Join Host Bree Carlile as she reads the sixty-third chapter of Les Miserables.

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>> Speaker A: Take a look, in the book and let's see

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Take it chapter by chapter. One

fight M at a time

so many adventures and

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to give word for word, line by

line, one bite at a time.

>> Brie Carlisle: Welcome.

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

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>> Brie Carlisle: Values today well be

continuing.

Les Miserable by Victor Hugo

chapter nine a place where

convictions are in process of formation.

He advanced a pace, closed the door mechanically

behind him and remained standing, contemplating what

he saw. It was a vast and

badly lighted apartment, now full of

uproar, now full of silence,

or all the apparatus of a criminal case with

its petty and mournful gravity. In the midst of the

throng was in process of development. At

the one end of the hall, the one where he was,

were judges with abstracted air and

threadbare robes who were gnawing their nails or closing their

eyelids. At the other end,

a ragged crowd, lawyers in all sorts

of attitudes, soldiers with hard but honest

faces, ancient spotted woodwork,

a dirty ceiling, tables covered with serge

that was yellow rather than green, doors

blackened by handmarks. Taproom lamps

which emitted more smoke than light, suspended from nails. In the

wainscot on the tables, candles and

brass candlesticks. Darkness,

ugliness, sadness. And from

all this there was disengaged and austere and august

impression. For one, there felt

that grand, human thing which is called the law.

And that grand, divine thing which is called

justice. No one in all that

throng paid any attention to him. All

glances were directed towards a single point.

A wooden bench placed against a small door

in a stretch of wall. On the presidents left.

On this bench, illuminated by several

candles, sat a man between two gemmed arms.

This man was the, man.

He did not seek him. He saw

him. His eyes went thither,

naturally, as though they had known beforehand where that

figure was. He thought he was looking at

himself. Grown old.

Not absolutely the same in face, of course, but exactly

similar in attitude and aspect. With his

bristling hair. With that wild and

uneasy eye, with that blouse. Just as it was on the

day when he entered d. Full of hatred,

concealing his soul in that hideous mass of frightful

thoughts. Which he had spent 19 years in

collecting on the floor of the prison. He said

to himself with a shudder, good God,

shall I become like that again?

This creature seemed to be at least 60. there was

something indescribably coarse,

stupid and frightened about him. At the

sound made by the opening door, people had drawn aside to make way for

him. The president had turned his head,

and understanding that the personage who had just entered

was the mayor of M, Sir M. He had bowed to

him. The attorney general, who had seen Monsieur

Madeleine at m sur m, whether the duties of his office had called

him more than once, recognized him and

saluted him. Also, he had hardly perceived

it. He was the victim of a sort of

hallucination. He was

watching judges, clerks,

gendarmes, a throng of cruelly curious

heads. All these he had already beheld

once in days gone by, 27 years

before. He had encountered those fatal things once

more. There they were.

They moved. They existed.

It was no longer an effort of his memory,

a mirage of his thought. They were real

gendarmes and real judges, a real

crowd and real men of flesh and blood.

It was all over. He beheld the

monstrous aspects of his past reappear. And live once more around

him with all that there is formidable in reality.

All. Ah, this was yawning before him.

He was horrified by it. He shut his eyes

and exclaimed in the deepest recesses of his soul,

never. And, by a tragic play of

destiny which made all his ideas tremble and

rendered him nearly mad. It was another self of his that

was there. All called that man who was being

tried, Jean Valjean. Under his very

eyes, unheard of vision. He had a sort

of representation of the most horrible moment of his

life. Enacted by his spectre.

Everything was there. The apparatus was the

same. The hour of the night. The faces

of the judges, of soldiers and of spectators,

all were the same. Only above the

presidents head there hung a crucifix,

something which the courts had lacked at the time of his

condemnation. God had been absent

when he had been judged. There was a chair

behind him. Hed dropped into it, terrified

at the thought that he might be seen. When he was seated,

he took advantage of a pile of cardboard boxes.

Which stood on the judges desk. To conceal his face. From the

whole room, he could now see

without being, seen. He had fully

regained consciousness of the reality of things.

Gradually, he recovered. He attained that

phase of composure where it is possible to listen.

Monsieur Bermotte Bois was one of the

jurors. He looked for Javert, but did

not see him. The seat of the witnesses was hidden

from him by the clerks table.

And then, as we have just said, the hall was barely

lighted at the moment of this entrance.

The defendants lawyer had just finished his plea.

The attention of all was excited to the highest pitch.

The affair had lasted for 3 hours. For

3 hours, that crowd had been watching a strange

man, a miserable specimen of humanity,

either profoundly stupid or profoundly

subtle. Gradually bending beneath the weight of a terrible

likeness. This man, as, the

reader already knows, was a vagabond. Who had been found in a

field carrying a branch laden with ripe apples,

broken in the orchard of a neighbor called the Pierron

orchard. Who was this man?

An examination had been made. Witnesses had

been heard, and they were unanimous.

Light had abounded throughout the entire debate. The

accusation said, we have in our grasp not only a

marauder, a steal or a fruit. We have

here in our hands a bandit, an old offender who has

broken his band. An ex convict, a

miscreant of the most dangerous description. A male

factor named Jean Valjean, whom, justice has long been in

search of. And who, eight years ago, on emerging from

the galleys at Toulon, committed a highway robbery,

accompanied by violence on the person of a child,

a savoyard named Little Dravaille. A

crime provided for by article 383 of the penal

code, the right to try him, for which we reserve

hereafter. When his identity shall have been

judiciously established. He has just

committed a fresh theft. It is a case of a second

offense. Condemn him for the fresh deed.

Later on, he will be judged for the old crime.

In the face of this accusation, in the

face of the unanimity of the witnesses. The

accused appeared to be astonished. More than anything else,

he made signs and gestures. Which were meant to convey

no. Or else he stared at the ceiling.

He spoke with difficulty, replied with embarrassment. But

his whole person, from head to foot, was a

denial. He was an idiot in the presence of all.

These minds ranged in order of battle around him.

And like a stranger in the midst of the society which was

seizing fast upon him. Nevertheless,

it was a question of the most menacing future. For him,

the likeness increased every moment. And the

entire crowd surveyed with more anxiety than he did

himself. That sentence, frightened with

calamity. Which descended ever closer over his

head. There was even a glimpse of a

possibility afforded, besides the

galleys, a possible death penalty. In

case his identity were established. And the affair of

little Dravai were to end thereafter in condemnation.

Who was this man? What was the nature of

his apathy? Was, it imbecility or

craft? Did he understand too well, or

did he not understand at all? These were

questions which divided the crowd. And seemed to

divide the jury. There was something both

terrible and puzzling. In this case.

The drama was not only melancholy. It was

also obscure. The counsel for the

defense had spoken tolerably well. In that

provincial tongue. Which has long constituted the

eloquence of the bar. And which was formerly

employed by all advocates at, Paris. As well as

at Ramoreton or at

Montbresin. And which today, having

become classic, is no longer spoken.

Except by the official orators of the magistracy.

To whom it is suited on account of its grave

sonorousness and its majestic

stride. A tongue in which a husband is called

a consort. And a woman a spouse.

Paris, the center of art and

civilization. The king, the

monarch. Monseigneur. The bishop. A sainted

pontiff. The district attorney.

The eloquent interpreter of public prosecution.

The arguments, the accents which we have just

listened to. The age of Louis XIV.

The grand age. The theater.

The temple of Montpelmine. The reigning

family. August blood of our kings.

A concert. A musical solemnity.

The general commandment of the province. The

illustrious warrior who, etcetera.

The pupils in the seminary. These

tender levities, errors imputed to

newspapers. The imposture which distills its

venom through the columns of those organs,

etcetera. The lawyer had

accordingly begun with an explanation.

As to the theft of the apples. An awkward matter

couched in fine style. The benign

bossuet himself was obliged to allude to a chicken. In the

fine midst of a funeral oration. Andy

extricated himself from the situation. In stately

fashion, the lawyer established the fact that

the theft of the apples had not been circumstantially

proved. His client, whom

he, in his character of counsel, persisted

in calling chant Mathieu had not been seen

scaling that wall or breaking that branch

by anyone. He had been taken with that

branch which the lawyer preferred to call

about in his possession. But he said

that he had found it broken off and lying on the ground and had

picked it up. Where was there any proof to the

contrary? No doubt that branch had

been broken off and concealed after the scaling of the

wall, then thrown away by the alarmed

marauder. There was no doubt that there had been a thief in

the case. But what proof was there

that that thief had been chant Mathieu?

One thing only. his character as an ex

convict. The lawyer did not deny

that that character appeared to be unhappily

well attested. The accused had

resided at Faverole. The accused had

exercised the calling of a tree pruner there. The

name of Chant Mathieu might well have had its origin in John

Mathieu. That was true.

In short, four witnesses recognized Champ

Mathieu positively and without hesitation

as that convict Jean Valjean.

To these signs, to this

testimony, the council could oppose nothing but the

denial of his client, the denial of an interested

party. But supposing that he

was the convict Jean Valjean, did that

prove that he was the thief of the apples?

That was a presumption at the most. Not a

proof. The prisoner, it was true. And

his counsel, in good faith was obliged to admit

it, had adopted a bad system of

defense. He obstinately denied

everything, the theft and his character of

convict. An admission upon this last point

would certainly have been better and would have won for him the indulgence of

his judges. The council had advised him to do

this, but the accused had obstinately

refused, thinking no doubt that he would save everything

by admitting nothing. It was an

error, but odd, not the paucity of this intelligence to be taken

into consideration. This man was

visibly stupid. Long continued wretchedness

in the galleys, long misery outside the

galleys had brutalized him, etcetera.

He defended himself badly. Was that

a reason for condemning him as, ah, for the affair with

little Dravaille? The counsel need not discuss

it. It did not enter into the case.

The lawyer wound up by beseeching the jury and the

court, if the identity of Jean Valjean appeared

to them to be evident, to apply to him the police

penalties which are provided for a criminal who has broken his

ban. And, not the frightful chastisement which descends

upon the convict guilty of a second offense.

The district attorney answered the counsel for the

defense. He was violent and

florid, as ah, district attorneys usually

are. He congratulated the counsel for the

defense on his loyalty and

skillfully took advantage of this loyalty. He

reached the accused through all the concessions made by his

lawyer. The advocate had seemed to admit that

the prisoner was Jean Valjean. He took note

of this. So this man was Jean

Valjean. This point had been conceded

to the accusation and could no longer be

disputed. Here, by means of a

clever autonomy which went back to the sources

and causes of crime, the district attorney thundered

against the immorality of the romantic school.

Then dawning under the name of the satanic school which

had been bestowed upon it by the critics of the Quintienne and

the Oriflamme. He attributed

not, without some probability to the influence of

this perverse literature, the crime of chant Mathieu,

or rather, to speak more correctly, of Jean

Valjean. Having exhausted these

considerations, he passed on to Jean Valjean

himself. Who was this Jean

Valjean? Description of Jean Valjean.

A monster spewed forth, etcetera. The

model for this sort of description is contained in the tale of there

Maine, which is not useful to

tragedy, but which every day renders great services

to judicial eloquence. The audience and the

jury shuddered. The

description finished, the district attorney resumed with

an oratorical turn, calculated to raise the

enthusiasm of the journal of the prefecture to the highest pitch on

the following day. And it is such a

man. Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

Vagabond, beggar without means of existence.

Etcetera, etcetera. Inured by his past

life to culpable deeds, and but little reformed

by his sojourn in the galleys, as was proved by the crime

committed against little Gervais. Etcetera,

etcetera. It is such a man caught upon the

highway in the very act of theft, a few paces from a

wall that had been scaled, still holding in his hand the

object stolen. Who denies the crime, the

theft, the climbing the wall denies

everything, denies even his own identity. in

addition to a hundred other proofs to which we will not

recur, four witnesses recognize him.

Javert, the upright inspector of police.

Javert and three of his former companions in

infamy, the convicts brevet,

Chinledieu and cockapel. What does he

offer in opposition to this overwhelming unanimity?

His denial. What obduracy.

You will do justice. Gentlemen of the jury. Etcetera,

etcetera. While the district attorney was speaking.

The accused listened to him open mouthed, with a

sort of amazement in which some admiration was

assuredly blended. He was evidently

surprised that a man could talk like that

from time to time, at those energetic

moments of the prosecutors speech, when

eloquence, which cannot contain itself,

overflows in a flood of withering epithets and envelops

the accused like a storm. He moved his head

slowly from right to left and

from left to right in the sort of mute

and melancholy protest with which he had

contented himself since the beginning of the argument.

Two or three times the spectators who were nearest to him

heard him say in a low voice, that is what

comes of not having asked. Monsieur Balop,

the district attorney, directed the attention of the jury to this

stupid attitude, evidently deliberate,

which denoted not imbecility but

craft, skill, a habit of

deceiving justice, and which set forth in all its

nakedness the profound perversity of this man.

He ended by making his reserves on the affair of little

Dravaille and demanding a severe sentence.

At that time, as the reader will

remember, it was penal servitude for life.

The counsel for the defense rose, began

by complimenting Monsieur Le advocate general on his

admirable speech, then replied as

best he could. But he

weakened. The ground was

evidently slipping away from under his feet.

Thank you for joining bite at a time books today while we

read a bite of one of your favorite classics.

Again, my name is Brie Carlyle, and

I hope you come back tomorrow, for the next bite of

Le miserable.

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

newsletter@biteadatimebooks.com, and

check out the shop. You can check out the show notes

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>> Speaker A: Take a look and look and let's

see what we can find

take it chapter by chapter one

night at a time

so many adventures and

mountains we can climb

line by line, one bite at a time.