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

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

what we can find.

Take it chapter by chapter. One

fight m at a time

so many adventures and

mountains we can climb

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

classics one byte at a time. my name is Bre

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>> Brie Carlisle: Values today well be

continuing les miserable by Victor

Hugo chapter

six Jean Valjean

towards the middle of the night, Jean Valjean

woke. Jean Valjean came from a poor peasant

family of Brie. He had not learned to read

in his childhood. When he reached man's

estate, he became a tree pruner of Valvoli.

His mother was named Jean Mathieu. His

father was called Jean Valjean or

Valjean, probably a sober quay

and a contradiction of voilajean.

Heres Jean Jean Valjean was of

that thoughtful but not gloomy disposition which

constitutes the peculiarity of affectionate

natures. On the whole, however, there was

something decidedly sluggish and insignificant

about Jean Valjean. In appearance at least,

he had lost his father and mother at a very early age.

His mother had died of a milk fever which had not

been properly attended to. His, father,

a tree pruner like himself, had been killed by a fall from

a tree. All, ah, that remained to Jean

Valjean was a sister older than himself

a widow with seven children, boys and

girls, this sister had brought up Jean

Valjean, and so long as she had a husband, she lodged

and fed her young brother. A husband

died. The eldest of the seven children was

eight years old. The youngest

one, Jean Valjean, had just attained his

25th year. He took the fathers place

and in his turn supported the sister who had brought him

up. This was done simply as a duty

and even a little churlishly on the part of Jean

Valjean. Thus his youth had been spent

in rude and ill paid toil. He had never

known a kind woman friend in his native parts.

He had not had the time to fall in love. He

returned at night, weary and ate his broth without

uttering a word. His sister,

mother Jean, often took the best part of his repast, from his

bowl while he was eating. A bit of meat, a

slice of bacon, the heart of the cabbage, to give to one of her

children. As he went on eating with his head

bent over the table and almost in his soup,

his long hair falling about his bowl and concealing his

eyes, he had the air of perceiving

nothing and allowing it. They were at

Faverolle, not far from the valjean

thatched cottage on the other side of the lane,

a farmers wife named Marie Claude. The

Valjean children, habitually famished,

sometimes went to borrow from Marie Claude a pint of milk

in their mothers name, which they drank behind a hedge or in

some alley corner, snatching the jug from each other

so hastily that the little girls spilled it on their aprons and down

their necks. If their mother had known of this

marauding, she would have punished the delinquent severely.

Jean Valjean, gruffly and grumblingly, paid

Marie Claude for the pint of milk behind their mothers back,

and the children were not punished. In

pruning season, he earned 18 sous a day.

Then he hired out as a haymaker, a

laborer, a neat herd on a farm. As a

drudge, he did whatever he could.

His sister worked also. But what could she do with seven

little children? It was a sad group

enveloped in misery, which was being gradually annihilated.

A very hard winter came. Jean had no

work. The family had no bread.

No bread. Literally seven,

children. One Sunday evening,

Mobert Isabeau, the baker on the church square at Favroli,

was preparing to go to bed when he heard a violent blow

on the grated front of his shop. He arrived in time

to see an arm pass through a hole made by a blow from a fist

through the grating in the glass the arms

seized a loaf of bread and carried it off.

Isabeau ran out in haste. The robber fled at the full speed

of his legs. Isabel ran after him and stopped

him. The thief had flung away the loaf, but his

arm was still bleeding. It was Jean

Valjean. This took place in

1795. Jean Valjean was taken

before the tribunals of the time for theft in breaking and

entering an inhabited house at night. He had a

gun which he used better than anyone else in the world.

He was a bit of a poacher, and this injured his case.

There exists a legitimate prejudice against

poachers. The poacher, like the

smuggler, smacks too strongly of the brigand.

Nevertheless, we will remark cursorily, there is still an

abyss between these races of men and the hideous assassin of

the towns. The poacher lives in the

forest. The smuggler lives in the mountains or on the

sea. The cities make ferocious men because

they make corrupt men. The mountain, the sea,

the forest make savage men. They develop the

fierce side, but often without destroying the humane side.

Jean Valjean was pronounced guilty.

The terms of the code were explicit. There

occur formidable hours in our civilization. There are

moments when the penal laws decree a shipwreck.

What an ominous minute is that in which society draws

back and consummates the irreparable abandonment of a

sentient being. Jean Valjean was

condemned to five years in the galleys. On the

22 April 1796, the victory

of Montanette, won by the general in chief of the

army of Italy, whom the message of the directory to the

500 of the second of floriel year

four calls bon parte, was,

announced in Paris. On that same day, a

great gang of galley slaves was put in chains at

Bicentre. Jean Valjean formed a part

of that gang, an old turnkey of that prison,

whos now nearly 80 years old, still recalls

perfectly that unfortunate wretch who was chained to the end of the

fourth line in the north angle of the courtyard.

He was seated on the ground like the others.

He did not seem to comprehend his position,

except that it was horrible. It is

probable that he also was disentangling from amid the

vague ideas of a poor man, ignorance of

everything, something excessive. While

the bolt of his iron collar was being riveted behind his head with

heavy blows from the hammer, he wept.

His tears stifled him. They impeded his

speech. He only managed to say from time to time,

I was a tree pruner at favrole. then, still sobbing,

he raised his right hand and lowered it gradually, seven

times, as though he were touching in succession,

seven heads of unequal heights. And from

this gesture it was divined that the thing which he had

done, whatever it was he had done for the sake of clothing

and nourishing seven little children,

he set out for Toulon. He arrived

there after a journey of 27 days on a cart

with a chain on his neck. At, Toulon, he was

clothed in red cassock. All that had

constituted his life, even to his name, was

effaced. He was no longer even Jean

Valjean. He was number two.

4601. What became of

his sister? What became of the seven

children who troubled himself about that?

What becomes of the handful of leaves from the young tree which is

sawed off at the root? It is always

the same story. These poor

living beings, these creatures of God,

henceforth, without support, without guide, without

refuge, wandered away at random. Who

even knows? Each in his own direction,

perhaps, and little by little buried themselves in that cold

mist which engulfs solitary destinies,

gloomy shades into which disappear in succession so

many unlucky heads. In the somber march of the

human race, they quitted the country.

The clock tower of what had been in their village forgot them.

The boundary line of what had been their field forgot

them. After a few years residence in the galleys,

Jean Valjean himself forgot them.

In that heart, where there had been a wound, there was a

scar. That is all.

Only once, during all the time which he spent at

Toulon, did he hear his sister mentioned.

This happened, I think, towards the end of the fourth year of his

captivity. I know not through what channels the news reached

him. Someone who had known them in their own

country had seen a sister. She was in

Paris. She lived in a poor street near St.

Sulpice, in the rue de Gandry.

She had with her only one child, a little boy, the

youngest. Where were the other six?

Perhaps she did not know herself. Every morning

she went to a printing office, number three, rue

des Sabots, where she was a folder and a

stitcher. She was obliged to be there at 06:00 in

the morning, long before daylight, in winter,

in the same building with the printing office, there was a school,

and to this school she took her little boy, who

was seven years old. But as, she entered the printing

office at six, and the school only opened at seven,

the child had to wait in the courtyard for the school to open for an

hour, 1 hour of a winter night in

the open air. They would not allow the child to come into

the printing office because he was in the way. They said

when the workmen passed in the morning, they beheld this poor

little being seated on the pavement, overcome with

drowsiness and often fast asleep in the shadow,

crouched, down and doubled up over his basket.

When it rained, an old woman, the portress, took pity

on him. She took him into her den, where there was a

pallet, a spinning wheel and two wooden

chairs. And the little one slumbered in a corner,

pressing himself close to the cat so that he might suffer less from

cold. At 07:00 the school opened

and he entered. That is what was told to Jean

Valjean. They talked to him about it for

one day. It was a moment,

a flash, as though a window had suddenly been opened upon the

destiny of those things whom he had loved. Then all

closed again. He heard nothing more.

Forever. Nothing from them ever reached him

again. He never beheld them, he never met them

again. And in the continuation of this mournful history, they will

not be met with any more. Towards the end

of this fourth year, Jean Valjean's turn to escape

arrived. His comrades assisted

him, as, is the custom in that sad place.

He escaped. He wandered for

two days in the fields, at liberty. If

being at liberty is to be hunted, to turn the

head every instant, to quake at the slightest

noise, to be afraid of everything,

of a smoking roof, of a passing man,

of a barking dog, of a galloping horse, of a striking

clock of the day, because one can see of the

night, because one cannot see of the highway, of

the path, of a bush of sleep.

On the evening of the second day, he was captured.

He had neither eaten nor slept for 36

hours. The maritime tribunal

condemned him for this crime to a

prolongation of his term for three years, which

made eight years. In the 6th year, his turn

to escape occurred again. He availed himself of

it, but could not accomplish his flight

fully. He was missing. At roll call,

the cannon were fired, and at night

the patrol found him hidden under the keel of a vessel in process

of construction. He resisted the galley guards

who seized him. Escape, and rebellion,

this case, provided for by a special code,

was punished by an addition of five years, two

of them in the double chain. 13

years. In the 10th year, his turn came round

again. He again profited by it.

He succeeded no better. Three

years for this fresh attempt, 16

years. Finally, I think it was during

his 13th year, he made a last attempt and

only succeeded in getting retaken at the end of 4 hours of

absence. Three

years for those 4 hours,

19 years. In October

1815, he was released.

He had entered there in 1796

for having broken a pane of glass. And taken a loaf of

bread. Room for a brief

parenthesis. This is the second time

during his studies of the penal question and damnation by

law that the author of this book has

come across the theft of a loaf of bread as the

point of departure for the disaster of a destiny.

Claude Gao had stolen a loaf. Jean

Valjean had stolen a loaf. English

statistics prove the fact that four thefts out of five

in London have hunger for their immediate cause.

Jean Valjean had entered the galleys sobbing and

shuddering. He emerged impassive.

He had entered in despair. He emerged

gloomy. What had taken place in

that soul?

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@biteautimebooks.com and

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

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>> Speaker A: Take it chapter by chapter one

night at a time

so many adventures and

mountains we can climb

take your word go word line by

line one bite at a time.