Les Miserables (Movie Tie-in) (9781101612774)

by Hugo, Victor; Donougher, Christine (TRN)

  At daybreak he left two capable men on watch and returned to Police Headquarters as shamefaced as the fox outwitted by a hen.

  Book Six

  Le Petit-Picpus

  I

  Petite Rue Picpus, No. 62

  NOTHING COULD have been more commonplace, half a century ago, than the porte-cochère of No. 62, Petite Rue Picpus. As a rule it stood invitingly half open, affording a view of two things, neither of them gloomy in themselves – a courtyard enclosed in vine-covered walls and the face of an indolent door-keeper. The tops of trees were to be seen beyond the further wall. When sunshine brightened the courtyard, or wine enlivened the door-keeper, it would have been hard for anyone passing this doorway not to derive from it a cheerful impression. Nevertheless the passer-by had had a glimpse of a most sombre place. The threshold might smile, but the house itself prayed and wept.

  The visitor who succeeded in getting past the door-keeper (which was not easy and indeed for most people impossible, since there was a password which had to be known) was shown into a small vestibule affording access to a stairway so narrow that two persons could not pass on it. If, unintimidated by the wall-colouring of livid green above and chocolate below, one ventured up the stairs, one came, after passing two landings, still remorselessly accompanied by the green and chocolate, to a corridor. Stairway and corridor were lighted by two handsome windows, but the corridor turned a corner and was plunged into darkness. If, rounding this headland, one walked on a few paces, one came to a door which appeared the more mysterious in that it was not closed. Pushing it wide open, one found oneself in a very small room about six feet square, tiled, scrubbed, immaculate, and cold, with a wallpaper at fifteen sous the roll patterned with green flowers. Pallid daylight entered through a small-paned window occupying the whole of the lefthand wall. There was nothing to be seen or heard, not a footstep or a human sound. The walls were bare and the room was unfurnished, without even a chair.

  In the wall facing the door there was a grille about a foot square composed of stout, intersecting iron bars forming squares – I had almost called them meshes – about an inch and a half across. The green flowers of the wallpaper clustered round this grille, their orderly tranquillity in no way disturbed by its forbidding aspect. Even supposing a human creature to have been thin enough to wriggle through the aperture, the bars would have prevented it. Not only did the grille prevent the passage of a body, it prevented even the passage of the eyes, that is to say, of the spirit. Someone had evidently provided against this, for the bars of the grille were supplemented by a sheet of metal pierced with innumerable minute holes smaller than those in a milk-skimmer. There was an aperture at the bottom of this sheet exactly like the opening of a letter-box.

  A bell-cord hung to the right of the grille, and the tinkling of the bell was followed by the sound of a voice disconcertingly close at hand.

  ‘Who is there?’

  It was a woman’s voice, muted to the point of sadness.

  And here again there was a magic password that had to be known. If the visitor did not know it the voice said no more, and the wall was silent as though nothing lay beyond it but the darkness of the tomb. But if the word was spoken the voice said:

  ‘Turn to your right.’

  In the wall facing the window there was a glass-paned door with a glass transom painted grey. Lifting the latch and passing through this doorway one had exactly the impression of entering a theatre-box protected by a metal grille, before the lights go up and the grille is lowered. It was indeed a kind of theatre-box, faintly illumined from behind by the light filtering through the panes of the door, a narrow place furnished with two old chairs and a worn straw mat – a theatre-box with a front at waist level on which was a sill of black wood. But unlike the gilded grilles at the Opéra this was a huge and hideous trellis of iron bars rigidly intertwined and fixed to the surrounding walls with fastenings as large as clenched fists.

  As the eyes grew accustomed to the dim light and sought to peer beyond the grille, they found that they could penetrate no more than a few inches, their gaze being then arrested by a black shutter reinforced with crosspieces of yellow-painted wood. This shutter, composed of separate, narrow slats, covered the full extent of the grille. It was always closed.

  After a few moments a woman’s voice spoke from behind the shutter.

  ‘I am here. What do you want of me?’

  It was a known and loved voice, sometimes an adored voice. The sound of human breathing could scarcely be heard. It was as though a spirit were speaking from beyond the tomb.

  If the visitor fulfilled certain conditions, which was rarely the case, a part of the shutter opened and the disembodied voice became an apparition. Insofar as the grille made it possible to see anything, a head appeared, of which only the mouth and chin were visible, the rest being covered by a black veil. One saw a black wimple and an indeterminate form enveloped in a black winding-sheet. The head spoke, but without looking directly at the visitor or ever smiling.

  The light coming from behind the visitor was so disposed as faintly to illumine the figure beyond the grille, whereas the visitor remained in darkness. This was symbolical.

  The draped figure was framed in a profound obscurity. One gazed intently, seeking to discern what else might lie beyond the aperture, but soon found that there was no more to be seen. There was nothing but darkness and shadow, a winter mist mingled with the vapours of the tomb, a sort of terrifying peace, silence that divulged nothing, not even a sigh, shadow that disclosed nothing, not even ghosts. One was gazing into the interior of a convent.

  The melancholy and austere building was the Bernardine Convent of the Perpetual Adoration. The stage-box where the visitor was admitted was the parlour. The first voice which spoke was that of the sister in attendance, permanently seated, motionless and silent, on the other side of the wall at the square aperture, protected by the iron grille and the metal sheet with its countless holes, like a double vizor. The light filtering into the inner room came from the window looking out on to the world. None came from the convent itself. That sacred place was not to be viewed by profane eyes.*

  Nevertheless things existed beyond that darkness. There were light and life within that semblance of death. Although the convent was the most strictly enclosed of all we shall seek to enter it, taking the reader with us, and, within the bounds of discretion, describe matters unseen by any chronicler and hitherto unrelated.

  II

  The Order of Martin Verga

  The convent, which by 1824 had existed for many years in the Petite Rue Picpus, was a Bernardine Community practising the discipline of Martin Verga. These Bernardine nuns were in consequence affiliated not to Clairvaux, like the Bernardine monks, but to Cîteaux, like the Benedictines. In other words, they were subject not to St Bernard but to St Benedict. As anyone will know who has looked into the archives, Martin Verga in 1425 founded a Bemardine-Benedictine congregation having its headquarters at. Salamanca and an allied establishment at Alcala.

  This congregation had put out shoots in every Catholic country in Europe, the grafting of one order on to another being a common practice in the Church of Rome. To take the case solely of the Benedictine Order which is here in question, and apart from the Discipline of Martin Verga, four other communities are affiliated to this one: two in Italy, those of Monte Cassino and Santa Giustina of Padua, and two in France, Cluny and St Maur; together with nine orders – Vallombrosa, Grammont, Celestines, Camaldaules, Carthusians, the Humiliati, the Olivetans, and the Silvestrans; and finally Cîteaux itself, the trunk from which the rest sprang, which is no more than an offshoot of St Benedict. Cîteaux dates from St Robert, Abbot of Molesme in the diocese of Langres in 1098. It was in 529 that the Devil, having retreated to the Desert of Subiaco (he was old: had he become a hermit?) was driven out of the former Temple of Apollo by St Benedict, then aged seventeen.

  With the exception of the Carmelites, who go barefoot, wear a twig of osier at their thro
ats and are never seated, the most severe rule is that of the Bernardine-Benedictines founded by Martin Verga. The nuns are clad in black with a wimple which, by St Benedict’s express prescription, rises to the chin. A wide-sleeved robe of serge, a big woollen shawl, the wimple rising to the chin and cut square over the bosom, and a headband coming down to the eyes, such is their attire, all of it black except the headband, which is white. Novices wear the same garments, but in white. In addition the professing nuns have a rosary at their side.

  The Bernardine-Benedictines of the Martin Verga order observe the practice of Perpetual Adoration, as do the Benedictine nuns known as the Dames du Saint-Sacrement, who at the beginning of this century had two houses in Paris, one in the Temple and the other in the Rue Neuve-Sainte-Geneviève. But in other respects the Petit-Picpus community was entirely separate. There were numerous differences of rule as of attire. The Bernardine-Benedictines in Petit-Picpus wore black wimples, whereas those of the other two communities were white; moreover, the nuns of the Temple and the Rue Neuve-Sainte-Geneviève wore a gilt or enamel crucifix some three inches long on their chests, while those of the Petit-Picpus did not. Their common observance of the Perpetual Adoration was the only link between the communities. It is not unknown for communities, similar in their approach to the mysteries of the childhood, life, and death of Jesus Christ and the Virgin, to be in other respects widely sundered from one another and even antagonistic, as was the case with the Oratoire d’Italie, founded in Florence by Philippe de Neri, and the Oratoire de France, founded in Paris by Pierre de Bérulle. The latter claimed precedence on the grounds that Philippe de Neri was merely a saint, whereas Bérulle was a cardinal.

  To return to the harsh Spanish order of Martin Verga.

  The nuns following this discipline practise austerity throughout the year, fasting in Lent and on numerous other days special to themselves; they rise from their first slumber at one in the morning to read their breviaries and chant matins until three, sleep between coarse woollen sheets on mattresses of straw, take no baths, light no fires, scourge themselves on Fridays, observe the rule of silence, only speaking among themselves during the recreation periods, which are very short, and wear hair shirts for six months of the year, from 14 September, the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, until Easter. These six months are indeed a modification of the original rule, which stipulated that hair shirts were to be worn throughout the year; but they were found to be intolerable in the heat of summer, causing fever and nervous spasms, and their use had to be restricted. Even so, when they resume the shirts on 14 September the nuns are feverish for several days. Obedience, poverty, chastity, permanent confinement within the walls: such are their vows, made more rigorous by the rules.

  The prioress is elected for three years by the mothers of the order, called the Mères Vocales, the speaking mothers, because they have a voice on the chapter. She can only be twice re-elected, which limits her term of office to nine years.

  The nuns never see the officiating priest, who is separated from them in the chapel by a curtain seven feet high. While he is in the pulpit they lower their veils. They are required always to talk in low voices and to walk with bowed heads and lowered eyes. Only one man is allowed to enter the convent, the archbishop of the diocese.

  There is in fact one other man, the gardener. But he is always old, and in order that he may be always isolated in the garden, and the nuns have warning of his presence, a bell is fastened to his knee.

  Their submission to the rule of the Prioress is absolute, canonical subjection in all its selflessness: as to the voice of Christ – ut voci Christi– at a gesture, the first sign – ad nutum, ad primum signum – instantly, with cheerfulness, with perseverance, with unquestioning blind obedience – prompte, hilariter, perseveranter et caeca quadam obedientia – like the file in the workman’s hands – quasi limam in manibus fabri – empowered neither to read nor write without express permission – legere vel scribere non addiscerit sine expressa superioris licentia.

  Each in turn makes what they call atonement. Atonement is the prayer for all sins, all errors, all disorders, violations, iniquities – all the crimes committed on earth. For twelve hours in succession, from four o’clock in the afternoon until four in the morning, the sister performing the act of atonement remains kneeling on the stones before the High Altar, her hands clasped and a rope round her neck. When her fatigue becomes unendurable she prostrates herself with her face to the earth and her arms crossed. This is her only relief. In this posture she prays for all the sinners in the universe. The act is noble to the point of sublimity.

  Since it takes place before a pillar on which a candle burns it is termed either ‘to make atonement’ or ‘to be on the block’. The nuns in their humility actually prefer the latter term, with its suggestion of castigation and abasement. This act of atonement is one demanding the whole spirit. The sister ‘on the block’ would not turn her head if the heavens were to fall.

  In any event, there is always a sister on her knees before the High Altar. She kneels for an hour and is then relieved like a soldier on sentry-go. This is the Perpetual Adoration.

  The prioresses and mothers nearly always bear names of a particular solemnity having to do not with saints and martyrs but with events in the life of Christ, such as Mother Nativity, Mother Conception, Mother Annunciation, Mother Passion. The names of saints, however, are not forbidden.

  To anyone seeing them, only their mouths are visible. All have yellow teeth. No tooth-brush has ever entered the convent. The act of brushing the teeth is the topmost rung of a ladder of which the lowest rung is perdition.

  They never say ‘my’ or ‘mine’. They own nothing and may cherish nothing. Everything is ‘ours’ – our veil, our chaplet; if they were to speak of their shift they would say ‘our shift’. Sometimes they become attached to some small object, a book of hours, a relic, a blessed medallion. When they find that they are beginning to cling to it they must give it up, recalling the words of St Theresa, to whom a great lady on the point of joining her order said: ‘May I be allowed, Reverend Mother, to send for a copy of the Holy Bible which I greatly cherish?’ … ‘Ah, you cherish something? In that case you cannot join us.’

  None of them is allowed to shut herself away or to have any place or room of her own. They live in open cells. When two of them meet one will say, ‘Praise and worship to the Holy Sacrament of the altar!’, to which the other will reply, ‘For ever!’ The same words are spoken when one knocks at another’s door: scarcely has she touched it than a soft voice on the other side is heard to say, ‘For ever!’. Like all such practices, it becomes mechanical from force of habit, and sometimes the words ‘For ever!’ are spoken before there has been time to utter the preliminary sentence, which is after all rather long. The visitor upon entering says, ‘Hail Mary!’ and the other replies, ‘Full of grace!’ This is their form of good day, which is indeed ‘full of grace’.

  At every hour during the day the chapel bell sounds three additional strokes, and at this signal all of them – prioress, mothers, sisters, novices, postulants – interrupt what they are saying or doing or thinking to say together, ‘At this hour of five’ (or eight, or whatever the hour may be) ‘– and at all hours praised and worshipped be the Holy Sacrament of the altar!’ This custom, which is designed to check the flow of thought and direct it back to God, is common to many communities, although the formula varies. In the community of the Infant Jesus, for example, they say: ‘At this present hour, and at all hours, may the love of Jesus Christ glow in my heart.’

  The Benedictine-Bernardine order of Martin Verga, cloistered fifty years ago in the convent of Petit-Picpus, chanted the offices to a grave psalmody that was pure plain-chant, and always at full voice throughout the service. Where there was a break in the missal they paused and murmured in low voices, ‘Jesus-Mary-Joseph’. In the office for the dead the pitch was so low that women’s voices could scarcely reach it: The effect was impressive and tragic.


  The Petit-Picpus community caused a vault to be constructed under the High Altar which was intended to serve as their communal sepulchre. But the Government, it seems, would not allow bodies to be interred there. The dead have to be removed from the convent, and this greatly afflicts them as an infraction of their rule. As a small consolation they secured the right to be buried at a particular hour and in a particular corner of the ancient Vaugirard Cemetery, which was formerly owned by their community.

  On Thursdays, the nuns heard Grand Mass, vespers and all the offices, precisely as on a Sunday. They scrupulously observed all the minor feast-days, scarcely known to the lay world, which the Church at one time lavished upon France and still does upon Spain and Italy. Their chapel attendances were interminable. As to the number and length of their prayers, we can best give an idea of this by quoting the ingenuous utterance of one of them – ‘The prayers of the postulants are terrifying, those of the novices are worse, and those of the professed nuns are worst of all.’

  Once a week the Chapter was convened, the prioress presiding and the mothers attending. Each sister in turn knelt on the stone and confessed aloud before them all the faults and sins she had committed during the week. The mothers conferred after each confession and prescribed the penance.

  In addition to open confession, which was reserved for relatively serious matters, there was the practice known as ‘la coulpe’, derived from the Latin culpa, guilt. To perform ‘la coulpe’, was to prostrate oneself during the service at the feet of the prioress, and remain there until the latter (who was never referred to except as ‘our mother’) indicated by tapping on the wood of her stall that the sinner might rise to her feet. This act of penitence applied to very small matters – a broken glass, a torn veil, an instant’s tardiness, a false note in the singing, any of these was enough. It was a spontaneous act, the culprit being her own judge of whether to perform it. On Sundays and feast-days four chantry-mothers sang the office at a large lectern with four singing-desks. One day one of these, in a psalm beginning with the word Ecce, sang instead the three notes C, B and G. For this slip, she endured a ’coulpe’ lasting throughout the service. What made her fault so terrible was that the chapter had laughed.