Artwork for podcast Bite at a Time Books
Les Miserables - Volume 2 - Book 8 - Chapter 4
Episode 1412nd September 2024 • Bite at a Time Books • Bree Carlile
00:00:00 00:15:56

Share Episode

Shownotes

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

Come with us as we release one bite a day of one of your favorite classic novels, plays & short stories. Bree reads these classics like she reads to her daughter, one chapter a day. If you love books or audiobooks and want something to listen to as you're getting ready, driving to work, or as you're getting ready for bed, check out Bite at a Time Books!

Follow, rate, and review Bite at a Time Books where we read you your favorite classics, one bite at a time. Available wherever you listen to podcasts.

Check out our website, or join our Facebook Group!

Get exclusive Behind the Scenes content on our YouTube!

We are now part of the Bite at a Time Books Productions network!

If you ever wondered what inspired your favorite classic novelist to write their stories, what was happening in their lives or the world at the time, check out Bite at a Time Books Behind the Story wherever you listen to podcasts.

Follow us on all the socials: Instagram - Twitter - Facebook - TikTok

Follow Bree at: Instagram - Twitter - Facebook

Transcripts

Speaker:

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

Speaker:

what we can find.

Speaker:

Take it chapter by chapter. One

Speaker:

fight M at a time

Speaker:

so many adventures and

Speaker:

mountains we can climb

Speaker:

to give word for word, line by

Speaker:

line, one bite at a time.

Speaker:

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

Speaker:

favorite classics, one byte at a time. my name is

Speaker:

Bre Carlisle and I love to read and wanted to

Speaker:

share my passion with listeners like you. If you

Speaker:

want to know whats coming next and vote on upcoming

Speaker:

books, sign up for our

Speaker:

newsletter@biteattimebooks.com dot.

Speaker:

Youll also find our new t shirts in the shop,

Speaker:

including podcast shirts and quote shirts from your

Speaker:

favorite classic novels. Be sure to follow my

Speaker:

show on your favorite podcast platform so you get all the new

Speaker:

episodes. You can find most of our links in the

Speaker:

show notes, but also our website,

Speaker:

byteadatimebooks.com includes all of the links for

Speaker:

our show, including to our Patreon to

Speaker:

support the show, and YouTube, where we have special

Speaker:

behind the narration of the episodes. We are part

Speaker:

of the bite at a Time Books productions network. If

Speaker:

youd also like to hear what inspired your favorite classic

Speaker:

authors to write their novels and what was going

Speaker:

on in the world at the time, check out the bite at a time

Speaker:

books behind the story podcast. Wherever you

Speaker:

listen to podcasts, please note

Speaker:

while we try to keep the text as close to the original as

Speaker:

possible, some words have been changed

Speaker:

to honor the marginalized communities who've identified the

Speaker:

words as harmful and to stay in alignment

Speaker:

with Byte at a time book's brand.

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: Values today we'll be

Speaker:

continuing les miserables by

Speaker:

Victor Hugo, chapter

Speaker:

four, in which Jean Valjean has

Speaker:

quite the air of.

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: Having read Austin Castillo.

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: The strides of a lame man are like the ogling glances

Speaker:

of a one eyed man. They do not reach their goal very

Speaker:

promptly.

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: Moreover, Fochle vers was in a dilemma.

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: He took nearly a quarter of an hour to return to his cottage in the

Speaker:

garden. Cosette, had waked up. Jean

Speaker:

Valjean had placed her near the fire. At the moment

Speaker:

when Fauchelevert entered, Jean Valjean was pointing out to her

Speaker:

the venturous basket on the wall and saying.

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: To her, listen attentively to me, my little

Speaker:

Cosette. We must go away from this house. But we

Speaker:

shall return to it, and we shall be very happy here.

Speaker:

The good man who lives here is going to carry you off on his back. In

Speaker:

that you will wait for me at a ladys house. I, shall

Speaker:

come to fetch you. Obey and say nothing

Speaker:

above all things, unless you want Madame thenardier to get you

Speaker:

again. Cosette nodded

Speaker:

gravely. Jean Valjean turned round at the

Speaker:

noise.

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: Made by Fauchelevert opening the door.

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: Well, everything is arranged and nothing

Speaker:

is, said Fauchelevert. I have

Speaker:

permission to bring you in, but before bringing

Speaker:

you in, you must be got out. Thats where the

Speaker:

difficulty lies. It is easy enough with the

Speaker:

child. You will carry her out and

Speaker:

she will hold her tongue.

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: I answer for that.

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: But you, Father Madeleine.

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: And after a silence fraught with anxiety.

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: Fauchelevert exclaimed, why

Speaker:

get out? As you came in, Jean

Speaker:

Valjean, as.

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: In the first instance, contented himself with saying

Speaker:

impossible. Fauchelevert grumbled more to

Speaker:

himself than to Jean Valjean.

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: There is another thing which bothers me. I have said

Speaker:

that I would put earth in it. When I come to think it over.

Speaker:

The earth instead of the corpse will not seem like the real

Speaker:

thing. It wont do. It will get

Speaker:

displaced, it will move about. The men will bear it.

Speaker:

You understand, Father Madeleine. The government will notice

Speaker:

it.

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: Jean Valjean stared him straight in the.

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: Eye and thought that he was raving.

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: Fauchele went on, how the d

Speaker:

oos are you going to get out? It must all be done

Speaker:

by tomorrow morning. It is tomorrow that im to bring you

Speaker:

in. The pirus expects you.

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: Then he explained to Jean Valjean that this was his recompense

Speaker:

for a service which he, Fauchelever, was to render to the

Speaker:

community that it fell among his duties to take part

Speaker:

in their burials that he nailed up the coffins and helped the

Speaker:

gravedigger at the cemetery that the nun who had died

Speaker:

that morning had requested to be buried in the coffin which had

Speaker:

served her for a bed and interred in the vault under the

Speaker:

altar of the chapel that the police regulators

Speaker:

forbade this, but that she was one of those dead to whom

Speaker:

nothing has refused that the prioress and the vocal

Speaker:

mothers intended to fulfill the wish of the deceased that it

Speaker:

was so much the worse for the government that he,

Speaker:

Fauchelevert, was to nail up the coffin in the cell,

Speaker:

raise the stone in the chapel, and lower the corpse into the

Speaker:

vault and that by way of thanks, the prioress

Speaker:

was to admit his brother to the house as a gardener and his niece as

Speaker:

a pupil. That his brother was Monsieur Madeleine and that

Speaker:

his niece was Cosette. The prioress had told him to

Speaker:

bring his brother on the following evening, after the counterfeit

Speaker:

interment in the cemetery, but that he could

Speaker:

not bring Monster Madeleine in from the outside. If

Speaker:

Monster Madeleine was not outside,

Speaker:

that.

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: Was the first problem.

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: And then that there was another. The empty

Speaker:

coffin.

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: What is that empty coffin?

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: Asked Jean Valjean.

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: Fauchelevert replied, the coffin of the

Speaker:

administration.

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: What coffin? What administration?

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: A, nun dies. The municipal doctor comes and

Speaker:

says a, nun has died. The government sends a

Speaker:

coffin. The next day it sends a hearse and

Speaker:

undertakers men to get the coffin and carry it to the

Speaker:

cemetery. The undertakers men will come and lift

Speaker:

the coffin. Therell be nothing in it.

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: Put something in it.

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: A corpse. I have none.

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: No?

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: What then?

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: A living person.

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: What person?

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: Me, said Jean Valjean.

Speaker:

Fauchelevent, who was seated, sprang up as though a bomb

Speaker:

had burst under his chair.

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: Ew.

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: Why not? Jean Valjean gave way

Speaker:

to one of.

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: Those rare smiles which lighted up his face like a flash

Speaker:

from heaven in the winter.

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: You know, Fauchelevert, what you have said.

Speaker:

Mother crucifixion is dead. And I add, and Father

Speaker:

Madeleine is buried.

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: Ah, Good, you can laugh. Youre not speaking

Speaker:

seriously?

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: Very seriously. I must get out of this place.

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: Certainly.

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: Ive told you to find a basket and a cover for me

Speaker:

also.

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: Well, the basket will be of pine.

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: And the COVID a black cloth.

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: In the first place, it will be a white cloth.

Speaker:

Nuns are buried in white.

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: Let it be a white cloth, then.

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: You are not like otherman, father madeline.

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: To behold such devices, which are nothing

Speaker:

else than the savage and daring inventions of the

Speaker:

galleys, spring forth from the peaceable things which

Speaker:

surround them and mingle with what he called the petty

Speaker:

course of life in the convent, caused Fauchelevert

Speaker:

as much amazement as a gull fishing in the gutter of the rue Saint

Speaker:

Denis would inspire in a passerby.

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: Jean Valjean went on, the problem is

Speaker:

to get out of here without being seen. This offers

Speaker:

the means.

Speaker:

But give me some information. In the first place, how

Speaker:

is it managed? Where is this coffin?

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: The empty one? Yes,

Speaker:

downstairs in what is called the dead room.

Speaker:

It stands on two trestles under the pall.

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: How long is the coffin?

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: 6Ft.

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: What is this dead room?

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: It is a chamber on the ground floor, which has a grated

Speaker:

window opening on the garden, which is closed on the

Speaker:

outside by a shutter and two doors. One

Speaker:

leads into the convent, the other into the church.

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: What church?

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: The church in the street. The church which anyone

Speaker:

can enter.

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: Have you the keys to those two doors?

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: No. I have the key to the door which communicates with the

Speaker:

convent. The porter has the key to the door which

Speaker:

communicates with the church.

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: When does the porter open that door?

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: Only to allow the undertakers men to enter when they come to get

Speaker:

the coffin. When the coffin has been taken out, the

Speaker:

door is closed again.

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: Who nails up the coffin?

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: I do.

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: Who spreads the pall over it?

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: I do.

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: Are you alone?

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: Not another man, except the police doctor, can enter the dead

Speaker:

room. It is even written on the wall.

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: Could you hide me in that room tonight when everyone is

Speaker:

asleep?

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: No, but I could hide you in a small, dark nook which

Speaker:

opens on the dead room where I keep my tools to use

Speaker:

for burials and of which I have the key.

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: At what time will the hearse come.

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: For the coffin tomorrow, about 03:00 in the

Speaker:

afternoon. The burial will take place at the vaudgerard

Speaker:

cemetery a little before nightfall. It is not

Speaker:

very near.

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: I will remain concealed in your tool closet all night

Speaker:

and all morning. And how about food? I, shall be

Speaker:

hungry.

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: I will bring you something.

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: You can come and nail me up in the coffin.

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: At 02:00 pashlovre recoiled

Speaker:

and cracked his finger joints.

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: But that is impossible.

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: Bah. Impossible to take a hammer and drive some nails

Speaker:

in a plank.

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: What seemed unprecedented to Fauchelevert was,

Speaker:

we repeat, a simple matter to Jean Valjean.

Speaker:

Jean Valjean had been in worse straits than this.

Speaker:

Any man who has been a prisoner understands how to contract

Speaker:

himself to fit the diameter of the escape. The prisoner

Speaker:

is subject to flight as the sick man is subject to a

Speaker:

crisis which saves or kills him. An

Speaker:

escape is a cure. What does not

Speaker:

a man undergo for the sake of a cure?

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: To have himself nailed up in a.

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: Case and carried off like a bale of goods? To live

Speaker:

for a long time in a box, to find air where there is

Speaker:

none, to economize his breath for hours, to

Speaker:

know how to stifle without dying. This was one of

Speaker:

Jean Valjeans gloomy talents. Moreover,

Speaker:

a coffin containing a living being that

Speaker:

convicts expedient is also an imperial

Speaker:

expedient. If we are to credit the monk Austin

Speaker:

Castello, this was the means employed by Charles

Speaker:

V. Desirous of seeing the plumes for the last

Speaker:

time after his abdication. He had her brought

Speaker:

into and carried out of the monastery of St. Just.

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: In this manner.

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: Fauchelevert, who had recovered himself a little.

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: Exclaimed, but m, how will you manage to

Speaker:

breathe? I will breathe in that

Speaker:

box. The mere thought of it suffocates

Speaker:

me.

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: You surely must have a gimletan. Youll make a few

Speaker:

holes here and.

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: There around my mouth, and you will.

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: Nail the top plank on loosely.

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: Good. And what if you should happen to cough or

Speaker:

to sneeze?

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: A man who is making his escape does not cough or

Speaker:

sneeze. And Jean Valjean added,

Speaker:

Father Fauchelevert, we must come to a decision.

Speaker:

I must either be caught here or accept this escape through the

Speaker:

hearse.

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: Everyone has noticed the taste which cats have for pausing

Speaker:

and lounging between the two leaves of a half shut door.

Speaker:

Who is there? Who has not said to a cat, do come in.

Speaker:

There are men who, when an incident stands half open before

Speaker:

them, have the same tendency to halt an indecision

Speaker:

between two resolutions, at the risk of getting

Speaker:

crushed through the abrupt closing of the adventure by fate.

Speaker:

The over prudent cats as they are,

Speaker:

and because they are cats,

Speaker:

sometimes incur more danger than the audacious

Speaker:

Fauchelevert was of this hesitating nature.

Speaker:

But Jean Valjeans coolness prevailed over him. In spite of

Speaker:

himself, he grumbled well.

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: Since there is no other means.

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: Jean Valjean resumed, the only thing which

Speaker:

troubles me is what will take place at the cemetery.

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: That is the very point that is not troublesome,

Speaker:

exclaimed Fauchelevert. If you are sure of coming out of

Speaker:

the coffin, all right. I am sure of getting you out of the

Speaker:

grave. A gravedigger is a drunkard and a

Speaker:

friend of mine. He is father Mestine, an

Speaker:

old fellow of the old school. The gravedigger

Speaker:

puts the corpses in the grave, and I put the gravedigger in my

Speaker:

pocket. I will tell you what will take place.

Speaker:

They will arrive a little before dusk, three quarters of an

Speaker:

hour before the gates of the cemetery are closed. The

Speaker:

hearse will drive directly up to the grave. I shall

Speaker:

follow. That is my business. I shall

Speaker:

have a hammer, a chisel, and some pincers in my

Speaker:

pocket. The hearse halts. The undertakers men

Speaker:

gnaw a rope around your coffin and lower you down. The

Speaker:

priest says the prayers, makes a sign of the cross,

Speaker:

sprinkles the holy water, and takes his departure.

Speaker:

I am left alone with Father mestien.

Speaker:

He is my friend, I tell you one of two things will

Speaker:

happen. He will either be sober or he will not be

Speaker:

sober. If he is not drunk, I shall say to him,

Speaker:

come and drink about. While the ban kuing, the good

Speaker:

quince, is open, I carry him off, I

Speaker:

get him drunk. It does not take long to make Father Messiaen

Speaker:

drunk. He always has the beginning of it about him.

Speaker:

I lay him under the table, I take his card so that I can get

Speaker:

into the cemetery again, and I return without

Speaker:

him. Then you have no longer anyone but me to deal

Speaker:

with. If he is drunk, I shall say to him, be

Speaker:

off. I will do your work for you. Off he goes

Speaker:

and I drag you out of the hole.

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: Jean Valjean held out his hand and Fauchelevert

Speaker:

precipitated himself upon it with the touching effusion of a

Speaker:

peasant.

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: That is settled, father fochle vert.

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: All will go well provided nothing goes

Speaker:

wrong, thought Fauchelevert. In that case,

Speaker:

it would be terrible.

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: Thank you for joining bite at a.

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: Time books today while we read a.

Speaker:

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

Speaker:

Again, my name is Brie Carlisle

Speaker:

and I hope you come back tomorrow for the next

Speaker:

bite of Le Miserable.

Speaker:

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

Speaker:

newsletter@byteoutimebooks.com and

Speaker:

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

Speaker:

or our website, byteadatimebooks.com

Speaker:

for the rest of the links for our show. Wed love

Speaker:

to hear from you on social media as well.

Speaker:

>> Brie Carlisle: Many adventures and

Speaker:

mountains we can climb

Speaker:

take your word forward, line by

Speaker:

line, one bite at a time.

Chapters

Video

More from YouTube