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Updated: June 26, 2025
"It means, sir, that I shall take back Cosette." Cosette shuddered, and pressed close to the old man. He replied, gazing to the very bottom of Thenardier's eyes the while, and enunciating every syllable distinctly: "You are go-ing to take back Co-sette?" "Yes, sir, I am. I will tell you; I have considered the matter. In fact, I have not the right to give her to you.
Thenardier was a sort of special and sovereign being in Madame Thenardier's eyes, though she did not thoroughly realize it. She was possessed of virtues after her own kind; if she had ever had a disagreement as to any detail with "Monsieur Thenardier," which was an inadmissible hypothesis, by the way, she would not have blamed her husband in public on any subject whatever.
For men of Thenardier's nature, every dialogue is a combat. In the one in which he was about to engage, what was his situation? He did not know to whom he was speaking, but he did know of what he was speaking, he made this rapid review of his inner forces, and after having said: "I am Thenardier," he waited. Marius had become thoughtful. So he had hold of Thenardier at last.
And, according to all appearances, if he were to come and make to the Baron Pontmercy this revelation and without proof: "Your wife is a bastard," the only result would be to attract the boot of the husband towards the loins of the revealer. From Thenardier's point of view, the conversation with Marius had not yet begun.
Two hours afterwards, at four o'clock, when they came to relieve the conscript, he was found asleep on the floor, lying like a log near Thenardier's cage. As for Thenardier, he was no longer there. There was a hole in the ceiling of his cage, and, above it, another hole in the roof. One of the planks of his bed had been wrenched off, and probably carried away with him, as it was not found.
As it was a very poor quarter, he bestowed alms largely there, and the poor people surrounded him in church, which had drawn down upon him Thenardier's epistle: "To the benevolent gentleman of the church of Saint-Jacques-du-Haut-Pas." He was fond of taking Cosette to visit the poor and the sick. No stranger ever entered the house in the Rue Plumet.
Madame Thenardier's countenance assumed that peculiar expression which is composed of the terrible mingled with the trifles of life, and which has caused this style of woman to be named megaeras. On this occasion, wounded pride exasperated her wrath still further. Cosette had overstepped all bounds; Cosette had laid violent hands on the doll belonging to "these young ladies."
An ordinary man would have been alarmed because of the twilight, a thoughtful man on account of the bludgeon. Jean Valjean recognized Javert. The reader has divined, no doubt, that Thenardier's pursuer was no other than Javert.
There he had caught sight of Thenardier and had followed him. The reader knows the rest. Thus it will be easily understood that that grating, so obligingly opened to Jean Valjean, was a bit of cleverness on Thenardier's part. Thenardier intuitively felt that Javert was still there; the man spied upon has a scent which never deceives him; it was necessary to fling a bone to that sleuth-hound.
There was one singular circumstance; Thenardier's manners were not simple; he had not the air of being wholly at his ease; while affecting an air of mystery, he spoke low; from time to time he laid his finger on his mouth, and muttered, "hush!" It was difficult to divine why. There was no one there except themselves.
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