Melbourne Observer. 130327B. March 27, 2013. Part B. Pages 17-24, 69-76

Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

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www.MelbourneObserver.com.au Melbourne Observer - Wednesday, March 27, 2013 - Page 17

old legs permitted, the stairs to the upper storywhere Marius lived, in order to embrace him, andto question him while so doing, and to find outwhere he had been.But the youth had taken less time to descend thanthe old man had to ascend, and when FatherGillenormand entered the attic, Marius was nolonger there.The bed had not been disturbed, and on the bedlay, outspread, but not defiantly the great-coat andthe black ribbon.“I like this better,” said M. Gillenormand.And a moment later, he made his entrance intothe salon, where Mademoiselle Gillenormand wasalready seated, busily embroidering her cart-wheels.The entrance was a triumphant one.M. Gillenormand held in one hand the great-coat,and in the other the neck-ribbon, and exclaimed:—“Victory! We are about to penetrate the mystery!We are going to learn the most minute details; weare going to lay our finger on the debaucheries ofour sly friend! Here we have the romance itself. Ihave the portrait!”In fact, a case of black shagreen, resembling amedallion portrait, was suspended from the rib-bon.The old man took this case and gazed at it forsome time without opening it, with that air of en-joyment, rapture, and wrath, with which a poorhungry fellow beholds an admirable dinner whichis not for him, pass under his very nose.“For this evidently is a portrait. I know all aboutsuch things. That is worn tenderly on the heart.How stupid they are! Some abominable fright thatwill make us shudder, probably! Young men havesuch bad taste nowadays!”“Let us see, father,” said the old spinster.The case opened by the pressure of a spring. Theyfound in it nothing but a carefully folded paper.“From the same to the same,” said M.Gillenormand, bursting with laughter. “I knowwhat it is. A billet-doux.”“Ah! let us read it!” said the aunt.And she put on her spectacles. They unfolded thepaper and read as follows:—“For my son.— The Emperor made me a Baronon the battlefield of Waterloo. Since the Restora-tion disputes my right to this title which I pur-chased with my blood, my son shall take it andbear it. That he will be worthy of it is a matter ofcourse.”The feelings of father and daughter cannot be de-scribed. They felt chilled as by the breath of adeath’s-head. They did not exchange a word.Only, M. Gillenormand said in a low voice and asthough speaking to himself:—“It is the slasher’s handwriting.”The aunt examined the paper, turned it about inall directions, then put it back in its case.At the same moment a little oblong packet, en-veloped in blue paper, fell from one of the pock-ets of the great-coat. Mademoiselle Gillenormandpicked it up and unfolded the blue paper.It contained Marius’ hundred cards. She handedone of them to M. Gillenormand, who read: LeBaron Marius Pontmercy.The old man rang the bell. Nicolette came. M.Gillenormand took the ribbon, the case, and thecoat, flung them all on the floor in the middle ofthe room, and said:—“Carry those duds away.”A full hour passed in the most profound silence.The old man and the old spinster had seated them-selves with their backs to each other, and werethinking, each on his own account, the same things,in all probability.At the expiration of this hour, Aunt Gillenormandsaid:—“A pretty state of things!”A few moments later, Marius made his appear-ance. He entered. Even before he had crossed thethreshold, he saw his grandfather holding one ofhis own cards in his hand, and on catching sightof him, the latter exclaimed with his air of bour-geois and grinning superiority which was some-thing crushing:—“Well! well! well! well! well! so you are a baronnow. I present you my compliments. What is themeaning of this?”Marius reddened slightly and replied:—“It means that I am the son of my father.”M. Gillenormand ceased to laugh, and saidharshly:—

“The rendezvous is appointed outside,” saidTheodule. “Let’s have a look at the lass.”And he advanced on the tips of his boots towardsthe corner which Marius had turned.On arriving there, he halted in amazement.Marius, with his forehead clasped in his hands,was kneeling upon the grass on a grave. He hadstrewn his bouquet there. At the extremity of thegrave, on a little swelling which marked the head,there stood a cross of black wood with this namein white letters: COLONEL BARONPONTMERCY. Marius’ sobs were audible.The “lass” was a grave.

Vernon!” And Lieutenant Theodule woke.“Good,” he growled, still half asleep, “this iswhere I get out.”Then, as his memory cleared by degrees, the ef-fect of waking, he recalled his aunt, the ten louis,and the account which he had undertaken to ren-der of the deeds and proceedings of Marius. Thisset him to laughing.“Perhaps he is no longer in the coach,” he thought,as he rebuttoned the waistcoat of his undress uni-form. “He may have stopped at Poissy; he mayhave stopped at Triel; if he did not get out atMeulan, he may have got out at Mantes, unlesshe got out at Rolleboise, or if he did not go on asfar as Pacy, with the choice of turning to the leftat Evreus, or to the right at Laroche–Guyon. Runafter him, aunty. What the devil am I to write tothat good old soul?”At that moment a pair of black trousers descend-ing from the imperial, made its appearance atthe window of the coupe.“Can that be Marius?” said the lieutenant.It was Marius.A little peasant girl, all entangled with the horsesand the postilions at the end of the vehicle, wasoffering flowers to the travellers. “Give your la-dies flowers!” she cried.Marius approached her and purchased the finestflowers in her flat basket.“Come now,” said Theodule, leaping down fromthe coupe, “this piques my curiosity. Who thedeuce is he going to carry those flowers to? Shemust be a splendidly handsome woman for so finea bouquet. I want to see her.”And no longer in pursuance of orders, but frompersonal curiosity, like dogs who hunt on their ownaccount, he set out to follow Marius.Marius paid no attention to Theodule. Elegantwomen descended from the diligence; he did notglance at them. He seemed to see nothing aroundhim.“He is pretty deeply in love!” thought Theodule.Marius directed his steps towards the church.“Capital,” said Theodule to himself. “Rendez-vous seasoned with a bit of mass are the bestsort. Nothing is so exquisite as an ogle whichpasses over the good God’s head.”On arriving at the church, Marius did not enter it,but skirted the apse. He disappeared behind oneof the angles of the apse.

Continued on Page 18

●●●●● Victor Hugo

“A traveller had already come to engage a seat inthe imperial. I saw his name on the card.”“What name?”“Marius Pontmercy.”“The wicked fellow!” exclaimed his aunt. “Ah!your cousin is not a steady lad like yourself. Tothink that he is to pass the night in a diligence!”“Just as I am going to do.”“But you — it is your duty; in his case, it is wild-ness.”“Bosh!” said Theodule.Here an event occurred to MademoiselleGillenormand the elder,— an idea struck her. Ifshe had been a man, she would have slapped herbrow. She apostrophized Theodule:—“Are you aware whether your cousin knows you?”“No. I have seen him; but he has never deigned tonotice me.”“So you are going to travel together?”“He in the imperial, I in the coupe.”“Where does this diligence run?”“To Andelys.”“Then that is where Marius is going?”“Unless, like myself, he should stop on the way. Iget down at Vernon, in order to take the branchcoach for Gaillon. I know nothing of Marius’ planof travel.”“Marius! what an ugly name! what possessedthem to name him Marius? While you, at least,are called Theodule.”“I would rather be called Alfred,” said the of-ficer.“Listen, Theodule.”“I am listening, aunt.”“Pay attention.”“I am paying attention.”“You understand?”“Yes.”“Well, Marius absents himself!”“Eh! eh!”“He travels.”“Ah! ah!”“He spends the night out.”“Oh! oh!”“We should like to know what there is behind allthis.”Theodule replied with the composure of a man ofbronze:—“Some petticoat or other.”And with that inward laugh which denotes cer-tainty, he added:—“A lass.”“That is evident,” exclaimed his aunt, who thoughtshe heard M. Gillenormand speaking, and whofelt her conviction become irresistible at that wordfillette, accentuated in almost the very same fash-ion by the granduncle and the grandnephew. Sheresumed:—“Do us a favor. Follow Marius a little. He doesnot know you, it will be easy. Since a lass thereis, try to get a sight of her. You must write us thetale. It will amuse his grandfather.”Theodule had no excessive taste for this sort ofspying; but he was much touched by the ten louis,and he thought he saw a chance for a possiblesequel. He accepted the commission and said: “Asyou please, aunt.”And he added in an aside, to himself: “Here I ama duenna.”Mademoiselle Gillenormand embraced him.“You are not the man to play such pranks,Theodule. You obey discipline, you are the slaveof orders, you are a man of scruples and duty, andyou would not quit your family to go and see acreature.”The lancer made the pleased grimace of Cartou-che when praised for his probity.Marius, on the evening following this dialogue,mounted the diligence without suspecting that hewas watched. As for the watcher, the first thinghe did was to fall asleep. His slumber was com-plete and conscientious. Argus snored all nightlong.At daybreak, the conductor of the diligenceshouted: “Vernon! relay of Vernon! Travellers for

VOLUME iii - MARIUS

BOOK THIRD.— THE GRANDFATHER

AND THE GRANDSON

CHAPTER VII

SOME PETTICOAT

Continued from last week

CHAPTER VIII

MARBLE AGAINST GRANITE

It was hither that Marius had come on the firstoccasion of his absenting himself from Paris. Itwas hither that he had come every time that M.Gillenormand had said: “He is sleeping out.”Lieutenant Theodule was absolutely put out ofcountenance by this unexpected encounter with asepulchre; he experienced a singular and disagree-able sensation which he was incapable of ana-lyzing, and which was composed of respect forthe tomb, mingled with respect for the colonel.He retreated, leaving Marius alone in the cem-etery, and there was discipline in this retreat.Death appeared to him with large epaulets, andhe almost made the military salute to him. Notknowing what to write to his aunt, he decided notto write at all; and it is probable that nothing wouldhave resulted from the discovery made byTheodule as to the love affairs of Marius, if, byone of those mysterious arrangements which areso frequent in chance, the scene at Vernon hadnot had an almost immediate counter-shock atParis.Marius returned from Vernon on the third day, inthe middle of the morning, descended at hisgrandfather’s door, and, wearied by the two nightsspent in the diligence, and feeling the need of re-pairing his loss of sleep by an hour at the swim-ming-school, he mounted rapidly to his chamber,took merely time enough to throw off his travel-ling-coat, and the black ribbon which he woreround his neck, and went off to the bath.M. Gillenormand, who had risen betimes like allold men in good health, had heard his entrance,and had made haste to climb, as quickly as his


From Page 17

“I am your father.”“My father,” retorted Marius, with downcast eyesand a severe air, “was a humble and heroic man,who served the Republic and France gloriously,who was great in the greatest history that menhave ever made, who lived in the bivouac for aquarter of a century, beneath grape-shot and bul-lets, in snow and mud by day, beneath rain at night,who captured two flags, who received twentywounds, who died forgotten and abandoned, andwho never committed but one mistake, which wasto love too fondly two ingrates, his country andmyself.”This was more than M. Gillenormand could bearto hear. At the word republic, he rose, or, to speakmore correctly, he sprang to his feet. Every wordthat Marius had just uttered produced on the vis-age of the old Royalist the effect of the puffs ofair from a forge upon a blazing brand. From adull hue he had turned red, from red, purple, andfrom purple, flame-colored.“Marius!” he cried. “Abominable child! I do notknow what your father was! I do not wish to know!I know nothing about that, and I do not know him!But what I do know is, that there never was any-thing but scoundrels among those men! They wereall rascals, assassins, red-caps, thieves! I say all!I say all! I know not one! I say all! Do you hearme, Marius! See here, you are no more a baronthan my slipper is! They were all bandits in theservice of Robespierre! All who served B-u-o-naparte were brigands! They were all traitors whobetrayed, betrayed, betrayed their legitimate king!All cowards who fled before the Prussians andthe English at Waterloo! That is what I do know!Whether Monsieur your father comes in that cat-egory, I do not know! I am sorry for it, so muchthe worse, your humble servant!”In his turn, it was Marius who was the firebrandand M. Gillenormand who was the bellows.Marius quivered in every limb, he did not knowwhat would happen next, his brain was on fire.He was the priest who beholds all his sacred wa-fers cast to the winds, the fakir who beholds apasser-by spit upon his idol. It could not be thatsuch things had been uttered in his presence. Whatwas he to do? His father had just been trampledunder foot and stamped upon in his presence, butby whom? By his grandfather. How was he toavenge the one without outraging the other? It wasimpossible for him to insult his grandfather and itwas equally impossible for him to leave his fa-ther unavenged. On the one hand was a sacredgrave, on the other hoary locks.He stood there for several moments, staggeringas though intoxicated, with all this whirlwinddashing through his head; then he raised his eyes,gazed fixedly at his grandfather, and cried in avoice of thunder:—“Down with the Bourbons, and that great hog of aLouis XVIII.!”Louis XVIII. had been dead for four years; but itwas all the same to him.The old man, who had been crimson, turned whiterthan his hair. He wheeled round towards a bust ofM. le Duc de Berry, which stood on the chimney-piece, and made a profound bow, with a sort ofpeculiar majesty. Then he paced twice, slowlyand in silence, from the fireplace to the windowand from the window to the fireplace, traversingthe whole length of the room, and making the pol-ished floor creak as though he had been a stonestatue walking.On his second turn, he bent over his daughter, whowas watching this encounter with the stupefiedair of an antiquated lamb, and said to her with asmile that was almost calm: “A baron like thisgentleman, and a bourgeois like myself cannotremain under the same roof.”And drawing himself up, all at once, pallid, trem-bling, terrible, with his brow rendered more loftyby the terrible radiance of wrath, he extended hisarm towards Marius and shouted to him:—“Be off!”Marius left the house.On the following day, M. Gillenormand said tohis daughter:“You will send sixty pistoles every six months tothat blood-drinker, and you will never mention hisname to me.”Having an immense reserve fund of wrath to getrid of, and not knowing what to do with it, he con-tinued to address his daughter as you instead ofthou for the next three months.Marius, on his side, had gone forth in indignation.There was one circumstance which, it must beadmitted, aggravated his exasperation. There arealways petty fatalities of the sort which compli-cate domestic dramas. They augment the griev-

ances in such cases, although, in reality, the wrongsare not increased by them. While carrying Marius’“duds” precipitately to his chamber, at hisgrandfather’s command, Nicolette had, inadvert-ently, let fall, probably, on the attic staircase, whichwas dark, that medallion of black shagreen whichcontained the paper penned by the colonel. Nei-ther paper nor case could afterwards be found.Marius was convinced that “MonsieurGillenormand”— from that day forth he never al-luded to him otherwise — had flung “his father’stestament” in the fire. He knew by heart the fewlines which the colonel had written, and, conse-quently, nothing was lost. But the paper, the writ-ing, that sacred relic,— all that was his very heart.What had been done with it?Marius had taken his departure without sayingwhither he was going, and without knowing where,with thirty francs, his watch, and a few clothes ina hand-bag. He had entered a hackney-coach, hadengaged it by the hour, and had directed his courseat hap-hazard towards the Latin quarter.What was to become of Marius?

This hall, which was tolerably remote from thecafe, with which it was connected by an extremelylong corridor, had two windows and an exit with aprivate stairway on the little Rue des Gres. Therethey smoked and drank, and gambled and laughed.There they conversed in very loud tones abouteverything, and in whispers of other things. Anold map of France under the Republic was nailedto the wall,— a sign quite sufficient to excite thesuspicion of a police agent.The greater part of the Friends of the A B C werestudents, who were on cordial terms with theworking classes. Here are the names of the prin-cipal ones. They belong, in a certain measure, tohistory: Enjolras, Combeferre, Jean Prouvaire,Feuilly, Courfeyrac, Bahorel, Lesgle or Laigle,Joly, Grantaire.These young men formed a sort of family, throughthe bond of friendship. All, with the exception ofLaigle, were from the South.This was a remarkable group. It vanished in theinvisible depths which lie behind us. At the pointof this drama which we have now reached, it willnot perhaps be superfluous to throw a ray of lightupon these youthful heads, before the reader be-holds them plunging into the shadow of a tragicadventure.Enjolras, whose name we have mentioned firstof all,— the reader shall see why later on,— wasan only son and wealthy.Enjolras was a charming young man, who wascapable of being terrible. He was angelically hand-some. He was a savage Antinous. One would havesaid, to see the pensive thoughtfulness of hisglance, that he had already, in some previous stateof existence, traversed the revolutionary apoca-lypse. He possessed the tradition of it as thoughhe had been a witness. He was acquainted withall the minute details of the great affair. A pon-tifical and warlike nature, a singular thing in ayouth. He was an officiating priest and a man ofwar; from the immediate point of view, a soldierof the democracy; above the contemporary move-ment, the priest of the ideal. His eyes were deep,his lids a little red, his lower lip was thick andeasily became disdainful, his brow was lofty. Agreat deal of brow in a face is like a great deal ofhorizon in a view. Like certain young men at thebeginning of this century and the end of the last,who became illustrious at an early age, he wasendowed with excessive youth, and was as rosyas a young girl, although subject to hours of pal-lor. Already a man, he still seemed a child. Histwo and twenty years appeared to be but seven-teen; he was serious, it did not seem as though hewere aware there was on earth a thing calledwoman. He had but one passion — the right; butone thought — to overthrow the obstacle. On MountAventine, he would have been Gracchus; in theConvention, he would have been Saint–Just. Hehardly saw the roses, he ignored spring, he didnot hear the carolling of the birds; the bare throatof Evadne would have moved him no more than itwould have moved Aristogeiton; he, likeHarmodius, thought flowers good for nothing ex-cept to conceal the sword. He was severe in hisenjoyments. He chastely dropped his eyes beforeeverything which was not the Republic. He wasthe marble lover of liberty. His speech was harshlyinspired, and had the thrill of a hymn. He wassubject to unexpected outbursts of soul. Woe tothe love-affair which should have risked itselfbeside him! If any grisette of the Place Cambraior the Rue Saint–Jean-deBeauvais, seeing thatface of a youth escaped from college, that page’smien, those long, golden lashes, those blue eyes,that hair billowing in the wind, those rosy cheeks,those fresh lips, those exquisite teeth, had con-ceived an appetite for that complete aurora, andhad tried her beauty on Enjolras, an astoundingand terrible glance would have promptly shownher the abyss, and would have taught her not toconfound the mighty cherub of Ezekiel with thegallant Cherubino of Beaumarchais.By the side of Enjolras, who represented the logicof the Revolution, Combeferre represented itsphilosophy. Between the logic of the Revolutionand its philosophy there exists this difference —that its logic may end in war, whereas its philoso-phy can end only in peace. Combeferre comple-mented and rectified Enjolras. He was less lofty,but broader. He desired to pour into all minds theextensive principles of general ideas: he said:“Revolution, but civilization”; and around themountain peak he opened out a vast view of theblue sky. The Revolution was more adapted forbreathing with Combeferre than with Enjolras.Enjolras expressed its divine right, andCombeferre its natural right. The first attachedhimself to Robespierre; the second confined him-

- Continued on Page 75

Page 18 - Melbourne Observer - Wednesday, March 27, 2013

self to Condorcet. Combeferre lived the life ofall the rest of the world more than did Enjolras. Ifit had been granted to these two young men toattain to history, the one would have been the just,the other the wise man. Enjolras was the morevirile, Combeferre the more humane. Homo andvir, that was the exact effect of their differentshades. Combeferre was as gentle as Enjolras wassevere, through natural whiteness. He loved theword citizen, but he preferred the word man. Hewould gladly have said: Hombre, like the Span-ish. He read everything, went to the theatres, at-tended the courses of public lecturers, learned thepolarization of light from Arago, grew enthusias-tic over a lesson in which Geoffrey Sainte–Hilaireexplained the double function of the external ca-rotid artery, and the internal, the one which makesthe face, and the one which makes the brain; hekept up with what was going on, followed sci-ence step by step, compared Saint–Simon withFourier, deciphered hieroglyphics, broke the pebblewhich he found and reasoned on geology, drewfrom memory a silkworm moth, pointed out thefaulty French in the Dictionary of the Academy,studied Puysegur and Deleuze, affirmed nothing,not even miracles; denied nothing, not even ghosts;turned over the files of the Moniteur, reflected.He declared that the future lies in the hand of theschoolmaster, and busied himself with educationalquestions. He desired that society should laborwithout relaxation at the elevation of the moraland intellectual level, at coining science, at put-ting ideas into circulation, at increasing the mindin youthful persons, and he feared lest the presentpoverty of method, the paltriness from a literarypoint of view confined to two or three centuriescalled classic, the tyrannical dogmatism of offi-cial pedants, scholastic prejudices and routinesshould end by converting our colleges into artifi-cial oyster beds. He was learned, a purist, exact,a graduate of the Polytechnic, a close student, andat the same time, thoughtful “even to chimaeras,”so his friends said. He believed in all dreams,railroads, the suppression of suffering inchirurgical operations, the fixing of images in thedark chamber, the electric telegraph, the steeringof balloons. Moreover, he was not much alarmedby the citadels erected against the human mind inevery direction, by superstition, despotism, andprejudice. He was one of those who think thatscience will eventually turn the position. Enjolraswas a chief, Combeferre was a guide. One wouldhave liked to fight under the one and to marchbehind the other. It is not that Combeferre wasnot capable of fighting, he did not refuse a hand-to-hand combat with the obstacle, and to attack itby main force and explosively; but it suited himbetter to bring the human race into accord withits destiny gradually, by means of education, theinculcation of axioms, the promulgation of posi-tive laws; and, between two lights, his preferencewas rather for illumination than for conflagration.A conflagration can create an aurora, no doubt,but why not await the dawn? A volcano illumi-nates, but daybreak furnishes a still better illumi-nation. Possibly, Combeferre preferred the white-ness of the beautiful to the blaze of the sublime.A light troubled by smoke, progress purchased atthe expense of violence, only half satisfied thistender and serious spirit. The headlong precipita-tion of a people into the truth, a ‘93, terrified him;nevertheless, stagnation was still more repulsiveto him, in it he detected putrefaction and death;on the whole, he preferred scum to miasma, andhe preferred the torrent to the cesspool, and thefalls of Niagara to the lake of Montfaucon. In short,he desired neither halt nor haste. While his tu-multuous friends, captivated by the absolute,adored and invoked splendid revolutionary adven-tures, Combeferre was inclined to let progress,good progress, take its own course; he may havebeen cold, but he was pure; methodical, but irre-proachable; phlegmatic, but imperturbable.Combeferre would have knelt and clasped hishands to enable the future to arrive in all its can-dor, and that nothing might disturb the immenseand virtuous evolution of the races. The good mustbe innocent, he repeated incessantly. And in fact,if the grandeur of the Revolution consists in keep-ing the dazzling ideal fixedly in view, and of soar-ing thither athwart the lightnings, with fire andblood in its talons, the beauty of progress lies inbeing spotless; and there exists between Wash-ington, who represents the one, and Danton, whoincarnates the other, that difference which sepa-rates the swan from the angel with the wings ofan eagle.Jean Prouvaire was a still softer shade thanCombeferre. His name was Jehan, owing to that

BOOK FOURTH.—

THE FRIENDS OF THE A B C

CHAPTER I

A GROUP WHICH BARELY MISSED

BECOMING HISTORIC

At that epoch, which was, to all appearances in-different, a certain revolutionary quiver wasvaguely current. Breaths which had started forthfrom the depths of ‘89 and ‘93 were in the air.Youth was on the point, may the reader pardon usthe word, of moulting. People were undergoing atransformation, almost without being consciousof it, through the movement of the age. The needlewhich moves round the compass also moves insouls. Each person was taking that step in advancewhich he was bound to take. The Royalists werebecoming liberals, liberals were turning demo-crats. It was a flood tide complicated with a thou-sand ebb movements; the peculiarity of ebbs is tocreate intermixtures; hence the combination ofvery singular ideas; people adored both Napoleonand liberty. We are making history here. Thesewere the mirages of that period. Opinions traversephases. Voltairian royalism, a quaint variety, hada no less singular sequel, Bonapartist liberalism.Other groups of minds were more serious. In thatdirection, they sounded principles, they attachedthemselves to the right. They grew enthusiasticfor the absolute, they caught glimpses of infiniterealizations; the absolute, by its very rigidity, urgesspirits towards the sky and causes them to floatin illimitable space. There is nothing like dogmafor bringing forth dreams. And there is nothinglike dreams for engendering the future. Utopiatoday, flesh and blood tomorrow.These advanced opinions had a double founda-tion. A beginning of mystery menaced “the estab-lished order of things,” which was suspicious andunderhand. A sign which was revolutionary to thehighest degree. The second thoughts of powermeet the second thoughts of the populace in themine. The incubation of insurrections gives theretort to the premeditation of coups d’etat.There did not, as yet, exist in France any of thosevast underlying organizations, like the Germantugendbund and Italian Carbonarism; but here andthere there were dark underminings, which werein process of throwing off shoots. The Cougourdewas being outlined at Aix; there existed at Paris,among other affiliations of that nature, the soci-ety of the Friends of the A B C.What were these Friends of the A B C? A societywhich had for its object apparently the educationof children, in reality the elevation of man.They declared themselves the Friends of the A BC,— the Abaisse,— the debased,— that is to say,the people. They wished to elevate the people. Itwas a pun which we should do wrong to smile at.Puns are sometimes serious factors in politics;witness the Castratus ad castra, which made ageneral of the army of Narses; witness: Barbariet Barberini; witness: Tu es Petrus et super hancpetram, etc., etc.The Friends of the A B C were not numerous, itwas a secret society in the state of embryo, wemight almost say a coterie, if coteries ended inheroes. They assembled in Paris in two locali-ties, near the fish-market, in a wine-shop calledCorinthe, of which more will be heard later on,and near the Pantheon in a little cafe in the RueSaint–Michel called the Cafe Musain, now torndown; the first of these meeting-places was closeto the workingman, the second to the students.The assemblies of the Friends of the A B C wereusually held in a back room of the Cafe Musain.

www.MelbourneObserver.com.au

Melbourne PeopleShowBiz Social Club

at The Bentleigh ClubMonday, March 25

Photos: Gigi Hellmuth

●●●●● Ivan Videky, bass, and Grahame Taylor, pianist●●●●● Renee Rundell, vocalist

●●●●● Barrie Boyes, saxaphone●●●●● Paul Phillips, drummer, and Colin Garrett, saxaphone

Melbourne Observer - Wednesday, March 27, 2013 - Page 19

Sew what ... visit Maryborough’s Flour Mill GalleryObserver

Melbourne

Places To Go

●●●●● Maryborough Flour Mill Gallery has the largest collection of vintage, antique and toysewing machines on display to the public in Australia, say owners Wayne and Judi McKail

Rich history■ The Maryborough area wasoriginally inhabited by the Dja DjaWurrung people.

The first Europeans to settlewere the Simson brothers, who es-tablished a sheep station, known asCharlotte Plains, in 1840.

Gold was discovered at WhiteHill, 4 kilometres north ofMaryborough, in 1854, leading toprospectors rushing to the area.

At its peak, Maryborough hada population of up to 50,000.

The town site was surveyed in1854, with a police camp, Meth-odist church, and hospital amongstthe first infrastructure. The PostOffice opened in 1854.

The settlement was originallyknown as Simsons, but laterchanged to Maryborough by thegold commissioner James Daly,after his Irish birthplace.

One of Victoria's earliest news-papers, the Maryborough Adver-tiser, was established in 1854. Landsales commenced in 1856, andMaryborough became the admin-istrative and commercial centre ofthe area.

The last gold mine inMaryborough closed in 1918. In1924 the Maryborough KnittingMills opened, which established thetown as a centre for the wool indus-try. Maryborough became a cityin 1961.

■ Consider a trip to Maryboroughin Central Victoria over the Easterholidays, or in the Autumn-Wintertime.

Maryborough is located on thePyrenees Highway, 80 kilometresnorth of Ballarat, 168 kilometresnorth-west of Melbourne, in theShire of Central Goldfields.

At the 2011 census, Maryboroughhad a population of 7,630.

One of the attractions is the Mary-borough Flour Mill Gallery run byWayne and Judi McKail.

It incorporates Australia’s firstsewing machine machine museumopen regularly to the public.

“We are so lucky to have such anostalgic town which is pulling itselfout of the employment slump 30 yearsago,” Wayne and Judi tell theMelbourne Observer.

“This town now is a beautiful , in-teresting town filled with history andnostalgia. A real step back in time, wehave not lost that yesteryear atmo-sphere.

“Only 1½-hours north ofMelbourne and smack bang in themiddle of the famour Golden Tri-angle, Maryborough is an idealbase to take in the whole of the histori-cal Gold Mining region.

Maryborough is one hour fromBendigo, Ballarat and Ararat.

Maryborough FlourMill Gallery

Lot 4/38 Albert StMaryborough

Phone 0419 101 144, 5461 1322

Page 20 - Melbourne Observer - Wednesday, March 27, 2013 www.MelbourneObserver.com.au

Places To Go

Places To Gowww.MelbourneObserver.com.au Melbourne Observer - Wednesday, March 27, 2013 - Page 21


Victoria Pictorial Historic Photo Collection

●●●●● View at Sorrento. 1914.●●●●● Main street, Portsea. 1914.

●●●●● The Twelve Apostles, Port Campbell

●●●●● The Monbulk road, Belgrave. ●●●●● Bourke Street, Melbourne. 1948.

●●●●● Princes Bridge, Melbourne. Approx. 1940. ●●●●● Swanston Street, Melbourne. Early 1930s.

●●●●● ‘Australian aboriginals, Lake Tyers’.

Places To Go: Mildura-Wentworth Regionwww.MelbourneObserver.com.au Melbourne Observer - Wednesday, March 27, 2013 - Page 23


Places To Go

Places To Gowww.MelbourneObserver.com.au Melbourne Observer - Wednesday, March 27, 2013 - Page 69

FREE Courtesy Bus from 4.30pm to late Thursday, Friday and Saturday

Open for lunch (12 noon - 2.30pm) anddinner (6pm - 9pm) every day

Friday - Bistro menu lunch, Seafood Smor-gasbord dinner $28 visitors, $24 members

Saturday - Bistro menu lunch & ParmigianaBuffet dinner $25 visitors, $22 members

Sunday - Bistro menu lunch & dinner $25Visitors, $22 members

Monday Bistro lunch & dinnerBookings advised over the Easter Weekend.

Note, Children under 5 years eat FREE, children 6

- 12 years $10, children 13-17 years $18.

Entertainer Sundayevening - Peter

Croucher and hisPiano Accordion.

Colouring competitionfor the kids with prizes

for best effort - allsessions.


THREE DIFFERENT SIZES AVAILABLE

www.MelbourneObserver.com.au Melbourne Observer - Wednesday, March 27, 2013 - Page 71

Bundanoon stones: an uplifting experience

Cave in to black bottle bubbly

ObserverMelbourne

Travellers’ Good Buys

ObserverMelbourne Wines & Liqueurs

withDavidEllis

withDavidEllis

■ The Scots have been doing it for cen-turies, the Icelanders for as long asthey can remember, and on the otherside of the world, it’s been revered inHawaiian history as a sign of royalstrength.

We’re talking about lifting stones.Not any old stones, but special stonesthat can weigh anything up to 165kgeach, which is some lift.

And in Hawaii’s case, actually astone slab that weighs around 3,000kg,and which legend said that whoevercould move it would one day unite allof the warring islands into one peace-ful nation …

And someone did.Today strongmen around the world

are still lifting stones, and this April 6at Bundanoon in the picturesque NSWSouthern Highlands – just half waybetween Sydney and Canberra – fourof the strongest of Australia’sstrongmen will attempt to be the quick-est to lift five stones ranging from 115kgto 165kg each onto the tops of winebarrels during the 36st annualBundanoon is Brigadoon.

This wonderfully colourful, fun andevent-filled day is now one of theworld’s largest gatherings of all thingsScottish outside Scotland, a day whenthis pretty little village of just 2,500country folk rises from the Autumnmist and welcomes an amazing (andamazed) 12,000 or more visitors to theskirl of the bagpipes of a score PipeBands.

■ While for many AustraliansEaster’s a four-day holiday, chocolateeggs and bangers on the barbie, in Spainit’s a much more serious religious oc-casion celebrated with countrywideprocessions in which massive woodencrosses are borne tortuously through thestreets, and huge floats depicting reli-gious scenes and weighing as much asthree tonnes are carried shoulder-highbehind by muscly teams who train formonths.

And when these processions areover, the people go back to their homesto further respect the meaning of Eas-ter – until Easter Sunday, when theybreak-out with celebratory family feast-ing and the drinking of Cava, a tradi-tional Spanish sparkling wine, that canlast from lunchtime until well into thelate-night hours.

One of the most-popular of theseCavas is Freixenet Cordon Negro Brut,a non-vintage drop dubbed “BlackBottle Bubbly” because of the bottle itcomes in, and which is now the big-gest-selling sparkling wine in theworld, selling over 200-million bottlesa year.

Also one of the best-selling bubbliesin Australia, it’s a MethodeChampenoise-style made from threeSpanish grape varieties – Parellada,Macabeo and Xarel-lo – that after twofermentations is cellared in-bottle for24 months in 54km of caves nearBarcelona. Bargain buying for a mass-pro-duced sparkling of such quality, it costsjust $15 a bottle and you’ll find will beideal with an Easter (or any other Sun-day) seafood brunch.

One to note■ We’re unashamed Chardonnaybuffs and can never resist CumulusEstate’s from their ideal growing lo-cation 620m up in cool-climate high-country outside Orange in NSW’sCentral West.

Their just-released 2011Chardonnay is deservedly CumulusEstate’s proud flagship white, a pre-mium drop ($35) with beautifulmelon and stone-fruit flavours,creamy nutty oak and a crisp acid-ity.

A perfect match with white meatdishes or creamy pastas.

Pictured■ Black Bottle Bubbly” that’s nowthe world’s biggest-selling sparklingwine.

■ Flagship white to go perfectlywith white meat dishes or creamypastas.

We’re archived onhttp://vintnews.com

And where the air is filled with aro-mas of fresh-baked Highlandshortbreads and Abernethy biscuits,Scots pies and drop scones, ginger-breads and butterscotches, of bloodpudding and haggis …

And where this year’s Tartan War-riors – Aaron Monks, Luke Reynolds,Morgan Westmoreland and JordanSteffens – will vie to see who will be-come this year’s Bundanoon isBrigadoon Champion by lifting thosefive Stones of Manhood onto their winebarrels in the quickest time, and judgedby Australia’s super-strongman, DavidHuxley (who apart from being a multi-times Tartan Warriors Champion him-self, once pulled a 184-tonne Boeing747 Jumbo Jet for a-near 100m along atarmac at Sydney Airport …)

Lifting stones has been around forcenturies: in Scotland a boy was wel-comed into manhood when he could lifta special clan “testing stone” to theheight of his waist, and in later life menchallenged each other to lift mightierstones above their heads. In ancient Iceland, fishing boat cap-tains would carry a 100+kg stoneaboard their vessels, requiring thoseseeking work with them to prove theirstrength by raising the stone to theirchests…

And in Hawaii, legend had it thatwhoever could move the sacred near-three tonne Naha Stone on the Big Is-land Hawaii, would one day unite thewarring islands: at just 14 years of agethe boy who would become KingKamehameha the Great, not onlymoved the Naha Stone, but completelyrolled it over – and 38 years later, in1810 as King, he united the islands justas the prophecy had foretold.

If lifting stones is not your scenethere’ll be plenty else to enthral at thisyear’s Bundanoon is Brigadoon: howabout watching brawny blokes tossingaround what at 6m long appear to bescaled-down power poles called cabers,and more playfully hurling water-filledballoons 40m or more for others tocatch without getting a burst-balloondrenching.

Or others tossing fresh-laid eggs tobe caught deftly enough a-near 60maway to avoid any gooey consequences… and more sedately with their bonnielasses, demonstrating Scottish Countryand Highland Dances.

Visitors can join in many of theseevents, toe-tap to a colourful StreetParade of those twenty Pipe Bands withits floats and marching Clans, and beamazed by a replica scene from TheBattle of Waterloo by the 92nd GordonHighlanders, complete with mess tents,kitchens, headquarters, a surgeon’s tent,military supply hut and displays of his-toric firearms, swords and bayonets.

There’ll be games for children anda 5-and-under Bonny Bairns HighlandDress Competition, a whopping 100arts, crafts, Scottish and Tartan speci-ality stalls, and thirty Clans and Soci-eties will answer visitors’ enquiriesabout their possible Scottish ancestry… with the day ending with a Scottishdance night in the local hall.

And if you are visiting by train youwon’t be able to miss the localBundanoon railway station: CityRail re-signposts it for the day Brigadoon En-try: adults $20, child $6, family (2+2)$45; details (02) 4883 7471 orwww.brigadoon.net.au

- David Ellis

●●●●● THE skirl of bagpipes will greet more than 12,000 visitors to this year’s‘Bundanoon is Brigadoon’ in the NSW Southern Highlands.


Victorian Rural Newswww.MelbourneObserver.com.au Melbourne Observer - Wednesday, March 27, 2013 - Page 73


Victoria Pictorial Historic Photo Collection

●●●●● Cable tram car and dummy. 1892-93.●●●●● Elizabeth St, Melbourne. Near GPO. 1892-93.

●●●●● Elizabeth Street corner, Melbourne. 1892-93.

●●●●● Princess Theatre, Spring St, Melbourne. 1892-93. ●●●●● Law Courts, Melbourne. 1892.

●●●●● South Melbourne Town Hall, 1892. ●●●●● Bourke Street, Melbourne. 1892.

●●●●● Cable motorhouse, Melbourne tramways. 1892-93.


petty momentary freak which mingled with thepowerful and profound movement whence sprangthe very essential study of the Middle Ages. JeanProuvaire was in love; he cultivated a pot of flow-ers, played on the flute, made verses, loved thepeople, pitied woman, wept over the child, con-founded God and the future in the same confi-dence, and blamed the Revolution for havingcaused the fall of a royal head, that of AndreChenier. His voice was ordinarily delicate, butsuddenly grew manly. He was learned even toerudition, and almost an Orientalist. Above all,he was good; and, a very simple thing to thosewho know how nearly goodness borders on gran-deur, in the matter of poetry, he preferred the im-mense. He knew Italian, Latin, Greek, and He-brew; and these served him only for the perusalof four poets: Dante, Juvenal, AEschylus, andIsaiah. In French, he preferred Corneille toRacine, and Agrippa d’Aubigne to Corneille. Heloved to saunter through fields of wild oats andcorn-flowers, and busied himself with cloudsnearly as much as with events. His mind had twoattitudes, one on the side towards man, the otheron that towards God; he studied or he contem-plated. All day long, he buried himself in socialquestions, salary, capital, credit, marriage, reli-gion, liberty of thought, education, penal servi-tude, poverty, association, property, production andsharing, the enigma of this lower world whichcovers the human ant-hill with darkness; and atnight, he gazed upon the planets, those enormousbeings. Like Enjolras, he was wealthy and an onlyson. He spoke softly, bowed his head, loweredhis eyes, smiled with embarrassment, dressedbadly, had an awkward air, blushed at a mere noth-ing, and was very timid. Yet he was intrepid.Feuilly was a workingman, a fan-maker, orphanedboth of father and mother, who earned with diffi-culty three francs a day, and had but one thought,to deliver the world. He had one other preoccu-pation, to educate himself; he called this also,delivering himself. He had taught himself to readand write; everything that he knew, he had learnedby himself. Feuilly had a generous heart. Therange of his embrace was immense. This orphanhad adopted the peoples. As his mother had failedhim, he meditated on his country. He brooded withthe profound divination of the man of the people,over what we now call the idea of the nationality,had learned history with the express object of rag-ing with full knowledge of the case. In this clubof young Utopians, occupied chiefly with France,he represented the outside world. He had for hisspecialty Greece, Poland, Hungary, Roumania,Italy. He uttered these names incessantly, appro-priately and inappropriately, with the tenacity ofright. The violations of Turkey on Greece andThessaly, of Russia on Warsaw, of Austria onVenice, enraged him. Above all things, the greatviolence of 1772 aroused him. There is no moresovereign eloquence than the true in indignation;he was eloquent with that eloquence. He was in-exhaustible on that infamous date of 1772, on thesubject of that noble and valiant race suppressedby treason, and that three-sided crime, on thatmonstrous ambush, the prototype and pattern ofall those horrible suppressions of states, which,since that time, have struck many a noble nation,and have annulled their certificate of birth, so tospeak. All contemporary social crimes have theirorigin in the partition of Poland. The partition ofPoland is a theorem of which all present politicaloutrages are the corollaries. There has not been adespot, nor a traitor for nearly a century back,who has not signed, approved, counter-signed, andcopied, ne variatur, the partition of Poland. Whenthe record of modern treasons was examined, thatwas the first thing which made its appearance.The congress of Vienna consulted that crime be-fore consummating its own. 1772 sounded theonset; 1815 was the death of the game. Such wasFeuilly’s habitual text. This poor workingman hadconstituted himself the tutor of Justice, and sherecompensed him by rendering him great. The factis, that there is eternity in right. Warsaw can nomore be Tartar than Venice can be Teuton. Kingslose their pains and their honor in the attempt tomake them so. Sooner or later, the submerged partfloats to the surface and reappears. Greece be-comes Greece again, Italy is once more Italy. Theprotest of right against the deed persists forever.The theft of a nation cannot be allowed by pre-scription. These lofty deeds of rascality have nofuture. A nation cannot have its mark extractedlike a pocket handkerchief.Courfeyrac had a father who was called M. deCourfeyrac. One of the false ideas of the bour-geoisie under the Restoration as regards aristoc-

Lesgueules. This surname furnished my name. Iam called Lesgueules, by contraction Lesgle, andby corruption l’Aigle.” This caused the King tosmile broadly. Later on he gave the man the post-ing office of Meaux, either intentionally or acci-dentally.The bald member of the group was the son of thisLesgle, or Legle, and he signed himself, Legle[de Meaux]. As an abbreviation, his companionscalled him Bossuet.Bossuet was a gay but unlucky fellow. His spe-cialty was not to succeed in anything. As an off-set, he laughed at everything. At five and twentyhe was bald. His father had ended by owning ahouse and a field; but he, the son, had made hasteto lose that house and field in a bad speculation.He had nothing left. He possessed knowledge andwit, but all he did miscarried. Everything failedhim and everybody deceived him; what he wasbuilding tumbled down on top of him. If he weresplitting wood, he cut off a finger. If he had amistress, he speedily discovered that he had afriend also. Some misfortune happened to himevery moment, hence his joviality. He said: “Ilive under falling tiles.” He was not easily aston-ished, because, for him, an accident was what hehad foreseen, he took his bad luck serenely, andsmiled at the teasing of fate, like a person who islistening to pleasantries. He was poor, but his fundof good humor was inexhaustible. He soonreached his last sou, never his last burst of laugh-ter. When adversity entered his doors, he salutedthis old acquaintance cordially, he tapped all ca-tastrophes on the stomach; he was familiar withfatality to the point of calling it by its nickname:“Good day, Guignon,” he said to it.These persecutions of fate had rendered him in-ventive. He was full of resources. He had nomoney, but he found means, when it seemed goodto him, to indulge in “unbridled extravagance.”One night, he went so far as to eat a “hundredfrancs” in a supper with a wench, which inspiredhim to make this memorable remark in the midstof the orgy: “Pull off my boots, you five-louisjade.”Bossuet was slowly directing his steps towardsthe profession of a lawyer; he was pursuing hislaw studies after the manner of Bahorel. Bossuethad not much domicile, sometimes none at all.He lodged now with one, now with another, mostoften with Joly. Joly was studying medicine. Hewas two years younger than Bossuet.Joly was the “malade imaginaire” junior. Whathe had won in medicine was to be more of aninvalid than a doctor. At three and twenty hethought himself a valetudinarian, and passed hislife in inspecting his tongue in the mirror. He af-firmed that man becomes magnetic like a needle,and in his chamber he placed his bed with its headto the south, and the foot to the north, so that, atnight, the circulation of his blood might not beinterfered with by the great electric current of theglobe. During thunder storms, he felt his pulse.Otherwise, he was the gayest of them all. All theseyoung, maniacal, puny, merry incoherences livedin harmony together, and the result was an eccen-tric and agreeable being whom his comrades, whowere prodigal of winged consonants, called Jolllly.“You may fly away on the four L’s,” JeanProuvaire said to him.2323 L’Aile, wing.Joly had a trick of touching his nose with the tipof his cane, which is an indication of a sagaciousmind.All these young men who differed so greatly, andwho, on the whole, can only be discussed seri-ously, held the same religion: Progress.All were the direct sons of the French Revolu-tion. The most giddy of them became solemn whenthey pronounced that date: ‘89. Their fathers inthe flesh had been, either royalists, doctrinaires,it matters not what; this confusion anterior tothemselves, who were young, did not concernthem at all; the pure blood of principle ran in theirveins. They attached themselves, without inter-mediate shades, to incorruptible right and abso-lute duty.Affiliated and initiated, they sketched out the idealunderground.Among all these glowing hearts and thoroughlyconvinced minds, there was one sceptic. Howcame he there? By juxtaposition. This sceptic’sname was Grantaire, and he was in the habit ofsigning himself with this rebus: R. Grantaire wasa man who took good care not to believe in any-thing. Moreover, he was one of the students whohad learned the most during their course at Paris;he knew that the best coffee was to be had at theCafe Lemblin, and the best billiards at the CafeVoltaire, that good cakes and lasses were to be

found at the Ermitage, on the Boulevard du Maine,spatchcocked chickens at Mother Sauget’s, ex-cellent matelotes at the Barriere de la Cunette,and a certain thin white wine at the Barriere duCom pat. He knew the best place for everything;in addition, boxing and foot-fencing and somedances; and he was a thorough single-stick player.He was a tremendous drinker to boot. He wasinordinately homely: the prettiest boot-stitcher ofthat day, Irma Boissy, enraged with his homeli-ness, pronounced sentence on him as follows:“Grantaire is impossible”; but Grantaire’s fatuitywas not to be disconcerted. He stared tenderlyand fixedly at all women, with the air of saying tothem all: “If I only chose!” and of trying to makehis comrades believe that he was in general de-mand.All those words: rights of the people, rights ofman, the social contract, the French Revolution,the Republic, democracy, humanity, civilization,religion, progress, came very near to signifyingnothing whatever to Grantaire. He smiled at them.Scepticism, that caries of the intelligence, had notleft him a single whole idea. He lived withirony.This was his axiom: “There is but one cer-tainty, my full glass.” He sneered at all devotionin all parties, the father as well as the brother,Robespierre junior as well as Loizerolles. “Theyare greatly in advance to be dead,” he exclaimed.He said of the crucifix: “There is a gibbet whichhas been a success.” A rover, a gambler, a liber-tine, often drunk, he displeased these young dream-ers by humming incessantly: “J’aimons les filles,et j’aimons le bon vin.” Air: Vive Henri IV.However, this sceptic had one fanaticism. Thisfanaticism was neither a dogma, nor an idea, noran art, nor a science; it was a man: Enjolras.Grantaire admired, loved, and venerated Enjolras.To whom did this anarchical scoffer unite him-self in this phalanx of absolute minds? To the mostabsolute. In what manner had Enjolras subjugatedhim? By his ideas? No. By his character. A phe-nomenon which is often observable. A sceptic whoadheres to a believer is as simple as the law ofcomplementary colors. That which we lack at-tracts us. No one loves the light like the blind man.The dwarf adores the drum-major. The toad al-ways has his eyes fixed on heaven. Why? In or-der to watch the bird in its flight. Grantaire, inwhom writhed doubt, loved to watch faith soar inEnjolras. He had need of Enjolras. That chaste,healthy, firm, upright, hard, candid nature charmedhim, without his being clearly aware of it, andwithout the idea of explaining it to himself havingoccurred to him. He admired his opposite by in-stinct. His soft, yielding, dislocated, sickly, shape-less ideas attached themselves to Enjolras as to aspinal column. His moral backbone leaned on thatfirmness. Grantaire in the presence of Enjolrasbecame some one once more. He was, himself,moreover, composed of two elements, whichwere, to all appearance, incompatible. He wasironical and cordial. His indifference loved. Hismind could get along without belief, but his heartcould not get along without friendship. A profoundcontradiction; for an affection is a conviction. Hisnature was thus constituted. There are men whoseem to be born to be the reverse, the obverse,the wrong side. They are Pollux, Patrocles, Nisus,Eudamidas, Ephestion, Pechmeja. They only ex-ist on condition that they are backed up with an-other man; their name is a sequel, and is onlywritten preceded by the conjunction and; and theirexistence is not their own; it is the other side ofan existence which is not theirs. Grantaire wasone of these men. He was the obverse of Enjolras.One might almost say that affinities begin withthe letters of the alphabet. In the series O and Pare inseparable. You can, at will, pronounce Oand P or Orestes and Pylades.Grantaire, Enjolras’ true satellite, inhabited thiscircle of young men; he lived there, he took nopleasure anywhere but there; he followed themeverywhere. His joy was to see these forms goand come through the fumes of wine. They toler-ated him on account of his good humor.Enjolras, the believer, disdained this sceptic; and,a sober man himself, scorned this drunkard. Heaccorded him a little lofty pity. Grantaire was anunaccepted Pylades. Always harshly treated byEnjolras, roughly repulsed, rejected yet ever re-turning to the charge, he said of Enjolras: “Whatfine marble!”

- Continued on Page 76

Melbourne Observer - Wednesday, March 27, 2013 - Page 75www.MelbourneObserver.com.au

racy and the nobility was to believe in the par-ticle. The particle, as every one knows, possessesno significance. But the bourgeois of the epoch ofla Minerve estimated so highly that poor de, thatthey thought themselves bound to abdicate it. M.de Chauvelin had himself called M. Chauvelin;M. de Caumartin, M. Caumartin; M. de Constantde Robecque, Benjamin Constant; M. deLafayette, M. Lafayette. Courfeyrac had notwished to remain behind the rest, and called him-self plain Courfeyrac.We might almost, so far as Courfeyrac is con-cerned, stop here, and confine ourselves to say-ing with regard to what remains: “For Courfeyrac,see Tholomyes.”Courfeyrac had, in fact, that animation of youthwhich may be called the beaute du diable of themind. Later on, this disappears like the playful-ness of the kitten, and all this grace ends, withthe bourgeois, on two legs, and with the tomcat,on four paws.This sort of wit is transmitted from generation togeneration of the successive levies of youth whotraverse the schools, who pass it from hand tohand, quasi cursores, and is almost always ex-actly the same; so that, as we have just pointedout, any one who had listened to Courfeyrac in1828 would have thought he heard Tholomyes in1817. Only, Courfeyrac was an honorable fellow.Beneath the apparent similarities of the exteriormind, the difference between him and Tholomyeswas very great. The latent man which existed inthe two was totally different in the first from whatit was in the second. There was in Tholomyes adistrict attorney, and in Courfeyrac a paladin.Enjolras was the chief, Combeferre was the guide,Courfeyrac was the centre. The others gave morelight, he shed more warmth; the truth is, that hepossessed all the qualities of a centre, roundnessand radiance.Bahorel had figured in the bloody tumult of June,1822, on the occasion of the burial of youngLallemand.Bahorel was a good-natured mortal, who kept badcompany, brave, a spendthrift, prodigal, and to theverge of generosity, talkative, and at times elo-quent, bold to the verge of effrontery; the bestfellow possible; he had daring waistcoats, andscarlet opinions; a wholesale blusterer, that is tosay, loving nothing so much as a quarrel, unless itwere an uprising; and nothing so much as an up-rising, unless it were a revolution; always readyto smash a window-pane, then to tear up the pave-ment, then to demolish a government, just to seethe effect of it; a student in his eleventh year. Hehad nosed about the law, but did not practise it.He had taken for his device: “Never a lawyer,”and for his armorial bearings a nightstand in whichwas visible a square cap. Every time that he passedthe law-school, which rarely happened, he but-toned up his frock-coat,— the paletot had not yetbeen invented,— and took hygienic precautions.Of the school porter he said: “What a fine oldman!” and of the dean, M. Delvincourt: “What amonument!” In his lectures he espied subjects forballads, and in his professors occasions for cari-cature. He wasted a tolerably large allowance,something like three thousand francs a year, indoing nothing.He had peasant parents whom he had contrivedto imbue with respect for their son.He said of them: “They are peasants and not bour-geois; that is the reason they are intelligent.”Bahorel, a man of caprice, was scattered overnumerous cafes; the others had habits, he had none.He sauntered. To stray is human. To saunter isParisian. In reality, he had a penetrating mind andwas more of a thinker than appeared to view.He served as a connecting link between theFriends of the A B C and other still unorganizedgroups, which were destined to take form lateron.In this conclave of young heads, there was onebald member.The Marquis d’Avaray, whom Louis XVIII. madea duke for having assisted him to enter a hack-ney-coach on the day when he emigrated, waswont to relate, that in 1814, on his return to France,as the King was disembarking at Calais, a manhanded him a petition.“What is your request?” said the King.“Sire, a post-office.”“What is your name?”“L’Aigle.”The King frowned, glanced at the signature of thepetition and beheld the name written thus:LESGLE. This non-Bonoparte orthographytouched the King and he began to smile. “Sire,”resumed the man with the petition, “I had for an-cestor a keeper of the hounds surnamed

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Page 76 - Melbourne Observer - Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Observer Crossword Solution No 8B

“Nothing is more simple. I was close to the deskto reply, and close to the door for the purpose offlight. The professor gazed at me with a certainintensity. All of a sudden, Blondeau, who must bethe malicious nose alluded to by Boileau, skippedto the letter L. L is my letter. I am from Meaux,and my name is Lesgle.”“L’Aigle!” interrupted Marius, “what fine name!”“Monsieur, Blondeau came to this fine name, andcalled: ‘Laigle!’ I reply: ‘Present!’ Then Blondeaugazes at me, with the gentleness of a tiger, andsays to me: ‘If you are Pontmercy, you are notLaigle.’ A phrase which has a disobliging air foryou, but which was lugubrious only for me. Thatsaid, he crossed me off.”Marius exclaimed:—“I am mortified, sir —“First of all,” interposed Laigle, “I demand per-mission to embalm Blondeau in a few phrases ofdeeply felt eulogium. I will assume that he is dead.There will be no great change required in his gaunt-ness, in his pallor, in his coldness, and in his smell.And I say: ‘Erudimini qui judicatis terram. Herelies Blondeau, Blondeau the Nose, BlondeauNasica, the ox of discipline, bos disciplinae, thebloodhound of the password, the angel of the roll-call, who was upright, square exact, rigid, hon-est, and hideous. God crossed him off as hecrossed me off.’”Marius resumed:—“I am very sorry —”“Young man,” said Laigle de Meaux, “let thisserve you as a lesson. In future, be exact.”“I really beg you a thousand pardons.”“Do not expose your neighbor to the danger ofhaving his name erased again.”“I am extremely sorry —”Laigle burst out laughing.“And I am delighted. I was on the brink of be-coming a lawyer. This erasure saves me. I re-nounce the triumphs of the bar. I shall not defendthe widow, and I shall not attack the orphan. Nomore toga, no more stage. Here is my erasure allready for me. It is to you that I am indebted for it,Monsieur Pontmercy. I intend to pay a solemn callof thanks upon you. Where do you live?”“In this cab,” said Marius.“A sign of opulence,” retorted Laigle calmly. “Icongratulate you. You have there a rent of ninethousand francs per annum.”

Marius thought he had encountered a wag, thebeginning of a mystification in the open street.He was not in a very good humor at the moment.He frowned. Laigle de Meaux went on imper-turbably:—“You were not at the school day before yester-day.”“That is possible.”“That is certain.”“You are a student?” demanded Marius.“Yes, sir. Like yourself. Day before yesterday, Ientered the school, by chance. You know, one doeshave such freaks sometimes. The professor wasjust calling the roll. You are not unaware that theyare very ridiculous on such occasions. At the thirdcall, unanswered, your name is erased from thelist. Sixty francs in the gulf.”Marius began to listen.“It was Blondeau who was making the call. Youknow Blondeau, he has a very pointed and verymalicious nose, and he delights to scent out theabsent. He slyly began with the letter P. I was notlistening, not being compromised by that letter.The call was not going badly. No erasures; theuniverse was present. Blondeau was grieved. Isaid to myself: ‘Blondeau, my love, you will notget the very smallest sort of an execution today.’All at once Blondeau calls, ‘Marius Pontmercy!’No one answers. Blondeau, filled with hope, re-peats more loudly: ‘Marius Pontmercy!’ And hetakes his pen. Monsieur, I have bowels of com-passion. I said to myself hastily: ‘Here’s a bravefellow who is going to get scratched out. Atten-tion. Here is a veritable mortal who is not exact.He’s not a good student. Here is none of yourheavy-sides, a student who studies, a greenhornpedant, strong on letters, theology, science, andsapience, one of those dull wits cut by the square;a pin by profession. He is an honorable idler wholounges, who practises country jaunts, who culti-vates the grisette, who pays court to the fair sex,who is at this very moment, perhaps, with mymistress. Let us save him. Death to Blondeau!’At that moment, Blondeau dipped his pen in, allblack with erasures in the ink, cast his yellow eyesround the audience room, and repeated for the thirdtime: ‘Marius Pontmercy!’ I replied: ‘Present!’This is why you were not crossed off.”“Monsieur!—” said Marius.“And why I was,” added Laigle de Meaux.Marius thought he had encountered a wag, the

beginning of a mystification in the open street.He was not in a very good humor at the moment.He frowned. Laigle de Meaux went on imper-turbably:—“You were not at the school day before yester-day.”“That is possible.”“That is certain.”“You are a student?” demanded Marius.“Yes, sir. Like yourself. Day before yesterday, Ientered the school, by chance. You know, one doeshave such freaks sometimes. The professor wasjust calling the roll. You are not unaware that theyare very ridiculous on such occasions. At the thirdcall, unanswered, your name is erased from thelist. Sixty francs in the gulf.”Marius began to listen.“It was Blondeau who was making the call. Youknow Blondeau, he has a very pointed and verymalicious nose, and he delights to scent out theabsent. He slyly began with the letter P. I was notlistening, not being compromised by that letter.The call was not going badly. No erasures; theuniverse was present. Blondeau was grieved. Isaid to myself: ‘Blondeau, my love, you will notget the very smallest sort of an execution today.’All at once Blondeau calls, ‘Marius Pontmercy!’No one answers. Blondeau, filled with hope, re-peats more loudly: ‘Marius Pontmercy!’ And hetakes his pen. Monsieur, I have bowels of com-passion. I said to myself hastily: ‘Here’s a bravefellow who is going to get scratched out. Atten-tion. Here is a veritable mortal who is not exact.He’s not a good student. Here is none of yourheavy-sides, a student who studies, a greenhornpedant, strong on letters, theology, science, andsapience, one of those dull wits cut by the square;a pin by profession. He is an honorable idler wholounges, who practises country jaunts, who culti-vates the grisette, who pays court to the fair sex,who is at this very moment, perhaps, with mymistress. Let us save him. Death to Blondeau!’At that moment, Blondeau dipped his pen in, allblack with erasures in the ink, cast his yellow eyesround the audience room, and repeated for the thirdtime: ‘Marius Pontmercy!’ I replied: ‘Present!’This is why you were not crossed off.”“Monsieur!—” said Marius.“And why I was,” added Laigle de Meaux.“I do not understand you,” said Marius.Laigle resumed:—

On a certain afternoon, which had, as will be seenhereafter, some coincidence with the events here-tofore related, Laigle de Meaux was to be seenleaning in a sensual manner against the doorpostof the Cafe Musain. He had the air of a caryatidon a vacation; he carried nothing but his revery,however. He was staring at the Place Saint–Michel. To lean one’s back against a thing isequivalent to lying down while standing erect,which attitude is not hated by thinkers. Laigle deMeaux was pondering without melancholy, overa little misadventure which had befallen him twodays previously at the law-school, and which hadmodified his personal plans for the future, planswhich were rather indistinct in any case.Revery does not prevent a cab from passing by,nor the dreamer from taking note of that cab.Laigle de Meaux, whose eyes were straying aboutin a sort of diffuse lounging, perceived, athwarthis somnambulism, a two-wheeled vehicle pro-ceeding through the place, at a foot pace and ap-parently in indecision. For whom was thiscabriolet? Why was it driving at a walk? Laigletook a survey. In it, beside the coachman, sat ayoung man, and in front of the young man lay arather bulky hand-bag. The bag displayed topassers-by the following name inscribed in largeblack letters on a card which was sewn to thestuff: MARIUS PONTMERCY.This name caused Laigle to change his attitude.He drew himself up and hurled this apostrophe atthe young man in the cabriolet:—“Monsieur Marius Pontmercy!”The cabriolet thus addressed came to a halt.The young man, who also seemed deeply buriedin thought, raised his eyes:—“Hey?” said he.“You are M. Marius Pontmercy?”“Certainly.”“I was looking for you,” resumed Laigle deMeaux.“How so?” demanded Marius; for it was he: infact, he had just quitted his grandfather’s, and hadbefore him a face which he now beheld for thefirst time. “I do not know you.”“Neither do I know you,” responded Laigle. ●●●●● To Be Continued Next Week

A L L I G A T O R M A D A M E A V E T T E D C E A S E F I R E

G I A I O R A L L M I D G E R S I K H W A N D

O E M A L T A N I M B L E V L I A I S E O V A L S C I

G R U Y E R E N I N E U R E V C A S A P R E E N A C T

O A S I D E D E N I M G E N R E T O Y E D G E E S E A

M A R K D M I L D D E T E S T A T I O N L A M A R O A K S

I R I S H I E C O N E P T G R E G G M O N S E T

N V O D D N E S S L M A R T I A N U K E Y E D U P S R

N E E D L E E T O P S U P I O I M P E L S P P E S E T A

O R L A W N S O E X T I N C T A M A Y O R M N

W E B B E R C I N D O O R N E A T I N G R N A B B E D

S O R Y E A R O O S T R A C I S M N A S K S T L S

P A U S E S K I N Z O N L O N O G O M E T E R

T L A G S N O N E W H E E L U S E R M A R E D

A P O M P O V E R U S E S L S U R P R I S E H A R D H

E M I R S P A R X D M G Y M N E F W A I L O P A L

I O L T R A C E A B L E U N S E L F I S H N O I

O D Y S S E Y I C S R T U G W T C E E A R M A R K

L E M G N A T S P O G O G R OW F E A R S T C N

D R A G B A G E T H A I V I E R A Z E R E P T E T N A

E R E F I L L R E G L E E R E N T U T O R A C L E V

N O N O T L O B E S E P R E S S E D D I E K C E D G E

U R T W A N G P A X E S I R A F L E S H C N

C R A G E N R U N I N E A G L E P O L K A S M T A U T

A L E A R N T A E T O S S E X P O I C M E E K E R A

P R OW I R A M S E R B P U B A L M S T H E N D A N K

E F N Y E S E S Y E T I A L S O M A S O N T B E

R A T I N G S R N G Y R O N T U M T A S S I S T S

L N T O T H E R W I S E O V E R R E A C T D M U

S E R F W E E P A O N S I N L B S I R A N P U C K

C O G R E L O N G I N G S N A S S A S S I N M A T S K

U E L S A C A N E N O D E S O N C E G A S P L

U N P I N N O E L V A I T B E S A U S A L A D

A A M S H E D E E M P H A S I S E N S P E D P W P

M A D R I D I E N S U R E N C R U T C H X J A I L E R

O O T A B B Y O M A L A R I A H O P T I C E E

N O R M A L I R U M P L E E O M O B C A P E G H O S T S

G N T E N S I O N U N O N S L I P L P R E C I S E S E

S C E N E C N O M I T T L E D A M I T S A L O N

T I D E K U T A H P R O F I T E E R E D M O L E K C Y S T

A W A N D S L A P S E E L U D E F E V E R D A N C E L

L O B S T E R A D Z E L N B R U O N Y X F O R S O O K

E L L E A S H I N L A N D E I N S U L T M U F T I H I

A O A M O P E C N E Y R I E E G A L A I M I T

N E C E S S A R Y R E A D E R S R A D I A L S A X O P H O N E

CHAPTER II

BLONDEAU’S FUNERAL ORATION

BY BOSSUET

Documents

Melbourne Observer. 130327B. March 27, 2013. Part B. Pages 17-24, 69-76