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Updated: June 1, 2025
"Yes, Madame, I am going." "So Monsieur has no business in Montfermeil?" "No, I was passing through. That is all. What do I owe you, Madame," he added. The Thenardier silently handed him the folded bill. The man unfolded the paper and glanced at it; but his thoughts were evidently elsewhere. "Madame," he resumed, "is business good here in Montfermeil?"
Since 1823, when the tavern of Montfermeil was on the way to shipwreck and was being gradually engulfed, not in the abyss of a bankruptcy, but in the cesspool of petty debts, the Thenardier pair had had two other children; both males. That made five; two girls and three boys. Madame Thenardier had got rid of the last two, while they were still young and very small, with remarkable luck.
Some signs had made him suspect at the time that this was the second occasion of his entering that coach, and that he had already, on the previous day, made an excursion to the neighborhood of that village, for he had not been seen in the village itself. What had he been intending to do in that region of Montfermeil? It could not even be surmised. Javert understood it now.
Fantine had been dismissed from the factory without the knowledge of M. Madeleine; and her one hope in life was in her little girl, whom she called Cosette. Now, Cosette was boarded out at the village of Montfermeil, some leagues distance from M , with a family grasping and dishonest, and to raise money for Cosette's keep had brought Fantine to misery and sickness.
The Thenardiers considered themselves all the more authorized to behave in this manner, since the mother, who was still at M. sur M., had become irregular in her payments. Some months she was in arrears. If this mother had returned to Montfermeil at the end of these three years, she would not have recognized her child.
"At Montfermeil, if you know where that is." "That is where we are going?" "Yes, sir." He paused; then began again: "Who sent you at such an hour to get water in the forest?" "It was Madame Thenardier." The man resumed, in a voice which he strove to render indifferent, but in which there was, nevertheless, a singular tremor: "What does your Madame Thenardier do?"
In this manner Cosette traversed the labyrinth of tortuous and deserted streets which terminate in the village of Montfermeil on the side of Chelles. So long as she had the houses or even the walls only on both sides of her path, she proceeded with tolerable boldness.
If she were brought to me now, I should talk to her very gently. That is all. Is it not quite natural that I should desire to see my daughter, who has been brought to me expressly from Montfermeil? I am not angry. I know well that I am about to be happy. All night long I have seen white things, and persons who smiled at me. When Monsieur le Docteur pleases, he shall bring me Cosette.
There remained to her from her past, two teeth, one above, the other below, which she was continually knocking against each other. She had questioned Cosette, who had not been able to tell her anything, since she knew nothing herself except that she had come from Montfermeil.
It had been hard to advance further than the last stall; it became impossible to proceed further than the last house. She set her bucket on the ground, thrust her hand into her hair, and began slowly to scratch her head, a gesture peculiar to children when terrified and undecided what to do. It was no longer Montfermeil; it was the open fields. Black and desert space was before her.
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