The Petit-Picpus community rapidly shrank. By 1840 the Little Convent and the school had ceased to exist. There were no longer any very old women or young girls, the first being dead and the second fled away.
The discipline of the Perpetual Adoration is so harsh that it repels; vocations recoil from it and recruits are not forthcoming. In 1845 there were still a few groups of serving sisters but no chantry-nuns. Forty years ago the number was nearly a hundred, and fifteen years ago it was only twenty-eight. The prioress in 1847 was young, not yet forty, a sign that the choice was limited. As the number diminished the work of the community increased, the duties of each member becoming more arduous. The time was drawing near when there would be no more than a dozen bowed and labouring shoulders to sustain the heavy rule of St Benedict, a burden that grew no lighter, whether for the few or the many. A crushing burden, and so they died. Two, aged twenty-five and twenty-three, died while the author of this book was still living in Paris. It was because of this shrinkage that the convent was forced to give up the education of girls.
We could not have entered that extraordinary and little-known establishment except in the company of those who – to the profit of some, perhaps – are following the melancholy history of Jean Valjean. We have glanced at that community with its ancient practices that nowadays seem strangely novel. It was a walled garden. We have described it in detail but with respect, insofar as the detail and respect may be reconciled. If we have not understood everything, we have despised nothing. We are as far removed from the hosannas of Joseph de Maistre, who blessed the executioner, as from the gibes of Voltaire, who mocked the Crucifix: a lack of logic on Voltaire’s part, be it said, for he would have defended Jesus as he defended Calas. To those who reject the superhuman incarnate what does the Crucifix represent? – the murder of wisdom.
In our nineteenth century the religious idea is undergoing a crisis. Certain things have been unlearnt, and this is good, provided other things are learnt. There must be no void in the human heart. Edifices may be pulled down, but only on condition that others are put in their place.
And in the meantime we must scrutinize the things that have vanished, needing to know if only to avoid them. Counterfeits of the past, under new names, may easily be mistaken for the future. The past, that ghostly traveller, is liable to forge his papers. We must be wary of the trap. The past has a face which is superstition, and a mask, which is hypocrisy. We must expose the face and tear off the mask.
Convents in general present a complex problem: the problem of civilization, which condemns them, and of liberty, which defends them.
[Book Seven: A Parenthesis, will be found as Appendix A, page 702].
Book Eight
Cemeteries Take What They Are Given
I
Which treats of the method of entering a convent
IT WAS into this establishment that Jean Valjean had fallen, in Fauchelevent’s words, ‘out of the sky’. After putting Cosette to bed he and Fauchelevent had a meal in front of a blazing fire and then, there being no other bed, they stretched out on bales of straw. Before closing his eyes Valjean said, ‘I shall have to stay here,’ and the words exercised Fauchelevent’s mind for the rest of the night.
But the truth is that neither of them slept. Knowing now that Javert was on his trail Valjean realized that he and Cosette could not hope to hide anywhere in the town. Chance having brought him to the convent, his only thought was to remain there. In his situation it was at once the most dangerous and the safest place – most dangerous since no man might enter it, and to be discovered there would of itself cause him to be sent to prison; but safest because who would look for him there? The most unlikely hiding-place was the most secure.
Fauchelevent, for his part, was racking his brains. He began by saying to himself that the whole thing was beyond him. How had Monsieur Madeleine contrived to get in over that formidable wall and, what was more, bring a child with him? Who was the child, and where had they come from? Fauchelevent had heard no news of Montreuil-sur-mer since he had been in the convent, and he knew nothing of what had happened. Père Madeleine’s manner discouraged questions, and he said to himself that in any case one does not question a saint. For him the great man had lost none of his greatness. Certain words that he had let fall, however, gave Fauchelevent the impression that he must have gone bankrupt owing to the hardness of the times, and was now running to escape his creditors; or perhaps he had been compromised in some political affair and must go into hiding. This latter thought did not displease the old man, who, like so many of our northern peasants, was at heart a Bonapartist. That Monsieur Madeleine should regard the convent as a place of refuge and wish to remain there was understandable; but the child remained a complete mystery. Faced by this element of the incomprehensible the old man lost himself in conjecture, seeing only one thing clearly, that the former mayor had saved his life. ‘It’s my turn,’ he thought. ‘He didn’t waste any time thinking when he crawled under that cart to rescue me.’ At all costs he must now come to his aid. Even if Monsieur Madeleine turned out to be a thief, even a murderer, he must still be saved, since he was also a saint.
But how contrive matters so that he could stay in the convent? Insuperable though the problem appeared, Fauchelevent refused to be daunted. The humble Picardy peasant, with no other resources than devotion, goodwill, and a store of peasant cunning which must now be made to serve a generous impulse, was steadfast in his resolve to outwit the defences of the convent and scale the rigid barriers of the Rule of St Benedict. Fauchelevent was an old man who all his life had been wholly self-centred but who now, at the end of his days, crippled, infirm and having no further interest in life, took pleasure in his sense of gratitude, and, having the chance to perform a good deed, clutched at it with the eagerness of a dying man offered a glass of some rare vintage which he has never previously tasted. Moreover the air he had breathed during his several years at the convent had so modified his character that a virtuous act of some kind had become for him a necessity.
So he determined to serve Monsieur Madeleine.
We have called him a humble Picardy peasant, and this is a true but incomplete description. We need now to look more closely at Père Fauchelevent. He was a peasant but he had been a law-scrivener, which lent sharp practice to his cunning and astuteness to his simplicity. Having for a variety of reasons failed in his business of scrivener he had sunk to the level of carter and casual labourer; but beneath the oaths and whiplashes inseparable, as it seems, from the handling of horses something of the scrivener still lingered. He had some natural intelligence and his language had become less uncouth than that of the ordinary peasant. He liked to discourse, which is rare among villagers, and people said of him, ‘He talks almost like a gentleman.’ In short Fauchelevent was what an earlier age would have termed half-burgess and half-villein, a mingling of citizen and rustic. Although harshly treated by the world and bearing the marks of this ill-usage, he was still a creature of impulse and spontaneity, qualities which prevent a man from being wholly bad. His faults and vices, such as they had been, were superficial, and in general his appearance was more prepossessing than otherwise. That aged forehead had none of the vertical wrinkles that betoken malice or stupidity.
At daybreak Père Fauchelevent, having deeply cogitated, opened his eyes and looked at Monsieur Madeleine who, seated on his truss of straw, was watching Cosette while she slept. He sat up and said:
‘Well, here you are, but how are we going to arrange for you to be here?’
The question summed up the situation, arousing Jean Valjean from his preoccupations, and the two men took counsel together.
‘To start with,’ said Fauchelevent, ‘you mustn’t set foot outside this cottage, neither you nor the child. One glimpse of either of you in the garden will give us all away.’
‘That is true.’
‘The fact is, Monsieur Madeleine,’ said Fauchelevent, ‘you’ve arrived at a fortunate moment – or unfortuna
te, I should say. One of the ladies is very ill, said to be dying. The last rites are being performed, the forty-hour prayers, so the whole community has something on its mind and nobody is going to worry about us. A saint is departing this world. Well, of course, we’re all saints here, the difference being that they call their dwellings cells and I call mine a shanty. There are prayers for the dying and prayers for the dead. So that means that for today we shan’t be disturbed, but I can’t answer for tomorrow.’
‘In any case,’ said Jean Valjean, ‘this cottage is tucked away behind some sort of ruin. There are trees. Surely it can’t be seen from the convent?’
‘True, and the nuns never come near it. But there are the children.’
At this point Fauchelevent was interrupted by the single note of a bell. He broke off and signed to Valjean to listen. The bell sounded again.
‘So she’s dead,’ he said. ‘That’s the death-knell. That bell will toll once a minute for the next twenty-four hours, until the body is taken out of the chapel. The children play in the garden. A ball has only to come bouncing this way and they’ll be running after it, looking everywhere, although they know it isn’t allowed. They’re little imps, those children.’
‘What children?’
‘They’d spot you in no time, and you’d have the whole lot squealing, “There’s a man!” But there’s no danger of that today. There’ll be no recreation period, nothing but prayers. Hark to that bell. Every minute, like I said.’
‘I think I understand,’ said Valjean. ‘There’s a boarding-school.’ The thought had instantly crossed his mind that it might be a place for the education of Cosette.
‘Little girls by the dozen,’ said Fauchelevent. ‘They’d run away squealing. A man in this place is like someone with the plague. That’s why I have a bell tied to me, as though I were a wild animal.’
Jean Valjean was now plunged in thought, reflecting that this convent might be their salvation. He said aloud:
‘The problem is to, stay here.’
‘No,’ said Fauchelevent, ‘the problem is to get out.’
Valjean started. ‘To get out?’
‘Yes, Monsieur. If you’re to be admitted you must come from outside. You can’t just be found here like this. For me, you’ve fallen from Heaven, but that’s because I know you. The nuns expect people to come in through the door.’
Another bell now rang, sounding a more elaborate peal.
‘Ah,’ said Fauchelevent. ‘That’s to summon the mothers to the chapter. They always hold a chapter when someones dies. She died at daybreak, like people mostly do. But why can’t you go out the way you came in? I don’t want to ask questions, but how did you get in?’
Jean Valjean had turned pale. The thought of returning to that dreadful street caused him to shudder. It was like escaping from a tiger-infested forest and being advised to go back into it. He pictured the police swarming throughout the quarter, watchers and patrols all over the place, hands everywhere ready to seize him by the collar, with Javert presiding.
‘Impossible,’ he said. ‘Père Fauchelevent, you must assume that I’ve fallen from the skies.’
‘And I’m ready to believe it,’ said Fauchelevent. ‘No need to tell me anything. God picked you up to have a look at you and then let you go again. Only, He made a mistake. He should have put you in a monastery. There’s another bell. That’ll be for the porter to go to the Municipality to report the death, and they’ll send a doctor to confirm it. All part of the ceremony of dying. The ladies don’t like those visits. Doctors don’t believe in anything. They lift up veils, and sometimes other things as well. But they’ve been very quick sending for the doctor this time. I wonder what’s happened. That child of yours is still asleep. What’s her name?’
‘Cosette.’
‘Is she really yours – as it might be, your granddaughter?’
‘Yes.’
‘There’ll be no trouble getting her out of here. There’s a service-door to the outside yard. I knock and the door-keeper opens. It’ll just be old Fauchelevent going out with his gardener’s hod on his back. You’ll have to tell the little girl to keep quiet. She’ll be inside the basket, hidden under a piece of sacking. I’ll take her to a friend of mine, an old woman who keeps a fruit-shop in the Rue du Chemin-Vert. She’s deaf and I’ll have to shout, but I’ll get her to understand that it’s my niece and she’s got to look after her until tomorrow. Then the child can come back here with you. Because I’ll find some way of getting you in. I’ll have to. But how are you going to get out?’
Jean Valjean shook his head.
‘No one must see me, Père Fauchelevent. That is the essential thing. You will have to contrive something like Cosette’s basket and piece of sacking.’
Fauchelevent scratched the lobe of his ear with the middle finger of his left hand, a sign of great perplexity. He was still pondering when the bell again rang.
‘That’ll be the doctor,’ he said. ‘He’ll have a look and say, “She’s dead all right.” After the doctor has stamped the passport to paradise the undertaker sends round a coffin. If it’s a mother, the mothers lay her out; and if it’s a sister the sisters do it. And then I nail her up. That’s part of my duties as gardener. A gardener is always something of a grave-digger. She’s put in a small room by the chapel, with a door giving on to the street, and no man except the doctor is allowed in. Me and the pall-bearers, we don’t count as men. That’s where I nail up the coffin. The pall-bearers take her away, and gee-up, Dobbin, that’s how we go to Heaven. They come with an empty box and take it away with something in it. And that’s a burial. De profundis.’
A ray of sunshine flooding into the room fell upon Cosette’s sleeping face, causing her lips to part as though she were drinking its light. Jean Valjean was gazing at her and no longer listening to Fauchelevent. But the lack of an audience did not deter the old man. He droned tranquilly on.
‘The grave will be in the Cimetière Vaugirard. They say they’re going to do away with that old cemetery. It doesn’t fit in with regulations, it wears uniform and it’s going to be retired. A pity, because it’s convenient. The grave-digger, Père Mestienne, is a friend of mine. The nuns from this convent have a special privilege, they’re allowed to be taken there at nightfall. The Prefect issued a special order. But, lord, what a lot of things have happened since yesterday, Mother Crucifixion dead and Père Madeleine –’
‘Buried alive,’ said Jean Valjean, sadly smiling.
‘Buried alive! Well, so you will be if you’re here for good.’
The bell rang yet again, and this time Fauchelevent hastily took his own bell off its nail and strapped it to his knee.
‘That’s for me. The prioress wants me. There, I’ve gone and pricked myself with the buckle. You wait here, Monsieur Madeleine, and don’t move till I come back. There’s wine and bread and cheese if you’re hungry.’
He went out muttering, ‘I’m coming. I’m coming,’ and Valjean saw him cross the garden as fast as his damaged leg allowed, glancing at his melon-patch as he passed. A few minutes later, having warned the nuns of his passing, he knocked gently on a door and a gentle voice replied, ‘For ever. For ever.’ – that is to say, ‘Come in.’
The door was that of a small room adjoining the chapter-room which was used when the gardener was interviewed in connection with his duties. The prioress, seated on the only chair, was awaiting him.
II
Fauchelevent deals with a problem
To appear at once troubled and controlled in moments of crisis is the especial quality of certain characters and certain callings, notably priests and the members of religious communities. This double preoccupation was apparent at the moment of Fauchelevent’s entry in the aspect of the prioress, the charming and erudite and generally cheerful Mlle de Blemeur, Mère Innocente.
The gardener, with a respectful salutation, remained standing in the doorway. The prioress, who was telling her beads, looked up and said, ‘Ah, it’s you, Pèr
e Fauvent,’ this being the abbreviation that was commonly used in the convent.
The old man bobbed and touched his forehead again.
‘You sent for me, Reverend Mother.’
‘I’ve something to say to you.’
‘I too,’ said Fauchelevent, with a boldness that secretly terrified him, ‘have something to say to the Very Reverend Mother.’
‘You have something to tell me?’
‘A request.’
‘Well, let me hear it.’
Old Fauchelevent, the one-time scrivener, was a peasant of the calculating kind. A shrewd show of ignorance can be effective; it disarms mistrust and it ensnares. During the period of a little more than two years that he had been in the convent Fauchelevent had become a part of the community. Solitary as he always was, busy about his garden, he had nothing else but curiosity to occupy his mind. The veiled women coming and going at a distance were to him like a fluttering of shadows, but by dint of observation and perspicacity he had endowed them with substance, bringing the spectral figures to life. He was like a deaf man who grows more longsighted or a blind man whose hearing becomes acute. He had learnt to read the code of the bells and had reached the point where nothing was hidden from him in that silent, enigmatic place: the sphinx whispered her secrets in his ear. But knowing everything, Fauchelevent disclosed nothing. That was his especial skill. The convent thought him stupid, a great merit in religion. The mothers esteemed him highly, feeling that he was to be trusted. Moreover he was regular in his habits, never going outside the walls except for the obvious necessities of his garden. His discreet bearing counted greatly in his favour. However, he was in the confidence of two men: the porter, from whom he learned the proceedings of the chapter, and the grave-digger at the cemetery, who told him about the special interment rites. He might be said, in short, to view the nuns in a double light, with one eye on life and the other on death. But he did not abuse his knowledge and was valued accordingly. Old, crippled, seeing nothing and probably hard of hearing – such admirable qualities! It would be difficult to replace him.
Les Miserables (Movie Tie-in) (9781101612774) Page 54
