Join Host Bree Carlile as she reads the forty-fourth chapter of Les Miserables.

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

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>> Brie Carlisle: So.

>> Speaker A: Many adventures and mountains

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line, one bite at a time.

>> Brie Carlisle: Welcome to bite at a time books where we read you your

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>> Brie Carlisle: Values today well be

continuing.

Les Miserable, by Victor Hugo

chapter five Vague flashes on the

horizon little by

little, and in the course of time

all this opposition subsided. There

had at first been exercised against Monsieur Madeleine

in virtue of a sort of law which all those who

rise must submit to blackening

in calumnies. Then they grew to be

nothing more than ill nature, then

merely malicious remarks. Then even this

entirely disappeared. Respect became

complete, unanimous,

cordial. And towards

1821, the moment arrived when the word

Monseigne le Mer was pronounced at m sur

m with almost the same accent as Monsignor the bishop had been

pronounced in d in 1815.

People came from a distance of ten leagues around to consult

Monsieur Madeleine. He put an end

to differences. He prevented lawsuits,

he reconciled enemies. Everyone took

him for the judge, and with good reason. It

seemed as though he had for his soul the book of the natural

law. It was like an epidemic of

veneration, which in the course of six or

seven years, gradually took possession of the whole district.

One single man in the town, in the

arrondissement, absolutely escaped this

contagion. And whatever Father Madeleine

did remained his opponent, as though a sort of

incorruptible and imperturbable instinct kept him on

the alert and uneasy. it seems, in fact, as though there

existed in certain men a veritable bestial

instinct, though pure and upright,

like all instincts, which creates antipathies and

sympathies, which fatally separates one

nature from another nature, which does not

hesitate, which feels no disquiet,

which does not hold its peace. And which never belies

itself clear in its obscurity.

infallible, imperious, intractable,

stubborn to all counsels of the intelligence and to

all the dissolvents of reason. And which, in whatever

manner destinies are arranged, secretly

warns the man dog of the presence of the man cat

and the man fox of the presence of the man lion.

It frequently happened that when Monsieur Madeleine was

passing along a street, calm,

affectionate, surrounded by the blessings of all,

a man of lofty stature, clad in an iron

grey frock coat, armed with a heavy cane and

wearing a battered hat, turned round abruptly

behind him and followed him with his eyes until he

disappeared with folded arms and a slow

shake of the head and his upper lip raised

in company with his lower to his nose, a

sort of significant grimace which might be

translated by, what is that man after all?

I certainly have seen him somewhere. In any case, I am

not his dupe. This person,

grave with a gravity which was almost menacing,

was one of those men who, even when only seen by a

rapid glimpse, arrest the spectators

attention. His name was

Javert, and he belonged to the police.

At M. Sur m he exercised the unpleasant but

useful functions of an inspector. He

had not seen Madeleines beginnings. Javert

owed the post which he occupied to the protection of Monsieur

Chaboulier, the secretary of the minister of

state, Count Inglis, then

prefect of police at Paris. When Javert

arrived at M. Sur M, the fortune of the great manufacturer was

already made, and Father Madeleine had become

Monsieur Madeleine. Certain police

officers have a peculiar physiognomy

which is complicated with an air of baseness mingled

with an air of authority. Javert possessed

this physiognomy minus the baseness.

It is our conviction that if souls are visible to the

eyes, we should be able to see distinctly that

strange thing, that each one individual of the human race

corresponds to someone of the species of the animal

creation. And we could easily recognize

this truth, hardly perceived by the thinker,

that from the oyster to the eagle, from the pig to

the tiger. All animals exist in

man. And that each one of them is in a man.

Sometimes even several of them at a time.

Animals are nothing else than the figures of our virtues. And

our vices. Straying before our eyes the

visible phantoms of our souls. God shows

them to us in order to induce us to reflect.

Only since animals are mere shadows. God

has not made them capable of education in the full sense of the

word. What is the use? On

the contrary, are souls being realities. And having a

goal which is appropriate to them? God has bestowed on

them intelligence. That is to say, the

possibility of education. Social

education, when well done. Can always draw from

a soul. Or whatever sort it may be the utility which

it contains. This, be, it

said, is, of course, from the restricted point of view of the terrestrial life.

Which is apparent. And without prejudging the profound

question. Of the anterior or ulterior personality of

the beings which are not man. The visible

eye in no wise authorizes the thinker to deny the

latent eye.

having made this reservation, let us pass on

now. If the reader will admit for a moment with us.

That in every man there is one of the animal species of

creation. It will be easy for us to say what there

was in police officer Javert. The

peasants of Asturias are convinced that in

every litter of wolves. There is one dog which

is killed by the mother. Because otherwise, as he grew up, he

would devour the other little ones.

Give to this dog, son of a wolf, a human

face, and the result will be Javert.

Javert had been born in prison of a fortune

teller. Whose husband was in the galleys.

As he grew up, he thought that he was outside the pale

of society, and he despaired of ever re entering

it. He observed that society

unpardoningly excludes two classes of

men. Those who attack it and those who

guard it. He had no choice except between these

two classes. At the same time, he

was conscious of an indescribable foundation of rigidity,

regularity and probity. Complicated, with

an inexpressible hatred for the race of bohemians. Whence he

was sprung, he entered the pleas.

He succeeded. There. At 40 years of

age, he was an inspector. During his

youth, he had been employed in the convict establishments of the

south. Before proceeding further, let

us come to an understanding. As to the words

human face. Which we have just applied to

Javert. The human face of Javert.

Consisted of a flat nose with two deep

nostrils. Towards which enormous whiskers ascended on

his cheeks. One felt ill at

ease when he saw these two forests in these two caverns for

the first time. When Javert

laughed and his laugh was rare and

terrible. His thin lips parted and

revealed to view not only his teeth but his

gums. And around his nose there formed a flattened

and savage fold as on the muzzle of a wild

beast. Javert,

Sirius was a watchdog when he left. He

was a tiger as, for.

>> Brie Carlisle: The rest he had very little skull.

>> Brie Carlisle: And a great deal of jaw. His hair concealed his

forehead and fell over his eyebrows. Between

his eyes there was a permanent central frown, like an

imprint of wrath. His gaze was

obscure, his mouth pursed up and

terrible his air that of ferocious

command. this man was composed of two very

simple and two very good sentiments

comparatively. But he rendered them almost bad

by dint of exaggerating them. Respect for

authority, hatred of rebellion. And in

his eyes, murder, robbery, all

crimes are only forms of rebellion.

He, enveloped in a blind and profound faith. Everyone

who had a function in the state from the prime minister

to the rural policeman. He covered with

scorn, aversion and disgust everyone who had

once crossed the legal threshold of evil. He was

absolute and admitted no exceptions.

On the one hand, he said, the functionary can make no

mistake. The magistrate is never the wrong.

On the other hand, he said, these men

are irremediably lost. Nothing good can come from

them. He fully shared the opinion of those

extreme minds which attribute to human law, I know not

what power of making or if the reader will have

it so, of authenticating demons and

who plays the sticks at the base of society.

He was stoical, serious,

austere, a melancholy

dreamer, humble and haughty like

fanatics. His glance was like a

gimlet, cold and piercing.

His whole life hung on these two words,

watchfulness and supervision. He had

introduced a straight line into what is the most crooked thing in the

world. He possessed the conscience of his

usefulness, the religion of his functions.

And he was a spy, as other men are priests.

Oh, to the man who fell into his hands. He would have

arrested his own father if the latter had escaped from the

galleys and would have denounced his mother if she had broken her

ban. And they would have done it with that sort of

inward satisfaction which is conferred by virtue

and withal. A life of privation,

isolation, abnegation, chastity. With

never a diversion. It was implacable

duty. The police understood

as the Spartans understood Sparta. A pitiless

lying in wait, a ferocious honesty.

A marble informer. Brutus and

Vidocq. Javerts whole person

was expressive of the man who spies and who withdraws himself

from observation. The mystical school of

Joseph de Maistre, which at that epoch

seasoned with lofty cosmigny. Those things which

were called the ultra newspapers would not have failed to

declare that Javert was a symbol. His brow

was not visible, it disappeared beneath his

hat. His eyes were not visible, since they were lost

under his eyebrows. His chin was not visible, for

it was plunged in his cravat. His hands were not

visible, they were drawn up in his sleeves. And his

cane was not visible. He carried it under his

coat. But when the occasion presented itself,

there was suddenly seen to emerge from all this shadow

as from an ambuscade. A narrow and angular

forehead, a baleful glance, a

threatening chin, enormous hands and a monstrous

cudgel. In his leisure months, which were

far from frequent, he read. Although he

hated books, this caused him to be not

wholly illiterate. This could be recognized by

some emphasis in his speech. As we have said,

he had no vices. When he was pleased with

himself, he permitted himself a pinch of snuff.

Therein lay his connection with humanity.

The reader will have no difficulty in understanding that

Javert was the terror of that whole class which the

annual statistics of the ministry of justice

designates under the rubric. Vagrants.

The name of Javert routed them by its mere

utterance. The face of Javert petrified them at

sight. Such was this formidable

man. Javert was like an eye

constantly fixed on Monsieur Madeleine. An

eye full of suspicion and conjecture.

Monsieur Madeleine had finally perceived the fact,

but it seemed to be of no importance to him.

He did not even put a question to Javert. He

neither sought nor avoided him. He bore

that embarrassing and almost oppressive gaze without appearing to

notice it. He treated Javert with ease

and courtesy, as he did all the rest of the world.

It was divined from some words which escaped Javert that

he had secretly investigated with that curiosity,

which belongs to the race and into which there enters

as much instinct as will all the anterior

traces which Father Madeleine might have left elsewhere.

He seemed to know, and he sometimes

said in covert words that, someone had

gleamed certain information in a certain district about

a family which had disappeared once he chanced

to say, as he was talking to himself, I think I have him.

Then he remained pensive for three days and

uttered not a word. It seemed that the

thread which he thought he held had broken,

moreover. And this furnishes the necessary

corrective for the too absolute sense which certain words

might present. There can be nothing really infallible

in a human creature, and the peculiarity of

instinct is that it can become confused,

thrown off the track and defeated. Otherwise,

it would be superior to intelligence, and the beast

would be found to be provided with better light than man.

Javert was evidently somewhat

disconcerted by the perfect naturalness and tranquility of

Monsieur Madeleine one day.

Nevertheless, his strange manner appeared to produce an

impression on Monsieur Madeleine. It was on the

following occasion.

Thank you for joining bite at a time books today while

we wrote a.

>> Brie Carlisle: Bite of one of your favorite classics.

>> Brie Carlisle: Again, my name is Bree 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@byteoutatimebooks.com, comma, and

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

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>> Speaker A: Take it chapter by chapter, one

at a time

so many adventures and

mountains we can climb

take your word for word line by

line m one bite at a time.