), but it's like he just never worked out that these ideas about gender are about as true & helpful as ideas about class or criminality etc etc

[lesmisscraper]

Marius after Valjean's Confession. Volume 5, Book 7, Chapter 2.

Clips from <Il cuore di Cosette>.

[hadleysmis]

From the moment I first read Les Misérables, a particular scene stayed with me for a very long time. It was the hallucination Fantine had of Cosette as she was inching closer to death.

This Cosette was young. Very young; enough to be cradled in her arms. As she looked down to her girl, she remembered when she last saw her.

She had to carry her as she travelled looking for jobs. To the best of her ability, she tried to hide desperation and sweat and tears. She carried her as the little girl, as a daughter, as she headed back to her hometown.

To compare that moment of her arms aching as she walked for miles, coupled with the innocence her daughter had before having to be parted from her mother, the cradling in Fantine's hallucination stayed with me. She sacrificed so much, and she mimicked the fantasy of what it would've been like if she was just allowed to stay with her daughter. The years which tore the two apart just disappears without acknowledgement in her delusion.

She wouldn't have to hold her in her arms because Cosette was exhausted from walking endlessly, no she would hold her because she was safe and sound in her arms.

Which brings me to the hallucination of Jean Valjean in the musical. Many iterations of him have him boop Cosette's nose. I adore this iteration because he also is like Fantine. He hallucinates when he had known Cosette a long time ago. She was his little girl.

This time, he reminisces the time he had being her father, and how he dreams of returning back to when he was her primary carer. He enjoyed the fun that they had, the play, the jokes, the spinning around, the giggling, and life in general.

Jean Valjean almost died with his heart weighed by guilt. But unlike Fantine, he found the light before his departure. He remembers Fantine, the Bishop, Cosette, and Marius.

Basically, without me writing every word which comes to mind, Fantine and Jean Valjean both hallucinate a younger Cosette in the book and in the musical respectively. It's interesting to think of why this may be so, and what kind of message of the character it brings.

[secretmellowblog]

I think you can really tell that the end of Les Mis was written by a father who had experienced the death of his daughter. Knowing that Victor Hugo’s young daughter Leopoldine died very shortly after her marriage— and that she and her husband drowned together— adds so much context to why Jean Valjean’s relationship with Cosette, especially his deep paralyzing terror around her marriage, was written Like That.

There’s a level of violently raw grief in these chapters that goes beyond “a father is sad to let their daughter grow up” and into the agony of being a parent who can never see your child again.

[thebrickinbrick]

Gavroche as a Profound Calculator of Distances

Marius kept his promise. He dropped a kiss on that livid brow, where the icy perspiration stood in beads.

This was no infidelity to Cosette; it was a gentle and pensive farewell to an unhappy soul.

It was not without a tremor that he had taken the letter which Éponine had given him. He had immediately felt that it was an event of weight. He was impatient to read it. The heart of man is so constituted that the unhappy child had hardly closed her eyes when Marius began to think of unfolding this paper.

He laid her gently on the ground, and went away. Something told him that he could not peruse that letter in the presence of that body.

He drew near to a candle in the tap-room. It was a small note, folded and sealed with a woman’s elegant care. The address was in a woman’s hand and ran:—

“To Monsieur, Monsieur Marius Pontmercy, at M. Courfeyrac’s, Rue de la Verrerie, No. 16.”

He broke the seal and read:—

“My dearest, alas! my father insists on our setting out immediately. We shall be this evening in the Rue de l’Homme Armé, No. 7. In a week we shall be in England. COSETTE. June 4th.”

Such was the innocence of their love that Marius was not even acquainted with Cosette’s handwriting.

What had taken place may be related in a few words. Éponine had been the cause of everything. After the evening of the 3d of June she had cherished a double idea, to defeat the projects of her father and the ruffians on the house of the Rue Plumet, and to separate Marius and Cosette. She had exchanged rags with the first young scamp she came across who had thought it amusing to dress like a woman, while Éponine disguised herself like a man. It was she who had conveyed to Jean Valjean in the Champ de Mars the expressive warning: “Leave your house.” Jean Valjean had, in fact, returned home, and had said to Cosette: “We set out this evening and we go to the Rue de l’Homme Armé with Toussaint. Next week, we shall be in London.” Cosette, utterly overwhelmed by this unexpected blow, had hastily penned a couple of lines to Marius. But how was she to get the letter to the post? She never went out alone, and Toussaint, surprised at such a commission, would certainly show the letter to M. Fauchelevent. In this dilemma, Cosette had caught sight through the fence of Éponine in man’s clothes, who now prowled incessantly around the garden. Cosette had called to “this young workman” and had handed him five francs and the letter, saying: “Carry this letter immediately to its address.” Éponine had put the letter in her pocket. The next day, on the 5th of June, she went to Courfeyrac’s quarters to inquire for Marius, not for the purpose of delivering the letter, but,—a thing which every jealous and loving soul will comprehend,—“to see.”

There she had waited for Marius, or at least for Courfeyrac, still for the purpose of seeing. When Courfeyrac had told her: “We are going to the barricades,” an idea flashed through her mind, to fling herself into that death, as she would have done into any other, and to thrust Marius into it also. She had followed Courfeyrac, had made sure of the locality where the barricade was in process of construction; and, quite certain, since Marius had received no warning, and since she had intercepted the letter, that he would go at dusk to his trysting place for every evening, she had betaken herself to the Rue Plumet, had there awaited Marius, and had sent him, in the name of his friends, the appeal which would, she thought, lead him to the barricade. She reckoned on Marius’ despair when he should fail to find Cosette; she was not mistaken. She had returned to the Rue de la Chanvrerie herself. What she did there the reader has just seen. She died with the tragic joy of jealous hearts who drag the beloved being into their own death, and who say: “No one shall have him!”

Marius covered Cosette’s letter with kisses. So she loved him!

For one moment the idea occurred to him that he ought not to die now. Then he said to himself: “She is going away. Her father is taking her to England, and my grandfather refuses his consent to the marriage. Nothing is changed in our fates.” Dreamers like Marius are subject to supreme attacks of dejection, and desperate resolves are the result. The fatigue of living is insupportable; death is sooner over with. Then he reflected that he had still two duties to fulfil: to inform Cosette of his death and send her a final farewell, and to save from the impending catastrophe which was in preparation, that poor child, Éponine’s brother and Thénardier’s son.

He had a pocket-book about him; the same one which had contained the note-book in which he had inscribed so many thoughts of love for Cosette. He tore out a leaf and wrote on it a few lines in pencil:—

“Our marriage was impossible. I asked my grandfather, he refused; I have no fortune, neither hast thou. I hastened to thee, thou wert no longer there. Thou knowest the promise that I gave thee, I shall keep it. I die. I love thee. When thou readest this, my soul will be near thee, and thou wilt smile.”

Having nothing wherewith to seal this letter, he contented himself with folding the paper in four, and added the address:—

“To Mademoiselle Cosette Fauchelevent, at M. Fauchelevent’s, Rue de l’Homme Armé, No. 7.”

Having folded the letter, he stood in thought for a moment, drew out his pocket-book again, opened it, and wrote, with the same pencil, these four lines on the first page:—

“My name is Marius Pontmercy. Carry my body to my grandfather, M. Gillenormand, Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire, No. 6, in the Marais.”

He put his pocketbook back in his pocket, then he called Gavroche.

The gamin, at the sound of Marius’ voice, ran up to him with his merry and devoted air.

“Will you do something for me?”

“Anything,” said Gavroche. “Good God! if it had not been for you, I should have been done for.”

“Do you see this letter?”

“Yes.”

“Take it. Leave the barricade instantly” (Gavroche began to scratch his ear uneasily) “and to-morrow morning, you will deliver it at its address to Mademoiselle Cosette, at M. Fauchelevent’s, Rue de l’Homme Armé, No. 7.”

The heroic child replied

“Well, but! in the meanwhile the barricade will be taken, and I shall not be there.”

“The barricade will not be attacked until daybreak, according to all appearances, and will not be taken before to-morrow noon.”

The fresh respite which the assailants were granting to the barricade had, in fact, been prolonged. It was one of those intermissions which frequently occur in nocturnal combats, which are always followed by an increase of rage.

“Well,” said Gavroche, “what if I were to go and carry your letter to-morrow?”

“It will be too late. The barricade will probably be blockaded, all the streets will be guarded, and you will not be able to get out. Go at once.”

Gavroche could think of no reply to this, and stood there in indecision, scratching his ear sadly.

All at once, he took the letter with one of those birdlike movements which were common with him.

“All right,” said he.

And he started off at a run through Mondétour lane.

An idea had occurred to Gavroche which had brought him to a decision, but he had not mentioned it for fear that Marius might offer some objection to it.

This was the idea:—

“It is barely midnight, the Rue de l’Homme Armé is not far off; I will go and deliver the letter at once, and I shall get back in time.”