You see that I am fated to die!
Leave me!
You will get yourself crushed also!”
Madeleine made no reply.
All the spectators were panting.
The wheels had continued to sink, and it had become almost impossible for Madeleine to make his way from under the vehicle.
Suddenly the enormous mass was seen to quiver, the cart rose slowly, the wheels half emerged from the ruts.
They heard a stifled voice crying,
“Make haste!
Help!”
It was Madeleine, who had just made a final effort.
They rushed forwards.
The devotion of a single man had given force and courage to all.
The cart was raised by twenty arms.
Old Fauchelevent was saved.
Madeleine rose. He was pale, though dripping with perspiration.
His clothes were torn and covered with mud.
All wept.
The old man kissed his knees and called him the good God.
As for him, he bore upon his countenance an indescribable expression of happy and celestial suffering, and he fixed his tranquil eye on Javert, who was still staring at him.
CHAPTER VII—FAUCHELEVENT BECOMES A GARDENER IN PARIS
Fauchelevent had dislocated his kneepan in his fall.
Father Madeleine had him conveyed to an infirmary which he had established for his workmen in the factory building itself, and which was served by two sisters of charity.
On the following morning the old man found a thousand-franc bank-note on his night-stand, with these words in Father Madeleine’s writing:
“I purchase your horse and cart.”
The cart was broken, and the horse was dead.
Fauchelevent recovered, but his knee remained stiff.
M. Madeleine, on the recommendation of the sisters of charity and of his priest, got the good man a place as gardener in a female convent in the Rue Saint-Antoine in Paris.
Some time afterwards, M. Madeleine was appointed mayor.
The first time that Javert beheld M. Madeleine clothed in the scarf which gave him authority over the town, he felt the sort of shudder which a watch-dog might experience on smelling a wolf in his master’s clothes.
From that time forth he avoided him as much as he possibly could.
When the requirements of the service imperatively demanded it, and he could not do otherwise than meet the mayor, he addressed him with profound respect.
This prosperity created at M. sur M. by Father Madeleine had, besides the visible signs which we have mentioned, another symptom which was nonetheless significant for not being visible.
This never deceives.
When the population suffers, when work is lacking, when there is no commerce, the tax-payer resists imposts through penury, he exhausts and oversteps his respite, and the state expends a great deal of money in the charges for compelling and collection.
When work is abundant, when the country is rich and happy, the taxes are paid easily and cost the state nothing.
It may be said, that there is one infallible thermometer of the public misery and riches,—the cost of collecting the taxes.
In the course of seven years the expense of collecting the taxes had diminished three-fourths in the arrondissement of M. sur M., and this led to this arrondissement being frequently cited from all the rest by M. de Villele, then Minister of Finance.
Such was the condition of the country when Fantine returned thither.
No one remembered her.
Fortunately, the door of M. Madeleine’s factory was like the face of a friend.
She presented herself there, and was admitted to the women’s workroom.
The trade was entirely new to Fantine; she could not be very skilful at it, and she therefore earned but little by her day’s work; but it was sufficient; the problem was solved; she was earning her living.
CHAPTER VIII—MADAME VICTURNIEN EXPENDS THIRTY FRANCS ON MORALITY
When Fantine saw that she was making her living, she felt joyful for a moment.
To live honestly by her own labor, what mercy from heaven!
The taste for work had really returned to her.
She bought a looking-glass, took pleasure in surveying in it her youth, her beautiful hair, her fine teeth; she forgot many things; she thought only of Cosette and of the possible future, and was almost happy.
She hired a little room and furnished on credit on the strength of her future work—a lingering trace of her improvident ways.
As she was not able to say that she was married she took good care, as we have seen, not to mention her little girl.