Chapter 236 Jean Valjean joined the National Guard

In fact, strictly speaking, he lived in the Rue Plumet, and he arranged his life as follows: Cosette lived in the upper house with her maid, and she had the large bedroom with painted walls, the sitting room with gilt rectilinear reliefs, the one used by the abbot with carpet, wall covering, and large armchair. her living room, and her garden.Jean Valjean placed in Cosette's bedroom a bed with an antique tricolor damask curtain, and an ancient and splendid Persian rug from Mother Ghosh's shop in the Rue Figtree, St. Paul, and, In order to dilute the austere atmosphere caused by these exquisite ancient furnishings, in addition to those antiquities, he arranged a whole set of neat and elegant small utensils suitable for girls: turbot, bookcase and gold-edged books, stationery, blotting paper, inlays, etc. Mother-of-pearl workbench, silver and gilt sewing box, Japanese porcelain vanity set.The windows on the upper floor are hung with long three-color dark red damask curtains that match the curtains, while the rooms on the ground floor are made of woolen curtains.Throughout the winter Cosette's house was lit from top to bottom.He, for his part, lives in a sort of lower house in the backyard, with a straw mattress on a couch, a white wooden table, two straw chairs, a china water jug, a few old books on a wooden board, and his precious suitcase. In the corner there is never a fire.He dined at the same table as Cosette, where there was a loaf of stale bread for him.When Dusan entered the house, he said to her: "The master of our family is a young lady." Dusan was a little surprised, and she asked: "So, what about you, sir?" "Well, I am much taller than the master." Yes, I am the father."

Cosette learned to manage household chores in the convent, and the current household, which is one of the few, is all managed by her.Jean Valjean took Cosette's arm every day and took her for a walk.He took her to the least-traveled path in the Luxembourg Gardens, and went to mass every Sunday, always at Saint-Jacques-de-Auba, because it was quite far away.It was a very poor district, where he often gave alms, and in the church he was always surrounded by poor people, so Thenardier called him in his letters "Mr. .He likes to take Cosette to visit the poor.No stranger had ever entered the house in the Rue Blumet.Toussaint procured food, and Jean Valjean himself went to fetch water from a tap on the road near the door.The firewood and wine were stored in a not-so-deep cellar near the door on Babylon Street. For grottoes, because in those days, when outhouses and little houses were all the rage, love was not conceivable without grottoes.

On the single door in the Rue Babylon there is a piggy-box for letters and newspapers, although the three lodgers in the building in the Rue Plumet never received newspapers and never received them. No letter has been received. This box, which once conveyed the style and listened to the confidants of the nobles, has now only been used to receive the tax collector's receipt and the notice of the Self-Defense Forces.For, Monsieur Fauchelevent, a regular payer, was in the National Guard; he had not slipped through the net of the 1831 census.At that time, the investigations of the municipal government traced back to the priory of Petit Piquebus, where they encountered the impenetrable sacred cloud, and since Jean Valjean came out from that side, and was proved to be a decent man by the district government, it was certainly enough. Go to military service.

Three or four times a year Jean Valjean put on his uniform and went to his post, and he liked it very much, because it seemed to him a legitimate disguise, allowing him to mix with the others and to be alone on duty.Jean Valjean had just turned sixty, the legal exempt age, but he still looked like a man under fifty, and he had no intention of evading his company commander, nor of arguing with Count Robeau, he did not Citizenship, he concealed his name, he concealed his identity, he concealed his age, he concealed everything, but, as we have just said, this was a determined National Guard.To be able to pay his taxes like everybody else has been his whole interest in life.This ideal figure is an angel in his heart and a bourgeois in his appearance.

There is one detail, however, that we must pay attention to.When Jean Valjean went out with Cosette, he was dressed, as we have seen, quite like a retired officer.When he went out alone, and it was always after dark, he usually wore a workman's jacket and trousers, and a cap to hide his face.Is this out of prudence or out of humility?Both.Cosette, so accustomed to her own inexplicable fate, scarcely noticed her father's peculiarities.As for Toussaint, she had great respect for Jean Valjean, and felt that his every action was justifiable.One day, the butcher who often sold her meat saw Jean Valjean and said to her: "This is a strange fellow." She replied: "This is a saint."

Jean Valjean, Cosette, and Toussaint never entered or exited except by the door in the Rue Babylon.It would have been difficult to guess that they lived in the Rue Plumet if they had not happened to show up behind the gates of the garden.That iron gate is never opened.Jean Valjean did not tend the garden, so as not to attract attention. He may be wrong on this point.