ce had necessarily destroyed
or dispersed the elements of fear. He could return tranquilly among men.
He had grown old, and all had undergone a change. Who would recognize
him now? And then, to face the worst, there was danger only for himself,
and he had no right to condemn Cosette to the cloister for the reason
that he had been condemned to the galleys. Besides, what is danger in
comparison with the right? Finally, nothing prevented his being prudent
and taking his precautions.

As for Cosette's education, it was almost finished and complete.

His determination once taken, he awaited an opportunity. It was not long
in presenting itself. Old Fauchelevent died.

Jean Valjean demanded an audience with the revered prioress and told her
that, having come into a little inheritance at the death of his brother,
which permitted him henceforth to live without working, he should leave
the service of the convent and take his daughter with him; but that, as
it was not just that Cosette, since she had not taken the vows, should
have received her education gratuitously, he humbly begged the Reverend
Prioress to see fit that he should offer to the community, as indemnity,
for the five years which Cosette had spent there, the sum of five
thousand francs.

It was thus that Jean Valjean quitted the convent of the Perpetual
Adoration.

On leaving the convent, he took in his own arms the little valise the
key to which he still wore on his person, and would permit no porter to
touch it. This puzzled Cosette, because of the odor of embalming which
proceeded from it.

Let us state at once, that this trunk never quitted him more. He always
had it in his chamber. It was the first and only thing sometimes, that
he carried off in his moving when he moved about. Cosette laughed at it,
and called this valise his inseparable, saying: "I am jealous of it."

Nevertheless, Jean Valjean did not reappear in the open air without
profound anxiety.

He discovered the house in the Rue Plumet, and hid himself from
sight there. Henceforth he was in the possession of the name:--Ultime
Fauchelevent.

At the same time he hired two other apartments in Paris, in order that
he might attract less attention than if he were to remain always in the
same quarter, and so that he could, at need, take himself off at the
slightest disquietude which should assail him, and in short, so that
he might not again be caught unprovided as on the night when he had
so mir