Join Host Bree Carlile as she reads the one hundred sixty-eighth chapter of Les Miserables.

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>> Brie Carlisle: Take a look, in the book and let's see

what we can find

to take it

chapter by chapter one fight

at a time

so many adventures and mountains

we can climb

take it word for word, line by

line, one bite at a time.

>> Brie Carlisle: Welcome to.

>> Brie Carlisle: Byte at a time books where we read you your favorite

classics one byte at a time. my name is Bree

Carlisle and I love to read and wanted to share

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>> Brie Carlisle: Values today well be

continuing.

Les miserables by Victor Hugo

Book Third the grandfather and the

grandson chapter

one an ancient salon

when Monsieur Gillon Normand lived in the ruse of

Rendoni, he had frequented many very

good and very aristocratic salons.

Although a bourgeois, Monsieur de Normand was received

in society as he had had a double measure of

wit. In the first place, that which was born with

him, and secondly, that which was attributed to him.

He was even sought out and made much of

he never went anywhere except on condition of being the chief

person there. There are people who will have

influence at any price and who will have other people

busy themselves over them. When they cannot be oracles,

they turn wags. Monsieur de Lenormand

was not of this nature. His domination in

the royalist salons which he frequented cost his

self respect nothing. He was an oracle

everywhere. It had happened to him to hold his

own against Monsieur des Benalds and even against Monsieur

Beny Pouvelet. About

1817, he invariably passed two

afternoons a week in a house in his own neighborhood, in the roof

row with Madame le Baron de T. A

worthy and respectable person whose husband

had been ambassador of France to Berlin under Louis

XVI. Baron de T, who

during his lifetime had gone very passionately into

ecstasies and magnetic visions, had died

bankrupt during the emigration, leaving

as his entire fortune some very curious

memoirs about Mesmer and his tub in ten

manuscript volumes, bound in red Morocco and

gilded on the edges. Madame de T. Had

not published the memoirs out of pride, and

maintained herself on a meager income which had

survived no one knew how. Madame de

T. Lived far from the court, a very mixed

society, as she said, in a noble

isolation, proud and

poor. A few friends assembled twice a week

about our widowed hearth, and these constituted a

purely royalist salon. They sipped

tea there and uttered groans or cries of

horror at the century, the charter, the

Bonapartists, the prostitution of the blue ribbon, or the

jacobinism of Louis XVIII, according

as the wind veered towards elegy or

dithyrambs. And they spoke in low tones

of the hopes which were presented by Monsieur after Charles

X. The songs of the

fishwomen, in which Napoleon was called Nicholas

were received there with transports of joy.

Duchesses, the most delicate and charming women

in the world, went into ecstasies over couplets

like the following addressed to the

reference dens von Sculatzen, le

bates, mies que vospend quan

dis pas que les patriotes

unt obre la dra blanc.

There they amused themselves with puns which were

considered terrible, with innocent plays upon

words which they supposed to be venomous, with quatrains,

with distiches, even thus,

upon the desolates ministry, a moderate cabinet

of which monseigneur, deaconess, and d'esserer were

members. Horror from here le

tron embrellis sur sebes il fats

changer de sol et ecerre et

casse. Or they drew up a list of the

chamber of peers, an abominably jacobin

chamber. And from this list they combined

alliances of names in such a manner as to form,

for example, phrases like the

demes sabrin quem sincere.

All this was done merrily in that

society. They parodied the revolution. They

used I know not what desires to give point to the same

wrath. In inverse sense, they sang their little ka

ira. Ah, ca ira, ca ira, ca

ira. Les bonapartists a la lantern

songs are like the guillotine they chop away

indifferently. Today this said

tomorrow that it is only a variation

in a full disfair, which belongs to this

epoch, 1816. They took part for

bastid and Jassin. Because Faldis

was a Bonapartist, they designated the

liberals as friends and brothers. This

constituted the most deadly insult.

Like certain church towers, Madame de t Salon had two

cocks. One of them was Monsieur de

Lenormand. The other was Count de la

Matreula, of whom it was whispered about with

a sort of respect. Do you know that

is ly moth of the affair of the necklace. These

singular amnesties do occur in parties.

Let us add, the. In the borga

sea, honoured situations decay

through two easy relations. One must beware

whom one admits, in the same way that there is a loss of

caloric in the vicinity of those who are cold.

There is a diminution of consideration in the approach of

despised persons. The ancient society of the

upper classes held themselves above this law as

above every other. Marigny, the brother of the

Pompadour, had his entry with Monsieur le prince de

Cebris in spite of

no, because du

Barry, the godfather of the Vaubronier,

was very welcome at the house of Monsieur le Marchal de

Richelieu. This society is

Olympus Mercury and the prince de

Guemene are at home there. A thief is

admitted there, provided he be a God. Le

count de la Mothe, who in 1815 was an old

man, 75 years of age, had nothing remarkable

about him except his silent and sententious air,

his cold and angular face, his

perfectly polished manners, his coat buttoned up

to his cravat, and his long legs always crossed in

long, flabby trousers of the hue of burnt Sienna.

His face was the same color as his trousers.

This monsieur de la Mothe was held in consideration in the

salon on account of his celebrity and,

strange to say, though true, because of his

name of Valois. As for Monsieur de la

Normand, his consideration was of absolutely first

rate quality. He had, in spite of his

levity and without its interfering in any way, with his

dignity, a certain manner about him which was

imposing, dignified, honest and

lofty in a bourgeois fashion,

and his great age added to it. One

is not a century with impunity. Lyres

finally produce around a head of venerable dishevelment.

In addition to this, he said things which had the genuine sparkle

of the old rock. Thus, when the king of

Prussia, after having restored Louis XVIII,

came to pay the latter a visit under the name of Count de

Ruypin, he was received by the descendant of

Louis XIV, somewhat as though he had been the

marquis de Brandeburg. And with the most

delicate impertinence, M. De la Normand

approved. All kings who are not the king of France,

said he, are provincial kings.

One day the following question was put, and the

following answer returned in his presence. To

what was the editor of the courier Francais

condemned to be suspended?

Sus is superfluous, observed M. De

Norenormand. Remarks of this nature found a

situation at the Te Deum on the

anniversary of the return of the Bourbons, he said, on seeing

Monsieur de Talleyrand pass by, there goes his

Excellency, the evil one. Monsieur de

Lenormand was always accompanied by his daughter,

that, tall mademoiselle who was over 40 and looked

50, and by a handsome little boy of seven

years, white, rosy,

fresh, with happy and trusting eyes,

who never appeared in that salon without hearing voices murmur

around him. How handsome he is. What

a pity. Poor child.

This child was the one of whom we dropped a word a while

ago. He was called poor child because

he had for a father a brigand of the lore.

This brigand of the lore was Monsieur Gillenormans son in

law, who had already been mentioned and whom Monsieur

de Lenormand called the disgrace of his family.

Thank you for joining Byte at a time. Books today while

we read a bite of one of your favorite classics.

Again, my name is Brie Carlisle, and I

hope you come back tomorrow, for the next bite of

Les Miserables.

>> Brie Carlisle: Dont forget to sign up for our

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