Join Host Bree Carlile as she reads the ninetieth chapter of Les Miserables.

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>> Speaker A: 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 Byte at a time books where we read you your

favorite classics one bite at a time. my name is

Bre Carlisle and I love to read and wanted to

share my passion with listeners like you. If you

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>> Brie Carlisle: Values today well be

continuing.

Les miserables by Victor

Hugo Book

Second the ship Orion

chapter one, number

24,601

becomes number 9430.

Jean Valjean had been recaptured.

The reader will be grateful to us if we pass rapidly over the

sad details. We will confine ourselves to

transcribing two paragraphs published by the journals of that

day. A few months after the surprising events

which had taken place at Imser eb M.

These articles are rather summary. It must

be remembered that at that epoch the Gazette des

Tribuneau was not yet in existence.

We borrow the first from the jepu blanc.

It bears the date of July 25,

1823. An arrondissement of the

paste. Calais had just been the theater of an

event quite out of the ordinary course.

A man who was a stranger in the department

and who bore the name of Monsieur Madeleine had

Thanks to the new methods resuscitated some years ago

in ancient local industry, the manufacture

of jet and of black glass trinkets.

He had made his fortune in the business, and that

of the arrondissement as well. We will admit

he had been appointed mayor in recognition of his services,

the police discovered that Monsieur Madeleine was no

other than an ex convict who had broken his ban.

Condemned in 1796 for theft and

named Jean Valjean, Jean

Valjean has been recommitted to prison.

It appears that previous to his arrest, he had

succeeded in withdrawing from the hands of Monsieur Lafitte

a sum of over half a million which he had lodged

there, and which he had, moreover,

and by perfectly legitimate means, acquired in his

business. No one has been able to

discover where Jean Valjean has concealed this money since his

return to prison at Toulon. The second

article, which enters a little more into detail, is

an extract from the Journal de Paris of the same

date. A former convict whos been

liberated, named Jean Valjean, has just appeared

before the court of assizes of the Var. Under

circumstances calculated to attract attention.

This wretch has succeeded in escaping the vigilance of the

police. He has changed his name and had

succeeded in getting himself appointed mayor of one of our small

northern towns. In this town, he had

established a considerable commerce. He has

at last been unmasked and arrested.

Thanks to the indefatigable zeal of the public

prosecutor. He had for his concubine

a woman of the town who died of a shock at the moment

of his arrest. This scoundrel, who was

endowed with herculean strength, found means to

escape. But three or four days after his

flight, the police laid their hands on him once more in

Paris itself, at the very moment when he was

entering one of those little vehicles which run between the capital

and the village of Montremille. Say note

Oys. He is said to have profited,

by this interval of three or four days of liberty,

to withdraw a considerable sum deposited by him with one

of our leading bankers. This sum has

been estimated at six or 700,000

francs. If the indictment is to be

trusted, he has hidden it in some place known to himself

alone, and it has not been possible to lay hands on

it. However that may be

the said Jean Valjean has just been brought before the

assizes of the department of Navarre as accused of highway

robbery, accompanied with violence, about eight years ago, on

the person of one of those honest children, who,

as the patriarch of Ferny has said in immortal

verse, arrived from Savoy every year,

and who, with gentle hands do clear

those long canals, choked up with soot,

this bandit refused to defend himself.

It was proved by the skillful and eloquent

representative of the public prosecutor that the

theft was committed in complicity with others,

and that Jean Valjean was a member of a band of robbers in the

southeast. Jean Valjean was pronounced

guilty and was condemned to the death penalty. In

consequence, this criminal refused

to lodge an appeal. The king, in

his inexhaustible clemency, has deigned to

commute his penalty to that of penal servitude for

life. Jean Valjean was immediately

taken to the prison at Toulon. The

reader has not forgotten that Jean Valjean had

religious habits at M. Sur Mh. M. Some

papers, among others. The constitutional

presented this commutation as a triumph of the priestly

party. Jean Valjean changed his number in

the galleys. He was called

9430,

however, and we will mention it at

once, in order that we may not be obliged to recur to the

subject. The prosperity of M. Sur M? M

vanished with Monsieur Madeleine. All that he had

foreseen during his night of fever and hesitation was

realized. Lacking him, there actually

was a soul lacking. After

this fall, there took place at m. Sur m? that egotistical

division of great existences which have fallen,

that fatal dismemberment of flourishing things, which is

accomplished every day obscurely in the human

community, in which history is noted only

once, because it occurred after the death of

Alexander. Lieutenants are crowned.

Kingsley. Superintendents improvised,

manufacturers. Out of themselves, envious

rivalries arose. Monsieur Madeleines

vast workshops were shut. His

buildings fell to ruin. His workmen were

scattered. Some of them quitted the country,

others, abandoned the trade.

Thenceforth, everything was done on a small scale

instead of on a grand scale. For Luker, instead of

the general good, there was no longer a

center. Everywhere there was

competition and animosity.

Monsieur Madeleine had reigned over all and directed

all. No sooner had he

fallen than each pulled things to

himself. The spirit of combat succeeded to

the spirit of organization, bitterness to

cordiality, hatred, of one another, to the benevolence

of the founder towards all. The threads which

Monster Madeleine had set were tangled and

broken. The methods were adulterated.

The products were debased. Confidence was

killed, the market diminished for lack of

orders. Salaries were reduced. The

workshop stood still. Bankruptcy

arrived. And then there was

nothing more for the poor. All, had

vanished. The state itself

perceived that someone had been crushed

somewhere less than four years after the

judgment of the court of Assizes, establishing the identity of Jean

Valjean and Monsieur Madeleine for the benefit of the

galleys, the cost of collecting taxes

had doubled in the arrondissement of M. Sur M?

M. And Monsieur de Villiers called attention

to the fact in the rostrum in the month of February

1827.

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 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@biteautotimebooks.com and

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

or our website, byteadittimebooks.com,

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