ve ever made, who
lived in the bivouac for a quarter of a century, beneath grape-shot and
bullets, in snow and mud by day, beneath rain at night, who captured two
flags, who received twenty wounds, who died forgotten and abandoned, and
who never committed but one mistake, which was to love too fondly two
ingrates, his country and myself."

This was more than M. Gillenormand could bear to hear. At the word
republic, he rose, or, to speak more correctly, he sprang to his feet.
Every word that Marius had just uttered produced on the visage of the
old Royalist the effect of the puffs of air from a forge upon a blazing
brand. From a dull hue he had turned red, from red, purple, and from
purple, flame-colored.

"Marius!" he cried. "Abominable child! I do not know what your father
was! I do not wish to know! I know nothing about that, and I do not know
him! But what I do know is, that there never was anything but scoundrels
among those men! They were all rascals, assassins, red-caps, thieves! I
say all! I say all! I know not one! I say all! Do you hear me, Marius!
See here, you are no more a baron than my slipper is! They were all
bandits in the service of Robespierre! All who served B-u-o-naparte were
brigands! They were all traitors who betrayed, betrayed, betrayed their
legitimate king! All cowards who fled before the Prussians and the
English at Waterloo! That is what I do know! Whether Monsieur your
father comes in that category, I do not know! I am sorry for it, so much
the worse, your humble servant!"

In his turn, it was Marius who was the firebrand and M. Gillenormand
who was the bellows. Marius quivered in every limb, he did not know what
would happen next, his brain was on fire. He was the priest who beholds
all his sacred wafers cast to the winds, the fakir who beholds a
passer-by spit upon his idol. It could not be that such things had been
uttered in his presence. What was he to do? His father had just been
trampled under foot and stamped upon in his presence, but by whom? By
his grandfather. How was he to avenge the one without outraging the
other? It was impossible for him to insult his grandfather and it was
equally impossible for him to leave his father unavenged. On the one
hand was a sacred grave, on the other hoary locks.

He stood there for several moments, staggering as though intoxicated,
with all this whirlwind dashing through his head; then he raised
his eyes, gazed fixedly at his grandfather, and