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JEAN VALJEAN AS A NATIONAL GUARD
However, properly speaking, he lived in the Rue Plumet, and
he had arranged his existence there in the following fashion:--
Cosette and the servant occupied the pavilion; she had the
big sleeping-room with the painted pier-glasses, the boudoir with
the gilded fillets, the justice's drawing-room furnished with
tapestries and vast arm-chairs; she had the garden.
Jean Valjean had a canopied bed of antique damask in three
colors and a beautiful Persian rug purchased in the Rue du Figuier-Saint-Paul
at Mother Gaucher's, put into Cosette's chamber, and, in order
to redeem the severity of these magnificent old things, he had
amalgamated with this bric-a-brac all the gay and graceful little
pieces of furniture suitable to young girls, an etagere, a bookcase
filled with gilt-edged books, an inkstand, a blotting-book, paper,
a work-table incrusted with mother of pearl, a silver-gilt dressing-case,
a toilet service in Japanese porcelain. Long damask curtains with
a red foundation and three colors, like those on the bed, hung
at the windows of the first floor. On the ground floor, the curtains
were of tapestry.
All winter long, Cosette's little house was heated from top
to bottom.
Jean Valjean inhabited the sort of porter's lodge which was
situated at the end of the back courtyard, with a mattress on
a folding-bed, a white wood table, two straw chairs, an earthenware
water-jug, a few old volumes on a shelf, his beloved valise in
one corner, and never any fire.
He dined with Cosette, and he had a loaf of black bread on
the table for his own use.
When Toussaint came, he had said to her:
"It is the young lady who is the mistress of this house."--"And
you, monsieur?"
Toussaint replied in amazement.--"I am a much better
thing than the master, I am the father."
Cosette had been taught housekeeping in the convent, and she
regulated their expenditure, which was very modest.
Every day, Jean Valjean put his arm through Cosette's and
took her for a walk. He led her to the Luxembourg, to the least
frequented walk, and every Sunday he took her to mass at Saint-Jacques-du-Haut-Pas,
because that was a long way off.
As it was a very poor quarter, he bestowed alms largely there,
and the poor people surrounded him in church, which had drawn
down upon him Thenardier's epistle: "To the benevolent gentleman
of the church of Saint-Jacques-du-Haut-Pas." He was fond
of taking Cosette to visit the poor and the sick. No stranger
ever entered the house in the Rue Plumet.
Toussaint brought their provisions, and Jean Valjean went
himself for water to a fountain near by on the boulevard.
Their wood and wine were put into a half-subterranean hollow
lined with rock-work which lay near the Rue de Babylone and which
had formerly served the chief-justice as a grotto; for at the
epoch of follies and "Little Houses" no love was without
a grotto.
In the door opening on the Rue de Babylone, there was a box
destined for the reception of letters and papers; only, as the
three inhabitants of the pavilion in the Rue Plumet received neither
papers nor letters, the entire usefulness of that box, formerly
the go-between of a love affair, and the confidant of a love-lorn
lawyer, was now limited to the tax-collector's notices, and the
summons of the guard. For M. Fauchelevent, independent gentleman,
belonged to the national guard; he had not been able to escape
through the fine meshes of the census of 1831.
The municipal information collected at that time had even
reached the convent of the Petit-Picpus, a sort of impenetrable
and holy cloud, whence Jean Valjean had emerged in venerable guise,
and, consequently, worthy of mounting guard in the eyes of the
townhall.
Three or four times a year, Jean Valjean donned his uniform
and mounted guard; he did this willingly, however; it was a correct
disguise which mixed him with every one, and yet left him solitary.
Jean Valjean had just attained his sixtieth birthday, the age
of legal exemption; but he did not appear to be over fifty; moreover,
he had no desire to escape his sergeant-major nor to quibble with
Comte de Lobau; he possessed no civil status, he was concealing
his name, he was concealing his identity, so he concealed his
age, he concealed everything; and, as we have just said, he willingly
did his duty as a national guard; the sum of his ambition lay
in resembling any other man who paid his taxes. This man had for
his ideal, within, the angel, without, the bourgeois.
Let us note one detail, however; when Jean Valjean went out
with Cosette, he dressed as the reader has already seen, and had
the air of a retired officer.
When he went out alone, which was generally at night, he was
always dressed in a workingman's trousers and blouse, and wore
a cap which concealed his face.
Was this precaution or humility? Both.
Cosette was accustomed to the enigmatical side of her destiny,
and hardly noticed her father's peculiarities.
As for Toussaint, she venerated Jean Valjean, and thought
everything he did right.
One day, her butcher, who had caught a glimpse of Jean Valjean,
said to her:
"That's a queer fish."
She replied:
"He's a saint."
Neither Jean Valjean nor Cosette nor Toussaint ever entered
or emerged except by the door on the Rue de Babylone.
Unless seen through the garden gate it would have been difficult
to guess that they lived in the Rue Plumet.
That gate was always closed.
Jean Valjean had left the garden uncultivated, in order not
to attract attention.
In this, possibly, he made a mistake.
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