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

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

what we can find.

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: Bite at a time books where we read you your favorite

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>> Brie Carlisle: Today we'll be continuing. Les

Miserables by Victor Hugo

chapter two one of the red specters of

that epoch, anyone

who had chanced to pass through the little town of Vernon at this

epoch, and who had happened to walk across that

fine monumental bridge, which will soon be

succeeded, let us hope,

by some hideous iron cable bridge might

have observed, had he dropped his eyes over the

parapet, a man about 50 years of age, wearing

a leather cap and trousers and a waistcoat of coarse

grey cloth, to which something yellow, which had

been a red ribbon, was sewn, shod with wooden

sabots, tanned by the sun, his

face nearly black and his hair nearly white.

A large scar on his forehead which ran down upon his

cheek, bowed, bent,

prematurely aged, who walked nearly

every day, hoe and sickle in hand, in one of

those compartments surrounded by walls which abut

on the bridge and the border, the left bank of the seine, like a chain

of terraces, charming enclosures

full of flowers of which one could say, were they much

larger? These are gardens, and,

were they a little smaller? These are bouquets.

All these enclosures abut upon the river at one

end and on a house at the other.

The man in the waistcoat and the wooden shoes of whom we have just

spoken inhabited the smallest of these

enclosures and the most humble of these houses, about

1817. He lived there

alone in solitary,

silently and poorly, with a woman who was

neither young nor old, neither homely

nor pretty, neither a peasant nor

bourgeoise who served him. A plot of

earth, which he called his garden, was celebrated in the town for the beauty

of the flowers which he cultivated there.

These flowers were his occupation.

By dint of labor, perseverance, of

attention, and of buckets of water. He had

succeeded in creating after the creator. And

he had invented certain tulips and certain dahlias

which seemed to have been forgotten by nature.

He was ingenious. He had forestalled

soulnge, bowden in the formation of little clumps, of earth, of heath

mold for the cultivation of rare and precious

shrubs from America and china.

He was in his alleys from the break of day in

summer, planting, cutting, hoeing,

watering, walking amid his flowers with an air

of kindness, sadness and

sweetness, sometimes standing

motionless and thoughtful for hours,

listening to the song of a bird in the trees, the

babble of a child in a house, or with his eyes

fixed on a drop of dew at the tip of a spear of grass of

which the sun made a carbuncle. His

table was very plain, and. And he drank more milk

than wine. A child could make him give way,

and his servants scolded him. He was so

timid that he seemed shy. He rarely

went out, and he saw no one but the poor

people who tapped at his pain and his cure, the abbe

Mabeuf, a good old man.

Nevertheless, if the inhabitants of the town

were strangers or any chance comers

curious to see his tulips rang at his little

cottage, he opened his door with a smile.

He was the brigand of the lore.

Anyone who had, at the same time read military

memoirs, biographies, the moniteur, and

the bulletins of the grand army would have been struck by a name which

occurs there with tolerable frequency, the name

of Georges Pontmercy. When very

young, Miss Georges Pontmercy had been a soldier

in the Saintongs regiment, the revolution broke

out. Tsingtungs regiment formed a part of the

army of the Rhine, for the old regiments of the monarchy

preserved their names of provinces even after the fall of the

monarchy and were only divided into brigades. In

1794, Pontmercy fought

at Speyer, at Worms, at

Nesdat, at Turkheim, at Alsi, at

Mayence, where he was one of the 200 who

formed huuchards rearguard. It was the 12th

to hold its ground against the core of the prince of Hesse

behind the old rampart of Andernash, and only

rejoined the main body of the army when the enemys cannon had opened

a breach from the court of the parapet to the foot of the

glacis. He was under clabor at

Marchioness and at the battle of Mont Pelissel,

where a ball from a bishgain broke his arm.

Then he passed to the frontier of Italy and

was one of the 30 grenadiers who defended the col. Destande with

Joubert. Joubert was appointed its

adjutant general and Pontmercy sub

lieutenant. Pontmercy was by Berthiers

side in the midst of the grape shot of that day at Lodi,

which caused Bonaparte to say, Berthier has

been cannoneer, cavalier and grenadier.

He beheld his old General Joubert fall at

Novi at the moment when, with uplifted

saber, he was shouting forward,

having been embarked with his company in the exigencies of

the campaign. On board a penance which was

proceeding from Genoa to some obscure port on the

coast, he fell into a wasps nest of

seven or eight english vessels. The

d'nonice commander wanted to throw his cannon into the

sea to hide the soldiers between decks

and to slip along in the dark as a merchant vessel.

Pontmercy had the colors hoisted to the peak

and sailed proudly past under the guns of the british

frigates. 20 leagues further

on, his audacity having increased, he

attacked with his pinnace and captured a large english

transport which was carrying troops to Sicily, and

which was so loaded down with men and horses that the vessel was

sunk to the level of the sea. In

1805 he was in that Malheur division which took

Gunsberg from the Archduke Ferdinand.

At, Waltingen. He received into his arms beneath a

storm of bullets Colonel Mapetit. Mortally

wounded at the head of the 9th dragoons. He

distinguished himself at Austerlitz in that admirable march in

echelons effected under the enemys fire,

when the cavalry of the imperial Russian Guard crushed a battalion

of the fourth of the line. Pomcy was one of

those who took their revenge and overthrew the guard.

The emperor gave him the cross.

Pontmercy saw Wormser at Mantua,

Milus and Alexandria. Mack

at Ulm made prisoners in succession.

He formed a part of the 8th Corps of the Grand army, which

Mortier commanded and which captured

Hamburg. Then he was transferred to the

55th of the line, which was the old regiment of

Flanders. At Eyelau he was in the

cemetery where, for the space of 2 hours,

the heroic captain Louis Hugo, the uncle of the

author of this book, sustained alone with his company of 83

Mendez every effort of the hostile

army. Pontmercy was one of the three who

emerged alive from that cemetery. He was at

Friedland, then he saw Moscow,

then Ler Berrucina, then

Lutzen, Botzen, Dresden, Washau,

Leipzig, and defiles of General Hazen,

then Montmirail, Chateau

Thierry, Crayon, the banks of the

Marne, the banks of the Eisnye, and the redoubtable

position of Laon at Arnay le Duc.

Being then a captain, he put ten cossacks to

the sword and saved not his general,

but his corporal. He was well slashed up

upon this occasion, and, 27 splinters were

extracted from his left arm alone.

Eight days before the capitulation of Paris, he had

just exchanged with a comrade and entered the cavalry.

He had, what was called, under the old regime, double

hand, that is to say, an equal aptitude

for handling the sabre or the musket as a soldier,

or a squadron, or a battalion as an officer.

It is from this aptitude,

perfected by a military education, which

certain special branches of the service arise. The

dragoons, for example, who are both cavalrymen and

infantry. At one and the same time he accompanied

Napoleon to the island of Elba. At

Waterloo he was chief of a squadron of cuirasses

in Dubois brigade. It was he

who captured the standard of the Lunnenberg battalion.

He came and cast the flag at the emperors feet.

He was covered with blood. While tearing down the

banner, he had received a sword cut across his face.

The emperor, greatly pleased, shouted to

him, you are a colonel, you are a baron, you

are an officer of the Legion of Honor.

Pontmercy replied, sire, I thank you for

my widow. An hour later he fell in

the ravine of Ohain. Now, who

was this gourges? Pomtmercy? He was

this same brigand of the Loire. Weve already seen

something of his history. After Waterloo.

Pontmercy, who had been pulled out of the hollow road of Ohain,

as it will be remembered, had succeeded in

joining the army, and had dragged himself from ambulance to

ambulance as far as the cantonments of the lore.

The restoration had placed him on half pay,

then had sent him into residence, that is

to say, under surveillance at Vernon. King

Louis XVIII, regarding all that which had taken place during the

hundred days as not having occurred at all, did not

recognize his quality as an officer of the Legion of

Honor, nor is grade of colonel, nor

is title of baron. He on his

side, neglected no occasion of signing himself

Colonel Baron Pontmercy. He had only

an old blue coat, and he never went out without

fastening to it his rosette as an officer of the Legion of

Honor. The attorney for the crown had him

warned that the authorities would prosecute him for illegal

wearing of this decoration. When this

notice was conveyed to him through an officious

intermediary, Pontmercy retorted with a bitter

smile, I do not know whether I no longer understand

French or whether you no longer speak it, but the fact

is that I do not understand. Then He

went out for eight successive days with his rosette.

They dared not interfere with him. Two or three times the

minister of war and the general in command of the department

wrote to him with the following Monsieur le

Commandant Pontmercy. He sent back the

letters with the seals unbroken. At the same

moment, Napoleon at St. Helena was treating in the same

fashion the missives of Sir Hudson Lao,

addressed to General Bonaparte.

Pompmercy had ended, may we be

pardoned the expression, by having in his mouth the same

saliva as his emperor. In the same

way there were at Rome carthaginian prisoners who

refused to salute Flaminius and who had a

little of Hannibal's spirit. One day he

encountered the district attorney in one of the streets of Vernon,

stepped up to him and said, Mister crown attorney,

am I permitted to wear my scar? He

had nothing save his meager half pay. As chief of

squadron, he had hired the smallest house which he could

find at Vernon. He lived there alone.

We have just seen how under the empire,

between two wars, he had found time to marry Mademoiselle

Gillenormand. The old bourgois,

thoroughly indignant at bottom, had given him consent with

a sigh, saying, the greatest families are forced into

it. In 1815,

Madame Pontmercy, an admirable woman in

every sense, by the way, lofty in

sentiment and rare and worthy of her husband,

died leaving a child.

This child had been the colonel's joy in his solitude,

but the grandfather had imperatively claimed his

grandson, declaring that if the child were not given to

him, he would disinherit him. The

father had yielded in the little one's interest and had

transferred his love to flowers.

Moreover, he had renounced everything and

neither stirred up mischief nor conspired.

He shared his thoughts between the innocent things which he was then doing

and the great things which he had done. He passed

his time in expecting a pink or in recalling

Austerlitz. Monsieur Gillenormand kept up no

relations with his son in law. The colonel was a

bandit to him. Monsieur Gillenormand never

mentioned the colonel, except when he occasionally made

mocking allusions to his baronship. It

had been expressly agreed that Pontmercy should never attempt

to see his son nor speak to him under penalty of having the

latter handed over to him disowned and disinherited.

For the Gillenormans, Pompmercy was a man

afflicted with the plague. They intended to bring up the

child in their own way. Perhaps the

colonel was wrong to accept these conditions,

but he submitted to them, thinking

that he was doing right and sacrificing no one but

himself. The inheritance of Father

Gillenormand did not amount to much, but the

inheritance of Mademoiselle Gillenormand the elder, was

considerable. This aunt, who had

remained unmarried, was very rich on the maternal

side, and her sisters son was her natural

heir. The boy, whose name was

Marius, knew that he had a father,

but nothing more. No one opened his mouth

to him about it. Nevertheless, in the society

into which his grandfather took him, whispers,

innuendos and winks had eventually enlightened the little

boys mind. He had finally understood something of the

case, and as he naturally took in the ideas and opinions

which were, so to speak, the air he

breathed, a, sort of infiltration in slow

penetration, he gradually came to think of his

father only with shame and with a pain at his heart.

While he was growing up in this fashion, a colonel

slipped away every two or three months, came to Paris

on the sly, like a criminal breaking his ban,

and went and posted himself at St Silpis at the

hour when aunt Jilla Norman led Marius to

mass. There,

trembling, lest the aunt should turn round,

concealed behind a pillar, motionless, not

daring to breathe, he gazed at his

childhood. The scarred veteran was

afraid of that old spinster. From this

had arisen his connection with the curie of Vernon. Monsieur le

Abbe Mabeuf, that worthy

priest, was the brother of a warden of St Sulpice,

who had often observed this man gazing at his child

and the scar on his cheek and the large tears in his

eyes. That man, who had so

manly an air yet who was weeping like a woman, had struck the

warden. That face had clung to

his mind.

One day, having gone to Vernon to see his brother, he

had encountered Colonel Pontmercy on the bridge and had

recognized the man of St. Sulpice. The warden

had mentioned the circumstance to the cure and both

had paid the colonel a visit on some pretext or other.

This visit led to others. The

colonel, who had been extremely reserved at first,

ended by opening his heart. The

cure and the warden finally came to know the whole

history and how pompmercy was sacrificing his

happiness to his childs future.

This caused the curie to regard him with veneration and

tenderness, and the colonel on his

side became fond of the cure.

And moreover, when both are sincere and

good, no men so penetrate each other

and so amalgamate with each other. As an old priest and an

old soldier, at bottom, the man is

the same. The one has devoted his life

to his country here below, the other to his country

on high. That is the only difference.

Twice a year, on the 1 January and on St. Georges

Day, Marius wrote duty letters to his

father, which were dictated by his aunt

and which one would have pronounced to be copied from some

formula. This was all that Monsieur de

Lenormand tolerated, and the father answered them with

very tender letters, which the grandfather thrust into his

pocket unread.

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

Le Miserable.

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

newsletter@byteoutoftimebooks.com, and check

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

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the rest of the link for our show. Wed love to hear

from you on social media as well.

>> Brie Carlisle: 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

forward line by line one

bite at a time

close.