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Updated: June 8, 2025
While the wedding was in preparation, and while awaiting the date fixed upon, he caused difficult and scrupulous retrospective researches to be made. He owed gratitude in various quarters; he owed it on his father's account, he owed it on his own. There was Thenardier; there was the unknown man who had brought him, Marius, back to M. Gillenormand.
Marius had left M. Gillenormand in despair. He had entered the house with very little hope, and quitted it with immense despair. However, and those who have observed the depths of the human heart will understand this, the officer, the lancer, the ninny, Cousin Theodule, had left no trace in his mind. Not the slightest.
His last valet was a big, foundered, short-winded fellow of fifty-five, who was incapable of running twenty paces; but, as he had been born at Bayonne, M. Gillenormand called him Basque. One day, a haughty cook, a cordon bleu, of the lofty race of porters, presented herself. "How much wages do you want a month?" asked M. Gillenormand. "Thirty francs." "What is your name?" "Olympie."
He was present at all the dressings of the wounds from which Mademoiselle Gillenormand modestly absented herself. When the dead flesh was cut away with scissors, he said: "Aie! aie!" Nothing was more touching than to see him with his gentle, senile palsy, offer the wounded man a cup of his cooling-draught. He overwhelmed the doctor with questions.
And he kissed her. Aunt Gillenormand went to her writing-desk and opened it. "You will remain with us a week at least?" "I leave this very evening, aunt." "It is not possible!" "Mathematically!" "Remain, my little Theodule, I beseech you." "My heart says 'yes, but my orders say 'no. The matter is simple. They are changing our garrison; we have been at Melun, we are being transferred to Gaillon.
These households comprised of an old man and an old spinster are not rare, and always have the touching aspect of two weaknesses leaning on each other for support. There was also in this house, between this elderly spinster and this old man, a child, a little boy, who was always trembling and mute in the presence of M. Gillenormand.
M. Gillenormand approved: "All kings who are not the King of France," said he, "are provincial kings." One day, the following question was put and the following answer returned in his presence: "To what was the editor of the Courrier Francais condemned?" "To be suspended." "Sus is superfluous," observed M. Gillenormand. Remarks of this nature found a situation.
He, on his side, habituated as he was to have women consider him handsome, retained no more recollection of Cosette than of any other woman. "How right I was not to believe in that story about the lancer!" said Father Gillenormand, to himself. Cosette had never been more tender with Jean Valjean.
At the moment when she makes her entrance into this history which we are relating, she was an antique virtue, an incombustible prude, with one of the sharpest noses, and one of the most obtuse minds that it is possible to see. A characteristic detail; outside of her immediate family, no one had ever known her first name. She was called Mademoiselle Gillenormand, the elder.
As for Jean Valjean, a beautiful chamber in the Gillenormand house had been furnished expressly for him, and Cosette had said to him in such an irresistible manner: "Father, I entreat you," that she had almost persuaded him to promise that he would come and occupy it. A few days before that fixed on for the marriage, an accident happened to Jean Valjean; he crushed the thumb of his right hand.
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