garden, under the trees, two
men, Fauvent and another man, were visible as they dug side by side. An
enormous event. Their silence was broken to the extent of saying to each
other: "He is an assistant gardener."

The vocal mothers added: "He is a brother of Father Fauvent."

Jean Valjean was, in fact, regularly installed; he had his belled
knee-cap; henceforth he was official. His name was Ultime Fauchelevent.

The most powerful determining cause of his admission had been the
prioress's observation upon Cosette: "She will grow up ugly."

The prioress, that pronounced prognosticator, immediately took a fancy
to Cosette and gave her a place in the school as a charity pupil.

There is nothing that is not strictly logical about this.

It is in vain that mirrors are banished from the convent, women are
conscious of their faces; now, girls who are conscious of their beauty
do not easily become nuns; the vocation being voluntary in inverse
proportion to their good looks, more is to be hoped from the ugly than
from the pretty. Hence a lively taste for plain girls.

The whole of this adventure increased the importance of good, old
Fauchelevent; he won a triple success; in the eyes of Jean Valjean, whom
he had saved and sheltered; in those of grave-digger Gribier, who said
to himself: "He spared me that fine"; with the convent, which, being
enabled, thanks to him, to retain the coffin of Mother Crucifixion
under the altar, eluded Caesar and satisfied God. There was a coffin
containing a body in the Petit-Picpus, and a coffin without a body in
the Vaugirard cemetery, public order had no doubt been deeply disturbed
thereby, but no one was aware of it.

As for the convent, its gratitude to Fauchelevent was very great.
Fauchelevent became the best of servitors and the most precious of
gardeners. Upon the occasion of the archbishop's next visit, the
prioress recounted the affair to his Grace, making something of a
confession at the same time, and yet boasting of her deed. On leaving
the convent, the archbishop mentioned it with approval, and in a whisper
to M. de Latil, Monsieur's confessor, afterwards Archbishop of Reims
and Cardinal. This admiration for Fauchelevent became widespread, for it
made its way to Rome. We have seen a note addressed by the then reigning
Pope, Leo XII., to one of his relatives, a Monsignor in the Nuncio's
establishment in Paris, and bearing, like himself, the name of Della
Genga; it contained these