r in recalling Austerlitz.

M. Gillenormand kept up no relations with his son-in-law. The colonel
was "a bandit" to him. M. Gillenormand never mentioned the colonel,
except when he occasionally made mocking allusions to "his Baronship."
It had been expressly agreed that Pontmercy should never attempt to see
his son nor to speak to him, under penalty of having the latter handed
over to him disowned and disinherited. For the Gillenormands, Pontmercy
was a man afflicted with the plague. They intended to bring up the
child in their own way. Perhaps the colonel was wrong to accept these
conditions, but he submitted to them, thinking that he was doing right
and sacrificing no one but himself.

The inheritance of Father Gillenormand did not amount to much; but the
inheritance of Mademoiselle Gillenormand the elder was considerable.
This aunt, who had remained unmarried, was very rich on the maternal
side, and her sister's son was her natural heir. The boy, whose name was
Marius, knew that he had a father, but nothing more. No one opened
his mouth to him about it. Nevertheless, in the society into which his
grandfather took him, whispers, innuendoes, and winks, had eventually
enlightened the little boy's mind; he had finally understood something
of the case, and as he naturally took in the ideas and opinions which
were, so to speak, the air he breathed, by a sort of infiltration and
slow penetration, he gradually came to think of his father only with
shame and with a pain at his heart.

While he was growing up in this fashion, the colonel slipped away every
two or three months, came to Paris on the sly, like a criminal breaking
his ban, and went and posted himself at Saint-Sulpice, at the hour when
Aunt Gillenormand led Marius to the mass. There, trembling lest the aunt
should turn round, concealed behind a pillar, motionless, not daring to
breathe, he gazed at his child. The scarred veteran was afraid of that
old spinster.

From this had arisen his connection with the cure of Vernon, M. l'Abbe
Mabeuf.

That worthy priest was the brother of a warden of Saint-Sulpice, who had
often observed this man gazing at his child, and the scar on his cheek,
and the large tears in his eyes. That man, who had so manly an air, yet
who was weeping like a woman, had struck the warden. That face had clung
to his mind. One day, having gone to Vernon to see his brother, he had
encountered Colonel Pontmercy on the bridge, and had recognized th