Les Misérables

So long as there shall exist, by virtue of law and custom, decrees of damnation pronounced by...

The Bishop managed to do it. He went on foot when it was in the neighborhood, in a tilted spring...

Therefore, the impression was terrible and profound; on the day following the execution, and on...

However, in their latter years, Madame Magloire discovered beneath the paper which had been washed...

My brother has ways of his own. When he talks, he says that a bishop ought to be so. Just imagine....

The judge speaks in the name of justice; the priest speaks in the name of pity, which is nothing...

Besides his sister, Mademoiselle Baptistine, he had two brothers, one a general, the other a...

That he carried prayer to the pitch of a superhuman aspiration is probable. but one can no more...

All this took place in less time than it requires to picture it to ones self. After having...

See here. My name is Jean Valjean. I am a convict from the galleys. I have passed nineteen years in...

As for the man, he was actually so fatigued that he did not even profit by the nice white sheets....

Grave and obscure questions, to the last of which every physiologist would probably have responded...

He remained for a time thoughtfully in this attitude, which would have been suggestive of something...

The spot was absolutely solitary. As far as the eye could see there was not a person on the plain...

As Cardinal Fesch refused to resign, M. de Pins, Archbishop of Amasie, administered the diocese of...

And in this community of Paradise, talking, singing, running, dancing, chasing butterflies,...

It was the hour for the departure of the mail coaches and diligences. Nearly all the stage coaches...

Of course she has an outfit, the poor treasure. I understood perfectly that it was your husband....

Thanks to the rapid progress of the industry which he had so admirably reconstructed, M. sur M. had...

At M. sur M. he exercised the unpleasant but useful functions of an inspector. He had not seen...

Certain persons are malicious solely through a necessity for talking. Their conversation, the chat...

Fantine fled and stopped her ears that she might not hear the hoarse voice of the man shouting to...

And yet, you see, Mr. Inspector, it is necessary to be just. I understand that you are just, Mr....

If any physiognomist who had been familiar with Javert, and who had made a lengthy study of this...

These two thoughts were so closely intertwined in his mind that they formed but a single one there;...

He answered himself. If this man has, indeed, stolen a few apples, that means a month in prison. It...

This dream, like the majority of dreams, bore no relation to the situation, except by its painful...

It was a frightful old trap; it rests flat on the axle; it is an actual fact that the seats were...

On the other hand, it seemed to her that the mere communication of the truth to the invalid would,...

A few minutes later he found himself alone in a sort of wainscoted cabinet of severe aspect,...

Monsieur le Prsident, in view of the confused but exceedingly clever denials of the prisoner, who...

In that chamber there were no longer either judges, accusers, nor gendarmes; there was nothing but...

He had released Fantines hand. He listened to her words as one listens to the sighing of the...

On the evening of that day the worthy old woman was sitting in her lodge, still in a thorough...

The northern door, which was beaten in by the French, and which has had a piece applied to it to...

Suppose the soil dry, and the artillery capable of moving, the action would have begun at six...

The battery, which, if completed, would have been almost a redoubt, was ranged behind a very low...

All at once, a tragic incident; on the English left, on our right, the head of the column of...

Every one knows the rest, the irruption of a third army; the battle broken to pieces; eighty six...

But this great England will be angry at what we are saying here. She still cherishes, after her own...

Towards midnight, a man was prowling about, or rather, climbing in the direction of the hollow road...

Of late, Boulatruelle had taken to quitting his task of stone breaking and care of the road at a...

All at once a man was seen climbing into the rigging with the agility of a tiger cat; this man was...

It is not that Thnardier was not, on occasion, capable of wrath to quite the same degree as his...

A cold wind was blowing from the plain. The forest was dark, not a leaf was moving; there were none...

Cosette was ugly. If she had been happy, she might have been pretty. We have already given a sketch...

Cosette raised her eyes; she gazed at the man approaching her with that doll as she might have...

As she spoke thus, she was twisting the bill about in her hands with an embarrassed air, and making...

Monsieur Thnardier, in January last, the mother reckoned that she owed you one hundred and twenty...

Bourgeois houses only began to spring up there twenty five years later. The place was unpleasant....

A moment later, Jean Valjean accosted her, and asked her to go and get this thousand franc bill...

The bridge once crossed, he perceived some timber yards on his right. He directed his course...

A rope would have been required; Jean Valjean had none. Where was he to get a rope at midnight, in...

Jean Valjean shuddered with the continual tremor of the unhappy. For them everything is hostile and...

It must be remembered that at that epoch the police was not precisely at its ease; the free press...

The prioress is elected for three years by the mothers, who are called mres vocales because they...

Cricket corner was near the kitchen and was highly esteemed. It was not so cold there as elsewhere....

The church of the house, constructed in such a manner as to separate the Great Convent from the...

In this nineteenth century, the religious idea is undergoing a crisis. People are unlearning...

There are, as we know, powerful and illustrious atheists. At bottom, led back to the truth by their...

But I believe it, I believe it, retorted Fauchelevent. You have no need to tell me that. The good...

A nun dies. The municipal doctor comes and says, A nun has died. The government sends a coffin. The...

Once outside the gate, you gallop home, you get your card, you return, the cemetery porter admits...

This was the second place of captivity which he had seen. In his youth, in what had been for him...

He who writes these lines has long been a prowler about the barriers of Paris, and it is for him a...

Seek something that Paris has not. The vat of Trophonius contains nothing that is not in Mesmers...

He had theories. Here is one of them. When a man is passionately fond of women, and when he has...

Any one who had chanced to pass through the little town of Vernon at this epoch, and who had...

Marius Pontmercy pursued some studies, as all children do. When he emerged from the hands of Aunt...

One night, he was alone in his little chamber near the roof. His candle was burning; he was...

The old man took this case and gazed at it for some time without opening it, with that air of...

Courfeyrac had, in fact, that animation of youth which may be called the beaut du diable of the...

On the following day, Courfeyrac introduced Marius at the Caf Musain. Then he whispered in his ear,...

Life became hard for Marius. It was nothing to eat his clothes and his watch. He ate of that...

It was not, however, that M. Mabeuf had been anything but the calm and impassive agent of...

Cannons in the courtyard of the Museum. For what purpose. Do you want to fire grape shot at the...

In proportion as he drew near, his pace slackened more and more. On arriving at some little...

All at once, a gust of wind, more merry than the rest, and probably charged with performing the...

A lugubrious being was Montparnasse. Montparnasse was a child; less than twenty years of age, with...

Admit, compassionate man, that it is necessary to suffer the most cruel need, and that it is very...

Marius almost reproached himself for the preoccupations of reverie and passion which had prevented...

It was certainly she. Marius could hardly distinguish her through the luminous vapor which had...

It is not possible. she cried. When I think that my daughters are going barefoot, and have not a...

Marius seated himself on his bed. It might have been half past five oclock. Only half an hour...

M. Leblanc sprang up, placed his back against the wall, and cast a rapid glance around the room. He...

M. Leblanc seized this moment, overturned the chair with his foot and the table with his fist, and...

Nearly half an hour passed in this manner. Thnardier seemed to be absorbed in gloomy reflections,...

These guarantees are a necessity of the times. They must be accorded. Princes grant them, but in...

Revolutions have a terrible arm and a happy hand, they strike firmly and choose well. Even...

Solve only the first of the two problems; you will be Venice, you will be England. You will have,...

The honest bourgeois into whose hands this list fell knew its significance. It appears that this...

As Enjolras walked towards this place, he passed the whole situation in review in his own mind. The...

In the first place, and this constituted the principal anxiety, Javert had not taken the prisoner...

He returned home, tried to take up his work again, and did not succeed; there was no means of re...

Cosette had been taught housekeeping in the convent, and she regulated their expenditure, which was...

Through the darkness, he vaguely perceived something which appeared to have its finger on its lips....

On the day when their eyes met at last, and said to each other those first, obscure, and ineffable...

For those who love solitude, a walk in the early morning is equivalent to a stroll by night, with...

Cosette on perceiving that her father was ill, had deserted the pavilion and again taken a fancy to...

On the following day, at an earlier hour, towards nightfall, she was strolling in the garden. In...

What a grand thing it is to be loved. What a far grander thing it is to love. The heart becomes...

The children set out, the elder leading the younger, and holding in his hand the paper which was to...

He clasped the rough leg of the elephant, and in a twinkling, without deigning to make use of the...

Towards the end of that hour which immediately precedes the dawn, a man turned from the Rue Saint...

He asked himself whether his three accomplices in flight had succeeded, if they had heard him, and...

And then, we insist upon it, the study of social deformities and infirmities, and the task of...

How long did they remain thus. One month, two months, six months sometimes; one stayed a year. It...

We repeat, that this auscultation brings encouragement; it is by this persistence in encouragement...

Courfeyrac, being a practical man, did not take in good part this reflection of an invisible...

Never had the sky been more studded with stars and more charming, the trees more trembling, the...

What. you deserted me, your grandfather, you left my house to go no one knows whither, you drove...

Marius displaced the bar, and rushed headlong into the garden. Cosette was not at the spot where...

Tyranny constrains the writer to conditions of diameter which are augmentations of force. The...

Then all is said, the tempest is loosed, stones rain down, a fusillade breaks forth, many...

Evening came, the theatres did not open; the patrols circulated with an air of irritation; passers...

The reds, the reds. retorted Bahorel. A queer kind of fear, bourgeois. For my part I dont tremble...

Laigle de Meaux, as the reader knows, lived more with Joly than elsewhere. He had a lodging, as a...

Nothing could be more bizarre and at the same time more motley than this troop. One had a round...

At this abrupt query, the man started. He plunged his gaze deep into Enjolras clear eyes and...

Marius left the horses behind him. As he was approaching a street which seemed to him to be the Rue...

Several minutes passed thus, then a sound of footsteps, measured, heavy, and numerous, became...

Marius had had a furnace in his brain all day long; now it was a whirlwind. This whirlwind which...

People re acquire confidence as foolishly as they lose it; human nature is so constituted. Hardly...

What do you call that gigantic monument that you have there at the end of the street. Its the...

The exasperations of this crowd which suffers and bleeds, its violences contrary to all sense,...

What is the cat. he exclaimed. It is a corrective. The good God, having made the mouse, said....

Enjolras bore within him the plenitude of the revolution; he was incomplete, however, so far as the...

Gavroche warned his comrades as he called them, that the barricade was blocked. He had had great...

Civilization, unfortunately, represented at this epoch rather by an aggregation of interests than...

These two children were the same over whom Gavroche had been put to some trouble, as the reader...

Enjolras order was executed with the correct haste which is peculiar to ships and barricades, the...

The ideal is nothing but the culminating point of logic, the same as the beautiful is nothing but...

Then the gloomy love of life awoke once more in some of them. Many, finding themselves under the...

The impression which he had formerly experienced when falling from the wall into the convent...

Such was this ancient Paris, delivered over to quarrels, to indecision, and to gropings. It was...

After the lapse of a few minutes, he was no longer blind. A little light fell through the man hole...

On that bank, two men, separated by a certain distance, seemed to be watching each other while...

Jean Valjean read these four lines by the light of the air hole, and remained for a moment as...

Must he then stop there. What was he to do. What was to become of him. He had not the strength to...

A spy of the first quality, who had observed everything, listened to everything, and taken in...

The doctor, who was beginning to be uneasy in both quarters, quitted Marius for a moment, went to...

This new chief, God, he became unexpectedly conscious of, and he felt embarrassed by him. This...

When he had compassed a hundred strides, the day, which was already beginning to break, came to his...

M. Gillenormand, clutched by the throat by his own phrase, could not proceed. Being able neither to...

It was arranged that the couple should live with the grandfather M. Gillenormand insisted on...

A few days before that fixed on for the marriage, an accident happened to Jean Valjean; he crushed...

Illumination as brilliant as the daylight is the necessary seasoning of a great joy. Mist and...

Martyrdom is sublimation, corrosive sublimation. It is a torture which consecrates. One can consent...

At that moment, a door at the other end of the drawing room opened gently half way, and in the...

The old symbols of Genesis are eternal; in human society, such as it now exists, and until a...