add,
that the air which he had breathed for many years in this convent had
destroyed all personality in him, and had ended by rendering a good
action of some kind absolutely necessary to him.

So he took his resolve: to devote himself to M. Madeleine.

We have just called him a poor peasant of Picardy. That description
is just, but incomplete. At the point of this story which we have now
reached, a little of Father Fauchelevent's physiology becomes useful.
He was a peasant, but he had been a notary, which added trickery to his
cunning, and penetration to his ingenuousness. Having, through various
causes, failed in his business, he had descended to the calling of a
carter and a laborer. But, in spite of oaths and lashings, which horses
seem to require, something of the notary had lingered in him. He had
some natural wit; he talked good grammar; he conversed, which is a rare
thing in a village; and the other peasants said of him: "He talks almost
like a gentleman with a hat." Fauchelevent belonged, in fact, to that
species, which the impertinent and flippant vocabulary of the last
century qualified as demi-bourgeois, demi-lout, and which the metaphors
showered by the chateau upon the thatched cottage ticketed in the
pigeon-hole of the plebeian: rather rustic, rather citified; pepper and
salt. Fauchelevent, though sorely tried and harshly used by fate,
worn out, a sort of poor, threadbare old soul, was, nevertheless, an
impulsive man, and extremely spontaneous in his actions; a precious
quality which prevents one from ever being wicked. His defects and his
vices, for he had some, were all superficial; in short, his physiognomy
was of the kind which succeeds with an observer. His aged face had none
of those disagreeable wrinkles at the top of the forehead, which signify
malice or stupidity.

At daybreak, Father Fauchelevent opened his eyes, after having done an
enormous deal of thinking, and beheld M. Madeleine seated on his truss
of straw, and watching Cosette's slumbers. Fauchelevent sat up and
said:--

"Now that you are here, how are you going to contrive to enter?"

This remark summed up the situation and aroused Jean Valjean from his
revery.

The two men took counsel together.

"In the first place," said Fauchelevent, "you will begin by not setting
foot outside of this chamber, either you or the child. One step in the
garden and we are done for."

"That is true."

"Monsieur Madeleine," resumed Fauchelevent