She’s a Greuze.
So you are going to have that all to yourself, you scamp!
Ah! my rogue, you are getting off nicely with me, you are happy; if I were not fifteen years too old, we would fight with swords to see which of us should have her.
Come now! I am in love with you, mademoiselle.
It’s perfectly simple.
It is your right. You are in the right.
Ah! what a sweet, charming little wedding this will make!
Our parish is Saint-Denis du Saint Sacrament, but I will get a dispensation so that you can be married at Saint-Paul.
The church is better.
It was built by the Jesuits.
It is more coquettish.
It is opposite the fountain of Cardinal de Birague.
The masterpiece of Jesuit architecture is at Namur. It is called Saint-Loup.
You must go there after you are married.
It is worth the journey.
Mademoiselle, I am quite of your mind, I think girls ought to marry; that is what they are made for.
There is a certain Sainte-Catherine whom I should always like to see uncoiffed.
It’s a fine thing to remain a spinster, but it is chilly.
The Bible says: Multiply.
In order to save the people, Jeanne d’Arc is needed; but in order to make people, what is needed is Mother Goose.
So, marry, my beauties.
I really do not see the use in remaining a spinster!
I know that they have their chapel apart in the church, and that they fall back on the Society of the Virgin; but, sapristi, a handsome husband, a fine fellow, and at the expiration of a year, a big, blond brat who nurses lustily, and who has fine rolls of fat on his thighs, and who musses up your breast in handfuls with his little rosy paws, laughing the while like the dawn,—that’s better than holding a candle at vespers, and chanting Turris Eburnea!”
The grandfather executed a pirouette on his eighty-year-old heels, and began to talk again like a spring that has broken loose once more:
“Ainsi, bornant les cours de tes revasseries,
Alcippe, il est donc vrai, dans peu tu te maries."
“By the way!”
“What is it, father?”
“Have not you an intimate friend?”
“Yes, Courfeyrac.”
“What has become of him?”
“He is dead.”
“That is good.”
He seated himself near them, made Cosette sit down, and took their four hands in his aged and wrinkled hands:
“She is exquisite, this darling.
She’s a masterpiece, this Cosette!
She is a very little girl and a very great lady.
She will only be a Baroness, which is a come down for her; she was born a Marquise.
What eyelashes she has!
Get it well fixed in your noddles, my children, that you are in the true road.
Love each other.
Be foolish about it.
Love is the folly of men and the wit of God.
Adore each other. Only,” he added, suddenly becoming gloomy, “what a misfortune!
It has just occurred to me!
More than half of what I possess is swallowed up in an annuity; so long as I live, it will not matter, but after my death, a score of years hence, ah! my poor children, you will not have a sou!
Your beautiful white hands, Madame la Baronne, will do the devil the honor of pulling him by the tail."
At this point they heard a grave and tranquil voice say:
“Mademoiselle Euphrasie Fauchelevent possesses six hundred thousand francs.”
It was the voice of Jean Valjean.