interrupted him in accents full of suavity and authority. These are the
words which he uttered; here they are literally, as they were written
down, immediately after the trial by one of the witnesses to this scene,
and as they now ring in the ears of those who heard them nearly forty
years ago:--

"I thank you, Mr. District-Attorney, but I am not mad; you shall see;
you were on the point of committing a great error; release this man! I
am fulfilling a duty; I am that miserable criminal. I am the only one
here who sees the matter clearly, and I am telling you the truth. God,
who is on high, looks down on what I am doing at this moment, and that
suffices. You can take me, for here I am: but I have done my best; I
concealed myself under another name; I have become rich; I have become
a mayor; I have tried to re-enter the ranks of the honest. It seems that
that is not to be done. In short, there are many things which I cannot
tell. I will not narrate the story of my life to you; you will hear it
one of these days. I robbed Monseigneur the Bishop, it is true; it is
true that I robbed Little Gervais; they were right in telling you that
Jean Valjean was a very vicious wretch. Perhaps it was not altogether
his fault. Listen, honorable judges! a man who has been so greatly
humbled as I have has neither any remonstrances to make to Providence,
nor any advice to give to society; but, you see, the infamy from which I
have tried to escape is an injurious thing; the galleys make the convict
what he is; reflect upon that, if you please. Before going to the
galleys, I was a poor peasant, with very little intelligence, a sort
of idiot; the galleys wrought a change in me. I was stupid; I became
vicious: I was a block of wood; I became a firebrand. Later on,
indulgence and kindness saved me, as severity had ruined me. But, pardon
me, you cannot understand what I am saying. You will find at my house,
among the ashes in the fireplace, the forty-sou piece which I stole,
seven years ago, from little Gervais. I have nothing farther to add;
take me. Good God! the district-attorney shakes his head; you say, 'M.
Madeleine has gone mad!' you do not believe me! that is distressing. Do
not, at least, condemn this man! What! these men do not recognize me! I
wish Javert were here; he would recognize me."

Nothing can reproduce the sombre and kindly melancholy of tone which
accompanied these words.

He turned to the three convicts, and said:--

"W